Bringing Back the Beasts

Not Geography Geography Lesson 22

De-Extinction and the Most Metal Candidates

Season's greetings from a disgustingly wet and un-festive looking Accrington! I wanted to do a special Christmas blog today, but it turns out that fairy lights, mince pies and reindeer aren't all that interesting. So I've had to compromise on the Christmas part, to find something to fit the interesting part - and that has led me to exploring De-Extinction. So, that is what we are going to discuss this week, and maybe I can photo-shop a Santa hats onto a Tasmanian tiger or something... 

What is De-Extinction..?

The scientists first working on de-extinction clearly didn't beat around the bush, because it is exactly what it says on tin - it is bringing back a species from extinction, using DNA to clone and then breed individual animals, with the end goal of reintroducing them into the wild. And there are a whole host of reasons why this would be a good thing, including:

• Increasing biodiversity - more plant and animal species in an area, and globally, increases the diversity and health of ecosystems.

• Regaining access to ecosystem services - these are the services which ecosystems provide for us and the environment, and they fall into four categories: 1. Provisioning (food and water), 2. Regulation (climate and disease), 3. Supporting (nutrient cycling and pollination) and 4. Cultural (spiritual and recreation) - more species = more services.

• Reinstating the landscape - the kind and number of animals in a landscape changes its form, for example through lots of grazing and fertilization of the ground, so reintroducing those animals can contribute to a more varied and productive landscape.

• Fixing our mistakes - in a lot of the species being explored as a possibility for de-extinction, humans were a large factor in their disappearance in the first place, so it may be a moral decision to bring them back (and not shoot them all again the second time round).

• Cool stuff and curiosity - the idea of bringing back extinct species is undeniably exciting, especially if the animals are cool (there is a reason Jurassic Park was such a hit).

I'm on Board, How and What Are We Bringing Back?

In the same way that Dolly the Sheep was created, de-extinction involves extracting the DNA from the bones or tissue of the dead thing (pigeon, mammoth, sabre-toothed tiger, sheep... all much of a muchness...) and then implanting that DNA into the egg of a similar living donor animal to hopefully produce a clone. And then you can breed multiple clones and release them back into the wild. Obviously that is a very simplified version of the process; if it were that easy we would all be cooking up stegosauruses in the garage. We would be falling over them! 

But anyhow, that is the theory of how it works, now onto the good stuff - what we could bring back. Most of the work already done has focused on animals which have gone extinct in relatively recent times (where recent = the last 10,000 years), because the DNA is better preserved and more workable. Hence, scientists have been working on the Tasmanian Tiger, which was hunted to extinction in the 1930's; the Great Auk, a large penguin which has not been seen alive since sailors clubbed the last remaining pair to death in 1844; and the Passenger Pigeon, the last of which died in Cincinnati Zoo in 1913 (honestly thank god, I hate pigeons). More exciting species include the Woolly Mammoth, which the lead scientist working on the project wants to re-release in Siberia, and the Sabre-Tooth tiger, which scientist hopefully re-release very far away from my house. 

Some Additions to the List

Coincidentally, I happened upon a 'Subreddit' recently, called Nature Was Metal. Much like de-extinction, it is exactly what it sounds like, and clearly is the place scientists need to be looking when they're bringing things back to life. From Nature Was Metal, I have chosen a selection of the coolest, most metal animals, that I suggest should be de-extinction-ified....

Edaphosaurus - a herbivorous mammal with a very impressive dorsal tail; presumably went into extinction due to high cross winds: 

       

Short-Nosed Bear - an absolutely ginormous predator thought to have delayed human migration into North America because it kept eating people trying to cross the Bering Straight; picking on its nose probably did not help: 

                                                      

Titanoboa - the largest snake species to have ever existed (over 42 feet in length); possible cousin of the thing that chased Ice Cube and J-Lo in Anaconda:

                                          

Arthropleura - giant millipedes up to 8 feet long; would make great additions to I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here:

                                         

Ornimegalonyx - the largest owl to have ever lived at over 3ft tall; bonus points for explaining why this truly terrible reconstruction is the only suitable depiction of this mega owl:

                                         

So that is this weeks super not festive Christmas post! I hope you enjoyed it, and check out Nature Was Metal because these were just a few of the truly horrifying things on there! And have a wonderful Christmas! 

Down On Their Luck Dinosaurs And Our Rodent Relatives

Not Geography Geography Lesson 21

Discovering Our Oldest Ancestor and The Misfortune of the Dinosaurs

Apologies that this post is so so so late - I started my full-time work placement as part of my Masters, and that combined with hen do's and birthday parties and sleeping, has meant that I have had very little free time over the last few weeks. Seriously though, how do people with full time jobs and children and houses and dogs find time to do anything..? When do they buy shampoo?! 

Anyway... I am back, and I have a new exciting topic or two for this weeks post - the discovery of our oldest ancestor to date, and the slightly related misfortune of the dinosaurs. Everyone loves dinosaurs, so let's get on with it!

Your Great Great Great Great Great Great Great.... Grandma Was A Mouse

This week, researchers working on the Jurassic Coastline of Dorset (clue's in the name really) discovered what they believe to be the oldest fossilized remains of the mammalian ancestor species, which would eventually evolve into modern humans. I imagine it looked something like that Guinness advert. The two types of creatures found were small, furry, rat-like animals with surprisingly strong teeth, and probably lived nocturnally. They have been named Durlstotherium Newmani, and Durlstodon Ensomi - bit of a mouthful but each to their own. The smaller species is assumed to have been a burrower and feasted on insects, whilst the larger animal also dined on plants - Heston Blumenthal eat your heart out. 

The teeth of the pretty unpleasant sounding shrew-esque animals, were found to be worn down suggesting that they lived a long life; impressive when you are living in the same neighbourhood as dinosaurs. Through dating the teeth, researchers estimate that the species lived 145 million years ago, which sits right between the end of the Jurassic period, and the beginning of the Cretaceous. 

So there you have it, you might think you look like a wreck in the morning, but you still look a damn sight better than your grandma 145 million times removed did!

Better Luck Next Time Dinosaurs

It was also reported in the news this week, that scientists in Japan have uncovered that the series of events which resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs was indeed unfortunate. It has been commonly understood that 66 million years ago, an enormous asteroid thudded into the Earth near Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, creating the gargantuan Chicxulub crater and throwing up to 2300m tons of soot into the atmosphere. The volume of debris was so large that as it sat in the atmosphere, it prevented the sun's radiation from reaching the Earth's surface and the temperature dropped dramatically and everything eventually died. Or nearly everything - our rodent ancestor was still sat in a hole somewhere eating worms, wondering what all the racket was. 

So yes, simple math tells us that 'Big Asteroid + Earth = Big Hole + Sun Blockage = Death'. But what has recently been understood, is that only 17% of the entire Earth had the potential to release as much soot (hydrocarbon) as was necessary to cause the 10c cooling and the resultant extinction of the dinosaurs. Or in other words, the asteroid could have struck 83% of the Earth's surface and the dinosaurs might still have been around now. But then of course we probably wouldn't have been because they would have stomped all of our furry ancestors, and even if we did make it this far, anyone who has seen Jurassic Park knows how well that would have ended for us. 

It would appear that the supreme dinosaurs had worse luck than Ralph Wiggum, whilst our revolting little rat ancestor stuck it out and lived to evolve into modern humans. There's a moral there somewhere...

I hope you enjoyed this weeks topic, and maybe even learnt something along the way! See you next week (hopefully...)! 

Bug Burritos Anyone?

Not Geography Geography Lesson 20

Are Insect And Algae The Key To Greener Meat?

We have reached 20 posts! Apologies for the slight delay with this one, I have moved back to University and have been occupied with trying to get settled and feeling like a pensioner. But we're back, and are going to explore something new and a bit weird - reducing the harmful environmental effects of commercial animal farming by feeding our livestock insects and algae. Yum! 

A Porky Problem

Everybody loves a good bacon butty, or a steak pud, or some chicken nuggets on the way home from a long night out, but our consumption of these meaty meals is causing big problems for the functioning of our planet. In the last hundred years, Western meat consumption has exploded to enormous proportions as meat has become cheaper - first as a result of excess grain supplies post WW2, and then as industrial farms have adopted more efficient methods. In 2010 residents of Western Europe scarfed down 86kg of meat each, and our American friends managed an astounding 121kg of meat each in just one year. For (dubious) context - a back of the envelope calculation tells me that 86kg of meat is around 860 small-ish pork chops, which is a small barns worth of Babe's to be munching. Overall, total world meat consumption has quadrupled in just 25 years to 297 million tonnes. We have been truly 'meatified'. 

Also worth noting is the huge discrepancy in meat consumption between 'developed' and 'developing' regions; and if you have ever watched Man Vs. Food (highly recommend btw) you can guess which side is scoffing all the burgers. Cumulatively, all the people living in South and South East Asia, and Africa - which accounts for nearly half of Earth's population - consume only 16% of all the meat eaten in the world! There is a clear link here between affluence and meat eating, and it has been seen in dozens of studies how as countries and their populations grow richer (ie. China, Japan and Brazil), they start shunning the veg and reaching for the KFC. 

So Why Should I Put Down My Quarter-Pounder?

In recent years there has been a load of attention paid to the environmental implications of farming the millions of cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens required to meet the demand of our protein packed diets (Cowspiracy anyone?). As controversial as the anti-meat/Vegan/Veggie debates have become, it is widely agreed on that the impacts of large scale commercial livestock farming are disastrous for our environment and are contributing to the Greenhouse Gases driving climate change. 

In terms of carbon dioxide (CO2), livestock produce approx. 2 billion tons per year, which is about 9% of our total emission. This is already not ideal, but the methane produced by livestock is a greater concern, as each cow pumps out around 90kg of the stuff per year, with a negative impact 25 times greater than CO2. In broad terms, the various unpleasant gases produced by the enormous number of animals we are keeping to eat, are having equally enormous impacts on our atmosphere. All very bad stuff indeed. 

Additionally, I have never had a cow in my living room but I have been chased by one and can imagine that they require a hell of a lot of room to live. And unsurprisingly, you also need a large space dedicated to growing the grain to feed them. The implications of these two things have been evidenced in the widespread deforestation of predominantly developing countries to make way for farming, which means the loss of very precious plants and animals, as well as less vegetation to suck up all these emissions being released. Double bad stuff. 

A Potential Solution?

Now we have established how damaging all this meat eating has become, we are left with two options...

Our first option is to reduce the amount of meat we consume considerably, and this would obviously be the most effective solution because less meat = smaller farms and less animals = less Greenhouse Gases and less deforestation. If only it was that simple! Whilst there is a larger and larger following for veggie and vegan diets growing, and things like Meat Free Monday are popular, the greater proportion of people would not be chuffed if someone took all the pepperoni off their pizza and the mince from their spag bol. So whilst eating less meat is the final end goal, we clearly need more options.

The second option is to make our farming more efficient and less damaging somehow - to use less land and produce fewer emissions. Just this week it was suggested by the WWF and the UN that we could start feeding our livestock insects and algae, in order to use less land for growing their regular soy and grain diets. Personally, I think that it is a fab idea and there is already a small but growing market for insect-based livestock feeds, particularly in home-of-bacon Denmark. Farming insects and algae would require significantly less space and less inputs (water, fertiliser, energy); my cousin had pet stick insects a few years ago and they really didn't want for much, just some privet. I'm not a chemist or a zoologist so I don't know whether an insect/algae diet would reduce the methane and CO2 produced, but less deforestation would mean more carbon sequestration by the increased amount of vegetation, so less CO2 entering the atmosphere.

*Bonus third option: there is also a growing body of research suggesting we humans should also start munching down on some tasty many-legged critters, as they are high in protein we need, but are much less demanding than larger animals. One day we are mercilessly beating a cockroach with a slipper, then the next we are sauteing him in some lovely garlic butter and whacking him on some bruschetta. Who would wanna be a bug...

So there you have it - will we one day be feeding our livestock insects and algae to reduce their negative impacts on the environment? Will we one day be eating them ourselves..? Hope you enjoyed this week's topic, have a good week and go easy on the earwigs when you're making tea! 

                                           

Cooking Up A Storm

Not Geography Geography Lesson 19

How Hurricanes Are Born

I am actually writing this on time for once; I have no idea what has come over me! This week we will explore the science behind hurricanes - very topical at the moment considering half of the Caribbean and Florida has been blown away over the last week. Despite everyone and the dog thinking they're Michael Fish after looking at BBC Weather once, meteorology and atmospheric science are no joke to study; there is more maths involved than anyone would ever wish to encounter, and a lot of guesswork. With that said, let's go!

Forming A Storm 

Like a good cuppa tea, tropical storms have to brew for a while before they become fully-fledged hurricanes. There are quite a few different conditions they need in which to do this, including: 

• Hurricanes (also known as typhoons when they occur in Asia) always form around the area of the equator, because they need warm water to cause air to rise and condense into water vapour that will eventually form clouds.

• They also need to have a large air temperature range (from warm at the bottom of the air column to cold at the top) so that the rising warm air can condense quickly to make cloud, and the cold can slide in to fill the gap. 

• They can't be too close to the equator though, because hurricanes need to utilise something called the 'Coriolis Force' to generate the spinning motion we all see on satellite images - the Coriolis Force basically stems from the Earth's spinning on its axis (physics physics blah blah) and pulls the air to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and the left in the Southern. The force is too low exactly on the equator to swirl the winds so the storms form either side of it. 

Once you have the conditions that you need, it goes a little something like this - the warm water heats the air just above it, and as we all learnt in school, hot air rises above cold air (because it is lighter). As hot air rises it cools and condenses to form storm clouds, and in the process some becomes too dense and drops back down to the bottom. The cold air that was previously above the now risen air drops to fill the gap created, where it then becomes heated and creates a cycle of heating, rising, and cooling. So far, all we have is a lot of clouds but not a hurricane; we need wind to get this party going. The wind is generated by all this rising and falling, creating turbulence in the air that we call wind. Now our Coriolis Force comes in to start the wind swirling, dragging the clouds with it and starting our storm on the path to becoming a hurricane. You can see this in the handy-dandy diagram below!

Not Any Old Storm Can Be A Hurricane 

The heating-cooling-spinning-cloud thing described above is still not a hurricane, it is actually called a Tropical Depression. To fully develop the air swirling in the middle and upper portions of the cyclone must continue to create turbulence by crashing against each other, and it must be fed by more hot air from the ocean and from air pockets in the atmosphere. Once we have this, we are really cooking. 

To be a hurricane rather than just a big storm, its winds must reach 74mph, which is more than enough to blow your wheely bin over. And even then it is still a 'baby' hurricane according to the Saffir-Simpson scale which is used to assign hurricanes their categories (seen below courtesy of NASA).  

Category	Wind Speed (mph)	Damage at Landfall	Storm Surge (feet)
1	74-95	Minimal	4-5
2	96-110	Moderate	6-8
3	111-129	Extensive	9-12
4	130-156	Extreme	13-18
5	157 or higher	Catastrophic	19+

Because of the strict conditions needed to form a storm big enough to become a hurricane, they generally always form in the same place in the North Atlantic, so they then tend to hit land in the same areas - the Caribbean and the South East of the US. That is when stuff really kicks off. 

Bring The Washing In 

The other week my mum was fuming because our chiminea cover blew away; at least it wasn't our kitchen extension. Joking aside, the damage that can and has been inflicted by large hurricanes is absolutely monstrous. There are on average 3 Category 3 hurricanes per year in the Atlantic, and as seen in the past month they aren't messing around. Most recently hurricane Irma has been slamming the Caribbean and Florida, leading to 84 deaths and over $62.67 billion in damages; it is the strongest Atlantic storm to form since 2007, and the strongest to hit the US since the infamous hurricane Katrina in 2005, which killed over 1800 people. Irma's peak wind speed reached a horrifying 185mph, before gradually shrinking until it was reclassified as Category 1 just today. 

Who Comes Up With These Names?

Hurricanes started being given names by the National Hurricane Centre in 1953, and the job now falls to the the World Meteorological Organization. For the Atlantic, East North Pacific, and Central North Pacific, they have complied a list of names to be used in alphabetical order for the next six years. They will then be repeated for following six years, unless a hurricane is so severe that it become synonymous with that one storm (like Katrina) and then it is replaced with another name using the same letter. For the Atlantic, they use letters A - W (tough luck to all the Xaviers out there), where the first storm of the year will be 'A', the second 'B' and so on. 

My personal faves are Beryl (2018) because she sounds like a dinner lady, Chantal (2019) because she sounds like she would be escorted from the set of Jerry Springer, Dolly (2020) because Dolly Parton, and Omar (2020) because of Four Lions. 

Hope you enjoyed this week's post! 

Think Before You Flush!

Not Geography Geography Lesson 18

Can We Turn Our Fat Into Fuel?

When I was very little, I flushed all of the household flannels down the toilet. They blocked the drain (shocker) and my very unamused dad had to fish them out. A few years later, I also disposed of a variety of items that my tiny sticky hands could reach from the worktop, including some keys. Obviously, flushing things down the toilet and dropping them down drains is very bad for the plumbing and the sanity of your parents, but it is also kinda fun when you are small and can throw whatever you want in there and watch it be sucked down to disappear before your eyes. Magic! I have since shed my habit, but apparently I am not the only one who has indulged in some inappropriate flushing - as much to their horror, workmen for Thames Water this week found a 'monster fatberg' hiding in the sewer under London's Whitechapel. 

More Than A Few Gold Fish

I think it is fair to assume that anyone working a job which requires them to regularly examine the sewers of the capital probably has a pretty strong stomach. But I think it also fair to assume that anyone unfortunate enough to come across something described as a 'monster fatberg' will probably be reacquainted with their lunch sooner than they would have a liked. 

The 'berg is described as being 250m long, which is 10m longer than Tower Bridge, and weighs 130 tonnes, or the equivalent of 19 African elephants. It is a vile amalgamation of thousands of baby wipes, waste oil from restaurants and kitchens, and a whole host of other things that don't belong down there. There are probably more goldfish in there than in an entire Pets At Home. Because the pipe is actually quite narrow, all the gunk has spread out like the world's worst spaghetti. Anyone out there moaning about their girlfriend/wife/housemate's hair in drain needs to thank their lucky stars they don't work for Thames Water.

How Do You Tackle Such A Thing?

Apparently Thames Water already spend £1m per month (!!!) removing various disgusting things from London's sewers - fat bergs, shoes, toaster, alligators, you name it it's probably down there. For this extra special case, teams kitted out in protective suits are working with high-pressure water jets and shovels to chip away at the berg. The revolting pieces will then be sent for recycling at a facility in Stratford; I bet they will be over the moon when that delivery hoves into view. 

Well That's Disgusting - Anything Else?

Actually yes! There may be some kind of sliver-lining to this cloud, because Thames Water have joined forces with renewable energy firm Argent, to look into the possibility of turning their regular shipments of rancid congealed fat and make-up wipes into something useful for society. Hint: it is not filling really really naughty children's stockings with it for Christmas; although I know some kids who would really benefit from this... 

It is in fact, separating out the wipes and the goldfish and the other random paraphernalia, and using the remaining fat to produce bio-fuel. Considering the enormous quantities of these fatbergs that are sucked from the sewers - up to 3 per week just in London - and the growing need for alternative sources of fuel, this could be an ingenious solution! I have heard of car owners using cooking oil in their cars before, and apparently the only ill-effect is the production of a distinctly chip-flavoured smell, but as a nation we love chips anyway, and it still probably smells better than the fatbergs. The other solution is just not whizzing all this stuff down the drain in the first place, but that would be too easy of course!

Hope you enjoyed this rather revolting topic, and I will save you from the horror of seeing the fatberg, by instead using this gif which embodies the excitement 3 year old me felt when flushing all family's possessions down the toilet. 

Jaws' Grandpa

Not Geography Geography Post 17

The Oldest Vertebrate In The World: The Greenland Shark

I must confess, I have been struggling with inspo for these posts for the last few weeks, but this week I actually had two potential ideas (two!). The topic I've picked was inspired by international fishing aficionado and angling superman, Jeremy Wade of 'River Monsters' - a big personal fave, would 10/10 recommend if you want to see a whole host of ungodly water creatures that will scare you into never entering so much as a stream again. In the particular episode I saw yesterday, Jeremy was looking for the Loch Ness Monster (PSO: all the sightings are just wood, all of 'em), but somehow then ended up fishing for something much more exciting that actually exists - the Greenland shark. It is this monstrosity that will be discussed this week! 

I Have Never Heard of a Greenland Shark?

Unless you have a habit of diving several thousand feet down into the dark and frigid waters of the arctic, or are a viking, then I can't blame you for not knowing the Greenland shark. And maybe after this post, you won't really want to get to know one. 

Greenland sharks have been knocking around in the waters of the Arctic, North Atlantic and North Sea for centuries and inspired some of the Viking sea monster legends, albeit with a bit of Norse Photoshop. During this time, they were avidly fished for and turned into a traditional Icelandic delicacy (?!) called Skalugsuak, which involved drying the bits of shark out for months into a fish jerky kinda thing, because the meat contains unusually high amount of urea/ammonia which make it toxic when fresh. Sounds like something Heston Blumenthal would love. And apparently other people - presumably possessed by the devil - also loved it to the point of almost wiping the species out via overfishing prior to WWII. 

Despite its dubious popularity in the Northern reaches of the world, most people and the scientific community were largely unaware of the Greenland shark until relatively recently. 

What Is So Special About It?

Other than being outstandingly unappetising, the Greenland shark has turned out to be one of the most fascinating fish in the sea. They inhabit waters more Northerly and cold than any other shark, have been found at incredible depths (+8000ft), and because of those two things are mostly blind. They are also second in size only to the great white, so can grow up to 16ft long. They eat mainly fish (no prizes for guessing that), but have also been found with bits of polar bear, deer and reindeer in their stomachs. 

Then there is the small matter of them being the longest living vertebrate ever discovered by science; which is why we are really here. Alongside their impressive size, researchers also noted how slowly the sharks grow - 1cm a year or even less, which makes my complaining about how I haven't grown since I was 13 seem frankly petty. Logic then indicates that for them to grow to the sizes they are being found at would require them to be up to 500 years old! To test the theory, samples of individuals eye lenses were carbon dated, as they do not renew from birth, and confirmed that the average Greenland shark has a lifespan of 392 ± 120 years, and they do not even reach mating maturity until they are 150 (a very similar age to which some men reach mental maturity...)!  

For context then, the oldest shark caught by researchers was estimated to have been born around 1501. That means she was knocking around when Henry VIII was still lopping his wifes' heads off, was over 100 years old when colonists first settled in North America, and was a pup when Da Vinci was still alive inspiring Dan Brown novels. 

Cold = Old?

Currently, scientists are not entirely sure why the Greenland shark lives to the ages that it does, although they have noted that it does everything incredibly slowly, potentially to save energy. I was going to make a joke about the Queen living so long here, but I think that might be treason? 

There may also be a link to their habitat which explains their amazing longevity, because other arctic species also hold records in that department. The Bowhead whale was the previous holder of the oldest vertebrate record at 211 years, and the oldest invertebrate was Ming the Quahog Clam. 

*Side note: Ming the Quahog Clam's story is ironic in that it literally could be something from Family Guy (set in Quahog), because whilst being the oldest living invertebrate ever found at 507 years old, to ascertain it's age scientists actually opened it, which then killed the clam... 

And so, even though the Greenland shark is pretty monstrous, and you probably wouldn't want to meet one alive or dead by the sounds of it, they could offer valuable insights into the study of longevity with habitat and biology. Also v interesting if nothing else!

Hope you enjoyed this week's post, I actually enjoyed writing it too! Have a great week and don't go opening any clams of indiscriminate age just in case! 

A Whole New Level of Nightmare Neighbours

Not Geography Geography Lesson 16

A Deadly Collision of Habitats 

Like any self-respecting English person, I have a lot of love for our man David Attenborough and enjoy a bit of nature, which is why this week's topic caught my attention as I was perusing for inspo. It has been reported that the Indian government have recently released some interesting stats which reveal a *slightly* alarming increase in fatalities across the country as their more dangerous wildlife has begun to encroach on urban areas.  

Maybe England Isn't That Bad...

Whilst as English people we have a lot of things to moan about (and we like it that way!), the prospect of having a tiger spring out of your privet and rip your leg off is not one of those things. In the beautiful wilds of the North West, your worst worry is probably a squirrel giving you nasty nip and I have heard geese can be a bit of a handful... 

Alas, the folks living on the outskirts of ever-expanding urban areas in India are definitely not as lucky. Whilst sharing their environment with larger and dangerous wildlife including tigers, elephants and leopards is nothing new for them, India's growing population is leading to the expansion of people's settlements into previously natural habitats, and the success of wildlife conservation methods have combined to make some very hairy encounters. Hence, there are now more people and more tigers/elephants/leopards (who are also increasingly angry that someone has bulldozed their habitat) in smaller spaces. You don't need to be Rachel Riley to know that's bad maths. 

Nightmare Neighbours Eat Your Heart Out

India is home to 30'000 elephants, around 13'000 leopards, and over 2000 bengal tigers, who are all jockeying for space with the 1.3 billion people also living there. To worsen matters even more, tiger conservation efforts have been employed since 1972, making it illegal to hunt them and hence increasing their numbers whilst also reducing the amount of habitat for them to live in. 

In stats released this week, records show on average one fatality from animal encounter per day for the last three years, totalling 1144 over 1143 days. Somewhat surprisingly 1052 of those attacks were attributed to elephants and 92 to tigers; one to consider when playing Most Deadly Top Trumps: India Edition. It is noted that most of the elephant attacks occur on 'elephant corridors' used by the animals for centuries to navigate the countryside, whilst tiger attacks occur predominantly when lone persons accidentally cross paths with them during their hunting. 

The Bigger Picture 

Whilst increasing numbers of wildlife fatalities and attacks are alarming enough in themselves, they are unexpected symptoms of global-scale problems caused by human population increase and the destruction of natural habitats. Comparatively, the UK housing crisis looks much more favourable than an elephant rampaging through your garden or finding a leopard in your bins! Clearly there is an awkward balance to be achieved in India, as elsewhere in the world, between preserving nature and providing for an expanding population, and it would be a huge loss to undo conservation efforts because of these encounters. After all, I think anyone would want to stamp on some strangers who just set up camp on your patio without asking!

Hope you enjoyed this week's post! 

Ice Ice Baby

Not Geography Geography Lesson 15

The Mother Of All Ice Cubes

As I was walking home from the supermarket today with a backpack full of shopping, sweating a fair bit, I would have been very grateful for one of those 'ice snakes' that they are using at Wimbledon. And on that note, today's post is gonna be about ice; more precisely the giant iceberg that has recently broken away from Antarctica (cue Celine Dion). 

The Miracle of [Baby Iceberg] Birth 

Glacial landscapes are some of the most dynamic in the world, as they are constantly growing at their source end, moving across the land, and eventually melting (ablation) or meeting the sea. When the two meet, the ice can extend out on top of the water for many many miles to form an ice sheet. Icebergs are born when physical factors like melting and gravity cause the end chunk (known as the ice-front) of an ice shelf to break off and float away looking for big ships to sink. This process, the breaking off/floating away part not the big ships part, is called 'calving' - an unnecessarily cute name for what is quite a terrifying phenomenon. 

Whilst calving is a natural thing, it has become more studied in recent decades because of its potential links to climate change and global warming. As the adverts with sad polar bears suggest, more and larger icebergs are calving as a result of increased ice melting at earth's poles. And their melting into the oceans is contributing to sea level rise that threatens many major world cities on the coasts. Hence, when scientists noticed several fractures across the four sections which make up the Larsen Ice Shelf on the Eastern edge of Antarctica, they presented a cause for concern. 

Gonna Need a Bigger Glass 

From its discovery in 1890, the Larsen Ice Shelf remained stable for 100 years and it was assumed that it would remain so until sections A and B began rapid disintegrations in 1995 and 2002. Hence, scientists began closely monitoring section Larsen C, which is the fourth largest ice shelf on the continent, under an operation called Project MIDAS. They watched the shelf using satellites and field work, and in 2014 found a fracture around 70 miles long and rapidly growing. 

It was this fracture which this year led to 12% of Larsen C breaking off, forming a monster iceberg. 

This behemoth is the equivalent size of half of Wales (with less sheep), or two Luxembergs, and has a depth of two Statue of Liberty's. It weighs a staggering 1 million tonnes. There is not enough gin or tonic water in the world for this guy. 

So is This a Sign of Things to Come?

Before everyone rushes out to panic buy waders, Dr. Andrew Luckman who heads the MIDAS project has said that the Larsen C calving incident is not likely to be caused by global warming, as the shelf has actually been thickening in recent decades, and fractures have been naturally occurring for thousands of years. The sandbags can also be piled back into the shed, because he also assured that as the berg is already in the water, there will be minimal sea level rise - only 1cm, not even enough to fill a paddling pool!

Whilst this particular story doesn't have a Titanic-esque ending, there is still general consensus that increasing global temperatures are shrinking the earth's glacial bodies. Unfortunately, the earth interacts with the sun's radiation in such complicated and complex ways that even the combined brain power of all the characters played by Benedict Cumberbatch wouldn't be able to figure it out (Looking at you Doctor Strange). 

That's all for this post, hope you have a coooooool week! 

P.S - Marvel at how informative and helpful this Gif is!

This Is Not Just Any Volcano...

Not Geography Geography Lesson 14

Now This is Proper Geog!

Apologies for this week's blog being late once again, but my idea pool has been gradually drying up and I have just been enjoying languishing in my endless free time now that my exams are over. But, some rather over-exaggerated new stories drew my attention to this week's topic - super volcanoes, particularly Campi Flegrei in Italy, and volcano monitoring and prediction. 

Now That Is Some Proper Geography 

Volcanoes are probably one of the first things that people think of when they think of geography, and are honestly one of the most interesting topics in the subject; I actually wanted to be a volcanologist when I was growing up and came to University, only to realise how much maths is involved and I scuttled out of there like a rat up a drain pipe. 

Volcanoes are basically just channels or conduits where highly pressurized molten rock has found a weakness in the earth's layers and when the pressure has built enough, they blow all of that stuff up and out. 

Volcanoes are classified in a few of different ways:

*Quick side note : 'magma' is the molten rock, gas and liquid inside the volcano before eruption, it becomes 'lava' once it has escaped and is on the surface!

• Lava/Magma Type - depending on the type of plate boundary the volcano is formed on, there are four main types of lava/magma which range from super runny or Basaltic type, to super thick and viscous or Rhyolitic type.

• Volcano Shape - the kind of magma involved in the formation of the volcano determines whether the it will be either a classic steep-sided cone shape, or an almost flat shield shape, or somewhere in the middle ground. 

• Eruption Style or Length - depending again on the magma type, some volcanoes erupt very violently and even blow themselves apart (known as Plinian Eruptions), or some just flow very gently and nicely along the ground (such as Hawaiian Eruptions). 

What Makes This Volcano So Super Then?

Most people probably think of Yellowstone National Park when they hear 'super volcano' and they're not wrong. As a super volcano Yellowstone is an enormous series of connected magma chambers around 7km underneath the surface, which form what is called a Caldera - a large pool of magma under the surface formed where previous eruptions have blown all the rock out and then the magma has filled it. 

These kinds of volcanoes are 'super' purely because of their size, and hence their capacity for absolute destruction when they blow. We have yet to witness in modern history the impacts of a super volcano eruption, but it is estimated that when Yellowstone does erupt 1 in 7 of the global population will die as the gas and ash released will be so enormous that it will block the sun and we will all starve. Happy thoughts. 

But move over Yellowstone, because there is a new super volcano in town - Campi Flegrie, which sits under Naples in Italy. When I say 'new', it hasn't just formed recently or anything, but has only just made the news (and I say 'news' loosely because that includes the Daily Star and the Sun) because some things are starting to kick-off a bit over there. In fact scientists working there have said they fear the volcano is getting close to reaching "Critical Degassing Pressure", which is the point at which the pressure is so high, that all the liquids mixed in the magma start to return to gaseous state and form bubbles known as vesicules, which will force all the magma and everything out into an eruption. Just like when you drop your Fanta and open it too soon. 

So Is The Home Of Pizza And Pigeons About To Be Blown Off The Face Of The Earth?

Naples is one of most densely populated places on the planet, and approximately 500'000 people are living atop this fiery time bomb. Hence it could all go very badly wrong if this thing does decide to blow anytime soon; and rather helpfully scientists said in their assessment "There will be another super volcano eruption..." without actually saying when, which would be useful. 

Whilst the Sun makes it sound like any old Herbert could pop across to Italy, see the ground inflating and declare an imminent eruption, alas volcano monitoring is not that simple. The methods are predominantly looking at seismic signals which allude to rock cracking and magma rising beneath the surface, checking for miniscule changes in the height and width of the ground, and monitoring increases in gases and heat being given off. There are several 'lab volcanoes' around the world that are constantly monitored for these changes, and they have roughly taught volcanologists the signs of eruptions nearing.

 Unfortunately, it is by no means a predictable process with lots of false alarms and lots of random eruptions with no signs beforehand - volcanoes are sneaky and sometimes they will creep up out of nowhere, and sometimes they get bored halfway and go back to sleep. Just last year everyone started panicking because Yellowstone was unusually active (hint: it is always active), and all the animals started moving out, which is normally a very bad sign. All those Doomsday Prepper lunatics were rubbing their hands until it just stopped suddenly, and then they had to go back to stacking their 5000 toilet rolls in their basement. 

So Naples Is Safe For Now?

*Shrug* Most likely yes, but unless you're the real-life That's So Raven, no one can predict the future.We know that pressure builds over time, and more pressure means increased likelihood of eruption, but that relationship is not linear and so you cannot predict anything from it, other than the longer between the eruption the more likely they become generally. Campi Flegrei erupted on a small scale in the 1500's so is unlikely to go again any time soon. His American cousin erupted 640'000 years ago, but the pattern seems to indicate an eruption every 1 million-ish years, so we have a good 350'000 years to wait potentially. 

Whilst I would be more than happy for thousands of Italian pigeons to be instantly incinerated, it seems highly unlikely at the mo'; despite what the Sun says. Hopefully you enjoyed this week's proper geog topic, because stuff blowing up is always exciting. See you next week!

P.S - Please also appreciate how straight-forward and epic sign language is, as evidence in the Gif below:

Dead Dinosaurs and Underwater Abysses

Not Geography Geography Lesson 13

Dead Dinosaurs and Underwater Abysses 

Apologies that it has been many, many weeks since I have posted but I had to revise for exams for my actual degree so that I can afford to buy several dogs when I'm a real adult. But now I'm back, with a blog - inspired by Chris Packham of all people - about the Chicxulub meteor impact and the formation of the Yucatan's 'Ring of Cenotes'. 

Chicxulub Is A Weird Word

Chicxulub is actually Maya for 'tail of the devil', taken from the native language of the Yucatan where the meteor struck approximately 65 million years ago,  marking the end of the Cretaceous period of history. It is estimated to be the biggest meteor to ever have impacted our planet, measuring a rather mind-boggling 100km in diameter, and creating a crater nearly double that size. The impact was the equivalent of 100 megatons of TNT and not surprisingly then, it also marked the end of the dinosaurs. The ones which were not directly killed by the impact, the enormous tsunami it generated, or the fact that everything within hundreds of miles was on fire, were killed by the change in climate caused by the ash and particulate matter thrown into the atmosphere blocking the sun. If you have seen Walking With Dinosaurs then you will know that it was the season finale of nightmares.  

Researchers only discovered the crater in 1991, which seems strange because I think even I, who is the worst 'dad-looker' in the world and regularly can't find the milk in the fridge, would notice a 200km impact crater. But over time it has been buried under over a kilometer of sediment, and was originally thought to be an ancient volcano. Only when examining material for boreholes at the site and scanning it with RADAR did researchers realise something very big and very bad had happened.

Cenotes Is Also A Weird Word

A cenote is a large freshwater sinkhole up to 100m deep, formed by the erosion of limestone rock by acidic groundwater. The word is taken from Maya for 'well' (not as exciting as 'tail of the devil'...). There are over 6000 cenotes of various sizes in the Yucatan Peninsula of SE Mexico, and have been utilised as a vital water source for thousands of years by the areas populations. They are also super beautiful features, in a 'very lovely to look at but all kinds of horrible beasts are probably lurking in there and I will stay on the ground thanks' kind of way. 

Only in the past century have scientists begun exploring and documenting the cenotes, and who can really blame them for avoid swimming into the abyss.... But they have found that the water in the cenotes is not actually still, and is flowing very very slowly into other cenotes, meaning that they are all connected by an enormous network of underground caves. They could be one of the largest and most intricate karstic (systems created by acidic erosion of limestone rock) systems in the world. Scientists have also found sacrificial items including gold, jewelry, figurines and human skeletons in the cenotes, which supports evidence that the Mayan civilisation associated them with powerful gods, and had strong cultural connections to the wells. 

How Is Chicxulub Connected To The Cenotes?

There are 900 cenotes of particular interest to scientists, which are all located along the Southern rim of Chicxulub crater. They believe that the rim and side of the crater created a barrier which trapped groundwater and forced it back into the rock, encouraging erosion and the formation of the cenotes. Hence being named the Ring of Cenotes.  

Hence, without the meteor there would be no crater and no cenotes in that area, and the native populations would have been unable to survive. So on one hand the meteor wiped out the dinosaurs and nearly every living thing on Earth, but also facilitated the creation of these amazing and terrifying freshwater wells; give and take then. 

So far only a handful of the ring have been fully mapped and explored, but they already are appearing to be highly important for the survival of surrounding ecosystems and boast an enormous variety of biodiversity (another reason to admire from the surface in my book). I hope you enjoyed this rather delayed post, and see you next week! 

Kermit's Tropical Cousin

Not Geography Geography Lesson 12

The Small and Mighty Poison Dart Frog

I was recently reading a book of '101 Things You Need To Know', and came across today's topic, which is poison dart frogs! I never knew such a teeny tiny little thing could be so interesting, and hopefully you will agree! Here we go...

About the Poison Dart Frog

Generally, frogs are pretty boring things, but not these frogs! There are more than 100 different species of these tiny fellas, and if they could write a Tinder bio for themselves it would read something like this:

• Smaller than Donald Trump's hands - only between 0.5 and 2 inches long. 
• Loves dressing to impress - colours include bright blues, oranges, reds, greens and golden yellow, and can be spotty or stripey. 
• Restricted to warm and damp climates - naturally found in the tropical rainforests of South America, from Costa Rica to Brazil. 
• Great with kids - transports eggs and tadpoles to different areas (like pools of water in big leaves) on their backs, known as 'backpacking'.
• Handle with caution - among some of the most poisonous animals on the planet. 

Joking aside, these frogs (fancy name Dendrobatidae) are really interesting and amazing creatures, and are the epitome of 'small and mighty'. Their beautiful colourings are their way of saying "back off buddy!" to predators, because they can pack a real punch if messed around with - known as aposematic colouring. The golden dart frog is in fact the most poisonous creature in the world, and the toxins on its skin are strong enough to kill 10 grown men. Historically, native American tribes would smear their arrows with the frogs' toxins to make them evenly more deadly (because an arrow to the chest is not unpleasant enough...). Only one creature in the world can survive eating the dart frog, and that is the Leimadophis Epinephelus, which is a Fire-Bellied snake from Brazil. And even it feels super rough afterwards! 

Note, a poisonous creature is one which excretes toxins from its skin or when ingested (like our frog), whereas a venomous creature injects its toxins by biting or scratching (like a snake or spider, which are much less cute). 

One of Nature's Greatest Mysteries

Whilst the toxicity of the frogs is amazing in its own right, the origin of it is the most interesting thing about them. Because, in captivity you could hold a golden dart frog on your palm without gloves, and still make it home for tea. Maybe they could give you a little nip, but really they are totally harmless! How on God's green Earth can that be?

Well...  it is believed that they assimilate their poison from eating another creature or plant, which they can build up and then secrete when a predator comes looking for a snack. The only issue is that as of yet, no one has been able to establish what the other creature or plant is, and it is presumably even more poisonous than the frogs, which would make it the most poisonous thing in the world! Blimey. 

There are also several research projects in the medical community being conducted into our amphibian pals, because their toxin (called Batrachotoxin) is believed to have properties which could be very useful for medicines and treatments. It is a neuro-toxin, which means that it reacts with the electrical impulses which work the nervous system to kill whoever is unlucky enough to be poisoned. Scientists believe that by recreating it, they can explore how the electrical signals are conducted in the nerves to allow the heart to function and stimulate pain signals. This research could help people who have conditions impacted by faulty electrical impulses - including those who cannot feel pain at all, and who suffer constant pain in what is termed 'Man On Fire syndrome'. 

They Don't Make Big Diamonds

As a person of a smaller disposition, I feel a common bond with the dart frog, and clearly they are astounding creatures with exciting opportunities for the health of their human friends. So it is important that we keep them around. 

Sadly, over 75% of the dart frog species are classed as 'threatened' or 'critically endangered' by the World Wildlife Fund. This is due to losses of habitat in the rainforests via widespread deforestation, pollution of their habitats by pesticides used on farms nearby, infectious disease outbreaks, and smuggling of the frogs to be sold as pets. 

The poison dart frog is a triple-threat - it is super cute, very powerful, and could be the cure to some horrid human medical conditions! Unfortunately, the actions of man in its habitat is contributing to rapid declines in numbers, and could even lead to the extinction of some of its species. Hopefully conservation efforts by the WWF and the like will be successful, as the species are so valuable. I hope you enjoyed this week's topic, and have and intoxicating week! 

 

Four-Day Weekends and Tiny Houses

Not Geography Geography Lesson 11

Can De-Growth Save The World?

This week we are going to discuss de-growth and 'downshifting', which is quite current,and has been tipped as the best solution to combat climate change. I think it's a really interesting concept, and hopefully you will too! So here we go..! 

Gotta Grow

Growth is the foundation on which our modern society is built; it is often the thing on which elections are won or lost, it is the engine which runs our modern world. Our global economy has been growing at 2.5% per year since 1800. And all this basically means that we are getting more stuff (money, energy, miles per gallon, TVs, fish fingers...) out than we are putting in. Investment is the key to growth, and when your investment comes back bigger than it was before, then everyone is happy and you can invest again with even more. One of the most obvious examples of this, is that when you whittle all the numbers down you come out with an investment lifetime of 40 years - roughly the working lifetime in the developed world, and you realise that pensions of all things, are the investments which make the world go round. 

And all this sounds like a great idea. You put in some money over a few years, and after a bit you get it back out plus some extra, and you can retire to Benidorm and drink sangria by a pool of screaming kids until you kick the bucket looking like Iggy Pop on a bad day. 

But is it really?

It's Not All Good In The World Of Growth

Whilst growth has allowed us to live very comfortable and pleasant lives, with nice houses and cars and iPads and roast dinners every Sunday, the natural systems on which we rely for these things have been bearing the brunt of our lavish lifestyles. We all know how the greenhouse gas emissions we are pumping out, and the forests we are cutting down, and the waste we are dumping into the oceans, are all destroying the planet we call home. We know that if we don't stop doing those things, we are heading straight into a slow painful doomsday. But what we don't often think about, is how our unhealthy reliance on making more and more stuff is directly contributing to that process. And what is growth? Making more and more stuff. 

It seems simple, just stop making the stuff. But how do we make less stuff but still grow? How can a problem made by stuff, be fixed with more stuff? Even a sausage could realise that it can't be. Even a raw sausage. 

De-Growth: Why?

By this logic we just need less stuff, which means we won't grow like we have been doing, but we also might still be around as a species in a thousand years time. A Canadian economist called Peter Victor has created a v complex model of potential futures, depending on how we choose to grow (or not grow), and he found that if societies begin to de-grow now, and are stable by 2030, then the social, economic and environmental benefits would be brill. Happy days.

Unfortunately, it is not that easy because people do not like the idea of having less stuff, and you can't just take it from them. Not even when you want to, like selfie sticks. So you have to convince people to throw away their iPads and go for a walk or something instead... and here's how!

Downshifting and Elective Simplicity

There are quite a few ways to enable de-growth, but the main one is reducing working hours, and sharing out the work that is being done more equally. In short, do less work, less frequently. But the money! Well yes that means earning less money generally, but it also means having more free time to do stuff. In fact, there are lots of studies which have shown that past a certain point, wealth definitely does not equal happiness or improve well-being. So why make yourself miserable working 60 hours a week, destroy the planet, and have no time? As my lecturer (!) put it, why do more?

In fact, the Netherlands already has a policy of reducing working hours, and I have been to Amsterdam and they all looked super happy so... Additional methods to de-grow include a universal minimum wage, de-centralising banks, buying local products, and investing in community livelihoods through facilities like parks. And people are actually doing these things already, and reaping the benefits. Elective Simplicity is a movement which emphasises doing less and enjoying more, and includes things like living in tiny houses (which are hella cute and I would 10/10 recommend Googling them). 

This whole things sounds very idealistic, very leftie, and very alien in our current world. It is definitely bonkers to imagine a world where we all live in tiny houses, with no big TVs or three cars, and we don't invest in pensions, and only work 3 days a week. But I don't think that it is necessarily a bad world, and a large proportion of environmental, social and economic scientists seem to be coming to that same conclusion. Maybe that is just what we will have to do if we don't want be toast by 3000. On the plus side though, fewer 7:00am get-ups, and you can make a cuppa, use the loo, and hoover at the same time in a Tiny House! 

Catfished By Butterflies

Not Geography Geography Lesson 10

Conserving Rare Butterflies in Cumbria 

We have reached double figures! Although still not always on time... But anyway, this week I'm gonna talk about a subject that hardly anyone knows about, and that I happen to know a lot about because I based my dissertation on it! And so this week, we will delve into the beautiful world of rare fritillary butterflies, and why being so damn stubborn has driven them to the verge of extinction. Arguably this is ecology, but it has formed a 1/8th of the my Geography degree so let's all pray for me. 

Catfished by Butterflies 

In the wilds of Southern Cumbria is at iny little wood called Howe Ridding, which sits nestled on the upper slopes of the Whitbarrow Scar (a big prominent rim of limestone rock set above the surrounding area through erosion).The wood is managed by the Cumbria Wildlife Trust (CWT), more specifically their lovely employee Joe. In Howe Ridding is a clear strip of grass and meadow flowers called a 'ride' that the CWT maintain, and the trees that surround the ride are also separated into 18 segments (coups) and coppiced one coup per year. Coppicing is where the trees have all their branches and most of the trunk sawn off until they are just little stumps; the stumps will grow back again as whole new trees, like Groot regenerates in Guardians of the Galaxy. 

Where I come in, is that there are also populations of incredibly rare butterflies who live in the wood, and the CWT wanted to know if their coppicing efforts are making positive impacts to the butterfly numbers, and also the effects of climate on them. At this point I feel compelled to disclose that I actually have a phobia of moths (and butterflies that look like moths). 

There are five species of butterflies I studied, all variations of fritillary - the High Brown, the Dark Green, the Silver Washed, the Pearl-Bordered and the Small Pearl-Bordered. Like me, you must be thinking 'Wow! They sound so beautiful!'. Also like me, you will then be kind of disappointed to learn that they are all brown... Trust me on this, I have spent months on this project, and give or take a little white dot here and little red stripe here, they are all brown. Like moths. 

Even though they lied to me about their colour, I still decided to help them out...

The Pickiest Butterflies in the West 

Fritillaries have very specific requirements of their habitats, and even small changes can result in them leaving or dying off. The root of their issues is that they only really like to eat, hide in, and lay eggs on one plant - violets. Additional to that, they also need exceptionally warm conditions to the tune of 20c or so warmer than the surrounding area. 

All bar the High Brown lay their eggs in the late summer underneath the warm cosy violets, where they stay until spring when they then hatch to become larvae and then pupate to become butterflies. The High Brown (the most rare butterfly in the whole UK) is impatient, so they hatch in the early autumn and then the little larvae hide under the violets until they pupate in spring. Hence, they need warm conditions or the next generation will die in the cold over winter. 

Why Howe Ridding?

1. Climate

Knowing that they require such warm conditions begs the question what the hell they are doing in N.W England..? Well, I found that Howe Ridding turns out to be a staggeringly effective micro-climate for heat-loving fritillaries. The white faces of the limestone Whitbarrow Scar just above the ride are perfect for reflecting sunlight and heat into the wood, and increase the temperature significantly. The thick woodland which encloses the ride on the other side also buffers it from strong winds, rain and snow. I found that the temperatures in the winter months, whilst they are nestled under the vegetation, was by far the most important factor in their survival and so keeping the current conditions is key. 

2. Coppicing

The CWT remove any large plants, shrubs or bushes from the ride so that it is always grass and meadow flowers (inc. violets!), with little patches of bracken. If there was no management of land at all then it would soon return to woodland; preventing this process is known as a Plagioclimax. I found that their coppicing regime of the surrounding wood also seems to be working - not through raw numbers but through patterns of where they are found relative to where the coppicing has most recently been done. The butterflies follow the coppicing up and down the ride as it completes a cycle to get to the freshest habitat, which suggests that CWT are doing the right thing. You can see this below in a diagram of the butterflies along the ride, which I definitely 100% did not make on Paint.

Clever Cumbria

The combination of the scar and its reflective properties on one side, the thick woodland on the other, the coppicing regime, and the insulating grass/flower/bracken, all combines to create a fritillary heaven! Because of this, Howe Ridding is now one of the last places in England where fritillaries are found, and it is down to the CWT to make sure the wood is tailored as best as possible to keep them there. Hopefully my findings justified their methods to them, and they can continue to conserve these very rare (very brown) species. 

As a side note, it is also interesting to realise that the fritillaries in Cumbria are one of the few animal colonies on Earth who will actually benefit from climate change due to the increased temperatures the UK will experience in the decades to come (!). Current estimates of global warming are 2c at minimum by 2050, which in my work could result in a population increase of over 100% current levels! 

Hope you enjoyed the read this week, something a bit different but hopefully interesting! Below is a beautiful photo of a Pearl-Bordered, that I did not take (judge for yourself the extent to which it is actually just brown!). 

I Visited A Nuclear Power Plant - And Still Have Only Two Eyes!

Not Geography Geography Lesson 9

Weird and Wonderful Nuclear Power

A post actually on time - what has come over me... On Friday this week, I visited Heysham Nuclear power station in Lancashire, as part of one of my 3rd year modules. Specifically we visited Heysham 2, which is the second, larger and newer nuclear facility at the site, and my mind was genuinely blown by it. The scale and complexity of the whole thing was incredible, and I was in awe of the fact that people actually designed and built this thing - the millions of tiny buttons and bolts, and the back-up systems for back-up systems, and all the procedures, and that when they had designed everything they then had to start doing it without actually knowing for sure what was going to happen... I'm not a nuclear scientist, but I don't think trial and error is the approach you want to be taking to building a nuclear reactor. 

Unlike the normal style - where I just write generally about a topic - I'm going to describe what I saw and what we were told by the guides, and cut to all the interesting bits! And then you won't have to pay for a tour because you already know all the deets. 

We're Gonna Need A Bigger Crane... 

Construction of Heysham 2 began in 1980, 10 years after Heysham 1, and was completed in 1988. They chose Heysham for the site for a couple of reasons:

• It is in a relatively industrial area already.
• The parts that make up the site are so enormous that they could not be transported by road (lorries just aren't big enough) so arrived on ships to the port next door.
• One of the critical phases of the energy making process requires cooling and condensing very hot steam, and they use a lot of sea water to do this (and I mean A LOT - 30'000 litres per second!).

Construction actually worked around the reactor itself (the scary bit), so they put that in first and then built the rest around it. All will become clear why later on. 

There are also some clever bits of planning regarding where things are, with the focus always being safety (reassuring..?). There are four back up power supplies on site, in case the reactors stop producing power to control themselves, and these are located on the four corners of the site, so that one event (like a bomb or a fire) could not take them all out at once and prevent power reaching the controls of the reactors. Also the power cables which supply the control room are spread out as far as possible from one another for the same reason. There is also a train track running around the perimeter which is used for moving the waste fuel up the coast to Sellafield once a week, and only one pylon is needed to transfer all the power to the national grid. 

How It Works (From Someone Who Is Most Definitely Not A Nuclear Scientist)

The nice people at Heysham get their fuel in the form of little pellets of Uranium-235, from a company called Springfield (*insert Simpsons joke here*). The little pellets are placed inside metal tubes, of which about 20 are all held together inside a graphite shell; it looks kind of like honeycomb. When the tubes enter the reactor, there are lots of free neutrons knocking around in there, and when the neutrons hit the uranium atoms, they split them into more atoms, and release more neutrons. All this colliding and splitting and whizzing around generates an unbelievably enormous amount of heat, which is used as the driving force to turn turbines and generate electricity (just as regular coal or gas power stations do). Heysham uses ionized water to transfer the heat to the turbines, in the form of steam, by passing it through lots of pipes near the uranium where it evaporates into steam and then is forced over the turbines. They then use the cold seawater to condense it, and send it round again and again. 

How Do They Get The Fuel In (And Out)?

The reason the plant was built around the reactor is because a huge 90m tall machine is used to pull the old fuel rods out and put the new rods in. Like an arcade grabber and a Transformer had a baby. Across the lid of the reactor (which is many metres thick) is a grid of squares with numbers and letters, and under each one is a column of the fuel rods - 6 of those honeycomb shaped shells stacked on top of one another. Two tracks run down the entire length of each side of the room, so that the huge machine can run down the tracks and on top of the reactor, where it is programmed to know which grid square it needs to work on. It pulls out the old column of fuel, and stores it inside an empty barrel, and then rotates itself to position the new fuel column over the hole and fill it. Like a revolver with its movable chambers. 

The old fuel comes out still generating 400 Mega Watt Hours (MWh) of energy (hotter than the real life depths of Hell), and so is placed in a cooling storage area, and then a cooling tank for about 6 weeks until it is safe to put on the little train up to Sellafield. 

The rods need changing every 7 years, but because they are all at different times along that 7 years, at least one is changed every week, and the process takes 12 hours to complete. 

I've Seen 'Chernobyl Diaries' - Nuclear Power Is V. Dangerous!

I must admit, I had my reservations about entering what I had imagined as a huge human popcorn maker, but actually it is all very safe and is managed more carefully than Donald Trump's hair. Heysham 2 uses 250 cubic tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) a day to cool its reactor, and also has a series of 'control rods' which are made of neutron-absorbing graphite than can be plunged into the reactor in only a few seconds to completely stop all reactions going on in there. If the rods don't work for any reason, they can also released millions of graphite pellets into the reactor, or flood it with nitrogen which also absorbs the neutrons. Back-ups on back-ups on back-ups. The reactor itself is also encased in 6 meters of concrete.

Clever Stuff Indeed

Heysham 2 runs 24/7, 365 days a year. The design of the reactor is such that it does not need to turn off to refuel or to do maintenance, and just runs at lower outputs during those times. So, the amount of power it generates is pretty much constant and comes out at 1230 Mega Watts or enough to power 5% of UK homes. 

Miscellaneous Fun(?) Facts 

• The uranium that Springfield supplies is completely harmless before it enters the reactor because no neutrons are hitting it - all the workers even have one of the little pellets on their ID lanyards. 
• The control room looks like something from Star Trek Enterprise, but the first version! It is set below an observation deck, has no windows, and still uses the 1980's computers and technology that it first installed. There are only three desks - one for each reactor and one for the big manager - around which are 100's of buttons and screens with what looks like Teletext on them. They use this old school technology because it is harder to hack!
• There are nearly 600 staff who work at Heysham 2, but the vast majority are human resources and office workers - in fact the entire site could be run perfectly fine with only 40-50 people. 
• Before 9/11, people could very easily visit the site by just signing a register. Now you have to book weeks in advance, fill out many forms for security checks, bring your passport or drivers license, and go through three different checkpoints with scanners. 
• Contrary to common belief that nuclear power releases no greenhouse gases, Heysham 2 actually has a permit to release 1 cubic ton of CO2 per day, from the 250 tons they use to cool the reactor.
• Heysham 2 is currently set to close in 2030, but when I asked that will entail, they didn't really know because it has never happened before. Weird.

This has been quite a bit longer than regular posts, but I thought it was such an interesting subject and enjoyed my visit so much, it would be a waste to not write about it properly! Regardless of your moral stance on nuclear power, you can't deny the level of ingenuity and skill that goes into creating something so huge and powerful is very impressive. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have an electrifying week! I'll see myself out...