In a heavily irrigated Washington valley where fish, crops and people often compete for water, biologists are turning to one of nature’s best engineers to help restore streams and salmon habitat.
Landowners typically trap or kill beavers which block irrigation canals and flood homes in the Yakima Valley. But one project is relocating them to the headwaters, where their talent for chewing willows and constructing lodges can be put to good use.
Project manager Mel Babik said beavers can be really destructive, but in the right places they can be good ecosystem engineers.
In Washington, Oregon, Utah and other parts of the West, beavers increasingly are being used as an effective, low-cost tool to help restore rivers. Experts say their dams and ponds slow the flow of water and sediment downstream.
Drug dealer puts himself in frame
A drug dealer who asked a friend to take his picture as he prepared illegal substances for sale has been jailed for 41 months.
Peter Shaw unwittingly provided police with photographic evidence of his offences after snap-shots of him lining up drugs were found on his mobile phone.
One of the images, discovered after crack cocaine was recovered from a wheelie bin, showed the 22-year-old wearing a dust mask and rubber gloves while handling drugs near a sink.
Shaw, from Nottingham, was jailed at the city’s Crown Court after admitting possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply.
Anatomy reveals leaders’ traits
Labour leader Ed Miliband has the hands of a geek while Prime Minister David Cameron’s pursed lips are tell-tale signs of anxiety, according to a body language study.
Harry Witchel, discipline leader in physiology at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, run by the universities of Brighton and Sussex in collaboration with the NHS, examined the two leaders’ movements and gestures during their keynote speeches at this year’s Labour and Conservative party conferences.
He said the Prime Minister came across as aggressive while the Labour leader appeared an over-confident technocrat.
Ice-ing on birthday cake for Putin
Russian president Vladimir Putin is enjoying his 62nd birthday in the wilderness of Siberia as supporters from across Russia create tributes in his honour.
Mr Putin celebrated the moment in the Siberian forest some “300-400 kilometres from the nearest populated area”, his press secretary said. He has previously brandished his tough-guy image with wilderness romps during which he hunts, fishes or rides horses – often shirtless. In the Chechen capital of Grozny, thousands of people gathered to carry a 600-metre Russian flag through the streets.
News websites also published photographs from a one-day Moscow exhibition titled The 12 Feats Of Vladimir Putin, in which he is depicted as Hercules.
Getting eyeful of a fearsome drop
The Eiffel Tower has been given a vertigo-inducing facelift as organisers celebrate the Paris monument’s 125th anniversary.
The 324m tower – erected for the 1889 World Fair – now has see-through glass floor panels on its first level. The four small viewing sections, which cost €30 million, were unveiled on Monday.
Though the first level is only 57m high, it is not for the faint-hearted. Jordanian tourist Yousef Mobaidin was “terrified” as it “looks really scary”, while Aaron Smith from Hawaii admitted getting butterflies, and hoping “they did a good job building it”.