Snakes declining at alarming rate

Posted by nataliesturm , Saturday 12 June 2010 14:33


To the many signs of worldwide destruction of nature, we can include now the declining of snake population. Several scientists in different countries have reported the disappearance of some species and they think this could be happening in the rest of the world too. These scientists studied 17 populations in different habitats, of which 11 were declining sharply, some of these with population crashes (sudden decline without recovery), 5 remained stable and 1 was increasing. They suggest that there is a common cause for this, because these studies included three different continents (Europe, Africa, and Australia) with different temperatures and climates. Between the most likely causes seem to be the loss of habitats and declining prey. Climate change is supposed to be the cause of the immediate threats. Snakes are very important to maintain the correct function of several ecosystems.

The idea of the declining of snakes has been in scientist minds for a while, but there had not been important evidence about it. During 1987 and 2009, researchers measured relative abundance of diverse snake populations using different methods. This is the first reliable work about this subject. Their statement is that these populations are declining. Nevertheless it’s necessary to analyse more data and get an opinion of herpetologists around the entire world to see the real magnitude of this decline and find the cause. This way it would be possible to prevent and reverse the disappearance of these animals.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/09/scientists-alarm-snakes


My faculty

Posted by nataliesturm , Monday 7 June 2010 21:06

In my opinion there have do be a lot of improvements in our faculty. Most of the facilities are very old, but not necessarily in bad shape. I think classrooms are acceptable, maybe not the best of de world but they don’t interfere with the classes. The casino needs improvement, starting with a heating system because it’s freezing cold there in the winter. The tables are old and sometimes there aren’t enough. That the food is bad is another problem and I don’t know what the kitchen looks like, but I can imagine it is very old fashion. I’m sure it needs improvements too.
Other things that need to be taken care of are the sport facilities. There is a gym but in reality it’s just a concrete field with a very bad roof. The dressing rooms are horrible, really disgusting, they are always dirty and there isn’t even a mirror. Showers don’t have curtains and I wouldn’t step in there with my bare feed.
I think the faculty needs a room to spent free time, like a common room, because there is no place to relax in the winter. In summer it isn’t a problem because you can lay on the grass and take a nap, but in winter the only place you can be in is the casino. And people don’t get that you don’t have to smoke in closed places, so you just smell like smoke after being there.
A lot of times this issues have been discussed by the students and the students representing them. But there haven’t been any improvements. Actually once we painted the dress rooms and cleaned them for a sport event in the faculty. So I don’t really know what we could do, because in five years there haven’t been a lot of a changes. There are new classrooms but even this rooms have problems. Hopefully the new dean and his people do something to modify these things.