environment
clock | October 19, 2008About half have already been posted:
#27: Brachiopods
#26: Pig Butt Worm
#25: Crawling Crinoids
#24: Tube Worms
#23: Dumbo Octopus
#22: Xenophyophores
#21: Phronima
#20: Swimming Sea Cucumbers
#19: Black Devil Anglerfish
#18: Venus Fly-trap Anemone
#17: Tripod fish, Bathypterois
#16: Chaunax, the red-eyed gaper
#15: Spookfish, Rhinochimaera pacifica
#14: Alviniconcha, the Hairy Vent Snail
Keep checking for others....
grrlscientist | October 19, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that 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 published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird…
revere | October 18, 2008Here's some public health man-bites-dog news. George Bush's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did something right:
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday set stringent new standards for airborne lead particles, following the recommendations of its science advisers and cutting the maximum allowable concentrations to a tenth of the previous standard. It was the first change in federal lead standards in three decades.
[snip]
The new standards set the limits for exposure at 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter of air, down from 1.5 micrograms, and well within the outer limit of 0.2…
grrlscientist | October 16, 2008tags: fiddler crabs, marine life, photography, Image of the Day
Fiddler crabs, photographed at Bolivar Flats, Texas,
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 22 August 2008 [larger view].
Nikon D200 ,Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/500s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
grrlscientist | October 12, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that 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 published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird…
edyong | October 10, 2008
The twenty-first century is having a troubled infancy. Eight years in and it is facing the twin perils of climate change and a looming energy crisis. Solutions to both are in high demand and many research dollars and pounds are being channelled into developing environmentally-friendly, renewable resources.
Biofuels - the product of living things - certainly fit the bill, being both renewable and biodegradable. But there is always a catch. Currently, biofuels are mostly a matter of harvesting single crops grown on fertile soils such as corn or sugarcane or waste products such as straw.…
revere | October 10, 2008The health concerns about bisphenol-A (BPA), a component of hard polycarbonate plastic, has been extended once again (see here, here, here for previous posts on BPA). BPA, a ubiquitous contaminant of human bodies, leaches from water and baby bottles, the lining of tin cans, dental sealants and many other sources. BPA also looks a lot like potent hormones, like estradiol and the synthetic estrogenic agent, diethylstilbesterol (DES), the cause of transplacental carcinogenesis in humans. So there have been plausible concerns that BPA might increase the risk of cancer in humans, especially in…
grrlscientist | October 5, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle bird pals, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will…
revere | October 2, 2008Scientists have been using genetic data to estimate when species first appeared for some time. The basic idea is to use differences between species and a guess as to how fast sequences change as a molecular clock, running it backward until they show the same sequence. The same trick can be done with viral genetic information. If you know the genetic sequence of a virus at one point in time and then at a later time you can make an estimate of how fast the clock is ticking. An analysis along these lines has just been done with a newly found lymph node sample from Kinshasa (Democratic Republic…
revere | September 30, 2008A fascinating paper in CDC's journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases has more details on a problem we first mentioned, on the basis of news reports, back in June. It's about a possible relationship between West Nile Virus infection and the mortgage crisis, but the paper also gives a dramatic example of how the physical, biological and social environment can affect disease patterns and risks in populations.
Infection with West Nile Virus is primarily a disease of birds. It is transmitted from bird to bird by mosquito bites and the disease is maintained by the cycling between birds and mosquitoes…
grrlscientist | September 29, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle bird pals, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will…
gregladen | September 22, 2008Members of the Public: Now is your only chance to comment on Minnesota's new Science Standards. My suggestions: Take out the woo, dampen down the special interests, and please, consider NOT removing biology from the High School standrds!!!!!
To comment, go to this web site and read the context, the standards, and use the resources available there. And/or visit one of the public meetings listed on that site.
Overall the standards are probably an improvement on prior standards. A few questions to consider:
Looking at these standards, it seems as though High School Biology has been removed…
grrlscientist | September 21, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle bird pals, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will…
pharyngula | September 20, 2008John McCain made some pleasant noises about supporting science in his Science Debate 2008 responses. They were outright lies, however. If you want to get pissed off at a politician, read the analysis of McCain's voting record on environmental and alternative energy issues. His voting record is nearly indistinguishable from James Inhofe's — he has routinely either skipped out on crucial votes or voted against renewable energy and environmental conservation.
And it's not just the environment! If you want to be really frightened, read what he said about health care:
Opening up the health…
purepedantry | September 18, 2008A recent report questions the wisdom of an outright ban on bushmeat sales:
The report from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), based in Bogor, Indonesia, suggests instead that the bushmeat trade should be regulated, with hunting allowed for relatively common, fast-reproducing species such as duikers (a small antelope) and rodents, whereas endangered species, such as primates, should continue to be protected.
CIFOR is one of 15 international research centres funded by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research -- a partnership of governments,…
j7uy5 | September 17, 2008Within the past few days, I've noticed quite a few bloggers and news
writers make comparisons between the hurricanes and the financial
meltdown. It just occurred to be that there is another facet
to this analogy. This has to do with a very real problem that
has been stirred up, literally.
In addition to the analogy noted above, another analogy that I've been
seeing is to liken innovative financial products to toxic waste, as in
this Bloomberg article:
href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=home&sid=aW5vEJn3LpVw">Banks
Sell 'Toxic Waste' CDOs to Calpers,…
grrlscientist | September 14, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle bird pals, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will…
j7uy5 | September 12, 2008There have already been several posts about
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091100263.html">hurricane
Ike on Scienceblogs (
href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/09/ike_texas.php">1
href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/09/ike_friday_pm_texas_as_categor.php">2
href="http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2008/09/hurricane_ike_storm_surge_in_p.php">3
href="http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2008/09/hurricanes_bad_scenarios.php">4
href="http://scienceblogs.com/deepseanews/2008/09/hurricane_websites_getting_coo.php"…
j7uy5 | September 10, 2008Probably everyone has seen it by now, but the NYT has a headline about
the "culture of ethical failure" at the Department of the Interior.
In a way it is not news; I, among others,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2006/08/culture_of_corruption_part_ii.php">wrote
about it two years ago.
Back then, I referred to it as a culture of corruption. Now,
the
department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, has expanded
that.
Instead of a culture of corruption, it is now a culture of complete
ethical failure. Corruption is only part of it.
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/…
clock | September 10, 2008From SCONC:
Monday, Sept. 22
5:30 - 7:00 PM
Lecture: "Hot, Flat and Crowded"
New York Times columnist and Pulitzer-Prize winning author Thomas Friedman will discuss his new book on the technology needed to address the energy and climate crisis and how America can be a leader in the "Green Revolution."
Information: Karen Kemp 919-613-7394
Page Auditorium, Duke