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Welcome to the jungle: New Guinea snake named after Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash
Slash says he's 'extremely' honoured to have snake named after him
There's a new snake in the jungle, and its name will sound familiar to rock fans.
Scientists with the Field Museum in Chicago have named a newly identified, non-venomous groundsnake from New Guinea Lielaphis slashi, in honour of Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash.
The roughly 71-centimetre reddish-brown reptile is now officially known as Slash's groundsnake.
For Slash, the recognition hits close to home. The Field Museum describes him as a "lifelong reptile lover and an avid supporter of zoos and museums."
He has long worn his love of snakes on his sleeve and in his musical choices. In 1994, he formed the rock supergroup Slash's Snakepit, which included members of Guns N' Roses, Alice in Chains and Jellyfish.
In a Field Museum statement, Slash described himself as a "long-time herpephile" — referring to herpetophiles, or people with a strong interest in reptiles and amphibians.
"I am extremely honored and humbled to have Lielaphis slashi from New Guinea named after me," he said.
"It is really exciting. I never would have imagined this moment would arrive."
Sara Ruane, the Field Museum's associate curator of herpetology and senior author of a paper in Zootaxa describing the new species, said her interest in reptiles began early.
"By fifth grade, I was already telling my teacher I'm going to be a herpetologist when I grow up," she told CBC News.
When she was 12, Ruane received a copy of Reptiles Magazine featuring Slash holding his pet reticulated python on the cover.
"I thought, you know, I'd love to name a snake after Slash. I thought that would be really fun," she said.
In the magazine interview, Slash discussed his affection for reptiles, museums, zoos and natural history. Years later, after becoming a scientist who occasionally names newly identified reptile species, she remembered the article.
"To me, just getting to describe and name a species is a huge privilege," Ruane said. "That's something that most people never get to do."
Naming the snake after Slash, she added, was "the icing on the cake" for the project.
Ruane says she got to show Slash around the Field Museum when he was visiting Chicago.
"It was just like talking to anybody else who really loves snakes and reptiles and natural history," she said. Slash is also a fan of dinosaurs, she added, and "certainly knows more about dinosaurs than I do."
"If he wasn't such an amazing guitarist, just from my conversations with him, I would say he would have been an amazing scientist."
A snake hiding in plain sight
Slash's groundsnake was first encountered in 2006, when Chris Austin, a professor and curator of herpetology at Louisiana State University's Museum of Natural Science, was conducting fieldwork in New Guinea.
The island, which lies just north of Australia and is divided politically between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, is home to extraordinary biodiversity that has not been thoroughly studied.
The lush forests of the island might sound like a Paradise City, but it remains a challenging territory for scientists.
The search for groundsnakes requires caution because some venomous species in the region can look similar to their harmless counterparts.
Also, unlike birds or other conspicuous animals, snakes spend much of their time hidden and motionless, which makes them challenging to find.
The snake's appearance alone did not make it obvious that researchers were looking at a new species. Genetic testing showed that Lielaphis slashi was distinct from other snakes in the same genus.
Researchers say Slash's groundsnake is not considered a threat to people. They believe it may use enlarged teeth toward the back of its mouth to seize small lizards and reptile eggs. Unlike a boa constrictor, it does not overpower prey by squeezing it, and it produces no venom capable of seriously harming humans.
Conservationists say the species faces a more serious danger from people. The forests where Slash's groundsnakes live are under pressure from industries including coffee farming and mining.
Naming the animal, Ruane said, is more than a tribute to a rock star. It is also a way to bring attention to an ecosystem that scientists are still working to understand.
"You don't have to love them," she said of snakes. "But you can appreciate how cool they are, the important role they play in our ecosystem and in our natural world."
So while Guns N' Roses may once have been branded "the most dangerous band in the world" by music journalists in the 1980s, this particular Slash is considerably less threatening.
It is simply a small forest snake, quietly making its way through New Guinea — and now enjoying a permanent place in the rock and roll hall of names.
I am not delusional! Now if you'll excuse me, i'm gonna go dance with the purple wombat who's playing show-tunes in my coffee cup!
Rules are like Egg's. They're fun when thrown out the window!
Difference is irrelevant when dosage is higher than recommended!Comment
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Twenty-three people were left stranded high above the ground for around three hours after a swing ride broke down at a fair in the northern German city of Hamburg, police said.
The ride came to a halt late on Tuesday evening due to a technical fault, prompting a large-scale response by police and firefighters as efforts were made to bring it back down and to prevent panic among those trapped.
According to the Bild newspaper, the passengers were stranded about 30 metres above the ground.
Shortly after midnight, the ride was restarted and the passengers were able to get off unharmed and without assistance from firefighters, a police spokesman said.
Germany's TÜV technical inspection organization is among those expected to investigate what caused the incident.
(...)
Sounds like fun
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The Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing have moments of coolness, but are also an endless source of hilarity
On the human side, we're still better at making pizza. Take that, robots!
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I think we need to stop calling China communist. They're having IPOs for crying out loud. How is that in any way, shape or form communist?No, I did not steal that from somebody on Something Awful.Comment
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Given how Communists claim that apparently Communist countries aren't really Communist, maybe China's Communism that doesn't look like Communism is the real Communism all along. in which case, it's ok to call it Communism even if it doesn't look like Communism.One day Canada will rule the world, and then we'll all be sorry.Comment
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If China is the first to fall into robot hands - that could be the ultimate form of communism.
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There is one "true" communism left on the planet, and it is led by Trump's good friend the God-Emperor Kim.No, I did not steal that from somebody on Something Awful.Comment
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A fuzzy fat father who likes the taste of rocks is officially the most popular yellow-bellied marmot in Gothic, Colo.
When the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory held its inaugural Fat Marmot Week this summer, the contest was twofold — a popular vote, and a weigh-in to see which contestant packed on the most pounds ahead of hibernation season.
Dawn won both.
According to his online bio, he is known for fathering several litters of baby marmots, and licking the salt and minerals off of rocks. He nearly doubled his body weight this summer from 3.8 to 5.9 kilograms, or roughly 5.5 to 13 pounds.
"He definitely deserved it," Fat Marmot Week organizer Katie Adler told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. "He is a special boy who likes to eat rocks."
But heavy is the head that wears the crown. As champion chonker, Dawn has also taken on the unofficial role of ambassador for the Marmot Project, a long-term research program whose future hangs in the balance amid widespread science and education funding cuts in the U.S.
Funding cuts could kill 60-year research project
Fat Marmot Week is inspired by Fat Bear Week, a popular contest run by Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve.
Like bears, marmots are hibernators, and soon, Gothic's population of yellow-bellied marmots will tuck themselves away for an eight-week winter rest.
"They have to put on all that weight so that they don't freeze over the winter," Adler said. "So they get absolutely huge."
Adler, a graduate student in ecology at the University of California, Los Angeles, works for the Marmot Project, a long-term generational study of yellow-bellied marmots out of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado.
Launched in 1962, it is the world's second longest-running study of individually marked mammals, after Jane Goodall's famous chimpanzee research in Tanzania.
Over the last six decades, its researchers have studied 5,000 marmots over 12 generations, says University of Ottawa biologist Julien Martin, one of the Marmot Project's leaders.
"From a human perspective, it would be kind of going back, in terms of generations, to the beginning of the 1700s," Martin said.
"In parallel, we are also tracking the environment. So what we're doing is we're trying to understand how, essentially, the wild animal of nature is adapting and evolving with the changes in the climate and all the perturbations that humans are bringing."- Trump budget cuts funding for clean air and water programs
- U.S. science funding uncertainty reshapes grad school choices for Canadians
But the Marmot Project is on shaky ground.
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has issued major cuts to research organizations, including a 20 per cent cut to the National Science Foundation (NSF), a major source of research grants in the U.S.
As a result, the NSF is expected to issue 30 per cent fewer new research grants this fiscal year, according to the journalistic arm of the journal Nature.
"The pot of money is shrinking, and there's more people applying to it," Martin said.
What's more, he says, cuts to higher education have made it difficult for research labs like the Rocky Mountain to remain properly staffed.
"It's a U.S.-wide problem of, essentially, the erosion of the structure needed for higher education," Martin said.
Turning to OnlyFans
That's why the Marmot Project has been spearheading outside-the-box public campaigns to raise awareness about their research and solicit donations.
Earlier this year, the Marmot Project launched OnlyMarms, an uncharacteristically family-friendly account on the usually sexually explicit platform OnlyFans, where subscribers can watch the critters on camera traps.
"We really rely on those long-term funding grants to propel this research forward," Adler said. "We have to think of other options, or this project might not be able to continue."
Thanks to these efforts, the lab has managed to raise more than $120,000 US in donations.
"It's definitely going to help, and we're going to try to stretch the money for as long as we can," Martin said.
Still, he says, it's not a sustainable way to fund long-term research.
So the Marmot Project has launched a petition on Movements.mov calling on Congress in the U.S. to claw back its cuts to research.
Called "Don't Let American Science Depend on OnlyFans," it had 180 signatures as of Monday afternoon.
CBC has reached out to Democratic and Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, but did not receive any responses before deadline.
The Marmot Project, meanwhile, will continue doing what it can, including planning its next Fat Marmot Week for 2027.
Adler hopes campaigns like this help the public appreciate marmots as much as she does.
During her time in Colorado, she says she's watched them survive the heat and predators of summer while packing on enough pounds to make it through long, harsh winters.
"Marmots are resilient," she said. "I think I've gained a lot more respect for them, and I hope the public has, too."
I am not delusional! Now if you'll excuse me, i'm gonna go dance with the purple wombat who's playing show-tunes in my coffee cup!
Rules are like Egg's. They're fun when thrown out the window!
Difference is irrelevant when dosage is higher than recommended!Comment
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"A fuzzy fat father"
Alliterations
Marmots
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Canada testing StealthNation tech again? I thought this was only a poly myth...
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Is there a version that doesn't require subscribing to the BBC? -
Once the tech is perfected, we will establish Trump Island in the middle of Lake America, invite President Trump to sign a Presidential proclamation making Canada the 51st state, and have the island sink to the bottom of Lake Ontario. There will be no survivors.
Nickelback can record a song about it.
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BBC is paywalled in the US and Canada......
I am not delusional! Now if you'll excuse me, i'm gonna go dance with the purple wombat who's playing show-tunes in my coffee cup!
Rules are like Egg's. They're fun when thrown out the window!
Difference is irrelevant when dosage is higher than recommended!Comment
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Yes and no. It seems to be random. I can access it and I'm in Toronto.Originally posted by Broken_Erika View Post
I get random subscribe requests on articles, and then check with another device and it's not paywalled
One day Canada will rule the world, and then we'll all be sorry.Comment
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Didn't know it was paywalled in some regions. I sometimes get a "subscribe" popup, but can just click it away...
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Would you drive it? This is the world’s narrowest drivable car
The narrowest drivable car measures 19.76 inches wide and was achieved by Italian Andrea Marazzi using parts from a 1993 Fiat Panda.
I am not delusional! Now if you'll excuse me, i'm gonna go dance with the purple wombat who's playing show-tunes in my coffee cup!
Rules are like Egg's. They're fun when thrown out the window!
Difference is irrelevant when dosage is higher than recommended!Comment
- The Altera Centauri collection has been brought up to date by Darsnan. It comprises every decent scenario he's been able to find anywhere on the web, going back over 20 years.
https://apolyton.net/forum/other-gam...rio-repository -Check it out, and enjoy some excellent Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire action. - 25 themes/skins/styles are now available to members. Check the select drop-down at the bottom-left of each page.
- Call To Power 2 Cradle 3+ mod in progress: https://apolyton.net/forum/other-games/call-to-power-2/ctp2-creation/9437883-making-cradle-3-fully-compatible-with-the-apolyton-edition
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