They're Back! Chesapeake Oysters Return To Menus After Rebound : The Salt hide captionA plate of Sweet Jesus oysters grown in Chesapeake Bay by Hollywood Oyster Co. in Hollywood, Md. Katy Adams/Courtesy Clyde's Restaurant Group A plate of Sweet Jesus oysters grown in Chesapeake Bay by Hollywood Oyster Co. in Hollywood, Md. The history of the Chesapeake Bay oyster hasn't always been a pure one. So you could forgive a chef for being skeptical about the big bivalve comeback being staged in D.C. and the surrounding area this winter as oyster season gets underway. But many mid-Atlantic chefs are actually cheering. "Almost every oyster you're buying cleans the bay," gushes Brian Stickel, corporate chef for Clyde's Restaurant Group. Old Ebbitt sells more than a million oysters a year. "At our restaurants, we sell up to eight oysters at a time, but I definitely see people asking more for local oysters," Stickel says. There's also the matter of taste. So why did Chesapeake oysters disappear from menus in the first place? Elizabeth Shogren/NPR More than enough, says Sughrue.
The Financial Sunday Post » La circolazione della moneta… (parte VI, ed ultima) Oggi concludiamo, finalmente, il ciclo di mini-lezioni sulla circolazione della moneta… L’ultima volta avevamo affrontato la questione delle “perdite delle imprese” (vedi ultimo post)… Proseguiamo oltre e vediamo come l’analisi che stiamo conducendo sulla circolazione della moneta, sia molto vicina alla faccenda del “finanziamento degli investimenti” (in realtà, avevamo già accennato qualcosa al riguardo…). Vi ricordate che avevamo detto che la richiesta iniziale di credito da parte delle imprese (A) era pari al totale dei salati dei Lavoratori (B)? Bene!!! Questo come conseguenza logica comporta che il totale del finanziamento iniziale ottenuto dalle imprese viene destinato alla parte “produzione” (nulla quindi viene destinato alla parte “investimenti”). Ma spieghiamo meglio questa situazione… Occorre innanzitutto distinguere il finanziamento in due diverse categorie: a) “finanziamento bancario” b) “finanziamento degli investimenti“. La vendita di beni capitali può avvenire in due modi:
Between Pigs And Anchovies: Where Humans Rank On The Food Chain : The Salt hide captionAn animal's ranking on the food chain depends on where its meals place on the ladder. That puts plants on the bottom (they make all their food), polar bears on top and people somewhere between pigs and anchovies. Lisa Brown for NPR An animal's ranking on the food chain depends on where its meals place on the ladder. When it comes to making food yummy and pleasurable, humans clearly outshine their fellow animals on Earth. But in terms of the global food chain, Homo sapiens are definitely not the head honchos. In the new study, ecologists specifically calculated human's trophic level — a number between 1 and about 5.5 that tells you how much energy it takes to make a species' food. Plants and algae, which use energy from the sun to produce all their food, sit at the bottom of the food chain, with a trophic level of 1. Next come the omnivores that eat a mixture of plants and herbivores. Instead, we sit somewhere between pigs and anchovies, scientists reported recently.
Isaac Asimov | Previsioni per il 2014 (scritte nel 1964) Isaac Asimov è uno dei giganti indiscutibili della fantascienza e, al pari di altri suoi colleghi scrittori come Ray Bradbury o Arhur C. Clarke, è stato un osservatore privilegiato e critico del momento storico in cui viveva. Nel 1964, in occasione della New York World’s Fairscrisse un articolo in cui immaginava di visitare la stessa esposizione, ma cinquant’anni dopo, cioè nel 2014. In esso descriveva alcuni progressi della scienza, della tecnologia e dell’umanità che possiamo ben riconoscere nella nostra quotidianità, anche se molti sono ancora di là da venire.Le comunicazioni non saranno basate solamente sul suono, ma anche sulla vista. Si potranno vedere le persone che si chiamano al telefono. Sarà possibile sugli schermi anche leggere libri e stampare documenti.Ci saranno veicoli guidati da robot. © Foto Getty Images - Tutti i diritti riservati
How Food Hubs Are Helping New Farmers Break Into Local Food : The Salt hide captionMarty Travis (right) started the Stewards of the Land food hub in 2005. His son Will helps him transport food from local farms to area restaurants. Sean Powers/Harvest Public Media Marty Travis (right) started the Stewards of the Land food hub in 2005. His son Will helps him transport food from local farms to area restaurants. Lots of consumers are smitten with local food, but they're not the only ones. But they need help, and increasingly it's coming from food hubs, which can also serve as food processing and distribution centers. Donna O'Shaughnessy and her husband, Keith Parrish, are first-generation farmers in rural Chatsworth, Ill., about two hours south of Chicago. For many years, they ended each year in the red. They say they owe a lot to a year-round local food hub called Stewards of the Land, started in 2005 by Marty and Kris Travis, farmers in nearby Fairbury, Ill. The Travises became middlemen to fill a hole in the market.
Home made Composting Toilet System - LivingGreenAndFrugally.com Make sure you like Living green and frugally on Facebook to be updated every time we find a tutorial for innovative ways you can become self-sufficient on a budget. There aren’t really any situations where you can’t have a compost loo if you’re absolutely determined to – unless you have no way of storing or utilizing the composted waste. So maybe if you live in a tower block with no garden it’s not the ideal solution. But even then, if you have an allotment…. After all, there are compost loos you can install in a camper van or a boat, so they will work anywhere as long as you have a way of dealing with the finished products. Home made Composting Toilet System
An Innovative Plan To Reel In Sport Fishermen To Feed The Hungry : The Salt hide captionCarly Milkowski, resource coordinator at hunger relief agency Wayside Food Services, shows students Jessica Jamison and Autumn Felker how to make fish cakes using a Martha Stewart recipe. Courtesy of Samantha Laster Carly Milkowski, resource coordinator at hunger relief agency Wayside Food Services, shows students Jessica Jamison and Autumn Felker how to make fish cakes using a Martha Stewart recipe. Portland, Maine, native Hollis McLaughlin's recollection of his mother's fish cookery produces a wistful expression as he takes a bite of the fish cakes given to him as part of the regular Wednesday night meal he is served free of charge at the Parkside Neighborhood Center. McLaughlin's mother, Kay, worked for over 30 years on Portland's waterfront, picking lobster and crab and packing sardines. The 62-year-old McLaughlin diplomatically refused to say which fish cake he liked better. The Maine Hunters for the Hungry program is one of the few administered by the state government.
2013: Hope or Despair? Republished from charleseisenstein.net By Charles Eisenstein Things are getting better and better and worse and worse faster and faster simultaneously.” – Tom Atlee Was the year 2013 a cause for hope or a cause for despair? The case for pessimism is hard to refute. We have the good news – for the first time, solar and wind power have reached grid parity with fossil fuels – paired with record demand for oil and the vast expansion of fracking and tar sands exploitation, as CO2 levels topped 400 ppm for the first time and the Warsaw climate talks imploded. We have a rennaissance of cooperative economics in southern Europe, even as austerity deepens, youth unemployment hovers near 50%, pensions are cut, and professionals flee. We have a rennaissance of cooperative economics in southern Europe, even as austerity deepens, youth unemployment hovers near 50%, pensions are cut, and professionals flee. Sometimes the positive developments look like pinpricks of light under a blanket of darkness.
Scientists: Use animal manure's stinking wealth of resources Increasing demands for meat, milk and eggs across the world have prompted an explosive growth in livestock production with massive environmental consequences at local, regional, and global levels. A new textbook, ‘Animal Manure Recycling: Treatment and Management’, draws from Danish expertise and spotlights technologies that presents state-of-the-art knowledge in relation to recycling animal manure, writes Copenhagen University in a press release. Many people know that a steak's path to the dinner table has undesirable climatic and environmental consequences, and large increases in livestock production have given rise to enormous quantities of animal manure. This presents challenges in relation to waste management and environmental protection. Denmark is assuming a leadership role in both farming and environmental technology and we therefore want to disseminate this unique know-how and at the same time contribute to the export of Danish technology. Lars Stoumann Jensen
Media: false notizie e bufale. Internet sul punto di rottura? Anche la rete è diventata vittima della logica del business. L'importante è sfornare articoli che garantiscano il maggior numero di click. E i lettori più ingenui cadono nella trappola. ROMA (WSI) - Sensazionalismo, bufale, false notizie che circolano in rete a volte anche in modo ossessivo e che vengono riprese da chi, ingenuamente, non ne verifica l'autenticità. E così, un articolo pubblicato sulla rivista Esquire, pone una questione che fa riflettere: "The Year we broke the Internet". In poche parole, Internet è vicina al punto di rottura? Basti prendere come esempio le recenti immagini sull'Egitto che hanno fatto il giro della rete a livello mondiale. Per alcuni, le foto sono state una chiara prova del nove del riscaldamento globale. La verità è che non c'è stata alcuna nevicata sulle Piramidi e sulla Sfinge. Come al solito, è il business del click che ha portato Internet ad abdicare al ruolo di contenitore di una informazione trasparente e libera.
Send in the Cows (or, How to Reverse Desertification, Build Soils, and Sequester Carbon) In light of last week’s post highlighting our death march towards Peak Soil, it seems appropriate to look at how we can go about building (i.e. adding organic matter to) the damn thing. Various permacultural methods exist that help build soil and heal the land, but the organic apple of this article’s eye is a technique known as “managed grazing.” In the words of Joel Salatin, “Nothing builds soil like intensively managed grazing on grasslands.” As noted, left to its own devices, it takes nature roughly 500 years to build just 2 centimeters (cm) of living soil. When done properly, grazing – or, more specifically, management-intensive grazing - can more than double that rate in 50 years time. Meanwhile, Salatin’s farm has been building one inch of topsoil annually (along with increasing their organic matter from 1.5 percent to 8 percent of soil content over the past 50 years). Now, for a comprehensive look at this burgeoning biomimetic practice. Management-Intensive Grazing (video version)
Dean Kamen's Slingshot Aims To Bring Fresh Water To The World A recent invention called the Slingshot could provide freshwater to those with some of the most limited access. Inventor Dean Kamen, best known as the man behind the Segway, has partnered with Coca-Cola to place his machines throughout developing nations in Africa and Central America in hopes of eliminating the millions of deaths each year related to waterborne disease. More than 783 million people don't have access to clean water and 37 percent don't have access to sanitation facilities, facts highlighted by the UN during World Water Day last week. The device can take any form of potentially contaminated liquid and distill it into something safe to drink -- by evaporating the water and then condensing the steam, leaving pathogens behind. A recent documentary short directed by Paul Lazarus and featuring Kamen won third place in GE's Focus Forward Film Festival, which highlights leading innovators around the world. Also on HuffPost:
Making Food From Flies (It's Not That Icky) : The Salt hide captionBlack soldier flies mate and lay eggs inside these cages at EnviroFlight. Dan Charles/NPR Black soldier flies mate and lay eggs inside these cages at EnviroFlight. In the quirky little college town of Yellow Springs, Ohio, home to many unconventional ideas over the years, there's now a small insect factory. It's an unassuming operation, a generic boxy building in a small industrial park. It took me a while even to find a sign with the company's name: EnviroFlight. They don't expect you to eat insects. It all starts in a small greenhouse. I see rows of tall, cylinder-shaped cages. Actually, they're flies: black soldier flies. These flies live all over the American South, but they rarely bother people, and they don't spread disease. The eggs turn into hatchlings that are so tiny they look like dust. "If I were to feed them, it would feel like the bucket was practically melting," she says. The larvae are insatiable eaters. I pass. Actually, he's not the first to think of this.