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Animal Rights, Animals, Feb 6th, 2012,
The practice of having sex with animals is becoming an epidemic in Germany. “There are even animal brothels. The abuse seems to be increasing rapidly and the internet offers an additional distribution platform”, said Madeleine Martin, the animal protection official for Hessian state government. The law needs to be changed to make it possible to prosecute and punish these animal abusers. “It is punishable to distribute animal pornography, but the act itself is not”, Madeleine Martin told the ‘Frankfurter Rundschau’. Sex with animals was illegal until 1969 and according to animal rights activists, this kind of animal abuse is no…
Tags: animal abuse, Geermany, zoophilia
Nature, Science & Technology, Videos & Documentaries, Feb 5th, 2012,
Scientists recently made an eye-opening discovery at Golden Gate Highlands National Park in South Africa. Several nests of Massospondylus, a 20ft (6m) long sauropod, including fossilized eggs and hatchling footprints, is increasing scientists knowledge of the nesting, breeding and mothering habits of dinosaurs. The dinosaur nesting site is believed to be 190 million years old, some 100 million years older than any dinosaur nest previously found. At least 10 nests were uncovered at several different rock levels. Each contained up to 34 round eggs in tightly clustered clutches. The distribution of the nests indicated that dinosaurs returned repeatedly to the…
Tags: dinosaur, eggs, Massospondylus, nest
Conservation, Nature, Sustainable living, Wildlife & Flora, Feb 4th, 2012,
Species: Giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis) Status: Endangered (EN) Interesting Fact: The giant otter is also known as the ‘river wolf’. The giant otter is one of South America’s top carnivores, and is the largest of the otter species. The giant otter generally lives in family groups of three to ten individuals, composed of a monogamous, breeding pair and their offspring born during previous years. These groups rest, play, travel, fish and sleep together. When cubs are born, they are cared for in a den by both the adult pair, and the older siblings. At two to three weeks of age,…
Tags: ARKive.org, Conservation, endangered species, Giant otter, Pteronura brasiliensis, weird
Science & Technology, Weird & Wonderful, Feb 2nd, 2012,
By Andrew Freedman NASA released a new, high-resolution “Blue Marble” image of Earth this week, taken from instruments aboard the recently launched Suomi NPP satellite. The image is actually a composite of many pictures from Jan. 4, 2012 that were stitched together, and shows North America in stunning detail. One feature that is notably absent from the picture is snow cover, which is confined to parts of the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada. In many parts of the country, snowfall has been running well below average so far this year. The image was taken by one of the five instruments…
Tags: blue marble, climatecentral.org, earth images, NASA, space
Green Cars, Science & Technology, ,
Folding bikes are great. I’ve owned two inexpensive models and even used one of them in the snow. You can park them everywhere, keep them indoors in your apartment or house so they aren’t at risk of being stolen and take them on trains and buses. Germans are often spotted on them on holiday. I guess they bring them on boats or in their cars. A folding car, however, makes me think of the Jetsons or some other comical view of the future as envisioned in the 1950s during the Space Race. But now the folding car has become a…
Tags: Barroso, Basque, electric, Europe, folding car, Hiriko, Spain
Pollution, Feb 1st, 2012,
Rubbish is piling up in Mexico’s capital after the city’s largest waste dump, Bordo Poniente, was closed after the landfill was, for lack of a better word, filled. The landfill, in fact, was meant to close back in 2005, but the city managed to delay closure by 6 years. Now garbage is accumulating in illegal dumps in Mexico City, on street corners and even in front of monuments. The fact that Mexico lags behind in waste reducing measures, such as recycling programs, compounds the problem in the DF. From the Guardian: The demise of the Bordo Poniente exposed how acutely…
Tags: border, Bordo Poniente, garbage, Mexico City, US, waste
Health, Politics, Jan 31st, 2012,
In general, conservatives don’t like social welfare programs. They do claim, however, to value freedom of choice, so long as it has nothing to do with social welfare programs – those are gifts from taxpayers to welfare queens and they have strings attached. So it’s no surprise that Florida Republican state senator Ronda Storms thinks federal food stamps should only be used for healthy foods – but maybe she’s right. A bit of good old-fashioned social engineering is what welfare is all about or at least what it should be about. I mean why should the poor be encouraged (by…
Tags: Florida, food, junk, poor, republican, Senator, stamps
Climate & Change, Politics, Jan 30th, 2012,
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability is presenting its report today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to address global problems of growing inequality, economic instability and environmental crisis. The report, entitled Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing ‘contains 56 recommendations to put sustainable development into practice and to mainstream it into economic policy as quickly as possible’. From the report: The signposts are clear: We need to change dramatically, beginning with how we think about our relationship to each other, to future generations, and to the eco-systems that support us. Our mission…
Tags: fossil fuels, global, report, Resilient People Resilient Planet, sustainability, UN
Science & Technology, Videos & Documentaries, Weird & Wonderful, Jan 29th, 2012,
US Republican presidential candidate and blowhard Newt Gingrich has stated that he will build a base on the moon by his second term should he get elected. Gingrich said he’d like to get there before the Chinese do. Well, the US did put someone there before the Chinese and everyone else back in 1969, though it was the Soviets who first put an unmanned craft on the lunar surface. OK, so they didn’t stay there and colonize as Newt would like. Republican rival Mitt Romney countered that while Gingrich’s moon colony vision is a big idea, it’s not good one….
Tags: Gingrich, lego, moon, Newt, space
Conservation, Nature, Wildlife & Flora, Jan 28th, 2012,
Species: American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus) Status: Critically Endangered (CR) Interesting Fact: The American burying beetle buries a whole carcass to feed its young! The largest carrion beetle in North America, the American burying beetle is an attractive species with bright orange markings. These beetles are named for their specialised mechanism of parental care that involves providing the growing larvae with carrion upon which to feed. At night, beetle pairs will locate a suitable carcass and then cooperate to bury it in the soil, thus protecting their find from competition with other species. Once the carcass is beneath the soil,…
Tags: American Burying Beetle, critically endangered, endangered insect, endangered species, Nicrophorus americanus
Animals, Climate & Change, Wildlife & Flora, Jan 26th, 2012,
Due to recent storms in Europe, over 100 baby harp seals have washed up on the northern shores of the Netherlands. The amount of seals found on the country’s beaches has increased within the past two to three years. An animal rescue center in England has also received stranded seals because of the storms and is now caring for 41. The incident is an extreme example among a recent increase in pup strandings, experts say. Overfishing has reduced the seals’ available prey, and the polluted fish the animals do catch often make them sick. –National Geographic For more on…
Tags: baby, beach, Canada, harp seals, ice, pup, storms
Green Cars, Health, Sustainable living, Jan 25th, 2012,
Urban Forestry is a growing trend in cities looking to actively clean their air and water while making streets aesthetically pleasing for pedestrians, bike riders, and drivers as well. While I could list any number of benefits trees in urban areas have been shown to produce, there was one advantage that I didn’t expect to see: safer, more eco friendly carsdriving through cities. Now, you might be wondering how trees help to slow drivers down and create an atmosphere where greener cars and greener driving habits prevail. It’s quite simple; trees help create a natural, visual wall that drivers are…
Tags: Earthgarage.com, green cars, green cities, pedestrians, planting trees, trees in streets
Animals, Conservation, Wildlife & Flora, ,
Alaska’s main animal predators are now at risk of being shot from helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. It is already legal to bait and snare bears in Alaska, a practice even some hunting advocates find inhumane. In order to increase the hunting of caribou and moose in the state, Alaska’s Board of Game has lifted a ban on the aerial shooting of grizzly bears, a threatened species in most US states. State wildlife officials may now cull grizzlies by shooting them Sarah Palin style – from the sky. But its not just the bears that are at risk. It is…
Tags: aerial, Alaska, bears, grizzly, shooting, wolves
Animals, Science & Technology, Weird & Wonderful, Jan 24th, 2012,
Freckles the goat is part spider. Her milk is loaded with spider silk protein. The silk from Freckles has potential uses in medicine (as a ligament replacement), is stronger than Kevlar and extremely elastic. So why not just harvest the silk from spiders? Spiders can’t be farmed because they are cannibalistic, while goats have been farmed for 10,000 years or so. Genetically engineered ‘spider goats’ also produce vast amounts of spider silk in their milk when compared to tiny golden orb spiders. Freckles is the creation of Randy Lewis, a professor of genetics at Utah State University. The farm…
Tags: engineered, Freckles, genetic, goat, silk, spider
green living, Jan 23rd, 2012,
It may sound like a Dutch version of UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s Big Society: the government cuts social programs and individuals volunteer to pick up the slack. But in Amsterdam it’s also tourists who are expected to chip in. Imagine a tourist cleaning up your street or telling you to close your shop door in order to save energy by not letting the heat out. The organization Tourist Save the World puts tourists to work doing good deeds instead of just gawking and buying stuff. But will people start to love tourists or just hate them more? Well, it’s…
Tags: Amsterdam, save the world, tourists
Nature, Pollution, Science & Technology, Sustainable living, Weird & Wonderful, Wildlife & Flora, ,
Dutch architect Koen Olthuis, from Waterstudio.NL, hit on the idea of how to create more green areas in cities, which could become habitats for wildlife and to have a positive affect on improving air quality in a metropolis. He created a “Tree Sea”, which can be placed in a river, lake or at maritime coasts, informs The Dailymail. The construction resembles the design of a drilling rig. In Olthuis’ opinion, their building could be sponsored by large oil companies, so they can express their concern for the environment. “What is beautiful about this project, is that it doesn’t demand expensive…
Tags: floating tree, Pollution, The Netherlands, Tree Sea
Conservation, Nature, Wildlife & Flora, Jan 22nd, 2012,
Species: Adelaide pygmy bluetongue skink (Tiliqua adelaidensis) Status: Endangered (EN) Interesting Fact: The Adelaide pygmy bluetongue skink shelters in burrows created by spiders! Surprisingly, the tongue of this skink is not blue as the name suggests, but is instead a rose pink colour. The mottled mixture of browns on the rest of its body enables this species to blend in perfectly with its surroundings in its native Australian habitat. During the heat of the day, the Adelaide pygmy bluetongue skink shelters in holes that, rather than being excavated by the skink itself, are quarried by wolf spiders and trapdoor spiders….
Tags: Adelaide pygmy bluetongue skink, ARKive.org, Conservation, endangered animals, endangered species, Tiliqua adelaidensis
Animals, Pollution, Recycling, Videos & Documentaries, ,
We’ve got two bits of eco-news from Asia this weekend. First we’re off to Vietnam to see how megacity Hanoi is coping with a growing waste problem with the help from scientists in Germany. Enormous amounts of waste, a rising population, over-crowding, and an aging infrastructure: Vietnam’s capital Hanoi is a perfect example of a fast-growing megacity. Scientists at Darmstadt University have developed a pilot project that combines wastewater treatment, waste disposal and energy production in one. Their goal is to design a biogas plant for Hanoi that digests waste to generate electricity and heat. –Deutsche Welle Next we jet…
Tags: bengal, China, Hanoi, megacity, tiger, Vietnam, white
Animals, Wildlife & Flora, Jan 19th, 2012,
The UK is now home to a host of non-native plant and animal species. So-called ‘invasive species’ were invariably imported to the UK as pets, introduced for farming and aquaculture or taken here for some other reason – by humans, of course. Now that their impact has (sometimes) proven negative or inconvenient, many people don’t want them around anymore. The Independent features an article on some of the more exotic and rare animals to establish themselves in the UK, including rumors of lions, pumas, panthers and cougars prowling the English countryside, but also wild boars, which used to be native…
Tags: big cat, invasive species, non-native, rhododentron, UK
Climate & Change, climate change, Health, Science & Technology, ,
By Andrew Freedman It often seems like weather forecasters blame everything unusual on El Niño or La Niña, be it a drought, a heat wave, or a snowless winter. But this natural climate cycle in the equatorial Pacific Ocean may actually have much greater — and far deadlier — impacts. A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explores the possibility that La Niña helps make conditions more favorable for deadly global flu pandemics. The study finds that the past four flu pandemics, including the Spanish Flu of 1918, the Asian Flu of 1957, the Hong Kong…
Tags: climate change, climatecentral.org, Flu pandemics, La Nina
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