13.7 Billion Years: 5/1/11

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Flower Power | Counting the Pollinators

A new study has answered a basic question: How many of the world's flowering plants are pollinated by animals?

[For the month of May, 13.7 Billion Years takes a look at what April showers bring. Through the process of photosynthesis, flowers create simple sugars, which feed ants, bees, butterflies, beetles and a whole range of other insects essential to the food chain. Without flowers, many plants that are crucial to the Earth's food supply would become extinct. They are also critical to the changing of seasons and provide critical habitat for a host of microorganisms.]

It is widely known that insects (like bees, wasps, spiders and ants) and other animals (like birds, bats, monkeys, lemurs, possums, rodents and lizards) are the primary pollinators of flowering plants, unwittingly transferring pollen from one plant to another to start the fertilization process in the reproductive cycle of angiosperms. Other pollination methods include wind, and in a few cases, water.

Recently, researchers at the School of Science and Technology at the University of Northampton, England, took on the daunting task of figuring out the actual number of flowering plants (among the total ~352,000 species of angiosperms) that are pollinated by animals -- or at least getting very close.

Noting that "widely cited figures range from 67% to 96% but these have not been based on firm data," the researchers used published and unpublished community-level surveys of plant pollination systems and found that "the proportion of animal-pollinated species rises from a mean of 78% in temperate-zone communities to 94% in tropical communities." They concluded that 87.5% of angiosperms are pollinated by animals. The results were published in March in the journal Oikos.

"Given current concerns about the decline in pollinators and the possible resulting impacts on both natural communities and agricultural crops, such estimates are vital to both ecologists and policy makers," they said, adding that "there is no doubt that plant-pollinator interactions play a significant role in maintaining the functional integrity of most terrestrial ecosystems."

Of great concern are the recent bee deaths due to colony collapse disorder (CCD) and the continuing decimation of so many non-human species worldwide due to human-caused factors such as pollution, disease, habitat destruction and anthropogenic climate change. This study is an important reminder not only of the vital relationships that species have with one another, but that the future of flowers -- which are crucial to the global food supply for so many species, including humans -- is far from a walk through the park.

GET INVOLVED

Support these companies and organizations helping honeybees
Sign a joint Pesticide Action Network and National Resources Defense Council letter to the EPA urging them to conduct a thorough registration review of the pesticide imidacloprid that properly assesses risks to honey bees and other pollinators
Search for organic flower growers on LocalHarvest.org
Sign the Fair Flowers for Human Rights petition
Create a cut flower garden
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URGENT ACTION ALERTS

Tell EPA: Protect the habitat of Bristol Bay's grizzly bears from open-pit mining waste (National Wildlife Federation Action Fund)
Tell Cairn Energy: Make your Greenland oil spill response plan public (Greenpeace)
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Also on 13.7 Billion Years: "Reports from 2050," a series of imagined reports from the year 2050, supported by current news, recent discoveries and scientific predictions.

image: A European honey bee (Apis mellifera) extracts nectar from an Aster flower using its proboscis. Tiny hairs covering the bee's body maintain a slight electrostatic charge, causing pollen from the flower's anthers to stick to the bee, allowing for pollination when the bee moves on to another flower. (credit: John Stevens, Wikimedia Commons)

Friday, May 27, 2011

Flower Power | Madonna of the Evening Flowers

American poet Amy Lowell died this month in 1925. In her poem "Madonna of the Evening Flowers," she finds her titular lover "standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur"

[For the month of May, 13.7 Billion Years takes a look at what April showers bring. Through the process of photosynthesis, flowers create simple sugars, which feed ants, bees, butterflies, beetles and a whole range of other insects essential to the food chain. Without flowers, many plants that are crucial to the Earth's food supply would become extinct. They are also critical to the changing of seasons and provide critical habitat for a host of microorganisms.]

Amy Lawrence Lowell (February 9, 1874 – May 12, 1925) was an American poet of the imagist school from Massachusetts.

Though her brothers were extraordinarily learned men -- Percival Lowell was an astronomer and Abbott Lawrence Lowell was the president of Harvard University -- she herself never went to college. (Her family did not consider that "appropriate behavior" for a woman.)

But that didn't stop her from becoming a successful poet. She published in the Atlantic Monthly, published several books, was on the cover of Time Magazine in 1925 and posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.

When she was 38, Lowell was the reputed lover of actress Ada Dwyer Russell, who was the subject of many of her poems, such as "Madonna of the Evening Flowers." In this work, Lowell uses free verse in a conversational speaking style, a technique of the imagists who wanted to break free from the strict tradition of 19th-century Victorian poetry, which was still favored by her Georgian contemporaries.

Madonna of the Evening Flowers

All day long I have been working,
Now I am tired.
I call: “Where are you?”
But there is only the oak tree rustling in the wind.
The house is very quiet,
The sun shines in on your books,
On your scissors and thimble just put down,
But you are not there.
Suddenly I am lonely:
Where are you?
I go about searching.

Then I see you,
Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur,
With a basket of roses on your arm.
You are cool, like silver,
And you smile.
I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes.

You tell me that the peonies need spraying,
That the columbines have overrun all bounds,
That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded.
You tell me these things.
But I look at you, heart of silver,
White heart-flame of polished silver,
Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur,
And I long to kneel instantly at your feet,
While all about us peal the loud,
sweet Te Deums of the Canterbury bells.

In her 2000 paper "Modernizing Excess: Amy Lowell and the Aesthetics of Camp," Melissa Bradshaw writes, "We do not see the beloved. We never see her. Though she is infinitely invoked, unlike Robert Herrick’s Julia, or Petrarch’s Laura, Lowell’s beloved remains unnamed, unknown, in a sense, unwritten."

But one thing we do see clearly: flowers.

GET INVOLVED

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URGENT ACTION ALERTS

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13.7 BILLION YEARS 2011 CALENDAR

Also on 13.7 Billion Years: "Reports from 2050," a series of imagined reports from the year 2050, supported by current news, recent discoveries and scientific predictions.

image: Larkspur flowers (Delphinium glaucum) against sky, with bee. High Trail, Ansel Adams Wilderness, Sierra Nevada mountains, California, 2006. (credit: Dcrjsr, Wikimedia Commons)

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Flower Power | Purple Saxifrage

No other flowering plant lives in a higher or colder location than the purple saxifrage

[For the month of May, 13.7 Billion Years takes a look at what April showers bring. Through the process of photosynthesis, flowers create simple sugars, which feed ants, bees, butterflies, beetles and a whole range of other insects essential to the food chain. Without flowers, many plants that are crucial to the Earth's food supply would become extinct. They are also critical to the changing of seasons and provide critical habitat for a host of microorganisms.]

Purple saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia) is an edible flowering plant that likes extremes. Common throughout the high Arctic, it has been found to grow on Kaffeklubben Island in north Greenland (83°40'N), the most northerly plant ecosystem on Earth.

And it now this hardy angiosperm has been found near the Dom summit in the central Swiss Alps, at an altitude of 4,505 metres (about 2 miles above sea level), making it the highest elevation plant ever recorded in Europe and quite possibly the world. And if that weren't impressive enough, one large individual flower has been estimated to be around 30 years old.

The plants were discovered by University of Basel botanist Christian Körner, who has published his findings in the paper "Coldest places on earth with angiosperm plant life" in the current issue of the journal Alpine Botany.

"All plant parts, including roots, experience temperatures below 0 °C every night, even during the warmest part of the year," writes Körner.

"In comparison with climate data for other extreme plant habitats in the Alps, Himalayas, in the Arctic and Antarctic, these data illustrate the life conditions at what is possibly the coldest place for angiosperm plant life on earth."

If, as the saying goes, one's attitude determines their altitude, then in the world of flowering plants, the purple saxifrage has got the best attitude in the world.

GET INVOLVED

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URGENT ACTION ALERTS

Tell Southern Company: Stop being a leader in dirty energy (Green America)
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Tell President Obama: Protect the Giant Sequoia National Monument from large-scale logging (Endangered Species Coalition)

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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Flower Power | The Evolution of Flowering Plants

Eighty-six years ago today, John T. Scopes was indicted for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. As the battle between Darwinists and creationists continues, so does Darwin's main question about the evolution of flowering plants

[Editor's note: For the month of May, 13.7 Billion Years takes a look at what April showers bring. Through the process of photosynthesis, flowers create simple sugars, which feed ants, bees, butterflies, beetles and a whole range of other insects essential to the food chain. Without flowers, many plants that are crucial to the Earth's food supply would become extinct. They are also critical to the changing of seasons and provide critical habitat for a host of microorganisms.]

On May 25, 1925, John T. Scopes was indicted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Though the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial was considered a defeat for fundamentalists who championed the Bible over human knowledge, the battle between evolutionists and anti-evolutionists still rages on. In December, a Gallup poll found that 40% of Americans believe in "strict creationism."

But among scientists, there is still a lingering question about why flowers evolved the way they did, a question over which Darwin himself puzzled.

In "Darwin and the evolution of flowers," a 2010 Discussion Meeting Issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, editors Peter R. Crane from Yale University, Else Marie Friis from the Swedish Museum of Natural History and William G. Chaloner from the University of London noted that in regard to flowering plants, "Darwin was striving to answer a single key question -- what evolutionary advantages do different kinds of flowers confer in the struggle for existence?"

"This question is still at the heart of our thinking about the origins of floral diversity, and Darwin's three major books, which tackled this question from different perspectives, are the foundation for our modern understanding of evolutionary reproductive biology in plants."

The editors assert that, "with the ubiquity of flowers in our everyday lives, it is sometimes easy to overlook their central importance in the production of food and other materials on which human survival depends. The origin of flowering plant (angiosperm) diversity, which is intimately connected to the diversification of floral form and floral biology, is also of great interest because as the dominant autotrophs of terrestrial environments, angiosperms provide the energy on which most of the rest of biological diversity depends. The evolution of flowers and flowering plants is therefore both of fundamental significance and of contemporary relevance."

"The field of evolutionary plant reproductive biology, which Darwin created more than a century and half ago, remains a vital one. New discoveries are still being made and new perspectives continue to emerge."

It is also true that, while 4 out of 10 Americans believe that God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago, this number is "slightly fewer today than in years past," according to Gallup. Apparently some new perspectives, like flowering plants, take a long time to evolve.

GET INVOLVED

Check out the Darwin Awards, which commemorates those who assist natural selection by removing themselves from the gene pool
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Tell Western Governors: Prevent wholesale wolf slaughter (Defenders of Wildlife)
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Tell East Riding Council (UK): Reject application for new beagle breeding unit (PETA)
Tell UK Government: Rethink decision not to ban wild animals in circuses (PETA)
Tell France: Withdraw bullfighting from consideration as a cultural heritage (PETA)
Tell Oregon: Join San Francisco and ban unsolicited phone books (Change.org)
Tell Congress: Science, not politics, should decide if wolves are removed from Endangered Species list (Animal Legal Defense Fund)
Join Kate Winslet: Tell Taj and Oberoi Hotels in India to stop serving foie gras (PETA India)

VICTORY ALERTS

Four Calves Saved From Life of Abuse at Texas E6 Cattle Ranch (Care2)
Rockland County, N.Y. Unanimously Approves Animal Abuser Registry (Animal Legal Defense Fund)

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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Flower Power | The Sacred Lotus

Fifty-five years ago today, the Sixth Buddhist Council concluded on the 2,500-year anniversary of the Buddha's Parinirvana. It's a perfect time to consider the sacred lotus

[Editor's note: For the month of May, 13.7 Billion Years takes a look at what April showers bring. Through the process of photosynthesis, flowers create simple sugars, which feed ants, bees, butterflies, beetles and a whole range of other insects essential to the food chain. Without flowers, many plants that are crucial to the Earth's food supply would become extinct. They are also critical to the changing of seasons and provide critical habitat for a host of microorganisms.]

On May 24, 1956, 2,500 monastics from eight Theravada Buddhist countries completed a two-year general council of Theravada Buddhism, held in a specially built cave and pagoda complex at Kaba Aye Pagoda in Burma. Known as Vesak Day, it marked the 2,500-year anniversary of the death of the Buddha's Parinirvana, the final nirvana that occurs upon the death of the body of someone who has attained bodhi, or total awakening.

This total awakening, or enlightenment, is symbolized by one of the world's most symbolic flowers -- the sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera). For thousands of years, this unique and beautiful flower has been used as an aphrodisiac, a sedative, an antispasmodic and an entheogen.

The physical attributes of the lotus make it perfect for such a symbol. At night, the flower remains closed while it sits beneath the surface of the muddy water favored by the plant. At dawn, it rises through the darkness, pierces the surface and opens in the light of the sun. When night comes again, it closes sinks back into the murky depths. The closing of the flower when it is beneath the surface allows it to be untouched by the impurities of the loamy water when it rises to catch the sun's rays.

This journey from the darkness (primeval materialism) through the water (experience) to the sunlight (enlightenment) is a metaphor of the purity of heart and mind that is achieved on the path to enlightenment.

In addition to being able to maintain its purity in silty water, the lotus can maintain its viability for more than a millennia: The oldest recorded lotus germination came from 1,300-year-old seeds that were discovered in a dry lake in northeastern China.

GET INVOLVED

Cook with lotus
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Assume the lotus position
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URGENT ACTION ALERTS

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VICTORY ALERTS

Shark fin ban passes in California State Assembly (Care2)
After a tense 17-hour negotiation, 400+ dogs are spared slaughter in China (Humane Society International)
Nevada Senators Reject Anti-Mustang Bill, Sending It Back for Review (American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign)
Representatives of eight countries with large wild elephant populations pledged Tuesday to eradicate poaching (Seattle PI)

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Monday, May 23, 2011

Flower Power | Yellow Jessamine

South Carolina became a state today in 1788. Its poisonous state flower may help fight anxiety and cancer

[Editor's note: For the month of May, 13.7 Billion Years takes a look at what April showers bring. Through the process of photosynthesis, flowers create simple sugars, which feed ants, bees, butterflies, beetles and a whole range of other insects essential to the food chain. Without flowers, many plants that are crucial to the Earth's food supply would become extinct. They are also critical to the changing of seasons and provide critical habitat for a host of microorganisms.]

Commonly known as yellow jessamine, evening trumpetflower and woodbine, Gelsemium sempervirens is a North American climbing vine that grows from the southeastern United States down to Guatemala with striking yellow trumpet-shaped flowers that smell like jasmine.

According to 50States.com, the flower was adopted as South Carolina's state flower in 1924 because "it is indigenous to every nook and corner of the State; it is the first premonitor of coming Spring; its fragrance greets us first in the woodland and its delicate flower suggests the pureness of gold; its perpetual return out of the dead Winter suggests the lesson of constancy in, loyalty to and patriotism in the service of the State."

In his 1860 book Agriculture of North Carolina Part II, American geologist Ebenezer Emmons wrote that its "graceful evergreen leaves, the profusion of its large bright yellow and deliciously fragrant blossoms, render this vine the pride of our forest," though he also noted that "the odor of the flowers in a close room sometimes induces headache. Most of the plant, especially the root, taken internally, is narcotic and poisonous. A tincture of the root, judiciously administered, is useful in rheumatic affections; but in the hands of quacks death has been caused by it."

Indeed, all parts of yellow jessamine contain toxic strychnine-related alkaloids. But modern medicine may be able to tease some powerful new uses from the plant, the flower of which has sometimes been mistaken for honeysuckle.

A 2010 study by the Guru Gobind Singh College of Pharmacy in Haryana, India, suggests that a methanol extract of the plant could "serve as a new approach for the treatment of anxiety," supporting claims made by traditional folk medicine.

Another 2010 study by the University of Kalyani in India suggests that the nano-encapsulation of bioactive ingredients in yellow jessamine "can be a strategy worth trying for designing effective chemopreventive drug products."

The Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore once said, "By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower." But you certainly might be able to gather her medicinal effects.

GET INVOLVED

Grow yellow jessamine
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URGENT ACTION ALERTS

Help save Kasia & Basia, 2 female brown bears, from being killed by Poland Zoo (Four Paws UK)
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Say NO to any legislation (including H.R. 872 or S. 718) that seeks to weaken protections to public waters from pesticide contamination

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Friday, May 20, 2011

Flower Power | Sonnet XCIX

William Shakespeare's sonnets were published today in 1609. Flowers figured heavily throughout, but in Sonnet 99, several were accused of theft

[Editor's note: For the month of May, 13.7 Billion Years takes a look at what April showers bring. Through the process of photosynthesis, flowers create simple sugars, which feed ants, bees, butterflies, beetles and a whole range of other insects essential to the food chain. Without flowers, many plants that are crucial to the Earth's food supply would become extinct. They are also critical to the changing of seasons and provide critical habitat for a host of microorganisms.]

On May 20, 1609, William Shakespeare's sonnets were first published in London by publisher Thomas Thorpe.

In Sonnet 99, the Bard argues that several flowers have taken their beauty and fragrance from the subject of the poem, "his love."

The forward violet thus did I chide:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair:
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee.

GET INVOLVED

Read Shakespeare's Sonnets
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URGENT ACTION ALERTS

NY activists: Say YES to Assembly Bill 6291/Senate Bill 3858 (AB6291/SB3858) to stop the trade of bear parts (WSPA)

13.7 BILLION YEARS 2011 CALENDAR

Also on 13.7 Billion Years: "Reports from 2050," a series of imagined reports from the year 2050, supported by current news, recent discoveries and scientific predictions.

image: The Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare, 1610, National Portrait Gallery. This was long thought to be the only portrait of William Shakespeare that had any claim to have been painted from life, until another possible life portrait, the Cobbe portrait, was revealed in 2009. The portrait is known as the 'Chandos portrait' after a previous owner, James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos. It was the first portrait to be acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in 1856. The portrait is oil on canvas, feigned oval, 21 3/4 in. x 17 1/4 in. (552 mm x 438 mm), Given by Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere, 1856, on display in Room 4 at the National Portrait Gallery, London, England, United Kingdom. (Wikimedia Commons)

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Flower Power | Herbal Militaris

A historically important flowering plant is helping to predict the effects of climate change

[Editor's note: For the month of May, 13.7 Billion Years takes a look at what April showers bring. Through the process of photosynthesis, flowers create simple sugars, which feed ants, bees, butterflies, beetles and a whole range of other insects essential to the food chain. Without flowers, many plants that are crucial to the Earth's food supply would become extinct. They are also critical to the changing of seasons and provide critical habitat for a host of microorganisms.]

In the ancient world, the flowering plant yarrow (Achillea millefolium) was known as herbal militaris for its use in stopping the flow of blood from wounds. Some of its other common names suggest this usage -- nosebleed plant, sanguinary and soldier's woundwort.

In the Spanish-speaking parts of New Mexico and southern Colorado, this Northern Hemisphere native is called plumajillo, or "little feather," for its feather-shaped leaves. A drought-resistant species in the family Asteraceae, it has also been planted to combat soil erosion. And it is prized by gardeners because it repels pests while attracting helpful insects.

Historically, the yarrow flower has been used as an herbal medicine to treat inflammations, hemorrhoids, headaches, bruising, colds and flu. It has been noted for its positive effect on digestion and excretion. In the 19th century, yarrow was used to treat more symptoms and afflictions than any other herb. A mild stimulant, it has even been used as snuff.

Now, this helpful "little feather," along with a dozen other grassland species, is thought to have an even larger role: understanding the effects of climate change.

An 11-year experiment published in the current issue of the journal Global Change Biology and conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and University of Minnesota-Twin Cities looked at 13 plant species common to the American Midwest and found that the plants' ability to absorb extra atmospheric CO2 may be less than expected.

"They have major implications for models of future climate," says Peter Reich, a forest ecologist at the University of Minnesota and co-author of the paper, according to a National Science Foundation press release. "Current state-of-the-art climate models assume that vegetation will soak up much of the extra CO2 we put into the air from fossil fuel burning."

But according to biologist Tali Lee of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and first author of the paper, these new results "show that the capacity of some terrestrial ecosystems to absorb the extra CO2 may be less than the models assume."

"What this all boils down to," says Reich, "is that the world could warm even faster than we thought."

Herbal militaris may be able to help stop the flow of blood, but it looks like this amazing plant is not going to be able to absorb as much of the global-warming carbon dioxide as once believed.

GET INVOLVED

Make yarrow tea
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URGENT ACTION ALERTS

Tell Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to stop Wildlife Services' plan to kill wolves in Idaho (Defenders of Wildlife)
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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Flower Power | Night Bloomer

The "midnight flower" only comes out at night

[Editor's note: For the month of May, 13.7 Billion Years takes a look at what April showers bring. Through the process of photosynthesis, flowers create simple sugars, which feed ants, bees, butterflies, beetles and a whole range of other insects essential to the food chain. Without flowers, many plants that are crucial to the Earth's food supply would become extinct. They are also critical to the changing of seasons and provide critical habitat for a host of microorganisms.]

Hylocereus undatus is a species of cacti that are often referred to as nightblooming cactus. It has a large edible fruit, known as pitaya or dragonfruit. It is part of the genus Hylocereus, largely misunderstood due to its wide range and variability.

There is a locally famous Hylocereus undatus hedge -- the "Hedge of Kapunahou" -- located on a lava rock wall at the Punahou School in Honolulu. During World War II, much of the Punahou campus was commandeered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. According to Wikipedia, "Castle Hall (the girls' dormitory) was used as a command center, buildings were connected with tunnels, athletic fields were used as parking lots, the library was cleared to become sleeping quarters and an officer's mess. The cereus hedge on the campus lava rock wall was topped with barbed wire."

"Cereus" is from the Greek and Latin word meaning "torch." Though it doesn't actually emanate light, this "midnight flower" has brightened many an evening for those lucky enough to witness its beautiful bloom.

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Grow your own night blooming cereus cuttings
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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Flower Power | Ancient Seafaring

Today in 1970, Thor Heyerdahl set sail from Morocco on a boat made out of a flowering plant. He made it all the way to Barbados

[Editor's note: For the month of May, 13.7 Billion Years takes a look at what April showers bring. Through the process of photosynthesis, flowers create simple sugars, which feed ants, bees, butterflies, beetles and a whole range of other insects essential to the food chain. Without flowers, many plants that are crucial to the Earth's food supply would become extinct. They are also critical to the changing of seasons and provide critical habitat for a host of microorganisms.]

In 1969 and 1970, the Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl built two boats made out of the reeds of flowering sedge plants. Based on drawings and models from ancient Egypt, the project was intended to demonstrate that Egyptians could have communicated and traded with civilizations in South America by sailing on the Canary Current, a wide and slow-moving wind-driven surface current that is part of the North Atlantic Gyre.

The first boat, Ra, was built out of Cyperus papyrus, a flowering herbaceous perennial native to Africa, the pith of which was used in ancient Egypt to make a writing paper known as papyrus. The voyage was unsuccessful. His second boat, Ra II, was built out of the reeds of totora, a giant bullrush sedge. On May 17, 1970, Ra II set sail from Morocco and arrived in Barbados, showing that Egyptian mariners could have reached the New World long before Columbus did.

The expeditions were documented by the book, The Ra Expeditions, and the 1972 film documentary Ra.

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Make your own papyrus
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VICTORY ALERTS

Fendi forced to leave fur off the Korean fashion runway (Styleite)
Scholastic pulls its American Coal Foundation curriculum (Care2)

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Tell the U.S. government to help protect elephants by opposing the international ivory trade (IFAW)
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Also on 13.7 Billion Years: "Reports from 2050," a series of imagined reports from the year 2050, supported by current news, recent discoveries and scientific predictions.

image: Thor Heyerdahl's Ra II at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway. The reed is not original, the rest of the vessel is. (credit: China_Crisis, Wikimedia Commons)

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