Along the cliffs from Niagara Falls to the islands north of Tobermory there exists some of the world’s oldest cliff-dwelling trees. Some of those trees live within 60 miles of 7 million people in southern Ontario.

Hyperion, a redwood, is the tallest tree on Earth at 382 feet and growing. General Sherman, a Sequoia, is 277 feet tall with an astounding base of 103 feet. Not all ancient trees, however, are tall or big. Methuselah, a bristlecone pine, is the world’s oldest known living single-stemmed tree; he’s over 4,600 years old. He’s not tall or big; he’s weather beaten; he’s gnarly and near immortal.

The Niagara Escarpment is 420 miles long and made up of 400 million year old sedimentary rocks. For 130 million years the escarpment was under a Silurian Sea. Those rocks contain a rich mixture of tiny sea-dwelling animals without backbones known as invertebrates.

About 13,000 years ago the dolomitic caprock of the escarpment emerged from under the immense Wisconsinan Ice Sheet. For another 6,000 years it remained submerged under glacial Lake Algonquin. Lake levels fluctuated for thousands of years, but about 3,500 years ago the Niagara Escarpment resembled the landform seen today. 

The rock faces of the Niagara Escarpment are awesome. The maple and beech forests provide exquisite habitat for many critters. The escarpment is also a favourite destination for hikers and rock-climbers.

Until the late 1980s little was known about the eastern white cedars growing along the cliff faces.

University of Guelph botanist Professor Douglas Larson began to explore the trees growing out of shear rock faces and on ledges. What he quickly discovered was that these trees were old.

Eastern white cedars are amazing trees with a wide flexibility enabling them to live in swamps, on acidic thin soils and along cliffs. An average tree can produce in excess of 260,000 seeds in a life-time. And each tree has the ability to clone itself by rooting a branch that touches the ground. This trait protects swamp eastern white cedars when they tip-over. They don’t die easily.

As a matter of fact, Native North Americans steeped bark and needles from eastern white cedar, which provided vitamin C, and saved the French explorer Jacque Cartier and his men from survey in 1535-36. Cartier named this tree arbor vitae or the tree of life.

Native North Americans used eastern white cedars to build canoes and longhouses. The wood is highly rot resistant. They also derived many medicines from these trees. 

In 1989 Dr Larson and his newly formed Cliff Ecology Research group began to actively explore the cliff-dwelling eastern white cedars along escarpment. Led by ecologist and rock-climber Peter Kelly the group used ropes to repel cliff faces. They began to find thousand year old living, weather-beaten and in many cases upside down living eastern white cedars. 

With the assistance of Banff- and Los Angeles-based conservation institute Global Forest Science and others, Larson’s group began the formidable task of mapping the entire 700-kilometre length of cliff dwelling forests. What they discovered was extraordinary.

Along the Bruce Peninsula they found two exceptionally ancient dead trees. One tree had in tact 1,653 rings or years of growth. Some growth rings were worn away from the other tree. Kelly estimated its age to be 1,890 years.

That antiquitous eastern white cedar would easily have outpaced Canada’s oldest known living tree – a 1,693 old yellow cedar from coastal B.C.

Over the next decade Peter Kelly went on to discover the oldest living eastern white cedar on the Niagara Escarpment – he called it the Ancient One with 1,320 rings or years of growth. It was born at the time the first Buddhist temple was built.

He found other ancient upside down, twisted, deformed yet defiant survivors; he gave them names like: Octopus Tree, Water-Fall Tree and Flying Elephant Tree.

These ancient trees show no sign of ageing. They, like the near immortal bristlecones of the eastern central White Mountains of California out-grow the ground beneath them – the sedimentary rocks break down before the trees die. 

Erosion of sedimentary cliff faces and rock-falls along the Niagara Escarpment are what eventually kills the eastern white cedars. Similar to the britlecones, eastern white cedars are able to survive with as little as 10 percent living bark and thrive for centuries while hanging on literally by threads of life.

The key to long tree life is slow, at times almost imperceptible, growth. Our species has much to learn from this long-lived, persistent strategy of making haste slowly. 

The Last Stand – A Journey Through the Ancient Cliff-Face Forest of the Niagara Escarpment

Peter E.  Kelley and Douglas W. Larson

http://www.amazon.ca/Last-Stand-Journey-Cliff-Face-Escarpment/dp/1897045190

SAVE THE BEES http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6w-Z7XlnHI 

Dr Reese Halter is a public speaker, conservation biologist and founder of the international conservation institute Global Forest Science. His latest book is entitled The Incomparable Honey Bee  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Incomparable+HoneyBee+reese+halter&x=0&y=0  He can be contacted through www.DrReese.com

 

Plants contend with snow and cold winter temperatures with a variety of different strategies. Unlike some animals of the west, they cannot migrate to warmer environs.

Many herbaceous plants do the next best thing to migrating: they shed all of their above ground parts and seek a safe place to spend winter beneath the soil. Aspens, maples, birches, alders and other deciduous trees protect themselves from winter temperatures by dropping their leaves. Native conifers, except for larches, are evergreen and so they have internal functions or physiological adaptations that help them get through the winter months ahead.

The two most common stresses among trees and shrubs of the north country are the ability to withstand low temperatures and drying-up or desiccation.

In order to prepare for winter, leaves of Northern Hemisphere plants begin to recognize the diminishing length of daylight in August. Certain plant hormones are released to slow and then eventually stop all growth. The first frost of the autumn prepares woody plants for the impending onslaught of winter. In addition, plants experience a water stress which further prepares them for the chilly months ahead.

Trees are now able to deal with freezing temperatures and the controlled formation of ice. The exact location of ice within the tree is very important. Most of the cells within trees are non-living, because their role is to conduct water during the growing season and provide mechanical support or stability. There are, however, living cells within the roots, branches, trunk and evergreen needles which are very important for storing food and kick-starting spring growth. It’s these cells where the exact formation of ice is a life or death matter.

The initial formation of ice occurs outside the living plant cell in a small space within the cell wall. All the water that isn’t bonded to other molecules inside the cell is exported to the space in the cell wall. When ice forms in the cell wall it attracts water to its crystals. The living part of the cell is protected by an elastic cell membrane and the remaining cell sap can withstand temperatures as low as minus 67 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 55 degrees Celsius). If, for any reason, the cell membrane becomes ruptured or if too much water is exported into the cell wall the cell sap will become toxic and the cell will die.

Exposed evergreen needles face the greatest water loss problems under bright sunshine and calm winter days. The needles are warmed to above-freezing temperatures and the air is dry, creating atmospheric suction or a call for water from its needles. The tree is faced with a problem: It’s loosing water in its winterized needles and must replace it.

The trunk being darker and warming above freezing like the needles is able to supply minimal amounts of stored water from the cell walls. This becomes a tricky balancing act. On a day such as this, trees prefer even the slightest of breeze, because that cools the leaf surface and prevents any moisture loss and subsequent demand for replacement water.

Heavy snow loads, particularly on the Coastal Pacific Northwest Mountains, can cause entire trees to bend. A 40-foot Pacific silver fir can accumulate a mass of snow and ice nearly 20 inches thick, weighing 6,600 pounds or more than 3 tons.

Exposed areas are subjected to blowing ice which can remove foliage or cause freezing injury and create deep pits eventually wearing away tree bark. Mountain winds, especially during the winter, shape trees and the treeline forests. Some high elevation trees actually resemble a broomstick with windswept branches and trunks with only a mop-head or cluster of foliage at their top.

Browsing activities of mammals create further winter-stress problems for plants.

Yet despite all the harsh winter environmental conditions, our coastal, subalpine, interior and northerly forests of Western North America are hardy and able to live for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years, toughly facing months of winter.

Save the Honeybees http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6w-Z7XlnHI

Dr Reese Halter is a public speaker, conservation biologist and founder of the international conservation institute Global Forest science. His most recent book is The Incomparable Honeybee and the Economics of Pollination http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Incomparable+HoneyBee+reese+halter&x=0&y=0  Contact him through http://DrReese.com

 

 

 

Recently, I had a chance to spend a couple days exploring Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. It’s truly amazing to see how all the different animals use the desert to make a living.

The Sonoran Desert is spread across 106,000 square miles with about 40 percent of it in the U.S. and 60 percent in Mexico. It ranges in elevation from near sea level to over 3,300 feet along the eastern edge of Arizona. In Arizona it receives both winter and summer precipitation with an annual average of about 13 inches.

It is the most biologically diverse of the four big North American deserts. In fact, there are more than 1,000 species of solitary and social bees in the Sonoran Desert – more than anywhere else on the globe.

Being trained as a tree root physiologist I’m always curious about what’s making a living on the ground. Digger bee holes are very evident with a quarter of an inch hooked-top chimneys dotting the earth. The hooked chimneys are believed to thwart the attempts of parasitic hoverflies, who are known to flip eggs into bee holes – their eggs attach themselves to the bee eggs, once hatched they devour bee eggs.

Digger bees are solitary and the female will lay one egg with a packet of honey and pollen in up to 18 cells in one below ground nest consisting of 7 feet of tunnels.

Nearby the digger bee holes, I noticed a circular hole about an inch and a half wide covered with silk; just outside the hole were some loose barbed, dark hairs – indicating a tarantula burrow.

Tarantulas are one of the most recognized residents of the southwest desert. These nocturnal hunters often wait at their entrance holes for beetles and grasshoppers that pass by. Upon entering their hole after a night of hunting they weave silk at the den entrance. The silk has at least two purposes: It keeps the burrow dry by holding humidity and it carries vibrations down to the spider allowing it to know what’s occurring above the ground.

Tarantulas defend themselves from foxes, coyotes, raccoons and skunks by rubbing their legs against the abdomen to loosen their barbed hairs, which are designed to severely irritate the eyes or nasal cavities of predators.

White-nosed coatis, a much larger relative of the mink and closely related to raccoons, are known to grab tarantulas, roll them vigorously on the ground, dislodge their barbed hairs and then feast upon them.

In a sparse clump of grass about a miles away from the tarantula den I spotted a hole in the ground about an inch and a quarter wide, sitting nearby I waited for its occupant to surface. Soon a fierce little predator – a grasshopper mouse appeared. These diminutive yet tough critters hunt lizards, grasshoppers, beetles, scorpions and even other mice.

Grasshopper mice cooperate by raising their young and teaching them to hunt. Young mice learn how to bite the stingers off scorpions before eating them; and how to disable stink beetles – inch-long bugs that defend themselves by performing a headstand and spraying a fetid smell from their posterior.

One of the more eerie desert sounds at night is the high-pitched howl of grasshopper mice. If cornered by a predator this miniature beast will drop a runny, very smell bowel movement in a last ditch attempt to escape – an uncommon trait for a mouse.

One of the most fascinating and easily my favorite animals of the Sonoran Desert are the Couch’s Spadefoot toads. They are the largest native toads in the U.S. measuring a whopping 7 inches in length.

These incredible animals sleep for almost one year in the earth. The vibrations of the first summer thunderstorm awaken them and they burrow their way to the surface where then congregate in temporary rain pools and puddles in desert washes, irrigation canals or ponds.

Because water is so scarce in the desert they breed immediately and females lay eggs within 24 hours. Tadpoles must race to become toadlets before the ephemeral pools dry-up – from egg to toadlet in less than 14 days.

Adult Spadefoot’s are insectivores with termites being their preferred prey. An adult requires just two meals on termites, then with their hard keratinous spade-like pad on their hind legs they bury themselves in the ground. This exceptional desert dweller can live for over 10 years.

Burrowing owls are the only owl or raptor (bird of prey) to den and nest in underground digs. Excellent eyesight helps them spot predators. They prey on rodents, beetles, moths, scorpions, grasshoppers, prairie dog pups, toads, young snakes and other reptiles.

Snakes, badgers and coyotes preyed upon burrowing owls. Mature burrowing owls have developed an intriguing defense mechanism – they imitate the sound of a rattlesnake, which often frightens predators away.

Arizona’s Gila monster is one of the most unusual reptiles in the world and one of only two venomous lizards (the other is the Mexican beaded lizard) known on the globe.

Gila monsters spend 90 percent of their lives in natural crevices under boulders or rocks. 

This beauty of a beast can eat 35 percent of its body weight in one meal and store excess as fat in its tail. You can’t miss its bright black and pink coloring and beaded skin.

These shy animals release their venom by biting down on the victim with needle-sharp teeth hidden by the gums when not in use.

Gila monster venom may very well become the next blockbuster drug; currently it’s being studied by pharmaceuticals for treatment of high blood pressure that afflicts over 73 million Americans.

 Save the Honeybees http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6w-Z7XlnHI

Dr Reese Halter is a public speaker, conservation biologist and founder of the international conservation institute Global Forest Science. His most recent book is The Incomparable Honeybee and the Economics of Pollination http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Incomparable+HoneyBee+reese+halter&x=0&y=0  Contact him through http://DrReese.com

 

 

The indigenous Douglas and pine tree squirrels are incredible and an integral part of the web of life within coastal and interior forests of British Columbia.

Douglas squirrels are only found on the south-coast whereas pine squirrels live throughout the rest of the province. They are easily recognizable compared to the introduced eastern gray squirrels or black fox squirrels. Native British Columbia squirrels have deep reddish or chestnut coloration with white-eye rings. They are considerably smaller in size than the introduced squirrels and so the indigenous squirrels have lost some of their habitat.

Tree squirrels, as their name implies, spend a good deal of time in forest treetops. They have powerful limbs, elongated digits and sharp recurved claws. They also have flexible ankles with hind-feet that are able to rotate 180 degrees enabling them to scamper down trees head first. Ever growing front teeth, molars and powerful jaws are critical assets since their main food source is the seeds inside conifer cones.

The most distinguishing feature of a tree squirrel is its tail, which accounts for about 40 per cent of body length. Not only does the tail aid in balance when performing spectacular acrobatics, but it also assists in regulating heat loss or gain (thermoregulation). Bundles of blood vessels at the base of the tail help retain heat in the body core or dissipate it more readily.  In addition, the tail is used for communicating; its orientation and movement convey information to other squirrels and predators. It also acts as the perfect parasol protecting against sun or rain.

Male and female tree squirrels are indistinguishable from a distance. They are the same size and their thick fur is light colored on the underside and relatively dark on the upper side. The dark color provides excellent camouflage from predators above while their pale underside enables them to blend against the light colored sky.

Tree squirrels are daytime (or diurnal) creatures with magnificent eyes that are able to differentiate certain colors like reds and greens. Their black whiskers are important tactile sensory organs and their superior intelligence is ascribed to their relatively large brain.

They rely heavily, but not exclusively, on tree seed as food.  In certain years, conifers produce an abundance of cones, tree scientists call this a mast crop. Unfortunately for tree squirrels, mast crops do not occur every year, hence it’s either feast or famine and population numbers fluctuate wildly according to availability of food. This presents an energy problem for an active critter whose heart beats between 150 and 450 beats per minute and does not hibernate during the winter.

So how do tree squirrels survive winter? They are prodigious workers and hoarders of food. They harvest whole conifer cones and store them in caches (called middens) that are underground, in hollow stumps or hollowed fallen logs. They must keep the cones moist to prevent them from drying out and shedding seeds. The squirrels have even been known to store cones in streams or springs where seed remains fresh for a year or more.

After awakening from hibernation both black and grizzly bears can often be seen raiding middens in search of any remaining protein-rich tree seeds.

Not all the seeds in caches are eaten. Some germinate and eventually become mature trees.

During the spring and summer, tree squirrels will eat a variety of foods from truffles to tree bark, tree buds, sap, insects, eggs and even mice.  Goshawks, owls, martens, fishers and bobcats prey on tree squirrels.

Perhaps most significant, the presence of native tree squirrels is a barometer of a forested ecosystem’s health, especially after a disturbance such as fire, insects or logging.

Save the Honeybees http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6w-Z7XlnHI

Dr Reese Halter is a public speaker, conservation biologist and founder of the international conservation institute Global Forest Science. His most recent book is The Incomparable Honeybee and the Economics of Pollination http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Incomparable+HoneyBee+reese+halter&x=0&y=0 Contact him through http://DrReese.com

 

 

 

Color in the Pacific Northwest forests plays an important role in determining partnerships between plants, animals and insects. As it turns out, plants are masters at manipulating animals and insects, and they do this with their colors.

The predominant color in the forest is green from the pigment chlorophyll, which literally means green leaf. It’s such a dominant color that it masks the beautiful autumn colors of orange and yellow. They belong to a group of pigments called caratenoids, which are loaded with vitamin A. A carrot is an excellent example of this.

In the autumn when deciduous trees begin to draw back some of the nutrients stored in their leaves, chlorophyll breaks down and what is left behind are the golds of birch and oranges of poplar leaves.

The other spectacular fall color are those of the reds, coming from the third group of pigments called anthocyanins. Cool bright weather conditions cause awesome shades of red, most notably on eastern maples. In southern British Columbia and northern Washington where the autumn tends to be a little milder and cloudier, the foliage is a much duller red. However, the drier the autumn the more resplendent the red will be.

It’s the combination of reds, yellows and oranges that also make up the colors of the flowers in Pacific Northwest plants.

Flowers are beautifully colored to attract mainly insects as pollinators, as well as hummingbirds.

The flowers of Douglas-fir, alder and oak, for instance, are small and not colorful, and they rely upon wind rather than insects as their pollinators.

The colors of berries that are red or black attract some birds to act as seed dispersers. The red berries of the arbutus tree and the black berries of salmonberry are a crucial food source for migrating birds that disperse the seeds, far and wide.

Bright colors draw attention to potential seed dispersers, allow the fruit to be noticed against the green leaves and indicate ripeness of fruit.

Hummingbirds are strongly attracted to red. Bees prefer blue and yellow flowers, They can differentiate shades of white because they can detect UV radiation, which humans cannot (except when we get a sunburn).

Butterflies are attracted to bright blossoms where moths and wasps prefer duller colors. Bats, flies and beetles are not known to have preferential flower colors, rather they rely on other signals like scent to guide them to their hosts.

Color is of paramount importance for pollinating and seed dispersal. And Pacific Northwest plants are able to influence the behavior and movement of animals on which they depend. The exquisite interplay between plants and animals is crucial in the overall health and vitality of our complex forested ecosystems.

Save the HoneyBees http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6w-Z7XlnHI

Dr Reese Halter is a public speaker, conservation biologist and founder of the international conservation institute Global Forest Science. His most recent book is The Incomparable Honeybee and the Economics of Pollination http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Incomparable+HoneyBee+reese+halter&x=0&y=0 Contact him through http://DrReese.com

 

 

 

 

Nature has a warehouse of proven principles and a Research & Development laboratory with four billion years of product development. Many corporations draw their ideas, information and inspiration from ecosystems like prairies, coral reefs and ancient forests.

When we follow nature’s blueprint economic, social and environmental abundance occurs.

We know that in living systems the behaviour of the parts operate to benefit the entire system. In forests, for instance, specialists, species with unique – as opposed to general – requirements, find it to their advantage to cooperate with one another. As it turns out, these specialists use fewer resources and in some cases extend their longevity.

A number of businesses around the globe are mimicking natural systems, reducing waste, creating new products and employing millions of workers.

In the early 1950s Bill Coors the grandson of the founder of Adolph Coors Company discovered that “all pollution and all waste are lost profit.”

He observed that industrial companies were taking raw materials and fuels from nature, cycling products through the economy and then generating tons of garbage. In turn, the garbage was polluting the ground water. An “open loop” system exploits nature’s resources and deposits waste at both ends.

A “closed loop” economy, on the other hand, is one where the full array of costs is accounted for within a system and the only way to do business. Companies and consumers are rewarded for reducing waste. And the environment is safeguarded.

In 1952, in order to control liquid waste from the brewery, Coors built Colorado’s first biological waste-water treatment plant, which also treats the entire waste-waters of Golden, Colo.

Bill Coors initiated a penny for every Coors aluminum can returned for recycling and he opened the nation’s first aluminum recycling centers offering “cash for cans.”

CoorsTek, a subsidiary of Coors, manufactures advanced technical ceramics using nature’s model for smart design, by embedding hardness, strength, insulation and durability into its products.

Another subsidiary Graphic Packaging uses clever technology to reduce ink by as much as 90 per cent and solvent by 100 per cent while producing bolder graphics.

By following nature’s blueprint many corporations believe the most valuable forms of capital in the learning organizations are knowledge, gained through feedback and learning, and changes in design – adaptations.

Toyota Corporations has effectively used it labour force for ideas. In 1982, for example, its workforce made over two million suggestions, that’s more than two every month per employee, and 95 per cent of them were implemented.

Technology enables humankind to do more with less. From 1973 to 1990 society learned how to create more real value per unit of energy consumed. By 1990 about a third of the energy and material services were delivered from innovation and efficiency.

The chipmaker Intel has advanced its microchip design through innovation as each successive generation of chips holds more information. In effect, Intel has been very successful by emulating nature’s blueprint. For billions of years nature has replaced consumption by design. 

Dow Chemical also utilizes nature’s model and in 1982 it began encouraging employees to find ways to reduce pollution. By 1992, 700 projects were underway reducing waste around the globe and saving the company millions of dollars. 

DuPont another chemical titan has been reducing its CO2 emissions worldwide striving for a zero-emission target by 2020.

Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (MMM) a company that specializes in coatings and adhesives has been following nature’s path for decades, solving their own environmental problems and implementing Pollution Prevention Pays.

By 2000, 4,650 employees had prevented about 1.6 billion pounds of pollution and saving the company over $825 million. Moreover, MMM has reduced water losses by 82 per cent, volatile organic compounds in emissions by 88 per cent, solid wastes by 24 per cent and rates of waste generation by 35 per cent.

Visa International conducts about $1.75 trillion in transactions annually and their founder Dee Hock followed nature’s blueprint right from the company’s inception. Visa is analogous to a biological organism in a changing environment whereby uncontrolled actions of its members, who self-regulate their activities to serve both themselves and the whole organization.

Business like nature is a living system – creative, productive and resilient. All waste is lost profit, all value is created by design and adaptation – the ability to learn – is crucial for survival.

SAVE THE HONEY BEES http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6w-Z7XlnHI

Dr Reese Halter is a public speaker, conservation biologist and the founder of the international conservation institute Global Forest Science. His most recent book is The Incomparable Honey Bee http://www.amazon.com/Incomparable-Honeybee-Economics-Pollination-Manifestos/dp/1897522606/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253317679&sr=1-1 He can be contacted through http://DrReese.com

 

The first milk or colostrum produced by a mammal for its offspring is crucial for its survival. Moreover, cow or bovine colostrum offers a potent remedy to millions afflicted with diseases and cancers.

Mammals evolved to breastfeed their young. Breastfeeding for humans is natural and critical to ensure essential nutrients, antibodies and immune system enhancers necessary for a healthy life.

Children who are breastfed have higher IQs and less neurological dysfunctions compared to children who are not breast-fed. 

Infants who are breastfed are one-fifth to one-third less likely to die of sudden infant death syndrome.

And the more breast milk an infant receives during the first six months of their life, the less likely they will suffer from the two most common and troublesome childhood disorders: diarrhea and/or ear infections.

Mother’s who breastfeed have significantly lower rates of developing breast-, ovarian-, and endometrial-cancers and osteoporosis.

During the first 24 to 36 hours of a child’s life colostrum triggers at least 50 developmental processes including strengthening immune factors, which are substances that help the body fight-off the invasion of bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa and other disease causing organisms’.

Colostrum also stimulates growth factors, which are compounds that promote healing by building, maintaining and repairing bone, muscle, nerves and cartilage. It also stimulates fat metabolism, regulates protein metabolism during fasting, maintains balanced blood sugar levels, controls brain chemicals responsible for moods and promotes healing. Growth factors are also important in the anti-aging process including reducing wrinkles and keeping skin younger-looking.

Colostrum, a thick, yellow substance is produced at the end of the female’s pregnancy and is passed by her mammary glands during the first 24 to 48 hours after giving birth. Humans produce small amounts of colostrum; a cow, on the other hand, produces about 34 litres during the first 36 hours after birthing.

Humans can safely consume bovine colostrum. The molecular structure of both the immune and growth factors in bovine colostrum is very similar to human colostrum.

In fact, for thousands of years Ayurvedic physicians in India have prescribed bovine colostrum for both physical and spiritual healing.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta about 50 per cent of the antibiotics prescribed in the U.S. for outpatients are unnecessary. As a result there are a growing number of drug-resistant bacteria that pharmaceutical drugs cannot treat.

Adults, children and infants can all benefit from bovine colostrum. It significantly enhances the human immune system therefore reducing the need for incorrectly prescribed antibiotics.

Colostrum contains powerful anti-oxidants that protect the human body from damage against free radicals. Free radicals are highly charged and unbalanced molecules that pair-up with other harmful molecules, damage DNA, create more free radicals and promote cancers, aging, heart disease and more than 60 other medical conditions.

Colostrum stimulates antibodies produced by the body in the intestinal tract at a site called Peyer’s patches and these prevent diseases on the mucosal membranes and in the circulatory system. In addition, colostrum promotes antibodies in the lungs.

Colostrum offers hope and relief for people suffering from autoimmune diseases like: alopecia areata, chronic fatigue syndrome, Crohn’s disease, diabetes, fibromyalgia, hives, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, polymyalgia, rheumatica, Raynaud’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma, Sjogren’s syndrome, ulcerative colitis and vasculitis.

Bovine colostrum has 10 to 20 times more immunoglobulin or antibodies compared to human colostrum. Human infants receive about half of their immunity from their mother through the placenta. Calves receive all of their initial immunity from colostrum, which explains why bovine colostrum is rich with immune factors.

Colostrum is also very high in lactoferrin an antiviral, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory protein, which defends the human body against candidiasis or yeast infections, cancers, herpes and other infections.

Colostrum contains cytokines which are chemicals involved in celluar communication, antiviral and anti-tumor activity. Cytokines are made up of substances called interleukins, which are extremely effective as an anti-inflammatory used to treat arthritis, other inflammatory disorders and some forms of cancers.

Colostrum also helps HIV/AIDS and cancer patients combat chronic diarrhea by healing their intestinal mucosa.

High-grade colostrum from free-range, non-pesticide, organic USDA (www.harvesthomeorganics.com) or New Zealand certified sources contains very small amounts of lactose, enabling lactose intolerant people the option of using this treatment.

Colostrum and wild oregano from Greece are two excellent examples of potent medicines used thousands of years ago. How many other ancient medicines are there awaiting rediscovery?

 Save the Honeybees http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6w-Z7XlnHI

Dr Reese Halter is a public speaker, conservation biologist and founder of the international conservation institute Global Forest Science.  His most recent book is The Incomparable Honey Bee and the Economics of Pollination http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Incomparable+HoneyBee+reese+halter&x=0&y=0  He can be reached through http://DrReese.com

 

 

Story ran in the Santa Monica Daily Press  – Feb 24, 2009  http://www.smdp.com/Letters-2914.113116_Blue_whales_rule_the_coast.html As February comes to a close, so too does another extraordinary migratory season of the largest animal ever to have lived on Earth — the majestic blue whale. It graces California, as close as half a mile from the mainland coast, during its spring migration to the most productive ecosystem on our planet — the polar seas. People have much in common with whales: We both like to eat, mate, touch, talk, sing, sleep, travel and listen. Prior to commercial whaling, the number of blue whales was estimated at 200,000. Today only about 10,000 of these awesome creatures remain. The enormity of a blue whale is breathtaking. They are about five times larger than the largest dinosaur. The only other organism comparable in size are the few remaining champion trees. About 17 blue whales would fit, end to end, inside the largest known tree in the world, a giant California mountain sequoia, General Sherman. Blue whales are 98 feet long with a mass of about 146 tons. Their hearts weigh 992 pounds (the size of a Volkswagen Beetle) and pump 14,109 pounds of blood. Their horizontal tail has the power of a 500 horsepower outboard motor. They can travel at 31 miles per hour for two hours at a time and 43 miles per hour for 10-minute intervals. When a blue whale takes a breath it is equivalent to eight for a human. As they surface, they fill 80 to 90 per cent of their lungs with air. Humans fill only about 20 per cent. At rest, their heart rate is nine beats per minute. They can remain submerged for up to two hours and dive to depths greater than 379 feet (equivalent to the tallest tree on Earth — a California coastal redwood, Hyperion). Although single-celled algae stick to the whale’s under-belly making them appear yellow to silver, their real skin color is dark. That’s because their bodies use oxygen very efficiently due to special muscular protein (myoglobin), which also prevent them from getting nitrogen in their blood preventing an affliction known to divers as the bends. There are two distinctly different populations of blue whales: one in the northern and one in the southern hemispheres.  They do not intermingle. They both spend the summers feasting in the polar seas where long days promote growth of billions of tons of plankton (minute plants and animals). They spend their winters mating and calving in warm equatorial waters. Blue whales don’t have teeth. Instead they have an exquisite filtration system called a baleen. Three-hundred-and-sixty plates hang from the upper jaw. One gulp contains about 5.5 tons of water.  As the mouth closes, water is expelled through the baleen plates and filled with plankton, crustaceans and small fish. On average a blue whale will eat between 1,984 and 9,039 pounds of plankton for about 120 consecutive days. Whales use sonar for radar and as a communication system. They are the loudest animal on earth at 188 decibels (louder than a 747 jet engine). We have yet, and may never come to, understand their complex language. Blue whales are the monarch of the seas; invincible yet gentle. To be in the wild and in the presence of a whale is the most humbling of experiences. They teach us a message; a message of respect for one another, and a respect for all nature. Save the Honeybees http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6w-Z7XlnHI Dr Reese Halter is a public speaker, conservation biologist and founder of the international conservation institute Global Forest Science. His most recent book is The Incomparable Honeybee and the Economics of Pollination  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Incomparable+HoneyBee+reese+halter&x=0&y=0 He can be contacted through http://DrReese.com

 

 

The architect, author, social commentator and philosopher Frank Lloyd Wright had a lifelong passion for nature.

Wright was born in 1867 in Wisconsin. He was one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century. During the coarse of his long and prolific life he designed over 1,100 buildings, those included houses, churches, schools, libraries, offices and museums. Over 400 of his plans were built and today some 20 of them are open to the public.

He was a voracious reader who enjoyed poetry, literature and philosophy. In addition to architecture he studied civil engineering. With a strong background in structure and technology he was readily able to incorporate new materials and cutting edge technology of the industrial revolution.

Wright believed that buildings should fit into their natural environment and be a product of their place, purpose and time by interpreting the principles of nature. 

Throughout his life he never wavered in his belief that people should live close to the outdoors and be one with nature. 

One of his early goals was to give interior space, particularly in homes, a new freedom. He did away with compartmentalizing houses, which he felt were detrimental to family life. 

Between 1900 and 1920 he created homes known as Prairie Style-designs. 

They were horizontal rather than vertical in outline and emulated the flat terrain of the Midwest; rarely more than two stories most often they were single-storied with wings as extensions. Most of his homes did not have basements he preferred instead a solid, defined platform. Rooflines were low and oversized extending far beyond the walls, and chimneys were squat and broad-shaped.

The heart of every Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie Style dwelling was a hearth inside the home; it was the heart of the family.

Wright’s roofs were said to mimic the branches of a tree, the wings of a bird or an overhanging rock formation. His cantilevered construction was one of his signatures and they were absolutely magnificent.

Wright never painted wood.

The harmonious relationship between form and function extended throughout the house to create unity.

Throughout his long and illustrious architecture career Frank Lloyd Wright designed some spectacular homes. One of the templates for future Prairie Styled homes is the Robie House on the corner between Fifty-ninth Street and Woodlawn, next to the University of Chicago campus, in Chicago.

The house was built between 1906 and 1909 for Fredrick Robie and his wife, Lora.

Red Roman bricks, exquisite cantilevered red roofs, wonderful art glass, custom Wright designed furniture, an open interior plan, and a three bay garage with an engine pit and a carwash were outstanding examples of the talents and ingenuity of this young inspirational architect.

The Robie House is open to the public and is a must see when next visiting Chicago www.wrightplus.org.

One of the most stunning Wright homes was built for Charles Ennis on a half-acre plot in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. Wright thought that homes should grow and merge into their environment. 

The Ennis House was made from 16-inch square tile of cast concrete just a little under 4 inches thick. There were no visible mortar lines, and seems were filled with liquid concrete giving the effect of the adobe houses of the Pueblo Peoples of Arizona and New Mexico. Some of the tiles have patterns mimicking the monumental Mayan buildings of Middle America.

The Ennis House has been used for 20 Hollywood films including House on the Hill in 1959 and Blade Runner in 1982. 

Sadly, the house has fallen into disrepair and currently is listed on the World Monument Fund list of 100 most endangered sites of the world. The house has recently been listed  for sale.

Voted by members of the American Institute of Architects to be “the best all-time work of American architecture” Fallingwater is a Wright home that merges seamlessly into its natural surroundings, harmoniously enabling people to live with nature.

Edgar Kaufman commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to create this breathtaking home. The house stands on Bear Run, a creek on the Appalachian Mountains of Fayette County, western Pennsylvania.

Wright positioned the house over the falls with almost as much outdoor space as indoor. Dramatic cantilevers blended with the natural rock ledge formations. And window walls brought the outside in and vice versa.

The music of the stream can be heard everywhere in the house and Wright said “you listen to the sound of water as you listen to the quiet of the country.”

Fallingwater is open to the public www.wrightplus.org.

Wright’s dream was to design mass-produced homes for American middleclass that were functional, aesthetically pleasing, energy efficient and affordable.

And in the 1930s that’s what he did. He called them Usonian (United States of North America): Prairie- Styled homes adapted to a smaller budget. He designed 300 of which about 130 were built including 11 Marshall Erdman Prefab Houses.

Frank Lloyd Wright adored trees and revered Mother Nature’s blueprint.

SAVE THE HONEYBEES http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6w-Z7XlnHI

Dr Reese Halter is a public speaker, conservation biologist and founder of the international conservation institute Global Forest Science. His last book is entitled The Incomparable Honey Bee  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Incomparable+HoneyBee+reese+halter&x=0&y=0  He can be contacted through www.DrReese.com

 

The mighty oak is truly a remarkable tree. Oaks have sustained humans for more than six thousand years. Oaks have often been referred to as: generous, hospitable, scholarly, surveyors and long-lived.

From Vancouver to Caracas, from Miami to Dublin, from Lisbon to Jakarta and from Seoul to Tokyo there are about 425 species of oaks. Their lineage dates back some 65 million years. They are genetically rich and an incredibly flexible genus surviving geologic upheavals and many climate changes.

Oaks can tolerate fire, the onslaught of repeated insect infestations and prolonged periods of drought. And some oaks can live well past one thousand years. Within the life of an average oak tree it will grow over three million acorns – its seeds. A mature tree will support over 500 million living root tips.

Some oaks are deciduous while others are evergreen. They rely upon wind not insects or birds to spread their pollen – an ancient characteristic more common to the conifers rather than the angiosperms.

Oaks and jays have evolved together. These birds depend upon acorns as a food source. They cache them throughout the forest. Oaks depend upon jays to disseminate their seeds. Those acorns that aren’t eaten eventually become trees.

A mature oak tree can grow 121 feet (37 meters) tall supporting a crown 121 feet (37 meters) wide and provide habitat for over five thousand different species of plants, animals, insects, fungus and bacteria. Including 40 species of wasps – cynipines – that create ping-pong ball-sized growths or galls on oak branches. These wasps have been associated with oaks for the past 30 million years.

Six thousand years ago foresters discovered that when an oak is felled its root system responds by shooting up four or sometimes six new trees from the base of the cut stump. This form of natural regeneration is called coppice. Every five to 25 years it yields a new crop of trees.

The founding forestry textbook “Sylva” was written by John Evelyn in 1664 and it focused on oak trees. Essentially, foresters were trained to be in tune with the health and shape of trees just as a physician is to that of the human body.

For thousands of years people and cultures have depended upon oaks and its acorns as their staple food source. In Tunisia oak means meal-bearing tree. From Iraq to Korea to the Native Americans of California they all collected acorns, soaked them, mashed them and made cakes or soups. One mature white oak tree can throw between 302 to 500 pounds (137 to 227 kilograms) of acorns per year. Records from the early twentieth century show that Iraqis consumed more than 30 tons (27 tonnes) of this cake each year. 

Human beings learned from the woods around them. Oak forests made: roadways, frames, doors, palisades, barrels, coffins, henges, boats, tanning and ink.

Fire made human civilization possible. Charcoal – lumps of almost pure carbon – was the fuel that ended the Stone Age enabling the smelting of bronze found in iron. Charcoal is smokeless, it burns more efficiently and it burns hotter. It took, however, 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms) of oak to make 1 pound (0.45 kilograms) of charcoal; an eight to one ratio. 

The role of oak was pivotal in boat building. The Vikings and their legendary long-ships were the finest, sleekest crafts ever created. Whether sailing of rowing these boats carrying 40 tons (36 tonnes) were able to arrive on foreign shores unheralded.

Later, Western European countries built huge oak boats weighing the equivalent of a 40-roomed wooden mansion. They could carry 397 tons (360 tonnes) of cargo. Those boats required wood from at least 62 acres (25 hectares) of mature oak forests. 

The greatest work of art from the European Middle Ages was the 600 tons of oak that framed the roof of Westminster Hall. Architects, engineers and scholars marvel at Hugh Herland’s use of joints, scarfs and mortise-and-tenon joints in the post, beams and arches created for King Richard II in 1397 AD. 

Ink derived from oak galls was used by Leonardo da Vinci in his notebooks, by Bach in his scores and by van Gogh in his drawings.

Today oak is used by mankind for furniture, flooring, timber frames, basketry; and the nose of every space shuttle is coated with cork, from the bark of the cork-oak tree, because it provides unparalleled heat resistant protection for the shuttle’s re-entry to Earth’s atmosphere.

The compliment “you have a heart of an oak” is a splendid tribute to this exquisite genus of trees.

See Dr Reese on the Santa Rosa Plateau, Southern California http://www.amazon.com/santa-rosa-plateau-california/dp/B000K985YE/sr=1-1/qid=1168923341/ref=sr_1_1/002-1043420-2182462?ie=UTF8&s=dvd

Dr Reese Halter is a public speaker, conservation biologist and founder of Global Forest Science. His most recent book is The Incomparable Honeybee and the Economics of Pollination http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Incomparable+HoneyBee+reese+halter&x=0&y=0  Contact him through http://DrReese.com

Story ran in the Santa Monica Daily Post Novemebr 3, 2009 http://www.smdp.com/Articles-c-2009-11-02-64287.113116_The_heart_of_the_oak.html