You're gonna need a better trap than that.

Here's a neat article about gorillas that have learned to dismantle snares set by bushmeat hunters.
http://www.ecorazzi.com/2013/07/19/young-gorillas-seen-dismantling-snares-to-protect-their-own/

Disgust at the familiar

NPR's Cosmos and Culture blog recently posted an wonderful article about coats made of human chest hair (men's) and ice cream made of human breast milk (women's). Public reaction to each of these products was enthusiastic disgust, but upon further consideration, one must ask, why? We eat ice cream made from the breast milk of cows and wear coats of the hair of weasels (mink) and don't bat and eye at it.

Author of the post, Tania Lombrozo, speculates that our very familiarity with humans is what elicits disgust. Conversely, the way we think about other, non-pet animals (distanced, anonymous, or not at all) suppresses any disgust toward the products. Strikes me as quite similar to the aversions we have toward eating "non-food animals" like dogs and cats, or the squeamishness people exhibit when butchering animals that they profess to love eating, when prepared.

It's a shame, though. Imagine the savings in resources and energy if our milk supply came from human breast milk donors and our "wool" sweaters were woven from human hair clippings... Sorry, am I grossing you out?

You can read the post here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/07/01/197453457/chest-hair-breast-milk-and-human-disgust

All the food you thought you knew...

Photographer Ajay Malghan has competed a photo series called Naturally Modified. His work for this series started out as a project in graduate school two years ago as the artist's commentary on genetically modified foods. In his own words, "Everything's so processed now... They're adding stuff, so why can't I?"

Malghan creates his photos by shining different colored lights through thin slices of fruits and vegetables onto light-sensitive paper. The result is a photograph of the colored shadow created. And these images aren't easily recognized as any food you've ever eaten. By enlarging the images and distorting the colors, Malghan makes these familiar foods into subjects no longer recognizable. It's the uncanny feeling of removing familiarity that Malghan says allows the viewer to be removed from their previous relationship with the food. He says that such distance "makes you realize how little we know about stuff."

He's also, apparently, experimented with this same process for deli meats.

You can find his portfolio at http://www.ajaymalghanphotography.com/

Exploited Artists!

Caddis fly larvae build cocoons with whatever debris may be lying around. So, artist (or slave driver?!) Hubert Duprat decided to leave gold and precious jewels just lying around. The result: what Duprat describes as spectacular bio-organic jewelry. And he's taking all the credit, might I add.

I have to admit, this is kind of awesome and creepy all at the same time.

You can read more about Duprat and his  caddis fly larvae art here: http://boingboing.net/2013/04/23/caddis-fly-larvae-coaxed-into.html

Kantian Philosophy Embedded in Environmental Policy

I'm taking a topics seminar on environmental policy formation and risk assessment.
As pros and cons and likelihoods and impacts are measured, evaluated and debated, I recognize a common theme. Value. Human-assigned value. Value of humans, to humans, by humans for humans.

No matter how much NEPA documents express American value of the natural world, all applications of the act and its required analyses are inherently anthropocentric. Kantian, even.

Makes me a bit sad to think about it. No matter your intentions, society will make regulations that prioritize benefits to society itself. Makes sense, of course... but still kind of sad that our quality control mechanisms are still so selfish. Or, perhaps more appropriately, not completely altruistic.

Flower Farms

     When we think of flowers, we think of flower gardens, we think of florists and greenhouses, but rarely do we think of farms. This image is of a Dutch flower farm, but thousands of these exist throughout Asia and South America, too. I find this image striking because we expect our corn to come from uniform rows, but to farm flowers as commodities seems to fly in the face of the reasons we purchase flowers to begin with.
     Perhaps it's just me, but humans plant, raise and buy flowers for their aesthetic appeal. Flowers are beautiful, artistic, even. We buy them to celebrate accomplishments, to communicate affection. Gifts of flowers are loaded with sentiment and meaning. It's more than just about the blossoms that will fade after a week or so, it's about expression, it's about bringing Nature's artwork indoors, into our lives.
     If this is true, then it's seems paradoxical that the symbols of our expression, of Nature's beauty, would be farmed as commodities in neat and uniform rows, completely removed from any natural setting. No flower garden here, just a means to an end. Certainly, flowers have been commodified since we've been buying them, but the act of ordering or purchasing flowers for a loved one rarely seems like a commercial one to the individual. It's an act of love, right? Not one of consumerism.
     This image makes very clear the system in which even that purchase of love contributes to, and that those garden-variety flowers are mass produced with the same pesticides and fertilizers as those other commercial crops. Flowers as crops is an idea not widely recognized, I think.

Noise Pollution Evolution

A new study featured in Discovery Magazine aimed to examine the effects of urban cacophony on house sparrows— you know, those ubiquitous songbirds that seem to hang out in every urban area. The Conclusion: urban noises can interfere with the calls between songbirds and their chicks. Makes sense. But what does it mean? Parents who can't hear and thus respond to their offspring can't be the best parents, meaning that chicks reared in the city are less healthy than their counterparts chirping and fluttering around in bucolic bliss.
    The study was performed by the University of Sheffield's Julie Schroeder, who found that loud noises drown out communication between mother house sparrows and their chicks, including the calls chicks make to beg for food. Only a handful of other studies have examined the effect of loud noises on songbirds mating and nesting habits, though none have quite tackled the serious maternal questions raised long ago in Dr. Seuss's seminal work, Are You My Mother? Sheffield's study is also made unique by the fact that she focused on a well-known group of sparrows living on Lundy Island, in Devon, England. These sparrows regularly trade swap their eggs among nests, which results in some parents raising chicks they're not related to (and I find myself wondering if all sparrows do this, or if it's just a British thing). This kid-swapping helped researchers separate the effect of a sparrow's parentage from the effect of its environment, just in case the genetically weaker sparrows were somehow more prone to doing something stupid... like live next to a roiling electrical generator, which is exactly what some of them were doing.
     The generators on Lundy Island (built in 2001) run continuously from 6 to 9 pm and emit 70 decibels of noise. Schroeder compared the nest boxes located in the generators' noise zone to nests located in a quieter zone. She found that, while the noise has no real effect on the health of adult birds (female birds could even lay the same number of eggs), it did adversely affect their offspring. Though chicks in quiet areas had a 25 percent chance of living long enough to fledge (such are the harsh realities of birdy life), the chicks in noisy areas had only a 21 percent chance. Plus, those urban chicks weighed less than their country counterparts, most likely, Schroeder believes, because mother birds visited their chicks less often and provided them with less food.
     The fact that adult birds seemed in fine health led Schroeder to single out noise as the culprit in the weakness of urban chicks, since, say, if air pollution had been stunting chick growth, adults would have been unhealthy too. Researchers suspect these findings may help explain the house sparrow's sudden disappearance in Western Europe and North America. "If what we suggest takes place in big cities too," she says, "it is likely to play an important role in the sparrow population dynamic, and is probably one cause of the dramatic population crash that we are currently observing." Discovery Magazine reminds us that the exact cause of the chicks' undernourishment is still uncertain — there may very well be a barrier between mother and chick communication in urban areas or loud noises may scare off  insects the birds eat.

It's probably pretty important, though, for us to keep track of the plight of these songbirds, lest -God forbid!- the pigeon become the only bird we can look forward to seeing on our stroll to work in the big city!

He's Armed and Dangerous... and Developing New Stockpiling Tactics!

     Three years ago, a stone-throwing chimpanzee named Santino shocked the research community by providing some of the strongest evidence yet that nonhuman animals consciously plan ahead. Santino, a resident of the Furuvik Zoo in Gävle, Sweden, calmly gathered stones in the mornings and put them into neat piles, apparently saving them to hurl at visitors when the zoo opened. Scientists described his throwing rocks as part of angry and aggressive "dominance displays," (but honestly, if I were on display in a zoo, I might stoop to flicking pebbles at ogling passerby as well. If I were lucky, maybe a  terrorized patron would drop that unfinished smoothie in horror as they left).

     Some factions of the scientific community, however, were not entirely convinced, suspecting that there might be simpler explanations for seemingly humanlike behaviors exhibited by the chimpanzee (immediately, what comes to my mind is whether our own "humanlike behaviors" are not due to some similar "simpler explanation," but I digress...)

     In the new study, primatologist Mathias Osvath primatologist Elin Karvonen report new observations of the rock-hurling primate. Santino's first attempts to throw stones during 2010 came during the zoo's May preseason. As a zoo guide led visitors toward Santino's island compound, the chimpanzee began to engage in a typical dominance display: screeching, standing on two feet, and carrying a stone in his hand. The guide and the visitors retreated before Santino began launching the stones, and then advanced again for a total of three approaches. When the people returned about 3 hours later, Santino advanced toward them, holding two stones, but he did not act aggressively, even picking up an apple from the water surrounding the island and nonchalantly munching on it. But when Santino got within close range, he suddenly threw one of the stones. (It didn't hit anyone.) Haha! Feinting disinterest to strike when they least expect it!

     The next day, Santino was observed pulling a heap of hay from inside his enclosure and placing it on the island close to where the visitors approached. He put several stones under the hay and waited until the group returned about an hour later. Then, without performing a dominance display (sneak attack!) Santino pulled a stone from under the hay and threw it. Later, he pulled a stone that he had apparently hidden behind a log and tried to hit the visitors with that, as well. Over the course of the summer, Osvath and Karvonen observed repeated episodes of this behavior, and also recovered stones that Santino had hidden under hay or logs, racking up 114 days of observation. They recovered a total of 35 "projectiles" that Santino had apparently concealed: 15 under hay heaps, 18 behind logs, and two behind a rock structure on the island.

     The researchers conclude that Santino deliberately engaged in deceptive concealment of the stones, and that this was a new, innovative behavior on his part: Before 2010, Santino had never put stones under hay piles or behind logs. Yes, the tactics must evolve lest your opponents predict your next move! This innovation, the team argues, is further evidence that Santino plans ahead for how he will react to the visitors' approach to his compound, and that this is inconsistent with skeptic interpretations that he cached the stones for some other reason and then just happened to have them at hand when he got mad. By hiding the stones and then trying to deceive zoo visitors into thinking that his intentions were innocent, Osvath and Karvonen argue, Santino was actually anticipating and planning for a future situation rather than simply responding repetitively to a past one.

     The killjoys, however, are still not entirely convinced. The study has been deemed "provocative," but insists that further experiments with more animals are needed before Santino's behavior can be interpreted as true advance planning. Some claim that the authors should have tried additional tests such as putting a hay pile in the compound themselves and seeing if the animal still persisted in carrying hay, or putting the hay piles in unfavorable locations for throwing.

     So there are doubters out there who don't think Santino is plotting against zoo visitors, but is instead engaging in reactive behaviors with no forethought involved. Well, be warned, I tell you. That's just what he wants you to think!

Futility is in the Mind of the Beholder

“You worry a lot about whether it makes the slightest bit of difference, or whether in fact it might be counterproductive. Eventually you realize that there is no real way of knowing if you can make a difference to this world. And, finally, you are left with the simple question […] Do you want to be the type of person whose nature it is to try, or do you not?” These are the words of Collin Beavan (aka No Impact Man) and I think they speak to the heart of the question of personal responsibility as it pertains to environmental stewardship. Collective action is what creates the environmental problems we see in the world today. Collective action is what will be needed to ameliorate the problems caused by environmental degradation. So in a world where change must take place on an unimaginably massive scale, what difference does personal action make?

This question underlies the entirety of Beavan’s work, No Impact Man, a chronicle of Beavan’s year of living as environmentally-minded as possible. As Beavan and his family endure great inconvenience with their attempts to live contrary to the polluting, resource/energy intensive, unsustainable system that permeates American culture, the question of whether or not their efforts are ultimately futile resurface again and again. Indeed, when personal action is simply a drop in the big-picture bucket, the difference between participating in and eschewing America’s unsustainable consumer culture appears to be miniscule. Articulating such frustration, Beavan laments that “because our systems are not designed to be sustainable, I had to swim against the cultural tide, and sometimes I got tired.” In the case of Beavan and his family, if there’s little environmental difference to be made by rejecting non-local pizza on a disposable paper plate, there’s no reason to deprive your cravings.

Or is there? Beavan posits that, despite the fact that his efforts amount to just a drop in the bucket, his tiny drop is capable of producing ripples that can travel throughout the water and potentially incite change in others. Certainly his actions and the dissemination of his ideas and story have influenced many, but I propose that personal efforts like Beavan’s offer something even more than the potential for ripples.

Though it can certainly be daunting to make personal life decisions that seem to amount to nothing on the global scale, firsthand experience is immeasurably valuable. Ration informs decision making, but history has shown again and again that even the most reasoned changes frequently do not become manifest without being fueled by emotion, without propulsion by the personal investment of individuals. Knowing must come first, but caring makes a close second to instigating broad scale change. Individual efforts like Beavan’s, though practically-speaking they may be futile, offer something that government mandate and international protocol cannot. Personal experiences give the individual a tangible experience, a concentrated taste of cause and effect that system-wide changes rarely communicate.

Beavan concedes that much environmental damage is done by large corporate entities, many of whom would rather the citizen take personal responsibility for environmental change, lest the company be blamed and held accountable. Certainly such corporations should be held accountable, and if forced to atone for their environmental sins, improvements would be far and away more substantial than any one household’s. Personal responsibility, however, requires something of the individual that scapegoating will never achieve. The first hurdle to improving the environment is not forcing corporations to internalize the environmental costs borne by the world. The first hurdle is overcoming apathy.

Individual experience, the internalizing of the burden borne by the environment due to personal choices, may offer negligible returns in immediate environmental benefit, but it succinctly and efficiently crushes apathy towards the world. If we don’t know, we won’t care. If we don’t care, nothing will change.

Befuddled Bumble Bees

Finally. Scientific evidence to prove what we knew all along! (Please note the sarcasm)

The first study on bee decline conducted in the natural habitat was featured in the journal, Science, this past weekend. Results have revealed that common crop pesticides have been shown for the first time to seriously harm bees by damaging their ability to navigate. The new research strongly links the pesticides to the serious decline in honey bee numbers in the US and UK — a drop of around 50 per cent in the last 25 years (yeah, kind of a big deal). These losses pose a threat to food supplies as bees pollinate a full third of the food humans regularly eat, such as tomatoes, potatoes, beans, apples and strawberries.

Researchers found that bees consuming one pesticide suffered an 85 per cent loss in the number of queens their nests produced, while another study showed a doubling in "disappeared" bees — those that failed to return from food foraging trips. The significance of the new work, is that it is the first carried out in realistic, open-air conditions. Trivial effects had been observed in lab and greenhouse experiments, but this new research has added clout, illustrating how these effects can translate to huge consequences in the field.

The reason for the huge decline in bee numbers has remained uncertain, but pesticides, the varroa mite and other parasites, and destruction of the flower-rich habitats in which bees feed have been believed to be the key reasons. Pesticide manufacturers and the UK government deny a class of the chemicals called neonicotinoids cause significant problems for bees (ahem. not so surprising), but Germany, Italy and France have suspended key insecticides over such fears.

A spokesperson from Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the new research did not change the government's position. 'The UK has a robust system for assessing risks from pesticides and all the evidence shows neonicotinoids do not pose an unacceptable risk to honeybees when products are used correctly. However, we will not hesitate to act if presented with any new evidence.'

I've always been a proponent of the precautionary principle, myself...

The Unimpressive

I once watched a little girl in the park with her father. She was about 3 years old, maybe 4, dressed in a white coat with a fuzzy collar and puff-ball drawstrings. At her feet were several sparrows, hopping on the asphalt and pecking at the ground to gather the breadcrumbs that her father had scattered on the ground.

I will never forget the look on that little girl's face. Eyes wide, mouth open, forming a perfect lowercase "o." That child was sucking in the world like a dry sponge, enthralled by the birdies bouncing inches from her white maryjanes. I think this is the kind of moment Barbara Kingsolver is reflecting on in her essay, The Memory Place. She calls these instances of "gasping," exclamations of wonder at the little things.

It is in my experience that such instances exponentially decrease with age. One might argue that this phenomenon is a consequence of acclimation, or even overexposure. Indeed, if one is treated to the luxury calamari and champagne every day, the experience loses its novelty and becomes commonplace. I am of the opinion, however, that the true reason for this rapid decline in childlike wonder is due instead to a culture and social climate which forces value judgments upon our experiences and delineates an appropriate way to regard them. What was once a soft sunburst on a green stem becomes nothing more than a lawn weed once we "know better" and to celebrate a lawn weed simply isn't becoming -rather, it is looked upon as a sign of ignorance.

This jaded persona, I feel, not only creates an unenthusiastic and vapid society, but inhibits the exultation of that which may well be worthy of praise. That is to say, just because social pressures drive wildflowers from front lawns, doesn't mean society has it right. In addition, in inhibiting our willingness to allow ourselves to be impressed by the small and commonplace, we not only devalue but may also endanger what we find unimpressive. For Kingsolver, this is the creek, muddied and neglected for its being only a common creek and not something more exotic or pristine. It is the mourning cloak butterfly which, for some, may only excite when believed to be rare and fail to amaze when proven to be otherwise.

One might argue that such is the natural progression of personality. Only when we become more worldly, become informed of the “true state of things,” can we form our opinions of value. However, our "experienced perceptions" may not be the golden standard. Many a species has gone extinct due to neglect by peoples who failed to attribute to it any value -and those species that have managed to survive the installment of highways, cities and suburbs rarely receive any credit for their amazing feat. It is my opinion that perhaps "childlike wonderment" needn't be so childlike. That is to say, perhaps if it weren't something attributed to only inexperienced and naïve children, a quality not only maintained into adulthood but encouraged by society, we might have a greater appreciation for the world we live in.

At the end of her essay, Kingsolver ponders the fate of places undervalued by humans for their being conventional, unexceptional or already "tainted" by humans. This is a question only recently being addressed by the environmentalist community. There do exist -though this existence is debatable- untouched, pristine places of wilderness that need be protected and preserved. However, there are many more places that have been touched and these merit no less care on the part of humans. Though the tendency is to categorize, to designate human dwellings and nature's territory as separate, there are no separations to be made. Try as we might to create man made cities, trees and flowers grow from cracks in the sidewalk, rain falls from the sky, and earthworms burrow underground. Nature's presence is just as strong in urban areas as in rural, in developed regions as in wilderness.

The danger of suppressing those moments of wonderment, those "gasps," is the consequential devaluing and neglect of nature that is right in front of our faces. This is the experience of nature that we have the most potential to interact with and to form relationships with. Additionally, it is the part of nature which we can most immediately and strongly impact -positively or negatively. So why not create positive changes?

Urban ecology is a relatively new branch of environmental study which seeks to do just that. Urban ecologists first recognize that there is ecology to be found in urban areas, that there are species of plants and animals that have become just as well adapted to urban and suburban areas as humans. Rather than scoff at squirrels and goldenrod as being a dime a dozen, the urban ecologist is in a position to admire the complex systems able to evolve in areas of urban development as well as seek ways to augment them.

Urban areas and inner cities are not lost causes. Only when we perceive them as such is there harm done. Instead, there are many ways we could adapt our "civilized" infrastructure to better accommodate the wonders of nature right under our noses.

If only we would allow ourselves to gasp once in a while...

Ownership and Responsibility... and some tears

On Monday, February 20th, I saw part of a documentary called Sludge, about a coal sludge impoundment in Martin County, Kentucky, and the devastation it brought to the community. Breaking through the underground mine below, the impoundment propelled several million gallons of waste material down hillside and tributaries until stream beds and waterways were thoroughly buried, contaminated and oozing with toxic black sludge. Worse than the Exxon Valdez oil spill (considered one of the worst ever environmental disasters by the EPA) this inundation of black waste spoiled the water supply for over 27,000 Kentucky residents and killed all aquatic life in Coldwater Fork and Wolf Creek.

Watching footage of the aftermath of the spill brought me to tears. The black trunks of trees, stained by heavy metal molasses, the polluted streams, running a sickly bright orange, made me sick inside. And then I had to ask myself why. Sure, I feel compassion for the residents of Martin County and the injustices they’re dealing with. They can’t drink their water, can’t fish their streams and all that the mining company representatives have to say is “sorry, but it’s really not our fault and we’ve done the best we can and, you know, we don’t owe you or your children anything more.” So yes, I’m angry and saddened on their behalf, but that’s not what made me cry.

I cried, perhaps, for more selfish reasons. I cried because when I saw the water blackened (or greened or oranged –whatever unnatural rainbow color it happened to be) and the land ravaged and the black smoke pouring into the sky; when I was told that all life died in those streams and people were made sick, I could only feel that such transgressions had been done to me. Those were my streams and that was my sky. Those were my fish and my people. And these horrible things were done to them and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I cried because I took it personally.

Rick Bass describes this sort of ownership in his essay “On Willow Creek.” He claims that the land belongs to those who love it, regardless of actual property rights. I’m of the mind that no one can actually own land, but much in the same way that we feel as if people belong to us, or we to them, much as we are a part of our families and them of us, I feel that the land can belong to us and we to it… if we love it. When I heard those stories and saw that footage, my feelings can only be described as those of one who watches her loved ones being hurt and is unable to do anything to stop it.

I know that others do not often feel the same way that I do. I’ve never met another soul who feels personally wronged, when she sees a diesel truck belch out a black cloud at the traffic light and who wants to shout at the driver, with tears in her eyes, “why are you doing that to my air?” Most people don’t take it personally. I’m unsure if it’s right to suggest they should, but I think it’s a lack of ownership, and distance from the immediate consequences of these harmful actions that allows them to be perpetuated. It’s systematic. It’s complex, and many people –even after they’ve watched Sludge and seen the damages incurred- fail to see how they’re connected.

The sooner we realize that we’re part of a system, and that no part of the system is insignificant, only then can we realize our responsibility to it. That was my water and my air, as well as my coal and my mining company. As Barry Commoner so clearly pointed out in his work The Closing Circle, everything’s connected. That means you and the fish. That means you and the coal company. He also observed that there’s “no such thing as a free lunch.” You can’t have your fish without the stream. You can’t have your coal-powered electricity without the coal… and you can’t have a coal without a mine and a sediment impoundment and everything else that goes with it.

The spill in Martin County, Kentucky was my spill.

That’s why I cried.

Cruise Liner Blues

Oils rigs are usually getting the blame for wreaking environmental havoc on the high seas, but in light of recent evens involving a certain cruise ship, I thought I would comment on the nautical polluters not frequently in the news... until someone tips it over.

There are "normal" emissions and discharges from cruise ships all time that are glossed over and
according to the EPA, cruise ships were involved in 87 confirmed illegal discharge cases in the years from 1993 to 1998. Most of these involved the accidental discharge of oil or related substances but a few cases involved large numbers of illegal discharge incidents.

What sort of "normal waste discharges" are there?

1. Black Water (sewage): A typical cruise ship generates as much as 210,000 gallons during a one-week voyage. Um, yuck.

2. Gray Water (shower, sink, and galley water): A typical cruise ship is estimated to generate up to one million gallons a week.

3. Hazardous Waste (waste from dry cleaning, photo labs, paint, and maintenance chemicals, etc.): Who's printing photos and having their clothes dry cleaned on their cruise, is what I want to know.

4. Solid Waste (food waste, plastic, paper, wood, cardboard, cans, glass, etc.): That is, all the garbage produced by the tons of people on the boat.

5. Oily Bilge Water: Cruise ships are estimated to generate up to 25,000 gallons on a one week voyage.

And then there are the air emissions. Cruise ships incinerate between 75% and 85% of garbage according to the EPA in its 2008 study, contributing to smog in coastal communities and on the ocean. Yeah, smog on the beach.They also release incinerator ash and sewage sludge -- blobs of concentrated toxins from the bottom of waste treatment facilities -- into the ocean. Who said this was okay? You can't dump it in the street but you can dump it in the water? Right. Well, according to tests in Washington and Alaska, interviews with state officials, the EPA's study, and information provided by the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary this is really the case. It's actually legal to discharge untreated sewage in most areas of the United States farther than three miles from shore, so 4 miles out is fine. So says somebody. It's not fine to me.

It was only luck that the Concordia's oil is not already spewing into the sea—the hole in the hull of the liner missed the fuel tanks by a few feet, as it ran aground off the coast of Italy. But maybe it's time to pay more attention to the rest of the cruise ships out there. They don't need to be capsizing or spewing oil to attract scrutiny.

Treat Your Lab Rats Right

The National Institutes of Health recently revised their official Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals for the first time in 16 years. This is the guide used by all laboratories who receive funding from the government to conduct their research and all labs receiving this funding must comply with the procedures described in the guide. The revised edition, however, is causing an uproar among facilities, however, because of a little change made on page 57.

The change involves the amount of space that must be allotted to a female lab mouse or rat and her babies. The revised guidelines suggest that a female be allotted for herself and her babies, a cage the size of a shoebox. Nothing extraordinary sounding, until one considers that previous guidelines allowed for two females, their litters and a male mouse or rat to occupy the same amount of space. Animal rights advocates applaud the change, feeling that this increase in allotted space not only allows for more humane conditions and natural development of the lab rat and her offspring, but also is a boon to scientific study, as increased space could mean a less stressful environment, translating to more accurate research results.

Some laboratories, however, are up in arms about the change. Consider Johns Hopkins research institute. They do a lot of research, they have a lot of rats. They have so many rats that research facilities consisting of huge warehouses containing 10,000 cages of rats are not uncommon. That's a lot of rats... and a lot of cages... and a lot of space. The concern for laboratories and research facilities like Johns Hopkins is a logistical one. More space for mama rats means room for fewer cages. In short, it'll cost the labs more money to house the same number of rats that they house now. They aren't happy about that.

In response to the apparent outrage at the changes, the writers of the guide have insisted that the new guidelines are not mandatory and that facilities needn't follow the new suggestions to maintain their government funding. What they aimed to do with the change, one writer has said, is to set a benchmark, a standard from which to work from. This placated some of those concerned about the change, but essentially rained upon the parade of those animal rights advocates who had applauded the measure. They claim that making the guidelines optional allows for abuse.

Sometimes you just can't make anyone happy.

Bringing Down the Stereotypes

Dog = loyal, friendly, playful, cuddly

Cat = independent, anti-social, agile

Llama = funny, stupid

Pig = dirty, greedy

Gazelle = graceful

Mule = stubborn

Does any of this sound familiar? It seems often our experience with animals is limited to our domestic pets and dinner plates and that we largely rely upon these stereotypes to characterize them. I suppose these function like any other stereotype, really. They're a default we depend on because we don't have an accumulation of encounters to prove otherwise. I recent class discussion had me thinking about this and, though I didn't share, these stereotypes bother me to no end.

In the same manner that one might become indignant when confronting any other unfair categorical preconception, I'm saddened that the impressions that we and our children have of animals are based upon these stereotypes, rather than upon personal experience. As convenient as these characterizations may be, given that the average American Midwesterner is unlikely to encounter a gazelle first hand in their entire lifetime, I continue to be struck by a sort of exasperation when people I meet believe these assigned characteristics to be true descriptions of an animal.

As such, I spent all three months of my summer internship at Gorman Heritage Farm trying to break down the barriers erected by these fabricated preconceptions. As a certified "sustainable agriculture intern/farm camp councilor," part of my duties involved giving tours of the farmyard, teaching visitors about the animals and supervising small children around livestock. Perhaps I shouldn't have been, but my reaction was of awe when I first realized that many of the children that came to visit the farm actually bought wholeheartedly those animal stereotypes perpetuated by cartoons, children's books and well-meaning parents. Why aren't the pigs pink? Why doesn't the cow make a "moo" sound? Why does the rooster keep crowing, even though it's the afternoon? Sigh.

Though I only spent a short amount of time with these kids on the farm, I did my very best to communicate the fact that every animal is an individual, just as every little girl or little boy is different and unique from every other little girl and little boy. And so... frequent reminders included:

-Pigs aren't dirty, they're really, really smart. And they come in lots of colors, not just pink. Well, sometimes they are dirty.

-Bunnies can bite and scratch, not matter how fluffy and cute. And here they eat alfalfa, not carrots

-Roosters crow all day every day. They stop at nighttime to sleep.

-You can pet Ringo but Don't pet George. Why? George bites and Ringo doesn't, silly!

- No. No one gets to ride Huckleberry. He doesn't like when people ride him.

-Stay away from the cat. She doesn't like people. No, you can't pet her.

- Go ahead, you can pet the chicken. She won't peck at you. And they come in all sorts of colors and eat bugs, isn't that cool!?

-Chicken eggs can be white, blue, green, brown or even pink. You can eat the duck eggs, too!

As is the way with small children, some didn't listen and were bitten by the ferocious bunnies, but most of them did and I can only hope they went home and taught their parents a thing or two...

And speaking of birds...

The US government always seems to make its business the status of various species in the nation. A quick glance at the Endangered Species List, limits placed upon the harvest of certain species of fish -we're always being told not to go overboard in our exploitation of species... until one ventures into the agricultural sector. Since livestock aren't "naturally-occurring" like wild salmon, but are instead "produced," the concerns over exploitation fizzle away. This does not, however, mean that our government takes a hands-off approach.

As demand for chicken meat remains far below the number of birds who are actually being raised and killed, rather than allowing the market to adjust to basic supply and demand principles, the federal government Monday announced it will buy $40 million of unwanted chicken products that will be distributed to our nation's school kids and others in federal food programs.

In short, chicken-meat companies have continued increasing the number of birds they raise for food while demand has remained flat. Normally, in a free market, an industry that produces beyond what consumers want will contract. The poultry industry (much like those farmers who grow nothing but GM corn and soybeans) instead relies on regular government support. Might I mention that these government-subsidezed chickens will be fed upon the aforementioned government subsidized corn and soybeans. The broiler chicken industry alone saved $1.25 billion in feed costs from 1997 to 2005 just from taxpayer-funded subsidies.

In such trying economic times... one must wonder...

The End of Communism Favors Smarter Songbirds

Scientists have discovered that recent regional differences observed in population trends among songbird species accross Eastern Germany and the Czech Republic are linked to increased brain size. Large brain size was correlated to strong population increases of respective songbird species in the Czech Republic since 1989 / 1990 and weaker increases in Eastern Germany. Almost no effect has been observed in North-Western Germany.

This difference between the former 'West' and 'East' suggests that this trend was driven by socieconomic changes that took place in the former communist regions. Relative brain size reflects species' cognitive abilities. The increase of such big-brained songbirds suggests that species with good cognitive abilities might have been better able to adapt to rapid changes. Sceintists speculate that the socioeconomic change and the novel opportunities that would have subsequently arisen after the end of communism provided the change in environment to which these birds adapted. In short, the environmental changes that followed the end of communism favored smarter birds.

Authors of this study suggest that future research should expand to consider more regions. This would enable comparison of relationships between socioeconomic change and its impact on bird populations across nations and give a greater insight on the effects of communism and its downfall on bird populations.

I thought it was pretty cool.

Drug Recycling

Pharmaceutical waste is a really, really big problem, contaminating waterways and potable water and making people and animals sick... or hermaphroditic. It is also a really, really expensive problem. Americans dispose of an estimated $1 billion worth of unused medications every single year. So, not only are we polluting our environment with drugs, we're wasting a lot of money (and with the all controvery over Medicare, Medicaid recently... well...).

A 2008 study found the presence of pharmaceuticals in the water supply of 24 major municipalities nationwide. As legislators push for stronger regulation including extended product responsibility for the drug makers themselves, the truth is that pharmacuticals are big business that depends on throughput for profits. That is to say, the more people watse, the more they have to buy and the more money companies make. And if you don’t believe me, just count the number of drug commercials you see in a 15-minute daytime television viewing.

Global pharmaceutical sales were forecasted at $825 billion last year. Pharmaceutical waste is viewed as an unfortunate bi-product of a profitable, innovative, and admittedly necessary industry. But while some see pharmecutical waste as an unfortunate bi-product of the industry, others see it as an untapped resource.

With each leak into the water system, money is being wasted -and that means there are unmet profits out there. And so, some companies, such as Blue Zone, creators of anaesthetics, decided to create certain "proprietary technologies" to reclaim their waste adn even distill it into its origional componets. They've created a nearly closed-loop delivery system. Yes, this, my friends, is pharmecutical super-recycling.

This technology represents one of the first financially viable solutions to the growing problem of pharmaceutical waste in the environment. As the company is now registered as a generic anesthesia manufacturer in both Canada and the United States, Blue Zone promises a solution that generates pharmaceutical industry profits. The company is poised to literally collect millions of dollars from the operating room waste bin.

Supercool if you ask me.

Cross-Dresser

From personal experience, I've found that people who are really into fashion are really intense about it. Scarily so at times. I've known some to place it above all else, as if they would "die for fashion!" First, I don't think that this is normal, acceptable or healthy. Secondly, new research suggests that it's not healthy for everyone else either.

A Greenpeace investigation has discovered a chemical called nonylphenol ethoxylate (NPE) in clothing made by 14 major brands, including Adidas, H&M, Converse and Abercrombie and Fitch. Oh, and NPE just happens to be highly toxic. NPE breaks down to form nonylphenol in water, which disrupts hormone levels and has been known to cause fish and amphibians to change gender.

Due to its persistence in the environment, nonylphenol builds up in each level in the food chain, much like the bioaccumulation experienced with DDT. And in case you are rather apathetic toward fish and frogs,this bioaccumulation means that humans receive the highest dosage of toxins and can suffer from hormone imbalances as a result of eating contaminated fish and drinking contaminated water.

NPE is banned from use in textile production in the EU but in China and other Asian countries such as Vietnam (where many global clothing brands source their products from -big surprise) lax restrictions mean that NPE is widely used in the dyeing process.

Some of the clothing labels named in Greenpeace's study have retaliated, with many disputing the significance of the findings. H&M have claimed that the because the methods used for testing NPE levels are "uncertain", studies such as Greenpeace's that rely on a low threshold of contamination are not viable. 'Since the level of the findings stated [by Greenpeace] are very low, you cannot show that our products contain nonylphenol ethoxylate,' the company said in a statement to the journal Ecologist.

Adidas has also pointed out that the NPE levels found by Greenpeace in their own products were all below 100mg/kg. In comparison, one Converse t-shirt in Greenpeace’s study was found to have 27,000mg/kg. 'The concentration was well below our own threshold,' Katja Schreiber, an Adidas spokeswoman, told the Ecologist. Schreiber did, however, add that the findings were, 'a clear sign that we need to continue to work in decreasing the amount of chemical substances in our products.

Gives a whole new meaning to the term "cross-dresser" if you ask me.

American Wasteland

It's been a while since I've posted anything, and all I've got to show for it is another book. While spending my summer as a "sustainable agriculture intern" at Gorman Heritage Farm, I found some time to read this book, which delves into just how Americans manage to send so much (eatable) food to the landfill every single day.

Jonathan Bloom's chronicle of waste from farm to fork shows just how lengthy and extended out food production and distribution process is, and how waste occurs with every step. From waste in the fields (some crops are actually not harvested due to low market prices or "suspect quality") to mishaps in transportation to distributers and then retailers, a gros amount of veggies don't even make it to your grocery store. And then, in order to maintain an image of bounty and peak freshness, retailers cull what they've bought, with the belief that the consumer won't buy unless it's perfect. And to be honest, this is partly true. Society has conditioned consumers to think of fresh fruits and veggies as only meeting a certain standard to be edible. This means that cucumbers that are too long or to short, and peppers that are "misshaped" and pears that have harmless spots are thrown out while perfectly edible, simply because they will be passed over by the consumer in search of "pretty food."

Then Bloom examines waste at the level of the individual. At restaurants (which waste large amounts of food in the form of day-old bread, leftover specials and mistaken orders, themselves) diners are served enormous portions of food that they often leave on their plates to be thrown in the trash. And survey research shows that many of those who do take a doggie bag of leftovers, often just throw them away at home later. And speaking of leftovers, apparently the distaste for reheated meals extends beyond the restaurant, with the rest of that cassarole being thrown out the night of, or its moldy and long forgotten guise being thrown out the week later.

He also points out that our shopping and cooking habits aren't exactly conducive to using up all of our food before it becomes inedible. Our large refridgerators accomodate our overfilled shopping carts, laden with food that will not be eaten before it goes bad, or will be lost and forgotten in the fridge while you go out an buy some more. Given that fewer and fewer households cook the way they did in slimmer times (think 1930s Depression era) we often don't know how to use what we have creatively and will buy special ingredients for a recipe we make once and don't know what to do with the rest. And then there's our confusion with "sell by" and "best by" dates on the label.

Throughout his work, Bloom hits on the many ways americans waste almost half of the food we produce/buy (a Rose Bowl full of food every day) and the consequences such waste has. In addition, he also explains just why not all this edible food is not going to those who need it. Health code laws, underfunded agencies and the sheer bulk and perishability of the food that is discarded make it impossible for it to get to the hungry.

Ending his book not with lament, but with a positive, procative approach to what we can do to reduce potable food waste, Bloom's work is enlightening as well as empowering. Too many downers in books covering environmental issues nowadays, if you ask me.