Surgeons managed to extract a gallstone from the Dalai Lama which made him suffer from abdominal pains.

Doctors established their diagnosis during a medical examination of the spiritual leader. Chhime R. Chhoekyapa commented on the surgery saying that it was a routine procedure. The Nobel prizewinner was hospitalized in New Delhi on Thursday after a medical checkup which was the second in many months. His assistants advised the 73-year-old to refrain from distant trips.

In August the Dalai Lama was taken to a Mumbai hospital to undergo an examination of abdominal cavity organs. The Tibetan leader was announced to be in good health. However his doctors said that he was in the state of exhaustion, so it'd be advisable to put off his trip to Europe.

The Dalai Lama lives in the north town of Dharmsala, where his government-in-exile is located after his escape from Tibet when Tibetans failed to withstand Chinese assault in 1959. Several months in a year he travels around the world teaching Buddhism and advocating the Tibetan culture and interests.

Rumors about the surgery agitated the whole Dharmsala as it considers the Dalai Lama a symbolic person for thousands of exiles. He is still honored although the exile community has divided between his supporters and young opponents demanding severe measures against Chinese intervention.

The exiles are extremely worried as the Dalai Lama represents the symbol of their hope and faith. If he goes, they'll surrender all hope of seeing better days in Tibet.

China launched a campaign to slander the Dalai Lama after the March uprising in Tibet. It incriminates him Beijing considering it an attempt to separate the Himalayan region from China.

The Dalai Lama repels such accusations as his only aim is to obtain greater autonomy for Tibet and to preserve its unique culture.

A new study offered a suggestion that dinosaurs called sauropods grew to enormous sizes and evolved successfully partly because they swallowed food whole without chewing it.

Sauropods can be considered the largest land animals that ever inhabited our planet as their weight reached up to 88 tons and their height was about 23 feet.

Researchers suppose that these animals grew huge in order to protect themselves from being eaten by big predators such as Tyrannosaurus rex. But the reason of their extraordinary evolution is still a mystery.

It is supposed that the herbivores which are also called plant-eaters didn’t have any teeth and gulped down their food whole. They grazed on vast territories consuming quickly great amounts of greenery. Martin Sander, a paleontologist at the University of Bonn in Germany, said that they needed long necks so they could reach food that grew high as well as a good alimentary tract to digest unchewed food. He explained that if they had to chew everything they ate their head would have a lot of teeth being too heavy for a long neck.

In order to survive sauropods needed not only to consume a lot of food, but also to advance quickly and acquire their full size before being eaten. Samples of sauropod bones prove the theory of their fast development. A 22-pound hatchling became a 220,000-pound just in 20-30 years.

Sander also said that sauropods produced a large number of offspring at a time which helped them to survive after a catastrophe. Modern mammals, such as elephants, procreate fewer offspring which increases their chances to become extinct. So why don’t gigantic elephants and crocodiles exist nowadays? Scientists consider that reptiles, such as crocodiles, continue egg-laying, but their cold blood hinders them in attaining huge sizes. As for mammals, they have warm blood, but still they can’t beome bigger as they chew their food and reproduce slowly.

Conservationists beat the alarm. They demand that illegal parrot trade in Mexico should be banned. There are 22 parrot species in Mexico, haft of which is in danger and almost all of them are under federal protection. However, every year almost 78,000 parrots are entrapped illegally. The worst thing is that these birds die before being delivered to their owners.

Environmentalists consider that the government fails to take all due measures against illegal trade and fowling of exotic birds. It’s absolutely necessary to amend Mexico’s wildlife law which will help to put an end to clandestine business. The new bill will come into force when it is promulgated in the official congressional diary which should happen by the end of October.

The defenders of exotic birds consider U.S. to be the major factor stimulating illegal sale of rare species such as the yellow-naped parrot, which inhabits just the Mexican state of Chiapas.

In general these birds are delivered to Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez situated on the border with U.S.. Yet the greatest number of parrots remain in Mexico. They are distributed among numerous markets all over the country.

The parrot trade in Mexico can be performed only within the legal term, i.e. through a federally established conservation area. According to government resolution it is allowed to capture between 3,000 and 4,000 parrots every year. Unfortunately, there is no effective mechanism that would identify legally and illegally entrapped birds. It’s especially difficult at informal markets where the only marker of a legally captured parrot is a band around its leg. Government officials manage to expropriate only 2 percent of illegally transported parrots.

Alongside this professional bird trappers also defend their rights. Many of them capture exotic birds legally in order to make their living. They think that legal bird trade should be permitted as people are glad to have an exotic bird at home.

A new research has found that bald eagles in Alaska started eating other birds instead of fish. Such a surprising diet was caused by the alterations in food chains. As scientists observed, these changes affected not only eagles, but also sea otters, urchins and kelp forests. The extinction of sea otters from the Aleutian Islands provided favorable conditions for fast reproduction of sea urchins which served as nutrition for otters.

As a consequence, the expansion of urchin population caused the consumption of underwater kelp forests. The forests gradually disappeared, making nearshore zone uninhabitable for kelp-consuming fish that was basically eaten by bald eagles.

According to the journal Ecology, the bald eagles went on a new diet eating mostly seabirds. Robert Anthony and his colleagues, who carried out the research, began gathering information about bald eagles inhabiting the Aleutian Islands in the early 1990s. At that time the number of sea otters was rather high. However, in the early 2000s their number decreased dramatically leaving just 10% of the population.  

Studying food remains in the birds’ nests the researchers observed that bald eagles prefered seabirds to fish, although some eagles still ate fish. These changes can be considered positive for bald eagles. Nevertheless, the researchers still don’t know what caused the decline of sea otters. One of the existing theories suggests that otter hunted by killer whales should be considered the main reason of their collapse.

It’s known that killer whales mainly hunt fish, but some of them hunt such mammals as sperm whales, humpbacks and fin whales. However, in the 20th century these food sources almost disappeared, forcing killer whales to hunt smaller species such as otters. 

This research shows how interrelated ecosystem links are and how easy it is to offset the balance.

The Happiness Institute proved that loving your job is absolutely necessary and one can easily learn it.

Timothy Sharp, one of the leading psychologists at the Australia-based institute, helps people not only to enjoy their working process but also to create better conditions for employees. With his help people learn to work out a positive attitude at workplace, which turns a boring obligation into a pleasant activity. Sharp also teaches organizations to keep valuable workers by creating a business-friendly atmosphere where employees feel comfortable and manage to fulfill their potential.

Sharp is often called "Dr. Happy" as he considers happiness the most necessary condition at work. People should be glad to be a part of the team, which gives them additional work incentive. Such organizations as The Happiness Institute are in great demand in Australia where companies have problems with retaining experienced employees because of low unemployment.

The disequilibrium in financial markets forced more companies to request assistance of "happiness advisors" as they need to maintain security and optimistic mood in their employees. Sharp recommends people who hate their jobs to find something positive about it and try to enjoy it. In order to feel happy at work one should learn to solve problems rather than complain about them. If your job remains unbearable, probably it is time to consider other proposals.