Nat Geo: The Water Issue

Great news, folks. National Geographic's single-topic issue about our most essential resource is available for free download through April 2, 2010. Find it here.

The interactive edition is fantastic and offers extra photo galleries, animated maps and time lines - however the print edition, on news stands Tuesday, comes with a poster about virtual water that I encourage everyone to hang up in classrooms, subway stops and shopping centers nationwide. Proportional droplets of water display the number of gallons of water required to produce various products we all comsume. A pound of beef : 1,857 gallons. A glass of milk: 53 gallons. And if you haven't gasped already... A pair of blue jeans: 2,900.

And not surprisingly, I highly recommend Barbara Kingsolver's contribution Water is Life.

Fantastic Article

We here at JustSaying have keep meaning to recommend this superb article from the September 2009 issue of NatGeo, Love and Lies: How do you spread your genes around when you're stuck in one place? By tricking animals, including us, into falling in love so perhaps now that Valentine's Day is just around the corner, it will be some fun seasonal prose for our readers.

(Masdevallia Orchid photo by Christian Ziegler for National Geographic)

Rescue Ink Unleashed

On September 25th, National Geographic will be premiering their latest and possibly greatest reality show following an unlikely group of animal activists: tattooed, motorcycle-riding "tough guys" who call themselves Rescue Ink.

" . . . In a metropolitan area with more than 20 million residents, thousands of animals — dogs, cats, and even chickens and piranhas — are neglected, abused, hoarded or housed illegally. A few years ago, eight tough guys from the mean streets, who frequented hot rod shows and tattoo parlors, discovered their strongest bond was actually a passion for animals — and they formed a rescue organization like no other. Some have violent and turbulent pasts, complete with run-ins with the law, but all are seeking redemption and solace in their mission to save animals from human abuse.

. . .They’re not cops, animal experts or even animal control. They’re just big guys with even bigger hearts and a desire to save animals from deplorable living conditions and abusive or simply misguided owners . . ."

Want to help? Visit the Rescue Ink adoption page or your local shelter and give these animals a chance. Want to contribute but can't adopt a pet today? Read more about the gangs' efforts here, sign up with one or more of the programs they endorse here, or make a donation here.

"double helping of global ramifications"

I highly recommend taking some time to read the special report on the global food crisis, The End of Plenty, written by Joel K Bourne Jr and with photographs by John Stanmeyer, in the June issue of Nat Geo. It offers a great perspective on the past, present and future of grain production, health ramifications of the increasing demand (like those discussed in a previous post about Punjabi farmers), population growth, and the desperate need for another green revolution.

Nature vs Nurture

This past weekend, along with lots of conversations about the environment we live in both socioeconomically and physically, I was fortunate to engage in a great conversation about the role of our environment in cancer cases as well as genetics and wouldn't you know... I serendipitously came across this article in Nat Geo. From the article:

Breathing in polluted air may wreak havoc on our DNA, reprogramming genes in as few as three days and causing increased rates of cancer and other diseases.

So says a new study that tracked DNA damage in 63 steel-foundry workers in Brescia, Italy, who, under their normal factory conditions, were exposed to particulate matter.

The same damage may occur in city dwellers exposed to normal air, the researchers say.

Light pollution

Something tells me I am going to take a lot of heat at the next dinner party for posting about this but I can't help it... I am concerned about light pollution.

This months print edition of Nat Geo discusses how nighttime artificial light distorts biological rhythms, disorienting humans and animals and disrupting natural patterns that have evolved without the hazy glow surrounding cities and the bright outdoor lights in our neighborhoods. Here is an excerpt from one of his posts, Ecological Light Pollution:

Humans have been aggressively lighting up the night for just over a hundred years, and though scientists have spent only a fraction of that time exploring the impact of the unintended peripheral glow on the natural world, observational and experimental data show that it affects how animals move about, communicate, find food, and even select mates. The most famous example is newly hatched sea turtles that become disoriented by the light from brightly illuminated beach communities and have difficulty finding the ocean. But behavioral changes have been documented in a wide range of species, including birds, mammals, insects, reptiles, and amphibians. Not all species respond to light in the same way. Many nocturnally migrating birds are drawn to the source and can wind up circling round and round lighted towers, often colliding with other birds or dropping from exhaustion. Some animals, such as mountain lions, avoid lighted areas at night; other species are able to exploit such areas—foraging longer or targeting prey that congregate near lights, as some bat species do. But the increase in foraging hours can have its downside, putting animals on the prowl at risk for predation. The overall effect on complex ecological relationships is not yet fully understood. There's also evidence that our grand transformation of the night might have serious implications for our own health. The contrast between dark and light allows our bodies to calibrate our circadian rhythms, such as hormone levels and sleep schedules. Disrupting these can have a dramatic impact. Researchers think this phenomenon may help explain higher breast cancer rates in societies with brighter nights. Studies on shift workers exposed to nearly constant light during the night hours reveal a higher risk for the disease, perhaps because of altered levels of melatonin. Other research shows that blind women have a lower occurrence of breast cancer. One study that looked at a general population also found a correlation between neighborhood nighttime light levels and breast cancer incidence.

Since reading Scriber's article, I can't stop hoping to see a truly starry night - but unfortunately live in between the sky glow from Washington DC, Baltimore, and Annapolis. He talks about what we used to (or should) be able to see as far as planets and constellations... it's upsetting. I am even thinking about going to the next (rather unbearable) homeowners association meeting to talk about replacing the enormous glowing street lamps in our 'hood with a model that reduces glare and focuses light downward.

The entire article is currently only available in print and online to subscribers, but I recommend picking it up or at least reading the article abstract and some posts by the author here.

Yay frogs!

With all the rain this weekend, I was surprised to only come across one or two froglets. Too bad I wasn't looking around the rain forest in Honduras because they found a previously presumed-extinct little Miles' Robber frog (crauygastor milesi).

National Geographic reports that "while trekking last year through Cusuco National Park in Honduras, Jonathan Kolby, a senior herpetologist with the conservation group Operation Wallacea, stumbled across the frog."

The assumption was that chytrid fungus wiped out the species but alas, the little Robbers prevail!