printable versionIn Print and On the Air
On June 3, DONALD KENNEDY, university president emeritus, heralded the persistence of the long-lost ivory-billed woodpecker in an editorial in Science magazine, of which he is editor-in-chief. Forty years after the last confirmed record of the species in North America, the bird was spotted in a forest in Arkansas and the discovery was announced April 28 in Science Online. Discussing why the bird's reappearance generated such great excitement, Kennedy wrote, "It should bring a thrill to everyone who cares about nature and about the diversity of life on Earth." Kennedy added that as a boy in the 1930s, he was a faithful follower of National Geographic accounts of expeditions to Louisiana to record the woodpeckers. "I even wrote a fan letter to the expedition's leader, the pioneer Cornell ornithologist Arthur Allen," Kennedy recalled. "My mother supervised my 7-year-old grammar and penmanship but failed to edit the sign-off that kids use for relatives. I signed it 'Love, Donny.' I was happily surprised when Professor Allen responded to my questions with an official-looking letter on Cornell stationery. To my mother's amused delight, he signed it 'Love, Arthur.'" Kennedy said it is fortunate that the pursuit of science attracts people who may lack special training—including Gene Sparling, who rediscovered the bird in 2004—but have found the knowledge and confidence to know that they can do real science. Kennedy saluted those who helped save the ivory bill's habitat, and rediscovered the bird itself, with the ancient Hebrew blessing: Baruch Mechayei haMetim—"Blessed is the one who gives life to the dead."
USA Today reported June 14 that Internet usage is growing faster in Iran than anywhere else in the Middle East, according to a 2004 study by BENHAM TABRIZI, a consulting associate professor of management science and engineering, and graduate student LILY SARAFAN. Their report said the number of Internet users in Iran could be 15 million by the end of the year—up from 5 million in 2003. As many as 100,000 web logs exist in Farsi, the newspaper reported, making it the third most common language of blogs, after English and French. "Three-fourths of Internet users are between the ages of 21 and 32, and 14 percent use the Internet 38 hours or more per week," Tabrizi and Sarafan wrote in their study. "Iran's young population is more likely to turn to the Google than Qom [Iran's main Shiite Muslim theological center] for the answers to their questions." ABBAS MILANI, director of the Iranian Studies Program, said Iran's Internet boom could dramatically accelerate democratic change at home. "Those guys [in the Iranian leadership] don't know what has hit them yet," he said.