OUCH!

      Strange though it may seem, one of my worst fears about living in a cloud forest hasn't been treading on a snake or being bitten on the neck by a mountain lion, it's always been getting stung in a sensitive and intimate place by a scorpion.

      The other day my worst fears were realized.

      It happened after an early morning shower, I grabbed a towel and began to dry myself vigorously around my nether region, which apparently the scorpion didn't appreciate - and it hit its intended target. Luckily it was only a small one, (the scorpion that is) but it didn't half make me hop around, long enough for the scorpion to make its exit. 
      Shortly after my neighbour came round and I told her I had been stung.

      "Donde? (Where?)"

      "Aqui (Here)" I said pointing downwards.

      She laughed so hard I thought she was going to have a fit.

TED TALK

Teacher:  "What are you drawing?"""

Child:  "A picture of god."

Teacher: "But no-one knows what god looks like."

Child: "They will in a minute!"

This priceless exchange is an excerpt from a TED talk called "Do schools kill creativity," where Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

If you haven't come across the TED talks yet, you're in for a treat.

http://www.ted.com TEDTalks shares the best ideas from the TED Conference with the world, for free: trusted voices and convention-breaking mavericks, icons and geniuses, all giving the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.

GOOD, BAD, WHO KNOWS?

      

      The emperor loved to go hunting. Worried for his safety, his advisors insisted that he take his personal doctor with him at all times in case of an accident.

      One day the emperor cut his finger and summoned his doctor and asked if he thought it would be alright.

     The doctor replied,

     "Good, bad, who knows?

     The Emperor was a little put out, but he trusted his physician and carried on hunting. 

     The next day his finger was getting worse and had become infected, so again he called for his doctor. As the he was cleaning the wound, again the emperor asked him if he thought it was going to be alright, and again the doctor answered,

      "Good, bad, who knows?

      The emperor was a little put out, but he said nothing and dismissed the doctor.

      A few days later the finger had become badly infected and the doctor had to amputate it. The emperor was furious and had the doctor thrown into the palace dungeon.

      When his hand had healed, the emperor set off hunting again. Unfortunately he lost his way and was captured by a forest tribe who believed in human sacrifice, so they took him back to their village and called their high priest to make the sacrifice. But the priest noticed the emperor had a finger missing so he wasn't perfect and therefore unworthy of sacrifice to their gods, so they set him free.

     The emperor rode straight back to the palace and went down into the dungeons where the doctor was incarcerated. He released him from his cell, apologising profusely,

      "If it hadn't been for my missing finger I would be dead now. I did a very bad thing in having you locked up, please will you forgive me?"

      The doctor smiled at the emperor and replied

      "Good, bad, who knows? If you hadn't locked me up in the dungeon I would have been with you out hunting, I too would have been captured and I have all my fingers so I would have been sacrificed instead of you.

Adapted from a Youtube dhaama talk by Ajahn Brahm 'F' is for Forgiveness

Wild Futures: Joey's Story by Stephen Fry

CLIMATE ACTION

The featherweight battery that packs a heavyweight punch

 

  By Nick St Clair 

for 

climateactionprogramme.org

in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme

      While the search for sustainable energy solutions has gone global, some scientists are thinking small.
Imagine a battery just a few millimetres in size, yet so powerful that it could power a smartphone for weeks without recharging or even jump-start a flat car battery.

       Once again the world of science fiction has become reality, thanks to a team from University of Illinois which has developed a new type of battery that is set to revolutionise the way we power electronics and vehicles; the creation of microbatteries that are many times smaller than currently commercially available, yet many times more powerful...

To read the rest of this article please go to:

http://www.climateactionprogramme.org/blogs/energy_innovations_the_featherweight_battery_that_packs_a_superheavyweight/

Hey! why can't I read the full text here?

Duplication of a site’s content has a negative effect on its popularity with Search Engines. So in the drive to provide my clients with unique, original (and entertaining) content, even though I wrote this I don't even reproduce it fully myself.

 

Image courtesy of Ale Paiva

TOAD RIP

 The Golden Toad/Sapo Dorado R.I.P.

      A mission to discover whether any of 100 amphibian species believed to be extinct are still alive has ended with few successes to report.The five-month project took researchers to 21 countries; but only four of the targeted 100 were found. Researchers describe these as "glimmers of hope" in a group of animals severely threatened by changing land use, disease, pollution and climate change.

      Particularly galling was the failure to find the golden toad of Costa Rica, which was once so prevalent in Montverde. This beautiful and iconic animal is believed to have been killed off by the fungal disease chytridiomycosis and hasn't been seen for over 20 years.

       So I guess it's fair to say that it has probably croaked.