Dirt. It’s alive! A Vox explainer by Liz Scheltens. Soil fun for the whole family.
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Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-wo9
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Gibson Guitars agreed to pay penalties totaling over $$600,000 for smuggling exotic endangered wood into the United States in violation of the century-old Lacey Act. The Act was amended in 2008 to ban importation of illegally harvested hardwoods like Madagascar ebony. Gibson builds many well-known guitar models including the ES-355 (B.B. King and Chuck Berry play it) and the Les Paul, and many of these guitars have ebony fretboards. Madagascar has forbidden logging of its slow-growing ebony since 2006, meaning US importation from that date forward was illegal.
In order to avoid criminal prosecution, Gibson acknowledged that it imported exotic wood in violation of environmental laws, paid the Justice Department $300,000 in penalties, forfeited claims to over $250,000 worth of wood seized by the Feds, and contributed $50,000 to a foundation to promote the conservation of protected tree species.
At least Gibson didn’t get caught smuggling illegal weapons into the country. Blackwater did that.
More:
Everyone knows that rhinoceros horn is used as an aphrodisiac in Chinese medicine. There’s just one thing: everybody’s wrong.
“Rhino horn has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) since at least 200 BC and never as an aphrodisiac. It is commonly prescribed as a cardiotonic or antipyretic (relieves fever). The horn from Asian rhino species are believed to be more potent than the African. (The other big black-market use of rhino horn is for the traditional decorative dagger handle or jambiyyas in the Middle East).
The use of rhino horn as an aphrodisiac is not noted in any TCM text. Please, the reality is that most wildlife poaching in Asia is not undertaken for the purposes of alleviating sexual dysfunction.”
— “Old Myths Never Die: Rhino Horn,” Brendan Moyle, via Sciblogs (link added).
Still, that’s probably little comfort to the rhinos.
Related: “Rhino Horn Use: Fact vs. Fiction, PBS Nature
Image: Rhinoceros, by Albrecht Dürer. Download a copy here.
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
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