Here, There, Everywhere

My musings on travel -- and other things! Working for a Digital Media company, I sometimes mention clients, but it means I get to write about travel a lot, so it suits me fine! Mostly, though, this will be an eclectic place for all my travel/world interests.

Show Support For Emergency Response with a Banner

When the food crisis in West Africa escaluated, affecting thirteen million people in the Sahel area, Oxfam mobilised an emergency reponse to raise £23 million.

A deadly mix of rising food prices, low rainfall which led to poor harvests, and no crops to feed livestock, has led to millions of people suffering food shortages, malnutrition and poverty. Oxfam have previously blamed governments and leaders for not moving quick enough to tackle the drought in Africa that affected the Horn in the East.

In a bid to spread awareness of the emergency response, the Oxfam site provides the HTML in order to add a banner to personal websites and blogs. The code displays banners of varying shapes and sizes, allowing for it to be placed in different areas on a webpage, and prompts people to donate to the charity in order to help the response.

Donate now

Sometimes people are cautious about getting involved in things because they don’t believe it will make any real difference. How can a group of people really change the minds of massive coroporations or governments?

Take a look at this video and see just how much has changed concerning the issue of climate change and environmental issues in the last couple of decades. Governments have responded to new information, new technologies. Groups of people have banded together to push change. Individuals have changed their day-today activities that have led to widescale consequences. Change can happen when we try. When we make the effort.

rhamphotheca: oceansoftheworld: Pyrosomes (Photo found here) That weird blue thing is a pyrosome. Pyrosomes, genus Pyrosoma, are free-floating colonial tunicates (marine filter-feeders, see this post) that live usually in the upper layers of the open ocean in warm seas, although some may be found at greater depths. Pyrosomes are cylindrical or conical shaped colonies made up of hundreds to thousands of individuals, known as zooids. Colonies range in size from less than one centimeter to several meters in length. The individuals that make up this giant, floating, colonial tunicate are only about 1 in (2 cm) long, but the giant pyrosome colony, which resembles a gigantic hollow tube, can be large enough for a person to fit inside. Each individual lies embedded in the wall of the tube, with one end drawing in nutrient-laden water from outside and the other end expelling water and waste inside. The expelled water is used to propel the giant pyrosome colony as a whole. A wave of bioluminescent light travels along the community if it is touched. (Source)

rhamphotheca:

oceansoftheworld: Pyrosomes

(Photo found here)

That weird blue thing is a pyrosome. Pyrosomes, genus Pyrosoma, are free-floating colonial tunicates (marine filter-feeders, see this post) that live usually in the upper layers of the open ocean in warm seas, although some may be found at greater depths. Pyrosomes are cylindrical or conical shaped colonies made up of hundreds to thousands of individuals, known as zooids. Colonies range in size from less than one centimeter to several meters in length. The individuals that make up this giant, floating, colonial tunicate are only about 1 in (2 cm) long, but the giant pyrosome colony, which resembles a gigantic hollow tube, can be large enough for a person to fit inside. Each individual lies embedded in the wall of the tube, with one end drawing in nutrient-laden water from outside and the other end expelling water and waste inside. The expelled water is used to propel the giant pyrosome colony as a whole. A wave of bioluminescent light travels along the community if it is touched.

(Source)

A pink frogmouth lurks on the ocean floor by Lia Barrett

A pink frogmouth lurks on the ocean floor

by Lia Barrett

(via rhamphotheca)

inothernews: A Malian refugee pulls a container of water at the Mbere refugee camp on May 3, near Bassiknou, southern Mauritania, near the border with Mali; fighting there has left more than 60,000 people internally displaced, and a similar number have fled to Mauritania and neighboring countries. Camp Mbere receives an average of 1,000 refugees per day: in mid-April the camp population was over 55,000, of which more than half were children.  (Photo: Abdelhak Senna / AFP - Getty Images via MSNBC)

inothernews:

A Malian refugee pulls a container of water at the Mbere refugee camp on May 3, near Bassiknou, southern Mauritania, near the border with Mali; fighting there has left more than 60,000 people internally displaced, and a similar number have fled to Mauritania and neighboring countries. Camp Mbere receives an average of 1,000 refugees per day: in mid-April the camp population was over 55,000, of which more than half were children.  (Photo: Abdelhak Senna / AFP - Getty Images via MSNBC)