http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/world/14cloud.html?_r=1
This is just another piece of evidence that we need to make some change now because this could be us in the future. I think it's just a look into the future for us and what we could become if we don't stop what we're doing. I think we should learn from this and make some change now before this is us in an article about disgusting brown smog.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Aquariums
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/science/23aquarium.html?ref=science
I think that people should be extremely careful when collecting for aquariums because they don't want to destroy the very ecosystem they're trying to emulate. I think the fact that aquariums ar getting more complex is a good thing though because it leads to great learning for people and they will enjoy the experience more.
I think that people should be extremely careful when collecting for aquariums because they don't want to destroy the very ecosystem they're trying to emulate. I think the fact that aquariums ar getting more complex is a good thing though because it leads to great learning for people and they will enjoy the experience more.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Tap Water In California
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/12/16/us/1247466144198/tainted-tap-water.html
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
China Solar
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/from-california-chinese-solar-maker-looks-east/
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Solar Power
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/business/energy-environment/23solar.html?ref=earth
This is really exciting, because we are finally turning away from nonrenewable resources to renewable resources. I think we are on the road to moving forward. I like this, and I hope that this project really moves forward quickly. The only problem is that it is on the site of and endangered tortoise species. I think we should find a new place, maybe in the middle of the great plains or somewhere like that, that isnt really being used that could be used for this. This is a very new and upcomming idea and we need to be moving with it.
This is really exciting, because we are finally turning away from nonrenewable resources to renewable resources. I think we are on the road to moving forward. I like this, and I hope that this project really moves forward quickly. The only problem is that it is on the site of and endangered tortoise species. I think we should find a new place, maybe in the middle of the great plains or somewhere like that, that isnt really being used that could be used for this. This is a very new and upcomming idea and we need to be moving with it.
Nuclear Power
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/us/25nuke.html?ref=earth
I think that this is a good step forward into forcing people to start using renewable energy. I think that since they are shuting this plant down they should turn to solar and wind power with the money that would normally go to this. I think this could start a country wide turn towards renewable power if the general public was informed of all the good it could do.
I think that this is a good step forward into forcing people to start using renewable energy. I think that since they are shuting this plant down they should turn to solar and wind power with the money that would normally go to this. I think this could start a country wide turn towards renewable power if the general public was informed of all the good it could do.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Oil
While much of the oil industry contracted last year, Exxon Mobil expanded its oil and gas operations in the United States and around the world.
Exxon, the top Western oil company, took advantage of the weak climate to bolster its operations, buying smaller rivals and attractive assets as it sought to lay the foundation for growth once the economy rebounds.
In December, it announced the $31 billion purchase of XTO Energy, a leader in natural gas production in the United States. It gained a major foothold in Iraq, the holder of the third-biggest proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Iran. In Africa, it bid $4 billion for a major field off Ghana. It approved a multibillion-dollar project in Papua New Guinea to export gas to China and Japan.
The plan follows Exxon’s longstanding strategy of investing during market declines. Because of its substantial cash reserves, the company spent a record $27.1 billion on its exploration and development programs last year, a 4 percent increase from 2008.
While most of its big rivals have been restructuring and cutting expenses, Exxon has repeatedly said that it would stick with plans to spend $25 billion to $30 billion a year over the next few years to develop new supplies.
Still, like most major oil companies, Exxon was hurt by lower oil prices, and a drop in demand for oil and refined fuels as consumers cut spending and businesses shed jobs.
In the fourth quarter, Exxon Mobil’s profit dropped 23 percent, to $6.05 billion, or $1.27 a share, compared with $7.82 billion, or $1.54 a share, in the period a year ago.
The earnings, however, beat analysts’ expectations, helping drive up shares, which rose 2.72 percent on Monday, to $66.18.
Revenue was up 6 percent, to $89.84 billion in the quarter.
“The industry trends in 2009 reflect a challenging environment over all,” the company’s vice president for investor relations, David Rosenthal, said during a conference call. “Certainly a tough year. Tough for everyone. But we feel our competitive strengths have helped us a bit.”
In 2008, Exxon became the world’s most profitable corporation with earnings over $45 billion as oil averaged $100 a barrel. Last year, its profit dropped 57 percent, to $19.28 billion. The company was also displaced by PetroChina as the world’s largest publicly traded company by market value, according to yearly rankings by PFC Energy, a consulting firm.
Oil prices, which collapsed when the financial crisis began, have since regained ground and settled above $74 a barrel on Monday in New York.
Exxon’s oil production averaged 2.39 million barrels a day in 2009, essentially flat from 2008 as lower output from mature fields was offset by increases from new projects in Qatar. Gas production grew 2 percent and averaged 9.3 billion cubic feet a day.
The plans to buy XTO, which are subject to approval, reflected Exxon’s enthusiasm for unconventional gas resources, where reserves have swelled because of innovations in producing gas from a type of rock called shale. The estimated reserves in the United States are now expected to last more than 100 years at current consumption rates.
Exxon has been building a global portfolio of shale reserves in the United States, Germany, Hungary and Canada in recent years. It hopes that XTO’s drilling expertise will help it expand its gas production rapidly.
Exxon was also the first American company to gain access to Iraq’s oil fields after winning the bidding for the West Qurna Phase 1 field with Royal Dutch Shell. The companies pledged to increase the field’s output to 2.325 million barrels a day, up from 279,000 barrels a day.
Few countries offer oil companies as much potential growth as Iraq does. That explains why foreign companies, which initially complained about the Iraqi government’s onerous terms, have all agreed to slash their profits in exchange for access to the country’s reserves.
Exxon beat a group led by the Russian giant Lukoil that included ConocoPhillips, and another led by the China National Petroleum Corporation. It will receive $1.90 for each barrel of extra production from the field, less than half of the $4 a barrel that Exxon had originally bid. The field holds 8.7 billion barrels in proven oil reserves.
For most oil companies, the last year has been tough. On Friday, Chevron disappointed analysts with a forecast that its oil and gas production would grow just 1 percent this year, much less than expected. The lackluster forecast illustrates the difficulty some of the world’s biggest oil companies are having as they try to expand output.
Chevron’s fourth-quarter profit dropped 37 percent, to $3.07 billion.
Separately, Shell said on Monday that it had signed an agreement with Cosan to form an ethanol joint venture in Brazil valued at $12 billion.
Both companies will contribute some of their existing Brazilian assets to the venture, and Shell would, in addition, contribute a $1.625 billion in cash over two years.
Shell reports its earnings later this week.
I think its horrible that even as the world goes into a recession, the oil companies are still doing really well. I don't like this because it means that they are making money off of us even when we are already down. We are too dependent on oil, and we have to fix that really soon or bad thing will start happening.
Exxon, the top Western oil company, took advantage of the weak climate to bolster its operations, buying smaller rivals and attractive assets as it sought to lay the foundation for growth once the economy rebounds.
In December, it announced the $31 billion purchase of XTO Energy, a leader in natural gas production in the United States. It gained a major foothold in Iraq, the holder of the third-biggest proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Iran. In Africa, it bid $4 billion for a major field off Ghana. It approved a multibillion-dollar project in Papua New Guinea to export gas to China and Japan.
The plan follows Exxon’s longstanding strategy of investing during market declines. Because of its substantial cash reserves, the company spent a record $27.1 billion on its exploration and development programs last year, a 4 percent increase from 2008.
While most of its big rivals have been restructuring and cutting expenses, Exxon has repeatedly said that it would stick with plans to spend $25 billion to $30 billion a year over the next few years to develop new supplies.
Still, like most major oil companies, Exxon was hurt by lower oil prices, and a drop in demand for oil and refined fuels as consumers cut spending and businesses shed jobs.
In the fourth quarter, Exxon Mobil’s profit dropped 23 percent, to $6.05 billion, or $1.27 a share, compared with $7.82 billion, or $1.54 a share, in the period a year ago.
The earnings, however, beat analysts’ expectations, helping drive up shares, which rose 2.72 percent on Monday, to $66.18.
Revenue was up 6 percent, to $89.84 billion in the quarter.
“The industry trends in 2009 reflect a challenging environment over all,” the company’s vice president for investor relations, David Rosenthal, said during a conference call. “Certainly a tough year. Tough for everyone. But we feel our competitive strengths have helped us a bit.”
In 2008, Exxon became the world’s most profitable corporation with earnings over $45 billion as oil averaged $100 a barrel. Last year, its profit dropped 57 percent, to $19.28 billion. The company was also displaced by PetroChina as the world’s largest publicly traded company by market value, according to yearly rankings by PFC Energy, a consulting firm.
Oil prices, which collapsed when the financial crisis began, have since regained ground and settled above $74 a barrel on Monday in New York.
Exxon’s oil production averaged 2.39 million barrels a day in 2009, essentially flat from 2008 as lower output from mature fields was offset by increases from new projects in Qatar. Gas production grew 2 percent and averaged 9.3 billion cubic feet a day.
The plans to buy XTO, which are subject to approval, reflected Exxon’s enthusiasm for unconventional gas resources, where reserves have swelled because of innovations in producing gas from a type of rock called shale. The estimated reserves in the United States are now expected to last more than 100 years at current consumption rates.
Exxon has been building a global portfolio of shale reserves in the United States, Germany, Hungary and Canada in recent years. It hopes that XTO’s drilling expertise will help it expand its gas production rapidly.
Exxon was also the first American company to gain access to Iraq’s oil fields after winning the bidding for the West Qurna Phase 1 field with Royal Dutch Shell. The companies pledged to increase the field’s output to 2.325 million barrels a day, up from 279,000 barrels a day.
Few countries offer oil companies as much potential growth as Iraq does. That explains why foreign companies, which initially complained about the Iraqi government’s onerous terms, have all agreed to slash their profits in exchange for access to the country’s reserves.
Exxon beat a group led by the Russian giant Lukoil that included ConocoPhillips, and another led by the China National Petroleum Corporation. It will receive $1.90 for each barrel of extra production from the field, less than half of the $4 a barrel that Exxon had originally bid. The field holds 8.7 billion barrels in proven oil reserves.
For most oil companies, the last year has been tough. On Friday, Chevron disappointed analysts with a forecast that its oil and gas production would grow just 1 percent this year, much less than expected. The lackluster forecast illustrates the difficulty some of the world’s biggest oil companies are having as they try to expand output.
Chevron’s fourth-quarter profit dropped 37 percent, to $3.07 billion.
Separately, Shell said on Monday that it had signed an agreement with Cosan to form an ethanol joint venture in Brazil valued at $12 billion.
Both companies will contribute some of their existing Brazilian assets to the venture, and Shell would, in addition, contribute a $1.625 billion in cash over two years.
Shell reports its earnings later this week.
I think its horrible that even as the world goes into a recession, the oil companies are still doing really well. I don't like this because it means that they are making money off of us even when we are already down. We are too dependent on oil, and we have to fix that really soon or bad thing will start happening.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Fainting Goats
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/dining/06frozen.html?hpw
It didn’t take long for Chip, a Tennessee fainting goat sporting a luxuriant Vandyke beard and an impressive pair of curlicue horns, to live up to his breed’s name. When Peter Borden, accompanied by a stranger, entered the immaculate stable that Chip calls home, the goat pressed his velvety nose through the bars of his stall, begging for a scratch. But at the visitor’s approach, Chip apparently had second thoughts. His left foreleg stiffened, his brown eyes went glassy and he began to list to one side.
“There he goes,” said Mr. Borden, the executive director of the SVF Foundation, a heritage livestock preservation facility here. The guest turned away, and Chip quickly recovered, his dignity intact.
Located on a 45-acre estate in Newport, SVF is the only organization in the country dedicated to conserving rare heritage livestock breeds by freezing their semen and embryos, a technique called cryopreservation. Chip, now SVF’s unofficial mascot, was the proof that the foundation had mastered the process. In early 2004, as a six-day-old embryo, he was flushed from his mother’s womb and spent the next several months frozen. Thawed and transplanted into a surrogate Nubian doe, a common breed, he was born on May 7, 2004, a perfectly normal fainting goat.
The building adjacent to the one that houses Chip contains three stainless-steel tanks about the size of commercial washing machines. About 45,000 semen and embryo samples from 20 breeds of rare cattle, sheep and goats are preserved there in liquid nitrogen chilled to minus 312 degrees — essentially a frozen ark. Each time the foundation freezes a batch of embryos from a new breed, it thaws a few and transplants them into surrogate animals, repeating the test that Chip once passed.
Keeling over when frightened by a potential predator is not the most desirable trait in a small ruminant, so it is easy to see why fainting goats became an endangered breed. In the eyes of modern agribusiness, Chip and his companions at SVF are a collection of misfits.
Huge dreadlocked Cotswold sheep are too big and slow-growing for commercial acceptance. Sleek Milking Devon cattle have the flaw of being dual-purpose livestock in a farm economy that demands specialization — a bovine must produce either rivers of milk or massive cuts of well-marbled beef.
But in other ways, the foundation’s four-legged barnyard nerds are ideally suited to meet the demands of evolving culinary and farming trends. “People are demanding choice at a time when commercial livestock are being bred for consistency,” Mr. Borden said.
Consider goat meat, once relegated to Caribbean, Hispanic and Middle Eastern immigrant enclaves. A decade ago, who would have guessed that it would become a culinary phenomenon, readily available at farmers’ markets nationwide and cutting-edge restaurants like David Schuttenberg’s Cabrito in the West Village, Rick Bayless’s Frontera Grill in Chicago and Tom Douglas’s Lola in Seattle? There is no way of telling which of the forgotten breeds preserved by SVF might someday find itself in similar demand, but the foundation will be prepared.
Chip will never end up on a kebab skewer, but a glance at his stocky wrestler’s build shows that he carries plenty of meat. His squat stature means that, unlike other goat breeds, he can’t leap tall fences, making him suited to small, diversified family farms near urban areas where goat meat is popular.
“These animals lend themselves well to the locavore movement,” Mr. Borden said. “They don’t need a lot of attention. They do well on small pastures, and require no grain.”
Set on rolling hills among Newport’s mansions, the SVF complex, with its restored stone buildings that resemble a Swiss village (the “SV” in the name), is an odd combination of an early 20th-century “gentleman’s folly” hobby farm and a scientific facility. Visitors are confronted by locked electronic gates and signs warning: “Biosecure area. Absolutely no trespassing. Please leave immediately.”
“Think of this as a safety valve program,” said Dr. George Saperstein, the foundation’s chief scientific adviser, who is chairman of the Department of Environmental and Population Health at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. “If there was a disaster, if something like the potato famine of livestock ever hit, these frozen embryos would be made available, and in one generation we would be back in business.” It is up to a small group of trustees and advisers to determine whether a severe emergency or some other circumstance requires release of the frozen germ plasm.
That possibility is not altogether remote. For all their efficiency and high output, modern livestock breeds have become a weak, inbred bunch, Dr. Saperstein said. Fifty years ago there were a half-dozen popular dairy breeds in this country. But today, according to Lindsey Worden of Holstein Association USA, an organization representing farmers and breeders, the country’s 8.6 million Holstein cows make up 93 percent of America’s dairy herd. Fewer than 20 champion bulls are responsible for half the genes in today’s Holsteins.
As an example of how vulnerable our milk supply is, Dr. Saperstein points to a heat wave in California in 2006 in which some 16,500 Holsteins died, despite farmers’ efforts to save them with cooling mists of water and fans. In contrast, the Pineywoods cattle in SVF’s collection were introduced into the forests of the South by Spaniards in the 1500s specifically because they tolerated heat. In all likelihood, the hardy animals would have survived the heat wave.
“Heritage breeds have not been continuously ‘improved’ by humans,” Mr. Borden said. “They have been shaped by natural survival-of-the-fittest forces and can get along without human intervention. Typically, rare varieties exhibit good birthing and mothering abilities. They can thrive on native grasses and other natural forage, and many know how to avoid predators.”
The foundation, a nonprofit group, was founded by Dorrance Hill Hamilton, known as Dodo. Mrs. Hamilton, 82, is a summer resident of Newport who inherited a major stake in the Campbell Soup Company, making her one of the country’s wealthiest women, according to Forbes magazine. An avid preservationist, she realized that the pastures and fieldstone buildings could not only serve as a greenbelt, but would also be ideal for the conservation of livestock.
After consulting with Tufts scientists, she decided to create a frozen library of genetic material from farm animals in danger of being lost to extinction. The facility operates on an annual budget of approximately $2 million supplied by Mrs. Hamilton.
“No one else was doing this work,” Mrs. Hamilton said through a spokesman. She was visiting Britain in 2001 when millions of farm animals were destroyed to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease, and she thought that something had to be done in case a similar outbreak happened here. “I didn’t have enough land to maintain herds of animals, so I realized that cryopreservation was where we should go,” she said.
Before SVF, the preservation of heritage livestock was through natural reproduction and largely the purview of dedicated amateur and professional breeders and organizations like the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy and Slow Food USA, as well as organizations promoting specific varieties. “On-the-hoof conservation is important,” Mr. Borden said. “But used in conjunction with it, cryopreservation is a great long-term solution.”
In an operating room at SVF late last month, an 87-pound black-muzzled ewe lay anesthetized on an operating table. She was one of about 300 Hog Island sheep, remnants of a tough, healthy and highly maternal colonial population that had survived essentially as wild animals for hundreds of years on a barrier island off Virginia. Technicians had given her fertility treatments to increase her egg production, and six days earlier she had mated.
After examining the ewe’s womb through a strawlike laparoscope inserted into a tiny hole in her belly, Dr. David Mastas, a Tufts veterinarian who spends nearly all his time working at SVF, enlarged the incision and lifted her uterus from her abdominal cavity and flushed out four embryos.
Barely visible to the naked eye, they resembled salmon roe when magnified under a microscope. Once it was determined that they were viable, the embryos were frozen. Dr. Mastas performed the procedure on two more Hog Island sheep that day, resulting in 21 frozen embryos. A typical Hog Island ewe produces one lamb each year.
About an hour after the procedure had begun, the ewe stood woozily in a stall next to the operating room. Like two-thirds of the 100 or so animals at the facility at any given time, she was there on loan and would be returned to her owner in Virginia. In other cases, the foundation leases animals or, occasionally, buys them outright. Once these have had their germ plasm preserved, they are sold to other farms to create satellite populations.
Having mastered the techniques of cryogenics, SVF has expanded its efforts to educating the public about the value of conserving heritage breeds. To that end, the foundation is donating about $30,000 for a pilot program with the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. Working with consultants, SVF and the farmstand started the brand Fair Food Farmstand Heritage Breed for meat, dairy and eggs. The effort includes point-of-sale information explaining the merits of rare farm animals.
“We have to eat these animals to save them,” Mr. Borden said. “Ultimately, food is the reason heritage breeds are important.”
I think that this could be an important improvement in helping endangered species survive. I think we could help them to not become extinct and therefore keep their niche in the enviornment. I think this is something good, and can be used to fix the mistakes we made when we made different species endangered.
It didn’t take long for Chip, a Tennessee fainting goat sporting a luxuriant Vandyke beard and an impressive pair of curlicue horns, to live up to his breed’s name. When Peter Borden, accompanied by a stranger, entered the immaculate stable that Chip calls home, the goat pressed his velvety nose through the bars of his stall, begging for a scratch. But at the visitor’s approach, Chip apparently had second thoughts. His left foreleg stiffened, his brown eyes went glassy and he began to list to one side.
“There he goes,” said Mr. Borden, the executive director of the SVF Foundation, a heritage livestock preservation facility here. The guest turned away, and Chip quickly recovered, his dignity intact.
Located on a 45-acre estate in Newport, SVF is the only organization in the country dedicated to conserving rare heritage livestock breeds by freezing their semen and embryos, a technique called cryopreservation. Chip, now SVF’s unofficial mascot, was the proof that the foundation had mastered the process. In early 2004, as a six-day-old embryo, he was flushed from his mother’s womb and spent the next several months frozen. Thawed and transplanted into a surrogate Nubian doe, a common breed, he was born on May 7, 2004, a perfectly normal fainting goat.
The building adjacent to the one that houses Chip contains three stainless-steel tanks about the size of commercial washing machines. About 45,000 semen and embryo samples from 20 breeds of rare cattle, sheep and goats are preserved there in liquid nitrogen chilled to minus 312 degrees — essentially a frozen ark. Each time the foundation freezes a batch of embryos from a new breed, it thaws a few and transplants them into surrogate animals, repeating the test that Chip once passed.
Keeling over when frightened by a potential predator is not the most desirable trait in a small ruminant, so it is easy to see why fainting goats became an endangered breed. In the eyes of modern agribusiness, Chip and his companions at SVF are a collection of misfits.
Huge dreadlocked Cotswold sheep are too big and slow-growing for commercial acceptance. Sleek Milking Devon cattle have the flaw of being dual-purpose livestock in a farm economy that demands specialization — a bovine must produce either rivers of milk or massive cuts of well-marbled beef.
But in other ways, the foundation’s four-legged barnyard nerds are ideally suited to meet the demands of evolving culinary and farming trends. “People are demanding choice at a time when commercial livestock are being bred for consistency,” Mr. Borden said.
Consider goat meat, once relegated to Caribbean, Hispanic and Middle Eastern immigrant enclaves. A decade ago, who would have guessed that it would become a culinary phenomenon, readily available at farmers’ markets nationwide and cutting-edge restaurants like David Schuttenberg’s Cabrito in the West Village, Rick Bayless’s Frontera Grill in Chicago and Tom Douglas’s Lola in Seattle? There is no way of telling which of the forgotten breeds preserved by SVF might someday find itself in similar demand, but the foundation will be prepared.
Chip will never end up on a kebab skewer, but a glance at his stocky wrestler’s build shows that he carries plenty of meat. His squat stature means that, unlike other goat breeds, he can’t leap tall fences, making him suited to small, diversified family farms near urban areas where goat meat is popular.
“These animals lend themselves well to the locavore movement,” Mr. Borden said. “They don’t need a lot of attention. They do well on small pastures, and require no grain.”
Set on rolling hills among Newport’s mansions, the SVF complex, with its restored stone buildings that resemble a Swiss village (the “SV” in the name), is an odd combination of an early 20th-century “gentleman’s folly” hobby farm and a scientific facility. Visitors are confronted by locked electronic gates and signs warning: “Biosecure area. Absolutely no trespassing. Please leave immediately.”
“Think of this as a safety valve program,” said Dr. George Saperstein, the foundation’s chief scientific adviser, who is chairman of the Department of Environmental and Population Health at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. “If there was a disaster, if something like the potato famine of livestock ever hit, these frozen embryos would be made available, and in one generation we would be back in business.” It is up to a small group of trustees and advisers to determine whether a severe emergency or some other circumstance requires release of the frozen germ plasm.
That possibility is not altogether remote. For all their efficiency and high output, modern livestock breeds have become a weak, inbred bunch, Dr. Saperstein said. Fifty years ago there were a half-dozen popular dairy breeds in this country. But today, according to Lindsey Worden of Holstein Association USA, an organization representing farmers and breeders, the country’s 8.6 million Holstein cows make up 93 percent of America’s dairy herd. Fewer than 20 champion bulls are responsible for half the genes in today’s Holsteins.
As an example of how vulnerable our milk supply is, Dr. Saperstein points to a heat wave in California in 2006 in which some 16,500 Holsteins died, despite farmers’ efforts to save them with cooling mists of water and fans. In contrast, the Pineywoods cattle in SVF’s collection were introduced into the forests of the South by Spaniards in the 1500s specifically because they tolerated heat. In all likelihood, the hardy animals would have survived the heat wave.
“Heritage breeds have not been continuously ‘improved’ by humans,” Mr. Borden said. “They have been shaped by natural survival-of-the-fittest forces and can get along without human intervention. Typically, rare varieties exhibit good birthing and mothering abilities. They can thrive on native grasses and other natural forage, and many know how to avoid predators.”
The foundation, a nonprofit group, was founded by Dorrance Hill Hamilton, known as Dodo. Mrs. Hamilton, 82, is a summer resident of Newport who inherited a major stake in the Campbell Soup Company, making her one of the country’s wealthiest women, according to Forbes magazine. An avid preservationist, she realized that the pastures and fieldstone buildings could not only serve as a greenbelt, but would also be ideal for the conservation of livestock.
After consulting with Tufts scientists, she decided to create a frozen library of genetic material from farm animals in danger of being lost to extinction. The facility operates on an annual budget of approximately $2 million supplied by Mrs. Hamilton.
“No one else was doing this work,” Mrs. Hamilton said through a spokesman. She was visiting Britain in 2001 when millions of farm animals were destroyed to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease, and she thought that something had to be done in case a similar outbreak happened here. “I didn’t have enough land to maintain herds of animals, so I realized that cryopreservation was where we should go,” she said.
Before SVF, the preservation of heritage livestock was through natural reproduction and largely the purview of dedicated amateur and professional breeders and organizations like the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy and Slow Food USA, as well as organizations promoting specific varieties. “On-the-hoof conservation is important,” Mr. Borden said. “But used in conjunction with it, cryopreservation is a great long-term solution.”
In an operating room at SVF late last month, an 87-pound black-muzzled ewe lay anesthetized on an operating table. She was one of about 300 Hog Island sheep, remnants of a tough, healthy and highly maternal colonial population that had survived essentially as wild animals for hundreds of years on a barrier island off Virginia. Technicians had given her fertility treatments to increase her egg production, and six days earlier she had mated.
After examining the ewe’s womb through a strawlike laparoscope inserted into a tiny hole in her belly, Dr. David Mastas, a Tufts veterinarian who spends nearly all his time working at SVF, enlarged the incision and lifted her uterus from her abdominal cavity and flushed out four embryos.
Barely visible to the naked eye, they resembled salmon roe when magnified under a microscope. Once it was determined that they were viable, the embryos were frozen. Dr. Mastas performed the procedure on two more Hog Island sheep that day, resulting in 21 frozen embryos. A typical Hog Island ewe produces one lamb each year.
About an hour after the procedure had begun, the ewe stood woozily in a stall next to the operating room. Like two-thirds of the 100 or so animals at the facility at any given time, she was there on loan and would be returned to her owner in Virginia. In other cases, the foundation leases animals or, occasionally, buys them outright. Once these have had their germ plasm preserved, they are sold to other farms to create satellite populations.
Having mastered the techniques of cryogenics, SVF has expanded its efforts to educating the public about the value of conserving heritage breeds. To that end, the foundation is donating about $30,000 for a pilot program with the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. Working with consultants, SVF and the farmstand started the brand Fair Food Farmstand Heritage Breed for meat, dairy and eggs. The effort includes point-of-sale information explaining the merits of rare farm animals.
“We have to eat these animals to save them,” Mr. Borden said. “Ultimately, food is the reason heritage breeds are important.”
I think that this could be an important improvement in helping endangered species survive. I think we could help them to not become extinct and therefore keep their niche in the enviornment. I think this is something good, and can be used to fix the mistakes we made when we made different species endangered.
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