zooks
zooks's JournalHow to help save wild bees - even if you don't have a garden
really interesting info
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To help wild bees, you don’t need to buy loads of kit. You don’t even need a garden. The first thing to do is grow as many flowering plants as you can cram into your outdoor space. All bees need nectar and pollen, both to feed themselves and their young. Some emerge from hibernation as early as February, while others wait until September. Therefore, growing flowering plants from February to November is key. Grow crocus and primrose in spring, lavender in summer, and Verbena bonariensis and echinacea in autumn.
The second thing to do is to create nesting habitats. If you have a garden, start a compost heap, or let an area of grass grow long, and leave twigs and leaf litter to accumulate at the back of your borders. Bumblebees might make a nest or even hibernate here. You could also erect a bee hotel – a box designed to mimic the cavities in which some solitary bees nest – in a garden, balcony or doorstep. (see article)
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urban spaces can, in some instances, be better for bees and other pollinators than the countryside, where wildlife has largely been pushed out to make space for more crops and livestock. Gardens and parks are home to a greater variety of flowering plants than in the wild, and for a longer season, too. What’s more, were less likely to use pesticides in them, enabling bees and other pollinators to feed safely. Indeed, a study published last summer in the journal Proceedings Of The Royal Society B found that bumblebee colonies in urban areas were actually stronger than those in the wild.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/15/create-a-buzz-how-to-help-save-wild-bees-even-if-you-dont-have-a-garden
Do you all know Flame - the Fire Station cat? squee!
Meanwhile in the Arctic: Russia's multi-billion-dollar mission to own the Arctic. SCARY!
This CBC article is a must read. Eye-opening, scary with lots of jaw-dropping photos shopping the scale of development.
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While Canada's government has banned hydrocarbon exploration on its side of the Arctic and declared climate change a national emergency, such considerations are utterly absent in Russia.
Instead, the emphasis is on getting as many riches out of the thawing permafrost as quickly as possible and capitalizing on the melting sea ice to move them all to Asian markets.
In all, the Kremlin says it's eyeing a staggering $80 billion US worth of new infrastructure and oil and gas development above the Arctic Circle over the next five years and $180 billion US in total over the next three decades.
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Along with the new industrial development, Russia is also aiming to control the shipping lanes in the Arctic — and for that, icebreakers are key.
Russia has already started construction on what it claims will be the world's largest fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers, eventually expected to number between 10 and 13 vessels.
The newest icebreaker is the Ural, a beast of a ship that will be able to crunch through sea ice more than three metres thick.
Eight storeys high and 183 metres long, the Ural is powered by two nuclear reactors that won't need to be refuelled for almost seven years, giving the ship almost unlimited endurance.
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/putin-arctic
YIKES! Phones changing skeletons: 'bony spikes' are developing on backs of skulls
Researchers from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia did the study
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Researchers said growing numbers of people have growths called enlarged external occipital protuberances at the base of their skull.
Considered rare when they were first discussed in the 1800s, we may now be able to feel the bony lumps with our fingers or see them on bald people.
And younger people are developing them faster, with research showing the bumps are most common among 18 to 30-year-olds.
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And Dr Shahar said that, although the bony lumps are unlikely to cause any damaging effects themselves, they may never go away.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7142307/Looking-phones-causing-bony-spikes-grow-skulls.html
If Iran is attacked the Shia in Iraq will attack American assets there,
Houthis in Yemen will attack tankers in the Gulf of Hormuz, Hezbollah in Lebanon will attack Israel. The area will explode. An Iranian expert on CBC Radio made those observations and said we are at a moment that looks dangerously similar to the start of the first World War.
MLK: "This country has socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for the poor."
Nuff said.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, 1968
That Iran is responsible for attacks on tankers is bullshit. Someone framing Iran eff'd up.
Why would Iran attack the Japanese tanker when for the first time in FORTY YEARS the Japanese Prime Minister is in Iran to discuss American sanctions?
This stinks to high heaven. I suspect the Sauds of doing this as I doubt the Israelis or the American would do something so careless. This is not to say they the Americans and the Israelis wouldn't be in on something like this.
This smells like WMDs that Bush fabricated to start the Iraq war.
MUST READ! US foods increasingly full of nano-scale additives, as researchers raise alarm bells
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Health effects from titanium dioxide observed in the lab were particularly acute in young animals, which is a concern given that children are especially exposed to it through candies, chewing gum and desserts.
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'I wash all my food like crazy': scientists voice concern about nanoparticles"
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France is clamping down on a common food additive that has been shown to be carcinogenic in animal studies. The ban of titanium dioxide, announced by the French government last month, follows a review that could not rule out human cancer risks.
The ban is just the latest chapter in a long-running debate on the safety of widespread food additives known as nanoparticles, which are largely unregulated in the US. This suite of ingredients, engineered to almost atomic scale, may have unintended effects on cells and organs, particularly the digestive tract. There are also indications that nanoparticles may get into the bloodstream and accumulate elsewhere in the body. They have been linked to inflammation, liver and kidney damage and even heart and brain damage.
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Due to safety concerns, some scientists who have studied nanoparticles say they would have reservations about eating food that contains the technology. “As a consumer, I wash all my foods like crazy,” says Christine Ogilvie Hendren, executive director of the Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology at Duke University, when asked if consumers can wash off some of the nanoparticles that are increasingly found in food and packaging.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/29/i-wash-all-my-food-like-crazy-researchers-voice-concern-about-nanoparticles
Revealed: women's fertility app is funded by anti-abortion campaigners
The Femm app has users in the US, EU and Africa and sows doubt over the safety of birth control, a Guardian investigation has found
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The Femm app does not readily disclose the philosophy of its funders or leaders, and markets itself as a way to “avoid or achieve pregnancy”.
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Part of the Femm app encourages women to visit its own network of physicians for hormone tests, which it claims can diagnose “underlying” medical disorders.
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Fertility awareness birth control methods, such as that promoted by Femm, are considered the least effective, resulting in roughly 24 pregnancies for every 100 women using the method a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Implantable devices are considered the most effective, resulting in one pregnancy for every 2,000 women a year.
“The birth control pill is one of the greatest health achievements of the 20th century,” said Dr Nathaniel DeNicola, an OB-GYN with the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which has studied fertility apps extensively. “This is part of standard women’s healthcare.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/30/revealed-womens-fertility-app-is-funded-by-anti-abortion-campaigners
NY Tenants Fight As Landlords Embrace Facial Recognition
More than 130 residents at a Brooklyn apartment complex oppose plan to use the cameras, whose use, experts say, is quietly expanding in cities
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The row, which the tenants believe could become an important test case, comes as concern about the spread of facial recognition systems has grown across the US and globally, with law enforcement agencies increasingly relying on the tool.
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“We do not want to be tagged like animals,” said Icemae Downes, who has lived at Atlantic Plaza Towers since it opened 51 years ago. “We are not animals. We should be able to freely come in and out of our development without you tracking every movement.”
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/may/29/new-york-facial-recognition-cameras-apartment-complex
Facial recognition at one's residence is damned outrageous and chilling
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