From the Author: now available to purchase

I am happy to "Thabo Searches For The Animals" is now available to purchase.
And remember, when you purchase a copy the royalties will be shared with Seeds of Light to support the Art Program for the Students/Orphans who did the illustrations.

you can follow the link below.

https://www.amazon.com/Thabo-Searches-Animals…/…/ref=sr_1_1…,

or go to Amazon and type in the title, "Thabo Searches For The Animals".

Thank you
Marty Strauss

From the Author: uploaded

"Thabo Searches For The Animals" is uploaded onto publisher's website and will be available in 3-5 days.

All proceeds from sales will be shared to support the Art Program the students/orphans who did the illustrations. We met and worked with the director of NGO while serving in the Peace Corps with Suzanne, my wife in South Africa.

Enjoy

From the Author: Thabo Illustration samples

"Thabo Looks For The Animals" is starting the upload process. I received final illustrations today from South Africa. This is exciting.

Below are some of the illustrations. The illustrations are being done by students in South Africa. They are orphans and in an Art Programs sponsored by an NGO, Seeds of Life . We were introduced to this program while in South Africa.

When the illustrations are completed the story will be available on Amazon. Proceeds from the sales will be shared with the NGO to support their Art Program.
They are now completing illustrations with the narrative. As these become available I will share some.
I hope you enjoy them.


  

From the author Thabo update

Illustrations for "Thabo Looks For The Animals" are being completed by the orphans in South Africa. Cannot wait to see them.

Trump signs order undoing Obama climate change policies / why Trump’s climate order won’t bring back many coal jobs

The president said this would put an end to the "war on coal" and "job-killing regulations".President Donald Trump has signed an executive order rolling back Obama-era rules aimed at curbing climate change.

The Energy Independence Executive Order suspends more than half a dozen measures enacted by his predecessor, and boosts fossil fuels.

Business groups have praised the Trump administration's move but environmental campaigners have condemned it.

Inside, the president was flanked by coal miners as he signed the order, saying: "My administration is putting an end to the war on coal.

coal mining employment is in decline for a wide variety of reasons: automation of mining; competition from cheap natural gas in the power sector; collapsing demand at steel mills in China. Environmental rules are only a part of the story, and, as many experts have pointed out, repealing those rules won’t bring back many jobs. At best, it would slow the decline In the years ahead.

And there’s a fairly simple way to see this.

The biggest thing Trump’s new order would do to help the coal industry is try to repeal or shrink the Clean Power Plan, which forces emissions reductions in the electricity sector. As it happens, the US Energy Information Administration modeled the effects of CPP repeal on America’s coal use earlier this year. The agency estimated that without the CPP, US coal consumption would rebound to … roughly 2015 levels:

He is not helping anyone but those who continue to line their pockets with profits off hard workers who are stuck in communities dependent on the coal and older practices  

Mr Trump has in the past said climate change had been "created by and for the Chinese". It is now unclear where exactly the US stands in relation to the deal. 

The president's order will be resisted by environmentalists, who have promised to challenge it in the courts.

Whatever the US chooses, the EU, India and China say they will stick to their pledges made in Paris.

http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/3/28/15088350/trump-climate-order-coal-jobs

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39415631

Science is not bent to one man's will.

 It can not lie follow the movement and keep the truth free. Follow the link below to know to see where the blacked out agencies have gone.



https://twitter.com/StollmeyerEU/lists/twistance/members

“The Breathing Earth,”

NASA's Goddard Space Flight CenterSatellite instruments reveal the yearly cycle of plant life on the land and in the water. On land, the images represent the density of plant growth, while in the oceans they show the chlorophyll concentration from tiny, plant-like organisms called phytoplankton. From December to February, during the northern hemisphere winter, plant life in the higher latitudes is minimal and receives little sunlight. However, even in the mid latitudes plants are dormant, shown here with browns and yellows on the land and dark blues in the ocean. By contrast the southern ocean and land masses are at the height of the summer season and plant life is revealed with dark green colors on the land and in the ocean. As the year progresses, the situations reverses, with plant life following the increased sunlight northward, while the southern hemisphere experiences decreased plant actvity during its' winter.

Rather than showing a specific year, the animation shows an average yearly cycle by combining data from many satellite instruments and averaging them over multiple years.

Western pond turtle recovery in Oregon

They survived the dinosaurs, but turtles worldwide are facing a modern extinction crisis, with half of all species at risk of disappearing.

Once common from Baja California to Puget Sound, the small, long-lived western pond turtle (Actinemys marmorata) is listed as endangered in Washington and threatened in Oregon. The Oregon Zoo works with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) to help restore this shy reptile to its historic range through a unique head-starting program. As a result, Western pond turtle numbers are on the rise.

Adult turtles can live up to 70 years, nest on land and feed, breed and bask in water. They prefer streams, ponds, lakes and permanent wetlands, although their populations are much reduced and concentrated in a few locations.

Threats

Habitat loss draining and filling of wetlands, dams and water diversion deprive these aquatic reptiles of critical habitat	Invasive predators bullfrogs and largemouth bass prey on the vulnerable hatchlings
Shell disease an emergent disease affecting the shell, which can lead to paralysis and death in advances stages	Invasive plants when non-native plant species dominate, turtles can't excavate a nest, and the sun can't reach their nests

Successes and ongoing recovery work

In 1990, only two pond turtle sites were left in Washington. Today, six populations have been established with two in Puget Sound and four in the Columbia River Gorge. During the same period, more than 1,800 turtles have been head-started and released to these sites. Studies have revealed that an estimated 95 percent of turtles released in the Columbia River Gorge survived their first year.

READ MORE

The longest lived vertebrate takes the title by at least a century

Imagine having to wait a century to have sex. Such is the life of the Greenland shark—a 5-meter-long predator that may live more than 400 years, according to a new study, making it the longest lived vertebrate by at least a century. So it should come as no surprise that the females are not ready to reproduce until after they hit their 156th birthday.

The longevity of these sharks is “astonishing,” says Michael Oellermann, a cold-water physiologist at Loligo Systems in Viborg, Denmark, who was not involved with the work. That’s particularly true because oceans are quite dangerous places, he notes, where predators, food scarcity, and disease can strike at any time.

Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus) had been rumored to be long-lived. In the 1930s, a fisheries biologist in Greenland tagged more than 400, only to discover that the sharks grow only about 1 centimeter a year—a sure sign that they’re in it for the long haul given how large they get. Yet scientists had been unable to figure out just how many years the sharks last.

Intrigued, marine biologist John Steffensen at the University of Copenhagen collected a piece of backbone from a  Greenland shark captured in the North Atlantic, hoping it would have growth rings he could count to age the animal. He found none, so he consulted Jan Heinemeier, an expert in radiocarbon dating at Aarhus University in Denmark. Heinemeier suggested using the shark’s eye lenses instead. His aim was not to count growth rings, but instead to measure the various forms of carbon in the lenses, which can give clues to an animal’s age.

Then came the hard part.

READ MORE

By Elizabeth Pennisi

A smally Mystery: America's pungent corpse flowers are all blooming at once

There have only been 157 recorded blooms ever between 1889 and 2008. But this year in the US alone, at least seven flowers have bloomed.

What is a corpse flower? Amorphophallus titanum (from Ancient Greek amorphos, "without form, misshapen" + phallos, "phallus", and titan, "giant"), known as the titan arum, is a flowering plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. 

Due to its odor, which is like the smell of a rotting animal, the titan arum is characterized as a carrion flower, and is also known as the corpse flower, or corpse plant. The titan arum, grows in the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia and Malaysian Borneo in Sabah and Sarawak. It is listed on the endangered species list as threatened due to deforestation.  

These gigantic flowers bloom about once every six years. So far, seven corpse flowers have bloomed around the US within months of each other The Guardian notes that corpse flowers are expected to bloom soon (or have just started blooming) in New York, Washington, D.C., Bloomington, Indiana, and Sarasota, Florida. with blooms earlier this year in Chicago, Charleston, Illinois, and Winter Park, Florida. 

 Are they all related? One of most popular hypotheses right now is that the rampant blooming is due to US greenhouses and botanical gardens sharing seeds with one another, meaning most of the corpse flowers that are currently blooming are likely related unfortunately, little is known about the origins of many of the flowers currently blooming, so the “cousins” theory is difficult to verify.

Math? Another hypothesis is that corpse flowers are more popular now than ever among botanical gardens in the US, so more are blooming because, well, there are simply more of them and the planets have aligned where they are all blooming this year.

Science? Could it be that we are learning more about plant care and have enough facilities with the technology to create the ideal blooming environment for a happy plant. The crowds come to see the blooms bring business and the more blooms the more business.

what do you think?

READ THE WHOLE STORY 

Solar Impulse Plane Completes Record-Breaking Flight Around The World Powered Only By The Sun

Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg set out and accomplished something that still seems impossible today: the First Round-The-World Solar Flight, powered only by the sun, with no fuel or polluting emissions.
In line with the Piccard Family tradition of scientific exploration and protection of the environment, Solar Impulse wanted to demonstrate that clean technologies can achieve impossible goals.
The record breaking solo flight of 5 days and 5 nights without fuel from Nagoya to Hawaii gives a clear message : everybody could use the plane’s technologies on the ground to halve our world’s energy consumption, save natural resources and improve our quality of life. This message will continue to be spread by the pilots to the general public, students, key decision-makers and entrepreneurs all over the world.


The three record-breaking solo flights of André Borschberg from Nagoya to Hawaii and Bertrand Piccard from Hawaii to San Francisco and later New York to Seville give a clear message: everybody could use the same technologies on the ground to halve our world’s energy consumption, save natural resources and improve our quality of life.

Read it all Here

This cute marsupial deserves a hug after it overcame extinction

By Inigo del Castillo

Move over, koalas and quokkas. Australia has a new cute marsupial in town.

Meet the eastern bettong. If the name doesn’t sound familiar, that’s because this adorable species was extinct in the Australian mainland for quite some time. Overhunting from farmers and introduced predators, such as cats and foxes, eradicated them in Canberra around the early 20th century.

Fortunately, populations in Tasmania survived. And now for the past four years, they’re being reintroduced to their former habitats in the mainland.

Kate Grarock, an ecologist at the Mulligan’s Flat sanctuary in Canberra, is looking to raise awareness about the species to ensure their survival.

“No-one’s heard of a bettong, except for people who’ve been to Tasmania, or lived in Tasmania,” Grarock told Mashable Australia. “I studied environmental science, and I hadn’t even heard of one. It’s a representation of the sad state of affairs for these little bettongs. They’re really cool little animals.”

READ MORE

From the Author" Happy 4th

This weekend we celebrate the 4th of July, Independence Day.
Many of our ancestors came to this country to escape intolerance. My grandparents immigrated fro Germany/Austria and Hungry to escape politically sanctioned riots against their beliefs.
My hope is we as a nation may remember why our ancestors came to this country and we may learn to be tolerant of others beliefs.

From the Atthor: Family update 2

 Suzanne's mother Mary, is being released from the hospital today to home hospice care. Her heart and lungs are failing. She is almost 96 years old and Suzanne s grateful to have had her in her life this long.

Suzanne is flying to Bangor, Maine July 6th to see her mother and help with the family. She will be there until August 16th.

We are praying her mother and all the family.
Marty

From the Author: Family Prayers

Please send prayers for healing for Suzanne's mother, Mary and her nephew, Shaun.
Her mother is in the hospital and her nephew will be undergoing tests for his MS.
May the Lord bless them both and bring healing to their bodies.
Amen
And may the Lord give healing to all of Suzanne's family. ...
Amen

Finding Dory will make the blue tang fish popular and that’s not a good thing

I was working in a pet store during the Nemo craze. It was painful how poorly educated people were on the care and ecosystem they need to survive. First you need to be 18 to buy a pet in my state or have an adult present. 

A teenage girl came to me asking for a Nemo, red flag, so I ask what size is her tank etc.

 "oh I have a old goldfish tank." 

"how big is it?" measures out maybe a gallon with her hands

"that is not big enough" 

I then go into how you set up a saltwater tank the sizes you need tests needed and how you need to have it run for a certain amount of time to get everything ok. 

"oh I was just going to add salt to the water" 

"and you'll kill Nemo in 20 minuets" 

huffy face 

"we also do not do returns on saltwater fish because they are so fragile and die easily" pointed to the sign for emphasis.

 That stopped her

 

When Pixar’s Finding Nemo was released in 2003, it unleashed a tidal wave of demand for the cute orange clownfish, the species that the character Nemo is based on. Sales of clownfish rose as much as 40%, according to some estimates. Some scientists were concerned that the population of the fish would be severely depleted if too many were caught in the wild. Aquarists, however, soon figured out how to breed clownfish in captivity, reducing the impact of lots of them being taken from coral reefs.

Now, scientists are bracing for Nemo’s sequel, Finding Dory, which will be released on June 17. Dory is a blue tang. Unlike the clownfish, scientists and aquarists have not been able to breed the blue tang in captivity so far. That’s led to worries that now this species could face severe pressure from overcollecting on reefs (primarily in the Indo-Pacific, one of the world’s top sources for wild tropical fish), if movie viewers turn out to be as interested in owning pet blue tangs as they were in owning clownfish.

One animal rights group is petitioning the Walt Disney Company to put out a public service announcement asking people not to buy the fish. Their petition cautions, “If Disney does not place an explicit warning at the beginning of the film asking viewers not to adopt Blue Tang like Dory, then we will see a sharp decline in their population.”



 Origiinal link
http://qz.com/694462/finding-dory-will-make-the-blue-tang-fish-popular-and-thats-not-a-good-thing/

Portugal runs for four days straight on renewable energy alone

AP Photo/Armando Franca

 

Portugal kept its lights on with renewable energy alone for four consecutive days last week in a clean energy milestone revealed by data analysis of national energy network figures.

Electricity consumption in the country was fully covered by solar, wind and hydro power in an extraordinary 107-hour run that lasted from 6.45am on Saturday 7 May until 5.45pm the following Wednesday, the analysis says.
News of the zero emissions landmark comes just days after Germany announced that clean energy had powered almost all its electricity needs on Sunday 15 May, with power prices turning negative at several times in the day – effectively paying consumers to use it.

READ MORE



Arthur Neslen

Wednesday 18 May 2016 09.59 EDT Last modified on Thursday 19 May 2016 11.57 EDT

The Goldman Environmental Prizes Presented this month

The Goldman Environmental Prize honors grassroots environmental heroes from the world’s six inhabited continental regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands & Island Nations, North America, and South & Central America. The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. The Goldman Prize views “grassroots” leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them.

 

                    

Zuzana Caputova

Slovakia / Europe

A public interest lawyer and mother of two, Zuzana Caputova spearheaded a successful campaign that shut down a toxic waste dump that was poisoning the land, air and water in her community, setting a precedent for public participation in post-communist Slovakia.

                  

                    

Leng Ouch

Cambodia / Asia

In one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental activists, Leng Ouch went undercover to document illegal logging in Cambodia and exposed the corruption robbing rural communities of their land, causing the government to cancel large land concessions.

                    

Máxima Acuña

Peru / South and Central America

A subsistence farmer in Peru’s northern highlands, Máxima Acuña stood up for her right to peacefully live off her own property, a plot of land sought by Newmont and Buenaventura Mining to develop the Conga gold and copper mine.

                    

Destiny Watford

United States / North America

In a community whose environmental rights had long been sidelined to make room for heavy industry, Destiny Watford inspired residents of a Baltimore neighborhood to defeat plans to build the nation’s largest incinerator less than a mile away from her high school.

                    

Luis Jorge Rivera Herrera

Puerto Rico / Islands and Island Nations

Luis Jorge Rivera Herrera helped lead a successful campaign to establish a nature reserve in Puerto Rico’s Northeast Ecological Corridor—an important nesting ground for the endangered leatherback sea turtle—and protect the island’s natural heritage from harmful development.

                    

Edward Loure

Tanzania / Africa

Edward Loure led a grassroots organization that pioneered an approach that gives land titles to indigenous communities—instead of individuals—in northern Tanzania, ensuring the environmental stewardship of more than 200,000 acres of land for future generations.

 

Read more

http://www.goldmanprize.org/

Plastic in fish highlights need for cleaner Thames

By Jonathan Amos BBC Science Correspondent

Up to three-quarters of fish sampled from the River Thames have been found to have plastic fibres in their gut.

The Royal Holloway study was small and looked at just two species - but it highlights, say scientists, the pressing issue of plastic waste in London's great waterway.

The Port of London Authority (PLA) has launched a campaign to raise awareness of the curse of litter.

It wants public support to stop plastic from getting into the Thames.

The PLA has teamed with other groups, including the charity Thames21, to ask people to "Do The Right Thing" and make sure any rubbish they have goes securely into a bin.

"This is not just a problem along the river; it's affected by litter from across London," explained the authority's environment manager, Tanya Ferry.

"So you might discard plastic near Buckingham Palace or Selfridges but if it gets into the drains, those drains could potentially discharge into the Thames and carry those plastic pieces with them."

The PLA has 16 barges positioned on the river to catch floating debris. Called "passive driftwood collectors", these devices are increasingly catching plastic, not fallen tree branches.

Some 400 tonnes of rubbish are being caught annually, and while that mass has stayed fairly stable over time, its volume has shot up, indicating that discarded plastic is on the rise.

Biologists Found a Crazy Solution to That Deadly Amphibian Fungus

Maddie Stone

In an first-of-its-kind victory, a team of biologists has figured out how to clear ponds of the lethal chytrid fungus that’s decimating amphibian populations worldwide. (Spoiler: It’s pretty damn intense).

As reported this week in Biology Letters, biologists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and elsewhere have eliminated the deadly fungus from four out of five mountain ponds located on the Spanish island of Mallorca. The ponds are home to the rare Mallorca midwife toad (Alytes muletensis), which, for the first time in years, seems like it may have a future.

“This study represents a major breakthrough in the fight against this highly-destructive pathogen; for the first time we have managed to rid wild individuals of infection for a continued period,” biologist Trenton Garner of the ZSL said in a statement.

The effort to eliminate the chytrid pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis(Bd)—which eats its way into the host frog’s skin, causing it to harden into a fingernail-like substance—began in 2008. For several years, scientists hiked out into the remote wilderness to capture and treat Mallorcan midwife tadpoles with anti-fungal drugs. It didn’t work. Neither did draining ponds, letting the ground bake in the summer sun, and reintroducing tadpoles in the rainy season. And so, a few years back, the biologists declared war.

First removing all the tadpoles they could find, the team drained five ponds and blasted the muddy ground with Virkon S, a laboratory disinfectant that kills, well, just about everything. The sequestered tadpoles were treated with anti-fungal drugs and reintroduced once the ponds had been replenished with clean water.

So far, the blitzkrieg appears to have been effective. Says Science News:

After months, the researchers returned the cured toad population. For more than two years now, four of the five ponds have had no infected tadpoles. The fifth pond is getting a second treatment.

Obviously, this is an extremely invasive procedure that’s not going to work everywhere. But it’s heartening to see any signs of progress in the fight against this awful disease. Spread across the world by traveling men and women, Bd has precipitated the catastrophic die-off or extinction of at least 200 species of frogs on five continents. Thanks to air travel, amphibians are now a poster child for the sixth mass extinction.

As they say, desperate times calls for desperate measures.

[Science News]

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Follow the author @themadstone