Buffalo Is Back, But…

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The Guardian story below captures vividly the meaning of the law of unintended consequences that sometimes governs in cases of conservation:

The buffalo hunt

The American bison once faced extinction – now they’re being culled. Native American photographer Joe Whittle attends a hunt held by tribal members

by Joe Whittle at Yellowstone National Park

Every winter the small town of Gardiner, Montana, welcomes Native American tribal members from around the Inland Northwest. Hospitality businesses are happy to see them arrive during the off-season, but they’re not the only ones – ranchers are thrilled.

The tribal members are there to hunt American bison (or buffalo) that wander out of Yellowstone national park to find forage during winter. Bison are naturally migrating animals, and as the frozen snows of winter make finding sustenance difficult and competitive, herds start to head to lower elevations to seek sufficient feed.

The north entrance of Yellowstone is at the edge of Gardiner, and the wild roaming bison that leave the park often walk right into town or on to private property. That’s when the interests of the bison and private landowners begin to conflict. Continue reading →

If You Happen To Be In New York City

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PHOTOGRAPH BY DINA LITOVSKY FOR THE NEW YORKER

We took a respite from thinking about Ethiopian food for some months, following our brief exploration of Ethiopia but this item in the current issue of the New Yorker reminds us of why that all held our attention so firmly. It gets us thinking about a return trip to Ethiopia. It has us wondering where have the last 363 days gone? Whet the appetite here:

Abyssinia

For lovers of Ethiopian food, recent years were marked by two seismic events in Harlem. First, Tsion Café and Bakery opened on Sugar Hill, serving steaming piles of stew atop injera.

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If You Happen To Be in Dubai

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http://www.artdubai.ae/

Collaborative relationships are beautiful things. Most of human endeavors lend themselves to collaboration, and art is no exception. The stereotype of solo artist in studio is an old one, but in truth inspiration rarely occurs in isolation, and art doesn’t develop in a vacuum. Collaboration and community between artists, artists and patrons, or artists and those who appreciate art has existed in some form ever since the first charcoal marks on cave walls. Continue reading →

When Collaboration Is Everything, It Can Be Awesome

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“Sandcastle No. 3,” drawn on a single grain of sand, part of a Vik Muniz series from 2013.Vik Muniz, via Sikkema, Jenkins & Co.

We like it, for what should be obvious reasons:

At M.I.T., Science Embraces a New Chaos Theory: Art

By HILARIE M. SHEETS

As a graduate student at the respected M.I.T. Media Lab, Marcelo Coelho collaborated with the artist Vik Muniz to help him achieve a poetic and technical feat that teases the imagination: drawing a picture of a castle on a single grain of sand. After two years of failed experiments with various lasers, they finally began getting images of beautiful complexity using an electron microscope with a focused ion beam to etch superfine lines—when it didn’t pulverize the grains altogether. The tiny etchings could then be scanned and printed large scale.

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More On Wintergatan

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Wintergatan

When we recently posted on this newfangled musical contraption we could not find any further information about it. Lo and behold, after a drought sometimes when it rains it pours. Today, National Public Radio (USA) has this:

The “Marble Machine” is a musical instrument by way of a Rube Goldberg contraption, the love child of a barrel organ, a kick drum, a vibraphone and a bass — all powered by hand-cranked gears and 2,000 steel marbles.

The machine was built by Swedish musician Martin Molin, who fronts the Swedish band Wintergartan… Continue reading →

The Mad Hatterpillar

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The Mad Hatterpillar, Uraba lugens, larval stage of an Australian moth. Image © Nuytsia@Tas via WIRED Magazine.

The image above may seem a little gruesome if you hear that the pictured caterpillar has a collection of old skulls attached to the top of its own its spiky, irritating-to-the-touch hairs. But the larval insect isn’t a true headhunter, since the eery tower above the caterpillar’s crown is in fact made of its own exoskeleton pieces from previous moltings of its skin. Ed Yong reports on new research regarding a caterpillar that has been known for many decades but is still being studied for explanations on the strange cranium-collecting behavior:

Some caterpillars defend themselves from predators using toxic chemicals, repugnant smells, or stinging hairs. Some camouflage themselves. Some mimic snakes. Some recruit ant bodyguards. Some create protective fortresses, or make warning clicks, or vomit up their guts.

And then there’s Uraba lugens, an Australian moth colloquially known as the gum-leaf skeletoniser, and even more colloquially known as the Mad Hatterpillar. Like all caterpillars, it grows by shedding its hard outer shell before expanding the soft body beneath.

Continue reading →

Roasting Xandari Coffee

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About a month ago I reported that coffee was going strong here at the resort, and since then we’ve been serving our own Xandari-grown coffee here at the restaurant during breakfast hours nearly every day possible, based on availability of the roasted product. In the video above, you can see Continue reading →

Kava, For Whatever Reason

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In an increasingly health-conscious New York, some would-be boozehounds are turning to kava, made from a South Pacific-originated plant, as a substitute for alcohol. PHOTOGRAPH BY KIRSTIN SCHOLTZ / WSL VIA GETTY

Never heard of it before, but now it is on our agenda:

“ALCOHOL IS SO 2014. TRY KAVA,” suggests a sandwich board on Tenth Street between First Avenue and Avenue A, in the East Village. Whether by design or not, this block has become a retro-futurist downtown cornucopia of health, wellness, and New Agey philosophy. It is home to, among other establishments, a lush and gaudy store that peddles healing crystals; the beloved Russian and Turkish baths; a store called the Molecule Project, which sells artisanal tap water squeezed of any impurity; and a place named Body Evolution, which boasts the “largest and most fully equipped GYROTONIC® studio in Manhattan.” And then there is Kavasutra, the block’s newest addition, specializing in drinks made from the root of a South Pacific-originated plant called kava. Designed like a real bar but booze-free, Kavasutra is a New York City experiment that asks its patrons to imagine the possibility of a cosmopolitan social life without alcohol. Continue reading →

New Vegetarian Cookbooks

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From Studio Olafur Eliasson: The Kitchen

From Phaidon, a new series that has our attention:

…This spring sees Phaidon will publish its first vegetarian-only cookbook for 10 years. Indeed, we are bringing out three vegetarian titles: The Middle Eastern Vegetarian Cookbook by the Lebanese writer and cook Salma Hage; artist Olafur Eliasson’s Studio Olafur Eliasson: The Kitchen, a collection of recipes the artist and his co-workers enjoy sharing together for lunch; and Icelandic chef and restaurateur Solla Eiríksdóttir’s Raw: Recipes for a Modern Vegetarian Lifestyle. Continue reading →

Newer Clean Energy Use by Big Companies

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At peak production, Intel’s new solar carport can carry half of the campus’ electricity demand. Photo by Intel via GreenBiz

Businesses are finally seeing the sense of clean energy, which we try to share about as much as possible when it comes to savings and renewables or alternative sources. Heather Clancy at GreenBiz reports on the use and investment of clean energy by several big US businesses, like GM with landfill gas, Intel with solar panels, and Google with renewable energy contracts:

Despite uncertainty surrounding the future of the Clean Power Plan and contractual nuances that make even the smallest project feel unnecessarily complex, big businesses seem more committed to renewable energy than ever.

“This time it’s not about fashion, it’s about real economics, about real business opportunity,” said economist Mark Kenber, CEO of the Climate Group, during a keynote interview at last week’s GreenBiz 16 conference in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Continue reading →

Ever Heard of a Quoll?

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An eastern quoll. Professor Adrian Manning said it was the first ‘translocation’ of wild eastern quolls ‘into a free-ranging situation’ on the Australian mainland. Photograph: Marc Faucher, via The Guardian

We’re always happy to hear about the reintroduction of a previously extirpated species to its original habitat, even if we’re wary of some of the more ambitious projects from prior extinctions. Even though we weren’t aware of the existence of this cute marsupial named the Eastern Quoll, we’re glad to know that it is returning to its homeland. Elle Hunt reports for the Guardian:

The eastern quoll is making a comeback to mainland Australia, from where it disappeared more than 50 years ago, with a new generation introduced to the Australian Capital Territory from Tasmania.

A team of researchers from the Australian National University has reintroduced a group of wild eastern quolls from Tasmania into the Mulligan’s Flat Woodland Sanctuary in Canberra.

The small, carnivorous marsupial has not been seen there for almost 80 years.

Prof Adrian Manning, who led the team from the ANU’s Fenner School of Environment and Society, said it was the first “translocation” of wild eastern quolls “into a free-ranging situation” on the Australian mainland.

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Tracking Tree-Poachers

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Global Land Analysis and Discovery alerts, analysing satellite images will be initially be available for Peru, the Republic of Congo and Indonesia. Photograph: Natalie Behring-Chisholm/AP

When there is news on the improved ability to reduce illegal logging, we are always interested. Thanks to the Guardian’s Environment section for their assistance on this front:

New satellite mapping a ‘game changer’ against illegal logging

System that provides hard evidence of logging crimes in almost real time gives new hope of combating tropical deforestation

Taken from outer space, the satellite images show illegal loggers cutting a road into a protected area in Peru, part of a criminal enterprise attempting to steal millions of dollars worth of ecological resources Continue reading →

My Big Fat Floating Solar Panel

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QE-press-release

This recent Thames Water press release has just come to our attention and it sounds like progress, or what we count as good news:

Europe’s biggest ever floating solar panel array is being installed on London’s Queen Elizabeth II reservoir as part of Thames Water’s ambitious bid to self-generate a third of its own energy by 2020.

Continue reading →