Earth System Science: What is it?

Since World War II, the explosion in scientific knowledge naturally led many scientists and educators, to specialize in one discipline or another. Even within a scientific discipline, such as ecology, now called environmental studies, there were many specializations. Some include water ecology, habitat studies, population studies, etc. After a half century, the over-emphasis on specialization became so pronounced, that many believed that integration among various scientific disciplines must be established anew.

This integration is most pronounced in the scientific disciplines representing any part of studies of the Earth, namely Geology, hydrology, meteorology, biology and others. A new integrated Earth Science discipline, referred to as Earth System Science, was created. The push for this integration with Earth Science was promoted most actively by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA).

In most scientific and education quarters, it is now recognized that people can understand how the Earth works and how we interact with the Earth, if we teach the subject in a more project based manner. Earth Science teachers are encouraged to include all the systems of the Earth in their classes. If Earth Science teachers have a greater understanding of the various spheres of the living and nonliving parts of the Earth as a system, they can effectively explain and teach Earth System Science.

To encourage you to have a basic understanding of the Earth System Science as a scientific discipline, I have included an Earth System Science WebSlide.

Diigo a WORDLE!

Interested in learning more or sharing your WORDLES? Now, you can access the Diigo WORDLE Group.

If you haven't yet used Diigo, the social bookmarking site, now would be a great time to join. While you're at it, consider joining the Diigo for Educators site that is protected, so you can use it with your students.

Here is a slide show of many of our group's bookmarks, to date.

Peak Oil: View from Hubbert's Peak

Peak Oil is a common concern and a scientific theory that would be an excellent topic for science teachers from middle school and up to discuss or teach about in the science class. It is especially fitting to use in Earth Science, Environmental Studies, or History of Science areas.


I created a WORDLE from the preface text of Kenneth S. Deffeyes 2005 book, Beyond Oil: A View from Hubbert's Peak.

Science Heroes to End Poverty

Photo by fotodesign-luetke
Attribution License

Robert Rodale, the son of J.I. Rodale, founder of Rodale Institute, looked poverty right in the eye and decided that returning to traditional agricultural practices of the various areas around the world could end poverty and protect people from families.

To learn more about his practical views based on sound science, read Save Three Lives. Rodale lays out the statistics of the costs and range of deaths from famine. He specifically discusses the uselessness of food relief as a solution and proposes traditional farming practices that can stabilize the land and produce farm products meant to be used in a local environment...instead of importing farm crops from the industrialized temperate farming communities.

From Publisher's Weekly review of Robert Rodale's book, Save Three Lives, we learn the practical message of the author after year's of research in more tropical or dry regions of the world.

Prior to his death in 1990, publisher Rodale had worked through the Rodale Institute to improve agriculture in Third World countries, particularly Africa. Temperate-zone farming practices have been disastrous in the tropics, he writes, and famine relief is not the answer; he notes that 90% of all people who die from hunger do so outside of famine areas. Rodale proposes a return to traditional agriculture with special efforts to rebuild the land. He advocates alley cropping, in which food crops are planted between rows of fast-growing leguminous trees. The trees are cut back for firewood, while branches and leaves are used for mulch, fertilizer or livestock feed. Mixed crops, local species and nutritious plants such as amaranth and winged bean offer promising answers to hunger and famine. Rodale discusses water-harvesting, fish farms and salt-water tolerance in plants. Urging the reader to act to support sustainable agriculture and help prevent famine, Rodale offers a workable solution.

From the Library Journal, we can read a bit more of his ideas about returning these third world areas to more sustainable, traditional farming practices:

Rodale advocates an action strategy involving a return to sustainable indigenous farming systems, alley cropping with leguminous trees to save the dwindling wood supply, biological pest control, sensible use of available water, control of populations, and eliminating exploitation of women, who do most of the agricultural work. His clear descriptions of the problem and practical solutions should motivate all readers to action. Highly recommended.-- Irwin Weintraub, Rutgers Univ. Libs., Piscataway, N.J.

Learn more about this American Science Hero and his righteous indignation about why poverty still exists in our modern world and the Rodale Institute that pursues his vision of a world where famine, exploitation and poverty are eliminated.

BEWARE the Tomato

This is the primary source for reporting all the cases of Salmonella saintpaul infections beginning in April of 2008. There are maps, earlier reports and tips for consumers.

clipped from www.cdc.gov Investigation of Outbreak of Infections Caused by Salmonella Saintpaul Click Here for Advice to Consumers CDC is collaborating with public health officials in many states, the Indian Health Service, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate an ongoing multi-state outbreak of human Salmonella serotype Saintpaul infections. An epidemiologic investigation conducted by the New Mexico and Texas Departments of Health and the Indian Health Service using interviews comparing foods eaten by ill and well persons has identified consumption of raw tomatoes as the likely source of the illnesses in those states. The specific type and source of tomatoes is under investigation; however, the data suggest that large tomatoes, including Roma and round red, are the source. Since mid-April, 167 persons infected with Salmonella Saintpaul with the same genetic fingerprint have been identified in 17 states: it is likely many more illnesses have occurred than those reported not on today’s map

CR2.0: Just in Time Science Resources

While reading the new discussion items at Classroom2.0, I came across a request from a student, Mike P, in the Web 2.0 Class. Mike's request was to find

...good sites where [I] can find videos or even a good podcast for cellular biology?

Cellular Biology recommendations were first made by Michelle Eckstein, Shaun Fletcher and Britt Gow. Here is my response to the excellent request:

Good recommendations from all. I have used the Cells Alive website which is excellent, as are the others.

I would like to recommend a science education portal BioInteractive. Their motto is, "Teach Ahead of the Textbook", and BioInteractive is part of a worldwide effort by research scientists to help more people learn about science. Their focus at BioInteractive is providing material and information for science educators and their students.

Research labs and universities provide excellent virtual labs, still images, "Holdiay Lectures" on a science topic, videos, podcasts and so much more. I have used various BioInteractive materials with 6th - 12th grade students. Many of the materials could be used with younger students.

You can sign up for the HHMI Bulletin. The May Issue
would be very helpful to teachers. Also, you can receive their newsletter and get science research and news updates that can be used as current events for science or professional development information.

Powered by Twitter Logo & Chicklet

Powered by Twitter Logo & Chicklet
Originally uploaded by imjustcreative

ImJustCreative.com chicklet creator of this excellent "Powered by Twitter" chicklet has provided us with an excellent resource. Go to his websites and check out his other excellent work. His photography is vivid and interesting.

Drugs: Expired and Leftover - Unintended Consequences

What do we do with our unused or out-of-date, expired medicines? Or, more importantly, what should we do with these drugs?

Recently, one of the cable networks, CNN, aired the Associated Press report that most water supplies are contaminated with leftover prescription drugs, SO I am revisiting my post on the subject that I first wrote on August 16, 2007. This topic came to light, over the past few years, as I tried to find official ways to discard pharmaceuticals, of all sorts. These drugs are biohazards, but it took total water contamination to even bring this problem to light.

How many drugs will we be unintentionally taking, before this problem is resolved? How damaged will our children be, before we act? How many people are dying, of unknown causes, that really are related to unintentional, yet dangerous drug interactions?

So, welcome to my world on surfing the trends of my American Life, circa August 16, 2007.

This has been a concern of mine for several years. In good conscience, a person can't throw leftover or out-of-date medicines in the trash or down the drain.

These medicines should be disposed of in a way that doesn't endanger us further by poisoning or changing our water supply.
I read a concise explanation of a related issue, "Why do medicines expire after a certain period of time?"
For instance, antibiotics in the water system can affect the growth and development of a wide variety of living organisms, from bacteria to humans. Can you imagine what kinds of super bug is developing in antibiotic laced waters? How are hormones from birth control pills, prednisone, and other similar medicines altering the growth, development and reproduction of living organisms, including humans and the animals they depend on for food?


Some might say, "Well, there are probably very few pills actually getting into our waterways and other ecosystems. You are probably exaggerating the extent of the impact of these waste medicines." I don't know, maybe I am not reacting strongly enough to a catastrophe. I can always develop a simple hypothesis, and we can work our way through some mental practices to discover whether there may be legitimate concerns about our ecosystem.

Once discovered, we can proceed with specific research to find a more specific answer to the question, Is our ecosystem contaminated with leftover medicines at a level that may interfere with normal growth and development of living things within the ecosystem?

Let's do a simple little simulation with one type of medicine to find out.


Let's say that each year, a minimal number of people, 1 in every 10, do not take all the antibiotics prescribed to them and do not give them to another person. This small number of people, 10%, dispose of these antibiotics into the water system.

Then, let's say that a minimal number of pills, say 3(three) 500 mg tablets are put into the water system. What would be the scope of the problem in our various river systems?

How many pills would that be? How many milligrams of antibiotic would that be?


Let's say that we are talking about a very small river system, consisting of 20 small to medium sized towns.

Let's say that the small towns average 3,000 people and the medium sized towns average 15,000 people. We can't realistically count the rural folks who use the water systems, so we won't.


Let's say, that in a small river system, 40% of the towns(8) are medium sized and 60% of the towns(12) are small. That would give us a population estimate for the small river system of 156,000 people. If 10% of this population disposed of their antibiotics within the town's sewer systems, that would mean 15,600 people discarding their antibiotics in the sewer.

Using our 10% figure of those who put at least 1500mg(3 times 500mg) of antibiotics in our small river system, we could estimate that (15,600 times 1500) 23,400,000 mg (milligrams) of antibiotics would course through this small river system.

Let's put the milligrams of antibiotic into our American perspective of measurement. Per year, that is 46,800 antibiotic pills, of varying strength, flowing into only ONE small river system.


Amazing isn't it?


If you let these thought experiments progress, we would consider other types of medicines and drugs.
What about hormones?
What about antidepressants or allergy medicines?


Yes, I know that this is a pretty simplistic scenario with no idea about many pertinent variables, like where the antibiotics would enter the water system, how fast the water was moving, and how well antibiotics were filtered from a town's drinking water, BUT I believe that the idea that there are unintended consequences for "throwing away" medicine is evident from these simple extrapolations.
There are solutions, but only communities of like minded people can develop them.


Do we value the lives of our children? Can you answer yes to this important community question? Our children are the ones who will be more affected by the drug contamination in our water than will the adults. Their developing bodies are more reactive to environmental variables.


There are similar ecological disasters that we can look to for a warning. We all know about the direct link between factors like: poor air quality and poor feral animal control with increased rates of asthma.

All these ecological problems are an ongoing concern everywhere, but they are always more greatly magnified in places of greater population density.


There are some safe methods for disposing of medicines. Most of these methods basically involve treating medicine for what it is, a hazardous waste product.



Just some ideas to think about, and a call to action for those who can care about the living.

Tree of Life Redo

This is a summary of a research article from Nature. Science teachers and interested hobbyists will be intrigued to learn how the data base was created and new implications about various changes in animal relationships since it takes new research into account.

clipped from www.livescience.com A list of biologists long enough to choke a horse has completed a new tree of life for animals, resolving the relationships among all the major groups and suggesting some weird things about the origins of animals with well-developed tissues. This was the surprise tissue finding — comb jellyfish (jellies with well-developed tissues) diverged from other animals even before the lowly sponge, which has no tissue to speak of. Either comb jellies evolved their complexity independently from other animals or sponges became greatly simplified through the course of evolution If corroborated, “this would significantly change the way we think about the earliest multicellular animals,” Dunn said. The results are detailed in the March 6 issue of the journal Nature. These gigantic trees of life (this one is said to be the most comprehensive animal tree of life to date) require massive computer power to run algorithms and resolve huge matrices of data more than 120 processors in labs around the globe

Discovering Cool Pics & Podcasts

Sometimes you just want to see what the scientists are seeing. It seems to make their research come alive. People seem to be very curious about new ideas, discoveries and happenings in science.

What are they doing?
What are they seeing?
What are they discovering?
What are they planning in the future?

These questions and more can be answered if you sign up to receive updates from NSF, the National Science Foundation. Parents, teachers, and those who love science will all love this website. There are explanations in simple terms, and there are also the scientific research reports that delve into the science minutia of the research.

This podcast webpage is part of the National Science Foundation website where you can listen to science podcasts. There are also thousands of really fantastic images sent in from researchers all around Earth.

You can also download an rss feed.

clipped from www.nsf.gov "Eye Screen" -- The Discovery Files Play Audio The Discovery Files podcast is available through iTunes or you can add the RSS feed to your podcast receiver. University of Washington engineers have for the first time, combined a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. Credit: NSF/Clear Channel Communications/Karson Productions Audio Transcript: I'm Bob Karson with the Discovery Files -- new advances in science and engineering from the National Science Foundation. If the eyes are windows to the soul, the contact lens may become the TV screen. Using a complex microfabrication technique, University of Washington researchers have come up with a way to imprint tiny circuit boards and LEDs directly on a flexible contact lens. "The Discovery Files" covers projects funded by the government's National Science Foundation. Federally sponsored research -- brought to you, by you! Learn more at nsf.gov or on our podcast.

Interactive Science Experiences: Solar Weather 2008

Now is the time! This is the moment! You the teacher have waited since all these new online applications made email one dimensional, and NOW you can use them easily in a protected environment.

You can learn to use these new tools of technology in your classroom and in your life. I believe that using these Web2.0 tools can improve your productivity, as well as student achievement.

With a bit of effort, you can break into the Web2.0 world, and NASA has the tools to help. There are an enormous number of projects, activities and materials available to teachers, for science, math and technology, yet also for social studies, languages and other areas of education.

All you have to do is find the topic you are studying, and NASA can point you to the websites and online interactive practices to grab and hold students' attention. Then the rest is up to you, do one activity, one project or an array of related interactions and lessons. Don't forget to make an official connection with the NASA group, so you can always email or talk with someone who can help or answer questions.

If you talk with any science teacher, connecting with NASA, they will tell you their favorite NASA area. You could spend an entire teaching career using a variety of NASA connections and never know that other stuff is out there. For myself, one of my favorite NASA groups is the SECEF, Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum.

Each year, the ingenious educators, technicians and scientists, at the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum, provide Science Math & Technology teachers with new, more creative, yet mind enhancing multimedia, projects and opportunities for students, teachers, scientists and the public to develop their knowledge of Sol and Earth.

Many of these new opportunities are considered interactive, part of the new Web2.0 movement.

One of the most exciting, yet practical Sun-Earth celebrations of the SECEF, Ancient Observatories, continued the NASA educational traditions while paving the trail into the online, interactive path for science education.

With podcasts, email alerts, related summer institutes, online projects, partnerships and public activities, the SECEF team really pulled the Sun-Earth Day problem based learning project into an international learning celebration. Each year since, they have continued this powerful methodology of linking students, teachers, scientists and the public around the world into a model classroom.

If you ready to begin an educational partnership with the SECEF, the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum, start by registering at the Sun-Earth Day 2008 websited or by emailing Elaine Lewis, lewis@mail630.gsfc.nasa.gov and to receive the 2008 Sun-Earth Day Packet and email updates.

One Web 2.0 Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) activities you missed, but can use asynchronously, is the Arctic Circle Sunrise 2008. This series of meetings and interviews was part of the Polar Gateway Conference that ran during the last week in January. There are excellent interviews and historical perspectives from some of the scientists and assistants from the local Inuit communities. Their stories are marvelous, and I think children and young people would agree. Other information and images are also available from this conference.

It's del.icio.us

Ooh! I love George Carlin, and so does one of my newest del.icio.us fans. That is what I like about del.icio.us, it is TRULY a social networking system.

Del.icio.us may not be a synchronous social networking system, but it is a viable networking system among people with shared, common interests. These people can introduce you to a bookmark or a contact. If this new contact agrees that your common interests are shared, the person will connect with your network, as a mutual connection....not just a fan.

Today, I was checking my fan list. I usually travel to the fan's bookmarks to see why they are a fan. What social aspect of del.icio.us drew them to my bookmarks?

Was it a bookmark? What was the bookmark(s) that drew them to my network. I like to investigate that social aspect of the discovery of a new fan.

I also check the new fan's network. Sometimes, it was a shared contact that drew them to check out my bookmarks. See how social del.icio.us is?

Two very social ways to connect to another bookmarker:
(1)shared contacts AND/OR
(2)shared interests.
Isn't that how friending begins?

Tag, Your It!

Where is the X-Prize for the ethicists who are able to inform the public what will be the social, moral, biological, and political possiblities of this DNA tagging?

I am always amazed at the so-called mainstream media. They know very little about their topic, depend on biased experts and tend to poorly inform their readers about factual relationships of similar topics, such as "exo-genes".

There are many varieties of genetic codes within our bodies, and this is only one of those codes. Some of these codes, the exo genes can affect the other genetic codes.


It seems that the New York Times does have some reporters highlighting what is being discovered through genetic analysis. One article is called, The DNA Age by Amy Harmon.

clipped from www.nytimes.com The Race to Read Genomes on a Shoestring, Relatively Speaking By ANDREW POLLACK A person wanting to know his or her complete genetic blueprint can already have it done — for $350,000. If the cost of sequencing a human genome can drop to $1,000 or below, experts say it would start to become feasible to document people’s DNA makeup to tell what diseases they might be at risk for, or what medicines would work best for them. A DNA genome sequence might become part of each newborn’s medical work-up, while sequencing of cancer patients’ tumors might help doctors look for ways to attack them.

Dissecting del.icio.us

What is the breakdown on the name del.icio.us and its meaning. Also tips for unique naming of domains.

clipped from www.quickonlinetips.com February 16th, 2005 February 16th, 2005 Decoding the Domain Name del.icio.us [This article is meant as a short tutorial for newbies to explain the basics how to register a domain name] del.icio.us has become the most popular social bookmarks manager in recent times. Many surfers are drawn to curiosity by the peculiar domain name del.icio.us. It was an ingenious way to register a domain name. I mean it is much better than getting delicious.com or delicious.net etc. A domain search reveals there are many such names and many more subject to domain name availability. Now to solve the confusion of the del part. del is actually a subdomain of icio.us (Update: though some readers have pointed in comments that it del is a server of icio.us and not a subdomain). A subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain name. So the main site del.icio.us is hosted on the del server of the domain name icio.us And so rests the decoding of del.icio.us!

Hackers Target Wrong Guy

This couple probably represents the majority of computer users, and this news clip shows what can happen if you don't protect your router, as well as your computer.
What angers me about this whole situtation is that this gives ammunition to those who want to control the internet and create LEVELS for those who can afford it...the level will be very protected.
I also never understood how a public entity can sue people for negative press.

clipped from blog.wired.com Anonymous Hackers Track Saboteur, Find and Punish the Wrong Guy - UPDATED By Ryan Singel January 29, 2008 | 7:59:26 PMCategories: Hacks and Cracks Anti-Scientology agitators have repeatedly harassed and threatened violence against a 59-year-old PG&E worker and his wife, who were mistakenly flagged as pro-Scientology hackers. John Lawson, who lives in Stockton, California with his wife Julia, began receiving threatening phone calls around 2 a.m. Saturday morning. He didn't know why until THREAT LEVEL explained that a hacking group calling itself the g00ns (goons spelled with zeros, not goons with the letter o) posted his home address, phone number and cell numbers, as well as Julia's Social Security number, online. The obscene and threatening calls have continued through Tuesday, according to Lawson. "I don't even really know how to use a computer," Lawson said. On Monday, he got a call that seemed to originate from the Virgin Islands. The caller threatened to kill him.

Stories, Pictures Lost Forever

This is a very real problem that will only escalate, as we use more and more web applications.

For instance, I don't know how to save my data from ClipMarks. If an account is canceled, do all my links and Clips to blogs die. These are important issues to discuss.

clipped from www.portigal.com Stories, lost forever Thursday January 10th 2008, 2:58 am by Steve Portigal As I’ve already blogged, I was the victim of a phishing scam and my flickr account was deleted. Yahoo/flickr has known about this particular culprit for a year or so. miscreant deleted my account, just for fun. And Yahoo can’t restore it. We all know there are backup copies all over the place, but they can only recreate my account, blank. all the people I’ve linked to are gone (I’ve spent a few hours trying to reconnect with those I can remember). Anyone who watched my photos via their contacts has lost me (and I’ve lost much of my audience). All the titles, tags, geotags, view counts and comments are gone. All the descriptions and stories and dialog with others in is gone. My document, my story, my part of the community, is gone. DataPortability is a movement to create these tools where they don’t exist. I hope someone creates something for flickr soon.

New Nontoxic Antifreeze

There are probably a wide range of other applications of this new compound called gelatin hydrolysate, and it is all natural...no genetically modified ingredients.

clipped from www.livescience.com New Antifreeze Improves Ice Cream By Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Staff Writer posted: 17 January 2008 07:55 am ET A few sharp ice crystals ruin ice cream's silky texture, as all connoisseurs know. An edible, tasteless antifreeze may soon come to the rescue. The non-toxic antifreeze, made from a gelatin protein, could be added to any frozen food to prevent unappetizing ice crystals from forming, without otherwise affecting the food itself. The results of the study will be published in the Jan. 9 issue of The American Chemical Society's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Previous attempts to make anti-freeze for frozen foods have not been very effective, Damodaran said. These products have relied on genetically-modified ingredients, mainly from Antarctic fish and other cold-climate species. This is the first antifreeze made from natural ingredients, the researcher said. extracted gelatin protein from cow hide and used it to make a compound called gelatin hydrolysate.

Decommissioning Aging Infrastructure

"EXPERTS" recommend targeted decommissioning of deterioriated and obsolete infrastructure to renew degraded ecosystems. This approach will turn the middle of the United States into a bare scattering of city-states unable to communicate because their infrastructure was destroyed when it could have been fixed in a way that could also help the environment repair.

clipped from www.sciencemag.org Science 18 January 2008: Vol. 319. no. 5861, pp. 286 - 287 DOI: 10.1126/science.1149852 Aging Infrastructure and Ecosystem Restoration ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE: Martin W. Doyle,1* Emily H. Stanley,2 David G. Havlick,3 Mark J. Kaiser,4 George Steinbach,5 William L. Graf,6 Gerald E. Galloway,7 J. Adam Riggsbee8 Targeted decommissioning of deteriorated and obsolete infrastructure can provide opportunities for restoring degraded ecosystems. 1University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. 2University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA. 3University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, CO, USA. 4Center for Energy Studies, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA. 5California Artificial Reef Enhancement Program, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. 6University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA. 7University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. 8Restoration Systems, LLC, Raleigh, NC, USA. *Author for correspondence. E-mail: mwdoyle@email.unc.edu

Program Yourself

Another one of those push the limits type of interactive videos, and it is very good at mediating the words. The frames fly very fast, so if you have a perceptual problem or get "car sick" you may not want to watch it.

clipped from www.youtube.com

Uncooperative? Another Taser Death

These stories are so heart wrenching!

I thought that the classical conditioning and the ease with which others could torture, ie the law enforcer, was explained and warned against in basic general psychology classes! What's up w/that?

The young man was in an accident, couldn't get to the airport to pick up his parents, and the patrolmen said he was agitated. REALLY? Can't imagine why!

It seems to me that many of these people are only tasered for the CONVENIENCE of the police. That is what happened to thepoor man killed in the US airport in 2007. The police could have left him in the room where he was until they could find a translator....BUT NO! They had to hit him w/electricity and continue to let it pulse through his body until he was fried....dead.

clipped from www.bnd.com NEW BRIGHTON, Minn. - A man died after state troopers stunned him with a Taser when they said he became "uncooperative" after being involved in a wreck. The State Patrol said five troopers were placed on standard, administrative leave after the man's death Tuesday. A patrol spokesman would not describe what kind of "uncooperative" behavior was involved. "This is a traumatic event for a lot of people," superintendent Tim O'Malley said. "Someone has died and in fairness to that person, the troopers, family members and others who may have been affected, we need to make sure that we're accurate and thorough." The man who died was identified as Mark C. Backlund, 29, by his father, Gordon Backlund. He had been driving to the airport to pick up his parents, who were returning from a trip to Florida. Peterson told the newspaper that State Patrol troopers began carrying Tasers about 18 months ago, mirroring their growing use among police departments nationwide.

Stepping Back to Dangerous Era in Mining

I first heard about this AVOIDABLE tragedy last year. The Robber Barons are returning.

The people of Northern Michigan and the entire Great Lakes Region, are fighting to prevent corporations from ruining their health and the ecosystem for the SECOND TIME AROUND.

The area is just now recuperating from the last time mining of sulfids, metals, heavy metals and radioactive materials such as uranium destroyed habitats, animals, and humans.

How much is a fragile ecosystem and the people of Michigan worth? At the moment, not much, it seems.

These corporations are also exploiting the fact that Michigan has runaway unemployment and people are worried about how they will live today. Please check this out and share this with your friends, neighbors, leaders and online network.

clipped from savethewildup.org

Choosiness, Cooperativeness Historically Linked

This is an scientific abstract from a research group who is studying the effect of choosing to be associated with people who cooperate and the ways that this cooperation can encourage others to choose them.
It's too bad that Nature magazine couldn't have been more COOPERATIVE and released this research a free article, then more of us would have access to it and could CHOOSE to learn more about Nature and its parent organization.
Hmm! Maybe that is the point the staff at Nature is choosing not to cooperate with the "great unwashed", so we will not choose to cooperate or even try to learn more about them. Maybe they fear the loss of their exclusivity?

clipped from www.nature.com The coevolution of choosiness and cooperation Correspondence to: Lutz Fromhage3 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to L.F. (Email: lutzfromhage@web.de). Explaining the rise and maintenance of cooperation is central to our understanding of biological systems1, 2 and human societies3, 4. When an individual's cooperativeness is used by other individuals as a choice criterion, there can be competition to be more generous than others, a situation called competitive altruism5. evolution of cooperation between non-relatives can then be driven by a positive feedback between increasing levels of cooperativeness and choosiness6 in a situation where individuals have the opportunity to engage in repeated pairwise interactions, the equilibrium degree of cooperativeness depends critically on the amount of behavioural variation that is being maintained in the population by processes such as mutation. important role of lifespan in the evolution of cooperation.

Techonorati Claim - Bowing to a Greater Force

Technorati Profile

Wipe the Memory Clean Before YOU Leave!

This is outrageous! If you want to access archives, you will need the old software to stay accessible w/o the service packs or hire a secretary to upgrade all your old files, OR SWITCH TO LINUX.

clipped from www.news.com Office 2003 update blocks older file formats The latest service pack for Microsoft Office 2003 has made a range of older files inaccessible, including Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations, it emerged this week. Office 2003 Service Pack 3, which was made available in September, blocks a lengthy list of word-processing file formats, including Word 6.0 and Word 97 for Windows, and Word 2004 for Macintosh. It also blocks older versions of Excel, PowerPoint, Lotus Notes, Corel Quattro spreadsheet, and Corel Draw graphics package. the blocking of them will make retrieval of archived material more difficult. Microsoft released details of a work-around to restore access. The work-around requires changes to the registry, which could render a PC unusable if carried out incorrectly.