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In city life, you may not see many wild ani­mals. A cougar sight­ing is com­mon­ly a sub­ject of a local news sto­ry — and much con­ver­sa­tion.

But birds? They’re every­where. Maybe they’ve nest­ed on your prop­er­ty or they’re eat­ing feed your neigh­bors throw out. Maybe they wake you up ear­li­er than you’d like, chirp­ing near your win­dow.

How often have you won­dered why a bird is in your neigh­bor­hood, ver­sus anoth­er part of the world? How often have you won­dered what the bird’s sto­ry is?

David Craig, a pro­fes­sor of biol­o­gy at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty, has built a career around ask­ing and answer­ing these ques­tions.

Craig has been inter­est­ed in the world around him and the crea­tures that live in it since he was a child. He says most chil­dren are, and many grow out of it. Craig nev­er did.

Craig says answer­ing the ques­tions of why birds set­tle where they do and where and when they migrate can answer a lot of ques­tions about our­selves and our world.

“I think under­stand­ing our place in the nat­ur­al world is always impor­tant,” Craig said. “There’s a long his­to­ry of birds being able to  tell us real­ly quick­ly about the envi­ron­ment before peo­ple have to make deci­sions that are going to affect peo­ple.”

Ospreys and eagles were the ones who told us DDT, a pes­ti­cide, was harm­ful, Craig said, when their eggs stopped hatch­ing and their pop­u­la­tion declined. We lat­er learned that DDT was caus­ing can­cer in peo­ple, he said.

In recent years, hob­by­ists have been con­tribut­ing to sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge by tak­ing pho­tos of birds with tags that sci­en­tists else­where have put on them and help­ing them track them through the Inter­net.

The new tech­nol­o­gy and new twist on bird­ing is attract­ing a younger gen­er­a­tion of bird­ers, Craig said.
Want to learn more about how you could get involved? You can see his talk at TEDxSalem on Oct. 3 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Get your tick­ets at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.

They say one’s trash is another’s trea­sure.

Dr. Mark Davis has built a med­ical career on this con­cept.

To many, poop means very lit­tle. It’s just waste, to be flushed away and rarely spo­ken of.

But for some peo­ple, it’s a sig­nif­i­cant health prob­lem that severe­ly impacts their qual­i­ty of life. And the only solu­tion is more poop.

Let me explain.

Davis, a Port­land-based natur­o­path­ic physi­cian, has ded­i­cat­ed his career to help­ing peo­ple with stom­ach con­di­tions — espe­cial­ly those who have tried every­thing, to no avail.

At TEDxSalem on Oct. 3, Davis will speak about the work he is doing to improve the lives of those who have stub­born inflam­ma­to­ry bow­el dis­ease and infec­tious col­i­tis.

Davis comes from a fam­i­ly of sci­en­tists and med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, and he nat­u­ral­ly formed an inter­est in a career in the field, as well.

But unlike con­ven­tion­al med­i­cine, which he says is more focused on fix­ing bro­ken bones and patch­ing up bleed­ing parts, Davis was inter­est­ed in a more holis­tic type of med­i­cine.

When he dis­cov­ered natur­opa­thy, he knew it was right up his alley.

He got into gas­troin­testi­nal health because of the influ­ence of his men­tor, Dr. Steven Sand­berg-Lewis, who is a gut health expert, Davis said.

Davis found that while many peo­ple suf­fer­ing from bow­el dis­eases found relief through diet, nutri­ents and herbs, there were some peo­ple for whom noth­ing seemed to work.

He did some dig­ging into sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture, and he found an answer that has helped many peo­ple: fecal trans­plan­ta­tion. In oth­er words, he takes donat­ed fecal mat­ter from healthy peo­ple to trans­plant it in sick people’s intestines through an ene­ma.

Today, he runs his own donor bank at his prac­tice and con­tin­ues to help peo­ple who have tried every­thing to relieve their bow­el dis­ease symp­toms with no suc­cess.

You would have to attend TEDxSalem to learn more about fecal trans­plan­ta­tion, what Davis has done to make the process more — well, appe­tiz­ing — and the bar­ri­ers the gov­ern­ment has placed on peo­ple who would ben­e­fit from this treat­ment.

Tick­ets are avail­able at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.