- Animals

Japan's Radioactive Waters

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:41:16 -0700

Bulletproof Human Skin Made Via Spider Silk Protein

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 20:17:36 -0600

Source:The Daily Mail - August 16, 2011

Researchers genetically engineered goats to produce milk which is packed with the same protein as silk spiders.

Once this is milked out it can be spun out and weaved into a material that is ten times stronger than steel.

The fabric can then be blended with human skin to make what the scientists hope will be tough enough to stop even a bullet.

Dutch researcher Jalila Essaidi said the 'spidersilk' project was called '2.6g 329m/s' after the weight and the velocity of a .22 calibre long rifle bullet.

Working with the Forensic Genomics Consortium in the Netherlands, she said the goal was to replace the keratin in our skin with the spider’s silk.

The first stage involves growing a layer of real skin around a sample of the bulletproof skin, which takes about five weeks.

Essaidi said that the project was making science fiction a reality, even if the tests results were not yet perfect.

She said that silk has a long history of using battle in combat and that Genghis Khan once issued all his horsemen with silk vests as an arrow hitting silk does not break, meaning you can tease it out.

‘Imagine a spidersilk vest, capable of catching bullets, the modern day equivalent of Genghis Khan’s arrows,’ she said.

‘Now, let’s take this one step further, why bother with a vest: imagine replacing keratin, the protein responsible for the toughness of the human skin, with this spidersilk protein.

‘This is possible by adding the silk producing genes of a spider to the gnome of a human: creating a bulletproof human.

‘Science-fiction? Maybe, but we can get a feeling of what this transhumanistic idea would be like by letting a bulletproof matrix of spidersilk merge with an in vitro human skin.’

Bullet proof vests have been around for decades but skin that can stop them has only been the preserve of science fiction.

The most famous example is Superman, or the Man of Steel - bullets simply ricochet off of him.

Farmageddon - Movie Trailer

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 22:59:50 -0600

Farmageddon - Movie Trailer from Kristin Canty on Vimeo.

Famine In The Horn Of Africa

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 11:52:15 -0600

Weather wars comprise a good deal of what today is considered climate change, the technological tug of war battle for moisture is the hidden element that pursuades markets and alters the course of entire societies. Attached at the hip to this growing turmoil is the economic warfare sphere, which profits and exacerbates the growing food dislocations around the world, primarily felt by its intended targets, the 'infrastructural poor', who have no leverage in the system of global trade, and who rely on seasonal climate cycles which no longer apply, discontinued as they increasingly are by means of technological force, ecological ruination and soil degradation.

Source: Global Research - July 8, 2011

The countries comprising the Horn of Africa face the threat of famine, after a series of failed and poor rainy seasons has created the worst drought in 60 years.

The 2010 late rainy season failed completely in many parts of the area and the April-May rains were very low, with northeast Kenya getting only 10 percent of the usual rainfall. The impact is worst in Somalia and Ethiopia, but Kenya, Djibouti and parts of Uganda are also affected.

The current USAID Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) map of the area, indicating levels of food insecurity, shows large parts of Ethiopia and Somalia classed as in emergency and most of the remaining parts of each country classed as in crisis. Large areas of northeastern Kenya are classed as in crisis. In total, around 10 million people are affected.

...

Sarah Robinson from the Irish humanitarian agency on the ground in Somalia explained, “A combination of hunger and despair means that many people simply go to sleep and do not have the energy to wake up. This has the potential to be as bad as anything since 1991.”

A major famine in 1991 killed around a quarter of a million people and left two million displaced.

In Somalia the drought and threatened famine are compounded by the ongoing civil war and social upheaval. Some people leaving the drought ravaged rural areas have trekked to the capital, Mogadishu, but many more have headed for Ethiopia and Kenya.

Hundreds of thousands of people are on the move, some walking for weeks and covering hundreds of miles in search of relief. One woman, Fatuma, speaking to the Save the Children Fund said she had walked for six weeks with her four children, all under 11, from Somalia to a refugee camp in Kenya.

She explained, “The weather was very harsh. It was so hot, and there was very little shelter. I left my husband in Somalia. I do not know if I will see him again. The war in Somalia is very bad for families. The drought is just too much. We cannot cope. We had 15 goats. But they died one by one because of the drought. We had a well in my village, but it dried up. Then the one in the next village dried up.”

One refugee camp at Dadaab, in the northeastern area of Kenya, was built to hold 90,000 people but is now trying to cope with more than four times that number, with thousands squatting on the perimeter hoping to get in. Dadaab has now become the largest refugee camp in the world.

The Horn of Africa area has been accustomed to scarce water supplies at some times of the year, but the pattern of rainfall does seem to be changing. In much of the area of Ethiopia and Somalia the failure of two successive rainy periods is something that would occur every 10 years or so, but now appears to occur every two years. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesman for the area, Michael Klaus, explained, “We realised these recurrent droughts used to happen every 5-10 years but what we see now is it basically every other year… an indication of climate change conditions.”

According to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the rainfall data for 2010-11 for much of Kenya and Ethiopia was the driest or second driest for 60 years. Climate researchers are beginning to attribute extreme weather patterns to climate change. Peter Stott at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Britain recently stated, “We’ve certainly moved beyond the point of saying that we can’t say anything about attributing extreme weather events to climate change.”

Adapting to the harsh conditions of the area, many people live in pastoral communities moving their herds of animals to pasture and water in neighbouring areas to be able to maintain their herds. This way of life had been sustainable and was a big contribution to the GDP of countries in the Horn of Africa. The current drought is killing hundreds of thousands of herd animals, destroying the pastoral people’s livelihoods.

Until recent days there had been little international media coverage of the fast developing potential catastrophe in the Horn of Africa. It has now received some coverage, but there is still a big shortfall in the levels of aid been offered to alleviate the situation.

Aid agencies have appealed for around $530 million in donations for Kenya and the same for Somalia, but so far have received only about half of what is needed. The WFP issued a statement last week saying, “The humanitarian response in Somalia and Ethiopia in particular is hampered by large funding shortfalls. New contributions are urgently needed or suffering will grow.”

The situation is being exacerbated by rising food prices. Kenya is currently experiencing double-digit inflation and, according to a UN IRIN news report, the price of maize, one of the main food staples has risen threefold since January. In Djibouti, wheat flour rose by 17 percent in the course of one month earlier in the year.

A World Development Movement (WDM) report on responses to the recent hike in food prices quoted a Nairobi transport worker saying. “Maybe it’s time we went the way of Egypt.”

A WDM report issued in June warned of a summer of speculation boosting food prices. The report notes, “The price of maize—more of which is grown than any other staple food crop—has increased by 102 percent since April 2010. New research from the World Development Movement reveals that hedge funds, investment banks and others own futures contracts for maize worth $15.7 billion up 127.5 percent from a year ago.”

The People Who Feed Us: Joel Salatin

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 09:29:23 -0600

Images From The Gulf - May 2011

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:13:51 -0600

Source: Aquarius Nation

(Click Image For More)

GM Breast Milk

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 20:56:41 -0600

Collecting Wild Honeybees

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 22:38:28 -0600

Source: Cooking Up A Story

Britain: Food From Cloned Animals Approved For Sale

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 27 May 2011 12:42:44 -0600

Source: The Daily Mail - May 26, 2011

Food from the offspring of cloned animals, including meat and milk, has been approved for sale without labels.

The Food Standards Agency yesterday tore up proposals that would have required it to go through a safety assessment.

It comes despite research showing eight in ten shoppers oppose the cloning of farm livestock.
Shoppers will have no idea if meat has come from cloned animals after the Food Standards Agency approved its sale without labels

Shoppers will have no idea if meat has come from cloned animals after the Food Standards Agency approved its sale without labels

Unlabelled food produced using the offspring of clones, such as dairy products, meat pies and ready meals, can now go on sale without any threat of legal action.

But animal welfare groups say the cloning technique is cruel, with a high number of miscarriages, deformities and gigantism.

And consumer groups say labels are essential to give shoppers choice.

The FSA’s decision is in line with Government policy, which supports clone farming and clone food without labels.

Ministers argue the offspring of clones are the same as animals produced through conventional breeding. They claim existing animal cruelty laws are sufficient to deal with any problems.

Fatal Bat Disease Spreads

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Tue, 24 May 2011 20:09:13 -0600

Source: Planet Ark - May 25, 2011

White nose syndrome, a devastating disease that has killed more than one million bats in the Northeast, has been found in Maine, the last New England state to discover it, wildlife officials said on Tuesday.

Diminishing populations of bats, an important predator of insects, could have harmful consequences for humans, experts say.

Bats at two sites in Maine's Oxford County that displayed signs of a fungal pathogen linked with white nose syndrome tested positive for the disease, said scientists with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Until this year, Maine appeared insulated from white nose, although nearby states and Canada were not.

Since its discovery in an upstate New York cave in 2006, white nose has been confirmed in 17 states and four eastern Canadian provinces, and it appears to be steadily trekking westward.

North America's loss of bats, a key predator of mosquitoes, beetles and pests that can harm plants, could cost agriculture at least $3.7 billion a year, according to a study published in the journal Science in April.

Scientists predict the disease could wipe out some bat species in New England within 15 years.

In Maine, susceptible species are big brown and little brown bats, northern long-eared and tri-colored bats and eastern small-footed bats.

...

About a dozen species out of a total 45 U.S. bat species are affected by white nose, which is nearly half of the 26 bat species that are cave-hibernating bats.

In some Northeast caves, 90 to 100 percent of populations have died. About 1,100 bat species exist worldwide.

Alan Kapuler On The Agriculture Of Killing, and Universal Biology

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Wed, 18 May 2011 07:54:52 -0600

Source: Cooking Up A Story

Meat Glue

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sat, 14 May 2011 22:34:05 -0600

Related Video - Carbon Monoxide Treatment

The Perfect Factory Fish

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Tue, 10 May 2011 21:38:06 -0600

Source: The New York Times - May 2, 2011

A common Bible story says Jesus fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish, which scholars surmise were tilapia.

But at the Aquafinca fish farm here, a modern miracle takes place daily: Tens of thousands of beefy, flapping tilapia are hauled out of teeming cages on Lake Yojoa, converted to fillets in a cold slaughterhouse and rushed onto planes bound for the United States, where some will appear on plates within 12 hours.

Americans ate 475 million pounds of tilapia last year, four times the amount a decade ago, making this once obscure African native the most popular farmed fish in the United States. Although wild fish predominate in most species, a vast majority of the tilapia consumed in the United States is “harvested” from pens or cages in Latin America and Asia.

Known in the food business as “aquatic chicken” because it breeds easily and tastes bland, tilapia is the perfect factory fish; it happily eats pellets made largely of corn and soy and gains weight rapidly, easily converting a diet that resembles cheap chicken feed into low-cost seafood.

“Ten years ago no one had heard of it; now everyone wants it because it doesn’t have a fishy taste, especially hospitals and schools,” said Orlando Delgado, general manager of Aquafinca.

Continue reading "The Perfect Factory Fish"

Dr. Susan Shaw On The Gulf Of Mexico: "We Need To face Reality"

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 06 May 2011 00:09:05 -0600

Dr. Susan Shaw - Marine Environmental Research Institute from Blackbird Media on Vimeo.

‘ENTOMBMENT’ - Sign Of Colony Collapse In Bees

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:59:47 -0600

Source: Spectre Footnotes - April 4, 2011

Honeybees are taking emergency measures to protect their hives from pesticides, in an extraordinary example of the natural world adapting swiftly to our depredations, according to a prominent bee expert. Scientists have found numerous examples of a new phenomenon - bees “entombing” or sealing up hive cells full of pollen to put them out of use, and protect the rest of the hive from their contents. The pollen stored in the sealed-up cells has been found to contain dramatically higher levels of pesticides and other potentially harmful chemicals than the pollen stored in neighbouring cells, which is used to feed growing young bees. “This is a novel finding, and very striking. The implication is that the bees are sensing [pesticides] and actually sealing it off. They are recognising that something is wrong with the pollen and encapsulating it,” said Jeff Pettis, an entomologist with the US Department of Agriculture. “Bees would not normally seal off pollen.”

But the bees’ last-ditch efforts to save themselves appear to be unsuccessful – the entombing behaviour is found in many hives that subsequently die off, according to Pettis. “The presence of entombing is the biggest single predictor of colony loss. It’s a defence mechanism that has failed.” These colonies were likely to already be in trouble, and their death could be attributed to a mix of factors in addition to pesticides, he added.