In the Western Ghats mountain range of India researchers discovered a dozen frog species.

Sathyabhama Das Biju, from the University of Delhi and Franky Bossuyt from the Free University of Brussels discovered the tree frogs at night while hiking in mountain forests during the monsoon season. (The same researchers were responsible for the discovery of the ‘purple frog’ in 2003 in the same area.) All of the frogs are in the Philautus genus, which has no tadpole stage during maturation.

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Images of a jaguar were captured by a remote automatic camera set up in Central Mexico’s Sierra Nanchititla Natural Reserve.

The three photographs, plus some fecal samples, are the only evidence of the animal’s existence in the area for the last century. The big cat was photographed at just over 6,000 feet.

Lead researcher and study author, Octavio Monroy Vilchis remarked upon the importance of the discovery: “The photographs provide information about new recording sites, and allow us to deduce that the area where the animal was observed may be a corridor connecting jaguar populations.” Mr. Monroy Vilchis is a research fellow at the Universidad Autonomoa del Estado de Mexico.

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Harnessing the Earth’s Heat for Food and Power

As the rumbling temblors beneath Yellowstone National Park continue (over 900 hundred such weak quakes in 2008), media attention shifts to two topics: the possibility of a super-volcanic eruption (not likely, according to most geologists), and secondly, the harnessing of geothermal energy.

This latter consideration is all the more fashionable these days as America struggles to embrace an alternative and sustainable energy future.

Geothermal energy offers the promise of a virtually unlimited source of power. Although less energetic in terms  of total constant power output compared to the sun, harnessing the geothermal venting from a single, sufficiently high-grade, hot-spring could conceivably provide power for a population of tens of thousands, and it’s not weather dependent.  But there are also plenty of “lower grade” springs that can be put to other uses, such as growing hothouse produce (and the spring water is also used for watering the plants) and  naturally warming water for fish farming (the Talipia species, a popular dinner fish, is one species farmed this way). Not all animals that are farmed this way are used for food, some, like the farmed alligators in Mosca, CO (see photo), are raised for their skins primarily (though some do eat the meat).

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Oddly enough, some folks feel no real affection for the mountains–or even hills, sand dunes, dirt piles…or speed bumps for that matter! These flatlanders, who seem to congregate most deliberately in the middle portions of these United States and similar terrains, huff and puff and would love to blow all the mountains down. Mountains, for these folks who take the plane view of things, are just one more obstacle that has to be overcome in life…one more wall to climb over to get where they are going. Or for others with an urge to conquer, mountains are just one more notch to put on the belt of “extreme living,” one more element of Earth to bring under humanity’s domain.

Ironic, this missing amazement over mountains is, considering that mountains have held such a fascination for humans of all locales, colors, creeds, and cultural epochs. Think of Mount Kailas (also known as Meru, Sumeru, etc.) in the Himalayas of Tibet, which is held sacred in Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Bön as the center of the world, the residence of Siva or the Buddha Demchok, a place of enlightenment, the source of all spiritual power…. Think of the mountain in Christianity where Jesus gave his Sermon on the Mount. Think of Mount Sinai in Judaism and Moses’s chat with God at the top, where he received the Ten Commandments. Think of Mount Olympus in Greek mythology, where Zeus and his cohorts gather when not messing around with humans, or Mount Parnassus, where the Muses reside and give inspiration to the artistically inclined. Is it any wonder, then, that a typical route for the spiritual and artistic paths leads up to a mountain peak, to a mountain cave, to a mountain niche…?

And yet nowadays, no one seems to give much love to mountains. No one seems to dream about mountain peaks and mountain sides, about winds so strong they whip away your breath and your hair and anything not tied down with several strong ropes. No one longs to run up a mountain side to the top…and then to launch up into the wide blue sky.

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