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Inconsistencies

I plead guilty. I am utterly inconsistent when it comes to doing the right thing: reducing my carbon foot print.

I was thinking about this this morning when doing my weekly drive to one of my favorite places around Portland to walk the dog: 1000 acres in the Sandy River Delta. It is a 23 miles (37 km) drive mostly on the Highway, to a large natural area with meadows, forests, ponds and rivers. Dogs are allowed to roam there unleashed, and my 2 year-old German Shorthair Pointer goes crazy just by hearing the name of the park, much less during our arrival there at the parking lot.

 

I have a set route there which takes a good hour during the summer and twice as long during the rest of the year because I waddle in my rubber boots through the puddles and try not to slip on the mud that covers the paths. The parts of the parks closest to the parking lot see a good amount of foot traffic, but soon those unafraid of mud baths have all of nature to themselves. As a regular visitor you can observe the change in seasons, and as a dog owner you can rejoice at the pure joy emanating from the creature when he charges through the meadows in the everlasting, never fulfilled hopes of catching the swallows and the meadow larks.

 

 

So I compromise by making up for that insane Schlepp by taking the bus at least once a week for other errands, and try to walk as much as I can instead of using the car in the neighborhood.

Other contemplations of foot print reduction are guilt-inducing as well:

(the whole lot is listed here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/19/how-to-reduce-carbon-footprint)

1.Biggest culprit: air travel. Guilty as charged.

2.Eating meat: Yes, our household is trying to reduce meat quite a bit, but man, I can’t give up the Leberwurst.

3. Home Heating – here we are several steps ahead. House got insulated, and daytime temps are 66, nighttime 58.

4. Boilers – by default, yes – we needed a new one and now have a responsible model.

4. LED lights – yes, installed. Grudgingly.

5. Home appliances: using laundry line inside and out, most of the time. Check. No extra freezer, either, don’t blow-dry hair.

6. Buy less – working on it, I swear. Without too much success. You know me and clothes…. But we still have furniture from 30 years ago, so that’s a start.

7. Buy local – increasingly so. Not enough, though.

 

 

Well, we leave it at that.  Inconsistency, unresolved.

Today’s book recommendation is a fitting look at the godfather of environmentalism, Alexander von Humboldt.

https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2016/0115/The-Invention-of-Nature-positions-Alexander-von-Humboldt-as-the-godfather-of-environmentalism

I think I wrote about it here shortly after it came out, but I strongly recommend it to all interested in nature, South America and a portrait of a man who became a staunch abolitionist, but still could not quite jump over his Euro-centric shadow. An enlightening read.

Monday’s Question

I came across a sentence today in the LA Review of Books that I HAD to quote: The fundamental question for writing today is how to make the world less stupid. That is also the fundamental political question of our time. The review tackled an older book by David Shields, Reality Hunger, which was ahead of its time in predicting the problems with facts and truth in contemporary society.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/david-shieldss-reality-hunger-age-trump-write-now/

The reason this sentence resonated is because I often think while reading contemporary science writing that it is making the world MORE stupid. Here is a perfect example, culled, via RAWstory,  from the International Business Times of August 5th.

Can marijuana cure cancer?

Let me take a shot at it, just for kicks, ok? So, the title asks if weed can cure cancer. If you look at the article, nowhere is that questions answered. The intro talks about recreational use, legal in some states (which is different from medical marihuana and not meant to introduce it as a medical drug, claimed by the author. It’s meant to bring recreational use out into broad daylight where it can be taxed and, major benefit, no longer criminalized as to decrease prison populations.) The article mentions California as one of the states, which, as it turns out will only legally allow recreational pot in 2018. (Illegal growing is a major problem, in addition to whatever one thinks of illegal use. It poisons the lands in ways not seen before – and the clean-up of the toxic sites, hundreds at the size of an average of 50 acres a piece in California alone, is a huge problem.) http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/toxic-waste-from-us-pot-farms-alarms-experts/

The article then talks about the benefits of the substance for cancer patients, citing chemo induced seizures and nausea, weightloss, pain, anxiety and depression, sleep issues, constipation, itching. Those are effects on symptoms, that very well are or might be alleviated by smoking or ingesting THC products, but not a cure for cancer. My favorite here are his musings on constipation: Chemo induces it, and weed helps to reduce bowel movements….

Eventually it mentions Cancer Treatment: saying there are preclinical trials showing that pot may be capable of killing some cancer cells. NO Reference. (Preclinical also means rats and mice…)

The author  immediately turns to studies of patients suffering from MS that show pot might improve muscle function, and that it helps with sleep for people suffering from chronic pain. The End.

This is one of the reasons why people, already not particularly educated  in the sciences, turn away from it or do not trust it. There might indeed be studies that approach the question of THC attacking cancer rather than its symptoms – although when I checked the National Cancer Institute Site it was slim pickings. Approaching zip. Much talk, again, though, about combating side effects.

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/cam/hp/cannabis-pdq 

 

So how DO we make the world less stupid?

(The OR State Government website, by the way, showed 100 medical dispensaries in 2017, and recreational dispensaries outnumber McDonalds franchises – 281 weed shops vs 205 burger joints….. Let’s hope all the tax revenue gets used for medical research or writing education!)

PS: And the there is always the Willamette Week with news from Potland…

.http://www.wweek.com/cannabis/2017/04/18/seven-portland-cannabis-trends-were-excited-about-right-now/

Critters

I wonder if a hike report is boring to those who have not been on it.  Yeah, some pretty flowers, some spectacular snowscapes, some cute wildlife.  Maybe working your body hard to get to the sights makes them more special when you take them in?

For me, it’s not just the body that gets a needed work-out on a hike, it is also my mind. As you can possibly predict, my brain will react less to the tranquility of nature and focus more on the thoughts that are provoked by seeing the developments encroaching on these pristine spaces of our state, the ravages of the wildfires and, yes, the decline of the bird population.

This, in turn, had me read up on ecological issues, and what I learned is actually quite encouraging. The Nature Conservancy website alerts to a new project called SNAPP – Science for Nature and People Partnership. This enterprise is looking to promote “evidence-based, scalable solutions to global challenges at the intersection of nature conservation, sustainable development and the well-being of people.

Their working groups are amazingly diverse and led by some remarkable people across fields.” Experts, scientists and practitioners convene from around the globe to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges, in ways that no single organization could accomplish alone. SNAPP builds a collaborative web — consisting of some of the foremost conservation and humanitarian organizations, academics, government agencies and multilateral institutions — to develop cutting-edge solutions. Solutions that can make a real difference for nature and the people who rely on it.”

Just look at the projects they tackle – including biodiversity issues in North America. http://snappartnership.net/?intc3=nature.science.lp.splash3 

(If you open this link and scroll down, it gets you to a table of content that can be read at a glance)

Fire Research Consensus, Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity, and Forest Sharing or Sparing are the three working groups that invite further scrutiny after coming home from Mt. Hood, hot, tired, achey and happy.  In the meantime, I’ll delight in the images of the critters I encountered.

Sound: seen and felt

When I taught Perception to undergraduate and graduate students it was often like pulling teeth.  Most had signed up for psychology assuming it would be soft on the science end and long on the “let me understand what makes me and others tick” dimension. Not many were interested in learning the admittedly hard details of how our visual and auditory systems function, and the minute they realized that physics, chemistry and biology were involved, as well as some aspects of neuroscience, panic set in.

I am exaggerating, but only a little. To keep them going I often had to add something that augmented the physiological details by some human interest story or some such. We watched a lot of movies …. we looked at a lot of fun illusions; we discussed the implications for hearing families with deaf children to learn ALS or providing cochlear implants. We talked about the psychological consequences for blind people of regaining vision (you’d be surprised, it does not make them happy.)

The links I am attaching today are just such material – one is simply a demonstration from one of those Dance TV shows that people who are deaf can dance as IF they hear the music.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVv6VgBF5Hc

The others are more scientific: one describes a suit that allows deaf people to experience music. The other explores how augmentation with soundscapes allows blind people to recognize familiar objects. “The augmented reality system allowed blind people to accurately classify 78 percent of objects they were presented in one of three groups: people, everyday objects, or textured patterns. Moreover, the soundscapes emitted by the system also portrayed information about a person’s position, for example, among other details.”

All are interesting and would have been fair game in class – whatever it takes to stimulate interest and helps to overcome fear of science.

A Wireless Vibration Suit Helps the Deaf “Feel” Music

http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/new-insight-into-how-blind-people-see-with-sound/article/376479

And so we close this week on sound – you heard all about it…..

Sound Mysteries

Ever heard the space roar, or at least of it? The sky quakes? A persistent low pitch hum that people complain about from Taos, NM to Bristol, England? Mysterious squeals in Forest Grove, OR? The link below describes these and other sound phenomena and claims there are not real scientific explanations. Hm.  Not wasting my time to scour the internet for alternative claims, but rolling my eyes at the usual internet sensationalism. Still a fun read, though,  if you need small talk topics for your next awkward-at-a-party situation.

 

10 Intriguing Mysteries About Sound-Related Phenomena

Here is a mystery related to sound that grabbed my personal attention on a hike this week.

Why would anyone place a piano, dressed up as a raccoon, in the middle of the beginning of a trail? Inviting “play”, no less?

A: Irritated mothers, having dragged kids off the computer/TV couch for a walk during summer break, now have to drag them away from endlessly banging on the piano, which is much more fun for them than huffing up the hot hills.

B: Why would you disturb the sound of birds singing, wind swooshing, bees humming or coyotes howling by kids banging on a piano? All the “music” of a summer meadow blared out?

Are my photos making the point?

Here is a truely wonderful link that can be used to cheer oneself up when needed, raccoon pianos be d….mned.

Go to any place in the world that they display on their maps and listen to recorded sounds from that very place, from nature to urban landscape. It transports you as if on a flying carpet…..

http://freesound.org/browse/geotags/

 

Leaf color, leaving

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What could affect fall foliage as we know it? I had to introduce you to today’s link, an article about the impact of global warming on fall color, if only for the fact that the author cites the Bard: Let me count the ways…..

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(1) higher temperatures, (2) altered timing and/or amounts of precipitation, (3) changes in humidity, (4) changes in cloud cover and light striking the trees, (5) increases in the length of the growing season and displacement of the timing of leaf out and leaf fall, (6) higher levels of nitrogen inputs to ecosystems from agricultural practices such as fertilizing and hog production, (7) acidic deposition that causes nutrients to leach out of the soil, (8) migration of trees farther north to escape the heat, (9) extirpation of trees that can’t migrate for one reason or another, and finally, (10) changes in competition due to greater pest loads or invasive exotic species.

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The majority of these changes will mute the color we are so fond of seeing in autumn. Not the biggest thing to worry about regarding climate change, but, as the author puts it, another canary in the coal mine. Paler colors have a kind of “Death in Venice” beauty, but only if you ignore what they might imply.

http://biology.appstate.edu/fall-colors/will-global-climate-change-affect-fall-colors

 

All the more reason to go out today and photograph more leaves as historical evidence for our grandchildren what the world once was – and could have remained, if we only acted in time.

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And as proof that I am not all doom and gloom here is something completely unrelated that made my heart sing:

http://www.rimonthly.com/Blogs/ridaily/March-2016/Video-Good-Night-Lights-at-Hasbro-Childrens-Hospital/

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Tales of Spelunking

· Neanderthals re-visited ·

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Leave it to Heuer to read about one of the most fascinating discoveries of the last decade and have her wonder about parenting modes. Yup. That’s me. Wondering how Maman manages to let a 12 year old dig rubble for three years to excavate a cave entrance that his Papa had speculated might be there. Just think, no helicopter parenting, no apron strings tied to a kid’s ankle, just hand him a shovel and tell him to have fun….

IMG_3238So he digs a 30 meter long passage and has the thinnest member of the local spelunking club climb into Bruniquel cave in France. Another almost half kilometer on they find something mind boggling: “a vast chamber where several stalagmites had been deliberately broken. Most of the 400 pieces had been arranged into two rings—a large one between 4 and 7 metres across, and a smaller one just 2 metres wide. Others had been propped up against these donuts. Yet others had been stacked into four piles. Traces of fire were everywhere, and there was a mass of burnt bones. ” I am quoting from the attached article here: http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/05/the-astonishing-age-of-a-neanderthal-cave-construction-site/484070/

DSC_0239But now to my real wondering: how can it be that even in science there is so much happening due to pure chance? I am not referring to the determination of locals to explore their environs. The cave was discovered in 1990. By 1999 archeologist Francois Rouzaud had decided, by means of carbon dating the bear bones, that the stalagmite rings were older than any know cave painting, some 46.000 years or so, and thus could not have been the work of Homo Sapiens but the Neanderthals. He died of a heart attack that very year. Almost 15 years later, another caver who is also a specialist in stalagmites happens to vacation in the region. She hears about the cave, tests the stalagmites themselves with more modern means and voilà, they are actually 176,500 years old, give or take a few millennia. Given the nature of the rings, and the absence of functional items, or tools, scientists are now speculating this was a ritual place. Furthermore there are red and black streaks that are applied to diverse areas, hinting at the controlled use of fire hot enough to crack rocks. Views of social organization and communication patterns of Neanderthals are revised as we speak, following these discoveries. http://nautil.us/issue/18/genius/our-neanderthal-complex

And yet sentences like these (from a major paleontology textbook –Fossil Men by M. Boule) – still populate so many heads, wiggling their way into the racism of the present…“There is hardly a more rudimentary or degraded form of industry than our Mousterian [Neanderthal] Man… [T]he brutish appearance of this energetic and clumsy body, of the heavy-jawed skull… declares the predominance of functions of a purely vegetative or bestial kind over the functions of mind.”DSC_0189

Time to stop wondering and to begin to educate! Good place to start is Daniel Povinelli’s  Folk Physics for Apes.

Photographs from cave with no name I explored in Texas. You have to like bats to be down there….IMG_3228

Pen Pals

· Charles Darwin's correspondents ·

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Creation, a 2009 movie about Charles Darwin, failed miserably at the box office. American distributors then and now refused to pick it up given their worries about their audiences – after all, according to a 2015 major survey of the Pew Research Center, roughly a third (!) of US Citizens reject the theory of evolution. Disney Studios has recently announced their plans to make a major movie around the voyage of the HMS Beagle and Glenn Beck already announced a boycott of the yet unmade film. Darwin, today, is turning in his grave: the BREXIT happened…..

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Darwin, in addition to everything else he accomplished, was a relentless correspondent, writing several letter almost every day of his adult life, spending more on postage and paper annually than on some of his servants. His pen pals included many famous scientists and thinkers, philosophers, clergymen and family friends, spread across the globe. Janet Browne, in her second volume of a brilliant biography of Darwin (Charles Darwin:The Power of Place), argues that the act of writing helped clarify ideas through verbalization, and that the wide web of people receiving his letters provided a network that spread the acceptance of the revolutionary scientific contexts. Here is a great review of the biography. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jan/04/scienceandnature.biography

Psychology research, by the way, partly confirms the claim that writing helps clarify thought. It does so when you are not aware about gaps in your argument. However, writing thoughts down hurts when it comes to problem solving – anchoring yourself in writing prevents new insights. End of lecture.

DSC_0128I got interested in the people who Darwin selected as correspondents after reading Roger McDonald’s Mr. Darwin’s Shooter, a book that tells the story from the perspective of Sym Covington, fiddle boy on the HMS Beagle and later man servant to Darwin. He ends up in Australia, still corresponding with Darwin and sending specimens collected there, increasingly deaf from his days of shooting rifles at Darwin’s behest. How would it have felt to have been so instrumental in collecting data (if only in the form of shot specimen) and yet to receive little recognition? Foreshadowing of the fate of graduate students, last on the authoring list? How did he reconcile his fervent religious beliefs with his support for someone seen to pull the rug up from under them? (Which, by the way, goes for Darwin’s wife as well.) (Review of the book: https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/01/24/reviews/990124.24bartont.html)

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And just last month I came across a truly witty essay about another one of Darwin’s correspondents, Francis Buckland, an English eccentric if there ever was one.  http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/05/19/me-and-my-monkey/DSC_0183

The piece deserves to be read in full (warning: it’s long) – but here is something to whet your appetite. “In the Buckland household, oddness was next to godliness. Drawing room tables were decorated with lizard feces and clumps of lava from Mount Etna; instead of hobbyhorses, the children had the corpses of dead crocodiles to ride around on; they learned to distinguish between types of animal urine by taste alone. Francis took his father’s gleeful, childlike curiosity about the wondrous variety of life on earth and magnified it into a philosophy for living, and the core of a defiantly strange personality.” A family I’d truly liked to have met.

And here is the Goldfinch by Carel Fabricius 1654: Fabritius-vink

I photographed the birds in the San Diego zoo…..

 PS: Netflix has an Argentinian Eco-thriller on streaming right now, Cromo; the plot moves like molasses, the cell phone signals seem to reach into the last nook and crannies of the National Parks, including Antarctica, but OH, the panoramic landscape shots are breathtaking.