Monthly Archives: April 2015

DANTA Tropical Biology and Conservation Training Courses Winter 2016

Each year DANTA offers a number of training courses in various aspects of tropical biology. Typically, the courses are one month long but shorter courses are also offered through our organization. The courses are intended for undergraduates or early graduate level students who have a keen interest in tropical biology and conservation, but have little or no experience of working

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Traveling Buzzwords

These days there are so many types of travel, especially as we become more involved in trying to sustain the environment. I’m providing information here to help you be an educated traveler. This first one is the big one: ECO-TOURISM. The International Ecotourism Society defines it as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of

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Abe & Fido: Book celebrates Lincoln’s life and love for animals

On this day throughout history lots of powerful things have happened. In 1947, Jackie Robinson, broke the color barrier, by becoming the first African-American player in Major League Baseball. The sport had been segregated for more then 50 years. On a related manner, on this day in 1865 Abraham Lincoln died from his assassins attempt from the previous day. He

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Spring has Sprung

Spring has sprung. Birds are migrating back to WNY, trees are waking up and the refreshing spring rain is coming down to push up those May flowers. Of course, this means that allergens are at an all time high and kitchen floors have so much mud from (human) children’s boots and our (canine) children’s paws that some time you wonder

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Botanical Illustration: Tillandsia bergeri

Though the drawn specimen of Tillandsia bergeri shows a small plant, T. bergeri tends to allocate much of its energy into growing into large clusters, as seen in the photograph above. This native Brazilian species grows epiphytically (growing upon other plants) or lithophytically (growing upon rocks), and therefore do not require soil for growth. Plants that grow in this manner

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Global Warming Versus Global Climate Change

Various media sources are full of “global warming” references, while some prefer “climate change”. Global warming seems to have a much bigger impact in our minds as images of a scorching-hot Earth filters through our conscience. So what is the difference? According to NASA global warming is “a gradual increase in the average temperature of Earth’s surface” (NASA, accessed 2015).

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