Scientists have discovered a carnivorous plant that grows prey-trapping contraptions underground,feeding off subterranean creatures such as worms, larvae and beetles.
The newly found species of pitcher plant was unearthed in the Indonesian province of North Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo. Like other pitcher plants, Nepenthes pudica has modified leaves, known as pitfall traps or pitchers, that its prey fall into before being consumed. (One species is so large it can trap rats.)
No other species of pitcher plant known to sciencecatches its prey underground. The plant forms specialized underground shoots with small, white, chlorophyll-free leaves, the researchers said. The pitchers are much larger than the leaves and have a reddish color.
“This species places its up-to-11-cm-long (4.3-inch-long)pitchers underground, where they are formed in cavities or directly in the soil and trap animals living underground, usually ants, mites and beetles,” saidlead study author Martin Dančák of PalackýUniversity Olomouc, Czech Republic, in a news release.
Only three other groups of carnivorous plants are known to trap underground prey, but they all use very different trapping mechanisms and, unlike Nepenthes pudica, can catch only minuscule organisms, the researchers said.
There are, of course, a few truly vampiric animals, including leeches, lampreys and vampire bats. And in all these cases the vampire’s intent is to draw enough blood for sustenance, but not enough to kill the host.
But what about human vampires? There are certainly many self-identified vampires who participate in gothic-inspired subcultures. Some host vampire-themed book clubs or secret bloodletting rituals; others wear capes or get vampire-fang dental implants. It’s all frightening and fun, but blood drinking is another matter entirely. The problem is that blood is toxic; because it is so rich in iron — and because the human body has difficulty excreting excess iron — anyone who consumes blood regularly runs a real risk of haemochromatosis (iron overdose), which can cause a wide variety of diseases and problems, including liver and nervous system damage.
In one form or another, vampires have been part of human culture and folklore in different forms for millennia, and the bloodsuckers show no signs of going away any time soon.
ATWA is the acronym for Air Trees Water Animals. It is a name for all life on Earth, and represents the human quest to live in balance with our planet’s life-support systems.
ATWA has its roots in the hills of Kentucky, USA, when people living on the land took a stand against industrial “progress” in the 1930’s. Today that struggle and thought is alive in passionate and committed people throughout the world.
There is a war being waged upon Life. ATWA is a unified movement to re-direct human efforts of war towards the problem. War on the problem, war on pollution – not war on life.
Everyone helping with ATWA is doing so on a volunteer basis.
ATWA is a California 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Organization, and we are increasing our efforts to redeem the planet through tree and seed-planting projects, public outreach and education, and networking with like-minded organizations.
Charles Manson founded the word ATWA. His vision of life on Earth has inspired many people worldwide to learn about living in balance with the planet. For over 43 years, Manson has tirelessly spoken out against the destructive actions of industrial society.
Lynette Fromme (Red) and Sandra Good (Blue), along with Charles Manson, have been warning society of the dangers of pollution and environmental destruction for decades. Red and Blue are the cornerstones of a real no-compromise ecological movement.
In 1975, Red was convicted of attempting to assassinate then President Gerald Ford. She was sentenced to life in prison. After serving 34 years, she was released in August of 2009.
In 1976, Blue was convicted of conspiracy to mail threatening letters and “issuing threatening communications through interstate commerce”. She served ten years.
“You can’t stop war, but you can redirect it. You can redirect it to the problem. The problem is pollution.”
~ Charles Manson
An interview with Charles Manson, Lynette Fromme, and Sandra Good from 2011.
Can you tell those who don’t otherwise know about ATWA it’s goals, outlooks and purposes.
CHARLES MANSON: Survival.
SANDRA GOOD: ATWA stands for Air, Trees. Water, Animals. It’s also for All The Way Alive. ATWA is your survival on earth. You are either working for ATWA – life – or you’re working for death. Fix it and live or run from it and die. As Manson woke up, he brought everyone at the ranch into the thought of one world, one mind, one peace on earth. He wrote, “I won’t sell my Soul 4 it’s for ATWA. That’s the only way life on earth can be alive. The will of God is life. Get in God’s will or die. Die can be done in the mind’s thought pattern and new life can be brought in focus.”
LYNETTE FROMME: ATWA means whatever is necessary to sustain the natural balance of air, trees, water, and animals for the whole planet (and therefore the people who can live within that balance). Most individuals have always thought themselves not big enough or significant enough to have an effect on the whole planet, a notion which conversely made them think they could afford big arrogance and big greed over its resources. Some people now know how seriously and negatively the mass of people already have affected the planet, and that in order to live and die with any respect for ourselves we’ll need to think simply enough to see the big picture, to order and accept the order of whatever is necessary for its survival. Each person must work literally for his or her own life. While this would not always be easy, it would always he meaningful, worthwhile, satisfying, spiritual, and leading to the peace of knowing LIFE before you die.
Are you familiar with, or in contact with the more radical environmental groups – Earth First!, Sea Shepherds, ALYNETTE FROMME, etc?
CHARLES MANSON: We started the root thoughts for most or a lot.
LYNETTE FROMME: We aren’t part of a group. We’re related to air, trees, water, and animals. Groups I’ve seen perpetuate the paperwork to sustain themselves. “Environmental groups” get a name, a following, and, if they’re not mean enough, a lot of politically, racially, and sexually motivated people take over their forums. The word “environment” itseLynette Fromme has a technical sound implying some place out there away from where we are. Point blank: you can live about seven to ten minutes without air, about seven to ten days without water, about seven to ten weeks without food. Trees and vegetation make air. Animals – the entire spectrum of creatures commonly called ‘animals ‘- fertilize, aerate, pollinate, clean, and give land and water its vitality and health.
How does ATWA perceive a change coming?
CHARLES MANSON: Do or die.
SANDRA GOOD: Get out of the Hollywood-media brainwash. Get back to the ground. Do what you can to get Manson his rights in a court of law. He was denied his constitutional right to defend himseLynette Fromme. As his rights were taken, so will your rights be taken. The truth has been covered up to the loss of earth and all who want to live. Rise above woman’s fear and confusion. Recognize your brother/soul seLynette Fromme.
LYNETTE FROMME: Through all its perceivers.
A mutual acquaintance who works for the military was commenting that ATWA felt great change would come via that avenue. Is this correct? If so, how?
CHARLES MANSON: Center of all law is life and must be survival. Law and all order starts from life – one life to live or all life will do its end on Earth. People get one new thought from us and run with it, distort, twist it and $. Computer read outs.
SANDRA GOOD: Yes, historically the military represents on some levels the highest development of the human mind. The US military comes from my ancestors’ mind. I am descended from John Paul Jones, the father of the US Navy. I grew up in a Navy town. Manson was born on Veteran’s Day, November l l, 1934. His grandfather served In World War One, his dad in World War Two. Manson has done more than 47 years in reformatories, jails, and prisons which were staffed mostly by ex-servicemen. CHARLES MANSON has said, “I live in the uniform. I’ve lived there all my life.” Another time he said. “I believe my brother is a veteran, that he fought for me, he gave me his life, and I think the graveyards are full of my brothers.”
There is a chain of command in the military that is based on motions and truth, honor and loyalty. Men in uniform understand the brotherhood whereas in civilian life today honor and loyalty seem to be extinct. The main reason for the killings in 1969 was for love of brother, to get a brother out of jail. Lynette Fromme has served 20 years because of her efforts to get Manson a trialwith rights and to call attention to the fact that the country is out of order and that ATWA is dying. I served ten years in federal prison for similar reasons. As a woman I can’t really answer this question adequately, but I do know first hand something of loyalty, honor, and sacrifice.
There is much wrong with the military today, starting with the chain of command all the way to the top. The bureaucrats and military are two different things. If you had a king the military could work better. You’re looking at a bad military because you’re looking at a bad bunch of sneaky politicians who are selling the military. They have been selling the country. But when you get a king you can’t sell the country because if you’re selling the country you’re selling the king. The king is the mind, the king is the life. If you beat the king you beat yourseLynette Fromme because you are the king. Each man is his own king. Put all your kings together in one symbolic king and then you have to do whatever that one says. If you don’t do what that one says you’re going to lose it all. Falling back to the bureaucratical system we have won’t get it. Democracy ain’t shit. Everyone says it’s working because the people who are rich are telling them to say that. It’s been falling down for years. They’ve been selling it, but that doesn’t change the military because the military is nothing but procedure. The military is NOW. It runs on now, on orders, and these orders should be in the will of god and not held in civilian courts which are a bunch of political B. S. You figure that the President of the United States stands the uniform up to attention, the King of England stands all the English soldiers up to attention – other leaders do the same. Then you imagine Manson is ten times that in real authority, in experience and truth and will for life. When people get to that their heads can’t deal with it and it’s too heavy. In short, we get Manson his rights, we allow him his authority,and we win the war on pollution or we will all perish. The US military has the potential to win any war as long as its chain of command is intact and in the truth.
LYNETTE FROMME: The change logically becomes military because military powers are meant to be used for the preservation and defense of a homeland. The homeland now is the whole planet. Individual groups — again political, racial and sexual — would argue forever and die without clean water and air, life and death would continue to become a tightening noose of seLynette Frommeish concerns choking off any comfort, peace, and quality that technology may have offered. Without quality of humanity, the rest is a scrap heap.
It seems as though many people are sympathetic with ATWA. Do you think our days are reflectivc of the late 60’s? Lots of interest, a small amount of real action, followed by an apathetic tranSandra Goodression into a blind form of acceptance?
CHARLES MANSON: FUCK people they are the problem.
SANDRA GOOD: The movements of the late 60’s/early 70’s were in a large part people selling “revolution”, “peace”, and “love”. The for real people were what the media tagged as “The Manson Family”. That’s why the people who fake for money have for 27 years been covering us up with lies and distortions. A lot of people sell anything they can, including concern for life on earth. Part of my 15 year sentence was for telling all the environmental groups “Quit faking!”. We gave our lives for brother and for ATWA and after all these years none of those groups saw or responded. They can’t see our real because they are fakes. They play all that, “It’s wrong to kill or go to war to save your own life on earth.” I’d say: This is a war on pollution, on the problems, a war for life.
Only the walking dead can be blindly accepting of what’s happening in the world today. Starving Third Worlders who move to First World countries aren’t apathetic of the fact that the quality of life where they came from has been rendered no good. The impact of immigration, added to the damage already ongoing, will mean a growing man-made hell. And the end of life on earth.
People can say that the “enemy” is all that is in the human psyche that sets it against itseLynette Fromme — seLynette Fromme destructiveness: that which moves one to defeat one’s seLynette Fromme, one’s life on earth, one’s peace, one’s love, one’s joy in the experience of living, one’s soul, one’s creativity, one’s children, family, kin, and kind. Millions of trees are cut to print more and more books analyzing the human condition and how to deal with the worldwide breakdown of order, health and sanity. More cups, posters and shirts are sold showing what has and is becoming extinct. You can name the human condition however you will — alienated, wrongly conditioned, inherently good or evil, in need of… etc. There are countless people to tell us what is wrong and to sell us their physical, metaphysical, or spiritual cures. You can attempt to stave off the creeping poisoning of one’s own body. Air and water are life. If your air and water are full of the emissions of millions of cars and factories, your life is poisoned. So you can try all kinds of things to stave off the nightmare that each knows in his soul is growing worse each day — a world with no order, no leadership, no trees, 100’s of millions of cars, brown, smelly skies, and frenzied two-legged creatures mindlessly ravaging the earth till there’s nothing left.
LYNETTE FROMME: Because people need reassurance from other people, people fail. Doubt and fear destroy the best instincts. Anything done with ATWA in mind needs no reassurance. But to keep from having everyone running helter skelter, there is natural leadership. Natural order is not up for debate. It exists independent of our thinking and is as physical a reality as gravity.
It seems as though CHARLES MANSON is reappearing in the public again quite a bit recently. Could this gain support for ATWA if put out where everyone can see it (or maybe they don’t want to see it)?
SANDRA GOOD: If people can’t see by now that their own lives on earth are dying each day in the air and water, in the trees and in the wildlife, then they are truly the walking dead and nothing will wake them up. Let the dead bury the dead. The mass of people are sheep and move whichever way the money or the biggest fear tells them to move. When air and water get bad enough people will do as they are told. It doesn’t matter what people think. It’s what is. Do you want to live? Then fix your air and water. Save your trees and wildlife. Those who war upon any part of nature are warring upon themselves and their children. ATWA is ATWAR with pollution. ATWA is a revolution against pollution. ATWA is a holy war.
LYNETTE FROMME: Manson is new thought, old soul, and still right.
What is ATWA’s view on the population explosion? What can be done to stop the weeds?
CHARLES MANSON: Survive at all cost. When it comes to the dead heads there is no game no slack, not an act: real or death will be a reality.
SANDRA GOOD: It is impossible for the natural resources of the planet to sustain the burgeoning human population. Even if lifestyles were to change worldwide to have minimal impact on ATWA the sheer numbers cannot be supported. What can be done to stop the weeds? Chemical spraying, widespread and intensive, has been going on for decades. I was in federal prison for ten years because I warned of the consequences of such pervasive poisoning. I warned that cancers and all kinds of social breakdown would be epidemic as a result of pollution. So you see, peoples’ own death wishes are taking care of some of the population problem. However, laws in accord with need for survival will have to be made and enforced. Such laws will not be forthcoming from the ball-less money minds that call themselves public servants. The destruction of ATWA and over- population are world problems and must he dealt with on a world level in a world court.
LYNETTE FROMME: Many animals, by God, reproduce and care for what the food and water supply will support. If they can do it we can do it.
French feminist Françoise d’Eaubonne coined the term “ecofeminism” in 1974 for a new branch of feminism that focused on ecology, the study of the interactions between organisms and their environment. It holds that the domination and degradation of nature and the exploitation and oppression of women have significant connections.
Several environmental disasters in the US—most notably the 1979 near meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania—brought 600 women together in 1980 for “Women and Life on Earth,” the first ecofeminist conference. Held in Massachusetts during the spring equinox, the conference explored the links between feminism, militarization, healing, and ecology. Ecofeminism was defined as a “women-identified movement” that sees Earth’s devastation and the threat of nuclear annihilation as feminist concerns because they are underpinned by the same “masculinist mentality” that oppresses women. Ecofeminism holds that women have a special role to play in protecting the environment and campaigning against damage to the planet.
As ecofeminism developed, it began to splinter into different approaches, one of which is sometimes described as cultural ecofeminism. This strand is rooted in spirituality, goddess worship, and nature-based religions. Its adherents, including American writer and activist Starhawk (Miriam Simos), argue that women have an intrinsic kinship with the natural environment, and, as instinctive carers, should be at the forefront of its protection. Other feminists criticize this approach for reinforcing gender stereotypes, claiming women’s moral superiority, and taking little account of class, race, or the economic exploitation of resources.
John Muir was born April 21, 1838 also known as “John of the Mountains”, was an American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, glaciologist and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. His activism has helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and many other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. The 211-mile (340 km) John Muir Trail, a hiking trail in the Sierra Nevada, was named in his honor. Other such places include Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir and Muir Glacier. In Scotland, the John Muir Way, a 130-mile-long route, was named in honor of him.
In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. He petitioned the U.S. Congress for the National Park bill that was passed in 1890, establishing Yosemite National Park. The spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings has inspired readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas. Today Muir is referred to as the “Father of the National Parks” and the National Park Service has produced a short documentary about his life.
John Muir has been considered “an inspiration to both Scots and Americans”. Muir’s biographer, Steven J. Holmes, believes that Muir has become “one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity,” both political and recreational. As a result, his writings are commonly discussed in books and journals, and he is often quoted by nature photographers such as Ansel Adams. “Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world,” writes Holmes. Muir was noted for being an ecological thinker, political spokesman, and religious prophet, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for countless individuals, making his name “almost ubiquitous” in the modern environmental consciousness. According to author William Anderson, Muir exemplified “the archetype of our oneness with the earth”, while biographer Donald Worster says he believed his mission was “…saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism.” On April 21, 2013, the first ever John Muir Day was celebrated in Scotland, which marked the 175th anniversary of his birth, paying homage to the conservationist.
“Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.” ~ John Muir
Ocean Fun Fact —> There are more squid in the ocean than fish:
Over the last half-century, rising ocean temperatures and overfishing have drastically reduced the world’s populations of tuna, shark, swordfish and other large predatory fish; populations of octopuses, cuttlefish and squid, meanwhile, have increased in number around the globe…
Researchers have confirmed for the first time that Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica could cross tipping points, leading to a rapid and irreversible retreat which would have significant consequences for global sea level.
Pine Island Glacier is a region of fast-flowing ice draining an area of West Antarctica approximately two thirds the size of the UK. The glacier is a particular cause for concern as it is losing more ice than any other glacier in Antarctica.
Currently, Pine Island Glacier together with its neighbouring Thwaites glacier are responsible for about 10% of the ongoing increase in global sea level.
Scientists have argued for some time that this region of Antarctica could reach a tipping point and undergo an irreversible retreat from which it could not recover. Such a retreat, once started, could lead to the collapse of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which contains enough ice to raise global sea level by over three metres.
While the general possibility of such a tipping point within ice sheets has been raised before, showing that Pine Island Glacier has the potential to enter unstable retreat is a very different question.
Now, researchers from Northumbria University have shown, for the first time, that this is indeed the case.
Their findings are published in leading journal, The Cryosphere.
Using a state-of-the-art ice flow model developed by Northumbria’s glaciology research group, the team have developed methods that allow tipping points within ice sheets to be identified.
For Pine Island Glacier, their study shows that the glacier has at least three distinct tipping points. The third and final event, triggered by ocean temperatures increasing by 1.2C, leads to an irreversible retreat of the entire glacier.
Firetip (Pyrrhopyge thericles): Often known as the “Red Hot Cat” this caterpillar is of a Black winged Butterfly species from South America. The black body and wings are often with a bronze-green or deep blue lustre, spotted red on the head and abdomen. The larvae are haired on the body, shaggily on the head, brown or reddish with yellow, zebra-like stripes. They live on different trees, notably on guava pear-trees.
Rising global temperatures are causing frozen Arctic soil— permafrost—in the northern hemisphere to thaw and release CO2 that has been stored within it for thousands of years. The amount of carbon stored in permafrost is estimated to be four times greater than the combined amount of CO2 emitted by modern humans.
Research results from an international team, which includes a researcher from the University of Copenhagen among others, suggests that the newly discovered phenomenon will release even larger quantities of CO2 than once supposed from organic matter in permafrost—a pool of carbon previously thought to be bound tightly and safely sequestered by iron.
The amount of stored carbon that is bound to iron and gets converted to CO2 when released is estimated to be somewhere between two and five times the amount of carbon released annually through anthropogenic fossil fuel emissions.
Iron doesn’t bind organic carbon after all
Researchers have long been aware that microorganisms play a key role in the release of CO2 as permafrost melts. Microorganisms activated as soil thaws convert dead plants and other organic material into greenhouse gases like methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide.
What is new, is that the mineral iron was believed to bind carbon even as permafrost thawed. The new result demonstrates that bacteria incapacitate iron’s carbon trapping ability, resulting in the release of vast amounts of CO2. This is an entirely new discovery.
“What we see is that bacteria simply use iron minerals as a food source. As they feed, the bonds which had trapped carbon are destroyed and it is released into the atmosphere as greenhouse gas,” explains Associate Professor Carsten W. Müller of the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management. He elaborates:
“Frozen soil has a high oxygen content, which keeps iron minerals stable and allows carbon to bind to them. But as soon as the ice melts and turns to water, oxygen levels drop and the iron becomes unstable. At the same time, the melted ice permits access to bacteria. As a whole, this is what releases stored carbon as CO2,” explains Müller.
The study has just been published in Nature Communications.
Absent from climate models
Although the researchers have only studied a single bog area in Abisko, northern Sweden, they have compared their results with data from other parts the northern hemisphere and expect their new results to also be valid in other areas of permafrost worldwide.
“This means that we have a large new source of CO2 emissions that needs to be included in climate models and more closely examined,” says Carsten W. Müller.
Even though carbon stored in permafrost has a major impact on our climate, researchers know very little about the mechanisms that determine whether carbon in soil is converted into greenhouse gases.
“The majority of climate research in the Arctic focuses on the amount of stored carbon and how sensitive it is to climate change. There is a great deal less of a focus on the deeper mechanisms which trap carbon in soil,” says Carsten W. Müller.
Researchers remain uncertain about how much extra carbon from soil could potentially be released through this newly discovered mechanism. Closer investigation is needed.
Green New Deal Very General Summary: The proposal would achieve net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by creating millions of green jobs and investing in a new, clean-energy infrastructure.
Research shows that age strongly predicts support for the Green New Deal, even controlling for several variables like party, ideology, and race. One wonders if this is because young people, unlike older generations, must contemplate living through the worst effects of climate change a few decades down the line.
Polling Question: “Would you support or oppose a Green New Deal to end fossil fuel use in the United States and have the government create clean energy jobs? The plan would be paid for by raising taxes, including a tax on carbon emissions.”
Reference: Millennials as ages 18–37, Generation X as 38–53, baby boomers as 54–72, and Silent as 72 or older.
Note: “Data For Progress” who conducted the poll is a progressive think tank.
Haunted South: Hauntings, Urban Legends, History, Folklore, Mythology and Southern Folk Magic 