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  On November 12, 1896, Indian ornithologist and naturalist Sálim Ali was born. Sometimes referred to as the “birdman of India“, Salim Ali was among the first Indians to conduct systematic bird surveys across India and several bird books that he wrote helped popularize ornithology in India. Along with Sidney Dillon Ripley he wrote the ten volume Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan. Salim Ali – Background Salim Ali was born into a Sulaimani Bohra Muslim family of Bombay, the ninth and youngest child. Since his parents died when he was an infant, he was brought up together with his siblings by his maternal uncle, Amiruddin Tyabji in a middle-class household in Khetwadi, Mumbai. Salim was introduced to the serious study of birds by W. S. Millard, secretary of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), who identified an unusually coloured sparrow that young Salim had shot for sport with his toy air gun. Millard encouraged Salim to make a collection of birds and offered to train...

The butterflies’ migration from Canada and the United States to Mexico and back again is considered a marvel of nature. No single butterfly lives to complete the entire journey. MEXICO CITY: The number of monarch butterflies at their wintering areas in Mexico dropped by 59% this year to the second lowest level since record keeping began, experts said Wednesday, blaming heat, drought and loss of habitat. The butterflies’ migration from Canada and the United States to Mexico and back again is considered a marvel of nature. No single butterfly lives to complete the entire journey. The annual butterfly count doesn’t calculate the individual number of butterflies, but rather the number of acres they cover when they clump together on tree branches in the mountain pine and fir forests west of Mexico City. Monarchs from east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada overwinter there. Mexico’s Commission for National Protected Areas said the butterflies covered an area equivalent t...

Scientist proposes framework for reconciling mathematically incompatible theories of quantum mechanics and Einstein’s gravity At the heart of modern physics is a gulf that scientists have spent more than a century trying to bridge. Quantum mechanics gives an apparently flawless description of the forces that dominate at the atomic scale. Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity has never been proven wrong in its predictions of how gravity shapes cosmic events. But the two theories are fundamentally incompatible. Now, scientists have proposed a framework that they say could unify these two pillars of physics, through a radical rethink of the nature of spacetime. Instead of time ticking away predictably, under the “postquantum theory of classical gravity”, the rate at which time flows would wobble randomly, like the ebb and flow of a stream. “Quantum theory and Einstein’s theory of general relativity are mathematically incompatible with each other, so it’s important to understand h...