Word: towards
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...understand Traill's logic - the smaller a species population becomes, the more vulnerable it is to 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...
...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': Why Some Species Are More at Risk...
When describing Xinjiang, silk road clichés never grow old. China's westernmost region is a vast territory of deserts and mountains, where peaks of black sand descend toward ancient oasis towns. In many of its cities, men still haggle over livestock in dusty markets and purchase blades from blacksmiths whose families have stayed in the craft for centuries. The faces of its Uighur inhabitants, a Turkic Muslim ethnic group, tell of Xinjiang's history as a crossroads for caravans and civilizations: an astonishing array of gray, hazel and blue eyes, fringed by brown or black or even blond...
...business falls in the middle, in what Maney calls the "fidelity belly"? Then "management needs to ask the question, Is our product on a clear path toward either convenience or fidelity?" If neither, it is on a clear path to trouble...
...Honduras, spoke approvingly of Hitler's efforts to "finish off" the Jews, "because if there is anyone who is harmful to [Honduras], it's the Jews and the Israelites." Romero later apologized for the remarks, but they were an unsettling reminder of the Latin-American left's increasing tendency toward anti-Semitic rhetoric...