Articles by Chris Schults

Virtual ecosystem

Want to learn about the interconnectedness and dependencies of an ecosystem? Build one yourself.

In Second Life, a virtual world where people reinvent themselves, buy real estate, create and sell products, have sex, host charity events, film movies, etc., Laukosargas Svarog has created her own ecosystem on the virtual island of Svarga:

The result of a year's work, Laukosargas Svarog's island of Svarga ... is a fully-functioning ecosystem, adding life or something like it to the verdant-looking but arid pallette Linden Lab offers with its world. It begins with her artificial clouds, which are pushed along by Linden's internal wind system.

"If I was to turn off the clouds the whole system would die in about six hours," she tells me. "Turn off the bees and [the plants stop] growing, because nothing gets pollinated. And it's the transfer of pollen that signals the plants to drop seeds. The seeds blow in the wind, and if they land on good ground according to different rules for each species, they grow when they receive rain water from the clouds. It's all interdependent."

Cool!

(Via BB)

Media Shower: UK edition

Welcome to the (not-so-special) U.K. edition of Media Shower!

First off, we have the BBC's focus on climate change chaos. Over at the BBC website, you'll find eight short documentaries (which don't want to play for me), in-depth coverage of climate change (including this guide), and a SETI@home-inspired climate change experiment.

And then we have this:

This commercial is part of the Friends of the Earth "The Big Ask" campaign, which is about "tackling the biggest question the world faces -- how do we stop dangerous climate change?" Doubt you'd see an ad like this here in the States.

Al Gore on Today show

Hey, NBC's Today is focusing on -- wait for it -- climate change! Check out Katie Couric's interview with Al Gore. (Sigh, requires IE.)

Save South Central Farm

Over at Daryl Hannah's vlog, dh love life, she's posted an "emergency episode" about the plight of the South Central Farm that Dave blogged about recently.

Watch it now. (Damn, those fruits and veggies look good!)