Nature

Redoubt - the big picture

Check out Boston Globe’s Big Picture story on Mt. Redoubt in Alaska.  Not only are the photos awesome as always, but the inclusion of amazing satellite volcano images and electron microscope pictures of volcanic ash (hint: try not to inhale) add understanding of scale.

Posted by George on 04/07/09 at 07:03 AM
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Worlds within worlds


One of the cool things about our campus is the wide variety of trees in our central quad.  Each one has a tag that gives its species so I can tell a red oak from a locust tree (truthfully I don’t bother with the Latin equivalents, which are also given).

But any one of the trees is also an ecology of its own, for lichens, molds, moss, birds, squirrels, insects, and microscopic life.  In a few moments over lunch hour I was able to spot four different species of ants making their way up and down the trunk of a maple tree today.  Two were almost impossible to see without my magnifying glass, and occasionally a gigantic carpenter ant would go stomping by. 

I don’t know enough about ants.  E.O. Wilson probably has a book I should read about them.

Posted by George on 08/13/08 at 01:26 PM
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Eclipse


It was pretty darn cold and I was shivering (and I don’t own a telescope) so this is the best I could do.  But the Chicago Tribune got some really nifty pictures of the eclipse.

Posted by George on 02/20/08 at 10:05 PM
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Dog is going to die tonight

Riding home this evening, North on Normal Avenue, I saw a little bulldog puppy headed South right down the center line as fast as his little legs could carry him.  He was almost hit by a car and he ran in front of my bike too. Not a brain in his little head.

Yesterday it was fifty-five degrees but today it barely topped twenty.  It’s nine out there now and supposed to get down to six.  The wind is howling outside and I can hear tree branches cracking.  Seeing the little lost dog made me remember this scene from one of my favorite cartoons:

Frye and Leela are lost on the moon.  It’s getting dark.  Their tourist spacesuits will provide them with several days of recycled air but it’s the temperature is going down.  They encounter a grizzled old prospector:
—-
Prospector: “You two better get inside!  It gets down to two hunnert degrees below zero at night!”
Leela: “Fahrenheit or Celsius?
Prospector: “First one, then the other.”

If somebody doesn’t catch up with that puppy, he’ll be a cute little pupsicle by morning.

Posted by George on 02/18/08 at 10:02 PM
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Be nice to tigers

By now you’ve heard of the tiger attack at the San Francisco zoo.  Tatiana the tiger had a history of bad temper (bit a keeper’s arm off last year), and apparently leaped over a 15-foot moat and a 20-foot wall to attack three young men.

Early reports I saw on Faux news this morning indicated the young men may have been “taunting” the tiger.  If that turns out to be true, Tatiana did San Francisco a favor by ridding the city of at least one miscreant who would taunt a caged animal.  The other two are expected to survive but I bet they’ll never do that again.

Every year or so I hear reports of some moron climbing into a zoo cage to commune with an animal that could rip them in half, and the predictable thing happens.  This is the first I’ve ever heard of the animal simply becoming pissed off enough to breach barriers designed to keep it contained.  That’s one hell of a leap.

Unfortunately Tatiana was shot by a policeman.  Many people asked the question “couldn’t they have used tranquilizer darts” but the answer is “yes, assuming quite a number of things went exactly right”. 

Updates:

  • Greg Laden examines our very concept of “wild” animals in Tatiana is telling us something
  • Chris Clarke gets right to the point in Close the San Francisco Zoo
  • It looks like the guard wall was shorter than recommended.  But what about the wall of decency in our society that would keep anyone from taunting a caged animal?  Has that ever been tall enough?

 

Posted by George on 12/26/07 at 09:47 PM
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Icicles from a couple days ago

Posted by George on 12/21/07 at 02:36 PM
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Senior citizens need something to keep them active

I’d like to know how the hell a 12-year-old cat goes out at night when the ground is covered with snow, and comes back with a struggling bird.  Does the same thing the next night, too. 

Not sure how cat years translate to people years but he’s no spring kitten. Has slight cataracts and a painful hip.  His sister is frail and has trouble getting around. Occasionally she catches a bug and last summer, a mouse.

Posted by George on 12/20/07 at 09:16 PM
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“Jackass” squirrel attempts dangerous stunt


“Hey Ralph!  See that fat guy on the bike?  Watch me run between his wheels as he comes over the edge of the hill!”

“Gee, I dunno, Izzy.  He’s going’ pretty fast - about 10 miles an hour.  That’s just under 15 feet per second.  On his bike there’s only about 18 inches between the wheels so you’d have to clear both wheels in about a tenth of a second. You’re pretty good, but you’re not that good!”

“Aww, quit worrying, Ralph; it’ll be fine. Here he comes!”

(Insane squirrel runs between wheels of moving bicycle, makes it, I think. In any case I didn’t feel a ‘thump’ and the squirrel ran off afterward)

“Izzy, you’re nuts!”

“Dude, what a rush!  Hey, I bet I can run between the wheels of that car…”

Reminds me of the obituary in The Onion; “Roadkill squirrel remembered as panicked, indecisive.” 

Posted by George on 10/02/07 at 06:30 PM
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The next generation (of bugs)

I was taking apart an old bicycle wheel and found a neat row of insect eggs on one of the spokes:

I guess a stainless steel spoke is as good as a twig.  Anyone know what kind of insect lays eggs like this?

Posted by George on 09/27/07 at 08:54 AM
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It’s nice to see someone enjoying his work

I found this little guy and thousands of his friends hard at work in the Quad today:

“Oh-boy!  Flowers!  Mmmmmm!  Just can’t get enough of ‘em! 
Hey, there’s some more!!!...”

Posted by George on 09/19/07 at 11:09 AM
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Standing out

Spotted this little guy on the way to work last week.  It was hot but the grass was still a little bit green.  Now, the grass is all brown (even trees are dropping leaves though fall is a ways off) - and all the grasshoppers I see now are brown.  It could be camouflage though landing on a nice white concrete post wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. 

Posted by George on 08/13/07 at 04:04 PM
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Really big spirituality

Spotted this in a Discovery Channel ad…

Sure, it was only a typo but a funny one.  Would a giant mantra have a lot of syllables, or be really loud, or be repeating the names of large astronomical bodies?  Or perhaps be the meditative bellows of elephants? (that one really isn’t so farfetched)  Or the winner of a meditation contest?

I’m pretty sure they meant Giant Manta born in captivity.

Posted by George on 06/18/07 at 06:39 PM
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Geology of Eastern Washington

As a kid living in the very area described by the article, I climbed cliffs all over the place and generally grooved on the complex geology of the area.  Turns out it’s a lot more complex than I realized at the time, and Archy describes why in Looking for drowned mammoths.  (the glacial flood would have been really cool to watch… from a safe vantage point, which would not include the present location of Vantage, Washington where I did a lot of my climbing)

From Blog around the clock

Posted by George on 05/20/07 at 08:20 AM
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The logic of play (ravens)

In the April ‘07 Scientific American, Bernd Heinrich and Thomas Bugnyar (great name, Thomas) describe how young ravens snatch food from large predators…

“Food bonanzas are not only provided by carnivores, they are often quickly consumed by them.  It pays the attending ravens to get an early start in the feeding cycle, preferably next to the carnivores while they are still eating.  To do that, the birds need to be able to predict the predator’s behavior, such as whether or when the animal might attack, how far it can jump, and how it may be distracted.  Some of that knowledge needs to be in place before the raven is distracted by feeding, because in that context practice could be deadly.

Check: “Watch out for that wolf while you’re stuffing your beak with his kill!”

Indeed, the birds acquire practice more safely early in their lives.  Juvenile birds, when undistracted by feeding, routinely “test” the reactions of large animals such as wolves nd other carnivores by interacting with them, usually by landing nearby and then nipping them from the rear…

OK, that just sounds freaking hilarious.

It is unlikely that such behavior is tactically deliberate.  More likely it is a form of “play”, defined… as a behavior that has no immediately discernable function but that commonly has an ultimate function, one that is not consciously intended but that proves useful anyway.

Remember playing “kick the can”?  “Keep-away”?  and of course “Hide and go seek”?  Neurologically speaking, there’s probably a lot going on there.

Even youngsters recognize that nipping carnivores is dangerous (they display fear when they do it), and thus they must be wired to engage in such activity because the risky play ultimately aids survival - presumably by giving them experience in gauging how much they can get away with around their carnivore companions.  By such provocation, they soon learn which animals to trust and the distances required for safety.  Conversely, their nearly constant presence around the carnivores accustomes the larger animals to the birds, and they gradually learn to ignore them.  But getting along with dangerous carnivores is only a means to the end of getting access to a rich supply of food. 
Scientific American, April 2007 pg. 64-71, “Just how smart are ravens” by Bernd Heinrich and Thomas Bugnyar

Wonder how well video games stack up against kids’ play in the non-cyber world, and if some kids naturally learn better in an artificial environment than others.  (Wish I had a cartoon here of crows playing video games)

 

Posted by George on 04/13/07 at 03:55 PM
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Slow decay

Imagine the bright hope and energy that went into making this sturdy and attractive building.  Businesses thrived, people came to work there every day, customers came in and accounts receivable were generated.  But there’s a last time for everything.  It puts me in mind of that scene from The Time Machine when HG Wells saw buildings rising and decaying in a few moments.  By the way, if you liked either movie adaptation, you really might enjoy the book.

Posted by George on 03/22/07 at 04:21 PM
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