Word: rules
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...extinction. Not only are small, dispersed populations more easily wiped out, but also they are more susceptible to inbreeding, which leads to a decrease in genetic diversity and further pushes the species toward extinction. So the goal is to boost species' numbers, and the long-standing rule for such conservation is 50/500 - meaning that 50 adults in a population are required to avoid the risks of inbreeding, and 500 are needed to avoid extinction due to sudden environmental change...
...Traill and his colleagues, after reviewing the most current data, found that a better rule would be 5,000 - meaning no fewer than 5,000 adult individuals are needed to keep a species safe from the threat of extinction. Dip below that level, and any sudden change - the loss of a valued habitat, a new disease - could wipe out a species before conservationists would have time to act. "Small populations have therefore reached a point of departure: away from the ability to adapt to changing environmental circumstances and toward inflexible vulnerability to those same changes," writes Traill. (Read "Extinction 'Gene...
...remoteness from Beijing and the difficulty of governing it. That challenge centers on the Uighurs, who comprise the region's majority population and claim a linguistic and cultural heritage that is markedly different from that of the rest of China. And while six decades of communist Chinese rule have brought tremendous prosperity to some, modernization has also raised a profound disconnect between the region's old inhabitants and newer arrivals. Encouraged by Beijing, millions of Han Chinese have migrated west, imbued with a state-sanctioned spirit of manifest destiny. As skyscrapers loom where bazaars once stood, many Uighurs see themselves...
...care what the world thinks, but he does want pariah status removed," says Rogers. He also wants "a veneer of legitimacy" and hopes the planned 2010 elections will provide it. Than Shwe has vowed to create a so-called "discipline-flourishing democracy" that will not only entrench military rule but protect his legacy - and his skin. In 2002, suspecting a plot against him, Than Shwe put Ne Win, the man who had first elevated him to power, and his daughter under house arrest and jailed his grandsons. "Ne Win died in ignominy," says Christina Fink, author of Living Silence: Burma...
...soon as I got to his house in the Hollywood Hills, Strauss told me his first rule of ghostwritten autobiographies was that I would have to be completely honest, revealing things I wouldn't even tell my wife. I nodded as if I had that kind of secret inner turmoil. Then he said I should think of a turning point in my life. I offered the day I got my mullet cut off. He paused. "Did you ever almost die?" he asked. It turns out your expectations get raised after you've been hanging out with Mötley Cr?...