and water as well as from the weathering effects of salt and frost. However lead author of the new study Jiå#Ã Bruthans a geologist at Charles University in Prague
It is like each sandstone rock is inhabited by a spirit which by magic controls the erosion to carve the ugly rock into right great shape.
#New Tech Sheds Light on the Future of Food#This article was published originally at The Conversation.
The challenges of growing enough food to feed the world have grown more severe in the 21st century.
We need to feed more people with limited agricultural land and resources. We need to make better use of land light and logistics for an increasingly urban population.
And we need to incorporate zero-waste and low-energy technologies into the task of food production.
What can achieve the intensification of food supply we require but in a way that is also sustainable and less harmful to the environment?
There is an urgent need to develop new methods for sustainable food production. This includes a greater emphasis on urban agriculture such as vertical farming
and planned could provide the sustainable means to improve food supply we need. Ideally urban agriculture fits neatly alongside
There is potential for these multifunctional techno-greenhouses built around LED grow lights to increase the quality of the food we eat
but the benefits of a richer diet appear to be worth the perils. Important interspecific interactions between sloths their moths and algae-#seem to be reinforcing
because plant matter contains few digestible nutrients. Sloths known in Spanish as los perezosos (the lazies) have evolved adaptations to the constraints of life in the trees.
and consume a varied diet of animal matter fruit and leaves. By contrast three-toed sloths have limited much more ranges
The team also collected digested material from the sloths'forestomachs where food collects right after it's swallowed to see
When the sloths relieve themselves their insect tenants lay eggs in the dung which later hatch
Or the moths may be directly transferring nutrients from the sloth dung to their fur where algae can grow.
Alcohol: Which Is Really Worse for Your Health? The question of whether alcohol or marijuana is worse for health is being debated once again this time sparked by comments that President Barack Obama made in a recent interview with The New yorker magazine.
As has been documented well I smoked pot as a kid and I view it as a bad habit
I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol. But how apt is the comparison between these substances?
Both alcohol consumption and pot smoking can take a toll on the body showing both short
-and long-term health effects though alcohol has been linked to some 88000 deaths per year according to the CDC
And research into marijuana's health effects is still in its infancy compared with the rigorous studies looking at alcohol and human health.
Short-term health consequences Drinking too much alcohol can quickly kill a person. The inability to metabolize alcohol as quickly as it is consumed can lead to a buildup of alcohol in the brain that shuts down areas necessary for survival such as those involved with heartbeat
and respiration. 7 Ways Alcohol Affects Your Health You can die binge-drinking five minutes after you've been exposed to alcohol.
That isn't going to happen with marijuana said Ruben Baler a health scientist at the National Institute on Drug abuse.
and blood pressure but a person can't fatally overdose on pot like they can with alcohol Baler said.
Alcohol is more likely than marijuana to interact with other drugs. The way that alcohol is metabolized
or broken down in the body is common to many drugs that are taken for a variety of conditions said Gary Murray acting director of the Division of Metabolism and Health Effects at the National Institute on Alcohol abuse and Alcoholism.
This means that for people taking drugs or medications while drinking the alcohol can increase
Long-term health consequences The long-term effects of drinking heavily are well known. Excess alcohol is going to lead to very severe consequences
and chronic excess alcohol is the most likely to lead to a lot of threatening issues Murray said.
Drinking can lead to alcoholic liver disease which can progress to fibrosis of the liver which in turn can potentially lead to liver cancer Murray said.
what are the triggers that allow that progression to happen he said noting that why some people have a higher risk than others of developing liver disease from drinking is understood not medically or biochemically.
Unlike alcohol Baler said the effects of chronic marijuana use are established not as well. Animal studies have indicated some possible impact on reproduction.
Benefits There is no known medical use for consumed alcohol but there are health benefits observed in moderate drinkers including lower rates of cardiovascular disease
and possibly fewer colds Murray said. We always counsel people to avoid drinking to excess
but moderate drinking is not something that's very dangerous he said. As for marijuana whose legalization for medical uses has been a matter of strong public policy debate for years there is ample evidence that beneficial compounds can be found in the plant.
Researchers are working around the clock to try to identify the ingredients in marijuana that have potential to benefit human health Baler said.
Eat Less Beef (Op-Ed) Elliott Negin is the director of news and commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS.
Eat less beef. That's right. If we all ate less beef we would not only lose weight save money
and improve our health we also would significantly cut the pollution that causes global warming.
What may come as a surprise though is that red meat beef pork and lamb may be a key culprit making us fat.
A June 2005 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition for example followed some 55000 healthy middle-aged Swedish women.
The researchers found that vegans vegetarians who ate dairy products and study participants who ate poultry
but avoided red meat had a lower risk of being overweight or obese than their more carnivorous counterparts.
The take-home message lead study author P. K. Newby a scientist at Tufts University told the Washington post is that individuals who have the lowest risk of being overweight
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published an even bigger study in June 2010 involving roughly 100000 men and 270000 women between the ages of 25 and 70 in 10 European countries.
and total meat red meat poultry and processed meat consumption found that a subject increasing his
or her meat intake by 9 ounces a day the equivalent of one steak at 450 calories would lead to a weight gain of nearly 4 and a half pounds over a five-year period.
So if you want to shed some pounds you should cut back on beef as well as pork and lamb.
Spend Less Save More Eating less meat especially the more expensive grades of beef will fatten your wallet.
The most recent available government data peg the average cost of a pound of ground beef at $3. 88 roast beef at $4. 88 and steak at $6. 33.
If you want to splurge the top of the line sirloin USDA Choice boneless will set you back $6. 80 a pound.
Meanwhile ham excluding canned and luncheon slices costs only $2. 80 a pound and a whole chicken $1. 52 a pound.
Even boneless chicken breasts are only $3. 45 a pound still less than ground beef. Eating pasta or beans at least once a week instead of meat would stretch your dollars further.
For example if a family of four substituted a meatless spaghetti dinner ($1. 29 a pound) for roast beef ($7. 32 for one
and a half pounds) they would save around $6. That's an annual savings of $312.
Resolution: Stay Fit and Healthy If you want to stay fit exercise regularly. If you want to stay healthy and live longer eat less red meat
which has been linked to cancers cardiovascular disease and diabetes. In March 2009 a 10-year National Cancer Institute review of studies that followed half a million Americans found that those who ate 4 ounces of red meat
or more daily increased their overall risk of premature death 30 percent compared with those who consumed less.
Sausage luncheon meats and other processed meats also increased the risk. Those who ate mostly poultry or fish had a lower risk of premature death.
It found that people who ate a serving of beef pork or lamb every day had a 13 percent increased risk of premature death compared with those who ate little or no red meat.
Daily helpings of processed meat such as two slices of bacon or one hot dog increased the risk of premature death 20 percent.
The Harvard review also found that replacing one serving of red meat with fish poultry nuts legumes low-fat diary
or grains was associated with a 7 percent to 19 percent lower mortality risk. The researchers estimated that 9. 3 percent of male deaths
if study participants had consumed less than half a serving of red meat per day. This study provides clear evidence that regular consumption of red meat especially processed meat contributes substantially to premature death said review co-author Dr. Frank Hu in a press release issued by the Harvard School of Public health.
On the other hand choosing more healthful sources of protein in place of red meat can confer significant health benefits by reducing chronic disease morbidity and mortality.
Resolution: Shrink Your Carbon Footprint When it comes to global warming not all meat is created equal.
The ruminants Americans eat mainly cows pose the biggest threat to the climate according to an article in this month's edition of the journal Nature Climate Change.
They swallow their food regurgitate it as cud chew it again and then swallow it again.
which are associated mostly with beef production could make a big contribution to preventing the worst impacts of global warming said Doug Boucher director of climate research
If you want to reduce the emissions associated with the food you eat the most important step is to reduce your consumption of beef Boucher wrote in a recent blog.
The question of what you replace it with pork poultry or plants only is much less important.
If you don't have the stomach to cut out meat entirely switching to poultry or pork would still go a long way to shrink your carbon footprint.
Boucher a biologist pointed out that although the biggest emissions reduction would obviously come from becoming a vegan replacing beef with poultry would get you more than 90 percent of the way there
while switching to pork would achieve at least 80 percent of the methane abatement you would get from only eating plants.
The good news is Americans have been eating less meat including beef over the last decade.
Annual U s. beef consumption dropped from its high point of 97 pounds per person in 2002 to 81 pounds in 2011 according to U s. Department of agriculture data.
But that is still more than consumers in every other country besides Argentina Brazil and Uruguay translating into 1850 to 2600 pounds of annual carbon emissions per person.
The fact that Americans are now eating more chicken than beef for the first time in 100 years demonstrates that change is said possible Boucher.
The new fuel would put agricultural waste to work instead of diverting food crops to make biofuels.
But critics have said biofuel production causes food shortages by replacing edible crops with plants intended for use in fuels.
Meanwhile spikes in food prices over the past few years have tampered government enthusiasm for biofuels that divert food crops even as the European union intends to reach an annual output of 2 million tons of aviation biofuels by 2020.
In order to make agricultural waste into a suitable fuel for jet engines manufacturers would first need to break it down into sugars mixed with yeast
See Photos of the Discoveries at Giza Pyramids The other thing that is just amazing is almost all the cattle are under 10 months of age#they are eating veal said Richard Redding the chief research officer of Ancient Egypt Research
Located near a basin that may be part of a larger harbor this building complex is flanked by long bakeries
It probably administered provisions and produced bread and other offerings. The complex dates to a bit after the Giza Pyramids were built
Between 1927 and 1931 Ness and his team of Untouchables tried to bring down Chicago gangster Al capone by seizing illegal breweries
#The Amount of Hidden Sugar in Your Diet Might Shock You (Op-Ed) This article was published originally at The Conversation.
Added sugar in our diet is a very recent phenomenon and only occurred when sugar obtained from sugar cane beet
The food industry is adding more and more sugar to food which consumers are largely unaware of as it is mostly hidden.
While it may not be surprising that a can of Coca cola has a staggering nine teaspoons of sugar (35g) similar amounts can be found in the most unlikely of foods including flavoured water (Volvic Touch of Fruit Lemon/Lime 27
. 5g per 500ml) yogurts (Yeo Valley Family Farm 0%Fat Vanilla Yogurt 20. 9g per 150g pot) canned soup (Heinz Classic Tomato
Soup 14. 9g per 300g portion) ready meals (Pot Noodle Curry King Pot 7. 6g per portion) and even bread (Hovis Soft White bread
but what if it also comes with five teaspoons of sugar? Or how about these:
It s clear this sugar plays a part in soaring levels of obesity and diabetes.
and to unmask hidden sugar so consumers can make informed decisions about what they eat and drink.
It follows a similar model to salt reduction pioneered by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH)
which has been successful in compelling companies and manufacturers to add less salt to products over a period of time by setting targets for the food industry and mobilising public information.
Salt content in food products in the supermarkets have now been reduced by 20-40 %and as a result salt intake has fallen in the UK by 15%(between 2001-2011 the lowest known figure of any developed country.
According to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) this will have reduced stroke and heart attack deaths by a minimum of 9000 per year with a saving in health care costs of at least £1. 5bn a year.
A similar programme of gradually reducing the amount of added sugar in food and drink products with no substitution in food could prove to be an equally effective and practical way of reducing added sugar in the UK diet.
As with salt a 20-30%reduction in sugar added to food and soft drinks could be achieved over the course of five years
and result in a reduced calorie intake of approximately 100kcal a day going some way to help reverse obesity rates.
There are several parallels between salt and sugar. Like salt most of the sugar we consume is hidden in processed food and soft drinks.
There are also specific taste receptors for sugar which if sugar intake is reduced gradually become more sensitive.
So over time we don t notice that sugar levels have gone down. If we can persuade the Department of health that this programme is very likely to help considerably with the obesity epidemic
and in particular to reduce childhood obesity while also reducing the incidence of dental disease and (very likely) the number of people developing Type 2 diabetes it should have a good chance of success. Graham Macgregor set up
and is Chairman of both Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) and World Action on Salt and Health (WASH).
He is also chairs the Blood pressure Association sits on the board for the World Hypertension League
and recently served as President of The british Hypertension Society Sonia Pombo is a member of Consensus Action on Salt & Health (CASH).
Increased banditry illegal logging in national parks and nature reserves and a sharp increase in the hunting of lemurs as bush meat#has left them facing extinction.
For example new software and apps will allow users to look at the name of a restaurant or bar and instantly view reviews.
These activities are designed to appeal to kids ages 4 to 6. Start with a field trip to your local grocery store.
reassure timid youngsters that eating the seeds is perfectly okay. Create a collection of seeds from different types of fruits and vegetable.
Black mambas devour their food whole. They have flexible jaws that they can dislocate in order to fit food up to four times the size of their head into their mouth.
Black mambas usually mate during the spring or summer. Males fight for the affections of females.
After mating females lay between 6 to 25 eggs in a damp warm burrow. The female then leaves her eggs
and never sees them again. Babies hatch about three months later and are born measuring between 16 and 24 inches.
Meanwhile back in Queensland instead of studying an insect that is vital to our food supply we are faced with one that threatens it.
and colleagues assembled most of the sequence from part of a single pine nut#a haploid part of the seed with just one set of chromosomes to piece together.
The new research showed that the loblolly genome is bloated with repetitive DNA. In fact 82 percent of the genome repeats itself the researchers say.
For their next project the researchers are eyeing the sugar pine a tree with 35 billion base pairs.
#Birthplace of Chili pepper Farming Revealed Chili peppers reign as the world's most widely cultivated spice crop;
But before they conquered cuisines around the globe chili peppers were domesticated in Central and South america. Now scientists say they've found the hotspot where ancient farmers first cultivated Capsicum annuum the most common kind of chili pepper.
But the scientists also looked at archaeological evidence for the peppers and ecological predictions of where the plant might have grown in climates of the past.
She thinks it's possible the peppers could have easily been transported farther south. The thing that's nice about chili peppers is that they can be eaten raw they can be dried they're light they're very transportable Hastorf said.
Habits, Habitat & Diet Sloths are tropical mammals that live in Central and South america. They use their long claws to hang onto branches
The tough leaves in a sloth's diet are difficult to digest. Sloths have a four-part stomach that slowly digests the leaves with bacteria.
It can take up to a month for a sloth to digest one meal. Their leafy diet isn't very nutritious
though so they don't get much energy from it. This may be why sloths are so slow.
If a female gets too cold she is unable to digest food. If her young is still nursing she may starve to death.
While much of the delta is choked with salt-loving tamarisk (an invasive salt cedar) now conservationists hope to see more riparian habitat growing after the pulse flow:
Chinchillas are related to guinea pigs and porcupines. With short forelimbs and long muscular hind legs chinchillas resemble rabbits
but their ears are much shorter and rounder. They have large black eyes and bushy tails.
Chinchillas are omnivores; they eat both plants and meat. Primarily they eat grass and seeds but they also eat insects
and bird eggs when they get the chance. To eat they hold their food in their front paws
and nibble on it. There are two species of chinchillas: the long-tailed chinchilla and the short-tailed chinchilla.
According to the Integrated Taxonomic Information system (ITIS) the taxonomy of chinchillas is: Though chinchilla fur is valued highly for use in clothing
Chinchillas can eat food pellets available from pet stores as well as hay dried fruits and nuts and carrots and green vegetables in moderation or about 10 percent of their daily diet.
A bottle equipped with a sipper tube is the best way to provide water. To stay clean these rodents give themselves dust baths.
Gazelles can be identified by their curved ringed horns tan or reddish-brown coats and white rumps.
and liver according to a study published in the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology. Breathing can cause an animal to lose a lot of water.
A smaller heart and liver need less oxygen so the animal can breathe less and lose less water.
so that the newborn fawns will have plenty to drink. Gazelles carry their young for around six months before giving birth.
when it was hunted for food in 1951 by soldiers according to the IUCN. The name gazelle comes from the Arabic gazal the term for love poems.
#Your Cheeseburger Is Leaving a Giant Environmental Footprint Beef production takes a big toll on the environment according to one of the most comprehensive studies to date on livestock management in the United states. To make one steak 28 times
what's required for other sources of commonly eaten protein like pork and poultry the researchers found.
and a professor of plant sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel told Live Science We found that it is much larger for eating beef. 7 Perfect Survival Foods Milo
and his colleagues collected data on the environmental costs per calorie of dairy poultry pork eggs and beef foods that account for 96 percent of the calories Americans get from animals.
The environmental costs of dairy poultry pork and eggs are fairly similar the researchers found.
In contrast the same number of calories from beef is much more taxing on the environment requiring 160 times more land eight times more irrigation water 11 times more greenhouse-gas emissions and 19 times more fertilizer
and fertilizer needed to grow food for the animals. For instance the researchers based greenhouse-gas emissions on methane associated with the animals'flatulence
Other studies have identified beef as a major drain on environmental resources but this is one of the largest investigations on the environmental costs of livestock in the United states said Nathan Pelletier president of the Global Ecologic Environmental Consulting and Management Services in British columbia Canada.
what to eat for dinner the researchers said. Maybe I like beef very much Milo said.
But from knowing those numbers maybe I could just eat it once a week or once every two weeks.
#Is Climate Change Ruining Wine Corks? Wine lovers might treasure the oaky full-bodied taste of a cabernet sauvignon or the light and fruity aroma of a pinot grigio.
But if the bottle is stopped with a low-quality cork they can kiss that meticulously cultivated flavor goodbye.
when it's time to pop the Champagne but some experts are worried about wine cork quality
which has been mysteriously in decline for almost 20 years. Corks are made from the bark of Quercus suber trees commonly called cork oaks
The oxygen seeping in reacts with the alcohol and makes acetic acid that gives the wine an unpleasant sour and vinegar-like taste.
A batch of bad corks can ruin entire cases of wine Teixeira said. The global cork industry is worth about $2 billion
but metal wine stoppers are cheap alternatives and are growing in popularity. Past research published in Flavour
and Fragrance Journal found that consumers could not tell the difference between wine corked with a natural oak-based cork
and wine that was corked with a metal stopper. However many wine producers still prefer the original oak-based cork
but the choice between a cork and a metal cap is debated hotly among wine enthusiasts.
Teixeira says that after more genetic testing it may be possible to select the best cork oaks for breeding
and increase the quality of the cork used to stop wine bottles. In the future it may even be possible to genetically engineer cork oaks with high-quality bark.
Follow Kelly Dickerson on Twitter. Follow us@livescience Facebook & Google+.+Original article on Live Science i
and salt content down to 6560 feet (2000 meters). These worldwide floats reached their most comprehensive levels beginning about 2005.
#The Surprising Reason Hummingbirds Love Sweets Nectar-slurping hummingbirds clearly have a taste for sweets
and long tongues so in theory they should be immune to the temptations of sugary foods.
However new research reveals why hummingbirds feast freely on nectar: At some point in their evolution the birds transformed a taste receptor that's typically used to detect savory
or umami flavors into one that's used to taste sweets instead. Hummingbirds are constantly wavering between a sugar rush and starvation.
Their metabolisms are hyperactive their hearts can beat 20 times a second and they often need to eat more than their body weight in food each day to stay alive.
Images: Beautiful Hummingbirds of the World The small birds eat the occasional insect but they largely subsist on nectar from flowers
which is not a typical source of food for most other birds. As a result hummingbirds have been able to carve out a distinct environmental niche.
The birds can now be found throughout North and South america in habitats ranging from high-altitude mountains in the Andes to tropical rainforests
Scientists have been puzzled by the fact that hummingbirds maintain such a sugary diet without a sweet-taste receptor.
For most mammals the sweet-taste receptor that responds to sugars in plant-based carbohydrates is made up of two proteins:
The taste receptor that detects savory or umami flavors found in meat and mushrooms is made up of the proteins T1r1 and T1r3.
But after the chicken genome was sequenced in 2004 researchers noticed the birds lacked the gene that encodes T1r2 a crucial component of the sweet-taste receptor.
despite their lack of the sweet-taste receptor Baldwin and colleagues cloned the genes for the T1r1-T1r3 taste receptors from omnivorous chickens insectivorous swifts and nectivorous hummingbirds.
For chickens and swifts the receptor had a strong reaction to the amino acids behind umami flavors.
and colleagues made taste-receptor hybrids using different parts of the chicken and hummingbird receptors.
but perhaps it was due to the loss of sweets in their diet. Birds are the descendants of carnivorous dinosaurs so maybe this gene was lost early on because of the diet of their ancestors Baldwin said.
That would be very cool but we're still not sure. The findings were detailed today (Aug 21) in the journal Science.
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