TOP 100 CAMPING SITES
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| The Lasting Damage of the Tennessee Coal Ash Spill Dear EarthTalk: What were the environmental impacts of the huge coal ash spill in Tennessee this past December? -- Dave S, Lynnfield, MA [More] rss.sciam.com |
Indonesia gets debt relief for preserving Sumatran forests The United States has agreed to cut what Indonesia owes Uncle Sam by nearly $30 million over eight years in exchange for increased protection of Sumatran forests that are home to endangered rhinos, tigers and orangutans. This debt-for-nature deal, orchestrated by Conservation International and the Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation, creates a trust to preserve 18.29 million acres, including Way Kambas National Park. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Night Stalker: White-Nose Fungus in Bats--Why It's Our Problem, Too On a summer evening three years ago my wife and I counted 75 little brown bats scrabbling out from behind four small shutters on our house in upstate New York and setting off for a night of insect foraging. A year later the number had swelled to 150; the moth and mosquito populations were becoming less bothersome than ever before. Then things took an abrupt turn for the worse: last year the numbers plummeted, and on a recent summer evening this year only six bats emerged.The drop would come as no surprise to wildlife biologists in the Northeast. The house is just an hour's drive from ground zero of the worst disease outbreak in bat populations on record. First observed in Howe Caverns near Albany, N.Y., in early 2006, white nose syndrome has spread north to New Hampshire and Vermont and south to Virginia. At least a million bats in six species have already perished, and death rates at infected hibernacula range between 90 and 100 percent. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Lost Garden Cities: Pre-Columbian Life in the Amazon (preview) When Brazil established the Xingu Indigenous Park in 1961, the reserve was far from modern civilization, nestled deep in the southern reaches of the vast Amazon forest. When I first went to live with the Kuikuro, one of the reserve’s principal indigenous groups, in 1992, the park’s boundaries were still largely hidden in thick forest, little more than lines on a map. Today the park is surrounded by a patchwork of farmland, its borders often marked by a wall of trees. For many outsiders, this towering green threshold is a portal, like the massive gates of Jurassic Park, between the present--the dynamic modern world of soy fields, irrigation systems and 18-wheelers--and the past, a timeless world of primordial nature and society.Long before taking center stage in the world’s environmental crisis as the giant green jewel of global ecology, the Amazon held a special place in the Western imagination. Mere mention of its name conjures images of dripping, vegetation-choked jungles; cryptic, colorful and often dangerous wildlife; endlessly convoluted river networks; and Stone Age tribes. To Westerners, Amazonian peoples are quintessential simple societies, small groups that merely make do with what nature provides. They have complex knowledge about the natural world but lack the hallmarks of civilization: centralized government, urban settlements and economic production beyond subsistence. In 1690 John Locke famously proclaimed, “In the beginning all the World was America.” More than three centuries later the Amazon still grips the popular imagination as nature at its purest, home to native peoples who, in the words of Rolling Stone editor Sean Woods in October 2007, preserve “a way of life unchanged since the dawn of time.” [More] rss.sciam.com |
SciAm 's 2009 Gadget Guide: 10 Tech Toys You Deserve after a Tough Year [Slide Show] After a long year of belt tightening perhaps the time has come to reflect on all that you missed out on in 2009 and add some last-minute items to your holiday wish list. Although this year's Scientific American gadget guide features some pricey technology, such as a $1,100 dual-screen notebook computer, it also includes some practical and budget-conscious low-tech solutions that could help you resurrect water-damaged electronics, keep closer tabs on your electricity consumption, and warm your hands after you turn down the thermostat a bit. [More] rss.sciam.com |