Vardaman Virtual Forestry Company
FRIDAY REPORT OF 06/16/06
The Most Direct, Frequent Link to Knowledge Workers in the Eastern Forest Economy
“THE SKY’S THE LIMIT”
Our title and quotes are from THE ECONOMIST:
“The double-decker A380, the biggest airliner the world has seen, landed at Heathrow last month to test whether London’s main airport could handle the new 550-seater, due to enter commercial service at the end of this year. It was a proud moment for Britain’s Rolls-Royce, the makers of the aircraft’s Trent 900 engines. Roll-Royce says the four Trents on the A380 are as clean and efficient as any jet engine, and produce ‘as much power as 3,500 family cars.’ A simple calculation shows that the equivalent of more than six cars is needed to fly each passenger.
“Take the calculation further: flying a fully laden A380 is, in terms of energy, like a 14km (nine-mile) queue of traffic on the road below. And that is just one aircraft. In 20 years, Airbus reckons, 1,500 such planes will be in the air. By then, the total number of airliners is expected to have doubled, to 22,000. The super-jumbos alone would be pumping out carbon dioxide (CO2) at the same rate as 5m cars…”
To read the complete five-page article, click on
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7033931
“GOVERNMENT DID INVENT THE INTERNET, BUT THE MARKET MADE IT GLORIOUS
by Peter G. Klein”
This article is posted on the Internet at http://www.mises.org/story/2211.
An excellent definition of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET.
“STEREO SUE
Why two eyes are better than one.
By Oliver Sacks”
Our title and quotes are from 06/19 print edition of “THE NEW YORKER:”
“And stereopsis, as a biological strategy, is crucial to a diverse array of animals. Predators, in general, have forward-facing eyes, with much overlap of the two visual fields and, presumably, stereoscopic vision; prey animals, by contrast, tend to have eyes at the sides of their heads, which gives them panoramic vision, helping them spot dangers even if it comes from behind. An astonishing strategy is found in cuttlefish, whose wide-set eyes normally permit a large degree of panoramic vision but can be rotated forward by a special muscular mechanism when the animal is about to attack, giving it the binocular vision it needs for shooting out its tentacles with deadly aim.
“In primates like ourselves, forward-facing eyes have other functions. The huge, close-set eyes of many types of lemurs serve to clarify the complexity of dark, dense close-up foliage, which, if the head is kept still, is almost impossible to sort out without stereoscopic vision – and in a jungle full of illusion and deceit, stereopsis is indispensable in breaking camouflage. On the more exuberant side, aerial acrobats like gibbons might find it very difficult to swing from branch to branch without the special powers conferred by stereoscopy. A one-eyed gibbon might not fare too well – and the same might be true of a one-eyed lemur or cuttlefish…”
The complete article begins on page 64.
“COYOTES TRADE U.S. WESTERN PLAINS FOR EAST’S URBAN JUNGLE
by Maryann Mott for National Geographic News”
Our title and quotes are from NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NEWS:
“…The urbanization of coyotes in the East and Midwest is a phenomenon that started in the 1990s, says Stan Gehrt. The wildlife biologist studies coyotes in the Chicago, Illinois, area, where some 2,000 of the animals are thought to live.
“‘The amount of coexistence between coyotes and people is much, much, much greater than we ever thought,’ he said. ‘People are literally walking by coyotes every day, and they don’t know it.’…
“But contrary to popular belief, Gehrt said, the canines don’t devour large amounts of garbage or vast numbers of family pets. Gehrt analyzed 1,500 scats, or droppings, from Chicago area coyotes that showed the buk of the animals’ diet consists of small mammals, such as rodents and rabbits, white tail deer, and fruit. Less than 2 percent of the scats contained human food, he said, and only 1 percent had pet remains…
“As part of an agreement with Chicago city government, Gehrt puts tracking collars on captured ‘nuisance’ coyotes and then releases them on the very edge of the urban sprawl. ‘Basically they have a choice,’ he said of the coyotes. ‘If they take a left, they can go out into rural areas. If they take a right, they’re going to head back into the city. In every single case they’ve always chosen to go back into the city, so those particular coyotes view this urban area as a favorable kind of habitat.’ Gehrt’s research has shown the survival rate of urban coyotes is twice that of the rural counterparts…”
To read the complete article, click on http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/06/060608-coyotes.html
“CAN BUSINESS BE COOL?”
Our title and quotes are from the print edition of THE ECONOMIST:
…“The army of corporate greens is growing fast. Late last year HSBC became the first big bank to announce that it was carbon-neutral, joining other financial institutions, including Swiss Re, a reinsurer, and Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, in waging war on climate-warming gases (of which carbon dioxide is the main culprit). Last year General Electric (GE), an industrial powerhouse, launched its ‘Ecomagination’ strategy, aiming to cut its output of greenhouse gases and to invest heavily in clean (ie, carbon-free) technologies. In October Wal-Mart announced a series of environmental schemes, including doubling the fuel-efficiency of its fleet of vehicles within a decade. Tesco and Sainsbury, two of Britain’s biggest retailers, are competing fiercely to be the greenest. And on June 7th some leading British bosses lobbied Tony Blair for a more ambitious policy on climate change, even if that involves harsher regulation…
“As firms try to do something about climate change, the typical first step is to improve their energy efficiency, by both reducing consumption and also shifting the mix of sources from hydrocarbons towards cleaner alternatives. Given high oil prices, those that have already done so have found energy efficiency to be surprisingly good for profits.
“‘Carbon Down, Profits Up,’ a report by the Climate Group, an organization founded in 2004 by various firms and governments, listed 74 companies from 18 industries in 11 countries that are committed to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. So far, this has brought them combined savings of $11.6 billion, claims the report. Four firms – Bayer, British Telecom, DuPont and Norske Canada – account for $4 billion of this between them…
“Going carbon-neutral – in which a firm cuts its carbon output as much as possible and then offsets any left over by paying to reduce emissions elsewhere – is particularly attractive to firms that sell directly to the public and reckon that their customers want them to take climate change seriously. Since these sorts of firms are often not great carbon-emitters in the first place, ‘carbon neutrality’ can be fairly painless. ‘Trusted consumer-facing brands can be the missing link, helping millions of people to aspire to lower-carbon lifestyles and begin to tackle an issue that feels overwhelming,’ intones BSkyB’s James Murdoch, optimistically…”
To read the complete article, click on http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7037026
“NEW NANOMATERIAL FUSES SPIDER SILK AND SILICA”
Our title and quotes are from the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN of June 14:
“Researchers have created a novel nanomaterial that combines the strength of spider silk with the rigidity of silica. The product could help pave the way for the fabrication of replacement bones.
“Regrowing bone requires a scaffold that is stiff, long-lasting and safe. With that in mind, David Kaplan of Tufts University and his colleagues decided to marry the protein that constitutes the drag lines of golden silk orb weaver spiders with the protein that helps diatoms – a subset of plankton – make silica, a glasslike compound…
“After splicing the two proteins together, the team then processed the resulting chimeric protein into both films and fibers and tested the result. As hoped, the films and fibers created dense silica coatings for themselves. By using electric current or varying conditions, the researchers could also control the size and shape of the resulting materials…”
To read the complete article, click on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ and then on the title of the article.
“MEN HAVE BIOLOGICAL CLOCKS TOO, SPERM STUDY SAYS
by John Roach”
Our title and quotes below are from National Geographic News:
“It’s not just women who face decreased reproductive success with age. The genetic quality of sperm deteriorates as men get older, according to a new study.
“Starting in their 20s, men face steadily increasing chances of infertility, fathering an unsuccessful pregnancy, and passing on to their children a genetic mutation that causes dwarfism, according to the study.
“The finding comes as more and more men are delaying fatherhood. Since 1980 U.S. birth rates have increased up to 40 percent for men aged 35 to 49 and decreased up to 20 percent for men under the age of 30, according to the research. Studies have also shown that it takes longer for older men to conceive.
“‘We [now] know the probability for certain types of DNA damage goes up with age, and we can give you a mathematical probability,’ said Andrew Wyrobek, a researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California…”
To read the full article, click on http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news and then scroll down to our title.
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