environment
mikethemadbiologist | July 26, 2007I don't mean that as snark. It's a serious question. Suburbanization has to be one of the greatest human influences on the environment. So I was intrigued by this statement by Ross Douthat about suburbanization (bold Douthat, italics mine):
But I don't think we should make "rebalancing in the direction of urbanism," as Matt puts it later in his post, a major policy goal; I think suburbia is a great (maybe the great) American socioeconomic achievement, whose virtues far outweigh its vices, and that using the levers of government to encourage families to leave the suburbs would represent a…
scientificactivist | July 21, 2007Another example of Bush Administration political interference in science came out in October 2006, when it was discovered that Julie MacDonald, the deputy assistant secretary of the interior for fish and wildlife and parks (a political appointee), had actively censored scientific information and inappropriately elevated industry concerns to prevent new additions to the Endangered Species list. MacDonald resigned in May 2007, and now the Interior Department is reviewing eight of her decisions. As The New York Times reports today, these are likely to be overturned:
The Interior Department…
j7uy5 | July 21, 2007Someone
(Jim) at
rel="tag">Motley
Fool linked to the last LED lighting post.
Apparently he tracks the Cree Inc. stock. Anyway,
he linked to a site that has more information on the
href="http://www.lumecon.com/imsa_led_street_lighting_article.html">Ann
Arbor LED
street light project.
Part
of their interview with one of Ann Arbor's asistant managers, Mike
Bergren:
Q.:
The test site has been up for awhile. What are the results of this
experiment?
A.:
Let's talk about the cobra head first. We are getting excellent reports
that we don't have any light trespass. LED lighting is…
pharyngula | July 19, 2007Back when I was a youngling, I read a very exciting series of science-fiction novels called The Deathworld Trilogy, by Harry Harrison. The premise was that there was this horrifically fierce planet in the galaxy, with gravity twice Earth-normal, constantly erupting volcanoes, and savage, ravenous beasts that were out to destroy anything that moves. The humans who settled there became heavily muscled with lightning-fast reflexes and a militaristic society that provided some of the best soldiers in the universe. Now that is the setting for old-school science-fiction.
The genre isn't dead! I…
pharyngula | July 19, 2007Tim Lambert shows that you can't even eat at your daughter's wedding rehearsal dinner without being accused of raping the planet. Although it turns out that the meal was from sustainable stocks, and the loudest complainers are always the ones who are busiest doing the boom-boom-chicka-wow-wow with the planet already.
mikethemadbiologist | July 19, 2007The Boston Globe reports that the Charles River swim race might be canceled because of cyanobacterial blooms. Again. So why is this happening? Phosphorous levels are too high:
Blue-green algae are not true algae, but cyanobacteria. They are usually present in amounts so small they are harmless, but can undergo exponential growth spurts when exposed to nutrients contained in contaminants such as lawn fertilizer and Canada goose droppings that wash into waterways.
State and federal environmental officials suspect that this year's bloom is occurring now because of optimal conditions for growth…
voltagegate | July 16, 2007At least they're letting some students finish up before they pull the entire rug out from under them:
The beleaguered Savannah River Ecology Lab hopes to remain open - but with vastly reduced staff and resources - through the end of the year due to commitments that require some scientists and graduate students to fulfill obligations associated with research grants.
"One of our main concerns right now is with these students," said Whit Gibbons, a senior ecologist and University of Georgia professor who has spent decades at the Aiken County lab.
The university, he said, has agreed to support…
voltagegate | July 13, 2007A "green" art show just opened up in Lexington titled "HOT: Artists Respond to Global Warming", where area artists wanted to "participate in the conversation about climate change" through their works.
The objective of the show was to go beyond the informational and factual aspects and allow the artists to become true evaluators of the world around them, she said. The results include numerous media -- pottery, sculpture, oil paintings, watercolor paintings, fabric, and multimedia. The exhibit is laid out clearly, taking visitors from the immediately accessible depictions of global warming to…
clock | July 11, 2007There is a new piece of information regarding the mammal vs. bird controversy in Chernobyl:
Brightly Colored Birds Most Affected By Chernobyl Radiation:
Brightly coloured birds are among the species most adversely affected by the high levels of radiation around the Chernobyl nuclear plant, ecologists have discovered. The findings -- published online in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology -- help explain why some species are harder hit by ionising radiation than others.
Dr Anders Møller of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie and Professor Timothy Mousseau of the…
j7uy5 | July 11, 2007
This afternoon, I had the pleasure of hearing
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Goodman" rel="tag">Amy
Goodman interview
href="http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/about.php">Chris
Mooney about the subject of his new book,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2007/07/storm_world_tour_beginsweather.php"
rel="tag">Storm World.
It was a segment from
href="http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/11/1343232&mode=thread&tid=25">Democracy
Now! I won't trouble you with a synopsis,
you can watch/hear/read it yourself:
Listen to
href="http://play.…
voltagegate | July 11, 2007Here are two neat sites I've been meaning to link for a while. One is called The Miniature Earth, a flash vid of statistics revealing the cultural composition of humans if the world's population was proportionally reduced to 100 people. For example, of the 100, 61 would be Asian, 13 African, 12 European, 8 North American, 5 South American/Caribbean and 1 from Oceania.
The other site, BreathingEarth, projects how much CO2 is being released as we speak, country by country, factoring birth rates and death rates into the model. The census data seems to be a bit dated, but it is an interesting…
j7uy5 | July 9, 2007
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">We are most
accustomed to seeing power generation windmills on dry land, here in
the USA. In Europe, some are on land and some are offshore.
They generally are considered eyesores. Myself, I
think they are beautiful. I love to see them up on a ridge,
turning away, churning out megawatts for our energy-hungry populace.
Would I want one in my back yard? Sure. In fact,
there is a fair probability that I will put one there, if it won't
alienate my neighbors too much.
But there's the rub. Despite the fact that I think they are
aesthetically…
j7uy5 | July 9, 2007"It
won't be easy, but it is time to ask the American people to be
patriotic about something other than war."
--
title="From the ScienceBlogs Interview"
href="http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/07/exclusive_interview_with_senat.php">John
Edwards
clock | July 8, 2007Unfortunately, I will still be out of town for this, but if you are in the area on July 12th, you should go to Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh (it is in Ridgewood Shopping Center, 3522 Wade Ave.) at 7pm and meet my SciBling Chris Mooney. He is touring the country reading from his new book Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming (website).
Last year, when he was touring with the "Republican War On Science" we had a grand time at his reading/signing and afterwards we, of course, had Miller Lite (at least he had, I chose something a little more beer-like). So, mark…
j7uy5 | July 7, 2007The
term "entitlement" has garnered a strongly negative connotation in
recent years. Usually, the word entitlement is
used to refer to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, plus other
programs that provide direct assistance (Aid to Families with Dependent
Children, student aid, housing, food stamps and other nutrition
programs, and direct public assistance).
Of course, there is also a class of entitlements that do not go to
individuals; rather, they go to corporations in what is sometimes
called corporate
welfare. Admittedly, it can be
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
j7uy5 | July 6, 2007The
news article does not state specifically why it is happening, but it is
a trend over the past two years:
href="http://www.thestar.com/Environment/article/232782">Great
Lakes fish getting worse: Study
Jul 05, 2007
11:36 AM
Catherine
Porter
Toronto Star
Environment
Reporter
Toxins
that once only surfaced in big fish are making
their way down the food chain, a sign that the Great Lakes are getting
even more polluted, a new report says.
In the past two years, smaller sizes of salmon, trout and carp have
been slapped with strict consumption warnings - and some with outright…
revere | July 5, 2007I'd rather have a governor that said the right things about the environment, even if he acted to undercut his self-proclaimed goals, than one who said the most reactionary, retrograde and ignorant things. But why should I have to choose? Take Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California who has gotten brownie points for bucking the Bush administration on global warming even though he is a Republican. Maybe it says something about the rock bottom expectations we have about anything a Republican says on the environment that some progressives have praised him. But he still acts like a typical…
voltagegate | June 28, 2007The tropical dry forests of Madagascar are notoriously fragile. The plants and animals inhabiting these areas are highly endemic; 48% of the genera of plants in southern Madagascar are unique to the island. Clear cutting of these forests has escalated with the expansion of agriculture since 1970.
But to what extent? According to this paper recently published in PLoS One, recent literature on the subject has shown a less dramatic model of deforestation in the area. The researchers broaden the scope of analysis to include rates of stability and regeneration in these forests, as well as the…
j7uy5 | June 28, 2007I
really like the idea behind the Farmer's Diner. This guy,
Tod Murphy, started a restaurant that only servers food that was grown
or produced within seventy miles.
There's
an interview with him in
href="http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/272/"
rel="tag">Orion Magazine. The idea is
simple. Reduce the dependence on fossil fuel by getting all
products locally.
The ramifications are interesting.
It helps support local farming businesses, which then are able to
compete with
rel="tag">factory farming operations.
...The
Farmers Diner has also spun…
clock | June 27, 2007Here is some chemistry of bisphenol A, but what is really interesting is this article about Fred vom Saal. It is quite revealing about the way industry produces bad science in order to protect its financial interests:
"The moment we published something on bisphenol A, the chemical industry went out and hired a number of corporate laboratories to replicate our research. What was stunning about what they did . . . was they hired people who had no idea how to do the work."
Several of my grad school buddies worked on some aspect or other of neuroendocrinology, including environmental endocrine…