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Traffic in Sri Lanka’s Waters Threatens Blue Whales – NYTimes.com
2 JulMIRISSA, Sri Lanka — In early April, whale watchers off this country’s southern coast were greeted by a disturbing sight: the lifeless body of a 60-foot-long blue whale floating in the water about 12 miles offshore.
The body was swelling rapidly, and suckerfish swarmed across its skin. Even more unsettling was the condition of its tail, which had been nearly severed from the body.
“It was very obviously from a ship’s propeller,” said Mazdak Radjainia, a structural biologist and underwater photographer from the University of Auckland in New Zealand who happened upon the whale. “It must have been a really cruel death, because it was such a massive injury.”
Researchers say ship strikes are a leading cause of death among whales around the globe. Many that are killed are from endangered populations like blue whales that are barely holding on.
The problem is particularly troublesome here in Sri Lanka, where a largely unstudied population of blue whales, possibly numbering in the thousands, has come under increasing pressure from commercial shipping and from a boom in unregulated whale-watching boats.
via Traffic in Sri Lanka’s Waters Threatens Blue Whales – NYTimes.com.
Environment Petition: Governor Quinn: Don’t Let Big Plastic Bully Me! | Change.org
25 JunGo to the link below and sign the petition. I did.
Once again, big corporations are trying to use big government to control the rights of citizens in towns all over America, but this time you can help me stop it!
My name is Abby Goldberg, and as a 12-year-old girl who, after seeing the devastation that millions of plastic bags have caused the environment and ocean life, I made my school project this year to be getting a local ban on single-use plastic shopping bags in my home town Grayslake, IL.
My friends and I were making great progress, until the oil and chemical industry pulled a dirty trick to kill my campaign; these lobbyists used the politicians that they bought to pass a bill that would make it illegal for towns across Illinois to create plastic bag bans! Even worse, they’re trying to make it look like a green environmental bill, by putting in a few ridiculously-low requirements for so-called “recycling” of plastic bags, and are bragging they’re going to make it “a model bill for all states!”
Now it’s in the hands of our Governor to stop them with a veto, but he needs to hear from all of us!
I am heartbroken and so angry, because kids and adults like me are standing up to Big Oil and Big Plastic by creating bans everywhere, including in Los Angeles, Hawaii, Seattle, Toronto, Austin, Mexico City, Mumbai, Italy, Rwanda and more! Why? Because bag bans can be literally 2000% more effective than “bring your own bag” campaigns!
via Environment Petition: Governor Quinn: Don’t Let Big Plastic Bully Me! | Change.org.
Jumper Protests Human Folly
20 JunThe New York Times reports:
Racing regulators kept hearing the reports: trainers were giving their horses a powerful performance-enhancing potion drawn from the backs of a type of South American frog.
When asked for a comment, Jumper the Frog responded,”This is an outrage to frogs and horses everywhere. Have these humans no shame?”
Jumper further stated that the Amphibian Protection Association is investigating rumors that members of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia have been licking frog backs in late night sessions in the gardens at Monticello. “If these rumors prove true,” Jumper remarked, “the consequences will be most grave. Humans must not be allowed to continue acting like narcissistic damn fools. Frankly, they’re stinking up the planet. They need to stop it. Right now.”
A Story About Truth, Tradition, Dialog, and Groovology
17 JunThe following is a presentation of the Truth and Traditions Theatre of Polymorphic Politics, Jumper the Frog and Kong the Gorilla, proprietors. Since the adults are not getting the message, it’s in language suitable for five-year olds.
* * * * * Continue reading
Human Microbiome Project Decodes Our 100 Trillion Good Bacteria – NYTimes.com
13 JunMicrobes ‘R Us, the world within:
For years, bacteria have had a bad name. They are the cause of infections, of diseases. They are something to be scrubbed away, things to be avoided.
But now researchers have taken a detailed look at another set of bacteria that may play even bigger roles in health and disease — the 100 trillion good bacteria that live in or on the human body.
No one really knew much about them. They are essential for human life, needed to digest food, to synthesize certain vitamins, to form a barricade against disease-causing bacteria. But what do they look like in healthy people, and how much do they vary from person to person?
In a new five-year federal endeavor, the Human Microbiome Project, which has been compared to the Human Genome Project, 200 scientists at 80 institutions sequenced the genetic material of bacteria taken from nearly 250 healthy people.
via Human Microbiome Project Decodes Our 100 Trillion Good Bacteria – NYTimes.com.
Our Animal Natures – NYTimes.com
10 JunAnimals and humans get the same diseases; we even like to get high.
A century or two ago, in some rural communities, animals and humans were cared for by the same practitioner. And physicians and veterinarians both claim the same 19th-century doctor, William Osler, as a father of their fields. However, animal and human medicine began a decisive split in the late 1800s. Increasing urbanization meant that fewer people relied on animals to make a living. Motorized vehicles began pushing work animals out of daily life.
Open Tree of Life Project Draws In Every Twig and Leaf – NYTimes.com
10 JunThe Tree of Life – How many species? 2 million, 10 million? 100 million? And it’s not really a tree.
The most familiar species, those of animals and plants, will take up only a tiny part of the tree. “Most biodiversity on earth is microbial,” said Dr. Katz, the biologist at Smith.
Microbes also pose a special challenge. The branches of the tree of life represent how organisms pass their genes to their descendants. But microbes also transfer genes among one another. Those transfers can join branches separated by billions of years of evolution.
“In a lot of the tree of life, it’s not really treelike,” Dr. Cranston said.
She and her colleagues are exploring how they can build their database to include these gene transfers, and how best to visualize them. “That’s an issue we intend to struggle with for the next three years,” Dr. Katz said.
via Open Tree of Life Project Draws In Every Twig and Leaf – NYTimes.com.
Truth and Traditions 