Author: Organikos

Archaeoastronomy

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William Gadoury used the position of a constellation to identify the location of a possible Maya city where an anomaly, shown above in a satellite image, was observed. Further study on the ground is required to determine the nature of this feature. IMAGE COURTESY OF ARMAND LAROCQUE via NATGEO

We have shared stories about Mayans, and especially the archaeological questions surrounding them, before; and also discussed the modern region that was once the civilization’s stronghold more recently. And although we missed the original news covering this interesting hypothetical discovery by a Canadian teenager, his recent interview with NatGeo brought the aspiring “archaeoastronomer’s” ideas to light, and we certainly hope Mr. Gadoury is right about the undiscovered settlement. Below, the first reporting by National Geographic, on May 11 of this year:

For gee-whiz value, the announcement has been hard to beat: A Canadian teenager discovers a lost Maya city without even stepping foot in the Central American jungle.

Unfortunately, this “discovery” appears to be the well-intentioned, albeit faulty, result of modern Western education colliding with an ancient civilization that saw the world in a very different way.

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Greener Trucks and Buses Emerge

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Wrightspeed’s new range-extended electric powertrain can be installed as a retrofit to a standard diesel garbage truck, more than doubling mileage and lowering carbon dioxide emissions up to 68 percent.

We are all fans of electric vehicles and what they represent for a transition away from fossil fuel dependence in daily life, drastically reducing carbon emissions with transportation, and lower noise pollution. Cheryl Katz reports for GreenBiz.com about a shift to electric vehicles — not for consumer use, but commercial:

The clang of garbage cans still probably will wake people way too early in the morning. But in Santa Rosa, California, at least, the roaring diesel engine will be quiet, replaced by a silent, electric motor.

The electric garbage trucks scheduled to begin rolling there this summer may be less alluring than the sporty vehicles that engineer Ian Wright helped design as co-founder of Tesla Motors. But Wright, who left the high-end electric car company to start Wrightspeed, maker of electric powertrains for medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, is on a campaign to force large, carbon-belching engines off the road.

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Weeding and Stopping Compost Hurts Farms

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NatureNet Science Fellow Danny Karp checking on his field experiments in an organic romaine lettuce field. © The Nature Conservancy (Cara Byington)

We regularly report on innovations in agriculture, such as biofeedback and “certified transitional” ingredients, but also on tried-and-true methods like composting, or removing weeds in alternative ways. Cara Byington from The Nature Conservancy’s Cool Green Science blog reports on a recent study on nature and farmers:

A new paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology finds that two farm-based food safety practices – removal of non-crop vegetation in and around fields, and abandonment of composting – actually hurt farmers without making food safer.

“The practices are unnecessary,” said Danny Karp, lead author on the study. “Not only are they ineffective for their intended purpose, they damage growers by decreasing crop yields and pest control.”

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A Sperm Bank for Coral Reefs

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An example of a coral spawning, in this case, the species Orbicella faveolata, or mountainous star coral. Credit: Schmahl/FGBNMS

Ocean health matters to us, and the state of our corals is one of the most at-risk elements of marine ecosystems. So many species depend on coastal communities of these strange lifeforms, and with acidification and pollution of sea waters, the reefs are in danger of slowly but surely dying out. Thankfully, there are efforts underway to conserve coral in an unusual way – freezing and storing their sperm. Julie Liebach reports for Science Friday:

You’ve heard of seed banks—precious vaults that keep plant genetic material frozen for posterity’s sake. But what about coral banks?

For more than a decade, marine biologist Mary Hagedorn has been cultivating the art of carefully freezing coral sperm through a process known as cryopreservation. Her goal is to bank as many species as possible for use in future research and restoration, and to train other scientists to follow her lead.

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Sea Sonata

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Sometimes a moment of Zen is meant to be just that. In this case the ingenuity of the concept and the elegance of the execution increase the impact all the more. The sea creates random chords with this natural musical instrument as the waves push air through 35 tuned subterranean tubes set into the steps.

For a period of time some of of our team called Croatia home. This is definitely a Siren Call to return…

A Moth’s Dark Side Evolution

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A mutation giving rise to the black form of peppered moths has been discovered and is estimated to have occurred around 1820. Photo by Ilik Saccheri

The story of moth populations turning from light grey to sooty black in England during the Industrial Revolution is a popular schoolbook lesson of evolution, but an explanation for the genes responsible for the change had not been clear until now. Ed Yong reports for Nat Geo’s Phenomena blog:

In the early 19th century, coal-fired power stations belched a miasma of soot over the English countryside, blackening trees between London and Manchester. The pollution was bad news for the peppered moth. This insect, whose pale speckled body blended perfectly against the barks of normal trees, suddenly became conspicuous—a white beacon against blackened bark, and an easy target for birds.

As the decades ticked by, black peppered moths started appearing. These mutants belonged to the same species, but they had traded in their typical colours for a dark look that once again concealed their bodies against the trees. By the end of the century, almost all the moths in Manchester were black.

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Palm Oil Problems

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By now not many people who are literate and connected to global news can say they did not know that palm oil is problematic; they can only say either that they care, or do not. Knowing where your biodiesel comes from may influence what you can do about this problem:

Leaked figures show spike in palm oil use for biodiesel in Europe

Steep rise between 2010 and 2014 shows link between EU’s renewable energy mandate and deforestation in south-east Asia, say campaigners

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A forest activist inspects land clearing and drainage of peat natural forest Sumatra, Indonesia. Photograph: Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

Leaked trade industry figures show a five-fold increase in the use of palm oil for biodiesel in Europe between 2010 and 2014, providing new evidence of links between deforestation in southeast Asia and the EU’s renewable energy mandate. Continue reading →

Dare To Be Deep

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CPAWS has been around for decades, but we seem to have missed it in these pages in the five years we have been linking out to notable conservation initiatives:

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) is Canada’s only nationwide charity dedicated solely to the protection of our public land and water, and ensuring our parks are managed to protect the nature within them. In the past 50+ years, we’ve played a lead role in protecting over half a million square kilometres – an area bigger than the entire Yukon Territory! Our vision is to protect at least half of our public land and water so that future generations can experience Canada’s irreplaceable wilderness.

The Dare to be Deep initiative just came to our attention:

Every second breath we take comes from the ocean that covers 70% of our planet. The ocean also regulates the temperature of our planet, and provides us with an important source of protein and food. Continue reading →

Fourth Estate Considerations

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the_fourth_estateWhen we started this exercise, aka blogging, we wanted to keep a running tab of “things” we care about as they showed up in various news sources, and to comment on those topics as often as we could share relevant examples from our own daily activities. Community, collaboration and conservation have been the catch-all topical themes.

Depending on the news for this exercise, not surprisingly we care about the state of the news in all its business/profession dimensions. We have a particular fondness for long form written journalism, and a particular loathing for its polar opposite, whatever that might be called. Gossip-mongering, ugh. So when I first saw headlines announcing that a gossip-mongerer had suffered a legal defeat last week, I smiled at the headline but could not otherwise be bothered to read the details. That changed dramatically when I read the short item below:

How Peter Thiel’s Gawker Battle Could Open a War Against the Press

BY NICHOLAS LEMANN

Probably the most important case in American press law is New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), in which the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, made it just about impossible for a “public figure” to win a lawsuit against a news organization. Justice William Brennan, in the majority opinion, wrote, “The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a Federal rule that prohibits a public offi­cial from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood re­lating to his official conduct unless he proves that the state­ment was made with ‘actual malice’—that is, with knowl­edge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” This standard, built on in succeeding cases, made this the country with the most pro-free expression, and specifically pro-press, laws in the developed world; post-Sullivan protections extend from publications to individuals, and from libel to invasion of privacy. “Libel tourism” means looking for a pretext to sue an American publication in England or some other friendlier venue, especially if you’re a celebrity. Conversely, the purveyors of recent monster revelations, like Wikileaks, have taken pains to find American publishing partners, because the right to publish is far more substantial here than elsewhere. Continue reading →

New Marine Park in Malaysia

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A map of the new Tun Mustapha marine protected area, which occupies just under one million hectares of seascape, including more than 50 islands. Illustration: WWF Malaysia

The more protected areas for wildlife in the world the better, in our book. So we’re happy to hear that Malaysia has created a new marine park, the largest of its kind in the country, that covers a million hectares, or around two million football fields. With so many coral and fish species in the region, it’s a great step forward for conservation in an area at risk for over-fishing or poor practices like blast or cyanide fishing. Johnny Langenheim reports:

Malaysia has just established the biggest marine protected area (MPA) in the country. The Tun Mustapha park (TMP) occupies 1m hectares (2.47m acres) of seascape off the northern tip of Sabah province in Borneo, a region containing the second largest concentration of coral reefs in Malaysia as well as other important habitats like mangroves, sea grass beds and productive fishing grounds.

It is also home to scores of thousands of people who depend on its resources – from artisanal fishing communities to the commercial fisheries sector – making it in many ways a microcosm of the entire Coral Triangle bioregion, where environmental protection must be balanced with the needs of growing coastal populations.

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To Hunt a Newt

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Dr. Grant holds a red-spotted newt from Beebe Pond in Sunderland, Vt., this month. Credit Jim Cole/Associated Press

Salamanders and newts have shown up on the blog before as an important environmental health indicator, an animal family that is fun to look at and look for, and a group of species at risk due to imported/exported diseases made possible by the pet trade. From the New York Times Science section this week, we’re learning even more about these slippery amphibians:

Warren Pond in southern Connecticut, bordered by shady oaks and maples, is a lovely place to fish for bass or sunfish. Or, if the mood strikes you, to hunt the Eastern red-spotted newt.

Why one would want to hunt newts is a valid question. But for Evan Grant, who was stalking the banks of Warren Pond this month, scanning the water through polarized sunglasses, the answer is that many species of salamander in the United States, including the newts he was seeking, may be on the brink of a deadly fungal assault, much like one that has devastated some frog and toad populations worldwide.

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Have Biocompass, Will Travel

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A huge variety of animals seem capable of reading Earth’s geomagnetic field. The question is how they do it. ILLUSTRATION BY NATALIE ANDREWSON

From the New Yorker website, the beginning of an answer to a question we ponder every so often:

HOW DO ANIMALS KEEP FROM GETTING LOST?

By M. R. O’Connor

Every three years, the Royal Institute of Navigation organizes a conference focussed solely on animals. This April, the event was held southwest of London, at Royal Holloway College, whose ornate Victorian-era campus has appeared in “Downton Abbey.” For several days, the world’s foremost animal-navigation researchers presented their data and findings in a small amphitheatre. Most of the talks dealt with magnetoreception—the ability to sense Earth’s weak but ever-present magnetic field—in organisms as varied as mice, salmon, pigeons, frogs, and cockroaches. This marked a change from previous years, Continue reading →

Support Edible Utensils, Reduce Plastic

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Click the image above to go to the video on this new company’s page at Kickstarter, and then scroll down if you want to pre-order items to support the mission:

Eat your utensil and prevent waste at its source! 

Bakeys is launching the world’s first edible cutlery line made of three flours: rice, wheat, and sorghum. Help us change the way we eat and think about waste!

And we understand how important it is to be able to provide delicious cutlery that can be eaten by anyone. We are already fully vegan, preservative free, trans fat free, dairy free and operate on principals of fair trade. We have put a focus on bringing up the following certifications within the following year: Continue reading →

It’s Not About The Bees’ Knees

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Scientists say bumblebees can sense flowers’ electric fields through the bees’ fuzzy hairs. Jens Meyer/AP

Thanks to National Public Radio (USA) for this small scale science lesson:

Bumblebees’ Little Hairs Can Sense Flowers’ Electric Fields

The fields bend the hairs and that generates a nerve signal, scientists say.

Flowers generate weak electric fields, and a new study shows that bumblebees can actually sense those electric fields using the tiny hairs on their fuzzy little bodies.

“The bumblebees can feel that hair bend and use that feeling to tell the difference between flowers,” says Gregory Sutton, a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. Continue reading →

If You Happen To Be In New York

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A horseshoe crab. Brian Harkin for The New York Times

Thanks to a Nature essay in the New York Times, timed to be read over the Memorial Day weekend typically associated with the beginning of summer in the USA, a reminder of one of the joys of the season (at least on the Atlantic coast of the USA) just beginning:

Time for Horseshoe Crabs and the Shorebirds That Love Them

By DAVE TAFT

Humans may be quick to judge, but only one horseshoe crab can ultimately gauge the loveliness of another. When these crabs appear on a beach — suddenly and in large numbers — they can seem fearsome and even malevolent, and that’s before you glimpse beneath their intimidating, pointy-tailed carapace at a mouth set in the center of 12 madly churning legs. Beauty, in this case, is in the compound eyes of the beholder: Horseshoe crabs each have a total of 10 eyes, through which they obviously find one another appealing. These trilobite relatives have been attracting mates successfully for well over 400 million years. Continue reading →

Everybody Wants To Rule The World

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rexfeatures_4272778a_web-487x800Logic, even if it seems to be missing much of the time, provides a set of rules by which the world can at least make more sense. It may not always help one rule the world, but it helps understand some of the rules of the world. Mr du Sautoy’s idea here is akin to the one we make, and link out to from time to time, about the value of liberal arts education for the sake of learning how to think and communicate clearly:

If I ruled the world: Marcus du Sautoy

Understand Euclid’s proof and ban people from saying “I’m bad at maths”

by Marcus du Sautoy

If I ruled the world, the first thing I would do is to make sure that everyone understood Euclid’s proof that there is an infinity of prime numbers. To some people that might seem like a strange suggestion, so let me explain. In itself, Euclid’s proof is not particularly useful for anything. But what it shows is the power of analytical thinking and the magic of mathematics. Continue reading →

Musical Ecology

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Hopkinson Smith playing the German theorbo built for him by Joel van Lennep. Photograph by Philippe Gontier/Courtesy of Hopkinson Smith

When a musician of this talent dedicates his life to mastery of instruments that keep an old tradition alive, we take notice. When he describes  J.S. Bach as a recycler, we understand in a fresh context the value of this concept that we tend on these pages to relegate to the reduction of waste. Recycling is also about adaptation, evolution, improvement (thanks to Harvard Magazine):

HOPKINSON SMITH ’70 describes J.S. Bach as a musical ecologist. “He recycled so many of his own works,” Smith explains. “He never stopped trying to adapt what he’d written.” It was an accepted musical practice at the time, but one imagines the composer was driven at least in part by pragmatism: his posts in a number of German cities required him to produce new compositions at a fierce pace. Refashioning musical materials helped him keep up with those demands. “Even so,” Smith adds, “writing a cantata a week would not have been a manageable task for the rest of us mortals.” Continue reading →

Glen Canyon Dam to be Removed?

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The Glen Canyon Dam, on the Arizona-Utah border, as seen in the documentary “DamNation.” The efficiency of the dam has dwindled. Credit Ben Knight/Patagonia via NYTimes

Dams are a recurring theme on this blog, probably due to their strong effect on their environment and on the people around them. Last week, Abraham Lustgarten, a writer on climate change, energy, and water, among other issues, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times considering the possibility of “Unplugging the Colorado River”:

WEDGED between Arizona and Utah, less than 20 miles upriver from the Grand Canyon, a soaring concrete wall nearly the height of two football fields blocks the flow of the Colorado River. There, at Glen Canyon Dam, the river is turned back on itself, drowning more than 200 miles of plasma-red gorges and replacing the Colorado’s free-spirited rapids with an immense lake of flat, still water called Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reserve.

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Bees, Art, Action

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The artist Terence Koh recently installed a single-occupancy “bee chapel” upstate, left; at right, the chapel has been reconstructed in a modified form at Andrew Edlin Gallery on the Bowery.From left: Stewart Shining; Olya Vysotskaya

The New York Times has a story currently that would interest anyone aware of the crisis related to bees and other pollinators; it helps if you also see art as a worthy tool of engagement for addressing complex major challenges facing the planet, and humanity; have a read either way:

An Art World Provocateur Returns to New York With an Unexpected Subject: Bees

By KEVIN McGARRY

“Good afternoon,” the elusive artist Terence Koh said over the phone earlier this week. He’d called to discuss his new show, which opened at Andrew Edlin Gallery over the weekend. “I’m inside the bee chapel. I’m lying down and looking straight up at the ceiling. They’re really busy today because it’s sunny.”

The Beijing-born, Canadian-raised enfant terrible was once the poster boy of aughts excess — a decade ago, he gold-plated his own feces and sold them at Art Basel for about a half-million dollars; he also once, rather infamously, told T, “I am the Naomi Campbell of the art world.” But the past few years have brought a different turn: He discontinued his gallery representations and, in 2014, moved to a mountaintop in the Catskills. The relocation was widely construed as a ceremonial retirement of sorts, but Koh insists the opposite: “I never had any intention of quitting the art world, I just moved to a different part of the world,” he says. “It was something that happened naturally.” He has since lived peacefully in what he describes as a personal Eden dusted with goldenrod and apple trees. In the branches of one, he built a hut and called it a “bee chapel,” which would become the titular heart of his new exhibition. Continue reading →