The Toucan's Cobweb

From a mountaintop in Chile comes a new glimpse at the brightest star nursery in a galactic neighbor

From their 7,800-foot-high perch on a mountain in the southern part of Chile's almost rainless Atacama Desert, astronomers at La Silla Observatory last week captured a striking new image of NGC 346, a cluster of thousands of stars 210,000 light-years away.

The hazy cluster, 200 light-years across, is the brightest star-forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a nearby dwarf galaxy in the constellation Tucana (Toucan) that is visible to the naked eye in the southern hemisphere.

"Images like this help astronomers chronicle star birth and evolution, while offering glimpses of how stellar development influences the appearance of the cosmic environment over time," according to the European Southern Observatory (ESO), an intergovernmental astronomical organization with 14 European members, famed for building some of the world's most technically advanced telescopes.

The image was taken using the Wide Field Imager (WFI) instrument at the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope, which is on permanent loan from the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science in Munich.

"The light, wind and heat given off by massive stars have dispersed the glowing gas within and around this star cluster, forming a surrounding wispy nebular structure that looks like a cobweb," according to the ESO press release.

"NGC 346, like other beautiful astronomical scenes, is a work in progress, and changes as the aeons pass. As yet more stars form from loose matter in the area, they will ignite, scattering leftover dust and gas, carving out great ripples and altering the face of this lustrous object."

GET INVOLVED

• Download this month's free night sky map and calendar from Skymaps.com
• Join the Great World Wide Star Count
• Visit NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day Web site
• Download SETI@Home to help in the search for extraterrestrial life
• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form

RELATED POSTS

• Encedalus Lives Again (February 12, 2010)
• NGC 3603 (February 5, 2010)
• Caught on Film: The Cat’s Paw (January 29, 2010)
• Remembering Challenger (January 28, 2010)
• Ring of Fire (January 22, 2010)
  
• It Came from Outer Space (January 18, 2010)
• Hunt for Earth 2 (January 8, 2010)
• For New Year's Eve, a Blue Moon (December 31, 2009)
  
• How the Sun Will Die (December 18, 2009)
• Saturnian Hex (December 11, 2009)
• Intergalactic Metal (December 4, 2009)

image: ESO

When Killer Whales Attack

The death of a trainer by a captive orca brings up a larger issue

Yesterday, Sea World trainer Dawn Brancheau was killed by an orca named Tilikum.

This tragic event underlines another tragedy: the capturing and confining of these majestic animals for our entertainment.

This is senseless and stupid.

Orcas, or killer whales (Orcinus orca ), are the largest species of the dolphin family.

"They are highly social animals, that tend to live in cohesive groups, so it's quite an artificial environment to capture them and put them in a small area," said wild orca expert Dr. Andrew Foote, from the University of Aberdeen, UK, in a BBC article.

"Tilikum, like other orcas that have been in captivity for decades, was captured from the wild," according to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

"Now 30 years old, he was taken from the waters of Iceland at the approximate age of two. Other orcas, such as Corky, who resides at SeaWorld San Diego, and Lolita, residing at the Miami Seaquarium, have been confined for nearly four decades after being captured from their native waters in the Pacific Northwest."

If these captive animals possess some rage against humans, who could blame them?

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a petition urging Arthur Hertz, the owner of Miami Seaquarium, to free Lolita, an orca who has been held in captivity since 1976, currently held in a tiny tank, where she has lived in solitary confinement for 18 years
• Join the Orca Network's "Free Lolita" list and read their proposal to free Lolita the orca
  

RELATED POSTS

• Flipper: Smart Like Us, and a Lot Nicer (January 5, 2010)
• Hold That Thought About Thought (September 21, 2009)
• First Case of Dolphin Tool Use Documented (December 22, 2008)
• New Film Exposes Japan's Dolphin Slaughter (January 18, 2009)
• Singapore's Dolphin Deal with the Solomons (December 8, 2008)
• Bloody Waters in the Faroe Islands (February 19, 2009)
• Massive Dolphin Slaughter in Japan (June 23, 2008)
• From Dirty Hands to Dolphin Blood (July 28, 2009)
• World Protests Planned for Japan Dolphin Day (August 29, 2008)
• SPECIAL FEATURE: Capt. Philip G. Renaud, If You Could... (March 21, 2009)
• Dolphins Get Much Needed Help (July 30, 2008)
• South Africa's Shark Tale (June 24, 2009)
• Species Feeling the Heat (December 29, 2009)
• Oil and Water Don't Mix (October 7, 2009)
• Denmark: Humpback Whales Are Tasty (June 23, 2009)

image: whale trainer, Dawn Brancheau, with male orca, Tillikum, at SeaWorld Orlando

Acid Waters

Mankind's carbon dioxide emissions have made the world's oceans more acidic than they have been in the last 800,000 years

Ocean acidification is the continuing decrease in the ocean's pH level due to the increased absorption of man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

It is blamed for harming oceanic calcifying organisms such as corals, molluscs and crustaceans, all important members of a long food chain and critical elements in a healthy marine ecosystem.

According to the first global reef extinction study, one-third of reef-building coral species face extinction.

Economically speaking, that is troubling news, as coral reefs are estimated to provide about $300 billion of value annually, giving millions of people around the world food, protection from killer waves and jobs.

In 2007, Richard Feely, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) led an expedition to North America's Pacific coast waters to investigate pH levels.

What he found was shocking: a level of acidification that wasn't expected until 2050.

Now, the NOAA is set to release its first ocean acidification research plan.

"Today, the atmospheric CO2 concentration is about 388 parts per million," said Victoria Fabry, a visiting research scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in a recent Scientific American article.

"This is the highest that it's ever been in the past 800,000 years -- as far back as the record goes right now," said Fabry, who is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee mandated by Congress to release a study on the effects of ocean acidification. "And there are concerns about where we're headed."

One of the biggest misconceptions that people have about the ocean is "that the sea is a very durable ecosystem -- it’s really not," said executive director of the Living Oceans Foundation Capt. Philip G. Renaud in an exclusive 13.7 Billion Years interview.

"It’s a delicate and complex balance of life and we can’t disrupt major parts of that ecosystem without unfortunate circumstances resulting."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an Oceana petition urging Congress to enforce lower CO2 emissions to stop ccean acidification (U.S. citizens)
  
• Sign the Reef Check Foundation's International Declaration of Reef Rights
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change

RELATED POSTS

• Once Upon A Time, Arctic Gators (May 4, 2009)
• Photographing the Coral Triangle (April 23, 2009)
• Enter the Dead Zone (April 20, 2009)
• Coral Reefs: Here Now, Gone Tomorrow? (April 3, 2009)
• 13.7 BILLION YEARS EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Philip Renaud, Executive Director, Living Oceans Foundation (Part 1 of 5) (March 15, 2009)
• Oceanic Acid Trip (March 10, 2009)
• One-Third of Coral Reefs Face Extinction (July 11, 2008)
  

image: fringing coral reef near Eilat, Israel (credit: Mark A. Wilson, Department of Geology, The College of Wooster)

Killing Enemies, Saving Species

America's military bases are becoming safe havens for endangered plants and animals

In 2003, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pushed Congress to give the military exemptions from federal environmental rules meant to protect endangered plants and animals.

He argued that the laws made it difficult for the armed forces to carry out training exercises in the wilderness areas of it many bases.

The House voted to grant the military a broad waiver in regard to the Endangered Species Act. The Senate also approved a waiver, but only as long as the military developed their own conservation plans.

Today, dozens of military bases across the nation are spending more and more time conserving endangered species, as commanders realize that they will have fewer restrictions placed on in their exercises if they preserve the ecosystems in which those exercises are carried out.

"Even as it conducts round-the-clock exercises to support two wars, Fort Stewart spends as much as $3 million a year on wildlife management, diligently grooming its 279,000 acres to accommodate five endangered species that live here," writes Leslie Kaufman in The New York Times.

"Last year, the wildlife staff even built about 100 artificial cavities and installed them 25 feet high in large pines so the woodpeckers did not have to toil for six months carving the nests themselves."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Save the Dugong Campaign Center petition to stop the construction of a military base that threatens the Okinawa dugong with extinction
• Sign a PETA petition urging President Obama to ban military trauma exercises on animals
• Watch a New York Times video about military base species conservation
  
• Check out these 15 ways to attract birds -- and birdsongs -- into your backyard
  
• 25 Things You Can Do to Help the Birds in Your Backyard
  

RELATED POSTS

• The Marines vs. the Dugongs (December 29, 2009)
• Supreme Court: Move Over Whales, Here Comes the Navy (November 14, 2008)
  
• Whales vs. Navy in Supreme Court (October 16, 2008)
• Terra Australis (December 1, 2009)
  
• Military Torture: Not Just for Humans (May 17, 2009)
• She's Got A (One-Way) Ticket to Ride (November 3, 2009)
  
• Putting for Birdie (November 4, 2009)
• Saving Wildlife on the Back Nine (December 4, 2008)
• Death Row Baby Seals Find A Friend in Canada's Senate (March 15, 2009)

image: the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker has custom-built nests created by the military in Fort Stewart, Georgia (credit: Lance Cpl. Matthew K. Hacker, United States Marine Corps)

The Galileo Affair

Three hundred and seventy-eight years ago today, the father of modern science turned the world right-side up with his Dialogo

At the turn of the 17th century, science was still dominated by the millennia-old ideas of Aristotle and Ptolemy -- ideas that were tightly aligned with the teachings of the Catholic Church.

But in March of 1610, the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei published Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger), a slender volume containing hefty discoveries that started to shake the scientific method from religious ideology.

Until that point, the moon was thought to have had a smooth surface (after all, the heavens were believed to have been more "perfect" than the Earth). But using a telescope, Galileo discovered that the moon was not smooth at all -- it was covered in mountains up to four miles high.

The book also described another, even more troubling discovery: four objects orbiting Jupiter.

This observation was a difficult one to accept for church leaders, as it threw into question one of the most cherished beliefs of the time: geocentrism. If Earth was at the center of the universe, with all celestial bodies revolving around it, how could Jupiter have its own moons?

In August, after Jesuit astronomers rejected these discoveries (even refusing to look through his telescope), a frustrated Galileo wrote a letter to his fellow astronomer Johannes Kepler:

"My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd. What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times? Truly, just as the asp stops its ears, so do these philosophers shut their eyes to the light of truth."

During a sermon in Florence in 1614, a Dominican friar named Tommaso Caccini publicly denounced Galileo for promoting the radical theory of heliocentrism, which was originally devised by Copernicus in his famous 1543 text De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.

On February 22, 1632, Galileo published Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems).

He got permission to publish the text from the Inquisition, provided that he presented heliocentrism as merely a hypothesis and gave equal treatment to geocentrism. He didn't.

The following year, Galileo was summoned to Rome to stand trial for heresy, while his
Dialogo was placed on the church's Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books").

The aging and ailing scientist was found guilty and sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. The publication of any of his past or future books was prohibited.

Still, Dialogo managed to be a bestseller. It was finally taken off the Index in 1835.

In 1966, Pope Paul VI abolished the Index.

In 1989, NASA launched an unmanned spacecraft to study Jupiter and its telltale moons.

The name of the spacecraft? Galileo, of course.

GET INVOLVED

• Participate in Cassini's Saturn Observation Campaign
• View a moon phase calculator
  
• 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)
• 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)
• Famous 400-Year-Old Star Death Observed (December 7, 2008)
  
• The Final Frontier According to Ptolemy, Kennedy, Hubble and Obama (November 17, 2008)

image: Galileo before the Holy Office, 19th-century painting by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury

Wise Eyes Peering Into the Sky

NASA's new sky probe sends back its first images

On December 14, 2009, NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) was launched on a Delta II rocket.

During its 10-month mission orbiting the Earth, WISE will take 1.5 million images -- one every 11 seconds -- to produce a catalog recording 99% of the sky.

One thousand times more sensitive than previous infrared space telescopes, WISE will create an unprecedented library of images of our local solar system, our Milky Way galaxy and more faraway points in the universe.

This week, NASA released the first images from WISE. They are remarkable shots, such as this impressive photograph of the Andromeda galaxy, the nearest large galaxy to our Milky Way.

Located 2.5 million light-years from our sun, Andromeda is larger than the Milky Way and contains more stars.

"WISE has worked superbly," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, according to a NASA press release. "These first images are proving the spacecraft's secondary mission of helping to track asteroids, comets and other stellar objects will be just as critically important as its primary mission of surveying the entire sky in infrared."

"We've got a candy store of images coming down from space," said Edward (Ned) Wright of UCLA, the principal investigator for WISE.

"Everyone has their favorite flavors, and we've got them all."

GET INVOLVED

• View WISE's first images
  
• Download this month's free night sky map and calendar from Skymaps.com
• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
• Visit NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day Web site

RELATED POSTS

• Encedalus Lives Again (February 12, 2010)
• NGC 3603 (February 5, 201o)
• Caught on Film: The Cat’s Paw (January 29, 2010)
• Remembering Challenger (January 28, 2010)
• Ring of Fire (January 22, 2010)
  
• It Came from Outer Space (January 18, 2010)
• Hunt for Earth 2 (January 8, 2010)
• For New Year's Eve, a Blue Moon (December 31, 2009)
  
• How the Sun Will Die (December 18, 2009)
• Saturnian Hex (December 11, 2009)
• Intergalactic Metal (December 4, 2009)
• 
• The Leonids (November 16, 2009)
• Sailing Through Space on Sunshine (November 13, 2009)
• The Lost Siblings of the Sun (November 6, 2009)

image: The immense Andromeda galaxy, also known as Messier 31 or simply M31, is captured in full in this new image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The mosaic covers an area equivalent to more than 100 full moons, or five degrees across the sky. WISE used all four of its infrared detectors to capture this picture (3.4- and 4.6-micron light is colored blue; 12-micron light is green; and 22-micron light is red). Blue highlights mature stars, while yellow and red show dust heated by newborn, massive stars. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA)

Killing Weeds, Poisoning Ourselves

The EPA may reevaluate its position on atrazine

Used in 80 countries, atrazine is probably the world's most popular weed killer.

But it has been implicated in causing problems in the development of amphibians, poisoning waterways, contaminating drinking water, causing human birth defects, low sperm count and menstrual problems.

The European Union banned its use in 2004. However, in the United States, it the most widely used herbicide. In 2003, 76 million pounds of atrazine was applied.

That may change, depending on the findings of an investigation launched by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson.

If the United States ends up banning atrazine, profit losses would be minor. A 1994 USDA study found that an atrazine ban would only result in a yield loss of 1.2 percent.

"Who really wants to take the chance, when so much is at risk? Who wants that in their backyard?" asked Tyrone Hayes, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, in an article for The Atlantic.

"If it were up to me as a citizen and a scientist, atrazine would be gone. It’s a no-brainer."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Change.org petition urging the EPA to ban atrazine
  
• Sign an Organic Consumers Association petition urging Home Depot to drop Monsanto, the producer of the dangerous herbicidal product Roundup, 100 million pounds of which are applied to U.S. farms
• Download a BeyondPesticides.org factsheet listing products containing triclosan, a dangerous antibacterial hand soap
  
• Take the Food & Water Watch Anti-Triclosan Pledge

RELATED POSTS

• From Dirty Hands to Dolphin Blood (July 28, 2009)
• Dying for a Diet Drink (May 29, 2009)
• EPA Sued Over Pesticide That May Kill Bees (August 21, 2008)
• Secret Report Says Biofuels Caused Food Crisis (July 8, 2008)
• Germany Bans Pesticide Blamed for Bee Deaths (June 30, 2008)

image: Wikipedia

Gaia: How Dry She Is

More than a third of the world's land mass may become desert

Coastal areas. The Prairies. The Mediterranean region. The savannah. The temperate Steppes. The temperate deserts. Tropical and subtropical Steppes. Tropical and subtropical deserts.

Amounting to 38% of the world's land surface, these eight natural areas of varying aridity are in serious trouble of turning into deserts because humans have been treating this land badly, according to a recent press release issued by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT).

Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a scientific methodology that analyses the human impact on the environment, researchers led by Montserrat Núñez from Institute of Agro Food Research and Technology (IRTA) have found that unsustainable land use in these eight "eco-regions" may lead to a level of soil degradation that is irreversible.

In a nutshell, that means that virtually nothing will grow there.

The regions most in danger of becoming completely "dead" include North Africa, the countries of the Middle East, Australia, South West China and the western edge of South America.

The research, published in the latest issue of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, is the world's first study to take into consideration the impact of desertification in the LCA.

According to Peter Russell's World Clock, 110 hectares of land turns to desert every ten minutes. At this rate, many of the world's inhabitants in the not-so-distant future will have to find new places to grow food -- and live.

Projects like the Underground Desert Living Unit (UDLU) and the Lilypad attempt to solve the future problem of the millions of "global warming refugees" that will be created by the loss of arable land, either through desertification or rising sea levels.

According to James Lovelock, the climatologist and futurist who first proposed the Gaia hypothesis, it's too late to try to turn the tide on global warming. Instead of spending time and resources in an attempt to reverse climate change, he argues, we should be focused on finding new places to live.

GET INVOLVED

• Monitor the growing devastation with Peter Russell's World Clock
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change
• Join the Greenpeace "Energy [R]evolution"
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe
• Protect an acre of rainforest through Conservation International
• Take these seven steps to help save the Amazon rainforest

RELATED POSTS

• A Line in the Sand (September 15, 2009)
• The Fall of Nineveh (August 10, 2009)
  
• Location, Location, Relocation (May 27, 2009)
• The Sands of Time (May 22, 2009)
• Lilypad: Future Ecopolis for Global Warming Refugees (January 15, 2009)
• The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on the Plain (Not) (January 5, 2009)
• Ancient Water Source Key to Australia's Future (December 27, 2008)
• Cover the Deserts, Cool the Earth (December 25, 2008)
  
• Pack Your Bags, We're Moving to New Zealand (October, 26, 2008)
• Bad News for Kangaroos: Down Under's Getting Hotter (October 19, 2008)
• Got Water? Visions of Planet Earth in 2030 (October 14, 2008)

image: the Guadalquivir River as it passes through Seville, one of the areas most at risk of desertification in Spain (credit: Nesta Vázquez)

Tyger! Tyger! (Not Burning So Bright)

China just celebrated the Year of the Tiger. But so far, it is far from the tiger's year

On Sunday, the skies above Beijing and Shanghai were ablaze with fireworks in celebration of the Year of the Tiger. However, with just around 3,200 surviving in the wild, the tiger may be extinct by the next Year of the Tiger in 2022, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Some current estimates put the wild population closer to 2,000. But whatever the actual number in the wild is, there are more tigers in captivity in American zoos. The tiger's decline has been dramatic: At the beginning of the 20th century, there were an estimated 100,000 tigers in the wild.

The largest of the four "big cats," the tiger (Panthera tigris) sits at the top of the food chain. (The other three big cats are the lion, jaguar and leopard.) But the tiger has proven to be no match for an industry fueled by its body parts and the loss of its habitat due to deforestation and human activity in India, China and Southeast Asia.

In China, where traditional medicine calls for various ingredients made from tiger body parts, there are just 50 wild tigers left. Though the government banned the tiger trade in 1993, a tiger paw can fetch up to $1,000 in the black markets of southern Guangdong.

"The last hope for the tiger," writes Ananth Krishnan in The Hindu, "rests with a last ditch plan that the Chinese government and the World Bank are working on: a multi-million dollar, first-of-its-kind project to expand reserves and address human-tiger conflicts in northern China and Siberia, which will be unveiled at a September meeting in Russia."

WWF has taken the Year of the Tiger as an opportunity to launch a campaign to reverse the trend and double the tigers numbers in the wild by 2022.

"Tigers are being persecuted across their range -- poisoned, trapped, snared, shot and squeezed out of their homes," said Mike Baltzer, leader of WWF's Tiger Initiative.

"But there is hope for them in this Year of the Tiger. There has never been such a committed, ambitious, high-level commitment from governments to double wild tiger numbers. They have set the bar high and we hope for the sake of tigers and people that they reach it."

In his 1794 poem "The Tyger," English Romantic poet William Blake famously posed a question to great cat:

"Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"

While Blake wondered what immortal being could have created such a powerful creature, it is abundantly clear that it just takes mere mortals to destroy it.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a TigerAid petition to save tigers in India
  
• Adopt a tiger from the World Wildlife Fund for $25

RELATED POSTS

• Thousands Protest Indian Tiger Conservation Plan (January 1, 2009)
• Saving Sumatran Forests, Keepers of Carbon (October 11, 2008)
• Celebrities Join World Bank to Save Tigers (June 12, 2008)

image: tiger cub, Philadelphia Zoo (credit: Willow Grove, PA, USA)

From Syrup to Seals in Canada

Canada adopted their maple leaf flag 45 years ago today. It's a perfect time to consider the effects of global warming on the tree's famously delicious syrup -- and how boycotting it may send an anti-sealing message

Based on the flag of the Royal Military College of Canada, the 11-pointed red maple leaf design by George F. G. Stanley and John Matheson replaced the old Canadian Red Ensign banner on February 15, 1965.

The maple leaf is an important national symbol for Canada, adopted in the early 18th century as a New France emblem by French Canadian settlers living along the Saint Lawrence River.

There are about 125 species of maple tree, most of them native to Asia. But it is the sap of a particular maple -- the Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) -- that is the source of Canada's famous maple syrup.

Most of the world's maple syrup supply comes from Quebec. In 2008, the province produced over 20 million liters of the sweet stuff, according to a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) report.

The syrup-making process is costly, both in time and in sap. It takes about 40 liters of sap to make just one liter of syrup. And it requires trees that are between 40 and 50 years old.

And now, this difficult process is becoming even more difficult, because of the increase in temperature due to global warming.

Below-freezing temperatures during the winter months are required to turn the tree's starch into the sucrose that gives the sap its sweetness.

Prices have gone up accordingly, jumping 50% over the two years starting in 2006.

"The reason the price has risen so fast is because global warming is shortening, and in some times totally wiping out, the weather and temperature patterns needed to produce the maple sap," writes Shea Gunther in an article for Mother News Network.

In 2008, according to Treehugger.com, the sugar-tapping season in Quebec lasted just a week.

Anti-sealing activists aren't buying it -- literally. Many of them have called upon the public to boycott Canadian products like maple syrup until the nation stops their annual seal hunt, in which thousands of baby harp seals are brutally slaughtered for their fur, meat and blubber.

The Canadian filmmaker Jean Claude Lauzon once remarked, "I was so angry to realize I'm a Quebecois, with no past, no history, just two cans of maple syrup."

Perhaps he might be happy to know that in the future, those two cans could be worth quite a bit indeed. But will they be worth the life of a baby seal?

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the PETA petition to boycott Canadian maple syrup as long as the seal hunt continues
  
• Support Trees for the Future, a non-profit organization that has been helping communities around the world plant trees
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

RELATED POSTS

• Europe to Canada: Stop Killing Seals (May 6, 2009)
• Senators Stand Up for Seals (April 5, 2009)
• Death Row Baby Seals Find A Friend in Canada's Senate (March 15, 2009)
• EU to Propose Ban on Seal Products (April 17, 2008)
• Canadian Seal Hunt Protesters Arrested (April 9, 2008)
• Canadian Seal Hunt Begins (March 29, 2008)
• New Standards Attempt More Humane Seal Hunt (March 27, 2008)
• We Didn't Start the Fire (November 5, 2009)
• The Trees of the Maya (July 29, 2009)
• Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree (July 17, 2009)
• Blowing Noses Into Dead, Ancient Trees (February 25, 2009)
• Ancient Forests Not Something to Sneeze At (September 18, 2008)
• Swedsh Tree May Be Oldest Living Thing (April 19, 2008)
• Canadian Logging May Explode "Carbon Bomb" (April 12, 2008)
• Exclusive Interview with Francois Hugo, Founder, Seal Alert-SA (July 15, 2009)

Chico & Dorothy: A Valentine's Day Love Story

A rescued goat and sheep find true love

Watkins Glen is a small village located at the southern tip of Seneca Lake, one of New York state's deep and glacial Finger Lakes.

The village has a little over 2,000 human residents, but it is also the home of over 800 rescued farm animals -- cows, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, pigs, sheep, rabbits and goats -- all living the good life at Farm Sanctuary, North America's leading farm animal rescue organization.

Recently, two of the shelter's animals -- a sheep named Chico and a goat named Dorothy -- have fallen in love.

"Though our sheep and goats get along fine with each other, we rarely see any particular interest between members of the two species," writes Farm Sanctuary’s National Shelter Director Susie Coston in a recent blog post. "Dorothy and Chico weren’t rescued together, and they live in a herd of more than 100 sheep and goats."

"People who have not spent time caring for these animals have a hard time telling them apart, especially all the sheep. But Dorothy recognizes Chico from the other end of the barn. They seek each other out, and when they meet, they exchange adoring greetings by rubbing their heads against each other. They spend hours each day grooming, playing and snuggling together. We don’t know how it happened, but these two are obviously smitten."

Coston notes that friendships do thrive at the shelter, one of two operated by Farm Sanctuary. (The Watkins Glen location comprises 175 acres, while the 300-acre sanctuary in Orland, California, houses over 400 rescued farm animals.)

"Free from fear, stress and deprivation, which can stifle an animal’s personality, our residents are able to express their natures and, well, follow their hearts."

GET INVOLVED

• Sponsor a Farm Sanctuary animal for Valentine's Day
• Support Farm Sanctuary's Ohio initiative to protect farm animals
  
• Join the Farm Sanctuary Advocacy Campaign Team
• Read about the HBO documentary "Death on a Factory Farm"
• Read the Yale College Vegetarian Society's "Top 10 Reasons to Become Vegetarian"
  

RELATED POSTS

• Ohioans Seek Humane Treatment of Farm Animals (February 3, 2010)
• The Castrato Oinks (January 12, 2010)
• These Little Piggies Didn't Go to Market (May 2, 2009)
• Dreaming of Sheep (May 12, 2009)
  
• Animal Farm (April 10, 2009)
• The Gloomy Dean (January 30, 2009)
• Eat Healthy and Save the World, Simultaneously (January 23, 2009)
• California Passes Landmark Anti-Cruelty Act (November 7, 2008)
• If We Really Are What We Eat, Most of Us Are A Bit Disturbing (October 17, 2008)
• Patrick Martins: About a Bird (November 20, 2009)
• We're Not the Only Ones Capable of Suffering (October 28, 2009)
  

image: Chico and Dorothy (credit: Susie Coston, Farm Sanctuary)

Encedalus Lives Again

Astronomers have powerful new evidence that Saturn's sixth-largest moon holds an underground sea that may contain the ingredients of life

In Greek mythology, Encedalus was a Gigante, one of the humongous children of Gaia (Mother Earth), who was fertilized by the blood of Ouranos (Father Sky) after he was castrated by his son Cronus, the leader of the Titans.

In astronomy, Encedalus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn, discovered in 1789 by Hanoverian astronomer William Herschel.

And now, scientists believe that this geologically active moon may possess the fundamental building blocks of life, thanks to the work of the Cassini-Huygens robotic spacecraft, a joint mission of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI).

"In recent dives through the water ice plume of Enceladus, the Cassini plasma spectrometer has found unexpected populations of charged molecules and dust that strengthen arguments for the presence of liquid water and the ingredients for life inside the icy moon," according to a February 8 NASA press release.

"While it's no surprise that there is water there, these short-lived ions are extra evidence for sub-surface water and where there's water, carbon and energy, some of the major ingredients for life are present," said lead author of the study Andrew Coates from University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory.

Encedalus was killed by the goddess Athena in a battle between the Gigantes and the Olympian gods. He was buried in Sicily under Mount Etna, whose volcanic fires were said to be the breath of the dead giant.

Perhaps he lives again, 750 million miles away, on the moon named after him.

GET INVOLVED

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

RELATED POSTS

• Saturnian Hex (December 11, 2009)
• Saturn's Vanishing Rings (August 11, 2009)
• Reclaiming the Night Sky (October 2, 2009)
• An Old Lake on the Red Planet (June 20, 2009)
• Seeing the Mother of Mars (September 18, 2009)
• A Possible New World Fit for Life (April 28, 2009)
• Viewing Victoria (August 31, 2009)
• Orbiting Saturn, Five Years Later (July 10, 2009)
  
• Goodbye Ulysses (June 30, 2009)

image: north polar region of Encedalus (credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

Wild Horses Dragged Away

Will the American public allow their government to continue the brutal roundups of these national treasures?

In 1971, the United States Congress recognized mustangs as "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West, which continue to contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people."

But many of these living symbols of freedom have had their own freedom taken from them by that same government in order to provide more room for the powerful meat, hunting and energy industries.

The roundups are violent and deadly. A recent one in the Calico Mountains caused the deaths of 39 horses and spontaneous abortions in up to 30 pregnant mares.

However, after receiving over 10,000 email comments from the public opposing these massive removals, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has in the past two months postponed two scheduled roundups.

One canceled plan was to remove almost 600 mustangs from the Eagle area north of Las Vegas. Though this area is the size of Rhode Island, the BLM has argued that only 100 mustangs can remain in this huge region, while 2,700 privately-owned cattle are permitted to stay.

In Defense of Animals (IDA) and other animal welfare groups are currently engaged in an ongoing lawsuit against Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

The central question of the suit is whether the BLM can legally move the wild horses to long-term holding pens. IDA contends that the government does not have that right due to the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, and has called for a better managed contraceptive program to keep mustang populations at healthy and sustainable levels.

Because of public pressure, about 700 free mustangs have so far been spared. But the fight to save them is far from over, with the BLM planning to remove thousands of mustangs from the Antelope Complex in northeastern Nevada.

IDA has secured an extension for public comment until February 12. Perhaps more public pressure will result in another reprieve.

"The horses are healthy and fit coming off the range; they are not starving," said Carla Bowers of the Cloud Foundation, a leading wild horse advocacy group, in a recent Lahonta Valley News article.

"Our herds are a national treasure and don't deserve to be pushed off their native lands to accommodate the welfare cattle grazing, big game hunting and energy industries."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an In Defense of Animals letter telling the BLM that you oppose the proposed roundup of almost 2,000 wild horses from Nevada
• Support the Cloud Foundation's work to save America's wild horses
  

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)
• A Horse Named Cloud (August 20, 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: trained "Judas horse" in reins leading wild horses into holding area at Calico Mountains complex (credit: Kurt Kolgart/BLM)

The Great Backyard Bird Count

This week, American and Canadian birdwatchers will peer into the sky and the trees to count our fine-feathered friends

With over 10,000 different living species, birds are the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates.

And for four days every year, the ones who call North America home might get counted by the general public -- if they can sit still long enough to be identified.

Starting Friday, people across the United States and Canada will grab their binoculars and join in the 13th annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) to count birds.

A joint "citizen scientist" project of the National Audubon Society, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada, the GBBC is an effort to create a "real-time snapshot of birds" across the North American continent.

According to the GBBC Web site, "Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts. It takes as little as 15 minutes on one day, or you can count for as long as you like each day of the event. It’s free, fun, and easy -- and it helps the birds."

Last year, almost 100,000 individual checklists were submitted and over 11 million birds were counted.

The data will help scientists to answer a raft of important questions about the current state of birds.

How does this winter's snow and cold affect birds? How do the current migrations compare to past years? How are bird diseases like West Nile virus affect birds in different regions? Are any birds going through a population decline?

"Taking part in the Great Backyard Bird Count is a great way to get outside with family and friends, have fun, and help birds -- all at the same time," said Judy Braus, Audubon's vice president of education, in the GBBC press release.

"Even if you can only identify a few species you can provide important information that enables scientists to learn more about how the environment is changing and how that affects our conservation priorities."

GET INVOLVED

• Join the Great Backyard Bird Count
• 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 Audubon's "Birds and Climate" report which clearly shows that climate change is affecting birds

RELATED POSTS

• The World's Least Known Bird (January 19, 2010)
• Patrick Martins: About a Bird (November 20, 2009)
• The Rime of the Modern Mariner (November 10, 2009)
• Putting for Birdie (November 4, 2009)
• The Albatross and the Rising Sea (February 12, 2009)
• The Head of Thoth (September 30, 2009)
• An Avian Strutter Gets to Keep Its Home (August 18, 2009)
• 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: American goldfinch (Carduelis tristis) (credit: mdf)

Dig a Hole, Fill It with Water

A new study reveals that UK ponds are in sad shape. One writer decided to build his own

A new national survey conducted by the UK-based organizations Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and Pond Conservation has found that 80% of ponds in England and Wales are in a "poor" or "very poor" condition, a result of farm fertilizer runoff and urban sprawl.

The report has also revealed that there just aren't many ponds left.

"Long valued by conservationists and the public as wildlife havens, recent research has shown that ponds are much more important for the protection of freshwater biodiversity than previously suspected," according to a Pond Conservation press release.

"Ponds support more endangered freshwater plant and animal species than either rivers or lakes and, in a typical patch of English countryside, a wider variety of common species too."

In a recent Daily Mail article, Nigel Colborn wrote about his own experience trying to help out by creating his own pond "on a mad impulse" one Saturday afternoon.

After digging a hole, placing a liner, filling it with water, creating a bog and planting water weed, kingcups, primula and irises, Colborn waited for animals to take refuge in what he called a "modest water feature" in a "low-lying, semi-shaded area."

And take refuge they did.

In the mud he created, he discovered the footprints of birds and hedgehogs.

"Success was confirmed when newts, dragonflies, pond-skaters and frogspawn arrived," wrote Colborn.

"That's the beauty of a wildlife pond."

GET INVOLVED

• Build a pond
• Join the "Million Ponds Project"
• Visit garden pond blog of Dr. Jeremy Biggs of Pond Conservation
  
• Support Pond Conservation
  
• 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
  

RELATED POSTS

• Putting for Birdie (November 4, 2009)
• Saving Wildlife on the Back Nine (December 4, 2008)
• The Head of Thoth (September 30, 2009)
• An Avian Strutter Gets to Keep Its Home (August 18, 2009)
• 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)
• Citizen Scientists of the World, Unite (January 28, 2009)
• Hundreds of Ducks Dead After Landing in Toxic Waste (May 11, 2008)
• Banned Pesticides Killing Birds (April 10, 2008)

image: leopard frog (credit: pdunant)