Environmental Graffiti

Image from Márcio Cabral de Moura
The debate over the cognitive capacity of animals has raged for years, primarily operating in concert with concerns over the ethics of performing tests on them. While traditional research has had limited respect in this aspect, the abilities of the great apes and dolphins have become widely known. For example, an animal psychologist named Irene Pepperberg has spent 30 years proving that birds have significant cognitive capacity with a series of African Grey Parrots, the most successful of whom was named Alex.

Image by Ben Goode

I’m sure most of you remember the comedian Tim Allen and his show Home Improvement–he was dedicated to the glory of all things manly, more power, more horsepower, more sawdust, and football, and big, loud, fast cars, UGHH GRUNT MANLY NOISE.

Image via Reuters

Although this may be a gimmick, we’re suckers for that kind of thing here at Environmental Graffiti. Think about it, wouldn’t it be awesome if your girlfriend had the ability not only to change the channel on tv, wash the dishes, cook your dinner, but also charge your ipod or mobile phone? Maybe that last comment explains why I don’t have a girlfriend.

Mmmm, lead! Image from taiyofjs

A California company was punished with what might have been the highest settlement in state history after selling 100,000 lunchboxes to children that were tainted with lead.

Opinion piece by Ben Ray

The real breakfast of champions. Image from Betacells

We human beings have finally reached that point in our development where science is going to begin making a giant difference to how we interact with the world.

Image (c) University of Leicester

All of us here at Environmental Graffiti care a lot about the planet. True, we tend to look at details: bizarre environmental news, trends and things that not that many people notice. Despite this, sometimes, just sometimes it’s important to look at the bigger picture.

Image from University of Calgary

Some people just don’t get the point, no matter how much stuff happens – Americans continue to see creationism taught in their schools not as a religious doctrine, but as science, by at least a quarter of the nation’s biology teachers.

A living wall, also referred to as a green wall, vertical garden, or sky farm, is usually part of a building and consists of some sort of vegetation. These types of gardens are sometimes referred to as urban gardening, because they are well-suited for an urban environment where space on the ground is very limited but vertical space is plentiful. These vertical gardens can be quite spectacular in appearance, and in some cases, they even work to filter clean air into the building in which they are growing upon.

Not the actual bull, above image taken in Pamplona by Eneko Alonso

No, this isn’t bull – excuse the pun. No, like something from a cartoon or an indoor Pamplona bull festival, a German family were left gob-smacked when one of the beasts charged into their house through the back door and took a full tour of the building before leaving by the front door.

Image from laszio-photo

The world record for the fastest a human can swim as a matter of fact, is just over 5 miles an hour. I explain that as a way of proving that there are sea stars thriving in a current in Antarctica that would leave most of us barely able to hold our positions, and Olympic athletes struggling to gain ground.