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
Read moreOn 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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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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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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Some of my fondest childhood memories are from playing in the dirt with my mother while she gardened. She would designate a special area where I was allowed to play, so I would not damage any plants. Due to my mother’s green thumb, I do not remember a single summer that we did not have a garden. My mother did
Read moreA Quick Refresher of Species Concepts: 1. Biological Species Concept (Mayr) A species = “A group of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations which are reproductively isolated from other such groups” (Source) Advantages: – Objective, testable criteria Disadvantages: – Applies to only sexually-reproducing species – Hard to test for populations that don’t overlap (i.e. islands) – Messy when species hybridize
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Exciting news guys! BBC News released an article Wednesday revealing the unearthing of an important jawbone for human evolution in Ethiopia. This jawbone is claimed to be one of the very first humans. The most interesting piece of this discovery is that the jawbone has been dated at 2.8 million years, 400,000 years older than researchers have thought that humans
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Encyclia cordigera is an orchid species native to Central America, with a range that expands into Northern South America and north into Mexico. This orchid is prized by orchid collectors and botanists due to its tolerance to a wide range of conditions, as well as its rich color and sweet fragrance, both of which can vary
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Olive Ridley Sea Turtle Lepidochelys olivacea Taxonomy Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Reptilia Order: Testudines Family: Cheloniidae Genus: Lepidochelys Species: L. olivacea Overview An adult Olive Ridley Sea Turtle weighs around 100 pounds and is 22-31 inches long, while hatchlings weigh less than 1 ounce and are on average 1.5 inches long (NOAA, 2014). They spend most of their time at
Read moreby Lisa Barrett In a previous blog post, I wrote about how Asian elephants are endangered and that there are only about 3,000 left in the wild. I discussed how, in reality, the best way to conserve them is through education about conserving (and mitigating the decline) of extant populations while giving current captive populations the best life possible. In
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DANTAisms 