Category / Natural Science

by Robert Gerst

Eating and the Environment

Writes Professor Jennifer Cole:

We went to The Food Project in West Roxbury.  “We” in the first photo means Daniel Castillo (with the big smile) and David Jordan and  Vanessa Olivera.  “We” means Emily Alcott and Czarina Shart and Emma Jackson and Daniel Castillo  in the second. “We” also means Food Project High School Staff Manager David Jordan in the third.

The Food Project is a food cooperative seeking to grow a thoughtful and productive community of youth and adults from diverse backgrounds who together work to build a sustainable food system. They produce healthy food for residents of the city and suburbs and provide youth leadership opportunities.   Each season, they grow nearly a quarter-million pounds of food without chemical pesticides, donating half to local shelters.   They sell the remainder of their produce through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) crop shares and farmers’ markets.  They also partner with urban gardeners to help them remediate their lead-contaminated soil and grow healthier food.

by Robert Gerst

The Court Beyond the World

NASA video. More on the Cassini Space Probe here

In the 4.7 billion years since each took shape, Earth and our neighbor Saturn have floated remote from each other in space. This Wednesday, April 26, 2017, that isolation starts to end. The Cassini space probe starts descending into Saturn. This never happened before. It will never happen again.

Think about who we are. Think about what we might become. Consider what Pico della Mirandola wrote in his Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486):

Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494)

…we [humans] can become whatever we choose to become, we need to understand that we must take earnest care about this, so that it will never be said to our disadvantage that we were born to a privileged position but failed to realize it and became animals and senseless beasts. Instead, the saying of Asaph the prophet should be said of us, “You are all angels of the Most High.” Above all, we should not make that freedom of choice God gave us into something harmful, for it was intended to be to our advantage. Let a holy ambition enter into our souls; let us not be content with mediocrity, but rather strive after the highest and expend all our strength in achieving it.     

Let us disdain earthly things, and despise the things of heaven, and, judging little of what is in the world, fly to the court beyond the world and next to God. In that court, as the mystic writings tell us, are the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones  in the foremost places; let us not even yield place to them, the highest of the angelic orders, and not be content with a lower place, imitate them in all their glory and dignity. If we choose to, we will not be second to them in anything.

The Planets, Opus 32, Saturn, The Bringer of Old Age (excerpt) composer Gustav Holtz

What say you?

by Robert Gerst

To A Chimp, It’s all the same if it’s Beethoven or Bieber

Primate biologists reported today that chimpanzees are utterly indifferent to human music. It’s all the same to a chimp if it’s Beethoven or Justin Bieber.

 

“Of course,” says Professor of Jazz Peter Kenagy. He writes:

Humans have been doing musical and creative things that set them apart from others for about 50,000 years. So it’s no surprise that only humans appreciate human music. Each of the more intelligent animals (dolphins, whales, primates, birds) communicates with some kind of speech, often tonal, that sounds sort of musical. While they may not understand our music, we don’t really understand and appreciate their sound forms either.

Whipoorwill

I think it’s sort of presumptuous to assume other animals should appreciate our music, since music is not simply sound waves. Music exists in a social context. Music makes
meaning within our human experience. The hope that animals would appreciate our music says that we are proud of our humanity, and we want other “lesser” animals to get it. In us, Bach lights up the human brain in neuroscience studies in ways that go beyond other music. But animals, who may not respond to Bach in any way we can discern, nevertheless live more in tune with the sound world than we do. In ways humans no longer do, animals rely on sound and hearing to survive.
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by Robert Gerst

“For one moment breathless and intense…” Wetlands Science & Policy

“All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.”
•Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Writes Professor Jennifer Cole:

In the photo you see John Felix, retired Deputy Director of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Wetlands Regulations Division, in class with students Michaela Younger and Anthony Lambros.

by Robert Gerst

Eating & The Environment

Writes Professor Jennifer Cole:

In Eating and the Environment, we  invested three hours touring our own Mass Art cafeteria— the front of the house, back of the house, and loading zone which includes the composting, recycling, and trash facilities.  We gathered in a classroom and engaged with our panel of experts.  Students asked great questions about sustainable dining. Preparers and end users (students) come to understand each other.

They came to see how we can work together to make dining at MassArt and beyond more sustainable and healthy.

In the rear of the cafeteria the plaque admonishes : ” Food Will Win The War. Don’t Waste It!” Washington D.C. 1918.

 

by Robert Gerst

Planet Earth January 15, 2017

Recently-launched NASA weather satellite GOES-16 looks homeward for the first time on January 15, 2017.

Writes Professor Jennifer Cole:
“In this image, I see our science courses. This semester, in Eating and the Environment, we discuss climate change gases coming from the animal husbandry and agricultural industries, as well as ways to lower emissions through sustainable eating. In Energy in the 21st Century, we discuss how to phase out fossil fuels and move towards renewables, which will keep the atmosphere we see in this image as it is now, rather than bright white. In Wetland Science and Policy, we talk about the role wetlands have in absorbing greenhouse gases, and how we can reclaim, construct, and preserve these valuable ecosystems. I hope that, in learning about these three topics, MassArt students are able to do their part to keep our planet habitable.”