Cow nipple couture

Liverpool-born designer Rachel Freire made a big splash at London's Fashion Week and writes:

"To be called a fashion designer is odd. I am an artist in wolf's clothing. My aim is to create worlds which don't yet exist. Juxtapose things which do not make sense until you cannot deny that they mesh, play with disgust and the terms on which you are willing to see things. You cannot deny something is beautiful even when you look closely and then see something which freaks you out. Go with your gut."

Or in this case, your teat! She used 3,000 of them - from cows, not yaks as has been erroneously reported - to create this garment featured in her Spring/Summer 2012 collection. The rosettes are made from the pieces of cattle hide that would normally be discarded by the tannery. Of course animal rights activists don't like it, with Justin Kerswell from Viva commenting, "Isn't the way we treat farmed animals bad enough without turning their dead bodies into a runway freakshow?" Freire defends the use of the udders, stating, "They really make you aware of the animal itself. I create fashion using material that would otherwise end up on the scrap heap. What I am doing is recycling. The people criticizing are clearly clueless about the amount of leather wasted on a daily basis." The controversial dress is now making the rounds in Paris.

Natural gas flaring

After a bit of a giggle yesterday, get ready to utter a collective groan today. I just learned about natural gas flaring last night in the New York Times (related blog post here). This is the common practice of burning off the natural gas that comes to the surface when oil is drilled instead of capturing it. With the high price of crude oil, the oil companies find little ecomic incentive to deal with the less valuable natural gas and simply burn it as waste. This has been going on around the world, notably in Africa, but there is a particularly egregious example right here in North Dakota, where there is a rush to extract oil from the Bakken shale, the biggest oil field discovered in the U.S. in 40 years. Consider these numbers:

• 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared every day in North Dakota, enough energy to heat 500,000 homes for that amount of time
• 2 million tons of carbon dioxide is spewed into the atmosphere every year by North Dakota gas flares, the equivalent of what 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit
• 30% of the natural gas produced in North Dakota is burned as waste
• 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas are being flared and vented every year globally, an amount equal to about 25% of the annual gas consumption in the United States (or 30% of the consumption in the European Union)
• 400 million tons per year of CO2 are added to the atmosphere worldwide

“It’s a waste to be wasting all of this energy,” says James T. Brown, president and chief operating officer of Whiting Petroleum. That company at least has begun to do something about it. I find this unconscionable.

PSA

If the video doesn't play, click here.

The state of Florida ranks 18th within the U.S. for the prevalence of cigarette smoking among adults. We have over 2,509,000 current cigarette smokers aged 18 and above. The statistics in this country range from 9.3% in Utah to 26.5% in West Virginia (you can check out your state here, or compare statistics for your country if you are outside the U.S.). In an effort to reduce the number of smokers by 100%, and to prevent nonusers from starting to use tobacco, Tobacco Free Florida has been running some very impactful public service announcements. One very moving spot, which doesn't appear on their YouTube channel, features a man explaining that his wife died of lung cancer at 40 and closes with his words, "I never thought of 20 as middle-aged." Two more recent spots (here and here) focus on the physical effects of the inhaled smoke and a third (above) - which has got to be one of the most outrageous PSAs of all time! - concentrates on just one harmful ingredient...

On shaky ground

Photograph by Downing Street on Flickr

Italian seismologists and other experts are defending themselves against charges of manslaughter in a concurrent civil and criminal trial being held right now in Rome. The following 7 defendants have been accused of failing to warn the public in advance of the 6.3-magnitude earthquake that struck on April 6, 2009:

• Franco Barberi, Head, Serious Risks Commission
• Enzo Boschi, Former President, National Institute of Geophysics
  
• Bernardo De Bernardinis, Former Vice President, Civil Protection Agency's Technical Department (2nd image, on right with his lawyer)
• Gian Michele Calvi, Director, European Center for Earthquake Engineering
• Mauro Dolce, Director, Civil Protection Agency's Earthquake Risk Office
• Claudio Eva, Physicist
• Giulio Selvaggi, Director, National Earthquake Center

The earthquake killed 308 people and injured 1,500 in L'Aquila. The medieval town was largely reduced to rubble (1st image, an example of the damage), forcing thousands of survivors to live in tent camps or temporary housing for months. A week before the quake, the experts had issued a memo responding to mounting concerns after months of seismic activity in the region. They stated that a major earthquake was unlikely, though not impossible, and reassured residents that there was no need to evacuate.

The case is being closely watched by seismologists around the globe who insist it's impossible to predict earthquakes and dangerous to suggest otherwise, since seismologists will be discouraged from issuing any advice at all if they fear legal retaliation. Last year, about 5,200 international scientists - seismologists, professors, and researchers - rallied around their Italian colleagues by signing an open letter to Italy's president Giorgio Napolitano. Rick Aster, president of the Seismological Society of America, writes, "Pursuing legal action against members of the seismological community after an earthquake is unprecedented and reflects a misunderstanding of the science of earthquakes." Lawyer for one of the plaintiffs Wania della Vigna counters, "The science is not on trial here...it is a trial to judge if there were responsibilities, mistakes, or incorrect behavior by those scientists who held the meeting in L'Aquila before the earthquake happened."

The city of L'Aquila has requested €50 million ($68 million) in compensation. "I'm afraid that like an earthquake, nothing in this case is predictable," said defense attorney Marcello Milandri.

Frozen fossils

A treasure trove of fossils have been found at the top of the world. Since the 2004 discovery, paleontologists contended with polar bears and extreme weather in Spitsbergen, Norway (video here), to excavate the remains of giant sea monsters of the Jurassic Era (about 150 million years ago):

Pliosaurs had massive heads and are often compared to crocodiles, but had bigger muscles and huge, robust jaws that gave it a bite strong enough to bite a small car in half. They had teardrop-shaped bodies with 2 sets of powerful flippers that they used to propel themselves through the water. "We don't think they were particularly good at cruising but were very good at accelerating, so they'd lurk in the depths and shoot up to catch things." Pliosaurs were longer than humpback whales, making them the top marine predators of their time.

Ichthyosaurs looked a bit like modern dolphins, but used an upright tail fin to swim through the water. They had big eyes and 3' snouts equipped with roughly 100 teeth that made up approximately 1/6th of their 20' length.

As can be seen in these artist's renderings by Tor Sponga (more here), ichthyosaurs ate ammonites, fish, and squid. Pliosaurs ate ichthyosaurs.

Geocarpy a.k.a. genuflecting

A new word for today:

Geocarpy n. Botany. A method in which some plants distribute their fruit by injecting the ovary into the soil though the actions of a unique and complicated flexure of the stalk.

Peanuts do it. So does this teensy plant (pictured above) from the strychnine family, first singled out by José Carlos "Louro" Mendes Santos, a handyman in rural northeastern Bahia, Brazil. He found the inch-high plant 2 years ago in the backyard of Alex Popovkin, an amateur botanist, and brought it to his attention. Popovkin networked through the Internet with Lena Struwe, of Rutgers University, and others to determine that the plant is a new species, which they named Spigelia genuflexa. Struwe comments, "This discovery shows that the most amazing living things can be found when you least expect it, during times and places when you really aren't looking for something new, and suddenly it is right there in front of you." The genuflecting plant, as it is becoming known, is distinguised by a rare and unusual characteristic: after fruits form, the branches bend down and deposit the seed-containing capsules on the ground - even burying them in the soft cover of moss - to ensure that the seedlings end up as close to the mother plant as possible, facilitating its propagation the following season. I await the time-lapse video!

All images by Alex Popovkin.

The big one

You may have missed this story early this month, but it is remarkable for several reasons. The Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center announced on September 5th that a 21-day battle by Filipino villagers in Bunuwan, Agusan del Sur, had resulted in the successful capture (video here) of a huge saltwater crocodile. Dozens of locals participated in the hunt, during which the croc escaped twice by chewing through ropes before they switched to steel cable traps. The locals brought the creature to shore alive (another video here) and pulled it to a clearing (1st image) where it was lifted onto a truck by crane. The crocodile - estimated to be between 50 and 100 years old - weighed in at 1,075kg (2,370lb) and measures 6.4m (21') from tip to tail. Wildlife division chief Josefina de Leon said "This is the biggest animal that I've handled in 20 years of trapping." Even so, crocodile hunter Rollie Sumiller, who headed up the hunt, said this reptile may not be the man-eater they have been looking for. "When I finally saw it after its capture I couldn't believe my eyes. It was big enough to swallow three men all at once," said mayor Edwin Elorde. The beast, named "Lolong" (after a deceased, veteran crocodile hunter), is expected to edge out 5.48m (17' 11.75") "Cassius" - held at Green Island, Queensland, Australia - by several feet to take the record for the largest captive crocodile in the world. Lolong now has pride of place at an ecotourism park that has already opened for business, since the basin intended to be the town's swimming pool has been converted to a watering hole for the animal (2nd image). "The villagers, of course, are very happy that they have been able to turn this dangerous crocodile from a threat into an asset," said the mayor.

Arboreal goats

It looks like a Photoshop exercise, doesn't it? But it's not (see video here)! Vacationers to the Mediterranean are surprised enough to stop for a snapshot (example here, scroll down) and the sight is odd enough to be the theme of a calendar, but the local Moroccans are quite used to their tree-climbing goats (more photos here). The animals are after the vegetation of the argan tree, including the fruit which contains a seed used by the Berbers for centuries to produce an oil used in food, cosmetics, and medicine. In fact, this adaptation by the goats is so prevalent that they are now endangering the trees - not with their hooves, but with their mouths. Researchers have identified a vicious cycle:

1. Owners of argan trees sell the seeds used to make the popular and expensive oil, which now sells for upwards of $300 per liter.
2. The income allows families to send their daughters to secondary school, but also to buy more goats.
3. The additional goats further devastate the trees, which now require protection by UNESCO.

Tim Wall writes on the Discovery website, "Just when things were looking up for families in southwestern Morocco, goats started climbing the precious argan trees, eating their leaves and stunting their growth. (Speaking of looking up, you probably shouldn't when arboreal goats are around.)"

Preschool paleontologist

When anyone asks what now 6-year-old Emily Baldry (pictured above) wants to be when she grows up, I'm pretty sure she will say, "An archaeologist." Her Dad took her on a fossil hunt last year at the Cotswold Water Park led by Dr. Neville Hollingworth (3rd image, on the left), a field geologist at the University of Birmingham, and she found a whopper! The fossil she unearthed on the beach (2nd image) is from the Jurassic Period, making it 162.8 million years old. Identified as a deepwater ammonite known as Rieneckia odysseus, it weighed in at 130lb (59kg) and measures 15.8" (40cm) across. "It's great that Emily has got the fossil hunting bug, she has been very excited by all of this - let's hope her expectations have not been set too high after this amazing find!" says father Jon. The find was that much more remarkable because until now only fragments of that specimen have been found in the U.K. Emily brought the ammonite - which she nicknamed "Spike" - to show-and-tell at school, and has been to see it after it was unveiled at the Gateway Centre earlier this month. In a couple of weeks, she will bring it back home to join her growing collection. "I have got lots of different fossils now, and can't wait to go fossil hunting again."

Butterfly surgery

I'm fairly certain she is not a Buddhist, just fond of butterflies. Branduin Wiens of Moline, Illinois (1st image), raises them in a small nursery at her home. When a male monarch recently emerged from his chrysalis, most of his left wing was torn off (2nd image). “Since he couldn’t fly, I figured I would just keep him in my butterfly garden on the flowers and eventually let nature take its course. It was sad, though, because this little boy should have been headed down to Mexico for the winter,” says Brandy. That night she read a posting about wing repair on a butterfly website and knew she had to try. She obtained a donor wing from a cadaver butterfly at the Quad City Botanical Garden in nearby Rock Island. Then she laid out her instruments: tweezers, toothpicks, scissors, and 2 kinds of glue (3rd image). Brandy "anesthetized" the patient by turning off the light, knowing that thinking it was nighttime would calm him. Holding him in place gently with the hook of a coat hanger (4th image), she applied 2 coats of Permatex from an auto supply store. The butterfly flapped and wouldn't stay still, so she switched to Loctite and restrained him with toothpicks. Working beneath a spotlight, she used thin-bladed scissors and tweezers to replace the damaged wing, dusted the area with cornstarch, then waited the 6 minutes for the glue to dry. After the operation, she carried the butterfly outside (5th image), uncertain whether the transplant succeeded. But her video shows the patient fluttering away. “He took off as if nothing was wrong and headed south....I hope the little fellow makes it,” says the surgeon. Hopefully he has now joined the other migrants and will live for 6-8 months like the rest of his September generation.

Asses in the air

This weekend (1st image)
A specially-outfitted cargo plane was chartered by the Humane Society of the United States to bring 120 donkeys 2,500 miles from Waikoloa, Hawaii, to Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue in Tehachapi, California. The animals were accompanied on the flight by Mark and Amy Meyers, who run the mainland sanctuary, and Big Island veterinarian Dr. Brady Bergin (see video here).

20th c.-21st c. (2nd image)
The rescue of the donkeys was necessary because the once-thriving feral herd is in danger. Their numbers have increased without check and will soon deplete scarce resources, resulting in starvation or dehydration. Increased development (hotels and golf courses) and severe drought conditions has brought the donkeys into conflict with the human inhabitants. On their way down from the mountains to lick salt off the sea rocks, they began eating landscaping, breaking fences, and foraging close to roads, which caused some to be hit by cars. The airlift reduces the number of at-risk Hawaiian donkeys to about 200.

19th-20th c. (3rd image)
The feral donkeys are descendants of those brought to the Hawaiian Islands in the early 1800s by the British to work on the coffee plantations. The strong and sure-footed animals were used to carry bags of beans from mountain farms to coastal ports. "Without burros, the Kona coffee industry would have been limited to the lower altitudes. Only on the higher elevations does the unique combination of soils and temperatures exist that gives Kona coffee its signature flavor." With increased mechanization - and the surplus of jeeps available after World War II - the donkeys were no longer necessary. Farmers released them onto the lava flows, where they thrived and multiplied to their current unsustainable numbers. At night the social animals would grow lonely and bray to one another, "filling the Hawaiian night air with a cacophony of song" and giving them their nickname: the Mālama Waikoloa Nightingales.

"When donkeys show the tenacity that kept them alive in the wild, people call them stubborn. But if you think about it, being 'stubborn' is not always a bad thing," says rescuer Mark, who doesn't like the stereotype of donkeys as dumb and recalcitrant. Word is they make very good pets.

Proud gardener

“Obviously I am over the moon. Winning these competitions is great, but in the vegetable growing world, the heaviest onion title is the
one to have.”

So says the prizewinner of the competition at the recent Harrogate Autumn Flower Show for the heaviest onion, weighing in at 17lb 15.5oz (8.150kg). Peter Glazebrook, 67, of Newark, Nottinghamshire, U.K., has laid claim to growing the world's heaviest onion, smashing John Sifford’s 2005 record of 16lb 8.37oz (7.495 kg). The retired surveyor, who stands by John Innes Compost No. 3, has also raised the world's heaviest potato, heaviest parsnip, and longest beetroot. Doesn't Mr. Glazebrook look like a guy you'd want to live next door? We had a neighbor like that growing up in Illinois, U.S.A. Mr. Jack Lanach, long since gone, talked gardening with my Mom and gave my sister and I the occasional gift. The Fannie May chocolates* are also long since gone, but the fossil is still in my permanent collection.

*Melissa, don't these jog your memory and give you a craving?!

Vladimir

With comparatively few paparazzi in Russia, it pays to have a personal photographer or two on staff. Vladimir Putin, Russia's former president and current prime minister, has been pictured
carrying ancient amphora he discovered while diving in Greece (1st image, August 2011), holding the head of a tiger as it is outfitted with a tracking collar at an animal reserve in eastern Russia (2nd image, August 2008), playing piano at a charity concert in St. Petersburg (3rd image, December 2010), in the cockpit of an airplane fighting fire southeast of Moscow (4th image, August 2010), participating in some iron-forging at a museum in Siberia (5th image, August 2009), and - of course - riding a horse shirtless (6th image, August 2009). The photos above have been collected by The Atlantic, which offers dozens more. There is a website dedicated to Uncomfortable Moments with Putin, but even there it's hard to find a bad photo of the man himself.

New neighbors

Mr. and Mrs. Wile E. Coyote (1st image photograph and 4th image caricature) have moved into an upscale neighborhood of Glendale, California, to raise their children. The family of 7 has laid claim to the yard - and possibly the interior - of a burned-out house on Brockmont Drive in Verdugo Hills (2nd image aerial view, 3rd image street view). "They act like they own the place, which they kind of do," said nearby resident Michael Hunt, who uses an air-horn to scare them out of his own yard and away from his dog and his 13-year-old daughter. The owners of the house, which was destroyed by a fire in November, are having it razed next week, but many wonder if the coyotes will leave when the house is gone. An L.A. County agency wants to set traps, after which they would euthanize the coyotes (required by law to avoid them dying slowly or adversely affecting another ecosystem into which they are relocated). But the mayor and many of the neighbors don't want to see the animals killed. Caught commuting in Oregon, coyotes are now squatting in California. "This is not normal," says next-door neighbor Cathy Molloy, who has recently put up a big fence. "They think humans are their family. But eventually they're going to get hungry, and they're going to turn on us."

Library leavings

An extremely talented someone is leaving beautiful whimsical sculptures at Edinburgh's libraries. There has been much speculation about the identity of the serial artist, but no one has come forward to claim a growing fame. I've illustrated the post with my favorite, but here is the sequence with links (best photos here):

1
Scottish Poetry Library
Tree, March 2011
"It started with your name @byleaveswelive and became a tree.…We know that a library is so much more than a building full of books…a book is so much more than pages full of words..."

2
National Library of Scotland
Gramophone and Coffin, June 2011
"A gift in support of libraries, books, words, ideas..... (& against their exit)."

3
The Filmhouse Cinema
Theater, June 2011
"For @filmhouse – a gift – In support of Libraries, Books, Words, Ideas...& All things *magic*...I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated."

4
Scottish Storytelling Centre
Dragon, July 2011
"Once upon a time there was a book, and in the book was a nest, and in the nest was an egg, and in the egg was a dragon, and in the dragon was a story."

5
Edinburgh International Book Festival
Cup of Tea, August 2011
(pictured, more photos here)
"This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas...... & festivals xx...By leaves we live."

6
Edinburgh International Book Festival
Book Forest, August 2011
"LOST (albeit in a good book) This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas....No infant has the power of deciding..... by what circumstances (they) shall be surrounded."

7
Edinburgh Central Library
Magnifying Glass, August 2011 (more photos here)
"Libraries are Exp[e]ansive....When I go in I want it bright, I want to catch whatever is there in full sight.”

Each of these sculptures bears a tag stating, "A gift in support of libraries, books, words and ideas." They have connections to Scotland's most prominent poet Edwin Morgan (1920-2010) and Scottish author Ian Rankin. After sculptures #5 and #6 were left at the crowded Book Festival, "Puzzled staff were left scratching their heads as to how the objects had been left without anyone noticing." The identity of the artist remains tantalizingly elusive!

A shout out to follower Lisa Wood today, and hugs to Sue Jacoby for bringing this great story to my attention!

The Empire of Death

If I were going to be in Southern California on September 24th at 7pm, I would take the opportunity to meet this guy. Dr. Paul Koudounaris (smaller images above, see complete slideshow of photographs by Mark Berry) is a professor of Baroque art history at California State University Dominguez Hills, and an event on that date is planned to launch his new book, The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses (Facebook page here). Although the official publication date is not until October, copies of the book will be available at this and subsequent events. Dr. Koudounaris will sign them and show a sampling of the hundreds of original photos he took for the book during his research in 20 countries* across 3 continents. In his author/artist statement, he writes:

"Some of the sites I studied are major tourist destinations and famous to this day, but many others are unheard of—located often in remote rural areas, and in some cases found by diligent research, in others by sheer accident. Among them were some which had never before been photographed. Other sites, no longer extant, were discovered in searches through archival material, but even these were sometimes reborn through the discovery of old prints or early photos. I never felt that the subject I was dealing with was death, and in presenting the sites I strove to recontextualize them for a modern audience which is all too inclined to view them as products of morbidity and despair. These sites were intended as statements of hope and beauty, and it was important to me that I find a means through photographs and the writing of history to convey that: these sites represent death only in so far as death itself affirms life."

So, if you want to meet someone who writes like this and looks like that - or if you just have an interest in decorative bones - get thee down to La Luz de Jesus next Saturday.

*Among them Austria, Cambodia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Italy, Peru, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland.