Crows Are Cool, And Smart
I love crows, I find them elegant, slightly scary, and really really smart. Don’t anger them, they will remember who you are. If you do anger them they will find a way to get you, even if they have to make some tools.
Bill Moyers Down Drops Some Serious Knowledge About Health Care
Bill Moyers is the fucking man, he lays out exactly what the health care insurance reform is about, and exactly what we need to do to get health care for everyone, and exactly why it isn’t going to work unless we change some things. I love him.
It’s Official, Giant Pacific Garbage Patch Is Real…Horrible
Scientists have just completed an unprecedented journey into the vast and little-explored “Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch.”
On the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition (SEAPLEX), researchers got the first detailed view of plastic debris floating in a remote ocean region.
It wasn’t a pretty sight, you can see just how bad it was here.
The Scripps research vessel (R/V) New Horizon left its San Diego homeport on August 2, 2009, for the North Pacific Ocean Gyre, located some 1,000 miles off California’s coast, and returned on August 21, 2009.
Scientists surveyed plastic distribution and abundance, taking samples for analysis in the lab and assessing the impacts of debris on marine life.
Before this research, little was known about the size of the “garbage patch” and the threats it poses to marine life and the gyre’s biological environment.
The expedition was led by a team of Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) graduate students, with support from University of California Ship Funds, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Project Kaisei.
“SEAPLEX was an important education experience for the graduate students, and contributed to a better understanding of an important problem in the oceans,” said Linda Goad, program director in NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences. “We hope that SEAPLEX will result in increased awareness of a growing issue.”
After transiting for six days aboard the research vessel, the researchers reached their first intensive sampling site on August 9th.
Team members began 24-hour sampling periods using a variety of tow nets to collect debris at several ocean depths.
“We targeted the highest plastic-containing areas so we could begin to understand the scope of the problem,” said Miriam Goldstein of SIO, chief scientist of the expedition. “We also studied everything from phytoplankton to zooplankton to small midwater fish.”
The scientists found that at numerous areas in the gyre, flecks of plastic were abundant and easily spotted against the deep blue seawater.
Among the assortment of items retrieved were plastic bottles with a variety of biological inhabitants. The scientists also collected jellyfish called by-the-wind sailors (Velella velella).
On August 11th, the researchers encountered a large net entwined with plastic and various marine organisms; they also recovered several plastic bottles covered with ocean animals, including large barnacles.
The next day, Pete Davison, an SIO graduate student studying mid-water fish, collected several species in the gyre, including the pearleye (Benthalbella dentata), a predatory fish with eyes that look upward so it can see prey swimming above, and lanternfish (Tarletonbeania crenularis), which migrate from as deep as 700 meters down to the ocean surface each day.
By the end of the expedition, the researchers were intrigued by the gyre, but had seen their fill of its trash.
“Finding so much plastic there was shocking,” said Goldstein. “How could there be this much plastic floating in a random patch of ocean–a thousand miles from land?”
One might wonder how one of the most remote places on earth could be so filled with trash. The reason is because of the way the currents in the North Pacific work. They swirl around the outside of the Pacific creating a “dead zone” in the middle. The trash is collected from the beaches of some of the most populated places on earth (a fair amount falls off boats as well), and is collected, like a giant flushing toilet, in the middle of the Pacific.
You might be wondering how big this patch of trash is…Big.
The next time you buy something with throw away plastic packaging think about where that plastic is really going to end up.
Self Containted Food Biosphere In Your Kitchen
I actually sorta kinda really love this idea.
This Philips non-spherical-biosphere is a self-contained farm for that produces hundreds of calories of various food sources a day. Its five-level design breaks down like this:
Levels 1 and 2: Plants
Level 3: Algae
Level 4: Fish and Shrimp
Level 5: Organic WasteFrom what we can tell, the system is designed to cascade nutrients from the top to the bottom (back to the top). Optical fibers capture and redirect light to the plants during the day, while methane capture from organic waste can power lights at night. The algae create oxygen for the fish.(via)
Below is a video full of other ideas…not sure I like all of them but thought the little food probes that tell you about your food intake for the day might be a great way to learn more about health, I also like the idea of being able to see at a glance the carbon footprint of items you buy at at the store. Not sure I like the idea of a “food printer” skip to 7 minutes to see the biosphere.
More here
Hurricane Seasons More Active Due To Global Warming, La Niña
Hurricane Bill just did a little fly by this weekend, it has been a while since a hurricane ran up the east coast this close to my home (in fact I didn’t live hear last time Boston was hit by a major storm). But for others, who live on the Atlantic coast, Andrew, Ivan and Katrina are more than just names–they are reminders of the devastating impact of cyclonic activity in the region during hurricane season. If it seems like hurricane seasons have been more active in recent years, you’re on to something. According to a paper published in the August 13 issue of Nature, the frequency and strength of these powerful storms has grown in recent decades.
A sediment core sample collected in a laguna along the Florida Panhandle.
“We are at levels now that are about as high as anything we have seen in the past 1,000 years,” said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University and the lead author of the paper. Mann and his collaborators, Jeffrey P. Donnelly of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Jonathan D. Woodruff of the University of Massachusetts and Zhihua Zhang of Pennsylvania State University examined sediment samples from across the North Atlantic coast and statistical models of historic hurricane activities.
Their analysis allowed them to measure the severity of hurricane seasons over the past 1,500 years. The sediment samples match up relatively well with the computer models, both of which show a period of high activity around 1,000 AD, followed by a lull in activity. This medieval peak rivals and possibly exceeds the level of activity seen in recent decades.
The study also adds validity to the theory that two factors fuel higher hurricane activity, namely the La Niña effect and high surface temperatures over the ocean. If climate change continues to warm ocean waters, Mann said, it could lead to more active hurricane seasons. This hurricane season, which has yet to see a named storm, is lighter than usual, Mann said, because of the El Niño effect, which is believed to have the opposite effect of La Nina patterns. You can watch a video on this here.
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