Natalie Colgate

Happy Vegan Month!

For those interested in what veganism is all about, see The Vegan Society’s website on what veganism is and why people turn to a vegan lifestyle.

Essentially, a vegan does not eat, use, consume or approve of the use of animal products in any way.  This includes, as far as possible, avoiding:

• eating meat, eggs, dairy and honey
• wearing leather, silk or wool
• purchasing consumer items that contain animal products such as lanolin, shellac, propolis and beeswax
• using products or services where animal testing or animal experiments are used, such as some cosmetics and disease research companies
• using services that make use of animal exploitation or animal cruelty,  such as animal racing and circuses with animals
• taking part in sports or activities that involve the killing of animals, such as hunting or culling (See Animal Aid‘s website for more information on animal rights.)

It’s not always possible to avoid all of the above, since it’s not possible to know every process used to make each product or service on the market.  However, the main goal is to promote animal rights by leading a compassionate lifestyle.  Such a lifestyle automatically has a positive knock-on effect on environmental and health problems.

See http://eclecticnoesis.com/beingvegan/ for more information on veganism.

Also see http://eclecticnoesis.com/animalrights/ for more information on animal rights.

Old satellites, old boosters and other orbital rubbish has been estimated at 22000 pieces large enough to track from the ground. Some debris flies around the earth at speeds of up to 17500 mph / 28164 km. This can lead to serious problems for space travel as even smaller objects can cause serious damage to space vessels.  A secondary problem is that this space junk can collide resulting in more, smaller, objects orbiting our earth.

See BBC‘s article for more on this topic.

Although there seems to currently be no recommendations on how to control our space environment, there have been a few suggested solutions.  One main idea is to move the debris closer to earth where it will burn up in our atmosphere. Personally, I think this is risky.  Just a nudge too hard could send that debris bypasing the atmosphere and crashing to earth instead.

An international research team (UK, Australia, Germany, USA, Italy) have detected a dense carbon planet in the constellation Serpens (part of the Milky Way).  Since it’s at least as dense as platinum, scientists have calculated that it must be crystalline.  See Ben Hirschler’s Reuters article for more on this topic.

The next evil, mad, science fiction villain only needs to travel a mere 4000 light years in his quest for world domination in the form of wealth. There’s a lot of diamond in a planet the size of city, but perhaps he should wait until the ingredients of pulsar PSR J1719-143 are confirmed, or until a closer one is found.

Our fingerprints are one of the things that make us unique, individual, identifiable.  Yet some people, due to a genetic mutation (adermatoglyphia), are born without them.  The condition is so rare that only 4 families worldwide are known to have been affected.  Imagine applying for identification documentation or a settlement visa without fingerprints …

For an article on the social and legal implications of not having fingerprints, see this National Geographic article on the subject.

The African Crested Rat has found a clever way to protect itself from predators.  When predators bite the rat’s fur, they effectively bite into a mouthful of poison.  It was first discovered due to reports of dogs dying after trying to bite these rats, leading to an assumption that the rats were poisonous.

Now it has been discovered that the rat rubs toxin from the poison arrow tree (traditionally used by hunters to kill elephants) onto specially-modified hairs on it’s back.  The toxin works by increasing heart rate and leads to a heart attack.  Animals who survive are unlikely to try again.

It is still unknown why the rat itself appears not to be affected by the poison.  Such is the wonder of nature.

Read more on this by clicking on a BBC article here.

The WISE telescope has spotted an asteroid in earth’s orbit. It’s about 200 to 300 metres (+-1,000 feet) wide and because of its gravitational location, it poses no threat to the earth.

It’s been classified as a trojan asteroid. Defined by National Geographic as “Trojans are objects that exist in gravitationally stable regions in front of or behind another body, so that the two share the same orbit but never collide.”

Trojan asteroids could be considered as an option for space missions. However, this newly discovered one, called 2010 TK7, is a bit too far to be of practical use in that way – for now at least. So the hope is that there may be more, closer to us, that we have yet to discover.

The predictions are that this newly discovered asteroid’s orbit will be stable for at least another ten thousand years. Perhaps in that time we’ll have developed an easier and cheaper method of space travel.

For further reading see this BBC and a National Geographic article on this topic.

A two-year old dog and her human companion were reunited after 3 weeks of being apart since the Japanese tsunami.

The hound was rescued by the coast guard when she was found floating on a detached rooftop. An animal rescue centre cared for her along with other dogs and cats until the owners come to collect them, if they are fortunate enough to do so.

For more on this, see the BBC article on this topic.

National Geographic published an article by Catherine Zuckerman in a recent issue that, for me, was a small light of hope in the chasm of mass animal-cruelty that has become common in this world.

Bolivia apparently only has one cetacean, the pink river dolphin.  According to National Geographic magazine, last spring 20 of them got stuck in a shallow section of the Pailas River.  Enzo Aliaga-Rossel and his team spent 12 days capturing, transporting and releasing the trapped mammals three hours away on the Grande.

It has been reported that ALL of the dolphins were saved.  Such uplifting news, small numbers, but it matters to each one of those souls who were saved.  Thank you for the great job and I hope the attitude spreads!

There’s a short news article in The Vegan (Summer 2010 issue) that mentions badger culling being unlikely to halt the spread of tuberculosis in British cattle herds.

It also mentions that culling costs would come to 2-3 times more than it saves the farmers.

The suggestion is that the Welsh Assembly should seriously consider using a badger vaccine (as previously used in England in 2010).  Fortunately, badger culling has been suspended in England since 2008.  However, the Welsh government is still considering doing it again.

I was a vegetarian for nearly 4 years, but I’d switched back to meat-eating because I falsely believed that animals were now ‘humanely killed’.  There is no such thing as humane slaughter – it’s one of the biggest lies we have ever learned.

This (and several others) is the video that changed my outlook on meat-eating, again.  I’ve investigated further and I’m now even more convinced than before.  Eating animals is wrong.  They do not have a choice in being bred just to be killed for us to eat.

The Forestry Commission has approved the culling of deers in Sussex, in an attempt to control deer numbers.  Apparently there’s been an increase in the deer population.  Apparently the deer affect the natural landscape negatively.  So they’ve decided killing them is the best solution …

For a video on this, see the BBC News webpage.

Almost as an afterthought, the video mentions that culling the deer provides a plentiful supply of venison.  Aah, conveniently, meat eaters get lucky once again.

Hey, here’s an idea – anyone thought of MOVING them rather?  Duh, no.  Killing them is ‘easier’ apparently!

There’s a reason why the medical world are serious about putting you under general anesthetic before a surgery.

In a Reuters article, according to Dr Nicholas Schiff of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, it is more like a coma than a deep sleep. Despite this, doctors still refer to it as ‘putting you to sleep’.

Apparently, when you’re in a coma your brain operates on a specific phase dampening your neurons, whereas during sleep your brain goes through several phases.  During general anesthesia, your brain operates on the same specific phase as it it would in a coma.

An unknown phenomena has resulted in more than 3000 blackbirds falling from the sky in Arkansas in January 2011.  Whether they died on impacting the ground, or fell to the ground because they died, is still a mystery.

To get you started, see National Geographic’s article and The Blaze’s article for photos and a bit more on this topic.