Amazing Beautiful – Wondrous Things … Animals, Kids, Inspiration, Fun : )

“Solving a problem starts with knowing that you have one. Project Kaisei vividly shows how discarded plastics are clogging the ocean, causing a major problem for the planet’s vital “blue heart,” entangling marinelife and insidiously killing as it accumulates in the food chain, from tiny plankton to great whales. Best of all, the mission highlights hope with ideas for positive action.” http://www.projectkaisei.org/

Note: The Project Kaisei team will embark on a multi-week expedition to the “Plastic Vortex” from the West Coast in order to:

- Study and document the marine debris found in this area of the Pacific Ocean;

- Test catch methods for removing the debris;

- Conduct research on the chemical interactions of marine debris in the gyre and select fishes and wildlife related to persistent organic pollutants (POPs);

- Understand the needs required to undertake an eventual large scale clean-up of the waste material;

- Test technologies for conversion into an economically viable by-product: diesel fuel.”

Updated: 4:01 PM 4/26/2009
A giant, almost endless plastic soup extends
a wider distance than the length and breadth
of the United States, right smack in the middle
of the Pacific Ocean.

Scripps Scientists Aboard Research Vessel to Study Huge Garbage Dump
“From August 2-21, a group of doctoral students and research volunteers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego will embark on an expedition aboard the Scripps research vessel New Horizon to explore the problem of plastic in the North Pacific Gyre.

The Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition (SEAPLEX) is the first of its kind and will focus on a suite of critical questions. How much plastic is accumulating, how is it distributed, and how is it affecting ocean life?

The researchers hope to provide critical, timely data to policy makers and combine Scripps’ long tradition of Pacific exploration with focus on a new and pressing environmental problem. ” http://seaplexscience.com

“Capt. Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — an endless floating waste of plastic trash. Now he’s drawing attention to the growing, choking problem of plastic debris in our seas.” (Link from the Oprah Show)

This plastic “continent” stretches a distance wider than the United States and can be 90 deep or greater in places. It’s growing by leaps and bounds due to extensive plastic waste cast off by a “throwaway” mentality of the world’s consumers.

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Garbage
From Askmen.com

• There’s a continent of garbage in the Pacific gyre. (Gyre: swirling center region of the ocean’s currents)
• There’s garbage all over Mt. Everest – it’s “notoriously filthy.”
• Some garbage can live a million years… or more.
• Landfills pollute worse than… chernobyl. Then expel vast quantities of toxic gases.
• Plasma” can obliterate garbage. (Discovery Link to Plasma Gasification)

See more about Plasma, below.

According to Charles Moore, garbage growth is so extensive that the expansion of this island of trash seems virtually unstoppable, and may eventually, sooner than later, choke off the world’s fish supply.

Currently, over 90% of the world’s larger consumable fish stores are gone, depleted.

In addition, if the destruction of plankton is severe enough, oxygen levels will diminish and the world’s atmosphere is at risk.

There are many foreseen as well as unforeseen repurcussions to the huge accumulations of non-biodegradable waste in the world’s oceans.

Animals are indeed dying in record numbers exceeding hundreds of thousands. Seabirds feed their young colorful plastic bits, and the baby birds die a slow death. Sea mammals perish in netting and plastic coils and strips and die from poisoning as well.

Almost all fish are becoming contaminated with plastic bits and chemicals – even the tiniest fish. As Charles Moore says, “You can buy certified organic produce, but no fishmonger on earth can sell you a certified, organic, wild caught fish.”

The only solution: To stop the plastic at its source. It would be impossible to clean up the ocean. No country or power has the money or wherewithal to remove even a small proportion of plastic trash.

It is the only hope, but Charles hold’s little hope that we can change.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/capt_charles_moore_on_the_seas_of_plastic.html

Algalita has a DVD that chronicles and explains this massive problem. Undoubtedly the cost helps support their efforts.
http://algalita.org/videos-synthetic-sea.html

Great Links courtesy of Askmen.com

• http://en.wikipedia.org
• http://dsc.discovery.com
• www.plasticdebris.org
• www.algalita.org
• http://marinedebris.noaa.gov
• www.oregonmetro.gov
• www.litteritcostsyou.net
• http://marinedebris.noaa.gov
• www.ejnet.org

PLASMA: It’s working in other countries…
“Since 2002, two commercial waste-to-energy plasma gasification plants have been operating successfully in Japan.

The Mihama-Mikata facility processes 24 tons of municipal sold waste and 4 tons of sewage sludge per day, producing steam and hot water for local use.

The Utashinai plant processes up to 300 tons per day of waste and/or automobile shredder residue.

This facility produces up to 7.9 Megawatts of electricity, of which 3.6 MW are used to run the plasma torches and the plant, and up to 4.3 MW are sent to the electrical power grid.

In Ottawa, Canada, people are evaluating a demonstration facility that is currently processing 94 tons of waste per day, sending 4 MW of power to the grid.”

Note: This technology has been scaled back in the United States by 80%. Why is that? Could it be that it’s not “profitable” enough and the “greed” factor isn’t attractive to investors?

Or, perhaps the technology would impinge upon the profitability of current technologies.

Filed under: Environment by Cdin Sky
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Rare blue Maine lobster at home within his own little grotto. Around one in two million lobsters is blue.

Shucks! 4:53 PM 3/27/2009

An official study by scientists, Dr. Robert Elwood, professor at the School of Biological Sciences at The Queen’s University in Belfast, and colleague Mirjam Appel studied hermit crabs collected from rock pools in County Down, Northern Ireland. confirms that that Lobsters and Crabs, (yes, those delicious fellows) DO feel pain and suffering after all.

Arguments to Support Their Findings
According to the scientists, “Crustaceans possess “a suitable central nervous system and receptors.” They learn to avoid a negative stimulus after a potentially painful experience. They also engage in protective reactions, such as limping and rubbing, after being hurt.

Physiological changes, including release of adrenal-like hormones, also occur when pain or stress is suspected. And the animals make future decisions based on past likely painful events.

If crabs are given medicine — anesthetics or analgesics — they appear to feel relieved, showing fewer responses to negative stimuli. And finally, the researchers wrote, crustaceans possess “high cognitive ability and sentience.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29915025/

Originating Article:
“The findings add to a growing body of evidence that virtually all animals, including fish, shellfish and insects, can suffer… “ 
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/…

Best Way to Cook Lobster, Crab, Crayfish

1. Kill quickly and painlessly by inserting icepick or sharp knifepoint into head behind their eyes. Cook immediately. (Toxin will NOT form -false rumor)

3. If you MUST boil them alive, (they will suffer agonizingly till dead) bring water to full boil. Plunge lobster or crab head first into water. REVISION: It turns out that they survive far longer in the boiling water than initially thought. Kill first.

• NEVER put shellfish into cold water and bring to boil. They will flail and desperately attempt to escape from the tremendous pain.

Notes About Lobsters
• Did you know that older lobsters will lead younger lobsters around by the claw to lead them? Yes, it’s true…

• Like humans, lobsters have a long childhood and an awkward adolescence.

• Lobsters carry their young for nine months and can live to be over 100 years old.

• Like dolphins and many other animals, lobsters use complicated signals to explore their surroundings and establish social relationships.

• Lobsters also take long-distance seasonal journeys and can cover 100 miles or more each year (the equivalent of a human walking from Maine to Florida) — assuming that they manage to avoid the millions of traps set along the coasts.

Lobsters may even feel more pain than we would in similar situations. One popular food magazine recently suggested cutting live lobsters in half before tossing them on the grill (a recipe that’s “not for the squeamish,” the magazine warned), and more than one chef has been known to slice and dice lobsters before cooking them. But, says invertebrate zoologist Jaren G. Horsley, “The lobster does not have an autonomic nervous system that puts it into a state of shock when it is harmed. It probably feels itself being cut. … I think the lobster is in a great deal of pain from being cut open … [and] feels all the pain until its nervous system is destroyed” during cooking.

Quote:
“Don’t heat up the water just yet, though. Anyone who has ever boiled a lobster alive can attest to the fact that when dropped into scalding water, lobsters whip their bodies wildly and scrape the sides of the pot in a desperate attempt to escape. In the journal Science, researcher Gordon Gunter described this method of killing lobsters as “unnecessary torture.” ”

Why Lobster and Shellfish May Be Dangerous for Your Health

Like the flesh of other animals, lobster flesh is loaded with excessive protein and cholesterol. A 6- to 8-ounce serving of lobster flesh contains 120 to 180 ml of cholesterol—comparable to an average serving of tenderloin.

Fish and shellfish often accumulate extremely high levels of toxins in their flesh (as much as 9 million times that of the water in which they live) such as PCB’s, dioxins, mercury, lead, and arsenic, which can cause health problems ranging from kidney damage and impaired mental development to cancer and even death.

Lobster livers, or “tomalley,” which some people consider a “delicacy,” can be especially dangerous. The high doses of toxins concentrated in the livers can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning.

Symptoms range from numbness in the lips to dizziness, nausea, impaired breathing, and choking. Seafood consumption is also the number one cause of food-borne illness: It has been claimed that eating lobsters and other sea animals is like playing Russian roulette with your health.

Another Norwegian government report stated that Lobsters do not feel pain. However, as fishing is a main industry in Norway, many discount the report as “biased.”

Truth be known, almost all living creatures were bestowed the ability to enjoy pleasure and feel pain. Whether we intend to recognize and acknowledge this when it doesn’t suit our preferences, is another story.

We wish that all food animals would be well cared for, fed good, healthy natural food, be allowed to live contented and comfortable lives, and at the end, killed quickly and painlessly without suffering.

Don’t Mistake Seafood for Health Food
From the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s Web site.

Recipe: MOCK LOBSTER
(Purported to be delicious)

Adapted from a recipe courtesy of Philadelphia’s Singapore restaurant

For the “Lobster”:

4 medium potatoes
1 7 oz. can corn kernels
1/2 cup green peas
12 oz. Worthington Foods vegetarian “Skallops” or seitan
1 tsp. minced parsley
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar
Dash of pepper
1 cup flour
1 cup cornstarch
1 Tbsp. soy sauce

For the batter:
3 cups self-rising flour
2 cups water

Oil for deep-frying

Peel and thinly slice the potatoes, and steam until soft. Add the remaining ingredients (except those for the batter) to the potatoes and mash. Divide into 10 equal portions. Mold the portions into chunks and dust with a little cornstarch.

For the batter, mix together the flour and water. Coat each “lobster” chunk with batter.

Heat the oil to 300°F in a deep-fryer. Add the mock lobster chunks and fry them until they are golden in color. Drain on paper towels.

For a tasty dip, mix together barbecue sauce with a little hot mustard.

Makes 10 mock lobster chunks.

NOTE:
“New York’s May Wah Healthy Vegetarian Food, which offers everything from mock lobster to faux crab roll and shrimp (and also sells faux chicken, beef, and ham). These “fab fakes” taste just like the real thing. You can order online. For info, visit: “www.vegieworld.com.

Resource: http://www.lobsterlib.com/taste.html

Filed under: Animals, Food by cdin
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Here’s a tasty steak. Is it good for you? This study may have some answers for you.

Okay. Here’s the latest skinny about eating red meat and processed meats and how it affects your risk of dying from cancer and/or heart disease. Cheery!

Below, you will find a rather comprehensive article about the newest research on this joyous topic conducted via the National Cancer Institute (not a particularly rinkydink organization).

The Not So Good News
You have at least a 20% to 50% higher risk of cancer or heart disease if you eat the equivalent of a red meat quarter pound hamburger per day. (We’re not talking about soyburgers, folks.)

Of course, there are always those who believe it’s not worth living anyway unless they can chow down on a steak a day, anyhoos. So be it.

The Not So Bad News
Processed meats were slightly less likely than the red stuff to increase your risk of dying from cancer or heart attack. Oscar Meyer should be relieved and proud.

Must be all those helpful preservatives, organ meats and veggie fillers. Right? : )

The research did not include those who were vegetarians. That would be another interesting study. 

For some unknown reason, it would probably just so happen to be that a diet of veggies only might have even lower rates of dying from cancer and heart disease than eating meat.

Why?

Because nobody said life is fair! : )

SUMMARY: Red and processed meat intakes were associated with moderate increases in total mortality, cancer mortality, and cardiovascular disease mortality.

High intakes of red or processed meat may increase the risk of mortality. The objective was to determine the relations of red, white, and processed meat intakes to risk for total and cause-specific mortality among
The researchers followed  more than 545,000 people who were AARP members, aged 50 to 71 years old, for 10 years. Over 70,000 people died during that period of time.

Study subjects were recruited from AARP members, a group that’s healthier than other similarly aged Americans. That means the findings may not apply to all groups, Sinha said. The study relied on people’s memory of what they ate, which can be faulty.

Men and women in the highest vs lowest 20% of red and processed meat intakes had elevated risks for overall mortality. Regarding cause-specific mortality, men and women had elevated risks for cancer mortality for red and processed meat intakes.

Furthermore, cardiovascular disease risk was elevated for men and women in the highest 20% of red and processed meat  intakes. When comparing the highest with the lowest 20% of white meat intake, there was an inverse association for total mortality and cancer mortality, as well as all other deaths for both men and women.

In the final analysis, results took into account factors such as smoking, family history of cancer and body weight.

Conclusion: Red and processed meat intakes were associated with modest increases in total mortality, cancer mortality, and cardiovascular disease mortality.

Researcher:
Rashmi Sinha is an investigator in the Nutrition Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, at the National Cancer Institute. Research interests include the role of meat, heterocyclic aromatic amines, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in cancer etiology, as well as the interaction of genetic susceptibility and nutrition in cancer. Other interests include vitamins A, C and E and cancer, DDT and breast cancer, and development of biomarkers of diet. Sinha’s honors include the National Institute of Health Award of Merit and the Technology Transfer Award. Sinha is associate editor of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, is a reviewer for numerous journals, and has served on a variety of professional committees and boards.

In other words, eating around a quarter pound of red meat daily had a 22 percent higher risk of dying from cancer and a 27 percent higher rate of dying from heart disease than those who ate less than 5 ounces of red meat per week.

Women had a 20 percent higher risk of dying from cancer and 50 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease than those women who ate small amounts.

As for processed meats, the rates of dying from cancer and heart disease were only slightly lower than red meat.

The lowest rates of increased death due to cancer and heart disease were among those who ate white meat and fish.

“11 percent of deaths in men and 16 percent of deaths in women could have been prevented if they had decreased their meat consumption to the equivalent of a quarter of a small hamburger a day. The chance of men dying of cardiovascular disease would have decreased 11 percent – and 21 percent for women.”

Additional Meat Consumption Information:
Diets containing substantial amounts of red or preserved meats may increase the risk of various cancers. This association may be due to a combination of factors, such as content of fat, protein, and iron, and/or meat preparation (e.g. cooking or preserving methods).

Laboratory results have shown that meats cooked at high temperatures contain heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are mutagenic and carcinogenic in animals. To investigate the role of these compounds we have created separate databases for mutagenic activity,

HCAs, and PAHs, which we have used in conjunction with a validated meat-cooking food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). The role of meat type, cooking methods, doneness levels, and meat-cooking mutagens has been examined in both case-control studies and prospective cohort studies.

The results from these studies are mixed for different sub-types of meat, cooking methods, and doneness levels, as well as for estimated intakes of mutagenic activity, HCA, and PAHs.

An additional role of red meat in colon cancer could be through the contribution to N-nitroso compound (NOC) exposure.

Humans can be exposed to NOCs by exogenous (produced outside the body ) routes (from processed meats in particular) and by endogenous (produced within the body) routes.

Endogenous exposure to NOCs has been shown to be dose-dependently related to the amount of red meat in the diet. Recent work suggests that heme iron in red meat may explain the high levels of endogenous NOC, levels equivalent to those found in cigarette smoke.

NOTES:

First Study:

A 124-item food frequency questionnaire ( http://riskfactor.cancer.gov/DHQ/forms/files/shared/dhq1.2002.sample.pdf ) was completed at baseline.

The food frequency questionnaire collected information on the usual consumption of foods and drinks and portion sizes over the last 12 months.

The validity of the food frequency questionnaire was estimated using two 24-hour recalls,8 and the estimated energy-adjusted correlations ranged from 0.36 to 0.76 for various nutrients and attenuation factors ranged from 0.24 to 0.68.

Red meat intake was calculated using the frequency of consumption and portion size information of all types of beef and pork and included bacon, beef, cold cuts, ham, hamburger, hotdogs, liver, pork, sausage, steak, and meats in foods such as pizza, chili, lasagna, and stew.

White meat included chicken, turkey, and fish and included poultry cold cuts, chicken mixtures, canned tuna, and low-fat sausages and low-fat hotdogs made from poultry.

Processed meat included bacon, red meat sausage, poultry sausage, luncheon meats (red and white meat), cold cuts (red and white meat), ham, regular hotdogs and low-fat hotdogs made from poultry.

The components constituting red or white and processed meats can overlap because both can include meats such as bacon, sausage, and ham, while processed meat can also included smoked turkey and chicken.

During 10 years of follow-up, there were 47,976 male deaths and 23,276 female deaths.

In general, those in the highest quintile of red meat intake tended to consume a slightly lower amount of white meat but a higher amount of processed meat compared with those in the lowest 20%.

Subjects who consumed more red meat tended to be married, more likely of non-Hispanic white ethnicity, more likely a current smoker, have a higher body mass index, and have a higher daily intake of energy, total fat, and saturated fat, and they tended to have lower education and physical activity levels and lower fruit, vegetable, fiber, and vitamin supplement intakes.

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Filed under: Food, Health by cdin
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