Temperature decreases have also been noted around the noses of rhesus monkeys in response to negative emotions
and the General Administration of Customs for destroying confiscated ivory--a major development in the effort to protect elephants from the ravages of ivory poaching.
and lead the world by committing not to buying ivory in the future it would have a transformative positive impact on the survival of African elephants We congratulate China's government for showing the world that elephant poaching
and that elephants will once again flourish. On November 14 the U s. destroyed six tons of illegal ivory to raise awareness about the plight of elephants.
In almost all parts of Africa elephant numbers have plummeted due largely to the demand for ivory with an estimated 96 elephants poached each day in 2012.
The ivory burning event comes in the wake of a front-page story in the influential Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly last November about the ivory trade.
and consumption as the main driver of the elephant poaching crisis. In addition the story highlighted the links between'blood ivory'as a source of funds for terrorist organizations and rebel groups in Africa.
WCS is leading global efforts to save Africa's elephants and end the current poaching and ivory trafficking crisis by working in 11 African nations
In September WCS launched its 96 Elephants campaign to amplify and support the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) commitment to save Africa's elephants by stopping the killing stopping the trafficking
and stopping the demand. The WCS campaign focuses on: securing effective U s. moratorium laws; bolstering elephant protection with additional funding;
and educating the public about the link between ivory consumption and the elephant poaching crisis. In Africa WCS is stopping the killing on the ground in 13 of Central
and Eastern Africa's most important parks--those harboring 26000 elephants and facing the greatest threat--from Nouabalã-Ndoki in Congo to Ruaha in Tanzania and Niassa in Mozambique.
WCS recruits equips trains and deploys park guards providing aerial and intelligence support and tracking where guards go
and stop trafficking using sniffer dogs apps for customs officials and training for enforcement staff.
and sales of ivory and in Asia WCS assists concerned citizens who wish to educate their countrymen and women through social media about the lethal cost of ivory to Africa's elephants.
Studies in lab mice showed that the resulting vaccine was able to stimulate an immune response against the CD133 proteins without causing side effects such as an autoimmune reaction against normal cells or organs.
Each juice contained local Malaysian fruit such as Chiku Kedondong Pulasan Dragon fruit and Star fruit. After creating 30 different recipes seven smoothies were chosen for the study each containing up to 50 per cent underutilised fruit. 80 volunteers were recruited by Phd student Tan Kok Wei who is running the study
A team of researchers led by Benjamin Marsland from Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) has shown in experiments with mice that the lack of fermentable fibers in people's diet paves the way for allergic inflammatory reactions in the lungs.
either put mice on a standard diet with four percent fermentable fibers or gave them low-fiber food with merely 0. 3 percent fermentable fibers.
When the researchers exposed the mice to an extract of house dust mites the mice with the low-fiber food developed a stronger allergic reaction with much more mucus in the lungs than the mice with the standard diet.
Conversely a comparison between mice on a standard diet and mice who received food enriched with fermentable fibers likewise showed that these dietary fibers have a protective influence.
Attracted by the extract of house dust mites these immune cells wander into the lungs where they eventually trigger a weaker allergic response.
because the share of plant fibers in Western diets is comparable to the low-fiber food of the mice
but also because the examined aspects of the immune system are virtually indistinguishable in mice and humans.
#New study may aid rearing of stink bugs for biological controlmany people think of stink bugs as pests especially as the brown marmorated stink bugs spreads throughout the U s
. However certain stink bugs are beneficial such as Podisus nigrispinus (Dallas) a predatory stink bug that is considered an important biological control agent for various insect pests of cotton soybean tomato
Now a new study appearing in Annals of the Entomological Society of America called Effect of Egg Rearing Temperature and Storage Time on the Biological Characteristics of the Predatory Stink Bug Podisus
nigrispinus (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) may aid companies that rear these beneficial insects and the growers who use them in the field.
This is the first study to examine the storage technique for the predator P. nigrispinus to improve its mass rearing in laboratory conditions without compromising the quality of insects produced.
Our goal was to evaluate the effect of low temperatures on the biological characteristics of P. nigrispinus with the aim of optimizing mass-rearing programs for this potential biological control agent the authors wrote.
The successful storage of eggs at a low temperature is important for the use of natural enemies in pest control programs as it allows greater flexibility in the mass-rearing process.
It also increases the availability of insects for release in the field at the earliest opportunity.
This would allow P. nigrispinus to be used in augmentative releases that could be coordinated with pest outbreaks in the field.
and insects preserved for all time in amber. The flowing tree sap covered the specimens
The pollen of these flowers appeared to be said sticky Poinar suggesting it was carried by a pollinating insect
During the Cretaceous new lineages of mammals and birds were beginning to appear along with the flowering plants.
New associations between these small flowering plants and various types of insects and other animal life resulted in the successful distribution
lower class in Pompeiiuniversity of Cincinnati archaeologists are turning up discoveries in the famed Roman city of Pompeii that are wiping out the historic perceptions of how the Romans dined with the rich enjoying delicacies such as flamingos
A drain from a central property revealed a richer variety of foods as well as imports from outside Italy such as shellfish sea urchin
and even delicacies including the butchered leg joint of a giraffe. That the bone represents the height of exotic food is underscored by the fact that this is thought to be the only giraffe bone ever recorded from an archaeological excavation in Roman Italy says Ellis. How part of the animal butchered came to be a kitchen scrap in a seemingly standard Pompeian restaurant not only speaks to long-distance trade in exotic
and wild animals but also something of the richness variety and range of a non-elite diet.
Deposits also included exotic and imported spices some from as far away as Indonesia. Ellis adds that one of the deposits dates as far back as the 4th century
as a result of the discoveries The traditional vision of some mass of hapless lemmings--scrounging for whatever they can pinch from the side of a street
resources necessary for the production of the birds will also be wasted, including  105 billion gallons of water (that's enough to supply New york city...
Start a worm bin. I've kept one for many years. They're easy to maintain,
Of course, raising animals for meat is another matter, and if you're going to go there,
So I steer away from those subjects (except where a very rational and unemotional exchange of ideas is possible and fruitful) and just discuss tomatoes and worms with them.
A stylish new possibility for urban beekeepersin recent years, honeybee populations have been on the decline.
In fact, last march, the United nations Environmental Program issued a report dubbing honeybee disappearance a global phenomenon.
habitat degradation due to development, insecticides, parasites such as the Varroa mite and air pollution, that interferes with a bees'ability to find scents.
Philips, the Dutch home-electronics company, wants to join in the trend unveiled The Urban Beehive at this year's Dutch Design Week as part of their Microbial Home project
At airports such as Atlanta â¢s Hartsfield-Jackson International, officials have added the animals to their grounds crew as a low-cost way to cut down on weeds
the animals had eaten through nearly half of the high-flying weeds in the area. Since the airport has about 3
the sheep could prove extremely useful in making sure vegetation doesn â¢t grow into habitats for birds
and other animals that might endanger airport activities, WXIA of Atlanta notes. Hartsfield-Jackson isn â¢t the only airport catching on to the idea of animals as lawnmowers.
Seattle and San francisco have tried similar methods in the past and officials at Chicago O â¢Hare are currently contemplating the use of goats to cut down on weeds.
he would chase after the shadowy insects swarming around the glowing street lamps. The child of a middle-class family--his father was an engineer,
And the bugs are no longer there, those beautiful things have gone, he said. The canal's water where he fished
Today, the boy who once chased bugs under Beijing â¢s streetlamps is innovating Chinese environmentalism by giving people and businesses
Frog Design's Adam Richardson reminds us over at the company's Design Mind blog of the huge debt owed by Jobs,
Cyber-rain, Rain Bird & Hydropoint all offer smart sprinkler systems, which take into account plant type and use weather data
Smithsonian tracks bird strikes for military, airline industrydr. Carla Dove using a comparison microscope to study feather structure in the Birds Division at the Museum of Natural history.
Photo: Chip Clark When I visited the Feather Identification Lab at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural history,
Dr. Carla Dove pulled out a stack of manila folders thicker than a phone book, filled with reports of bird strikes from around the world.
Each included a form and a Ziploc bag. Some bags contained whole feathers, others contained specimens that looked liked specks of dirt,
but were in fact bird remains. These are all from last week, Dove said. The lab--the world only full-time department that studies bird strikes--was created in the 1960s, by Dove predecessor
Roxie Laybourne. Working for Laybourne, Dove was so enthusiastic about the field that she went to graduate school and studied environmental science and public policy,
with a focus on the microstructure of feathers. It didn t take her long to realize that the work performed in this little lab is a big help to the military, the aviation industry and of course, the birds.
They started to realize if we know the birds on the airfield, Dove said, they can change the habitat.
Not only can bird strikes threaten the safety of a flight, but they can cause millions of dollars in damage to the aircraft.
So the Federal Aviation Administration and the military fund the Smithsonian lab in order to learn more about the strikes
and how to prevent them. The two groups have separate databases where Dove team logs each incident.
Commercial airlines report strikes on a voluntary basis; for the military, it mandatory. What we do know about strikes is that most happen at takeoff and landing, typically at the engine,
but sometimes at the windshield or even the plane wheel well. The culprit is usually a bird,
but Dove reports have included also bats, deer and â on overseas U s. military bases â animals including goats and pigs.
Strikes also happen at all altitudes; the record for the highest strike goes to a Griffon vulture flying over Africa.
But there a lot that we don t know when a strike occurs: the species, whether it was more than one species,
and whether it was a resident or visitor bird. In fact pilots don t necessarily know that a strike even happens;
it often those cleaning the jet engines who find the debris, called snarge. And that what is placed in a Ziploc
and mailed to Dove and her three colleagues. If we have a feather, we can take it out to the collection the 150-year-old Smithsonian bird collection,
identify it and then email the field person with the ID, Dove says. If it just blood or tissue, we send it to the DNA lab
and can usually get the DNA sequence within a week. If we can t do that â sometimes it in really bad shape after being in the engine â we ll look at the microscopic characters in the fluffy down.
Even if it just a piece of down we can tell, for example, whether it a duck or a bird.
Carla Dove, Nancy Rotzel and Marcy Heacker use the museum bird collection to identify birds that are involved in bird strikes.
Photo: James Diloreto Once the bird is identified, the information is entered into a database and sent to the airfield where the strike occurred.
This information helps biologists build airfield habitats that are unfriendly to the types of birds causing problems.
If you let the grass grow, that will deter some birds, Dove said. But that may not work at another airfield.
You might have long grasses that attract mice and a bird that eats mice. You have to know how to manage it.
Dove and her team worked on the remains of the geese from the 2009 US AIRWAYS landing in the Hudson river.
In fact they re still working on it, trying to determine from DNA samples exactly how many geese hit the plane.
The remains of the geese were hand-delivered to the Smithsonian within two days of the accident,
and the team was able to sex the samples and determine there were at least one or two birds, eight pounds each, from a migratory population.
But there also could have been as many as three or four. We re working with the National Transportation Safety Board to refine it,
Dove said. It like a detective story. With this incident the public became more aware of the danger that birds can pose to aviation safety.
But when wildlife biologists and the U s. Department of agriculture killed nearly 400 geese this summer because they lived in Brooklyn Prospect Park â too close to New york La Guardia
and Kennedy airports â some residents were appalled. I asked Dove, who goes birding in her spare time,
what she thought about the Prospect Park geese. I love birds, but when it comes to the airports,
they have got to control these geese, she said. They re doing the right thing. Airplane engines â which go through bird tests â are designed to handle strikes with certain weights of birds
typically four pounds, according to Dove. The 777 is certified for eight pounds, but only one bird, she said, not four.
How much would it cost to design an engine for eight-pound birds? How heavy would it be?
There are all questions that are being asked. In the meantime, the number of eight-pound geese have grown. Strike reports have increased dramatically,
but Dove isn't sure if that largely because more airfields are reporting, or because there are more strikes.
She arrived at the lab in 1989, and there were 300 cases a year. Today there are more than 5, 000.
Out of 10,000 species of birds, only about 350 to 400 are involved in strikes, but it can still be tricky to identify them.
I looked at one Ziploc, for example that held a tissue with a brown, coffee-like stain.
Turns out it was remained all that from a Brazilian freetail bat from a Southwest Airlines flight from Sacramento, a Boeing 737 that departed at dusk.
In her office, Dove has a comparison microscope, where she can put a known sample next to an unknown sample,
we know it a waterfowl, she tells me, as I peer into the scope. It took
So what does Dove do when she boards a commercial jet? Naturally: We re always looking out the window for birds,
she said. But we feel safe because of the people on the field who are working to make it safer
along with conservation of habitat for plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act. Here's what Weikko Jaross
Solar-powered bug killerwhat do you get when you combine two light bulbs, a bucket of water, and a solar panel?
According to Agrisolar, a lot of dead bugs. The company is capturing the sun's energy to kill nocturnal insects that feast on crops.
By day, a solar panel charges a battery. By night, the battery (set on a timer) powers a pair of patented light bulbs that lure insects in with one attractive wavelength
and disorient them with another. Within a foot of the bulb, the dizzy bugs drop, falling to their watery deaths inside a bucket.
No zapping or chemicals required. Research suggests solar panels themselves can beckon bugs to their doom,
but Agrisolar relies on wavelengths between 361 and 368 nanometers. The company which is headquartered in Colorado
but conducts most of its testing in China, says some farmers have reported insect reductions of up to 90 percent.
An organic blueberry farmer in New jersey says it even works on caterpillars. I wouldn't expect caterpillars to crawl into the bucket,
but perhaps as moths they would fly toward the light. Agrisolar has installed 100,000 systems already (mostly in China),
testing its efficacy on farms and orchards that grow rice, peaches, corn, strawberries, tomatoes, oranges, coffee and other produce.
In response to the European union's regulations to boost more sustainable methods of pest control, the company is starting a big westward push of their product.
Our state-of-the-art insect control systems have seen great success in the Chinese agricultural market, which has allowed us to grow our revenues very quickly.
Other chemical-free pest control methods include row covers, welcoming natural pest predators, hedgerows, and crop rotations to disrupt the pest's life cycle.
Related on Smartplanet: Death by solar panel: a bug's life Farmigo: a social network for fresh, cheap food Weed killer causes new cancer fears;
under EPA review Images: USDA, Agrisolar, Flickr danmachold
Southwest Airlines unveils first'green plane';'saves 9, 500 gallons of fuel per yearsouthwest Airlines has announced the world's first green plane, a Boeing 737-700 that's 472 lbs. lighter than a conventional model and saves
polar bear-killing emissions released into our carbon-choked friendly skies. That article cites Southwest as the leading U s. airline for carbon footprint awareness,
The public green space will include a playfield, off-leash dog park, two-way cycle track on 7th avenue and a weather-protected walkway between the buildings.
include mandates such as working with the seasons, no artificial ingredients, no antibiotics for animals, cage free birds and no GMO ingredients or hormones.
Rob Spiro, the former product lead for Google+and cofounder of social search engine Aardvark (Google acquired it) founded the company.
such as oak, zebra wood, walnut, maple, mahogany and rosewood. The Portland-based company now sells all over the world, from Thailand to Turkey, to Egypt to Estonia.
this time using much stronger kangaroo leather on one and some synthetic leather on the other.
Super bug bacteria in meat and poultry, study saysif you grab chicken or some other meat from the grocery store,
you have a one in four chance of grabbing one that is tainted with a super bug.
The researchers suggested that the super bug likely made its way into the food chain because farmers cram animals into a packed farm
and give them unnecessary antibiotics to promote their growth. This form of antibiotic abuse has gotten so widespread that healthy farm animals now receive around 70 percent of all antibiotics administered to farm animals.
and likely came from the food animals themselves, is troubling, and demands attention to how antibiotics are used in food-animal production today,
And last year though, the Food and Drug Administration recommended that farmers only administer antibiotics to sick animals to minimize the use of the drugs, reports CBS. One country at least,
and have quit giving their animals low-dose antibiotics. Scientists hope they won't be the only one. via TGEN News Photo:
Light technology can combat superbugs A universal vaccine for superbugs is possible Researchers discover anti-pathogenic drugs to treat superbugs War against superbugs:
A coating that can kill MRSA upon contact The fight for life against superbugs Scientists can shut down a superbug's CPU
Some of the things that indoor growing environments don't have are pests, molds and infections.
The old way of doing it was getting pot from your dealer down the street who maybe got it from a source that grew it in a relatively unsavory environment like a garage where you're dealing with chemicals, molds, mice.
Weland said Poste only serves sustainable seafood, according to the guidelines from the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch List.
like the reasons to stay away from blue fin tuna, which we all know now. But there so many others â skate, cod, scallops.
The rest (coffee grounds, vegetable scraps from the kitchen, oyster shells) is saved for the garden. We re composting on two levels,
Humanely-raised animals; using nose-to-tail: Weland works with Bev Eggleston, who sources his meats from small family farms In virginia Shenandoah valley.
He extra committed to raising animals humanely, Weland said. It makes a difference in the end product.
If you have a good animal and feed it well, it translated to a good dish.
Weland said using the whole animal is ecological because it means no waste. We split a carcass with Proof.
Within the park, you'll find a zoo, lakes, botanic gardens, ice-skating rinks, concert venues--and priceless views of the surrounding skyscrapers.
which has two museums, a zoo, and summer music festivals. The smaller but decorative Parc Laberint (Labyrinth Park) is an 18th-century maze of hedges, pavilions, ornamental railings,
stop for tea on the plaza near the Chinese pagoda, feed the ducks on the lake,
but deer still roam there. Best Time to Visit: Parks are open throughout the year
Lincoln Park is another Chicago institution, with a lakefront theatre, a zoo, a bird sanctuary, and a lagoon with paddleboats.
Spy black swans, and breathe in the scent of eucalyptus trees. Best Time to Visit: Spring for the sight of dozens of brides in long flowing white dresses;
it was the Venus'Flower Basket sea sponge, a glowing creature that thrives in the inky depths of the sea.
The animal is distinctive because it creates a shiny silicon-based material that bonds together,
Unlocking these biological secrets--how an animal cools itself, such as using its body to absorb water in a hot,
LEARN FROM THE TERMITES The Eastgate Centre is a massive retail and office building that takes up half a city block in the sweltering confines of Harare,
Architect Mick Pearce looked at the way termites built their tower-like earthen mounds, which rise like crooked fingers from the country savannah,
The termites would otherwise die in the stifling desert heat. The construction of their mounds employs an architectural system that captures desert breezes from above ground
The design helps the termites regulate the temperature in a region with wild weather fluctuations.
The practice of modeling structures after those of nearby animals is a time-honored tradition with ancient roots,
the Inuit in far northern North america looked to polar bears to see how thick the walls of their igloos should be.
The bears had configured the snowpack to stay warm. In the deserts of the American Southwest, native people studied how thick the mud walls of prairie dog chambers were to determine the best way to stay cool in that environment.
REFORESTING CITIES Biomimetic principles are already transforming public spaces in the most densely populated areas of the U s.
and it's a wholesome meal full of nutrition for vegetarians and carnivores alike. Now there's yet another reason to order the extra large:
Anthocyanin has been shown to help fight cancer in animals. The BBC quoted John Innes'Prof Cathie Martin:
Penguin and Macmillan, maintain that they did not collude on e-book pricing. This essentially means that Hachette,
The two that are fighting it, Mcmillan and Penguin, their executives have made very clear statements,
So Random House and the two publishers that haven t settled, Penguin and Mcmillan, are at least for the moment,
if someone were trying to sell your kids banana-flavored heroin in a vial they could suck (instead of having to chase the dragon),
The study also tracked milk production because of concerns the LED lights could harm the animals by interfering, for example, with their feeding schedule.
and chickens believe the energy efficient lighting has calmed the birds and helped them gain more weight.
transportation and logistics Transportation and loading can be as much as 40 percent of the total delivered pellet cost, according to Brent Mahana of Cooper/Consolidated,
The world's largest animal welfare group, PETA, gave scientists a challenge five years ago.
Could fireflies replace LED lighting? Dressed to kill, one atom at a time Nanotubes development could double battery life Nano-advances behind new architectural products Scientists create functioning transistor from a single atom
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