Author Archives | Steampunk
Steampunk - who has written 18 posts on Environmental Graffiti.
From the south of Ireland, Cian Gill is a writer, cartoonist, musician and qualified zoologist who doesn't sell himself short. He hopes that one day, someone will employ him to do some of these things in a warmer climate. Check out his site at www.ciangill.blogspot.com.
Did We Wipe Out the Prehistoric Hobbit Man?
A race of intelligent, diminutive hominids co-existing alongside humanity in South-East Asia? In the year 2003, a creature from mythology stepped out of the shadows and into the cold, hard light of science when an archaeological dig revealed what appeared to be a new species of hominid that matched closely with local myths of a creature known as the Ebu Gogo. An ancient 'hobbit man' had been discovered...
Continue reading...Sri Lanka’s Giant Magma Plug Fortress
Monday, November 9, 2009
Built as a 'palace in the sky' for a God-king, the mountain fortress of Sigirya boasts beautiful images that actually chronicle his more base instincts. It towers above the surrounding plains of the Matale district in the heart of the country and was carved from the hardened magma of what was once a volcano. Today, it stands as a reminder of the various ancient cultures that helped shape Sri Lanka down through the centuries.
Continue reading...Former War Zones Too Dangerous to Enter
Monday, October 26, 2009
When the smoke clears and the last shells have fallen, some war zones will retain painful reminders of former unpleasantries. Uncleared and unmapped, it's safe to say minefields present an extremely unpredictable and deadly danger to civilians, often long after the conflict in which they were used in has come to a close. Here are some of the deadliest places to go walking unescorted...
Continue reading...The Incredible Myth Behind the Feejee Mermaid
Monday, October 12, 2009
On a warm evening in the summer of 1842, the English gentleman Dr. J. Griffin of the British Lyceum of Natural History encountered something strange while wandering alone on a deserted tropical beach. Even his learned mind was ill-prepared for what lay around the next bend on this particular evening. There on the white sands, gasping its last breath, was a being seemingly ripped from the pages of mythology itself...
Continue reading...Animals Recruited for War
Monday, September 28, 2009
Since the dawn of time, men's creativity when it comes to hurting other men has known no bounds, and his fellow beasts have, on occasion, been called into this service. This has taken many different forms over the years. Elephants, dogs and dolphins have all been drafted to fight in mankind's various squabbles...
Continue reading...The Bridge of Mostar: The Jewel that Divides Two Cultures
Monday, September 14, 2009
As the USSR crumbled, a similar but far bloodier process was taking place in a troubled part of Eastern Europe. For hundreds of years a melting pot of nationalities, and today the last bastion of Islam in Europe, nowhere was the fighting fiercer or more terrible than in the beautiful Herzegovinan region of Mostar...
Continue reading...Albino Alligators
Monday, August 31, 2009
They are cream while others are cocoa; they are chalk while others are (exceptionally dark) cheese- these reptilian oddities are the albinos of the cold-blooded world. But does their condition cause them to perform differently in the great Darwinian game of life-and-death?
Continue reading...Ant Invaders Enslave their Kind and Subject them to Propaganda
Friday, August 14, 2009
Like humans, nnts exist in a world of wars, invasions and hostile takeovers. But the pitched siege between the warring clans of these workers and soldiers may result in a fate worse than death for the losers – and a fate far from unknown within the human world: slavery. Read on to discover more about these pernicious but strangely familiar proceedings...
Continue reading...The Artistic Nests of the Weaver Birds
Friday, August 7, 2009
There is no such thing as equality amongst the two to three hundred known species of Ploceidae, or weaver birds. For the males of each colony must compete each year in a test of skill and creativity which has made them famous: the weaving of the most elaborate nests of any known bird. Artistic ability is in abundance amongst these labourers come casanovas.
Continue reading...The Great Salmon Migration
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Diadromous is not a word one hears every day, but this word is in fact the key to one of nature's most startling migrations – that of the Pacific salmon. From the warm climes of the northern Sunshine State (California, that is) and the cool coniferous forests of British Columbia, to the chilling waters of the Bering Strait, these fish yearly perform migrations that cover thousands of miles.
Continue reading...
Thursday, November 19, 2009
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