environment
grrlscientist | June 8, 2010tags: Graphic Depiction of Gulf Oil Spill, environment, infographic, Deepwater Horizon, BP, British PetroleumTransOcean
Below the fold (due to its large size) is an infographic depiction of the Gulf oil spill, including a timeline of the spill, the numbers of lives impacted, and last but not least, a graphic that compares this leak to others. You'll be astonished to see just how small this spill is compared to the Iraq war "spill" where more than 500 million gallons of oil were intentionally dumped into the environment. The scale of our greed is truly sickening.
Data sourced from BBC.…
pharyngula | June 8, 2010British Petroleum isn't so awful after all — it turns out that they have an almost 600 page long emergency response plan to deal with blowouts on their offshore oil wells. All the answers are in there, and I'm sure that they'll soon be implemented. You can read those plans yourself and feel the warm glow of confidence that all is in good hands.
Lists "Sea Lions, Seals, Sea Otters [and] Walruses" as "Sensitive Biological Resources" in the Gulf, suggesting that portions were cribbed from previous Arctic exploratory planning;
Gives a web site for a Japanese home shopping site as the link to…
cagapakis | June 8, 2010
In a recent conversation about the safety and ethics of synthetic biology in the wake of the announcement of the synthetic genome, many of the professors I was chatting with commented on how they hoped new synthetic biology technology would lead to bacteria that could eat the oil spilling into the gulf of mexico even as I type this right now. Of course, the "technology" for oil eating bacteria already exists and have already been used for clean up in previous oil spills--many naturally occurring species of bacteria can already break down the hydrocarbons in crude oil. The natural oil eaters…
grrlscientist | June 8, 2010tags: Care for Some Crude With Your Sushi?, toro sushi, maguro sushi, Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus thynnus, Gulf of Mexico, pollution, oil spill, Deepwater Horizon, BP, British Petroleum, overfishing, endangered species, conservation, marine biology, streaming video
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the worst environmental disaster the US has faced. Toxic oil from the Deepwater Horizon well threatens the region's sensitive shorelines and the nesting birds along the Louisiana coast. But there's another species at serious risk: the Atlantic bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus. This disturbing video…
grrlscientist | June 7, 2010tags: BP Fails Booming School 101, Gulf oil spill, political commentary, humor, outrage, political commentary, teaching, oil spill boom, Gulf of Mexico, BP oil spill, British Petroleum, streaming video
BP Fails Booming School 101, creating an environmental disaster and is failing to take the lead in cleanup. BP claims they "are prepared" to deal with such things as an oil spill -- if they are so prepared, then why is this happening? This video shows that, contrary to BP's lies about their preparedness, they actually are NOT prepared AT ALL. Unfortunately, our federal government is also…
grrlscientist | June 6, 2010tags: Dawn dishwashing liquid, television commercial, advertising, oil spill, Gulf of Mexico, BP oil spill, British Petroleum, streaming video
Experiments have shown that Dawn dishwashing liquid works best to save oiled wildlife and doesn't burn their tender skin and eyes. According to the information I've found, Dawn is donating all the detergent used to clean oiled Gulf of Mexico birds, and is also raising funds to help with the clean up effort.
Learn more about Dawn and their efforts to help save oiled wildlife [facebook group].
grrlscientist | June 6, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
~ Arnold Lobel [1933-1987] author of many popular children's books.
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited…
clock | June 5, 2010According to a new paper showing temporal and spatial patterns of migratory routes and spawning grounds of bluefin tuna, they were in the Gulf of Mexico spawning at the moment the oil well exploded and all that oil started gushing out (and then dispersed with toxic chemicals).
Nobody is fishing there now, and no professional media or amateur reporting or photography are allowed, but I am assuming some of the radiotransmitters in some of the individuals may still be operational and that data from the area, during the spill, will become available in the future.
grrlscientist | June 5, 2010tags: ecology, marine biology, conservation biology, endangered species, environmental toxicology, seabirds, marine mammals, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, journal club
Bird rescue personnel Danene Birtell (L) and Heather Nevill (R) hold an oiled brown pelican, found on Storm Island in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, that will be washed at the treatment facility at Fort Jackson, Louisiana, USA. BP has contracted bird rescue groups to rehabilitate wildlife affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The birds are examined, thoroughly washed and then allowed to…
pharyngula | June 4, 2010Visit the scenic Gulf Coast now, and catch a glimpse of nature!
They're only birds, does it matter that their suffering is immeasurable and their deaths ignominious? Surely not, not when their agony is balanced by the wonderfully elegant plumage of Washington lobbyists and oil company executives. An Armani suit must be far more divine than a feathered wing.
grrlscientist | June 3, 2010tags: Deja Vu (All Over Again), oil spill, Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, Gulf of Mexico, Trans-Ocean, Ixtac oil well blowout, BP oil spill, British Petroleum, Rachel Maddow, streaming video
There was another oilspill in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979 -- and the same corporate players involved with that spill are there now! This 1979 oilspill WAS the worst oilspill in history, until now, of course. Despite corporate lies .. erm, claims that the technology has advanced since 1979, the same identical strategies are being used now to stop this oilspill. How long did it take to stop this oil leak? NINE…
pharyngula | June 3, 2010Christopher Monckton, that pompous know-nothing who professes to be an expert on climate change and doesn't believe in it, gave a talk here in Minnesota last fall, at a little Christian college called Bethel University (which curiously has a biology department that manages to never once mention evolution in its curriculum, just to give you an idea of what it's like). That talk infuriated a professor at another Christian university — but one that doesn't try to hide away from the evidence — who has put together a rebuttal of Monckton's claims. Would you believe that essentally all of the…
clock | June 1, 2010The new forum at PRI World Science:
Listen to a story by reporter Eric Niiler, followed by our interview with Stephen Palumbi.
Our guest in the Science Forum is marine biologist Stephen Palumbi of Stanford University. He uses genetics to study whale populations.
The International Whaling Commission is considering legalizing commercial whaling by some countries, but at a very limited scale. Palumbi says that the current proposal would fail to protect endangered whale species.
You can ask Palumbi your own questions. Join the conversation. It's just to the right.
* Do you think all whaling…
pharyngula | June 1, 2010Now that will give me nightmares: the earth just abruptly opened up in a giant sinkhole in Guatemala City.
That's alarmingly random. Now I'm wondering how you repair a pothole that's a few hundred feet deep and close to a city block in diameter…and thinking that maybe I shouldn't complain so much about the state of Minnesota roads after a long winter.
pharyngula | May 30, 2010Look at this: BP knew about problems at that burning oil rig 11 months ago. They screwed up with bad decisions in the short interval immediately before the explosion, but documents have come to light showing that they were worried about "loss of control" months before the disaster — and what they did in response was to ask for delays in testing (which they got), and then they fudged the tests by using a lower pressure.
This is basically criminal misconduct. But hey, what's the point of getting upset over 11 deaths and a mere environmental catastrophe? We need the oil. Let's just help the oil…
grrlscientist | May 30, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
~ Arnold Lobel [1933-1987] author of many popular children's books.
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited…
mikethemadbiologist | May 29, 2010Having spent most of Thursday travelling from San Diego to Boston, I had the distinct displeasure of watching cable news. First point: it still sucks. But the constant theme was that Obama is on the defensive about the BP oil rig blowout. Sure, it's stupid, although I think Obama was too ready to rely on BP's expertise (eveni f you don't believe that parts of the operation could be handled by the government, then bring in other oil companies for advice).
But a problem Obama faces is that, on issue after issue, he has fallen far short of what the rank-and-file wanted (and often what he ran…
elerner | May 28, 2010For those following the progress of BP's "top kill" maneuver, whether via reports or their underwater webcam, it's hard to tell what exactly is going on. It seemed that the injection of drilling mud, assisted by the previously unsuccessful "junk shot" method (which involves shooting shredded tires into the gushing vent), has stemmed the flow of oil...but now it's even more murky. With new estimates of the amount of oil already escapes easily eclipsing the Exxon Valdez spill, we can only hope that BP doesn't have to stop and restart the process as it did last night. Fortunately, we have…
grrlscientist | May 26, 2010tags: Hazmat Dive into the Middle of the Gulf Oil Spill, Corexit, environment, Gulf oil spill, BP, British Petroleum, chemical dispersants, Philippe Cousteau Jr., Sam Champion, television, streaming video
What is the chemical dispersant, Corexit, doing to the oil in the Gulf? This video follows Philippe Cousteau Jr. and Sam Champion as they dive into Gulf's oily waters wearing hazmat uniforms. Their video shows that the oil is being broken up into tiny droplets that coat everything in their path ... birds, fish, whales, boats, the bottom of the sea and people in hazmat suits ... these small…
gregladen | May 26, 2010As the world's attention focuses on the perils of oil exploration, we present Richard Sears' talk from early February 2010. Sears, an expert in developing new energy resources, talks about our inevitable and necessary move away from oil. Toward ... what?