The Greener World

How to build a bee house:

• With drill bits of various sizes (5/16th of an inch works best for Mason bees) simply take some scrap lumber and drill holes 3 to 5 inches deep but not all the way through the wood block. For example, get a 4 inch by 4 inch piece of wood and drill holes that are 3 and 1/2 inches deep.

• You can cover the holes with chicken wire to help keep birds away from the bee house.

• Securely place the bee house on the South side of buildings, fence posts, or trees.

• Scatter some of the houses throughout your community. You may find an excellent location to trap some bees and then move them to your location.

• DO NOT move bee houses after they are in place until at least November.

• DO NOT spray insecticides on or around bee houses.

• If you choose to build your own bee houses, DO NOT use treated wood.

The wonderful website Instructables has a great step-by-step guide to making a double decker composting bin.

Composting is easy and fun. Kitchen scraps, leaves and lawn clippings are allowed to decompose naturally and they become a healthy, nutrient-rich and beneficial soil for the garden.

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The New York Times has a great article on going organic. Here's an excerpt:

"The key is to be strategic in your organic purchases. Opting for organic produce, for instance, doesn’t necessarily have a big impact, depending on what you eat. According to the Environmental Working Group, commercially-farmed fruits and vegetables vary in their levels of pesticide residue. Some vegetables, like broccoli, asparagus and onions, as well as foods with peels, such as avocados, bananas and oranges, have relatively low levels compared to other fruits and vegetables."

Last September, China discovered a large reserve of “combustible ice” on the tundra of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. “Combustible ice” is essentially frozen natural gas – a natural gas hydrate, and is one of the newest energy sources to be discovered. The new reserves found in China reveal a very large supply equal at least 35 billion tonnes of oil, enough to supply China with 90 years worth of energy.

Link To Article

Not everyone is fortunate enough to work around plants all day. Some of us are trapped in our offices or even worse, our cubicles. The folks over at the wonderful site Lifehacker have an very useful post on which plants are best for your cubicle.

Decorating your cubicle with plants is a great way to liven up your workspace and improve indoor air quality. Click this link to take a look some important things to consider before selecting plants for your cubicle.

Here's a clever gift idea that any backyard gardener will love. Craft blog Make and Takes illustrates the steps of how to make a plantable greeting card.

By following the handy step-by-step guide you'll go through the process of creating seeded paper which is then used to decorate your card. The end result is a pretty, handmade card that the receiver of the card can actually plant it in the ground to grow something beautiful.

Mother's Day is coming up. Create a card using your Mom's favorite flower seeds for a really unique way to show you care.

Near downtown, fruit trees and vegetable farms would replace neighborhoods that are an eerie landscape of empty buildings and vacant lots. Suburban commuters heading into the city center might pass through what looks like the countryside to get there. Surviving neighborhoods in the birthplace of the auto industry would become pockets in expanses of green.

Read the full article at The Washington Times.

They appear as if from nowhere. A previously healthy looking plant suddenly has an abnormal growth protruding from it. Some are hideous and some strangely beautiful but they leave the plant looking as if it has been invaded by miniature aliens. And in a way that’s exactly what has happened. Take a look at the weirdness of the plant gall.

Read the rest of the article and see the pics.

Conventional wisdom among many ecologists is that industrial-scale agriculture is the best way to produce lots of food while preserving biodiversity in the world's remaining tropical forests. But two University of Michigan researchers reject that idea and argue that small, family-owned farms may provide a better way to meet both goals.

In many tropical zones around the world, small family farms can match or exceed the productivity of industrial-scale operations, according to University of Michigan researchers Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer. At the same time, smaller diversified farms are more likely to help preserve biodiversity in tropical regions undergoing massive amounts of deforestation, Perfecto and Vandermeer conclude in a paper to be published online Feb. 22 in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Read the rest of the article over at ScienceDaily.

A low-fat vegetarian diet is very efficient in terms of how much land is needed to support it. But adding some dairy products and a limited amount of meat may actually increase this efficiency, Cornell researchers suggest.

This deduction stems from the findings of their new study, which concludes that if everyone in New York state followed a low-fat vegetarian diet, the state could directly support almost 50 percent more people, or about 32 percent of its population, agriculturally. With today's high-meat, high-dairy diet, the state is able to support directly only 22 percent of its population, say the researchers.

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Scientists in Canada are reporting the development of a fast, inexpensive "dipstick" test to identify small amounts of pesticides that may exist in foods and beverages. Their paper-strip test is more practical than conventional pesticide tests, producing results in minutes rather than hours by means of an easy-to-read color-change, they say.

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Machines have been an integral part of agriculture for generations helping with such tasks as tilling fields, picking cotton, and sorting eggs. One ability machines have lacked, until now, is the ability to determine whether fruit is actually ready for harvest. 

Robotic engineers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh have devised an army of automated robots that have the ability to fully tend a crop. These robots use vision systems, laser sensors, satellite positioning and instruments to measure things like humidity and can build up a database of information about each plant. Crop yields can be predicted more accurately by robotic observation of each developing plant. Automated harvesters will then use the database to identify and gather individual produce whenever it is ready for harvest.

On a small scale it is already possible to see fully automated horticulture in action. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has an experimental greenhouse growing cherry tomatoes on raised platforms. It is managed entirely by small robots. Each plant is equipped with sensors which keep track of its condition. If a particular plant is getting a bit dry, one of the robots is summoned to water it. When a tomato is identified as being ripe, the robot uses its vision system to locate the fruit on the vine and pick it with a mechanical arm.

For the complete article please head over to The Economist.

According to an article found at Arthritis Today a new study suggests that a daily dose of blueberry juice could improve memory.

Researchers had 16 participants, all of whom were in their 70s and having memory lapses, drink either 20 ounces of blueberry juice or 20 ounces of another beverage that had no fruit juice in it each day for 12 weeks. The blueberry juice was made from commercially available frozen wild blueberries.

They found that the group that drank blueberry juice showed a significant improvement in memory function and learning and memory tests – including word association and list learning – compared to the placebo group.

TheCooksDen decided to apply the scientific method to that important question. They brought in an unbiased test subject -- one who has superior taste buds, is unaffected by marketing hype, and is unafraid to express her opinions publicly. Where would you find such an unbiased test subject? They found a very willing volunteer in Hammy the Hamster.

So did Hammy choose organic? The results are in, and they just might surprise you.

The world's population is booming and the ability to provide food is a growing concern. How will we feed residents of highly populated cities around the world? The Vertical Farm Project, lead by Dr Dickson Despommier from Columbia University’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences has proposed an interesting answer that can possibly be best described as high-rise urban farms. Visit the Vertical Farm Project by clicking here.