Biophilia By Any Other Name

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Thanks to Conservation for their regular daily feature, summarizing important research findings related to the environment, and for reminding us in the story below of the great scientist E.O. Wilson, who might note that the findings below are essentially a reflection of his ideas on biophilia. Click on the banner above to go to a new resource that we have just discovered that honors the scientist, and read on for the scientific findings that demonstrate his genius observation even without referencing him:

We’ve been hearing for a while now how simply being around green space more can be beneficial. Early this year, for example, a study found that moving to areas with more trees and vegetation led to an immediate and prolonged improvement in mental health. Just looking at a tree every now and then seems to give us all a boost. Continue reading →

If You Happen To Be In Eleuthera…

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Regular readers of this site are familiar with contributor Phil Karp’s wonderful posts about this invasive species. He’s been advising this group in Eleuthera for several months. We wish we could be there!

Can you?

Speaking Of Greece

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36hours-athens-thumbWide36 Hours in Athens

By JOANNA KAKISSIS

The city’s self-confidence and creativity are stirring again after years of tough press that defined Athens as a beleaguered capital.

This post on classics, referencing an earlier post on the same topic reminds us of our hinted promise to tell more about Raxa Collective’s recent scouting visit to Greece, and specifically about prospective project on one of the most fascinating of all the islands. We promise more on that soon.

Why Study Classics?

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In some archaeological digs in Eurasia, as many as thirty-seven per cent of the graves contain the bones and weapons of horsewomen who fought alongside men. PHOTOGRAPH BY ERICH LESSING / ART RESOURCE

In some archaeological digs in Eurasia, as many as thirty-seven per cent of the graves contain the bones and weapons of horsewomen who fought alongside men. PHOTOGRAPH BY ERICH LESSING / ART RESOURCE

For every question why like this one, there must be many answers. We post enough on the topic to have some guesses. James, one day, may tell us his. For anyone who likes a good story, part of the answer must be simply that. But there may be more; for now let this post on the New Yorker‘s website speak for itself:

The Real Amazons

BY JOSHUA ROTHMAN

Here’s a story, told by Herodotus, about the fierce female warriors known as Amazons. Many thousands of years ago, a group of Greek raiders ventured into what is now northern Turkey. Travelling across the steppe, they came across a group of warrior women. The Greeks kidnapped them, locked them in the holds of their ships, and set sail for home. But the Amazons escaped. They recovered their weapons and killed their captors. Because they were horsewomen, and didn’t know how to sail, the ships drifted far off course. Eventually, though, they landed in the Crimea. The Amazons went ashore and stole some horses. They started marauding, gathering loot, and building up their strength. Continue reading →

Book Covers, Storytelling, And The Mind’s Eye

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Author Ben Marcus described Peter Mendelsund's cover for his story collection Leaving the Sea as "sumptuous, playful and gorgeous to look at."

Author Ben Marcus described Peter Mendelsund’s cover for his story collection Leaving the Sea as “sumptuous, playful and gorgeous to look at.”

We are most of the time sharing stories, told by our own contributors or chosen by them from other sources, that say something relevant about community, about collaboration, and/or about conservation.  And many of us are involved day to day in hospitality that offers authentic experiences of immersion in “faraway places” relative to where the traveler comes from. We frequently share stories about books and libraries because they are the building blocks of preparation for appreciating what one finds on a long journey away from the familiar. So, this story about a book cover designer was destined to capture our attention:

Peter Mendelsund estimates he’s designed “somewhere between 600 and 1,000 book covers,” ranging from Crime and Punishment to Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. But the self-taught, sought-after designer says he spends a lot of time reading, too. Continue reading →

Reducing Demand For The Irreplacable

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A black dehorned rhinoceros and its calf at a Johannesburg reserve. Photograph: Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/Getty Images

A black dehorned rhinoceros and its calf at a Johannesburg reserve. Photograph: Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/Getty Images

From the “glimmer of hope” category of news, thanks to the Guardian‘s ongoing coverage of vital environmental issues, we find this story simultaneously depressing and hopeful, somehow:

Rhino horn demand in Vietnam drops by more than 33% in one year

Information campaign successfully changes minds of people who think rhino horn has medicinal value

Efforts to curb the deadly trade in rhino horn appear to be gaining traction, with a poll finding that demand for the animal part in Vietnam has dropped by more than a third over the past year.

After a year-long public information campaign in Vietnam, only 2.6% of people in the Asian country now continue to buy and use rhino horn, a decrease of 38%. Continue reading →

Earth Hour 2014 at Xandari

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This past March, on the 29th, Xandari supported the 60+ Earth Hour movement by hosting a candle-lit dinner and inviting guests to turn off their lights between 8:30-9:30PM to join hundreds of millions of people around the world in saving energy. In 162 countries and around 7,000 cities, people joined Earth Hour and the World Wildlife Fund for Nature to symbolically pledge to do more for the environment and engage in energy-saving efforts throughout the year. Watch the video below for some footage of national monuments around the world flipping the switch for an hour, and learn more about the 60+ movement.  Continue reading →

Listen When Nature Is Speaking

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Edward Norton provided the voice for the soil in Conservation International's Nature is Speaking campaign. Credit Conservation International

Edward Norton provided the voice for the soil in Conservation International’s Nature is Speaking campaign. Credit Conservation International

Dot Earth, once upon a time, was a daily source of amazing material, until it seemed to disappear, and then again it reappeared. Ed Norton gets our attention any time:

Nature Talks Back, and Sounds a Lot like Edward Norton

By

I’m catching up with the “Nature is Speaking” education push by Conservation International, featuring a set of videos in which actors give voice to the oceans, rain forests and other beautiful and bounteous facets of the planet’s sheath of life. The writing is engaging and just a bit edgy and aimed at increasing young people’s awareness that a thriving environment is an underpinning of human wellbeing.

Continue reading →

Burn Calories, Eat What You Want

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A breakfast taco in Texas. John Burnett/NPR

A breakfast taco in Texas. John Burnett/NPR

Now that the heavy lifting of food trials of 51 is mostly behind us, we are ramping up food trials at Marari Pearl. Any of you who know members of the Raxa Collective food trials team can attest that some of them remain mysteriously svelte, and others are gravitating into Santa Claus territory. Does this story at The Salt provide any explanations, or possible solutions? It is worth a read:

Last month, a friend and I rode bicycles 738 miles up the spine of Texas from the Rio Grande to the Red River, dodging oilfield trucks and yipping Chihuahua dogs.

All that pedaling had us burning about 5,000 to 5,500 calories every day. And so the 10-day journey — eight days of it riding into a headwind — became a movable feast.

There were hero sandwiches, Tater Tots, loaded baked potatoes, rib-eye steaks, chiles rellenos, cheese enchiladas, fried shrimp, cheeseburgers, french fries, hot dogs, barbecue brisket, beef jerky, chocolate glazed donuts, Snickers bars and fried pies. Continue reading →

First Sale of Xandari Pysanky

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Last week, we had the good fortune of having some guests at Xandari who were interested in buying a few of the eggs on display in the gift shop. One guest purchased a Xandari coffee-stained egg like the ones featured in my previous post on the subject, as well as an egg that bore the insignia of San José’s soccer team, Saprissa, which is generally unpopular among fans of the Alajuelan team, La Liga Deportiva Alajuelense (La Liga for short).

As Xandari is located in the hills above Alajuela, most of the employees here are Liga fans, and it’s fun to joke with them about which team’s eggs will sell more in the future (so far the Liga egg is still hanging on the display tree, but that’s most likely because it doesn’t feature a fire-breathing dragon like Saprissa). The third egg that we sold this weekend was one featuring a new design of the Xandari ‘X’ with some extra lines to turn it into a flying bird. Continue reading →

Celebrate Urban Rock Birds

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With over a week of working with other grades at the elementary school in Tacacorí, I’ve seen lots of really great paintings of birds on locally-found stones, and even one or two chunks of cement. After finding around seventy-odd rocks around Xandari that were mostly usable for this art project and scrubbing them all of mud and moss, I Continue reading →

Bee Friendlier

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Our otherwise impenetrable fortress, resisting commercial interests everywhere, sometimes lets one over the wall.  For worthy causes only. Good stuff here, we think, especially learning about The Xerces Society through this company’s initiative:

Our Commitment

At Cascadian Farm, we’ve been farming organically since 1972, and we know how essential bees are to the environment and food supply. In fact, almost all of the food that we make depends on bees. That’s why we’re spearheading Bee Friendlier, an education and support program to help bees thrive. It’s also why we’re donating $0.50, up to $150,000, for every code redeemed online before December 31, 2014, to help support bee research and habitat creation… Continue reading →

Hermes Appears, Again

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Striking Mosaic Found In Greek Tomb Dates From 4th Century B.C. by BILL CHAPPELL

Striking Mosaic Found In Greek Tomb Dates From 4th Century B.C. by BILL CHAPPELL

We are now in our second month without the classicist among our ranks, but we amateurs can still do our part to share stories of interest from the world of classics. Hermes was there all along of course, for about 2,400 years since the image above was created, but amazingly we are still finding new hiding places for a character mentioned in these pages more than once:

Archaeologists have uncovered an intricate and beautiful floor mosaic in a large tomb in northern Greece. Dating from the last quarter of the 4th century B.C., the mosaic covers a space of nearly 15 feet by 10 feet. It features two horses, a man and the god Hermes; it was found in a tomb that was discovered in August. Continue reading →

If You Happen To Be In New York City

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It is the sort of conference we are happy to see hosted by an MBA program:

MILLENNIALS RISING: WHAT’S NEXT FOR SUSTAINABILITY?

Friday, October 31, 2014

We are living in promising but turbulent times. Never before has there been such interest in harnessing innovation to find sustainable solutions for communities and the environment, but never have the problems been more urgent, complex or challenging.

While more business leaders are pursuing sustainable strategies, what can be done to accelerate this change and harness the talents of millennials as future sustainable leaders to ensure they realize this potential? What can be done to sustain interest in solving social and environmental issues, sustain funding for these efforts, and sustain the pipeline of social entrepreneurs leading these changes?

Join us at the 2014 Social Enterprise Conference by Columbia Business School and help spark the conversation on driving sustainable change beyond the new millennium:

Continue reading →

Mind Over Matter, Consumption, And Findings From Behavioral Economics

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Northern lights over a camp north of the Arctic Circle, October 2014 (Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)

Northern lights over a camp north of the Arctic Circle, October 2014 (Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)

We may be a bit self-interested in declaring so, but this research matches what we believe from daily experience–not to say it is obvious–and so it is good to know science is helping us understand why:

Buy Experiences, Not Things

Live in anticipation, gathering stories and memories. New research builds on the vogue mantra of behavioral economics.

Forty-seven percent of the time, the average mind is wandering. It wanders about a third of the time while a person is reading, talking with other people, or taking care of children. It wanders 10 percent of the time, even, during sex. And that wandering, according to psychologist Matthew Killingsworth, is not good for well-being. A mind belongs in one place. During his training at Harvard, Killingsworth compiled those numbers and built a scientific case for every cliché about living in the moment. In a 2010 Science paper co-authored with psychology professor Daniel Gilbert, the two wrote that “a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.”

Continue reading →