environment
clock | January 28, 2010On Tuesday I went to the monthly pizza lunch at Sigma Xi, featuring a guest lecture by Dr. David B. Eggleston, Professor of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Science at North Carolina State University and the Director of Center for Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST).
I posted a brief summary of the talk on the Science In The Triangle blog.
emjohnson | January 28, 2010As I wrote yesterday in my piece for The Huffington Post, the history of Western financial involvement in Haiti has been one of growing the nation's textile industry despite the fact that 70% of Haiti's annual income comes from agriculture. By emphasizing programs such as HOPE and HOPE II, the United States has increased the profits of American companies, but the livelihood of Haitian workers has decreased at nearly the same rate.
[A] 2009 report by the Congressional Research Service found that "assessments of the effectiveness of Hope I, however, were disappointing." Since 2004 Haitian…
mikethemadbiologist | January 26, 2010It's always seemed to me that nuclear power would have to be part of the solution of the global warming problem: even if the planet's population were to remain constant, and even if planet-wide energy use were to remain steady, we would still have to dramatically cut CO2 per capita emissions. The problem with nuclear power--or more accurately, uranium-based nuclear power--is the waste product. Not only is radioactive waste produced, but the byproducts of the reaction can be used to build nuclear weapons. So I was very intrigued by this Wired article about thorium-based nuclear power:
When…
grrlscientist | January 26, 2010tags: Story of Stuff, environment, pollution, climate change, global warming, recycling, social commentary, cultural observation, planned obsolescence, perceived obsolescence, fashion, advertizing, social psychology, streaming video
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental…
milhayser | January 25, 2010
Robert Burns wrote that the best laid schemes of mice and men go often askew, but Tokyo railway planners seem to have arranged things just right. Ed Yong on Not Exactly Rocket Science reports that Japanese researchers are exploring "better network design through biological principles," by setting a "slime mould" cell loose on an in vitro model of the greater Tokyo area. Food sources in the wet dish simulated nearby cities, and slime-repellant light approximated mountains and other natural barriers. As the cell grew, latching onto food sources and refining its connections, it settled into…
cagapakis | January 25, 2010There's a funny article over at H+ magazine called "Get Naked: It's Good for Your Brain," telling us exactly that:
Clothing is crushing us! Trapped in tomb-like textiles, we exile our flesh from experiencing the environment. We atrophy the majority of our epidermis. If you put a plaster cast on a broken arm, the skin starves for Vitamin D; muscles weaken due to strangled range of motion; nerve synapses depress to a whimper of their former joy. Twenty-first century hominids shroud the entire skin palette, obliterating symbiosis with the planet except via face, neck and hands. (Burqa-clad…
revere | January 25, 2010While I work on my monster grant proposal -- I and my colleagues have been working on it for 9 months, but with the deadline only 3 months away it is time to turn the volume up to 11 -- blogging may be light or brief. But posting something is an excuse to take a break and surf the web a bit, so that's what you'll be getting for the next 3 months. After that I'll probably check into an institution with no internet access to be sedated.
Yesterday I read on Medgadget that AccuWeather is selling an iPhone app to alert users of weather-associated health events in 16 locations:
Do you suffer from…
clock | January 24, 2010Our first 2010 American Scientist pizza lunch is scheduled for noon, Tuesday, Jan. 26. at Sigma Xi in Research Triangle Park. No doubt you've heard about the many forces degrading coastlines. This time we'll hear from someone intimately involved with the challenges of conserving and restoring North Carolina coastal ecosystems, especially oyster reefs. That would be David Eggelston, a marine biologist and director of the Center for Marine Science and Technology at N.C. State University.
American Scientist Pizza Lunch is free and open to science journalists and science communicators of all…
grrlscientist | January 24, 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…
emjohnson | January 24, 2010Image: Idiot Box / Matt Bors
And now, of course, Robertson and his Christian Broadcasting Network can interpret geological events as well. On January 13, just a day after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the reigning televangelist explained why God hates Haitians:
And, you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you will get us free from the French." True story.…
sastyk | January 21, 2010...you just gotta love The Onion. Not only is it a lazy-ass blogiste's best friend, providing amusing commentary when you just can't get a post up, but it also does a lovely job of illustrating the scope of our ecological problems now and again. You'll enjoy this one.
"It's not like I don't care, because I do, and most of the time I don't even buy bottled water," thought Missouri school teacher Heather Delamere, the 450,000th caring and progressive individual to have done so that morning, and the 850,000th to have purchased the environmentally damaging vessel due to being thirsty, in a huge…
j7uy5 | January 19, 2010Susanne Sternthal, a writer based in Moscow, has published an article
about the ecology of stray dogs. The article is in Financial
Times, of all places. Why is that?
href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/628a8500-ff1c-11de-a677-00144feab49a.html">Moscow's
stray dogs
By Susanne Sternthal
January 16 2010 00:04
...They also acted differently. Every so often, you would
see one waiting on a metro platform. When the train pulled up, the dog
would step in, scramble up to lie on a seat or sit on the floor if the
carriage was crowded, and then exit a few stops later. There is even a
website…
jstemwedel | January 18, 2010Session description: Debris in the North Pacific Gyre received unprecedented attention in 2009 with voyages from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, Project Kaisei, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Each voyage integrated online outreach into its mission, but emphasized very different aspects of the problem. What are the challenges of creating a major outreach effort from one of the most isolated places on earth? How can scientists, journalists, and educators balance "exciting findings live from the field!" with "highly preliminary unpublished non-peer-reviewed data that our…
gregladen | January 18, 2010Miriam Goldstein of The Oyster's Garter will now be blogging at Deep Sea News.
Miriam is the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch researcher featured here.
Bookmark DSN. Interesting things will be happening.
grrlscientist | January 17, 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 | January 10, 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 | January 6, 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: TONIGHT at 700pm
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 too! (must be 21+ with ID)
What strange new species lurk beneath? Join Museum Curator Melanie Stiassny, an ichthyologist who has been featured on The…
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…
pharyngula | January 5, 2010Tragic news from Portugal: thousands of dead octopuses are washing up on the beaches. Not only is it sad news for the cephalopods, but it tells us that something unpleasant is going on out there in the sea. Unfortunately, no one knows what just yet.