aquaculture landscape

I received a newsletter from the European Commission, Research Information Centre. Headlines shouting: Aquaculture comes of age! Dead fishes illustrated the article.

And their glorious shouting continued. The European Commission wanted to teach me about 'aquaculture landscape'!

quote: "Each year, more than 160 million tonnes of fish are consumed by the world’s population. Almost half of this volume is produced in controlled environments, where the fish is cultured rather than harvested from the wild. The system, known as aquaculture, dates back thousands of years, and today operates as a welcome alternative to the sea’s over-exploited natural resources. A recent workshop hosted by the Reprofish and AquaBreeding projects (funded by the European Union at a total of EUR 383 014) highlighted the efforts in place to enhance industry practices and improve the quality of aquatic animals and fish reared in Europe."end of quote

What? Was this really true: aquaculture dated back thousands of years? My European teacher continued: it was invented by Egyptians and Chinese, around 2500 BC! But today, it was the most promissing fastest growing food-production sector.

quote: "'Most of the fish that people eat nowadays in many European restaurants come from the aquaculture industry,' explained Dr Olivier Kah, coordinator of Reprofish, a project funded by the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) aimed at better understanding, accessing and communicating fish reproduction research."end of quote

And Dr. Kah continued, explaining his view on future: quote"'Reproduction is life,' said Dr Kah. 'If animals do not reproduce it is the end of the chain. It is a very complex function that involves a lot of internal factors — from an organism and interactions within an organism to input from the environment (such as temperature) — which help the organism decide whether it will reproduce or not. This is what we are trying to understand; why a fish starts reproducing, how we can control this mechanism, how we can master it, and use this knowledge to culture fish.'"end of quote

Is aquaculture really what we need, or what we want? I am not so sure about that! Anyhow, this item deserves a place in Vickx Wonder World.

If you like to read the article yourself, please go to:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?id=/research/headlines/news/article_08_10_16_en.html&item=Infocentre&artid=8553

If you like to read more about mr. Kah 's organisation Reprofish, visit:

http://www.reprofish.eu/reprofish_eng/qu_est_ce_que_reprofish

Magnitude in Miniscule & Miniscule in Magnitude

Could you tell me: is this a painting on a rock, or maybe just a pebblestone?

The exact size is difficult to determine. Small, large, extra-large.

But we may say this is a stone. Although..... maybe it is a piece of scenery, made of paper. Or the painting is on linen, covering a stone.

It is all in the eye of the beholder, as the saying goes.

If you have time, have a look at this link: You will find images of the sun.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/10/the_sun.html

A friend of mine sent me this link, without comment. The sun! I expected to see the sun in the way I am used to. The sun that brings daylight, warmth; the sun that bronz' my face, grows my garden.

But I entered a wonderful world. I saw images from far away, yet so familiar.

I saw an eye's iris and grains of a corncorb, the heart of a rose. A world in a world in a world. What was I looking at? Where there maybe little organisms living their own life, not labled in our words or thoughts? In perception of an entity - unknown of us? What is large? What is small? What is IS?

I found Magnitude in Miniscule and Miniscule in Magnitude.

Vickx WonderWorld.

beyond being starts existing

Sad news, sometimes I almost forget sadness is part of life, sometimes days are full of sad messages. Yesterday was a day of silent tears.

A woman I always knew as extremely elegant, intelligent and kind will die of cancer. Time left is only a matter of days. Days, her husband and she will try to celebrate, in memory of the beautiful years they shared together. Days of great intimacy. Difficult days too. It's hard to say goodbye.

Silent tears too, because of the death of an old woman who died unexpectedly in the arms of a friend of mine.

But at the same time I realized that beyond being existing starts. Existing in eternal light, bright and peaceful.

Yesterday's sunset was impressive. As if sky welcomed these two women.

As if heaven opened and scattered beautiful little orange and golden sprinkles in the deepblue sky. And I realized, once again: economic crisis, money, consumptions, stock markets, nothing really matters. We all are just little beings, maybe just little fungus, for which beyond being real existing starts. May peace be in your heart.

Oleg and his Papa

I don't know Oleg and I don't know his papa, but I like them very much. Papa is a truckdriver from Latvia and I saw his truck on a parkingplace at a German 'Autobahn'. Papa and Oleg are always together, also when papa is not at home. Oleg and papa, together in the truck's cabin. Maybe, little Oleg wants to become a truck-driver too. And maybe, papa is still a little boy (at heart), who wants to play football with Oleg and his friends when he returns to Latvia.

Good couple, these two. Oleg and his Papa.