A Refuge for Species

“Located in southeastern Ecuador, near the Peruvian border, the Nangaritza River valley is mountainous, heavily forested and relatively inaccessible to most people. The upper river valley is known for its Tepuyes, or tabletop mountains, which are home to many species that are found nowhere else on earth, as well as other species whose populations are threatened in other locations but remain plentiful here.

Nangaritza’s isolation has not only helped to protect the mountain ecosystem from destruction, it has also long posed a challenge to detailed scientific study. Part of the region is under the protection of the Nangaritza Protected Forest, but wildlife experts believe that more land must be protected for this unique environment to thrive.

The Shuar indigenous association and a local farming organization have been granted management over much of the protected forest, but these groups are proposing that the lands be upgraded to a higher protection status, where they will be more sustainably managed. Before this step can be taken, however, more scientific data is needed.”

Text by CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL

“The countries of the world in their own languages and scripts; with official names, capitals, flags, coats of arms, administrative divisions, national anthems, and translations of the countries and capitals into many languages”) to get to the meat of the site, a collection of links to various pages: Days, Months, Planets, Mountains, etc.; a huge list of languages with each name given in the original (with transliteration where appropriate); various other random items (including a small set of famous people: it’s fun to see the varying forms of Charlemagne); an Alphabets section; and finally a set of Glossaries, with a few hundred English words translated into, well, everything (divided into manageable sets: Albanian|Greek|Armenian, American|Polynesian, Asian, Balto-Slavic, Basque|Caucasus, Celtic, Constructed, etc.).

http://www.geonames.de/

This image, scanned with transmitted light from the perimeter of a banded agate, shows an island of quartz framed by the concentric rings of agate ‘eyes’, which are generally the result of slicing through hemispherical formations that typically develop near the outer surface. Size: 3cm.

This Madagascan agate shows many classic features: concentric banding; ‘eyes’ sliced through hemispherical formations; the ends of hollow tubes that formed around inclusions of other minerals such as rutile or geothite; and areas of crystalline quartz. Size: 7cm.

Agate frequently frames a quartz-filled void, but here this is reversed. The whole slice consists of a very narrow band of agate framing a large area of quartz at the centre of which is this exquisite formation, seen in more detail in AG170. Size: 10cm

All photographs and captions are copyright by Professor Richard Weston of Earth Images.

Professor Richard Weston is a renowned architect and author as well as Professor of Architecture at Cardiff University, UK.

As part of the FutureWorld exhibition, he designed and built Radiant House, which was conceived as an inhabitable walled garden with a plywood roof floating on structural glass. He has also designed a wonderfully original Triangular House, and many of his works have been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. His books include Modernism, winner of the International Book Award of the American Institute of Architects, and what has been described as possibly the finest monograph ever produced about an architect, on the work of Jørn Utzon, architect of Sydney Opera House.

His passion for mineral images began when he bought an ammonite that cost more than his scanner: the results were dreadful – and the scanner now used cost rather more than many ammonites – but the results are wonderful. They often demand a great deal of time to produce: preparing the minerals, taking scan after scan, and then digitally removing blemishes left by polishing powder and dust. Only a tiny minority have made it into his online collection and without his passion, Richard could not possibly have amassed such a large collection of world class images for you to enjoy. He invites you to his website to view an online collection of 200 mineral images. (thanks to Geology.com)

Earth Images
More about Agate

What Is the Greendex?

You’ve read the news—everyone wants to be green now. But do you really know how your personal choices are adding up? What about the choices of your fellow citizens? How well are people around the globe adopting behaviors that can make the world a more environmentally sustainable place? How have they changed over the past year?

National Geographic and the international polling firm GlobeScan have just conducted their second annual study measuring and monitoring consumer progress toward environmentally sustainable consumption in 17 countries around the world.

Why? We wanted to give people a better idea of how consumers in different countries are doing in taking action to preserve our planet by tracking, reporting, and promoting environmentally sustainable consumption and citizen behavior.

This quantitative consumer study of 17,000 consumers in a total of 17 countries (14 in 2008) asked about such behavior as energy use and conservation, transportation choices, food sources, the relative use of green products versus traditional products, attitudes towards the environment and sustainability, and knowledge of environmental issues. A group of international experts helped us determine the behaviors that were most critical to investigate. (text by Greendex)

At 18.00 on Tuesday 26th May, Weather Projection will commence transmission of the rest of the world.
Light from the Americas will be piped into Sydney’s dome and then retransmitted live by the webcam. An online roll-call clarifies the schedule, highlighting the chronographic star of the moment, shifting start time minutely with each new day.
As Smart Light Sydney begins, the sun first hits landmass in remote north-eastern Canada and the eastern shores of Brazil, slowly sweeping across the Americas until its sole terrestrial glint is seen at the western tips of Alaska and a few sparse Pacific islands. This sparsity is infilled by a review of the evening – a final rapid uber-time-lapse playing back the whole evening’s activity, crescendoing at midnight.

http://www.weatherprojection.co.uk/

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Geological_time_spiral.png

MORE INFO HERE

Etymology: From the Greek “oneiros” meaning dream and “gen” meaning to create, describes that which produces a dream-like state of consciousness.

Silene capensis (syn. Silene undulata) (also known as African Dream Root) is a plant native to the Eastern Cape of South Africa, where is regarded by the Xhosa people as a sacred plant. Its root is traditionally used to induce vivid (and according to the Xhosa, prophetic) lucid dreams during the initiation process of shamans, classifying it a naturally-occurring oneirogen similar to the more well-known dream herb Calea zacatechichi.

Calea zacatechichi, also known as Dream Herb, Cheech, and Bitter Grass, is a plant used by the indigenous Chontal of the Mexican state of Oaxaca for oneiromancy (a form of divination based on dreams.) The plant naturally occurs from southern Mexico to northern Costa Rica. It has been scientifically demonstrated that extracts of this plant increase reaction times and the frequency and/or recollection of dreams[1] versus placebo and diazepam. It is also employed by the Chontal people as a medicinal herb against gastrointestinal disorders, and is used as an appetizer, cathartic anti-dysentery remedy, and as a fever-reducing agent.

Entada rheedii is a large woody liana or climber. It is also known as African Dream Herb and Snuff Box Sea Bean. It is often spelled as Entada rheedei, though initially published as E. rheedii. The alternate spelling is to correctly honour Hendrik Adriaan von Rheede tot Draakestein (1637-1691).

Its leaves are dried and smoked to induce vivid dreams. Its seeds are found on east and southern African beaches, having grown on river and estuary banks and in swamp forest. They have thick and durable seed coats and can survive lengthy periods of immersion in sea water. These seeds are sought after as pieces of jewelry and as good-luck charms. As a result of its ready dispersal by sea, Entada rheedii is widely distributed in tropical and subtropical countries bordering the Indian Ocean.

Information here obtained from Wiki, inspired on the research of Krystle Cole from Neuro Soup. Someone to meet….Really pleasant gal, and lots of juicy (literally) information for the neuro-travelers.

post by Wanderlust

In the Netherlands, every square meter of ground is a man-made landscape: original nature is nowhere to be found. The Oostvaardersplassen – which make up one of the Netherlands’ most important nature reserves – were, after the land was reclaimed, originally an industrial site; they were only turned into a nature reserve later. Even the ‘Green Heart’ at the center of the most densely populated part of Netherlands is in actual fact a medieval industrial area, which was originally reclaimed for turf-cutting. Our ‘nature reserves’ are thus in fact ‘culture reserves’ shaped by human activity. “God created the world, with the exception of the Netherlands. That the Dutch created themselves”, as Voltaire put it in the eighteenth century. And ever since, we have been doing everything we can to live up to his pronouncement. Today, we even actively design and build nature in the Netherlands. Prehistoric forests are being planted in locations designated by bureaucrats: our image of Nature is being carefully constructed in a recreational simulation (a ‘regeneration of our lost heritage’, as the nature-builders call it themselves [1]). Traditional cattle breeds are even being placed in this so-called ‘new nature’ [2]. The original wild ox unfortunately became extinct in 1627, but the Scottish Highlander is an acceptable alternative. These cattle know what they’re supposed to do: graze, under orders of the forestry service. Thanks to them, the landscape stays clear instead of becoming overgrown (we find this attractive, as it reminds us of famous 17th-century landscape paintings). In theory, the animals are supposed to look after themselves, but in winter the forestry service is willing to give them a bit of extra food. It also removes dead animals, lest walkers be offended by a cow rotting on the footpath. In our culture, nature is continually presented as a lost world. It is associated with originality, yet appears only once it has disappeared. Our experience of nature is a retro effect [3].

It is a widespread misconception that nature is always calm, peaceful and harmonious: genuine nature can be wild, cruel and unpredictable. Our contemporary experience of nature is chiefly a recreational one [4]: Sunday afternoon scenery; Disneyland for grown-ups. Indeed, lots of money is required to maintain the illusion. But nature is also a terrific marketing tool: there are Alligator garden tools, Jaguar convertibles, Puma trainers. Natural metaphors give us a familiar feeling of recognition. In commercials cars always drive through beautiful untouched landscapes. Strange that in this make-believe countryside there is not a billboard in sight, while logos and brands are so omnipresent in our environment, we can probably tell them apart better than we can bird or tree species. In my neighborhood, four-wheel-drives have become an integral part of the street scene. These SUVs (sport utility vehicles, previously known as Jeeps or all-terrain-vehicles) have formidable names like Skyline, Explorer, Conquerer and Landwind. Luckily, you can buy spray-on mud for spattering your wheel rims, since SUVs rarely go off road. There are no hills around here, nor snow or other weather conditions that could justify a four-wheel-drive. It’s merely cool to join the urban safari. [5]

NATURE BECOMES CULTURE

The dividing line between nature and culture is difficult to draw. When a bird builds a nest, we call it nature, but when a human puts up an apartment building, suddenly it’s culture. Some try to sidestep the problem by claiming that everything is nature, while others claim that nature is only a cultural construction. It’s tempting just to lump the two together and give up thinking about it.

The word ‘nature’ is derived from the Latin word natura. This was a translation of the Greek physis. Natura is related to Latin terms meaning ‘born’ (and the Greek physis to Greek words for ‘growth’). By the time of the ancient Greeks, the distinction between nature and culture was already considered important. Various things have changed since then; nature in the sense of physical matter unaltered by humans hardly exists anymore. We live in a world of petrochemical cosmetics, microprocessors and synthetic clothing (all things whose conditions of existence I know nothing of). New shower-gel scents are put on the market faster than I can use the stuff up. Shopping centers, websites and airports dominate our environment. There’s precious little nature left that has remained untouched by humans: perhaps a bit here and there on the ocean floor, the South Pole, or the moon. Old concepts like nature and culture, human and animal, and body and mind seem inadequate for understanding ourselves and the technological society we live in [7]. Cloned babies, rainbow tulips, transgenic mice afflicted with chronic cancer to serve medical science: are they natural or cultural? In an evolutionary sense, every distinction between culture and nature has something arbitrary about it; both have been part of the same evolutionary machine since Darwin’s day. When we speak about nature, we are always in fact talking about our relationship with nature, never about nature itself. Nature is always ’so-called nature’ [8]. The terms ‘natural’ and ‘cultural’ are usually deployed to justify one position or another. In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas (the Christian father) believed art imitated nature, because human intellect was based on all things natural. Oscar Wilde (the homosexual), on the other hand, claimed that nature imitated art [9]. From this thought, it is only a small step to the idea that nature exists only between our ears and is in fact a cultural construction. Jacques Lacan (the postmodernist) claims that we cannot see nature [10]. A moderate constructivism is currently widely accepted among philosophers and scientists. Our image of nature has changed greatly over the centuries. It is likely that in the future we will adapt it further. This does not release us from our need to keep looking for nature. The manner in which we distinguish between nature and culture remains relevant, because it says something about the human perspective: what is our place in nature?

An alternative approach is to distinguish between natural and artificial processes. Some processes can take place as a result of human action; others cannot. For example, a room can be lit through the flick of a switch or a sunrise. Sunrise is a natural process; flipping a light switch is an artificial one. In this view, cultural processes are the clear consequences of purposeful human action, and culture is whatever human beings invent and control. Nature is everything else. But much of the ’so-called nature’ in our lives has taken on an artificial authenticity. Genetically manipulated tomatoes are redder, rounder, larger, and maybe even healthier than the ones from our gardens. There are hypoallergenic cats, and nature reserves laid out with beautiful variety. You can buy specially engineered living beings in the supermarket. Human design has made nature more natural than natural: it is now hypernatural.[11] It is a simulation of a nature that never existed. It’s better than the real thing; hypernatural nature is always just a little bit prettier, slicker and safer than the old kind. Let’s be honest: it’s actually culture. The more we learn to control trees, animals, atoms and the climate, the more they lose their natural character and enter into the realms of culture.

CULTURE BECOMES NATURE

Thus far I have said nothing new. Everyone knows that old nature is being more and more radically cultivated. However, the question is: is the opposite also possible? I think it is. In contrast to optimistic progress thinkers who believe human beings’ control of nature will steadily increase until we are ultimately able to live without it, I argue that the idea that we can completely dominate nature is an illusion. Nature is changing along with us [12].
It is said Microsoft founder Bill Gates lives in a house without light switches. His house of the future is packed with sensors and software that regulate the lighting. Nature or culture? The average Dutch person worries more about mortgage interest deductions than about hurricanes or floods. Do you control the spyware and viruses on your computer? In their struggle against nature, human beings have become increasingly independent of physical conditions, it is true, but at the same time they are becoming more dependent on technological devices, other people, and themselves. Think of the dependence that comes with driving a car. We need motorways, for which we pay road tax. A supply of petrol must be arranged. Once you’re on the road, you have to concentrate so you won’t crash into the guardrail. You must take account of other road users. You need a driving license. All this is necessary in order to get your body from point A to point B more quickly. Along with physical de-conditioning comes social and psychological conditioning.

I believe the way we draw the boundary between nature and culture will change. The domain of origin, of ‘birth’, previously belonged to nature, while culture encompassed the domain of the ‘made’. Thanks to developments in science and technology, this distinction is blurring [13]. Origin is playing a smaller and smaller role in human experience, because everything is a copy of a copy. Insofar as we still wish to make a distinction between nature and culture, we will draw the line between ‘controllable’ and ‘autonomous’. Culture is that which we control. Nature is all those things that have an autonomous quality and fall outside the scope of human power. In this new classification, greenhouse tomatoes belong to the cultural category, whereas computer viruses and the traffic-jams on our roads can be considered as natural phenomena. Why should we call them nature? Isn’t that confusing? We allot them to nature because they function as nature, even though they’re not green.

Human actions are not nature, but it can cause it; real nature in all its functioning, dangers and possibilities. In spite of all our attempts and experiments, it is still hardly practicable to mold life. Every time nature seems to have been conquered, it rears its head again on some other battlefield. Perhaps we should not see nature as a static given, but as a dynamic process. It is not only humans that are developing; nature, too, is changing in the process. Thus, I am proposing a new approach to distinguish nature and culture. At first– as is usual with paradigm shifts – it takes some getting used to, but after a while things become clear again. Real nature is not green.

Koert van Mensvoort, June 2006. Published in Vermeulen, Alex (editor) (2006). Sun enlightment, States of Nature. Syndicaat, ISBN: 87-1762457-900-4

References

[1] www.nieuwenatuur.nl, Stichting Duinbehoud Leiden’s website.

[2] Metz, Tracy (1998). New Nature: Reportages over veranderend landscape. Amsterdam: Ambo, 1998, ISBN 90-263-1515-5.

[3] Wark, McKenzie (2005). “N is for Nature”, in Van Mensvoort, Gerritzen, Schwarz (Eds.) (2005), Next Nature, BIS Publishers, ISBN 90-636-9093-2, pp. 128-134.

[4] Metz, Tracy (2002) Pret! Leisure en landschap. Rotterdam: NAi, 2002, ISBN 90-5662-244-7.

[5] Catlett Wilkerson, Richard (2006). Postmodern Dreaming: Inhabiting the Improverse (www.dreamgate.com/).

[6] Bacon, Francis (1620). “Novum organum”, translated by James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath, in The Works (Vol. VIII), published in Boston by Taggard and Thompson in 1863 (www.constitution.org/bacon/nov_org.htm).

[7] Haraway, Donna (1994). “Een Cyborg Manifest”, translated by Karin Spaink (A Manifesto for Cyborgs, 1991), Amsterdam: De Balie, 1994.

[8] Schwarz, Michiel (2005). “Nature So Called”, in Van Mensvoort, Gerritzen, Schwarz (Eds.) (2005), Next Nature, BIS Publishers, ISBN 90-636-9093-2, pp. 87-109.

[9] Wilde, Oscar (1889). The Decay of Lying: An Observation. New York: Brentano, 1905 [1889].

[10] Lacan, Jacques (2001). Ecrits, translated by Alan Sheridan, London: Routledge, 2001.

[11] Oosterling, Henk (2005). “Untouched Nature”, in Van Mensvoort, Gerritzen, Schwarz (Eds.) (2005), Next Nature, BIS Publishers, ISBN 90-636-9093-2, pp 81-87.

[12] Van Mensvoort, Koert (2005). “Exploring Next Nature”, in Van Mensvoort, Gerritzen, Schwarz (Eds.) (2005), Next Nature, BIS Publishers, ISBN 90-636-9093-2, pp. 4-43.

[13] Kelly, Kevin (1994). Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization, Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1994, ISBN 0-201-57793-3.

[14] Heraclitus (540-480 BC): On Nature, fr. 208: “Nature loves to hide.” (Heraclitus wrote the philosophical work On Nature, which he placed in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus (Diogenes, Lives, 9.6). The work as a whole has not survived; what remains of it are quotations in the works of others.)

Thanx to Next Nature

By watching the motions of 28 stars orbiting the Milky Way’s most central region with admirable patience and amazing precision, astronomers have been able to study the supermassive black hole lurking there. It is known as “Sagittarius A*” (pronounced “Sagittarius A star”). The new research marks the first time that the orbits of so many of these central stars have been calculated precisely and reveals information about the enigmatic formation of these stars — and about the black hole to which they are bound.

“The centre of the Galaxy is a unique laboratory where we can study the fundamental processes of strong gravity, stellar dynamics and star formation that are of great relevance to all other galactic nuclei, with a level of detail that will never be possible beyond our Galaxy,” explains Reinhard Genzel, leader of the team from the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching near Munich. (text by Physorg)

Continue reading on PHYSORG

CREDIT: I. Rodrigues and I.F. Mirabel, Space Telescope Science Institute, NRAO/AUI/NSF.

post by Waderlust

Wind power – Solar energy – Power from the oceans – Combined heat and power – Super-efficient homes – Electric cars – Second-generation biofuels – Carbon capture – Biochar – Biogas stoves.

Found in New Scientist Magazine

The Naica Mine of Chihuahua, Mexico, is a working mine that is known for its extraordinary crystals. Naica is a lead, zinc and silver mine in which large voids have been found, containing crystals of selenite (gypsum) as large as 4 feet in diameter and 50 feet long. The chamber holding these crystals is known as the Crystal Cave of Giants, and is approximately 1000 feet down in the limestone host rock of the mine. The crystals were formed by hydrothermal fluids emanating from the magma chambers below. The cavern was discovered while the miners were drilling through the Naica fault, which they were worried would flood the mine. The Cave of Swords is another chamber in the Naica Mine, containing similar large crystals.

The Naica mine was first discovered by early prospectors in 1794 south of Chihuahua City. They struck a vein of silver at the base of a range of hills called Naica by the Tarahumara Indians. The origin in the Tarahumara language seems to mean “a shady place”. Perhaps here in the small canyon there was a grove of trees tucked away by a small canyon spring.

For More Information go to NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

It’s “the Sistine Chapel of crystals,” says Juan Manuel García- Ruiz. The geologist announced this week that he and a team of researchers have unlocked the mystery of just how the minerals in Mexico’s Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) achieved their monumental forms. Buried a thousand feet (300 meters) below Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan Desert, the cave was discovered by two miners excavating a new tunnel for the Industrias Peñoles company in 2000. To learn how the crystals grew to such gigantic sizes, García-Ruiz studied tiny pockets of fluid trapped inside.

The cave contains some of the largest natural crystals ever found: translucent gypsum beams measuring up to 36 feet (11 meters) long and weighing up to 55 tons.The crystals, he said, thrived because they were submerged in mineral-rich water with a very narrow, stable temperature range – around 136 degrees Fahrenheit (58 degrees Celsius). At this temperature the mineral anhydrite, which was abundant in the water, dissolved into gypsum, a soft mineral that can take the form of the crystals in the Naica cave. (text by Discovery News and National Geographic)

post by Wanderlust