All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

A Bali farm lights up the night with a one-of-a-kind firefly lab

The Bring Back The Light team
The Bring Back The Light team has identified two general types of fireflies. Image courtesy of Bring Back The Light.

After the terrestrial fireflies have laid their eggs in soil, the team moves the eggs to cotton pads for monitoring. The semiaquatic fireflies lay their eggs on the leaves of the aquatic plant kapu-kapu (Pistia stratiotes), so the team then moves the egg-covered leaves to individual petri dishes to protect them. They also take steps to make sure there’s no crossbreeding. “We give each larvae a code, so we know their history when they turn into an adult,” says biologist Margaretha Noviani.

The firefly lab has already bred 40 terrestrial fireflies, some of which have been released and others used to breed the second generation of fireflies in captivity. To help further the lab’s research, the team has connected with firefly scientists in Malaysia and Australia and is also working with universities in Indonesia on grant applications.

“I think that Bring Back The Light is a really good initiative,” says entomologist and conservationist Wan Faridah Akmal Jusoh, co-chair of the IUCN’s firefly specialist group. “We are actually in the process of understanding life cycle of fireflies, which is what’s lacking at the moment. So captive breeding is important in order for us to understand each life stage of different species.”

Identifying a firefly is hard work. “Everybody faces the same [challenge],” Jusoh says. “To help conserve the firefly they need to know more about the species they are dealing with.”

Source: A Bali farm lights up the night with a one-of-a-kind firefly lab

(6) The Time Of Water: An Alliance To Protect The Amazon Rainforest – YouTube

The Sacred Headwaters Alliance brings together thirty Indigenous nations of the upper Amazon, in Ecuador and Peru, who are self-organizing to defend a forest devastated by the forces of extraction that is unchecked devouring the territory. Their leaders are on high alert due to the devastating effects of climate change on nature, which they see as a living being with a spiritual entity. How do they face this existential crisis? What worldview do they propose to save the forest and the planet? Are we still in time to avoid a point of no return? Read the full story: https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/tim…

The Time Of Water: An Alliance To Protect The Amazon Rainforest – Conservation news

The Sacred Headwaters Alliance brings together thirty Indigenous nations of the upper Amazon in Ecuador and Peru, who are self-organizing to defend a forest devastated by unchecked extraction that is rapidly consuming their territory. Their leaders are on high alert due to the devastating effects of climate change on nature, which they perceive as a living being with a spiritual entity.

The Sacred Headwaters Alliance is focusing on climate mitigation and adaptation, as well as on teaching younger generations to resist the ongoing destruction of the Amazon. This initiative is crucial as the Amazon Basin has been severely impacted by record wildfires, with more than 22.4 million hectares (55.3 million acres) scorched between January and September 2024 in Brazil alone. Extreme heat and drought conditions have also exacerbated the crisis, affecting evaporation processes and pushing almost all major rivers in the Amazon — vital for Indigenous communities’ livelihoods — to their lowest-ever levels.

How do they face this existential crisis? What worldview do they propose to save the forest and the planet? Are we still in time to avoid a point of no return? These are the critical questions the Sacred Headwaters Alliance is grappling with as they work to protect both their cultural heritage and the environment.

This documentary was produced thanks to the support of the Pulitzer Center and OpenDemocracy.

Source: The Time Of Water: An Alliance To Protect The Amazon Rainforest – Conservation news

प्रतिक्रिया / Reaction – Kaushal Kishore

 

आप क्या चलाते हैं करती है प्रतिक्रिया इसपर निर्भर,

एक पत्थर कुत्ते पर फेंको, एक मधुमक्खी के छत्ते पर…

पत्थर रहता वही है, उसकी ताकत भी वही रहती है, 

लेकिन लक्ष्यानुसार दिखता है, अलग अलग असर…

🪨 🪨 🪨 🪨 🪨 🪨

The reaction depends solely on what you drive.

Throw a stone at a dog, another at a beehive…

The stone’s the same, its force’s the same,

But the outcome differs, based on its aim…

.

–Kaushal Kishore  

Source: प्रतिक्रिया / Reaction – Kaushal Kishore

🎄 Feliz Navidad 🎅 | Filosofa’s Word

♫  Feliz Navidad ♫

This song is written and sung by Puerto Rican singer-songwriter José Feliciano, a favourite of mine.  Feliciano says he recorded the song while feeling homesick at Christmas, missing his family in New York City and his extended family further afield as he sat in a studio in Los Angeles. He remembered celebrating Christmas Eve with his brothers, eating traditional Puerto Rican foods, drinking rum, and going caroling.

“It was expressing the joy that I felt on Christmas and the fact that I felt very lonely. I missed my family, I missed Christmas carols with them. I missed the whole Christmas scene.”

The lyrics are in both Spanish and English, because as Feliciano said …

“If I had left in Spanish only, then I knew the English stations might not play it, so I decided to write an English lyric, ‘I want to wish you a merry Christmas.’ And then there was no way the stations could lock that song out of the programming.”

The song has been covered by a number of artists including Michael Bublé and Celine Dion, but I’ll stick with the original on this one.  It’s a fun holiday tune, a toe-tapper, that charted at in the U.S., in the UK, and played fairly well all ‘round the globe!

Feliz Navidad

José Feliciano

Source: 🎄 Feliz Navidad 🎅 | Filosofa’s Word

Songs I Like (97) | beetleypete

A Scottish band named after a Steely Dan song, Deacon Blue had success in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s. They are still performing today, and though they have not remained in the music charts, they have a very loyal following of fans.

This was on an album of theirs that I bought in 1989, and it was also released as a single. All these years later, I still like to play the song a few times a year.

Source: Songs I Like (97) | beetleypete