Tag: native (page 2 of 4)

Volunteers Sought for Christmas Bird Count

December 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments





Excerpt from
yourdailyjournal.com 


ROCKINGHAM — The National Audubon Society is inviting Richmond County birdwatchers to participate in the longest-running citizen science survey in the world, the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count.

Beginning Sunday, hundreds of birders and nature enthusiasts across North Carolina will take part in this long-standing tradition where data collected has helped to shape influential conservation efforts nationwide.

As North Carolina’s landscape continues to evolve with changes... the data collected during the annual Christmas Bird Count is crucial to understanding the health of native and migrating bird populations throughout North Carolina. During the 2013 CBC, five snowy owls were spotted from Asheville to Wilmington, and local citizen scientists were on hand to detail the rare event.

North Carolina’s birding circles are some of the top performing in the country, and last year, a record 51 counts across the state reported 1,113,012 individual birds from 225 species.

“In a state where inspiring conservation action is vital to the health of birds facing the damaging effects of climate change, Audubon North Carolina is excited to be a leader in statewide conservation efforts,” Executive Director Heather Hahn said in a release. “As climate change continues to affect populations of the brown-headed nuthatch, American oystercatcher, wood thrush and many more iconic species, the data collected during this annual event becomes even more important to ongoing efforts to protect our birds.”

Each year, the Audubon Christmas Bird Count mobilizes more than 70,000 volunteer bird counters in more than 2,400 locations across the Western Hemisphere. The Audubon Christmas Bird Count utilizes the power of volunteers to track the health of bird populations at a scale that professional scientists could never accomplish alone. Data compiled across North Carolina will record every individual bird and bird species seen in a specified area, contributing to a vast citizen science network that continues a tradition stretching back more than 100 years.

Birders of all ages are welcome to contribute to this fun winter tradition and nationwide citizen science project, which provides ornithologists with a crucial snapshot of native bird populations during the winter months. Each individual count is performed in a count circle with a diameter of 15 miles.

At least 10 volunteers, including a compiler to coordinate the process, count in each circle. The volunteers break up into small parties and follow assigned routes, which change little from year to year, counting every bird they see. In most count circles, some people also watch feeders instead of following routes.

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The New American Dream ~ The Case for Colonizing Mars

November 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments




Excerpt from Ad Astra

by Robert Zubrin


Mars Is The New World

Among extraterrestrial bodies in our solar system, Mars is singular in that it possesses all the raw materials required to support not only life, but a new branch of human civilization. This uniqueness is illustrated most clearly if we contrast Mars with the Earth's Moon, the most frequently cited alternative location for extraterrestrial human colonization.

In contrast to the Moon, Mars is rich in carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen, all in biologically readily accessible forms such as carbon dioxide gas, nitrogen gas, and water ice and permafrost. Carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen are only present on the Moon in parts per million quantities, much like gold in seawater. Oxygen is abundant on the Moon, but only in tightly bound oxides such as silicon dioxide (SiO2), ferrous oxide (Fe2O3), magnesium oxide (MgO), and aluminum oxide (Al2O3), which require very high energy processes to reduce.

The Moon is also deficient in about half the metals of interest to industrial society (copper, for example), as well as many other elements of interest such as sulfur and phosphorus. Mars has every required element in abundance. Moreover, on Mars, as on Earth, hydrologic and volcanic processes have occurred that are likely to have consolidated various elements into local concentrations of high-grade mineral ore. Indeed, the geologic history of Mars has been compared to that of Africa, with very optimistic inferences as to its mineral wealth implied as a corollary. In contrast, the Moon has had virtually no history of water or volcanic action, with the result that it is basically composed of trash rocks with very little differentiation into ores that represent useful concentrations of anything interesting.

You can generate power on either the Moon or Mars with solar panels, and here the advantages of the Moon's clearer skies and closer proximity to the Sun than Mars roughly balances the disadvantage of large energy storage requirements created by the Moon's 28-day light-dark cycle. But if you wish to manufacture solar panels, so as to create a self-expanding power base, Mars holds an enormous advantage, as only Mars possesses the large supplies of carbon and hydrogen needed to produce the pure silicon required for producing photovoltaic panels and other electronics. In addition, Mars has the potential for wind-generated power while the Moon clearly does not. But both solar and wind offer relatively modest power potential — tens or at most hundreds of kilowatts here or there. To create a vibrant civilization you need a richer power base, and this Mars has both in the short and medium term in the form of its geothermal power resources, which offer potential for large numbers of locally created electricity generating stations in the 10 MW (10,000 kilowatt) class. In the long-term, Mars will enjoy a power-rich economy based upon exploitation of its large domestic resources of deuterium fuel for fusion reactors. Deuterium is five times more common on Mars than it is on Earth, and tens of thousands of times more common on Mars than on the Moon.

But the biggest problem with the Moon, as with all other airless planetary bodies and proposed artificial free-space colonies, is that sunlight is not available in a form useful for growing crops. A single acre of plants on Earth requires four megawatts of sunlight power, a square kilometer needs 1,000 MW. The entire world put together does not produce enough electrical power to illuminate the farms of the state of Rhode Island, that agricultural giant. Growing crops with electrically generated light is just economically hopeless. But you can't use natural sunlight on the Moon or any other airless body in space unless you put walls on the greenhouse thick enough to shield out solar flares, a requirement that enormously increases the expense of creating cropland. Even if you did that, it wouldn't do you any good on the Moon, because plants won't grow in a light/dark cycle lasting 28 days.

But on Mars there is an atmosphere thick enough to protect crops grown on the surface from solar flare. Therefore, thin-walled inflatable plastic greenhouses protected by unpressurized UV-resistant hard-plastic shield domes can be used to rapidly create cropland on the surface. Even without the problems of solar flares and month-long diurnal cycle, such simple greenhouses would be impractical on the Moon as they would create unbearably high temperatures. On Mars, in contrast, the strong greenhouse effect created by such domes would be precisely what is necessary to produce a temperate climate inside. Such domes up to 50 meters in diameter are light enough to be transported from Earth initially, and later on they can be manufactured on Mars out of indigenous materials. Because all the resources to make plastics exist on Mars, networks of such 50- to 100-meter domes could be rapidly manufactured and deployed, opening up large areas of the surface to both shirtsleeve human habitation and agriculture. That's just the beginning, because it will eventually be possible for humans to substantially thicken Mars' atmosphere by forcing the regolith to outgas its contents through a deliberate program of artificially induced global warming. Once that has been accomplished, the habitation domes could be virtually any size, as they would not have to sustain a pressure differential between their interior and exterior. In fact, once that has been done, it will be possible to raise specially bred crops outside the domes.

The point to be made is that unlike colonists on any known extraterrestrial body, Martian colonists will be able to live on the surface, not in tunnels, and move about freely and grow crops in the light of day. Mars is a place where humans can live and multiply to large numbers, supporting themselves with products of every description made out of indigenous materials. Mars is thus a place where an actual civilization, not just a mining or scientific outpost, can be developed. And significantly for interplanetary commerce, Mars and Earth are the only two locations in the solar system where humans will be able to grow crops for export.

Interplanetary Commerce

Mars is the best target for colonization in the solar system because it has by far the greatest potential for self-sufficiency. Nevertheless, even with optimistic extrapolation of robotic manufacturing techniques, Mars will not have the division of labor required to make it fully self-sufficient until its population numbers in the millions. Thus, for decades and perhaps longer, it will be necessary, and forever desirable, for Mars to be able to import specialized manufactured goods from Earth. These goods can be fairly limited in mass, as only small portions (by weight) of even very high-tech goods are actually complex. Nevertheless, these smaller sophisticated items will have to be paid for, and the high costs of Earth-launch and interplanetary transport will greatly increase their price. What can Mars possibly export back to Earth in return?
It is this question that has caused many to incorrectly deem Mars colonization intractable, or at least inferior in prospect to the Moon.

For example, much has been made of the fact that the Moon has indigenous supplies of helium-3, an isotope not found on Earth and which could be of considerable value as a fuel for second generation thermonuclear fusion reactors. Mars has no known helium-3 resources. On the other hand, because of its complex geologic history, Mars may have concentrated mineral ores, with much greater concentrations of precious metal ores readily available than is currently the case on Earth — because the terrestrial ores have been heavily scavenged by humans for the past 5,000 years. If concentrated supplies of metals of equal or greater value than silver (such as germanium, hafnium, lanthanum, cerium, rhenium, samarium, gallium, gadolinium, gold, palladium, iridium, rubidium, platinum, rhodium, europium, and a host of others) were available on Mars, they could potentially be transported back to Earth for a substantial profit. Reusable Mars-surface based single-stage-to-orbit vehicles would haul cargoes to Mars orbit for transportation to Earth via either cheap expendable chemical stages manufactured on Mars or reusable cycling solar or magnetic sail-powered interplanetary spacecraft. The existence of such Martian precious metal ores, however, is still hypothetical.

But there is one commercial resource that is known to exist ubiquitously on Mars in large amount — deuterium. Deuterium, the heavy isotope of hydrogen, occurs as 166 out of every million hydrogen atoms on Earth, but comprises 833 out of every million hydrogen atoms on Mars. Deuterium is the key fuel not only for both first and second generation fusion reactors, but it is also an essential material needed by the nuclear power industry today. Even with cheap power, deuterium is very expensive; its current market value on Earth is about $10,000 per kilogram, roughly fifty times as valuable as silver or 70% as valuable as gold. This is in today's pre-fusion economy. Once fusion reactors go into widespread use deuterium prices will increase. All the in-situ chemical processes required to produce the fuel, oxygen, and plastics necessary to run a Mars settlement require water electrolysis as an intermediate step. As a by product of these operations, millions, perhaps billions, of dollars worth of deuterium will be produced.

Ideas may be another possible export for Martian colonists. Just as the labor shortage prevalent in colonial and nineteenth century America drove the creation of "Yankee ingenuity's" flood of inventions, so the conditions of extreme labor shortage combined with a technological culture that shuns impractical legislative constraints against innovation will tend to drive Martian ingenuity to produce wave after wave of invention in energy production, automation and robotics, biotechnology, and other areas. These inventions, licensed on Earth, could finance Mars even as they revolutionize and advance terrestrial living standards as forcefully as nineteenth century American invention changed Europe and ultimately the rest of the world as well.

Inventions produced as a matter of necessity by a practical intellectual culture stressed by frontier conditions can make Mars rich, but invention and direct export to Earth are not the only ways that Martians will be able to make a fortune. The other route is via trade to the asteroid belt, the band of small, mineral-rich bodies lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. There are about 5,000 asteroids known today, of which about 98% are in the "Main Belt" lying between Mars and Jupiter, with an average distance from the Sun of about 2.7 astronomical units, or AU. (The Earth is 1.0 AU from the Sun.) Of the remaining two percent known as the near-Earth asteroids, about 90% orbit closer to Mars than to the Earth. Collectively, these asteroids represent an enormous stockpile of mineral wealth in the form of platinum group and other valuable metals.


Historical Analogies

The primary analogy I wish to draw is that Mars is to the new age of exploration as North America was to the last. The Earth's Moon, close to the metropolitan planet but impoverished in resources, compares to Greenland. Other destinations, such as the Main Belt asteroids, may be rich in potential future exports to Earth but lack the preconditions for the creation of a fully developed indigenous society; these compare to the West Indies. Only Mars has the full set of resources required to develop a native civilization, and only Mars is a viable target for true colonization. Like America in its relationship to Britain and the West Indies, Mars has a positional advantage that will allow it to participate in a useful way to support extractive activities on behalf of Earth in the asteroid belt and elsewhere.

But despite the shortsighted calculations of eighteenth-century European statesmen and financiers, the true value of America never was as a logistical support base for West Indies sugar and spice trade, inland fur trade, or as a potential market for manufactured goods. The true value of America was as the future home for a new branch of human civilization, one that as a combined result of its humanistic antecedents and its frontier conditions was able to develop into the most powerful engine for human progress and economic growth the world had ever seen. The wealth of America was in fact that she could support people, and that the right kind of people chose to go to her. People create wealth. People are wealth and power. Every feature of Frontier American life that acted to create a practical can-do culture of innovating people will apply to Mars a hundred-fold.

Mars is a harsher place than any on Earth. But provided one can survive the regimen, it is the toughest schools that are the best. The Martians shall do well.


Robert Zubrin is former Chairman of the National Space Society, President of the Mars Society, and author of The Case For Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must.

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Did Easter Islanders Travel to South America in 1300-1500?

October 24, 2014 / / 0 Comments




Excerpt from sci-news.com

Evidence for contact between the ancient Rapanui people (inhabitants of Easter Island) and the indigenous peoples of South America sometime between approximately AD 1300 and AD 1500 has been found in the genomes of 27 living Rapanui, according to a new genetic study published in the journal Current Biology.
Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, is located in the easternmost corner of the Polynesian Triangle. It is one of the most isolated locations on Earth inhabited by humans.

Archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that the island was first colonized by Polynesians around AD 1200. After settling on the island, they famously built giant stone platforms and over 900 moais.

The first known European visitor to the island was the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who arrived in 1722.

While it may have taken weeks for Rapanui to reach even the closest nearby islands, there are hints of their early contact with South Americans.


For example, there is evidence for the presence of plants native to the Americas on Easter Island, including sweet potato and bottle gourd, long before the European discovery of the island.

Now a genome-wide analysis of 27 native Rapanui confirms that the island people made contact with Native South Americans 19 to 23 generations ago, sometime between AD 1280 and 1495.

The lead author of the study, Dr Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas of the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, suggests one of two scenarios: either South Americans sailed to the island or Rapanui travelers sailed to the continent and back.

“It seems more likely that the Rapanui successfully made the trip back and forth, given simulations presented in previous studies showing that all sailing voyages heading intentionally east from the island would always reach South America, with a trip lasting from two weeks to approximately two months,” Dr Malaspinas said.

“On the other hand, the trip from the continent to Easter Island is much more challenging, which would have made it likely to fail or miss the island completely.”


Native South Americans in Brazil by Giulio Ferrario, 1823-1838.

Native South Americans in Brazil by Giulio Ferrario, 1823-1838.

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J. Víctor Moreno-Mayar et al. Genome-wide Ancestry Patterns in Rapanui Suggest Pre-European Admixture with Native Americans. Current Biology, published online October 23, 2014; doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.09.057
Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas et al. Two ancient human genomes reveal Polynesian ancestry among the indigenous Botocudos of Brazil. Current Biology, published online October 23, 2014; doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.09.078

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Cosmic Awareness Newsletter 2012-01

March 8, 2012 / / 0 Comments

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7 March 2012

Channeler: Will Berlinghof

Well...Anasazi1 just made me realize that there was no Cosmic Awareness message posted here recently,so here's the most recent one avaiable right one,as the CAC newsletter is for mem...

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She had me @ hello…

October 17, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Dedicated to Extince, the homey whose viervoeters rocked my world.....

She had me @ Hell-o, I met her 'cross the Table 

Our eyes met somewhere out-a-here, thus rend'ring me unABLE

to do ma thang, and do her in, but then I'm glad ...

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Native Light Dance Animation

September 4, 2010 / / 0 Comments

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. ~ Albert Einstein

NATIVE LIGHT DANCE | An Oldie but a Goodie

Created July 12, 2007

An abstract animation illustrating the movement and transfer of light/life/love energy during a Native American dance honoring harmony in light/life/love and the spirit by which it manifests. Set to a modern hypnotic trance track you will observe the formed light energy breaking away from our usual perception into a joyous celebration of dance. After the breaking of form you will begin to notice traditional Native American elder tribesman forming in a more perceptual form, or the light will align with their holo-matrix for you to be able to perceive their form. All and all the entire animation will show a new way to perceive our/your light body in motion and dancing.

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John Paul ‘Lakan’ Olivares: The Chant

July 24, 2010 / / 0 Comments

John Paul ‘Lakan’ Olivares: The Chant

The crowd of people cluster about in uneasy restlessness, flitting eyes scan the congregation of people waiting. They speak to each other in reverent soft hushed tones, as the faith beating of a drum is heard in the distance. Then, through the light murmurs of the people pierces what seems to be a wail. The people and the drums are silenced, as the voice shifts to a monotonous sing-song chant. . . The ritual has begun. . .
The chant moves through the air without the beat of the drums. The chant flows with the pulse that permeates within and throughout. Man feels the vibration of the words flow through his core and the spirit moves. The doorway opens and the vision is revealed . . .

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Participate in the Light Coming: the time is NOW

July 10, 2010 / / 0 Comments

a message from Meredith Murphy

Thursday, 8 July, 2010  (posted 9 July, 2010)

Qualities of the New Earth 

Hello you beautiful beings, and friends, members of the Family of Light.

I c...

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Feng Shui for Better Living

July 5, 2010 / / 0 Comments

a message from The Brotherhood of Light channeled by Edna G. Frankel

Sunday, 4 July, 2010 

Greetings, dear ones, from the Brotherhood of Light! We are excited and delighted to be sharing e...

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Nassim Haramein in Australia

July 3, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Dear Supporters,

Nassim Haramein is coming to Australia! He will be speaking at the upcoming Nexus conference as well as several other events and workshops in July and August. Please see the following information for dates and locations...

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BURSTING THE BONDS OF OUR LOWER HUMAN EGO

July 2, 2010 / / 0 Comments

2 July 2010 - 1:31pm

Channeler: Patricia Diane Cota-Robles

July 1, 2010

http://eraofpeace.org

In the past few mailings I have been discussing the opportunity that is being provided this summe...

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Messages for Mankind -The Crown of the Universe

July 1, 2010 / / 0 Comments

1 July 2010 - 2:39am

Channeler: Samantha von Daniken - The Magicians Daughter

Messages for Mankind -The Crown of the Universe

Channeler: Samantha von Daniken-The Magicians Daughter 25th June 2010 ...

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the Birth of a New Humanity

May 16, 2010 / / 0 Comments

I always get a bit suspicious when people are talking about long lost secret info which THEY are now revealing, for I believe the real 'secret' is hidden in plain sight. I see clues and witnesses to it every day, some of which even have no clue they are actually spreading the good news. They're just doing what comes naturally. But hey, you might read something entirely different in the announcement below.....

I Love your Light, 

Dré

I wanted to pass this very important talk to you.  It is information that none of us know because it has been passed on for over 13,000 years only by and to native people around the world. Drunvalo is releasing this for us.  It will bring you great peace.
When you understand the science that is behind this story, it will amaze you. And when you understand the results of this 13,000 years experiment, you will be filled with joy. For what has happened is no less than the Birth of a New Humanity. YOU will see, for you are about to live it.
Live Broadcast With Drunvalo Melchizedek
"THE BIRTH OF A NEW HUMANITY" — We are pleased to announce that Drunvalo will be airing his second World Wide Web cast in a few weeks. The date for that talk has been formally scheduled for May 26, 2010. To find out more about it, and/or sign up for that broadcast please go to: http://drunvalo.net/live.html.   referrer ID is: 51072
Beyond 2012 indeed! We as the human race are just beginning. Again.
And I am honored to give you this wonderful news."
From my Heart,
Drunvalo Melchizedek

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