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rhamphotheca: ……………………………………………………………………………………… Wake-up Call Climate Report from U.S. Government Made Public by Michael Graham Richard The National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee has released a draft of the report on climate change that it will soon submit to the US government. What makes it stand out from other reports is how it doesn’t bury its central points under tons of hyper-cautious language, and how once the report is published, it will officially be an official document of the United States government (for what that’s worth). If you are brave and want to have a look at the whole thing, you can do so here: NCADAC Draft Climate Assessment Report. But if you want a succinct overview, the New York Times’ Green Blog has a good piece; An Alarm in the Offing on Climate Change: If it survives in substantially its current form, the document will be a stark warning to the American people about what has already happened and what is coming… The report cites stronger scientific evidence—developed since the last report of this type was published in 2009—that human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are the primary cause of these changes. It warns that if humanity fails to get a handle on emissions, the changes are likely to accelerate. And it cites numerous ways, from health problems to wildfires to extreme weather events, that climate change threatens human welfare – not in some distant land in some far-off time, but here in the United States, and soon… (via: Treehugger)
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rhamphotheca:

………………………………………………………………………………………

Wake-up Call Climate Report from U.S. Government Made Public

by Michael Graham Richard

The National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee has released a draft of the report on climate change that it will soon submit to the US government. What makes it stand out from other reports is how it doesn’t bury its central points under tons of hyper-cautious language, and how once the report is published, it will officially be an official document of the United States government (for what that’s worth).

If you are brave and want to have a look at the whole thing, you can do so here: NCADAC Draft Climate Assessment Report.

But if you want a succinct overview, the New York Times’ Green Blog has a good piece; An Alarm in the Offing on Climate Change:

If it survives in substantially its current form, the document will be a stark warning to the American people about what has already happened and what is coming…

The report cites stronger scientific evidence—developed since the last report of this type was published in 2009—that human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are the primary cause of these changes. It warns that if humanity fails to get a handle on emissions, the changes are likely to accelerate. And it cites numerous ways, from health problems to wildfires to extreme weather events, that climate change threatens human welfare – not in some distant land in some far-off time, but here in the United States, and soon…

(via: Treehugger)

rhamphotheca: Moon-forming Impact The leading hypothesis for the origin of the Moon involves a huge collision between the Earth and a planet half its size. That concept is often called the Giant Impact Hypothesis. This hypothesis suggests some of the colliding material was added to the Earth, while a large fraction of the impact debris went into orbit around the Earth. The orbiting material then accreted together to form the Moon. The collision and subsequent accretion of the Moon occurred 4.5 billion years ago. This illustration was originally produced for LPI’s Evolution of Our Solar System project which provides a pictorial history of the solar system (Illustration: LPI - Leanne Woolley)             (via: Lunar Planetary Inst.)
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rhamphotheca:

Moon-forming Impact

The leading hypothesis for the origin of the Moon involves a huge collision between the Earth and a planet half its size. That concept is often called the Giant Impact Hypothesis. This hypothesis suggests some of the colliding material was added to the Earth, while a large fraction of the impact debris went into orbit around the Earth. The orbiting material then accreted together to form the Moon. The collision and subsequent accretion of the Moon occurred 4.5 billion years ago.

This illustration was originally produced for LPI’s Evolution of Our Solar System project which provides a pictorial history of the solar system

(Illustration: LPI - Leanne Woolley)             (via: Lunar Planetary Inst.)

rhamphotheca: Antivenoms for Snake & Spider Bites Get Much Needed Makeover Among the oldest type of drug in the medical arsenal, new antivenoms are being developed by researchers in Mexico, who have become global leaders in creating drugs to treat poisonous bites   By Erik Vance Over the past few years researchers in Mexico have become global leaders in developing drugs to treat bites from poisonous spiders and snakes. Several of their remedies are clearing the hurdles of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, including the scorpion antivenom Anascorp, which was approved by the FDA in 2011, and black widow drugs that are in advanced clinical trials. Antivenoms are among the oldest drugs in the medical arsenal. They were first produced in the late 1800s at France’s Pasteur Institute, and since the 1930s pharmaceutical company Merck has been manufacturing antivenom for black widow bites. But Merck limited distribution in 2009 because of side effects and poor drug sales, and compounds that counteract venom from scorpions and snakes have also been in short supply. The team at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, led by molecular biologist Alejandro Alagón, has introduced a new generation of antivenoms that are safer and less expensive to produce… (read more: Scientific American)                    (photo: Shenrich91 | Wikipedia)
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rhamphotheca:

Antivenoms for Snake & Spider Bites Get Much Needed Makeover

Among the oldest type of drug in the medical arsenal, new antivenoms are being developed by researchers in Mexico, who have become global leaders in creating drugs to treat poisonous bites  

By Erik Vance

Over the past few years researchers in Mexico have become global leaders in developing drugs to treat bites from poisonous spiders and snakes. Several of their remedies are clearing the hurdles of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, including the scorpion antivenom Anascorp, which was approved by the FDA in 2011, and black widow drugs that are in advanced clinical trials.

Antivenoms are among the oldest drugs in the medical arsenal. They were first produced in the late 1800s at France’s Pasteur Institute, and since the 1930s pharmaceutical company Merck has been manufacturing antivenom for black widow bites. But Merck limited distribution in 2009 because of side effects and poor drug sales, and compounds that counteract venom from scorpions and snakes have also been in short supply. The team at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, led by molecular biologist Alejandro Alagón, has introduced a new generation of antivenoms that are safer and less expensive to produce…

(read more: Scientific American)                    (photo: Shenrich91 | Wikipedia)

rhamphotheca: Poisons Used to Kill Rodents Have Safer Alternatives  A second generation of ultra-potent rodenticides creates a first-class crisis for people, pets, and wildlife. by Ted Williams Clinical assistant professor Maureen Murray of the Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in central Massachusetts was doing a good job of keeping her emotions under wraps as she clicked through photos of her recent necropsies. But I was watching her eyes as well as her computer screen, and they revealed anguish. Like her colleagues here and at similar clinics around the country, Murray is a wildlife advocate as well as a scientist. Each image was, in her word and my perception, “sadder” than the last. There was the great horned owl with a hematoma running the length of its left wing; the red-tailed hawk’s body cavity glistening with unclotted blood; sundry raptors with pools of blood under dissected skin; the redtail with a hematoma that had ballooned its left eye to 10 times normal size; and, “saddest of all,” the redtail with an egg. The well-developed blood vessels in her oviducts had ruptured, and she had slowly bled to death from the inside. All these birds were victims of “second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides” used by exterminators, farmers, and homeowners. They’re found in such brand names as d-Con, Hot Shot, Generation, Talon, and Havoc, and they sell briskly because of our consuming hatred of rats and mice. The most pestiferous species are alien to the New World and therefore displace native wildlife; they contaminate our food and spread disease… (read more: Audubon Magazine)                 (photo via Birdlife.org)
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rhamphotheca:

Poisons Used to Kill Rodents Have Safer Alternatives 

A second generation of ultra-potent rodenticides creates a first-class crisis for people, pets, and wildlife.

by Ted Williams

Clinical assistant professor Maureen Murray of the Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in central Massachusetts was doing a good job of keeping her emotions under wraps as she clicked through photos of her recent necropsies. But I was watching her eyes as well as her computer screen, and they revealed anguish. Like her colleagues here and at similar clinics around the country, Murray is a wildlife advocate as well as a scientist.

Each image was, in her word and my perception, “sadder” than the last. There was the great horned owl with a hematoma running the length of its left wing; the red-tailed hawk’s body cavity glistening with unclotted blood; sundry raptors with pools of blood under dissected skin; the redtail with a hematoma that had ballooned its left eye to 10 times normal size; and, “saddest of all,” the redtail with an egg. The well-developed blood vessels in her oviducts had ruptured, and she had slowly bled to death from the inside.

All these birds were victims of “second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides” used by exterminators, farmers, and homeowners. They’re found in such brand names as d-Con, Hot Shot, Generation, Talon, and Havoc, and they sell briskly because of our consuming hatred of rats and mice. The most pestiferous species are alien to the New World and therefore displace native wildlife; they contaminate our food and spread disease…

(read more: Audubon Magazine)                 (photo via Birdlife.org)

rhamphotheca: Call of the Wild: World’s Largest Animal Sound Archive Goes Digital by Live Science staff An archive of tens of thousands of animal sounds has just gone online. http://macaulaylibrary.org/ The searchable Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology boasts nearly 150,000 digital audio recordings, covering about 9,000 noisy species, with a total run time of 7,513 hours. Though there’s an emphasis on birds, the collection contains sounds from across the animal kingdom, from elephants to elephant seals. Some of the highlights of the collection include recordings of the curl-crested manucode, a bird-of-paradise in New Guinea, whose otherworldly calls sound like UFOs landing in a sci-fi movie. There’s also a clip of a song sparrow recorded in 1929 by Cornell Lab founder Arthur Allen, which is the earliest recording in the collection… (read more) (images: TL - S.A. Sonsthagen/USGS; TR - USFWS; BL - wadems | wikimedia; BR - Stanly Trauth) Visit the library here: http://macaulaylibrary.org/
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rhamphotheca: Call of the Wild: World’s Largest Animal Sound Archive Goes Digital by Live Science staff An archive of tens of thousands of animal sounds has just gone online. http://macaulaylibrary.org/ The searchable Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology boasts nearly 150,000 digital audio recordings, covering about 9,000 noisy species, with a total run time of 7,513 hours. Though there’s an emphasis on birds, the collection contains sounds from across the animal kingdom, from elephants to elephant seals. Some of the highlights of the collection include recordings of the curl-crested manucode, a bird-of-paradise in New Guinea, whose otherworldly calls sound like UFOs landing in a sci-fi movie. There’s also a clip of a song sparrow recorded in 1929 by Cornell Lab founder Arthur Allen, which is the earliest recording in the collection… (read more) (images: TL - S.A. Sonsthagen/USGS; TR - USFWS; BL - wadems | wikimedia; BR - Stanly Trauth) Visit the library here: http://macaulaylibrary.org/
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rhamphotheca: Call of the Wild: World’s Largest Animal Sound Archive Goes Digital by Live Science staff An archive of tens of thousands of animal sounds has just gone online. http://macaulaylibrary.org/ The searchable Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology boasts nearly 150,000 digital audio recordings, covering about 9,000 noisy species, with a total run time of 7,513 hours. Though there’s an emphasis on birds, the collection contains sounds from across the animal kingdom, from elephants to elephant seals. Some of the highlights of the collection include recordings of the curl-crested manucode, a bird-of-paradise in New Guinea, whose otherworldly calls sound like UFOs landing in a sci-fi movie. There’s also a clip of a song sparrow recorded in 1929 by Cornell Lab founder Arthur Allen, which is the earliest recording in the collection… (read more) (images: TL - S.A. Sonsthagen/USGS; TR - USFWS; BL - wadems | wikimedia; BR - Stanly Trauth) Visit the library here: http://macaulaylibrary.org/
Zoom
rhamphotheca: Call of the Wild: World’s Largest Animal Sound Archive Goes Digital by Live Science staff An archive of tens of thousands of animal sounds has just gone online. http://macaulaylibrary.org/ The searchable Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology boasts nearly 150,000 digital audio recordings, covering about 9,000 noisy species, with a total run time of 7,513 hours. Though there’s an emphasis on birds, the collection contains sounds from across the animal kingdom, from elephants to elephant seals. Some of the highlights of the collection include recordings of the curl-crested manucode, a bird-of-paradise in New Guinea, whose otherworldly calls sound like UFOs landing in a sci-fi movie. There’s also a clip of a song sparrow recorded in 1929 by Cornell Lab founder Arthur Allen, which is the earliest recording in the collection… (read more) (images: TL - S.A. Sonsthagen/USGS; TR - USFWS; BL - wadems | wikimedia; BR - Stanly Trauth) Visit the library here: http://macaulaylibrary.org/
Zoom

rhamphotheca:

Call of the Wild: World’s Largest Animal Sound Archive Goes Digital

by Live Science staff

An archive of tens of thousands of animal sounds has just gone online.

http://macaulaylibrary.org/

The searchable Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology boasts nearly 150,000 digital audio recordings, covering about 9,000 noisy species, with a total run time of 7,513 hours. Though there’s an emphasis on birds, the collection contains sounds from across the animal kingdom, from elephants to elephant seals.

Some of the highlights of the collection include recordings of the curl-crested manucode, a bird-of-paradise in New Guinea, whose otherworldly calls sound like UFOs landing in a sci-fi movie. There’s also a clip of a song sparrow recorded in 1929 by Cornell Lab founder Arthur Allen, which is the earliest recording in the collection…

(read more)

(images: TL - S.A. Sonsthagen/USGS; TR - USFWS; BL - wadems | wikimedia; BR - Stanly Trauth)

Visit the library here: http://macaulaylibrary.org/

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