Would you live in a Yurt in Winter?

Off the grid, in Northern Minnesota? Apparently, it can be done:



Even in the frozen North, a yurt's so good

Grace Brogan and John Kamman live in a yurt.

It's a squat round structure with lattice walls, a dome skylight and a few layers of canvas over the whole thing — think of a tent with stiff walls. Tents are great in the summer, but this is winter. In northern Minnesota.

Why would two employed people with three master's degrees between them choose to live with only a quarter-inch of material between themselves and the elements? And how do they stay warm?

To find out, I drove a dozen miles north of Bemidji on a recent morning and hiked a quarter-mile across a snowy field. It was not yet dawn, and from the outside, the yurt's vinyl windows glowed with firelight.

Inside, a small home's worth of furnishings lined the circular wall. A calm mutt named Mabel loitered near the crackling wood stove. The yurt was actually a really nice place to be. [...]

They are young, so I'm sure it's an adventure. At first I thought, a grizzly bear could break in and eat them. But it says only that they live off the grid, a dozen miles North from Bemidji. They talk about "going into town", so I think they probably aren't in an extremely remote area.

The inside of the Yurt looks nice, very cozy. Do follow the link to see the other photos, and the interview with them answering questions. Be sure and click on the "gallery" link to see the extra photos.

     

A Chinese Fly from Hell

This looks scary:

Giant flying bug with fangs discovered in China

Researchers in China have found what is clearly the most frightening looking insect ... ever.

What's being called the Giant Dobsonfly has an 8.3-inch wingspan and snake-like fangs.

It's not entirely clear how much force would have to be applied to kill the dobsonfly or what sound is made by the insect as it is squashed.

But, we're entirely sure that the sound upon discovering a dobsonfly is a loud shriek, scream or cry.

How long until this fly is found in the states?

Exactly. [...]

It looks like something from the SyFy channel. It doesn't say that it can harm people, so perhaps it just looks scary? But what are those fangs for?

Apparently it lives in pristine water, and is very sensitive to water changes, even changes in PH. Follow the link, for video and more.

     

Fire Ants better than Crazy ones

What's worse than fire ants? Crazy ants:

Invasive Crazy Ants Are Displacing Fire Ants, Researchers Find

[...] “When you talk to folks who live in the invaded areas, they tell you they want their fire ants back,” said LeBrun. “Fire ants are in many ways very polite. They live in your yard. They form mounds and stay there, and they only interact with you if you step on their mound.”

LeBrun said that crazy ants, by contrast, “go everywhere.” They invade people’s homes, nest in crawl spaces and walls, become incredibly abundant and damage electrical equipment.

The crazy ants were first discovered in the U.S. in 2002 by a pest control operator in a suburb of Houston, and have since established populations in 21 counties in Texas, 20 counties in Florida, and a few sites in southern Mississippi and southern Louisiana.

In 2012 the species was formally identified as Nylanderia fulva, which is native to northern Argentina and southern Brazil. Frequently referred to as Rasberry crazy ants, these ants recently have been given the official common name “Tawny crazy ants.”

The Tawny crazy ant invasion is the most recent in a series of ant invasions from South America brought on by human movement. The Argentine ant invaded through the port of New Orleans in about 1891. In 1918 the black imported fire ant showed up in Mobile, Ala. Then in the 1930s, the red imported fire ant arrived in the U.S. and began displacing the black fire ant and the Argentine ants.

The UT researchers studied two crazy ant invasion sites on the Texas Gulf Coast and found that in those areas where the Tawny crazy ant population is densest, fire ants were eliminated. Even in regions where the crazy ant population is less dense, fire ant populations were drastically reduced. Other ant species, particularly native species, were also eliminated or diminished.

LeBrun said crazy ants are much harder to control than fire ants. They don’t consume most of the poison baits that kill fire ant mounds, and they don’t have the same kinds of colony boundaries that fire ants do. That means that even if they’re killed in a certain area, the supercolony survives and can swarm back over the area.

“They don’t sting like fire ants do, but aside from that they are much bigger pests,” he said. “There are videos on YouTube of people sweeping out dustpans full of these ants from their bathroom. You have to call pest control operators every three or four months just to keep the infestation under control. It’s very expensive.”

LeBrun said that in northern Argentina and southern Brazil, where the ants are native, populations are likely held in check by other ant species and a variety of natural enemies. In the U.S. there is no such natural control.

Here the crazy ants can attain densities up to 100 times as great as all other ants in the area combined. In the process, they monopolize food sources and starve out other species. LeBrun said the crazy ants, which are omnivorous, may also directly attack and kill other ant and arthropod species.

The overall result is a significant reduction in abundance and biodiversity at the base of the food chain, which is likely to have implications for the ecosystem as a whole. [...]

Yikes. What can be done? The rest of the article talks about ways of slowing the spread of crazy ants, to buy time to find and answer about what to do about them in the long run. See the article for pics and embedded links.

     

Magic Mushrooms make you Young At Heart

Permanantly. See for yourself:

Magic Mushroom Drug Has an 'Anti-Aging Effect' on Personality

Sept. 29, 2011 -- Psilocybin, the drug in “magic mushrooms,” helps many people become more open, creative, and curious after they take a single high dose, a new study shows.

Ordinarily, researchers say, after age 30 personality is a pretty fixed part of who we are.

When people do change their stripes, it’s usually in the wake of significant life events that cause emotional upheaval, like marriage, divorce, or getting fired from a job.

Researchers say the new study, which is published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, is one the first to show that a drug, when used in an experimental setting, can alter personality long term.

Specifically, the study found that psilocybin affects a dimension of personality called openness. Openness relates to the ability to see and appreciate beauty, to imagine, to be aware of our own and other people’s feelings, and to be curious and creative.

“Personality, after the age of 25, is relatively stable, and if anything happens, openness decreases across decades, just very slightly, but generally people become more rigid and less creative,” says researcher Roland R. Griffiths, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. “And this is showing an anti-aging affect if you will, on openness.” [...]

Read the whole thing for details of the study, and embedded links.

I'll just say... they don't call them "Magic" for nuthin!

     

See "The 8 Most Terrifying Holes on Earth "

This sink-hole in Guatemala, that swallowed 12 homes is truly scary:


The 8 Most Terrifying Holes on Earth
Follow the link to see them all. The one at the end of the list is perhaps the most horrible of all, because of it's size, location, and seemingly endless capacity.
     

Look at One Year in Just 40 Seconds

This is the display sample video for "Today's Featured Videos" on iGoogle:



Very cool! If you go to the video's Google page, there is another video in the right sidebar by the same author, called "One Year in Two Minutes".
     

China's enormous pollution problems

China has some of the most beautiful wilderness in the world:



This is a photo of the Jiuzhaigou valley in Sichuan province, central-western China. Stunningly beautiful. Often called "China's Yosemite".

Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve

Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve lies in Jiuzhaigou County, northwest of Sichuan Province in the southern part of Minshan Mountains, approximately 400 kilometers from Chengdu City. Established in 1978, the Reserve covers an area of 60,000 hectares with its name stemming from 9 Tibetan villages nearby. Luxuriant forests and snow peaks in Jiuzhaigou make it a spectacular gem of nature. Jiuzhaigou is a comprehensive nature reserve, its main protection targets are pandas, other rare wildlife and forest ecosystem. In 1992, it was listed in the World's Natural Heritage, and three years later, it was included in the International Man and Biosphere Reserve Network of UNESCO. [...]

That particular area may be protected, but the rest of China is experiencing severe problems from pollution. From Peter Navarro at Asia Times On-line:

China's pollution Olympics

Sometimes it's the little stories that tell us the most. Consider the news of a keel-crippling algal bloom covering a third of the Olympic sailing course in Qingdao, China. While a small army of workers, a large armada of boats, and a full battalion of dump trucks and bulldozers are desperately trying to clear up this embarrassing counterpoint to China's claim of a "green games", international competitors desperate for practice are forced to stew in dry dock.

In fact, this kind of event is far from atypical in the world's most polluted nation. Today, fully 70% of China's seven major rivers are severely polluted, 80% of its rivers fail to meet standards for fishing, and 90% of the country's cities suffer from some degree of water pollution. As a result, over 700 million Chinese drink fetid water of a quality well below World Health Organization standards. Meanwhile, liver and stomach cancers related to water pollution are among the leading causes of death in the countryside, while 21 cities along the Yellow River are characterized by the highest measurable levels of pollution.

As for this particular - and particularly extensive - algal bloom in Qingdao, it is being caused in large part by equally massive misuse of fertilizer. As the world's largest fertilizer user, China consumes more than 50 million tonnes annually. Far too often, untrained peasants apply far too much fertilizer to their meager plots in the false hopes of boosting yields. The result has been a new kind of "flooding" problem, that of excess fertilizer runoff flooding into rivers and streams. [...]

Bold emphasis mine. Read the whole thing for more details. Is it any wonder they ship us contaminated food? They are choking to death on their own air and water pollution. They are having their industrial revolution in the information age. Instead of hiding information, they need to use information to become informed about consequences, and clean up their act, literally. For their sake and ours.
     

Photos of Oregon, in and around "Bend"

Here is an email I got today:

Bend Oregon and surrounding areas. These were
taken by a camper who pilots an ultralight aircraft.


Balloons over Bend event.


North Twin Lake near Lapine, OR


Smith Rock near Redmond, OR


Tumalo Falls near Bend, OR


Mt. Bachelor near Bend, OR with snow.


Mt. Bachelor near Bend, OR summer


Lava Butte near Bend, OR


Painted Hills, near Mitchell, OR


Paulina and East Lakes near Lapine, OR


Fort Rock


Mt. Jefferson near Sisters and Madras, OR


Alkali Lake near Christmas Valley , OR


Alvord Desert near Steens Mtn.


Wild Horses near the Alvord Desert


[END]

One of the big attractions for us when we moved to Oregon from California, was the natural beauty here. These photos are from around the city of Bend. But the whole state has so much to offer, I could easily spend the rest of my life just exploring Oregon.

More about the about the City of Bend.