Nature

MBARI's mapping AUV is prepared for launch from the research vessel Zephyr by Senior Research Specialist Dave Caress. Image credit: Duane Thompson © 2005 MBARI

Sonar checks WWII shipwreck for leaking oil

Experts hope to use sonar images of a sunken ship off California’s coast to determine whether the vessel is at risk of leaking oil. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) sent a robotic submersible down to the wreck of the SS Montebello last week in an effort to assess the condition of the ship. [...]

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Recent Posts

Development Threatens to Destroy Tuscany

Here, in one of the last Tuscan valleys to have remained entirely unspoilt since medieval times, the local comune has received an application to build a “well-being centre” 500 metres from a national monument, the Castello di Potentino, along with other residential structures, [...]

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Protect nature for world economic security

Britain and other countries face a collapse of their economies and loss of culture if they do not protect the environment better, the world’s leading champion of nature has warned.
“What we are seeing today is a total disaster,” said Ahmed Djoghlaf, the secretary-general of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. “No country has met its [...]

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Climate Change Disasters: Are These Events Of ‘Global Weirding’ Related To Global Warming?

From raging heat waves and wildfires to massive floods and building-swallowing sinkholes, 2010 is quickly becoming known as the year of “global weirding.”
While scientists generally agree that no single event can specifically be tied to the increase of emissions in the atmosphere, it's hard to deny that changes are quickly happening on our planet, whether [...]

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Moose Offer Trail of Clues on Arthritis

Many of the moose, it turns out, have arthritis. And scientists believe their condition’s origin can help explain human osteoarthritis — by far the most common type of arthritis, affecting one of every seven adults 25 and older and becoming increasingly prevalent.
The arthritic Bullwinkles got that way because of poor nutrition early in life, an [...]

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Listening to Blue Whales

After three months of work, a team of San Francisco State scientists has amassed more than 4,000 recordings of underwater moans and bubbling chatter made by blue whales off the California coast – a collection that could help explain how the largest of ocean animals communicates.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/09/BARN1ENQJ2.DTL#ixzz0wJocaFgp

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Help Clean Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park

NATIONAL “PUBLIC LANDS” DAY, September 25, 2010

September 25, 9am-noon – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park, Alachua Co, FL – Farm Day
Help clean up along the trails, paths and around the historic buildings at the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings historic farm, a National Historic Landmark. The work includes weeding and hoeing paths to the farmyard and [...]

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Otter Fund Takes a Financial Hit

In the financial downturn, the California Sea Otter Fund, funded by a voluntary checkoff, is strugging. Research could help save these animals, whose population continues to decline, http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2560.
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/03/2933762/research-fund-for-endangered-sea.html?storylink=lingospot_related_articles

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Sacramento’s Drying Up

The Sacramento Delta provides water to California agriculture as well as residential use. It's also habitat for species that are struggling and need more water to survive.

Amy Standen reports on what’s going to happen to the Sacramento Delta if Californians don’t stop taking more water out than is flowing in, http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201008040850/d.
The Sacramento Delta provides water to California agriculture as well as residential use. It's also habitat for species that are struggling and need more water to survive.

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Extreme close-ups of the creepy crawlies that infest our homes

These stunning detailed pictures magnified by over a million times reveal the true face of the hidden horrors in your home.
Seen through an ultra-powerful Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), these tiny creatures are some of several types of insect living undetected right under our noses.
One of the images taken using the [...]

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Scientists unravel human-ecosystem interactions

Ecological scientists will discuss findings on human-ecosystem interactions — from the effects of nanomaterials on plant growth to the diversity of insect species on green roofs, and even communities of airborne microbes in hospital buildings — at the Ecological Society of America’s 95th Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh from August 1-6, 2010. [...]

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Everglades, Madagascar rain forest on UNESCO list

The United Nations has added Florida's Everglades National Park and rain forests in Madagascar to its list of World Heritage sites in danger.
Being on the danger list allows the agency to allocate immediate assistance from the World Heritage Fund.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/07/30/2118315/everglades-madagascar-rain-forest.html#ixzz0vMQCgEfD
via Everglades, Madagascar rain forest on UNESCO list – KansasCity.com.

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Cave explorer, springs advocate Wes Skiles dies while diving

Film maker Wes Skiles, who entertained Gainesville Environmental Film Festival attendees with his films, tales and wit last March, died while diving off Boynton Beach, Florida, on Wednesday. Skiles’ death is a great loss, and our thoughts are with his family.
“Photographer and Florida springs advocate Wes Skiles died Wednesday while filming off the coast [...]

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This year, we ought to apologize to the ocean

“I was in and out of the water until sunset, not getting home until dusk,” Shindo recalled. “I walked (to the beach) at a very brisk clip every morning, but my pace was much slower going home, taking me twice as long as in the morning … . The seas were my childhood itself.” This [...]

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‘Green burial’ near Paynes Prairie for enviromentalist – Gainesville.com

A Gainesville icon lost, lovingly remembered…
“For three decades, Dr. Kathy Cantwell was a tireless advocate for preserving the environment and protecting the natural beauty of North Central Florida.
The Gainesville physician died early Tuesday morning at Haven Hospice of complications from a brain tumor. She was 60.
Fittingly, the activist will lead the way [...]

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Is Sustainability an Impossible Dream?

We claim to live sustainably if we can harvest or extract the earth’s resources without depleting or permanently damaging them. By that standard, no one in a country that devours coal, oil and water — and uses up a quarter of the earth’s resources — can live sustainably. Our collective footprint is just too huge.
To [...]

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Compost May Help Clean Up Gulf

Dan Sullivan of BioCycle explores the possibilities for using compost for a green solution to Deepwater Horizon’s Gulf oil catastrophe, http://www.jgpress.com/archives/_free/002118.html#more.

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Food – A Michigan Teen Farms Her Backyard – NYTimes.com

Nice work, Alexandra!
“Alexandra Reau, who is 14, combines a little bit of each: last year, she asked her dad to dig up a half acre of their lawn in rural Petersburg, Mich., so she could farm. Now in its second season, her Garden to Go C.S.A. (community-supported agriculture) grows for 14 members, who pay $100 [...]

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The Rich Catch Everyone Else’s Cutback Fever – NYTimes.com

Okay, let’s review: The economic model has led us to a horribly unsustainable situation whereby we are rapidly gutting our natural resources and polluting the planet with an overflow of junk created largely by poisonous petrochemicals. Creating a sustainable world depends on changing this model. We all need to buy less stuff and businesses need [...]

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Turtle Rescue Efforts Are Guided By Hope And Guesswork, Not Data

Oh, the plight of sealife in the Gulf is so, so sad. There are many commendable rescue efforts underway… I hope they’ll help. Alas, no one mentions in this story that sea turtles travel far and wide to return to the shore of their birth when it’s their turn to lay eggs. Three decades to [...]

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