Mammal and Human Migrations
An important paper about the migration of mammals and humans was recently published by Julien Louys and Patrick Roberts of Australian National University in Nature. They state the forests of the early Pleistocene had given way to Savannah by the middle Pleistocene in the area between Malaya and Borneo. This led to the influx of grazers and the extinction of browsers. Savannahs were then replaced by forests which allowed for humans and other rain forest adapted species. Homo erectus, which followed the Savannahs, became extinct. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2810-y
The Demak Sultanate
The Demak Sultanate was the first Muslim entity on Java island. Established in the late 1400’s by Muslim traders, the area was thought to have been founded by Raden Patah or Jin Bun in Chinese records. Chek Ko Po is another name and he is thought to have Chinese ancestry. He gave himself the name of Sultan. The Sultanate last until 1554. One must careful with the Wikipedia designation as anyone can post there. https://en.wikipedia-on-ipfs.org/wiki/Demak_Sultanate.html
Monitor Lizard
The earless monitor lizard was long thought to be a poisonous animal. It lives only on the island of Borneo, along rain forest river banks. It hides in burrows, under logs and rocks. Recent research examined the mandibular gland by micro-tomography and the teeth by the electron microscope. They have determined that the classification “venomous” no longer applies to the lizard. From Toxicon 181 2021 p.73-78
Fungus Plant
A new species of plant that obtains its food from fungus has been discovered here in Sarawak. Named Sciaphile atra it is a parasite of the fungus. https://www.biotaxa.org/Phytotaxa/article/view/phytotaxa.472.3.6
Kuching Crime
The Kuching property crime occurs during festivals and school holidays. This leads to property crime when people are shopping, leaving for their hometown or travelling on vacations. The report indicates the area around the Gita police department was a major hot spot for crime. Cold spots include both Santubong Police Departments. The report is published in the Malaysian Institute of Planners vol.18 #4 2020 p. 1-11
Sarawak Olive
Dabai (Canarium odontophyllum) or also known as ‘Sarawak olive’ is one of the potential indigenous seasonal fruits commonly found in Sarawak. Due to its high nutritional contents, it has wide potential to be marketed locally and exported internationally. Dabai is very delicate and highly perishable. The shelf life of dabai is usually 3 days when stored in room temperature (27°C). There is very little research to determine shelf life and how to package it. The report is in theAdvances in Agricultural and Food Research Journal https://doi.org/10.36877/aafrj.a0000126https://doi.org/10.36877/aafrj.a0000126
Rural Readers
Rural readers in libraries in areas with a low literacy rate usually want literature in Bahasa Malaysia, a report in the Geograpfia stated. Most of the readers are female and read between 2-5 books per week. Findings also stated that more libraries need to be established in the rural areas to foster a reading culture. https://doi.org/10.17576/geo-2020-1604-15
Orchids
There are about 4,000 species of orchids in Malaysia. Many are in danger of extinction due to logging and the internet trade. Malaysia has developed an information system for facts about orchids. They have also written seven books. Sarawak has written one book about the “limestone orchids”. The report, Orchid Conservation Initiatives is available at https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202011.0656/v1
Crocodiles in the Kanowit Area
Batang Rajang is the longest river in Sarawak and is located in Central Sarawak. The river is also the busiest with boats loaded with logs, sand and people sailing out to the South China Sea. In a recent survey, which included the Sungai Kanowit and the Sungai OI, only four crocodiles were spotted during a night time count. This was reported in the Aquatic Science Colloquium 2016.
Hate Speech
There were three waves of hate speech on the Internet during the Covid virus, Geografia the Malaysian Journal of Society and Space reported. The first targeted mainland Chinese (I guess because here Covid 19 started). The second one was defending the umnah because of Tabligh was a large cluster which caused a significant number of infections in the early period of Covid while the third accused the Rohingyah and other immigrants for causing the infections. The article states it was statements made by the political leaders which caused the hate speech. http://ejournals.ukm.my/gmjss/article/viewFile/44470/11456
New Damsel Flies
Two new species of damsel flies were made known to the western world. Found at a stream called Bukit Nygo near small brown water pool and another species was discovered above a small stream on oil well trail #22. They have been sent to Natural Biodiversity Center at Leiden in the Netherlands. https://www.mapress.c
