The world’s smallest park, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is in Portland, Oregon.

It’s called Mill Ends Park and it is a lonely patch of earth that barely measures 2 feet across, sitting in a sea of asphalt and traffic in downtown Portland.

In 1946 City of Portland municipal workers forgot to install a street lamp in a hole they had dug into SW Front Avenue.

The empty hole was in direct sight from the office window of a newspaper reporter, Dick Fagan. The scar in the landscape bothered him. So he did something gracious and filled in the hole with flowers and proclaimed it Mill Ends Park.

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Suit up, landlubbers! This weekend, David Gallow takes us beneath the waves and shares some marvelous footage of bioluminescent creatures in the deep sea and shallow waters.

When most of us think of light-emitting creatures, we probably think of the firefly, but bioluminescence is much more common in the marine environment.

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It has been snowing on Mars and it took a Canadian scientist using Canadian technology to recognize it. Seems that Canadians know snow when they see it.

“Nothing like this view has ever been seen on Mars,” said Jim Whiteway of Toronto’s York University and the lead weather scientist for NASA’s Mars Lander project. 

“It’s a major breakthrough,” said Dr. Alian Berinstain, a Director at the Canadian Space Agency. “It means we have more information on the water cycle on Mars.”

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The Japanese government will introduce a new subsidy for home owners who want to convert to solar power. The program is designed to reduce solar power conversion costs by almost 10 percent.

Japan is a nation that has virtually no natural resources. Oil is used to meet nearly 60% of Japan’s total energy needs and almost all it is imported.

Economic and security concerns compel Japan to seek other sources of energy in order to remain competitive as a world economic power.

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Arctic sea ice coverage appears to have reached its lowest extent for the year and the second-lowest amount recorded since the dawn of the satellite era, according to observations from the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder. While slightly above the record-low minimum set Sept. 16, 2007, this season further reinforces the strong negative trend in summer sea ice extent observed during the past 30 years.

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From time to time, we browse recently released Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports and highlight those with potential interest to our readers. This week’s release was so extensive we’ve organized documents into broad categories.

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Have you ever sat in a traffic jam and thought about the fossil fuel being wasted? Or the effect of all those idling engines on air quality? Or the greenhouse gases being created? If only we could get around as efficiently as ants seem to find our picnics…

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Many financial experts are concerned that the current US financial market meltdown and the staggering infusion of 700 billion dollars to save it will only result in restoring the status quo.

Some are also concerned that the normal use of fossil fuel consumption will continue at the expense of plans to convert power production towards techniques that could reduce carbon emissions.

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Samso is a Danish island that is perhaps the world’s first modern, completely self sustaining, energy producing community.

Samso has a population of 41 hundred people spread over 22 villages and numerous farms. Each year its population swells by 50 thousand as summer residents and tourists come to enjoy the quiet, quaint island way of life.

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The following reports, prepared by the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS), are now available to the public online through the Open CRS project. Links below lead to a document summary, from which the full documents can be downloaded as PDFs. Dates shown indicate when the reports were prepared.*

Animal Waste and Water Quality: EPA’s Response to the Waterkeeper Alliance Court Decision on Regulation of CAFOs
RL33656 - August 20, 2008

International Illegal Trade in Wildlife: Threats and U.S. Policy
RL34395 - August 22, 2008

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