Random thoughts

[rbkwp]

something else to turn our hair grey

stress even more of


Podcast: How stress turns hair grey
In mice, acute stress can turn hair grey by depleting the stem cells in the hair follicle that give the strands their colour. The sympathetic nervous system — the flight or flight response — is to blame, rather than the immune system or stress hormones. Stem cell biologist Ya-Chieh Hsu tells Nature Podcast about the first firm scientific evidence for stress-induced greying.

Nature Podcast | 26 min listen
Read expert analysis in the Nature News & Views article.
Reference: Nature paper
Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on iTunes, Google Podcasts or Spotify.

Podcast: How stress can cause grey hair, and the attitude needed to tackle climate change

 

[rbkwp]

smile

Meati's “full-muscle steak” is made from mushrooms. Meati
UNCANNY VALLEY
Is fake meat getting too much like the real thing?
By Zoe Sayler on Jan 24, 2020 at 3:50 am

Subscribe To Shift Happens
I’ve been thinking back to just a few years ago: It was a simpler time, when, at a nice family dinner, my conservative dad could reasonably scoff at the veggie option on the menu, and I, a worldly college sophomore, could reasonably look down my nose at the menu’s meat. It was an era of balance and harmony, when animal and plant proteins fit neatly into their own categories, and God looked down on it, and it was good.

Then along came the Impossible Burger, a veggie burger that bleeds, thanks to a crafty concoction of beet juice and other things. And when my college co-op ordered them in bulk, raw and frozen, my frantic attempt to cook one — WHY was it still PINK!!! — left chunks of plant goo hopelessly crusted onto a previously well-seasoned cast-iron pan.

So began an era of food-group-bending products that would lead us to today’s screwy world, which includes meat grown in laboratories and “full-muscle steaks” made out of mushrooms. And, try as I might to understand that there’s nothing creepier than mass animal slaughter and planetary devastation in the name of continuing to eat Big Macs … all of this not-quite-meat business is really creeping me out.

Is fake meat getting too much like the real thing?

 

[rbkwp]

​

‘Unprecedented’ swarms of locusts are devouring crops and slamming into planes in East Africa

It’s the worst locust infestation Kenya has seen in 70 years.

​

Scientists now think they know what started China’s deadly coronavirus: bats

They also confirmed the virus is in the same family as SARS and ME

 

[rbkwp]

Police recover bodies of firefighters killed in air tanker crash
NSW police find the bodies of three American aerial firefighters who died when their C-130 Large Air Tanker crashed on Thursday, while another body found in a South Coast house takes the death toll from the bushfires in the state to 25.

Analysis: The bushfires have changed the way we see ourselves — and yet the culture wars rage on
If there is one thing that unites the nation on Australia Day, it is clichés. This year, we seem to be surpassing our usual ration of clichés about beaches, barbecues, and revelling in our egalitarian ordinariness, writes Laura Tingle.

January 26 marks a massacre. While we celebrate Australia Day, this community gets a plaque
Aboriginal elders and historians say hundreds of their ancestors were brutally killed on January 26, 1838. For them, Australia Day is a day of mourning.

 

[rbkwp]

KIWI VOLUNTEERS HELPING AUSTRALIAN ANIMALS AFTER FIRES
Radio New Zealand


The devastating fires in Australia continue to burn, and much of the attention has been on the terrible impact it’s had on the country’s animals. Millions have died in the fires, including native beasts – and there are fears some will never recover and may even become extinct, like the Kangaroo Island dunnart, a small mouse-sized mammal. Volunteers from New Zealand have flown over to help with the recovery, including Animal Evac New Zealand, which specialises in animal evacuation in disaster situations. SAFE – the animal rights charity, helped them get there. The trust was founded by Steve Glassey former chief executive of Wellington SPCA.

Kiwi volunteers helping Australian animals after fires | New Zealand Geographic

 

[rbkwp]

KOALAS AREN’T MELTING OUR HEARTS, THEY’RE MESSING WITH OUR MINDS

Why we’re programmed to care for all creatures small and cute.
WRITTEN BY DAVE HANSFORD PHOTOGRAPHED BY EDEN HILLS CFS
EDEN HILLS CFS
EVOLUTION HAS MADE certain that we cannot ignore the distress of a child. It takes just 140 milliseconds for an upset child to trigger a caregiving response in the orbitofrontal cortex of our brains. Konrad Lorenz, the father of ethology—the study of animal behaviour—called it kindchenschema, and noted that adults responded most strongly to features we might describe as cute: round heads, big eyes, little button noses, chubby limbs.
Which, coincidentally, also describes a koala. Add fluffy little ears, soft fur, an air of imploring helplessness, and something crystalises: it was only a matter of time before the Koala Relocation Society (KRS) would demand that New Zealanders offer a home to koalas. As I write this, the number of petition signatures on change.org is ticking over like the trip meter of your car: right now, 14,754 people want Jacinda Ardern to grant koalas New Zealand citizenship, and sanctuary from the apocalyptic firestorms in southeastern Australia that have killed an estimated 8000 of them.
This comes as no surprise. When I look at the photograph of a koala approaching a firefighter, looking so small and helpless as its home burns around it, I choke up too.

Koalas aren’t melting our hearts, they’re messing with our minds | New Zealand Geographic

LISTEN birdlife conservation NZ

Protecting wildlife on the Ashley-Rakahuri river | New Zealand Geographic

 

[rbkwp]

this
is why i often say stats and data dont impress me a great deal
another 1/2 a dozen folk will come along in the future and dispute it, with facts and data

may be
better to take a 12k minimum run
from age 20 to say 35
then drop dead, because....of whatever
perhaps too healthy duh
eating only lentils etc,as well


STROLLING TO AN EARLY GRAVE

WRITTEN BY DAVE HANSFORD
Let there be night

SUBSCRIBE
GEO NEWS

NEW ZEALAND AND United States researchers have found a link between slow walking speed at 45 years old and accelerated ageing. Their research, which used data from the long-running Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, also pegged slow walking to declining brain function, and indicators of reduced brain health in early childhood. The authors recommend that a walking-speed test be introduced in regular doctors’ check-ups, since gait proves to be an inexpensive indicator of general health.

Strolling to an early grave | New Zealand Geographic

 

[rbkwp]

now that is
something ive personally been concerned about
our weaterways
the woerlds abuse/neglect, espoilation, of our waterways
we are so stupid
and i heard/saw that do[pey Trump say something like the USA has wonderful water

RISE OF THE LAKE SLIME


WRITTEN BY REBEKAH WHITE

GEO NEW

SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
Rise of the lake slime
SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
Why 10,000 steps?

NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY
BY STUDYING 71 lakes in 33 countries from space, researchers from Stanford University have found that toxic algal blooms in freshwater have been increasing since the 1980s. Using satellite data from the past 30 years, they found blooms were becoming more frequent in 70 per cent of the lakes studied, but that this wasn’t linked to usual causes, such as fertiliser use or rainfall changes. The lakes that had fewer blooms over time, however, had warmed less than other lakes.

 

[rbkwp]

Australia’s Marine Animals Will Be the Fires’ Unseen Victims

Ash and silt will choke underwater ecosystems.

by Doug Johnson • 550 words / 2 mins

Along the coastline of Louisiana, artificial islands provide habitat for fish and wildlife and help lessen the impacts of wind and waves. Photo courtesy of Martin Ecosystems
Mending Coastal Marshes
Recycled plastic bottles get a new life as artificial islands on the Louisiana coastline.
Authored by
by Kerry Rose Graning

 

[rbkwp]

PODCAST LISTEN


they say
please consider sharing amongst frieds

When whales encounter fishing rope, there can be deadly consequences. Illustration by Mark Garrison
The Noose Beneath the Waves
Fishing gear can pose a deadly threat to whales—and to those who try to save them.
Authored by
by Sasha Chapman

download, or subscribe to “Hakai Magazine Audio Edition” through your favorite podcast app.



The Noose Beneath the Waves | Hakai Magazine

 

[rbkwp]

The long read
Splendid isolation: how I stopped time by sitting in a forest for 24 hours
Illustration: Guardian Design
My life seemed to be getting busier, faster: I felt constantly short of time – so I stepped outside it for a day and a night and did nothing. By Mark O’Connell
Fri 24 Jan 2020 06.00 GMT

It was early summer, and I was on the verge of turning 40. I found myself entertaining a recurring daydream of escaping from time. I would be hustling my son out the door to get him to school, or walking briskly to work on the day of a deadline, or castigating myself for being online when I should have been methodically and efficiently putting words on paper, and I would have this vision of myself as a character in a video game discovering a secret level. This vision was informed by the platform games I loved as a child – Super Mario Bros, Sonic the Hedgehog and so on – in which the character you controlled moved across the screen from left to right through a scrolling landscape, encountering obstacles and adversaries as you progressed to the end of the level. In this daydream, I would see myself pushing against a wall or lowering myself down the yawning mouth of a pipe, and thereby discovering this secret level, this hidden chamber where I could exist for a time outside of time, where the clock was not forever running down to zero.

Splendid isolation: how I stopped time by sitting in a forest for 24 hours

 

[rbkwp]

The climate emergency: Your questions answered / 17 February
Your chance to ask a panel of climate scientists and experts the important questions about the environmental state of the planet.

The climate emergency: Your questions answered | The Guardian Members

 

[rbkwp]

YAY
we NZ have reached
'total fire ban' status
we do try hard to imitate our neighbours
and/or the world
esp on a Sunday
always seems to be a day of significance duh
thanks NZ Metservice, your a gem


oh
teenday lust
smile true

 

[rbkwp]

let it not be said we NZ dont have wealth,like elsewhere

Waikato stag sells for almost $400k
Who's the deerest of them all? A Waikato stag has more than doubled NZ's record price.


Waikato stag sells for almost $400k

 

[rbkwp]

yep
30 years ago,our then telecom auctioned many off
my mate brought one,for 5 dollars
still has it

 

[rbkwp]

so they say mmmmm


The Reign of the Fancy Phone Is Over
Few people can justify spending $300 on a bit of extra camera zoom

The Reign of the Fancy Phone Is Over

 

[rbkwp]

The Art of Balancing Medicine and Mortality
The story of a life-threatening illness, a miraculous recovery, and the fragility of the human body

The Art of Balancing Medicine and Mortality

 

[rbkwp]

if there is another thing i ABSOLUTELY TRUMPALIKE HATE IS ..



Pesticide testing is flawed—and it’s harming our birds and bees

Computer modeling of both chemicals and the organisms affected by them can help farmers make better choices.

By Ula Chrobak
January 24, 2020

A tractor sprays insecticide over a fieldAqua Mechanical


Since the DDT days of the 1950s and 60s—when the pesticide caused alarming declines in bird species, including iconic birds of prey—regulators and chemical companies have adopted far more rigorous testing guidelines. But the biodiversity crisis still looms, and we’ve continued to see drops in avian and insect species, among other losses. While habitat loss is likely the main cause, herbicides and insecticides used in agriculture are also thought to contribute to some of the declines.


Pesticide testing is flawed—and it’s harming our birds and bees

 

[rbkwp]

California needs to set more fires

A new study reveals the risks, regulations, and limited resources that hold back plans for prescribed blazes.

To remain hidden, these beetles sparkle

Iridescent color isn’t always for standing out—for some creatures, it’s for blending in.

 

[rbkwp]

Australian of the Year acknowledges firefighters as the real heroes in his acceptance speech
Dr James Muecke's work preventing blindness earned him the title of Australian of the Year for 2020 but he says firefighters and emergency services workers are the true Aussie heroes.

Opinion: On Australia Day, is there a song of our divided nation?


A nation is a song — a story. We write ourselves into being. So who writes for us? On this Australia Day, is there a song of our nation? asks Stan Grant.