The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure describes how to collect human manure and use it. This video shows how to make a human manure compost pile.

This is the story of an ingenious solution for poverty alleviation using human urine and faeces! See it to believe it…

The 12,000 plus members of Engineers Without Borders have worked on more than 300 projects in over 45 developing countries. Their mission is to “help create a more stable and prosperous world by addressing people’s basic human needs by providing necessities such as clean water, power, sanitation and education.”

EWB takes on projects that are proposed by a community. It’s a grassroots approach that ensures projects are needed by a community and have commitment from community members.

Engineers Bring Better Health to Rural Communities describes a project they took on recently in Honduras to bring clean water to a rural village. Their website describes many more projects.

If you are an engineer, you can get involved with their projects. If you are not, you can donate to help fund projects.

I’ve never seen the ocean glow, but Katie Spotz did this week. She has been rowing in the Atlantic Ocean for 3 weeks now, getting closer to South America each day. A recent tweet from her:

“Can anyone explain what these glowing specks in the water are? Every night I see them and have no clue what they are”

Bioluminescence in the water has puzzled people for thousands of years, starting with Aniximenes in 500 B.C. Many have guessed over the years.

Are they spirits? In 1688 Pere Guy Tachard, during a cruise to Siam, said:

“We attribute the cause to the heat of the sun, which has, as it were, impregnated and filled the sea during the day with an infinity of fiery and luminous spirits. There spirits after dark reunite to pass out in a violent state…”

Are the glowing specks the spawn or seed of whales? Father Bourzes, a Jesuit missionary in the East Indies said in 1713:

“…in sailing over some Places of the Sea, we find a Matter or Substance of different Colours, sometimes red, sometines yellow. In looking at it, one would think it was Saw-dust: Our Sailors say it is the Spawn or Seed of Whales. What it is, is not certain; but when we draw up Water in passing over these Places, it is always viscous and glutinous….”

Nope. The glow is likely from bioluminescent dinoflagellates—that is, marine plankton that light up. The plankton light up when they sense a predator. The purpose is to attract a bigger predator that will eat the plankton’s predator!

For more historical ideas on bioluminescence, see A History of Marine Bioluminescence According to E.N. Harvey.

This video will give you an idea of what bioluminescence looks like. Video footage courtesy OceanLab, University of Aberdeen.

Bioluminescent emissions from a range of zooplankton recorded by the ICDeep ultra low light camera as it travels 15m down through the water column, at a depth of 450m. The bioluminescence is stimulated as the animals impact on a mesh placed 50cm in front of the camera. This video was taken in the Strait of Sicily.

The Boys of Terezin is a documentary file project that chronicles the lives of a group of young boys (aged 12 to 15) who published a magazine—Vedem (We Lead). What’s extraordinary is that they undertook this activity while imprisoned by the Nazis in the Terezin concentration camp during World War II. The boys wrote, edited, and illustrated more than 800 pages worth of content, all in secret.

Most of the boys were killed by the Nazis. A few survived. One of the boys hid the manuscript. Some of it survives today. After all these years, several of the surviving boys are still alive, and very old.

Music of Remembrance commissioned John Sharify to produce and direct a documentary about Vedem and the boys interned at Terezin. The film features interviews with the six remaining survivors – now spread across four continents. Mr. Sharify is the winner of several Edward R. Murrow and Emmy Awards. Although the documentary is in progress, it needs much more funding to finish.

This is your chance to be a filmmaker! Any donation—from small to enormous—is needed. If you are able to give a lot of money, you’ll get your name on the film as one of its sponsors. If you give a little money, you’ll be able to take pride in the fact that you helped bring this story to light. Music of Remembrance intends to have a premiere of the film in Seattle, to show it on public TV, and to enter the documentary in film festivals.

John Sharify is a class act; he’ll do justice to this story. Music of Remembrance has over a decade of experience of producing musical concerts, CDs, and commissioning new works. MOR’s mission is to preserve the musical legacy of Holocaust musicians. MOR has a stellar track record in getting things done.

For more information, contact Music of Remembrance at (206) 365-7770 or donate online.

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A Poem from Vedem:

We are all children, little ones
Playing with a colored ball.
We cry easily with ruddy cheeks
And then, with glowing faces
We look at a silvery world,
At green hillsides,
At life. We look ahead.
–Hanus Hachenburg (b. 1929, perished Auschwitz)

A few people asked me if I saw any polar bears during my recent trip to Antarctica. No, I didn’t. Polar bears live in the Arctic. If you want to see them, either go to Canada (where 60% of them live) or get to some other Arctic location, like Point Barrow, Alaska. Find out more about them and their melting habitat on David Suzuki’s website.

One person asked me if I met any Antarctica natives. In fact, I met several thousands of them. They live there only part of the year, so you might argue they don’t qualify as natives. Unfortunately we had a big communication problem. I don’t speak penguin. Penguins are very communicative with each other. After watching them for awhile, I could understand their primary motivation in life—fish and reproduction. A few seem to have some other interests, like racing!

That’s what it felt like during my recent trip to Antarctica. A tail here, a fin there, and the occasional glimpse of a blow hole or mouth. My companions and I wanted to see more. We were sitting in a small Zodiac boat in icy cold water watching mammals that are 50 feet long. What if one came up under the boat? I guess we trusted the whales knew what they were doing. They trusted we weren’t going to harpoon them.

You might have seen photos of whales jumping out of the water. That’s what we wanted to see. But these whales were feeding. Feeding humpbacks don’t do that, which made watching them a challenge. The whales typically approach a large gathering of krill from below, then drive them towards the surface, with mouth open. The whale engulfs the krill, snaps its mouth shut, and squishes the water out. A tasty meal.

When the petrel sea bird feeds, its feet patter on the surface of the water. It almost looks as if the bird is walking on water. There is a story in the bible about St. Peter walking on water. Hundreds of years ago someone familiar with that story named the bird after St. Peter. At least that’s what I’ve been told.

Petrels are a type of pelagic bird—they live on the open sea, flying to land only to breed. Non-pelagic birds fly close to shore; seeing them is a sign that land is nearby. If you can’t tell a pelagic bird from a non-pelagic one, you’ll be sorely disappointed if you’re lost at sea and encounter petrels. You might think you are close to land when in fact it’s no where in the vicinity of your boat.

Because they fly for long periods of time, petrels have thin legs. Their legs can’t support their weight very well, which is one reason stay at sea except when they need to breed.

Petrels—and other pelagic birds—drink sea water. You or I would die if we drank that much salt. How do these birds survive? They have a specially built bill that has nostril tubes for blowing out salt. If you look closely, you can see the saline dripping out of the tubes.

When I was in Antarctica recently, I saw 10 different varieties of petrels. They appeared soon after we crossed the Antarctic convergence zone, circling the ship while we were in open waters. One of my favorites is the Cape Petrel. It has the most amazing pattern on its wings. It almost looks stenciled on its back.

Why is rainwater harvesting on my mind? I’ve been sitting in Northern California being battered by one rain storm after another. I’m watching all that water run down the hills. Of course, the rainwater here will recharge the underground aquifer that I pump my water out of. But people who don’t have a good aquifer for a well, or who live in a city and want to stop using city water, can set up a rainwater harvesting system. Most people think about using rainwater for landscaping. But you can also use it for drinking. Check out the video to find out how one couple is using rainwater for drinking. if you want more information, see http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

You don’t believe me? Watch this video of one dog and two people. It takes a little over 3 minutes. (Okay, most of it is in fast speed!) See Innovative Water Solutions for more iinformation.