The kakapo - world's only flightless parrot

The kakapo is the world's only flightless parrot... yet it still hangs out up in trees. Where else but New Zealand, where most of the native animals are flightless birds?

Nature's misfits: Clumsy Kakapo - BBC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhTU__jVP8E

Homeless in Hawaii

Homelessness in Waikiki - HawaiiBusiness
http://www.hawaiibusiness.com/homelessness-in-waikiki/

“'There are homeless people who come here in the winter months, just as tourists who come here when the mainland weather is brutal,' says Colin Kippen, the state’s homelessness coordinator.

But these Waikiki snowbirds usually don’t return home and they comprise a large part of Waikiki’s homeless, say Kippen and others who serve the homeless in Waikiki."

Uruguay's unique cow-tagging system

Uruguay's world first in cattle farming - BBC

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-30210749

Cool NASA video on oceans

This video is shows some cool insights into the oceans and how we view them with satellites.

Climate Change and Global Oceans
http://pmm.nasa.gov/education/videos/climate-change-and-global-ocean

Christmas in Japan means... Kentucky Fried Chicken and strawberry shortcake

Christmas in Japan means... Kentucky Fried Chicken and strawberry shortcake

Christmas Cheer Here Requires Reservations With The Colonel
http://www.wsj.com/articles/christmas-cheer-here-requires-reservations-with-the-colonel-1450477246

2015 Southeast Asian haze

Indonesia haze fueling major health problems
http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/10/28/indonesia-haze-crisis-smog-sater-lklv.cnn

Indonesia's forest fires costing more than the 2004 tsunami
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/15/indonesia-forest-fires-cost-twice-as-much-as-tsunami-clean-up-says-world-bank

Slash-and-burn farming caused a haze in 2015 across Southeast Asia.

"Fire has long been a popular way of quickly and cheaply clearing land on Indonesia’s Sumatra island and the Indonesian part of Borneo, to make way for lucrative palm oil plantations...

But the fires burn out of control and produce noxious haze during the months-long dry season, particularly when started on carbon-rich peatland...

So on the one hand 16 billion dollars cost to the public, on the other hand, eight billion dollars – lots of money – to a handful of individuals,” said World Bank environmental specialist Ann Jeannette Glauber...

"More than half a million people suffered acute respiratory infections in Indonesia, while many in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia also fell ill."


Riau province, Sumatra, Indonesia

Vanatu's underwater post office
http://www.padi.com/blog/2013/08/13/underwater-post-office-vanuatu/

Where is Vanatu again? Near Fiji in the Melanesia region of the South Pacific.

This is an interesting radio show in Spanish about a new Traditional and Alternative Medicine program in Rosario, Argentina that connects urban farming with health clinics:

-the city Dept. of Health buys medicinal plants from small farmers in Rosario's pioneering Urban Farming Program
-Dept. of Health makes those plants available for free at local health clinics. Currently the plants are available as herbal infusions, later they will available also as soaps, oils, syrups, herbal medicines, and other products.

A lot of the medicinal plants they mention I've never heard of--and I thought I had heard of a lot.

Una medicina más integral

http://www.unr.edu.ar/noticia/7794/una-medicina-mas-integral

Renewable energy videos

Renewable energy videos

World's first algae-powered building - Hamburg, Germany - Euronews Knowledgehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLEWZkKn1GE

Geothermal energy: What Alaska can learn from Iceland - KTVA Alaska
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnk0S8wlquo

China's solar ambitions - Euronews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb_bWvsY6mw

Future of wind energy - Discovery Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiSWe3_GEUA

Rural-urban migration videos from China

Videos by Jonah Kessel from the NY Times

A series called “Leaving the Land”

Part One: China’s Consuming Billion — http://nyti.ms/12JJJOH

Part Two: Urban, But Left Behind — http://nyti.ms/1aWZLx1

Part Three: Relocating Tradition — http://nyti.ms/1ktGbKI


And one on problems which may arise following the destruction of these neighborhoods and advanced urbanization:

China Molds a Supercity Around Beijing— http://nyti.ms/1HD9CWX

Hip operation in India?

Hip operation in India? This is a great study of medical tourism around the world. You can get an operation overseas for a fraction of the cost--sometimes by doctors with US degrees.

Medical tourism: global competition in health care - by Devon M. Herrick
http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/st304.pdf

"An estimated 500,000 Americans traveled abroad for treatment in 2005."
"Approximately 250,000 foreign patients sought care in Singapore, and 500,000 traveled to India for medical care"
"Thailand treated as many as 1 million foreign patients..."

"Most American medical tourists seek treatment in Mexico and other Latin American countries."

"Costa Rica is known for high quality dental work"

Who knew?

I used to live in Costa Rica and remember seeing in the yellow pages doctors with degrees from Louisiana State and Texas A&M.

Medical boats of Assam, India

Boats of Assam - Patrick Shepherd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOhnkLHUUmo

Providing floating clinics on the Brahmaputra river

Growing crops in the Thar Desert

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You might think nothing could grow in a place like the vast Thar Desert which separates India and Pakistan. But this project managed to do it.

Thar water and farms - SCOPE Pakistan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjxO-Iz6tSw

Cool interactive map on sinking cities of the future

Cool interactive map on sinking cities of the future

http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/

The Ganges River Is Dying Under the Weight of Modern India

The Ganges River Is Dying Under the Weight of Modern India - Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/10/02/ganges-river-dying-under-weight-modern-india-375347.html

Putting brakes on a dream of getting from Honduras to the US

Putting brakes on a dream - Dallas Morning News
http://res.dallasnews.com/interactives/migrants/

Getting to the US from Honduras has gotten tougher and hazards abound. These guys are evaluating their options, not always entirely sure where they are along the way.

The writer Alfredo Corchado is the author of Midnight in Mexico.

Rethinking work, German-style

I love stories like these about people who quit pursuing a career track that they don't really like and find a hands-on job they really do like. The German vocational training system was actually designed in the 1700s, yet still is effective today.

South Carolina BMW plant imports German apprenticeship program - PBS Newshour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpDAocHVxwM

Take a look at the Career Day at 2:50... of those options, which would you choose?

Dual Benefits - Stihl exports a German training system to Virginia Beach | Made in Germany - DW.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuX9ATIrlrs


Dual Vocational Training - Germany's successful system | Made in Germany - DW.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzNM2BqKsxs


From college dropout to craftsman - DW.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfPIcEIJvVw

"With all the young people around [in Munster], you'd think it would be easy to fill apprenticeships. But most high school grads enroll at university instead... however 1/4 later quit."

"Young people spend years studying things they don't like... but over the years they get a much better idea of their interests and strengths, and develop the courage to explore areas better suited to their personality and interests."


Stihl plant in Virginia Beach

China's "tofu construction"

Shanghai's Lotus Riverside complex block 7 collapsed in 2009, killing a construction worker

China's "tofu construction"
Some of the work done in China is top quality, and China has some fantastic cutting edge designs and innovations. But China has a problem with shoddy work. The Chinese call it "tofu construction."

Why?
The #1 problem is that China's Communist Party has placed the speed of economic development over quality. The Communist Party is not elected, so they justify their existence to the people by pointing to economic advancement under their direction. They look for symbols of their achievements, like bullet trains. But the push for rapid construction and manufacturing have often resulted in shortcuts, which can lead to disasters. This includes:

-Flooded cities
-Collapsing buildings
-Deadly cars
-Tainted food
-7 of 10 most air polluted cities in the world

Chinese bridge collapses because trucks are "too heavy" - Off the Great Wall - NTDTV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8QwGdEBOeg

China's breakneck development brings flooding in its wake*Great article
http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-breakneck-development-brings-flooding-in-its-wake-1468735508

China $45 billion Shenzhen construction project collapses - TomoNews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeWPEGDhxt4

China car scores zero in crash test - Drive.com.au
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTxbbvCf3zY

China bridge collapse sends visitors into water - No comment TV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knaNXcKS-qM

Beijing's urban farmers - Reuters
-Note why they want to grow their own foodhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUbvI-EMYPI

McDonald's faces food safety scare in China
http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2014/07/23/pkg-vassileva-china-meat-scandal.cnn

Getting Americans into American PhD programs

Getting Americans into American PhD programs

"There's a lot of people with potential that we've been overlooking." You can say that again.

Hard to believe, but over 50% of STEM PhDs awarded by US universities go to non-American students.

What?

As the video below shows, many American students are not even aware of the PhD opportunities that exist in their own country, paid for with their own tax dollars, so they don't even apply. In that vacuum of domestic applicants, PhD program spots are left to be snapped up by foreign students who now are increasingly heading back home to places like China or India. Put differently, to most Americans the idea of getting a PhD is foreign to them, they don't even really know what it is or entails, whereas for foreign students getting into American PhD program is a well-known avenue to go to America--on a student visa.

To be clear, this is not the fault of foreign PhD students, and there's nothing wrong with universities accepting some international students. But when they number over 50%, it shows American universities are not living up to their responsibility to recruit students from their own population, just as they do for undergrad and Masters programs. PhD programs don't bring in the exorbitant tution of other programs; in fact, universities usually pay PhD students a stipend and tuition remission. So they don't bother to recruit.

When I was a high school junior and senior, I received piles of glossy brochures in the mail from over 100 colleges. Yet I've never received a brochure about a PhD program, and rarely if ever have I seen an ad for one anywhere. I have a BA and two Masters degrees and have been to four graduate schools, and I have never had a school educate students about PhD opportunities.

US schools could do a much better job of recruiting Americans for these spots in school. It's not enough for schools to take the easy way out and say "well we can only admit who applies," because that's not true. Schools have a large degree of control over who applies by their outreach and advertising campaigns.

This video shows both sides very clearly. The first side shows how foreign students are flocking to US PhD programs, but pay attention also to the second half which shows a fantastic program at San Francisco State which is recruiting "overlooked" American students into PhD programs. The program is doing what PhD programs should already be doing for themselves. We need much, much more of this kind of recruitment in the US. Even if you thought a PhD was not for you, you could be wrong don't count it out as the video shows.

Notice that the program at SFSU aims to train "low-income and minority students whose potential in math and science may not have been realized." But the truth is you don't have to be a low-income or minority student to have not realized your potential in STEM fields. We need more programs like SFSU's. "There's a lot of people with potential that we've been overlooking."

America's Brain Drain - CBS News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4x0_WXlC1Y

Fundamentalist Islam less than welcome in Westernized Turkey

Fundamentalist Islam is a minority in Westernized Turkey today. This video shows a completely different type of Islamic society than narrow view of a war-torn Islamic world we usually see in the news.

Rising Islamist movements challenge secularism in Turkey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjjY750wTs0

Chillin' in Harbin, China

Chillin' in Harbin - Dominic Swire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS4BU_u0VTQ

Harbin is the capital of China's northernmost province Heilongjang which borders Siberia, Russia. Harbin was once a Russian city and maintains old Russian buildings including St. Sophia Cathedral. They seem to love Russian bread as well.

Russia-China border town

In a world of scarce resources, Russia's Far East is unusual, with an immense stretch of relatively unused land and resources. The prime location on the Pacific Rim near some of the world's top export economies Japan, South Korea, and China gives the Russian Far East even more potential.

A significant chunk of eastern Russia used to be part of China. On the map below you can see that today the northeast corner of China, Heilongjang province, just over the border from Russia, has 38 million people including its capital Harbin pop. 3.5 million. The Russian side, however, looks nearly empty on the map by comparison. Many Chinese people today are moving across into Russia to sell goods and to work on farms.

China border town has booming businesses - CNN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV8BS481yF0

Russia's "Near Abroad"

Russia's "Near Abroad"

Russia's former Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs in the USSR) are now its Near Abroad. These regions have been a major focus recently when Russia took back the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine last year. Russia also helped tiny ethnic minorities South Ossetia and Abkhazia break away from Georgia in the 2008 Russia-Georgia war (see map below). Right now, after Ukraine, Georgia is Russia's #2 concern in the Near Abroad.

Russia is trying to deepen its already strong economic links in giant Kazakhstan, on its southeastern frontier as you mention, and also Belarus, two huge countries which occupy a large percentage of its borders.

In Eastern Europe, however, the Baltics states Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia virtually no chance to sliding back into the Russian sphere, they are all happily part of the European Union and NATO now. Obama specifically mentioned these countries in a speech in Estonia last year.

Obama in Estonia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZgqOQDrTAQ

In Russia's Caucasus mountains region, there are seemingly endless small ethnic groups, many seeking their own country, but often left with their own republics inside Russia. For example, Chechnya has tried to break from Russia, very violently, for years. Many but not all of the ethnic groups are Islamic. You probably remember the Boston marathon bombers from Chechnya, an example of the extremism that some parts of this region have bred.

Even with North and South Ossetia on the map, you can see that the single Ossetian ethnic group has been split between Russia and Georgia. The small regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia tried to break away from Georgia in 2008, setting off the Russia-Georgia War of 2008, and now the areas are occupied by Russia. It's a good example of how dicey the Caucasus region is. It's also a beautiful mountain region with ancient folk cultures.

Polar night underway in Norway

Longyearbyen, Norway in the Svalbard Islands



Here in DC day lengths are getting much shorter (the length of time the sun is up) and nights are getting longer. Just over 6 weeks ago on Sept 23 the fall equinox, days and nights were equal everywhere on the globe, both 12 hours. But now, as you can see on the link below, we have 10 hours days and 14 hour nights in DC, and days will reach their shortest on the winter solstice, Dec 22, when there will 9.5 hour days and 14.5 hour nights here in DC.
http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/usa/washington-dc

If you think that's short, check out this site for Longyearbyen, Norway the world's most northerly town way up in the Svalbard Islands at latitude 78 N, 12 degrees from the North Pole:
http://www.timeanddate.com/sun/norway/longyearbyen

The current day length in Longyearbyen is zero and nights are 24 hours, known as polar night. The sun stopped coming up back on October 27, and they won't be seeing it again until Feb 16 next year. Even then, their first days will only be 1 hour long.

Having said that, even when the sun doesn't come up in Longyearbyen they do get a few (not many) hours a day of blue glow coming from the sun from under the horizon, called the blue hours, in which at least for those few hours they can see things without lights.


Polar night snowmobile trip

The Svalbard Islands actually do have tourism for people who want to experience 24 hour darkness of polar night. Snowmobile safaris and dog-sledding are two of the big activities, both looking out for wildlife like polar bears. On the Svalbard Islands there are more polar bears than people.

Great site about water

This is a great site about water by a knowledgeable enthusiast, Martin Chaplin of London South Bank University.

Water structure and science
http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/

From the introduction:

"Water is the most studied material on Earth but it is remarkable to find that the science behind its behavior and function are so poorly understood (or even ignored), not only by people in general, but also by scientists working with it every day. It can be extremely slippery and extremely sticky at the same time; and this 'stick/slip' behavior is how we recognize the feel of water. The small size of its molecule belies the complexity of its actions and its singular capabilities. Many attempts to model water as a simple substance have failed and still are failing. Liquid water's unique properties and chameleonic nature seem to fit ideally into the requirements for life as can no other molecule."

Molecular motion and the oceans and atmosphere

How heat affects the kinetic energy of solids, liquids, and gases is a huge topic that has major effects on both the atmosphere and the oceans.


Three types of molecular motion (kinetic energy)
In molecules, kinetic energy and heat go together. If something is hotter, it is moving more. If it is cooler it is moving less. But "moving" here takes several different forms, three subtypes:
-vibrational
-rotational (spinning around on axes)
-translational (moving freely in space from place to place)

The diagram below shows these three and goes into even further subtypes of vibration and rotation, but we'll leave those aside for now.


Molecular vibration occurs in all three phases: solids, liquids, and gases. So when you add heat, molecules vibrate faster in all three phases.

But solids are unique in that vibration is the only type of molecular motion they engage in out of the three mentioned above. Molecular bonds in solids, which create the "stickiness" of molecules to each other, prevent molecules from rotating and translating (moving around place to place). They are stuck together tightly and densely in an ordered system, and all they can do is vibrate.

Liquids and gases are a different story: they engage in all three types of motion: vibration, rotation, and translation. In liquids and gases, rotation and translation are strong enough to overcome the stickiness of molecular bonds.

The molecular bonds in liquids are strong enough to keep molecules stuck together in a cohesive form, yet the forces of rotation and translation are strong enough to make water slide and slosh around.

Molecular bonds in gases, however, are neglible because the molecules are flying around so fast and colliding multiple times per second.

Why liquids heat and cool much slower than solids
Liquids change temperature much slower than solids. But why? In Geography, it's an important question. For example, oceans change temperature much slower than land, which leads to the Maritime and Continental effects: ocean air gives coastal regions more moderate temperatures than those inland.

The reason liquids heat and cool slower than solids is rooted in the fact mentioned above, that liquids engage in all three types of molecular motion whereas solids engage in only vibration. Water molecules spin around (rotate) and move from place to place (translate) as they slosh past each other and move in currents, vibrating as well all the while.

So when heat energy is added to liquids, it converts into three different types of motion--vibration, rotation, and translation--whereas heat added to solids converts into only one, vibration. So since heat is lost through motion, and since liquids have three ways of moving whereas solids just one, liquids use up added heat much faster than solids, keeping them cooler.

But on the flip side, liquids also stay warmer than solids when heat is subtracted. This is because liquids have much more molecular inertia than solids, which is harder to slow down. Again, liquids are engaged in three types of molecular motion, whereas solids can only vibrate. So the molecules in liquids tend to retain their motion more than solids, which means staying warmer than solids when outside temperatures drop.

Special properties of water
Water has special properties not common to all liquids. Being clear, it allows solar radiation pass through the ocean surface as light and also as heat through convection. This allows the oceans to absorb much more heat than land and down to a much deeper level.

Heating up water causes the hydrogen bond in H2O to break more, which then allows more rotation and translation.

In addition, water has a high specific heat, even compared to other liquids. For example, the specific heat of water is just over 4 J/g^oC, whereas the specific heat of vegetable oil is half that 2 J/g^oC. Specific heat is the amount of heat needed to raise a substance one degree Celsius.

Molecular motion cause oceans to swell, sea level to rise
As you can see in the diagram above, when molecules vibrate they stretch and bend their bonds, occupying additional space. Also, when they rotate and translate more, sliding and sloshing past each other, it opens up tiny spaces.

What does this have to do with the environment? There are all kinds of connections. For example, today predictions of sea level rise are all over the news. Although melting of ice cap glaciers is the main cause people talk about, another cause is the swelling of ocean water as it gets warmer with global warming. Adding heat increases the vibration, rotation, and translation of water molecules, all of which make liquids less dense i.e. expand. So by adding heat, ocean swell and take up more space, which raises sea levels--even without adding any new water molecules.

In particular, because the sun's heat falls most in the tropics, tropical oceans are projected to swell much more than midlatitude and polar oceans.


Vibration makes water blue
When water molecules vibrate, they "push against their neighbors," and selectively absorb "a small amount of red light, leaving... more blue light to scatter back to our eyes." (Hughes)

According Braun and Smirnoff (1993), this cause behind color is unique in nature:

"To our knowledge the intrinsic blueness of water is the only example from nature in which color originates from vibrational transitions."



Braun and Smirnoff. Why is water blue? Journal of Chemical Education. Vol 70 #8 August 1993
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~etrnsfer/water.htm

Hughes, Richard. Oceans 101. Crafton Hills College - Chapter 6: Structure
http://www.craftonhills.edu/~/media/Files/SBCCD/CHC/Faculty%20and%20Staff/Personal%20Pages/rihughes/Ocean-101/C6-Structure.pdf