The Infinite Sphere

Beautiful armadillo

2010-12-01T19:50:00.000-06:00

Many years ago I found a treasure trove of fossil animal bones in a cave. Scattered on ledges, encased in mud, lay the remains of dozens of animals that roamed the earth over 11,000 years ago. Ten foot long giant ground sloths. The largest lion that ever lived. A giant short-faced bear, a giant that stood 13 feet on its hind legs. Another animal was a giant armored creature called the beautiful armadillo (Dasypus bellus). I've always loved that name.

Beautiful armadillos were much like armadillos getting run over by cars all over the United States right now. However, the beautiful armadillo that disappeared from the earth 11,000 years ago was quite a lot bigger. The beautiful cousin of today's little armored mammal was over three feet tall. It was covered with bony plates to protect it from all of the sharp toothed and long clawed predators roaming the earth so long ago.

I'm writing an article about the cave that harbored so many ancient bones. When I came across the list of all of the bones pulled out of the cave, which probably represent so many more that are still there, sleeping in the inky blackness, I remembered the name beautiful armadillo. I bet it was beautiful indeed.

WNS in Europe

2010-11-09T19:57:00.006-06:00

When WNS was discovered in 2006, it was thought to be a problem unique to the northeast. Of course, the syndrome then proceeded to creep south, and it's currently lurking pretty close to my playground on the Cumberland Plateau. But in a surprising twist, French biologists found several bats coated with a white fungus in 2009, and when they studied the DNA, the fungus on bats in France was identical to the fungus affecting bats in the US. The French bats didn't seem sick, though. Weird. Researchers then started to look back through their records and found photos from the mid 1990s of other bats with a white fungus. Back then, nobody paid much attention to this weird fungus since the bats were perfectly healthy. Fungi is really common in caves, so seeing some is usually no cause for alarm. Now, as a result of the revelation that WNS has likely been in Europe for some time, researchers started to theorize that WNS originated in Europe, perhaps many thousands of years ago, and bats co-evolved with the fungus. Perhaps that's why it's not deadly there.

But is it harmless to European bats?

A new paper out today on PLoS ONE titled "Increasing Incidence of Geomyces destructans Fungus in Bats from the Czech Republic and Slovakia" describes how WNS has been found in many new locations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia over the last several years. What these researchers found is disturbing and fascinating at the same time.

The first thing in the paper that interests me is how the number of European caves affected by the WNS fungus increased last winter. At the beginning of the winter, researchers found 33 sites with possibly infected bats. At the end of the winter, they checked again, and found 76 sites. That's a huge increase! But why? But even more disturbing is that some of these bats did appear sick. Some were emaciated or had skin lesions, just like bats in the US. And even more disturbing, bats populations had been growing very slowing, but starting in 2008, bat populations declined. The declines aren't catastrophic as in the US, but rather by a less shocking 8 to 11%. Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe it's because of WNS. Maybe it's because of something completely unrelated. They don't know.

Even though WNS now appears to be having a negative impact on at least some of Europe's bats, researchers still think it's been there for a very long time. The paper even speculates that the reason European bats don't typically hibernate in huge clusters like in the US is because of evolutionary pressure from WNS. The idea is bats that hibernate in huge clusters are much more likely to be disturbed by other sick bats wiggling around during hibernation. Bats that hibernate in dense clusters also certainly spread disease very effectively among the group, too. So perhaps if WNS affected European bats tens of thousands of years ago, the bats that could adapt to roosting alone or in small groups were better able to deal with the WNS fungus and evolved into the species there today. Perhaps here in the US we're simply witnessing evolution in action. Neat idea, even though that would really suck for our bats.

But there are many unanswered questions with this study, just like there are many unanswered questions about WNS in general. First, if WNS has been in Europe for a long time, why is it showing up on bats right now? Why is it suddenly spreading to new roosts and affecting the health of bats? Is there some kind of environmental disturbance going on? Is there a common denominator between bats or their habitats on both continents?

The mystery of WNS continues to deepen. I just hope biologists don't start to blame American cavers for this.

Effective communication

2010-11-09T08:51:00.000-06:00

I attended the Land Trust Alliance national conference this year and learned all about new ways to protect and conserve land. One of the most interesting sessions I attended was a presentation by two professional pollsters discussing how the public perceives environmental topics. One of the first surprises was that a huge majority of the public supports protecting the environment. Yay! Another surprise was how few people are familiar with many common terms people in the environmental movement (including me) use to describe their work.

Is this a watershed?

What does the word "watershed" mean? Over 70% of the people polled thought it was a shed in your backyard to store water. What does the term "ecosystem services" mean? Most people had no idea, but didn't care for it. It sounds too complex. I have to admit I don't care for the term either. For some reason, it makes me think about economics. When the pollsters asked about other phrases that could be used in place of the disliked ecosystem services, people overwhelmingly liked the phrase "nature's benefit." Well, that sure does sound a lot nicer, and makes me think of the beautiful things in nature instead of someone sitting in an office writing convoluted reports about nature. I started to think of other terms I frequently hear or use that people might not immediately understand. What about karst, or sedimentation, or mitigation banks? I know that the first time I heard the phrase mitigation bank the image that popped into my head was a river bank that someone was reinforcing with big rocks. I bet others think of a bank dealing with money. But mitigation banks are really restored wetlands and streams. So why not just say "restored wetlands and streams?" Why do we come up with convoluted and confusing phrases when clear language would be so much better?

So what did I learn from the session? I learned that in order to effectively communicate about complex topics we need to make sure the language we use is easy to understand. That doesn't mean we need to dumb down our message. What it does mean is that when I'm writing any kind of outreach or educational materials for the general public, I'm now paying more attention to the language I'm using. I'm also making a point to use words and phrases that people can connect to easily and in a positive way.

Muddy Water Watch

2010-11-08T20:06:00.000-06:00

Can you name the most common water pollutant? You might think pesticides, animal manure, or industrial chemicals. Nope. The most common water pollutant is plain old dirt. Take a look at your local creek or river the next time it rains, and note whether or note the water is still fairly clear, or looks like the color of mud. I know in my state, creeks look like liquid red clay after every major rain storm. I usually have an urge after a heavy rain to collect some water and see what the mud to water ratio really is.

Why is dirt harmful? I mean, it's a natural substance, and dirt gets into streams and creeks no matter what we do. That's true. The problem is when excessive amounts of dirt, also called sedimentation, washes into streams. It chokes plant and animal life, and can even cause problems for water treatment plants.

One of the last times I kayaked a major rivers in my area, the water was so red and soupy that I couldn't see more than an inch under the surface. Usually I don't want to fall out of my boat because I worry about water snakes. That day, I didn't want to fall out of my boat because it looked like quicksand. I had visions of the muddy water sucking me down into the depths. My friends would never find any trace of me, just a lonely kayak aimlessly floating down the river. I decided to put on my life jacket pretty soon after getting on the river.

Sedimentation causes problems for native fish and other animals by ruining their habitat. Many types of fish live and lay eggs around loose gravel or cobblestones littering the bottom of streambeds. Sedimentation will fill in all of the gaps between small rocks, eliminating good fish habitat. Dirt can infiltrate fish gills, making them suffocate. Sedimentation also ruins habitat for other types of aquatic animals, like invertebrates that burrow underneath rocks. All of that dirt and silt will smother any kinds of plants growing in the stream. Plants are often either hiding places for fish, or food for a variety of animals. Sediment in the water is no good for any type of creature or plant that calls the water home.

Sedimentation is also expensive for people. It mucks up water treatment facilities, increasing the cost of cleaning up our drinking water by up to 60%. Excess dirt in the water also means other nasty things have been washed in too. Usually, sediment can carry pollutants that we typically think are main water pollutants: oil, grease, fertilizers. When dirt runs into the creeks, everything sprayed on or in contact with the dirt washes in too.

Polluted runoff from construction sites sends about 80
million tons of sediment into the nation's water bodies
each year. Credit: Waterkeeper Alliance

So how does all of the dirt get into the water? There are a couple ways. In my area, farmers sometimes till up their fields right up to the edge of a creek. That means when it rains, the water runs through the fields, picks up all that loose dirt, then flows right into the creek. Luckily many new initiatives are educating farmers about the benefits of leaving a buffer zone between fields and any water body. The most common way dirt gets into water is from housing developments. In these cases, developers bulldoze land right to the edge of a river, causing lots of problems even after the new homes are completed. If ground cover is removed right to the river's edge, there is nothing to hold back the dirt. Sometimes it can be hard to get grass or other ground covers to grow back right next to an active stream. But developments don't even need to be right next to a river to cause big problems. Developers like the one shown in the above photo make tons of dirt wash into storm drains. All that mud then flows straight into the nearest creek.

Regulations are supposed to prevent this kind of development, but in my state many developers either aren't aware of the laws, or just ignore them. Luckily, there are several new programs in the works to educate the development community and to report construction sites that aren't doing enough to stop dirt from flowing into our waterways. Muddy Water Watch started in North Carolina, and was so successful that Alabama has started its own program. The program educates developers about the real truth of effectively controlling sedimentation: it's cheaper for them. Yes, that's right, keeping sediment under control actually decreases long-term construction costs. But few developers seem to know that.

Check out the Muddy Water Watch site, and read up about sedimentation. If it's a problem in your area, find a local river conservation group and see if you can get involved in educating the public and the development community about the damage sediment does to our rivers and to our economies.

Caving and WNS policy

2010-11-01T10:59:00.013-05:00

Autumn leaves fall like snow as I walk downhill in a dry, rocky creekbed. Ahead of me, I see a gaping hole in the sharply sloping mountainside. I hear the sound of water falling onto hard rock, echoing through the woods. It's the cave. This past weekend I visited a beautifully stunning cave in the remote hills of Alabama, a cave recently opened by the efforts of the Southeastern Cave Conservancy. It was wonderful feeling the cool autumn breeze as we tied a rope to a tree to descend into the enormous sinkhole, then continued to rappel into the dark limestone crack leading deep into the mountain. After descending almost 200 feet straight down, we find passage sculpted over the eons by flowing water, formations clinging to the rock walls, and swiftly flowing streams descending farther and farther down into the rock. We follow the water, pushing ourselves deeper into the cave.

I explore caves for many reasons. I love the physical and mental challenge of reaching remote and inaccessible places deep within the earth. I love being nestled among hard rock, flowing water, and delicate formations hundreds of feet below the sky and trees. I love the beauty of caves, their bizarre and unique life forms, and their wild nature. I love the camaraderie and shared experiences of working together with other cavers to reach places that most people in this world will never see. But most of all, I love the sense of calm and my sense of connection with the wildness of our world when I am caving.

Unfortunately, caving is now under attack. I've been deeply involved in efforts to understand and track white nose syndrome for several years. I've worked closely with state and federal biologists to try to understand the disease, but recently I've become convinced that federal policy designed to stop the spread of WNS is not only completely ineffective, but is systematically destroying caving in the United States. Perhaps I'm overreacting. But I doubt it.

Gear getting ready for cleaning and decon

Wired Science recently published an article about efforts of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US Forest Service, and other federal and state agencies, to close every cave they can in the US. The blog Behind the Black discussed the article in a post titled Closing caves for the convenience and power of the government. Trying to close every cave in the country is not only dumb, it won't work, it's alienating the organized caving community, and cavers not plugged in to the caving community probably don't even know that all federal and state caves are closed. So they keep visiting caves. Organized cavers (including me) are still visiting caves in "WNS positive" states (in my case, Tennessee), as well as "adjoining" states (for me, Alabama and Georgia), despite FWS policy that says I shouldn't go into any cave, anywhere in those states, for any reason. A couple of years ago I drastically changed my caving habits to eliminate any risk I'm spreading WNS. Instead of never cleaning my gear unless it was coated in an inch of mud and simply whacking my muddy gear on rocks every Saturday morning before venturing into a new cave, I started thoroughly cleaning every bit of caving gear I own and soaking everything in Lysol. I no longer track any mud, dirt, or foreign material into any cave. The risk of me ever picking up a single WNS spore then carrying to a new site is essentially zero.

So why are federal rules so heavy-handed? What will closing every cave mean for conservation, science, or simple enjoyment of wilderness? Will federal actions even have an impact on slowing the spread of WNS? As I watch the slow, creeping spread of WNS down bat migration routes, I know that nothing we do will slow or stop WNS. Nature is much more powerful than humans, and in the case of a virulent wildlife disease affecting tiny, highly mobile animals, we are powerless. Humans don't like to feel powerless against nature. So policies now in place are designed to try to create the illusion that humans have control over WNS, over bats, and over cave ecosystems. But in the case of WNS, we don't. Instead of focusing time and money on trying to tell people to stay out of every cave, I wish federal biologists would instead focus all of their energy on truly understanding how WNS is spread, trying to find a way to treat at least some bat colonies, and figuring out how to keep bats in captivity to ride out WNS.

In the meantime, I'm going to continue cleaning my gear, continue going into caves, and continue trying to push for more common sense policies.

Mourning bats and caves

2010-10-29T19:15:00.002-05:00

I’ve been a caver and a bat conservationist for the majority of my life. I first saw a bat clinging to gray limestone cave walls, covered with glistening dew, at the tender age of 12 (I'm now over 40). From that moment on, I’ve loved bats. I’ve tried to tell others about all of the great things bats do for people and the environment, how they’re really not scary or dangerous, and why we should protect them. I’ve given presentations about bats, written articles about them, and been a strong promoter of bat conservation and research. I’ve observed bats in a variety of caves, read books and scientific papers about them, and even wrote college research papers on bat migration patterns. I've helped with numerous winter surveys of hibernation caves, worked closely with government agencies, and helped with bat research. I have bat stickers on my car and a bat stuffed animal on my dashboard. I feel like I know more about bats than many people with biology degrees.

Then white nose syndrome entered my vocabulary. WNS, as I’ve written before, is a deadly contagion decimating bat populations across the country. I watched WNS creep down the Appalachian flyway with deep apprehension, unsure about whether or not people who explore caves were contributing to the disaster. I started thoroughly cleaning and decontaminating my gear between trips. But last winter, when the syndrome was still creeping slowly along migration routes, and was not in the popular caving region in Alabama and Georgia, I decided cavers aren’t contributing to this problem. If we were, it would be in all of our hundreds of popular caves right now. But it's not here. Of the few caves in Tennessee that are currently affected by WNS, only one is popular with cavers. The other hundreds of popular recreational caves in Tennessee are still free from WNS--at least for now.

But unfortunately for recreational cavers, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, by starting down the path of linking us to WNS, started a rumor that has been hard to squash, the rumor that cavers are responsible for WNS.

We’re not responsible.

There is no evidence we are spreading WNS; in fact, available evidence points to bats spreading it quite efficiently among themselves. Not a single scientific study has ever been published that links WNS to a human vector. So why do so many news reports, U. S. Forest Service official documents, and various other reports, say that WNS is our fault?

Back in the early days of worrying about WNS in the southeast, my main fear was what would happen to the bats I so love. Would the huge colonies that I’d helped study be wiped out? Would the gentle gray bats that hibernate in massive southeastern caves even survive this wildlife catastrophe? Will they go extinct? Was there anything anyone could possibly do to help them? Could we save them?

As time has passed, my concern grew to not only include all of the questions about what will happen to bats, but what will happen to caving in the United States. As FWS rules swept across the country, other state and federal agencies started to close every cave they manage--even caves with no bats. Huge tracts of land are now off-limits to recreational caving, even though there has still not been a single scientific study that links cavers to spreading WNS. Agencies are pressing private landowners to close their caves. Why? If biologists really tried to understand caves and caving in this country, they would see that there's practically no way that cavers have anything to do with WNS. In my part of the country, there are well over 15,000 caves. Hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of them are popular recreational destinations. Cavers from all over the country explore, photograph, and map caves all across the southeast. I know cavers from states hard-hit by WNS who have been in southeastern caves repeatedly since this disaster started. Yet, WNS is not in any of the caves they visited. If recreational cavers are responsible for spreading WNS, it would be moving like other easily communicable diseases, like the flu. Hotspots would pop up where cavers visited. WNS would be in the most popular caves in TAG. That hasn’t happened, which to me shows that the notion that cavers are spreading WNS is wrong. It's certainly possible for a person to transport WNS. But it's obviously not happening. Where is the science to prove me wrong? There isn’t any.

One of my favorite caves to visit is a vast system in Alabama. The cave features miles and miles of intriguing passages, pits, and beautiful formations. Huge numbers of bats hibernate in one isolated section of the cave. And no, WNS isn't in this massive bat hibernaculum, even though portions of the cave are popular caving destinations (or were until the cave was closed). Hmmm. In the part of the cave I typically visited, I would see a couple of small pipistrelle bats, but I have never once seen one of the endangered gray or Indiana bats. Yet, I am no longer confident that I will ever again visit the part of the cave with few bats, even after WNS sweeps through my region. As WNS creeps closer and closer, I am starting to preemptively mourn for not only bats that I love, but also for caves that I love. Why? I am sure that bureaucracy and red tape, not science, will keep cavers out of underground wildernesses. Bureaucrats who know nothing about caves and cave resources will punish cavers for this disease, despite the lack of a single shred of evidence that we are contributing at all. They will banish those of us who know the most about caves and bats from the places we love.

I hope I’m wrong. But if I'm not, I've decided I'm not going to sit by and let bureaucrats ban me from places I love without putting up one heck of a fight.

Southwest drought

2010-10-26T19:20:00.000-05:00

I love to visit the southwestern deserts. I'm used to lush, forested areas in the east that are full of rivers and streams, so going to a place of bare rock and plants that can cling to life on only inches of rain every year is like visiting another world. Whenever I go out west and hike in the desert, I'm amazed by the hardiness of life. Trees take root in small cracks in bare rock. Flowers spring up from the middle of vast expanses of sand. Cacti flourish in areas that reach well over 110 degrees in the summer. In the desert, life finds a way. I am also equally amazed when I visit cities like Las Vegas. I will never forget the first time I visited Vegas. My first shock was seeing slot machines at the airport that accepted $100 bills. My next shock was seeing water fountains everywhere on the downtown strip. I watched, mesmerized, at the fountain display at the Bellagio, as water whipped around like liquid ballet dancers. I watched pirates prance around on a ship in the middle of a fake lake at Treasure Island. Water flows through that city like liquid gold. But the next day when I headed towards Utah for a backpacking trip, I noticed that Vegas really and truly is in the middle of a desert. Not a drop of water can be seen for miles around the city. The road towards Utah is bleak, barren desert. Why was a city in the middle of a desert wasting so much water?

Today I read that Lake Mead, the huge lake formed by Hoover Dam, fairly close to Las Vegas, is at an all time low. It's actually 15 inches lower than the all-time low level recorded in 1956. The drought, now into its 11th scorching year, is likely to continue for at least another couple of years. All the while, the population and water demands in the west continue to increase. And to add to the water woes is the fact that the west is subject to extreme and lengthy droughts. The last 100 years may actually have been an abnormally wet period in an otherwise dry and parched history.

In an interview with the New York Times, Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said "if the river flow continues downward and we can’t build back up supply, Las Vegas is in big trouble.” Indeed.

What will this mean for the west and for its dwindling water resources? Will states figure out ways to slash wasteful or unnecessary water use as water resources dwindle? Will they find other sources of water? Will they outlaw grassy lawns (I've never understood why people in the desert feel compelled to plant grass)? I've actually heard that many western states are investigating options that might seem nutty, like piping in water from the Mississippi or other far rivers, to meet demand. Heck, maybe they should consider importing water from the Amazon. Water will soon be the new oil.

Spiders in the dark

2010-10-20T11:12:00.000-05:00

I'd been in the cave for four hours. It took that long to crawl, rappel, and climb my way through thousands of feet of passage and burrow my way over 450 feet under the surface of the earth. And my husband and I move fast. Other cavers? Well it might take them six hours just to reach this far point, if they could even find it. I was sitting in one of the most difficult places to get to in the southeast, but I wasn't thinking about that. What I was thinking about was eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I plopped down on a big pile of sand, fished around in my ridiculously stuffed cave pack, and pulled out lunch.

I was in this deep southeastern cave not just for fun, but to look for cave life as part of a biological inventory. When I started the project, I didn't think I'd find anything interesting very far from the entrances. Boy, was I wrong. Caves, even though they're totally dark, have very few food sources, and are extremely difficult to access, feature a wonderful variety of life.You just have to look.

After lunch, we did some sightseeing. We started next to the slim strand of rope leading up into the darkness: our path back to the world of light. Walking down a sandy path, my headlamp glanced off of the ceiling 30 feet above my head. The light danced off of tiny water droplets clinging to the ceiling, creating the illusion of millions of tiny diamonds glinting in the dark. Giant chunks of soft gray limestone towered over our heads, arching softly to form a smooth domed ceiling to the long tunnel. We reached a stream meandering lazily through the immense passage. We had to clamber over giant chunks of limestone that has dislodged themselves from the walls or ceiling in eons past, and now were sentinels guarding the way. The water had carved delicate shapes in some of the blocks that were close to the water. As I climbed over the rocks, my fingers moved over thousands of tiny fossils. I love seeing fossils this far under the surface of the earth. They remind me that the rock I'm climbing over, rock that is 450 below the surface of the earth, were once living animals thriving in an ocean filled with life. My fingers linger over the crinoids and coral as I imagine that shallow sea under an ancient sun.

Steve pokes his head into a narrow canyon leading off the main stream. A trickle of water emerges from the slot in the wall, but we can hear the boom and rumble of falling water in the distance. I decide to check out some nooks and crannies near the floor and find something surprising. Near the sandy floor, tucked away in a tiny alcove, are spiders. They're tiny, about half the size of my pinkie. Their webs have no form, more like lazy cobwebs in the corner of an unused room. The spiders don't seem to be doing much. I blow on them, and they wiggle, climbing up their webs to escape the strange and gigantic intruder to their dark and quiet world. I am amazed that these spiders are here. We're not only far beneath the mountain, we're also at least a half mile from any known entrance. How do these spiders get nourishment? How do they live? What do they eat? They are living near the edge of a large bat colony. I wonder if bats bring enough organic matter into the cave to attract other types of cave life into this dark world. Perhaps there are tiny cracks that allow insects or other life to access the cave. It seems very mysterious to me. I collect one of the spiders to deliver to an insect expert. I do feel guilty killing a spider that is thriving in this remote world, but there are others to hopefully fill the void.

Steve and I continue on down the winding and narrow passage. The limestone surrounding us on both sides looks like the sand you see at the bottom of a fast moving river or shallow ocean. The rock is scalloped and sculpted as flowing water scooped out and carved the chunks of limestone. You can measure how quickly water used to flow over the rock by measuring the distance between the peaks of each tiny scalloped mark. Looking up, the passage towers over our heads so high that the far reaches remain inkily black. I hear water roaring. The sound of water crashing onto solid rock starts to penetrate not only my sense of hearing, but my sense of touch. I can feel the reverberations as I touch the limestone walls. The sound of water gets louder. I start to feel a strong wind pushing against my body; a fine mist coats my face. I emerge into a large room, a dome with a powerful stream of water pounding the boulders in the center of the room. We have to shout to hear each other over the continual, dull roar.

After spending a few minutes enjoying the waterfall, we turn around before we're we're soaked by the spray and head back on our mission of finding more cave life. We do find more this day. But the spiders remain the creatures that most intrigue me. Many months later, after a specialist has looked at them, I find out that this kind of spider is rare. It's blind, and is likely a new species. I wonder if all of the animals I find in such remote areas will be unique. After all, they've had so much time to evolve in such a remote home that they've likely changed to make the most of their environment.

Unfortunately, soon after this trip, this cave that I love so much was closed as a result of White Nose Syndrome. I'm hoping to have access to the cave again at some point in the future, especially since bats don't roost or hibernate in the parts of the cave we explore. But one thing that this project taught me is that the life you can find in caves extends way beyond just bats. Caves are home to a huge variety of life, and we should make an effort to understand all of the unique animals that call caves home.

Documenting the Decline

2009-12-17T10:46:00.005-06:00

In 2006, biologists noticed a mysterious white fungus on the muzzles of northeastern bats. Three years later, over a million northeastern bats are dead, and a new disease, dubbed "White Nose Syndrome," has spread south from New England to the southern reaches of Virginia and West Virginia. The disease is creeping ever closer to huge bat colonies in Tennessee and Alabama, some of the last refuges for endangered and threatened species.

I live in Tennessee and have spent the majority of my life exploring caves and observing bats. I find them to be some of the most interesting animals I've even encountered. One of the highlights of my life (so far) was visiting a bat hibernaculum in the middle of the winter well before white nose syndrome became a threat. The air in the cave hovered around freezing, yet the walls were covered with a carpet of velvety bats that stirred as we crept through their winter home. I will never forget crawling at a snail's pace across a limestone ledge, bats completely covering the walls of either side of me. Their tiny bodies faintly stirred as they sensed an intruder sliding by. I felt awed at seeing a spectacle that few people have seen, and also awed by the natural design that allows so many delicate creatures (well over a million in that one cave) to thrive in such a harsh and unfriendly environment.

But I worry that the last time I visited the hibernaculum was the last time I will see such a wonder of nature. I sit here thinking about the bats in my favorite cave, bats that are currently hibernating in the heart of an Alabama mountain. Are they sick? Are they dying? The next time a person visits the cave, will the floor be littered with dead and dying bats? Or will the bats be spared for one more season?

I also wonder if the bats are spared for one more year, if the illness only makes it to middle Tennessee this winter, will it matter? If the disease stalls for one winter, or even two, what can humans possibly do to cure a disease that is affecting one of the least understood mammals in the world? How can humans possibly have any chance at stopping a total ecological disaster affecting an animal that most biologists can't easily find in the wild?

Biologists are working hard to try to figure out a way to fight the illness, but from what I can see, efforts are based on best guesses, and not on hard facts. Nobody yet knows any possible way to stop the disease, so researchers are grasping at straws to try to delay the spread to southern hibernacula. Some of the straws they are grasping at include asking cave explorers to simply give up caving entirely, an activity that for many is more than a sport, it's a lifestyle, one they simply will not give up. Some scientists are conducting experiments this winter to try to better understand how the disease spreads, but by the time they find an answer, it may be too late for any bat in the eastern United States.

I have many questions about this disease. Is it, like some are suggesting, an invasive species brought to the US from a cave in Europe? Is something else going on to make bats more susceptible to this devastating disease? Are humans contributing to the spread here in the US? Do decontamination protocols published by the US Fish and Wildlife Service really work?

I probably won't know the answers to those questions for many years. I also fear that before I find answers to my questions, most of the bats in the eastern United States will simply be gone.

Toxic Waters: clean water in America

2009-09-13T10:20:00.004-05:00

This is a great overview of the state of our water. The Clean Water Act was designed to protect us from dangerous contaminants, but many of our rivers, streams, and aquifers are contaminated with dangerous toxins.

Toxic Waters: The Series: A series about the worsening pollution in America's waters and regulators' response. Almost four decades after Congress passed the Clean Water Act, the rate of water pollution violations is rising steadily. In the past five years, companies and workplaces have violated pollution laws more than 500,000 times. But the vast majority of polluters have escaped punishment.

Department of Interior Halts Leasing of Utah Wilderness

2009-02-04T19:08:00.002-06:00

This is one of the many reasons I voted for the Democrat this year.

Bold Action by Department of Interior Halts Leasing of Utah Wilderness

WASHINGTON (February 4, 2009) – More than 100,000 acres of Utah wilderness will be protected from oil and gas drilling after the Department of Interior announced today that it will cancel 77 leases issued under the Bush administration. This is among the first actions taken by the Obama administration to protect America’s wild lands. Since December, a coalition of environmental groups – led by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), Earthjustice, and the Wilderness Society – have been working to protect these public lands. In December, the coalition filed suit to stop the leasing, and, in January, Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of the U.S. District Court granted a temporary restraining order preventing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from moving forward with these leases.

“I see this announcement as a sign that after eight long years of rapacious greed and backdoor dealings, our government is returning a sense of balance to the way it manages our lands," said Robert Redford, an NRDC trustee. "American citizens once again have a say in the fate of their public lands, which in this case happen to be some of the last pristine places on earth.”

42 foot long snake?

2009-02-04T19:05:00.002-06:00

Wow, this is pretty cool. Although I'm glad snakes this big don't still roam the woods...

Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by its discoverers, the size of the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1140 kg (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 metres (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip. A report describing the find appears in this week's Nature.

Green Gigs

2009-02-02T19:18:00.002-06:00

This sure is a fun site for virtual environmental jobs:

Green Gigs

I know I'm going to start visiting regularly!

Is clean coal realistic?

2009-01-28T22:06:00.007-06:00

The short answer: no. Not without completely restructuring not only the way coal burning power plants operate, but also completely restructuring the way the mining industry is regulated and monitored.

On December 22, 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic coal ash sludge spilled out of a 40-acre retention pond when a dam burst at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Coal Plant. The amount of sludge was enough to fill 1,660 Olympic-size swimming pools, and the volume released was about 50 times larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. How did this happen? TVA was using an unregulated and unlined dam more than 50 feet high to store coal ash, the residue that results from burning coal. Some companies dump this ash into old coal mines. Others use it in cement. But much of the ash is stored in ponds which do not seem to be regulated in any way. This was a huge disaster for not only the people who live in the area, but for the area's soil and waterways. The toxic heavy metals and sludge will contaminate this area for many years to come. On January 1, 2009 the first independent test results, conducted at the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry laboratories at Appalachian State University, showed significantly elevated levels of toxic metals (including arsenic, copper, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel, and thallium) in samples of slurry and river water. Of course, a TVA spokesman said that the TVA was "taking steps to stabilize runoff from this incident." In response to a video that showed dead fish, he stated "in terms of toxicity, until an analysis comes in, you can't call it toxic." While describing the coal ash, he said "it does have some heavy metals within it, but it's not toxic or anything." Hmmm. I would guess that the heavy metal contamination of fields will last for hundreds of years. Will TVA be forced to change the way they store coal ash? I certainly hope so. As long as coal ash is stored in this manner, coal is not clean. Here's a video showing what the river looked like several days after the spill. It's really quite disgusting.

So... is this the first time a disaster like this has happened? No. Another dam associated with an actual mining operation occurred in 2000, and another dam near Guntersville, AL leaked this month. There are many more examples of problems with these ponds. To learn more about the 2000 incident in Kentucky, which the responsible mining company was only fined $5000, watch the following 30 minute video (available for free until the end of January).

http://appalshop.org/sludge/stream.php

Until these kinds of abuses are stopped, until the mining and power industry faces strong regulation, disasters like this will continue to occur, and in the process will continue to destroy homes, fields, water supplies, and waterways.

Some additional disturbing articles about this issue:

Toxic Coal Ash Piling up in ponds in 32 states: Records indicate that states storing the most coal ash in ponds are Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama.

Coal Ash More Radioactive Than Nuclear Waste

Kingston article on Wikipedia (usually I don't like linking to Wiki, but this articles has good information).

Yummy! Mercury!

2009-01-28T21:50:00.005-06:00

Several years ago I turned into a fanatical label reader. I avoid products with hydrogenated oil and high fructose corn syrup. Why corn syrup? It's just a sweetener, after all. Well, I have read too many things about it to feel good about eating it. An article I just read makes me happy I cut this food item out of my diet:

Studies Find Mercury in Much US Corn Syrup
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many common foods made using commercial high fructose corn syrup contain mercury as well, researchers reported on Tuesday, while another study suggested the corn syrup itself is contaminated.

Food processors and the corn syrup industry group attacked the findings as flawed and outdated, but the researchers said it was important for people to know about any potential sources of the toxic metal in their food.

In one study, published in the journal Environmental Health, former Food and Drug Administration scientist Renee Dufault and colleagues tested 20 samples of high fructose corn syrup and found detectable mercury in nine of the 20 samples.

There are a couple of things about the study of actual food items that don't seem well designed. If you read the entire article you may wonder why the study on actual food items didn't also test food without corn syrup but manufactured in the same plants to see if the mercury was actually in the corn syrup or was a byproduct of the manufacturing process. Either answer would be equally bad, but would be more conclusive. But the first study by itself is enough to make me quite happy to continue to avoid the yummy sounding high fructose corn syrup.

Green Lynx Spider

2008-11-19T20:05:00.002-06:00

Going through some old photos, and here's a picture of a gorgeous spider.

Oekologie returns!

2008-11-16T09:22:00.011-06:00

Welcome back to Oekologie! This edition includes a variety of posts that explore issues across the world. Since November has been a month of incredible excitement in US politics, it's fitting to start with some political news.

Politics, nature, and society
Do humans have a right to nature? The people of Ecuador think so. In October, the citizens of Ecuador voted to adopt a new constitution. Most news coverage of the referendum has focused on how it could allow leftist president, Rafael Correa, to solidify his power. To Ben Connor Barrie, the most interesting aspect of the new constitution is that it grants its citizens inalienable rights to nature. Photo to the left: Rio Tiputini in Amazonian Ecuador, photo by Ben Connor Barrie.

Conservation and social responsibility
Next up, how do our actions impact the environment? We have three posts about this issue.

First, does thinking about the environment and your impact on it make you a treehugger, an activist, or simply a responsible citizen? Nathan Creitz shares his thoughts.

And this month's host is a confirmed political junkie and would like to share an article in the New York Times that links food production, climate change, and national security issues. Our next president will have a lot on his plate!

Sustainable Design Update reports on a recent publication that shows Sustainable Farming Maintains Biodiversity. As global demand for food increases with our ever-growing population, it will become ever more important to employ agricultural methods that don’t negatively impact biodiversity.

On a related note, Yemen may need taller wheat. Luigi Guarino discusses why farmers in Yemen still plant varieties of wheat that yield lower grain yield. The answer is that people in Yemen build mud brick homes, and while the new varieties produce a higher grain yield, the wheat is too short to make the mud bricks they used to build their homes.

Now, what about sustainable fisheries? GrrlScientist reviews one of my very favorite books, Bottomfeeder. Are there really plenty of fish in the sea? Unfortunately, the answer is no. If you love seafood, but are concerned about how to eat in an environmentally responsible way, read this book!! GrrlScientist reports she's already started changing her eating habits as a result of this book, and so have I. I'm now a fan of smoked kippers, a food I never though about trying until the author Taras Grescoe sung its praises .

Invasive Species
When I think of invasive species, I usually think of plants. But animals can also be invasive.

For example, what do you do when there are too many cats and too few people? Ros Peacock discusses feral cat issues in Australia. Trap, neuter, and release is a model many in the United States embrace, but does it work in Australia?

GrrlScientist shares a post about exotic invasive parrot species: there's more than meets the eye! In fact, molecular genetic analyses of an exotic invasive parrot species reveals (1) a cryptic species and (2) support for the notion that the pet trade was involved in establishing this invasive species in the USA. Image to the right from Arthur Grosset.

Rare and Endangered Species
Even in times of declining biodiversity across the planet, we are still pleasantly surprised by news of scientists finding new species, or rediscovering species thought to be extinct.

GrrlScientist tells us about a Tiny Gecko Species Discovered in Vanuatu Rainforest.
According to scientists at France's National Museum of Natural History, a new species of gecko has been discovered -- after it hatched from an egg removed from a nest on a South Pacific island and carried 12,000 miles to Paris in a box lined with Kleenex. The island, Espiritu Santo, is one of the larger South Pacific islands of the Vanuatu Archipelago, east of Australia.

Some wonderful new as an Endangered Cockatoo Species is Rediscovered in Indonesia. The world's rarest cockatoo, known as the Masakambing (Abbott's) yellow-crested cockatoo, Cacatua sulphurea abbotti, is a subspecies of Yellow (Sulfur)-crested cockatoo, which are endemic to several small islands of Indonesia. Worldwide, five cockatoo species are critically endangered -- four of which are yellow-crested cockatoos that are found only in Indonesia. Last seen more than twenty years ago when the total population numbered between roughly five and ten individuals, these birds have remained enigmatic due to their rarity and to the immediate threat of extinction.

And now, a bridge to birds!
Greg Laden tells us about a newly discovered species of dinosaur that demonstrates the evolution of a bird-like respiratory system in an animal that is definitely not bird-like in most other ways. Check out Aerosteon riocoloradensis: A Very Cool Dinosaur from Argentina.

And now... Birds!
This month we're innundated with bird posts! Must be related to the start of fall migration...

A DC Birding Blog discusses two studies that show greater bird diversity reduces the chances of human infection with the West Nile Virus. The studies highlight something many people don't realize: protection from disease is yet another reason to protect wildlife diversity.

Grrlscientist was on a roll with submissions this past month. She's provided lots of interesting posts about birds and bird behavior. In a post titled Race to save the world's rarest bird, she reviews the new book by Alvin Powell about the desperate struggle to save the world's rarest bird, the Po'ouli of Hawaii. This book reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the US Endangered Species Act.

Mystery bird! Try to guess what it is before reading the caption. From near-extinction less than a century ago, this species has rebounded in its North American range to be the most abundant breeding duck in the eastern US -- and it is increasing in the west, too.

Finally, we learn about the rare (and beautiful) Endangered Rimatara Lories. They're busy Making Babies! Photo to the right is of this gorgeous species from Gerald McCormack.

Thanks for visiting! We really need hosts for future editions of Oekologie! If you're interested in hosting, please leave a comment and we'll contact you!

Hooray!

2008-11-09T10:09:00.001-06:00

This is why I voted for the Democratic candidate this year:

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

A team of four dozen advisers, working for months in virtual solitude, set out to identify regulatory and policy changes Obama could implement soon after his inauguration. The team is now consulting with liberal advocacy groups, Capitol Hill staffers and potential agency chiefs to prioritize those they regard as the most onerous or ideologically offensive, said a top transition official who was not permitted to speak on the record about the inner workings of the transition.

"The kind of regulations they are looking at" are those imposed by Bush for "overtly political" reasons, in pursuit of what Democrats say was a partisan Republican agenda, said Dan Mendelson, a former associate administrator for health in the Clinton administration's Office of Management and Budget. The list of executive orders targeted by Obama's team could well get longer in the coming days, as Bush's appointees rush to enact a number of last-minute policies in an effort to extend his legacy.

Bio lab on barrier island... huh?

2008-10-30T07:55:00.003-05:00

The University of Texas will open a new facility next month to study some of the deadliest viruses on the planet, including Ebola, anthrax, tularemia, West Nile virus, drug-resistant tuberculosis, bubonic plague, avian influenza and typhus. Great, we need to learn more about these viruses! But where is the new facility located? On Galveston Island, a barrier island that is extremely susceptible to hurricanes. It seems like a seriously bad idea to locate a facility like this on an island that will get hit again by a hurricane much worse than this year's category 2 Ike.

I'm one of the weirdos who don't think people should build anything on barrier islands. I've watched over the years as condos and other structures at my favorite beach vacation spots suffered catastrophic damage (some have gotten hit 3 times in my short memory) as hurricanes blew through. Well, let me rephrase that. People should be free to build homes or businesses on barrier islands, but they shouldn't get any federal relief when a hurricane blows through and destroys their home. That might sound harsh, but barrier islands are just not smart places to build anything.

So... I'm just speechless about this lab, especially now that we're entering a more active hurricane cycle. It seems completely crazy and irresponsible to me.

Big Frog

2008-10-21T15:57:00.010-05:00

"You know, a guy got killed by a bear up there a few years ago," my friend Angela mused as we discussed our weekend backpacking trip to the Big Frog Wilderness on the Tennessee/Georgia border.

"Oh we'll be fine, I have pepper spray!" I responded.

But in all seriousness, planning a trip to the Big Frog does require some planning. Guidebooks note that many of the trails are unmarked (usually because bears claw up signs) so you have to be able to read a map and use a compass. Most trails feature steep elevation gains (3,000 feet in many cases), so hikers must be in good condition. Plus, encountering a bear is a real concern; hikers must know what to do if they encounter a bear, not to mention know how to keep a clean camp so bears don't think your campsite is a dinner buffet.

We got to our trailhead early in the afternoon, and saw several small groups of car campers lounging around in very nice campsites under the dark hemlock canopy. The trail immediately started uphill, winding back and forth through nice oak/hickory forest. The trail often seemed to cling to the edge of a mountain, with steep dropoffs down into more heavily forested terrain. We kept going up. And up. And up. My legs started to ache. I ate a Snickers to give myself a boost. It didn't work. Finally, after gaining probably 2,500 feet, we gained the top of a ridge, and the uphill jaunts became less tiresome. We encountered a trail marker that was simply a piece of wooden 4x4 stuck into the ground, covered with very large claw marks. The actual sign marking the trails was gone. Someone had written the trail names on the marker in pen (very useful!).

We started looking for a campsite, but everything we'd seen so far had been a steep slope uphill, or a steep slope downhill. No flat spots anywhere, except right in the middle of the trail. We finally came to a saddle that was relatively flat. A small trail led downhill and to the right. There was no trail marker, except for a pile of rocks, so we though "hmm, maybe this leads to a nice campsite." Angela checked it out, and the trail was well used, led to no flat spots, and kept going.

We finally decided that the flat spots along the side of the ridgetop trail were the best we were going to find before dark, so we stopped and set up camp. The view was spectacular. We were very high up by this point, and could see for miles both east and west. Sunset painted the sky vivid red, and lingered long after dusk. We were careful with our food, didn't spill anything, and hung our food on a string well out of reach of bears, or any other clawed creatures that might happen by our camp in the night. I will admit I kept my pepper spray next to my pillow, just in case.

I got up early the next morning to find fog clinging to all the valleys on both side of the ridge. Simply gorgeous. After lounging around drinking coffee then packing up, we headed up the trail (yes, still going uphill). According to the map, the next turn we needed to take was not too far ahead. We hiked a good bit farther that we thought we should. We hadn't seen any other trail markers, so kept going. Finally, we reached another 4x4 trail marker, again with no signs. We looked at the map and thought we knew where we were, and chose the trail we thought was correct. According to the map, the trail would start downhill on a ridge, then head sharply downhill on the side of the mountain. We headed downhill on a ridge. And stayed on a ridge for several miles. We were on the wrong trail. We eventually figured out that the pile of rocks we saw next to the obscure trail Angela checked out was the trail we should have taken.

But we knew which trail we were on, and it just came out of the wilderness a mile or so away from our vehicle. We kept going. We passed yet another trail marker, this time with the actual trail names (along with more bear claw marks and a tuft of bear fur). Eventually, we popped out on an old Forest Service road, which is what we expected. But we had evidently veered off on a side trail, and reached the road much sooner than we should have. We walked for probably 3 miles on this road until finally reaching the road leading to Angela's truck. We walked another couple of miles on the road back to the truck (and happily for me, a peanut butter sandwich). Because of our wrong turn (it was the bear's fault!) we hiked about 5 more miles than we'd planned, gained 3,500 feet in elevation overall, but it was worth it.

For anyone who cares, we started at trailhead 3 on the map, turned left on trail 2 (which featured the first clawed-up sign), and camped near the junction to trail 4. Trail 4 is the one that we missed, marked only by a pile of rocks. We meant to take this trail back to the truck. We continued to Big Frog Mountain and turned north on trail 5 (also unmarked except by a clawed up 4x4) until we reached the road.

The Big Frog was really a treat. It's true wilderness. Even though we didn't actually see a bear, we saw so many signs of bears that we knew they were nearby. I was happy to be in a part of the country where such wild creatures not only live, but evidently thrive.

The coming decline

2008-10-14T09:07:00.006-05:00

This is lovely. Not only has the Bush administration and today's GOP destroyed America's moral standing in the world, trashed our economy, socialized our banking system, and broken our debt clock, now I read that the current economic crisis will almost certainly have a disastrous impact on our place as the world's science and technology leader:

Now signs of changing times are more stark, with world leaders frustrated and even angry over a global financial crisis many see as caused by American policy mistakes. Meanwhile the monetary meltdown is likely to force cuts in public and private science and technology investment — a cornerstone of the American economic engine that has historically driven the nation's preeminence.
...
"Long term, I think prospects also get shakier," he said. "We are the world’s science and technology leader. Graduate students want to come here to study, and often to then work. This has been slipping as industrializing countries enhance their own R&D [research and development] capabilities and universities, and as terrorism fears make it harder to come here. I would anticipate that the next U.S. administration will have to face the reality of balancing its budget or face bankruptcy. That will likely squeeze federal R&D funding, worsening these trends."

It won't be just U.S. researchers that suffer, of course.

There could be "very dramatic reduction in available funds for research in all sorts of countries," said Richard Leakey, a paleoanthropologist who has unearthed important fossils of ancient humans in Africa. Leakey notes that a lot of science funding comes from institutions and donations by wealthy individuals, two sources that are dealing with their own reduced balance sheets. "I think it's extremely worrying for science," he said.

I knew the Bush administration was hostile to science. I guess they've succeeded in ensuring that the next president will be hard-pressed to make research and development a top priority. That's too bad since the way we'll solve our most serious problems (fuel, climate change, food security) are all based on science.

Food production, climate change, and national security

2008-10-14T07:58:00.007-05:00

There's a fascinating article on the New York Times webpage about food production and how we need to change the way we look at food in the coming years. I've long thought the way we subsidize farmers to grow huge monoculture crops is pretty ridiculous, but it's actually now becoming dangerous for a variety of reasons. Here are some sobering statistics:

After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do — as much as 37 percent, according to one study. Whenever farmers clear land for crops and till the soil, large quantities of carbon are released into the air. But the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact.

The article goes on to discuss some really interesting points about how food production is tied to climate change, and even national security. The amount of fossil fuel we use to simply grow food makes us even more reliant on foreign countries. This article has some great ideas on how to reform our food production systems to get away from the glut of fossil fuels, monoculture crops, and get back to real food production.

The ideas outlined in this article include many of the reasons I don't eat hardly any meat, avoid packaged food like the plague, and buy as many veggies as possible from my local farmer's market. If you're interested in climate change, energy issues, and how food production is polluting our world, you need to read this article.

Poem for the day

2008-10-13T20:20:00.010-05:00

I was going through some old books and found an enormous English lit text with a tattered post-it note marking the following:

LXXII
I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me; and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities torture: I can see
Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be
A link reluctant in a fleshly chain,
Class'd among creatures, when the soul can flee,
And with the sky -- the peak -- the heaving plain
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle -- and not in vain.

This is a very short section from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron, a writer of the same generation that turned out classics such as Frankenstein. Just thought I'd post this section that jumped out and grabbed me the first time I read it, and still speaks to me today.

Big news for cavers and conservation

2008-10-13T18:20:00.006-05:00

For many years I've been a member of a great grassroots conservation organization called the Southeastern Cave Conservancy. They were the first conservancy to focus solely on caves, and they now own more than 1,250 acres, 60 caves23 cave preserves, and over $1.5 million in land assets. The amazing thing is all of their purchases have been funded 100% from donations from the caving community. Just recently the SCC bought yet another, and in my opinion, its best property yet. It's Surprise Pit, part of Fern Cave in Alabama. Surprise Pit is 437 feet deep, the deepest vertical drop in the state, and one of the deepest in the country. It's quite an achievement for this group! The pit is just one small part of a cave complex with five entrances and over 16 miles of very complex passage. In addition, the cave is the winter home to over 1.5 million gray bats.

This is a cave my husband and I really love and spend a lot of time visiting, so we're heading up the fundraising effort for the purchase. We're going to have a lot of work to do as in the coming years, but we're really looking forward to it.

(photo from Willie Hunt's web page: http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~willie/)

Here are some other photos from my friend John Van Swearingen IV:

Here's the ledge going out to the pit. It's a 437 drop off to the left...

Oekologie here on November 15

2008-10-13T18:15:00.002-05:00

Blogging has been very light lately as I've been busy with a number of things in real life. But one item of note: Oekologie, which has been on a brief hiatus as Jeremy and I have been swamped, will resume here on November 15. If you have a blog post about ecology or environmental science, send me a link and I'll add it to the carnival! Or, just fill out the submission form available here (for some reason you'll have to scroll down to find the submission form).

Oh, and everyone needs to visit Jeremy's blog and harass him about resuming blogging. We miss him!

A cheerful picture

2008-09-20T10:26:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I went backpacking in central Tennessee (a gorgeous area). On the way home, just north of Tullahoma, TN, we noticed several cars pulled off on the side of the road and people milling around. That always means something interesting (or really bad) is going on so I slowed down. The picture above is what I saw--an enormous field full of sunflowers. It was honestly one of the most cheerful sights I've seen in quite a long time. But why, I wondered, would anyone plant such a pretty crop?

We talked to one fellow gawker with a rather large camera. He said that he lived nearby and has been photographing the field over the course of the past week. He'd met the farmer (and his six dogs) the previous day and found out that the farmer is growing the sunflowers for biofuel. Go figure.

I think I'm going to plant sunflowers next year. They just make me happy.

From most polluted to popular tourist destination

2008-09-03T07:28:00.000-05:00

Driving into Chattanooga, TN you would never know that this used to be one of the most polluted cities in the United States. But the city's ties to industry, and pollution, began very early in its history. With easy access to the Tennessee River, Chattanooga quickly became not only a major port city, but also an industrial center. Railroad lines from Chattanooga linked together other key southern cities. Lookout Mountain, with a commanding view of the Tennessee River and the city of Chattanooga, was the location of several key battles during the Civil War.

As industry ramped up during WWII, Chattanooga stepped up to the plate. Unfortunately, so did pollution. Coke ovens and iron smelters pumped out products day and night, while the waste from the factories, including fairly nasty coal tar, was pumped right into waterways. After the war ended, Chattanooga's manufacturing industry continued to grow, including plants that manufactured pesticides and various chemicals. The air quality plummeted, and by 1969 Chattanooga had the worst air quality rankings in the entire country. Most of its waterways were so polluted that simply dipping your hand in the water could result in chemical burns.

Instead of ignoring such a dubious distinction, the people of Chattanooga decided to change their city. Industry ended up not only installing scrubbers in local smokestacks to reduce pollution (as a result of new regulations), but they decided to start manufacturing scrubbers in the city, creating new jobs in the process. Local groups started efforts to clean up not only the filthy Tennessee River, but also its tributaries. Others worked to plant trees, beautify the city, and create a more sustainable community. Today, electric shuttles are available in the downtown area for commuters and the business district has a goal of becoming a zero-emissions area. The city is home to the world's largest freshwater aquarium; the aquarium also works with various conservation groups to captively breed fish and turtles that are quickly disappearing in the wild around the southeast.

The city is far from perfect. Water bodies are still not as clean as they should be. Urban sprawl is a problem. You still have to drive most places. But the city is an example of how everyone in a community can work together to improve the environment, create new jobs and industries, create popular tourist attractions, all while improving the quality of life for area residents.

Uh oh.

2008-08-29T14:51:00.001-05:00

Drought evidence in cave formations

2008-08-26T20:21:00.002-05:00

I loved this article since it combines research about drought and caves! The idea of studying cave formations to understand environmental cycles really fascinates me.

Dips in the sun's activity have triggered centuries-long droughts in eastern North America, according to a new study that examined the geologic record stored within a stalagmite from a West Virginia cave.

The link between periodic droughts and changes in solar activity initially was proposed by geologist Gerald Bond. He suggested that every 1,500 years, weak solar activity caused by fluctuations in the sun's magnetic fields cooled the North Atlantic Ocean and created more icebergs and ice rafting, or the movement of sediment to the ocean floor. This caused less precipitation to fall, creating drought conditions.

The climate record preserved by trace elements such as strontium, carbon and oxygen in stalagmites is clearer and more detailed than records previously taken from lake sediments. During dry periods, strontium is concentrated in stalagmites. Carbon isotopes also record drought because drier soils slow biological activity.

Silly senator, corn is for food!

2008-08-17T18:46:00.001-05:00

Pretty good video from reason.tv:

From the toilet to the tap

2008-08-11T07:22:00.003-05:00

This sounds disgusting but really is a very good idea:

When you flush (your toilet) in Santa Ana, the waste makes its way to the sewage-treatment plant nearby in Fountain Valley, then sluices not to the ocean but to a plant that superfilters the liquid until it is cleaner than rainwater. The “new” water is then pumped 13 miles north and discharged into a small lake, where it percolates into the earth. Local utilities pump water from this aquifer and deliver it to the sinks and showers of 2.3 million customers. It is now drinking water. If you like the idea, you call it indirect potable reuse. If the idea revolts you, you call it toilet to tap.

With the demand for water growing, some aquifers dropping faster than they’re replenished, snowpacks thinning and climate change predicted to make dry places even drier, water managers around the country, and the world, are contemplating similar schemes. Los Angeles and San Diego, which both rejected potable reuse, have raised the idea once again, as have, for the first time, DeKalb County, Ga., and Miami-Dade County, Fla.

Record amounts of US oil... shipped to other countries?

2008-08-10T19:26:00.009-05:00

OK, so I'm confused. The GOP has started a campaign to "drill here, drill now" to open up offshore drilling. The idea is that more oil found here in America will mean more supply here in our own country and less dependence on the Middle East. But I just read a story about how our exports of oil have skyrocketed in the last year. So my question is, how can our supply be so low that we must start offshore drilling immediately while we're shipping record amounts of oil to other countries?

A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department.

The surge in exports appears to contradict the pleas from the U.S. oil industry and the Bush administration for Congress to open more offshore waters and Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

"We can help alleviate shortages by drilling for oil and gas in our own country," President Bush told reporters this week. "We have got the opportunity to find more crude oil here at home."
...
The 1.6 million barrels a day in record petroleum exports represented 9 percent of total U.S. refining capacity of 17.6 million barrels a day.

However, with refiners operating at 85 percent of capacity during the January-April period, the shipments represented a much a larger share of total U.S. oil products produced.

The exports were also equal to half the 3.2 million barrels of gasoline, diesel fuel and other petroleum products the United States imported each day over the 4-month period.
U.S. gasoline shipments in April averaged 202,000 barrels a day, the most for the month since 1945, when America was sending fuel overseas to ease supply shortages in other countries during World War II. Gasoline exports in April 2007 were almost half at 116,000 barrels per day.

I can't think of a logical reason why it's so critical we drill here, right now, while this much oil is going to other countries. Perhaps this scenario will provide more money for oil executives and people who have interests in the oil industry?

EPA rejects ethanol waiver

2008-08-07T21:03:00.004-05:00

The EPA rejected a waiver request from the governor of Texas that would allow the state to cut by 50% the amount of ethanol that must be added to fuel. Given everything we now know about ethanol and its affect on food prices, the fact that it's no better than oil as far as carbon emissions, and the adverse environmental effects... well, I'm shocked (shocked!) that the EPA didn't analyze the data and make a decision accordingly. Here's the story:

The U.S. EPA gave a big, husky hug to corn ethanol Thursday, declining a request from Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) to reduce the amount of ethanol required to be blended into the U.S. fuel supply. The federal Renewable Fuel Standard mandates that 9 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol be poured into U.S. gas tanks this year -- which will suck up about a third of the U.S. corn crop. The mandate jumps to 15 billion gallons by 2015 -- if corn production holds steady, that will be about 55 percent of the corn supply. Perry requested a reduction because fuel demand for corn is driving up food prices and crimping the profits of livestock producers in his state. The RFS mandate has been linked to the surge in global food prices. But the EPA determined that the ethanol mandate has caused no harm to the U.S. economy or environment, but rather is "strengthening our nation's energy security and supporting American farming communities."

It's strengthening our economy? Not according to most people who really look into this issue. There's actually an article in today's Washington Post about ethanol and high food prices:

And it has linked food and fuel prices just as oil is rising to new records, pulling up the price of anything that can be poured into a gasoline tank. "The price of grain is now directly tied to the price of oil," says Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, a Washington research group. "We used to have a grain economy and a fuel economy. But now they're beginning to fuse."
Not everyone thinks it's fantastic. People who use corn to feed cattle, hogs and chickens are being squeezed by high corn prices. On Monday, Tyson Foods reported its first loss in six quarters and said that its corn and soybean costs would increase by $600 million this year. Those who are able, such as egg producers, are passing those high corn costs along to consumers. The wholesale price of eggs in the first quarter soared 40 percent from a year earlier, according to the Agriculture Department. Meanwhile, retail prices of countless food items, from cereal to sodas to salad dressing, are being nudged upward by more expensive ingredients such as corn syrup and cornstarch.

Rising food prices have given Congress and the White House a sudden case of legislative indigestion. In 2005, the Republican-led Congress and President Bush backed a bill that required widespread ethanol use in motor fuels. Just four months ago, the Democratic-led Congress passed and Bush signed energy legislation that boosted the mandate for minimum corn-based ethanol use to 15 billion gallons, about 10 percent of motor fuel, by 2015. It was one of the most popular parts of the bill, appealing to farm-state lawmakers and to those worried about energy security and eager to substitute a home-grown energy source for a portion of U.S. petroleum imports. To help things along, motor-fuel blenders receive a 51 cent subsidy for every gallon of corn-based ethanol used through the end of 2010; this year, production could reach 8 billion gallons.

My grocery bill is about 30% higher these days and it really hurts. That's nothing compared to food prices in other parts of the world. It sure isn't helping our energy security one iota. And it's also bad for the environment.

Although ethanol was once promoted as a way to slow climate change, a study published in Science magazine Feb. 29 concluded that greenhouse-gas emissions from corn and even cellulosic ethanol "exceed or match those from fossil fuels and therefore produce no greenhouse benefits." By encouraging an expansion of acreage, the study added, the use of U.S. cropland for ethanol could make climate conditions dramatically worse. And the runoff from increased use of fertilizers on expanded acreage would compound damage to waterways all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

The EPA must be ignoring all of this data. Either that, or their definition of "no harm to our economy" must be vastly different than mine.

Half of all primates in danger of extinction

2008-08-04T19:26:00.003-05:00

According to a new article in the Guardian, "nearly half of all primates are in danger of becoming extinct, according to a study by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Habitat destruction and hunting for food and the illegal wildlife trade are the main threats to the world’s 634 primate species - 303 of which are now classed as vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered."

The Union of Concerned Scientists cartoon contest

2008-08-04T18:15:00.003-05:00

I love the Union of Concerned Scientists. They really do fantastic work educating the public about issues that should matter to all of us. I first found out about the widespread use of antibiotics in the farming industry on their web page and I've been a fan ever since. At the conference I attended last month I picked up the UCS calendar, it's hanging beside my desk. Here are a few tidbits included each month:

In 2005, the EPS delayed the release of a report showing a decline in average American vehicle fuel economy until after Congress had passed a controversial energy bill that failed to address fuel economy standards. (After just spending $40 to fill up my tiny little car's gas tank, I would personally like to say thanks a lot to the bunch of morons in the White House.)
In 2001, the Bush administration disbanded the scientific committee that advised the State Department on technical matters related to arms control. No new committee has been established.
Highly qualified scientists have been dismissed from or rejected for service on science advisory committees examing childhood lead poisoning, drug abuse, and bioethics because of their political affiliations.
A government microbiologist was prohibited at least 11 times from publicizing his research on the potential human health hazards posed by airborne bacteria originating in farm wastes.
In 2006, the EPA weakened its reporting requirements, allowing chemical manufacturers to withhold from the public information about major toxic chemical releases in the communities in which they operate.
In 2006, Interior Department scientists were forced to misrepresent their findings about Arizona's imperiled bald eagle population to validate a predetermined decision that the birds did not merit continued protection.
In September 2005, a federal climate scientist was told that the words "climate change" could not appear in the titles of any of his presentations.
Six leading ecologists who were appointed to a scientific advisory panel by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were asked to remove science-based recommendations from an official report on endangered salmon.
Signing statements issued by Bush include at least 143 references to the unitary executive. In one signing statement, Bush gave himself broad authority to withhold scientific information from Congress.
A government memo leaked in 2007 exposed the Bush administration's plans to weaken the scientific underpinnings of the Endangered Species Act.

Ah, it's always good to have a little reminder of why I'm voting Democratic this year! One day, I look forward to reading a book analyzing how the Bush administration so effectively removed science from its decision-making processes, and the effects of such bad decisions on our environment and world.

On a lighter note, the UCS has something really fun on its website, a contest to vote for the best science cartoon of the year. Check it out and vote (voting ends August 8). I like all of the cartoons, but this one's my favorite:

The ongoing drought

2008-07-30T21:36:00.005-05:00

Earlier in the year I had high hopes that this year, our 2-year drought would break. We had fairly decent spring rains, water levels seemed to be up in area creeks and rivers, and things were looking good. Rain has really slacked off lately, though. It seems that these days, instead of getting frequent, moderate rains, we get slammed by infrequent but intense downpours. That means that the inches of excess rain simply run off and likely don't get absorbed and recharge the groundwater. But because my grass isn't completely dead in the yard, I thought things weren't as bad as last year, even though rivers around the area seem awfully low. Plus the folks at the farmer's market last week told me it's harder and harder to find corn--the corn crop in Alabama is drying up due to extremely hot weather and little rain.

I didn't realize that the drought this year is almost as bad as last year's until this past week. I visited a cave in northeast Alabama that usually has a nice stream running through the entire cave, even in the summer. In fact, there's one section that if you go in the entrance shown below, you have to wade through at least knee-deep water. The entire stream was completely dry this past weekend.

Near the end of the cave there were some stagnant pools, and dozens of albino crayfish were holed up in them.

I checked the handy drought monitor, and pretty much the entire southeast is still considered to be at least in a "severe drought."

I've read several articles that the overall precipitation and temperature patterns are changing here to be drier and hotter. I can believe it. I just wonder what that's going to do to plants and animals here, not to mention agricultural prospects.

Top 10 most scientifically inaccurate movies

2008-07-24T19:37:00.002-05:00

I bet you can guess a few of the most scientifically inaccurate movies. Hey, 5 of these are on my list of all-time favorites.

My favorite movies on this list are:

The Matrix (one of the most awesome movies ever)
The Day After Tomorrow (yes the plot was stupid, but watching the Empire State Building freeze solid was so cool)
Total Recall (what can I say, I like Arnold's movies)
Jurassic Park (come on, dinosaurs are great, even if the plot is totally implausible)
Independence Day (aliens are also great, especially when Area 51 is involved in the plot)

Toxins in everyday products

2008-07-24T19:22:00.006-05:00

This is why I stopped using almost all commercial cleaning products and now use more natural (and cheaper!) products. Perhaps not all of the unlisted ingredients are harmful, but I want more information about what's in products I purchase besides "fragrance."

Fresh Scent May Hide Toxic Secret
The scented fabric sheet makes your shirts and socks smell flowery fresh and clean. That plug-in air freshener fills your home with inviting fragrances of apple and cinnamon or a country garden.

But those common household items are potentially exposing your family and friends to dangerous chemicals, a University of Washington study has found.

Trouble is, you have no way of knowing it. Manufacturers of detergents, laundry sheets and air fresheners aren't required to list all of their ingredients on their labels -- or anywhere else. Laws protecting people from indoor air pollution from consumer products are limited.

And check out the chemicals found in some common household products.

The PB&J Campaign

2008-07-23T07:09:00.002-05:00

This is a great idea:

The PB&J Campaign

The idea is that if you forgo a meat-based meal once a day, this is what the impact will be:

Each time you have a plant-based lunch like a PB&J you'll reduce your carbon footprint by the equivalent of 2.5 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions over an average animal-based lunch like a hamburger, a tuna sandwich, grilled cheese, or chicken nuggets. For dinner you save 2.8 pounds and for breakfast 2.0 pounds of emissions.

You'll conserve water at lunch too! How about 133 gallons of water conserved at lunch versus the average American lunch? To put this in perspective, five PB&Js or other plant-based lunches per month would save more water than switching to a low-flow showerhead.

Don't forget the land you save from deforestation, over-grazing, and pesticide and fertilizer pollution: about 24 square feet at lunch.

Planting corn vs. conserving land

2008-07-19T06:53:00.004-05:00

Everyone should know by now that the ethanol boom has also caused the price of corn to skyrocket. This is really bad on several fronts. First, the rise in corn prices is associated with the rise of corn-related food prices (which are more products than you would think thanks to our friend high fructose corn syrup which is in practically everything). In addition, we've now learned that ethanol is really no better than oil in terms of carbon emissions, even though reducing greenhouse gases was really one of the main reasons to try to switch to ethanol in the first place. In fact, studies have shown that ethanol is in many ways worse than oil.

Now we find out that farmers who produce corn both for food and for ethanol are pressing the federal government to allow them to plant corn on protected wetlands, grasslands and swamps. These lands, protected for 30 years under the Conservation Reserve Program prevent 400 MILLION TONS of erosion every year. This is soil, pesticides, and herbicides that would otherwise drain into the Mississippi River watershed, impacting water quality in the rivers and streams--not to mention the quality of drinking water. Much of this gunk would then make its way to the Gulf of Mexico and contribute to an ever-expanding dead zone that is making vast areas of marine ecosystems unfit for life and fishing.

But closer to the farms, protected areas provide homes for millions of waterfowl, migrating birds, and other plants and animals. But our Secretary of Agriculture seems ready and willing to dump these protected lands in order to allow farmers to cash in on record profits. I will never understand why greed is so often the driving force in decisions people make about the landscape, and why they never for a moment stop to consider the wider implications, and longer-term effects of trashing the world we live in.

Society for Conservation Biology conference

2008-07-14T21:18:00.006-05:00

I'm in Chattanooga, TN at the annual meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology. I had no idea what to expect; it's so close to where I live I figured I'd take a few days off work to check it out. I'm glad I did. Today was the first day of the conference and there were 8 concurrent sessions--they all sounded so interesting I had a really hard time deciding which ones to attend. Some of the choices today included amphibian and reptile conservation, climate change, bird conservation, landscape ecology, plus much more. This morning I opted for the session titled "Landscape Change on the Cumberland Plateau: Drivers, Consequences, and Policy Solutions for a Key Biodiversity Hotspot." It was quite informative. Next I hit a lunch meeting for the freshwater working group, then a session about freshwater mollusks of the Southeastern United States. The last few hours I popped in on forest conservation and freshwater conservation.

One of the most interesting parts of the conference is meeting people from all over the world. 50 countries are represented. However, I did feel a little weird identifying myself as a student, although in one session I met a guy working on his PhD who is way older than me. The worst part is there are about 15 booksellers and I saw at least a dozen books I'd love to have. So far I've managed to restrain myself.

This evening the freshwater working group hosted a reception at the Tennessee Aquarium. It was really a hoot going through the exhibits with a whole gaggle of professional biologists. A great end to a really fun day.

Farmed tilapia high in omega-6 fatty acids

2008-07-14T21:16:00.001-05:00

Glad I'm not a big fan of tilapia.

Farm-raised tilapia, one of the most highly consumed fish in America, has very low levels of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids and, perhaps worse, very high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, according to new research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

The researchers say the combination could be a potentially dangerous food source for some patients with heart disease, arthritis, asthma and other allergic and auto-immune diseases that are particularly vulnerable to an "exaggerated inflammatory response." Inflammation is known to cause damage to blood vessels, the heart, lung and joint tissues, skin, and the digestive tract.

Ode to the Hummer?

2008-07-13T20:57:00.005-05:00

It's attitudes like this that have ensured I can't buy a car that gets 70 mpg like vehicles in Europe.

Hummer, how we need thee (an excerpt)
GM has hinted that, alternatively, it may convert the gas hog to hybrid status. But that would be like putting Rottweilers on a diet of celery and watermelon ("Let sip the dogs of war!"). The whole point of the Hummer is that it chugs fuel, and chugs it proudly, devoid of any sort of neurotic preoccupation with gloomy prophecies of Peak Oil or gas at 10 bucks a gallon.

And here is where its symbolic fortitude is most threatened: For American life to work, the illusion of endless abundance must be maintained. Sure, we must adapt to a future of less-abundant natural resources. Our vehicles will need to become radically more efficient. But we require vestiges of the old dream to sustain our national optimism, which in turn nourishes our national character.

Oh come on. I'd rather nourish our national character by being the first country to design a vehicle that gets over 100 mpg and runs on truly renewable resources. Just imagine being able to tell Middle Eastern countries that we don't need their oil anymore... Hmm, nice thought.

Now, let me just point out that I have nothing against big trucks. I love big trucks. I ride around in a truck almost every time I go caving (many of the roads require 4 wheel drive). But people I know who actually use 4WD don't drive Hummers. We make fun of Hummers. We drive vehicles that are a bit more, well, utilitarian. We drive trucks that are frequently completely coated with mud, trucks that do not have waxed tires, trucks that have lots of dents and dings from sideswiping random trees and rocks. I personally do not toodle down to the grocery store in a 4WD truck, or take a kid to soccer practice, or drop by the movie theater. I drive a truck when I'm going to be doing something like crossing a river, driving through huge mudholes that would swallow my tiny Corolla whole, or driving over boulders so large that the only way to traverse them in 4WD.

But people don't needs trucks like that every day. Usually not even every week. Articles like this just show how clueless some people are about the current fuel crisis and the part gas guzzlers like this have played in our dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

Collecting plants and investigating gypsum

2008-07-13T19:58:00.007-05:00

Identifying trees is hard. Especially when they're so tall you can't access the leaves or see the fruit! But last weekend I did my best to collect samples from as many trees for my biological inventory project. My plant presses work great. The only problem is I filled them both up in about 3 hours. I guess I need to make a few more! Here I am adding a few specimens to my small press.
I saw many trees I recognized: sycamore, poplar, oak, sugar maple. Several I couldn't identify; I'm in the process of keying out those samples to identify them. In addition, I collected several flowering plants. Here's one:

Here are some pictures of the general terrain of the area where I'm working. It's a really nice hardwood forest, but the trees are definitely young. This area was clear-cut in the not too distant past.

Yesterday I went inside the cave to look for more insect specimens. The area we visited was in a dry part of the cave. The soil, walls, and even the ceiling are extremely dry; I didn't see any traces of moisture at all. I didn't find a single insect in this section of the cave. There was some dessicated bat guano, indicating that bats sometimes roost in this area, but I didn't find any obvious evidence that insects have made any use of the guano. Another interesting aspect of this portion of the cave is that much of the limestone is coated with gypsum crust (calcium sulfate dihydrate, CaSO₄·2H₂O). In caves, gypsum is only found in extremely dry locations. In fact, gypsum dissolves very easily, so if any water is present, gypsum crystals simply won't form. I didn't have my camera, but here is a picture from another webpage of gypsum crystals in a popular southeastern cave:

I did find the complete lack of any insect life a bit interesting. I plan to compare the results from this area with other sections that are also just as dry.

How to make a plant press

2008-07-03T12:01:00.000-05:00

As part of my biological inventory I'm doing for a local wildlife refuge, I'm going to collect and identify as many plants as I can. This weekend will be my first serious trip to collect plants; I'm hoping to collect and identify every tree species on the refuge (we'll see if that's just ridiculously optimistic). However, the first step in all of the is to make a plant press. Now, I could buy one (for around $60), but I'm pretty cheap. So I'm going to make my own.

Pressing plants is fairly easy. The idea is to "dehydrate" the plant so the general structure is intact, but can be stored for years. A plant press is designed to not only press the plant, but to provide ventilation to allow all of the moisture in the plant to dissipate. Basically, you dig up a plant, being careful to get the roots, then carefully position the plant inside a folded piece of newspaper. Flowers should be positioned so you can easily see all portions of the blossom. Identification of many plants is much easier if all parts of the flower are easily visible.

Plant presses are extremely simple to make. You need newspaper, cardboard, blotting paper, plywood, and some straps to cinch everything up. First step: find some cardboard. If you look at plant press sellers, you can buy "standard ventilators" (cardboard) for about $8 for 12 pieces. Or, you can go to your local recycler and get some for free. I found a huge stack at the recycling center when I went to drop off all of my glass (my community doesn't pick up recycling, bummer).

Next, find some plywood and cut to a size to match up with folded newspaper. If you're going to be pressing plants that hold a lot of water, it's a good idea to get some blotting paper. I don't have any at the moment so I'm going to use extra newspaper. You put this outside the newspaper to help absorb excess moisture. Luckily, blotting paper is reusable.

Finally, find something to cinch the whole contraption together tightly. Tomorrow I'm going to use the straps that tie my kayak to my car rack. They cinch up really tight. That's it! Saturday I'll post some pictures of the plant press in use as well as some pictures of the plants I collected.

Observations on frogs and birds

2008-07-02T07:42:00.003-05:00

This year has been a bit unusual where I live. Hummingbirds aren't as numerous as in past years. I rarely see any frogs. At night, when there should be a cacophony of night insects, there are only a few chirps. I've noticed this over the past few months, and a few nights ago met some new people from around my area. They too have noticed the same things I have. One woman also said bluebirds are no longer nesting on her property. I'm not sure what's going on, but the change in the animal population at my house is very noticeable.

$142

2008-06-27T14:15:00.003-05:00

Oil is trading at $142 today. Just a few years ago it was a mere $40/barrel. I want to buy one of those tiny cars you can get in Europe that get ridiculously fantastic gas mileage (some are over 80 mpg). Filling up my tiny Corolla that actually gets decent mileage is really starting to hurt.Of course, with our stupid car companies here in the US that whine and complain that "35 mpg will be SUCH a burden, we can't POSSIBLY achieve that until 10 years from now" will kick, scream and moan to prevent us from getting more efficient vehicles. What a bunch of liars. So I was interested to see this:

100 mpg Cars: Not Rocket Science

Researchers at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado have added solar panels and a bigger battery to a Toyota Prius and achieved 100 mpg. The cost: a surprising steal at $70,000 (and that’s a costly prototype).

Just think of what our auto manufacturers could have accomplished if after the last oil crisis (when I was 5 years old) they made real efforts to create fuel-efficient vehicles instead of pouring money into making bigger and better gas guzzlers like the montrous Hummer. Ah well, fuel efficiency didn't sell back them, so why try to be environmentally responsible? At least painfully high gas prices will have the effect of really stimulating industry to come up with some alternatives to 35 mpg wimps.

Miscellaneous ramblings

2008-06-27T08:34:00.008-05:00

I've not been in much of a blogging mood lately, but thought I'd post a couple of article I came across over the past week that I want to be sure to keep on file somewhere.

The Science of Stream Restoration
I'm really interested in this topic and hope to learn much more in the upcoming year or two. Interesting look at this subject.

Sea of Trash
A look at the huge amounts of trash getting washed ashore in remote areas of Alaska as a result of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (aka, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch).

Iowa Flooding Could be an Act of Man, Experts Say
I remember quite well the "500 year flood" of 1993--I especially remember video of farmhouses actually floating down the Mississippi River. Now, 15 years later, the midwest is having another 500 year flood. This article explores some of the reasons why severe flooding is becoming more of a problem.

And here's a picture for the day. It's from Ocheesee Pond in Florida, a cypress swamp that was a really great place to visit.

Donald Trump = Environmentalist (snort)

2008-06-17T16:52:00.005-05:00

Oh good Lord. This certainly means I can no longer call myself an environmentalist. I need to switch to "conservationist" or something else... Donald Trump evidently wants to build a huge luxury golf resort in a pristine area of coastal Scotland. Not surprisingly, not everyone is thrilled:

But his plan has run into problems with local officials. They’re concerned
it will wipe out some of the local wildlife, since the course would be built on
sand dunes that are home to skylarks, kittiwakes, badgers and other critters.
Aside from two golf courses, Mr. Trump’s plan calls for 900 time-share
apartments, a 450-bed hotel and 500 luxury homes.

...
Mr. Trump added that putting a golf course on the dunes would actually
preserve them, since “they wouldn’t blow away in a storm.” Perhaps this is a
sign that the word “environmentalist” — like the world luxury — has lost all
meaning.

How evolution works, and what exactly is a theory?

2008-06-05T07:34:00.003-05:00

While poking around on LiveScience this morning I found two great articles that provide excellent summaries of what a theory is and also how evolution and natural selection work. Check them out:

Behind the Controversy: How Evolution Works

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is one of the best substantiated theories in the history of science, supported by evidence from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including paleontology, geology, genetics and developmental biology.
To understand the origin of whales, it's necessary to have a basic understanding of how natural selection works: It is the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Changes that allow an organism to better adapt to its environment will help it survive and have more offspring.

Natural selection can change a species in small ways, causing a population to change color or size over the course of several generations. This is called "microevolution."

But natural selection is also capable of much more. Given enough time and enough accumulated changes, natural selection can create entirely new species. It can turn dinosaurs into birds, apes into humans and amphibious mammals into whales.

But what exactly is a theory? Isn't it just an idea that can be easily dismissed? No. Here's what a theory really is:

What is a Theory?

Theories are formed after numerous hypotheses are vetted using the scientific method. Hypotheses are tested, data is collected, and the results are documented, shared and retested. Then a theory that explains the data and predicts the outcomes of future experiments is formed. Typically, researchers in different fields of study tend to rely on different methods—ones deemed the best suited for their subjects or objects of study.

One component of a theory that can frustrate scientists and non-scientists alike is that a theory is never proven and can always be revised. Experiments testing a theory either corroborate it or falsify it. Even Isaac Newton’s laws of gravity were revised after 200 years, when Albert Einstein found flaws and devised his theory of relativity.
In general, a law is said to be without exception, such as the second law of thermodynamics, which says isolated systems that are not in equilibrium move from more ordered to less ordered states (or less energy available to do work). Very few theories become laws.
...
On the other hand though, scientists do not look fondly upon those who pooh-pooh scientific theories such as evolution as being just a theory. “It is skullduggery,” said Grünbaum. Yes, evolution is a theory, but a theory supported by an enormous body of evidence.

You can also find several articles that are part of a special report on intelligent design. Check it out.

New tactic for creationists?

2008-06-04T21:47:00.006-05:00

Good grief.

Opponents of teaching evolution, in a natural selection of sorts, have gradually shed those strategies that have not survived the courts. Over the last decade, creationism has given rise to “creation science,” which became “intelligent design,” which in 2005 was banned from the public school curriculum in Pennsylvania by a federal judge.

Now a battle looms in Texas over science textbooks that teach evolution, and the wrestle for control seizes on three words. None of them are “creationism” or “intelligent design” or even “creator.”
The words are “strengths and weaknesses.”
Starting this summer, the state education board will determine the curriculum for the next decade and decide whether the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution should be taught. The benign-sounding phrase, some argue, is a reasonable effort at balance. But critics say it is a new strategy taking shape across the nation to undermine the teaching of evolution, a way for students to hear religious objections under the heading of scientific discourse.

These people truly drive me nuts. Teaching the "weaknesses" of evolution? In that case, we should also teach the weakness of tectonic plate theory. We haven't actually seen any tectonic plates shift, so maybe the earth's crust really is just one gigantic piece of rock and earthquakes are just acts of God. Or what about atomic theory? When we look at the computer we're typing on, or our pet dog, or the tree in the yard, we can't actually see atoms holding everything together, so obviously that theory has some serious weaknesses and we should explore those weaknesses in science class. We should encourage students to explore the idea that atoms aren't real, that stuff we see in the world around us is not made up of simpler parts. That sure would make chemistry classes a lot easier.

I mean seriously, the arguments people come up with to try to question evolution just seem to get more ridiculous with each passing year. But they just won't go away.

Fish, she is very small

2008-05-31T20:48:00.004-05:00

I just finished reading a great book about eating seafood in a sustainable manner: Bottomfeeder, How to eat ethically in a world of vanishing seafood. The author, Taras Grescoe, seems to have the same eating habits I do. He stopped eating most meat because of all of antibiotics, growth hormones, and unnatural diets fed to most livestock in modern factory farming, yet he still loves to eat seafood. But with all the media reports of fish populations crashing, large predator fish laced with mercury, and trawlers destroying underwater habitats, what's a fish-lover to do?

Grescoe takes the reader on a journey around the world to visit seafood ports, explore fishing techniques (the good, bad, and the ugly), and figure out what kinds of seafood we can still eat with a clear conscience--and what fish species to avoid.

Topics Grescoe cover really are all-encompassing. He explores the types of fish that are caught using destructive bottom-trawling. He then moves on to Cheasapeake Bay, its history of oystering, and it's current state of extreme pollution (it seems that restaurants in the Cheasapeake area likely come from other parts of the country because the oyster population has crashed). He explores the crash of the cod fishing industry, French oysters, and how invasive species of kelp are destroying natural habitat in the Mediterranean (not to mention all of the pollution).

One of the sections I found most disturbing describes shrimp farming. I've long known that most of the shrimp available in the grocery store are farmed, but I didn't realize how many chemicals, colorings, and antibiotics are added to the shrimp feed and the ponds themselves. In third world countries such as India and Bangladesh, the process of farming shrimp involve (paraphrasing and quoting from the book):

...frequent application of heavy-duty chemicals to help shrimp survive a host of maladies they are susceptible to in overcrowded, artificial conditions. Ponds are prepared by first filling up the pond. Then, diesel fuel is poured into the water to kill off insect larvae. Next, the water is treated with a piscicide (a chemical that kills off any competing aquatic life) such as chlorine or rotenone (linked to Parkinson's disease). As shrimp grow, the water is treated with pesticides and more piscicides, but by far the gravest area of concern is the use of antibiotics to ward off disease. Then, after the shrimp are harvested, shrimp are routinely soaked in a solution of sodium tripolyphosphate, a suspected neurotoxin, that prevents seafood from drying out in transit. Borax is used to preserve the color of shrimp in some countries. The most unscrupulous companies use caustic soda to chemically burn tiger shrimp a customer-pleased pink.

One of the sad ironies of shrimp farming is that this industry was supposed to bring economic freedom and food stability to very poor parts of the world. But it actually takes two pounds of ground-up wild fish to produce one pound of farmed shrimp. Basically, shrimp farming removes perfectly usable protein from the food supply instead of providing a better source of food.

No book about seafood would be complete without a discussion of tuna, swordfish, salmon, and other large predatory fish, and Grescoe fully explores each of these fishing industries. Fortunately, Alaskan salmon seem to be stable and sustainable fished, one of the pieces of good news out of the book. He also provides numerous tips to help consumers figure out if their fish is farmed, wild, and sustainably harvested.

Although most of the topics in this book are rather depressing for seafood lovers, he does make a point to share the types of seafood that we can eat without any guilt. Surprisingly, the types of fish he recommends highly include sardines, herring, oysters, and other small fish and shellfish lower in the food chain. These are still quite numerous and sustainably fished in many parts of the world, making them one of the smartest choices. Luckily for me, bay scallops also seem to be a good choice (scallops are my favorite seafood).

If you're concerned about the diversity of life in the ocean, toxins in the food you eat, the techniques used in the seafood industry, or just want to know how you can do your tiny part to help protect the fish that still remain in the wild, read this book. It's not only a fun trip to many corners of the world, but you'll really learn what kinds of seafood you can eat with a clear conscience.

Right after I finished this book, I saw a package of scallops at the grocery store marked with a stamp of approval from the Marine Stewardship Council, certifying that the scallops were harvested in a non-destructive and sustainable way. MSC is evidently the best "eco-label" available for seafood. I bought them and really enjoyed them, and will look for other seafood certified by this group. After reading this book, I plan to be much more discriminating about the seafood I eat. I'll tell you for sure that I won't eat farmed shrimp again!

Box turtles

2008-05-31T07:38:00.005-05:00

Driving down winding country roads in the foggy morning, I often see a variety of wildlife. Wild turkey, hawks, red fox, snakes, and this morning, a very small juvenile box turtle. The tiny turtle looked like a clump of leaves in the middle of the road and I drove right over him, not realizing the little blob was a turtle until the last minute. I slammed on my brakes, backed up, and jumped out of the car to move the tiny traveler out of the road. He (or she, I didn’t take the time to check) was sitting very still, trying to look inconspicuous. I picked it up and moved it to the other side of the road. Hopefully, this little turtle will make it through this year and grow up to mate and create more box turtles.

I really love turtles of all types. I frequently stop to move turtles out of the middle of the road (I'll probably get run over one of these days) and I always consider it a treat to see one in a river or stream. This part of the country has a big variety of turtles, but the populations are declining. Something I heard about over the weekend makes me understand why.

A friend of mine recently moved to a rural area in northeastern Alabama. She has a large pond on her property and over the weekend a guy who lives down the road from her pulled into her driveway in a pickup truck. The bed of his truck was full of turtles: snappers, box turtles, sliders. He traps turtles and sells them live to a "turtle trader" who likely ships them overseas to make into turtle soup or various traditional Asian medicines. This is very illegal. Selling any wild animal is against the law in Alabama and probably every other state. Not only that, it’s unethical in my opinion. Taking wild animals that are on the decline due to habitat loss out of some of the remaining natural environments so people in China can eat them is just wrong. I wish I’d met this guy to tell him what I think of his illegal behavior, although it’s pretty likely I would have tried to free his turtles and probably would have punched him in the nose. And evidently, he’s a police officer, so that would have led to some problems.

So what role do box turtles play in local ecology and why (other than poaching) are they declining? In north America, there are 4 species and 11 subspecies of box turtles; they vary from mostly aquatic to living in arid southwest environments. The species that lives near me is the eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina). They're listed as S5, Secure, but Nature Serve notes that they are declining in some areas because of habitat loss and fragmentation and the illegal pet trade. Box turtles live in a variety of habitats: forests, fields, brush, and forest-field ecotones (transition areas). They are also found in marshy meadows and in the summer, shallow water. When they're inactive due to adverse weather or temperature conditions, they burrow into loose soil, debris, mud, old stump holes, or leaf litter. They hibernate over the winter by burrowing down about 30 cm into the forest litter.

They have a varied diet. Young turtles typically eat invertebrates, while older turtle are omnivores. Adults eat pretty much anything: plants, fruit, fungi, invertebrates, carrion, and even some small vertebrates. Box turtles sometimes eat fungi that is poisonous to humans; people have been poisoned by eating box turtles that contain fungi toxins!

Box turtles lay eggs, usually only a few each year. An interesting reproductive note is that females can store sperm for up to four years, meaning they don't have to bother mating each year in order to lay eggs. Although a female may lay hundreds of eggs in her lifetime, the mortality is very high for young turtles, and only 3 or 4 of her offspring will likely live to become adults and reproduce. They can live to 45 or 50 years of age in the wild. Their shells don't completely harden until they are 7 years old, and they don't reach sexual maturity until somewhere between 5 and 10 years.

As box turtle habitats disappear to make way for subdivisions, roads, and other urban developments, they will have fewer places to call home. They have a natural homing sense that ties them to their home range. Their natural range isn't all that big, between 100 and 230 meters in one study, and between 1 and 2 hectares in another. As natural habitats become fragmented, turtle populations become separated, making it harder for turtles to find mates or leading to a loss of genetic diversity in the population. As a long-lived, slowly reproducing species, habitat destruction will also make it much more likely that young turtles won't survive to become adults.

So what can we do to help box turtles?

First, it's important to educate people about their roles in the natural environment. Make sure people know that it's illegal to take turtles (or any wild animal) out of the wild to make it into a pet. Not only is it illegal, most people don't understand what turtles need to stay healthy, and often wild-caught pets will become malnourished or sick. If you happen to have a turtle that was caught in the wild and you want to release it, make sure that you release it very close to where you found it. Box turtles have a strong homing instinct, and if they're released far from their home, they will wander around trying to find their home. This may mean they will cross roads and other hazards, making it much more likely they will be killed. If you have a box turtle you bought at a pet store, never release it into the wild. It may carry diseases that could spread to the native population, plus it may not have the skills to survive in the wild. If you no longer want a pet turtle, find someone else to keep it or contact a turtle adoption group on the internet.

Second, if you see a turtle in the road, like I often do, just move it to the other side of the road in the direction it was moving. Don't take it to an area pond or stream. Their homing signal will again cause them to simply wander back to where you found it, increasing the turtle's risks of getting run over or otherwise killed by other hazards.

Third, and perhaps most important, support projects that protect native habitats. Local land trusts are one of the best ways to make sure some habitat will remain for not only turtles, but other native wildlife.

Sources: Nature Serve and Box Turtle Conservation at Davidson College.

The US and science

2008-05-29T07:14:00.008-05:00

I think I've finally recovered from a really annoying cold; haven't felt much like writing lately. Spring colds are the worst.

As the presidential primaries grind on, I'm reminded that I'd like to hear a lot more from the candidates on their positions on science, research, and ensuring that the US regains its standing as a center of innovation. The candidates have talked a bit about these topics in terms of oil prices, the need to research alternative fuels, and the subject of climate change, but I don't recall hearing much about other science topics. I was reminded of this when I read an article in the Washington Post about how US scientists are worried about our loss of stature in the scientific community:

NEW YORK, May 28 -- Some of the nation's leading scientists, including Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's top science adviser, today sharply criticized the diminished role of science in the United States and the shortage of federal funding for research, even as science becomes increasingly important to combating problems such as climate change and the global food shortage.

Speaking at a science summit that opens this week's first World Science Festival, the expert panel of scientists, and audience members, agreed that the United States is losing stature because of a perceived high-level disdain for science. They cited U.S. officials and others questioning scientific evidence of climate change, the reluctance to federally fund stem cell research, and some U.S. officials casting doubt on evolution as examples that have damaged America's international standing.

I've long believed that the role of science and technology has been declining in this country, not only because of the ridiculous evolution vs. ID debate, but because of the lopsided numbers of students in developing countries going into the sciences compared to students in the US. Economics are also likely a factor. Careers such as medicine, business, and law are often seen as careers that offer the most financial reward and chance for career advancement. This may be an increasingly important concern as college prices keep going up, forcing students to borrow more and more for their education. I remember when I was in college back in the late 80s, attending a good college was actually very affordable. Now, not so much.

It's hard to find statistics on the numbers of US students currently studying science: I know at the university I'm attending that the number of students studying biology has gone up quite sharply in the past several years (yay!). But overall, one statistic I found points out that:

The US ranks 17th among major nations in the proportion of people aged 18 to 24 earning natural science and engineering degrees. In 1975, it ranked third. Yet in China there has been a virtual stampede of young people towards science and engineering.

Maybe another aspect of the number of students studying science is how enthusiastic and interesting their teachers are in high school. I'm trying desperately to remember my high school science classes, but alas, I don't remember much. But I think teachers who really make science interesting and fun for students would help encourage students to study science in college.

Freshwater ecoregions of the world

2008-05-15T19:35:00.003-05:00

Having a very busy week. If you're a professional writer and your boss ever comes you to and says "hey, we'd like for you to start working on proposals..." run for your life. I'm not kidding.

This looks like a really useful resources WWF and TNC have developed, Freshwater Ecoregions of the World.

Freshwater species and habitats are, on average around the world, more imperiled than their terrestrial counterparts. Yet, large-scale conservation planning efforts have rarely targeted freshwater biodiversity. This inattention is due in part to the fact that, compared to better-studied terrestrial taxa, there has been a severe lack of comprehensive, synthesized data on the distributions of freshwater species. Existing worldwide species-level data have covered only the largest river basins or select hotspots, rather than all inland waters. Additionally, these data syntheses have made little attempt to describe biogeographic patterns.
Freshwater Ecoregions of the World (FEOW) is a collaborative project providing the first global biogeographic regionalization of the Earth's freshwater biodiversity, and synthesizing biodiversity and threat data for the resulting ecoregions. We define a freshwater ecoregion as a large area encompassing one or more freshwater systems that contains a distinct assemblage of natural freshwater communities and species. The freshwater species, dynamics, and environmental conditions within a given ecoregion are more similar to each other than to those of surrounding ecoregions and together form a conservation unit.

I am lucky to live in a part of the United States with a huge amount of aquatic diversity, so it's really encouraging to see groups like WWF and TNC take a lead in preserving these resources.

Carnival for women in science

2008-05-14T18:17:00.004-05:00

I just read about a blog carnival for women in science over at the Intersection, and sure was happy to come across this resource. The carnival focuses on the following topics:

stories about being a woman in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math)

exploring gender and STEM academia

living the scientific academic life as well as the rest of life

discussing how race, sexuality, age, nationality and other social categories intersect with the experience of being a woman in STEM

sharing feminist perspectives on science and technology

exploring feminist science and technology studies

Check out the carnival web page and the most recent carnival.

Hurricanes, wetlands, and mangrove forests

2008-05-07T18:45:00.007-05:00

I've been paying attention to reports out of Burma about the horrendous death toll; the latest reports indicate over 100,000 people may have died, mostly from the storm surge. I really have a hard time visualizing such horrendous devastation. Today I found some satellite images on the NASA web page that are really shocking. Here they are:

The one on the left is from April 15, 2008 and the one of the right is from May 5. It looks like the entire coastline has been just brushed away.

Take a look at a large version of the before image here and the after image here. Brown areas are bare dirt (fallow agricultural areas), and I find it interesting that the areas that now seem to be just completely flooded are the areas that were bare dirt in the April image.

In this part of the world, mangrove forests are key parts of the coastal ecosystem. One of the most important benefits of a heavily treed coastline is that the trees serve as buffers for the storm surge associated with hurricanes or tsunamis since their huge roots systems dissipate wave action:

Many mangrove forests can be recognized by their dense tangle of prop roots that make the trees appear to be standing on stilts above the water. This tangle of roots helps to slow the movement of tidal waters, causing even more sediments to settle out of the water and build up the muddy bottom. Mangrove forests stabilize the coastline, reducing erosion from storm surges, currents, waves and tides.

However, as we learned after the tsunami a few years ago, many coastal area in the tropics no longer feature mangrove forests: the trees have all been cut down in many coastal areas. Removing mangroves removes the first line of defense against hurricanes.

If you really study the images, one thing will stand out: the vegetation in forested areas were likely to have survived the storm fairly intact while the bare areas are completely underwater. Here is one tiny island of green that really jumped out at me on these images:

Do you see the green patches that are still intact in the image to the right? You can clearly see how important mangroves and wetland vegetation are to coastal areas. These images just really highlight the devastation that can occur due to coastal flooding, and I wonder how much permanent damage this area has suffered. A truly terrible situation for a country that is already suffering.

What killed the mammoths?

2008-05-01T22:46:00.000-05:00

I've recently started poking around on PLoS (Public Library of Science) Biology open access journal. There are some really good articles there. Today I found an intriguing article about What Killed the Mammoths.

Over the years I've read several papers about what killed off megafauna (large animals like mammoths, giant ground sloths, etc.) during the Pliestocene epoch. There are quite a few theories, including climate change, overhunting by Native Americans, or disease. I never totally agreed with any of the theories I read, although I found parts of them very intriguing. One of the most well-known theories is from Paul Martin who came up with the Pliestocene Overkill Hypothesis in an article titled The Discovery of America. In the article, he suggests that as humans crossed the Bering Straight, they encountered huge animals not used to human hunters; humans were able to easily kill the large animals. He suggests that humans followed the large game, fanning out across both North and South America, and killing off all of the large animals as they went. By the time the new colonists reached Tierra del Fuego, all of the large game had been hunted to extinction. His theory is rather compelling, but I just have a hard time believing that humans could have killed off all of some large animals, but not other species that did not go extinct.

A new paper in PLoS presents a new and interesting take on this theory.

The author, Caitlin Sedwick, suggests that a combination of global warming, habitat loss, and overhunting by humans is what finally drove mammoths extinct.

To examine the likely factors contributing to the mammoth's demise, the authors performed quantitative modeling of the climatic conditions inhabited by the mammoth in several periods of the last ice age. Their model related the fossil record—showing the distribution and age of mammoth remains—with simulated maps of the mean highest temperature, the mean lowest temperature, and average rainfall conditions on the Eurasian supercontinent for three time points during the last glacial advance in the Pleistocene (42,000, 30,000, and 21,000 years ago) and to a point in the previous interglacial middle of the Holocene (6,000 years ago). Next, they aligned their climatic models on the Eurasian supercontinent 126,000 years ago (the previous time the planet had warmed between glacial advances). Together, these data allowed the group to estimate the characteristics and extent of the animals' favored habitat at the various time points studied.

The authors' findings demonstrate that mammoths experienced a catastrophic loss of habitat: as the last glaciers retreated and the planet warmed, 90% of the animals' former habitat disappeared. Prime mammoth habitat progressively shrank from 7.7 million square kilometers 42,000 years ago (in the midst of the last glacial advance) until just 0.8 million square kilometers remained 6,000 years ago. The animals were restricted to isolated tracts spotted across Eurasia and tiny patches squeezed up against the northern coastal edges.

As adequate habitat disappeared, the populations dwindled. The author proposes that this same scenario occurred during past warming events, and mammoths crept dangerously close to extinction, but managed to rebound when the climate again cooled. The difference between past ice ages and the most recent one is that mammoths now had human hunters to contend with. Due to restricted habitat and already reduced numbers, it didn't take much hunting to wipe out that last of the mammoths

This is the most compelling case I've read for why mammoths disappeared. It's also an interesting tie to today's ecological problems. Even though in the distant past animals were able to weather dramatic shifts in climate, I doubt that many life forms today could escape from human interference.

Gas tax holiday?

2008-04-30T19:24:00.010-05:00

I had to laugh at the ideas McCain and Clinton are floating about a "gas tax holiday" from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Let's see, the federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. I drive a very fuel-efficient car (Corolla) and my tank holds about 11 gallons. I fill up once a week unless I go on an extended trip. So, my weekly saving would be a whopping $2.02 a week! Whoopee! Of course, that will no longer even buy a loaf of bread. I guess I could put it in my piggy bank. Monthly I would save $8.10 (I'll round up, I'm in a charitable mood). So over the course of the summer a tax holiday would save me about $25. That's not even enough to cover a full tank of gas on my tiny little car. But that money will be taken out of transportation budgets for repair and maintenance of roads, so basically this idea would save people a little bit of money, but not enough to be meaningful, while adversely affecting other programs.

Give me a break. What we need are REAL energy policies instead of the buddying up to the oil companies that has gone on for years (under both Republicans and Democrats). We need real R&D into real alternatives instead of more ridiculous talk about how drilling in the Arctic will solve all of our problems (it won't).

A gas tax holiday is just a gimmick to get people to vote for a candidate. I hope people aren't dense enough to fall for it.

Update: Just read an op-ed in the NYT about this; Friedman thinks the gas tax holiday is stupid, too.

The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: “Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.”

And this really, really makes me angry at our inept leaders on both sides of the aisle:

But here’s what’s scary: our problem is so much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage — gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars — and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage — new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite.
Are you sitting down?
Few Americans know it, but for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December. I am not making this up. At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation, we are squabbling over pennies.
...
While all the presidential candidates were railing about lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio, no one noticed that America’s premier solar company, First Solar, from Toledo, Ohio, was opening its newest factory in the former East Germany — 540 high-paying engineering jobs — because Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not.

Grrr. When will our leaders get a clue about energy policy???

Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative

2008-04-29T19:02:00.002-05:00

I just got an email about a new resource for studying bats and wind energy. Good stuff.

I am writing you to announce that the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative

(BWEC) has launched a new website that can be viewed at www.batsandwind.org. You will find information about the BWEC, our past and current studies,and can download reports and publications, as well as other useful information. Also, you will soon receive our first quarterly e-newsletter designed to update our partners and interested parties on activities and progress of the cooperative. Look for this e-newsletter from our Programs Assistant Rebecca Patterson either later today or tomorrow.

Academic freedom??

2008-04-29T12:49:00.006-05:00

I’m driving into work today, enjoying the last little sips of my morning coffee, basking in the warm spring sun, when I heard a story on NPR that just ruined my morning.

Bill lets Florida schools teach evolution alternatives

Florida's House and Senate have passed bills that would allow — or require — teachers to present alternate theories of how life evolved. Proponents say the issue is academic freedom. But critics say the bills would introduce religion into public schools.
The Florida House legislation must now return to the Senate, which has already passed a different version of the bill.

As I listened to the story, I got more, and more, and more irritated. These people obviously do not understand what the theory of evolution really is, what a theory really is, or how real science works. They do not understand that this concept of “intelligent design” cannot be subjected to the scientific method. There is no way to test it, no way to repeat the tests, no way to study it. That is not the case with evolution. Yes, evolution is a theory, but a theory that has been tested repeatedly, studied intensively, and has moved into the realm that the theory is now backed up by so much evidence that it is considered to be true. I would point skeptics to other theories that all of us consider to be true: cell theory, plate tectonics, atomic theory, etc. Just because something is a “theory” doesn’t mean it’s not real.

The whole crux of this debate in Florida is “allowing students to explore other alternatives.” It’s really about teaching religion in science class. And not only any religion, Biblical creationism. I kept thinking that if school boards really want students to explore other alternatives to evolution, well I’ve got a couple of interesting creation stories for them. I think if Biblical creation can be taught in science classes, all of these creation stories should also be taught:

Chinese creatioism: Pangu, appearing in literature no earlier than about 200 AD, was the first sentient being and creator. In the beginning there was nothing but a formless chaos. Out of this chaos there was born an egg for eighteen thousand years. When the forces of Yin and Yang balanced, Pangu emerged from the egg, and set about the task of creating the world. He separated Yin and Yang with a swing of his great axe. The heavy Yin sank to become the Earth, while the light Yang rose to become the Heavens. Pangu stood between them, and pushed up the sky. At the end of eighteen thousand years, Pangu laid to rest. His breath became the wind; his voice the thunder; left eye the sun and right eye the moon; his body became the mountains and extremes of the world; his blood formed rivers; his muscles the fertile lands; his facial hair the stars and milky way; his fur the bushes and forests; his bones the valuable minerals; his bone marrows sacred diamonds; his sweat fell as rain; and the little creatures on his body (in some versions, the fleas), carried by the wind, became human beings all over the world.

Hopi creationism: Way back in time all men emerged from a single hole in the earth. There was a mockingbird there at the entrance to the hole. He gave each a name and a language. To one he would say, "You shall be a Hopi and speak that tongue." To another, "You shall be an Apache and speak that language." And so it went for all who came from the hole, including the White People. The earth was still covered in darkness in those days so the peoples came together and decided to change things. They made the sun and the moon and placed them in the sky. With light and warmth things got easier for the people so the chiefs of all the races and tribes got together and decided to break up and go to different places. They decided to go eastward to where the sun rises and that whoever got there first was to cause a shower of stars to fall from the sky, and then everyone would see this and stop where they were. The Whites, always impatient, soon grew tired. Their women rubbed flakes of skin from their bodies and molded them into horses. Thus, mounted on these speedy animals, the Whites were first to arrive in the east. Thereupon a shower of stars fell to the ground and all remained where they were at the time.

African Bushmen creationism: People did not always live on the surface of the earth. At one time people and animals lived underneath the earth with Kaang (Käng), the Great Master and Lord of All Life. In this place people and animals lived together peacefully. They understood each other. No one ever wanted for anything and it was always light even though there wasn't any sun. During this time of bliss Kaang began to plan the wonders he would put in the world above.First Kaang created a wondrous tree, with branches stretching over the entire country. At the base of the tree he dug a hole that reached all the way down into the world where the people and animals lived. After he had finished furnishing the world as he pleased he led the first man up the hole. He sat down on the edge of the hole and soon the first woman came up out of it. Soon all the people were gathered at the foot of the tree, awed by the world they had just entered. Next, Kaang began helping the animals climb out of the hole. In their eagerness some of the animals found a way to climb up through the tree's roots and come out of the branches. They continued racing out of the world beneath until all of the animals were out.

Maya creationism: It begins with the emptiness of the primordial waters of space, in a darkness which contains no manifested thing. There Hunab Ku, the divine one, the first cause, eternal, unborn, undying, all that was, is, and will be, uncontained, boundless, absolute, awakened from the dreamless sleep of thirteen eternities and emanated out of his own will the Heart of Heaven. A one-dimensional emanation of Hunab Ku's own divinity, the Heart of Heaven was the recipient of all potentialities. Its only dimension, length, disappeared into the nonexistent breadth and height, and set in motion the process of cosmic evolution in planes of existence so spiritual that only the eye of the mystic could conceive it. Space was not, since there was nothing to contain it. Time was not, since there were no events to divide it. There was only the incomprehensible divinity of Hunab Ku, permeating the Heart of Heaven which slumbered for seven eternities. Then by the power of his word Hunab Ku thrilled the Heart of Heaven. Awakening from its dreamless sleep, Heart of Heaven emanated the God Seven, the cosmic Demiurgus, the creator, one in essence, seven in manifestation.

Do you want more? There are approximately 20,000 cultures that have existed throughout human history. Each culture has a unique take on how the earth and its creatures were created. If creationists want to teach creation stories in schools, fine. But they need to expose students to many different creation stories, not just the one they like. In my book, that translates into a comparative religion or comparative cultures class, not science.

Attention, ecology bloggers!

2008-04-29T07:31:00.004-05:00

The global meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology is scheduled for July 13-17 in Chattanooga, TN. The schedule looks pretty interesting (looks like there will be several sessions on freshwater conservation issues!). I'm going for at least a few days. If any other bloggers will be there, let me know!

Some organic products not really organic

2008-04-28T18:38:00.003-05:00

Well, yet another reason to make my own household cleaning products. It turns out that some of the ones labeled "natural" or "organic" actually contain carcinogens. I believe I have one of the suspect dishwashing detergents in my kitchen right now. And not only cleaning products are cheating by using harmful chemicals, some personal care items are also lying to consumers. Natural and organic products are so much more expensive than regular brands that I expect them to not only be 100% natural (and organic if labeled as such), but to also do all of the hard work for me, plus wash my dog. This just reminds me that many of these "natural" companies are actually just parts of big conglomerates where profit is the primary factor. I went through a phase several years ago where I bought a bunch of these "organic" products, but that didn't last long... they're just too expensive. I'm glad I didn't spend 3 times as much on these products for years and years, turns out many wouldn't really be worth the extra cost. I do hope that this misleading packaging is halted, it's really not fair to consumers who really do want to make sure they're purchasing truly organic products.

Lawsuit against organic "cheaters"

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - The family owned Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court today against numerous personal care brands to force them to stop making misleading organic labeling claims. Dr. Bronner's and the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) had warned offending brands that they faced litigation unless they committed to either drop their organic claims or reformulate away from main ingredients made from conventional agricultural and/or petrochemical material without any certified organic material. OCA has played the leading role in exposing and educating consumers about deceptive organic branding.

David Bronner, President of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps says, "We have been deeply disappointed and frustrated by companies in the 'natural' personal care space who have been screwing over organic consumers, engaging in misleading organic branding and label call-outs, on products that were not natural in the first place, let alone organic." Dr. Bronner's has determined, based on extensive surveys, that organic consumers expect that cleansing ingredients in branded and labeled soaps, shampoos and body washes that are labeled Organic", "Organics" or "Made with Organic" will be from organic as distinct from conventional agricultural material, produced without synthetic fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides, and free of petrochemical compounds.

For example: The major cleansing ingredient in Jason "Pure, Natural & Organic" liquid soaps, body washes and shampoos is Sodium Myreth Sulfate, which involves ethoxylating a conventional non-organic fatty chain with the carcinogenic petrochemical Ethylene Oxide, which produces caricinogenic 1,4-Dioxane as a contaminant. The major cleansing ingredient in Avalon "Organics" soaps, bodywashes and shampoos, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, contains conventional non-organic agricultural material combined with the petrochemical Amdiopropyl Betaine. Nature's Gate "Organics" main cleansers are Disodium Laureth Sulfosuccinate (ethoxylated) and Cocamidopropyl Betaine. Kiss My Face "Obsessively Organic" cleansers are Olefin Sulfonate (a pure petrochemical) and Cocamidopropyl Betaine. Juice "Organics", Giovanni "Organic Cosmetics", Head "Organics", Desert Essence "Organics", and Ikove "Organic" all use Cocamdiopropyl Betaine as a main cleansing ingredient and no cleansers made from certified organic material. Due to the petrochemical compounds used to make the ingredient, Cocamidopropyl Betaine is contaminated with traces of Sodium monochloroacetate, Amidoamine (AA), and dimethylaminopropylamine(DMAPA). Amidoamine in particular is suspected of causing skin sensitization and allergic reactions even at very low levels for certain individuals. Organic consumers have a right to expect that the personal care products they purchase with organic branding or label claims, contain cleansing ingredients made from organic agricultural material, not conventional or petrochemical material, and thus have absolutely no petrochemical contaminants that could pose any concern.

$200 barrel oil possible

2008-04-28T07:28:00.002-05:00

Ug. As oil hits an all-time high of $120/barrel, the president of OPEC is saying it may get as high as $200. Where's all of the R&D into real alternatives to wean us off our addiction to oil? Politicians (of all stripes) in Washington don't really seem all that concerned about this. I want to start telecommuting.

OPEC president sees $200 oil possible: report

Monday April 28, 5:22 am ET ALGIERS (Reuters) - OPEC President Chakib Khelil does not rule out oil prices reaching $200 a barrel, even though supply is adequate, because the market is driven by the dollar's slide, Algerian government newspaper El Moudjahid reported on Monday.
"Questioned about a possible rise which would go to $200, the minister did not rule out this eventuality, explaining that this rise is from now on indexed to the fall in the dollar or to the rise in the dollar," El Moudhajid reported.

Making every day Earth Day

2008-04-27T07:24:00.009-05:00

Happy belated Earth Day! This year I decided to try to do something meaningful for Earth Day instead of just posting a pretty picture of the earth. For the past several months I've been trying to figure out ways to save money around the house as well as "green up" my home. After doing some research and finding a great book called "Green Up Your Cleanup" I finally decided that most household cleaners are not only unnecessary (and unnecessarily toxic) but also rip-offs. I've now found recipes for laundry detergent, dishwashing detergent, household cleaners, window cleaners, and everything else I'll need around my home that I can make myself with the following ingredients.

Just for reference, the ingredients I'm now using to make cleaning products are:

Baking soda
Washing soda
Vinegar
Borax
Castile soap (I like Dr. Bronner's)
Tea tree essential oil
Lavender essential oil

That's it. So far, I've found that combinations of those ingredients are all I need. They work, and they're cheap! I can find the first four ingredients at the grocery store. I buy essential oils and castille soap at a health food store. I've actually been using castile soap for years for hand soap. It may look expensive the first time you see it (around $30 for a gallon), but you dilute it a LOT for home use. A gallon lasts for years at my house.

Using these products will eliminate the toxic chemicals I purchase and release back into the environment (not to mention my home), plus will save me many hundreds of dollars every year. A few things I didn't realize until recently about new commercial cleaning products:

There are almost no regulations for household chemicals--manufacturers aren't required to test products for safety. It's very difficult to find out exactly what ingredients are in most household cleaning products.
The Toxic Substances Control Act is the main law regulating chemicals, but guess what? It mainly protects manufacturers. It prevents the EPA from gathering any data about products unless the EPA can already prove the product is harmful.

If you decide to switch to greener cleaning products, I recommend the above book. You can find all sorts of recipes for cleaning products online, but just remember that "homemade" doesn't necessarily translate into "green" and "nontoxic."

That book costs how much?

2008-04-25T21:40:00.004-05:00

Ah, the memory of taking a full load of college courses, having to buy four whopper textbooks, lab books, and assorted materials, and nearly getting a hernia heaving all of that stuff onto the cashier counter... then about having a heart attack when the girl at the desk said "that will be $529 please!" The cashier almost had to pry the check from my hands it was so painful to hand over that much money.

I didn't mind paying for a very useful textbook that I used a lot in class, but several times the professors wouldn't even use the super-expensive books at all. When that happened, I always wanted to charge the professor a percentage of the $100 I had to spend for no reason. I liked the materials in one class... the professor compiled a CD of journal articles and papers that we read throughout the semester. The information was great, plus it was free! As college tuition continues to increase, along with the cost of everything else, I hope more instructors will start coming up with innovative ways to help students save money yet still have access to good materials. I really do worry how kids without scholarships can possibly afford a college education these days without going deep into debt.

That Book Cost How Much?
College students and their families are rightly outraged about the bankrupting costs of textbooks that have nearly tripled since the 1980s, mainly because of marginally useful CD-ROMs and other supplements. A bill pending in Congress would require publishers to sell “unbundled” versions of the books — minus the pricey add-ons. Even more important, it would require publishers to reveal book prices in marketing material so that professors could choose less-expensive titles.

The bill is a good first step. But colleges and universities will need to embrace new methods of textbook development and distribution if they want to rein in runaway costs. That means using digital textbooks, which can often be presented online free of charge or in hard copies for as little as one-fifth the cost of traditional books. The digital books can also be easily customized and updated.

Did Bambi make me an environmentalist?

2008-04-23T19:49:00.003-05:00

I didn't know that scholars debate how much influence Disney movies have had on the environmental movement. I watched all of the Disney movies when I was a kid in the 70s, but honestly, the only things I really remember about them are 1) Bambi's mother getting shot and bawling my eyes out and 2) the very scary witch and dragon in Snow White (I cried in the theater and had nightmares for weeks). I don't think those movies had much of an impact on me. Today, I have no problem with deer hunting since there are few natural predators anymore and hunters keep deer populations in check, so I guess Bambi didn't traumatize me too much. I think the programs of my youth that had the most impact on me were "Wild Kingdom" and the Jacques Cousteau specials. Here's an excerpt from the article about Disney movies:

The loving depiction of the woods and animals, particularly Bambi with those big soulful eyes and long lashes, was hailed by wildlife conservationists and denounced by hunters when it was released in 1942. An insult, declared Outdoor Life magazine, while the National Audubon Society compared its consciousness-raising power to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
Just how much of a friend Disney has been to woodland folk (and their kin in the sea and the jungle) has long been batted about by scholars and writers. The latest addition to the debate comes just in time for Disney’s announcement this week that it is creating a new production unit for nature documentaries (not to mention Tuesday’s Earth Day celebrations).

Europe turning back to coal

2008-04-23T19:45:00.003-05:00

This is too bad, but really not surprising.

Europe Turns Back to Coal, Raising Climate Fears
CIVITAVECCHIA, Italy — At a time when the world’s top climate experts agree that carbon emissions must be rapidly reduced to hold down global warming, Italy’s major electricity producer, Enel, is converting its massive power plant here from oil to coal, generally the dirtiest fuel on earth.

Over the next five years, Italy will increase its reliance on coal to 33 percent from 14 percent. Power generated by Enel from coal will rise to 50 percent.

And Italy is not alone in its return to coal. Driven by rising demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy security and an aversion to nuclear energy, European countries are expected to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants over the next five years, plants that will be in use for the next five decades.

Looking for White Nose Syndrome

2008-04-22T09:10:00.011-05:00

This weekend I visited a large bat hibernaculum to see if the bats in the cave have been affected by WNS. The cave is in the southeast and I didn't think the bats would be affected (WNS is currently only occurring in the northeast), but the Fish and Wildlife Service wanted a group of us to check. This particular cave is closed to all visitation during the winter to make sure the bats aren't disturbed, but experienced cave explorers can get a permit to visit this area in the spring and summer. The cave just opened for the season last week so we decided to visit the cave the first weekend we could (with a federal permit in hand, by the way. Visiting federally owned caves without a permit is a federal offense and you'll get in really big trouble if you do it. So don't.).

It was a beautiful day to be out in the woods; the temperature was perfect, wildflowers were blooming, and trees were just starting to get green. After the usual long and steep hike to the cave, we rigged the entrance drops, 60' and 97' and proceeded the rappel into the entrance.

The first room in the cave is a large, open canyon with a very steep scree slope at the bottom. A small canyon at the side of the room leads further into the cave. This particular cave is extremely large and complicated. It consists of an interlocking maze of rooms, canyons, pits, crawls, and other obstacles. In the winter, due to the geology of this section of the cave, cold air is trapped in this entire section making the temperatures drop to around 4-5 C (37 F), which is extremely unusual for caves in the southeast. Typically caves are around 13.3 C (56 F) all year round. That's the kinds of winter temperatures gray bats (Myotis grisescens) require. Around 1.5 million gray bats hibernate here. Back in the early 1980s, the Fish and Wildlife Service purchased this cave to protect this bat colony. Gray bats are extremely susceptible to disturbance; they will wake up at the slightest noise. If the bats wake up during hibernation, they will end up flying around, which means they will use up a portion of their precious fat reserves that must sustain them throughout the winter. Because such huge numbers of bats hibernate together, when one bat is disturbed, that means a few hundred thousand bats are all disturbed. If the bats come out of hibernation too many times during the winter, they will use up their fat reserves and starve to death before spring arrives and they can begin hunting insects.

Now, back to our weekend trip. We weren't sure if there would be many bats still in the cave. I had an opportunity to visit the cave in the middle of the winter several years ago with a group of bat biologists, and every nook and cranny of the cave was packed full of gray bats. We didn't expect that this time. The weather has been very warm, plenty of insects are out, and we thought the bats may have mostly moved on to their summer caves (which are always very warm caves instead of cold). As we started down the small canyon into the cave system, we snaked through the passage and in a few minutes encountered several small groupings of grays. They clung to the walls with tiny claws, their wings splayed in odd angles holding to the rock.

Almost immediately some of the bats started to wake up, look at us, and make hissing and squeaking noises. We crept through the passage, trying to be as quiet as possible while at the same time checking out the bats. They looked like they were a normal weight, didn't have any signs of white fungus on their noses, and looked normal to us. We continued creeping.

Throughout the day we visited many portions of the cave. Bats were not roosting in smaller passages and canyons but were in the large, high rooms. We guess there were still several hundred thousand bats in the cave, and all of the bats we were able to inspect looked healthy. Here are a few more bat pictures.

Not finding any signs of WNS was a big relief. However, we plan to still keep an eye on them later this fall when they start to return to their hibernaculum. Because bats migrate, who knows how this illness will affect bats as they move between caves throughout the year.

Yet more about White Nose

2008-04-17T21:16:00.003-05:00

Seems that the white nose syndrome in bats is spreading south. It's now confirmed in Massachusetts and "suspicious" cases have been found in Pennsylvania. In areas where bats have contracted whatever illness this is, there is a 95% mortality rate.

You may be thinking, "well so what, they're only bats." Yes, but they are an absolutely critical part of our ecosystem. You see, bats are incredibly voracious predators. One small colony of bats will eat literally tons of insects in one night. These are the same insects, such as beetles and moths, that if left unchecked would cause enormous crop damage. Normally, bats and other predators keep problem insects in check. However, if 95% of bats in any part of the country disappear, it will be very bad for the local ecology.

There is now a whole lot of information on the internet about white nose. Biologists are now advising cavers to stay out of any cave in the northeast. Cave conservancies as far south as West Virginia are closing caves to all visitation. Since nobody knows what is causing the bat deaths, there is a great deal of concern that if someone visits a cave in New York, then visits a cave in another state, and if this is caused by some sort of pathogen, the problem will spread to caves (and bats) in another part of the country.

Luckily there's been an enormous amount of cooperation between many different federal, state, and nonprofit groups all interested in bat conservation. This Saturday, at the request of the Fish and Wildlife Service, I'm going with some friends to check on a large bat colony in my areas. A few months ago the FWS started a voluntary database for northern cavers to report caves they'd visited in the past several months. If someone visited a cave in one of the affected states, then visited a cave in another part of the country, bat conservationists want to know about those visits so we can keep an eye on the bat colonies. It turns out that a caver from New York visited a cave with a large hibernating colony (well really, only one section of the cave is a hibernaculum). The section of the cave we're planning to visit is usually closed all winter to protect the bats. It just opened up for the summer season this week, so there probably won't be many bats there. But we're going to look for any remaining bats with white noses, an unusual number of dead bats, or signs of WNS on any fresh dead bats. Hopefully we won't find anything.

Here are some links to information about the problem:

FWS WNS Site (lots of good stuff)
Video of wildlife biologist discussing WNS
Northeast Bat Die-Off Mirrors Honeybee Collapse
Bat Conservation Internation establishes White Nose research fund
National Speleological Society info about White Nose

Get ready for Blogger Bioblitz 2008!

2008-04-16T07:34:00.005-05:00

Jeremy is going to set up another blogger bioblitz this year! Last year's was fun, be sure to check it out. The tentative date looks to be June 19, the summer solstice.

You can check out information from last year's blitz to start thinking about how to participate this year. Basically you just choose an area around your house or another area that interests you, then try to document all of the wildlife you see that day. It's really fun, plus you get to identify species you might not be familiar with.

Weeknight paddling

2008-04-14T21:07:00.003-05:00

It's great to be able to do stuff like this after work.

Another global warming article

2008-04-14T21:04:00.004-05:00

Seems that another argument global warming nay-sayers frequently use has been debunked.

Global Warming Not a Cosmic Swindle

Skeptics who argue that global warming is caused by cosmic rays rather than man-made greenhouse gases have been dealt another blow.

Some who question the human-induced global warming scenario argue that changes in the intensity of these rays, which are caused by variations in solar activity, affect the cloud cover of the Earth, allowing heat from the sun to build up, and accounting for the rise of global temperatures in recent years. But a new study detailed in the Institute of Physics’ journal, Environmental Research Letters, finds no link between the incoming cosmic rays and global cloud cover. The research was led by Terry Sloan of Lancaster University in the UK and Arnold Wolfendale of Durham University, also in the UK.

What would you do with $3 trillion?

2008-04-14T20:26:00.005-05:00

What would you do with $3 trillion?

Here's what I would do:

1. Start an R&D program to come up with truly viable and renewable energy.
2. Provide health care for all Americans.

I bet I would still have some money left over. If so, then I would:

3. Refurbish every school in America and give teachers a raise.
4. And with the remainder, buy as much forested land in the southeast as possible and convert the land into nature preserves.

Key argument for global warming critics evaporates

2008-04-12T09:39:00.001-05:00

I wonder what new reason skeptics will come up with to insist that our climate isn't changing...

Key argument for global warming critics evaporates

For years, skeptics of global warming have used satellite and weather balloon data to argue that climate models were wrong and that global warming isn't really happening.
Now, according to three new studies published in the journal Science, it turns out those conclusions based on satellite and weather balloon data were based on faulty analyses.
The atmosphere is indeed warming, not cooling as the data previously showed.

Comment on TVA's Energy Efficiency, Climate Change, and Renewable Draft Plans

2008-04-11T21:23:00.002-05:00

Comment on TVA's Energy Efficiency, Climate Change, and Renewable Draft Plans - Attend Upcoming Public Hearing Nearest You

Written Comments Due May 12

TVA will hold nine regional public briefings across the Tennessee Valley between April 14 and May 1 to discuss its draft Energy Efficiency and Demand Response Plan and Renewable and Clean Energy Assessment with interested stakeholders. Both are available at www.tva.gov/abouttva/board/draft_plans.htm

The proposals were presented to the TVA Board at its April 3 meeting in Knoxville.

TVA staff will discuss the energy efficiency and renewable energy recommendations to help meet the Valley's growing power demand through a comprehensive approach that includes cleaner, more energy-efficient opportunities. Stakeholders will be able to share their views on what TVA should include in each plan during a public comment period at each meeting.

Speaking opportunities will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Those interested in speaking are asked to register at the door. Written comments also may be submitted at the meeting or online at www.tva.com. Any comments received, including names and addresses, will become part of the administrative record and will be available for public inspection. Comments will be accepted through May 12.

TVA's draft Energy Efficiency and Demand Response Plan focuses on slowing the current rate of growth in power demand through potential opportunities to improve energy efficiency among residential, business and industrial consumer groups. In the short term, the plan proposes to potentially reduce the growth in peak demand by up to 1,400 megawatts – about the amount generated by one nuclear power unit – by the end of fiscal year 2012.

Monday, April 14 - Knoxville Marriott 500 Hill Avenue SE, Knoxville, Tenn., 6 to 8 p.m.

Tuesday, April 15 - Doubletree Hotel, 211 Mockingbird Lane, Johnson City, Tenn. 6 to 8 p.m.

Thursday, April 17 - Chattanooga Marriott, 2 Carter Plaza, Chattanooga, Tenn., 6 to 8 p.m.

Monday, April 21 - Thad Cochran Research, Technology, & ED Park, CAVS Center Auditorium
200 Research Blvd., Starkville, Miss. 6 to 8 p.m.

Tuesday, April 22 - The Bridges Building, 477 N. Fifth St., Memphis, Tenn. 6 to 8 p.m.

Thursday, April 24 - Embassy Suites Hotel, Nashville South/Cool Springs, 800 Crescent Centre Drive, Franklin, Tenn., 6 to 8 p.m.

Monday, April 28 - Huntsville Marriott (at Space Center), 5 Tranquility Base, Huntsville, Ala., 6 to 8 p.m.

Thursday, May 1 - North Georgia Technical College, 434 Meeks Ave., Blairsville, Ga., 6 to 8 p.m.

Thursday, May 1 - Hopkinsville-Christian County Convention Center, 303 Conference Center, Drive, Hopkinsville, Ky. 6 to 8 p.m.

(Action alert from the Tennessee Environmental Council)

Expelled: make a donation to science

2008-04-10T19:58:00.007-05:00

I've been hearing snippets about the new anti-evolution, pro-creationism movie "Expelled" for a few weeks now. NPR aired a story about it last week. I've been reading about it over at Scienceblogs and a few other places. I'd like to see the movie, simply to know what nutty things it really suggests. However, I refuse to spend my money to support something I think is really not only ridiculous, but harmful to our educational system. So instead, I've read reviews of the movie and have visited the movie's web page to watch a trailer. What I've gathered is that the movie links evolutionary biology and the holocaust (huh?), that intelligent design is a viable alternative to evolution (I don't think so), and that scientists cannot also believe in God without being persecuted (totally crazy, a science professor at my university is an ordained Baptist minister and accepts evolution--Ken Miller, a prominent evolutionary biologist is also a devout Catholic...).

Without actually seeing the movie I can't really comment on it much more. However, Scientific American was invited to a screening and they've published a great review of the movie. Check it out.

It speaks to their anti-intellectualism and fundamental misunderstanding of science that for the makers of Expelled (and ID advocates more generally) the answer "we don't know yet" is a badge of shame. "We don't know yet" is what defines the fruitful frontier for science; it is what directs scientists' curiosity and motivates them to spend years on research. Research starts where knowledge and certainty drop off. It's one of the many ironies of Expelled that Ben Stein says he wants this movie to free people to ask questions about science, but the ID theories he defends would close off inquiry with nonanswers.

Like the decision to call evolution Darwinism, the omission of science from Expelled was a deliberate choice. In fact, it was crucial to the film's strategy. Because they know Americans revere freedom of speech and fairness, the producers cast the conflict between evolution and ID as purely a struggle between worldviews—a difference of opinions, a battle of ideologies—in which one side is censoring the other. They know that the public will instinctively want to defend the underdog, especially when that opinion aligns with the religious beliefs many of them already share.

It is a terrific strategy, but with one caveat: that airy skirmish of opinions must never, ever touch the ground of solid evidence. Because if it does, if viewers are ever allowed to notice that evolution is supported by mountains of tangible, peer-reviewed evidence gathered by generations of scientists, whereas ID has little more than a smattering of vanity-press pamphlets from a handful of cranks... the bubble pops.

Another blog I visited had a great recommendation. Instead of buying a ticket to the movie and supporting an anti-science movement, make a donation to an organization that supports science education. That's what I'm going to do.

CO2 map zooms in on US emissions

2008-04-08T21:49:00.003-05:00

This is pretty cool. From the description on YouTube:

A new, high resolution, interactive map of United States carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels has found that the emissions aren't all where we thought. The maps and system, called Vulcan, show CO2 emissions at more than 100 times more detail than was available before. Until now, data on carbon dioxide emissions were reported, in the best cases, monthly at the level of an entire state grid. The Vulcan model examines CO2 emissions at local levels on an hourly basis. Purdue researchers say the maps are also more accurate than previous data because they are based on greenhouse gas emissions instead of estimates based on population in areas of the United States.

An interesting nugget gleaned from the presentation is:

We've been attributing too many emissions to the northeastern United States, and it's looking like the southeastern US is a much larger source than we had estimated previously.

More at the Guardian.

Vegetarians are evil

2008-04-08T21:08:00.005-05:00

As a vegetarian, I found this page completely hilarious: Vegetarians are evil

Truly one of the strangest sites I've found in a long while. Hey, did you know that vegetarians are always angry? That's because we're always hungry. No, really! So stop reading my blog, you *#&%@&!!! Gee, I guess that after I ate my wonderful heaping plate of cheese and bean enchiladas covered with thick red sauce at lunch today and got so full I wanted to take a nap that I was just delusional. Or, after eating a huge plate of portabella mushroom lasagna, with a side salad heaped with lots of veggies and sesame seeds, plus some homemade french bread for dinner on Sunday that I was in all honesty still hungry because there wasn't a bit of beef hidden in my meal.

Good for a laugh at any rate.

Biological Soil Crusts

2008-03-29T13:47:00.009-05:00

Plants and animals in the desert southwest must contend with very harsh conditions. I find it fascinating that there is such a huge diversity of life in a place that can be brutally cold in the winter, well over 110 degrees F in the summer, very windy at times, and with little water. But live thrives. The photo on the left shows potholes on solid sandstone that have gathered bits of sand and soil, and now sustain desert shrubs and grasses. The soil is likely only six inches deep. How can such tiny amounts of soil actually stay in place long enough to allow plants to not only take root, but to grow to such large sizes?

One of the reasons plants can take hold in such a harsh environment is biological soil crusts. If you think that the desert west is just fields of sand, that's not correct. Instead, areas of sand and soil are bound together by a living crust. It's weird, but really cool.

Biological soil crusts are living communities of cyanobacteria, lichens, algae, and mosses that cover bare sand and soil. These organisms bind with the sand and soil to create a crust layer that can be up to 10 cm thick. Crusts benefit plant life in many ways. First, they resist wind and water erosion, helping to keep slopes solidly in place. The crusts also absorb water, helping trap scarce water resources for plants to use. They also help some plants germinate. The darker color of the cyanobacteria increases the temperature of the crust, which may have an effect on allowing germination of various plants at the correct time of year. However, some types of invasive seeds that must be buried a few inches in order to germinate may not fare well in soil crusts. Native plants generally have evolved a mechanism to "drill down" into the crust to allow for germination.

The picture on the right is a patch of soil crust in Canyonlands. Notice how bumpy it is. That's a common feature of biological crusts. The bumps form as a result of cyanobacteria and green algae in the crusts. When these organisms get wet they swell up, expanding the crust surface. In addition, frost swelling in the winter enhances this process.

These crusts, even though they look very sturdy, are in fact quite delicate. One misplaced footstep on a crust will drastically reduce the ability of the organisms to hold the soil together. Repeated disturbance will kill the organisms, causing the area to revert to sand or soil that can blow or wash away. For a disturbed site to regenerate a fully functional crust may take as long as 20 years. As disturbance to soil crust areas increases (vehicle recreation, cattle, and even hikers are creating more disturbances) the crusts also start to suffer from getting buried by blowing sand. If a crust becomes deeply buried, the organisms in the crust die.

If you're interested in soil crusts, the best resource I've found (and the source of much of the information in this post) is the Biological Soil Crusts webpage. The site provides both basic and advanced information about these interesting crusts, as well as lots of great photos of biological crusts.

Utah blogging, pictographs and petroglyphs

2008-03-29T12:04:00.011-05:00

One of my favorite things about Utah is the fantastic rock art. It's everywhere! The generally dry climate has helped to prevent too much erosion (here in the humid south it's really unusal to find rock art like this). On this trip, we visited several very nice rock art panels.

This is the Peekaboo Panel in Canyonlands. It's about a 10-mile hike to visit this area. According to the NPS, the white pictographs are from the "Fremont Culture" and were painted sometime before 1300 AD. The white, shield-like drawings are typical of Fremont art, but there is no evidence that Fremont peoples ever lived in this canyon. There is a fairly reliable water source here, so it's likely this was a popular spot over the centuries.

Hidden behind the white pictographs are much older forms. These red shapes were painted at least 1,000 years before the Fremont pictographs and are called "Barrier Canyon Style" from the Archiac period (2,000 to 8,000 years ago). Enlarge the image and see if you can spot them. There's a human form behind the left shield pictograph. A Kokopelli figure is "sitting" on the upper left portion of the shield pictograph to the right. There is another human form behind the right shield image but I can't really see it in the picture.

Here are some handprint images. The red ones are painted on. The white silhouette images were created when someone placed a hand on the rock then blew white paint onto their hand, leaving the handprint.

Here's a handprint that appears to be a child's. Please note that I am NOT touching the pictograph, merely holding my hand up in front of it. You should never touch pictographs or petroglyphs; oils on our hands can damage the art.

See the rattlesnake?

Moving on to a site called "Newspaper Rock:"

Some closeups:

Finally, some petroglyphs in Arches National Park:

Utah blogging, part 1

2008-03-29T09:21:00.007-05:00

I want to move to Utah.

Well, not really (too expensive and too hot). But every time I go on vacation out there, I fall in love with the landscape all over again. I spent the last week in the Moab area visiting Canyonlands National Park, Arches National Park, Monument Valley, and places in between. Thought I'd share some thoughts about my travels.

Our first destination was Canyonlands Needles District. This is one of the most remote national parks in the country... one of the reasons I like it so much. It takes about an hour to get to the ranger station from Moab, and once you arrive, there are few amenities. There is a small general store with a campground, but that's it. No hotels. No condos. No billboards announcing gas stations or services. Just redrock all around. Woo hoo! We'd reserved a backcountry backpacking site for a few nights and after picking that up, we headed off into the backcountry.

The next day, we headed out early for a hike to Peekaboo Arch. Not only is the final destination gorgeous, but the hike to get there is truly one of the most spectacular hikes I've ever done. Here are some pictures of the hike. If anyone actually wants to look at more Utah pictures, I uploaded pictures from our entire trip to Flickr.

Starting the hike:

Steve climbing up some redrock:

Jennifer on the trail. Notice that the trail is marked by piles of rocks (cairns):

Steve hiking along the base of a sandstone cliff:

Utah

2008-03-27T19:31:00.008-05:00

Just got back from backpacking/hiking in Utah. I'm really beat, but it sure was a great vacation. I won't have any real time to blog until the weekend, but here's a few pictures from our visit to Canyonlands National Park (probably my favorite place in the world).

I love rock art! Here are some pictographs from the Fremont culture--and if you look really hard, behind the left round pictograph, there's a much older red human figure. I'll write something more coherent about rock art later.

Do you see me in this picture? I'm in the middle of the photo on the ledge. The landscape is simple huge in Utah.

The confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers:

Some potholes up on the sandstone:

More later.

Various articles for the week

2008-03-18T21:00:00.002-05:00

The New York Times has a few good (and disturbing) science articles this week:

Melting Pace of Glaciers is Accelerating

Most of the world’s mountain glaciers, many of which feed major rivers and water supplies, are shrinking at an accelerating pace as the climate warms, according to a new report.
...
The big danger ahead, several glacier experts said, is that the loss of glaciers would take away a summertime source of river water, drinking water and hydroelectric power in populous, relatively poor places like South Asia and the cities along the western slope of the Andes.

Many people aren't aware of the huge number of people across the globe who rely of glacier meltwater for drinking, agriculture, and hydroelectric power. If the glaciers in the Himalaya and the Andes melt, millions of people will be seriously affected.

Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace

The Chinook salmon that swim upstream to spawn in the fall, the most robust run in the Sacramento River, have disappeared. The almost complete collapse of the richest and most dependable source of Chinook salmon south of Alaska left gloomy fisheries experts struggling for reliable explanations — and coming up dry.
...
Fishermen think the Sacramento River was mismanaged in 2005, when this year’s fish first migrated downriver. Perhaps, they say, federal and state water managers drained too much water or drained at the wrong time to serve the state’s powerful agricultural interests and cities in arid Southern California. The fishermen think the fish were left susceptible to disease, or to predators, or to being sucked into diversion pumps and left to die in irrigation canals.
But federal and state fishery managers and biologists point to the highly unusual ocean conditions in 2005, which may have left the fingerling salmon with little or none of the rich nourishment provided by the normal upwelling currents near the shore.

Fantastic watershed conference

2008-03-17T21:58:00.008-05:00

This past weekend I went to a "Watershed Leadership Conference" sponsored by the Alabama Rivers Alliance near Weeks Bay, Alabama. It was such a great weekend! I'm fairly new to water conservation groups and it was really fun meeting so many activists from all over Alabama. Not only was it fun, but it was so refreshing to be surrounding by people who know an awful lot about not only water issues, but other conservation topics. It made me feel like I'm not just part of a tiny little isolated group; there really are thousands of other people all across the country just like me who are trying to conserve this beautiful world of ours.

The conference had three concurrent sessions so there was a good variety to choose from: science, policy, or leadership. My favorite speaker was a representative from the Fish and Wildlife Service who discussed a stream restoration project. He discussed not only how a stream in his area stream got into such bad shape in the first place, but provided some really good technical information about how to ensure that stream channels are designed correctly. However, another highlight was a session was about fish tissue monitoring. I was glad to know that Alabama does analyze the different types of toxins in fish around the state and then issues fishing advisories when fish have unacceptable levels of various chemicals. However, the real highlight was during the second part of the session when a representative from the Department of Public Health was discussing the different toxins found in fish and said he didn't think PCBs or dioxin were really threats to public health. Actually, he said that he has never seen a study that definitively proved that these chemical are harmful to humans. Then he said he wasn't worried about endocrine disrupters in the water, either (ack!). After he made those comments, we were all very polite and didn't jump up and yell "that's the craziest thing I've ever heard!" although several participants questioned him afterwards. But I've started doing some poking around with peer-reviewed articles, and I have no idea where he got the idea that PCBs and dioxins are not harmful to humans. The literature is just chock-full of articles about these toxins and their effects on humans and animals. Like this one that shows that the sex ratio in human is skewed when mothers are exposed to PCBs. Or an article about memory impairment in older adults exposed to PCBs. Well, maybe if they don't kill you but just screw up other biological processes, they're fine. Even though I thought those comments were kind of crazy, I'm still glad the speaker attended the conference. I think we need to know that people in our public health department aren't worried about chemicals like these.

But back to the conference... Here are some pictures from the weekend events. It was very foggy the first two days.

Here's one of the sessions.

Overall, a great conference and I'm definitely going again next year. I highly recommend it! Oh, and the food was really good too, even for vegetarians!

Frog Watch

2008-03-06T19:56:00.003-06:00

Last spring I found a great organization that uses volunteers to track the types of frogs and toads around the country to help conserve them. Of course, as soon as I found out about Frog Watch, a horrible drought started and I didn't hear any more frogs for the rest of the year. But I heard some tonight! So I'm going to try yet again to learn some of the frog call in my area. I think breeding season just started here so I'm hopeful that I'll hear more!

I heard 2 different types of frogs tonight, the Southeastern Chorus Frog (Pseudacris nigrita) and I think the bird-voiced treefrog (Hyla avivoca). This one was a bit faint so not sure if I'm correct on this ID.

Check out the Frog Watch website if you hear frogs in your state. Here's a page where you can select the state where you live to learn about frogs in your area. Here's some info about the purpose of Frog Watch:

Frogwatch USA is a frog and toad monitoring program that gives YOU the opportunity to help scientists conserve amphibians! With as little as 20 minutes a week you can collect essential information to protect frogs and toads.

This long-term amphibian study, managed by the National Wildlife Federation in partnership with the United States Geological Survey, will increase awareness of amphibian decline and will give you the opportunity to be directly involved in gathering information that can ultimately lead to practical and workable ways to help stop the decline of these important species.

First sign of spring

2008-03-02T16:35:00.002-06:00

Here's my front yard with spring's first daffodils.

Dehydrating food

2008-03-02T09:30:00.010-06:00

I'm getting ready for a backpacking trip to Utah in a few weeks (I Can't Wait!!). For those of you who are unfamiliar with backpacking, it's more work than you might think. Backpackers have a large pack with enough room for a tent, sleeping bag, food... basically you have to carry everything you need for the time you'll be out in the wilderness. That's the thing I really love about backpacking... I'm on my own in the woods or the desert. It makes me feel very connected to the wilderness and far, far away from civilization. It's great!

Since backpackers carry everything they need, how much every little thing weighs is a big deal. Experienced backpackers usually analyze everything they carry down to the ounce. If one piece of gear weighs 8 ounces, but an alternate only weighs 6 ounces, I personally pick the lighter option. Every ounce adds up, and the goal is to be self-sufficient without carrying so much weight that you're miserable.

Because of the weight issues, I typically dehydrate most of the food I take backpacking. If you think about it, water adds most of the weight to food, so dehydrating food simply removes the water. This not only makes food lighter, but allows food to be stored without refrigeration for several months. Dehydration is great because I can cook really yummy meals and snacks here at home, then when I'm out on the trail I can just add water to my dehydrated meal to have a great dinner. Here are some pictures of some of the things I'm dehydrating for my upcoming trip.

Here's a pesto minestrone that's really delicious. This is enough for 6 large bowls.

To dehydrate it, I put in onto plastic trays in my dehydrator. I then turn on the dehydrator, set the temperature for 135 F, and let it run for about 20 hours. Warm air circulates through the dehydrator, removing the water from the food.

Here's the result...

I also really like dehydrated applesauce and yogurt--this creates something like "fruit rollups" that were popular when I was kid, but without all the artificial crap. Just pour a bottle of applesauce onto a dehydrator tray, sprinkle with cinnamon (yum), and turn on the dehydrator. The bottom 3 trays here are already filled with the minestrone.

Here's the result (that's Halsey supervising the dehydration efforts).

In the end, here are the two small baggies of food I ended up with.

I also dehydrate lots of other food not only for backpacking, but just general snacking in the winter: apples, bananas, kiwis (my favorite dehydrated fruit)...

Big government squashing small farmers?

2008-03-01T20:45:00.003-06:00

Big government aggravates me (which is why I'm so torn supporting a Democratic candidate this year, but incompetent government aggravates me even more...). But I didn't know about big government interfering in small farm competition, though. As someone who really likes to buy locally grown and organic foods, I don't like this one bit. Especially since in this case, government seems to be working to ensure big mega-farms don't have any competition. The thing with issues like this, what do individual citizens like me do to to change the process? I don't even know where to begin on something like this.

My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)
...consumers who would like to be able to buy local fruits and vegetables not just at farmers’ markets, but also in the produce aisle of their supermarket, will be dismayed to learn that the federal government works deliberately and forcefully to prevent the local food movement from expanding. And the barriers that the United States Department of Agriculture has put in place will be extended when the farm bill that House and Senate negotiators are working on now goes into effect.
As a small organic vegetable producer in southern Minnesota, I know this because my efforts to expand production to meet regional demand have been severely hampered by the Agriculture Department’s commodity farm program. As I’ve looked into the politics behind those restrictions, I’ve come to understand that this is precisely the outcome that the program’s backers in California and Florida have in mind: they want to snuff out the local competition before it even gets started.
...
The federal farm program is making it next to impossible for farmers to rent land to me to grow fresh organic vegetables.
Why? Because national fruit and vegetable growers based in California, Florida and Texas fear competition from regional producers like myself. Through their control of Congressional delegations from those states, they have been able to virtually monopolize the country’s fresh produce markets.

Violations of the Clean Water Act in Alabama

2008-02-27T22:07:00.007-06:00

Alabama doesn't seem to be much interested in anything tagged "environmental." Our state agency tasked with environmental issues is in fact called the "Alabama Dept. of Environmental Management" instead of "Environmental Protection." So it shouldn't surprise me how rampant violations of the Clean Water Act really are in the state, but nevertheless, the following information really made me mad. Keep in mind as you're watching this video that it's a federal regulation that construction sites must use effective erosion control devices to keep mud and sediment out of our waterways. Does it look like these folks are much concerned about that?

Here's another site someone just forwarded me with an analysis of several subdivisions in the west-central part of the state. Click on the little bulldozers to open up thumbnail pictures of construction sites, then click on each individual picture to enlarge.

http://www.imrivers.com/hurricane

Here are a couple of screenshots from the site. I don't understand how developers in Alabama can get away with violating the Clean Water Act. But I'm looking into it.

More opossum pictures

2008-02-25T20:29:00.004-06:00

Just to freak out Elvis (they're not for eatin!):

Here's our resident opossum in July being evacuated from our barn.

Here they are on our deck a few months later:

Caves: Unique biological “islands”

2008-02-25T20:22:00.001-06:00

Many animal species have adapted to life in caves, a harsh environment devoid of light, isolated from the world above, and seemingly limited in food and mates. As a result, caves systems serve as “island” environments, isolating species with barriers of solid rock instead of water. Yet even though cave species are isolated, they are still somehow able to disperse to nearby areas and also maintain healthy populations and biological diversity. How?

The peculiar adaptations of cave-dwellers (called troglobites) bring up many intriguing questions. First, how did they get to their unique and remote locations in the first place? Second, how dispersed are groups of animals truly living in isolation far from cave entrances? And finally, how are these animals able to maintain stable population numbers and adequate genetic diversity to maintain a healthy population? A cave-dwelling animal that lends itself well to these questions is the albino cave crayfish.

Cave crayfish are widespread in the thousands of caves that dot the karst landscape throughout the southern United States, Mexico, and Cuba. In many stream caves, the observant explorer can often spot the elusive creature darting under a rock in slow moving water. They are perfectly adapted to life in the cold, wet dark: no pigmentation, no eyes, yet able to find food and mates in total darkness.

So how did these creatures come to inhabit such inhospitable “island” environments? Researchers speculate that they originated in the area that is now Kentucky around 70 million years ago. The research is spotty, but above-ground crayfish likely made their way into caves and natural selection favored individuals most successful in the cave environment. There are currently several species of cave crayfish, all sharing very similar genetic traits, indicating a common ancestry.

How many of these unique animals are there? For years, cave explorers and biologists thought they were likely endangered since people rarely encountered them. However, more careful population counts over the last several years turned up many more individuals than previously thought. This surprised researchers. Biologists discovered that these animals are remarkably dispersed for living in such isolated island environments. Not only are there many individuals throughout karst regions in the southeast, but their populations appear to be stable.

In addition, the genetic diversity of the population is surprising. A doctoral candidate at Brigham Young University in Utah performed DNA testing on cave crawfish in Tennessee and Alabama and discovered significant genetic diversity. This shows that cave crawfish are able to disperse to nearby cave systems to find mates. How is this possible for creatures that never leave the dark world of caves? Most caves are linked by a vast underground aquifer system and can contain small cracks and crevices too small for humans to discover, but likely the perfect size for a crayfish to either wander through or to be swept into by a flood or high water conditions. By moving through these tiny interconnected systems, individual members of the species can disperse to areas that are hydrologically linked. Travel through the underground network of tiny crevices allows not only dispersal, but mating with new groups of crayfish, ensuring genetic diversity and healthy populations.

Although cave crayfish are indeed living in remote “islands” deep below the earth, they are still able to disperse, support healthy genetic diversity, and maintain a stable population. This shows that dispersal to islands can also apply to population habitat islands surrounded by rock instead of water.

Winter kayaking

2008-02-24T18:34:00.006-06:00

Having a very busy weekend so not much time to post anything that requires actual writing. So here are a few pictures from a Saturday kayaking trip to the Sipsey Wilderness in central Alabama. It's one of my absolute favorite places to visit, but this was my first time visiting via the river.

It was a rather cold, dreary day so the pictures don't capture the beauty of the place. Here's where we took a break for lunch.

There are interesting side canyons packed with waterfalls all over the place.

I did figure out I need to wear different clothes while winter paddling. I froze my butt off! Next time I'm going to wear a wetsuit. But it was worth it!

Cartoon of the week

2008-02-24T18:31:00.004-06:00

From Politico... loved it! I'm starting to see the light at the end of the Bush/Cheney tunnel and it sure is sweet.

Giant prehistoric frog

2008-02-18T19:42:00.004-06:00

I sure wish this species wasn't extinct, I'd love to see a frog the size of a bowling ball (I really like frogs!). It lived during the Cretaceous about 70 million years ago.

Lake Mead going dry?

2008-02-18T17:41:00.007-06:00

Lake Mead is the huge, man-made lake held back by the Hoover Dam. It holds water from the Colorado River watershed, an area shown to the left. The watersheds the lifeblood of many areas in the desert southwest, the main water source for drinking and irrigation for many citizens in many southwestern states--and not just the states next to Hoover Dam. California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Nevada all use Colorado River water.

Unfortunately, Lake Mead's days of abundance may be numbered. It seems that the time when the southwestern population has boomed (over the last 100 years) has been a time of unusual "wetness" in the southwest. Normal climate is much, much drier according to climate and archaeological records. In fact, in the past, severe drought that lasted hundred of years were not uncommon. We know this by looking at tree rings in some of the very long-lived trees that can still be found on the Colorado Plateau or trees used in construction at ancient pueblos such as Chaco Canyon.

A new study takes a closer look at Lake Mead, its future, and the future of the water supply of the entire southwest. It's not easy reading. In an article that will soon appear in the peer-reviewed journal Water Resources Research, the author makes a startling claim:

...there's a 50 percent chance that the manmade lake, a reservoir created by Hoover Dam located on the Colorado River 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas, will be dry by 2021, or even sooner if climate changes continue as expected and water use is not curtailed.

Wow. Such a drying of the Colorado River supply would be devastating to not only agriculture in the region, but culture as a whole. People simply cannot live in areas without a reliable water supply, the aquifers in the region have limited water, so where will future water supplies come from?

This situation has been known and documented for at least 20 years simply by looking at the water availability records, but nobody has taken significant action. This doesn't really even have anything to do with the debate about whether or not human-induced global warming is occurring, this kind of climate shift seems common in the southwest. Droughts, and even severe droughts, are simply a fact of life in the southwest and hopefully the citizens affected by lowered water levels will start taking serious action to prepare.

Public: faith trumps science

2008-02-16T09:05:00.005-06:00

I find this incredibly depressing. In Florida, only 22% of parents want a science-based science curriculum in school. 50% want a faith-based science curriculum (although I fail to see how the Bible has any place in a science class).

Public: Faith Trumps Science
The Times survey - which included questions about evolution and a host of other education issues - was administered to 702 registered voters Feb. 6-10, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

It revealed a huge gulf between scientists and the public.

While the vast majority of scientists consider evolution to be backed by strong evidence, nearly two-thirds of those polled were skeptical.

Twenty-nine percent said evolution is one of several valid theories. Another 16 percent said evolution is not backed up by enough evidence. And 19 percent said evolution is not valid because it is at odds with the Bible.

"It just shows we have a lot of work to do," said Christopher D'Elia, a marine biologist who is an interim vice chancellor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

It honestly baffles me how so many people do not understand that evolution is not just "a theory" and not backed up by evidence. We can see evolution occur not only in the laboratory in lower life forms such as bacteria, but we can also track the evolution of species through the fossil record and by studying plants and animals that have become isolated (for example, on islands such as the Galapagos). Evolution is the fundamental keystone of modern biology, and thus, the keystone of science critical to our place in the modern world. Reading articles like this really depress me because it shows what a crappy job our public schools are doing to teach kids real science. I grew up going to church and reading the Bible (I was also lucky to attend really good schools), but my parents still taught me science and I never had a problem integrating religion and science--including evolution. I understood at a very young age that the world was billions of years old, but I didn't have any trouble at all integrating that with faith.

Why is it that other countries don't seem to have this weird problem with dumbing down science? Why is it that in the last 10 to 15 years, this has become such a huge issue in education? It makes me think that as the next generation matures, we will lose our place as leading innovators in the world of science.

How do you tackle all of the serious issues facing our world today, issues that will require a solid knowledge of science to solve, when our country is debating evolution versus creationism?

25.5 million year old bat fossil

2008-02-13T21:43:00.000-06:00

This is pretty darned cool. I think I'll have to read this issue of Nature.

NEW YORK - A fossil found in Wyoming has apparently resolved a long-standing question about when bats gained their radar-like ability to navigate and locate airborne insects at night. The answer: after they started flying.
The discovery revealed the most primitive bat known, from a previously unrecognized species that lived some 25.5 million years ago.

Its skeleton shows it could fly, but that it lacked a series of bony features associated with "echolocation," the ability to emit high-pitched sounds and then hear them bounce back from objects and prey, researchers said.

Until now, all the early known fossil bats showed evidence of both flying and echolocating, so they couldn't reveal which ability came first, said researcher Nancy Simmons.

Pale Blue Dot

2008-02-13T20:01:00.003-06:00

I just came across this quote from Carl Sagan. Every time I read it, I understand how tiny and insignificant we are here on our world; how fragile and beautiful the earth really is.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

(Earth from 4 billion miles away...)

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Mysterious bat deaths

2008-02-11T21:01:00.000-06:00

Late last year I started hearing reports of huge numbers of bats dying in their roosts; many of the dead and dying bats had a white fungus on their faces. This is mostly occurring in the far northeast, New York and Vermont. However, bordering states are concerned and are asking cavers and biologists to keep an eye out for this very obvious problem. Here's a photo courtesy of the Bat Conservation and Management discussion board:

Bat biologists and cave conservationists across the country are quite alarmed. Here in the deep south we're already discussing how to protect our bats from whatever is happening, but that's hard to do because nobody knows exactly what is wrong. The fungus doesn't appear to be killing the bats, but is rather indicative of some other problem. Here is some information about it:

Last winter, “white-nosed” bats were found in four caves in New York, and were associated with high levels of bat mortality (over 8,000 dead bats). The “white noses” appear to be caused by a fungus, and this appears to be the first time this syndrome has been observed anywhere. The bats that have been observed with this condition so far are bats in the genus Myotis-little brown bats, northern long-eared bats, and Indiana bats.

The fungus has been identified to the genus Fusarium, a common and widespread genus usually associated with plants. Pathologists that have examined the carcasses recovered from the New York sites do not believe the fungus is the main culprit. One guess at this time is that the fungus invades after the bats are stressed by some other factor. The fungus does not appear to be in the lungs of the bats. Dead bats found in these caves have no remaining body fat. It may be that the bats tryto maintain a high body temperature in an effort to fight off some sort
of infection and eventually starve to death.

I just read an article that speculates that warmer than average temperatures might be to blame. Bats are coming out of hibernation too early, flying around and using up all of their fat reserves. Early emergence puts enormous stress on bats. In addition, some biologists have noted that many insect species that bats rely on in the northeast are becoming scarcer. Perhaps they simply don't have the prey they need to store enough fat to make it through the winter. But nobody really knows, yet.