tagged w/ fauna
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“Creatures of the Deep” is part of the award-winning nature documentary series “Life,” which was created by BBC television and first broadcast as part of the BBC’s Darwin Season in 2009. The series received its North American premiere on Discovery Channel Canada in November 2009 and received its U.S. premier on Discovery Channel in March 2010. The series was nominated for six Primetime Emmy Awards in July 2010, and the episode “Challenges of Life” went on to win the Outstanding Cinematography for Nonfiction Programming Award.
The series takes a global view of the specialized strategies and extreme behaviors that living things have developed in order to survive. “Creatures of the Deep” focuses on marine invertebrates, which are some of the most bizarre and beautiful animals on the planet, thriving in the midst of the toughest parts of the oceans. Divers swim into a shoal of predatory Humboldt squid as they emerge from the ocean depths to hunt in packs. When cuttlefish gather to mate, their bodies flash in stroboscopic colors. Time-lapse photography reveals thousands of starfish gathering under the Arctic ice to devour a seal carcass. The greatest living structures on earth, coral reefs, are created by tiny animals in some of the world’s most inhospitable waters.
The beautiful HD “Life” nature series provides the perfect visual background for any living room activity. As many have discovered, they play even better when muted and paired with soundtracks of your own choice. Now, videographer Tobi Totschlag has undertaken the task of curating some of his favorite songs and pairing them with parts of BBC’s “Life,” including some amazing scenes from “Creatures of the Deep.”
This piece includes a number of color photographs and four music videos created from the documentary series.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/the-challenges-of-life-extraordinary-creatures-of-the-deep/“Creatures of the Deep” is part of the award-winning nature documentary... more
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PARIS — Fast-track warming in Europe is making butterflies and birds fall behind in the move to cooler habitats and prompting a worrying turnover in alpine plant species, studies published Sunday said.
The papers, both published by the journal Nature Climate Change, are the biggest endeavour yet to pinpoint impacts on European biodiversity from accelerating global temperatures.
A team led by Vincent Devictor of France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) found that from 1990 to 2008, average temperatures in Europe rose by one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit).
This is extremely high, being around 25 percent greater than the global average for all of the last century.
In order to live at the same temperature, species would have to shift northward by 249 kilometres (155 miles), they calculated.
But during this period, butterlies moved only 114 kms (71 miles), and birds by just 37 kms (23 miles).
The data derives from observations made by a network of thousands of amateur naturalists, amounting to a remarkable 1.5 million hours of fieldwork.
The study was not designed to say whether these species are suffering as a result of warming, which is one of the big questions in the climate-change saga.
However, the risk of population decline is clear, the authors say.
Species that lag behind a move to a more suitable habitat accumulate a "climatic debt."
Eventually, the impact of warming hits parts of the local food chain on which they depend, such as caterpillars or vegetation, and this cuts into their chances of being able to adapt. Finding a similar habitat is made more difficult by agriculture.
The second study looked at 867 samples of vegetation from 60 mountaintop sites across Europe in an assessment of the hottest decade on record.
Seen at local level, there was little apparent change during the 2001-2008 study period.
But when the picture zoomed out to continental level, it was clear that a major turnover was under way.
Cold-loving plants traditionally found in alpine regions were being pushed out of their habitats by warming-loving ones, which invaded higher altitudes that were now within their grasp.
"We expected to find a greater number of warm-loving plants at higher altitudes, but we did not expect to find such a significant change in such a short period of time," said study leader Michael Gottfried, a University of Vienna biologist.
"Many cold-loving species are literally running out of mountain. In some of the lower mountains in Europe, we could see alpine meadows disappearing and dwarf shrubs taking over within the next few decades."
The research was the biggest plant-count of its kind in Europe, gathering 32 researchers from 13 countries.PARIS — Fast-track warming in Europe is making butterflies and birds fall behind... more
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Another outcry against the toxic, non biodegradable stuff, killing the poor innocent creatures of the ocean, blah blah blah. All this while sitting comfortably in my warm home, sipping tea to my heart’s content. What could I do while sitting in the confides of my petite abode...
Keep reading at: http://www.forgetthebox.net/mag/green-bean-tuesdays/the-swirling-vortex-of-death.phpAnother outcry against the toxic, non biodegradable stuff, killing the poor innocent... more
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seifip
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added this
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1 year ago
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Sometimes you need to take time off and just focus on something of beauty, like the surf, or a mountain, or rain. Look at the wonder of nature and the world's problems seem so insignificant.Sometimes you need to take time off and just focus on something of beauty, like the... more
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Plomomedia's environmental focus brings original music and the imagery of San Francisco (including its 2007 oil spill) to the sampled voice of Janine Benyus, author of "Biomimicry" as she likens man-made technology to other natural processes. "Our technologies are natural," she states. "The question is: how well adapted are they?"
Footage shot from 2007-2009 at San Francisco's Sutro Park, Ocean Beach, Land's End, and elsewhere along the coast.
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about Janine Benyus:
Janine Benyus is a natural sciences writer, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including her latest − Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. In Biomimicry, she names an emerging discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature's designs and processes (e.g., solar cells that mimic leaves, agriculture that models a prairie, businesses that run like redwood forests).
Janine has cultivated a deep knowledge of the natural world, beginning with direct observation in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, continuing in habitats from Maine to West Virginia where she worked as a backcountry guide, and now, in her home wilds of Montana.
In addition to her biomimicry work, Janine teaches interpretive writing, lectures at the University of Montana, and works towards restoring and protecting wild lands. She serves on a number of land use committees in her rural county.
Janine has received several awards including the 2009 Champion of the Earth award in Science & Innovation from the United Nations Environmental Programme, Rachel Carson Environmental Ethics Award, Lud Browman Award for Science Writing, Science Writing in Society Journalism Award, Barrows and Heinz Distinguished Lectureships, and has been honored as one of TIME International's Heros of the Environment.
An educator at heart, Janine believes that the more people learn from natures mentors, the more theyll want to protect them. This is why she writes, speaks, and revels in describing the wild teachers in our midst.
Janine's international keynotes have introduced tens of thousands of people to biomimicry, including Amana-Key Executive Leadership Training, American Institute of Architects, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, California Resource Recovery Association, Cambridge University's Centre of International Studies and the Environment, Canadian National Roundtable for the Economy and the Environment, Design Futures Council, Global Business Network, Health Care Without Harm, the Prince of Wales' Business & the Environment Programme, National Textile Center, President's Council on Sustainable Development, Schumacher College, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Wharton School of Business. She also hosted and co-wrote a two-hour public television special based on her book, which aired on "The Nature of Things with David Suzuki" in 71 countries.Plomomedia's environmental focus brings original music and the imagery of San... more
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A new species of yeast has been discovered deep in the Amazon jungle. In a paper published on-line in FEMS Yeast Research, IFR scientists and colleagues from Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador describe the novel characteristics of Candida carvajalis sp. nov.
Yeasts have long been the powerhouses of our food and fermentation industries. Each new species adds to our knowledge of the yeast gene pool and even small genetic differences have the potential for major economic impact. Furthermore, as oil reserves diminish, the race is on to find novel varieties for use in sustainable biofuel production.A new species of yeast has been discovered deep in the Amazon jungle. In a paper... more
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Ever wondered what would happen on earth if all the humans suddenly vanished or died? This documentary shows how such an event would affect the rest of life on earth. It is not all good news in the short run, but hopeful in the long run.Ever wondered what would happen on earth if all the humans suddenly vanished or died?... more
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Bottom left: Megeleledone setebos, endemic to the Southern Ocean, surrounded by related octopus species that evolved in the deep-sea. Credit: Census of Marine Life
A city of brittle stars off the coast of New Zealand, an Antarctic expressway where octopuses ride along in a flow of extra salty water and a carpet of tiny crustaceans on the Gulf of Mexico sea floor are among the wonders discovered by researchers compiling a massive census of marine life.
"We are still making discoveries," but researchers also are busy assembling data already collected into the big picture of life in the oceans, senior scientist Ron O'Dor said.
The fourth update of the census was released Sunday ahead of a meeting of hundreds of researchers that begins Tuesday in Valencia, Spain. More than 2,000 scientists from 82 nations are taking part in the project, which is to be completed in 2010.
A discovery that delights O'Dor is that many deep-ocean octopuses share an Antarctic origin. As the Antarctic got colder, ice increased and octopuses were forced into deeper water, he said in a telephone interview.
Salt and oxygen are concentrated in the deeper waters, he said. This dense water then flows out, carrying along the octopuses that have adapted to the new conditions, enabling them to spread to deep waters around the world.
Deep-water octopuses worldwide, he pointed out, lack the ink sack that allows their shallow-water cousins to shoot out a camouflage screen.
After all, if they live where it is dark, ink is unnecessary, said O'Dor, a Canadian member of the research team.
Patricia Miloslavich, a senior scientist from Venezuela, is pleased with newly discovered mollusks, from snails to cuttlefish to squids.
Once the census is complete, the plan is to publish three books: a popular survey of sea life, a second book with chapters for each working group and a third focusing on biodiversity.
O'Dor said also researchers are working with the online scientific journal PLoS ONE, which is open to anyone and thus would make the results readily available.
Scientists at this week's sessions will hear about the discovery of what the researchers call a brittle star city off the coast of New Zealand.
The brittle stars, animals with five arms, have colonized the peak of a seamount - an underwater mountain - where the current flows past at about 2.5 miles per hour. The current delivers such an ample food supply that thousands of stars can capture food simply by raising their arms.
Researchers found a carpet of small crustaceans inhabiting the head of the Mississippi Canyon in the Gulf of Mexico. There are as many as 12,000 of these small crustaceans per square yard.
Among the other findings being reported at the meeting:
-The mid-Atlantic ridge half way between America and Europe is home to hundreds of species rare or unknown elsewhere.
-The ridge includes the world's deepest known active hot vent, more than 13,300 feet (4,100 meters) deep and populated by anemones, worms and shrimp.
-Reefs deep in the Black Sea are made of bacterial mats using methane as an energy source. The bacteria form chimneys up to 13 feet (4 meters) high.
-The deepest comb jellyfish ever found was discovered at a depth of 23,455 feet (7,217 meters) in the Ryukyu Trench near Japan. The discovery raises questions about the availability of food resources at such depths, which had not been thought capable of supporting predators like this one.
-The White Shark Cafe. Satellite tagging discovers that white sharks travel long distances each winter to concentrate in the Pacific for up to six months. While there, both males and females make frequent, repetitive dives to depths of 975 feet (300 meters), which researchers theorize may be significant in either feeding or reproduction.
Bottom left: Megeleledone setebos, endemic to the Southern Ocean, surrounded by... more
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