Taryn Plumb writes in the Globe about the three years of painstaking work that have gone into creating them.

“A miniaturized right whale is caught in mid-spout, baleen exposed, barnacles clinging.

“A sea turtle swims, its wide shell blushed with yellow and iridescent red, flippers with waves of violet, pink, and cobalt.

“Enormous butterflies hover – monarchs in dramatic orange and black; buckeyes boasting amethyst spots; swallowtails showing off elaborate webbed patterns of scarlet, purple, and blue.

“Carousels usually evoke images of horses of various shapes and sizes, adorned with flamboyant regalia, circling endlessly in trots and leaps to a backdrop of colorful lights and carnival music.

“But this carousel – designed, sculpted, and painted by two local artists, and soon to adorn the Rose F. Kennedy Greenway in Boston – is a horse of a different color.

“In fact, it doesn’t have any horses at all.

“ ‘You’ll never see another one like this,’ said designer Jeff Briggs of Newburyport. ‘It’s much more elaborate, much more intense.’

“To be installed by Labor Day weekend, the carousel will include a resplendent assortment of local land, sea, and air creatures: lobsters, rabbits, owls, a skunk, squirrel, fox, right whale, sea turtle, cod, peregrine falcon, grasshopper, three species of butterflies, a sea serpent gondola, and a harbor seal chariot. According to the Rose Fitzgerald Greenway Conservancy, the animals were inspired by drawings from Boston schoolchildren, and the project, which also includes a new park, was funded by grants and several dozen donors.” More.

Who will join me when it opens?

At Technical.ly (better cites through technology), Andrew Zaleski describes how the Baltimore Foundery [sic], “a campus for makers,” was inspired by Artisan’s Space in the Boston area.

“It was by chance that Andrew Stroup and Corey Fleischer, two [Baltimore] locals-turned-contestants on a new engineering-focused Discovery Channel TV show, met Jason Hardebeck, the executive director of gb.tc.

“But despite having only met earlier this year, the three had more in common than they knew: each thought it was high time Baltimore city had its own makerspace — a large, indoor area replete with machine tools, digital tools like 3D printers and equipment for woodworking and metalworking — on par with similar spaces in other cities in the U.S.

“Through their time on the show, Stroup and Fleischer met Gui Cavalcanti, who started the Artisan’s Asylum makerspace in Boston, a sprawling, 40,000-square-foot complex where members renting space brew their own beer, construct their own bikes and sculpt pieces of art from metal. After spending a weekend there in mid-January, the two were convinced they needed to find a place within Baltimore where any resident could do the same type of work.

“ ‘Baltimore has everything that we saw at Artisan’s Asylum: the level of artists, engineers, hobbyists,’ said Fleischer, 31, who received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from UMBC, and now works at Lockheed Martin in Middle River. ‘Baltimore has those people, and Baltimore does not have a space like that where everyone can go.’ …

“Whereas few people in Baltimore have the resources to become ‘coders and programmers,’ Hardebeck said, people ‘can understand how to become CNC machine operators.’

“In effect, that’s the grandest wish Hardebeck — a former product manager at DeWALT — harbors for the new makerspace: a place that can foster the next generation of blue-collar workers in Baltimore city by offering a community workshop so people can have access to good equipment and classes. In turn, people can become entrepreneurs building products in their own small-scale manufacturing facility, albeit one they share with other makers.”

More.

Photo: Technical.lyFleischer leads a class in Introductory Welding last month.

This Smithsonian story shows how a relatively simple invention made it possible for the Impressionists to do much more painting outdoors, en plein air.

Perry Hurt writes, “The French Impressionists disdained laborious academic sketches and tastefully muted paintings in favor of stunning colors and textures that conveyed the immediacy of life pulsating around them. Yet the breakthroughs of Monet, Pissarro, Renoir and others would not have been possible if it hadn’t been for an ingenious but little-known American portrait painter, John G. Rand.

Photo: Chrysler Museum of Art
The tin tube, below, was more resilient than its predecessor (the pig bladder), enabling painters to leave their studios.

“For the past 16 years, Ester Evelyn Odhiambo has dedicated herself to improving life on one small island. It’s no small task.

“Rusinga Island, in the northeast corner of Lake Victoria in Kenya, is about 16 km (10 miles) long and 5 km (3 miles) wide. About 30,000 people call it home. But the island over the years has become an increasingly inhospitable environment for them.

“ ‘If you plant something, it just dries out,’ says Ms. Odhiabmo, who runs an organization to help people widowed or orphaned by AIDS [Kisibom, or "come and learn"]. ‘You try to irrigate, and the water is too little because the sun comes and dries everything.’

“The changes have come because of poor management of resources – including forests and fishing grounds – and because of increasing climate impacts.

“But now residents are experimenting with renewable energy innovations, environmentally friendly farming, tree planting, and other efforts aimed at improving the island’s environment, building resilience, creating livelihoods, and overcoming shortages of food and water.”

More.

Photograph: Pius Sawa/AlertNet
Ester Evelyn Odhiambo opens a charcoal refrigerator on Rusinga Island, Kenya. It is lined with charcoal, into which water seeps through a hosepipe fed by a bucket. The wet charcoal absorbs heat and keeps the items inside the fridge cool without needing electricity.

My husband, who likes to read nature magazines, knew this story was a good one for Suzanne’s Mom’s Blog the minute he saw it this afternoon.

Doug Stewart writes at National Wildlife, “The nest overlooks the parking lot of a nursing home in Hellgate Canyon near Missoula. All summer, hundreds of thousands of people watched online as three nestlings screamed deliriously at fish deliveries or listened to their parents vent their fury at encroaching bald eagles.

“At one point last summer, one of the three chicks became entangled in monofilament line from a fish brought back to the nest. Fishing line can quickly strangle an osprey chick. It was a Sunday, and the researchers had not been online to check the nest.

“ ‘We were first alerted to the fishing line by an email from a woman in Estonia,’ says [biologist Erick] Greene. ‘Then we heard from a woman in Wales.’ The researchers also had set up a Facebook page for the ospreys, and in no time it became filled with alerts from concerned visitors. Borrowing a truck equipped with a bucket that can raise up to the level of the nest, the biologists raced to the scene to cut away the line from the chick and removed a fish hook embedded in its wing. The bird survived.”

More great details at National Wildlife, including a description of 700 kids at an urban school watching the webcam and tweeting questions about the osprey to researchers, here.

Watch the osprey here.

Photo: National Wildlife

“More than half of American teenagers and young adults volunteered [in 2011], and the best way to enlist this group turns out to be peer pressure: Three quarters of people ages 13 to 22 whose friends volunteer regularly also do so, which is nearly twice the number of those who pursue voluntary activities based on their concern about particular social issues. …

“Those were the key findings of new research results released [Oct. 24] by DoSomething.org, a group working to get young people involved in social change.” More.

At the high school Suzanne and John attended, volunteering was required. But they also did things that just interested them. I remember Suzanne in a play targeting the cycle of domestic violence and John working on peace and justice activities.

The organization pictured below is City Year, “an education focused, nonprofit organization that unites young people of all backgrounds for a year of full-time service to keep students in school and on track to graduation.”

Suzanne’s friend Lisa did a City Year and thought it very worthwhile. Today, I often see the kids in their distinctive jackets on the train, and I once went door-to-door to help City Year’s public-spirited cofounder in a primary election for the Senate.

Photograph: Charles Krupa/AP/File
City Year volunteers sing the national anthem outside Faneuil Hall in Boston. The volunteers age 17 to 24 will work in a variety of community-service programs. The best way to encourage teens to volunteer is to make it a way to get together with their friends, a new report suggests.

Matt Trueman writes at the Guardian, “The sites of two Jacobean theatres in London, both used by William Shakespeare, could host drama once again, following planning applications for new theatres.

My husband has planted an array of annuals and perennials, and both kids are seeding lawns.

Since I am rather a fan of Mass Challenge winners and I also had a heartfelt testimonial from Mimsey, I encouraged both families to try a 2010 Mass Challenge winner, Pearl’s Premium grass seed.

Mimsey said that she had thrown Pearl’s into a wooded area next to her house, expecting nothing. Before she knew it, a lovely velvety carpet had grown there. Sounded to me like the beans Jack’s mother threw away that led to Jack’s adventures at the top of a beanstalk.

And speaking of plants, the plant identification site Mister Smarty Plants, a big supporter of this blog, needs my support tonight. So if you would like to help him get recognition at a Mass Innovation Night on June 10, vote for him here. It took me a while to figure out the voting. You have to vote for four entries in the event and make a comment. But you don’t have to give your name. Thanks!

Ben Kesling writes from Twentynine Palms, California, “U.S. Marines are taught to overcome obstacles with a minimum of help. But when some Marines prepared to charge a hill in a training exercise here a few months ago, they were forced to halt and radio the one man who could help them advance: Brian Henen, turtle expert.

“The troops were ‘running up the hill and firing at targets,’ Mr. Henen said. ‘Some of the tortoises like the hill also. The Marines don’t want to hurt the tortoise, so they call us and we go in and move it.’

“Mr. Henen, who has a doctorate in biology, is part of a little-known army of biologists and other scientists who manage the Mojave desert tortoise and about 420 other threatened and endangered species on about 28 million acres of federally managed military land.

” ‘There’s a lot of people who don’t recognize the amount of conservation the Marine Corps does,’ said Martin Husung, a natural-resource specialist on the base. ‘A lot of people think we’re just running over things.’ …

John Brent, base environmental manager at Fort Benning in Georgia, says, “‘It’s a well-kept secret’ that biologists are drawn to work on military bases … There’s a chance to do terrific work.’ “

More.

“Commander Chris Hadfield is one of the most memorable astronauts to have gone into space, so it was fitting that his farewell moment to the world saw him record the first ever music video from space.

“Ahead of his return to Earth on Monday after five months at the International Space Station (ISS), the 53-year-old Canadian astronaut fittingly covered the David Bowie classic ‘Space Oddity’ in a poignant video.

“Hadfield has maintained strong links to folks at home, having entertained his 700,000-plus Twitter followers with regular photos and commentary, and taken part in a Reddit AMA interview, but music was always a focus for him.

“He recorded the first song in space last December, and, speaking before his latest mission, he admitted that he would record a range of songs in space.”

Read more at AndrewSullivan.

This video is really, really wonderful.