Viewing Victoria

Named after the first ship to circumnavigate the Earth, Victoria Crater has been captured on film like never before

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been studying Mars since 2006. It has returned more data about the the Red Planet than all the other past and current missions to Mars combined.

And now, according to a recent NASA press release, the MRO's high-resolution camera has taken a dramatic oblique view of Victoria Crater, an impact crater about half-a-mile in diameter located in Meridiani Planum near the equator of Mars. The Mars rover Opportunity has explored this crater for two years.

Officially named after Victoria, Seychelles, the crater is informally named after the Victoria, one of Ferdinand Magellan's five ships that set sail on August 10, 1519, from Seville, Spain -- a journey that would be man's first circumnavigation of the globe.

Some of the distinguishing features of Victoria Crater have been named, such as Cape Verde and Duck Bay.

Though these locations sound like great weekend getaways, don't book your tickets anytime soon: The average surface temperature of Mars is 55 degrees below freezing.

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• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
• See what's in the sky tonight
• Download Google Earth 5.0, which has an interactive map of the entire surface of Mars
• Buy a beginner telescope from the Discovery Channel store ($99.00)

RELATED POSTS

• An Old Lake on the Red Planet (June 20, 2009)
• It's the End of the World As We Know It (June 12, 2009)
• Hubble's Last Stand (May 24, 2009)
• Getting Closer to the Beginning of Time (May 16, 2009)
• Strange, New Worlds (May 9, 2009)
• Ol' Lightnin' (May 3, 2009)
  
• A Possible New World Fit for Life (April 28, 2009)
• Blast From the Past (March 28, 2009)
• Captured on Film: The Personification of Dread (March 13, 2009)
• Martian Soil Appears to Support Life, Scientists "Flabbergasted" (June 28, 2008)

image: Victoria Crater in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at more of a sideways angle than earlier orbital images of this crater. The camera pointing was 22 degrees east of straight down, yielding a view comparable to looking at the landscape out an airplane window. East is at the top. The most interesting exposures of geological strata are in the steep walls of the crater, difficult to see from straight overhead. Especially prominent in this oblique view is a bright band near the top of the crater wall. Colors have been enhanced to make subtle differences more visible. Opportunity explored the rim and interior of this 800-meter-wide (half-mile-wide) crater from September 2006 through August 2008. The rover's on-site investigations indicated that the bright band near the top of the crater wall was formed by diagenesis (chemical and physical changes in sediments after deposition). The bright band separates bedrock from the material displaced by the impact that dug the crater. This view is a cutout from a HiRISE exposure taken on July 18, 2009. Some of Opportunity's tracks are still visible to the north of the crater (left side of this cutout). (image credit: NASA/JPL-caltech/University of Arizona)

The World's Largest Telescope

The biggest eye to the sky has peered deep into the galaxy we call home

Located on La Palma, a volcanic island in the Canary Islands, and armed with a mirror 34 feet (10.4 meters) wide, the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) is the largest telescope in the world.

"Crowds gathered last week on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands...to watch Spanish King Juan Carlos inaugurate the U.S. $180-million GTC, which is co-owned by Spain, Mexico, and the University of Florida in the U.S.," according to a recent National Geographic story.

Recently, GTC obtained the deepest image ever of a Milky Way region possibly containing a star in its death throes -- a neutron star, a remnant of the gravitational collapse of a massive star.

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• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
  
• Donate to the American Astronomical Society
  
• Download this month's free night sky map and calendar from Skymaps.com

RELATED POSTS

• Blast From the Past (March 28, 2009)
• Kepler and the Gate to the Black Forest (February 15, 2009)
• Famous 400-Year-Old Star Death Observed (December 7, 2008)
• Rare Star Explosion Could Be a Rosetta Stone (November 29, 2008)
• The Final Frontier According to Ptolemy, Kennedy, Hubble and Obama (November 17, 2008)
• An Eruption 165 Years Ago Signaled the Death of a Star (September 15, 2008)
• Emissions 6,500 Light-Years Away Detected (September 1, 2008)
• Death of Star Captured for First Time (June 1, 2008)

image credit: Pablo Bonet

The Destruction of Mining

The coal mining industry has left a wake of environmental devastation on the American landscape

"Appalachia's forests, people, mountains and traditional culture are under attack," said Scott Parkin of the Rainforest Action Network in a recent announcement.

"Every week the Appalachian mountains are hit with more explosive force than was dropped on Hiroshima," said Parkin. "To date, 500 mountains have been leveled by coal mining companies, who have blasted the tops off the mountains and dumped the resulting rubble into adjoining valleys and streams. This has resulted in...loss of water supplies and habitat for people and other living beings who depend on these watersheds."

"The spread of mountaintop removal through central Appalachia in the past 15 years has given scientists the opportunity to study environmental destruction on a previously unthinkable scale: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that by 2013 a forested area the size of Delaware will have been destroyed and that more than 1,200 miles of streams have already been severely damaged," writes John McQuaid in an article for Yale Environmental 360.

"As that footprint has grown, so has the evidence, outlined in peer-reviewed scientific papers and ongoing investigations, showing that the damage is far more extensive than previously understood."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Rainforest Action Network letter urging U.S. senators to co-sponsor the Appalachia Restoration Act, which aims to restore the original intent of the Clean Water Act to clarify that mountaintop removal mining waste can not be dumped into streams

RELATED POSTS

• Adam Smith: Father of Modern Eco-Economics (June 5, 2009)
• Appalachian Mountains Get A Breather (April 12, 2009)
• What Is Clean Coal? (February 28, 2009)
• More Than Four Decades Later, A Portuguese Mine Still Pollutes (February 17, 2009)
• Ecuador Grants Rights to "Mother Earth" (October 3, 2008)
• Mining for Answers in the Philippines (April 6, 2008)

image: Rainforest Action Network

Death Row for Wild Camels Down Under

They once helped humans explore and settle the Australian continent. Now, they will be slaughtered by aerial gunmen

Australia has announced a plan to kill 650,000 camels at a cost of $16 million.

"In the 1840s, explorers first brought camels of all sorts to Australia from India and the Middle East," writes Brendan Borrell in a recent Scientific American story. Now, they are considered to be Australia's most invasive species.

"Today, there are more than 1 million one- and two-humped animals in Australia and their population has been doubling every nine years," writes Borrell. "In a land where vegetation is already scarce, camels are competing with native fauna and livestock. They also, apparently, are fond of breaking water pipes and bathrooms in their quest for hydration."

But they are also known for not requiring too much water.

"The first time the explorer [Ernst] Giles used Camels he travelled 220 miles in eight days without giving water to the Camels," according to the Calamunnda Camel Farm in Paulls Valley, Western Australia.

"He later went from Bunbury Downs to Queen Victoria Springs, Western Australia, a distance of 325 miles in 17 days and gave one bucket of water to each camel after the 12th day. The 1891 expedition by [David] Lindsay and [Lawrence] Wells covered 510 miles in 34 days. They only gave their camels 4 gallons of water each."

Camels were critical to the human exploration and development of Australia. Now, their wild descendants will be killed by gunmen riding helicopters and turned into meat for human consumption. Animal welfare activists advocate a no-kill solution, such as administering birth control to keep the feral camel population down.

According the Scientific American report, Tony Peacock of the University of Canberra's Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Center responded to the protests, telling the Associated Press, "To be shot from a helicopter is actually quite humane, even though that sounds brutal. If I was a camel, I'd prefer to just get it in the head."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Care2 petition urging Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to stop the cull and investigate an alternate, no-kill solution

RELATED POSTS

• Songs for the Brumbies (August 6, 2009)
• The Fast and the Furious (August 5, 2009)
• Extinction Crisis in Oceania (August 3, 2009)
• A Crack in the Ice (May 14, 2009)
• Tracking Australia's Wildlife Smugglers (February 8, 2009)
• Australia Burns (February 6, 2009)
• Ancient Water Source Key to Australia's Future (December 27, 2008)

image: Dromedary camel in Australian outback, near Silverton, New South Wales (credit: Jjron)

Exit the Mangrove Dwellers

Two-fifths of the species that call the world's mangrove forests and swamps home could be wiped out

A wide variety of animals -- amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds -- live exclusively in mangrove forests around the globe. Many of these species are listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Seventy-five percent of tropical coastlines feature mangroves, but these forests have been decimated by pollution, changes in sea level and coastal development.

And more than two-fifths of the specialized species that live in mangrove environments face extinction, according to a new study by David A. Luther of the University of Maryland and Russell Greenberg of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center published in the July/August issue of BioScience.

"In the first global assessment of terrestrial vertebrate species that are restricted to mangrove ecosystems, we found 48 bird, 14 reptile, 1 amphibian, and 6 mammal species endemic to mangroves, the majority of which are found in Asia and Australia," according to Luther and Greenberg. "We also found that more than 40% of assessed mangrove-endemic vertebrates are globally threatened."

"Not only are the more visible creatures such as the manatee, the Royal Bengal tiger, the proboscis monkey, numerous amphibians and reptiles endangered, but whole species of migratory birds which may have rest or feeding stopovers along their long migratory flights are endangered with extinction," said Mangrove Action Project Director Alfredo Quarto to 13.7 Billion Years.

"Loss of mangroves causes erosion of shorelines which in turn clouds up coastal waters and kills sea grasses and coral reefs, magnifying the problems resulting from the loss of these inter-tidal wetlands," Quarto added. "There are just so many adverse repercussions from mangrove loss that it is imperative that we do something now to reverse this trend, conserve the existing mangrove areas and restore those areas that have been destroyed or degraded."

One of the biggest killers of mangrove forests -- and consequently the creatures that rely on these unique ecosystems -- is shrimp aquaculture.

"The rapidly expanding shrimp aquaculture industry poses one of the gravest threats to the world's remaining mangroves," Quarto said in an exclusive 13.7 Billion Years interview. He recommends that "if you must eat shrimp...eat only shrimp caught or produced in the United States or Canada."

"Thousands of hectares of lush mangrove forests have been cleared to make room for the artificial shrimp ponds of this boom and bust industry. This highly volatile enterprise has grown exponentially over the last 25 years, leaving devastating ruin in its wake."

GET INVOLVED

• Participate in Seattle's Blue Festival in October to celebrate wild and healthy oceans
• Support the Mangrove Action Project
• Download a full PDF copy of the new mangrove study
  
• Sign the Save the Mekong petition urging the Prime Ministers of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam to keep the Mekong flowing freely
• Sign the Curacao Nature Conservation and Amigu di Tera petition urging the government of Curacao to protect the mangroves by law and reforest mangroves where they have been removed

RELATED POSTS

• Atlantic Salmon Dying in Chile's Pacific (August 4, 2009)
• EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Alfredo Quarto, Executive Director of the Mangrove Action Project (October 27, 2008)
• Mangrove Activists Ask Consumers to Eat Less Shrimp (June 15, 2008)
• On Myanmar, Mangroves and Shrimp (May 9, 2008)
• The Shrimp Effect: Does Eating Shrimp in Canada Kill People in Myanmar? (May 8, 2008)
• Absence of Mangroves Proved Fatal During Myanmar Cyclone (May 8, 2008)
  

image: manatee (credit: Chris Muenzer)

Space Junk

There are four million pounds of space waste orbiting our planet. At some point, it must be cleaned up

On February 10, 2009, an active American commercial telephone satellite collided with an inactive Russian military satellite about 500 miles (800 km) above Siberia. The hundreds of pieces of resulting space debris are now orbiting Earth at an altitude that is filled to the brim with a host of other satellites.

The collision was an unprecedented satellite-to-satellite crash -- and has energized the important discussion about what do with all this space junk.

"Millions of nuts, bolts, pieces of metal and carbon, and whole spacecraft from thousands of missions and launches form an orbiting garbage dump spinning around the Earth at speeds up to 22,000 mph," writes Timothy B. Hurst in a recent Ecoworldly.com article.

"At some point we will need to actively remove debris from orbit," said Brian Weeden of the space security and sustainability advocacy group Secure World Foundation. "The big question right now is which objects to remove first and what is the best method to do so."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign up to receive the Secure World Foundation newsletter
  
• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
  
• Donate to the American Astronomical Society
  
• Download this month's free night sky map and calendar from Skymaps.com

RELATED POSTS

• Saturn's Vanishing Rings (August 11, 2009)
• Empire of the Sun (August 7, 2009)
• Where Stars Are Born (July 16, 2009)
• Orbiting Saturn, Five Years Later (July 10, 2009)
  
• Goodbye Ulysses (June 30, 2009)
• An Old Lake on the Red Planet (June 20, 2009)
• It's the End of the World As We Know It (June 12, 2009)

image: This graphic shows computer generated images of objects in Earth orbit that are currently being tracked. Approximately 95% of the objects in this illustration are orbital debris, i.e., not functional satellites. The dots represent the current location of each item. The orbital debris dots are scaled according to the image size of the graphic to optimize their visibility and are not scaled to Earth. These images provide a good visualization of where the greatest orbital debris populations exist. Below are the graphics generated from different observation points. The GEO images are images generated from a distant oblique vantage point to provide a good view of the object population in the geosynchronous region (around 35,785 km altitude). Note the larger population of objects over the northern hemisphere is due mostly to Russian objects in high-inclination, high-eccentricity orbits. (credit: NASA)

Dethroning the Emperors of the South Pole

The ice in Antarctica is rapidly disappearing. The region's penguins are following close behind

The melting of ice in Antarctica caused by anthropogenic climate change is likely to devastate the population of Emperor penguins, according to a new study by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ecologist Stephanie Jenouvrier. She has been studying penguins near the French research station in Terre Adélie.

"During the last 25 years, 65% of the Adélie penguins have disappeared in the northern part of Antarctica due to extensive fishing and climate change," according to the World Wildlife Fund. One colony of penguins has been studied closely by French scientists since the 1960s.

"We show that if the sea ice shrinks, as projected by climate models, the population will decrease -- we show a dramatic decrease -- by the end of the century," Jenouvrier said in a recent episode of Science Nation, the online magazine of the U.S. National Science Foundation.

"The population will decline from about 3,000 breeding pairs to date to 400 breeding pairs by the end of the century."

Unless the effects of climate change are mitigated soon, this South Pole emperor will lose its frozen empire.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a World Wildlife Foundation petition to support the protection of the penguins and other wildlife of Antarctica and therefore call for the establishment of Antarctica as an actual animal sanctuary by 2018
• Adopt a penguin from Defenders of Wildlife for $20
• Find out how you can help keep Antarctica cool and prevent global warming

RELATED POSTS

• Argentina Creates Marine Park to Protect Penguins (January 10, 2009)
• Solving Antarctica's Tourist Problem (October 1, 2008)
  
• Court Makes Deadline for Penguin Decision (September 13, 2008)
• Dead Baby Penguins Appear on Brazil's Shores (July 22, 2008)
  
• Penguin Decline Is Bad Sign for Oceans (July 3, 2008)
  

image: Emperor penguin chick at Cape Washington (credit: Michael Van Woert, NOAA NESDIS, ORA)

A Horse Named Cloud

Worldwide fame may not be enough to save a wild horse from capture

In the early 16th century, Spanish conquistadors brought horses with them as they colonized the New World. Hernán Cortés famously introduced Andalusian horses to the American continent.

Today, descendants of these Spanish equines are among the wild horses roaming the Pryor Mountains National Forest in Montana.

One of them, Cloud, is perhaps the world's most famous wild horse, having been the subject of numerous books and documentaries, including the Nature documentary "Cloud's Legacy: The Wild Stallion Returns," which aired on PBS.

But now, Cloud and his family face capture by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), unless the United States Senate and President Obama approve a bill that has recently passed the House of Representatives -- The "Restore Our American Mustangs" (ROAM) Act.

"Horses are an inspiration, a symbol of America and the wide-open spaces that dominate so much of the country," said Congressman Jim Moran (D-Virginia) in a July 17 press release. "The House has voted three times on this issue, and it's past time it becomes law."

Perhaps this Cloud will have a silver lining.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an In Defense of Animals petition to save Cloud and his herd from capture
• Support the Cloud Foundation
  
• Support the Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center
  

RELATED POSTS

• Songs for the Brumbies (August 6, 2009)
• Black Beauty (May 15, 2009)
• Heaven or Haven for Horses? (February 22, 2009)
• America's Dirty Little Secret (December 23, 2008)
• Use of Lab Animals on the Rise in UK (July 26, 2008)
• America's Wild Horses in Peril (June 27, 2008)

image: Cloud Foundation

Let There Be Light

The Planck telescope has started to collect data from light that came from the beginning of time

Named after Max Planck, one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, the Planck spacecraft will observe and measure cosmic microwave background (CMB).

Essentially, this European Space Agency (ESA) space observatory will gather information about the ancient light that has traveled 13.7 billion years to finally reach Earth -- light that was emanated just after the theorized Big Bang.

Located near the L2 Lagranian point approximately 1,500,000 kilometers away from the Earth in the direction opposite the Sun, Planck will, among other things, "determine the large-scale properties of the Universe with high precision," according to ESA.

Scientists believe that these measurements will test theories about the origin of the cosmos.

According to the Book of Genesis, God created light on the first day. While the Planck mission may not prove this Biblical claim, according to a ScienceDaily.com article, it "will help answer the most fundamental of questions: How did space itself pop into existence and expand to become the universe we live in today?"

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
  
• Donate to the American Astronomical Society
  
• Download this month's free night sky map and calendar from Skymaps.com

RELATED POSTS

• The Tears of St. Lawrence (August 12, 2009)
• Saturn's Vanishing Rings (August 11, 2009)
• Empire of the Sun (August 7, 2009)
• Where Stars Are Born (July 16, 2009)
• Orbiting Saturn, Five Years Later (July 10, 2009)
  
• Goodbye Ulysses (June 30, 2009)
• An Old Lake on the Red Planet (June 20, 2009)
• It's the End of the World As We Know It (June 12, 2009)
• Getting Closer to the Beginning of Time (May 16, 2009)
• A Possible New World Fit for Life (April 28, 2009)
• Sizing Up the "King of the World" (March 31, 2009)

image: According to the Big Bang model, the universe expanded from an extremely dense and hot state and continues to expand today. A common analogy explains that space itself is expanding, carrying galaxies with it, like raisins in a rising loaf of bread. The graphic scheme above is an artist's concept illustrating the expansion of a portion of a flat universe. (credit: Gnixon)

An Avian Strutter Gets to Keep Its Home

Known for its strutting display, the sage grouse has won a victory over energy development

Wyoming's sage grouse population scored a major victory earlier this month when the state board of Land Commissioners voted withdraw one million acres of state land from wind energy development, according to a recent Audubon Society press release.

Sage grouse are known for their elaborate courtship rituals in which the males will put on a spectacular display of feathers and chest-puffing.

"Governor Dave Freudenthal set up the core area strategy a year ago through an executive order in an effort to head off listing the sage grouse as an endangered species," states the release.

"The governor’s action came under urging from Audubon Wyoming and was based on sound science developed by Audubon scientists. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service...determined that wind energy development is not compatible with the intent of the core sage grouse area strategy. As a result of these strong stands by the state of Wyoming and the Fish and Wildlife Service, Houston-based Horizon Wind Energy suspended its plans for a 300 megawatt wind farm in one of the state sage grouse core areas."

GET INVOLVED

• Support the Audubon Society
  
• Join the Great Backyard Bird Count, a 4-day "citizen-science" project taking place across the United States starting on February 12, 2010
• Check out these 15 ways to attract birds -- and birdsongs -- into your backyard
  
• Read "What You Can Do to Help Birds" (StateOfTheBirds.org)
  
• 25 Things You Can Do to Help the Birds in Your Backyard
  
• Sign an Audubon petition urging Congress to take action on global warming based on their recent Birds and Climate report which clearly shows that climate change is affecting birds

RELATED POSTS

• Return of the Fisher King (July 19, 2009)
• Queen of Kings (July 14, 2009)
• The Return of Minerva's Owl (June 2, 2009)
  
• The Beautiful Lady Without Pity (March 22, 2009)
• The Canary in the Coal Mine Is Actually A Purple Finch (February 21, 2009)
• From Snakes on a Boat to Guam's Silent Forests (February 7, 2009)
• Coffee Made in the Shade? It's for the Birds (January 2, 2009)

image: U.S. National Parks Service

Taiwan's Typhoon Dogs

In the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot, rescuers in Taiwan are scrambling to save the dogs

"We are in a race against time to save more than 1,000 dogs left homeless after animal shelters in Taiwan were heavily damaged by Typhoon Morakot," said International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) president Fred O'Regan in an email. "More than 7,000 homes were destroyed in the disaster, with at least ten shelters that we know of devastated by flooding and mud."

"The shelter dogs are now roaming or trapped by floods, some living on roofs or just barely surviving," O'Regan said. "In one kennel located beneath the Kaoping Bridge, dozens of dogs drowned in their cages, with hundreds more already reported dead around the island...Untold numbers of these dogs could end up shot as a method of local dog control if we do not provide them with new temporary shelters as soon as possible."

GET INVOLVED

• Send an emergency donation to support IFAW's efforts to help Taiwan's rescued dogs
• Support Animal Rescue Team Taiwan
  

RELATED POSTS

• The Fast and the Furious (August 5, 2009)
• Napoleon Complex (July 13, 2009)
• Over 30,000 Dogs Slaughtered in China (June 17, 2009)
• A Real Killer: The World's Toughest Dog Race (April 18, 2009)
• Thousands of Dogs Poisoned to Death in Bali (March 9, 2009)

image: AP

Bye Bye Bangkok

The Smiling Elephants Project has saved its first pachyderm

Bangkok's "roaming elephants" have presented a problem for both themselves and humans. Wandering the streets, they have been involved in nighttime vehicular accidents. Instead of sleeping at night, they are kept awake by tourists and others who believe that touching an elephant will bring good luck.

But there is hope for these thick-skinned city dwellers. According to AsiaOne News, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has returned the first elephant to the forest under the Chang Yim (Smiling Elephants) Project, a fund set up to bring the city's roaming pachyderms back to their natural habitat.

The first elephant to be rescued was Phang Buakham, a 30-year-old with a blind right eye. He will now be in the care of the National Elephant Institute in Lampang, a Thai elephant conservation organization.

GET INVOLVED

• Adopt an elephant from the World Wildlife Fund
• Sign a petition urging the North American and European members of the Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to oppose the proposal to designate China as a trading partner in raw ivory
• Donate to Save the Elephants
  
• Sign a petition urging eBay to ban all ivory sales on its site

RELATED POSTS

• Elephants Beaten At Ringling (July 24, 2009)
• RIP Ned (May 28, 2009)
• Free Lucky (April 27, 2009)
  
• Remembering Buddha's Precious Pachyderm (February 26, 2009)
• L.A. Times Poll: Should Billy the Elephant Remain at the L.A. Zoo? (January 9, 2009)
  
• 2,000 Elephants Missing in Chad (December 15, 2008)

image: fir0002

Airplane Food

Would consumers choose to eat more locally if they knew how far their produce travels?

Locavores -- those who exclusively or primarily eat food that is grown locally -- likely don't purchase pre-packaged produce.

But perhaps if consumers knew the distances that various produce travels to get to their grocery, they might choose to eat more locally, supporting local farmers and reducing the size of their carbon footprint.

Those distances are the focus of Far Foods, a new produce packaging concept designed by London-based graphic designer James Reynolds.

The labels include the origin of the produce, the distance traveled and the amount of carbon dioxide that was emitted during the journey. The receipt tallies all the mind-boggling numbers with a tear-off section that makes it look like an airline boarding pass.

"Airplane food" has a whole new meaning.

GET INVOLVED

• Read "How to Eat Like a Locavore" (Food & Wine Magazine)
• Join the Eat Local Challenge and find a farmer's market near you
  
• Find out how green your diet is with the Eating Green Calculator

RELATED POSTS

• Happy Co-Dependence Day (July 3, 2009)
• How Green Is Your Meal? (June 28, 2009)
• Rogue Honey (June 22, 2009)
• Another Inconvenient Truth: Overfishing (June 18, 2009)
• Dying for a Diet Drink (May 29, 2009)
  
• No Bees, No Food (March 11, 2009)
• Eat Healthy and Save the World, Simultaneously (January 23, 2009)
• Getting Smaller: Our Food (January 21, 2009)
• Pick up the Fish Phone (January 20, 2009)
• Overfishing: How Supermarkets Rate (December 28, 2008)
• Frozen, Canned or Fresh? (December 12, 2008)

image: Far Foods

Protecting Great Apes

American lawmakers may make invasive research on great apes illegal

Sponsored by Representative Edolphus Towns (D-NY), the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326) aims to prohibit the invasive research on great apes and the breeding of these animals for such purposes.

According to the non-profit animal welfare group In Defense of Animals, the passage of this bill would "end unbearable anguish for over 1,000 chimpanzees currently held captive in laboratories such as Louisiana’s New Iberia Research Center." Part of the University of Louisiana, the center was the target of a nine-month undercover investigation, the subject of a story that aired ABC's news program "Nightline."

For the investigation, a Humane Society investigator went undercover at the research lab with a hidden camera. The video reveals chimps being sedated and abused.

"This is a baby who is completely alert, completely awake, completely aware of his surroundings, and he's getting a substance forced down his throat," said the investigator as she described a video to ABC News.

"He is screaming, and he was very terrified throughout this and you can hear the screams of the other babies and mothers in the background because the mothers were in there too."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Project R&R Release & Restitution for Chimpanzees in United States Laboratories petition urging Congress to pass the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326) (U.S. citizens)
  
• Volunteer with the Great Apes Project, which defends the rights of the great primates to live in liberty in their natural habitats
• Sign a PETA petition urging President Obama to ban military trauma exercises on animals
• Sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare

RELATED POSTS

• Chimp Apocalypse Now (June 15, 2009)
• A Peculiar Evil Grows in Austria (May 26, 2009)
• Military Torture: Not Just for Humans (May 17, 2009)
  
• Killing Congo's Chimps (March 29, 2009)
  
• Tracking Our Second-Closest Relatives (March 24, 2009)
• The Gloomy Dean (January 30, 2009)

image: chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes, Zoo Leipzig (credit: Thomas Lersch)

Chimpanzee-Head.jpg

The Tears of St. Lawrence

The Perseids meteor shower peaks today

Born in 225 in Osca, Hispania (modern-day Spain), Lawrence of Rome was one of the ancient capital's seven deacons.

According to legend, when the prefect demanded that he hand over the church's treasure, he instead distributed the wealth amongst the poor.

For this act of defiance, Lawrence was burned to death on a grill in the year 258. Fittingly, he is the patron saint of the poor -- and of cooks.

Though the Feast of St. Lawrence is celebrated by Catholics around the world on August 10, the peak of the Perseids -- a meteor shower also known as the "Tears of St. Lawrence" -- is due today.

Star-gazers will be treated to quite a show: up to a hundred pieces of cosmic debris streaking across the Northeast sky at the rate of about two per minute, disintegrating as they enter Earth's atmosphere in a fiery display that has been witnesses by humans for the last 2,000 years.

GET INVOLVED

• Find out when and where to look for the Perseids
  
• Calculate the number of meteors visible in your observation area using NASA's Fluxtimator
• Download this month's free night sky map and calendar from Skymaps.com

RELATED POSTS

• Saturn's Vanishing Rings (August 11, 2009)
• Empire of the Sun (August 7, 2009)
• Where Stars Are Born (July 16, 2009)
• Orbiting Saturn, Five Years Later (July 10, 2009)
  
• Goodbye Ulysses (June 30, 2009)
• An Old Lake on the Red Planet (June 20, 2009)
• It's the End of the World As We Know It (June 12, 2009)
• Getting Closer to the Beginning of Time (May 16, 2009)
• A Possible New World Fit for Life (April 28, 2009)
• Sizing Up the "King of the World" (March 31, 2009)

image: A green and red Perseid meteor striking the sky just below Milky Way. The trail appears slightly curved due to edge distortion in the lens (image credit: Mila)

Saturn's Vanishing Rings

Saturn's famous rings will disappear today

Named after the Roman god of agriculture, the sixth planet from the sun is best known for its rings, which likely formed 4.5 billion years ago, at about the same time the Earth was born.

And since then, every fifteen years, Saturn's rings "disappear," in what astronomers call the "ring plane crossing" illusion.

"The magician's tools required to perform this trick are pure sunlight, a planet that wobbles, and a main ring system that may be almost 200-thousand miles wide, but only 30 feet thick," says Linda Spilker, deputy project scientist for the Cassini Saturn mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a recent press release.

"Whenever equinox occurs on Saturn, sunlight will hit Saturn's thin rings, the ring plane, edge-on," said Spilker." The light reflecting off this extremely narrow band is so small that for all intents and purposes the rings simply vanish."

"The best Saturn viewing window is ending, but the dramatic narrowing of the rings is worth attempting through a telescope," according to Cassini's Saturn Observation Campaign, which invites professional and amateur astronomers to participate.

"Look for Saturn very low on the Western horizon just after sunset. It sets an hour after sunset by month’s end. The rings have narrowed to only 1.9 degrees this month. The Sun passes through Saturn's ring-plane on August 10th. The south face of the rings are very slightly tilted towards Earth, and the previously bright sun-lit ring, which looks like a straight line, will appear to have gone dark as we get a glimpse at the dark north side of the rings for the first time. Look for Saturn near Mercury on the 18th and near the moon on the 25th."

Humans started witnessing this phenomenon since 1612, when Galileo observed it and wrote, "I do not know what to say in a case so surprising, so unlooked for and so novel."

Medieval thinkers associated Saturn with melancholy, one of the four humors of ancient medicine. But if you manage to get a view of our solar system's second-largest planet and don't see its rings, don't be sad -- they're still there.

GET INVOLVED

• Participate in Cassini's Saturn Observation Campaign (The Cassini Equinox mission invites professional and amateur astronomers plus interested members of the public to join the Saturn Observation Campaign)
• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
  
• Donate to the American Astronomical Society
  
• Download this month's free night sky map and calendar from Skymaps.com

RELATED POSTS

• Empire of the Sun (August 7, 2009)
• Where Stars Are Born (July 16, 2009)
• Orbiting Saturn, Five Years Later (July 10, 2009)
  
• Goodbye Ulysses (June 30, 2009)
• An Old Lake on the Red Planet (June 20, 2009)
• It's the End of the World As We Know It (June 12, 2009)
• Getting Closer to the Beginning of Time (May 16, 2009)
• A Possible New World Fit for Life (April 28, 2009)
• Sizing Up the "King of the World" (March 31, 2009)
• Blast From the Past (March 28, 2009)
• Captured on Film: The Personification of Dread (March 13, 2009)
• The Shadow Lives of Others (March 3, 2009)
• Kepler and the Gate to the Black Forest (February 15, 2009)
• A Smashing Reunion for the Galaxy Twins? (February 9, 2009)
• Here Comes the Warm Jets (February 3, 2009)
• The Final Frontier According to Ptolemy, Kennedy, Hubble and Obama (November 17, 2008)

image: The Cassini spacecraft looks toward the sunlit face of Saturn's rings, whose shadows continue to slide southward on the planet toward their temporary disappearance during equinox in August 2009. This two-frame color mosaic was created from images taken as part of a photometry observation of the rings. Photometry observations are useful for determining a host of ring particle properties. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 3 degrees below the ringplane. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Aug. 22, 2008 at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (728,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 66 kilometers (41 miles) per pixel. (image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

The Fall of Nineveh

An ancient battle along the Tigris River is a reminder of an area that is still fought over. But today the battle is over water

Located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River near modern-day Mosul, Iraq, Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. In the Old Testament's Book of Jonah, it was referred to as an "exceeding great city."

Today in 612 BC, during the Battle of Nineveh, the city was destroyed by Nabopolassar, the first king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, whose forces also killed the Assyrian king Sinsharishkun. It marked the fall of the Assyrian Empire.

Now the area around the fallen city of Nineveh is not necessarily "exceedingly great" -- certainly not when it comes to the water that once made this region fertile and verdant.

In recent times, the Tigris-Euphrates river system has been battered by the Iran-Iraq War, which has left Iraq's wetland ecosystem completely devastated. In 1991, Saddam Hussein drained southern Iraq's expansive marshland in response to a Shiite uprising. Continued mismanagement has resulted in an environmental and economic disaster zone.

"The Euphrates is drying up; strangled by Iraq's neighbours, Turkey and Syria, a two-year drought and years of misuse by farmers," writes Campbell Robertson in a July 17 article for the New York Times.

"The shrinking of the Euphrates, a river so crucial to the birth of civilization that the Book of Revelation prophesied its drying up as a sign of the end times, has decimated farms along its banks, has left fishermen impoverished and has depleted riverside towns as farmers flee to the cities looking for work. The poor suffer more acutely, but all strata of society are feeling the effects: sheiks, diplomats and even members of Parliament who retreat to their farms after weeks in Baghdad."

The ancient city of Nineveh may be long gone. But the battle over water has had a 5,000-year history -- the subject of the Pacific Institute's Water and Conflict Chronology.

"The geopolitics of the Euphrates-Tigris River Basin are marked by a scarcity of both water and trust," writes Elizabeth Burleson of the University of South Dakota School of Law in a 2005 article in the journal Environmental Law Reporter. "Management of transboundary water resources has become one of the most significant challenges to the international community."

"There used to be water everywhere,” said Karbala area resident Abduredha Joda in the New York Times article. "This year it's just a desert."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a petition to declare the Tigris Valley a UNESCO World Heritage Site
  
• Sign an Earth Justice letter to Congress supporting the passage of the Clean Water Restoration Act (U.S. residents)
  
• Sign the petition to adopt Article 31 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which will give all people the right to clean and accessible water

RELATED POSTS

• The Restoration of Clean Water (April 26, 2009)
• A River Runs Through It (April 11, 2009)
• More Than Four Decades Later, A Portuguese Mine Still Pollutes (February 17, 2009)
• The River Runs Dry (January 27, 2009)
• Ancient Water Source Key to Australia's Future (December 27, 2008)
• Save Kolahoi, Save Kashmir (October 28, 2008)
• Got Water? Visions of Planet Earth in 2030 (October 14, 2008)
• Starbucks Wastes Water, A Lot of It (October 8, 2008)
• Future of Water Looking Murky (September 4, 2008)
• Hundreds of Ducks Dead After Landing in Toxic Waste (May 11, 2008)

image: Ishrat Lion icon facing left, ca. 5th century BC

Empire of the Sun

They are vast, dark and mysterious. But a new tool may help unlock some of the mysteries of sunspots

Massive dark patches on the Sun's surface, sunspots were famously observed and analyzed by Galileo, but records of these irregularly-shaped formations go back to at least 28 BC, when Chinese astronomers, perhaps aided by airborne dust that blocked the sun's glare, were able to make naked-eye observations.

Sunspots are mysterious. They have had an inexplicable effect on human health -- worldwide pandemics have been synchronized with increased sunspot activity as far back as the first recorded influenza pandemic in 1761.

British astronomers Fred Hoyle and N. Chandra Wickramasinghe of the University of Wales "have long argued that life arose on Earth when viruses drifting through space entered the planet's atmosphere," according to an article in the Los Angeles Times. "They have also argued that many diseases arise from the same source."

"The link to sunspots arises, they speculate, because the increased solar winds during sunspot activity would tend to drive more space-borne viruses into the atmosphere."

Sunspots also create geomagnetic storms which disrupt satellites, power grids and navigational equipment.

Now scientists have a new tool for studying this enigmatic phenomenon -- the first comprehensive computer model of one.

It is "a breakthrough that will help scientists unlock mysteries of the sun and its impacts on Earth," according to the August edition of NSF Current, published by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

"Understanding complexities in the solar magnetic field is key to 'space weather' forecasting," says Richard Behnke of NSF's Division of Atmospheric Sciences. "If we can model sunspots, we may be able to predict them and be better prepared for the potential serious consequences here on Earth of these violent storms on the sun."

GET INVOLVED

• View the World Sunlight Map to see where the Sun in shining on the Earth right now
  
• Find out how to use solar power at home
• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
• See what's in the sky tonight
• Buy a beginner telescope from the Discovery Channel store ($99.00)

RELATED POSTS

• Goodbye Ulysses (June 30, 2009)
• It's the End of the World As We Know It (June 12, 2009)
• Getting Closer to the Beginning of Time (May 16, 2009)
• Sizing Up the "King of the World" (March 31, 2009)

image credit: Matthias Rempel, NCAR

Songs for the Brumbies

They arrived to serve on Australia's first penal colony over two centuries ago. Now they are shot down from helicopters

In 1788, eleven ships dubbed the "First Fleet" carried 1,487 people -- about half of them convicts -- from Great Britain to New South Wales, establishing Australia's first European settlement, a penal colony. The colonization marked the arrival of horses to Australia, with around 200 animals on the continent by 1800.

The first report of an escaped horse was in 1804. Four decades later, wild horses had spread across the whole of Australian territory. Today, the nation has the world's largest feral horse population, with about 400,000 individuals roaming free. They are known as "brumbies," possibly from the Aboriginal word for wild, "baroomby."

Brumbies are considered by some to be a pest -- trampling on plants and killing trees by chewing on bark. Others argue that brumbies are an important part of the ecosystem as they reduce the occurrence of wildfires by keeping vegetation buildup to a minimum and also keep trails clear for bush walkers and vehicles.

In 2000, over 600 brumbies were slaughtered in the Guy Fawkes River National Park by gunmen in helicopters working for the New South Wales park service.

"The slaughter went ahead secretly with no advice given to, nor consultation sought from the Australian public or animal welfare groups," according to Brumby Watch Australia.

"When the slaughter was discovered, one of the claims of the National Parks and Wildlife Service was that the brumbies were starving and dying from lack of food due to bush fires that had gone through the park. There were bush fires in the park, but the brumbies were not starving as has been verified by photos."

Devastated by the news of the secret slaughter, harpist Jan Carter wrote an album about the brumbies, "Run With the Wind," featuring Celtic harp and classical guitar. The proceeds of the sales started the Save the Brumbies charity.

Carter has called on the government to recognize the brumby as a national horse and give it the protection it deserves, just as the United States gave official protection to mustangs and burros in 1971.

"There are other ways of managing horses than bullets," says Carter in a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald. To her, brumbies are not pests. "They are heritage horses that respond to cuddles and carrots."

GET INVOLVED

• Watch an audio slideshow with Jan Carter
  
• Support Save the Brumbies
• See a Save the Brumbies photo gallery
  
• Sign the ASPCA petition supporting the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503) (U.S. citizens)
  
• Sign an In Defense of Animals letter urging the your Congressional representatives to support the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503) (U.S. citizens)

RELATED POSTS

• Black Beauty (May 15, 2009)
• Heaven or Haven for Horses? (February 22, 2009)
• America's Dirty Little Secret (December 23, 2008)
• Raul Grijalva Should Be the Next Secretary of the Interior (December 6, 2008)
• Environmentalists Rally Behind Biden (August 26, 2008)
• Use of Lab Animals on the Rise in UK (July 26, 2008)
• America's Wild Horses in Peril (June 27, 2008)
• Thoroughbred Rescuers Face Uphill Climb (June 7, 2008)
• Kentucky Derby Horse Death Raises Questions (May 6, 2008)
• Horse Fighting in the Philippines (April 4, 2008)
  

image: DRyan