March 2009 Archives

Photograph by Meghan Murphy/National Zoo


Earlier this month, two clouded leopard cubs were born at the National Zoo's Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Virginia. This is the first successful clouded leopard birth at the center in 16 years!

Turn off your lights this Saturday, March 28 from 8:30 to 9:30 local time and participate in a global observance called Earth Hour. Individuals, businesses, and organizations across the world will be participating (National Geographic included). Earth Hour is a demonstration of how much we can do to cut back power use and prevent climate change if we all work together.

The first lights-out will be in the Chatham Island off the coast of New Zealand. From there, the wave of darkened buildings, streets, and monuments will ripple through all 25 time zones. Even the Eiffel Tower will go dark.

The more participants there are, the bigger the impact will be. So get ready to power down!

Learn more about Earth Hour.

Read about last year's Earth Hour on National Geographic News.

Get more power saving tips on National Geographic Kids.

Alaska's Mount Redoubt erupted six times between Sunday night and Saturday morning, sending an ash cloud 9.5 miles (15 kilometers) into the air! The eruptions also caused small earthquakes and mudflows. The volcano could keep erupting for days... weeks... or even months!

Mount Redoubt wasn't the only recent volcano eruption. An undersea volcano in Tonga also erupted last week. Tonga is an archipelago (group of islands) in the Pacific Ocean. The eruption has sent up ash, smoke, and steam. Underwater volcanoes can build islands as the magma builds up--that's how the Hawaiian Islands were formed.

Read more about the Mount Redoubt eruptions and see pictures on National Geographic News.

Read about the Tonga eruption on National Geographic News.

See photos of volcanoes in the Photo Gallery!

Photograph by Ron Edmonds/AP


First Lady Michelle Obama broke ground on a new vegetable garden on the White House lawn last week with help of students from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington, D.C. The last time there were veggies growing at the White House was when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President in the 1940s.

Over 50 different vegetables, fruits, and herbs will be grown in the White House Kitchen Garden. There will also be two beehives for honey. Some of the green goodies will be added to the menu by the White House chefs, and others will be donated to Miriam's Kitchen, a Washington, D.C. soup kitchen.

Learn how to plant your own veggies and flowers!

See photos of the First Lady working on the garden on the White House Blog.

The 2009 Iditarod winner has made it to Nome, Alaska! Musher Lance Mackey arrived at 11:38 a.m. on March 18, winning his third Iditarod race in a row!

The Iditarod Sled Dog Race takes place every March in Alaska. The race is an incredible 1,150 miles (1,851 kilometers) long, and it usually takes at least 10 days for the first musher to make it to the finish line.

Quiz Your Noodle and find out how much you know about the Iditarod!

Visit the official Iditarod site.

The space shuttle Discovery lifted off on Sunday, carrying a human guinea pig with the crew! Astronaut Koichi Wakata will be the first Japanese astronaut to have a long stay in the International Space Station. His visit will be three months long.

Since there are no washing machines aboard the space station, Wakata will need to take enough clothes to last for his entire stay. That's a lot of underwear and socks! Wakata will report on the state of his underwear, wire himself with sensors, and he'll perform tests such as arm wrestling to help scientists back on Earth understand the effects of living in space.

Read more about the mission on National Geographic News.

See pictures of space shuttles in the Photo Gallery.

Photographs courtesy Ralf Britz, Natural History Museum


Talk about a news bite! Those are real fangs you see on the fish picture above. Researchers at the London Natural History museum found them in an aquarium tank. They had been misidentified as an already known species, but instead they're an undiscovered species. The fish has been named Danionella dracula for its fearsome-looking fangs!

A baby blue whale has been caught on film! Researchers off of the coast of Costa Rica captured the baby on camera while visiting the "Dome," a warm-water region that attracts blue whales from hundreds of miles around.

Baby blue whales are far from tiny. At birth, they are an average of 25 feet (7.6 meters) long.

The footage of the baby, as well as images of other blue whales, can be seen on National Geographic's Kingdom of the Blue Whale. The show airs tonight, March 10, on the National Geographic Channel at 8 p.m. ET.

See a video of the baby on a clip from Kingdom of the Blue Whale on National Geographic News.

Learn more about Kingdom of the Blue Whale on National Geographic Channel.

Think you're a blue whale expert? Quiz Your Noodle and find out!

Mimi Ausland, 12, really loves animals! After visiting a website that donates rice to hungry people, she was inspired to create a similar website to help dogs and cats in animal shelters. When visitors answer a trivia question on Freekibble.com or Freekibblekat.com, they donate 10 pieces of kibble to Mimi's project. Mimi's sites have been a huge hit, and she has been featured in several articles both online and in print.

Mimi is passionate about her work collecting food for shelter animals. "I love helping animals because of how they cannot speak for themselves and people have to speak for them. I also love being able to help them get good healthy food and actually delivering the food myself to our local shelter--and I really like making other people aware that they need our help," she says.







Photograph courtesy Kelly Ausland

Keepers at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., were surprised when they counted three black and rufous giant elephant-shrew in their exhibit instead of two! The female elephant-shrew in the exhibit probably gave birth to the new baby in January. The baby elephant-shrew is doing well and can be seen in the National Zoo's Small Mammal House.

See a video of the baby and learn more about the new elephant-shrew on the National Zoo's website.

Watch a wild elephant shrew and her baby in this video.