news
OK, this is too cool - apparently puffin beaks fluoresce! Particularly given my recent foray into fluorescent sculpture and my mixed media acrylic series on Atlantic puffins, I'm feeling inspired to perhaps make a fluorescent puffin of my own soon...!
Whew, my life has been very busy socially and professionally of late, and I've let blogging slip a little! Here is a selection of readings on our current environmental problems to make up for it:
Era of 'Biological Annihiliation' Is Underway, Scientists Warn
Environmental Defenders Being Killed in Record Numbers Globally, New Research Reveals
Scott Pruitt Is Carrying Out His E.P.A. Agenda in Secret, Critics Say
The Lords Of Yesterday Are Back And They Want America's Public Land
Shipping Executive: ‘We Have Deliberately Misled Public on Climate’
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Zoological Society of London (ZSL) just released a new report detailing a 49% decline "in the size of marine populations between 1970 and 2012."
This follows their 2014 report which states in part that over the past 40 years:
Populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish have declined by an average of 52%. Freshwater species populations have suffered a 76% decline, an average loss almost double that of land and marine species."
From The New York Times:
Since at least the 1970s, frog populations have been in decline. A new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that at least 3.1 percent of frog species have gone extinct, and another 6.9 percent may disappear within the next century.
The University of Saint Mary not only issued a press release a little over a month ago on my summer exhibitions and awards, but also just published an article about it in the Fall 2015 issue of Aspire Magazine.
From a Wikipedia research spiral:
Armadillos possess the unique reproductive trait of monozygotic polyembryony, meaning their offspring are genetically identical due to the division of a single fertilized egg into four matching embryos. This development of identical quadruplets has been utilized as a tool for genetic research. It is possible that the monozygotic polyembryony was an adaptation to accommodate for the female’s inability to carry more than one egg during this pre-implantation stage. Delaying the implantation further has no effect on the number of offspring produced.
Armadillos are also carriers of leprosy, as I learned in my Infectious Diseases course in undergrad. And they have the now unfortunate fear response of jumping, which means they often kill themselves on car bumpers when the vehicle would have otherwise safely passed over the animal. They are a fascinating creature.
Somewhat belatedly, I thought I'd share two newspaper articles published in the Diari de Girona in Catalan about the artist presentation I took part in at the Bòlit Centre d'Art Contemporani in Girona, Spain.
Els quatre artistes becats pel Bòlit amb residència presenten els projectes
Un becat pel Bòlit «reviurà» cinc edificis desapareguts de Girona
Research coming out of Stanford University's Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources is unsurprisingly showing that:
A walk in the park may soothe the mind and, in the process, change the workings of our brains in ways that improve our mental health, according to an interesting new study of the physical effects on the brain of visiting nature.
I just completed a total renovation of this website in order to better serve mobile users. Here's hoping the squarespace platform works as well as its reputation promises!