The most rare U.S. species of bumblebee, last seen in 1956, has turned up once again in the White Mountains of south-central New Mexico. Called “Cockerell’s Bumblebee,” this prized pollinator is known from an area of less than 300 square miles, giving it the most limited range of any bumblebee species in the world. “Most bumblebees in the U.S. are known from dozens to thousands of specimens, but not this species,” entomologist Douglas Yanega said in a press release. He is part of the University of California, Riverside, team that identified the three newest specimens of Cockerell’s Bumblebee. Collected on weeds along a highway north of Cloudcroft, New Mexico, on Aug. 31, 2011, these new bees bring the known total to 36. Any story about bees surviving in the wild is uplifting news in light of the well-documented decline of bees worldwide. (DiscoveryNews.com)

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While the Glee cast has remade the 1985, “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” the stars are keeping the song’s original purpose intact — to raise money and awareness for countries battling poverty and famine, FOXToledo.com reports. The founders of the Band Aid Charity Trust, a nonprofit that supports famine-struck developing countries, first composed the song 26 years ago in support of its cause. Glee decided to commit its vocal chords to the same mission by recording its own version of the song and donating 100 percent of sales to the nonprofit, the news outlet reports. “The reverberations of this little song continue down the long 26 years since Midge Ure and I wrote it,” said Band Aid co-founder Bob Geldof, according to Hollywood.com. “It could not be more timely now that Glee with its vast global audience of young people re-introduce it to a whole new constituency who are probably unaware of the great tragedy unfolding amongst the hungry, poor and dying of Somalia as a result of drought and a bitter and pointless civil war.” Glee’s Christmas single is perpetuating the song’s long-standing tradition of inspiring people to give back.(HuffingtonPost.com)

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A veteran-to-veteran help line established six years ago in New Jersey to provide crisis counseling and prevent suicides among the state’s military service members has been expanded nationwide. With $5 million from the military this year, the Vets4Warriors peer-to-peer counseling program is open to all members and veterans of the National Guard and military reserves. Its national launch was announced Tuesday. The 24-hour-a-day help line is staffed by nearly 40 specially trained veterans. It’s administered by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey at the school’s Piscataway campus. (HuffingtonPost.com)

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An Australian man was rescued by “Superman” after he was hit by a car Saturday night. Heng Khuen Cheok, a 33-year-old emergency room doctor in Melbourne, was dressed as the Man of Steel for his bachelor party when he came upon the injured man, the Herald Sun reported. The unidentified victim, who was bleeding from the head and was semiconscious, took one look at the costume and initially wanted nothing to do with the man wearing it. Cheok, along with a friend and fellow doctor, stayed with the man until an ambulance arrived. (NYDailyNews.com)

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With the wingspan of a jumbo jet and a scooter-sized engine, the Solar Impulse is a one of a kind. Thanks to nearly 12,000 solar cells and four electrically-powered propellers, it’s the first aircraft in the world that can fly without any fuel — day or night. The 63-meter wide, 1,600 kilogram plane is already a record breaker, staying in the air for 26 unbroken hours in 2010. But it’s about more than just flying, says pilot Andre Borschberg. “We want to show what can be done with these technologies,” Borschberg said. “We can keep our quality of life but reduce our energy consumptions, reduce our dependency on oil and nuclear energy.” (CNN.com)

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Asbai Ramirez had toiled for months as a U.S. soldier in Iraq. But it was his 7,000-mile trip home — racing against the clock to his wife’s bedside, for the birth of their baby — that he described Monday as “pretty intense.” The Army specialist told HLN’s Vinnie Politan that the tight timetable and sheer distance led him to believe that his chances were slim of joining wife Ashleigh Ramirez in Fort Polk, Louisiana, before their child was born. “He’s doing fantastic,” the soldier said of his son. “I couldn’t ask for a better gift than to have him healthy and here with me.” (CNN.com)

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In a lot of ways, Justice Pate, 12, is like other kids his age. He draws, acts, sings, swims, loves animals and anime, and wants to play baseball in the spring. That certainly fits: he said his mother, Sherina Pate, named him after former Atlanta Brave David Justice. But one single act stands this Stone Mountain resident and DeKalb School of Arts student apart not only from his peers, but many adults: without hesitation, he jumped in a swimming pool and pulled up a young child, saving him from drowning. Justice was recently recognized by DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis, the Board of Commissioners and others for his bravery over the summer in getting the 7-year-old out of a hotel pool in Bridgeton, Missouri, near St. Louis. Justice has received medals, police patches, and commendations from DeKalb and Bridgeton. (stonemountain.patch.com)

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Over the next three years, one million tonnes (1.1 million tons) of the liquefied gas will be pumped approximately 7,000 feet (1.3 miles, 2.1 kilometers) beneath the surface. “Establishing long-term, environmentally safe and secure underground CO2 storage is a critical component in achieving successful commercial deployment of carbon capture, utilization and storage technology,” said Chuck McConnell, Chief Operating Officer for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy, in a press release. (DiscoveryNews.com)

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Call it a two-for-one special in renewable energy. A new concept for marine solar cells could harness energy from both the sun and the waves at the same time. “They work on many different levels. They can be scaled up to as big a project as you want it to be,” said British designer, Phil Pauley. His design calls for floating dome-shaped solar cells to be linked together in web-like patterns. Wave energy will be captured as the buoyant floats bob up and down in the water, Pauley said. Waves will also act like mirrors to bounce sunlight back on the floating cells and increase solar capture by 20 percent, he estimated. The type of photovoltaics that would cover the domes hasn’t been specified yet. “The wave force will be moving the domes up and down, which in turn will be moving the bars that connect the cell, which will be creating energy 24-7,” Pauley said. The plan is for that energy to then go into storage units until it’s needed. (DiscoveryNews.com)

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For five long years during World War II, Nahum Korenblum never left the side of his younger brother Yaakov as the two fled the Nazi invasion of Poland, escaped forced labor camps across Europe and ultimately joined the Soviet Red Army. There, they were separated and dispatched abroad, never to meet again. On Thursday, more than a decade after they died, their children were united at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial thanks to a recently uploaded family photo discovered on its comprehensive online database of Holocaust victims. It was just the latest successful byproduct of the memorial’s database, established years ago as a means of commemoration aimed at gathering the exact names of all the 6 million Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide. But since the database went online in 2004, it has become a powerful genealogy tool that has led to hundreds of emotional reunions of long lost families. (ABCNews.com)

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Last week, Mayor Bloomberg and his administration announced plans to close access to shelters for thousands of vulnerable homeless New Yorkers, by implementing new bureaucratic barriers to enter the shelter system. The Coalition for the Homeless and its allies are leading the legal fight against these dangerous new barriers. I am honored to contribute a small part to ending this epidemic and supporting the Coalition’s efforts, by participating in the Robert Rauschenberg’s inaugural ‘Artist as Activist’ Print Project. The project champions Rauschenbergʼs legacy of using art as a vehicle for social and political change. In carrying forward his tradition, the Foundation has chosen the Coalition for the Homeless as the beneficiary for the pilot year of the project. I created an original print for the project — The Future Is Unwritten. The work evolved from several points of inspiration. Visually, the piece takes cues from the idealized styles of Art Nouveau and Art Deco. These art movements just proceeded, and crossed into, the Great Depression, an era that saw a tremendous social aid effort under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A limited series of 100 prints of The Future is Unwritten was printed using Rauschenberg’s original print equipment in his studio in Captiva. Prints are available for sale through Artnet Auctions, at http://www.artnet.com/auctions/shepard-fairey-prints-sale-for-charity. (HuffingtonPost.com)

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This chinstrap penguin was one of eight born this summer and raised at New York’s Central Park Zoo. The zoo has been keeping a blog on the chicks’ progress. (Julie Larsen Maher/Wildlife Conservation Society) (AbcNews.com)

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Sky watchers will have two good times Thursday and Friday night to view this year’s Leonid meteor shower in the USA.Though the meteors can be viewed all night long, on both days, just around midnight and at around 3 a.m. local time, those who stay up should be rewarded with the best view of the rain of falling stars if it’s not cloudy. Though the annual shower will be less spectacular than in some years, “the Leonids are pretty famous for having a good number of bright ones,” says Ben Burress, staff astronomer at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland. (UsaToday.com)

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Ukraine has called for an end to the killing of stray dogs ahead of the Euro 2012 soccer championship next summer, bending to pressure from Western critics. Thousands of stray dogs have been killed in Ukraine over the past year, often poisoned or injected with illegal substances, in an apparent effort to clean city streets of strays ahead of the prestigious sports event. That has caused outrage from local and international animal protection groups. The Environment Ministry said Thursday it has urged all the country’s mayors to stop euthanizing dogs ahead of the June soccer matches and build animal shelters instead. (HuffingtonPost.com)

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Coming from a musical family, Nykaza, who grew up in the area and graduated from Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, always sang in choirs and with her father, Thomas O’Connell, one of the founders of the Greater Chicago Food Depository. He also instilled the love for service in her, she says. Years later, Nykaza, now 57, combined her two passions to found Harmony, Hope and Healing, non-profit organization that collaborates with social service agencies and community-based organizations in the Chicago area to help people “find their voice” through the pain and heartache that results from addictions, incarceration, homelessness, abuse and being cast out of society. “We are a creative and therapeutic music program offering dignity and spiritual healing to homeless and underserved women, children and men in the Chicago area,” said Nykaza. (evergreenparkpatch.com)

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