Best Environmental Photos of 2010 Named
“Thousands of Munk’s devil rays crowd the Sea of Cortez off Mexico’s Baja California Sur state (map) in 2009. The aerial image won top honors and the “Underwater World” category in the 2010 Environmental Photographer of the Year awards.
German photographer Florian Schulz said the scope of the ray congregations was unknown until he and a pilot happened upon the gathering while searching for migrating whales.
Perhaps just as rare is the composition Schulz captured. “I was able to show how these rays are jumping out of the water,” he said, “and at the same time I’m able to show—almost like an underwater photograph—how there’re layers and layers and layers of rays.”
The International Union for Conservation Union lists Munk’s devil rays as near threatened, due in part to their vulnerability to gill nets—hard-to-see “curtains” of netting.
Given ray gatherings like the one pictured, Schulz said, “you could imagine a single net could take thousands and thousands.”
This helps explain why, upon seeing the winning photo, marine ecologist Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara emailed Schulz to express his delight at seeing so many Munk’s devil rays thriving in a single frame. Di Sciara helped identify the species in 1987.
Organized by the London-based Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, the Environmental Photographer of the Year contest honors amateur and professional photographers who “raise awareness of environmental and social issues.” This year’s edition drew more than 4,500 entries from photographers in 97 countries.”
Read more at National Geographic (Thanks @XxLadyClaireXx)
‘Space hotel’ plan unveiled in Russia
“A Russian company has unveiled an ambitious plan to launch a “cosmic hotel” for wealthy space tourists. Orbital Technologies says its “comfortable” four-room guest house could be in orbit by 2016, Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reports. Guests would be ferried to the hotel on a Soyuz shuttle of the type used to transport cosmonauts to the International Space Station (ISS). The Moscow-based firm did not reveal how the hotel would be built or funded.
Up until now space tourists, such as American businessman Dennis Tito, have squeezed into the cramped ISS, alongside astronauts and their experiments. The new hotel would offer greater comforts, according to Sergei Kostenko, chief executive of Orbital Technologies. “Our planned module inside will not remind you of the ISS. A hotel should be comfortable inside, and it will be possible to look at the Earth through large portholes,” he told RIA Novosti.
The hotel would be aimed at wealthy individuals and people working for private companies who want to do research in space, Mr Kostenko said. It would follow the same orbit as the International Space Station. The first module would have four cabins, designed for up to seven passengers, who would be packed into a space of 20 cubic metres (706 cubic feet). Mr Kostenko did not reveal the price of staying in the hotel. However he did say that food would be suited to individual preferences, and that organisers were thinking of employing celebrity chefs to cook the meals before they were sent into space.”
Read more at BBC News (Thanks Tracey)
Life of a Navy surgeon: Rum, worms and tobacco cures
“Blood letting, tobacco smoke blown into the lungs, rum rubs and even the sight of Australia were some of the treatments used – with varying degrees of success – by surgeons of Britain’s Royal Navy to treat patients from the late 1700s to the late 1800s, government records released Friday show.
Britain’s National Archives has cataloged and made available to the public journals and diaries from surgeons who served on ships and in shore installations from 1793 to 1880. The archive represents “probably the most significant collection of records for the study of health and medicine at sea for the 19th century,” said Bruno Pappalardo, naval records specialist at the National Archives.
Rum was the treatment of choice aboard HMS Arab during a voyage to the West Indies in 1799 and 1800. A surgeon writes that “application of rum” to the area of a scorpion or centipede bite helps prevent paralysis. The same surgeon mixed rum with oil to treat a tarantula bite.
Aboard HMS Princess Royal in 1801, tobacco was thought to have curative properties. A man who had fallen overboard and was submerged for 12 minutes was brought back aboard the Princess Royal with the appearance of a corpse, surgeon Ben Lara wrote. The victim was dried and warmed by hot water bottles and then tobacco smoke was pumped into his lungs through a tube. After almost an hour of treatment, a pulse was detected and the man lived, according to the journal.
Aboard the convict ship Albion in 1828, surgeon Thomas Logan wrote that the spirits of the convicts when they catch first sight of their destination in New South Wales, Australia, is lifted so much that “the horde of trifling cases which were used daily to assail us has disappeared. They seem to have left off getting sick, or are become indifferent about being cured!””
Read more at CNN (Thanks @XxLadyClaireXx)
The Bronnikov Method
As looked into during Derren Brown Investigates – The Man With The X-Ray Eyes, The Bronnikov method has also been investigated by EsoTV.
(Thanks Alexander)
Long-lost footage of Apollo 11 moon landing to be screened
“The video runs for a few minutes and is considered to be some of the best footage of the historic 1969 moonwalk, but the film was lost in archives for many years and was badly damaged when found, said John Sarkissian. It depicts the first few minutes of Armstrong’s descent which was recorded in Australia as Nasa was still scrambling for a signal, showing a far clearer image than was initially screened worldwide.
Telescopes in remote Australia played a key role in the Apollo 11 mission, including provision of the television signal, after Armstrong decided to attempt the moonwalk early, putting the United States just beyond the horizon. A fictional account of Australia’s role in the moon landing was the subject of a film in 2000 called The Dish, starring Sam Neill. Mr Sarkissian, an historian and astronomer in charge of the Australian side of the recordings restoration project, said the unseen minutes were the “best quality of Armstrong descending the ladder.” “NASA were using the Goldstone (California) station signal, which had its settings wrong, but in the signals being received by the Australian stations you can actually see Armstrong.” “In what people have seen before you can barely see Armstrong at all, you can see something black – that was his leg.”
The segment which runs for “just a few minutes” will be screened at the awards night of Australian Geographic magazine next Wednesday, at which Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin will be the chief guest. “When we heard Buzz was going to be the guest of honour we thought ‘what a great opportunity’,” Mr Sarkissian said.”
Read more at The Telegraph (Thanks Tracey)
Survey: Americans don’t know much about religion?
“A new survey of Americans’ knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths. Forty-five percent of Roman Catholics who participated in the study didn’t know that, according to church teaching, the bread and wine used in Holy Communion is not just a symbol, but becomes the body and blood of Christ. More than half of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the person who inspired the Protestant Reformation. And about four in 10 Jews did not know that Maimonides, one of the greatest rabbis and intellectuals in history, was Jewish.
The survey released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life aimed to test a broad range of religious knowledge, including understanding of the Bible, core teachings of different faiths and major figures in religious history. The U.S. is one of the most religious countries in the developed world, especially compared to largely secular Western Europe, but faith leaders and educators have long lamented that Americans still know relatively little about religion.
Respondents to the survey were asked 32 questions with a range of difficulty, including whether they could name the Islamic holy book and the first book of the Bible, or say what century the Mormon religion was founded. On average, participants in the survey answered correctly overall for half of the survey questions.
Atheists and agnostics scored highest, with an average of 21 correct answers, while Jews and Mormons followed with about 20 accurate responses. Protestants overall averaged 16 correct answers, while Catholics followed with a score of about 15.”
Read more at Yahoo News (Thanks Christopher C)
Bang Goes The Theory – Richard Dawkins on Eye Evolution
For those of you who may have been living in a cave and don’t know Bang Goes The Theory – it’s a rather nifty science magazine series. Presented by Dallas Campbell, Liz Bonnin, a biochemist with a Masters in wild animal conservation; Jem Stansfield, an aeronautical engineer, inventor and designer of museum exhibits, and Dr. Yan Wong, (co-author of Richard Dawkins The Ancestor’s Tale) an Oxford-educated evolutionary biologist.
It’s really easy going so it’s ideal for younger viewers and those who didn’t listen very ofter at school 
Via Atheist Media
Wang’s two legged pig becomes local celebrity
The 10-month-old porker is known by villagers as “Zhu Jianqiang” (Strong-willed Pig) after it was born with only two front legs and learned to balance on them well enough to walk.
He said: “My wife asked me to dump it but I refused as it’s a life. I thought I should give it a chance to survive and unexpectedly it survived healthy.” Several days after its birth Wang decided to train the two-legged piglet to walk by lifting it up by its tail.
This is England 86 now on 4oD
There’s no reason for this snippet to be on this site other than perhaps the best PA in the world, Coops and his very average PA, Phillis (the author of this post) are both from the staging ground of this truly fantastic four part series. It’s Nottingham – a great town we all love (and it was on Ch4 too so we have to say they’re great).
So we’re representin’.
Writer and Director Shane Meadows has always represented the area he grew up by staging nearly all his work exclusively there. TIE ’86 is one of the most moving, funny and yet disturbing looks at how we all lived here in Blighty during the mid 80′s.
If you’re new to the series check out the incredible film This is England first. If you’ve not seen the series yet then head to 4oD now, if you have then check out his equally fantastic Small Time – available 18th October on DVD.
One day I’d like to meet Shane and shake his hand.
This is England 86 - Now available on 4oD
160 Escaped Cobras Incite Terror in China
160 cobras have escaped from an illegal breeding factory in Shijiao Township in the municipality of Chongqing in southwest China, terrorizing residents who have spotted them in outdoor toilets on the streets and in kitchens. Another villager, Cai Yong, admitted to the illegal breeding of some 1,900 cobras in an abandoned schoolhouse, but no charges were filed against him.
While the rising demand for cobra meat and traditional medicines made from the venom has decimated the snake population, in China illegal breeding of these deadly serpents is a lucrative source of income, tempting many to carry on illicit operations. Large does of anti-venom have been sent to the township, but that does little to allay the fear of the villagers, which is not likely to abate until the very last cobra is either captured or killed.
