The American Great Plains
rival the Serengeti, according to National Geographic, but unlike in apparently more progressive Africa, the USA never protected the plains
on a large scale. Now private interests under the
The American Prairie Foundation are buying up land in Montana
hoping to create a multi-million acre preserve that would be the largest privately funded conservation land venture on the planet, bigger than Yellowstone National Park, that one day may see the return of great migrating herds of bison, pronghorn antelope, deer and elk.
Not all Montana ranchers are happy with the new Serengeti neighbor.
posted by stbalbach
on Aug 21, 2010 -
33 comments
Paper receipts - including receipts from McDonald’s, CVS, Whole Foods, Wal-Mart, and the U.S. Postal Service - are
a major source of endocrine-disrupting bisphenol-A. The total amount of
BPA on
tested receipts was 250 to 1,000 times greater than other, more widely discussed sources of BPA exposure, including canned foods, baby bottles and infant formula. BPA transfers readily from receipts to skin and can penetrate the skin to such a depth that it cannot be washed off.
posted by stbalbach
on Jul 27, 2010 -
111 comments
"I don't see any future for whale species except extinction." A
report (pdf) released Thursday by
Ocean Alliance noted high levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium in tissue samples taken by dart gun from nearly 1,000 whales over five years. Concentrations of chromium found in some whales was several times higher than the level required to kill healthy cells in a Petri dish. Mercury in some whales was 16 times higher than a typical shark or swordfish, both known for their high mercury levels.
Beyond whales, "You could make a fairly tight argument to say that it is the single greatest health threat that has ever faced the human species."
posted by stbalbach
on Jun 24, 2010 -
68 comments
"
Epigenetics : the lives of your grandparents – the air they breathed, the food they ate, even the things they saw – can directly affect you, decades later, despite your never experiencing these things yourself.
This work is at the forefront of a paradigm shift in scientific thinking, in which the environment can impact our health for generations to come."
posted by stbalbach
on Jan 17, 2006 -
40 comments
Global Dimming. Records show that over the past 50 years the average amount of sunlight reaching the ground has gone down by almost 3% a decade. "It's an extraordinary thing that for some reason this hasn't penetrated even into the thinking of the people looking at global climate change. It's actually quite a big deal and I think you'll see a lot more people referring to it."
posted by stbalbach
on Dec 19, 2003 -
15 comments
The NY Times is running a
series of fishy articles about the ocean environment, fish and health. Of note the Java Interactive Feature "Heavy Toll" (see link 1) has an underwater cam of a trawlnet to help visualize ocean floor carpet bombing. Article links
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8
posted by stbalbach
on Jul 29, 2003 -
13 comments
