MATA HARI

pesticidas e morte das abelhas - causa e efeito

Já há muito que se desconfiava. Começam agora a chegar as evidências científicas.  

Scientists have been alarmed and puzzled by declines in bee populations in the United States and other parts of the world. They have suspected that pesticides are playing a part, but to date their experiments have yielded conflicting, ambiguous results.
In Thursday’s issue of the journal Science, two teams of researchers published studies suggesting that low levels of a common pesticide can have significant effects on bee colonies. One experiment, conducted by French researchers, indicates that the chemicals fog honeybee brains, making it harder for them to find their way home. The other study, by scientists in Britain, suggests that they keep bumblebees from supplying their hives with enough food to produce new queens.
The authors of both studies contend that their results raise serious questions about the use of the pesticides, known as neonicotinoids.
“I personally would like to see them not being used until more research has been done,” said David Goulson, an author of the bumblebee paper who teaches at the University of Stirling, in Scotland. “If it confirms what we’ve found, then they certainly shouldn’t be used when they’re going to be fed on by bees.”
But pesticides are only one of several likely factors that scientists have linked to declining bee populations. There are simply fewer flowers, for example, thanks to land development. Bees are increasingly succumbing to mites, viruses, fungi and other pathogens.
Outside experts were divided about the importance of the two new studies. Some favored the honeybee study over the bumblebee study, while others felt the opposite was true. Environmentalists say that both studies support their view that the insecticides should be banned. And a scientist for Bayer CropScience, the leading maker of neonicotinoids, cast doubt on both studies, for what other scientists said were legitimate reasons.
David Fischer, an ecotoxicologist at Bayer CropScience, said the new experiments had design flaws and conflicting results. In the French study, he said, the honeybees got far too much neonicotinoid. “I think they selected an improper dose level,” Dr. Fischer said.
Dr. Goulson’s study on bumblebees might warrant a “closer look,” Dr. Fischer said, but he argued that the weight of evidence still points to mites and viruses as the most likely candidates for bee declines.
The research does not solve the mystery of the vanishing bees. Although bumblebees have been on the decline in the United States and elsewhere, they have not succumbed to a specific phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, which affects only honeybees.
Yet the research is coming out at a time when opposition to neonicotinoids is gaining momentum. The insecticides, introduced in the early 1990s, have exploded in popularity; virtually all corn grown in the United States is treated with them. Neonicotinoids are taken up by plants and moved to all their tissues — including the nectar on which bees feed. The concentration of neonicotinoids in nectar is not lethal, but some scientists have wondered if it might still affect bees.
In the honeybee experiment, researchers at the National Institute for Agricultural Research in France fed the bees a dose of neonicotinoid-laced sugar water and then moved them more than half a mile from their hive. The bees carried miniature radio tags that allowed the scientists to keep track of how many returned to the hive.
In familiar territory, the scientists found, the bees exposed to the pesticide were 10 percent less likely than healthy bees to make it home. In unfamiliar places, that figure rose to 31 percent.
The French scientists used a computer model to estimate how the hive would be affected by the loss of these bees. Under different conditions, they concluded that the hive’s population might drop by two-thirds or more, depending on how many worker bees were exposed.
“I thought it was very well designed,” said May Berenbaum, an entomologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
But James Cresswell, an ecotoxicologist at the University of Exeter in England, was less impressed, because the scientists had to rely on a computer model to determine changes in the hive. “I don’t think the paper is a trump card,” he said.
In the British study, Dr. Goulson and his colleagues fed sugar water laced with a neonicotinoid pesticide to 50 bumblebee colonies. The researchers then moved the bee colonies to a farm, alongside 25 colonies that had been fed ordinary sugar water.
At the end of each year, all the bumblebees in a hive die except for a few new queens, which will go on to found new hives. Dr. Goulson and his colleagues found that colonies exposed to neonicotinoids produced 85 percent fewer queens. This reduction would translate into 85 percent fewer hives.
Jeffery Pettis, a bee expert at the United States Department of Agriculture, called Dr. Goulson’s study “alarming.” He said he suspected that other types of wild bees would be shown to suffer similar effects.
Dr. Pettis is also convinced that neonicotinoids in low doses make bees more vulnerable to disease. He and other researchers have recently published experiments showing that neonicotinoids make honeybees more vulnerable to infections from parasitic fungi.
“Three or four years ago, I was much more cautious about how much pesticides were contributing to the problem,” Dr. Pettis said. “Now more and more evidence points to pesticides being a consistent part of the problem.”

By CARL ZIMMER

Published: March 29, 2012

Far East Family Band

Khan academy

O melhor que poderia acontecer a um estudante e for free: Khan academy.

(é só uma foto!)

This must be the place

"The amazing Roy Orbison

He was one of those Texan guys who could sail through anything, including his whole tragic life. His kids die in a fire, his wife dies in a car crash, nothing in his private life went right for the big O, but I can’t think of a gentler gentleman, or a more stoic personality. That incredible talent for blowing himself up from five foot six to six foot nine, which he seemed to be able to do on stage. It was amazing to witness. He’s been in the sun, looking like a lobster, pair of shorts on. And we’re just sitting around playing guitars, having a chat, smoke and a drink. “Well, I’m on in five minutes.” We watch the opening number. And out walks this totally transformed thing that seems to have grown at least a foot with presence and command over the crowd. He was in his shorts just now; how did he do that? It’s one of those astounding things about working in the theater. Backstage you can be a bunch of bums. And “Ladies and gentlemen” or “I present to you,” and you’re somebody else.

Life (Keith Richards and James Fox (Contributor))
- Highlight Loc. 2511-18  | Added on Friday, February 10, 2012, 02:28 PM

E nem é preciso dizer de quem é a sugestão!

os Stones na América

"Dean Martin introduced as something like “these long-haired wonders from England, the Rolling Stones.… They’re backstage picking the fleas off each other.” A lot of sarcasm and eyeball rolling. Then he said, “Don’t leave me alone with this,” gesturing with horror in our direction. This was Dino, the rebel Rat Packer who cocked his finger at the entertainment world by pretending to be drunk all the time. We were, in fact, quite stunned. English comperes and showbiz types may have been hostile, but they didn’t treat you like some dumb circus act. Before we’d gone on, he’d had the bouffanted King Sisters and performing elephants, standing on their hind legs. I love old Dino. He was a pretty funny bloke, even though he wasn’t ready for the changing of the guard."

 Highlight Loc. 2212-17 

We walked into Chess studios, and there’s this guy in black overalls painting the ceiling. And it’s Muddy Waters, and he’s got whitewash streaming down his face and he’s on top of a ladder. Marshall Chess says, “Oh, we never had him painting.” But Marshall was a boy then; he was working in the basement. And also Bill Wyman told me he actually remembers Muddy Waters taking our amplifiers from the car into the studio. Whether he was being a nice guy or he wasn’t selling records then, I know what the Chess brothers were bloody well like—if you want to stay on the payroll, get to work. Actually meeting your heroes, your idols, the weirdest thing is that most of them are so humble, and very encouraging.

Highlight Loc. 2306-10

The most bizarre part of the whole story is that having done what we intended to do in our narrow, purist teenage brains at the time, which was to turn people on to the blues, what actually happened was we turned American people back on to their own music. And that’s probably our greatest contribution to music. We turned white America’s brain and ears around. And I wouldn’t say we were the only ones—without the Beatles probably nobody would have broken the door down. And they certainly weren’t bluesmen.

Highlight Loc. 2323-26 

When we put out “Little Red Rooster,” a raw Willie Dixon blues with slide guitar and all, it was a daring move at the time, November 1964. We were getting no-no’s from the record company, management, everyone else. But we felt we were on the crest of a wave and we could push it. It was almost in defiance of pop. In our arrogance at the time, we wanted to make a statement. “I am the little red rooster / Too lazy to crow for day.” See if you can get that to the top of the charts, motherfucker. Song about a chicken. Mick and I stood up and said, come on, let’s push it. This is what we’re fucking about. And the floodgates burst after that, suddenly Muddy and Howlin’ Wolf and Buddy Guy are getting gigs and working. It was a breakthrough. And the record got to number one. And I’m absolutely sure what we were doing made Berry Gordy at Motown capable of pushing his stuff elsewhere, and it certainly rejuvenated Chicago blues as well.

Highlight Loc. 2351-57 

Most towns, like white Nashville, for example, by ten o’clock were ghost towns. We were working with black guys, the Vibrations, Don Bradley, I think his name was. The most amazing act, they could do everything. They were doing somersaults while they were playing. “What are you going to do after the show?” This is already an invitation. So, get in the cab and we go across the tracks and it’s just starting to happen. There’s food going, everybody’s rocking and rolling, everybody’s having a good time, and it was such a contrast from the white side of town, it always sticks in my memory. You could hang there with ribs, drink, smoke. And big mamas, for some reason they always looked upon us as thin and frail people. So they started to mama us, which was all right with me. Shoved into the middle of two enormous breasts… “You need a rubdown, boy?” “OK, anything you say, mama.” Just the free-and-easiness of it. You wake up in a house full of black people who are being so incredibly kind to you, you can’t believe it. I mean, shit, I wish this happened at home. And this happened in every town. You wake up, where am I? And there’s a big mama there, and you’re in bed with her daughter, but you get breakfast in bed.

Highlight Loc. 2363-71

Os Stones na América

Lenny was the man. The Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce; I’d taken him in long before I got to America. So I was well prepared when on The Ed Sullivan Show Mick wasn’t allowed to sing “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” we had to sing “Let’s Spend Some Time Together.” Talk about shades and nuances. What does that mean, especially to CBS? A night is not allowed. Unbelievable. It used to make us laugh. It was pure Lenny Bruce—“Tittie” is a dirty word? What’s dirty? The word or the tittie?

(Keith Richards and James Fox (Contributor))
- Highlight Loc. 2193-96  | Added on Wednesday, February 08, 2012, 07:46 AM

Os Stones na américa: "Black music was exploding

 It was a powerhouse. At Motown they had a factory but without turning out automatons. We lived off Motown on the road, just waiting for the next Four Tops or the next Temptations. Motown was our food, on the road and off. Listening to car radios through a thousand miles to get to the next gig. That was the beauty of America. We used to dream of it before we got there.

Life (Keith Richards and James Fox (Contributor))

- Highlight Loc. 2188-91  | Added on Wednesday, February 08, 2012, 07:45 AM

O Rock sempre me pareceu uma coisa de pretos a quererem ser brancos e de brancos a quererem ser pretos

You’ve already made the fucking deal.

"In the arrogance of youth, the idea of being a rock star or a pop star was taking a step down from being a bluesman and playing the clubs. For us to have to dip our feet into commercialism, in 1962 or ’63, was for a small while distasteful. The Rolling Stones, when they started, the limits of their ambition was just to be the best fucking band in London. We disdained the provinces; it was a real London mind-set. But once the world beckoned, it didn’t take long for the scales to fall from the eyes. Suddenly the whole world was opening up, the Beatles were proving that. It’s not that easy being famous; you don’t want to be. But at the same time you’ve got to be in order to do what you’re doing. And you realize you’ve already made the deal at the crossroads. Nobody said this was the deal. But within a few weeks, months, you realize that you’ve made the deal. And that you are now set on a path that is not your aesthetically ideal path. Stupid teenage idealisms, purisms, bullshit. You’re now set on the path, along with all those people that you wanted to follow anyway, like Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson. You’ve already made the fucking deal. And now you have to follow it, just like all your brothers and sisters and ancestors. You are now on the road."

Life (Keith Richards and James Fox (Contributor))

- Highlight Loc. 2163-72  | Added on Wednesday, February 08, 2012, 07:41 AM

Marianne Faithfull

“As Tears Go By” was first recorded and made into a hit by Marianne Faithfull."

Life (Keith Richards and James Fox (Contributor))
- Highlight Loc. 2126  | Added on Wednesday, February 08, 2012, 07:29 AM

the Ronettes

"The Ronettes were the hottest girl group in the world, and early in 1963 they’d just released one of the greatest songs ever recorded, “Be My Baby,” produced by Phil Spector. We toured with the Ronettes on our second UK tour, and I fell in love with Ronnie Bennett, who was the lead singer.

Loc. 2134-37 

Ronnie remembered how we were on that tour together:

Ronnie Spector: Keith and I made ways to be together—I remember on that tour, in England, there was so much fog that the bus had to actually stop. And Keith and I got out and we went over to this little cottage and this old lady came to the door, sort of heavy and so sweet—and I said, “Hi, I’m Ronnie of the Ronettes” and Keith said, “I’m Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones and we can’t move our bus because we can’t see any farther than our hands.…” So she says, “Oh! Come on in, kids, I’ll give you something!” and she gave us scones, tea and then she gave us extra ones to bring back to the bus and to be honest, those were the happiest days of my entire career. We were twenty years old and we just fell in love. What do you do when you hear a record like “Be My Baby” and suddenly you are?"

Life (Keith Richards and James Fox (Contributor))
- Highlight Loc. 2148-55  | Added on Wednesday, February 08, 2012, 07:35 AM

V for Vendetta

E nos andam a enrolar

Do tempo em que a música não estava reduzida ao canto do eu e dos seus sentimentos, emoções e desejos. Do tempo em que a música se envolvia na denúncia das injustiças sofridas pelos pobres e desprotegidos. Do tempo em que as pessoas se envolviam umas com as outras. Do tempo em que o indivíduo se diluía no colectivo. Do tempo em que havia "trabalhadores culturais". Do tempo em que se queria "parar tudo". Do tempo em que a greve era uma arma. E não foi assim há tanto tempo. Se aí, em 1976, a música é marcadamente ideológica, hoje é lamentavelmente vazia e apolítica. Hoje, a ideologia - politicamente complexa e reflexo dos anos quentes de 74, 75 e 76 - do Grupo de Acção Cultural está morta e ainda bem! Hoje já ninguém deseja a "ditatura do proletariado". Contudo, a qualidade do disco "POIS CANTÉ!!" é indiscutível.

10 Ir e vir 4:22
      (GAC)

O vento hoje sopra do Norte
Como sabem se chama Nortada 
Mas não sabem que no mar alto 
Vento e geada cortam à facada 
Risca a cara e de que maneira 
Risca tudo que encontra na frente 
Vai o barco cheiinho de gente 
Vai o barco chamado traineira 

 ir e vir ao mar... 

Chegado ao mar alto, lá fora da costa 
Deita ao mar chalandra e chalandreiro 
Pega numa ponta da rede e a traineira 
Dá volta inteira 
Peixe vivo fica lá no meio, fica tudo cheio 
De peixe miúdo, de peixe graúdo 
E de esforço, de suor
De trabalho d'um raio, 
R'ais parta a vida do pescador 

Puxa a rede alador... 

Fica a traineira bem carregadinha 
De faneca, carapau e sardinha 
Vira o leme já o sol vai alto 
Já as mulheres estão em sobressalto 
Chega à costa e vende-se o peixe 
E não há nada que a fábrica deixe 
E as conservas vão p'ró estrangeiro 
É negócio, é negócio rijo 
Mas a vida do pescador é sem descanso 
E sem dinheiro 

Sem descanso e sem dinheiro...
 
Isto assim é que não está certo 
A gente assim não pode viver 
A gente nem ganha p´ra comer 
Nem tem descanso 
O mar enrola a areia 
E nos andam a enrolar 
Calma aí seu gatuno ladrão, seu armador 
Porque vai é parar tudo 
Nós vamos é já p'ra greve 
E não há ninguém que nos leve 

A greve é nossa arma...

 
 "O GAC assinava sempre como um colectivo onde as individualidades se diluíam, no entanto, as autorias das músicas e letras nem sempre, ou quase nunca, eram colectivas. Nesta reedição em cd, revelamo-las."

faixa 10: letra e música de João Loio.
Arranjos de Luís Pedro Faro.

os representantes dos mortos

O serviço público de comunicação dos Açores já está a divulgar o inevitável crescimento do número de deputados na próxima legislatura - mais cinco deputados serão eleitos em Outubro. O absurdo é que, segundo os últimos censos, a população açoriana diminuiu. Mas o número de eleitores nos cadernos eleitorais aumenta. Os mortos não deixam de ser eleitores e os emigrantes têm todos direito a cartão de eleitor. Em vez de se propor uma solução para o problema - o que se calhar até diminuiria o número actual de deputados, número que é já elevado e tem vindo a aumentar (veja aqui) - transforma-se o erro numa necessidade. É discutível se os mortos continuam, ou não, a ter interesses e direitos, mas na assembleia legislativa regional haverá quem os defenda. Esses cinco novos deputados serão os representantes dos mortos e dos ausentes. Os partidos e os seus líderes fazem contas e esfregam as mãos.

Os anos sessenta e Ginsberg

"I liked the energy that was going into it rather than necessarily everything that was being done—that feeling in the air that anything was possible. Otherwise, the stunning overblown pretentiousness of the art world made my skin crawl cold turkey, and I wasn’t even using the stuff. Allen Ginsberg was staying at Mick’s place in London once, and I spent an evening listening to the old gasbag pontificating on everything. It was the period when Ginsberg sat around playing a concertina badly and making ommm sounds, pretending he was oblivious to his socialite surroundings."

Life (Keith Richards and James Fox (Contributor))- Highlight Loc. 2933-34

"Ersatz hip, as it’s called."

Subitamente a palavra voltou ao meu pensamento.
Keit Richards usa-a na sua autobiografia e já a encontrei no blog de Pedro Mexia.
Eu próprio penso ser agora um ersatz da cultura hippie e da cultura em geral.

ALEXANDRE O'NEILL (1924-1986)

AOS VINDOUROS, SE OS HOUVER...

Vós, que trabalhais só duas horas
a ver trabalhar a cibernética,
que não deixais o átomo a desoras
na gandaia, pois tendes uma ética;

que do amor sabeis o ponto e a vírgula
e vos engalfinhais livres de medo,
sem peçários, calendários, Pílula,
jaculatórios fora, tarde ou cedo;

 computai, computai a vossa falha
sem perfurar demais vossa memória,
que nós fomos pràqui uma gentalha
a fazer passamanes com a história;

que nós fomos (fatal necessidade!)
quadrúmanos da vossa humanidade.  

Alexandre O'Neill, De Ombro Na Ombreira (1969)

The Story Of Food from USC Canada on Vimeo.