Wildlife Crime Challenge Winners Announced

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From wildlifecrimetech.org

From wildlifecrimetech.org

Back in July we shared a story on turtle egg poaching that was part of the Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge, created by USAID with the support of the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society, and TRAFFIC. The company with the fake turtle egg idea from that article was one of the sixteen winners of the competition, but a grand prize was announced for the four “most creative and impactful” ideas offered out of those winners. The four grand prize winners were announced this weekend at the  World Conservation Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Honolulu, Hawaii. Christine Dell’Amore reports:

Every year about 10 million aquarium fish pass through United States ports, many on their way to new homes as family pets. But first, federal inspectors must leaf through mountains of paperwork on the animals, which are shipped from more than 40 countries around the world. “Until recently, the [inspectors] didn’t even have wireless access in the warehouses,” says Michael Tlusty, director of ocean sustainability and science at the New England Aquarium. Continue reading →

Ghost Snake Discovered in Madagascar

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Iconic limestone Tsingy rocks in Ankarana National Park in northern Madagascar where the ghost snake was discovered. Photo by Sarah Ruane, LSU

Last month it was Mexico, and this time it’s Madagascar – once again, a new snake species with a presumably localized distribution has been discovered in a little-explored area. The elusive and pale gray snake has likely evolved to camouflage against the rocks of the region, and was named Madagascarophis lolo (lolo meaning ghost in Malagasy) by researchers from the LSU Museum of Natural Science, the American Museum of Natural History and the Université de Mahajunga in Madagascar.

The ghost snake is part of a common group of snakes called Madagascarophis, or cat-eyed snakes, named for their vertical pupils, which is often found among snakes that are active in the evening or night. Many of the cat-eyed snakes are found in developed areas or degraded forests. However, the researchers found the ghost snake on the national park’s iconic pale grey limestone Tsingy rocks.

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Wulff & Konstali & Hygge

/ Crist Inman
Brunch

Image from the Galleri of Wulff & Konstali’s website

It is just after 10am Sunday morning in Kerala, as I type this. Maybe because brunch is associated with late Sunday mornings, or maybe because I just read Jocelyn’s post (or maybe both) my mind is wandering in the direction of food experience. While we have had (and hosted) many a fine brunch in Kerala at the moment my brunch-thinking has drifted to Copenhagen. You do not need to speak Danish to sense the hygge in the image above, or to want to experience it in the space pictured below.

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Image from the Galleri of Wulff & Konstali’s website

If you need a primer on hygge, the best place to find it is this article just published in the Guardian, which also happens to be how my attention was brought to Wulff & Konstali:

…“Hygge is when you treat yourself, it’s not that healthy, but it’s good food,” Agnete says. Continue reading →

National Park of the Week: Ergaki National Park, Siberia

/ Jocelyn Toll / Leave a comment
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Photos by Moscow based photographer, Alexander Ermolitsky

Colloquially referred to as the “Russian Yosemite,” Ergaki National Park is a mandatory stop for those who ever plan to travel to Russia, and more specifically, to Siberia. Located in the Western Sayan Mountains of Siberia, this 342,873 hectare park of steep mountain ranges and glacial streams and lakes will break your camera lens with its beauty – figuratively speaking.

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FDA Bans 19 Chemicals in So-called Antibacterial Soap

/ Seth Inman / 1 Comment

Image via The Telegraph

In my family we practically never used antibacterial hand-wash, because it wasn’t proven that they perform any better than normal soap – it was convenient sometimes to have a quick gel to clean up on the go without water, but antibacterial consumer products in the household were pretty much nonexistent. As it turns out, chemicals like triclosan, while still not proven with certainty to act negatively on human health, can persist in the natural environment for decades, including in water and soil. And that never seems like a good thing, especially when such compounds might be strengthening bacteria’s resistance to antibiotics. Monique Brouillette reports on the new US Food and Drug Administration’s ruling:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration released its decision Friday on banning 19 active ingredients in antibacterial soaps. The ruling, 40 years in the making, caps a decades-long debate over whether these germ-busting chemicals are safe and offer any advantage over ordinary soap. The ban includes the most widely used antiseptic in hand soaps, triclosan—after a large number of studies have fallen short of manufacturers’ claims about its health benefits.

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Lionfish Trap Tests in Pensacola Show Promise

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Lionfish traps are currently being tested in the waters off of Pensacola.
Photo by Dr. Steve Gittings

There is no shortage of lionfish posts here, as a quick search of the site will show. Off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, we’re encouraged to hear that there is good news from the trapping scene – rather than speargun hunting, which has certain limits. Although we aren’t told how the tested traps avoid catching other fish than the target, it sounds like progress is being made. Jeremy Morrison reports:

Eighteen miles out into the Gulf of Mexico, lying in wait about a hundred feet deep, are a collection of contraptions that have Steve Gittings “pretty encouraged” and “really kinda jazzed.”

“I’m kinda pleasantly surprised about what we found in Pensacola,” said Gittings, science coordinator for the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Marine Sanctuary.

Since July, Gittings and a his collaborators have been conducting tests on some prototypes of a lionfish trap he designed. In late August, the scientist wrote a report detailing what he considers to be the initial successes revealed during this summer’s testing.

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Solar Energy Benefits for All

/ Jocelyn Toll / Leave a comment
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All photos from: Boston University Bostonia

It seems obvious that investing in renewable solar energy saves money for those who install photovoltaic (PV) systems for their homes. However, what might not be so obvious is that PV systems also reduce electricity prices for all those with no solar panels, as professor Robert Kaufmann from Boston University discovered. His research revealed that the approximately 40,000  households and community groups with solar panels in Massachusetts reduce electricity prices for all of the three million electricity ratepayers in the state, including those with no solar panels.

“Until now, people have focused on how much was being saved by those who owned PV,” says Kaufmann. “What this analysis quantified was that it actually generates savings for everybody.”

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If You Happen to be in Hong Kong

/ Jocelyn Toll / Leave a comment
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Source: globaltimes.cn

Milk tea is the liquid blend of East and West, and if you happen to be in Hong Kong, you will find yourself among a populace that covets this sweet, aromatic drink just as much as Americans crave their daily coffee. Milk tea is the equivalent fast and convenient to-go drink in Hong Kong, and the city gulps down about 2.5 million cups a day. The drink is a a local institution that has a a yearly Hong Kong milk tea contest and this year’s competition was steep, to put it mildly.

Milk tea is a blend of black teas, combined with a high proportion of either evaporated milk and sugar, or simply sweetened condensed milk. The use of concentrated milk products gives milk tea a very thick, creamy consistency, and a high sugar content makes the beverage a harder, stiffer, bolder drink than many Americans would associate with tea.

The specific methods and materials are closely kept secrets of individual diner-like cha chaang tengs, the primary drinking establishments for milk tea, but some of the basics remain the same.

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Using Drones in Ag Optimization

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Precision agriculture: there’s a drone for that.
Image: ©Mauricio Lima/Flickr via conservationmagazine.org

Earlier today we referenced the changing assumptions in how plants retain water during high carbon dioxide conditions. Luckily for farmers with a little tech-savviness, they may have a new tool available to quantify water stress in plants: drones fitted with infrared thermometers. Catherine Elton reports:

In the quest to maximize the efficiency of agriculture for a growing planet, farmers have recently turned to drones. They are using them to detect pests and to map weeds. More recently, researchers have demonstrated that they can aid farmers in making smarter, more efficient use of irrigation water. This helps farmers not only increase yield, but also conserve a valuable resource in high demand.

Researchers’ early forays into employing drones for this end involved mounting them with thermal cameras to take measurements of canopy-air temperature above the crops. Canopy-air temperature is the basis of a widely used index for water stress in plants. The problem with this system is that thermal cameras are expensive, putting them out of reach of many farmers.

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VLMPAs Face Risks of Becoming Paper Parks

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Image © CNN

President Obama at Midway Atoll. Image © CNN

Two definitions are needed here at the outset: VLMPAs are “very large marine protection areas” and “paper parks” is a phrase used by conservationists and researchers to convey the idea of parks designated by governments only on paper – that is, they don’t get appropriate funding or management to create actual conservation within park limits. Most paper parks are found in developing nations where politicians may have good intentions in setting aside land to protect, but then don’t have enough resources to enforce the rules adequately, or in worse-case scenarios turn a blind eye to extraction if it favors them. Last week I discussed a possible race for bigger parks, and both examples happened to be marine in nature. Two researchers have commented in the academic journal Marine Policy to warn against creating ever-larger marine parks in remote areas that might be hard to monitor, unless there’s commitment for real enforcement. John Vidal reports:

“It is not enough to simply cover the remotest parts of our oceans in notional ‘protection’ – we need to focus on seas closer to shore, where most of the fishing and drilling actually happens,” said Peter Jones, a marine researcher at University College London.

Co-author Elizabeth de Santo, an assistant professor at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania, added that the push for quantity over quality threatens to undermine sustainability.

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More CO2 Means Less Water for Plants

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Credit: © yommy / Fotolia

A new study on plant water retention from the University of California, Irvine and the University of Washington might rescind some of our assumptions of climate change impacts on agriculture, water resources, wildfire risk, and plant growth. Their findings reveal that water conserved by plants under high CO2 conditions compensates for much of the effect of warmer temperatures, which means more water is retained on land than predicted in commonly used drought assessments. ScienceDaily reports:

The study compares current drought indices with ones that take into account changes in plant water use. Reduced precipitation will increase droughts across southern North America, southern Europe and northeastern South America. But the results show that in Central Africa and temperate Asia — including China, the Middle East, East Asia and most of Russia — water conservation by plants will largely counteract the parching due to climate change.

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The Essayist Essay

/ Crist Inman / Leave a comment
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A student at the University of Chicago, which recently declared itself a space safe from safe spaces. PHOTOGRAPH BY B. O’KANE / ALAMY

I have just read the most remarkable short essay (or is it a blog post?), the best in a very long time because it is eloquent, wrestles with important ideas, and is very timely. Although the title of the essay has a reference to a divisive character who I do not look forward to reading more about, I nonetheless waded in because the writer has written some of my favorite reported pieces in the last couple years.

And it was rewarded quickly, because as soon as the second paragraph he used a word that I did not know, a beautiful word. And followed that with a couple beautiful sentences opening the third paragraph. I was hooked. And in less than half an hour I was fully rewarded with inspiration and motivation.

Essays and the essayists have been the topic of numerous posts here over the years, because we have many language-lovers and word-players among our ranks. (For silly example, the first word in the title of this post is meant to convey “the most essay-ish of all” while using the word that normally just means someone who writes an essay.)  But also because, as we have tried to also communicate, words matter alot in translating ideas and ideals into actions. So, may I recommend: Continue reading →

Joining the Sustainable Fishing Soupbowl

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Illegally harvested shark fins. Source: shareamerica.com

Given the critical decline of fish populations worldwide, it’s reassuring to hear that high-profile U.S. corporations, and ones in the hotel industry at that, are taking a stand against unsustainable fishing practices. Here’s the story as told on Share America:

Rogue vessels use banned equipment, damage breeding grounds and destroy tons and tons of by-catch, marine life that is caught in nets but not desirable in the markets.

Thirty percent of world fisheries are tapped beyond their limits, while another 60 percent are being fished at maximum capacity.

Major U.S. hotel chains, restaurants and supermarkets have responded by requiring that fish they serve be harvested sustainably.

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Lights Out for Halogens in Europe

/ Jocelyn Toll / Leave a comment
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Image source: The Guardian

A new light display is illuminating Europe – one that is more energy efficient. As of today, no new retail orders will be possible for directional halogen bulbs in EU countries and therefore the last halogens left in stores will not be replaced with new stock.  Halogen bulbs can waste up to 10 times more energy that LEDs and the first targets of the halogen bulb ban, which will go into full effect in 2018, are GU10 spotlights and PAR30 floodlights.

Which? magazine last month advised its readers to switch to LEDs, which can cut lighting electricity bills by up to 90%, according to the cool products efficiency campaign.

“With bulb purchase costs included, British homes on the average tariff will pay £126 per socket over a 10-year period for halogen lights, compared to £16 for LEDs,” said Jack Hunter, a coolproducts spokesman.

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Bluestem Ranch Returns to Osage Nation

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Bison on the Bluestem Ranch

Bison on the Bluestem Ranch

Osage Nation Takes Ownership of Ted Turner’s 43,000-Acre Ranch

Ted Turner is the second largest individual landowner in North America, with approximately two million acres of personal and ranch land. His lands are more than conservation, as he’s managed to unite economic viability with ecological sustainability and environmental projects including water resource and timber management, and the reintroduction of native species to the land.

Although the recent news of the sale of Bluestem Ranch back to the Osage Nation might impact his land holdings, it certainly adds to his legacy of positive land management.

The Osage Nation is filing applications for federal trust status to protect the land from future sale…. Continue reading →

Of Salt and Stories

/ Amie Inman / Leave a comment
“Salt Crystal Bridal Gown III” (left) and “Salt Crystal Bridal Gown VI,” both 2014. Courtesy of the artist and Marlborough Contemporary

“Salt Crystal Bridal Gown III” (left) and “Salt Crystal Bridal Gown VI,” both 2014.
Courtesy of the artist and Marlborough Contemporary

It starts with a story. Written by Russian playwright S. Ansky in the early 20th century, The Dybbuk is an expressionistic drama about a young bride possessed by the malicious spirit of a dead suitor, and subsequently exorcised.

Jerusalem-born artist Sigalit Landau took inspiration from the story and her powerful connection to the Dead Sea, an otherworldly place she grew up visiting frequently with her family, and that she has incorporated into her art for years. Her “Salt Bride” installation at London’s Malborough Contemporary, enlists the work of the sea itself, in which a traditional black Hasidic gown (a replica of the costume worn by the bride in The Dybbuk, as portrayed by legendary actress Hanna Rovina) is submerged into the sea’s hypersaline waters. The salt crystals accumulated naturally over the net-like weave of the dress, left submerged over a period of 3 months, during which the process was photographed as an organic time-lapse. “Over time, the sea’s alchemy transforms the plain garment from a symbol associated with death and madness into the wedding dress it was always intended to be.” Continue reading →

Some Ants Fight Fungus with Fungus

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Leaf-cutter ants carrying leafy loot back to their underground colony in Carara National Park, Costa Rica

I’ve covered some ants in the past, discussing their fungal friends that provide them food, as well as their foes that turn them into zombies. A recent article by a team of researchers that included members of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute has found that most species of leaf-cutter ants have a practice that helps defend their young against parasitic fungi: wrapping them in the same fungi that they use to digest the leaves they bring underground!

Sarah Puschmann reports:

In the dark recesses of an underground fungus garden, a Panamanian leaf-cutting ant plucks a tuft of mycelia, the wispy part of the basidiomycete fungus these ants grow and eat, and carries it to a nearby ant pupa. The ant licks the pupa’s body before patting the fungus into place, continuing until it appears, when viewed under a powerful microscope, as though the pupa is webbed in short strands of spaghetti.

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Pope Francis says Destroying Environment is a Sin

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Photograph: Galazka/Sipa/Rex Shutterstock via The Guardian

We don’t have any religious affiliation here on the site, but understand that the Roman Catholic Pope has a tremendous influence in the world given his position. Any stance that he takes to protect the environment through denouncing pollution and agents of climate change is a good one in our book regardless of the church or theological basis. Josephine McKenna reports:

Pope Francis has called for urgent action to stop climate change and proposed that caring for the environment be added to traditional Christian works of mercy such as feeding the hungry and visiting the sick.

In a message to mark the Catholic church’s World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation that he launched last year, Francis said the worst impact of global warming was being felt by those who were least responsible for it – refugees and the poor.

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