House Made Entirely out of Trash
December 9, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
Is there enough trash to build a viable house? This woman uses resourcefulness and ingenuity to prove it can be done.
House Made Entirely out of Trash
Beth
Life Thrives in Strange Places: 14 Urban Ecosystems
June 3, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
[ By Steph in Animals & Habitats & Nature & Ecosystems. ]
Boars wreaking havoc in urban Berlin, dogs riding the subway in Moscow, a species of mosquitoes that only lives in man-made underground spaces and snakes that make their way up into our toilets – all of these creatures and more have adapted to human encroachment in surprising (and sometimes terrifying!) ways. These 14 unique urban and man-made ecosystems – including two of the most insane human communities of modern times – shed light on how we affect the natural world for better or worse.
Metro Dogs in Moscow
(images via: english russia)
Not only do dogs ride the subways in Moscow, stretching out across a row of seats while amused passengers smile down at them, they have adapted to their unusual urban habitat by developing new survival tactics. An astounding 35,000 stray dogs have actually figured out how to get from point A to point B, getting on and off at their favorite stops. Surviving off scraps, the dogs have realized which techniques are best at securing food, including sending off the youngest, cutest member of the pack to beg or barking loudly at a human holding food, hoping (often successfully) that they’ll drop it on the ground.
Microbes in the Gowanus Canal
(images via: jgny, brainware3000)
The Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn is a sickening sight, full of chemical sludge and such odd and disturbing ‘wildlife’ as discarded medical supplies, raw sewage, debris from scrap metal yards and various specimens of unidentifiable refuse. Now a Superfund site, the canal is home to fish that are too contaminated to eat (though it’s amazing that anything can live in that water at all). But there’s a silver lining to the stench and mess: the canal has become something like a huge petri dish for microbes that could hold the key to combating heart disease, AIDS and other health ailments. Two New York biologists found ‘white gunk’, a combination of bacteria, microbes and chemicals, under the canal bed that could form the basis of new antibiotics.
Chernobyl Reclaimed by Animals
(images via: ssis.edu.vn, wired)
First a bustling urban home to humans, then an abandoned wasteland in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the town of Pripyat, Ukraine is now rapidly becoming a sanctuary for plants and animals. A documentary entitled ‘Chernobyl Reclaimed: An Animal Takeover‘ captured some the creatures that have come to call the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone home in the absence of people. Animals spotted there include wolves, wild boar, deer, moose and beavers. It’s not all paradise, however; although most mutations may not be obvious to our eyes, scientists say that radiation continues to affect the species that remain within the zone.
Berlin’s Wild Boars
(images via: freelens.com)
Thousands of wild boars have come to call the streets of the busy German city of Berlin home. Thanks to increasingly mild winters, plenty of wooded parks and gardens full of grubs, the boars have found the city to be more than hospitable, a preference which has unfortunately led to hundreds of car accidents, not to mention property damage. In addition to the dangers they face from the boars, which can weigh 250 pounds and sport sharp curved tusks, forestry officials charged with killing nuisance animals have to contend with angry animal rights activists who don’t want the boars to be harmed. Up to 7,000 boars now live in the city.
“There is no way that hunting can get rid of them all,” biologist Derk Ehlert told The Wall Street Journal. “Ultimately we must learn to share the city with the swine.”
Hemingway’s Cats, Key West, Florida
(images via: hemingwayhome.com, wikimedia commons)
Visitors to Ernst Hemingway’s estate in Key West, Florida, now a museum, will notice something peculiar: dozens and dozens of cats roaming the fenced property. And these aren’t just any cats – they’re descendents of the famous writer’s own six-toed ship cat that have interbred extensively, carrying on the unusual trait of polydactylism. This genetic defect, which is characterized by extra toes, is also commonly found in America’s Northeast and in Southwest England.
Cape Town Penguins
(images via: wikimedia commons)
Cape Town’s famous penguins frolic on Boulder Beach, bathing and playing to the delight of human swimmers and sunbathers. This colony started with just a single pair, first spotted in 1983, which began to lay two years later. By 1997, thanks to both reproduction and immigration, there were 2,350 adult birds. However cute these critters may be, nearby residents weren’t too happy when the penguins began invading their gardens, making loud noises and pooping all over the streets and sidewalks. The beach has since been taken over by Cape Peninsula National Park to keep the penguins fenced in and away from urban settings.
People Packed in Kowloon Walled City
(images via: doobybrain)
One of the most extraordinary human habitats ever produced was Kowloon Walled City, originally built as a watchpost to protect the area against pirates during British rule, occupied by the Japanese during WWII and taken over by squatters after Japan’s surrender. Located outside Hong Kong, Kowloon became an insanely compacted, lawless, unclaimed city full of labyrinthine passages and towers that extended so high into the air that sunlight couldn’t reach the lower levels. Within 6.5 acres, the city’s population grew to at least 33,000 by 1987. Residents were evicted and the city was demolished by the Hong Kong Housing Authority in 1993. The area where it once stood is now the Kowloon Walled City Park, where artifacts are displayed, including inscribed stones and old wells.
Urban Monkeys in Malaysia
(images via: plassen, atlai)
It’s not the fault of the monkeys in Malaysia that they’re now city dwellers, dangling from power lines, begging tourists for food and potentially spreading disease to humans. They’ve been forced out of their natural forest habitat by urban development. About 250,000 of Malaysia’s 700,000 monkeys, mostly macaques and leaf monkeys, live in towns and cities amongst humans. Veterinary experts warn that they carry blood parasites, herpes, malaria and dengue and could transmit these diseases to people.
Toilet Snakes Around the World
(images via: nydailynews.com, observer, herald sun)
Rationally, you can say that snakes can’t possibly live in sewer systems, ready to pop up out of the toilet when you’re at your most vulnerable. But tell that to the many people around the world to whom this has actually happened. While ‘sewer gators’ may be entirely the stuff of urban legend, snake-in-the-toilet stories are all too real, and usually result from pets or wild snakes making their way into plumbing systems. In 2007, a Brooklyn woman was shocked to find a 7-foot python in her toilet, while a Bronx man found a 3-foot corn snake coiled atop his own toilet last fall. In India, snakes in the toilet seem to be a common occurrence. While people usually aren’t harmed by these encounters, a Jacksonville, Florida woman wasn’t so lucky. One night in 2005, she lifted up the lid to her toilet and was immediately bitten by a deadly water moccasin with a head “three fingers wide”. As the woman was rushed off to the hospital, the snake got away, and the family still fears running into it in the dark.
Lonely Bacteria in a South Africa Gold Mine
(images via: new scientist)
Two miles beneath the surface of the earth in fluid-filled cracks of the Mponeng goldmine in South Africa, a species of bacteria exists far beyond the reach of oxygen and sunlight. Scientists believe that the discovery of Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator, a new species, could hold clues about alien life. Amazingly, this species – which lives all by itself in a place where nothing else can survive – extracts everything it needs from an otherwise dead environment, getting its energy from the radioactive decay of uranium in the rocks.
“One question that has arisen when considering the capacity of other planets to support life is whether organisms can exist independently, without access even to the Sun,” says astrobiologist Dylan Chivian. “The answer is yes and here’s the proof. It’s philosophically exciting to know that everything necessary for life can be packed into a single genome.”
South Africa’s Baboons
(images via: amuse.ment, snigl3t)
Baboons are finding themselves bulldozed out of house and home by the rampant expansion of Cape Town, South Africa’s suburbs, so is it any surprise that they’ve chosen to make their home in these newly urbanized environments? 400 urban baboons have been cut off from other troops by human activity, and as a result, male baboons in charge of finding food and breeding partners are growing more aggressive. Local wildlife managers have turned to a ‘three strikes, you’re out’ tactic for misbehaving baboons, euthanizing repeat troublemakers. The baboons have begun breaking into homes and restaurants, but animal activists say that peaceful coexistence is possible, portraying the so-called pests as ‘tremendous recyclers of what we humans casually discard.’
Mosquitoes of the London Underground
(images via: phsource.us)
You’re not just imagining it – the mosquitoes that bite you while you’re waiting for the subway really are more vicious than those above ground. In fact, they’re likely to be a different species altogether – a species that evolved to live in man-made underground environments. The London Underground mosquito, which is found around the world, is thought to have evolved recently from the overground species Culex pipiens, and as opposed to that species, C.p. molestus is cold-intolerant and bites rats, mice and humans. It is believed that old tires carrying larvae may have introduced the population that spawned the new species.
Brazil’s Marmosets
(images via: wagner machado carlos lemes)
The adorable urban marmosets of Brazil, which have adapted to life in the nation’s developed areas, has learned a nifty trick to escape the cats that try to catch them. Unlike their jungle counterparts, these marmosets choose a favorite tree and return to it each and every night – because their favored trees either have limbs to high off the ground or smooth bark, so that cats can’t climb up. This behavior was noted by researchers in marmosets at the Belo Horizonte City Park in Minas Gerais, which is also home to about 115 domestic cats. Like the cats, many of these marmosets may be the descendents of former pets that were dumped in the park.
Medina Zabbaleen, Egypt’s Trash City
(images via: marketplace)
Can you imagine living in a city where trash is stacked on absolutely every available surface, from streets and rooftops to the floors and tables of homes? Medina Zabbaleen isn’t so full of trash because the people don’t know what to do with it; rather, they’re a highly efficient community of trash collectors and recyclers, taking unwanted refuse off the hands of wealthier people in Cairo and bringing it back to their own city where they sort it and recycle as much as 80 percent of it (including feeding all of the food scraps to their pigs, which then provide meat – smart!).The city was featured in the award-winning 2009 documentary, ‘Garbage Dreams‘.
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Homeless Man Pays it Forward
May 17, 2011 by admin · View Comments
Curtis Jackson has lived on the streets of Chicago since 2004, panhandling for spare change. Most people don’t give him a cent—but one woman, a single mother who worked at a local bank, was always kind to him. She’d give him a few dollars, and stop to ask him about his day.
But last year, things began to fall apart for Jackson’s Good Samaritan. She lost her job, and was no longer able to make payments on her mortgage. She lost her home, and a social worker gave her enough money for her and her son to spend a few nights in a hotel. She wasn’t sure what she’d do next—until Jackson showed up to help.
Because the woman had been so kind to him when he needed her help, Jackson is repaying her kindness with his own: Every night, he shows up to pay her hotel bill out of the money he’s collected from panhandling that day.
“All I can do is get out there and put a sign in my hand, or put a cup in my hand and ask people to help me out, and everything I get, except maybe bus fare and something to eat, I give it to her,” he told My Fox Chicago. Since December, he’s given her $9,000 to support herself and her son.
The down-on-her-luck single mom is amazed that Jackson has come through for her.
“I’ve donated to charities, I’ve helped other homeless families—never realizing that one day we’d be in this situation,” she said. “So thank God that we did have an angel waiting for us.”Source: Gimundo.com
Beth
Stoned Souls: Bizarre Human-Shaped Rocks Sculpted By Nature
November 9, 2010 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
[ By Steve in Geography & Travel, History & Trivia, Nature & Ecosystems. ]
The phenomenon known in psychological terms as pareidolia – seeing human features, especially faces, where they don’t actually exist – often raises its head when we observe certain natural rock formations. These two dozen plus bizarre human-shaped rocks illustrate what happens when pareidolia meets petrology face to face.
Ploumanach’s People
(images via: Getty Images, Schnapz and Getty Images)
The “Cote de Granit Rose” at Ploumanach in France’s northwestern province of Brittany offers the serious pareidoliac a virtual field day. Wave erosion over millions of years have carved the pretty pink granite rocks scattered along the shore into a plethora of anthropomorphic figures and faces, a sampling of which is shown above.
Turkish Delights
(images via: R.V. Dietrich)
Mimetoliths, rocks “the shape of which resembles something else”, range from loose stones to large natural topographic features. These 6 examples are from Turkey and have been named (clockwise from above left) by photographer Algis Kemezys as Armored Warrior, Sad Widow, Toothed Ancient and Zues’ Disdain.
(image via: R.V. Dietrich)
Above is one more Turkish mimetolith, dubbed The Goat Herder – looks more like The Goat Eater if you ask me… lookout, Billy!
Old Man Of The Mountain
(images via: Outdoors Webshots, Absolute Astronomy and Travel Webshots)
One of the most famous human-shaped natural rock formations in the United States, if not the world, sadly crumbled to dust and pebbles on May 3rd, 2003. The “Old Man of the Mountain” was more than a landmark, it symbolized the rough and stoic character of its home state, New Hampshire. Discovered by surveyors in 1805, the petrified profile has been New Hampshire’s state emblem since 1945 and continues to grace the state’s license plates, highway-route signs, and the back of New Hampshire’s 2000 Statehood Quarter.
(image via: The Epoch Times)
Immediately following the formation’s collapse, popular dismay was so great that people visited the base of Cannon Mountain to leave bouquets of flowers as a tribute to the Old Man’s passing. Gone but not forgotten, the Old Man of the Mountain Revitalization Task Force installed coin-operated viewfinders that overlay an image of the Old Man prior to the collapse onto its current appearance.
Wish You Were Here!
(image via: Minnesota Museum of the Mississippi and Matt Bergstrom)
The above assortment of rocky human heads and profiles have been noted by so many people over a long enough time that they’ve been immortalized on picture postcards.
Stone outcrops that resemble generic human heads are one thing, those that evoke the countenance of an actual person are something else altogether! This startling likeness of the late President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in natural black lava can be found at Black Gorge in Iao Valley on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The so-called JFK Profile stands about 50 feet (15 m) high and is easily visible from the scenic road that winds its way through the Iao Valley.
Hot Rock Lincoln
(images via: Minnesota Museum of the Mississippi and Matt Bergstrom and Philadelphia Biblical University)
Say what you want about America’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, but the dude totally rules. At the very least, he rocks… enough to have a strikingly familiar stony outcrop labeled Lincoln Rock in his honor. Located in – where else? – Lincoln State Park overlooking the Columbia River, Lincoln Rock
(image via: Texas Mountain Trail)
Here’s another natural Lincoln doppelganger, located in West Texas’ Davis Mountains. The above scenic photo showing a restful and recumbent Lincoln was taken on Hwy 67 between Marfa and Presidio. Though not as “in your face” as the JFK Profile, both Lincoln Rock and Lincoln Profile show a distinct resemblance to ol’ Abe… honest!
Queen’s Head
(images via: Viet Collection and Digital Taiwan)
Combining the haughtiness of a “we are not amused” Queen Victoria with the imperious regal countenance of an Egyptian princess, Queen’s Head is located neither in England nor Egypt, but Taiwan. The formation is one of many that dot the 5,580-ft (1,700 m) long cape at Yehliu located on the north coast of Taiwan, between Taipei and Keelung. Besides “Queen’s head”, Yehliu’s other named sea stacks include “Fairy’s Shoe”, “Bee’s Hive”, “Ginger Rocks” and “Sea Candles.”
(image via: Skyscraper City)
Though nominally protected by its inclusion within the Yehliu Geopark, Taiwan scientists estimate that continual exposure to the same ocean winds, waves and weathering that created the Queen’s Head over the past 4,000-odd years will cause it to collapse – possibly within just a few years. Knowing this sad yet inevitable fact, both natives and tourists travel to Yehliu to get their pictures taken with the Queen while they can!
The Badlands Guardian
(images via: PC World)
Impressed by the Mars Face? The Badlands Guardian, as the above geomorphological feature is called, is much closer to home though one still needs to view it from a fair ways above. Located near the city of Medicine Hat in southeastern Alberta, Canada, this natural silt formation appears to be a proud Native Canadian chief who’s tuning into the modern age via the use of headphones – actually an oil well and the access road leading to/from it.
http://atlasobscura.com/place/the-badlands-guardian
The Badlands Guardian is notable in that it exercises two different types of psycho-visual phenomena: Pareidolia and the Hollow-Face Illusion. The latter comes into play when an image, in this case a concave valley, appears to be a raised feature due to the brain’s preference to see it that way.
Here’s a video on The Badlands Guardian that originally aired in 2006 on CHAT-TV:
Amah Rock
(images via: Hong Kong Yearbook 2008, Hi2 World and TravelPod)
Amah Rock (“the stone that is gazing out for her husband”) is a 50-ft (15 m) tall natural rock formation located on a hilltop in Hong Kong’s Sha Tin district. The rock is said to resemble the figure of a woman carrying a baby on her back.
According to legend, Amah Rock was once a fisherman’s wife who climbed a hill each day to look out over the sea and await her husband’s return. One day he did not return, having drowned at sea, but the woman still climbed the hill hoping that he was merely delayed by a storm. Looking down at this example of faithfulness and devotion, the Ancient Chinese Gods took pity upon the woman and turned her to stone. Geez, Ancient Chinese Gods, couldn’t you have just revived her hubby and sent him home?
Grand Teton Goes Solo
(images via: Rocketnews24, Horizon472, Next Dimension and Foodpia-Olive)
“Grand Teton” might mean Big Tit in French, but Wyoming’s famous peaks have got nothing on this solitary beached breast from Japan. Congealed from volcanic lava explosively expelled from nearby Mount Unzen, the monstrous mammary looks almost TOO real – somebody call Playboy’s airbrush specialist, stat!
(image via: Fines Moth Black)
The humongous hooter is somewhat of a local tourist attraction in the southern Japanese seaside town of Reihoku, and helpful city workers have even set up signs directing all and sundry to the Oppai Ishi (breast stone)… as if anyone could really miss a 5-ft (1.5 m) wide disembodied boob. Uh, easy there girls, you don’t want to arouse an earthquake or anything, hmm?
Space Face Fuss
(images via: Trek United, Neatorama and Niketalk)
Human-shaped rocks seem to be pretty common here on Earth, so it’s no surprise they’re being found OFF the earth in places no human has ever been. The much-ballyhooed Mars Face, yet another Mars Face and now a tiny, perfect rock fairy that looks like it escaped from a Roman fountain. If that doesn’t cinch the Wet Mars theory, what does?
(images via: Astronomie.de, Maid-Ez, NASA and Space.com)
The original Mars Face was spied on old Viking 1 Orbiter images of the Red Planet that were alarmingly low res. It was the Seventies, fer pete’s sake! Most everyone knew that when sharper images of the Cydonia plain became available, what was once thought to be a monumental alien head would be resolved to a monumental alien… hill. So it goes, and maybe it’s just as well Jupiter only has only one Great Red Spot.
(image via: Den Of Geek)
Rock Men are cool, just ask the Rock Man from Nilsson’s animated classic film The Point. Rock Women are cool too, just scroll back a bit and you’ll remember why. Maybe it’s just as well, though, they’re made of rock and can’t move – except incrementally via erosion and suddenly when gravity wins its long and patient battle.
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Animal Detectives: Feline Forensics and Intuitive Insects
March 26, 2010 by admin · View Comments
[ By Chris in Animals & Habitats, Nature & Ecosystems. ]
(Images via: PCS, Babble, AC360, Nikipedia, Stripers Online, Sock Ninja, Book Mice, Snarkerati, The Pilver)
From sniffing for bombs and drugs to tracking down missing persons, dogs have been trained to use their strong sense of smell in the pursuit of justice. While bloodhounds and other canines may first come to mind when thinking of animal detectives, they are not the only creatures that can help solve crimes and put away slime. Turns out that dog’s worst friend – the cat – and an insect that most humans would like to avoid – wasps – also have some surprising value in the world of law enforcement.
If the Cat Fur Sticks, You Must Not Acquit
(Images via: Annie’s Little Footprints, Fantasy Stock, Flickr, Onancock, Eco Test, Flickr)
Cat owners can attest to how much cats love to groom themselves, shedding tons of hair on pillows, couches, floors and other areas of the home. Often viewed as an annoyance, discarded cat hair turned out to be a crucial piece of evidence in a 1994 murder case in Canada. Inside a bloody jacket next to a murdered woman were two strands of white car fur. The jacket was believed to be owned by the woman’s ex-husband, and the fur was genetically linked through DNA analysis to a cat named Snowball, owned by the suspect’s parents. Ultimately, the cat fur contributed to conviction of the suspect, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
CSI CAT-alonia?
(Cat DNA Image via: Flickr)
(Cat Genome Image via: About)
Law enforcement officials have noted how cat fur is like a silent witness that can be brought to the scene of the crime (such as in the landmark Canada case) or carried away from the scene (such as from the home of a cat owner). Given the potential of cat fur as forensic evidence in millions of homes, an international team of scientists recently developed an extensive DNA database that includes different cat furs. The database currently features 1,396 different cat DNA sequences to be used by crime scene investigators and forensic experts. The scientists expect to add dog hair sequences to the DNA database in the future.
The Sting: Starring Paul Newman and Thousands of Wasps
(Images via: Apartment Therapy, Urban Extension, Sky Bird 1831)
Like dogs, wasps are masters at olfactory detection. In recent years scientists have trained wasps to smell for different chemicals, simply by feeding them sugar water and introducing them to a specific smell (such as caffeine). The wasps have demonstrated a quick ability to pick up on these smells in as little as 10 seconds and just 2 to 3 repeated trials. Especially interesting, the wasps will swarm to the trained smell when detected. According to entomologists, wasps display great potential to detect anything, including drugs and human remains. Given that thousands of wasps can be trained to detect a specific smell in just 10 to 15 minutes, the entomologists added that there could be a day when wasps replace the bomb-sniffing dogs that we’ve all come to love.
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Animal suicide is seemingly easy to dismiss on the surface but merits more thought when considering how captivity, depression and other factors can affect animals. 1 Comment - Click Here to Read More
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