Two million acres of grassland lost to King Corn, Raven likes playing in truck turbulence

King Corn Mowed Down 2 Million Acres of Grassland in 5 Years Flat

They looked at recent land-use changes in what they call the “western corn belt”—North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska—between 2006 and 2011. What they found was that grasslands in that region are being sacrificed to the plow at a clip “comparable to deforestation rates in Brazil, Malaysia, and Indonesia.” According to the researchers, you have to go back to the 1920s and 1930s—the “era of rapid mechanization of US agriculture”—to find comparable rates of grassland loss in the region. All told, nearly 2 million acres of grassland—an area nearly the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined—succumbed to the plow between 2006 and 2011, they found. Just 663,000 acres went from corn/soy to grassland during that period, meaning a net transfer of 1.3 million acres to the realm of King Corn.

The territory going under the plow tends to be “marginal,” the authors write—that is, much better for grazing than for crop agriculture, “characterized by high erosion risk and vulnerability to drought.”
When farmers manage to tease a decent crop out of their marginal land, they’re rewarded. But if the crop fails, they’re guaranteed a decent return.

So why would farmers plow up such risky land? Simple: Federal policy has made it a high-reward, tiny-risk proposition. Prices for corn and soy doubled in real terms between 2006 and 2011, the authors note, driven up by federal corn-ethanol mandates [5] and relentless Wall Street speculation [6]. Then there’s federally subsidized crop insurance, the authors add. When farmers manage to tease a decent crop out of their marginal land, they’re rewarded with high prices for their crop. But if the crop fails, subsidized insurance guarantees a decent return. Essentially, federal farm policy, through the ethanol mandate and the insurance program, is underwriting the expansion of corn and soy agriculture at precisely the time it should be shrinking.

Crop insurance and subsidies can be good things if used sparingly in the right circumstances. It seems that this is one of the not good circumstances. Corn must have some good lobbyists as well, since Washington policy generally moves towards the money, even if it is short term.

A raven who has a favorite trucker. The raven seems to enjoy using air turbulence in front of his truck.

Study finds fog-like condition related to chemotherapy’s effect on new brain cells and rhythms

New research by Rutgers University behavioral neuroscientist Tracey Shors offers new clues for this fog-like condition, medically known as chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment. In a featured article published in the European Journal of Neuroscience, Shors and her colleagues argue that prolonged chemotherapy decreases the development of new brain cells, a process known as neurogenesis, and disrupts ongoing brain rhythms in the part of the brain responsible for making new memories. Both, she says, are affected by learning and in some cases are necessary for learning to occur.

Most chemo patients recover from this brain ‘fog’, but about 15% suffer long term cognitive issues.

A refresher on the water cycle, A Bike made from junked cars

By way of here, Theme: Where does that water flow? This link from the EPA which has some good educational resources. The writer at the first link says that everyone has probably seen these charts in elementary school. Maybe they have, maybe not, or it has become a cloudy memory by adulthood. The chart is still good science and a reminder that what we do on a mountain in California, a river flowing through the Appalachians or the sea off Japan, makes a contribution to the earth’s water cycle.

Larger chart

Distribution larger.

The video is from here, Bicycled: A Bike Made Out of Junked Cars

Bicycled is not only an idea, it’s a way of life

Because we are concerned about where the world is going now, at Lola Madrid we believe it’s always better to do than to say. So before talking about the perfect bike, we decided to create it.
Respect the environment and also the bikers

Every product we create is based on a consumer insight, that’s also based on an emotion. In this case, the emotion bikers feel when they ride a bike that was made out of wasted cars.

A little frustrating that we do not get to see the finished product, yet it is awesome in this day and age to see something be carefully crafted. As they say, that makes this bicycle a unique product.

Pinnacle Peak Trail wallpaper, Global farmland rush promises more than it delivers

Pinnacle Peak Trail wallpaper. The trail is part of Mount Rainier National Park.

The Global Farmland Rush

According to Oxfam, land equivalent to eight times the size of Britain was sold or leased worldwide in the last 10 years. In northern Mozambique, a Brazilian-Japanese venture plans to farm more than 54,000 square miles — an area comparable to Pennsylvania and New Jersey combined — for food exports. In 2009, a Libyan firm leased 386 square miles of land from Mali without consulting local communities that had long used it. In the Philippines, the government is so enthusiastic to promote agribusiness that it lets foreigners register partnerships with local investors as domestic corporations.

While large international business ventures buying up land for farming might not be the perfect solution for local food security or jobs, one would think it would provide some substantial increase in the local standard of living. Not even that has been the case. Jobs that are promised never materialize and local supply of food has not substantially increased. In one instance the United Arab Emirates bought land to grow sorghum. Part of their sales pitch to the Sudanese government was the creation of 2000 local jobs. Once their farm was up and running they had only hired 50 locals.

String Gardens – petals and leaves and roots and shoots grace the open air.

Air tulip Most plants sit resigned to the ground or confined by a planter. Yet they grow, reaching up to the sun, anchored down to the earth
.
Not so for String Gardens. These petals and leaves and roots and shoots grace the open air. Held aloft by a single line, these bright, blooming plants hang freely, defying the ground below.

With a bit of string, a willing subject, and his “secret” ingredients, Fedor van der Valk floats these magical gardens indoors and out. What could inspire such hovering horticulture?

There are more pictures at the link. Unfortunately he has not delve into how he creates the hanging plants.

 

How Pot Growers Ravage the Land: A Google Earth Tour

By one recent estimate, cannabis accounts for more than a quarter of Humboldt County’s $1.6 billion economy, a share that’s likely to grow with the legalization of marijuana for recreational use in nearby Washington State. But the pot economy’s need for land and water has sparked a whole new wave of environmental problems.

This might be another good reason to decriminalize marijuana everywhere. Instead of relying on massive illegal land use, everyone who wants to can grow a few plants for themselves.

Frosty Green leaf wallpaper, Mercury’s Silent Toll, Maintenance free touch screens

Frosty Green Leaf wallpaper

 

Mercury is one nasty chemical, Mercury’s Silent Toll

Scientists are only beginning to understand the impacts of mercury contamination on birds, fish, and other wildlife populations. But what they are finding is alarming — even low levels can cause harm, and chronic exposure has unexpected and troubling effects.

This month, delegates from over 140 countries gathered in Geneva and finalized the first international treaty to reduce emissions of mercury. The treaty — four years in the works and scheduled for signing in October — aims to protect human health from this very serious neurotoxin.

But barely considered during the long deliberations, according to those involved in the treaty process, was the harm that mercury inflicts on wildlife. While mercury doesn’t kill many animals outright, it can put a deep dent in reproduction, says David Evers, chief scientist at the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), who serves on a scientific committee informing the process. “It is a bit of a silent threat, where you have to kind of add up what was lost through studies and demographic models.”

Harmful levels of mercury have turned up in all sorts of animals, from fish and birds living around the world to pythons invading the Florida Everglades and polar bears roaming far from any sources of pollution. In recent years, biologists have been tracking mercury’s footprints in unexpected habitats and species. Their research is illuminating the subtle effects of chronic exposure and is showing that ever-lower levels cause harm.

Coal burning, gold mining, and other human activities release mercury into water bodies or the atmosphere, where it can travel great distances before settling back to Earth. Mercury contamination is ubiquitous and hotspots are common around the world, with fish and human hair collected in 14 countries regularly exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards, according to a BRI report released just before the Geneva negotiations. And while mercury emissions are declining in North America and Europe they are rising quickly in the developing world, according to the United Nations Environment

Exposed animals have trouble ridding their bodies of mercury and it accumulates in tissue. In the body mercury has detrimental effects on vertebrates’ development and their neurological and hormonal systems. At least on the part of the U.S. there was a positive step in banning the export of elemental mercury.

One of those tech or advances in materials science that consumers will belive when they have it in their hands and it actually works, Toray Showcases Self-repairing, Fingerprint-proof Film

Toray Industries Inc exhibited a film that self-repairs small scratches and makes fingerprints less visible and easy to be cleaned off at nano tech 2013, which runs from Jan 30 to Feb 1, 2013, in Tokyo.

The film is targeted at devices equipped with touch-sensitive screens such as smartphones and tablet computers. It was made by applying an anti-fingerprint technology to a self-repairing film that is currently sold by Toray.

There is probably more research regarding fingerprint proof screens and either self repairing and more scratch resistant than just these develpments from Toray. Since everything from smart-phones to tablets to laptops are all coming with touch reactive screens. Even clean hands are constantly emitting oils – which are technically chemical compounds called esters

I saw a female Painted bunting last week. They’re kind of rare around here. Not last summer but two years ago one came to the bird feeder pretty regularly. One would think that since there is one, maybe more females around I would see a male eventually, but I have not see a male in fifteen years.

Female Painted bunting. Courtesy Dan Pancamo and Creative Commons.

Animalia
Phylum:     Chordata
Class:     Aves
Order:     Passeriformes
Family:     Cardinalidae
Genus:     Passerina
Species:     P. ciris

Supersized Wind Turbines Head Out to Sea

Several companies are designing 10- and even 15-megawatt machines with 100-meter blades. These blades would reach two-thirds of the way to the roof of the Empire State Building. The push to supersize wind turbines is part of an effort to reduce installation and maintenance costs, which can be far higher than the cost of the turbines themselves.

Setting aside my concerns about the effects on marine life and sea birds the technology behind the turbines and the ship to install them is astounding. Pictured at the link is a ship especially made for installing these new super-sized turbines. It is capable of elevating itself on stilts – they’re the tall black tubes on the side that look like smoke stacks.

Blue Honeycomb Swirl wallpaper

Blue Honeycomb Swirl wallpaper

 

Forests as rainmakers: Scientist gains support for a controversial hypothesis

A new study boosts support for the physics behind a controversial theory that forests play a significant role in determining rainfall, creating atmospheric winds that pump moisture across continents.

The model could revolutionise the way we understand local climates, and their vulnerability, with many major implications. It suggests, for instance, that by strategically replanting forests we could attract rainfall into desert and arid regions like the African Sahel, where drought has for years ravaged crops and induced famine.

Likewise, significant forest loss could transform lush tropical regions into arid landscapes.

“This theory provides us with yet another reason to protect and conserve forest cover,” said Douglas Sheil, co-author of the paper published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics and a Senior Associate with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

You can read that paper here, Where do winds come from? A new theory on how water vapor condensation influences atmospheric pressure and dynamics.

British environmentalist Tony Juniper: What has nature ever done for us?

Through dozens of accessible stories I describe how nature is among other things the world’s largest water utility, a vital ally in the control of pests and diseases, the main means to capture solar energy, a massive recycling system, an endless innovator, the provider of all our food, a vast carbon capture and storage system and the only means we have to replenish oxygen. How can all that be an alternative to ‘growth’, especially when added together its annual contribution to our wellbeing is estimated as worth about double global GDP?

Cats kill more than one billion birds each year

America’s cats, including housecats that adventure outdoors and feral cats, kill between 1.4 billion and 3.7 billion birds in a year, says Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, D.C., who led the team that performed the analysis. Previous estimates of bird kills have varied, he says, but “500 million is a number that has been thrown around a lot.”

For wild mammals, the annual toll lies between 6.9 billion and 20.7 billion, Marra and his colleagues report along with the bird numbers January 29 in Nature Communications. The majority of these doomed mammals and birds fall into the jaws of cats that live outdoors full-time with or without food supplements from people.

New Lake Erie park protects valuable wildlife habitat

Project name: Lake Erie Bluffs Park.

Location: Lake County in northeast Ohio, about 30 miles east of Cleveland.

Description: Lake Erie Bluffs is a county park on the shores of Lake Erie in northeast Ohio. The 139-acre parcel provides public access to a gorgeous stretch of natural beach. The site is also ecologically significant: It provides habitat for 20 rare species, including the bald eagle, least flycatcher, purple sand grass and the inland sea rocket. The site was targeted for development but the project never materialized. Lake County officials then worked with other government agencies and private land trusts to acquire the site. The park meets one of the goals of the Great Lakes Restoration Collaborative. The collaborative, a presidential task force established in 2004, identified nine priorities for restoring the Great Lakes, including “a need for significantly more habitat conservation and species management