'How do I introduce my partner to my parents?' That is the question Jonah Batambuze always gets from Asians who contact him. So he has started running workshops to help couples prepare for tricky introductions. He is the founder of Blindian Project, an online platform celebrating black and Asian relationships. He says anti-black racism within the South Asian community can be the biggest challenge for couples.
Unlike the more than 30 species of oceanic dolphins, the South Asian River Dolphin is unique, or "tremendously bizarre" as Smithsonian marine mammal fossil curator Nicholas Pyenson puts it. The species has been found to be a close relative of the modern South Asian River Dolphins, only found in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The Indus River Dolphin, with the Ganges River Dolphin, are the two sub-species of South Asian River Dolphins, which are considered modern-day relatives of the new fossil find, Arktocara yakataga. This skull of Arktocara yakataga was found within the Smithsonian's paleobiology collection, which holds 40 million specimens.
Conservationists are trying to save South Asian vultures from extinction by creating areas free of vulture-killing drugs. The push to create these vulture-safe zones comes more than a decade after populations of three species of South Asian vultures plunged thanks to diclofenac, a veterinary painkiller toxic to the birds. White-rumped vultures were once the most common vultures on the Indian subcontinent, numbering more than 10 million. Now, there are just 10,000 left. Numbers have plateaued, thanks to a ban on diclofenac and efforts to make the ban stick inside these vulture zones.