Just another Tuesday

 This!

I am trying to keep this my happy zone and NOT the politics that keep me riled up all day. I mean ... Dr Oz! What cabinet position is Phil getting for kissing-his-ass-interview? But really can not ignore this Oklahoma/trump bible story (video below) ... it's just too good. We are about to enter a very interesting period in our history!

Just as a side note: Following Hitler's appointment as German chancellor on January 30, 1933, Mein Kampf's popularity soared and made the author a multi-millionaire. That year alone more than 850,000 copies were sold. Through aggressive marketing the publisher pressured the public, German institutions, and Nazi organizations to purchase copies. The Nazi propaganda machine's transformation of Adolf Hitler from a common German soldier and politician into an infallible, god-like leader greatly boosted sales as well. By the end of 1944, more than 12 million copies had been printed; most of them after 1939. 

To increase sales, the Nazi publishing house created special or commemorative editions, including ones in braille, for newlyweds, and for Hitler's 50th birthday in 1939. In addition, it authorized translations of the book into various languages, including English. 

We have battled fruit flies for months and months. The fruit flies have never left my kitchen but have morphed into this little walking, lurking bugs, loving the dog food? It is like they are turning into a new species right in my kitchen. 

 

Never did get my arm examined (Joanne -- ;). It has not gotten worse, but not better. I am not wearing the splint anymore but if I twist it just so, it really hurts. Yes, yes, I need to go to the doctor, I just don't know what they are going to do about it. 

When the Pando clone was discovered, scientists named it with a Latin word that means “I spread.” Pando is an aspen clone that originated from a single seed and spreads by sending up new shoots from the expanding root system. Pando is believed to be the largest, most dense organism ever found at nearly 13 million pounds. 

The clone spreads over 106 acres, consisting of over 40,000 individual trees. The exact age of the clone and its root system is difficult to calculate, but it is estimated to have started at the end of the last ice age. Some of the trees are over 130 years old. It was first recognized by researchers in the 1970s and more recently proven by geneticists. Its massive size, weight, and prehistoric age have caused worldwide fame. 

Image with aspen trees in yellow Located in central Utah on the Fishlake National Forest, Pando is approximately 1 mile southwest of Fish Lake on State Highway 25. In the summer the green, fluttering leaves symbolize the relief from summer’s heat that you get coming to the basin. In autumn the oranges and yellows of the leaves as they change color give a hint of the fall spectacular that is the Fish Lake Basin.

Emerging stronger than ever

My friend send me this passage the other day concerning birds moulting, loss, rebirth, renewal. I think it is from a book I sent her, A Short Philosophy of Birds, Kate and I found at Watson Kennedy.

 

It's complicated

Another blind bites the dust and I need to order replacements. This one is in my bedroom and I want privacy at night. I have pulled out all of David's kept receipts of all things we have ever purchased or had built in this house. Files and files. Just checking who we  ought these from.

I am having strange dreams. Maybe watching too many political videos? LOL. Murphy woke me up  wanting to get up with me to sleep and I was trying to encourage him to the foot and not ON TOP of me. He finally went away but later I dreamed that he was laying there talking white supremacy crap and he had  some man's name that I remembered when I first woke up. It was funny but scary to think my dog was turning racist!

And on the news this morning Trump does not have immunity in Jan. 6 case. My, oh, my. He might be held accountable for trying to overthrow the government, wouldn't that be something. NO PRESIDENT has ever needed or asked for immunity before this orange POS. HE IS A CITIZEN LIKE ANYONE ELSE trying to break the law, period. Surprise .... he is not KING.

On a personal note ... I posted this on FB today in response to 2-0-year-old-me. Me, late 20’s, in my favorite raw silk shirt and linen skirt. At my favorite place, the Hardy house in Denton, with the candy drawer right behind me in Sally’s kitchen.  I still have a candy drawer now in my house in memory of Sally!

I didn't watch the Grammy's but I heard it from the other room. But I did hear all about Tracy Chapman. Love her! Apparently there was not a dry eye in America! I don't think there was one in this house. 

 

  

Love that Luke kept the lyric, "And I work in a market as a checkout girl." That's mad respect. 

I love pufferfish surface pattern! This particular species of puffer, called a "map puffer", has a reticulated pattern on its body with dark lines radiating from the eye. It is quite large, with a length of over 14 inches.

The white-spotted pufferfish (Torquigener albomaculosus) is known for its unique and complex courtship display which involves creating large, geometric circles in the sand. These circles are constructed in an effort to attract females for copulation. Males must maintain their circles in order to attract a mate. A female will evaluate the structure and choose to mate with the males after evaluation and completion of other mating behaviors. 

 

 

A murder of crows

I have watched the crows fly to go roost every dusk for years and years asking "where do they go?" And someone explained that.  

Thousands of crows have gathered nightly at the University of Washington's Bothell campus for at least 14 years. The “murder,” or group, of crows in Bothell can reach a peak of up to 16,000 birds. Even those who witness the phenomenon regularly are still awed.

 

Psychedelic Science

Swiss artist and photographer Fabian Oefner is on a mission to make eye-catching art from everyday science. In this charming talk, he shows off some recent psychedelic images, including photographs of crystals as they interact with soundwaves. And, in a live demo, he shows what really happens when you mix paint with magnetic liquid--or when you set fire to whiskey. 

The 'abyss of time'

Siccar Point is a rocky promontory in the county of Berwickshire on the east coast of Scotland. It is famous in the history of geology for Hutton's Unconformity found in 1788, which James Hutton regarded as conclusive proof of his uniformitarian theory of geological development.

 

 

Hutton's Unconformity 

 

In his 1803 eulogy of Scottish geologist James Hutton (1726-97), mathematician John Playfair recalled the clear day in the summer of 1788 when he, Hutton, and Sir James Hall sailed south along the Berwickshire coast in southeastern Scotland in search of evidence concerning the age of Earth. They rounded Siccar Point and landed at the base of what was to become one of the most famous sites in the history of geology. Before them, nearly vertical layers of gray slate rose up from the sea in a sheer cliff face, only to terminate abruptly against gently dipping beds of red sandstone. 

 

We felt ourselves necessarily carried back to the time when the schistus on which we stood was yet at the bottom of the sea, and when the sandstone before us was only beginning to be deposited, in the shape of sand or mud, from the waters of a superincumbent ocean. An epocha still more remote presented itself, when even the most ancient of these rocks, instead of standing upright in vertical beds, lay in horizontal planes at the bottom of the sea, and was not yet disturbed by that immeasurable force which has burst asunder the solid pavement of the globe.... The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time. (Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. V, pt. III, 1805) 

 

Now known as Hutton's Unconformity, the formation reveals a missing chapter in what Hutton referred to as "the annals of the Earth." Hutton recognized that constructive geological processes, such as volcanism and mountain building, created strata of rock and sediment and that breaks, or "unconformities," in the chronology were caused by erosion or an absence of deposition over long periods of time. The gray vertical beds were originally flat-lying marine sediments that over eons hardened and were turned on end. They were slowly planed away and overlain by a horizontal layer of sand deposited at the edge of a now-vanished sea. Geologists estimate that roughly 80 million years elapsed between the deposition of the Lower Silurian gray slate and the Upper Devonian Old Red

 

 

Idea of beauty and status

Altering one's looks goes way back. They want to be more beautiful and show the world that they are superior. This is so interesting.

Paracas is a desert peninsula located within the Pisco Province in the Ica Region, on the south coast of Peru. It is here were Peruvian archaeologist, Julio Tello, made an amazing discovery in 1928, a massive and elaborate graveyard containing tombs filled with the remains of individuals with the largest elongated skulls found anywhere in the world. 

These have come to be known as the 'Paracas skulls'. In total, Tello found more than 300 of these elongated skulls, which are believed to date back around 3,000 years. 

A DNA analysis has now been conducted on one of the skulls and expert Brien Foerster has released preliminary information regarding these enigmatic skulls. It is well-known that most cases of skull elongation are the result of cranial deformation, head flattening, or head binding, in which the skull is intentionally deformed by applying force over a long period of time. 

It is usually achieved by binding the head between two pieces of wood, or binding in cloth. However, while cranial deformation changes the shape of the skull, it does not alter its volume, weight, or other features that are characteristic of a regular human skull. The Paracas skulls, however, are different.

The Mystery of Peru's Elongated Skulls – Science vs Myth 

There is a tribe deep in the center of Africa that was once famous for its hair styles that defied nature. They practiced Lipombo’ – the art of head elongation that denoted majesty and status…the Mangbetu.

 

The Alchon Huns are infamous for their elongated skulls, the result of artificially flattening the back of their heads.

Cosmodernism

A polish artist, Kamil Czapiga has created these amazing videos that he is calling Cosmodernism. His Instagram. 

It looks like Reaction-Diffusion process, I find it beautiful and fascinating. I have discussed this many times. He does have little cutlines on his website telling how he creates these slides. 

"The project oscillates around experimental audiovisual arts and performance. It balances at the intersection of the unexplained, unspeakable and unimaginable but not impossible. Pure and absolute joy of fun with form is combined here with delight of the diversity and beauty of the phenomena that occur around us every day."

 

 

A Visual Explanation 

 

Remember you can create your own! Reaction-Diffusion Playground.

Dancing Chromatophores

Chromatophores are muscle-controlled pigment cells in the skin of cephalopods, such as squid, octopus, and cuttlefish. These chromatophores expand and contract on command in order to help the animal blend in with its surroundings, or to communicate with other animals.

 

  

 

Science Sunday - Feeling like a curious child again

I ran across this photo on FB, a photo of walking stick eggs come in a variety of colors and sizes. 

"Phasmids are an are an order of insects whose members are variously known as stick insects. Each species of stick insect produces an egg that is unique in shape and design." 

I mean how you not be curious, after seeing this photo of by Levon Biss. I mean,who would not want to know more about these?!

The Incredible Phasmid Egg. Stick insects have eggs that look exactly like seeds. Scientists can’t figure out why these masters of camouflage would lay eggs that resemble bird snacks. Looks like the eggs resemble seeds for a reason.  

"As Hughes and Westbory explain, for stick insects that leave their eggs on the leaf litter, the eggs are intentionally attractive. Eggs of these species have an unusual structure called a capitula, a lumpy appendage stuck to the end of the egg. Its function was a mystery until Hughes and Westbory compared the eggs to actual seeds, some of which have their own appendage called an elaiosome.  

The elaiosome is filled with fat, with one main purpose: to attract ants. The ants take the seeds with elaiosomes back to their nests and bury them. Fooled by the capitula, they do the same with phasmid eggs. The buried eggs gain protection from parasitic wasps. Baby stick bugs then hatch safely beneath a couple centimeters of soil. The whole system is a great example of convergent evolution, when two completely unrelated organisms, an insect and a plant, independently evolve similar adaptations. 

In fact, the resemblance between seed-mimicking eggs and actual seeds might even be more complex. Many plant seeds are irresistible food for birds. The birds eat the seeds, which survive digestion and then germinate in the bird’s feces. The otherwise immobile plant uses the bird to disperse its offspring. Entomologist Matan Shelomi, writing in the Journal of Orthoptera Research, decided to test if this strategy applied to phasmid eggs by feeding them to chickens and quails. Many phasmid eggs are coated in a tough material called calcium oxalate. The coating is probably mostly defensive, but it also requires strong acid—like that you’d fine in a vertebrate stomach—to break down. Alas, while the birds ate the eggs with gusto, the eggs did not survive being digested."

 They keep them a pets? 

 

Great camouflage!

  

Laying an egg

  

   

 

Ladybug, ladybug

I am completely fascinating to watch that under wing gently unfold!  

Wing-folding process in a ladybird beetle 

How they fly

 

 

The bugs that are us

This is so fascinating! Antibiotics killed all mom's gut bacteria and I am certain this is one of the reason she was so sick.

 

Solar cycle

It is beyond my understanding how we can film these extraordinary solar flares! But there they are!

Solar Superstorms is a major new production that takes viewers into the tangle of magnetic fields and superhot plasma that vent the Sun’s rage in dramatic flares, violent solar tornadoes, and the largest eruptions in the solar system: Coronal Mass Ejections. What’s driving these strange phenomena? How will they affect planet Earth? Find the answers as we venture into the seething interior of our star. 

Beautiful Barnacles

Mason found a giant barnacle at the beach the other day. Something I have never, ever seen. Initially, it looked liked like a mini-ocean volcano. We find tiny barnacles attached to rocks and shells all the time. But this was a real treat worth investigating.

 

 

 After an internet search, it looks like ours is a Balanus crenatus Bruguière (or maybe a Balanus nubilus Darwin, 1854, Giant Acorn Barnacle). Mason's might almost have 6 plates, so I can't decide between the two. Man, there is a lot of barnacle research out there to be consumed! In my next life, I am definitely going to be a researcher or biologist.

 

The outer material is like cement and I can attest to that. 

 

  

 

EO Wilson will be missed

Leading American naturalist EO Wilson, dubbed 'Darwin's heir', dies at 92. This is an opportunity to go and revisit his videos, his wisdom, his words. He was really something.

  

  

 

Alexander Semenov and his incredible underwater show

I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to see images like these. Images that we mere humans would really never get to experience in the past.  

Over at Clione.ru (underwater experiments), Alexander Semenov, a marine biologist and a professional underwater photographer is head of the scientific divers team at the White Sea Biological Station of Lomonosov’s Moscow State University, Russia. The station was founded in 1938 and mostly it was built by enthusiasts who came here because of the amazing atmosphere that had being developed over many years at the station. This is an unusual and unique mix of students energy, serious science and the harsh northern nature.

Check out the gallery of incredible creatures. Found this morning over at Abduzeedo. 

Self-oscillating

Self-oscillating gels are materials that continuously change back and forth between different states — such as color or size — without provocation from external stimuli. These changes are caused by the Belousov-Zhabotinsky chemical reaction, which was discovered during the 1950s. 

Hubble and beyond

Discovering Planets Beyond 

Hubble Gallery 
Hubble images

iBOL

The International Barcode of Life project (iBOL), the largest biodiversity genomics initiative ever undertaken, is unlocking the door to that world by creating a digital identification system for life. This is so interesting! And the blog.

Sorry, I keep adding to this post, but wow, great stuff. Catepillar identification database. I just wish the images were larger!

Insects of Papua Indonesia

UF/IFAS Entomology and Nematology Department's Featured Creatures

Fold-out Charts for field guides

Micropolitan Museum

The Institute for the Promotion of the Less than One Millimetre proudly presents Micropolitan Museum. Alien beauty. This remarkable site, Microscopy-UK International Microscopy Gallery. Doesn't this just blow your mind?






A Close-up View of the "Common Crocus"