Category: Articles

Chicago Daily Southtown, IL – Mar 28, 2007
March 28, 2007

The issue: New report says cost to repair the shuttered Cook County toboggan slides has increased dramatically.

We say: The forest preserve district must study all of its options and find a way to reopen the slides. Despite the report’s gloominess, it appears there are several practical alternatives. The slides — particularly Swallow Cliff — are too valuable an asset to remain closed.

Trying to reopen the popular Swallow Cliff toboggan slides in Palos Township has been an uphill battle. But we’re not giving up the fight, and it’s good to see the local Cook County commissioner, Elizaeth Doody Gorman, isn’t either.

The latest development concerning the slides’ fate occurred last week when a new report showed that fixing and reopening Swallow Cliff and the county’s other slides would cost $3.7 million. That’s $2.2 million more than previously had been estimated.
Read more about The fight to reopen Swallow Cliff slides must continue …

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answersingenesis.org
Christianity and the environment
by Carl Wieland
‘What should we think of the Greenhouse Effect?’ AiG speakers often face questions like this on environmental matters. It is helpful, even vital, to view such things from a Biblical perspective. But in a complex world, it may not be possible to give a rigidly ‘for’ or ‘against’ Christian response. Biblical principles are unchanging, but the situations we face, and the information available, are not.
Imagine you are a bureaucrat in 19th-century South America, contemplating the vast, seemingly limitless expanse of the Amazon jungle. Some poor villagers ask you for a permit to clear an acre for their crops. Or you’re the same bureaucrat in the distant future; some rich estate-owner asks if he can clear one of the last remaining stands of Amazonian trees, home of some of the rarest and most beautiful of God’s creatures, because they obstruct the breeze to his mansion. Presumably your response would be different in each case! Read more about Fouling the nest …

botit.botany.wisc.edu
This month’s fungus is another common inhabitant of bark or wood mulch. Although less than a centimeter in diameter, Cyathus striatus often grows in huge clusters, thus making them easily visible, even from some distance. They’re cute little fungi, almost always found wherever there is wood, as long as you look hard enough. The common name “bird’s nest fungus” should be obvious to anyone looking at the small mass of “eggs” within the small “nests” or cups of the fruiting bodies. The “eggs” in the nest contain the basidiospores within them. These eggs (technically called peridioles) are actually analogous to tiny puffballs (like Lycoperdon or Calvatia gigantea) in that they contain the basidiospores inside of them. The basidiospores are borne on small basidia that line the small chambers inside of the eggs. However, the spores are not forcibly ejected from the basidia as they are in Agaricus, Amanita, Boletus, and almost all of the mushroom formers.
Read more about Cyathus striatus, one of the bird's nest fungi …

Driving along, I glanced over and saw a bird’s nest. Woven into the tangle of a dense roadside shrub, it stood out because nature had placed a large snow blob upon it. The nest appeared baseball-sized, maybe a cardinal or catbird’s in light of its shrubby location. Seeing it inspired me to contemplate nests. Every […]

warnercnr.colostate.edu/class_info

Introduction: The Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum) population is thought to be declining in most of its breeding range, including Colorado. As for most grassland birds, the primary threats are habitat loss and degradation. The preferred nesting habitat of the sparrow is mixed-grass habitats including prairie, hayfields, pastures, and grassy fallow fields. The species nests on or near the ground in open-cup nests, and its nest is usually associated with some plant cover. The sparrow nests from mid-April to late-July in north-central Colorado, and the Environmental Learning Center (ELC) has had what is considered healthy nesting populations. The golf mushroom is an important food resource for Grasshopper Sparrows during the spring nesting season.
Read more about Lab 3A – Estimating the Density of Edible Golf Mushrooms for Grasshopper Sparrow Mitigation …

people.cornell.edu he bird’s nest bin, also known as the binless bin, is a naturally constructed compost bin that you build out of the large, coarse plant materials that you have around the yard. Instead of throwing the big stalky stuff, like broccoli and kale plants, prunings from bushes, sunflower stalks, etc., into one pile together […]

Daily News & Analysis, India – Mar 14, 2007 BEIJING: Shark fin delicacies may be off the menu in Beijing before 2014 Olympics if the local government concurs with a proposal made by a lawmaker, so as to curry favour with visiting foreigners who may feel offended, the state media reported on Wednesday. The issue of banning […]

PensacolaNewsJournal.com, FL – Mar 17, 2007 Birdlovers open their hearts — and their yards — to these faithful part-time residents Kate S. Peabody kpeabody@pnj.com They have no money. They pay no rent, and just like Aunt Edna from Omaha, they show up every spring to enjoy our Southern hospitality and soak up the sun. Who are they? […]

jcs.biologists.org K Prydz and KT Dalen Department of Biochemistry and Institute for Nutrition Research, University of Oslo, Norway. kristian.prydz@biokjemi.uio.no. Proteoglycans are widely expressed in animal cells. Interactions between negatively charged glycosaminoglycan chains and molecules such as growth factors are essential for differentiation of cells during development and maintenance of tissue organisation. We propose that glycosaminoglycan […]

KIE RELYEA THE BELLINGHAM HERALD Bellingham Herald, WA Think of cliff swallows as social butterflies that come late to the party. That’s because they like to hang out with others of their kind, with reports of as many as 3,500 nests in one area. And while tree, barn and violet-green swallows have started to return to […]