Army chief to visit Japan to bolster military ties

NEW DELHI: With India and Japan in the process of further cranking up their military ties across the entire spectrum, Army chief General Bikram Singh will be heading for Tokyo on a four-day visit later this month.

"The strategic-military partnership with Japan is evolving to a new level. General Singh, who will leave on February 11, will meet the Japanese defence minister, military chiefs and others to discuss ways to further strengthen bilateral ties. He will also visit some defence establishments," said an official.

The visit comes soon after India and Japan, both wary of the increasingly assertive behaviour of China and the rapid modernisation of its People's Liberation Army, held their first-ever maritime dialogue on January 29.

Ranging from joint combat exercises and coordinated anti-piracy patrols to counter-terrorism and service-to-service exchanges, India and Japan are implementing a "action plan to advance security cooperation".

The plan, which dwells upon strategic and defence cooperation as well as coordination in tackling terrorism, piracy and proliferation, is meant to reinforce the strategic focus in the "global partnership" between India and Japan, say officials.

"India and Japan have similar views on several global and regional issues like extremism, terrorism and WMD-proliferation. The two are also keen to ensure the safety of sea lanes in the Indian Ocean Region and Asia-Pacific because both depend largely on maritime traffic for their energy and trade needs," said an official.

"In addition to regular exercises being held between the Indian and Japanese coast guards, our naval warships are also conducting coordinated anti-piracy patrolling in the Gulf of Aden. We also have regular Navy-to-Navy staff talks," he added.

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Pictures We Love: Best of January

Photograph by Dieu Nalio Chery, AP

The magnitude 7 earthquake that struck near Port au Prince, Haiti, in January 2010 so devastated the country that recovery efforts are still ongoing.

Professional dancer Georges Exantus, one of the many casualties of that day, was trapped in his flattened apartment for three days, according to news reports. After friends dug him out, doctors amputated his right leg below the knee. With the help of a prosthetic leg, Exantus is able to dance again. (Read about his comeback.)

Why We Love It

"This is an intimate photo, taken in the subject's most personal space as he lies asleep and vulnerable, perhaps unaware of the photographer. The dancer's prosthetic leg lies in the foreground as an unavoidable reminder of the hardships he faced in the 2010 earthquake. This image makes me want to hear more of Georges' story."—Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

"This image uses aesthetics and the beauty of suggestion to tell a story. We are not given all the details in the image, but it is enough to make us question and wonder."—Janna Dotschkal, associate photo editor

Published February 1, 2013

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Ala. Standoff: Students Say Suspect Threatened to Kill













A brother and sister who escaped the school bus where a 5-year-old autistic boy was taken hostage by a retired Alabama trucker are speaking out about the standoff and the man who threatened the lives of the children on board.


"I look up and he's talking about threatening to kill us all or something," 14-year-old Terrica Singletary told ABC's "Good Morning America." "He's like, 'I'll kill all y'all, I'll kill y'all, I just want two kids.'"


Singletary and her brother, Tristian, 12, said Jimmy Lee Dykes boarded the bus on Tuesday and offered the driver what appeared to be broccoli and a note, before demanding two children.


"The bus driver kept saying, 'Just please get off the bus,' and [Dykes] said, 'Ah alright, I'll get off the bus," said Terrica Singletary, "He just tried to back up and reverse and [Dykes] pulled out the gun and he just shot him, and he just took Ethan."


PHOTOS: Worst Hostage Situations


School bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was fatally shot several times by Dykes.








Alabama Hostage Standoff: Who Is Jimmy Lee Dykes? Watch Video









Alabama Boy Held Hostage in Underground Bunker Watch Video









Alabama Hostage Standoff: Boy, 5, Held Captive in Bunker Watch Video





The siblings and the rest of the students on board were able to get away unharmed, but were shocked by what had transpired just five days ago.


"I never thought I would have to go through a shootout," Singletary said.


They said they had seen Dykes, 65, working on his fence, and described him as a menacing figure.


"He was very protective of his stuff," Tristian Singletary said. "Whenever he stares at you, he looks kinda crazy."


Dykes has been holed up in his underground bunker with his 5-year-old hostage named Ethan near Midland City, Ala. for five days now. Neighbors told ABCNews.com that Dykes has been known to retreat underground for up to eight days.


READ: Alabama Hostage Suspect Jimmy Dykes 'Has No Regard for Human Life'


While Dykes, who was described as having "no regard for human life," has allowed negotiators to send Ethan's medicine, as well as coloring books, into the bunker for the boy through a ventilation pipe that leads into the 6 by 8 foot subterranean hideout 4 feet underground, authorities are staying quiet about their conversations with Dykes.


While negotiations continue and it was reported that Ethan is physically unharmed, an official told the Associated Press that the boy has been crying for his parents.


Meanwhile, his peers are steadfast that he will return home soon.


"Ethan will make it out there, Ethan will make it out there," said Tristian Singletary.


ABC News' Kevin Dolak and Gio Benitez contributed to this report.



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Motor Racing: Ferrari's Alonso predicts tighter 2013 F1 race






MILAN, Italy: Fernando Alonso said on Friday the battle for Formula One supremacy could be a lot tighter this year ahead of his bid to improve on two runner-up places behind Sebastian Vettel with a maiden title for Ferrari.

Last season's world championship was remarkable for the fact there were seven race-winners in the first seven races before Alonso went toe-to-toe with Red Bull ace Vettel in a decisive, thrilling finale at Interlagos.

Vettel, the sport's youngest-ever three-time world champion (2010, 2011, 2012), finished sixth at the legendary Brazilian circuit, where Alonso was second, to beat his Spanish rival to the title by only three points.

Alonso, speaking at the launch of Ferrari's new F138 car for the upcoming season, indicated that their anticipated duel in 2013 could leave rivals trailing in their wake from the season-opening Australian GP in March.

"I think the likelihood of seeing seven different race winners in the first seven races, like last year, will be impossible," he said.

"There will be a maximum of two or three teams" battling for the title, he added, "and one of those will definitely be Ferrari."

Alonso, a two-time world champion with Renault in 2005 and 2006, joined Ferrari for the 2010 season and finished runner-up to Vettel.

He finished a disappointing fourth in 2011 but in 2012 won three times and secured a total of 13 podium places before being pipped by Vettel at the finish.

Afterwards, he said: "Next year, we will try and improve the car, trying to start further up the grid, thus avoiding accidents. Let's hope we also have a bit more luck."

The F138 - whose name represents the current year and the car's V8 engine, which will be used for the last time this season - was unveiled at Ferrari's Maranello headquarters in northern Italy on Friday.

Ferrari described it as "an evolution of last year's race-winning car, although every single part has been revised in order to maximise performance while maintaining the characteristics which were the basis of the F2012's superb reliability".

"The rear of the car is much narrower and more tapered than before," said Ferrari, although "significant modifications will be made to the car's aero package" before the Australian Grand Prix on March 17.

One major change Ferrari has made, one year ahead of schedule, is in the electronics domain with the early introduction of the single control unit that will be used in 2014.

Alonso is set to get his first taste of the F138 at a pre-season testing session in Barcelona from February 19. It means Brazilian Felipe Massa will be at the wheel for the first pre-season test at Jerez in Spain next week.

Massa, who finished seventh overall last season, believes the car is equipped sufficiently to allow Ferrari to aim for both the drivers' and constructors' titles.

"I hope it will bring the two titles to Ferrari. It's the only thing we want," he said.

Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo said last year he wants to see three-times champion Vettel race for the Italian team in the future.

But on Friday Di Montezemolo ruled out the possibility of seeing Alonso and Vettel in the same team. "Absolutely not," replied Di Montezemolo.

- AFP/de



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BJP to boycott Shinde's public programme, communication

NEW DELHI: BJP on Friday decided to boycott all public programmes of Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde and not respond to any communication from him to the party top brass in his capacity as leader of the house in Lok Sabha to protest against his Hindu terror remarks till he tenders an apology.

The decision was taken in the first core group meeting of BJP after Rajnath Singh took over as party president on January 23.

"The core group observed that Shinde's remarks have hurt Hindu sentiments and called Hindus and saints terrorists. It condemned his comments that BJP and RSS run terror training camps. The party has decided that its members and workers will boycott all public programmes in which Shinde is taking part. He will be shown black flags," BJP general secretary Ananth Kumar told reporters.

BJP will also not respond to any communication or request for meetings from Shinde to the party's senior parliamentarians, including NDA working chairperson L K Advani and leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj.

Shinde, who is leader of the house in Lok Sabha, may find it difficult to get government business through during the forthcoming budget session of Parliament if BJP does not respond to his calls for discussions on crucial issues.

However, Rajnath Singh said his party does not intend to boycott Shinde inside Parliament and will not disrupt proceedings when he rises to speak.

"But we will raise this issue (Shinde's remarks on Hindu terror) in Parliament," he said.

Significantly, this strategy of BJP appears to be a slight climbdown as the party had earlier insisted that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi should apologise for Shinde's remarks and that he should be sacked from the post of home minister.

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Will Deep-sea Mining Yield an Underwater Gold Rush?


A mile beneath the ocean's waves waits a buried cache beyond any treasure hunter's wildest dreams: gold, copper, zinc, and other valuable minerals.

Scientists have known about the bounty for decades, but only recently has rising demand for such commodities sparked interest in actually surfacing it. The treasure doesn't lie in the holds of sunken ships, but in natural mineral deposits that a handful of companies are poised to begin mining sometime in the next one to five years.

The deposits aren't too hard to find—they're in seams spread along the sea floor, where natural hydrothermal vents eject rich concentrations of metals and minerals.

These underwater geysers spit out fluids with temperatures exceeding 600ÂșC. And when those fluids hit the icy seawater, minerals precipitate out, falling to the ocean floor.

The deposits can yield as much as ten times the desirable minerals as a seam that's mined on land.

While different vent systems contain varying concentrations of precious minerals, the deep sea contains enough mineable gold that there's nine pounds (four kilograms) of it for every person on Earth, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Ocean Service.

At today's gold prices, that's a volume worth more than $150 trillion dollars.

Can an Industry Be Born?

But a fledgling deep-sea mining industry faces a host of challenges before it can claim the precious minerals, from the need for new mining technology and serious capital to the concerns of conservationists, fishers, and coastal residents.

The roadblocks are coming into view in the coastal waters of Papua New Guinea, where the seafloor contains copper, zinc, and gold deposits worth hundreds of millions of dollars and where one company, Nautilus Minerals, hopes to launch the world's first deep-sea mining operation.

Last year, the Papua New Guinean government granted the Canadian firm a 20-year license to mine a site 19 miles (30 kilometers) off their coast, in the Bismarck Sea in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The company plans to mine the site, known as Solwara 1, by marrying existing technologies from the offshore oil and gas industry with new underwater robotic technologies to extract an estimated 1.3 million tons of minerals per year.

Samantha Smith, Nautilus's vice president for corporate social responsibility, says that ocean floor mining is safer, cleaner, and more environmentally friendly than its terrestrial counterpart.

"There are no mountains that need to be removed to get to the ore body," she says. "There's a potential to have a lot less waste ... No people need to be displaced. Shouldn't we as a society consider such an option?"

But mining a mile below the sea's surface, where pressure is 160 times greater than on land and where temperatures swing from below freezing to hundreds of degrees above boiling, is trickier and more expensive than mining on terra firma.

Nautilus says it will employ three remote-controlled construction tools that resemble giant underwater lawn mowers to cut the hard mineral ore from the seafloor and pump it a mile up to a surface vessel.

That vessel would be equipped with machinery that removes excess water and rock and returns it to the mining site via pipeline, an effort aimed at avoiding contaminating surface waters with residual mineral particles. The company would then ship the rock to a concentrator facility to remove the mineral from the ore.

An Unknown Impact

At least that's the plan.

But the ocean floor is still a mysterious place, seldom visited by humans, compounding the known difficulties of working at sea.

Scientists weren't even able to prove the existence of underwater hydrothermal vents until 1977.

That year, an expedition of geologists, geochemists, and geophysicists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Oregon State University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the U.S. Geological Survey proved their existence in the Galapagos rift with cameras and a manned dive in the submersible Alvin.

The animal-rich landscape and huge temperature shifts came as a surprise.

"When the first people went down there, and saw these things, they had no idea," says Mike Coffin, a geophysicist and executive director of the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania in Australia. "The submersible had windows that could melt at temperatures lower than what was coming out of the vent."

And, in contrast to the desert-like landscape that the scientists expected, it turns out that hydrothermal vents are home to lots of life: snails the size of tennis balls, seven-foot-long (two-meter-long) tubeworms, purple octopi, and all-white crabs and skates.

It turns out that, far from the sun's life-giving light, the same minerals now eyed by the mining industry support lively communities.

Now some researchers fear that deep-sea mining could jeopardize those communities by altering their habitats before the systems have been fully explored and explained.

"We're still just grappling with this reality of commercialization of the deep sea," says Cindy Van Dover, director of Duke University's Marine Lab. "And scrambling to figure out what we need to know."

Van Dover was aboard the first manned biological exploration of the hydrothermal vents in 1982 and was the only woman to pilot the submersible Alvin. Despite the strides that have been made in understanding the deep sea, she says, it's still a young science.

When it comes to the impacts of mining on any deep-sea life, "there's a particular type of research that needs to be done," she says. "We haven't yet studied the ecosystem services and functions of the deep sea to understand what we'd lose.

"We don't yet know what we need to know," Van Dover says.

Conservationists also say they want to know more about the vent ecosystems and how they will be mined.

"The whole world is new to the concept of deep-sea mining," says Helen Rosenbaum, coordinator of the Deep Sea Mining Campaign, a small activist group in Australia that campaigns against mining the Solwara 1 site.

"This is going to be the world's first exploitation of these kinds of deep resources. The impacts are not known, and we need to apply precautionary principles," she says. "If we knew what the impacts were going to be, we could engage in a broad-based debate."

Rosenbaum says some communities in Papua New Guinea are raising concerns about the sustainability of local livelihoods in the face of mining and say they aren't receiving the information they need.

The Deep Sea Mining Campaign is especially concerned about the impacts of toxic heavy metals from the mining activities on local communities and fish. The group claims that the Environmental Impact Statement for the Solwara 1 mine hasn't effectively modeled the chemistry of the metals that would be stirred up by the mining process or the ocean currents that could transport them closer to land.

"The Solwara 1 project is scheduled to be a three-year project," Rosenbaum says. "The mining company thinks they'll be out of there before there are problems with heavy metal uptake. We might not see the effects for several years."

A report released in November 2012 by the Deep Sea Mining Campaign ties exploratory pre-mining activities and equipment testing by Nautilus to "cloudy water, dead tuna, and a lack of response of sharks to the age-old tradition of shark calling."

Shark calling is a religious ritual in which Papau New Guineans lure sharks from the deep and catch them by hand.

Another concern for Deep Sea Mining Campaign: Papua New Guinea's government has a 30 percent equity share in the minerals as part of a seabed lease agreement with Nautilus.

The company and government are currently involved in a lawsuit over these finances, but the Deep Sea Mining Campaign says government investment could compromise its regulatory efforts.

Mining for Dollars

Nautilus' Smith insists that the company has taken a careful and transparent approach. "The biggest challenge the company faces," she says, "is funding."

Fluctuations in commodity pricing, the high cost of working underwater, and financial disagreements with the Papua New Guinean government have been setbacks for Nautilus.

Last November, the company announced that it had suspended construction of its mining equipment in order to preserve its financial position. Smith says that Nautilus is still committed to finding a solution for its work in Papua New Guinea, and that the company could still extract minerals as early as 2014.

Other companies around the world are also exploring the possibility of mining throughout the South Pacific.

The International Seabed Authority, which regulates use of the seafloor in international waters in accordance with the United National Convention on the Law of the Sea, has granted 12 exploratory permits to various governments—including India, France, Japan, Russia, China, Korea, and Germany—in roughly the last decade.

And as long as the promise of riches await, more firms and governments will be looking to join the fray.

"It's economics that drive things," says the University of Tasmania's Coffin. "Tech boundaries are being pushed, and science just comes along behind it and tries to understand what the consequences are. Ideally, it should be the other way around."


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'Terrorist Blast' at US Embassy in Turkey













A suicide bomber and a U.S. embassy guard were killed in a "terrorist blast" outside the U.S. Embassy in Turkey today, Turkish and American officials said.


The explosion, which occurred at a checkpoint to the embassy in Ankara in the early afternoon local time, also wounded two other guards and at least one civilian, identified by Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler as a female journalist. She is in critical condition, Guler said.


Guler said the suicide bomber was a man and may have been connected to an outlawed leftist party, according to a report by The Associated Press.










April 18, 1983: U.S. Embassy Bombed in Beirut Watch Video







"It was a sad event, but this attack should remind us the necessity to work against terror together," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan said.


Television footage from the scene showed damage to a part of an outer gatehouse, which is adjacent to the main building.


Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), the Chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it was a "stark reminder of the constant terrorist threat against U.S. facilities, personnel and interests abroad."


U.S. officials said that Turkish police are investigating the incident.


The blast comes nearly five months after U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, was killed alongside three other Americans in an attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya.


The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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Scoot airlines to increase fleet, expand routes






SINGAPORE: Scoot, the low cost long haul subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, has flown about 600,000 passengers after seven months of operation.

This means carrying about 85,000 travellers per month.

The carrier also has a passenger load factor of about 81 per cent and currently flies to eight destinations, including Tianjin, Shenyang and the Gold Coast.

Speaking at the "world's low cost airlines" conference on Thursday, CEO of Scoot Airlines Campbell Wilson was asked if the airline will be increasing its fleet and expanding its routes to cope with the ever growing demand for low cost travel in Southeast Asia.

Mr Wilson said: "We're taking a fifth aircraft this year end of May, early June, and we'll use that to add two or three more routes to the network. In terms of partnership, currently we work most closely with Tiger Airways, they have affiliates in other countries that we would look to expand our routes to. And furthermore there are airlines outside of Singapore and indeed outside of Southeast Asia that are quite interested to work with us. But its too premature to reveal who."

Scoot has introduced ScooTV, streaming inflight entertainment for passengers, and was the first to introduce iPads for rent.

Mr Wilson said it does not add to their costs at all.

"We only introduce these where there is a business benefit to us. We target to get over 20 per cent of our revenue from ancillary products of which entertainment is one. But as well as earning us money, it also helps the passenger. It's a win-win all round," he said.

Mr Wilson also commented on Boeing's Dreamliner despite the latest safety hiccups.

"The next aircraft we take this year is a 777-200 and the ones after that are 787s. Boeing is keeping us fully informed of what's happening with the 787 investigations and rectification and we are confident in their ability to resolve the issue under the purview of the regulators, and we look forward to taking the aircraft on schedule in November 2014. We have commitment for 20 Dreamliners," he said.

Several Scoot flights were recently hit by a series of passenger complaints stemming from flight delays and alleged technical faults.

Mr Wilson said: "The challenges are real. When you have a small fleet flying high utilisation. Anything whether its a weather delay, whether its a typhoon, fog in Tianjin today or storms in Gold Coast on Monday, they do affect aircraft schedules and sometimes have consequential effects. There's no avoiding that with a small fleet, but the high utilisation of aircraft is what allows us to offer low fares, so it's a bit of a quid pro quo.

"We're very clear to people what it is that we offer, we also make no secret what it is that we give in terms of compensation. The compensation is not just S$50, it can be more ranging to a full refund depending on the circumstances.

"Clearly, unit costs is unavoidable for operating an airline, unit revenue and engagement. You can't operate a business if you don't have low cost, you can't cover those cost if you don't have decent revenue and you don't have revenue if people don't like you."

- CNA/de



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Omar Abdullah meets PM, seeks security, fund for sarpanches

NEW DELHI: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and sought assistance in providing security and honorarium to newly-elected Panches and sarpanches so that panchayati raj institutions are further strengthened.

The 42-year-old chief minister also met UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the Union home minister discussing issues related to NC-Congress coalition government in the state.

During an hour-long meeting with the PM, the chief minister discussed issues relating to strengthening of panchayat institutions, special assistance for a mono-rail or metro project for Srinagar and Jammu and assistance in power sector so that relief could be given to consumers.

The chief minister sought liberal central funding for devolution of resources to panchayats including payment of honorarium to nearly 33,000 panches and sarpanches.

"The historic panchayat elections have raised expectations of the common man in the development share of the state," Omar was quoted in an official release as saying.

On the part of the state government, transfer of functions, functionaries and funds to panchayat raj institutions is a commitment and a beginning has been made by transferring the functions of 14 departments and ensuring flow of funds, Omar told the Prime Minister.

According to the state government release, the Prime Minister assured the chief minister of active consideration of the proposals made to various Union ministries and said the Centre would continue to support the Jammu and Kashmir government in its efforts to march on the road to peace and prosperity.

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New Theory on How Homing Pigeons Find Home

Jane J. Lee


Homing pigeons (Columba livia) have been prized for their navigational abilities for thousands of years. They've served as messengers during war, as a means of long-distance communication, and as prized athletes in international races.

But there are places around the world that seem to confuse these birds—areas where they repeatedly vanish in the wrong direction or scatter on random headings rather than fly straight home, said Jon Hagstrum, a geophysicist who authored a study that may help researchers understand how homing pigeons navigate.

Hagstrum's paper, published online Wednesday in the Journal of Experimental Biology, proposes an intriguing theory for homing pigeon disorientation—that the birds are following ultralow frequency sounds back towards their lofts and that disruptions in their ability to "hear" home is what screws them up.

Called infrasound, these sound waves propagate at frequencies well below the range audible to people, but pigeons can pick them up, said Hagstrum, who works at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California.

"They're using sound to image the terrain [surrounding] their loft," he said. "It's like us visually recognizing our house using our eyes."

Homeward Bound?

For years, scientists have struggled to explain carrier pigeons' directional challenges in certain areas, known as release-site biases.

This "map" issue, or a pigeon's ability to tell where it is in relation to where it wants to go, is different from the bird's compass system, which tells it which direction it's headed in. (Learn about how other animals navigate.)

"We know a lot about pigeon compass systems, but what has been controversial, even to this day, has been their map [system]," said Cordula Mora, an animal behavior researcher at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who was not involved in the study.

Until now, the two main theories say that pigeons rely either on their sense of smell to find their way home or that they follow the Earth's magnetic field lines, she said.

If something screwed up their sense of smell or their ability to follow those fields, the thinking has been, that could explain why pigeons got lost in certain areas.

But neither explanation made sense to Hagstrum, a geologist who grew interested in pigeons after attending an undergraduate lecture by Cornell biologist William Keeton. Keeton, who studied homing pigeons' navigation abilities, described some release-site biases in his pigeons and Hagstrum was hooked.

"I was just stunned and amazed and fascinated," said Hagstrum. "I understand we don't get dark matter or quantum mechanics, but bird [navigation]?"

So Hagstrum decided to look at Keeton's pigeon release data from three sites in upstate New York. At Castor Hill and Jersey Hill, the birds would repeatedly fly in the wrong direction or head off randomly when trying to return to their loft at Cornell University, even though they had no problems at other locations. At a third site near the town of Weedsport, young pigeons would head off in a different direction from older birds.

There were also certain days when the Cornell pigeons could find their way back home from these areas without any problems.

At the same time, homing pigeons from other lofts released at Castor Hill, Jersey Hill, and near Weedsport, would fly home just fine.

Sound Shadows

Hagstrum knew that homing pigeons could hear sounds as low as 0.05 hertz, low enough to pick up infrasounds that were down around 0.1 or 0.2 hertz. So he decided to map out what these low-frequency sound waves would have looked like on an average day, and on the days when the pigeons could home correctly from Jersey Hill.

He found that due to atmospheric conditions and local terrain, Jersey Hill normally sits in a sound shadow in relation to the Cornell loft. Little to none of the infrasounds from the area around the loft reached Jersey Hill except on one day when changing wind patterns and temperature inversions permitted.

That happened to match a day when the Cornell pigeons had no problem returning home.

"I could see how the topography was affecting the sound and how the weather was affecting the sound [transmission]," Hagstrum said. "It started to explain all these mysteries."

The terrain between the loft and Jersey Hill, combined with normal atmospheric conditions, bounced infrasounds up and over these areas.

Some infrasound would still reach Castor Hill, but due to nearby hills and valleys, the sound waves approached from the west and southwest, even though the Cornell loft is situated south-southwest of Castor Hill.

Records show that younger, inexperienced pigeons released at Castor Hill would sometimes fly west while older birds headed southwest, presumably following infrasounds from their loft.

Hagstrum's model found that infrasound normally arrived at the Weedsport site from the south. But one day of abnormal weather conditions, combined with a local river valley, resulted in infrasound that arrived at Weedsport from the Cornell loft from the southeast.

Multiple Maps

"What [Hagstrum] has found for those areas are a possible explanation for the [pigeon] behavior at these sites," said Bowling Green State's Mora. But she cautions against extrapolating these results to all homing pigeons.

Some of Mora's work supports the theory that homing pigeons use magnetic field lines to find their way home.

What homing pigeons are using as their map probably depends on where they're raised, she said. "In some places it may be infrasound, and in other places [a sense of smell] may be the way to go."

Hagstrum's next steps are to figure out how large an area the pigeons are listening to. He's also talking to the Navy and Air Force, who are interested in his work. "Right now we use GPS to navigate," he said. But if those satellites were compromised, "we'd be out of luck." Pigeons navigate from point to point without any problems, he said.


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