tribute

Living Memorial: Migratory birds circling the Tribute in Lights on 9/11/13

dr. dolittle — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 17:32:26 +0000

Living Memorial: Migratory birds circling the Tribute in Lights on 9/11/13

I came across this video showing thousands of migratory birds circling the Tribute in Lights yesterday. The birds were migrating along the Atlantic Flyway and were disoriented by the lights. Other birds may have been attracted to the large number of insects and smaller birds caught up in the lights as prey (Cornell Lab of Ornithology). To reportedly help re-orient the birds and prevent exhaustion, volunteers from the NYC Audubon turned off the spotlights temporarily.

Video taken by: Shervin Pishevar

The lights are xenon searchlights in lower Manhattan arranged by artist Gustavo Bonevardi to resemble the twin towers as a tribute to the victims of 9/11.

dr. dolittle Thu, 09/12/2013 - 13:32

Tags

Life Science

9-11

9/11

artist

It isn't beautiful at all if you know about migrating bird behavior--you see beauty, I see dying warblers. They aren't attracted to insects at the lights; they are disoriented and can end up circling lights until they are too exhausted to continue and drop to the ground--a catastrophe for an animal that may have only just enough fat to make the trip to its wintering grounds. In addition, numerous birds are killed during migration by window strikes on the skyscrapers of NYC and the blinding lights probably don't help.

People track the migration over the 9-11 anniversary using radar so they know if there will be a mass movement of birds or not. This time there was an unexpected movement caused by weather. http://birdcast.info/forecast/special-analysis-tribute-in-light-11-12-s…
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/nyregion/making-new-yorks-glass-build…
http://nycaudubon.org/project-safe-flight

Dr. Dolittle needs to do more fact-checking before making assumptions. ;)

Thank you for your comments. I updated the post for clarity. While I did mention that the lights needed to be shut off to help re-orient the migratory birds and prevent exhaustion, I did not make it clear that the lights disoriented them to begin with.

As for the possibility that some birds were attracted to insects also caught up in the lights, that information was obtained from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This article also mentions a Peregrine Falcon that was spotted in the lights hunting for small warblers in 2012.

Also, notice that environmental effects on migrating birds were totally ignored in the construction of the One World Trade Center skyscraper, which will now be a gigantic reflecting mirror for birds to smash into. The effect of one building is not significant, but the cumulative effects of human disturbance on bird populations definitely are: millions of cats and dogs, habitat fragmentation and habitat destruction, insecticides reducing their food supply, and noise pollution drowning out bird territorial songs. Even the populations of some common species of birds have been in steep decline in the USA. When will we start to undo the cumulative effects rather than add to the problem?

The inherent strength (and sanity) of nature is a prevalent theme in my soon-to-be-released novel, The Book of Ash (Boxfire Press), and one that got its inspiration from 9/11. One night, not long after the attacks, I was moved by the sight of a flock of geese flying south, passing through, at times, the smoke rising from the wreckage. It made me realize that while the human world was out of order, the natural world was not – that no matter our struggles, birds, animals of all kinds, plants and fish, continue to follow an inner guide, a purer instinct. http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Ash-A-Novel/dp/1938191048

Here in my country, hundreds of thousands of migratory birds come at the seaside, and lakes. Though, the number of such migratory birds has decreased since the last decade, still Pakistan is considered as the highly visiting area for the birds coming from the Siberia in the summer season. This is the primary responsibility of industrialists that they must focus upon on ecological equilibrium so that nature remains intact, safe and protected from industrial hazards.

My guess is that CFLs will soon lose out to white LEDs. While I've switched to CFLs in several overhead recessed fixtures in the kitchen except over the stove (fluorescent light make egg yolks look odd), the costminimized designs overheat, char circuit boards, buzz, and put out electrical noise on the wiring that triggers my UPS units in my office. The economics are the only thing to love. canada goose jacket mall http://www.issseem.org/images/ugg.php?id=64

i love your blog and i think its going to my favorite!!i love viagra and cialis too!

Thank you

Remembering Paul Epstein, a Physician for the Planet

lborkowski — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:47:49 +0000

Remembering Paul Epstein, a Physician for the Planet

by Dick Clapp, DSc, MPH

My friend Dr. Paul Epstein succumbed to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on Sunday, Nov. 13, three days short of his 68th birthday. Here are some thoughts about him that I wanted to share with TPH readers. First, he was a compassionate physician who worked in low income communities early in his career. He went overseas with his wife Andy, a nurse, in 1978-80 as a "cooperante" in newly independent Mozambique. When he came back to Boston, he continued to practice family medicine while he enrolled in a master's program in tropical public health at Harvard. During this phase, he began to describe the connections between outbreaks or re-emergence of infectious diseases in response to climate change. In 1992, he attended the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. This led him to become one of the handful of physicians at the center of the evolving science of climate change and its impacts on human health.

He joined with colleagues Dick Levins, Howard Hu and others at Harvard School of Public Health to form the "New Diseases Group" that led to several publications and a popular course on global change and public health. Eventually, he became Associate Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment and began a tireless fifteen-year effort to expand knowledge about both problems and solutions to the emerging critical condition of the planet. I told him that at this point he was practicing planetary medicine.

Dr. Epstein continued to speak out, collaborate with researchers and teach about the public health consequences of the unhealthy energy choices we have made, and the urgent need to seek alternatives to fossil fuel as a primary source. He documented numerous examples in both developing and wealthy countries of human health impacts of extreme weather events and shifting climates. His book, "Changing Planet, Changing Health," released with co-author Dan Ferber in April 2011 summarizes his lifetime of work as a scientist, physician, leader and visionary thinker. One of his most recent media appearances, earlier this year, was captured in a Greenpeace memorial tribute. The world is better off because of the work he did in his career, and the young people he inspired to continue this work, but sadly he has left us too soon.

I had the privilege of knowing Dr. Epstein for 43 years, and working with him as co-author on articles, reports, letters to the editor, and colleague in public health courses at Boston University and Harvard. I also valued him as a close friend and will miss him for the rest of my life.

Update, 3/7/12: A longer remembrance of Paul Epstein, Paul Epstein (1943-2011): A Life of Commitment to Health and Social Justice, has been published in PLoS Biology.

Dick Clapp is an epidemiologist who has forty years experience in public health practice, research and teaching. He is Professor Emeritus at Boston University School of Public Health and Adjunct Professor at the U. of Mass.- Lowell School of Health and Environment. He is a former co-Chair of Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility and served as Director of the Massachusetts Cancer Registry from 1980-1989.

lborkowski Wed, 11/16/2011 - 04:47

Hello from the Past

grrlscientist — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:22:23 +0000

Hello from the Past

Richard "Dick" Davisson in the courtyard outside the physics building
at the University of Washington (2000 or 2001).

Image courtesy of Christophe Verlinde.

I have been lucky to know a lot of talented scientists while I was working my way through school. One of my very good friends (and drinking pals), physicist Richard (Dick) Davisson, was the son of Nobelist, Clinton Davisson, who won the Nobel prize in Physics in 1937. Interestingly, his maternal uncle, Sir Owen Willans Richardson, was also a Nobel prize winner in Physics (1928). Sadly for all of us who knew and loved him, Dick died in 2004 -- much too early for all of us! At that time, I'd been working on my postdoc in NYC for nearly two years and unfortunately, unemployment was rapidly approaching, so I was unable to return to Seattle to attend his memorial service. But I learned today that some of my Seattle grad school friends have been writing a Wiki about him. It is an unconventional tribute to an unconventional man.

And for those who wish to read a little more about him, here's his obituary.

grrlscientist Wed, 12/03/2008 - 12:22