How to scare off the biggest pest in the world
Elephants are pests that raid
people's crops, but there are now
harmless ways to scare them
away from farms
Presented by
Shreya Dasgupta
Living amid wild animals is not easy,
especially when the animal in your
backyard is a large elephant.
Many elephants now live in densely-
populated areas, because farms and
plantations have expanded into their
traditional homes. To the elephants, crops
are easy and nutritious meals. But that's
not how farmers see it. Elephants raid
crops, damage property, and sometimes
kill people.
To avoid confrontations and protect their
crops, farmers in Africa and Asia have
traditionally used several tricks to scare
off elephants, like beating drums, firing
gunshots into the air or bursting
firecrackers. But elephants are intelligent
and persistent, and not easily put off. So
people resort to poisoning or
shooting the elephants . This is bad
for all concerned.
So now researchers are experimenting
with new strategies that can detect
elephants early, and deter them from
raiding people's properties. No guns are
involved.
Beehive fences
African elephants are afraid of bees,
especially the aggressive African
honey bees. These bees' stings can be
extremely painful even for the thick-
skinned elephants, especially inside their
trunk or around their eyes.
In 2002, researchers found that African
elephants stay away from acacia
trees with beehives . Later studies
showed that not only do the elephants
run away from the sound of
buzzing bees , they also emit low-
frequency alarm calls to alert
family members about the possible
threat .
In 2007, researchers began testing
beehive fences as possible elephant
deterrents in Kenya. The fence
consists of beehives hung every 10 m,
linked by wires. When an elephant
touches the fence, the beehives swing,
unleashing a swarm of angry bees.
The initial study was so successful that
farmers extended the fences on their
own initiative. They are particularly good
at stopping raids by overwhelmingly large
groups of elephants. Farmers in Tanzania,
Mozambique, Botswana and Sri Lanka are
now trying the fences.
Honey and other bee products earn the
farmers additional income. "I'm pretty
sure our beehive fence method is the
only elephant deterrent fence that
actually helps to make the farmer
money," says Lucy King of the charity
Save the Elephants.
Tigers on tape
If you don't fancy living with bees, you
could scare elephants away using the
sound of angry tigers.
On hearing the tiger growls, the
elephants silently retreated
In southern India, tigers and elephants
often live side by side. While tigers don't
usually hunt elephants due to their size,
they have been known to kill
elephant calves . So elephants are
wary of tigers.
In 2010, Vivek Thuppil, then at the
University of California-Davis and now at
the University of Nottingham, recorded
the aggressive growls of a captive tiger
and leopard, and played them to
elephants frequenting villages around two
protected areas in southern India.
Whenever the elephants ventured close
to crop fields, they tripped an infrared
beam, triggering play backs of the
growls.
On hearing the agitated tiger growls, the
elephants silently retreated. Thuppil
is now developing a low-cost playback
system that the farmers can use as
elephant deterrents. "We hope to…
make commercially available devices a
reality by this time next year," he says.
Chilli
Elephants don't like chillis. Capsaicin, the
chemical in chillis that makes them hot, is
an irritant, causing elephants to cough,
sneeze and eventually turn away.
So some farmers in Africa protect their
crops from elephants by planting
buffers of chilli plants around
them . The chillis also earn them extra
money. The Elephant Pepper Development
Trust in Cape Town, South Africa, teaches
farmers to make rope fences
smeared with waste engine oil and
red chilli, and mounted with
cowbells , to deter elephants.
Asian farmers are also experimenting with
chilli. Farmers in southern India use a
combination of dry hay, tobacco,
and dry red chili pods and seeds
wrapped up in newspapers to create
pungent smoke.
In north-east India, conservationists have
gone a step further and tried using
ghost chillis, or bhut jolokias, one
of the hottest chillis in the world.
However, chilli-based methods do not
work alone and perform best when
combined with other deterrents.
"Whatever the technique, it always works
better when the farmer is present in his
crop field," says Prachi Mehta of the
Wildlife Research and Conservation
Society in Pune, India. "Unguarded fields
are like an open invitation to the
elephants."
Mobile phones
If you share your home with elephants, it
helps to know their whereabouts and
keep a safe distance. So researchers
have hit upon a simple and ingenious
early warning system.
In the Valparai plateau of southern India,
about 100 elephants live amid tea and
coffee plantations and fragments of
rainforest. They have killed 41 people in
the region, nearly 76% of them after
surprise encounters. To avoid such
accidents, the Nature Conservation
Foundation (NCF) in Mysore, India, has
begun tracking the elephants.
In 2011, they developed a simple SMS-
based system to warn people
about approaching elephants . If
someone spots an elephant, they call up
NCF, which then texts the elephant's
location to people living within 2 km of it.
For people without a mobile phone, the
team has also set up red LED flashing
lights in 24 strategic points, where people
are more likely to encounter elephants.
Each light has a SIM card that can be
operated by certain people's mobile
numbers. If they spot an elephant, these
people can turn on the nearest light by
dialling its number. These flashing lights
warn people returning home in the dark,
when elephants are not easily visible.
Thanks to the early warning system,
there were no injuries or deaths in 2013,
says project leader Ananda Kumar of
NCF.
Microphones
Finally, you can simply eavesdrop on the
elephants. They often communicate with
each other in low-frequency rumbles.
These infrasonic sounds can travel
several km, so if you can listen in you
can spot the elephants from miles away.
It doesn't work if the elephants fall
silent
Researchers are now developing an
early warning system that can
detect elephants based on their
infrasonic vocalizations . Angela
Stöger-Horwath from the University
of Vienna and her colleagues have shown
that the low-frequency calls can not only
help detect elephants, they reveal
whether the elephants are infants, calves,
juveniles or adults.
"The system is not in use yet," Stöger-
Horwath says. "The next step is the
production of a prototype."
If it works, the elephants could be driven
off long before they enter the village to
eat the crops, says Stöger-Horwath. The
one drawback is that it doesn't work if
the elephants fall silent.
On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
> Gangnam Style hit music video by
> South Korean singer, PSY, has exceeded
> YouTube's view limit, prompting
> YouTube to upgrade its counter.
> The video which was released in 2012,
> was announced to be its most watched
> ever and has been viewed more than
> 2,147,483,647 times. YouTube has now
> changed the maximum view limit to
> 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, or more
> than nine quintillion.
> On December 1, YouTube posted a
> statement saying: "We never thought a
> video would be watched in numbers
> greater than a 32-bit integer… but
> that was before we met Psy."
> Meanwhile, how do you say
> 9,223,372,036,854,775,808? That's
> over a quadrillion, over a trillion, and
> over a billion.
>
>
> On 12/4/14, Joseph Ogunlowo <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Kim K has been named the "Most Searched
>> Person of 2014″, beating last year's winner,
>> Beyonce. 2014 was definitely the year of the 34
>> year old reality star with buzz-worthy events like
>> her wedding to Kanye, her Vogue cover and
>> most recently her 'break the internet' naked pics
>> for Paper magazine.
>> Beyonce comes second, while Miley Cyrus and
>> Katy Perry come 3rd and 4th respectively. See
>> the top ten most searched personalities of 2014
>> after the cut...
>> 1. Kim Kardashian
>> 2. Beyonce Knowles
>> 3. Miley Cyrus
>> 4. Katy Perry
>> 5. Justin Bieber
>> 6. Joan Rivers
>> 7. Jennifer Lopez
>> 8. Kendall Jenner
>> 9. Kaley Cuoco
>> 10. Robin Williams
>
>
>> On 12/3/14, Joseph Ogunlowo <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> At the Pioneers Festival in Vienna, a
>>> Slovakian startup called AeroMobil unveiled
>>> the thing that we have all been dreaming
>>> about since we saw that first episode of the
>>> Jetsons while still wearing diapers: The first
>>> flying car. It's here. It's real. And it's
>>> spectacular.
>>> According to Venturebeat, the company
>>> took the wraps off AeroMobil 3.0, the latest
>>> iteration of its flying car that has been in
>>> development for almost 25 years.
>>> "We believe personal transportation is about
>>> to change forever," said AeroMobil chief
>>> executive Juraj Vaculik at a press
>>> conference. "We think it's time to make
>>> transportation more emotional and more
>>> personal."
>>> The car was designed by Stefan Klein,
>>> founder and head of the Department of
>>> Transport Design at the Academy of Fine
>>> Arts in Slovakia. Klein had been tinkering
>>> with the concept as far back as 1989.
>>> Image
>>> The car needs very little runway to take off,
>>> and it can be refueled at any standard gas
>>> station when the wings are retracted.
>>> AeroMobil believes it will be attractive for
>>> countries that don't have billions of dollars
>>> to spend building a modern transportation
>>> infrastructure.
>>> The body is built from advanced composite
>>> materials that keep it lightweight but also
>>> durable. Under the hood, it has autopilot
>>> and an advanced parachute deployment
>>> system. The cockpit can carry two people,
>>> and in the air the flying car can reach top
>>> speeds of 200 km/h. It has a 27-foot
>>> wingspan and is 19.7 feet long.
>>> No word on the price tag.
>
>>> On 12/3/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> According to reports Angelina Jolie's black
>>>> SUV car slipped on a wet road, slid into the
>>>> curb with extreme force, popping two tires,
>>>> almost causing the driver to lose control of
>>>> the vehicle.
>>>> The actress was heading home in a
>>>> chauffeured black SUV from Writers' Guild
>>>> Theater, when the car hit the curb.
>>>> According to an eyewitness (who spoke ti
>>>> X17 Online): "The car slammed into the
>>>> curb at a significant speed. Angelina must
>>>> have wondered if they hit another car. It
>>>> was pretty bad -- the tire exploded and it's
>>>> amazing nothing worse happened to the
>>>> car. I wouldn't be surprised if she has
>>>> whiplash."
>>>> Angelina reportedly stayed in the car after
>>>> the incident and was later picked up, not
>>>> by Brad pitt, but by another driver from the
>>>> same car service.
>
>>>> --
>>>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>>>> 12/03/2014 10:47:00 am
>
>
>
>
> --
> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
> 12/07/2014 01:50:00 am
>
people's crops, but there are now
harmless ways to scare them
away from farms
Presented by
Shreya Dasgupta
Living amid wild animals is not easy,
especially when the animal in your
backyard is a large elephant.
Many elephants now live in densely-
populated areas, because farms and
plantations have expanded into their
traditional homes. To the elephants, crops
are easy and nutritious meals. But that's
not how farmers see it. Elephants raid
crops, damage property, and sometimes
kill people.
To avoid confrontations and protect their
crops, farmers in Africa and Asia have
traditionally used several tricks to scare
off elephants, like beating drums, firing
gunshots into the air or bursting
firecrackers. But elephants are intelligent
and persistent, and not easily put off. So
people resort to poisoning or
shooting the elephants . This is bad
for all concerned.
So now researchers are experimenting
with new strategies that can detect
elephants early, and deter them from
raiding people's properties. No guns are
involved.
Beehive fences
African elephants are afraid of bees,
especially the aggressive African
honey bees. These bees' stings can be
extremely painful even for the thick-
skinned elephants, especially inside their
trunk or around their eyes.
In 2002, researchers found that African
elephants stay away from acacia
trees with beehives . Later studies
showed that not only do the elephants
run away from the sound of
buzzing bees , they also emit low-
frequency alarm calls to alert
family members about the possible
threat .
In 2007, researchers began testing
beehive fences as possible elephant
deterrents in Kenya. The fence
consists of beehives hung every 10 m,
linked by wires. When an elephant
touches the fence, the beehives swing,
unleashing a swarm of angry bees.
The initial study was so successful that
farmers extended the fences on their
own initiative. They are particularly good
at stopping raids by overwhelmingly large
groups of elephants. Farmers in Tanzania,
Mozambique, Botswana and Sri Lanka are
now trying the fences.
Honey and other bee products earn the
farmers additional income. "I'm pretty
sure our beehive fence method is the
only elephant deterrent fence that
actually helps to make the farmer
money," says Lucy King of the charity
Save the Elephants.
Tigers on tape
If you don't fancy living with bees, you
could scare elephants away using the
sound of angry tigers.
On hearing the tiger growls, the
elephants silently retreated
In southern India, tigers and elephants
often live side by side. While tigers don't
usually hunt elephants due to their size,
they have been known to kill
elephant calves . So elephants are
wary of tigers.
In 2010, Vivek Thuppil, then at the
University of California-Davis and now at
the University of Nottingham, recorded
the aggressive growls of a captive tiger
and leopard, and played them to
elephants frequenting villages around two
protected areas in southern India.
Whenever the elephants ventured close
to crop fields, they tripped an infrared
beam, triggering play backs of the
growls.
On hearing the agitated tiger growls, the
elephants silently retreated. Thuppil
is now developing a low-cost playback
system that the farmers can use as
elephant deterrents. "We hope to…
make commercially available devices a
reality by this time next year," he says.
Chilli
Elephants don't like chillis. Capsaicin, the
chemical in chillis that makes them hot, is
an irritant, causing elephants to cough,
sneeze and eventually turn away.
So some farmers in Africa protect their
crops from elephants by planting
buffers of chilli plants around
them . The chillis also earn them extra
money. The Elephant Pepper Development
Trust in Cape Town, South Africa, teaches
farmers to make rope fences
smeared with waste engine oil and
red chilli, and mounted with
cowbells , to deter elephants.
Asian farmers are also experimenting with
chilli. Farmers in southern India use a
combination of dry hay, tobacco,
and dry red chili pods and seeds
wrapped up in newspapers to create
pungent smoke.
In north-east India, conservationists have
gone a step further and tried using
ghost chillis, or bhut jolokias, one
of the hottest chillis in the world.
However, chilli-based methods do not
work alone and perform best when
combined with other deterrents.
"Whatever the technique, it always works
better when the farmer is present in his
crop field," says Prachi Mehta of the
Wildlife Research and Conservation
Society in Pune, India. "Unguarded fields
are like an open invitation to the
elephants."
Mobile phones
If you share your home with elephants, it
helps to know their whereabouts and
keep a safe distance. So researchers
have hit upon a simple and ingenious
early warning system.
In the Valparai plateau of southern India,
about 100 elephants live amid tea and
coffee plantations and fragments of
rainforest. They have killed 41 people in
the region, nearly 76% of them after
surprise encounters. To avoid such
accidents, the Nature Conservation
Foundation (NCF) in Mysore, India, has
begun tracking the elephants.
In 2011, they developed a simple SMS-
based system to warn people
about approaching elephants . If
someone spots an elephant, they call up
NCF, which then texts the elephant's
location to people living within 2 km of it.
For people without a mobile phone, the
team has also set up red LED flashing
lights in 24 strategic points, where people
are more likely to encounter elephants.
Each light has a SIM card that can be
operated by certain people's mobile
numbers. If they spot an elephant, these
people can turn on the nearest light by
dialling its number. These flashing lights
warn people returning home in the dark,
when elephants are not easily visible.
Thanks to the early warning system,
there were no injuries or deaths in 2013,
says project leader Ananda Kumar of
NCF.
Microphones
Finally, you can simply eavesdrop on the
elephants. They often communicate with
each other in low-frequency rumbles.
These infrasonic sounds can travel
several km, so if you can listen in you
can spot the elephants from miles away.
It doesn't work if the elephants fall
silent
Researchers are now developing an
early warning system that can
detect elephants based on their
infrasonic vocalizations . Angela
Stöger-Horwath from the University
of Vienna and her colleagues have shown
that the low-frequency calls can not only
help detect elephants, they reveal
whether the elephants are infants, calves,
juveniles or adults.
"The system is not in use yet," Stöger-
Horwath says. "The next step is the
production of a prototype."
If it works, the elephants could be driven
off long before they enter the village to
eat the crops, says Stöger-Horwath. The
one drawback is that it doesn't work if
the elephants fall silent.
On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
> Gangnam Style hit music video by
> South Korean singer, PSY, has exceeded
> YouTube's view limit, prompting
> YouTube to upgrade its counter.
> The video which was released in 2012,
> was announced to be its most watched
> ever and has been viewed more than
> 2,147,483,647 times. YouTube has now
> changed the maximum view limit to
> 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, or more
> than nine quintillion.
> On December 1, YouTube posted a
> statement saying: "We never thought a
> video would be watched in numbers
> greater than a 32-bit integer… but
> that was before we met Psy."
> Meanwhile, how do you say
> 9,223,372,036,854,775,808? That's
> over a quadrillion, over a trillion, and
> over a billion.
>
>
> On 12/4/14, Joseph Ogunlowo <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Kim K has been named the "Most Searched
>> Person of 2014″, beating last year's winner,
>> Beyonce. 2014 was definitely the year of the 34
>> year old reality star with buzz-worthy events like
>> her wedding to Kanye, her Vogue cover and
>> most recently her 'break the internet' naked pics
>> for Paper magazine.
>> Beyonce comes second, while Miley Cyrus and
>> Katy Perry come 3rd and 4th respectively. See
>> the top ten most searched personalities of 2014
>> after the cut...
>> 1. Kim Kardashian
>> 2. Beyonce Knowles
>> 3. Miley Cyrus
>> 4. Katy Perry
>> 5. Justin Bieber
>> 6. Joan Rivers
>> 7. Jennifer Lopez
>> 8. Kendall Jenner
>> 9. Kaley Cuoco
>> 10. Robin Williams
>
>
>> On 12/3/14, Joseph Ogunlowo <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> At the Pioneers Festival in Vienna, a
>>> Slovakian startup called AeroMobil unveiled
>>> the thing that we have all been dreaming
>>> about since we saw that first episode of the
>>> Jetsons while still wearing diapers: The first
>>> flying car. It's here. It's real. And it's
>>> spectacular.
>>> According to Venturebeat, the company
>>> took the wraps off AeroMobil 3.0, the latest
>>> iteration of its flying car that has been in
>>> development for almost 25 years.
>>> "We believe personal transportation is about
>>> to change forever," said AeroMobil chief
>>> executive Juraj Vaculik at a press
>>> conference. "We think it's time to make
>>> transportation more emotional and more
>>> personal."
>>> The car was designed by Stefan Klein,
>>> founder and head of the Department of
>>> Transport Design at the Academy of Fine
>>> Arts in Slovakia. Klein had been tinkering
>>> with the concept as far back as 1989.
>>> Image
>>> The car needs very little runway to take off,
>>> and it can be refueled at any standard gas
>>> station when the wings are retracted.
>>> AeroMobil believes it will be attractive for
>>> countries that don't have billions of dollars
>>> to spend building a modern transportation
>>> infrastructure.
>>> The body is built from advanced composite
>>> materials that keep it lightweight but also
>>> durable. Under the hood, it has autopilot
>>> and an advanced parachute deployment
>>> system. The cockpit can carry two people,
>>> and in the air the flying car can reach top
>>> speeds of 200 km/h. It has a 27-foot
>>> wingspan and is 19.7 feet long.
>>> No word on the price tag.
>
>>> On 12/3/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> According to reports Angelina Jolie's black
>>>> SUV car slipped on a wet road, slid into the
>>>> curb with extreme force, popping two tires,
>>>> almost causing the driver to lose control of
>>>> the vehicle.
>>>> The actress was heading home in a
>>>> chauffeured black SUV from Writers' Guild
>>>> Theater, when the car hit the curb.
>>>> According to an eyewitness (who spoke ti
>>>> X17 Online): "The car slammed into the
>>>> curb at a significant speed. Angelina must
>>>> have wondered if they hit another car. It
>>>> was pretty bad -- the tire exploded and it's
>>>> amazing nothing worse happened to the
>>>> car. I wouldn't be surprised if she has
>>>> whiplash."
>>>> Angelina reportedly stayed in the car after
>>>> the incident and was later picked up, not
>>>> by Brad pitt, but by another driver from the
>>>> same car service.
>
>>>> --
>>>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>>>> 12/03/2014 10:47:00 am
>
>
>
>
> --
> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
> 12/07/2014 01:50:00 am
>
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