The Science Spot Archives

Joey’s Animal Facts Vol. 6 – Ribbit Ribbit

Welcome to Joey’s Animals Facts. This time we are focusing on the frogs.

What is the difference between frogs and toads? Surprisingly they are not two separate groups. All toads are actually types of frogs known as “true toads“ as opposed to “true frogs” which is made up of all the other non toady frogs!
True frogs are known for their bulging eyes, strong, long, webbed hind feet adapted for leaping and swimming, smooth or slimy skin as they usually like moister environments and the tendency to lay eggs in clusters.

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The Objectives of Organic

To celebrate Organic September, and our exciting new involvement with Yarrah Organic pet food, we are publishing a series of detailed blogs about the in’s-and-out’s of Organic food production. The blog series will follow closely the structure of Council Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 – the European Union regulations on organic food production. We aim to bring this rule-book to life, with examples, videos and ideas to show just how important the Organic Food revolution is – and to make you proud to be a part of it. This week, in part one, we will discuss the Objectives of Organic.

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How green is your carbon tyre print?

One of our favourite books, How Bad are Bananas? By Mike Berners-Lee, has some sensational cycling facts. This month, subscribers to our newsletter get the chance to win a copy! You need to sign up for your chance to enter. When you get your newsletter, there will be a question in it, simply reply with the answer, and winners will be picked out of the hat! 🙂 Good luck!

Eco Facts

Our favourite fact is that it would be greener to drive a hummer than to cycle after eating air freighted asparagus! Checkout our cool graph below comparing a few bike fuels (food) to some other forms of transport.

Cycling to work

Another interesting fact is that a congested commute in an average car comes in at 2200g CO2e per mile. This is much much worse than normal driving – almost as bad as your air freighted asparagus mile. So, the lesson is that cycling to work is a serious planet saver… so long as you don’t eat asparagus out of season for breakfast!

Food and Carbon Footprints

The carbon footprint of food is always interesting to us at Ethical Pets, with folk claiming we should eat our pets to save the planet, we think its important to show pets can be green too.

In the graph you can see that veg isn’t always greener, but that in general, meat is much more carbon heavy that veg. The same trend is clear in the rest of the book, for example, we learned that a 4 ounce steak makes more carbon than a 6.5 kg bag of carrots! Or, for the same carbon as a 2 kg leg of lamb, you could eat milky porridge every day for 4 whole months. Oats, wheat and even naughty old rice are much lower in carbon than any meat.

Pet Food: good and green!

We know that veggie pet food can be healthy, but apparently is very green too! So, if your dog or cat were going to cycle, a little Yarrah or Benevo would be the ideal fuel to choose!

Joey’s Animal Facts Vol. 5 – Tweet Tweet

Joey’s Animal Facts!

Over the past few months we have have focused on the extremes of the whole animal kingdom. This month however we are going to look at one particular group: the birds!

In previous months you’ve seen the fastest birds and the smallest, but did you know that the largest and strongest living bird is the North African ostrich? Males can be up to 274cm tall and weigh 156kg, and when fully grown they have one of the most advanced immune systems of any animal. Ostriches also hold the record for biggest eyes of any land animal, the biggest egg, as well as having the longest stride and fastest sprint on land.

Here’s a whole flock of avian facts: The bird with the longest migration is the Arctic Tern which travel a distance of 22,400km. The highest flying bird in the world is the Bar-Headed Goose which has been seen flying as high as 10,175m. The bird with the longest wingspan (of 3.63m) is the Wandering Albatross, which is also the largest “tubenose” species. The bird with the fastest wing beat is the Horned Sungem, a hummingbird from South America who’s wings flap 90 times a second. The slowest flappers are the New World Vultures averaging one per second. The fastest swimming bird is the Gentoo Penguin found on the Antarctic Islands which can swim at 40km per hour and the bird with the longest lifespan is the Macaw, with a recorded age of 109 years old!

One final flying fact… did you know that, before mankind arrived, the only mammals in New Zealand were three species of bats. Over it’s 65 million year isolation from any other land mass, New Zealand became a land of birds. The ecological niches normally occupied by mammals as different as wolves, kangaroos and rodents, were filled instead by reptiles, insects, and of course birds.
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Ethical Buisness: Ethical Life. Vol 4.

This month we meet Paula from Fossbox. Fossbox is a non-profit social enterprise that specializes in what I suppose you could call “ethical computing.” They work with universities, museums, non-profits, cooperatives and social enterprises and specialize in “open source web-based software including e-publishing, open access information management and collaborative communities.” This computer stuff may be an area of ethical living that you are totally unfamiliar with, but still, read on… it may all start to sound very familiar!

When did you start your ethical business and why?

I wanted to be independent and to be able to prioritize loving what I do over profit. Of course, I need to make a living – but in a way which is consistent with my own values. I started the business in my early 50s so I’d done quite a lot before, at the time I was working on a project to help charities use technology better. The prejudice and opposition towards Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) in the sector in general, and the organizations I worked for in particular, was extremely frustrating. So, I decided to bypass it by setting up Fossbox – I got support from Technology and Social Action and something called ‘Designing for the 21st Century’ ESRC collaboration funding. Other than T&SA, the entire world informed me I couldn’t make a social enterprise based solely on FLOSS work in the UK – but so far we’ve survived 4 years, a triple-dip recession and neo-cons taking a scythe to the voluntary and public sectors.

How long was it till you got your first sale?

I had sales lined up before I launched.

How much money did you have to start off with?

I started off with a £4k commission and turned over £20k in the first year. We were building on that nicely but the recession hit us and then the funding cuts in 2011/2012 halved our income overnight (because we work with non-profits). We’re regrouping and actually expanding now, but the past couple of years have been very tough.

Describe an average day in the life of you.

I don’t have an average day

Ok – gotcha! So, do you have other jobs too? Do you have a family/hobbies/pets? Do you have a conventional or unusual life style? What things do you do every day, sometimes, or never?

No other jobs. I have a cat, and my lifestyle is generally considered to be rather unconventional. Things I do every day pretty much boils down to having breakfast and coffee, then brushing my teeth… after that, I don’t really remember most days 😉 I don’t have time or inclination for hobbies. Possibly I should mention that I’m gay.

What are your ethical principles?

People before profit. I started my own business because I couldn’t get done what I wanted to get done any other way (and because I was tired of the contemporary obsession with HR). We advocate Free and Open Source Software and support more women to get involved in technology. The former based on the general principle of people before profit: software should be developed independently and collaboratively to fit human purpose rather than warping it. The latter because I don’t want younger women to experience the hell that my generation of independent women had to deal with. I’d like to be more upbeat but it’s been a tough couple of years.

Any words of wisdom?

You can’t please all the people all the time so please yourself.

Favorite quote?

It is easy to be independent when you’ve got money. But to be independent when you haven’t got a thing, that’s the Lord’s test — Mahalia Jackson.

I did everything he did, but backwards and in high heels — Ginger Rogers

Things you would share with the next generation of people like you

Imagine you’re descended from a long line of mystical female warriors and don’t take any crap unless you’re feeling kind and can afford it 😉

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Joeys Animal Facts V3 – Tall and Loud!

Joeys Animal Facts

Last month we looked at the largest animals in the world, a list dominated by the whales and sharks. Keeping with the theme, this month we will learn about some of the tallest and longest animals – but this time staying on dry land (I think we have all had enough of water for now, what with all that snow and rain!). Here at Ethical Pets we have quite a menagerie of cats and dogs – but none of them are very tall. The tallest dog in the world was a Great Dane, measuring 7 feet and 2 inches (218.44 cm) from head to tail. On the feline side, the Savannah cat rises above all else – with the tallest so far measuring 17.1 inches (43 cm) from shoulder to toe. The tallest land animal is of course the Giraffe, which can grow up to 20 feet tall (just think of a two story terraced house) but the longest of all animals is the Bootlace Worm, which has been recorded as measuring 55 meters long (wow!). Now lets checkout the loudest animals. The loudest insect is the Cicada which is similar to a grasshopper: they sing during the mating season, and the bigger the cicada the louder its song. The loudest measured cicada song was 106.7 decibels, that’s louder than a subway train! And it seams that size really does matter when it comes to noise, as the loudest of all animals is also the biggest – the Blue Whale. Along with Fin Whale, Blue Whales can make a foghorn blast of up to 188 decibels – that’s louder than a rocket launch.

Have you got a question about animals? Email Joey and ask away!

Get your next installment of “Joey’s Animal Facts” by signing up to our monthly newsletter “The Ethical Pets Gazette”

Joeys Animal Facts Vol.3

Joeys Animal Facts

Have you got a question about animals? Email Joey and ask away!

Get your next installment of “Joey’s Animal Facts” by signing up to our monthly newsletter “The Ethical Pets Gazette”

A Dogs Day (at the office)

We are starting to bring pets into hospitals and nursing homes because we know that they make us happier and healthier (1). So, why not bring pets to work? Barker et al (2012) (2) have done some preliminary research to see what happens when the dog comes to the office.

Purpose

The study aimed to examine levels of stress during the work day and job satisfaction. They compared between dog owners who brought their dog to work, dog owners who didn’t and people who had no pet at all.

Who gets to take their dog to work?!!

The study took place at Replacements Ltd who have allowed dogs to come work for over 15 years.

Method

The study used three groups, with about 30 participants in each group. One group bought their dogs to work, one did not, and the last group had no pets. To be extra clever, they also measured what happened to the dog group on a day when they didn’t bring the dog to work. Last of all, they took a saliva sample each morning from all the participants, to check for the stress hormone cortisol.

Results

The dogs had no effect on “how valued” by the company the employee felt, however, the group with the dogs reported much lower levels of stress. The group who had no pet reported the next highest levels of stress, and the group who had a dog, but left it at home, were the most stung out of the lot.

The people with no pets, and the people who took their dog to work had a consistent amount of stress throughout the day (be it lower or higher). The people who left their dog at home, however, became more and more stressed as the day went on. Interestingly, on the days that the dog-group left the dog at home… they got more stressed as the day went on too!

The cortisol test showed that the group without a pet were more stressed at the start of the day than the two groups who had pets – however, there were too many other complicating factors to be sure of a correlation.

Analysis

The most interesting thing we see in this study is the effect of having a pet, but not bringing it to work. The stress levels start off low, but get higher and higher as the day goes on – and they end up even higher than those who have no pets. Why is this? Is the stress-busting effect of the pet wearing off? Do people pine for their pets and worry more for them as the day goes on?

Also – while the dogs didn’t effect how valued the employee felt by the company, this may be because the company makes all their employees feel valued already – perhaps just being allowed to bring a pet to work (even if you don’t have one) can make you feel appreciated.

Don’t the dogs get in the way?

The study also looked at this – and found that most people had a neutral response to the dog. Then, about 20% felt that the dogs made them more productive, and about 20% felt they harmed productivity. Despite this, many positive comments were made by people in this 20%: it seems a lot of concern revolves around poor behaviour, hygiene and allergies rather than a dislike of the dogs.

What next?

This is the first study of its kind – and it was quite small. Future studies would include larger numbers of participants. Also, they could measure more things. Do dogs make us late? Do they make us more or less productive? Also, a comparison between pet owners who work from home and pet owners who commute with their pet, could be really interesting.

References

(1) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20807641

(2) Preliminary investigation of employee’s dog presence on stress and organizational perceptions, by Barker, Knisely, Barker, Cobb and Schubert. From International Journal of Workplace Health Management, vol5. No1. 2012 page 15-30.

Harmony and sustainability could be closer than you think

Why did Europeans have all the “cargo” – axes, umbrellas, factories and shops, when other cultures, such as those of the Native American Tribes, maintained more traditional lifestyles. How much could this disparity have to do with Animals, and what can we learn from it.

Summarizing 15 years his research about “all of human history” into once sentence, Jared Diamond says: “The differences among the histories of people on different continents is not due to biological differences between the people themselves, but instead down to differences in the continental environments: especially differences in the wild plants and animals that could be domesticated.” He believes that this one sentence summarizes human history.

One example of the effect of geography on development is that, despite California having the lushest farmland in the world, Native Americans never cultivated it – and so never had the benefits of “early and productive agriculture.”

Diamond claims the reason for this is that the native animals in California were Deer and Grizzly Bears – animals not prone to domestication. The vegetation did not lend itself well to domestication either – and so California was never farmed until plants and animals were “imported” from Europe.

While his ideas are disputed, even considered to be unsophisticated, I think is a wonderful lesson for us in what Diamond says.

I have read many times about how tribes from Papua New Guinea and per-colonial America lived in harmony with Nature – without mass farming, a sustainable lifestyle was vital. If Diamonds theory is correct, then it wasn’t genes, religion or lack of imagination that prompted this wonderful way of life: they lived sustainably because they needed to. Their survival depended on it.

Perhaps this shows that we are just as capable of living sustainably – in harmony with the natural world – when our survival depends on it. And it does so now!

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Listen to Radio 4’s “The Life Scientific” from 4th Dec 2012 for the full interview

“Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamonds, is available on-line from Foyles (who pay their taxes!!)