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Surfing Israel and Ankles Adorned with Love

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February 15, 2010 – 4:45 pm

I love this time of year. As the winter blues roll on-on the east coast, and I’ve squeezed all of the year’s respective joy out of the New England ski slopes; while others around me begin to get that icy depression and look like Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, I head off to a secret vacation spot.

In Israel, around this time of year, their winter draws to a close, leaving the desert climate moist and fresh from the rainy season. The beaches are not yet too crowded, so I, knowing this, take a suit case, my surfboard and head for Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv.

This year my timing was perfect, I arrived one and a half weeks before the Purim holiday, right on the cusp of Israel’s springtime. At the beach, there is still a slight chill in the air, so I wear my long wetsuit; but there was a beautiful girl that I saw on the shore shouting to one of her friend’s, out a few yards in the Mediterranean; her wetsuit was one of those without pants legs. She didn’t seem to mind the hint of chill in the air. She had subtle freckles on her face, brought out by exposure to the sun, and her hair was like the color of the wet sand beneath her bare feet – and there around one of her feet I saw the coolest thing…

… It was an anklet. I did not want to be rude, but I needed to know where she got it and take a closer look,

“perhaps I can get one for my little sister,”

I thought. So I said

“Ma Nishma”

and introduced myself. Then I got down on my knees to take a closer look. What she had around her ankle had three amulets, a red “evil eye” from the Kabbalistic tradition, a Hamsa, and a little silver coin with an ancient style Hebrew inscription. I gave her a compliment and asked her where she got the hip anklet. She told me she got it shopping online at Hamsa Jewelry. I smiled and made a mental note: When I get back to my laptop at the hotel, I’m checking this Web store out!
Oh, and the surfing that day at Zvulun Beach was “sababa!”

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Canada’s Environmental Friendly Olympics

February 15, 2010 – 7:53 am

At this year’s winter games in Vancouver, when Olympic champions are crowned, they will be taking home more than just, gold, silver or bronze medals…
…They will be playing a part in Canada’s efforts to reduce electronic waste. And therein lies the true heroism…

Each medal was made with a tiny bit of the more than 140,000 tons of e-waste that otherwise would have been sent to Canadian landfills.
The more than 1,000 medals to be awarded at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games amount to 2.05 kilograms of gold, 1,950 kilograms of silver (Olympic gold medals are about 92.5 per cent silver, plated with six grams of gold) and 903 kilograms of copper. Slightly more than 1.5% of each gold medal was made with metals harvested from cathode ray tube glass, computer parts, circuit boards and other trashed tech. Each copper medal contains just over 1% electronic waste, while the silver medals contain only small traces of recycled electronics.

This is the first time that recycled materials have been added to Olympic medals, which historically have been made from mined mineral deposits and refined for commercial use. Each Olympic medal is 100 millimeters in diameter, about six millimeters thick and weighs between 500 and 576 grams, depending upon the medal.

Teck Resources, the Vancouver-based company that extracted the metals used to make the medals, noted in a press release that it used a number of different recovery processes. The company shredded computers, monitors, printers and glass and then separated out steel, aluminum, copper, glass and other usable substances. The leftover shredded components were fed into a furnace operating at a temperature of 1,200 degrees Celsius in order to remove the metals that could not be recovered simply by shredding the electronic devices.

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Stephen Colbert Gives His Weather Report

February 15, 2010 – 7:46 am

With a snowstorm blanketing the Northeast and much of the country this winter, deniers of global warming jumped at the opportunity to disprove Al Gore. A large number of these deniers were over at Fox News. And those deniers found themselves the butt of jokes by Stephen Colbert, on his show over the weekend.

After showing clips of Fox News correspondents explaining that the weather is burying Al Gore’s “hysterical” theories, Colbert joined in on the silly logic, deeming it

“simple observational research: whatever just happened is the only thing that is happening.”

Using the same rationale as Fox News, Colbert could not help but point out that, due to it being nighttime, the city was covered in darkness.

“Based on this latest data, we can only assume that the sun has been destroyed.”

Who’s to blame for this “forever-night”? Gore, of course.

The Colbert Report

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Walden Pond is in Deep

February 14, 2010 – 8:01 am

Oh the irony when art and reality collide…

The plants which Henry David Thoreau catalogued around Walden Pond in Massachusetts more than 150 years ago, and the information which he gathered, is helping to illustrate the effects of invasive species and global warming on the area today.

Climate change has given invasive and nonnative species a leg up in the Walden Pond area, and the native species are hurting as a result.

A group of researchers compared Thoreau’s information with data on temperature and plant populations from this century as well as full information on plant phenology. They found that the average temperature in Concord, Massachusetts has increased 2.4 degrees Celsius since Thoreau’s time, and that some nonnative plants have adapted by flowering as much as three weeks earlier than they once did. Other native species have seen their populations drop dramatically.

“These results demonstrate for the first time that climate change likely plays a direct role in promoting nonnative species success…Our research suggests quite decisively that nonnative and invasive species have been the climate change winners. Climate change will lead to an as yet unknown shuffling of species, and it appears that invasive species will become more dominant”

said author Charles C. Davis, an assistant professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University.

The team did not just count the plants to come up with this observation. They also examined

“habit, plant height at maturity, leaf mass per area, flower diameter, pollination syndrome and seed weight”

in order to come up with a complete picture of the health of the species in the area.

This is not the first time that Davis and his colleagues have studied Walden’s plants. Two years ago, they found that 27% of the plant species Thoreau recorded from 1851 to 1858 are now locally extinct. In addition to this, 36%

“are so sparse that extinction may be imminent.”

At that previous time, species like lilies, orchids, violets, roses and dogwoods were shown to have seen the biggest losses.

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H1N1 and North Carolina Hog Farms

February 11, 2010 – 6:40 am

The young author of the long-time best-seller “Everything is Illuminated” Jonathan Safran Foer has written a new book, “Eating Animals” about the virtues of veganism.

One of his arguments has to do with the connection between the H1N1 influenza virus and large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations — defined by the Environmental Protection Agency as agricultural operations over a certain size “where animals are kept and raised in confined situations.

“This swine flu that’s now an epidemic, they’ve been able to trace it back to a farm in North Carolina,”

says Foer.

“A hog farm. Nobody knows this. Nobody talks about it. We’ve been told this lie that it came from Mexico.”

Mr. Safran Foer was apparently referring to research that shows that the H1N1 influenza pandemic has genetic roots in a swine-flu outbreak at a North Carolina pig farm in the late 1990s.
However Liz Wagstrom, a staff veterinarian at the National Pork Board, said the claim that the novel 2009 H1N1 virus originally came from swine farms in North Carolina is “patently false.”

Researchers at that time did find an H3N2 flu virus in pigs there, but it had a different genetic architecture than the current H1N1 pandemic virus circulating around the world. And those trying to link the H1N1 to factory farming

“are using a scare tactic to try to cast a negative light on modern pork production,”

says Ms. Wagstrom.

An article in the September issue of Environmental Health Perspectives titled

“Swine C.A.F.O.’s & Novel H1N1: Separating Facts from Fears,”

quotes Dr. Gregory Gray, the director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Iowa College of Public Health:

When respiratory viruses get into these confinement facilities, they have continual opportunity to replicate, mutate, reassort and recombine into novel strains. The best surrogates we can find in the human population are prisons, military bases, ships or schools. But respiratory viruses can run quickly through these [human] populations and then burn out, whereas in C.A.F.O.s — which often have continual introductions of [unexposed] animals — there’s a much greater potential for the viruses to spread and become endemic.

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I’ll Take My Lobster Without Ibuprofen, Please

February 10, 2010 – 10:09 am

The federal government advises throwing unused and expired medications in the trash instead of down the drain, however they may still end up in the water.

Small amounts of discarded drugs have been found in water at three landfills in the state of Maine, confirming suspicions that pharmaceuticals thrown into household trash are ending up in water that drains through waste, according to a survey by the state’s environmental agency, and this is one of just a handful to have looked at the presence of drugs in landfills.

Landfill water – known as leachate – eventually ends up in the rivers. Most of Maine does not draw its drinking water from rivers where the leachate ends up, but in the states that do, water supplies that come from rivers could become contaminated.

Lawmakers in Maine are considering a bill, among the first of its kind in the nation which would require drug manufacturers to develop and pay for a program that collects unused prescription and over-the-counter drugs from residents and then disposes of them, properly.

Scientists and environmentalists have long known of the common presence of these small concentrations of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, either through human excretion flushed into sewers or leftover medicine thrown down the drain. Research shows that pharmaceuticals sometimes harm fish and other aquatic species, and that human cells can fail to grow normally in the lab when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs.

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection found tiny amounts, measured in parts per trillion, of prescriptions ranging from antidepressants and birth control pills to blood pressure and cholesterol medications. The most prevalent drugs were over-the-counter pain relievers, such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen.

“People need a way to properly dispose of their drugs, and they’re not getting it right now,”

says Mark Hyland, director of the State Department of Environmental Quality’s Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management.

The bill is just one of many “take-back” programs under consideration in more than half a dozen states and would be the first of its kind if enacted.

The bill is opposed by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a Washington-based organization that represents pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and has partnered with other groups to pay for advertising against this new proposal.

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High-Voltage Charging: Brining Tomorrow 15 Minutes Closer

February 9, 2010 – 7:49 am

Electricity is something which should be respected, not something to be feared. This is not a recommendation to stick your finger in the socket, that’s common sense.

What I mean to say is that there is a new ability out there that could accelerate the mass deployment of electric and plug-in hybrid electric cars, that is, High-voltage charging.

Respecting and not fearing high voltage electricity, and putting some faith in charging station developers to make their equipment safe, could help bring about clean, emission-free electric vehicles to the mainstream sooner than later.

Charging at 480 volts instead of 110 or 220 volts will reduce charging times from as long as overnight to under an hour, perhaps as little as 15 measly minutes. That is only slightly longer than it takes to fill up a tank with gasoline or diesel fuel. Fifteen minutes is time to grab a hot cup of coffee, make a call or two or send a text message while safely parked and watching that battery level meter rise.

Long charging times have been one of the hurdles to the mass commercialization, public acceptance and the adoption of electric vehicles. High-voltage charging can do away with this hurdle.

High-voltage, 480-volt charging, cannot be done in the home, of course. It’s safe to say most US homes have no more than 220 volts at the panel box and really old homes will have even less.

Aside being nearly equivalent in “fueling” time with liquid fuels, high-voltage charging may add at least two brand new dimensions to the scope of electric vehicle marketing.

1) It would create new business opportunities for liquid fuel filling station owners.

2) It would create the opportunity for electric vehicle charging in urban areas that do not have off-street parking or privately-owned parking spots and garages.

If there is a major hurdle to high-voltage charging it is the public’s fear of high volts. In the US people are comfortable with the 110 volts available from a standard wall outlet. Most of the world has 220 volt line voltage at wall outlets. What will the rest of world think of 480?

Coulomb Technologies and Aker Wade Power Technologies will be offering 480 Volt charging equipment later this year. Aker Wade Power Technologies CEO Bret Aker says:

“Field studies in Tokyo have shown that deploying fast chargers increase vehicle usage by more than 50 percent. And this is with first generation battery electric vehicles that were yet to be optimized for fast charging.With coming improvements in Li-ion technology charge times will be reduced to as little as fifteen minutes. This is the point where consumers will abandon gasoline for electricity. This is the tipping point for electric vehicles.”

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Seed Bombing with Jin-wook Hwang

February 8, 2010 – 11:44 am

The term “seed bombing” has been used steadily since the 70’s when the guerrilla gardening movement began. Since then, we have been exposed to all sorts of inventive types of seed bombs. The original type was a condom filled with fertilizer, water and wildflower seeds, but most guerrilla gardeners use the all-natural kind made of simply mud, compost and seeds. Different recipes abound, but they are all quite similar. So when somebody finds a way to redesign the seed bomb concept – it’s exciting news.

South Korean designer Jin-wook Hwang came up with a new design for a seed bomb. His idea can be used on a larger scale than the neighborhood-greening ones which we’re used to. In his project portfolio, Hwang tells of the inspiration behind his idea:

“After The 2nd world war, Gale Halvorson, an American pilot, dropped candies in the name of hope for children in Berlin. The seedbomb is the bomb of hope like the candies of Gale Halvorson.”

Intended to be airdropped into arid environments, the seedbomb is actually a vessel carrying smaller seed capsules. When the bomb gets released, it falls apart, scattering the seed capsules inside. Each capsule contains a small amount of soil and nutrients along with seeds. For the first part of the plants’ lives, the seed capsules act as tiny greenhouses, thereby protecting the fledgling plants.

As the plants grow, the seed capsules biodegrade. What is left remaining is a new crop of plants in an area that was once dry and void of vegetation. Hwang’s vision is to drop his seedbombs into areas where most humans would never think to start a garden. The idea is that by reforesting some of the planet’s arid locations, we can improve not only the landscape, but the overall health of the planet.

How to Make Seed Bombs

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Seeing Saturn into Tomorrow

February 7, 2010 – 7:19 am

NASA decided to give its Cassini spacecraft mission a 6 ½-year life extension to continue exploring Saturn and its moons.

Cassini was launched in 1997 and first arrived at Saturn in 2004 after flying by Earth, Venus and Jupiter. It carried the Huygens probe on board, which it sent to the surface of the moon Titan in December 2004. The mission was originally slated to end in 2008, but got its first reprieve with 27 months of additional funding to study the planet during its equinox – that is when the sun is directly above the planet’s equator, which happens only once every 15 Earth years.

The spacecraft has captured some of the most stunning images ever seen of the solar system, and space enthusiasts everywhere were dreading the mission’s end. With the Cassini’s new lease, those images will continue blowing our minds into Saturn’s summer solstice. Cool!

Carolyn Porco, leader of the Cassini Imaging Team said:

“Cassini has been an adventure of a lifetime, an extraordinary exploration of the most enchanting place in all the solar system…It is a very happy day for us, knowing that Cassini lives and the adventure continues.”

Cassini has already traveled 2.6 billion miles, and captured 210,000 images, and it is still in remarkably good shape. In the next seven years, it will orbit the planet 155 more times and complete 54 flybys of Titan and 11 flybys of the moon, Enceladus. It will dive between Saturn and its iconic rings, gathering more data on the planet’s magnetosphere.

Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a press release:

“The extension presents a unique opportunity to follow seasonal changes of an outer planet system all the way from its winter to its summer…Some of Cassini’s most exciting discoveries still lie ahead.”

One of the mysteries Cassini could help solve is the source of the jets emanating from Enceladus. Scientists suspect that they are fed by a subsurface ocean that could possibly be a haven for life. Wow!

Bob Mitchell, Cassini program manager at JPL, said in a press release:

“This extension is important because there is so much still to be learned at Saturn…The planet is full of secrets, and it doesn’t give them up easily.”

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More about Trees

February 4, 2010 – 7:46 am

Forests in the northern hemisphere seem to be growing faster now than they were 200 years ago; according to a study of trees in eastern America, this is a result of climate change.

The trees appear to have accelerated growth rates due to longer growing seasons and higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the air. Scientists have documented the changes to the growth of 55 plots of mixed hardwood forest over a period of 22 years, and have concluded that they’re probably growing faster now than they have done at any time in the past 225 years – the age of the oldest tree in the study.

Geoffrey Parker, is a forest ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland. He said that the increase in the growth rate was unexpected and might be accredited to the higher temperatures and longer growing seasons observed in the region. The growth may also be influenced by the significant increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, said he.

The study, which is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that northern forests may become increasingly important in terms of moderating the influence of man-made carbon dioxide on the climate.

Dr. Parker and his colleagues have been carrying out a detailed census of the trees on a regular basis since 1987, measuring every tree and sapling which has a diameter of more than 2cm (0.78in).

They calculated that the forest is producing an additional two tons of wood per acre every year, which is equivalent to a tree with a diameter of two feet sprouting up in the space of a year.

The scientists identified a series of plots with trees at different stages of growth and found that both young and old trees showed increasing growth rates. More than 90% of the tree groups had grown by between two and four times faster than the scientists had predicted from estimates of the long-term rates of growth.
The scientists said that if the trees had grown as quickly throughout their lives as they had shown in recent years they would be much larger than they are now. They based their conclusions on 250,000 measurements taken over more than 20 years.

During the same period, the scientists measured the concentration of carbon dioxide in the forest air and found that it had risen by 12 per cent. The average temperature had increased by three-tenths of a degree, and the growing season had lengthened by 7.8 days. The scientists believe that all three factors have played a role in helping the trees to grow faster.

Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide and extended growing seasons could be favorable for agriculture in some parts of the world, mainly in the northern hemisphere. The study in Maryland suggests that the extra growth in trees could help to act as a more efficient carbon “sink”, which would be able to offset the carbon dioxide being added to the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels.

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