Kind of Curious

The Carnival Midway

2010-03-07T22:00:00.009-05:00

I have been participating in blog carnivals for a few months now, almost as long as I have been blogging. A blog carnival is the literary equivalent of the photo above - an eclectic mix of rides (the blog posts), loosely organized around a midway (the host blog), promoted by a crazed barker (the host).

I have enjoyed "meeting" other bloggers through these carnivals. Participating in carnivals has increased my readership, especially when I hosted a carnival myself for the first time.

I didn't realize that blogging etiquette suggests that I should help advertise the carnivals I participate in. Advertising on my fledgling website is not like advertising during the Super Bowl, but every little bit helps.

So step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and take a stroll down this Kind of Curious midway:

Starting with the carnival having the broadest of scopes, Scientia Pro Publica publishes twice per month on science, medicine, the environment and technology. The latest issue is at Reciprocal Space, and includes my post on Thomas Jefferson's arguments against the Theory of American Degeneracy. Click here to see the Scientia issue hosted at Kind Of Curious.

Following the science and environment path, we soon come to a clearing in the woods. All around us are odd creatures in various stages of development. We must be at - The Carnival of Evolution. This month's edition, at Mauka to Makai, also includes my post on American Degeneracy (just doing my part by recycling and reusing old material).

Continuing our stroll, branching off down the Animalia trail, we come to another carnival with a pretty broad scope - the Friday Ark. I missed the launching of last week's ark, but the week before featured my post on coyotes sneaking into Manhattan.

Continuing down the Animalia trail, we stop to study a small insect. That's right, it is an invertebrate, so we must be at Circus of the Spineless! This month's issue, at The Modern Naturalist, starts off with my article on how arachnid lungs evolved from those of horseshoe crabs. Kind of Curious will be hosting Circus of the Spineless in July.

The invertebrate path in our carnival blogosphere has a big hole where "insects" should be. I think I smell an opportunity for a new carnival ... or maybe that's just a stink bug. Anyway, we turn down another branching pathway toward the biggest order of insects. This next carnival has An Inordinate Fondness - for beetles. This carnival set up its tents for the first time last month, and it included my post on the Ponderous Borer.

Next, it's off on a trail toward a sub-order of insects. I have not yet submitted a post to The Moth and Me. But I have a really cool photo of a tomato horn worm (hawk moth caterpillar) being attacked by wasp larvae. This will make a great article - as soon as I can find the photo.

Thankfully the invertebrate path does not branch off any further. Now we hop over to a parallel path for reptiles and amphibians. House of Herps is a new carnival, and issue #4 will be hosted right here at Kind Of Curious in just one week. I missed last month's issue, but the prior month at Beetles in the Bush included my post on diamondback terrapins.

As we tire of casting our eyes toward the ground, we look up to the skies and see - birds. I admit that birds are not my most frequent subject, so I do not submit posts every fortnight to I and the Bird. My last was back in January, uniquely hosted at The Marvelous in Nature. Each post is illustrated by a hand-drawn bird. Mine is the Chukar Partridge on the right edge, about 2/3 of the way down, at the base of the bird feeder.

Next we leave the Animalia path and head over to Plantae. Berry Go Round is a monthly carnival on all things botanical. The latest issue at Foothills Fancies features my article on the Haleakala Silversword.

Our plant-lined path now "branches" off onto a tree-lined boulevard. Trees are another topic I don't blog on very often ... a great goal for 2010. My last post at Festival of the Trees was in the January issue at Xenogere. It is my post on the Indian Kapok tree (look for the trees described as "godlike with their magics and powers and untold beauty").

The tree-lined boulevard finally leads to the water's edge, into the Carnival of the Blue. This month's carnival is at Southern Fried Science, and it includes my post on terrapin evolution.

Thank you for joining me on the carnival midway. Now it's off for a caramel apple ...

Eleven Amazing Things About The Haleakala Silversword

2010-02-25T17:17:00.014-05:00

I don't know if botanists keep "life lists" like birders do; but if they do, seeing the plant above would be like spotting an ivory-billed woodpecker. (Not exactly, since plants don't fly away as you try to find them, but you get the idea.)

We saw this plant on a trip to Hawaii. Here's why the Haleakala Silversword is so special:

It is found only within a 250 acre area on Mount Haleakala, on the island of Maui in Hawaii.

Its habitat is at an elevation of 7000 - 10,000 ft, in soil composed of volcanic cinders.

The weather at this height is very dry, sunny, windy and cold. We drove through the cloud layer on our way up the mountain, and looked down on the clouds as if we were in an airplane. We started the day swimming in the warm ocean, and ended it wearing long pants and jackets.

Silverswords live for about 10 to 50 years as a low, round bush like the one in the left edge of the photo above. At the end of their life, they send up a flowering stalk that can grow over 6 feet tall within a few weeks, and produce up to 600 flower heads.

Silverswords have adapted to their dry environment by storing a large amount of water in their thick leaves. As the flowering stalk grows, it pulls water from the leaves and they begin to droop, like the one above.

They have adapted to their cold environment by building themselves a reflector oven. Their leaves are covered with shiny silver hairs, and are curved into a parabolic shape that focuses the warm sunlight on the plant's growing point. This can raise the temperature of the growing point by up to 40 degrees F. Below is a closeup of these curved leaves from Wikimedia.

The Haleakala Silversword is a member of the Silversword Alliance. The Three Musketeers were also members of the Silversword Alliance. Actually, the Silversword Alliance is a group of about 30 plant species throughout Hawaii, which are believed to have evolved millions of years ago from tarweed plants in California. These tarweed seeds floated over 2000 miles on the open ocean to colonize the Hawaiian islands. Both silverswords and tarweeds are members of the sunflower family.

Although some members of the Silversword Alliance look very similar to the Haleakala Silversword, others look nothing like it. Each is adapted to one of the wide variety of habitats in Hawaii. This is a classic example of "adaptive radiation", where a single ancestor evolves into very different species adapted to their local environments. Darwin helped develop this idea when he studied the adaptive radiation of finches in the Galapagos Islands.

The Haleakala Silversword is a threatened species. It used to be threatened by overzealous tourists and grazing cattle. Now that Haleakala is a National Park, the tourists and cattle are kept under control. What threatens the silverswords today is an invasive species of ant from Argentina, which is preying on the native insects that pollinate the silverswords. Since silverswords flower only once in their long life, this small window for pollination is critical to their survival.

After being pollinated, and spreading its seeds to the Hawaiian winds, the silversword dies. In the photo below, you can finally see why they call this plant "silver sword". A new silversword is growing directly behind the old, shriveled leaves and sword.

The Hawaiian name for this plant is 'āhinahina, which translates to "very gray". Or maybe silver, it's hard to say.

Coyotes in Manhattan

2010-02-21T01:48:00.013-05:00

I've heard of the wolves on Wall Street, but the coyotes at Columbia were a new one.

It's hard to believe, but at least 3 coyotes have been spotted recently in Manhattan. They were seen in Central Park, and on the nearby campus of Columbia University.

The theory is that they walked along the Amtrak right-of-way, which goes along the Hudson River from the northern suburbs, through the Bronx, and over a railroad bridge onto the island of Manhattan.

From there, Amtrak continues along the Hudson, next to a series of parks. Then the tracks go underground, near Grant's Tomb in Riverside Park. The wandering coyotes would want to leave the right-of-way there rather than entering the tunnel, putting them only a couple of blocks from Columbia's campus.

After scaring a few students as they cut through campus, it is across the street to Morningside Park. From there, it is just 1 block cater-corner to Central Park. Finally, 843 acres of nature. I hope they have roadrunners!

For more about the coyotes, and links to photos, check out the New York City wildlife blog Out Walking the Dog. For even more, including an earlier visit in 2006, check out the blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Here's a comment on the Gothamist blog from someone who spotted one of the coyotes as late as this past Friday (2/19/10). The best photo is here, at the NY Times.

The photo above, by the way, is not from Manhattan. It is from Wikimedia.

The Ponderous Borer

2010-02-15T00:40:00.016-05:00

This beetle is a Ponderous Borer. No, I am not criticizing its social skills, although it didn't have much to say as I took its picture. It is "ponderous" as in "huge". You can't tell from the photo (I should have put a coin next to it), but it is about 2 inches long not including the antennae. The "boring" part refers to the larvae of this beetle, which bore through the wood of dead and dying trees.

These beetles like pine trees, so they are sometimes called Pine Sawyers. But I would call what their larvae do "boring" more than "sawing", so "sawyer" is misleading. Coincidentally, they especially like Ponderosa Pines. "Ponderosa" is Spanish for "ponderous", as in "that is a ponderosa steak", or "that is a ponderosa ranch".

This particular beetle was crawling on the sidewalk in a small strip mall in Lake Tahoe. That is not normally where you would find a beetle that loves trees, so I think this one was ill. He had two types of growths or abnormalities on his exoskeleton, the yellow and white pus in the middle of the photo below, and the shiny spot surrounded by white pus at the bottom right.

Here is another closeup that is not so gross. This is his tarsus (foot), showing the hooks that allow him to climb tree bark very well.

If you are into really gross insects, you will want to check out this photo of a Ponderous Borer larva being held in a man's hand. It is a 3 inch long grub as thick as your finger. If Thomas Jefferson had known about the Ponderous Borer, he could have used it as further evidence of the superior vitality of New World species.

Scientia Pro Publica Needs YOU!

2010-02-07T23:03:00.020-05:00

Last year, the well-respected Pew Research Center took a poll of scientists and of the general public. Here are a few of their findings:

84% of scientists say human activity is causing global warming. Only 49% of the general public agrees with this view.

87% of scientists say living things have evolved over time due to natural processes. Only 32% of the public agrees.

Only 10% of the general public could correctly answer all 12 of the questions on a basic science quiz.

If you think there is something wrong with this, Scientia Pro Publica needs YOU!

"Scientia Pro Publica" means "Science for the People". Scientia Pro Publica is a blog carnival with the mission of communicating science to the general public. Considering that many of the most important issues of our time require an understanding of basic science, this mission is critical. We need to understand science in order to elect leaders who will make informed decisions on behalf of us, our society and our planet.

That's where YOU come in! Please submit your blog posts on science, medicine and the environment to Scientia Pro Publica. Submit them by clicking on this link. Submissions for the next edition of Scientia Pro Publica are due by this Friday, 2/12/10. Scientia is published every other Monday, with submissions due the preceding Friday. By the way, if you come across a blog post written by someone else that you feel deserves some publicity, submit that as well.

As if that weren't a good enough way to save the world, here's something even better - you can HOST Scientia Pro Publica! This means that you take all of the submissions, write some introductory text to whet the reader's appetite, and post the whole thing on your blog. Then, hundreds of people come stampeding to your blog to read your summary and follow the links to the submitted posts. To volunteer as a host, send an email to Grrl Scientist at ScientiaBlogCarnival@gmail.com.

So, if you want to help improve scientific literacy, introduce new readers to your blog, or just have some fun, submit your posts now!

Scientia Pro Publica needs you. THE PEOPLE need you!

PS - To take the 12 question science quiz and read more about Pew's research on science literacy, click here. For links to previous editions of Scientia Pro Publica, click here.

My Proboscid Is Bigger Than Your Proboscid

2010-02-04T22:16:00.010-05:00

The gross-sounding statement in the title of this post was uttered by one of our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson (OK, I'm paraphrasing). It's not as bad as it sounds - proboscids are an order of animals that includes modern-day elephants, and extinct elephant-like creatures like mastodons and mammoths. Proboscid is short for Proboscidea, which is the actual name of the taxonomic order. As you can guess, these animals all have long proboscises (noses/trunks).

The photo above is from a visit to the Rutgers University Geology Museum. My wife and I visited their annual Open House last weekend. We met at Rutgers, so the trip was nostalgic as well as geologic. The photo is of a mastodon unearthed by a farmer in southern New Jersey in 1869.

But back to Thomas Jefferson ...

Jefferson's fit of proboscid envy was prompted by a man with the pretentious name of Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. "Comte" is a French title of nobility, similar in rank to an English earl. He is generally referred to as Buffon, although that is the town he was comte of and not his name.

Buffon was a well-known naturalist in the late 18th century, and made many observations including some that presaged Darwin's theory of evolution. But his observation that got Jefferson's wig twisted was what became known as the Theory of American Degeneracy. The idea was that due to a colder, more humid climate in the New World, the animals there (including humans) were smaller and weaker than those in the Old World.

It's not hard to see that Americans would be upset by this theory, especially being a new country that would not benefit from being seen as weak in the eyes of European powers. Jefferson, being somewhat of a naturalist himself, took on the task of refuting Buffon.

It turned out this was not very difficult to do. Buffon had never been to the New World, and his theories were based on incomplete and misleading information provided by others. Jefferson put together a list of several species that are larger in the New World than in the Old. Exhibit A was the mastodon, which not only was larger than the elephant, but was the largest known terrestrial animal in the ENTIRE world!

Never mind that the mastodon was extinct. At the time, which was before the expedition of Lewis and Clark, many believed that mastodons might still be roaming the interior of the American continent.

To make a long story short, the Americans got over their inferiority complex.

The End (the back end, that is):

Scientia Pro Publica Blog Carnival #20

2010-02-01T23:15:00.050-05:00

Welcome to the Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) blog carnival #20! This carnival celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days.

I am just pleased as punch to be hosting this edition at Kind Of Curious. This is the very first carnival I have hosted. I was really excited by the high turnout of 33 submissions. The publicity that Grrl Scientist has been doing for the carnival has certainly paid off. I enjoyed reading all of the posts, and as a new blogger, I learned a lot from the experience. I hope you enjoy the carnival, and don't get any cotton candy on your good shirt!

Space Science Posts

I am starting off with space science because this category contains "the post I love the most". I am not alone here. One of the commenters on this post opined, "an early contender for 'best post of 2010' methinks". Another commenter seconded that motion. Stephen Curry of Reciprocal Space has discovered Jupiter. In the process, he has re-discovered his inner child.

Alyssa Gilbert summarizes a discussion that took place with the readers of her blog Way Oort West, on the topic of the pros and cons of manned space missions. Whenever I think about this subject my opinion bounces back and forth, and this time was no exception.

Ecology/Conservation Posts

Eric Johnson at The Primate Diaries discusses how land use policies in Haiti have been unsuccessful in halting deforestation and soil erosion, and offers some alternatives.

Neil Kelley at Microecos provides a fascinating comparison between the Swahili concept of zamani and sasha (dead vs living dead) and the conservation biologist’s concept of extinct vs. functionally extinct.

The "fry-entists" at Southern Fried Science have been busy. First, David pans an Australian plan to tag great white sharks with satellite transmitters, so the sharks can send text messages to lifeguards as they approach their beach. Then, David picks a fight with fellow fry-entist Andrew about whether scientists should be advocates for conservation. David says yes, and Andrew argues no. Fry-entist Amy did not submit her views to Scientia, but I invoked editorial privilege and decided to include them anyway. Amy provides a more nuanced answer, saying that "the answer depends on many factors".

Lab Rat suggests we head over to Thomas’ Plant-Related Blog, where Thomas Kluyver explains some recent research which disputes the common notion that the ancient Mayans caused their own extinction through deforestation.

Jeremy at The Voltage Gate reminds us that the Taco Bell spokesman is not the only dog from Chihuahua that provides a vital service. Human agriculture has disturbed a major architect of the grasslands of Chihuahua - the black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus).

John at Kind Of Curious (yours truly) submits a blog about the work being done at The Wetlands Institute in southern New Jersey to prevent terrapins from becoming road pizza.

Evolution Posts

Dr. Jim at Mental Indigestion also has an intriguing question for us - since "the number of bacterial cells on your body out number your own cells 10 to one, … to what degree [do] you consider yourself to be human?" Learn more in his post Your Microbiome and You (Part I): Gut.

Henry Gee at iEditor explains three recent papers in Nature. These summaries are from what I would call a "reputable source" - Henry is the Senior Editor at Nature who shepherded these papers into the journal. The first paper is about footprints left by ancient tetrapods (four-legged land vertebrates). As Henry explains, "a fairly complete picture of tetrapod evolution, built up over the past twenty years, has been replaced by a blank canvas overnight".

The other two papers summarized by Henry were widely reported in the mainstream news media. One explains how humans are better-suited for running barefoot (notwithstanding the broken glass and bottle caps they are running through), and the other describes a method for discovering the color of dinosaur feathers through fossilized color-bearing organelles.

Grrl Scientist asks, "what do migratory monarch butterflies and jet-lag in humans have in common?" We share a photoreceptor with monarch butterflies that they use to read the earth's magnetic field while they migrate, and to help maintain their circadian clock function. Read more about this research and its applications in improving human health at Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted).

Climate Science Posts

Kelsey at Mauka to Makai describes a dystopian future in which Nemo's dad Marlin, from the Disney film Finding Nemo, would never have been able to survive his epic search for his son. Nemo's future may be filled with predators made more aggressive by global warming, aided by Nemo's decreasing ability to avoid the predators due to changes in his own body induced by ocean acidification.

Denis DuBay at This View of Earth explains research on ancient foraminifera shells, whose composition can indicate the concentration of carbon dioxide when they formed. These shells have enabled scientists at UCLA to extend the correlation between carbon dioxide and global temperature back to 20 million years, farther than ever before.

Plant Science Posts

Chris Clarke at Coyote Crossing explains why Joshua trees are shaped the way they are. The descriptive imagery combined with the supporting science explains why Coyote Crossing often leads the Blog Toplist at Nature Blog Network.

Eric Aldrich writes the blog Making Owls Cool (Since 1986). He has now succeeded in making cacti cool, by interviewing cactus expert Peter Breslin. One of the things you will learn is that not all cacti live in deserts - some spend 10 months of the year under snow, and some live in rainforests!

DNLee at Urban Science Adventures brings us on an adventure to find beauty at an abandoned factory site. This commenter on the post says it best … "Love how nature butts up against our industrial encroachment and prevails in the end".

Neuroscience/psychology posts

Since my wife is an aide in an autistic classroom, I am attuned to news about developmental disorders. I found Livia Blackburne’s post at Reading and Word Recognition Research to be very hopeful. She explains recent research indicating that color and object naming speed in pre-readers helps predict their future risk for dyslexia. Livia has another, eponymous blog, where she has written a very interesting summary of three ways neuroscientists learn about the brain.

Grrl Scientist advises a visit to the Neuronarrative blog of David DiSalvo. Here, David explains a recent study suggesting that common methods of motivating people to succeed may backfire if the method is not matched to the subject’s personality. What motivates one personality type may discourage another.

Ifat Glassman writes a blog with the intriguing name Psychology of Selfishness. She explains that envy, which is rooted in self-doubt, is a result of an irrational standard of judging one's worth. The article discusses this subject and how such a mistaken standard is formed.

Medical Posts

Andrew Bernardin provides a thought-provoking piece at The Evolving Mind, reminding us that despite what we may hear during the health care debates, Big Pharma is not always Bad Pharma.

Eva Amsen at Expression Patterns gives us a short but inspiring post about medical writing on the internet, which educated a young mother to seek out an H1N1 vaccination for her child.

Cath Ennis at "rENNISance woman" provides a post about the joys of being behind the scenes in a department doing some really cool work on cancer genomics.

Mary Jones recommends we head over to the Forensic Scientist Blog and learn about 8 Body Parts Forensic Scientists Use to ID a Body. You better not read this right after lunch.

Baily Hayden directs us to the blog of the Medical Career Database, to check out their 50 Free .Gov Resources for Health, Fitness and Medicine. As the post points out, "getting up off that couch never hurts" ... they have obviously never met my bum knee!

Miscellaneous Posts

Henry Gee at iEditor provokes two heated discussions. The first has generated 144 comments so far by asking whether ground rules regarding language in science forums are inherently discriminatory (e.g. you must write in English, you must be civil, etc.). The second one is bringing in the comments almost as quickly. The title alone tells you there will be controversy - Science, Faith, Scepticism, Belief and The Great Unknown.

Julie at Mama Joules provides an inspiring post on the importance of getting everyday citizens involved with science. As she entreats, "please come back to the table of science. We need you here. All of our futures depend upon it".

Lisa Taylor submits for our approval The 100 Coolest Science Experiments on YouTube, located on The X-Ray Vision-aries Blog.

Thank you for coming to the carnival! I hope the Tilt-A-Whirl wasn't too much after all that cotton candy.

Please come back in 2 weeks!

Seven Ways That Terrapins Have Evolved

2010-01-17T23:15:00.013-05:00

In my recent post about the terrapin conservation project at The Wetlands Institute, I wrote that terrapins are are the only species of turtle adapted to live in the brackish water of coastal wetlands. This makes them different from sea turtles, freshwater turtles, and tortoises (which live on land).

Evolutionary biologists have calculated, based on differences in their DNA, that terrapins diverged from freshwater turtles around 7 to 11 million years ago. Their nearest relative is a type of freshwater turtle known as a map turtle.

Presented for your enjoyment, seven ways that terrapins have evolved to live in brackish (semi-salty) water:

Highly developed lachrymal glands - In humans, these are commonly called tear glands. Human tears are a little salty, but terrapin tears are twice as salty as sea water. This helps flush out excess salt that they have ingested. Sea turtles do the same. People have seen sea turtles "crying" as they lay their eggs on the beach, and assumed it was the pain of childbirth that was causing them to cry. They are just getting rid of their extra salt. Crocodiles have developed a similar mechanism, which is where the term crocodile tears originated.
Specially shaped lower jaw - Terrapins prefer to drink fresh water, since it saves them the trouble of getting rid of the excess salt (and I'm sure it tastes better). When it rains, terrapins will drink from puddles on the ground, collected on leaves, and even collected in the nooks and crannies of their friend's shells. The lower jaw of the terrapin has evolved into a sloping, scoop shape without a "chin". This allows them to drink from puddles as shallow as 1 mm. The box turtle needs a puddle at least 5 mm deep to get a drink.

Drinks like a camel - Camels and terrapins have a similar problem - access to fresh drinking water. They have developed a similar adaptation - the ability to quickly drink a large amount of water when it becomes available. A terrapin can drink up to 15% of his body weight in 15 minutes. That would be like me chugging 4 gallons of water! Even better, if the terrapin is attacked by an enemy after a drinking binge, it will regurgitate its water before fleeing. Between the surprise of the barf and the lighter load to carry, this may give the terrapin the edge it needs to escape.

Skims the top of the water - When it rains, a layer of fresh rain water collects on the surface of the brackish water. Using a behavioral adaptation, the terrapin will drink from this top layer before it mixes with the rest of the water.

Catches falling rain drops - I had a hard time believing this one, but I did read it in more than one reputable source. I think a terrapin would have to be pretty loaded up with salt, and it would have to be raining pretty hard, for this behavior to be worth the effort.

Strong jaws - Terrapins can break into some of the tough food found in coastal wetlands, including clams and periwinkle snails (their favorite NJ invasive species).

Webbed feet - Midway on the evolutionary scale between the stump-like feet of land tortoises and the flippers of sea turtles, terrapins have webbed feet adapted to their middle-of-the-scale environment.

Chukar Partridge on Mount Haleakala

2010-01-13T22:33:00.008-05:00

The chukar partridge is a type of bird known as an "upland ground bird". This means that it prefers the "uplands", away from the water, and prefers being on the ground. Other types of birds perch only briefly, spending much of their time in the air. Some birds love water; swimming, wading and diving. Upland ground birds are happy just walking around.

The chukar in the photo above was giving a new meaning to "upland". I found him almost 2 miles up, on Mount Haleakala in Maui, Hawaii. Like other upland ground birds, chukars are good eatin'. They were introduced into the United States as a game bird from their native Pakistan, where they are the national bird. (Don't laugh - Benjamin Franklin suggested the turkey, another upland ground bird, for the national bird of the United States. At least the birds of the US and Pakistan get along better than the people!)

Being such popular game birds and not very good at flying, chukars are known for their speed in running. Not as fast as that famous upland ground bird the roadrunner (meep-meep), but pretty fast. Since Mount Haleakala is in a national park, maybe this particular chukar was not used to being chased by hunters. He let me walk right up and take his picture. Or maybe he was just trying to obey the posted rules of the park:

According to Pakistani legend, the chukar is deeply in love with the moon, and stares at it longingly. If that is true, my bird picked a good place to live. Mount Haleakala is well known for its clear, dry, still, dark night air. Astronomers from around the country and around the world have set up telescopes here. They have learned what the chukar already knows about the great view of the moon from Haleakala.

Enjoy the sunset below, with the telescopes of "Science City" to the left and a crescent moon just starting to appear to the right. My chukar is sitting somewhere on that hill waiting for his love.

Terrapins vs Toyotas

2010-01-09T00:37:00.015-05:00

The Diamondback Terrapin gets its name from the pyramid-shaped bumps on its upper shell, which look like diamonds studding its body. Unfortunately for the terrapin, its shell is not as hard as a diamond.

Terrapins leave their coastal wetlands home for only one reason - to lay their eggs. They slowly scratch their way to higher, drier ground, which can sometimes be far from the water. On their way, they often cross paths with another animal going the other direction, toward the beach for sun and fun.

Luckily for terrapins in New Jersey, they have friends at The Wetlands Institute. Students and volunteers in the institute's programs have constructed fences along coastal roads, to help keep the terrapins off the pavement. When one does get on the road but doesn't make it across, they remove any viable eggs from the body and incubate them for later release. And when terrapins lay their eggs on the institute's property, they cover the nest with a mesh enclosure to keep predators away from the eggs and newly hatched babies.

My son's Boy Scout troop visited The Wetlands Institute on a day when they were removing terrapins from two predator enclosures. The photo below shows an enclosure with its top removed, and a student getting ready to dig out the hatchlings.

And here they are, fresh from their sandy nests. They will spend the rest of the day in their Rubbermaid residence, safe inside the building. They will be released into the bay at night while the hungry seagulls are sleeping.

If you are ever near Stone Harbor, New Jersey, I'm sure you would enjoy a visit to The Wetlands Institute. You can visit their terrapin conservation website here to learn more about these animals. Terrapins are the only species of turtle adapted to live in the brackish water of coastal wetlands, as opposed to sea turtles, freshwater turtles, and tortoises (which live on land). You can even "Adopt-A-Terrapin"!

If you aren't lucky enough to be at The Wetlands Institute when they are rescuing terrapins, you can still have a ball sloshing around in the mud on their nature "trail".

Top photo courtesy of Wikimedia

The Post of the Modern Mariner, or Seagulls Following Boats

2010-01-05T22:38:00.009-05:00

And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Like the albatross led the ancient mariner out of Antarctica, the seagull above led us modern mariners across the bitterly cold and windy New York Bay. It was almost too cold to stand on the outside deck, except that the view of the Manhattan skyline, the Statute of Liberty, and the bustling tugs and barges was too captivating.

The huge gusts of wind tossed this poor gull about, but amazingly he was able to steer himself, avoiding crashing into the boat and occasionally even dipping down to snatch up a fish filleted by the boat's propellers. Like the albatross, he seemed to be both playing in the wind and picking up some easy food. He never had to flap his wings, he only used them as rudders to navigate the air currents.

If you look at the photo above, you might feel you were still in the 18th century with Coleridge. I'm sure the boat we were on was not as romantic as Coleridge's tall-masted sailing ship, but it was still pretty nice. You can judge for yourself from the photo below.

And I couldn't resist throwing in a completely unromantic photo, but one that really shows a feeding frenzy of seagulls. The photo below is on the Elizabeth River in Virginia, on a tour of the Norfolk Naval Station. The tour boat, followed by a tug and a container ship, chopped up enough fish to cause a seagull riot.

Indian Kapok Tree - Ugly But Useful (Bombax ceiba)

2009-12-30T16:32:00.022-05:00

Here is a tree that will definitely get your attention! The photo above is from our trip yesterday to Longwood Gardens. It is an Indian Kapok tree, aka Silk Cotton tree, aka Bombax ceiba erianthos. Of course what caught my eye was those huge thorns. The tree grows these thorns to protect itself from animals that might chew at its bark. The thorns fall off as the tree gets bigger and older. This one was about 20 feet tall and 3 feet around - they can grow to 125 ft tall and 10 feet around.

Kapok trees are known for their fruit, which are filled with a cottony material that is more water resistant than other natural fibers. Before synthetic fibers were developed, kapok was commonly used for insulation and stuffing, especially for life jackets. Below is a photo of kapok fruit pods, courtesy of Wikimedia.

That is not the end of the wonders of kapok. Kapok seed oil can be used to make soap, and its wood is soft and light weight. The gum of the kapok tree is a traditional Asian remedy for stomach ailments. The roots of young trees used to be made into a candy that was alleged to have aphrodisiac properties. In the spring, beautiful red flowers appear. Young petals are used in some herbal teas. Below is a photo of these flowers from Wikimedia.

The kapok tree also has a long literary history. Two different Hindu myths offer explanations for the thorns on the bark, and the tree serves two functions in the Hindu description of hell. The enticing red flowers draw damned souls to the tree, but its fruit offers only a mouth full of cotton. The tree's thorns are also used to torture hell's denizens.

A more modern story involves a cousin of the Indian Kapok tree, known as Ceiba pentandra. In the children's book The Great Kapok Tree, a young man is dissuaded from cutting down a tree in the Amazon rain forest after receiving a lesson in ecology from the other inhabitants of the forest.

Longwood Gardens Christmas Display

2009-12-29T12:52:00.016-05:00

Today our family visited Longwood Gardens, in Kennett Square, PA. Longwood Gardens is one of the premier botanical gardens in the US. I couldn't find a Top 10 List for botanical gardens, so we'll have to take their word for it. When you see my photos, I think you will agree they are pretty premier.

Longwood Gardens was created by Pierre du Pont, the great-grandson of the founder of the DuPont chemical company. Pierre began building his gardens in 1907. Today there are 11,000 different types of plants here.

The 85 ft long floral carpet floating on the pool above is made from Barkos Red begonias, Enduring White poinsettias, green moss, English ivy, and painted pine cones. The Christmas tree is also decorated with Barkos Red begonias.

Enjoy the flowers (and fruit) below, and Happy Holidays!

Paphiopedilum g. Leeanum (Orchid)

x Laeliocattleya g. 'Platinum Sun' (Orchid)

x Doritaenopsis 'Leopard Prince' Sogo F-611 (Orchid)

x Laelio cattleya g. 'Bonanza' cv. Vesuvius (Orchid)

Dianthus caryophyllus 'Brocade' (Carnation)

Cyclamen persicum (Cyclamen)

x Citrofortunella microcarpa (Calamondin Orange)

x Guzvriesea 'Patricia' (Painted Feather)

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Jason' (Chinese Hibiscus)

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Night Fire' (Chinese Hibiscus)

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Erin Rachael' (Chinese Hibiscus)

Rosa 'Tombola' (Floribunda Rose)

Begonia x hiemalis 'Barkos Red' (Winter-Flowering Begonia)

Lilium 'Tiny Icon' (Asiatic Hybrid Lily)

Anthurium 'Orange Hot' (Anthurium)

Red Tailed Hawk Chases Squirrel

2009-12-27T23:47:00.011-05:00

"Mommy, there's an eagle in our tree!" I knew this was probably not the case, but I'm easily distracted from household chores, so I went out on the deck to investigate. Our neighbor's little girls were pointing up into the huge oak that spans our two yards. With a little direction from their mom, I was able to find the "eagle". I was pretty sure it was a hawk, but I didn't try to explain the difference to them. "Eagle" sounds cooler anyway.

I went back inside to grab my camera and binoculars. As I was busy writing down field marks, the neighbor two houses away came down. He had followed the hawk from his yard, where he told us it had snapped up a vole.

His belly must not have been full, because he was carefully scanning our yard for his next snack. Every once in a while he would crane his neck or tilt his head, his interest piqued by one of the many small animals that run from the shelter of one bush or deck to the next. You can see this by comparing his relaxed stare in the left photo below to his "squirrel alert!" on the right.

After a long while, it seemed like he was more interested in digesting the vole. I thought it was safe to sneak inside and grab my field guide. Of course, when I came back, the neighbors told me how I had missed him leap out of the tree and soar across my yard. He was now on top of the wooden swing set of the neighbors on our other side.

As I walked across our yard, I saw what had caused him to move - a squirrel in the neighbor's yard behind us. He jumped off the swing set, and the squirrel ran up a pine tree. If the squirrel was scared, he didn't show it. He ran with the same bounding stride that squirrels always seem to use.

But the hawk behaved uncharacteristically, climbing up the tree after the squirrel. The two of them went up the tree in a spiral, always on opposite sides of the trunk. The squirrel was in his world, so easily beat the hawk up into the dense branches at the top of the tree. The hawk's talons were made for pouncing on squirrels from the sky, not climbing trees. His broad shoulders and large wings made his job even harder.

Defeated this time, the hawk dropped to the ground. He slowly ran and flapped his long wings, having a difficult time getting airborne from this awkward position. He crossed the road in front of our neighbor's house right about at the height of a car radiator grille. Now I understood why I sometimes saw road killed hawks.

I really wanted to follow this bird to his next perch, and watch his next attempt to scoop up a rodent. But my leaking toilet calls me...

Darwin Contemplates the Caterpillar - Arsenura Armida

2009-12-17T00:50:00.011-05:00

The photo above is from a family vacation to Mexico. It has taken me four years, but I have finally identified the creatures on the tree. The tour guide just called them "giant caterpillars", but they were much bigger than any caterpillar I had ever seen.

Thanks to the wonderful website WhatsThatBug.com, I found out that four other people had seen the same caterpillars, one in Honduras and three in the same area we visited near Cancun (the tour guides must bring everyone past the same tree!). They are Arsenura Armida, a type of silk moth from the family Saturniidae. Other than being unusually large and producing low quality wild silk, these caterpillars stand out due to their bright coloring.

My photo shows these caterpillars in their final "instar", or final molting phase, before they transform into pupae. Here is a website that shows some of the other instars, along with a lot of other technical details. You can see that the caterpillars are even more brightly colored in their earlier instars. If you compare the photos from the first instar to the last you would hardly say they were the same species. (You can tell my photo is the final instar because their "horns" have fallen off.)

An interesting historical note is that the great Charles Darwin was stumped by the colorful displays of caterpillars like these. Darwin's explanation for bright colors was that they aided in sexual selection (think of bright red male cardinals competing for the attention of brown females). But brightly colored caterpillars did not fit Darwin's theory, since caterpillars do not mate.

Darwin turned to his colleague Alfred Russel Wallace for help in answering this question. Wallace had published a paper on natural selection before Darwin did. Wallace made many of the same observations on his visits to the Malay Archipelago that Darwin made in the Galapagos Islands. Some science historians have suggested that Darwin "borrowed" ideas from Wallace for his On the Origin of Species, and that Wallace should have received some of the fame that went to Darwin.

It was Wallace, with the help of experiments completed by John Jenner Weir, who proposed that the caterpillars that had evolved bright colors were the same ones that had evolved a bad taste to birds. The bright color was a warning to their predators, helping them remember which caterpillars tasted bad. Fitting in perfectly with this theory was the fact that caterpillar species that evolved camouflage coloring were the ones that tasted good to the birds (when they could find them!).

This concept of warning coloration developed by Darwin's associates is known as aposematism.

Green Nuclear

2009-12-10T20:12:00.025-05:00

In honor of the Climate Change Summit going on now in Copenhagen, I decided to revisit one of my previous posts about the possibility of nuclear energy being part of the climate change solution. (The photo above is actually from Belgium, but it was too funny to pass up.)

As promised in my previous post, I did some more research on this topic. Rather than bore you with a list of the various "well known" environmentalists who have now decided that nuclear power is a lesser evil than global warming, I'll just cut right to the rock star - even Al Gore has decided to tolerate nukes. Below is a quote from a 2006 speech by Gore at New York University. He doesn't talk about nukes much, probably because he feels his base is ambivalent about the topic. I have highlighted a few spots that I want to dig into a little more.

While I am not opposed to nuclear power and expect to see some modest increased use of nuclear reactors, I doubt that they will play a significant role in most countries as a new source of electricity.

The main reason for my skepticism about nuclear power playing a much larger role in the world's energy future is not the problem of waste disposal or the danger of reactor operator error, or the vulnerability to terrorist attack. Let's assume for the moment that all three of these problems can be solved.

That still leaves two serious issues that are more difficult constraints. The first is economics; the current generation of reactors is expensive, take a long time to build, and only come in one size - extra large. In a time of great uncertainty over energy prices, utilities must count on great uncertainty in electricity demand - and that uncertainty causes them to strongly prefer smaller incremental additions to their generating capacity that are each less expensive and quicker to build than are large 1000 megawatt light water reactors. Newer, more scalable and affordable reactor designs may eventually become available, but not soon.

Secondly, if the world as a whole chose nuclear power as the option of choice to replace coal-fired generating plants, we would face a dramatic increase in the likelihood of nuclear weapons proliferation. During my 8 years in the White House, every nuclear weapons proliferation issue we dealt with was connected to a nuclear reactor program. Today, the dangerous weapons programs in both Iran and North Korea are linked to their civilian reactor programs. Moreover, proposals to separate the ownership of reactors from the ownership of the fuel supply process have met with stiff resistance from developing countries who want reactors.

As a result of all these problems, I believe that nuclear reactors will only play a limited role.

As Gore points out, the first three problems are easier to solve, and we were close enough to solutions in 2006 that he did not feel these were the main issues (waste disposal, operator error and terrorist attack). The solutions we have today for these problems are even better.

As far as the cost of building nuclear power plants, this is more than offset in the long run by the relatively low cost of the fuel. The problem is coming up with the money to build plants in the first place. Utility companies do not want to risk a huge investment in an uncertain future. If smaller, "cookie cutter" plants were available, this would make nukes more economically viable.

It looks like these plants will be available sooner than Gore expected. Navy ships have used small, reproducible designs for many years. Russia is already converting these designs for civilian use, with the first scheduled to go online in 2012. A joint Japanese/American project is not far behind. Hyperion Power in Santa Fe is taking orders for 2013 delivery of their transportable nuclear plant. NuScale Power plans on having their first small plants up and running by 2016. Babcock & Wilcox, longtime manufacturers of nuclear power plants for the US Navy, recently announced they would be entering the microreactor race.

When discussing the cost of a power system, it is important to include costs that are shifted to other sectors of the economy. As long as utility companies are not held accountable for the deaths, illnesses and climate change caused by their waste products, fossil fuel receives an unjustified cost advantage.

A study published in Risk Analysis found that for every Terawatt Hour (TWh) of electricity produced, using coal for fuel results in 138 Years of Life Lost in the general population. Using nuclear fuel results in only 25 Years of Life Lost. The only better technology from this standpoint is wind, with only 3 Years of Life Lost. Unfortunately, wind has limited potential due to the huge expanses of windy terrain that must be covered with wind turbines in order to generate the amount of electricity needed by modern society.

Looking at greenhouse gas emissions, the United Nation's International Atomic Energy Agency found that coal produces 264 to 357 grams of "carbon equivalent" per Kilowatt Hour (KWh) of electricity produced, versus 2.5 to 5.7 grams for nuclear. No other energy source produces lower levels of greenhouse gases. This study considered emissions throughout the life of the fuel. Although nuclear power plants do not emit any greenhouse gases at all, the mining and refining of the fuel using present technology does emit greenhouse gases.

On to Gore's point about proliferation of nuclear weapons ... Pandora's Box is already open when it comes to knowledge of nuclear physics. Anyone with enough time and money can obtain a nuclear weapon. Fortunately, not many "bad actors" have acquired nuclear weapons, and none have used them.

Gore is assuming that increased political pressure, and increased controls over nuclear technology and materials, will not be able to offset the increased amount of nuclear hardware and fuel that will be available. It appears the opposite may be the case. The "Megatons to Megawatts" program has so far eliminated over 15,000 Russian and US warheads and turned them into fuel used in nuclear power plants.

The idea that Gore mentions, of establishing a centralized and safe process for handling nuclear fuel, is being pushed by recent Peace Prize recipient Barack Obama. Below is a quote from a speech of his in April 2009:

We should build a new framework for civil nuclear cooperation, including an international fuel bank, so that countries can access peaceful power without increasing the risks of proliferation.… We must harness the power of nuclear energy on behalf of our efforts to combat climate change, and to advance peace opportunity for all people.

Balancing the risks and benefits of nuclear power is not easy. But I believe that the seriousness of global warming, along with improvements in nuclear safety over the past several years, will make nuclear energy a critical part of our future.

How Well Do You Know Your Local Ecosystem?

2009-11-29T00:45:00.012-05:00

Can you name 5 insects that can be found in your neighborhood? If you are interested enough in nature to be reading this blog, you probably can. Do you think you could answer some tougher questions? Because I have found some really tough ones. The hardest (and most fun) part may be finding out if you answered them correctly, since they are about your local ecosystem. I'm still trying to figure out how well I scored!

Before I give you the questions, I should tell you where they came from.

I recently read the book Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Stewart Brand. Mr. Brand founded the old Whole Earth Catalog. One of the editors of the Whole Earth Catalog was Peter Warshall. Mr. Warshall originally wrote this quiz 30 plus years ago. It has recently been updated by Kevin Kelly who, you guessed it, was another editor at the Whole Earth Catalog.

Without further ado, click here to see how much you know about your own backyard. And by the way, they do not ask about insects. No use in me giving you a head start!

Daddy Long Legs Daddies (aka Harvestman)

2009-11-27T00:23:00.004-05:00

More from Life in the Undergrowth Episode 1 - Sir Attenborough stuck his micro camera in a "harvestman" nest, and showed a male guarding a nest filled with about 25 eggs. This creature, which looked like a spider, was constantly cleaning off the eggs. Occasionally a female harvestman would stop by to mate, and she would add her eggs to his collection. This egg-sitting service was provided to more than one female. At one point, a female tried to eat one of the eggs. After the male chased her off, he scurried around and seemed to be counting the eggs to make sure they were all there. He didn't stop until he seemed satisfied that his brood was safe.

Trying to find out more about this harvestman wasn't so easy. Sir Attenborough didn't mention the particular species he was observing, and it turns out there are thousands of them. But searching around the web (no pun intended, since harvestmen don't make webs), I discovered that what he showed was most likely a Zygopachylus albomarginis.

I was surprised to find out from my research that the "American" name for a harvestman is "daddy long legs". In the UK, they use the term "daddy long legs" to refer to a crane fly. The harvestman they showed in the video did not look or act like the ones I commonly see in New Jersey. Apparently Z. albomarginis lives in Panama. The Jersey harvestmen look more like the one in the photo above, but with a more rounded and darker body.

The most surprising thing I discovered is that despite their appearance, harvestmen are not spiders! They are arachnids, so they are related to spiders, but there are some differences. Spiders have a narrow waist (pedicel) between their two body sections, breathe using book lungs (more on that here), and produce silk. They eat by piercing their prey with fangs, injecting venom and digestive juices, and sucking out the digested contents. Harvestmen have an oval body (no waist), breathe by diffusing air directly from their tracheae into their "blood" (no lungs), and do not produce silk. They also do not produce venom, so they eat by ripping their prey into small pieces and transferring these to their mouth.

I'll leave you with a fun assignment for the next time you are in the woods at night (although it may be too cold to do this now in the northern latitudes). Take a flashlight and hold the butt end against your forehead, just above your eyebrows. Point the beam of the flashlight straight out, parallel to your line of vision. Then look around until you find a set of glowing green eyes looking back at you. Walk toward the eyes, keeping the flashlight on them, and you will find a spider. No kidding!

Thanks to Wikimedia Commons for the photo.

Arachnid Lungs Evolved From Horseshoe Crabs

2009-11-22T00:54:00.010-05:00

I have been watching videos of the BBC television series Life in the Undergrowth with David Attenborough. It starts off by explaining how life got in the undergrowth to begin with, in other words, how it crawled out of the sea. One example he discusses is the horseshoe crab.

The horseshoe crab is actually not even a crab, it is an arthropod of the subphylum chelicerata, which means it is more closely related to the arachnids like spiders, scorpions and ticks than it is to crabs. Sir Attenborough showed thousands of horseshoe crabs crawling out of the water for their annual spawning. Living in prime horseshoe crab territory in New Jersey, I have seen many of these ancient creatures gracing our beaches.

Attenborough explained that since horseshoe crabs were among the first animals to develop the ability to venture onto land, they had a distinct advantage in that they could keep their eggs away from their enemies who were still in the water. They no longer have this advantage, since many birds look forward to the annual horseshoe crab spawn every year. This is especially true of the red knot, which feasts on the horseshoe crab eggs during its migration stop-over in the Delaware Bay. This species of sandpiper makes an amazing annual migration from one end of the Americas to the other, from the Canadian Arctic to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America!

The adaptation that allowed the horseshoe crab to venture onto land was the "book gill", which you can see in the top photo just above his tail. Each of the folds that is visible in the photo has many more folds within it, with the overall structure looking like the pages of a book. This gill is on the outside of the horseshoe crab's body, so as long as he keeps it moist with the small amount of water in the wet sand, he can live out of the water up to a week. The many folds increase the surface area for gas exchange to his blood.

Fast forward to modern-day spiders, close relatives of the horseshoe crab. Below is a cross-section diagram, with #16 being the "book lung". This is essentially the book gill of the horseshoe crab, evolved to be located within the spider's body, and supplied with air through a small opening. Scorpions have a similar setup. Pretty amazing that these small land animals have lungs evolved from an ancient sea creature. Thanks to Wikimedia Commons for the photo and diagram.

The Armored Catfish of Wekiwa Springs

2009-11-16T23:23:00.009-05:00

I was at a professional development class in Florida last week, and as I usually like to do, I ran off into the nearest woods as soon as the class was over. This time it was to Wekiwa Springs State Park, which is a beautiful little park about an hour north of Orlando. I saw some pretty cool things there, including an armadillo, which we don't get in Jersey (sorry, I only got a blurry photo of his butt as he was running away).

The photo above is of the river filling with armored catfish (aka Orinoko sailfin catfish, plecostomus, pleco). These are an invasive species that has been spreading throughout Florida since about 1971. It is believed that they escaped and/or were released from aquariums and aquarium fish farms. They are originally from the Orinoco River basin in Venezuela and Colombia.

Here is a closeup from the Army Corp of Engineers, who is interested in these invasives because they like to destroy what the Corp has built.

During the day these catfish burrow into the river banks, causing erosion. At night they come out by the thousands to feed. All of the fish in the top photo are facing to the left, so the water flowing from the spring washes algae and small critters right into their mouths. Every once in a while, they come to the surface and take a gulp of air. All of this gulping sounded like someone was dropping stones into the water. These fish were very close to the spring, which apparently has low oxygen content as it comes out of the ground. Armored catfish can breath air fairly well, and can survive out of the water up to 30 hours!

Three types of heron - a green, a little blue and a great blue (named Henry according to the ranger) - stood to the side, patiently trying to find something to eat besides an armored catfish. Because of their tough, armored skin and sharp spines, these have been known to choke birds who tried to eat them. But the bears love them. The ranger told me that last year a group of volunteers "gigged" (speared) 5000 of them and left them out in the woods for the bears.

Here is some more info about these invasives and the damage they can cause.

Is NJ State Dinosaur from PA?

2009-11-08T23:10:00.017-05:00

A couple of months ago I wrote a post about my visit to the site where the first dinosaur skeleton in America was discovered, in Haddonfield, NJ. This was also the first nearly complete dinosaur skeleton in the world. This find has joined the list of many New Jersey Firsts (in fact there are so many that the first dinosaur didn't make the cut on this list). In 1991 this dinosaur, Hadrosaurus Foulkii, was named the State Dinosaur of New Jersey.

Unfortunately, it is not clear whether this dinosaur ever actually lived in New Jersey. H. foulkii lived in the Late Cretaceous period, around 73 million years ago. At that time, New Jersey was under water! Below is a map from the US Geological Survey.

It appears that what happened was H. foulkii and his contemporaries were scampering around in Pennsylvania, which in the Late Cretaceous is where the shoreline was. The one that was found in Haddonfield apparently died at the shore (in PA) and got swept into the ocean (ending up in present day NJ).

Supporting this theory is the fact that dinosaur bones are rare in PA, although dinosaur tracks have been found. Many dinosaur bones have been found in NJ. In fact, the second nearly complete dinosaur skeleton in the world was also found in New Jersey, in nearby Barnsboro, Mantua Township. This one was called Dryptosaurus Aquilunguis.

For more about H. foulkii check out this website. For more about D. aquilunguis look here and here. By the way, D. aquilunguis was a carnivore and probably ate H. foulkii, which lived in the same time period.

Here is a well-known and dramatic painting of D. aquilunguis by Charles R. Knight. It is called "Leaping Laelaps". It was painted in 1897, at which time D. aquilunguis was known as Laelaps Aquilunguis. Knight was an influential artist, one of the first to depict dinosaurs as energetic rather than lumbering.

Muse for the Nature Blogger

2009-11-05T01:07:00.007-05:00

It can sometimes be difficult to summon the inspiration to keep blogging along, or to decide what to write about or what angle to approach a subject from. When the ancient Greeks had this problem, they turned to their muses. The photo above is the muse Clio. She is at the US Capitol, overlooking Congress and blogging what she sees.

I was attempting to find some modern, non-statuary muses to assist with my nature blogging. I did find a couple, which you may be interested in if you are a nature blogger. The first is a website by Robert Winkler. Here is a link to a great article by Mr. Winkler on nature writing. He has a lot of other interesting articles on his website about nature writing, nature photography and birding.

Here is another good article I found on nature writing in Conservation Magazine. If you are an urban nature blogger you will especially like this one.

Winged Euonymus - A Plant With Wings

2009-11-04T23:53:00.008-05:00

One of my earlier posts about a hike in Wissahickon Valley Park included the above photo of an unusual looking plant. I thought for sure those weird growths were some type of shelf fungus, but I did not see anything that looked like it in the fungus field guides. Thank you to Beetles in the Bush for identifying this plant for me. It is Euonymus alatus, aka Winged Euonymus for obvious reasons, aka Burning Bush because of how it looks in the Fall.

Euonymus alatus is native to Asia, and was brought to the US starting in the 1860s as an ornamental plant. Wissahickon Valley Park was established in 1868, so the timing works out. Today this is considered an invasive plant.

I have tried in vain to figure out why this plant has wings. I did find out that the wings are made of cork, a material which is part of the bark of many types of plants, but is usually underneath the outer bark layer which is called the phellum. I even found a few sources that explain in very technical terms HOW the cork manages to grow into these wings.

But what I was looking for is WHY these wings grow. What evolutionary purpose do they serve? Also, why are they in such neat rectangular shapes? Most shapes in nature seem to be curved rather than so rectilinear. Unfortunately I was not able to answer these questions. Until I do, I propose that the wings are the plant's attempt to mimic the birds they see flying above them. Many generations from now, a Euonymus alatus will grow wings big enough for it to take off. Then the invasion will really begin ...

How Old is that River?

2009-10-30T23:40:00.010-04:00

I saw a travel ad recently for Asheville, North Carolina that claimed that the New River that runs through town was the second oldest river in the world, second only to the Nile. I was surprised to hear this. I don't know why, I guess I was just surprised that something so old would be so close to where I live.

I decided to look into this. What I found was that there is no universally applicable and accepted method of determining the age of a river. About the best you can do is to put an upper and/or lower limit on the age. For instance, if you can determine through other methods when the rock that the river runs through first pushed its way up to the earth's surface, that would give you a maximum age. If you can date the sediment or fossils at the bottom of the river bed, that would give you a minimum age.

In many cases, these methods give you a very wide range that makes it impossible to accurately rank the ages of rivers. Here is a good article from the State of West Virginia that explains how difficult it is to determine the age of the New River (the New River runs through West Virginia and Virginia along with North Carolina). The info about the age is at the end, but the rest of the article is interesting as well.

According to the Journal of Geography, "Appalachia's New River was labeled 'the second oldest river in the world' during the 1970s as part of a campaign to save the river from being dammed. Despite the absence of geomorphic evidence, the promotion of the superlative age of the river was so successful that the mythical label became reality in the minds of the region's populace."

Can Magnesium Energy Save the Planet?

2009-10-27T23:11:00.010-04:00

Did I say in my last post that nuclear energy could save the planet? I meant to say magnesium energy!

I was checking out Time Magazine's 2009 "Heroes of the Environment" and saw an article about Takashi Yabe. Mr. Yabe is a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, who is working with Mitsubishi Corporation to develop an engine fueled by refined magnesium. One of the beautiful things about this engine is that the only waste product is water vapor. No CO2 or other greenhouse gases, no toxic chemicals.

The second beautiful thing is that the energy intensive process of mining and refining the magnesium is powered by free energy from the sun. Not expensive solar panels, but big lenses and solar powered lasers - industrial versions of the magnifying glass we used to start fires with as a kid (or I did anyway). The source of the magnesium is seawater, so there are no destructive and dangerous underground or strip mines. They don't mention what happens to the sea life that needs the magnesium for biological processes, but we will have to keep an eye out so we don't extract too much.

Beautiful thing number three is that once the initial magnesium is refined, it is not "burned" or "used up", but rather recycled. The engine reacts magnesium with water, and the reaction products are hydrogen (burned to create more power), heat (which powers the engine), water vapor and magnesium oxide. The magnesium oxide is broken down again by the solar lasers into magnesium and oxygen.

According to Mitsubishi's website (see above), this was supposed to be commercially available this year, so they are a little behind schedule. But considering how long it takes to get approval for a new nuclear plant, they still might beat the nuclear industry in saving the planet!