Warung Bebas

Senin, 02 Juli 2012

Burung Trulek Jawa, burung langka yang kemungkinan sudah punah

     Trulek Jawa (Vanellus macropterus) adalah salah satu burung langka yang hanya terdapat ( endemik ) di Jawa. Burung dari famili Charadriidae ini pada tahun 1994 pernah dinyatakan punah (Extinct) oleh IUCN, namun sejak tahun 2000, statusnya direvisi menjadi Kritis . Meskipun begitu, hingga kini keberadaan Burung Trulek Jawa ini masih misteri masih ada atau bahkan sudah punah. Hingga saat ini yang dapat dijumpai dengan mudah hanyalah spesimennya (awetannya) saja yang disimpan di Museum Zoologi, Cibinong.


     Burung ini terakhir tercatat keberadaannya pada tahun 1940 di Delta Sungai Citarum. Mungkin karena IUCN belum mensurvei ulang semua habitatnya, dan masih ada laporan-laporan keberadaan jenis ini dari penduduk setempat, maka IUCNbelum berani menyebutnya sebagai jenis yang telah punah.
Ciri-ciri
     Ciri-ciri Trulek Jawa. Burung Trulek Jawa (Vanellus macropterus) berukuran sedang, sekitar 28 cm. Bulunya berwarna coklat keabuan dengan kepala hitam. Punggung dan dada coklat keabuan, perut hitam, tungging putih. Bulu-bulu sayap terbang hitam, ekor putih dengan garis subterminal hitam lebar. Terdapat taji hitam pada bagian lengkung sayap. Iris coklat, paruh hitam, tungkai hijau kekuningan atau jingga. Satu hal yang khas dari burung ini adalah gelambir putih kekuningan yang nangkring secara elok di atas paruhnya.


     Burung Trulek Jawa (Vanellus macropterus) hidup berpasangan di padang rumput terbuka sepanjang pantai utara Jawa Barat dan pantai selatan Jawa Timur. Makanan burung endemik ini antara lain kumbang air, siput, larva serangga dan biji-bijian tumbuhan air. Habitat Burung yang terancam punah ini sering berada di sekitar daerah berair (tepi sungai, muara sungai, dan rawa) namun tidak menyukai air. Mereka sering terlihat justru sedang bertengger di tempat kering di sekitar lahan basah seperti ranting, bebatuan, dan rerumputan.

Awetan Trulek jawa di Museum Swiss
Beberapa daerah yang diduga didiami burung endemik berstatus krisis ini antara lain:
  • Hutan Sawangan, Petungkriyono, Pekalongan (Jawa Tengah); terakhir terlihat tahun 2001 oleh Tim Komunity Forestry Pekalongan.
  • Hutan Gunung Ungaran (Jawa Tengah).
  • Taman Nasional Merubetiri, Jember (Jawa Timur).
  • Lumajang (Jawa Timur); Di sini penduduk setempat menamainya “Plirik” dan menganggapnya sebagai burung keramat lantaran terdapat motif menyerupai keris pada sayapnya.
  • Pegunungan Halimun (Jawa Barat).
Sumber: http://id.wikipedia.org

Tanda Tangan Ilmuwan dan Pemimpin terkenal di dunia

Mahatma Gandhi-PemimpinPolitikusdan Spiritual India
Barack Obama-Presiden Amerika 2009-Sekarang
Ban Ki Moon-Sekjen PBB 2007-Sekarang
Ir. Soekarno-Presiden Indonesia 1945-1967
Adolf Hitler-Pemimpin Nazi Jerman
Soeharto- Presiden Indonesia (1967-1998)




CharlesDarwin, penggagas teori evolusi
Albert Einstein

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-Presiden Indonesia (2004-Sekarang)

Sumber: http://id.wikipedia.org

Berita Bola : Komentar Pemain Italia Usai Gagal Juara

TEMPO.CO, Kiev - Perasaan sedih dan terpukul tak mampu disembunyikan para pemain Italia usai dihancurkan Spanyol di laga puncak Euro 2012, Senin dinihari, 2 Juni 2012 WIB. Sejumlah pemain mengungkapkan rasa kecewanya usai peluit akhir di Olympic Stadium dibunyikan.

Gelandang Italia, Riccardo Montolivo, mengatakan kegagalan ini akan lama membekas di hati anak asuh Cesare Prandelli. "Kalah 4-0 di final Euro, Anda tidak akan bisa bahagia. Ada penyesalan besar dan frustrasi di akhir pertandingan," kata Montolivo.

Hal senada juga diungkapkan oleh Giorgio Chiellini. Selain menyesalkan performa Azzurri yang tidak menunjukkan permainan seperti biasanya, bek milik Juventus itu juga menyebut faktor kelelahan menjadi salah satu penyebab kegagalan timnya.

"Kami sudah lelah sebelumnya, seperti yang ditunjukkan oleh cedera saya dan Thiago Motta. Sebab tidak mudah untuk pulih dalam dua hari setelah pertandingan yang ketat melawan Jerman," ujar Chiellini.

Meskipun kecewa, mereka tetap menerima kekalahan dengan lapang dada dan tak lupa juga memuji penampilan La Furia Roja. Kapten Italia, Gianluigi Buffon, misalnya. Ia menganggap Spanyol memang tim yang lebih baik pada laga itu.

"Mereka terlalu superior sehingga menyesali kegagalan mungkin tidak begitu besar. Seperti ketika Anda menghadapi kekuatan yang kuat dan kebal seperti ini, Anda dapat menerima kekalahan lebih mudah," kata kiper dari Juventus itu.

Fool Us Once, Shame on You, Fool Us Twice, Shame on Us - The Untrustworthy Pronouncements of Aetna's Former CEOs

A small tempest in the larger US health care reform teapot was produced a few weeks ago when Ron Williams, former CEO of Aetna, declared in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he no longer supported the health insurance mandate.  The "mandate" for all US citizens to buy health insurance, actually a relatively small tax that would be imposed on people without health insurance, was the central point of contention in the lawsuit before the US Supreme Court challenging the Affordable Care Act (ACA). 

Immediate Past-CEO of Aetna Ron Williams' Abrupt Change of Mind on the Individual Mandate

Williams wrote,
Soon the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. I am not a lawyer, or an expert on the Constitution. But as the chairman and CEO of a major health plan, I had a ringside seat to the entire health-care reform process. After much reflection, I have concluded that the federal individual mandate, which requires all Americans to purchase health insurance starting in 2014, will not be upheld.

On this, Williams was soon proven wrong. The Supreme Court upheld the law. However, the tempest was not due just to Williams' reversal of his former opinion, but the role he actually played in pushing his former opinion into the passage of the law, which was really far more than being a "ringside" spectator.

In an August 24, 2009 article, "Aetna's Ron Williams on Health Reform," Forbes' Dan Whelan noted,
Williams, 59, is taking a surprisingly visible role in arguing for change in the health care system. He has met with Obama a half-dozen times (he shrugs off the surname gaffe), has testified four times in front of Senate committees this year and participates in shindigs set up by the many trade groups for which he's a director.

Williams' position echoes that of the HMO industry generally: He's against a government-run plan but favors universal coverage and forcing insurers to take all comers.

As Wendell Potter, the former head of public relations for large health for-profit health insurance company Cigna, who is now a strong industry critic, put it on his blog,
Ron Williams who possibly more than anyone else had persuaded the President to reconsider his campaign pledge to enact reform without making people buy coverage from a private insurer. Candidate Obama’s reform platform differed from those of Hillary Clinton’s and John Edwards’ in only one significant way: both Clinton and Edwards embraced the mandate, which Williams was championing, first behind the scenes and then publicly, on behalf of the insurance industry. Candidate Obama said he didn’t believe it was right for people to be forced to buy something they couldn’t afford.

Williams was the industry’s most visible CEO on Capitol Hill during the debate on reform. He testified at numerous congressional hearings about how essential it was to move the millions of uninsured Americans into private health insurance plans and how an individual mandate was necessary to make that happen. He also never missed an opportunity to trash the idea of a 'public option' to compete with private insurance companies, which candidate Obama had said was essential 'to keep private insurers honest.'

Capitol Hill was not the only place Williams was frequenting during the reform debate. In an August 2009 article in Forbes, Williams was quoted as saying that he already had met with the President six times. When I called the White House to confirm that, a top aide told me it was true Williams had been there many times, adding, 'We’ve found him to be one of the more reasonable ones.'

Williams' recent seeming disavowal of the individual mandate raises the question of why anyone, much less President Obama, trusted him in the first place. After all, he was CEO of Aetna.

2001 Aetna CEO John Rowe Blamed Everyone Else for Health Care Problems

In fact, perusal of my memory, and a few file folders suggested several previous cases in which Aetna CEOs issued pronouncements that should not have been trusted.

First I recalled a meeting in 2001 at Brown during which the then Aetna CEO was honored by giving the Paul Levinger Lecture on "Good Health: Can We Afford It?" (See original Brown news release here.) My memory is that of Dr Rowe blaming just about everybody other than the for-profit health care insurance companies for health care's ills. A Brown Daily Herald article (not currently on line, Baskin B. Health care getting harder to afford, Aetna chief tells Brown U. Brown Daily Herald, November 30, 2001) recounted him blaming "cost inflation," (presumably due to doctors and hospitals), and employers, for whom "quality doesn't matter." He only allowed that insurers were to blame for not giving "better service," but not either rising costs or poor quality. I also recall Dr Rowe being treated with great respect by the audience. After all, this was a prestigious lecture.

However, his talk seemed just the least bit self-serving. If the audience had been aware of his record at the time, maybe we would have been more skeptical.

Mount Sinai CEO Dr John Rowe Extolled Merger with New York University, Jumped to Become Aetna CEO as Merger Began to Fail

By 1993, Dr Rowe was CEO of Mount Sinai Medical Center, and was seemingly at the vanguard of the movement for health care CEOs to be paid a lot. The New York Times reported that the 1993 Chronicle of Philanthropy survey showed him to be the country's best paid non-profit CEO, bringing in total compensation of over $800,000 in 1993 dollars. By 1998, Dr Rowe's big project was pushing concentration of power in health care in the form of a proposed merger between New York University Medical Center and Mount Sinai. According to the New York Times, the plan would be for Dr Rowe to become CEO of the combined entity. At the time, he said,
The advantages of merging hospitals are so great, they far outweigh any hypothetical potential negative impact.

The bond issue needed to finance the merger, however, ran into trouble by early 2000.  Soon after that, Dr Rowe seemingly demonstrated his lack of faith in it by jumping to the leadership of Aetna. It turned out, according to the Hartford Courant, Aetna's offer was just to rich to turn down.
Rowe got a $2 million sign-on bonus to leave Mount Sinai NYU Health and become chief executive of Aetna's health business, the document says. He will also get a $1.4 million retention bonus on July 3, 2001.

Both bonuses are designed to replace money that Rowe forfeited by leaving the giant New York hospital system, Aetna spokeswoman Joyce Oberdorf said.

In addition, Rowe will get an annual salary of at least $1 million and an annual bonus of $1 million to $3 million, depending on how well goals are met, under a three-year employment agreement with two possible one-year extensions.

Rowe, who already received 25,000 shares of restricted Aetna stock and options on 500,000 shares, will get another 100,000 options. The new options will be granted when Aetna spins off its health business to shareholders, or on Jan. 1, 2001 -- whichever comes first. The exercise price will be about $72.73, or whatever price Aetna stock is trading at the time if it's higher than that.

By 2001, the New York Times referred to the merger as existing "in name only." That year, the campuses resumed separate administration. The merger was officially terminated in 2008. Its failure was documented in an Academic Medicine article. (Kastor JA. Failure of the merger of the Mount Sinai and New York University hospitals and medical schools: part 2. Acad Med 2010; 85: 1828-32. Link here.)

If the Brown audience had known that the merger Dr Rowe extolled with such confidence was already failing, but that he was able to leverage his role in its development to go from the country's best paid non-profit CEO to a multi-million dollar a year insurance CEO, maybe we would have felt less guilt about our responsibility for health care's high cost, low access and poor quality.

Aetna CEO Richard Huber's Failure to "Walk the Walk"

In fact, searching through the files showed an even earlier example of an Aetna CEO talking out of two sides of his mouth.

By 1998, an American Medical News article documented the "rocky relations" between Aetna and physicians. By early 2000, Aetna CEO Richard Huber was known as "the managed care executive physicians love to hate," per the American Medical News. His departure was characterized by then American Medical News Street Smarts columnist Dr Scott Gottlieb, as partly due to how
Huber talked out of one side of his mouth about his company's obsessive quest for 'quality' health care -- while out of the other he was screaming at doctors, hospitals and drug firms about controlling costs. Yet Aetna's medical costs were still creeping up. As Richard Huber learned, you can't talk the talk if you don't walk the walk.

Summary

So the unreliability of recent Aetna CEO Ron Williams' advocacy of the "patient mandate," was presaged by similarly untrustworthy pronouncement by two former Aetna CEOs. In each case, the remarks of the particular CEO seemed more designed to promote his immediate self-interest than to provide trustworthy opinion or policy advice.

By the way, this summary should not be viewed as particularly an indictment of Aetna. I am sure I could find equally untrustworthy but self-serving pronouncements from the leaders of many other health care organizations. (Recall the visionary pronouncements of the failed and ultimately jailed CEO of the now vanished Allegheny Health Education and Research Foundation, see post here.)

The recent Ron Williams reversal should serve, however, as a stark reminder that we, meaning physicians, other health care professionals, those who study health care and health policy, policy makers, and the public at large, should be very, very skeptical about any pronouncements about health policy by top executives of health care organizations. They as a group have shown themselves to be remarkably good at doing whatever it takes to buttress their immediate self-interest, including making apparently oracular but ultimately foolish policy pronouncements.

The real question is why these pronouncements continue to be treated with reverence, if not as "visionaries,"  by health care professionals, health care and policy researchers, the news media, health care and medical journals, policy makers, politicians, and the public at large? Why has hardly anyone, besides yours truly, gone back to check the accuracy of their previous pontifications before swooning over their latest ones? Why has hardly anyone examined the accuracy of their predecessors' opinions, given that most executives these days seem to be subject to the same incentives to make things look good in the short term, and never mind the consequences?

What we really learn from Ebbeling et.al.

I think Kevin Hall's observation that the TEE's measured in the supposedly weight stable phase of this diet, that varied from an average of 140 to >500 cal/day more than the average intake pretty much negates drawing any sort of meaningful conclusions from the  Ebbeling et.al. study.  It really is a waste of time and mental energy to discuss a highly suspect 300 cal/day difference in TEE measured by state of the art methods, but highly susceptible to error as it was not measured directly.

But what can we learn from this study?  Well, as with the Biggest Loser study we learn that:
Read more »





on the way to dinner this weekend, my friend turned on her ipod and the car immediately broke into a fist pumping routine.....i had no idea what they were doing....this AM i you tubed it and it totally started my monday off right....seriously, try not to laugh!

Cikukua Lantang, Burung Khas Indonesia Timur



     Burung Cikukua Lantang sudah melekat dalam kehidupan sehari-hari masyarakat kawasan Indonesia timur. Hal ini terlihat dengan banyaknya hiasan berbentuk burung cikukua lantang berupa pahatan, cukilan, atau patung. Cikukua lantang memang merupakan burung khas daerah Indonesia timur.

     
     Panjang badan cikukua lantang dewasa sekitar 33 cm. bagian samping muka dan di depan mata cikukua lantang berwarna hitam dan tidak ditumbuhi bulu. Mata burung ini bulat dan berwarna coklat. Paruhnya yang hitam panjang melengkung dan berujung runcing. Panjang paruh itu bisa mencapai 4 cm. pada pangkal paruh, terdapat jengger yang keras.

Cikukua Lantang dalam perangko
     Bagian punggung cikukua lantang ditumbuhi bulu-bulu coklat keabu-abuan. Pada ujung bulu-bulu itu terdapat sedikit warna kehitaman. Bulu di bagian kerongkongan, leher, dan dada bagian bawahnya berwarna keputih-putihan. Sayapnya yang bewarna coklat keabu-abuan berukuran 14-16 cm. ekor cikukua lantang berukuran sekitar 13 cm. warna ekor ini sama dengan warha sayap. Panjang kakinya yang berwarna coklat gelap sekitar 4 cm. jari kakinya berjumlah 4 pada setiap kakinya. 3 jari menghadap ke depan dan sebuah menghadap ke belakang. Sebagai mana bangsa formes lainya, cikukua lantang juga menggunakan jari-jari kakinya untuk bertengger. Habitat alami cikukua lantang antara lain adalah hutan-hutan, daratan rendah, daerah tepian hutan, savana, atau diantara pepohonan disepanjang pantai.


Ini telurnya
     Jenis makananya adalah buah-buahan dan madu dari bunga-bungaan. Cikukua lantang juga memakan berbagai jenis serangga. Burung ini termasuk burung polimator yang membantu penyerbukan tanaman, karena cikukua lantang banyak hidup diantara dedaunan dan bunga-bungaan. 

     Pada saat bertelur, burung cikukua lantang membuat sarang ynag kuat di atas pohon. Sarang itu berada di ketinggian 7,5 -12 m diatas permukaan tanah. Dalam sekali masa bertelur, dihasilkan 2-3 butir telur. Telur cikukua lantang berwarna merah jambu pucat dengan bercak-bercak coklat. Burung cikukua lantang bersuara merdu. Kicauanya khas dan enak didengar. Karena itulah, burung cikukua lantang banyak dipelihara sebagai burung kesayangan

Lingkaran-lingkaran Batu di Castlerigg



Jika Stonehenge adalah lingkaran batu yang paling terkenal di inggris, Lingkaran Batu Castlerigg, di dekat Keswick, Distrik Lake, pastilah yang paling atmosferik. Bertempat di lembah terbuka diantara bukit-bukit yang berombak-ombak, bangunan megalitik ini tampak sebagai gambar kartu pos yang sempurna. 



     Lingkaran Batu Castlerigg, juga dikenal sebagai Carle Keswick atau Lingkaran Druis adalah salah satu dari yang tertua di Inggris. Bangunan ini dibangun kira-kira 3000 SM dan terdiri dari 38 batu dengan tinggi yang beraneka ragam dan ditempatkan dalam suatu bentuk yang agak oval. Batu yang paling besar tingginya lebih dari 8 kaki, tetapi mayoritasnya kurang dari 5 kaki. Meskipun batu-batu itu telah roboh, tempat ini termasuk dalam kondisi yang luar biasa baik jika dilihat dari segi umur.



     Didalam lingkaran batu-batu itu, sepuluh batu-batu yang lebih kecil ditempatkan di dalam suatu bujur sangkar dalam susunan yang disebut “Goa. Ada juga gundukan di tengah yang diduga sebagai kamar pemakaman. Akan tetai, situs ini tidak pernah digali dengan tepat, dan studi-studi arkeologis yang asal-asalan hanya menyingkapkan endapan batu-bara.

     Seperti Stonehenge, tempat itu mempunyai kualitas-kualitas yang mebuatnya cocok untuk digunakan sebagai observatorium astronomis, meskipun sebuah mata pisau batu yang kasar ditemukan di dekat lingkaran itu memberi kesan bahwa ia mungkin digunakan sebagai pusat perdagangan untuk industri kapak Neolitik wilatah itu. Ada juga legenda lokal yang mengatakan batu-batu itu tidak pernah dibangun berdasarkan suatu rancangan, tetapi sebenarnya adalah orang-orang yang berubah menjadi batu karena takut terhadap monster setempat.


Sekarang kita hanya dapat mengagumi pemandangan yang menarik perhatian atas bangunan buatan manusia yang masih awal ini yang bertempat di suatu wilayah yang memiliki keindahan alamiah yang unik.

Gambar lainya:






Sumber: dari mana-mana

Kuau Melayu, Fauna identitas Kalimantan Tengah






     Pemerintah Daerah Kalimantan Tengah memilih Kuau Melayu sebagai flora identitas daerahnya. Hal ini dilakukan dalam rangka dalam rangka memperkenalkan daerah melalui kekayaan hayatinya.

    Kuau melayu merupakan salah satu jenis burung yang berukuran besar. Selain di Kalimantan Tengah satwa ini juga terdapat di Sumatera dan Malaysia.

     Panjang burung kuau melayu dari ujung kepala sampai ujung ekornya berkisar antara 40-50 cm. pada bagian kepala jenis jantan, terdapat jambul panjang berwarna biru kehijauan. Jambul pada kuau betina lebih pendek. Kulit muka burung ini berwarna jingga kemerah-merahan. Dahi dan sisi kepalanya bergaris-garis warna abu-abu dan hitam. Pada daerah tenggorokan, bulu-bulunya berwarna keputihan. Pada kuau betina warnanya lebih putih.

      Bulu pada punggungnya berwarna coklat dengan bintik-bintik hitam. Begitu pula dengan bulu sayapnya. Panjang sayap kuau sekitar 20 cm. burung jenis ini tidak dapat terbang tinggi. Bulu penutp badan dan bulu ekornya berwarna kebiruan. Panjang ekornya rata-rata 20 cm, ekor kuau jantan lebih panjang dari ekor betinanya. 

     Habitat alami burung kuau melayu adalah hutan tropis yang lebat dan lembab. Burung ini termasuk pemalu sehingga dihabitat alaminya pun jarang terlihat oleh manusia. Kuau melayu hidup menyendiri atau berpasangan. Makananya adalah biji-bijian, dedaunan, cacing, dan berbagai jenis serangga.

     Oleh karena populasi burung kuau ini sekarang sangat sedikit, maka masyarakat, khususnya yang berada di kalimantan tengah, diharapkan ikut melestarikan satwa ini agar kelak Kuau Melayu tidak hanya tinggaal nama.

 

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