Back to Winter



Another few feet of snow in the Cascades meant another snowshoe hike was a must. This time the trip was along the Lava Flats trail. The Lava Lake area lies deep in the Willamette National Forest. The most common tree species here are tall Douglas Firs. The new snow was soft and powdery with the snowshoes leaving a trail about a foot deep. The several small creeks running under the snow added excitement and we needed some care to avoid breaking through and soaking our feet. Jack London’s tale ‘To Build A Fire’ came to mind. At this point we realized that we had the dog but no matches.

The snowfall had produced lots of odd and picturesque forms like the two trees converted into snow children in the picture below. Winter or summer the Mackenzie River area is always worth a visit. Although it is home to lots of wildlife, we only spotted one lone deer today, but it is difficult not to make lots of noise huffing and puffing if the powder is fresh and deep.

Once More Into The Breach


Winter has moved back in with a little ephemeral snow on the valley floor but with it inches deep in the hills and Cascades at elevations above a few hundred feet.

 I start my hike in search of a latte with some excitement at our Fire Station. A guy in a fully enclosed, orange hazmat suit, showing a huge hump on his back from his life support system, is slowly plodding towards the sidewalk, leaning forward at an angle of forty-five degrees and hauling 25 yards of heavy fire hose. Clearly struggling and with his visor totally misted over, I see that he could do with a hand. Before my offer is complete, two guys with lots of fancy insignia and clipboards invite me to leave, like instantly.

The river has become a high, dirty brown torrent and the Ponds are in the middle of a flush like a slow motion tide cycle that takes place over days instead of hours. The rising water has reduced the composure of the goose population who have mostly decamped to the local grassland, leaving their waterfront properties to the vagaries of the rising water and the marauding ducks. Even the cormorants have moved off to clearer water where they can see to find breakfast. Some of the newly planted forest are not just getting their feet wet but are striving to keep their growing tips above water.

The car lots continue to pile in new stock in preparation for an epidemic of Spring spending fever. The serried ranks are reminiscent of a nineteenth century battlefield. The bright colors of the Mustangs and Cobras lined up front and center, like the Light Horse, poised to rush the opposing line to break it and capture the guns, while on the right flank, the more somber Crewcabs are in a row, like the heavy horse, ready to lumber down the slope and crush the opposition, leaving the multicolored infantry, in the guise of Focuses, to come in behind to mop up.  The Wallet War is about to commence.

After yesterday’s news of Borders Books seeking Chapter 11, I thought my local store was getting nervous. A sign above a line if shelves announced in large red letters that there was “20% off Dummies”. I took my purchase up to the register and it was slowly and carefully explained that the reduction didn’t apply to people like me but to a line of help manuals. Ah well!

In Their Cups


Deep in deepest Somerset in Southwest England lies Cheddar Gorge slicing through the escarpment of the Mendip Hills. A wild and wooly countryside in days gone by with sheep wandering around, and the people either mining lead or drinking a strong form of cider. Neither occupation was good for brain health in the long term. At the entrance the Gorge, lies the village of Cheddar of cheese fame with a large cave, Gough’s Cave as its main attraction. For the gourmets, the local farmhouse Cheddar Cheese is streets ahead of the processed plastic cubes in most grocery stores.

Mr. Gough opened up his cave to tourists quite a while ago as it had some nice example of stalactites and stalagmites to tempt them inside. Sad to say, but they are now a little past their best. His discovery of a human skeleton in 1903 spawned a Caveman Museum. The bones have been shown to be more than 10,000 years old. I recall, but unfortunately can’t trace the reference, that a DNA profile was compared with that of a sample of the local inhabitants in a study to see, well I’m not sure quite what but the grant money needed spending. There was only one near match and that was with a local schoolmaster. This was about twenty years ago and without a reference, can only be an anecdotal story and my memory may have been colored by talking to his pupils.

A recent study of old bones at this site by Bello et al (1) was published yesterday and described three cups fashioned from human skulls dating back almost 15,000 years. These are the oldest on record and the only ones in the UK. These cups were carefully made and would hold about a pint. There is no record of what thirst quenching libation was available. The other bones examined had been cracked open for the marrow, showing that long pig had been on the menu in addition to wild boar. It would be interesting to know if the development of pottery paralleled the idea that eating your neighbors was not a good method of settling civil disputes. I will be recognizing my bone china teacups as an important aid to civilization from this date. My pink finger is twitching!


1. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0017026

The Biter Bit Indeed


There is interesting news this week for those battling the persistent incidence of malaria. The mosquito that spreads the parasite by its micro-vampire act has a cuddly predator in the African Jumping Spider. At this point, the arachnophobes should get a firm grip on the arms of their chairs. The Jumper likes to feast on human blood too but doesn’t have the teeth for it. It has developed a neat solution though – it devours the replete mosquito.

There are two good news parts to this study by Cross and Jackson in the The Royal Society’s Biology Letters (1). Our little athletic gourmet get so wildly enthusiastic at the sight of the menu that, like the kid in the candy store, she grabs more than she can eat. Her frenzied killing spree, engendered by the smell of blood, can result in as many as 20 bodies on the dinner table before she stops to nibble delicately at one or two, and now like a well brought up lady, she leaves the table without gorging herself.

The other interesting discovery is that just as the mosquitoes are attracted by the smell of humans, so are the spiders. What really brings them jumping is the smell of sweaty feet. The study was carried out with sweaty socks, so nobody had to place their toes at risk. We now have a scientifically based excuse for not picking up our dirty, sweaty clothes and putting them tidily away – we are helping to combat mosquitoes. Will the African Jumping Spider be the pet of choice with US teens to help combat the risk of West Nile virus, and having to tidy their rooms?


1. 10.1098/rsbl.2010.1233 Biol. Lett

Fading Away


The paintings of Vincent van Gogh are instantly recognizable from both their strong brush strokes and their vibrant color. The pigment industry had given new exciting colors by the time his canvases were created.  His strong blues and yellows are colors that stand out when we think of his work.

Cornfields and sunflowers were dependent on chrome yellow for their sparkle. Louis Vauquelin first produced this in 1809, from a mineral source. It was a real killer color and was used until late in the nineteenth century to make some candy yellow. It is easily synthesized from solutions of lead nitrate and potassium dichromate, and its high toxicity is due to its Chromium 6 and Lead 2 content.


Chrome Yellow is the US School Bus color, and when mixed with lead sulfate as a white pigment, yields a lemony tint. Unfortunately the pigment combination is a strong oxidizer, and UV light is encouraging the reaction at the pigment varnish interface of the van Goghs. The high energy X-ray beam from Grenoble’s great synchrotron has seen the reaction product Chromium 3 in the thin interfacial layer in experiments carried out by a team from Delft Technological U. Chromium 3 is just dull, dirty brown so soon the sunflowers will look wilted and ready to be tossed – if we keep looking at them that is. Kept in the dark, they would last longer.


On a completely different topic, I see that best way of persuading large crocodiles not to munch you for lunch, is to poke them in the eye. They really don’t like that. They don’t think your playing fair and won’t play with you anymore. A Queenslander, Mr. Eddie Sigai, put this to the test when a 10-foot beastie grabbed his hand for an underwater game. The UK Daily Mail last Saturday reported that he had deep cuts on his hand and scratches on his back after the dust up.

With a Nod to St. Valentine


With due acknowledgement of todays date and for those wild romantics amongst us, I would like to draw attention to Ms. Gill’s report in today’s BBC Earth News on Prairie Dog romance. A very sociable species, they greet each other warmly, showing affection by kissing and nuzzling. The study reported on was carried out at St Louis Zoo, so these black-tailed rodents were denied above ground privacy and were used to numerous human voyeurs.

As good little troopers, the adults kissed and nuzzled for the visitors. The more the visitors crowded in to watch the performance, the more the kissing and nuzzling went on. These kisses weren’t just token pecks on the cheek. No, they were serious about it. Tongues being involved on frequent occasions.

The youngster, though, were not such consummate performers as their more experience elders and tended to tense up and squabble. Stage fright had intruded its ugly head. With continuing public support, and mentoring from their elder colleagues, they will make it through in time.

In their natural habitat, not that there is much natural prairie left, so perhaps it should be ‘in the wild’, they spend much more time watching for predators than kissing and cuddling. Prof. Slobodchikoff and his team have spent over 30 years eavesdropping on Prairie Dog conversation and have managed to decode some of what is one of the more sophisticated of mammalian languages. The barking is nuanced, and there are different ‘words’ for different predators and even have ‘words’ for different features of these predators. I guess ‘Eagle at 4 o’clock high’ would have to be clearly distinguishable from ‘Coyote skulking in the brush’ if they wish to kiss their cousins later that day.

Crowding


The unexpected is always exciting, one-way or another. “Crowd sourcing” was beginning to feel, well, oh so last century until this morning. Firstly, I heard from Wisconsin (www.ttbook.org) about oncological gaming as a teaching tool for high school students and this left me with the vision of the future where we may ask our Doctor for a second diagnostic opinion and get a consensus from the local tenth graders. The equation:
                                             Computers+gaming=education 
has taken on a whole new vision.

Secondly, I realize that social networking has provided an enthusiasm for taking part in surveys. Today’s Sunday Observer, UK, reports on George MacKerron’s iPhone App, Mappiness. This one is a survey of our perceived happiness quotient with the current environmental factors such as sunshine or showers. The GPS location is also recorded. So several times a day our little pocket friends put on their therapist's hats, inquires how happy we all are and fills in the scores on Mappiness. The reward? – A record of your happiness quotient and a warm fuzzy. Plenty good enough, except for a real the dyed-in-the-wool curmudgeon. In six months 32,000 of us have got stuck into happiness mapping with 7,000 stalwarts sticking with it regularly.

Eagerly devouring the results so that I could gain new heights of contentment left me a tad unsatisfied, or maybe I’m just typical. Living among trees and mountains makes us happier than living among skyscrapers, suburbs being just so-s0. That sun is good and being rained on is bad, is also to be expected, if we keep in mind that most large deserts don’t have good iPhone reception. Being stuck in bed sick is a real downer but making love, perks you right up.
It is always comforting to have my prejudices confirmed. 

We will presumably see this type of continuous survey extended to other social and political fields. We could, for example, indicate several times a day, our approval rating of the antics of our lawmakers and the correlated results could be prominently displayed. This would give more rapid feedback than a tweeting campaign to the dovecotes of the mighty. Sadly though, it might be less effective as a cacophony of tweets is more attention grabbing than the tidiness of a single number, except to us geeks, that is.