environment
mikethemadbiologist | January 7, 2007...but Lindsay still kicked ass* with getting NYC to take the problem of illegal advertising seriously. Well done.
*For some reason the ScienceBlogs Blogerator is becoming the Blog Censor as it won't allow certain things to be posted. Here's the link.http://www.nypress.com/19/48/news&columns/feature.cfm
sarahdasher | January 5, 2007Since moving to New York, I've been having trouble breathing. Is city air pollution to blame?
Source: European Space Agency.
The above image shows atmospheric nitrogen dioxide concentrations worldwide. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is a mainly man-made gas, produced by the usual suspects: power plants, transportation, industry, and biomass burning. Lightning in the air, and microbes in soil, also create nitrogen dioxide.
The map clearly exposes some of the world's known worst offenders--the East Coast megalopolis, London, Beijing--as well as some surprising pockets near Johannesberg and Eastern…
ksharpe | January 5, 2007
New maps put out by the National Arbor Day Foundation, depicting plant "hardiness zones" that gardeners use as a guideline for figuring out which species they can plant, and how early, shows evidence of real climate change in the United States over the past 15 years.
Has your region changed?
Don't miss the Foundation's animation of the migrating zones.
sarahdasher | January 4, 2007Calculate your CO2 emissions by plane, train, or automobile.
Here's a puzzler for the greenhouse gas enthusiasts among you:
According to this calculator, car and airplane emissions even out over progressively longer trips, despite the obvious weaknesses of an as-the-crow-flies methodology (see above; we're driving through Lake Erie). Is this trend real? Is there actually a distance at which it's less polluting to fly than drive?
Here are some sample results...
New York to Detroit:
0.236 tons CO2 from driving
0.275 tons CO2 from flying
0.206 tons CO2 from travel by rail/bus
New York to St.…
grrlscientist | January 2, 2007
White-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus, fawn
found sleeping next to a hiking trail at Foley Mountain
near Westport, Ontario.
Image: Bev Wigney.
Happy Holidays to everyone.
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, amigos bonitos, and I am overwhelmed by the beauty of these images and the creatures and places depicted. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format) that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me, along with information about the image and how you'd like it to be credited.
.
tags: deer fawn, biology
grrlscientist | January 1, 2007Scientists are predicting that 2007 will be the hottest year ever recorded, due to the combined effects of El Niño and global warming. As a result, they predict that Indonesia will probably experience drought while California will receive excessive rain;
The warning, from Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, [UK] was one of four sobering predictions from senior scientists and forecasters that 2007 will be a crucial year for determining the response to global warming and its effect on humanity.
Professor Jones said the long-term trend…
clock | January 1, 2007Food From Cloned Animals Safe? FDA Says Yes, But Asks Suppliers To Hold Off For Now:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued three documents on the safety of animal cloning -- a draft risk assessment; a proposed risk management plan; and a draft guidance for industry.
The draft risk assessment finds that meat and milk from clones of adult cattle, pigs and goats, and their offspring, are as safe to eat as food from conventionally bred animals. The assessment was peer-reviewed by a group of independent scientific experts in cloning and animal health. They agreed with the methods…
clock | December 30, 2006
Why burn or recycle when zoo animals love them - some eat them, some play with them, but they are certainly not wasted.
Hat-tip: Russlings
clock | December 29, 2006John Edwards Identifies Global Warming as a Priority in His Presidential Campaign:
John Edwards has clearly made global warming a prominent part of his campaign at least at this early stage and has met one of the criteria (#2) that I identified. By including it as one of the issues he has chosen to highlight in his announcement for president, he is saying to voters that he takes the issue seriously and is implicitly promising to take action if he is elected. By my criteria John Edward's campaign is off to a good start on global warming. I hope he continues to talk about global warming at his…
grrlscientist | December 23, 2006Bears have stopped hibernating in the Cantabrian Mountains of Spain, and instead, spend their winters wandering around, expending valuable energy by eating nuts, acorns, berries and chestnuts.
This is interesting because I thought that bear hibernation was a circadian (daylength) event rather than an environmentally-dependent event, but this shows that the trigger for hibernation is more complex that I supposed.
Bears have stopped hibernating in the mountains of northern Spain, scientists revealed yesterday, in what may be one of the strongest signals yet of how much climate change is…
grrlscientist | December 22, 2006How much do you want to bet that the employees won't be getting any of this savings in their Christmas stockings this year?
A federal judge has given petroleum giant ExxonMobil a break on its pay out for the Valdez spill, according to a breaking report from the Associated Press.
The news agency is currently reporting that a federal appeals court halved the $5 billion awarded by a jury to Alaskans and other parties to deal with the consequences of the spill. The spill dumped tens of millions of gallons of oil in the Prince William Sound, which spread all over Alaska's coastline.
In the third…
grrlscientist | December 20, 2006
Poppies.
Orphaned Image. Please contact me for proper creditation.
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, dear readers, that I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the images and the creatures and places in them. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format) that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me, along with information about the image and how you'd like it to be credited.
.
tags: flower, poppy, flowering plant, botany
clock | December 19, 2006Apparently, I am not the only one to see a hummingbird in Chapel Hill of a species that should not be found around here. While I am quite confident that the visitor to my porch was a female Blue-throated Hummingbird, usually not found this far North, these neighbors of mine have found a Rufous hummingbird. As far as I know, the Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the only species that should be seen around here.
One individual of one species is an anecdote. Another individiual of another species is another anecdote. But if there are more and more such sightings over the next couple of years, we…
purepedantry | December 19, 2006This has to be one of the funnier press releases I have ever read, but it is also about something of environmental importance. Researchers in Australia are experimenting with marine life in coral reefs to see how to prevent weeds from taking over:
A masked marauder has emerged unexpectedly from the ocean to rescue a dying coral reef from destruction in the nick of time.
With the dramatic flair of comic-book superhero Batman, a batfish has saved a coral reef that was being choked to death by seaweed - although the fish was never previously known as a weed-eater.
Scientists at the ARC Centre…
grrlscientist | December 10, 2006
Image source.
Environmentalists want to use corn to produce ethanol as an alternative fuel, especially as we run out of fossil fuels. However, there is a growing conflict between the 800 million automobile owners who want to continue driving their vehicles and the poorest 2 billion people in the world who simply wish to stay alive.
"The grain required to fill an SUV tank could feed one person for one year," says Lester R. Brown, a MacArthur "genius grant" winner with impeccable environmental credentials.
As it is, farmers currently do not grow enough food to feed the world's population…
clock | December 7, 2006Amanda just reviewed Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma and also recently wrote a post on the same topic while under the influence of the book. I agree with her 100%, so go and read both posts.
I have read the book a couple of months ago and never found time to write a review of my own. I also remember that I finished the book on a Thursday afternoon - an important piece of information as it is on Thursday afternoons that there is a Farmers' Market here in Southern Village, barely a block from me. The first thing I did when I closed the book was to walk up to the Farmers' Market…
mikethemadbiologist | December 7, 2006...find anything the government does that works and break it. I really never thought that we would be debating lead standards:
The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation's biggest clean-air accomplishments.
Battery makers, lead smelters, refiners all have lobbied the administration to do away with the Clean Air Act limits.
A preliminary staff review released by the Environmental Protection Agency this week acknowledged the possibility of dropping the health standards for lead air pollution. The…
mikethemadbiologist | December 5, 2006I don't have an answer, but the picture asks the question quite nicely:
(from here)
pharyngula | December 4, 2006What could be worse than sharing a long border with hundreds of millions of ignorant, gun-crazed Americans? How about sharing a border with hundreds of millions of ignorant, gun-crazed, hungry Americans? Here's an evocative map for you.
That's how the primary wheat-growing region in North America will shift if global warming continues. Farming is one of those hot-button red state issues (it's perfect: show family farms to reflect traditional values, while supporting the reality, which is the corporate megafarm), yet what we have here is red state denialism working to help destroy one of…