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My grandmother could never have made this connection in a million lifetimes. But she would have cursed me for suggesting that the menacing elephants that occasionally come to our dusty village somewhere in remote Africa to pillage on our crops and the geckos that roam the village paths could have a connection with her lying on her death bed and needing the knife of a surgeon for her perennial ulcers.

But two separate scientific studies and discoveries in very different settings in Africa and the US can easily make the connection, if you may.

Connecting the Elephant and the Gecko
The pounding feet of the 15,000 pound African Bush Elephant make protective crevices in the savanna grasslands that help the geckos hide from their predators and the hot, penetrating African sun, according to Robert Pringle, an ecologist and conservation biologist at Stanford University in California, who conducted his research at the Mpala Research Center in Kenya. Significant numbers of geckos have been reported in the aftermath of an elephant’s feeding - the vertebrates often finding breeding space and security in fallen tree limbs and stripped barks. This makes the Elephant a change agent of habitat creation at the patch scale for small species that seem insignificant.

Connecting You and the Gecko
The gecko is a small to average sized lizard belonging to the family Gekkonidae that come in 1,196 different species and which are found in warm climates throughout the world.

Many species have specialized toe pads that enable them to climb smooth vertical surfaces and even cross indoor ceilings with ease. Some species like the house lizard are entirely harmless and feed on irritant house insects, which is good. But that is not all.

Since the 80’s “Passive microwave satellite detection of wet ice sheet surfaces, has enabled the mapping of their surface melting. In Sept 2005, a release from CIRES (NOAA/Colorado U’ supported) predicted that 2005 through to end of “summer” (Octoberish), would show the highest melt level since the previous record year of 2002. However, that went all quiet when it turned out 2002 remained tops, with 1987, 1991, and 1998 on a level par, depending on source, see below: 

Link 1:  http://cires.colorado.edu/science/groups/steffen/greenland/melt2005/

More recently […]

Here is some good news about Greenland, and the “North West Passage” 

For instance, the respected journal; Geophysical Research Letters, 13 June 2006, has published this  paper by Chylek et al: 

ABSTRACT:
We provide an analysis of Greenland temperature records to compare the current (1995-2005) warming period with the previous (1920-1930)
Greenland warming. We find that the current Greenland warming is not unprecedented in recent Greenland history. Temperature increases in the two warming periods are of a similar magnitude, however, the rate of warming […]

Imagine what cart corals at the supermarket would look like if shopping carts didn’t nest together. Imagine what the entryway of the supermarket would look like if shopping baskets didn’t stack. This would be poor spatial planning on the designers part. Next, image what a parking lot could look like if our cars stacked? We all of the sudden will have a plethora of open […]

Note: For the latest on Algae Biodiesel, head over to Gas 2.0 (http://gas2.org).

Looking to buy your own algae biodiesel manufacturing plant?
You may be in luck.

AlgaeLink has developed the first made-to-order industrial algae production facility in the world.

Sure, we’ve all read 50 stories about algae biodiesel the panacea—the only biofuel that will make a serious dent in petroleum usage—but none of those stories have materialized yet. But the fact that commercially harvesting algae could […]

I remember a good while ago that the “outspoken” James Hansen, of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies was reputed to have spieled words to the effect that it is no longer necessary to exaggerate on global warming, and it was time to be more rational and science-based. 

For the first time ever, a U.S. regulatory agency denied a coal plant permit solely on the basis of its carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a main contributor to global warming.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) denied permits to two large, 700-megawatt plants proposed by Sunflower Electric Power. The plants would have cost about $3.6 billion and spewed 11 million tons of CO2 into the air each year. That’s almost

[…]

It looks like ethanol subsidies may impede efforts to reduce the size of the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico. A draft report from the EPA Science Advisory Board says that ethanol subsidies could lead to a dramatic increase in nutrient loading in the Mississippi river basin, due to diverting cropland to corn production.

Recent energy policies, combined with pre-existing crop subsidies, tax policies, global market conditions and trade barriers all provide economic

[…]

The good news? Beaming all the solar energy we could ever need down to Earth from space appears more feasible than ever before. The bad news? It’s going to take a lot of money and political will to get there.

While the idea of sending giant solar panels into orbit around the Earth is nothing new — the idea has been kicked around with varying degrees of seriousness

[…]

In a step away from my usual doom and gloom/global warming articles, I’ve decided to expand my focus. Thankfully, the news is as always willing to satiate my various whims and needs, and with a topic that is dear to my heart as well. And though it may not sound glamorous or sexy, you better believe it’s important.

A meeting of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) has improved the hopes of the cod

[…]

Despite promises of imminent commercial viability and tremendous productivity, the development of algae cultivation for biofuel production has been painfully slow. Most of us following biofuel news have been frustrated by the sluggish pace of real progress.

GreenFuel Technologies has finally produced some results:

This summer, GreenFuel Technologies and Arizona Public Service Company (APS) were able to grow algae successfully at APS’ Redhawk natural gas power plant at levels 37 times higher than corn

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