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On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is "unequivocal," and that human activity has "very likely" been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had "likely" played a role.
The addition of that single word "very" did more than reflect mounting scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests has played a central role in raising the average surface temperature of the earth by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. It also added new momentum to a debate that now seems centered less over whether humans are warming the planet, but instead over what to do about it. In recent months, business groups have banded together to make unprecedented calls for federal regulation of greenhouse gases. The subject had a red-carpet moment when former Vice President Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," was awarded an Oscar; and the Supreme Court made its first global warming-related decision, ruling 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency had not justified its position that it was not authorized to regulate carbon dioxide.
Thanks to the effort and imagination of Dick Fox, I am pleased to have this collection of papers made available to forest landowners and other people with a broad interest in forest health.
These articles cover a range of topics, some general and others fairly specific. My purpose has been to touch on items that I sense are of current interest, to use the FOREST OWNER column as an opportunity for alerting New York forest owners of potential problems and, at times, to do nothing more than try and make a forest owner's walk through the woods a bit more interesting. In regard to the latter, I think it important for forest owners to appreciate that insects play many beneficial roles in forest communities and to realize that all insects which feed on trees are not necessarily "pests."
In order to be a good steward one must understand the biological components of a forest. Insects are but one of the diverse groups of organisms that interact to determine the character of a woodlot. Unfortunately, on occasion they compete with humans for resources of mutual interest. This is the point at which they are no longer mere curiosities but become pests. The best control measure is prevention. If we understand an insect and the manner in which it interacts with the forest well enough, we often are able to adjust our forest management activities accordingly. I hope these articles will stimulate readers to learn more about the entomological aspects of forest health.
Four of 19 drug addicts who escaped from
a compulsory rehabilitation center in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region are still at large, local police said on Tuesday. The 19 escaped from the M
aling compulsory rehabilitation center on Friday afternoon, said an officer with the Hengxian County Public Security Bureau, who declined to give his name. Watchmen at the center, which had taken in about 100 
drug addicts, found at 5 p.m. Friday that some had escaped by climbing out of a toilet window and then clambering over the barrier wall. Policemen caught one addict not far from the wall. The police seized 15 and a
re looking for the other four.
Children who talk on cell phones while crossing streets are at a higher risk for injuries or death in a pedestrian accident, said psychologists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in a new study that will appear in the February issue of Pediatrics. "Cell phones clearly offer convenience and safeguards to families, but they also may pose risk," they said, "particularly when children attempt to multitask while conversing on the cell phone and have reduced cognitive capacity to devote to potentially dangerous activities such as crossing streets." For the study, researchers used a virtual reality software program and three screens to display an actual Birmingham-area crosswalk with simulated vehicles of different sizes traveling on the virtual street. The psychologists found that all of the children – even those who were experienced with talking on cell phones, crossing streets or rated as highly attentive – were more likely to exhibit risky behaviors when they crossed the virtual street while talking on a cell phone. Specifically, it took the children who were on a cell phone 20 percent longer to begin crossing the street, and they were 43 percent more likely to be hit by a vehicle or have a close call in the virtual environment. In addition, the children looked both ways 20 percent fewer times before crossing the street and gave themselves 8 percent less time to cross safely in front of oncoming traffic when they were on the cell phone. The study was published by UAB doctoral student Despina Stavrinos, M.S., under the direction of UAB psychologist David Schwebel, Ph.D. UAB graduate student Katherine Byington also contributed to the study. In this study, 77 children, aged 10-11, completed simulated street crossings in the virtual environment. They were asked to cross the virtual street six times without a cell phone and six times while talking on a cell phone with an unfamiliar research assistant. The UAB researchers asked the children to cross the virtual street when they believed it was safe. The children stepped from the "curb," onto a pad with a pressure switch electronically connected to a computer, and the system registered the precise moment they entered the "street." Cell phones are quickly becoming ubiquitous among American schoolchildren, the UAB psychologists wrote. "Commercial interests actively market cell phones for children, and marketing research firms estimate that 54 percent of children 8-12 will have cell phones by the end of [this year,] double the 2006 rate." Just as drivers should limit cell phone use while driving, pedestrians, and especially child pedestrians, should avoid using cell phone while crossing streets, the UAB researchers said. More research is needed to determine the impact that texting, listening to mp3 players and talking to peers has on children's ability cross streets safely, they said. The study was partially supported by the UAB Injury Control Research Center through a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a cooperative agreement with the Federal Highway Administration.
The "Colossal Cave" mentioned by the game Adventure is a reference to an actual cave within the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky. However, the game is not actually based on that cave, but is instead a remarkably faithful
Note: Although, as evidenced by the "Spelunker Today" magazines in the game, the word "spelunker" was once commonly used to denote cave explorers, it has fallen out of favor. The preferred term is now "caver," and that is the word used here. reproduction of nearby Bedquilt Cave.
A connecting passage from Bedquilt Cave to Colossal Cave was discovered in 1896. Both Bedquilt and Colossal Caves also have passages connecting to Mammoth Cave.
The game is filled with caver jargon and references to actual cave features, as Graham Nelson explains in his article The Craft of Adventure:
"Like the real cave, the simulation was a map on about four levels of depth, rich in geology. A good example is the orange column which descends to the Orange River Rock room (where the bird lives): and the real column is indeed orange (of travertine, a beautiful mineral found in wet limestone).
"The game's language is loaded with references to caving, to 'domes' and 'crawls.' A 'slab room,' for instance, is a very old cave whose roof has begun to break away into sharp flakes which litter the floor in a crazy heap."
According to caver Mel Park:
"In our small circle, Willie Crowther is a famous, as was his wife then, cave explorer of the 60's and 70's when Colossal, Bedquilt, Salts, Crystal and the other caves under Flint Ridge, Kentucky were mapped together to become the longest cave in the world.
"In 1972 the Flint Ridge caves were joined to Mammoth Cave, over on the next ridge, in a series of difficult trips in low, half-water- filled passages
Willie Crowther's wife Pat was a key member of the small party of cavers that found the historic connection between the Mammoth and Flint Ridge caves.
It had long been speculated that the cave systems were connected, but nobody had yet found the crucial connecting passage, a very narrow tunnel that was later given the nickname "the tight squeeze."
Pat, being the thinnest member of the party, went through first. "Oh! It's very tight," she called, then saw the passage opening up into a much larger space. She happily added, "...but we have cave!"
This passageway may be commemorated in the Colossal Cave adventure as the narrow passage named "Tight Spot" that leads to the Plover Room. The game requires you to drop all carried objects (even the lamp!) before it will allow you through. under Houchin's Valley. That connection is still called the Everest of speleology "The total known length of the Mammoth Cave System exceeds 350 miles and exploration is still going on."
Will Crowther's wife Patricia was a key member of the team that found this historic connection. A well-written and very engaging book that describes the cave explorations up to and 
during this period is "The Longest Cave," by Roger Brucker and Richard Watson. The book has numerous references to both Will and Patricia Crowther, as well as a fascinating history of caving in the Flint Ridge region.
Mel Park continues by saying:
"Bedquilt was Willie's favorite part of the cave system. I still have a copy of his map of it. Computer types who grew up exploring ADVENTURE don't realize how accurately the game represents passages in Bedquilt Cave.
"Yes, there is a Hall of the Mountain King and a Two-Pit Room. The entrance is indeed a strong steel grate at the bottom of a twenty-foot depression.
Mel describes how caver Bev Schwartz got her start:
"On a survey trip to Bedquilt, a member of my party mentioned she would one day like to go on a trip to Colossal Cave, where she understood the game ADVENTURE was set.
"No, I said, the game is based on Bedquilt Cave and we are going there now. Excitement!
"Throughout the cave, she kept up a constant narrative, based on her encyclopedic knowledge of the game. In the Complex Room (renamed Swiss Cheese Room in Advent) she scrambled off in a direction I had never been.
"'I just had to see Witt's End,' she said upon returning. "It was exactly as I expected."
"When we finished with our work, I let her lead out, which she did flawlessly, again because she had memorized every move in the game. Believe me, the cave is a real maze, and this was an impressive accomplishment for a first-time visitor.
"...I felt that her knowledge of the cave was so good that in February, I had her be a guide for two survey parties that had work to do in upper and lower Bedquilt, respectively.
On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is "unequivocal," and that human activity has "very likely" been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had "likely" played a role.
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