The Independent: Bob Dylan is 70 today. Andy Gill gives that many reasons why he is a pop-culture colossus
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
Beavers mitigate climate change
The beaver's new brand: eco-saviourErin Aderssen, Globe and Mail: Our bucktoothed icon is hard-working and monogamous, steadfast and stable in the Canuck way... An increasingly vocal group of scientists and conservationists believes the dam-bulding rodent is an overlooked tool to mitigate climate change -- a natural remedy for our sick rivers and ravaged wildlife...
It's the beaver's avid dam-building that makes it a star in conservationists. In 2002, when University of Alberta biologist Glynnis Hood was in the middle of getting her PhD, the Prairies experienced the worst drought on record. She watched the wetland dry up... But where beaver dams existed, ponds remained. Poring over 54 years of historic aerial photos, records of beaver populations and climate data, she discovered that the ponds with active beaver lodges had nine times more water during droughts... In dry summers, the beavers kept water from trickling out and built channels to guide the water in; they had more impact than any rainfall... A pilot project found that beaver dams stored five to 10 times more groundwater reserves than rivers without dams, and slowed the spring runoff.
When beaver dams were added to wetland restoration efforts, the population of frogs, toads and songbirds rebounded. Native foliage returned. The dams created waterholes for moose and other animals... They slowed down water flow in rivers and shored up banks, while preventing sediment and pollutants from being carried downstream... Beaver ponds appear to be capturing the pollutants and breaking them down with bacteria...
The presence of beavers improves endangered fish stocks. Beaver ponds are deeper, which means that they thaw earlier and freeze later, giving juvenile salmon more time to grow. The bark and branches that beavers drag into the water add nutrients and draw insects, which the young salmon eat... Even in cases where beaver dams have been found to impede adult salmon... no research has suggested that it was enough to affect river-wide populations... 'It's about $10,000 a hectare to replace wetlands, and you've got something to do it for free,' Dr. Hood says.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
'How your heart pounds inside me'
It could have happened.It had to happen.It happened earlier. Later.Nearer. Farther off.It happened, but not to you.You were saved because you were the first.You were saved because you were the last.Alone. With others.On the right. The left.Because it was raining. Because of the shade.Because the day was sunny.You were in luck -- there was a forest.You were in luck -- there were no trees.You were in luck -- a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,A jamb, a turn, a quarter inch, an instant...So you're here? Still dizzy fromanother dodge, close shave, reprieve?One hole in the net and you slipped through?I couldn't be more shocked orspeechless.Listen,how your heart pounds inside me.
-- Wislawa Szymborska, from the Polish
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Marshall Islands: cosmos change
The change of CosmosSkye Hohmann, New Internationalist: Climate change can strip away an atoll's natural physical defences... Flying in to Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, this is heart-wrenchingly obvious... Elevations average mere metres above the sea level. In December 2008, and again in February this year, abnormally high tides inundated the capital, temporarily flooding houses and roads and raising health concerns as waves washed over cemeteries and mixed raw sewage into the standing water...
The effects of rising sea levels are evident in coastline erosion, where waves have undercut coconut palms, felling the trees into the deceptively quiet turquoise waters of the lagoons. Changing weather patterns are beginning to erode the traditional knowledge so long essential for life on these fragile islands...
The culture on these islands is deeply interconnected with the land... Steps are being taken to enable inhabitants to remain on their traditional lands for as long as possible... It is perhaps for this reason that the Marshall Islands have no official resettlement plans...
Climate change has strengthened local distrust of modern, Western culture. [Peter] Rudiak-Gould says that the idea dovetails with local notions of cultural decline. 'When the term "climate change" was translated into Marshallese, they used a word for "climate" that means cosmos -- environment in the widest possible sense. So when scientists say that the climate is changing, what people are actually hearing is that scientists say that the cosmos is changing, and there's all sorts of evidence of that, not just environmental change, but social and cultural change...
There is little that Marshall Islanders can do to stem the rising tides. But reinvigorating traditional subsistence lifestyles means that islanders can control at least one aspect of their changing cosmos. While climate change may be eroding the islands, it's galvanizing Marshallese culture; this culture is greatly needed in such an uncertain time in this low-lying nation.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Immigrants make Canada safer
Arrival of the FittestCanada's crime rate is dropping as immigration increases. Is there a connection?
Rachel Giese, The Walrus: In times of social upheaval and economic hardship, immigrants are a convenient scapegoat, accused of bringing with them an element of deviance and criminality... What few have bothered to ask is whether there's any merit to this belief... In Canada, an. overall drop in crime has paralleled the upsurge in non-European immigration since Pierre Trudeau championed multiculturalism in the 1970s... Could it be that immigrants are making us all safer?..
A University of Toronto study initiated more than thirty years ago provides some of the most convincing evidence to support the theory that immigration equals less crime... Immigrant kids were less likely than their peers to engage in delinquent behaviour... The disinclination to commit crime extended across all nationalities... The newer the immigrant, the better behaved he or she was...
Statistics Canada has now released findings from spatial analysis of crime data in Canadian cities that suggest the percentage of recent immigrants in various regions of Toronto and Montreal is inversely proportional to all types of violent crime... 'It acts as a protective factor'...
What ultimately set the first generation kids apart were three important protective factors: strong family bonds, commitment to education, and and aversion to risk. The traits required for a person to leave behind all that's familiar and take a chance on making it in a new country -- ambition, resilience, perseverance, imagination, optimism -- are conducive to the rearing of successful children; those children, in turn naturally feel an obligation to their self-sacrificing parents...
As each generation regresses to the [Canadian] mean, the mean itself has shifted and improved, thanks, it appears, to immigration making the country safer overall. Living in Canada may change immigrants, but not before they change Canada for the better.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
'Eye of God'
Author Giles Sparrow's Cosmos Close-up is a collection of photographs of the nearest vision of the universemodern technology can give us
At a distance of around 700 light years from Earth, the Helix Nebula is one of the closest planetaries... With an apparent size in the sky close to that of the Full Moon, it is also extremely large with a diameter of about five light years. Though difficult to observe with small telescopes because the light is 'smeared' across a large area, Hubble images have made it famous and given rise to the popular nickname 'Eye of God.'
Friday, May 13, 2011
Canadians most tolerant
At 84% on average, Canadians report the highest community tolerance of minority groups -- ethnic minorities, migrants, and gays and lesbians -- in the OECD, where the average is 61%.
Postmedia News: Canadians are hard-working, great readers, the most tolerant people in the developed world, and enjoy more 'positive experiences' than everyone but Icelanders, according to a new analysis of social trends.
But Canadians have a below-average participation rate in elections, don't produce many babies and, in one apparently contradictory finding, are more likely to report 'negative experiences,' according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [in] its Society at a Glance report, done every two years...
'Canadians have the second highest rate of positive experiences in the OECD after Iceland -- feeling well-rested, being treated with respect, smiling, doing something interesting and experiencing enjoyment,' the OECD said... At the same time, Canadians have (above-average) negative experiences -- pain, worry, sadness, stress and depression...
'Canada had the sixth-highest proportion of foreign-born people in its population, at roughly one in five... Canadian 15-year olds rank third in reading skills, behind only Korea and Finland.'
Key Findings: Canada (.pdf)
Image source here.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Interactive sky
Phototopic Sky Survey
A 360-degree interactive map of the night sky, including constellations, bright stars, and objects. Click the 'i' button for constellations.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Ants form raft to survive floods
The incredible floating fire ant
The Washington Post: When swept up by a flood, a colony of the critters -- thousands of them -- will save themselves by joining forces and forming a raft. They pile together and lock arms, legs and jaws. So bound, an ant raft can survive for months, sailing off to new lands.
Engineers studying animal oddities now report that together, the ants aren't just stronger. They're more buoyant. Airtight, even... 'Water does not penetrate the raft,' said Nathan Mlot, a mechanical engineer at Georgia Institute of Technology and lead author of the ant-raft report published in Proceedings of the National Academies. Even the bottom layer of ants stays dry... The uneven, hairy surface of the ant's skin explains this phenomenon. Bumpy, hirsute, or otherwise rough surfaces repel water... Duck feathers also repel water because of their tiny bumps...
Mlot and his colleagues gathered fire ants from the wilderness of Atlanta. Back in the lab, Mlot deposited colonies of 500 to 8,000 ants in large beakers. When gently swirled, each colony spontaneously formed a sphere. Mlot dropped these spheres into water... The ants on top of the ball crawled down to the water and grabbed onto other water-level compatriots. The next layer of top ants then crawled to the edge, and so on. In about a minute-and-a-half, each ant sphere flattened into a dome, then flattened further into a pancake shape -- a raft... This togetherness pushes each ant's individual air bubble against the next ant's bubble. The bubbles join, protecting the whole raft.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Found: Tom Thompson's 'Early Snow'
Lost Tom Thompson sketch is being repatriated after spending five decades in the U.S.
Vancouver Sun: 'Early Snow': No one is quite sure when it was painted -- it could be anywhere between 1913 and '17. But there's no question it is one of the small number of paintings done by Thompson...' I am absolutely certain this is a Tom Thompson sketch, A.Y. Jackson' wrote on the back. A.Y. Jackson, of course, was one of the painters in the Group of Seven, and a close friend of Thompson's until Thompson's untimely death in 1917...
The Thompson painting... has been hanging in 'a little bungalow in Pittsburgh for several decades. 'It was a nice bungalow,' laughs Linda Rodeck of Sotheby's. 'It wasn't just anywhere... And the owner knew exactly what she had.'
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Arctic sea ice second lowest on record
Earth Observatory: In March 2011, after a winter of growth, sea ice extent in the Arctic was the second lowest for the month of March since satellite records were first kept in 1979... Including 2011, the March trend in sea ice extent has been decreasing at a rate of 2.7 percent per decade. Visit World of Change Arctic Sea Ice to see the trend since 1999.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
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