2008: April 15th Good News (Paramedic Saves Best Friend's Life, 3 New Beetle Species Discovered in Thailand, more...)

Hello All,

Well, it is time for me to go to bed...but before I do, I'm bringing you today's good news. :)

Today my favorite articles are the article about the paramedic who got the opportunity to save is best friend, and the article about the 7 parrot chicks that just hatched to an extremely endangered New Zealand breed. I hope that you enjoy today's articles! I'm off to bed, and I will see you tomorrow! :)



Today's Top 5:
1. Paramedic Saves Best Best Friend’s Life (IC Wales)
2. Ancient Method, 'Black Gold Agriculture' May Revolutionize Farming, Curb Global Warming (Science Daily)
3. The Real Good Life: An Entire Village Turns Against Supermarkets and Grows its Own Food (Daily Mail UK)
4. Seven Chicks Boost Population of Rare Parrot to 92 (Earth Times)
5. Students Get Chance to Quiz Dalai Lama on Everything From AIDS to the Green Movement (Seattle Times)


Honorable Mentions:
1. Three New Beetle Species Discovered in Thailand (Earth Times)

Top 5:

1. Paramedic Saves Best Best Friend’s Life
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/04/15/paramedic-saves-best-best-friend-s-life-91466-20765170/
Apr 15 2008
by Gregory Tindle, South Wales Echo

IT WAS a horror moment when paramedic Dylan Parry arrived at the scene of a crash and realised his best friend was lying lifeless on the road.
But within minutes he had saved Stephen Morgan’s life.
Stephen was driving when he collapsed at the wheel from a heart attack and crashed his car into a roadside barrier. He had earlier woken up with indigestion-type pain and was on route to the local hospital under doctor’s orders because he had a heart attack two years previously.
His wife Jennifer, who was at his side, said: “We were on our way with Stephen driving when we suddenly veered into the pedestrian barrier at the side of the road. I looked across and Stephen’s eyes were shut with his hands up in front of his face.
“Two cars behind were two female police officers and people had managed to get Stephen out and they started working on him. And then Dylan arrived and I shouted to him. Dylan said: ‘Oh, no. It’s not Steve, is it?’”
Dylan, 45, a paramedic for 15 years, said: “He was lying there and basically he’d gone. There was no pulse, he wasn’t breathing and his heartbeat was very irregular. It was also a shock for me to see him there.
“The police officers had done a great job starting the resuscitation so soon and I took over.
“We got Steve hooked up to the defibrillator and shocked him and that got his heart going and we were giving him oxygen but he still didn’t have a pulse.
“I think Steve was lucky, very lucky, that there were two people there immediately to give him CPR and that I was there within a couple of minutes in the Rapid Response Vehicle. But I was concerned that he wouldn’t make it because when I got there he was gone.”
Stephen, 63, said he owed his life to Dylan’s prompt actions.
The retired brewery worker, of Porset Drive, Caerphilly, remembers nothing from that day last January.
Jennifer, 62, who used to work with Dylan’s wife Sue, has written to the Welsh Ambulance Service praising their friend for saving her husband’s life.
Stephen spent several weeks in the cardiac unit at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff but is now home. He said: “I’m very grateful to Dylan and his colleagues. He was absolutely brilliant.
“In fact the whole NHS has been brilliant.”
greg.tindle@mediawales.co.uk



2. Ancient Method, 'Black Gold Agriculture' May Revolutionize Farming, Curb Global Warming
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080410153658.htm
ScienceDaily (Apr. 15, 2008)

Fifteen hundred years ago, tribes people from the central Amazon basin mixed their soil with charcoal derived from animal bone and tree bark. Today, at the site of this charcoal deposit, scientists have found some of the richest, most fertile soil in the world. Now this ancient, remarkably simple farming technique seems far ahead of the curve, holding promise as a carbon-negative strategy to rein in world hunger as well as greenhouse gases.
At the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, scientists report that charcoal derived from heated biomass has an unprecedented ability to improve the fertility of soil -- one that surpasses compost, animal manure, and other well-known soil conditioners.
They also suggest that this so-called "biochar" profoundly enhances the natural carbon seizing ability of soil. Dubbed "black gold agriculture," scientists say this "revolutionary" farming technique can provide a cheap, straight-forward strategy to reduce greenhouse gases by trapping them in charcoal-laced soil.
"Charcoal fertilization can permanently increase soil organic matter content and improve soil quality, persisting in soil for hundreds to thousands of years," Mingxin Guo, Ph.D., and colleagues report. In what they describe as a "new and pioneering" ACS report -- the first systematic investigation of soil improvement by charcoal fertilization -- Guo found that soils receiving charcoal produced from organic wastes were much looser, absorbed significantly more water and nutrients and produced higher crop biomass. The authors, with Delaware State University, say "the results demonstrate that charcoal amendment is a revolutionary approach for long-term soil quality improvement."
Soil deterioration from depletion of organic matter is an increasingly serious global problem that contributes to hunger and malnutrition. Often a result of unsustainable farming, overuse of chemical fertilizers and drought, the main weapons to combat the problem --compost, animal manure and crop debris -- decompose rapidly.
"Earth's soil is the largest terrestrial pool of carbon," Guo said. "In other words, most of the earth's carbon is fixed in soil." But if this soil is intensively cultivated by tillage and chemical fertilization, organic matter in soil will be quickly decomposed into carbon dioxide by soil microbes and released into the atmosphere, leaving the soil compacted and nutrient-poor.
Applying raw organic materials to soil only provides a temporary solution, since the applied organic matter decomposes quickly. Converting this unutilized raw material into biochar, a non-toxic and stable fertilizer, could keep carbon in the soil and out of the atmosphere, says Guo.
"Speaking in terms of fertility and productivity, the soil quality will be improved. It is a long-term effect. After you apply it once, it will be there for hundreds of years," according to Guo. With its porous structure and high nutrient- and water-holding capabilities, biochar could become an extremely attractive option for commercial farmers and home gardeners looking for long-term soil improvement.
The researchers planted winter wheat in pots of soil in a greenhouse. Some pots were amended with two percent biochar, generated from readily available ingredients like tree leaves, corn stalk and wood chips. The other pots contained ordinary soil.
The biochar-infused soil showed vastly improved germination and growing rates compared to regular soil. Guo says that even a one-percent charcoal treatment would lead to improved crop yield.
Guo is "positive" that this ground-breaking farming technique can help feed countries with poor soil quality. "We hope this technology will be extended worldwide," says Guo.
"The production of current arable land could be significantly improved to provide more food and fiber for the growing populations. We want to call it the second agricultural revolution, or black gold revolution!"
He suggests that charcoal production has been practiced for at least 3000 years. But until now, nobody realized that this charcoal could improve soil fertility until archaeologists stumbled on the aforementioned Amazonian soil several years ago.
Biochar production is straightforward, involving a heating process known as pyrolysis. First, organic residue such as tree leaves and wood chips is packed into a metal container and sealed. Then, through a small hole on top, the container is heated and the material burns. The raw organic matter is transformed into black charcoal. Smokes generated during pyrolysis can also be collected and cooled down to form bio-oil, a renewable energy source, says Guo.
In lieu of patenting biochar, Guo says he is most interested in extending the technology into practice as soon as possible. To that end, his colleagues at Delaware State University are investigating a standardized production procedure for biochar. They also foresee long-term field studies are needed to validate and demonstrate the technology. Guo noted that downsides of biochar include transportation costs resulting from its bulk mass and a need to develop new tools to spread the granular fertilizer over large tracts of farmland.
The researchers are about to embark on a five-year study on the effect of "black gold" on spinach, green peppers, tomatoes and other crops. They seek the long-term effects of biochar fertilization on soil carbon changes, crop productivity and its effect of the soil microorganism community.
"Through this long-term work, we will show to people that biochar fertilization will significantly change our current conventional farming concepts," says Guo.
Adapted from materials provided by American Chemical Society, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.




3. The Real Good Life: An Entire Village Turns Against Supermarkets and Grows its Own Food
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=559580&in_page_id=1770
By LUKE SALKELD
Last updated at 17:46pm on 14th April 2008

It was a sitcom that inspired many a household to live off the land.
And although it might not attract the likes of Margo and Jerry to move to the area, an entire village is trying its hand at the Good Life.
In a bid to become less dependent on supermarkets, the residents of Martin are working together to become as self-sufficient as possible.
The Hampshire village is now home to hundreds of real life versions of the characters played by Felicity Kendall and Richard Briers, who lived off the land in the 1970s BBC comedy.
They work on a rota system and raise their own chickens and pigs and grow potatoes, garlic, onions, chillis and green vegetables on eight acres of rented land.
Of the 164 families who live in Martin, 101 have signed up as members of Future Farms for an annual £2 fee, although the produce can be sold to anyone who wants to buy it.
The "community allotment" sells 45 types of vegetables and 100 chickens a week, and is run by a committee which includes a radiologist, a computer programmer and a former probation officer.
In The Good Life, Tom and Barbara (played by Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal) try to live a self-sufficient lifestyle by converting their garden into allotments
Nick Snelgar, 58, who came up with idea in 2003, said the project was gradually "weaning" villagers off of supermarkets.
He said: "I like to think of it as a large allotment in which there are lots of Barbaras and Toms working away.
"There are also Margos as well, but everyone can get involved.
"The nearest supermarket is six miles away. Of course people still have to go there for things like loo roll and deodorant and fruit you can't grow in Britain.
"So we aren't boycotting supermarkets entirely but we are gradually weaning people off them and as a result are reducing our carbon footprint by not using carrier bags and packaging."
Every Saturday the produce is sold at the village hall
The good life: The village of Martin nestles in the Hampshire countryside
Mr Snelgar, a horticulturalist, said the VAT-registered co-operative had grown so much that last year it had a turnover of £27,000 - most of which was ploughed back into the scheme.
He said: "We began with vegetables and we found that all the skills we needed were here in the village.
"After the vegetables we introduced chickens and then pigs and we learned inch by inch.
"We have other producers whose goods we sell and they include a sheep farmer and someone who has honey.
The farm sells 20 pigs a year as well as chickens and lambs and is now starting to sell beef
"It has been a fantastically interesting experience and we now have four plots of land covering eight acres.
"There are 164 families in the village and they include about 300 adults and 100 children, so there are about 400 creatures to feed.'
Every Saturday the community comes together with their produce which is sold at the village hall.
Mr Snelgar added: "The most popular thing we sell is carrots.
The majority of families have signed up to the scheme, but anyone can buy the produce
"People love the smell of fresh carrots, and we pull them out of the ground the day before we sell them.
"We don't yet do dairy, but we hope to include that in the future and we also intend to grow raspberries and strawberries.
"We set the prices by working out how much the food costs to produce. We then add 20 per cent.
"Our pork sausages, for example, are sometimes cheaper than sausages you buy in the supermarkets. We break even and all money gets ploughed back in.
"When we started some people thought it would fail and we'd never last, but as the years have gone by more and more people have become involved.
"It is also a talking point in the village and it's great to see people walking to the village hall on a Saturday morning talking to each other. It has created a sense of belonging."



4. Seven Chicks Boost Population of Rare Parrot to 92 http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/198884,seven-chicks-boost-population-of-rare-parrot-to-92--feature.html
Posted : Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:38:06 GMT
Author : DPA
Nature Environment News

Wellington - The population of New Zealand's kakapo - the world's rarest parrot and critically endangered - has increased by seven after the first chicks for three years hatched on tiny Codfish Island. But that merely brought the number of the nocturnal, flightless birds to 92 and the vulnerable chicks were transferred this week to a specialist unit where they will be hand-reared to ensure their survival until they can be returned to the wild.
Kakapos, once common throughout the country but prone to attack by predators, were thought to be extinct until 1976 when a small population was discovered on Stewart Island and a breeding programme started.
It is a tortuous process as kakapos do not produce eggs annually, breeding only every two to four years. Males do not start mating until they are about five years old and until this year females were not observed to start breeding until they were nine.
But two of the younger females aged six bred for the first time this year, and significantly there was 100 per cent fertility of the eggs laid.
Only 20 chicks have been hand-raised since the parrots were rediscovered more than 30 years ago. This year's hatchings were the first since 2005 when four chicks were produced with an overall fertility rate of 58 per cent.
This year's chicks had to be moved because kakapo mothers depend on ripe berries from native rimu trees to feed their young, but the fruit on Codfish Island did not ripen in the summer which has just ended.
Kakapos are not only the world's rarest parrots, they are the heaviest, with full-grown males weighing up to 2.2 kilograms and females 1.4 kilograms.
Their size and inability to fly is believed to have contributed to their near-extinction at the hand of predators.
The parrots sleep all day, usually in hollows in the ground, and spend the nights on solitary meanders through the bush feeding on seeds, roots and berries.
Survival of the species has depended on Department of Conservation staff and volunteers who have identified all the birds and keep nightly vigils over their nests when eggs have been laid.
They camp near the nests to watch that the females incubate properly, often covering the eggs with heat pads when the mothers go foraging for food.
The kakapo recovery programme has attracted international attention and because the parrots are found only on offshore islands which are predator-free, a website has been established to tell the world about it at http://www.kakapo.org.nz/




5. Students Get Chance to Quiz Dalai Lama on Everything From AIDS to the Green Movement
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dalailama/2004349509_dalailama15m.html
By Nick Perry and Janet I. Tu

Several hundred people at the University of Washington on Monday protest the Dalai Lama's five-day visit to Seattle. Many carried Chinese and American flags and signs as they marched from Red Square to Edmundson Pavilion.
UW President Mark Emmert, far right, and UW Board of Regents Chair Stanley Barer give the Dalai Lama an honorary degree.
The Dalai Lama gives Jessica Markowitz, a 7th-grader at Seattle Girls' School, a hug during the KeyArena event.Related
Gallery Day 4 of Dalai Lama's Seattle visit Hundreds protest Dalai Lama at UW More Dalai Lama coverage Inside a packed stadium at the University of Washington Monday, the Dalai Lama delighted some 7,500 students by answering questions on everything from AIDS to the green movement.
But outside Edmundson Pavilion before the event, the largest protests against the Dalai Lama's five-day Seattle visit culminated with several hundred people chanting and singing. A plane flew overhead trailing a banner: "Dalai: ur smiles charm, ur actions harm."
The Dalai Lama was presented with an honorary degree at Monday's ceremony, donning a purple gown over his traditional red robes. In his trademark humble-yet-humorous manner, he thanked the gathered academicians for giving him a degree from a great university "without actually having to do any study."
The Dalai Lama told the students, who came from colleges across the state, that they were the new generation and the hope for the future — that it was up to them to face down conflict with dialogue. After all, he said, people from his generation "are now ready to say goodbye."
The Dalai Lama answered questions from students. Asked about AIDS, he said that the continued study of medicine should bring results, and that education remains important in the long-term. He noted that the disease seems to be spread mainly through sexual contact.
"They should make available — rubbers," he said, bringing the biggest laughs and cheers of the afternoon. He added that he didn't really know all the answers because "I'm not an expert."
Asked whether the green movement was something that only wealthier people could afford, the Dalai Lama said he thought it important for all people to take steps to improve the environment every day. He said he had stopped taking baths — now relying on showers — as his own "silly" contribution.
The Tibetan Buddhist leader added that the moon looks nice at night and inspires poems but would make a terrible place to live should we destroy the environment on Earth.
Asked how people could become more compassionate, the Dalai Lama said it begins with a child's upbringing and that patience is crucial. He said on his flight from Tokyo to Seattle there was one mother who stayed up all night consoling a crying child: "If I was in that position, I might not have that sufficient patience," he said.
The preselected questions did not include any about the political situation in China or Tibet, though some students had wanted to address those topics. University officials had decided against including such questions, saying the event should focus on the topic of compassion.
But the pro-China protesters who gathered at Red Square and marched to Edmundson Pavilion before the event were themselves keenly focused on politics. Many carried Chinese and American flags, and banners that criticized the Dalai Lama for everything from inciting the recent violence in Tibet to being a "serf-owner."
UW police put the number of protesters at a little over 400, more than double the number they had expected. The protesters were well-behaved, said Ray Wittmier, the UW's interim police chief.
Once outside Edmundson Pavilion, the protesters showed violent images from Tibet on a large-screen TV, chanted through bullhorns and sang songs in Mandarin, including one that protesters translated as "My Chinese heart," saying that their hearts still belong to China, even though they are far from home.
Protester Shufu Xe, a systems analyst at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said the Dalai Lama's message had been distorted by the Western media.
"I like some of his ideas about nonviolence. But I think he is behind some of the violence in Tibet," Xe said. "I don't like that he's using the Olympics to promote his political agenda."
Xe, like many of the protesters, was born in China. He moved to the U.S. seven years ago.
Students lining up outside Edmundson Pavilion to see the Dalai Lama watched as protesters marched past.
Sophomore Sydney Dale, 20, said she was surprised at the extent of the protest.
"I thought maybe there would be a few students," she said, rather than hundreds chanting, yelling and using bullhorns.
Here and elsewhere, many of the pro-China demonstrators say that Western media coverage doesn't generally cover their view that the Chinese government liberated Tibetans from serfdom.
Tibetans, though, say their culture and religion are being destroyed. The Dalai Lama has characterized what is happening as "cultural genocide."
Earlier in the day, the Dalai Lama spoke on a panel with business and political leaders, including Jeffrey Brotman, chairman of Costco Wholesale, and state Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane.
He also took part in a gathering at KeyArena for schoolchildren. Organizers say about 14,400 students from 266 public, private and parochial schools were bused in from across the state.
Some parents and others have raised questions about whether that violated the separation of church and state. Pastor Joseph Fuiten of Cedar Park Assembly of God in Bothell raised the issue at his church Sunday, saying that public-school leaders are willing to have students go to hear "the head of one religion that is Buddhist and yet deny the reality of having Christianity in the public schools. They don't even see that that is really convoluted."
Event organizers, and a Seattle Public Schools spokeswoman, emphasized that the Dalai Lama is not speaking at the events in his capacity as a religious or political leader.
By the end of the day, some of the students leaving the UW ceremony came out feeling inspired.
"He didn't say anything I had not thought about," said Jon McLees, 23, a student at Green River Community College in Auburn. "But it was enriching and enlightening ... when I go home, I will just feel more peaceful."




Honorable Mention:
Three New Beetle Species Discovered in Thailand
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/198881,three-new-beetle-species-discovered-in-thailand.html
Posted : Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:13:07 GMT
Author : DPA
Category : Nature (Environment)

Bangkok - Thai entomologists have discovered three new species of snout beetles, a subfamily which already includes some 10,000 bug groups, media reports aid Tuesday. "It has just been confirmed by a snout beetle expert in Japan that they are the world's newest recorded species," said Watana Sukchoowong, an entomologist at the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation.
"The new discovery will be published in a recognized snout beetle magazine soon," he told the Bangkok Post newspaper.
The newly found species have been named Articerodes thailandicus, Articerodes omomoi and Articerodes jariyae, joining the Pselaphinae (snout beetle) subfamily that already includes 10,000 species worldwide.
The new species were found in Thailand's fast-disappearing national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in the eastern provinces of Chachoengsao and Chantaburi.