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India Currents, in collaboration with bioGraphic and the California Academy of Sciences, is publishing a 3 part series on Chennai’s relationship with water. To reduce flooding and bridge droughts, India’s southern coastal metropolis is using ancient knowledge, community action, and wetlands restoration to better harness its monsoon rains.
Half the story
From a minivan on the shoulder of Old Mahabalipuram Road on the south side of Chennai, hemmed in by honking trucks and autorickshaws, we watch a painted stork (
Mycteria leucocephala) move with studied dignity through the long grasses of Pallikaranai Marsh. With each step, knee flexing toward the rear, the webbed foot closes, then spreads open again to find purchase on the soft land. As it tips toward a fish, striped white-and-black tail feathers spread, flashing a surprising red whoosh. Nearby an endangered spot-billed pelican (
ARTS
Alice in Californiland
AXIS dance revises their performance of the magical strange dance-tale of a young girl s journey. https://www.axisdance.org/
Broadway on AirBnB
Promotional-sponsored performances by a variety of talents: Tittus Burgess, cast members from
Moulin Rouge, Mrs. Doubtfire, and more, plus dance, yoga, tarot and circus classes. $10-$50. www.airbnb.com
Broadway Performers
For Broadway fans, Tony-winning performers perform new concerts, and classic shows are streamed as well. https://www.broadwayworld.com/
Different Stars
Musical show with a current theme: How do these emotions collide during time spent alone in quarantine? When James opens a box of artifacts from his first breakup, after months of self-isolation during COVID-19, he reckons with memories that haunt him of a first queer love gone awry; starring James Jackson, Jr., Victoria Huston-Elem, Danielle Buonaiuto, and Karl Saint Lucy. https://www.differentstars.live/
photo by: University of Kansas
Jeff Weinell, a KU graduate research assistant at the KU Biodiversity Institute, is lead author of a paper describing the Waray Dwarf Burrowing Snake as both a new genus and a new species in the peer-reviewed journal Copeia.
It just took a fresh pair of eyes for three preserved snake specimens to be recognized as something special and entirely new.
In 2017, graduate research assistant Jeff Weinell realized that three snake specimens in the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum had been misidentified.
He had been studying a genus of snakes called Pseudorabdion and sequencing their DNA in order to understand their evolutionary relationships. When he got the results back, however, he realized that one specimen that had been identified as Pseudorabdion did not actually fit into the genus.