Reclaimed Rainforest Wood, In The Interest Of Art
From the New York Times Sunday HOME AND GARDEN section, a short video we appreciate:
The Brazilian designer Hugo França reclaims felled wood from the rainforest to create sculptural furniture.
10 Years Of Thought Factory Design, Essential Member Of Raxa Collective’s Collaborative Community
We are thinking of the awesome folks at Thought Factory Design today as we review stationary for Spice Harbour, menu layouts for 51, and the logo for a new property we have recently accepted responsibility for (more on which when that logo is ready). They are members of our community with whom we collaborate more than just about anybody. They definitely get our commitment to conservation, and strengthen our ability to creatively pursue solutions. Continue reading
Papanasini – Wayanad
Photo credits: Surus
Papanasini is a spring fed stream that originates in the Brahmagiri Hills, which later joins the River Kalindi. Located about a kilometer from the Thirunelli Vishnu Temple, devotees believe that the cool waters have the ability to wipe away a lifetime of sins. Continue reading
Ocean Ownership And Caveat Emptor
The U.S. has laid claim to 2.5 billion acres of coastal seas, but that vast area produces very little seafood for Americans. Therein lies a dilemma: should the U.S. cultivate giant offshore fish farms in its piece of the sea or keep taking most of the fish we eat from foreign waters?
Conservation magazine raises the following question, and goes a long way to answering it in their current issue:
NATIONS HAVE CARVED UP THE OCEAN. NOW WHAT?
…In the minds of most consumers, there is a clear dividing line between which fish are wild and which are farmed. But the truth is that this line is increasingly a blurry one. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher catching insect (Las Coloradas, Mexico)
Scientists Working On Infrared-Based Renewable Energy
Harvard physicists Federico Capasso (left), Steven J. Byrnes (right), and Romain Blanchard propose a new way to harvest renewable energy. (Photo by Eliza Grinnell, SEAS Communications.)
Thanks to the Harvard School of Engineering And Applied Sciences for this press release of important renewable energy scientific news:
Infrared: A new renewable energy source?
When the sun sets on a remote desert outpost and solar panels shut down, what energy source will provide power through the night? A battery, perhaps, or an old diesel generator? Perhaps something strange and new.
Physicists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) envision a device that would harvest energy from Earth’s infrared emissions into outer space.
Heated by the sun, our planet is warm compared to the frigid vacuum beyond. Thanks to recent technological advances, the researchers say, that heat imbalance could soon be transformed into direct-current (DC) power, taking advantage of a vast and untapped energy source. Continue reading
Dudhsagar Waterfall
Photo credits: Ramesh
Dudhsagar Waterfall is located in the South Goa region of the Western Ghats in the Bhagavan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary. The train bridge that passes over over the Dudhsagar falls is one of the highlights of crossing this area of the boarder between Goa and Karnataka states . Continue reading
Rock, Water, Science, News
A diamond from Juína, Brazil, containing a water-rich inclusion of the olivine mineral ringwoodite. Richard Siemens/University of Alberta
What makes scientific information newsworthy? One possibility is when the information conveyed may have profound implications for life on earth. This Scientific American article about a rock is really about water, and about a kind of water that many of us had never been aware of:
…”It’s actually the confirmation that there is a very, very large amount of water that’s trapped in a really distinct layer in the deep Earth,” said Graham Pearson, lead study author and a geochemist at the University of Alberta in Canada. The findings were published today (March 12) in the journal Nature.
The worthless-looking diamond encloses a tiny piece of an olivine mineral called ringwoodite, and it’s the first time the mineral has been found on Earth’s surface in anything other than meteorites or laboratories. Ringwoodite only forms under extreme pressure, such as the crushing load about 320 miles (515 kilometers) deep in the mantle. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Asian Paradise Flycatcher
male – Ganeshgudi, Karnataka
UK Organics Back In Black
The nation’s appetite for organic food is growing. Photograph: Nick Turner/Alamy
Thanks to the Guardian‘s ongoing coverage of environmental issues, this story about sales of organics in their home market:
Sales of organic food and drink rose by 2.8% last year after successive years of decline, fuelled by strong growth among independent retailers and healthy online sales. Continue reading
Yellow-footed Green Pigeon
Photo credit: Faisal Magnet
The Yellow-footed Green Pigeon is the Maharashtra state bird, called Hariyal in Marathi, the language of the state. It is a resident of most of India and neighboring countries. Continue reading
If You Happen To Be In Oxford
As we continue menu/kitchen-testing at 51, we confront daily the question of how much meat we want to offer guests, how to source it ethically, and how to improve our vegetarian options. This book has generated considerable food for thought, so to speak. March 27 at 4pm, during the Oxford Literary Festival, co-author of the book Farmageddon, which is reviewed here and here, will be speaking for one hour. Wish we could attend. If you can and do, please send video or notes:
The chief executive of Compassion in World Farming Philip Lymbery uncovers the trend towards mega-farming that he says is threatening our countryside, farms and food. He says farm animals have been disappearing from our fields as food production becomes a global industry. And the recent horsemeat scandal demonstrates that we no longer know for certain what is entering the food chain. Lymbery collaborated with Sunday Times journalist Isabel Oakesott onFarmageddon, an investigation into mega-farming that ranges from the UK to Europe, the USA, China, Argentina, Peru and Mexico. Continue reading
Extinction And Its Discontents
Photograph: Smithsonian Institution Archives.
I consciously favor stories of alternative approaches and progress on solving environmental challenges rather than the easier-to-find doom and gloom stories, which can have the effect of making one want to turn off the news altogether. I also strive, often in vain, to not be trite. But on occasion I am willing to push that edge as well–pop tarts? yes, when the story is worth telling. Among the toughest topics is extinction, because of its foreverness, and repeated stories with ethical heaviness embedded. Still, I try.
Elizabeth Kolbert, the New Yorker‘s point person on ecological challenges, not least mass extinction, has a remarkable ability to make information about impending cataclysm compelling; she compels me with that information to open my eyes rather than shut them; she also has reasoned ideas about that information, as this post on the magazine’s website displays:
Sometime in the summer of 1914, probably on September 1st but perhaps a few days earlier, the last passenger pigeon on Earth expired. The bird, named Martha, had spent most of her life at the Cincinnati Zoo. Until a few years before her death, she had a companion, George, who shared her ten-by-twelve-foot cage. Whether the two ever tried to mate is unknown. Like the Washingtons, they left no heirs. Continue reading
Periyar Tiger Reserve
Photo credits: Vijay Mampally
The Periyar Tiger Reserve is one of the major wildlife sanctuaries in India. It is home to elephants, wild gaur, leopards, wild boar, deer, and of course tigers, in addition to over 300 species of birds, a dazzling variety of butterflies, and plenty of reptiles and amphibians. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: American Flamingos in flight (Ría Lagartos Biosphere Reserve, Mexico)
Mind-Bending Race
A friend who lives in Costa Rica left a few weeks ago for a visit to Alaska. We did not learn until after he was already there what it was he planned to do there during the deepest depth of winter. We knew he was serious about endurance racing. We also believed that we knew something about expedition races, both in terms of adventure and endurance. A post on the New Yorker‘s website, about the results of this year’s Iditarod, reminded us to search on the race our friend is in, to learn more about its details, and now our minds have been bent:
WHAT THIS RACE IS ALL ABOUT
The Iditarod Trail Invitational is the world’s longest winter ultra marathon by mountain bike, foot and ski and follows the historic Iditarod Trail from Knik, Alaska over the Alaska Range to McGrath and to Nome in late February every year one week before the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. The short race 350 miles finishes in the interior village of McGrath on the Kuskokwim River and the 1000 mile race finishes in Nome. Racers have to finish the 350 mile race in a previous year before they can enter the 1000 mile race.
We invite 50 racers to take part in this unique challenge every year.
To qualify for the race go to our sub page “qualifiers” or “winter training camps” to find out more. Continue reading
Wild Gaur – Periyar
Photo Credits: Roji Anthony
The Periyar Tiger Reserve is home to an estimated 500-1000 Wild Gaur, popularly known as “Indian Bison”. They are ferocious looking but shy bovines, and some of the largest in the world. The male bison can weight up to 1000 kg, grows to 6 feet in height and has very dark brown skin. Female gaur are smaller in size and are a lighter brownish black, and the calves are even lighter still. Continue reading
Yosemite, Raxa Collective Promises To Tread Lightly
Where do you go, if Raxa Collective is both your work and your pleasure, when you want to get away from your normal day to day scenery–which by all means is awesome? Is there such a word as awesomer? Awesomest? Four Raxa Collective contributors have agreed to meet in Yosemite in late May to determine the awesomeness. They will hopefully share their findings in these pages at that time. For now, vimeo just makes us all wish we were in Yosemite now.
Bird of the Day: Lesser Whistling Duck
Thattekad, Kerala
