CIVIL LIBERTIES,ECOLOGY & OTHER NEWS

UNMANNED AIRCRAFT PLANNED FOR SPYING ON U.S. CITIZENS

DECLAN MCCULLAGH, CNET - Unmanned aerial vehicles have soared the skies
of Afghanistan and Iraq for years, spotting enemy encampments,
protecting military bases, and even launching missile attacks against
suspected terrorists. Now UAVs may be landing in the United States. A
House of Representatives panel heard testimony from police agencies that
envision using UAVs for everything from border security to domestic
surveillance high above American cities. Private companies also hope to
use UAVs for tasks such as aerial photography and pipeline monitoring. .
.

In a scene that could have been inspired by the movie "Minority Report,"
one North Carolina county is using a UAV equipped with low-light and
infrared cameras to keep watch on its citizens. The aircraft has been
dispatched to monitor gatherings of motorcycle riders at the Gaston
County fairgrounds from just a few hundred feet in the air--close enough
to identify faces -- and many more uses, such as the aerial detection of
marijuana fields, are planned. That raises not just privacy concerns,
but also safety concerns because of the possibility of collisions with
commercial and general aviation aircraft. . .

http://news.com.com/Drone+aircraft+may+prowl+U.S.+skies/2100-11746_3-6055658.html


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ECOLOGY
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UNPRECEDENTED LOSS OF CORAL REEDS IN CARIBBEAN

SETH BORENSTEIN, AP - A one-two punch of bleaching from record hot water
followed by disease has killed ancient and delicate coral in the biggest
loss of reefs scientists have ever seen in Caribbean waters.

Researchers from around the globe are scrambling to figure out the
extent of the loss. Early conservative estimates from Puerto Rico and
the U.S. Virgin Islands find that about one-third of the coral in
official monitoring sites has recently died.

"It's an unprecedented die-off," said National Park Service fisheries
biologist Jeff Miller, who last week checked 40 stations in the Virgin
Islands. "The mortality that we're seeing now is of the extremely
slow-growing reef-building corals. These are corals that are the
foundation of the reef . . . We're talking colonies that were here when
Columbus came by have died in the past three to four months." Some of
the devastated coral can never be replaced because it only grows the
width of one dime a year, Miller said.

Coral reefs are the basis for a multibillion-dollar tourism and
commercial fishing economy in the Caribbean. Key fish species use coral
as habitat and feeding grounds. Reefs limit the damage from hurricanes
and tsunamis. More recently they are being touted as possible sources
for new medicines.

If coral reefs die "you lose the goose with golden eggs" that are key
parts of small island economies, said Edwin Hernandez-Delgado, a
University of Puerto Rico biology researcher.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060331/ap_on_sc/coral_death;_ylt=
AtXaxDS6KMjj39T1L1KPeuWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MzV0MTdmBHNlYwM3NTM-


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PRINCE CHARLES ZAPPED FOR POLLUTION FROM PRIVATE PLANE

INDEPENDENT, UK - Prince Charles arrived home from a two-week foreign
tour last night to criticism over his failure to take action to offset
the environmental damage done by his private jet during his 9,000-mile
odyssey to the Middle East and India.

An analysis by The Independent shows that the plane which carried the
Prince and his 22-strong entourage on the trip spewed more than 40 tons
of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the weight of six London buses.
Although the Prince publicly stated a few months ago that climate change
was the "greatest challenge" facing mankind, his officials admitted
yesterday he had not followed the government's lead by offsetting the
pollution from his trip. . .

Attention is increasingly turning to aviation emissions because growing
air travel threatens to make them the biggest source of Britain's CO2
emissions by the middle of this century. While his embarrassed ministers
were admitting Labor's failure this week, the Prime Minister was flying
around the world with officials on a 220-seat Boeing 777. He held talks
with the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, and the New Zealand
premier, Helen Clark, on a global deal to stabilize emissions.

His trip generated an estimated 714 tons of carbon dioxide. But Downing
Street pledged to make up for the pollution by investing in projects for
renewable energy and carbon-reducing housing schemes and said that all
future ministerial flights would be carbon-offset.

The Prince of Wales offered no such eco-compensation for his trip with
the Duchess of Cornwall to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and India. . .

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article354959.ece

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OTHER NEWS
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GREAT MOMENTS IN RESEARCH

OUR STUDY INVOLVED 200 DOGS. These were of several breeds: rat terrier,
miniature dachshund, and mastiff, and mixes of the three. Each dog was
exposed repeatedly to photographs of the [Mona Lisa] painting. The dogs
viewed the photographs under two different experimental conditions: (A)
in a well-lighted room; and (B) in total darkness. For the dark room
portions of the experiment, we were able to infer the dogs' reactions by
examining the condition of the photograph after the dog had reacted to
it. Our results can be summarized as follows: All dogs displayed a
physical reaction to the photographs. The physical reactions can be
categorized as follows: licking; or chewing; or both. The results were
identical, as best we could tell, whether the room was lighted or
entirely dark. Conclusion: We conclude that dogs are not indifferent to
photographs of the Mona Lisa. - Catherine Maloney, Sarah J. Lichtblau,
Nadya Karpook, Carolyn Chou, and Anthony Arena-DeRosa

http://www.improbable.com/pages/airchives/paperair/volume12/
v12i2/CanineMona-12-2.pdf