global briefs
Parrot Prosthetics 3-D Printers Help
Rehabilitate Animals Pete, a 34-year-old Amazon par- rot, received a boot-like prosthesis made by a 3-D printer from a customized mold after his leg was ripped off by a fox. A day later, he was not only already starting to accept it, but also realized he could place his weight on it. “That in itself is revolutionary for a bird,” says Veterinarian LaToya Latney, service head and attending clinician of the Exotic Companion Animal Medicine and Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine’s Ryan Hospital, known as Penn Vet. “He gets it.”
In another case of an interspecies application of new medical technology, Lola, a Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, the most endangered species of marine turtle, suffered injuries so extensive that a flipper was amputated. Losing a limb can make it difficult for a turtle to avoid predators or chase after prey. At the Key West Aquarium, in Florida, Iok Wong, Samantha Varela and Vivian Liang, three recent engineering graduates from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Mas- sachusetts, used their specialized skills and 3-D printing to create an effective, low-cost prosthetic turtle flipper.
Climate Consensus
Researchers Raise Red Flags A research paper, World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice, published in the journal Bioscience about the fate of humanity, has received more than 20,000 signatures and endorsements from scientists in 184 countries.
Meanwhile, if humans
don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically and maintain carbon sinks like for- ests within 10 years, the impact on our climate will be catastrophic, according to the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Researchers there have developed a model that they believe could do the trick; it calls for fossil fuel consumption to be reduced to less than 25 percent of the global energy supply by 2100, a drastic cut from the 95 percent being used now. Deforesta- tion also must be cut significantly to lead to a 42 percent decrease in cumulative emissions.
The target is in line with the Paris agreement on climate change, which 194 countries have signed, but not the United States.
Plog On Picking Up Litter While Jogging
THINK BEFORE YOU BUY:
make the green choice.
Becomes a Winning Trend Sweden’s latest fitness craze, plogging, is a mashup of jogging and the Swedish plocka upp, meaning pick up, in this case, litter. There are plogging groups in Scan- dinavia, Germany and other parts of Europe. Ac-
cording to the Swedish fitness app Lifesum, which makes it possible for users to track plogging activity, a half-hour of jogging while picking up trash will burn 288 calories for the average person, compared with 235 via jogging alone. A brisk walk expends about 120 calories. The Washington Post reports that in the U.S., it’s just starting to catch on among exercisers fed up with rubbish along their routes. They carry trash bags and pluck litter and recyclables off sidewalks and bushes wearing gar- dening gloves for safety. The environmental organization Keep America Beautiful recently started promoting plog- ging to encourage trash-free communities, putting out the #plogging message to its 600 affiliates. Spokesman Mike Rosen reports that response has been surprisingly robust.
6 Austin Edition
AustinAwakenings.com
David Pereiras/
Shutterstock.com
Chones/
Shutterstock.com
Andrew Burgess/
Shutterstock.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32
