President of China Hu Jintao opened a massive 1,140-mile natural gas pipeline Monday that will directly connect China to gas reserves in central Asia for the first time, China's official press agency Xinhua reports. Though Monday's announcement was largely symbolic—culminating in Hu turning a ceremonial valve—the new pipeline has significant implications for China, as it now has an alternative to importing most its natural gas through Russia. 

The pipeline connects Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan to China's western Xinjiang region and will eventually reach cities like Shanghai, Guangzhau, and Hong Kong. But it isn't just an effective delivery system for up to 40 billion cubic meters of gas for 30 years (about half of what China consumes now): the pipeline represents a shift in Asian trade philosophy. Referencing the ancient Silk Road created in the Han Dyanasty to transport textiles, spices, and other goods throughout Asia, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev said the pipeline "symbolizes friendship and cooperation," the Interfax news agency reported. Nazabayev appeared with Hu and other heads of state from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan at Monday's valve-turning ceremony.

But just because the new pipeline lets China import gas through countries other than Russia doen't mean the Communist country, with its ever-growing economy and ever-expanding energy needs, isn't interested in working with Russia. Two months ago, Russian Prime Minister Valdimir Putun and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao signed a $3.5 billion natural gas deal while Putin was visiting the country.

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Some happy endangered species news this week. A California plant thought to be extinct in the wild was recently upgraded to "endangered" after being accidentally uncovered by construction workers. Apparently, they were clearing brush for road construction near the Golden Gate Bridge and a botanist driving by saw the shrub and did a double take. The Franciscan Manzanita, a pretty red-wooded shrub with dark green leaves and white clusters of flowers, was thought to have gone extinct in the 1940s when its last known habitat, a San Francisco cemetery, was moved to make way for residential development. Because the rediscovery was so unexpected, and because the little plant was right in the middle of an active construction site, its fate is uncertain as local agencies discuss how to best handle the situation. Local conservationists are hoping the federal government can protect it under the Endangered Species Act, and according to the Center for Biological Diversity, they'll need all the help they can get. The CBD yesterday filed an intent to sue the Obama administration for dragging its feet and failing to make the "required findings to determine whether 144 species warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act..."

In tangentially related news, the koala may not have much time as a non-endangered species. Besides eating only eucalyptus and battling global warming, the fuzzy little guys have another, less expected threat: chlamydia. Yes, it's true, those cute cuddly marsupials have STDs. The koala population has fallen by nearly half (to around 50,000) since 2003, and many of them died from chlamydia. The koala version of HIV is also becoming more prevalent. Research to develop vaccines for both diseases is underway, but it's uncertain how scientists are exactly going to administer them to koalas in the wild.

Follow Jen Phillips on Twitter.

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[We interrupt our Copenhagen coverage to bring you some important news about snail pie.]

Snails are different things to different peope. To some, they are garden pests. To children with allergies, they are pets. (I had one as a kid. Her name was Evita.) Still others like to eat them with butter and garlic in fancy French restaurants. And now, a Nigerian nutritionist proposes snails take on another role: nutritious pie filling for hungry Nigerians. Snails, the researcher notes, are cheap and abundant in Nigeria and many other developing nations, and they're a good source of protein, iron, and a bunch of vitamins.

Plus, they're toothsome:

Udofia and her research team baked pies of both varieties and asked young mothers and their children to try the tasty meal. Most of them preferred the taste and texture of the pies baked with the snail Archachatina marginata to those made with beef. The kids and their mothers judged the snail pies to have a better appearance, texture, and flavour.

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If you've been following developments in Copenhagen and find yourself doubting primate intelligence, check out the cephalopods, widely regarded as the smartest of the invertebrates. A new paper in Current Biology details the first scientific report of invertebrate tool use in the charismatic little octopus Amphioctopus marginatus, the veined octopus, who has a habit of carrying multiple coconut shells around (awkwardly, you'll see). This cumbersome behavior turns out to be well worth the trouble when the octopus deploys its coconut shell as a magical, instantaneous cloaking device.

I found the footage on YouTube, and although I don't speak German I can pretty well understand what they're talking about. I think.

During 500 hours of observation underwater, the Australian and Brit researchers report some veined octopuses traveling considerable distances—up to 20 meters—while carrying stacked coconut shell halves under their body, an ungainly motion the researchers call stilt walking. The only benefit of stilt walking to the ocotopus is to use the shells later as a shelter or a lair—a different strategy from a hermit crab living inside the discarded shell of a snail. The authors explain:

[The octopus behavior] highlights a key feature of widely used functional definitions of tool use—simple behaviours, such as the use of an object (or objects) as shelter, are not generally regarded as tool use, because the shelter is effectively in use all the time, whereas a tool provides no benefit until it is used for a specific purpose. This rules out examples such as the use of gastropod shells by hermit crabs, but includes situations where there is an immediate cost, but a deferred benefit, such as dolphins carrying sponges to protect against abrasion during foraging, and where an object is carried around in a non-functional form to be deployed when required.

So, if octopuses can think ahead and be prepare themselves for abstract threats and needs, why can't we?

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