National Geographic Channel and Abu Dhabi Media Company launch world's first free-to-air NGC in Arabic

National Geographic Channel and Abu Dhabi Media Company has announced the formation of a strategic partnership, to launch the free-to-air National Geographic Channel Abu Dhabi - the first international factual entertainment channel to be launched in the Arabic language.

National Geographic Channel Abu Dhabi, which will be dubbed completely into Arabic, will bridge the gap in quality factual entertainment that exists in the region, by reaching out to discerning, educated, thinking audiences that are interested and sensitive about their environment, and are curious to seek more knowledge about the world around them.

Like the work of National Geographic globally, National Geographic Channel Abu Dhabi aims to inspire a life-long passion for learning, to cultivate curiosity and wonder about the world and generate awareness, concern and knowledge about the planet; by offering smart and reliable factual entertainment, featuring science and technology, animals and nature, exploration and culture.

The channel's programming has been expertly designed to meet the preferences of the region's viewers; offering three main themes between 6 pm and 9 pm (UAE) and late night, which will rotate between Nat Geo Science - featuring programmes that unravel the mysteries behind the world, or beyond it; Wildlife - which will incorporate the best and most intimate encounters with wildlife ever seen on television; and MEGA, which will showcase the world's most breathtaking meagastructures, megacities, megafactories and megamovers.

A different theme will be developed for viewers each week under the 'Theme week' slot such as Fight Science, Most Amazing Moments, Food and Travel, where, between 9 pm and 10 pm (UAE), viewers can see some of the greatest, most action-packed and topical programming on National Geographic.
During prime time, 10 pm-12 am, Sunday-Thursday, the channel will showcase programmes based around a different genre each night. Nat Geo Science (Sundays) will feature one-offs like Incredible Human Machine and World's Most Bizarre Dinosaurs; Nat Geo Action (Mondays) will show programmes including Dangerous Encounters, Jet Man and Don't Tell My Mother; Nat Geo Confidential (Tuesdays) will focus on real-life investigations; Disastertainment (Wednesdays) will show programmes such as Air Crash and Seconds from Disaster; while Showcase (Thursdays) will be an open slot showing documentaries about current affairs or grand premieres.Ward Platt, President - Asia Pacific & Middle East, National Geographic Channels International said:

"The launch of the channel in Arabic marks the first time in the Middle East that high quality National Geographic content will be delivered to the region's viewers dubbed into their native language, and also the first time that a National Geographic Channel will be available free-to-air. Our work revolves around the protection of the natural world by bringing information and awareness about the planet to viewers - a philosophy and commitment to environmental sustainability shared by ADMC. We are very excited at this opportunity to together showcase unique perspectives on the world that we inhabit in the Arabic language, and play a part in Abu Dhabi's sustainable growth and transformation into a global media hub."
The launch of National Geographic Channel Abu Dhabi raises the standard of programming and content in the region - through the fact that the content will be in Arabic and free-to-air," commented H.E. Mohamed Khalaf Al Mazrouei, Chairman of ADMC.

"We are very excited to have partnered with National Geographic Channels to not only bring viewers in the region leading global factual entertainment, but to help us expand, enhance and diversify our existing media bouquet - by allowing us to offer something totally new to the Arabic-speaking population in the Middle East"

Viewers can also interact with the channel via a dedicated National Geographic Channel Abu Dhabi website - www.natgeotv.ae. The website will feature comprehensive information on programming including forthcoming feature highlights; an easy-view TV schedule; a variety of online games designed to encourage people to think about the planet; a community section where viewers can 'ask the experts', contribute to online polls or enter competitions; and a video player where viewers can watch programme highlights and reviews.

Globally the National Geographic Channel reaches out to 305m homes in 165 countries, in 34 languages.

How Personal Genomics Could Change Health Care

Several months after deciphering his genetic code last year, Stanford bioengineer Stephen Quake approached a cardiologist colleague. Early analysis of his DNA had flagged a rare genetic variant as potentially linked to heart problems. The variant, in fact, was located in a gene linked to sudden cardiac death in athletes, so physician Euan Ashley suggested Quake visit his office for some follow-up screening. Inspired by that meeting, the scientists spent the next year figuring out how to examine his genome in a way that would be meaningful to both Quake and his doctor.
The result--published today in The Lancet--is the most comprehensive clinical analysis of a human genome to date, highlighting both the medical potential of genomics and the hurdles that remain. "We wanted to try to answer the question of what a physician should do when a patient walks into the office with a copy of his genome and says 'treat me,' " says Quake, who was named one of Technology Review's top young innovators in 2002.
As the cost of sequencing has plummeted in the last few years--from about $3 billion for the Human Genome Project to less than $5,000 today--the number of complete human genomes has blossomed. Hundreds have now been sequenced, though only about 13 have been made public. Scientists are moving their focus from the technical hurdles of sequencing itself to what they say that will be a much more difficult task analyzing the content of genomes to better understand the human disease and the health risk of the individual.
Quake and 13 other "genome pioneers"--a select group who have had their entire genomes sequenced--described their efforts to use their genomes to better manage their health at a conference in Cambridge, MA, this week. The early adopters included James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., entrepreneur Ester Dyson, 17-year-old Anne West, and a handful of genomics executives.

Despite the complexity and remaining mystery of the human genome--scientists still don't know the function of 90 to 95 percent of human genes--many of the pioneers at the event described using their genomic information to make medical decisions. John West, former CEO of Solexa, a sequencing company that was acquired by genomics giant Illumina, recently had his genome sequenced along with that of his wife and two children. West and his wife discovered they have higher risk of a certain type of glaucoma, which sent them to the ophthalmologist for screening. "Now we know there is something to look for, and the test is easy and relatively inexpensive," he said at the conference. (Daughter Anne presented the results of her analysis of her family's genomes to the illustrious audience.)

Seong-Jin Kim, director of the Lee Gilya Cancer and Diabetes Institute at Gachon University of Medicine and Science, in South Korea, discovered after genome sequencing that he has a tenfold increased risk of macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in people over age 60. "I am diligently taking preemptive steps in everyday life to prevent it," he said at the conference. He takes high doses of antioxidants, which have been shown to slow progression of the disease, has regular eye exams, and avoids activities that tend to overexert the eyes. (The scientist is also trying to convince his wife to switch to an LED television, because they may be less damaging to the eyes than LCD.)

While individual genetic tests could have been performed for each of the medical conditions in these cases, the cost of genome sequencing is dropping so quickly that it will soon be cheaper to sequence the whole genome rather than various parts. Quake, who published his own genome sequence, without interpretation, in 2009, can now go back to his genome anytime a new publication describes the possible implications of one of his variations.

In the Lancet paper, Quake and his collaborators undertook a comprehensive analysis of his genome. The researchers focused on variants that had been linked to risk of disease in previous studies, and those thought to play a role in a patient's response to drugs. Beginning with an average risk for a particular disease of someone of Quake's age and background, they added or subtracted risk using the genetic information. "That's the most challenging thing, there is no accepted method for how to do that," says Ashley. "We tried to prioritize what would be the most important thing to discuss with a doctor."

Highlighting just how difficult it is to analyze a genome, Quake points out that it took just a few weeks to sequence his genome, which was published in a scientific paper with three authors. Analyzing the genome for its clinical relevance took a year, and the resulting paper has 20 authors.

The rare variant that led Quake to Ashley's office in the first place provides an illustrative example of the state of genome interpretation. The variant is located in a gene that is well-known to be linked to sudden death. But it turns out that Quake's particular variation is fairly common and present in some healthy people. Combining that knowledge with the results of screening tests--all perfectly normal--led the team to conclude it isn't dangerous. The team also found a completely new variant in that gene, which they haven't yet been able to interpret. "At the moment our tools are relatively limited," says Ashley.

In addition, researchers found variants in other genes linked to cardiomyopathy, a disease that weakens and enlarges the heart, which may help explain a history of sudden death in the family. "Maybe I could have guessed it based on family history," says Quake. "But it's one thing to know there is a family history and another to know I had the allele. That sent me to a cardiologist."

Quake says he hasn't listened to all the medical advice derived from his genome. While he learned that he has a higher-than-average genetic risk for other types of heart disease, he found via the traditional way that physicians use to calculate risk--which doesn't include genetic information--that he's just under the threshold for statin use. Ashley felt the genetic risk factors were enough to put him over the line and suggested he start taking the drugs. "I haven't followed that yet," says Quake. "I'm still thinking about it."

If Quake does start taking the drugs, his genome suggests he will respond to them and is unlikely to suffer one of the drug's more serious side effects, muscle pain.

Some experts are already concerned that widespread genetic testing will lead to unnecessary medical follow-ups, driving high medical costs even higher. But Quake hopes that genome sequencing will ultimately lower costs. "I think this will provide a way to ration health care so that people at risk can get [screening tests] more frequently and those who aren't get it less frequently," he says.

Sculpting a Nano 'World'

IBM researchers have invented a low-cost and relatively simple fabrication tool capable of reliably creating features as small as 15 nanometers. To show off the tool, the researchers at IBM's Zurich lab made a three-dimensional map of the Earth so small that 1,000 of them would fit onto a single grain of salt.

Existing nano-fabrication techniques like electron beam lithography have difficulty making features much smaller than 30 nanometers and are expensive and complex instruments. In contrast, the IBM researchers say their new fabrication tool sits on a tabletop at one-fifth to one-tenth the cost.

The new instrument is a descendant of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) invented by IBM Zurich scientists in the early 1980s. That microscope made it possible, for the first time, to image and manipulate atoms. The new instrument uses an extremely small silicon tip that is rapidly scanned across the surface of the substrate. The tip is cantilevered like those used in atomic force microscopy (or AFM: an offshoot of STM that was invented in 1986), enabling it to apply nanonewtons of force to the surface. But unlike AFM, the tip is heated.

Where it touches the substrate, the thermal energy at the tip is sufficient to break weak bonds within the material. "We provide enough thermal energy so these molecules become mobile, crawl along the hot tip and evaporate," says Urs Duerig, a scientist IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory, in Switzerland. Together with colleague Armin Knoll and others, Duerig developed the new technique. What's remarkable about this, he says, is that it removes exactly the same amount of the material each time.

The advantage of the new instrument, compared to techniques such as e-beam lithography that involve removing material by bombarding it with particles, is that the effect is more localized. Although e-beam lithography can create features as small 15 nanometers, at resolutions below 30 nanometers, stray electrons tend to cause interactions with parts of the material neighboring the target area.

One advantage of the new technique is that it can bore down into the substrate at different depths, again at very high resolutions. This was demonstrated by etching into a molecular glass substrate a 25-nanometer-high topographical representation of the Swiss mountain, the Matterhorn, with a scale of 1:5 billion. The 3-D image was made by selectively removing material in 120 different layers.

This ability to create 3-D structures is intriguing, says Zahid Durrani at Imperial College London. "It's completely novel," he says. "I've never seen anything like this before." However, as with other probe technologies, extending the process to large numbers of tips operating in parallel is likely to prove challenging, says Durrani.

co-director of MIT's Nanostructures Laboratory, says IBM's instrument is an incredibly "clever and elegant" solution. "They've done something quite creative here," he says. Researchers have long struggled with thermal methods of probe lithography, but it was slow and resolutions were mediocre, says Berggren. "IBM has changed that," he says. "So making sub-20-nanometer-scale lithography available to labs that need it at reasonable cost may be the long-term legacy of this work. And it is a very important one."

In contrast, e-beam lithography requires several steps and tends to be very expensive, with systems costing up to $5 million, says Berggren. The IBM instrument is small enough to sit on a desktop and should cost around $100,000.

It is also relatively fast, says Duerig. Because the tip can write each "pixel" in microseconds, it can be scanned across the substrate very rapidly. The world map, for example, which consists of 500,000 pixels, took just two minutes to draw.

A crucial step in developing this technique involved finding suitable organic substrates. To this end, colleagues at IBM's Research-Almaden, in California, were brought in to help find hard organic substrates that could be used as so-called "resists," a sort of mask used in chip fabrication.

The challenge was to find materials that were tough enough to be used as substrates, but which could be thermally decomposed easily, evaporating into nonreactive chunks when brought into contact with the hot tip. In the case of the world map, a polymer called polyphthalaldehyde was found suitable, and for the Matterhorn, the IBM scientists used a form of molecular glass.

Nat Geo WILD

On Monday, March 29, 2010, Nat Geo WILD hits the airwaves. This new network is the sister station to the popular National Geographic Channel. Nat Geo WILD will bring interesting and unusual programming to viewers who are interested in the animal kingdom. From under the sea to mountaintops, from the arctic to the desert, species of animals are explored in both high definition and standard definition.

National Geographic has been the leader in wildlife programming for over 30 years, and now Nat Geo WILD joins her sister station with all things wild.

Gentle creatures as well as ferocious animals are brought to the screen for viewers to see and to learn about. This is the best way to get up close and personal with all things wild.

Two humans who are part of the Nat Geo WILD team are Casey Anderson, a wildlife naturalist who just happens to have a 900-pound grizzly bear named Brutus for a best friend, and Mireya Mayor, sometimes referred to as the “Female Indiana Jones,” because she treks around the wild looking to find animal behavior that has never been caught on camera before.

All Things Wild

Nat Geo WILD is dedicated to bringing the animal world to the public to educate and entertain. Many species are in danger of extinction, and many have never been studied this closely before. Since it is dedicated to the animal world, Nat Geo WILD is able to focus solely on animals all around the planet.

Nat Geo WILD is a joint venture between Fox Cable Networks and National Geographic Ventures, who also paired to launch the National Geographic Channel in 2001.

At the Television Critics Association Press Tour recently, Nat Geo WILD General Manager Steve Schiffman said, “We expect Wild to be among the largest launches of any new network ever.”

He explained the difference between Nat Geo and Nat Geo WILD. “We are going to have wildlife programming that is 24-by-7, which is a celebration of animals. On the core channel, less than 5 percent of our primetime content has wildlife featured. So it's a very different genre. And we have so much content and so many stories that we want to tell that we felt like having another linear offering, another cable channel, really will allow us to tell those stories that are truly incremental beyond the diversity of topics we talk about in our core channel.”

From monkeys to sharks, bears to birds, the animals of plane earth are explored. This network will bring and enlighten viewers about the animal inhabitants of the planet in a new and exciting format.

National Geographic TV app a disappointment

I love National Geographic Magazine. I love their HD cable channel. I really dislike the free app they have released today for the iPhone.

The app is designed to let you know what the cable channel is airing, and you can certainly browse the schedule. But there is no search option, so finding what you want to watch is a festival of fruitless finger flicking. Not very helpful really.

Then there is a button marked video. Sounds good to me. Tap it and you get a list of videos, like 'Finding the Titanic.' Sounds interesting. Tap it and you are taken to a page that says video 'not available on mobile.' What!!? I tried them all. How many videos played? Not a one. This is a pretty incredible mistake for an app that advertises video. There is even a 'Safari' button, so I thought I could tap that and play the videos in Safari. Not a chance.

There is a blog button, and I read behind the scenes stories about the programs that are so hard to find in the schedule. Some were interesting, and there were some pictures, but you'd think an organization known for some of the most beautiful photography in the world could display some of that in an iPhone app. No, actually, the pictures selected are rather mundane.
Even though this app is free, it seems like a real misfire. Schedules that can't be searched. Videos that can't be played. Pictures that are, well, let's be honest here, uninteresting.

I don't know if Nat Geo is to blame or some developers who should know better. I'd say skip this app until Nat Geo can offer something of value and get its act together. One last comment: Seems like anything from National Geographic would be a must for the iPad. Uh uh. This version is iPhone only, and there is no date for an iPad edition. Of course you could run this app on your iPad and the underwhelming images would get bigger and lose resolution.

I'm just sitting here scratching my head. A reputation is a terrible thing to waste.

Late update from National Geographic: "We're experiencing a glitch with the video feature and are working to fix it ASAP, and I will let you know of the resolution. For your reference, the experience one should have through the video feature is to be able to watch them on his/her iPhone via the YouTube app, with the "back" navigation allowing users to return to NGC app as they wish."

Right.

An even later update: This morning the Nat Geo team told me the video problem was fixed. I tried it and none of the videos played back. Even worse, some of the blogs appear to have embedded video but the video is Flash based, and can't play on the iPhone.

Carry the Moon in your pocket with this free iPhone app

Last week I was pleased to suggest some free astronomy programs of interest to star-gazers. This week, I'm at it again hoping that space or science buffs get a look at Moon Globe.

This very handy app gives you a complete map of our nearest space neighbor, showing you what is visible on any night and from any location. The on-screen display of the moon at the current phase is striking, and very detailed. You can zoom in or out with the usual pinch and stretch moves you are familiar with. It's easy to magnify up to 300 times with stunning detail. With a tap, you will see where spacecraft have landed on the moon and identify surface features like craters, mountain ranges and valleys.

The mosaic of pictures that make up the presentation are seamless, and the app gives you the tools to exactly match what you might see in binoculars or a telescope. That's really helpful, because some telescopes reverse the image left to right, or up and down. You can duplicate those views, so it is easy to match up what you are seeing with the display.

Clicking on surface feature or a spacecraft name will give you some information that is built into the app, or allow you to link directly to Wikipedia or launch a Google search.

There's a lot to like with this app, and with the moon overhead this week, there's a lot to explore. Moon Globe runs on the iPhone and iPod touch, and requires iPhone OS 2.0 or later.

Apple moves into voice technology sector with Siri

Apple yesterday purchased Siri, a US start-up that recently unveiled an application for the iPhone that allows users to complete complex tasks using simple voice commands.

The move will arm Apple with powerful new voice processing and natural language technologies as it battles for smartphone dominance with Google, developer of the fast-growing Android operating system.

"There is an Apple versus Google element to this," said Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. "Apple valued this technology and wanted to keep it out of the Android world."

Siri lets users dictate requests into their phones and then delivers results from an array of websites . For example, a user can say "Find me a table for two at an Italian restaurant tonight," and Siri will bring up available reservations from Opentable.com.

In addition, Siri had also established relationships with a host of prominent internet services, such as MovieTickets.com and Taxi Magic, aimed at fulfilling e-commerce needs for users on the go.

This model of taskoriented mobile computing fits into the vision that Steve Jobs, Apple chief executive, recently laid out . "On a mobile device, search is not where it's at, not like on the desktop," he said at the launch of the new iPhone operating system. "[People are] using apps to get to data on the internet, not [for] generalised search."

The deal was disclosed through a pre-merger announcement from the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday and was expected to close soon. Terms of the deal were not released.

The acquisition is the latest in a buying spree for Apple which recently bought Intrinsity, a chipmaker based in Texas. The deal closed last month and was announced on Tuesday. Terms were not disclosed.

In January, Apple purchased Quattro Wireless , a mobile advertising network, after losing out to Google in a bid to buy AdMob, a rival ad service that Google acquired for $750m last year .

Despite the growing rivalry between the two companies, Apple and Google remain close partners, with Google products enmeshed on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Mr Glovin said the acquisition of Siri was part of a gradual distancing between the two companies as Apple develops and acquires more technologies that compete with Google. "What we are going to see Apple do is to loosen those reliances and ties on Google," he said.

MSI GE600: Latest gaming notebook

Notebooks have always been a huge must have, but we all know that not all notebooks are suitable for gaming. Well MSI wanted to change that and it has announced that it will release new gaming notebook named GE600.
The new model has a 16-inch display and it is supposed to be the lightest laptop weighing in at 5.9 lbs or 2.7 kg. So that’s a great plus from MSI, because nobody likes to carry a heavy laptop, but will this laptop have enough to deal with latest games?

This thing is run by Intel Core i5 processor, which will handle all the latest games and applications with ease, but it’s the graphics power that matters when it comes to gaming. As for graphics GE600 uses ATI Radeon 5730 graphics that supports DirectX 11 which is used to run the latest games. As for the power, this notebook is a power saver thanks to the Core i5 which will save up to 15% of your battery, and with its Turbo Boost option it will provide 30% better performance.

As for other specifications this notebook supports 1366×768 resolution and 4 GB DDR3 RAM which will allow smooth ride thought all the applications and games that you might use. 320 GB hard drive is more than enough for all your files. As for software, it comes with Microsoft’s Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit edition.

With its great specifications this laptop will surely satisfy all your gaming needs and as for the price, it costs around $900.

Europeans can now wet their hands with JooJoo tablet

TechCrunch’s idea of releasing their own CrunchPad? Michael Arrington of TechCrunch dreamt of building a tablet for surfing the web which can be bought for as low as $200. That proved to be a distant dream even when Michael partnered with Fusion Garage to release their dream CrunchPad.

The fallout of Michael Arrington from the CrunchPad left Fusion Garage standing nowhere. Since then they have been trying hard to sell JooJoo tablet (the formerly famous CrunchPad) but evidences prove that they have sold as low as sixty four tablets only up till now. We understand that even Europeans won’t be interested in the €359 (plus €15 for shipping) tablet yet we write for those rare richie-riches who want to shell their money on this.
The 12.1 inches LCD display of JooJoo tablet is pretty impressive but still hasn’t yet impressed the market. It boasts of the Intel Atom processor with processing speed of 1.6 GHz. Graphics will be provided by NVIDIA ION platform and it has the resolution of 1366×768. It runs a custom Linux operating system which lets you enjoy online surfing with a on-screen keyboard. Yeah! This is all that it provides. After all it is made for Internet surfing only!

We suggest that you buy one piece of this device as the company might disappear in next few years (or even months). You would then be able to boast about a unique device which isn’t being manufactured anywhere else (though it would be useless!)

Brain

Making sense of the brain's mind-boggling complexity isn't easy. What we do know is that it's the organ that makes us human, giving people the capacity for art, language, moral judgments, and rational thought. It's also responsible for each individual's personality, memories, movements, and how we sense the world.

All this comes from a jellylike mass of fat and protein weighing about 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms). It is, nevertheless, one of the body's biggest organs, consisting of some 100 billion nerve cells that not only put together thoughts and highly coordinated physical actions but regulate our unconscious body processes, such as digestion and breathing.

The brain's nerve cells are known as neurons, which make up the organ's so-called "gray matter." The neurons transmit and gather electrochemical signals that are communicated via a network of millions of nerve fibers called dendrites and axons. These are the brain's "white matter."

The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain, accounting for 85 percent of the organ's weight. The distinctive, deeply wrinkled outer surface is the cerebral cortex, which consists of gray matter. Beneath this lies the white matter. It's the cerebrum that makes the human brain—and therefore humans—so formidable. Whereas animals such as elephants, dolphins, and whales have larger brains, humans have the most developed cerebrum. It's packed to capacity inside our skulls, enveloping the rest of the brain, with the deep folds cleverly maximizing the cortex area.

The cerebrum has two halves, or hemispheres. It is further divided into four regions, or lobes, in each hemisphere. The frontal lobes, located behind the forehead, are involved with speech, thought, learning, emotion, and movement. Behind them are the parietal lobes, which process sensory information such as touch, temperature, and pain. At the rear of the brain are the occipital lobes, dealing with vision. Lastly, there are the temporal lobes, near the temples, which are involved with hearing and memory.

Movement and Balance

The second largest part of the brain is the cerebellum, which sits beneath the back of the cerebrum. It is responsible for coordinating muscle movement and controlling our balance. Consisting of both grey and white matter, the cerebellum transmits information to the spinal cord and other parts of the brain.

The diencephalon is located in the core of the brain. A complex of structures roughly the size of an apricot, the two major sections are the thalamus and hypothalamus. The thalamus acts as a relay station for incoming nerve impulses from around the body that are then forwarded to the appropriate brain region for processing. The hypothalamus controls hormone secretions from the nearby pituitary gland. These hormones govern growth and instinctual behavior such as eating, drinking, sex, anger, and reproduction. The hypothalamus, for instance, controls when a new mother starts to lactate.

The brain stem, at the organ's base, controls reflexes and crucial, basic life functions such as heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure. It also regulates when you feel sleepy or awake.

The brain is extremely sensitive and delicate, and so requires maximum protection. This is provided by the surrounding skull and three tough membranes called meninges. The spaces between these membranes are filled with fluid that cushions the brain and keeps it from being damaged by contact with the inside of the skull.

Golden Eagle

This powerful eagle is North America's largest bird of prey and the national bird of Mexico. These birds are dark brown, with lighter golden-brown plumage on their heads and necks. They are extremely swift, and can dive upon their quarry at speeds of more than 150 miles (241 kilometers) per hour.

Golden eagles use their speed and sharp talons to snatch up rabbits, marmots, and ground squirrels. They also eat carrion, reptiles, birds, fish, and smaller fare such as large insects. They have even been known to attack full grown deer. Ranchers once killed many of these birds for fear that they would prey on their livestock, but studies showed that the animal's impact was minimal. Today, golden eagles are protected by law.

Golden eagle pairs maintain territories that may be as large as 60 square miles (155 square kilometers). They are monogamous and may remain with their mate for several years or possibly for life. Golden eagles nest in high places including cliffs, trees, or human structures such as telephone poles. They build huge nests to which they may return for several breeding years. Females lay from one to four eggs, and both parents incubate them for 40 to 45 days. Typically, one or two young survive to fledge in about three months.

These majestic birds range from Mexico through much of western North America as far north as Alaska; they also appear in the east but are uncommon. Golden eagles are also found in Asia, northern Africa, and Europe.

Some golden eagles migrate, but others do not—depending on the conditions of their geographic location. Alaskan and Canadian eagles typically fly south in the fall, for example, while birds that live in the western continental U.S. tend to remain in their ranges year-round.

Bald Eagle

The bald eagle, with its snowy-feathered (not bald) head and white tail, is the proud national bird symbol of the United States—yet the bird was nearly wiped out there. For many decades, bald eagles were hunted for sport and for the "protection" of fishing grounds. Pesticides like DDT also wreaked havoc on eagles and other birds. These chemicals collect in fish, which make up most of the eagle's diet. They weaken the bird's eggshells and severely limited their ability to reproduce. Since DDT use was heavily restricted in 1972, eagle numbers have rebounded significantly and have been aided by reintroduction programs. The result is a wildlife success story—the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has upgraded the birds from endangered to threatened.

Though their numbers have grown in much of their range, bald eagles remain most abundant in Alaska and Canada. These powerful birds of prey use their talons to fish, but they get many of their meals by scavenging carrion or stealing the kills of other animals. (Such thievery famously prompted Ben Franklin to argue against the bird's nomination as the United State's national symbol.) They live near water and favor coasts and lakes where fish are plentiful, though they will also snare and eat small mammals.

Bald eagles are believed to mate for life. A pair constructs an enormous stick nest—one of the bird-world's biggest—high above the ground and tends to a pair of eggs each year. Immature eagles are dark, and until they are about five years old, they lack the distinctive white markings that make their parents so easy to identify. Young eagles roam great distances. Florida birds have been spotted in Michigan, and California eagles have traveled all the way to Alaska.

Raven

Common ravens are actually rather remarkable animals. These sleek, black birds are excellent and acrobatic fliers on par with falcons and hawks. Such aerial skills are on display during breeding season, when exciting mating rituals include an elaborate dance of chases, dives, and rolls.

These intelligent birds were honored by Native Americans and often portrayed as sly pranksters for their playful nature.

Known as scavengers, ravens are also effective hunters that sometimes use cooperative techniques. Teams of ravens have been known to hunt down game too large for a single bird. They also prey on eggs and nestlings of other birds, such as coastal seabirds, as well as rodents, grains, worms, and insects. Ravens do dine on carrion and sometimes on human garbage.

In winter, common ravens may gather in flocks to forage during the day and to roost at night. During the rest of the year, they are often coupled, or in small groups. Ravens are believed to mate for life. They build large, stick nests in which females lay three to seven eggs each spring. Both parents care for their young, which remain dependent for several months.

Common ravens typically vocalize with a croaking sound, but they boast a wider repertoire of calls.

Ravens are the largest passerine (perching) birds in North America. They were once exterminated as pests thought to constitute a threat to game birds and domestic animals. Today, populations are expanding, and the birds are a familiar sight across the Northern Hemisphere from the icy Arctic to the Mediterranean and in urban areas as well.

The Greatest Predators

Genius Bird

High-Velocity Falcon

Flying Devils

Africa's Birds

Animal Winter Games

Gorilla Fight

Kangaroo Boxing - Attenborough

Ground Squirrels tease a Cape Cobra

Nutters - the monkey production line

Sex Change