environment
gregladen | March 26, 2010This is a petition for you to sign.
The world once again failed to protect Atlantic bluefin tuna, and the United States must act now to protect them in our waters. Send your comment now!
Last week, the United States voted for a proposal to prohibit the international trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Doha, Qatar. Unfortunately, the CITES proposal failed. Without an international trade prohibition, protections for depleted Atlantic bluefin in U.S. waters are critical. ...
Go HERE, read more, and…
grrlscientist | March 25, 2010tags: Max-Planck Institut für Biophysik, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Quaken Crocus, flowers, nature, environment, image of the day
Quaken Crocus.
Max-Planck Institut für Biophysik, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 March 2010 [larger view]
This morning, at the Max-Planck Institute, I photographed some cheerful flowers; brilliant red petals, each with a lemon yellow base .. tulips, I believe, but the lighting was all wrong, so I could not capture what I wished to share with you. I shall return soon to try again. But this "miss" does provide me with the opportunity to…
grrlscientist | March 24, 2010tags: Max-Planck Institut für Biophysik, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Moosblüten, flowers, nature, environment, image of the day
Moosblüten.
Max-Planck Institut für Biophysik, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 March 2010 [larger view]
I was walking around at the Max-Planck Institute today, enjoying the spring weather and saw these tiny moss flowers growing in the lawn. The grass has not yet awoken, but the moss was happily growing on the moist earth. I wish you were here with me today, to see these tiny flowers with me.
ejohnson | March 22, 2010When we think of our planet's water, we usually think of the vast saltwater oceans that contain 97 percent of it. But the other three percent is equally important to ecosystems and to life as we know it: freshwater found above ground in lakes, rivers, and ponds, and underground in aquifers and streams.
World Water Day was designated by the U.N. General Assembly in 1992 to call attention to issues surrounding freshwater around the globe. This year, with the theme "Clean Water for a Healthy World," World Water Day organizers hope to bring the concepts of wastewater management and water…
grrlscientist | March 21, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My piles 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 | March 20, 2010
A shark conservation documentary and lesson plan, made by David Shiffman of Southern Fried Science.
esiegel | March 19, 2010It's a question of whether we're going to go forward into the future, or past to the back. -Dan Quayle
This is my last day writing before my spring break begins, and I'm hoping for some great weather as I prepare to head to the Oregon coast. Warm weather, clear skies... I can picture it now. In my dreams, it looks something like this.
It makes me think about global warming, the greenhouse effect, and whether this is really cause for concern or not.
On one hand, it's definitely true that heating the planet up by even a few degrees will have catastrophic effects on our sea levels as the ice…
esiegel | March 17, 2010I have this one little saying. When things get too heavy just call me helium, the lightest known gas to man. -Jimi Hendrix
Hendrix is almost right: helium is the second lightest gas known to man, behind hydrogen. But there are many applications for helium -- both scientific and non-scientific -- that make it incredibly useful and practical. Helium is far lighter than air and is inert, which means it won't combust when you combine it with air and energy, like Hydrogen does (below).
(Too bad for the kids who want hydrogen balloons for their birthday parties!)
In addition to being lighter than…
grrlscientist | March 16, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Tulpe, tulip, nature, environment, image of the day
Tulpe.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
grrlscientist | March 15, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Krokus, crocus, nature, environment, image of the day
Krokus.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
This crocus image doesn't capture the purple-ness of the blossom, but I do like the contrast between sharply focused stamens and the softly focused petals.
gregladen | March 15, 2010I am annoyed with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
I'm annoyed for a lot of reasons that I won't go into now, but mainly for one aspect of this problem: The idea of a mat of solid garbage extending across a portion of the Pacific Ocean that is the size of Europe (or whatever) is startling. It is the kind of thing that attracts attention, brings people to the table to discuss and consider conservation issues, and makes people want to be more aware of the environment, and to do something positive.
But, when people find out that there is no Pacific Garbage Patch, that they've been lied to by…
grrlscientist | March 14, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Tulpe, tulip, nature, environment, image of the day
Tulpe.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
grrlscientist | March 14, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
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 by me and published here for your information and…
grrlscientist | March 13, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, PalmenGarten Blüte, flowers, nature, environment, image of the day
PalmenGarten Herz.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
gregladen | March 13, 2010Plastic in the oceans is probably a problem, but it is probably not the problem you think it is.
For one thing, it is not as big a problem as deforestation, and I am unhappy that we hear a lot more about the Pacific Garbage Patch than we hear about deforestation these days. For another thing, a lot of the anti-Garbage Patch rhetoric is going to blow up in our faces when it is discovered that you can't even see the garbage patch. Seriously. If you could see it, there would be pictures of it somewhere in the video I provide below. All of the pictures of garbage floating around in this video…
grrlscientist | March 12, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, PalmenGarten Blüte, flowers, nature, environment, image of the day
PalmenGarten Blüte.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
Here's another pretty flower blossom that I photographed growing in the lawn at PalmenGarten. The flower resembles a buttercup but I am certain it's a different species .. can you tell me what it might be?
grrlscientist | March 11, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Baumrinde, tree bark, nature, environment, image of the day
Baumrinde.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
emjohnson | March 11, 2010 Coca-Cola sucks India dry. Image: Carlos Latuff / Wikimedia CommonsThe marketing executive who came up with Coca-Cola's popular slogan in 1908 most likely never expected it would be taken so literally. However, a hundred years ago there probably weren't many who imagined a term like "water wars" could exist in a region that experiences annual monsoons.
On February 25 a complaint was filed in the New York Supreme Court against the The Coca-Cola Company alleging that they knew about and sought to cover up human rights abuses in Guatemala. While that trial gets started,…
grrlscientist | March 10, 2010tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, flower porn, nature, environment, image of the day
Fern Blatt.
PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 24 February 2010 [larger view]
revere | March 10, 2010Why do I think that this will end badly? From the UK:
Japanese knotweed was first introduced as an ornamental plant in the 19th Century. But with no natural enemies in the UK it soon raged out of control, wiping out surrounding wildlife and even destroying buildings. The invasive species, that can grow up to 13ft tall and break through concrete, causes around £150 million worth of damage every year.
Gardeners tried starving it of water, soaking it in toxic weedkiller and simply just ripping it up, but nothing worked - until now.
A tiny insect called a psyllid, about the size of a grain of…