Make you Fink on Friday

Prozac may be harming bird populations, study suggests

Starlings who were fed same levels of antidepressant drug found in sewage earthworms suffered loss of libido and appetite

Starlings tend to flock to feed at sewage works, where they feed on worms with low levels of Prozac from human waste. Photograph: SIGI TISCHLER/EPA

Increasing consumption of antidepressant drugs may be helping humans but damaging the health of the bird population, according to a new study.

An expert who has looked at the effects of passive Prozac-taking on starlings says it has changed not only their feeding habits but also their interest in mating.

Dr Kathryn Arnold, an ecologist from the University of York, said: “Females who’d been on it were not interested in the male birds we introduced them to. They sat in the middle of the cage, not interested at all.”

Arnold’s research, which is investigated on BBC2’s Autumnwatch, took her to sewage works where birds flock to feed.

“They’re a really great place to watch birds because they’re attracted by all the worms and invertebrates that live there,” she told Radio Times.

“I started thinking, ‘What about what’s in the sewage?’ If you or I take a headache pill for instance, a high proportion of it ends up being excreted completely unchanged.”

She measured the level of Prozac present in earthworms living in sewage. It was tiny, around 3-5% of the average human dosage.

She then fed worms containing the same concentration of the drug to 24 captive starlings and monitored their behaviour over six months.

The birds began to display side effects similar to those reported by humans prescribed Prozac.

“The major finding was a loss of appetite. Compared with the control birds who hadn’t had any Prozac, they ate much less and snacked throughout the day. The problem then is that they’re less likely to survive long, dark winter’s nights.”

It was not just food that lost its appeal – the birds’ libido also fell.

However, in one significant area, the starlings’ reaction to the drug did not mimic its effect on the human brain – their mood remained unchanged.

Arnold said: “Antidepressants reduce anxiety in humans but we can’t ask a bird if it’s anxious; we have to measure it in a behavioural way. We present them with an unfamiliar object and see how they react. If a bird is bold, it’ll carry on feeding, even though there’s something strange in its food bowl. But we found no effect on boldness, which is what we’d expected.

“Maybe we were measuring it the wrong way and that wasn’t a particularly stressful task. If we repeated it, we’d use a different method or different novel object. Or it could be that there are enough variations between bird and human brains that Prozac works in a slightly different way.”

Autumnwatch presenter Chris Packham said there may be no simple answer. He said: “This change in behaviour could impact negatively on their ecology. We know for instance we’ve lost 50 million starlings in the UK since the 1960s.

“Pharmaceuticals could play a part. The next stage of the work is to look at wild starlings to check if they also have chemical residue in their bodies.”

Arnold said she was not attacking antidepressants or the waste-disposal industry. “I’m not saying that if you’re depressed, don’t take Prozac. Sewage treatment works are really good sources of food for birds. We’re certainly not saying they should be covered over.

“Science needs to deliver better estimates of the environmental risks posed by pharmaceuticals. The effects we’ve measured so far are quite subtle.

“These aren’t big die-offs but they could have a negative impact on wildlife. We need to find out whether they are. It’s going to get worse so we need to get a handle on it.”

Source: TheGuardian

Opinion:

Once again, an example of whatever man does, has an effect on the natural balance.

Obesity Around the World

Change the World Wednesday – 29th Oct

I was reading  CTWW at 2:30am this morning, such is the power of an elderly bladder.

So intrigued by the idea of this week’s post, that 20 minutes later I had finished my first coffee and I have Simon & Garfunkel’s tune “Hello darkness, my old  friend” running through my head as I gaze into my empty coffee mug. Ever since yesterday’s post Pusillanimous, I’ve had the song running through my head like a stuck record. I love it, but I just wish it would go away.

Eyes are not so rusty this morning. Last week was a bad case.

I was, and am still, adjusting to this damned DST. Russia has done away with it after adopting it as a permanent feature, they put the clocks back to normal for the last time.

Onions and jars ready for pickling

This weekend I was round at the sacolão (fruit & vege shop), and they had a bin full of tiny onions. After rummaging through the bin I had a sack full of roundish onions, enough to make a couple of big jars of pickled onions. That’ll be my project for when I wake up.

My new herbs are doing well. I put a kebab stick (used and recycled) in as a small stake to support the spindly plant, and it is already twice the height. Yesterday I had to put in a bigger stake (a piece that was used to frame a discarded election poster I found on the street).

Good news! The owner of the botequim (bar) nextdoor, has finally been convinced to put his empty glass bottles out for the Tuesday recycle collection, instead of just in the normal rubbish. Now I have to work on him to do the same with all the PET soda bottles… *Evil grin*

He has cans too, but catadores (poor street collectors) often pass by and he lets them rummage through and take them. They sell them to the ferro velho (scrapyard), so they get recycled.

Click the banner for full post

Okay, it’s time for this week’s CTWW on dealing with our Comfort Zones.

I like my comfort zone… it’s comfortable.

This week, step out of your comfort zone and try something new. Need some ideas?

• Turn off your heat or A/C for a day.
• Experience life without a refrigerator for a day (or a week) by refusing to open/use yours.
• Turn off the computer for a day.
• Go grocery shopping and only buy organic.
• Skip taking a bath for at least one more day than you normally would.
• Eat raw, vegan food for day or longer.

The idea, this week, is to force ourselves out of our comfort zones and try something which we’ve hesitated to try in the past. Who knows, it could open us up to a whole new world.

Steeping our of one’s comfort zone is a big deal because we have developed that zone over many years, and it’s, well… where we feel comfortable.

It becomes entrenched in our lives and we rarely step out of it.

But it’s not too late to change.

The awkward stage is taking that first step, and that’s what Small is suggesting we do in this CTWW.

I did it recently. My comfort zone required that I eat sushi in a restaurant where it has become incredibly expensive. I dithered with the idea of making my own for ages; why? Because even though I am a chef, I was scared of using raw fish. I finally took the leap across that awkward zone when one of my students told me that she regularly made sushi at home. Now I reject the idea of restaurant sushi, and my comfort zone has been expanded, and cheaper. Plus I get the satisfaction that I am doing something different.

Let’s have a look at Small’s list:

• Air conditioning and heat, don’t apply. I use neither.
• Not using the fridge… how will I keep my beer cold? That would be a real step outside my comfort zone. I live in a hot climate, and most food is kept in the fridge, even vegan-like food.
• Turn off the PC for a day. I am 24/7 on the PC. My step outside my comfort zone is my time out for my daily walk around the park. Besides, I need the PC for work communication as well.
• Very difficult to find organic here, but it is appearing. Could be done.
• I shower daily, in hot weather, more than once. Okay, cool days, I can skip a shower.
• Eat raw food, I already do that sometimes.

The fridge and the PC would be the hardest. The others are doable.

But there are other areas where I have made it out of my comfort zone. Incandescent light bulbs, for example. I like them, but slowly I have become at ease with CFLs, changing one at a time. I have only the bathroom light to go. I would prefer LEDs, but they are terribly expensive here.

I’m off back to bed… It’s 4:40am.

See you next week.

Simple Green Ideas

It’s close to Halloween…

Who doesn’t have some of these in the house?

Empty jars

Or some of these cluttering up a corner?

Try something new this year.

Jar lanterns

Bottle pumpkins

Both images from Pintrest.

Or string some little lamps in old milk or juice containers…

Plastic lanterns

Or… if you don’t like my ideas, have a look at StyleMotivation for some more simple decorating ideas

Monday Moaning

This wasn’t going to be my MM post this morning. My post this morning was going to be about the quarry plans for Hopwas Forest, an ancient woodland mentioned in the Domesday Book in1086. But, you can read it on BBCNews and imagine what I have to say about the potential destruction.

On with the moan…

I have been sitting on a quote for some time. Yesterday Lois, over at Eco-Grandma wrote a wonderful post, using that same quote.

In effect, she unwittingly stole my thunder., but I bear no umbrage because it gave me the impetus to do what I had been procrastinating for the past few months. Yes, sometimes I have ideas and it takes a while before those ideas get to paper, or in this case… screen.

Hop on over to Eco-Grandma and read Lois’ post first, then continue on here… I’ll wait until you come back.

Poignant, yes?

My view is that our social paradigm must change. Not just change a little, but drastic changes must be made if humanity is going to stand a chance for survival.

I will not beat about the bush.

The western world hs become a fat, lazy, egocentric, greedy, want, want, want, waste, waste, waste society.

I don’t care if you are a trim 75kg muscle-rippling male, or a lithe 50kg female with big knockers; I am pointing the finger at you too! We are all tarred with the same brush.

Our downfall is technology.

Technology has ruined the human race beyond recognition. It has turned a hard working person into a slob in so many ways.

Technology is responsible for over population. Technology is responsible for obesity. Technology is responsible for pollution. Technology is responsible for… Oh, heck, that list can go on and on.

In short, technology is our enemy, not our friend.

We have become so greedy because technology has made us make money faster. Our capitalist world wants more money even faster still.

If we, as a species, are to survive, we need to shun techology before it strangles us.

Even the internet.

The internet is in decline, it is being taken over by corporate interests. Just the same happened to radio, television and the telephone; all were great inventions until they became the tools of corporations. The first radio and TV didn’t have advertising and crap, now they are the means of brainwashing society, the telephone too with its infernal telemarketing. The internet is going the same way. It has already become a vast network for brainwashing.

This brainwashing has made us a consumer society. We see, we want!

When in reality, we don’t need.

Society has to retake control of itself.

We have to recognise the brainwashing by governments, corporations and the mainstram media and refuse to let it control us. In effect, we have to stop being sheep and following the flock to our doom.

I have said many times that the old ways were better, the way things were done in granny’s day. I’m talking about my granny, not yours from the 1950s, mine from 1894.

Yes, my granny was born in 1894. In those days cooking was done at home, our food was grown in the backyard, clothes were mended and handed down, pollution was minimal, plastic bags didn’t exist, we hadn’t begun to deplete the planet’s resources and we lived in near rural tranquility with less crime and violence.

In those days, they didn’t have TV which I blame for the beginning of our ills, they didn’t have psychologists, they didn’t have the likes of Prozac to make life rosy and create psychopathic shooters, they didn’t mollycoddle their kids so they grew up knowing nothing about the real world; and the latest… they didn’t have smartphones where they walked along with their noses buried in small screens, they saw the world and what was happening.

Technology has complicated our lives, we need to return to the simplicity of yesteryear.

Recently, I posted The Kill Shot on Tomus Arcanum. It was about the dangers we face with solar flares. What happens if a Kill Shot strikes Earth? Don’t laugh, don’t shrug this off as a flight of fancy.  Last week there was a solar flare that disrupted northern hemisphere communications for 48 hours.

People had to live for two days wihout Twitter and FaceBook.

Imagine a reall Kill Shot that knocked the net out for weeks… you have a lot of blathering idiots walking in the streets drooling.

A real Kill Shot is just hypothetical, it could never happen.

No? Just 18 months ago a Kill Shot so big that it is called a Carrington Event, just missed the Earth because the sun was facing slightly off. And, if you think this isn’t serious, such a Kill Shot could take the earth back to the Stone Age. Our technology would be down forever.

Just think, no cars, no TV, no supermarkets, no internet,,, and no FaceBook.

Society would have to re-invent itself, if it hadn’t already been roasted.

Apart from the possibility of a huge solar flre, which may/may not happen, if we don’t simplify our world, we are still doomed.

We need to change the paradigm; and that starts with you!

“No, don’t look around, I am pointing the finger at you!”

Nature Ramble

Illegal foragers are stripping UK forests of fungi

Gangs commercially picking edible fungi to sell to restaurants and markets are leaving a ‘trail of destruction’ across ancient woodlands, such as Epping and New Forest

Gills, frills and pores … illegal picking is destroying the rich variety of fungi in Epping forest, with both edible and non-edible fungi being picked and sorted later. Photograph: Graham Turner/The Guardian

“Here we go – this is one of the really nasty ones,” says Jeremy Dagley, pointing at the cappuccino-coloured cap of a two-inch mushroom nestled in the coppery leaf litter in Epping Forest. “The brown roll rim will kill you and it is not a slow death.”

But a few steps further on he discovers a mushroom the size and shape of a toasted tea cake. “This is a penny bun – also called a cep – and it’s really edible,” he says. “It is the one the pickers love. They are really expensive and really lovely to eat.”

Epping Forest, an ancient woodland straddling the border of greater London and Essex, is one of the best fungi sites in the country, with over 1,600 different species. But, like other fungi-rich sites such as the New Forest, it is being stripped out by illegal picking by gangs believed to sell the wild mushrooms to restaurants and markets.

“They leave a trail of destruction,” says Dagley, who has been head of conservation for 20 years at the 6,000 acres wood. “It has stepped up over the last five years. Sometimes people run away when they are challenged, but we have been threatened too. People pick using knives so they feel armed.”

He says pickers often take everything away and sort the edible from the poisonous later: “You can find people with 40kg of fungi, which is huge” but much is just thrown away.

Dagley says it is distressing to see the destruction, and it prevents the forest’s 4.5 million annual visitors enjoying the spectacular variety of fungi. The weird and wonderful shapes and colours of the fungi he points out revives his enthusiasm. “You have gills, frills and pores and the puffballs, they are like things from outer space,” he says.

Dr Jeremy Dagley, head of conservation at Epping Forest with some puffballs. Photograph: Graham Turner/The Guardian

The growing popularity of foraging for wild food may be part of the problem, says Sue Ireland, director of green spaces for the City of London Corporation, which manages Epping forest: “In rural areas, foraging is fine if you are picking for your own personal use.” But the difference with Epping Forest is that it is on the doorstep of the millions of people in London and can even be reached by tube train.

“The vast majority of people know that you shouldn’t pick wildflowers and we need to treat fungi like that,” says Ireland. “Fungi are beautiful and we want everyone to be able to enjoy them.” Rare species abound even in urban areas, she says, with a new species for the UK being discovered on London’s Hampstead Heath in 2013.

Source: TheGuardian Read more

Satireday on Eco-Crap

Farts, the Facts

Change the World Wednesday – 22nd Oct

Eye drops

I woke at 3am to check CTWW this morning, but my eyes were so rusty that I swear I could hear them squeaking as I blinked; or maybe that was tinnitis… Wait, I don’t have tinnitis Maybe I need 3-in-1 eye drops…

I went back to bed.

Now I am up, my eyes are not so rusty any more. Coffee serves again!

It’s been pretty much a do-nothing week, so there’s not a lot to report.

Monday was a typical Monday… Totally Screwed.

Brain is till on Brazilian Standard Time

Brazil entered hora do verão (Daylight Savings Time) on Saturday night. So my internal body clock needs to be recalibrated. The local roosters still crow at normal time.

Maybe that’s why my eyes were so rusty…

I hate DST.

They say that DST saves R$400m each summer, I’m not so sure about that. I mean with extra day hours, people are using more air conditioning than lights, and air conditioners use a damned sight more power than lightbulbs. In my opinion, the savings are political hype to justify DST.

So for the next 120+ days, I have to walk to work in the hottest part of the day.

We’ve just had a hot spell. More than a month with temps in the high 30ºCs with the last week 40ºC (106ºF) and above daily with no rain, and we haven’t even hit summer yet. Last two days (inc today) a welcome cool and overcast with sprinkles of rain.

Recently, before the elections we had our local streets asphalted over the parallapidado (cobblestomes). The neighbourhood looks nice. These things happen just before elections so the incumbent candidate for mayor claims that he gets things done, so a vote for him becomes more likely.

Cobblestones are more than just picturesque

One of the fregües (regulars) at the botequim is a civil engineer (very civil after a couple of beers) and he tells a different story. Cobblestones are set in sand and have a large sand base. During heavy rains (which we get often… should be getting now in fact and aren’t) a lot of the water seeps through the sand and is dispersed as well as running of into the stormwater drainage system.

Now with the asphalt that secondary drainage is blocked, he warns that our area could become more susceptable to flooding.

Another example of progress, looks nice, but what of the after effects?

Yesterday, I pickled another lot of beetroot.

My beetroot is in a pickle

To buy a jar like this of pickles, cost R$10 each. I make three jars for R$2 of beetroot and a bottle of vinegar, R$1.89 plus gas for cooking the beetroot off. The jars also get recycled for the umpteenth time.

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On with this week’s CTWW – Small things.

This week, search your life for a small difference you can make. Need some ideas? Try these:

• Don’t use a disposable straw … either drink directly from a glass or use a reusable straw.
• Use one less square of toilet paper per visit. Some CTWW participants use no more than 6 squares … can you do better?
• Turn off a light, or appliance, which you normally leave on.
• Add a living plant to your home and improve air quality.
• Go meatless for at least one day this week.
• If you’re used to taking baths, take a shower instead. And if you’re used to showers, reduce the duration of yours by at least one minute.

The idea, this week, is to dig real deep and do one more small thing which you’re not already doing … or to amp up something which you are doing (like eat vegan if you’re already eating vegetarian).

Let’s look at this list item by item…

• Don’t use straws, and refuse to use sachets of ketcup and mustard

• 

  Espada de São Jorge

• I already use little toilet paper, prefering a quick wipe and quickly wash bum in the shower with the shower hose.
• I don’t have that many appliances, and none that I leave on unncecssarily; not even on standby. The only things that are on permanently are the fridge and PC.
• Have 10 living plants in living room, no room for more. Mostly espada de São Jorge (St George’s sword) – Sansevieria trifasciata which is known for it’s air purification.
• I am still on my beefless week – week about. This week is beefless. So while it’s not meatless, it is halving my consumption of the most environmentally unfriendly meat to produce. I have been doing this for nearly a year already. There are some days that I go meatless, often not planned, they just happen.
• I don’t have a bath, just a shower. If I reduce my showers any more, I won’t even need a towel. Now that we have high temps, the shower heater is off.

So, that’s about it.

I do look at the small things in which I can make a difference.

Until next week folks.

Simple Green Ideas

Some simple green ideas from the kitchen.

Hideaway trays for small bits and pieces

Source: Lushome

Now go and have a look at 9 more ways to use stuff and save space. So simple.