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Though conflicts over sparse water supplies have created rifts between Turkey and its neighbors, the sandstorms they exacerbate have brought countries in the region together, signing an agreement this week to tackle soil erosion, air pollution, and desertification within the next five years.
According to Agence France-Presse, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Qatar, and Turkey have signed an agreement at an environmental conference in Tehran to "establish a network of meteorological stations, regenerate vegetation to stabilize soil, and exchange expertise in these areas."
War-ravaged Iraq has been among the hardest-hit by sandstorms, which are worsened by the conflict-related loss of trees that stabilize the soil. Last summer, one particularly bad week-long sandstorm sent hundreds to the hospital with breathing difficulties, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty wrote at the time:
Iraq has long suffered blinding sandstorms, but several years of drought have aggravated the situation this year. The inadequate flow of water down its once-mighty rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, which are choked by dams in upstream countries like Turkey, has made things worse. Water shortages make the land dry out and become more dusty.
Disputes over water from the Tigris and Euphrates have long been a point of contention, but with the sandstorms spreading to Iran and Syria, traveling as far as 1,000 kilometers, Iraq's neighbors have apparently come to realize the fight is not one country's alone.
Wildlife Extra News has a bit of a dilemma. They have the above photo of this magnificent grasshopper - the trouble is that no one can identify it. A new species? Maybe.
This grasshopper was photographed from a unspoiled hill forest (semi-evergreen) in Bangladesh in August 2010. The majestic insect was spotted by the crew of a TV series about the biodiversity of Bangladesh, "Prokriti O Jibon", "Life and the Living".
If anyone knows this species, please let Wildlife Extra know by email (editor@wildlifeextra.com). If anyone out there knows what it is, how about leaving a comment for me, too. Thanks in advance.
In political science, the acronym NIMBY stands for Not In My Back Yard. It's the sentiment expressed by a local community when a dangerous or undesirable facility – say, a nuclear power plant – is being planned nearby. In a curious turn of events, Santa and his reindeer friends will soon have reason to take up this mantra.
Last year, Russia began constructing a floating nuclear power plant. It is scheduled for deployment in the Arctic in 2012 and eleven additional units are currently planned. (Hat tip to Richard Galpin at BBC News.)
I know what you’re thinking: Might there be some remote risks associated with floating nukes in the Arctic? Well, relax, because there actually aren’t any risks whatsoever. Not one. At least not according to a Russian spokesman for the project: “We can absolutely guarantee the safety of our units one hundred percent, all risks are absolutely ruled out.”
Great news, folks, the Russians have unlocked the secret of zero-risk nuclear technology: remove solid land from the equation. Voila! Energy crisis solved.
Other than the obvious safety benefits of the Arctic Ocean (nothing ever sinks there…), you might be wondering why anyone wants a floating power plant. Well, for one, it does address NIMBY concerns. And on the technical side, there would be an ample supply of water to cool the plant (a recent report found that roughly half of the water America draws, more than 200 billion gallons per day, is used to cool power plants).
But there is a bigger draw. You may have heard that the Arctic is melting. Unsurprisingly, reshaping our planet’s poles will have broader geopolitical consequences than drowning polar bears.
America has been slow to act against climate change because our political system is literally indebted to wealthy fossil fuel lobbies. Yet Russia, another powerhouse climate obstructionist, has resisted action in part because a warming world could make them very rich.
The Arctic seafloor is estimated to hold vast supplies of mineral resources and large untapped reservoirs of oil and natural gas. Among the sizable yet unrecognized Russian claim beneath North Pole is a formation that could hold 75 billion barrels of oil.
Floating power plants would facilitate and accelerate efforts to reach these resources, which makes them well worth their $630 million-per-unit price tag. Russia is in a rush because the five Arctic nations (Russia, the U.S., Canada, Denmark, and Norway) have yet to decide what really belongs to whom. Extracting those resources first would anger other countries but make ownership a moot point.
Personally, I find it a little disturbing that a seaworthy Russian reactor costs a tiny fraction of the roughly $10 billion it currently takes to build a U.S. reactor on land.
So let us return to the now apparently obsolete notion that nuclear power is risky. To be fair, nuclear technology has advanced in the last few decades, and we have nuclear reactors at sea right now. Much of the modern U.S. Navy is nuclear-powered, and the Russian Navy is as well.
Yet there have been many accidents. The 2000 sinking of the Kursk was the most recent, but there have been dozens of other maritime nuclear accidents; the hulks of six nuclear-powered submarines (four Russian and two American) are already irradiating the ocean floor.
Without additional explanation, Russia has made the impossible claim that it has not only minimized the risks, but done away with them completely.
You can tell Rosatom, Russia's State Atomic Energy Agency, to slow or halt this project by signing this petition: Not in Santa's Backyard. And, an interesting follow up: Check out this 1976 AP article in the Palm Beach Post exploring the possibility of floating nukes in the U.S.
The world's largest tiger reserve was recently put into place in the Kachin state in Burma, news which conservationists and champions of the fast-declining species cheered. But it looks like the cheering came too soon -- reports have surfaced that a Burmese real estate corporation is continuing to clear-cut the forests throughout the reserve anyway. It plans on using the land for harvesting crops in a gigantic 200,000 acre monoculture operation, regardless of the declaration by the government that the land was to be used as a reserve.
Such declarations from the 'government' of Burma -- truly a brutal ruling military junta -- are clearly not to be trusted. The real estate firm reportedly has close ties to the junta, and it seems doubtful that it will step in to halt the clear-cutting. Yale 360 has more:
A coalition of organizations promoting sustainable development, the Kachin Development Networking Group, says in its report that Yuzana Company is still bulldozing trees to establish sugar and tapioca plantations and plant jatropha to be used as biofuel. The chairman of Yuzana is U Htay Myint, a prominent businessman with close ties to the government of Burma, also known as Myanmar. "Today, a 200,000-acre mono-crop plantation project is making a mockery of the reserve's protected status," the report says. According to the report, local farmers are being forcibly removed from their land to make room for the plantations.
Clearly, this is far from a healthy habitat for any tiger.
The military junta is renowned for ruling with an iron hand, driving its citizens into forced labor, and not allowing free press or assembly. That it would put the profits of a major corporation it has ties to before an endangered species or the local populace is par for the course.
Hopefully, further international attention to the issues -- both conservation-related and humanitarian -- will help to discourage this kind of behavior. It must be said, however, that so far it has not.
In 1985, the Indian white-backed vulture was described as one of "the most abundant large bird of prey in the world." Since then, things have changed dramatically.
Since the 1990s, the population has dropped by more than 97% and conservationists believe that the species is reaching the point of unavoidable extinction. The culprit: Diclofenac, a bovine painkiller that poisons the birds. Diclofenac is also to help manage severe pain in humans from such maladies as arthritis. In spite of bans, bovine use of the drug is still common in South Asia — a practice that has been perpetuated by its effectiveness.
The painkiller — which is safe for use in humans; but, has been banned for veterinary use in North America, Europe, and parts of South Asia — produces astonishing results in cattle. Often, cows crippled with pain are able to stand and walk minutes after a single injection. This, of course, makes the veterinarian look good and makes it a popular panacea.
While Diclofenac may make the cow feel better, it is lethal to the vultures who digest it when scavenging the meat of dead cattle that have received the drug.
Within days of eating Diclofenac-laced flesh, a vulture's organs are coated in a thick, white paste, eventually causing organ failure.
Fifteen vultures rest in tree in Serengeti Park. Photo courtesy: Wikipedia
The test being proposed to identify diclofenac-tainted meat, which is simple enough for non-experts to administer, could quickly identify tainted carrion, helping conservationists select food for breeding centers and wildlife officials track veterinarians practicing in opposition to the ban.
Though trials have been promising, researchers were quick to add that more work had to be done to ensure the test was completely effective. "We can't afford," said Chris Bowden, the Vulture Program Manager at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, "to get it wrong even once."
Falling vegetable yields could have a detrimental impact on people's diets, Indian researchers warn. Photo courtesy: bbcnews
A decline in pollinating insects in India is resulting in reduced vegetable yields and could limit people's access to a nutritional diet, a study warns.
Indian researchers said there was a "clear indication" that pollinator abundance was linked to productivity.
They added that the loss of the natural service could have a long-term impact on the farming sector, which accounts for almost a fifth of the nation's GDP.
Globally, pollination is estimated to be worth £141bn ($224bn) each year.
The findings were presented at a recent British Ecological Society meeting, held at the University of Leeds.
Each year, India produces about 7.5 million tonnes of vegetables. This accounts for about 14% of the global total, making the nation second only to China in the world's vegetable production league table.
Despite the concern, no study had been done to assess directly the scale of the decline in natural pollinators, explained Parthiba Basu, from the University of Calcutta's Ecology Research Unit.
"The ideal situation would have been if we were able to compare the overall pollinator abundance over the years, but that kind of data was just not available," he told BBC News.
Instead, his team compared the yields of pollinator-dependent crops with pollinator-independent crops.
"Data shows that the yields of pollinator-independent crops have continued to increase," Dr Basu said. "On the other hand, pollinator-dependent crops have levelled off."
He explained that certain crops did not depend on insects for pollination, including cereals. Instead, the plants used other mechanism - such as relying on the wind to carry the pollen.
However, many vegetables - such as pumpkin, squash, cucumber and gherkin - were reliant on insects, such as bees.
He added that the fall in yield per hectare was against the backdrop of a greater area being turned over to crop production each year.
The exact cause for the decline of pollinators, especially bees, still remains a mystery. Photo courtesy: bbcnews
In an attempt to identify an underlying cause for the pollinator decline, the team is carrying out a series of field experiments, comparing conventional agriculture with "ecological farming".
Defined as "a farming system that aims to develop an integrated, humane, environmentally and economically sustainable agricultural production system", ecological farming is almost a hybrid of conventional and organic farming, looking to capitalise on returns from modern farming methods as well as drawing on natural ecological services, such as pollination.
Dr Basu said: "There is an obvious indication that within the ecological farming setting, there is pollinator abundance. This method typically provides the habitats for natural pollinators - this is the way forward."
He added that if the team's findings were extrapolated, this would offer a "clear indication" that India was facing a decline in natural pollinators, as ecological farming was only practiced on about 10-20% of the country's arable land.
Figures show that agriculture accounts for almost one-fifth of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP), compared with the global average of just 6%. The sector also provides livelihoods for more than half of India's 1.2 billion population.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that of the slightly more than 100 crop species that provide 90% of food supplies for 146 countries, 71 are bee-pollinated, primarily by wild bees, and a number of others are pollinated by other insects.
In order to gain a clear insight into the scale of the global problem, the FAO has established the International Pollinators Initiative, which includes a project involving seven nations (India is among them) with the aim of identifying practices and building capacity in the management of pollination services.
In a 2007 assessment of the scientific data on the issue, the UN Environment Programme observed: "Any loss in biodiversity is a matter of public concern, but losses of pollinating insects may be particularly troublesome because of the potential effects on plant reproduction and hence on food supply security."
Dr Basu said food security was unlikely to be the main consequence facing India.
"There has been a debate within India about this, but most of the cereal crops are not pollinator dependent, so if there is a pollination crisis it is not going to affect food security as such.
"What is going to be affected is nutritional security."
The concept of food security was first established by a FAO committee in 1983. Nutritional security was soon added as a key pillar to ensure "access by all people at all times to enough food for an active and healthy life".
Dr Basu said that vegetables such as pumpkins, squash, cucumber, and gherkins were "quite substantial" in terms of delivering necessary nutrients to the population.
"But there are many other vegetable crops that are eaten by people who are around the poverty level, so-called minor vegetable crops like eggplant, for which is there is no or very little data," he explained.
About a quarter of India's population is believed to live below the poverty level, which - under the UN's Millennium Development Goals - refers to people who live on less than US$1 a day.
In industrialised nations, such as the US and in Europe, many farms employ the services of commercial hives to pollinate fruit trees and food crops, and ensure they harvest adequate yields.
But Dr Basu said the use of domesticated bees in this context was not widespread in South Asia.
"There are honey farmers, but using hives in the field to pollinate crops is not at all common in India," he said.
"That is why a lot of the political noise about a global pollination crisis came from the US and Europe, because their managed/domesticated bee population was declining."
In 2007, about one third of the US domesticated bee population was wiped out as a result of a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), with some commercial hive owners losing up to 90% of their bees.
The exact cause remains a mystery, and last year a number of UK agencies - including the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) - began a £10m project to help identify the main threat to bees and other insect pollinators.
A number of possible causes have been suggested, including the misuse of pesticides, habitat loss and fragmentation, and the spread of parasites and diseases.
Dr Basu said that as a result of his team's field experiments, it was clear that India too was experiencing a decline.
However, he cautioned: "There are many kinds of natural pollinators. As a result, we - not only in India, but in other parts of the world - do not really know what is happening to natural pollinator populations."
Everyone remembers the Flintmobile. The stone-age vehicle driven entirely by the foot power of Fred Flintstone. The HumanCar is a step above this...in a very good way. The small electric engine is powered by the driver or passengers in the vehicle. The action needed to power the car is demonstrated in the video.
The plus sides to this car are many.
1. It doesn't pollute. The small electric engine is powered by muscle power. No emissions. No pollution. 2. Relaxing. If you are motoring on safe roads, it is a slower-paced ride that allows you to take in the sights. 3. When it needs "refueling", the driver (or passenger) can refuel as the car is moving or it can be pulled over to the side of the road for a quick recharge/refuel. 4. Safer. There would be far less accidents if everyone were in these vehicles. 5. Lowers dependence on oil products. 'Nuff said.
Builders working on a tiny Saxon church have unearthed Britain's oldest working window, dating back to pre-1066.
The wooden-framed window was built 1,000 years ago but lay buried in the wall of St Andrew's Church for about 150 years after it was covered up by Victorian renovations. It has now been revealed after shocked workmen spotted the distinctive frame while renovating the Saxon building, in the village of Boxford, near Newbury, Berkshire.
Archaeologists and historians have studied the workmanship of the window and have found that it dates back to before the Norman Conquest.
The tiny wooden frame measures 2ft tall by 1ft wide and had been buried in the church's wall. Photo courtesy: mailonline
It is one of just a handful of windows in the country that pre-dates 1066 but is the only one that opens.
The opening was first uncovered in July this year as the small church underwent restoration.
Workmen carefully removed a concrete render, which had been placed on the outside of the north wall of the church in the Victorian era.
They unpeeled the concrete to reveal a rough-hewn oak frame of the 2ft by 1ft window, containing a wooden panel of the same material which would have been tied using hemp as a hinge.
Stunned church staff called in archaeologists and medieval specialists, who determined the method of building the window dated back to well before 1066.
Experts from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings have confirmed the findings and said the window is 'remarkable in its completeness.'
The window is now fully displayed at the church - one of just five specimens dating back to before the Norman Conquest, and believed to be the only one with a working shutter.
The small wooden frame on the side of the church is thought to have been used to allow a draft of fresh air through the building. Photo courtesy: mailonline
Andrew Plumridge, conservationist and church architect at St Andrew's, said: 'It's really very exciting - it is one of just three windows in the whole of Britain which pre-dates the Norman Conquest.
'It was discovered during a general restoration programme for the church.
'A concrete render had been placed outside over the window by the Victorians and was beginning to crack and let in water behind it.
'Part of the renovation was to take off the render, but when they took it away they noticed a small window filled with loose flint.
'We took the flint out to see what was underneath but we were not prepared for what we would find.
'It is a wooden frame made from oak, with an oak shutter on a string side hinge which probably would have been made from hemp. It has been described rather inelegantly as an ancient cat flap. Although it holds a working shutter, the window cannot open fully nowadays due to an enormous monument on the inside of the building.
Mr Plumridge said: 'We have decided not to reveal the inside of the window, because there is a huge monument in the way which is too important for us to move.
'We will leave this for future generations to discover and enjoy.' Julian Munby, archaeological advisor for the Oxford diocese, said: 'It's an interesting find and very exciting indeed.
'It is believed to be a Saxon window, dating back to pre-1066, and is therefore one of the oldest in Britain.
'The window is cut from a single timber and has a shutter, making it the oldest working window we are aware of.
'The Romans would have built some windows using glass, but none of these exist in Britain any more.
'It has been covered up for very many years and was only discovered during building work - it is a very important find.'
Matthew Slocombe, from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, said: 'We were hugely excited when Andrew told us of his discovery.
'This is such a rare and unusual find.
'It is a great privilege to be able to see the work of a Saxon craftsman who lived more than 1,000 years ago.
'It's a delight to see that a traditional, wooden, hand-crafted window can stand the test of time more than a millennia after its construction.'
A genetically modified salmon, rear, and a non-genetically modified salmon, foreground. Photograph: AP. Photo courtesy: guardian
Buried in a prospectus inviting investors to buy shares in a fledgling biotech company is an arresting claim attributed to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation.
"Commercial aquaculture is the most rapidly growing segment of the agricultural industry, accounting for more than $60bn sales in 2003. While land-based agriculture is increasing between 2% to 3% per year, aquaculture has been growing at an average rate of approximately 9% per year since 1970."
And then the prospectus for the US company AquaBounty offers this observation to tantalise prospective investors: "The traditional fishery harvest from the ocean has stagnated since 1990."
So what is to be done to satisfy the world's seemingly insatiable appetite for fish? An appetite that will see the consumption of farmed fish outpace global beef consumption by nearly 10% within five years, according to the UN?
AquaBounty, whose shares are sold on London's Alternative Investment Market, thinks it has the answer. And if, as looks increasingly likely, the US government agrees, the implications for global food production will be enormous. Welcome to the new world heralded by the "GM salmon".
The company's dream of selling genetically modified salmon eggs that allow the fish to grow to maturity in half the normal time received a giant fillip last week when it announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was close to granting approval.
A positive FDA response would see salmon become the first GM-engineered animal marketed for human consumption. Dramatically speeding up the time it takes to harvest a mature salmon could stimulate a huge rise in production, making salmon plentiful and cheaper, GM enthusiasts say.
AquaBounty expects to receive the nod by the end of this year, meaning GM salmon could be on supermarket shelves within three years. The company's share price doubled on the strength of the announcement.
But the euphoria the company and its investors experienced following last week's announcement quickly evaporated amid a furious backlash from consumer groups.
"The furore over this fish puts paid once and for all to the myth that US consumers are content eating GM food," said Eve Mitchell, European food policy adviser at Food and Water Watch Europe, which opposes GM food. "Consumers are not, and in fact jammed up the White House telephone lines last week protesting any approval. Quite understandably the salmon industry is not happy either, as people will simply avoid all salmon rather than risk getting this stuff. Only those who stand to gain financially think this is a good idea."
Predictably, vested fishing interests have waded into the row. Local radio stations from Ireland to Canada carried interviews with angry fishermen who fear that initial reluctance to consume GM salmon will be overcome by simple economics. "Genetically modified food is just a bad deal," a commercial fisherman in Charleston, South Carolina, told his local station. "This will attack our marketplace. It'll come on the market so cheap that people will buy it, because we're all on a budget."
Ronald Stotish, AquaBounty's chief executive officer, is keen to play down these particular fears. His company is more interested in selling its technology to the burgeoning markets of Chile, China and Asia rather than competing with Atlantic fishermen. "The global salmon market is very, very large and the opportunity is in areas that cannot raise salmon," Stotish told the Observer. "We don't believe it need threaten any national markets, particularly for the high-value premium markets. We are hopeful that people don't regard us as an economic threat, but simply look to us as a technology that maybe can become part of the future."
If Stotish, a biochemist by training and an urbane advocate for his cause, succeeds, other companies are waiting in the wings to exploit similar GM technologies. AquaBounty itself is looking at GM trout, according to its prospectus, and has conducted trials on catfish. Up to six other species of fish – including tilapia and cod – are viewed by biotech companies as ripe for genetic modification, according to experts.
Not that Stotish enjoys being the vanguard of a GM food revolution. "It would be far easier to be the third or fourth or fifth [company to bring a GM animal to market]. If you are the first, you attract all of the attention and the burden of attention falls to you. It's a difficult position for a small firm like us."
AquaBounty is also battling dire warnings that its chief product threatens the natural food chain. The company's genetic technology ensures that more than 98% of its salmon cannot reproduce, Stotish says. In addition, the eggs it produces (which are all female thus ensuring the GM fish cannot reproduce among themselves) will be sold only to strictly monitored growers operating fish farms under licence from the FDA.
"This biological and physical containment almost certainly guarantees no interaction with wild salmon," Stotish pledged, pointing out that about 95% of the world's salmon is already produced in farms.
But Helen Wallace, of the anti-GM group GeneWatch, said she had serious concerns. "AquaBounty admit that they expect more than 1% of their fish to be able to reproduce," Wallace said. "If, as they intend, they end up producing large numbers of eggs, that's a large risk." Escaped GM salmon could "outcompete" its wild counterpart by reproducing earlier and threatening its food supply. Some researchers have suggested that even a small number of escaped GM salmon could cause extinction of wild populations in as little as 40 generations.
With potentially weak constitutions, the new salmon might then struggle to adapt to life outside captivity. Food and Water Watch goes as far as to suggest the GM salmon "may only last long enough in the wild to prevent natural populations from reproducing, leading to a total extinction of salmon in open waters".
Escapes are not uncommon. In March, nearly 100,000 farmed Atlantic salmon escaped into the wild from just one hole in a net at a UK fish farm.
Such concerns take place against the backdrop of a much wider battle between pro-GM groups and an increasingly vocal organic movement. GM crop production is promoted aggressively on the grounds that it can help eliminate global hunger and bring down food prices. Opponents claim the promised GM revolution that saw crops made resistant to potent herbicides – something that could dramatically reduce farmers' spraying time – has resulted in the rise of superweeds across vast tracts of US farmland.
Experts said they had been expecting the battle over GM food to move to fish for some time because they are easier to modify. Stotish said his company was focused purely on aquaculture. But GM pork already looks a real possibility. The Enviropig, a trademarked pig that has been genetically modified to excrete less polluting phosphorous in its faeces, has been developed by researchers in Canada. Genetically modified chickens capable of laying eggs containing proteins needed to make cancer-fighting drugs have been created by Scottish scientists.
A goat that produces a spider's web protein – paving the way for silk to be farmed – is under development. GM goats have also been raised to produce human breast milk and to deliver a special protein for people whose blood cannot flow smoothly. And then there is the GloFish, a genetically modified fluorescent zebrafish that, according to its sales blurb, would grace any aquarium and comes in three "striking colours" – starfire red, electric green and sunburst orange.
But amid the rush to spread GM's reach and scope, at least one government has recently had second thoughts. Muhyiddin Yassin, Malaysia's deputy prime minister, last week announced his government would not be releasing genetically modified male Aedes mosquitoes capable of sterilising female mosquitoes. "We must consider several aspects of the proposed release, including its impact on the environment," Yassin said. "In addition, the release of the mosquitoes must be endorsed by several international organisations."
For GM opponents, the U-turn was a cause for celebration, a sign that politicians still accept that the technology carries massive risks. But the ultimate victory in the argument about genetically modified food comes down to the invisible hand of the market. Both sides agree it is significant that none of the big GM technology companies such as Monsanto is attempting to create GM meat or fish, preferring to focus on more lucrative GM crop production.
"The process of genetically modifying animals has been a commercial failure," Wallace said. "Too many scientists and small biotech companies have engineered animals just because they can, without thinking through the technical, economic, marketing, animal welfare, environmental or social issues."
Yet Stotish senses opportunity for his fledgling industry. "Once the [GM] technology was adapted for plant systems, the size of that opportunity dwarfed the efforts on the animal side. We've lagged behind." If the FDA gives the green light to GM salmon, expect a frantic game of catch-up.
THE RISE OF GM
1980: First biotechnology patent granted: US researchers awarded a patent that allows them to make human insulin from genetically modified bacteria.
1982: US government approves tests to evaluate how genetically engineered bacteria can control frost damage in potatoes and strawberries.
1986: The US Environment Protection Authority approves the first GM crop - a virus-resistant tobacco plant.
1990: The first successful field trial of GM herbicide-tolerant cotton is conducted in the USA. In the same year the first GM dairy cow is created.
1994: The first genetically engineered food product, the Flavr Savr tomato, receives US Food and Drug Administration approval.
2002: Researchers sequence the DNA of rice, the first crop plant to have its genome decoded.
2003: UK approves a GM herbicide-resistant corn used for cattle feed.
2005: Cow genome sequence published.
2006: GM rice approved for human consumption in the US.
2007: Scottish researchers genetically modify chickens to lay eggs capable of producing drugs that fight cancer.
I'm fortunate to have several passions in my life. I am absolutely an eco-nut. I am always trying to find new ways to reduce, reuse, recycle. We, as a species, have done more harm to this planet in the short time we have been here, than any other catastrophe or happening ever has. It's up to us to fix it.
I care about the environment whether it is as small as a single cell or as large as the universe.
I adore creativity and think we can all do more with much less. This earth has enough resources for us all to live comfortably if we all learn to share. Wasn't that a lesson we were supposed to learn in kindergarten?
I also love the bizarre, unusual, the weird and the strange. Be prepared for the odd "different" blog.
A sandstorm at the Haditha Dam in Iraq. Photo: James McCauley / Creative Commons. Photo courtesy: TreeHugger
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