5 Unconventional Ways to Get People Hooked on Nature

Nalini Nadkarni descends from a tree. Photograph by William Thompson, National Geographic

As a young biologist in the 1980s, hopping through the gorgeous rain forest canopies of Central America, Nalini Nadkarni still "felt there was something missing."

On a path of rigorous academia, she eventually realized she wanted to share her love of trees with the wider public. But at the time, there were no outlets for scientific outreach, so "I suppressed that part of me."

Yet as Nadkarni saw the growing toll of deforestation, invasive species, and other forest threats, she knew she had to act. So she started reaching out to the public by giving talks at schools and writing magazine articles. In 2002, she finally got the boost she needed: a year-long fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, which allowed her to combine academics with creative work—in her case, communicating about nature.

Since then, Nadkarni—now at the University of Utah—has been doing just that, including as a grantee for National Geographic. We caught up with the scientist between tree-climbing expeditions to talk about some of her most interesting strategies to get people hooked on nature. (Test your environmental IQ with our quiz.)

Rapping Science

For many urban kids, exposure to nature is limited to a tiny city park or water from the tap. Nadkarni realized if she were to talk to them as a professor, she'd get nowhere: "I needed an ambassador, someone of that culture who understands their values."

So in 2009, Nadkarni reached out to California rap singer George "Duke" Brady to sing about science. She invited the singer-who'd previously taken one of her college courses-and a group of urban kids into the treetops of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.

After climbing down from a tree, Brady improvised this rap song:

Wet and green moss,

I'm at a loss

To describe the beauty.

Falling on my booty,

But held up by strings.

Came up here

To do some things.

The kids enjoyed the song, and Nadkarni felt they'd developed a kinship with the forest. "Because they valued him, they valued the message," she said.

Too often, she added, scientists try to talk to the public by writing an article in a scientific magazine or giving a lecture at a local museum. But the people in those audiences "already get it."

"If you want to go beyond that small percentage of people who are already environmentally and scientifically aware, you have to make your work somehow link with a passion, interest, or profession of someone who isn't interested in science or nature."

Tree-Inspired Fashion

Take fashionistas, for instance.

Nadkarni was climbing in the canopy about a decade ago when she "saw the light just playing on leaves [and thought], 'Gosh, that's beautiful. I would like to wear that.'" (See beautiful pictures of tree patterns.)

That germinated into her "botanically correct" camouflage clothing line, for which she takes pictures of trees and prints them onto cloth that's later made into clothes.

Nadkarni shopped the idea around to stores like Eddie Bauer and REI, but to no avail. Then in 2012, Nadkarni met New York City fashion designer Tara Mei Smith, who suggested the canopy clothing be marketed to urban millennials who may not yet have a conduit for appreciating nature.

"Tara has taught me that fashion is not just about spending money; it's about one of the [most] basic human things there is—finding one's own identity," said Nadkarni.

So if a young person buys a treetop blazer that they feel good wearing, it may also make them feel closer to nature. (See National Geographic's pictures of global fashion.)

To date Nadkarni and Smith are still finding ways to fund the clothing line—"we haven't hit the big time yet," Nadkarni said.

But she said the project is an example of "remaining open to values of other audiences."

"If you can understand their values and be open to them, then you have a chance of entering that world and placing your message in a way that's compatible to those values."

The Science Behind Sports

Nadkarni has also applied this principle to sports, since "a lot of people value sports over science."

At the University of Utah, Nadkarni went to the athletics department and said to director Chris Hill, "You've got the glory of sports, but I've got the power of science. Why don't we get together to link these two?"

Hill thought it was a great idea, especially as a way to dispel the stereotype of athletes being "dumb jocks," she said. (Read "NFL Looks to Helmet Technology to Combat Concussions.")

So the team put together an initiative to show the public the science behind sports. They created short videos about sports physics that played on stadium Jumbotrons, invited mathematicians to talk at sports camps, and put up posters around campus showing how football relates to mathematics.

And this year, they're working with the Utah State Office of Education to bring scientists into schools to talk to physical education classes.

"These connections can seem like odd bedfellows," but they often help make people think about science in surprising ways, Nadkarni said.

Engaging Prisoners

One of Nadkarni's biggest undertakings is the Sustainability in Prisons Project, a partnership of the Washington State Department of Corrections and Evergreen State College, which helps incarcerated men and women in the U.S. Pacific Northwest get involved in conservation projects and ecological research.

It's a win-win, says Nadkarni: The prisoners, many of whom have been long deprived of intellectual stimulation and exposure to nature, get to contribute to science, which in turn benefits from their work.

Since 2009, inmates have participated in rearing endangered frogs and butterflies, restoring native prairies, cataloging moss species, and beekeeping. Some of the skills may help them get jobs when they're released.

Nadkarni said that many inmates have volunteered to participate because it appeals to their desire to feel like they are contributing members of society.

"When a biology professor walks in with bags of moss and says, 'I want you to solve an ecological problem,' of course they're going to value that. I wasn't sending them a dry piece of literature."

Scientists also inspire and educate inmates with guest lectures and hands-on workshops—activities geared toward making inmates more aware of the outside world.

The project has encouraged more sustainable practices within the prisons, including recycling, composting, and organic gardening. (Get tips on how to live with nature in mind.)

That also means making the prison environment more pleasant. For instance, inmates in so-called supermax facilities get only one hour a day to exercise, often in a dingy concrete room. When Nadkarni wrapped one of these rooms at the Snake River Correctional Institution in Oregon with a picture of trees, violence in that particular unit decreased.

"There isn't a person on Earth who couldn't use a connection with nature," she said.

"Treetop Barbie"

That includes kids. For instance, when Nadkarni's daughter began asking for a Barbie doll, Nadkarni and her students dreamed up "Treetop Barbie"—a Mattel Barbie doll that they dressed themselves in hand-tailored clothes, modeled after a treetop ecologist's outfit and climbing gear.

The doll comes with a field guide to canopy plants and animals—both Barbie- and person-size—and a personal letter from Barbie about forests and their role in our lives.

"Treetop Barbies" are available through the International Canopy Network, which promotes forest-canopy conservation.

In 2010, Nadkarni was presented with another challenge to reach youth: Environmental scientist Denise Bruesewitz, who studies denitrification—the process in which nitrogen escapes the soil—wanted to communicate the concept to her three-year-old daughter and her day-care classmates.

The two scientists came up with a common denominator that any kid would get: mud. Wet soil is mud, and mud is crucial to denitrification. So they planned a half-day workshop with kids who made mud, learned about mud, and even "sang a mud song."

"It was a wonderful connection between this advanced science and little kids," Nadkarni said. (Also see National Geographic's nature activities for kids.)

A Win for Nature

It can be tough to gauge if and how these projects have affected people's attitudes about science and nature, Nadkarni noted. (See: "Connecting With Nature Boosts Creativity and Health.")

Inmates involved in her program did learn more about biology, according to the results of surveys taken by participants before and after the program. But such hard measures of success are few and far between.

Even so, Nadkarni believes that getting anyone to at least think about the world around them is a win.

"I think a 95-year-old is worth the time," she said, "even if it's just for that moment."

Follow Christine Dell'Amore on Twitter and Google+.

View the original article here

Help Name This Mystery Fish

Jane J. Lee

What's in a name? Whether you're star-crossed lovers in a Shakespeare play or researchers exploring the ends of the Earth, names can be everything. A proper name can transcend languages and cultures, allowing anyone around the world to know who or what you're talking about.

Now, folks have a chance to help give a mystery fish a new identity—and for one lucky contest winner, a chance to go on a ten-day trip to the Galápagos.

Discovered in February in the seas surrounding the Desventuradas Islands (the "unfortunate" islands in Spanish) off the coast of Chile, experts say this fish (pictured) could be a new species.

The National Geographic Society is holding a contest from July 31 to August 26 to give this mystery fish a common name. People can enter their submissions in the comment box below. (Learn more about the contest rules.)

National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala came upon the four-inch (ten-centimeter) creature while exploring a seamount near San Félix Island (map) in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

While maneuvering a submersible 436 feet (133 meters) down a basalt wall, Sala and colleagues spotted several brightly colored spots hovering near the rock. "We got closer and tried to focus and zoom our video camera to get a closer look, but the spots darted into a hole and disappeared as soon as our submarine lights were on them," Sala wrote in an email.

They saw more of the yellow-orange spots farther down and were able to get a good look at the organisms. It turns out they were fish that Sala had never seen before.

Crowd Sourcing

"We consulted experts and everyone thought that it was a new species," Sala added in an interview earlier this month.

Confirmation of this fish's new species designation must involve studies of physical specimens—experts performed initial examinations based on video footage and photographs—and a formal description in a scientific journal.

"Scientific naming is a very laborious process," said Luiz Rocha, a fish researcher at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, who was not involved in the expedition.

The amount of time it takes to formally name a species varies, but it can take anywhere from six months to a year, he said.

In the case of a potentially new fish species, specialists look at body measurements including the length, body depth, the number of scales in the lateral line, and the number of flexible spines in the fins called fin rays, explained Rocha.

But until researchers can fully examine this mystery fish, Sala would like to be able to share his find with the public.

"There are parts of science and discovery that should be conducted also by citizens," he wrote. "If people can name planets, they should be able to name animals, too."

Dual Identities

Most organisms on Earth have two identities. All species formally acknowledged by researchers have scientific names: a two-part Latin moniker consisting of a genus and species designation that every specialist follows. (Learn more about the species concept.)

But many are also known by common names—like great white shark, gray wolf, or redwood tree. And those names can differ depending on which region you're in or what language you're speaking.

Rocha does a lot of work in Brazil, and he says that the common names of fish can vary depending on which community he's in. Sometimes those communities are separated by only a few hundred kilometers.

Scientific names do not vary geographically or by language, although it's common for experts to rename species as more information about the organisms' genetics or relationship to other species comes to light.

"It happens relatively often in the scientific literature," Rocha said. "A lot of times we find that one species that was widely distributed is actually two or three or more."

If that's the case, he explained, the original scientific name stays with the species that yielded the original specimen and the "newly" discovered species get their own scientific names.

The Name Game

Despite the importance of naming and describing species—otherwise known as taxonomy—the field tends to get short shrift when it comes time to distribute research funds, said Carole Baldwin, curator of fishes at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

Many taxonomists find themselves working on other projects that have better chances of getting funded and doing species descriptions on the side, she said.

But knowing what to call something, and how it fits in with its relatives, is the starting point for any further scientific study, said Baldwin. "It's the foundation of everything we do in biology."

And efforts such as the Encyclopedia of Life, a database with information about and images of all the species known to science, are entirely validated by taxonomy, she added.

The California Academy of Sciences' Rocha agrees, adding that although many people think everything out there has already been described, that's just not the case. (Related: "Pictures: Top 10 Newly Discovered Species of 2012.")

National Geographic's Sala was fairly certain his team would find new species when they ventured to the Unfortunate Islands. "Ours was the first deep-sea exploration of the deep habitats of the Desventuradas Islands with a submarine," he said.

"Of course, we could not know what we were going to find," Sala noted. "That's the magic of exploration."

To enter this contest, list your name for the fish in the comment box below. The contest runs from July 31 to August 26, 2013. Prize provided by National Geographic Expeditions. (Learn more about the contest rules.)

Follow Jane J. Lee on Twitter.

View the original article here

Pictures: What's Inside a Space Suit? X-Rays Reveal All

Image courtesy Mark Avino and Roland H. Cunningham, SI

The space suit above was built as a demonstration suit for testing in a vacuum chamber at NASA's Ames Research Center.

The chamber was designed to simulate the environment in outer space. Astronauts would get into their suits, hook themselves up to oxygen, and then go into the vacuum chamber, which simulated the environment at an altitude of 400,000 feet (121 kilometers).

"They were then asked to do repetitive and somewhat mind-numbing tasks, like walking up and down on a crate, so that technicians could check their suits," said Lewis.

Though the space program was relatively young in the late 1960s when this suit was developed, it was building off of almost 20 years of experience with hardened suit designs. They were originally made for the U.S. Air Force in the early 1950s, back when the Air Force used vacuum tubes in aircraft. (See pictures of early U.S. spaceflight.)

"But many of the vacuum tubes were failing," said Lewis. "And they needed to figure out why."

Enter Litton Industries. The large defense contractor, which was bought by Northrop Grumman Corporation in 2001, designed a vacuum chamber to test why the vacuum tubes were failing. But to do that, they needed to design a suit for a technician to wear while inside the vacuum chamber.

"The Air Force was intrigued," said Lewis. "Even after they discontinued the use of vacuum tubes in aircraft, they continued to fund Litton's suits. And when NASA formed [in 1958], they took over much of the research in suit development from the Air Force."

In the years that followed, hundreds of people worked on space suits: Engineers designed the suits, technicians tested them, manufacturers created the parts, and then other folks assembled the final product.

"You can't tell by the x-ray, but some of the components are hand-sewn," said Lewis.

Published July 29, 2013

View the original article here

Rat Invaders: Islands Fighting Back Against Killer Rodents

South Georgia Island, a lonely British Antarctic territory in the far South Atlantic, has a rat problem.

Since the furry stowaways landed here aboard sealing and whaling ships in the 19th century, they've been wreaking ecological havoc on the island and its ground-nesting seabirds by preying on the birds and their eggs.

Enter an international team of wildlife biologists, who have recently completed the second phase of history's largest rat-eradication program on the remote island.

Braving appalling weather in the run-up to the Antarctic winter, the group's helicopter pilots logged hundreds of hours in perilous flying conditions to spread nearly 200 tons of rat poison over 224 square miles (580 square kilometers) of South Georgia's coastline.

The ultimate goal: To rid this once supreme seabird habitat of its millions of rats once and for all. South Georgia was probably the richest seabird-breeding area in the world when British Captain James Cook visited it in 1775, according to Tony Martin of the University of Dundee, who leads the rat-eradication campaign on behalf of the South Georgia Heritage Trust. (See more pictures of South Georgia.)

Now the island has less than one percent of its original seabird population, he said. "And that is down to rats. This is a human-induced problem, and it is down to humans to do something about it."

And they are. This recent bait drop follows a successful trial two years ago, which cleared 10 percent of South Georgia of the invasive rodents. Next year, Martin said, the group plans to return and finish the job, hopefully rendering South Georgia rat-free by 2015.

"This is ten times bigger than anything that has ever been attempted anywhere else," Martin said.

Oh, Rats: Getting Rid of Rodents

South Georgia's ambitious rat-eradication campaign may be the world's biggest at the moment, but it's far from the only one. (Watch a video of rats at night.)

Many of the world's most biologically important island ecosystems have been invaded by rats. Many seabirds nest, breed, and raise their young on islands because they've been historically safe from predators—until rats came along.

What's more, while islands may represent only 5 percent of the world's land mass, they account for half of all the world's endangered species.

As of last count 435 islands around the world have been cleared of rats, according to Island Conservation, an organization that works to remove invasive species on islands. It's a number that is growing quickly, and so is the success rate.

The projects try their best not to hurt the species they're supposed to protect.

For one, the rat poison, brodifacoum, is not water soluble, so it can't leach into the groundwater or poison waterways.

Some seabird scavengers could eat stricken rats and become ill, though the rat carcasses are hard to find: The poison makes the rats photophobic, or shy of light, so the rodents usually retreat to their burrows before dying.

It's possible that a few duck or other birds may ingest the poisonous pellets, but since rats eat thousands and possibly millions of chicks a year overall, poison is still the better strategy, experts say.

"This is a war that is being won island by island," said Brad Keitt, the group's director of conservation. (Also see "Giant Killer Mice Decimating Rare Seabirds.")

Even so, "each island, of course, brings with it its own challenges," said veteran helicopter pilot Peter Garden, a New Zealander who worked on rat-eradication projects in Campbell Island, South Georgia, the Seychelles, the South Pacific, Alaska, and the Caribbean.

"South Georgia was especially tough," he said. "Its remote location in the South Atlantic made it a huge logistical challenge, and ... it receives some ferocious weather.

"The fact that it is also the largest breeding area in the South Atlantic for seabirds means that there are always lots of large birds sharing the airspace, and this creates quite a hazard for us. We are operating around 150 feet [46 meters] above the ground, where a lot of bird activity occurs."

Here are some islands that are aggressively ridding their homes of rats.

New Zealand

New Zealanders lead the field when it comes to getting rid of rats, according to Martin.

"They began focusing on rat eradication on their own islands back in the 1980s in order to try to preserve their native wildlife. Over the years they've had a lot of successes, developed a huge amount of expertise, and in the 1990s began perfecting the science of using helicopters to make aerial bait drops over large areas." (Also see "Drug-filled Mice Airdropped Over Guam to Kill Snakes.")

New Zealand's successful campaign to remove nearly a quarter of a million brown rats from Campbell Island—a 44-square-mile (114-square-kilometer) sub-Antarctic island—was the world's largest rat-eradication project when it was completed in 2001. Twelve years later the island is rat-free and the once critically endangered Campbell Island teal—a duck that fell victim to the rats—has bounced back. (See seabird pictures.)

Sophisticated poison-dispersal techniques using GPS guidance and specially designed spreader buckets slung under the helicopters were developed for the Campbell Island operation, and went on to pave the way for the much larger one on South Georgia.

Lord Howe Island, Australia

A U.S. $9 million program to eradicate an estimated 130,000 rats on the island, a subtropical paradise located 370 miles (595 kilometers) off Australia's eastern coast, was launched in July 2012.

Rats originally arrived aboard the S.S. Makambo, which ran aground on the north end of the island in June 1918. It was a catastrophe—at least 30 species of wildlife have since disappeared completely from the island, while another 13 species remain under threat. Lord Howe Island has often been cited as a worst-case example of rat devastation.

Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia

Sometimes described as the Galápagos of the north, the chain of islands in British Columbia has some of the largest remaining seabird colonies in Canada.

At one time these seabirds could be counted in the hundreds of thousands, but three centuries of rat infestation have whittled their numbers down to 20,000 or so.

Last September a rat-eradication program was launched, and so far two of the islands have been cleared of rats.

Galápagos Islands, Ecuador

The breathtaking island chain off Ecuador's coast, famous for its bird and reptile life, is home to an estimated 180 million rats—courtesy of the whalers who often stopped here in centuries past.

As elsewhere, the rodents have been an ecological disaster, devouring every single tortoise hatchling for the past hundred years.

Last November the Ecuadorian government set into motion South America's biggest rat-eradication scheme, hoping to have the island chain free of rats by 2020.

View the original article here

Pictures We Love: Best of July

  Photograph by Gabriele Putzu, European Pressphoto Agency

Germany's Anna Bader plunges headfirst during the 2013 Cliff Diving European Championship in Ponte Brolla, Switzerland, on July 20.

Professional divers jump from heights between 60 and 89 feet (18 to 27 meters) into what is known as one of the most dangerous—and frigid—cliff-diving spots in the world.

Why We Love It

"What makes this photo interesting for me is not only the tensity brought on by the perfectly poised diver leaping from the cliffs, but also the depth of the background behind her. The even light allows us to clearly see and appreciate all the different onlookers throughout the scene, who become individual points of interest and color rather than a mess of indistinguishable bodies." —Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

(See Pictures We Love: June.)

—Jaclyn Skurie

Published August 1, 2013

View the original article here

Pictures: Oil Spill Sullies Popular Tourist Beach in Thailand

Photograph by Athit Perawongmetha, Reuters

Members of Thailand's military dressed in white hazmat suits shovel oil-soaked sand from Ao Prao Beach on Thailand's Samet Island (map) on Monday after crude oil from a leak out at sea washed ashore.

The oil spill happened on July 27 about 12 miles (20 kilometers) off the coast of Thailand's Rayong province, located southeast of the capital city of Bangkok. The source was a pipeline operated by PTT Global Chemical, a subsidiary of the state-owned oil and gas company. The company estimates that about 13,000 gallons (50,000 liters) of heavy crude oil escaped into the Gulf of Thailand. (See related quiz: "What You Don't Know About Oil Spills.")

Doug Helton, incident operations coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said the cleanup workers in Thailand are likely taking a "triage approach" to cleaning up the spill.

"The first step in any spill is controlling the source of the oil," Helton explained. "The next step is to pick up all of the loose, mobile oil that might still be moving around. And the last stage will be the cleanup of the shore itself."

—Ker Than

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

Published July 30, 2013

View the original article here