To my dear visitors and commenters

Hi, everybody! I've noticed with lots of joy and happiness, that thousands of comments have been written in my posts. It's wonderful that so may people around the world appreciate my work. Therefore, I want to thank you for that and ,at the same time I want to ask you to be this blog's followers. It's fast and easy! Make it be even more visited and spread all over the world! I'm a woman, a teacher of English in Portugal, and I've been away for quite a long time because of my father's health. Unfortunately he died from Covid19 a few months ago. Now I felt it was time to restart my activity in this and other blogs I owe. I've recently created a new one in a partnership with a street photographer, Mr. Daniel Antunes. He's fabulous! https://pandpbydandd.blogspot.com I'd like you to visit it and, who knows, become our followers. The poems, chronicles and thoughts are all mine. Thank you so much! Kisses :-)

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Saturday, January 09, 2016

MILAN’S BOSCO VERTICALE COMING TO LAUSANNE

Stefano Boeri's vertical forest


Two rectangular towers with a height of 80 and 112 meters and 800 trees and 5000 bushes decorating the external facade Stefano Boeris Bosco Verticale brings the nature right into the heart of Milan. A nearly identical building project is now planned to bring the vertical Forest to Lausanne, Switzerland.
Italian architect Stefano Boeri designed these beautiful towers, whose inauguration ceremony took place in 2014. The two towers are located in Porta Nuova, in the north of Milans centre, and are a symbiosis between architecture and nature. On 40.000m exposed surface, approx. 3.000m are covered in trees. It is scarcely surprising that Stefano Boeris Vertical Forest won the Internation Highrise Award in 2014.
His idea of a Vertical Forest was now even awarded the contract for to build a Bosco Verticale v2 in Lausanne, Switzerland. The construction of the residental and office buildings, called Tour des Cdres, is scheduled for 2017.

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

Australian Monitor lizards trained not to eat toxic cane toads

Scientists have worked out a radical solution for Australia's deadly cane toad problem.

Goanna
Goanna numbers have dramatically declined in Australia

They have trained wild monitor lizards, known locally as goannas, not to eat the toxic cane toads.
They did this by feeding the reptiles smaller, younger and less poisonous cane toads. Many that tried the toads once did not make the same mistake again.
The study is published in a Royal Society journal, called Biology Letters.
Lead researcher Georgia Ward-Fear, from the University of Sydney, said: "We've been very surprised by the results, by the amount of time that some of these lizards have actually retained this knowledge and survived in the presence of a high-density of cane toads, which is basically unheard of in the wild."
Cane toad
Smaller cane toads are less of a toxic mouthful than the adult goannas
Cane toads were introduced to Australia in the 1930s to control sugar cane pests. But their numbers have rapidly increased, killing many of the continent's animals, because they are poinonous.
Among the hardest hit are the yellow-spotted monitors (Varanus panoptes). Their population is estimated to have plummeted by 90%. When the toads invade a new area, these yellow-and-black-spotted reptiles feast on the amphibians, and die.
Radiotracking
The research team used radiotrackers to monitor the lizards' survival rates
The scientists say the study suggests goannas have the ability to learn from experience and keep that knowledge over a long period of time.
One of the scientists, Dr Ward-Fear, said: "This study provides the proof of principle that this strategy could be very effective. Employing it in the wild could potentially have a really large positive impact on the goanna population."
From CBBC Newsround

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