Africa
grrlscientist | January 5, 2010tags: education, public outreach, SciCafe, science cafe, AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, NYC, streaming video
Who: Ichthyologist Melanie Stiassny
What: free public presentation, "Mysteries of the Congo: Exploring the World's Deepest River"
When: 700pm, Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Where: Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, American Museum of Natural History, Enter at the 81st Street (Rose Center) [directions and maps]
Cost: free, and there is a cash bar (must be 21+ with ID)
What strange new species lurk beneath? Join Museum Curator Melanie Stiassny, an ichthyologist who has been…
gregladen | January 4, 2010I had mentioned earlier that the volcanoes of the Virugna region in the Western Rift Valley (as well as other highland spots) have often been islands of rain forest separated from each other by different habitats, including grasslands and wooded savannas. this has produced an island effect that has been a laboratory for evolution, and it is likely that these forest islands (and others in the greater region of east Central Africa and western East Africa) have been the loci of evolution of many endemic species. (See Island Africa: The Evolution of Africa's Rare Animals and Plants by Kingdon…
gregladen | January 2, 2010Nyamuragira, just now erupting, is one of the numerous Virunga Volcanoes, which form a large cluster of volcanoes spanning the border of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, between Lake Ex-Edward (a.k.a. Lake Rutenzege) and Lake Kivu. The largest population center is Goma, on Lake Kivu, along the southern margin of the lava fields from these volcanoes, and made famous in recent years as the site of numerous excursions of warfare, refugee movements, and volcanic lava flows. I've written about Goma and a little about the Volcanoes in the Congo Memoirs.
Have a look at the following map:
This map is…
gregladen | January 2, 2010Mount Nyamulagira, 25km (16 miles) from the eastern city of Goma, erupted at dawn on Saturday, sending lava into the surrounding Virunga National Park.
About 40 endangered chimpanzees and other animals live in the area.
But the country's famous critically endangered mountain gorillas are said to be safe as they live further east.
source
These are very special chimpanzees. I believe I've blogged about them elsewhere, but I'll write new something about them soon.
I've driven though this range of volcanoes, and flown over them as well.
Erik has details here
eklemetti | January 2, 2010It didn't take long in the new year to get started!
Nymuragira erupting in January 2010.
Nyamuragira in the Congo erupted to start off the new year, producing explosions and lava flows. The flow are moving down the southern flank of the volcano. The eruption started with loud, concussive noises at 3:45 AM that startled rangers at the National Park that surround the volcanoes Nyamuragira and Nyiragongo. It appears that there was some part of the eruption that was either fire fountains or strombolian as the rangers describe the early events as "fire with sparks flying". The lava flows from…
razib | December 31, 2009Yeah, you read that right. Overweight and obesity in urban Africa: A problem of the rich or the poor?:
Descriptive results showed that the prevalence of urban overweight/obesity increased by nearly 35% during the period covered. The increase was higher among the poorest (+50%) than among the richest (+7%). Importantly, there was an increase of 45-50% among the non-educated and primary-educated women, compared to a drop of 10% among women with secondary education or higher. In the multivariate analysis, the odds ratio of the variable time lapse was 1.05 (p<0.01), indicating that the…
eklemetti | December 31, 2009Here it is, my attempt to recap a year's worth of volcanic events. By no means is this supposed to capture every event, but rather the highlight/lowlights and what most captivated me during 2009. I'll be announcing the winner of the 2009 Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year tomorrow.
Waimangu Geothermal Valley in New Zealand, taken in January 2009 by Erik Klemetti.
January
The year started out with a trip to New Zealand (well, for me at least) and vistas of the Waimangu Valley, formed in the 1886 eruption of Tarawera on the North Island. We were also still thinking about the late 2008…
grrlscientist | December 30, 2009tags: education, public outreach, SciCafe, science cafe, AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, NYC, streaming video
Who: Ichthyologist Melanie Stiassny
What: free public presentation, "Mysteries of the Congo: Exploring the World's Deepest River"
When: 700pm, Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Where: Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, American Museum of Natural History, Enter at the 81st Street (Rose Center) [directions and maps]
Cost: free, and there is a cash bar (must be 21+ with ID)
What strange new species lurk beneath? Join Museum Curator Melanie Stiassny, an ichthyologist who has been…
grrlscientist | December 23, 2009tags: education, public outreach, SciCafe, science cafe, AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, NYC, streaming video
Who: Ichthyologist Melanie Stiassny
What: free public presentation, "Mysteries of the Congo: Exploring the World's Deepest River"
When: 700pm, Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Where: Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, American Museum of Natural History, Enter at the 81st Street (Rose Center) [directions and maps]
Cost: free, and there is a cash bar (must be 21+ with ID)
What strange new species lurk beneath? Join Museum Curator Melanie Stiassny, an ichthyologist who has been…
grrlscientist | December 17, 2009tags: education, public outreach, SciCafe, science cafe, AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, NYC, streaming video
Since the holidays are a busy time, I am notifying you of NYC's upcoming SciCafe a little early so you can be sure to add it to your calenders!
Who: Ichthyologist Melanie Stiassny
What: free public presentation, "Mysteries of the Congo: Exploring the World's Deepest River"
When: 700pm, Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Where: Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, American Museum of Natural History, Enter at the 81st Street (Rose Center) [directions and maps]
Cost: free, and there is a…
pronald | November 18, 2009An article in the Harvard International Review by Paul Collier paints a stark view of African peasantry. Collier presents a convincing argument that for African agriculture to become more productive, it needs modern agricultural technologies and new modes of organization
(Thanks to Eric Ward for alerting me to this article).
"The poverty of African peasants is not accidental: it is intrinsic to the peasant mode of economic organization. The very features that make the peasant mode of production appear attractive to jaded members of an industrialized society also make it unproductive. Large…
eklemetti | November 5, 2009 Lava flows from the 2005 Mando Hararo eruption in Ethiopia.
Alright, I had been attempting to ignore this story because it was, well, a little uninteresting at first, but it apparently has legs so I will tackle it.
Slashdot has a post proclaiming:
'Volcanic activity may split the African continent in two, creating a new ocean, say experts. This is due to a recent geological crack which has appeared in northeastern Ethiopia.'
OK. Where do I start?
This is based on a recent study published in Geophysical Research Lettersthat found that the recent volcanism in Ethiopia is related to the active…
gregladen | October 23, 2009One day, about six thousand years ago (or more like 15 thousand ? the timing of this is disputed) a volcano in the vicinity of Mwea, Uganda blasted a huge volume of stuff into the air, covering the surrounding landscape and choking off most of the life forms living in a nearby lake. (A very nearby lake ? the current configuration of the lake suggests that the volcano may have actually been beneath the lake at the time of the eruption).
A repost
Over a very short period of time, we can presume that the land animals that would have been wiped out by this eruption returned to the area,…
gregladen | September 25, 2009The Anglo Boer War (in what is now South Africa from October 11th, 1899 to May 31st, 1902) was a turning point in European style military history. Previously, infantry would operate in large blocks that would move forward, turn and open or close ranks, and winning an infantry engagement would involve getting your columns around the side or back of the enemy's columns, or simply overrunning them head on. This worked in part because although everybody had a firearm of some kind, the firearms held few bullets, took time to reload, and were inaccurate, and since they tended to be inaccurate,…
eklemetti | September 25, 2009OK, I admit it, this was a tough one. The MVP photo wasn't entirely distinctive, but the basaltic rift volcano of Ardoukôba in this small African nation was the answer. Nice job, Anne, for narrowing down the possible locations and nailing it.
MVP Standings (as of 9/25/2009)
volcanista - 1
Elizabeth - 1
Ralph - 1
Cam - 1
Anne - 1
Ardoukôba volcano in Djibouti.
To give a little info on the volcano, Ardoukôba is a rift volcano that is part of the East African/Red Sea rift system in Djibouti. As the picture implies, the volcano is a low, broad rift extending 12 kilometers / 7.5 miles between…
gregladen | September 21, 2009This is yet another in a series of posts on falsehoods. To refresh your memory, a falsehood is a belief held by a number of people that is in some way incorrect. That incorrectness may be blatant, it may be subtle, it may be conditional, it may be simple, it may be complex. But, the unraveling of the falshoodosity of the belief is a learning experience, if it is accomplished in a thoughtful manner and without too much sophistry. In order for a falsehood to "work" as a learning opportunity it is important to define the statement in terms of the thoughts the falsehood invokes in the target…
gregladen | September 14, 2009One of the senior planners of the attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania a few years back is reported killed by US special operations troops in a raid that happened earlier today in Somalia.
Here's a link to a story with some detail, but obviously not caught up yet.
gregladen | September 10, 2009More than 200 people remain missing in Sierra Leone a day after a boat capsized, killing at least 8, police said on Thursday.
Police official Ibrahim Samura said most of the passengers onboard were schoolchildren returning from holidays in the West African nation.
more
The typical "third world" transport is overloaded. It could be a bike, a car, a truck, an airplane or a ferry. This is one of the greatest contrasts you see when you move from such a region to the US (and were not protected as a tourist often is) .... zillions of large cars driving around with one person per car is an…
gregladen | August 31, 2009Good morning and welcome to another installment of "The Falsehoods." Today's falsehood is the assertion that the poor have more babies than the rich, or that the poor just have more babies to begin with. In comparison to ... whatever.
Now, before you rush off to the Internet and find some table or graph that shows higher fertility in women of lower SES than higher SES, or a high birth rate among Nigerians, I want to acknowledge right away that such evidence is easy to find, and it is easy to take that evidence and construct the obnoxious sentence that titles this post. Yes, that is all…