August 2011
32 posts
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10 Rainforest Creatures That Defy Imagination →
Fascinating list of bizarre rainforest creatures. Picture above is the Mata Mata. It’s an aquatic turtle whose jagged skin and shell and flat head makes it resemble bark or a rock floating in the water. The Mata Mata can’t chew so it opens up its mouth and sucks in its prey, swallowing it whole!
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Ecopreneurist on MyConservationPark: "a Facebook... →
Thank you to Priti at Ecopreneurist for the great piece!
MyConservationPark is a Facebook game, like Farmville but with a social purpose. Developed by Toronto-based Good World Games, the idea behind this game is an imaginative business model that can make a lasting difference.
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World species count set at 8.7 million! →
The natural world contains about 8.7 million species, according to a new estimate described by scientists as the most accurate ever.
But the vast majority have not been identified - and cataloguing them all could take more than 1,000 years.
Animals: 7.77 million (12% described)
Fungi: 0.61 million (7% described)
Plants: 0.30 million (70% described)
Protozoa: 0.04 million (22%...
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Justmeans on MyConservationPark: "[a] social... →
Sustainable business site Justmeans writes about MyConservationPark!
The recently released social network game, My Conservation Park, uses social innovation to help save the planet. Launched this June, it allows the players to donate to the real world from their game purchases. Good World Games, the developers, pledge 15 percent donations to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, WildAid [and other...
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Building Orangutan Bridges in Borneo →
The forests in Borneo have become increasingly fractured by deforestation, which makes it difficult for Bornean orangutans to get around. The Chester Zoo will work with conservationists from Malaysia to create polyester bridges, which will help the orangutans hop from tree to tree.
They undertook the project after studies showed that the local orangutan population had been fragmented into 20...
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TorontoThumbs on MyConservationPark: "a Facebook... →
Thanks you TorontoThumbs for writing such nice things about MyConservationPark!
My Conservation Park is a Facebook game that attempts to bridge the gap between the web and reality in a different way. Developed by Toronto-based Good World Games (they have an office in Liberty Villate), the premise is to run your own conservation park which would, inevitably, show a real-world difference by...
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Rising turtle deaths could mean next wildlife... →
Bad news, seriously. Abnormally high numbers of dying or dead sea turtles are washing up on the Great Barrier Reef Coast in Australia.
649 turtle deaths were reported in the first seven months of 2011, up 200 on the same period last year.
Researchers believe that the depletion of sea grass, the turtles’ staple food source, caused the recent rise in deaths; the recent environmental...
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Creative Brazilian hanging garden →
Beautiful set-up for hanging flowerpots built into the wall itself in Brazil. Really like the design here.
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Rosario, Argentina's Potential Green Honeycomb... →
The park is called Billboard park due to the unique structure which uses both the horizontal and vertical spaces. The vertical structure of the park looks a lot like a bee hive!
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How low-income Americans can eat healthy →
Interesting piece. Like this section:
It’s not enough for the government to set dietary guidelines. It needs to radically change its policies, including but not limited to possibly subsidizing healthy foods, if we are to achieve the goal of healthy eating.
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The Independent on MyConservationPark: New... →
Our first coverage in a newspaper! Proud to say we got a writeup in The Independent, one of the most influential U.K. newspapers!
The trend for social networking games with positive real world environmental impacts continues with the recently released gorilla saving game My Conservation Park.
The game revolves around players trying to protect an endangered animal from environmental and human...
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Treehugger on MyConservationPark: Facebook Game... →
Via EarthTechling.Thanks for telling people about the game!
While Facebook games are generally more known for wasting your time than helping to save the world, My Conservation Park aims to help the well-intentioned “play it forward” by funding real-world conservation efforts based on virtual participation.
This latest effort from Good World Games, part of a partnership with the...
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TakePart on MyConservationPark: "Monkeying around... →
Our favourite piece of press so far. Thanks Salvatore Cardoni!
This game, and games like it, tap into that eternal human truth: we’re lazy, yo. We are. You know it. I know it. And your Aunt Hilda knows it each time she hollers into the basement for her son—your 39-year old cousin—to stop playing Red Dead Redemption, get off his kiester, and cut the grass.
I, and 99 percent of the...
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MyConservationPark on MotherNatureNetwork →
Thanks to Sien at GreenLAGirl for the kind words!
I have a tough time getting into Facebook games — which may be a good thing, since I already waste enough time on that social networking site. But for those of you with time to kill, two new eco-minded games just launched on Facebook!
The second: My Conservation Park, created by Good World Games with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, lets...
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On the frontlines of the tiger-human conflict in... →
A fascinating and upsetting view of the conflict between tigers and humans in Bangladesh on the borders of the Sundarban forests. Poaching was recently discovered to be a reemerging threat to tigers:
Official figures show that at least 33 tigers have been killed since 2000, mostly in human-animal conflicts and some in poaching incidents.
For a long time, officials thought human-animal...
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Games.com on MyConservationPark: Facebook game... →
If Zynga’s past donations to Haiti, Japan and other ailing nations have taught us anything, it’s the enormous capacity for Facebook games to help others in need. But Good World Games has decided to extend that good will towards others in social gaming to animals, namely gorillas. Its newest game is called My Conservation Park, and the developer has joined in partnerships with the...
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How social media impacts disaster response →
A fascinating interview with Dr. Raina Merchant, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, who wrote a paper on how social media impacts our response to disasters. An excerpt below but the whole thing is worth reading.
What about using social media to respond to disasters?
I’m constantly reading news about how in disasters people are using tools like...
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EarthTechling on MyConservationPark: My... →
While Facebook games are generally more known for wasting your time than helping to save the world, My Conservation Park aims to help the well-intentioned “play it forward” by funding real-world conservation efforts based on virtual participation.
This latest effort from Good World Games, part of a partnership with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, challenges players to protect their “heroes” from...
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MyConservationPark on VillageGamer: "an... →
The studio’s first game, MyConservationPark is an innovative, planet-friendly social game allowing players to nurture their own virtual wildlife preserves based on real threatened species and habitats, while directly supporting non-profit organizations such as The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, Sea Shepherd and WildAid.
As the player, your mission is simple. You need to protect an endangered...
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Eating frog legs is driving frogs to extinction →
According to a new report commissioned by Defenders of Wildlife, The Animal Welfare Institute and Pro-WildLife, the practice of farming frogs for food is driving the species to extinction and could severely unbalance bio-diversity. Frogs farmed for food en mass could easily escape and become an invasive species, destroying local eco-systems. Frog farms are already prevalent in several parts of...
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A Real School Building Built in Harmony with... →
This amazing and uniquely designed ‘green’ school cannot be seen as a distinct structure from a distance as it blends in thoroughly with the natural landscape of the hill. Such a good idea and the results are breathtaking.
This structure is ‘camouflaged’ with its layered grass roof terraces which is quite reminiscent of steppe cultivation. This innovative design of the Jean Moulin High...
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The incredible folding electric Vienna bike →
This is just a concept right now but still very cool. A Vienna design studio, Pixstudio, has created this interesting electric bike concept, naturally called the Vienna bike. It folds up small enough to fit comfortable in a small urban apartment. I wonder if powered bikes could take off in North America given the right push?
There’s an electric motor that can propel it independently, or you...
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Why the city may be a perfect habitat for insects →
Interesting read. Cities are supposedly better for pollinating insects than the country, because they foster year-round growth instead of the farms’ boom-and-bust setup i.e. a brief period of intense pollination in the spring and then nothing.
The residential street in Bristol that is being surveyed reveals an eclectic array of plants - from carefully planted lavender to pockets of weeds...
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Techvibes on MyConservationPark: "a Toronto-born... →
Social games are commonplace now. Socially conscious games? Not so much.
But Toronto’s Good World Games is the maker of MyConservationPark, a Facebook game that is similar to Farmville, but with a purpose: to save the real world.
In the game, you build your own virtual park and 15% of virtual money is donated to real-life non-profit organizations that protect land and save endangered...
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A cardboard office in the Netherlands →
This is the Rabobank Headquarters in the Netherlands, a 25 storey office building decked out in immaculately-crafted Washi paper and paperboard. Pretty swanky, on first sight you wouldn’t even be able to tell it’s cardboard.
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