Stoner Cavemen?

Earliest evidence for magic mushroom use in Europe 

EUROPEANS may have used magic mushrooms to liven up religious rituals 6000 years ago. So suggests a cave mural in Spain, which may depict fungi with hallucinogenic properties - the oldest evidence of their use in Europe.

The Selva Pascuala mural, in a cave near the town of Villar del Humo, is dominated by a bull. But it is a row of 13 small mushroom-like objects that interests Brian Akers at Pasco-Hernando Community College in New Port Richey, Florida, and Gaston Guzman at the Ecological Institute of Xalapa in Mexico. They believe that the objects are the fungi Psilocybe hispanica, a local species with hallucinogenic properties....

Hmm, I wonder how they knew about the hallucinogenic properties of the local 'shrooms...

So what would Frank Frazetta have thought about that?

Frank Frazetta - 'Spirit of the Forest'

A Whole Lot of Shakin' Goin' On

Human Ancestors Lived on Shaky Ground

An article in Science Daily posits that early human beings preferentially chose to live in landscape altered by tectonic movements, i.e. earthquakes:

An international team of scientists has established a link between the shape of the landscape and the habitats preferred by our earliest ancestors. The research, by scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, the University of York and the Institut de Physique du Globe Paris (IPGP), is published in the March 2011 issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.

The four-year study examines the geomorphology (literally the shape of the landscape) around ancient sites in southern Africa.

Lead author, South African Dr Sally Reynolds, a palaeoanthropologist at Witwatersrand who conducted the research during a postdoctoral fellowship at IPGP, says: "We were stunned when during a fieldwork trip in South Africa in 2007, Professor Geoffrey King and I discovered evidence that hominin sites such as Taung, Sterkfontein and Makapansgat, show landscape features in combinations that are not random, but result from tectonic motions, such as earthquakes."

So what is attractive about earthquake zones?

Several lines of scientific evidence suggest that Australopithecus africanus (like the 'Mrs Ples' fossil from Sterkfontein) was adapted to mixed, or mosaic habitats -- landscapes with trees and open grassland, with some wetland marshy areas. The study suggests that it was the type of mosaic environment created by tectonic earth movements near rivers or lakes.

These features including cliffs, sedimented valleys, river gorges and drier plateau areas in close proximity of about 10 kilometres, are created when sections of Earth's crust move in response to pressure, then blocks of land are lifted up, while others are forced downwards. When this happens next to a river, the result is the creation of wetland, marshy areas close to drier plateaus and areas of erosion.... The combination of drinking water, steep cliffs that provided shelter from predators, together with a range of feeding sources constitute the key ingredients for an ideal habitat for our ancestors...

Sounds plausible.  California is a rather nice place most of the time.  Every now and then it gets real shaky, but it your house doesn't fall on you, what's the big  deal:

Even Great Tits Show Their Age

Great Tits Also Have Age-Related Defects

Great Tit (Parus major)

The offspring of older great tit females are much less successful than those of younger mothers. Things mainly go wrong in the later stages of the upbringing, concludes evolutionary biologist Sandra Bouwhuis. For great tit females, it turns out to be a good idea to invest in generating offspring in the first years of life. Bouwhuis will be awarded a PhD by the University of Groningen on 18 March 2011 for her research into the aging of great tits.

Bouwhuis researched aging under female great tits (Parus major) in Wytham Woods (Oxfordshire, UK) and on the island of Vlieland (NL). She investigated the number of eggs and offspring and the reproductive success of this offspring, among other things.

Although great tits can live for nine years, breeding success declines rapidly after the age of two. Nevertheless, older great tits keep on breeding every year, says Bouwhuis: 'They carry on to the bitter end'. What is remarkable is that at the start of the breeding period there's very little difference between the nests of older and younger females. Bouwhuis discovered, however, that massive mortality occurs just after the young leave the nest. 'The parents still have to guide their young in the first crucial weeks after leaving the nest. Perhaps the older mothers have more trouble with that guidance; their young often fall prey to sparrowhawks, for example. Or maybe the older mothers have only been able to find less suitable places in the woods....'

Speaking of great tits, the Chinese seem to value them as well:

The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same...

When Energy Efficiency Sullies the Environment

...a growing number of economists say that the environmental benefits of energy efficiency have been oversold. Paradoxically, there could even be more emissions as a result of some improvements in energy efficiency, these economists say.

The problem is known as the energy rebound effect. While there’s no doubt that fuel-efficient cars burn less gasoline per mile, the lower cost at the pump tends to encourage extra driving. There’s also an indirect rebound effect as drivers use the money they save on gasoline to buy other things that produce greenhouse emissions, like new electronic gadgets or vacation trips on fuel-burning planes.

Would you spend the money you saved by having a fuel efficient car by buying a carbon intensive trip to Hawaii?   I would...

Time to Defund CPB, NPR, PBS, Really

They have simply given up any reasonable pretense of being objective.



If they want to go ahead and live on a profit or even not-for profit model without federal money (and backdoor federal money) more power to them, I'll watch Austin City Limits, whatever decent music and British shows they import, and I won't donate a thin dime to them.

Do You Have 'Tiger Blood'?

Tiger Blood And Neuropeptide Y: Calm Under Fire
The presence of a small molecule called 'neuropeptide Y' (NPY) has been linked with cool thinking in dangerous or deadly situations:

Yale psychiatrist Andy Morgan, for example, has studied elite Special Forces recruits as they undergo "Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape" training, a three-week course designed to simulate the tortures of enemy capture. The program is brutally stressful, yet many recruits preserve an amazing amount of mental clarity in the midst of it. When Morgan examined the poised trainees' blood tests, he saw that they were producing significantly more of "a goofy little peptide called neuropeptide Y" than other, more rattled recruits. The extra NPY was like a layer of stress-deflecting mental Kevlar; its effects are so pronounced that Morgan can tell whether a soldier has made it into the Special Forces or not just by looking at a blood test.

A previous study also showed higher amounts of NPY in the blood of Special Forces troops compared to regular troops:

Special forces soldiers, who had thirty-three percent higher plasma levels of neuropeptide Y than general troop soldiers, were found to possess clearer minds and to have out-performed other soldiers under stress. In a related study, Morgan and colleagues also discovered that soldiers in Combat Dive training who released more NPY during stress excelled in underwater navigation, and that hostage rescue team members with higher NPY levels during stress performed better.

Cool stuff, but it's unclear to me whether enhanced neuropeptide Y in people who handle stressful situations well is a cause or an effect.  It could be the output of a clearer thinking brain to stress.  Would  a shot of NPY produce clearer thinking in people subjected to stress? 

I got dibs on "F@cking Liberals"

Critics Slam ABC Pilot 'Good Christian Bitches' for 'Inappropriate,' 'Damaging' Title

An ABC pilot called “Good Christian Bitches” has religious and women’s groups up in arms over what they describe as an extremely offensive and distasteful show title.

The dramedy, based on Kim Gatlin’s novel of the same name, will be brought to life by famed “Sex and the City” and “90210” executive producer Darren Star. The plot centers on the life of reformed “mean girl” Amanda, played by “Talladega Nights” actress Leslie Bibb, who returns to her hometown of Dallas to find herself fodder for malicious gossip from the women in the Christian community.

Still in the early stages, the pilot has not been guaranteed a spot on ABC’s lineup. And though the show’s title may change before it goes to broadcast, “Good Christian Bitches” is already causing uproar.

How's that new "civility thing" working out?

Seen at Ace's first.

No Evidence of Radioactive Pollution from Fracking

DEP Announces Testing for Radioactivity of River Water Downstream of Marcellus Water Treatment Plants Shows Water Is Safe

HARRISBURG -- The Department of Environmental Protection today announced results of in-stream water quality monitoring for radioactive material in seven of the commonwealth’s rivers. All samples showed levels at or below the normal naturally occurring background levels of radioactivity.

The tests were conducted in November and December of 2010 at stations downstream of wastewater treatment plants that accept flowback and production water from Marcellus Shale drilling.

“We deal in facts based on sound science,” said DEP acting Secretary Michael Krancer. “Here are the facts: all samples were at or below background levels of radioactivity; and all samples showed levels below the federal drinking water standard for Radium 226 and 228.”

Krancer said that these sampling stations were installed last fall specifically to monitor stream quality for potential impacts of Marcellus development.

Krancer explained that the water tested is the raw water in the river before it enters public water suppliers’ intakes where the water receives further treatment.

The river testing stations that were evaluated are the Monongahela at Charleroi in Washington County; South Fork Ten Mile Creek in Greene County; Conemaugh in Indiana County; Allegheny at Kennerdell in Venango County; Beaver in Beaver County; Tioga in Tioga County; and the West Branch of the Susquehanna in Lycoming County.

While lack of evidence cannot be construed as an eternal truth, the fact that they are not able to detect any increases in radium due to fracking wastes being processed at water treatment plants, it strongly suggests to me that the protests over possible radioactive emissions in the process are motivated more by the idea of stopping fracking for any reason than for protection of the water in particular.

Chesapeake Worthless Without Watermen?

A very interesting article in HuffPo today:  Is It Worth Cleaning the Chesapeake If There Are No More Watermen? by Gary Liberson, PhD.  In short, his answer is no:

...EPA talks a great deal about environmental justice. In "EPA speak" this means the protection of minorities and lower income families disenfranchised from the regulatory (e.g., siting of landfills and factories) process. Seems to me that what is going on right now is the disenfranchisement of the local fisherman from the regulatory process. Biologists and regulators are trying to save the Chesapeake Bay, but in doing so they are endangering the local waterman to such a degree that by the time the Bay is saved the fisherman will be gone.

Eventually, the states impacting the Chesapeake will declare victory. The Chesapeake Bay will be a large national park, with a marine highway up the center for container ships bringing goods from Asia and Europe to Baltimore. People will swim, boat, and do recreational fishing. There will be docents in small towns along the Eastern Shore of the Bay explaining how the Chesapeake was, at one time, the richest source of fishing on the East Coast. They will be able to see models of the boats local watermen used and even visit some preserved homes of fishermen. There just won't be any fishermen. The Piscator orientali litore will be extinct.

And my response is, that would be a best case outcome.  The waterman are trivial as source of jobs and money for the Bay states economies.  Recreational fishing is a far greater source of jobs and money to the region, and provides a great many more opportunities for people to see, and experience the bay.

Since the watermen show no inclination to live within the laws that might allow their own fisheries to be managed on an ongoing basis (I'd say sustainably, but the word is too widely used as magic green incantation), the Bay, and it's resources would be better of without them  From the amount of grousing about how hard a job it is to be a watermen, they'd be better off too.

We don't have large numbers of people trapping beavers, skinning them and selling the hides to people who boil them in mercury nitrate anymore either, and the world is better for it.  We don't have market hunters killing Passenger Pigeons for market, or market hunters for deer either, and we're better for that, too.

Now, the Only Sports News that Matters...

...to Skye.

Current Race Standings

1	Lance Mackey	OUT OF Rohn	03/07 18:02
2	Hugh Neff	OUT OF Rohn	03/07 18:31
3	Sebastian Schnuelle	OUT OF Rohn	03/07 19:16
4	Ramey Smyth	OUT OF Rohn	03/07 21:33
5	Jessie Royer	OUT OF Rohn	03/07 21:45
6	Aliy Zirkle	OUT OF Rohn	03/07 21:57
7	Dallas Seavey	OUT OF Rohn	03/07 22:48
8	Ray Redington Jr	OUT OF Rohn	03/07 23:33
9	Michelle Phillips	OUT OF Rohn	03/07 23:34
10	Robert Bundtzen	OUT OF Rohn	03/07 23:40

There's another big dog race on out in the home country, Siberia, the Sprint-Sibir 2011. 

Dogs pull their owner toward the finish line during the Sprint-Sibir-2011 Sled Dog Races near the major Russian Siberian city of Novosibirsk about 2,800 kilometers (1,750 miles) east of Moscow, Monday, March 7, 2011. Novosibirsk temperatures on Sunday dropped to - 6 C (21 F). (AP photo/Ilnar Salakhiev)

Was Tyrannosaurus Rex a Mere Scavenger?

T. rex more hyena than lion claims scientists.

The ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex has been depicted as the top dog of the Cretaceous, ruthlessly stalking herds of duck-billed dinosaurs and claiming the role of apex predator, much as the lion reigns supreme in the African veld.

But a new census of all dinosaur skeletons unearthed over a large area of Eastern Montana shows that Tyrannosaurus was too numerous to have subsisted solely on the dinosaurs it tracked and killed with its scythe-like teeth.

Instead, argue paleontologists John “Jack” Horner from the Museum of the Rockies and Mark B. Goodwin from the University of California, Berkeley, T. rex was probably an opportunistic predator, like the hyena in Africa today, subsisting on both carrion and fresh-killed prey and exploiting a variety of animals, not just large grazers.

“In our census, T. rex came out very high, equivalent in numbers to Edmontosaurus, which many people had thought was its primary prey,” said Horner, curator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Mont., and Regents Professor at Montana State University. “This says that T. rex is not a cheetah, it’s not a lion. It’s more like a hyena.”

Yes, I've heard this before.  But it's a good decent excuse to post some dino babes...

Save the Germs!

Scientist claims that the bug (H. pylori) that causes acid reflux, ulcers and stomach cancer has a beneficial side, and attempts to eliminate it are premature. He claims that the same bacterium also modulates the immune system and suppresses common ailments like asthma and hay fever.

Note, this is a long podcast (~39 minutes), but worth listening to, if you're into stuff like this.

Oh $#!*

Got a New Camera!

Nope, I didn't really, but there has to be one out there I need.

A Right to a Laptop and an IPod?

You've got to be kidding, right?

Using High-Tech to Catch Chespeake Poachers

There are a couple of articles on using high-tech electronics to protect marine resources.  One, in USA Today, deals with the problems of poaching, and the promise of high-tech toys to stop it on a nationwide basis.  In the Chesapeake Bay:

Since January, the Maryland Natural Resources Police has monitored the Chesapeake Bay region with four radar units and two infrared video cameras placed at confidential locations, says George Johnson, the NRP superintendent colonel...

...Johnson says that later this year, Maryland NRP will launch a feature called "geo-fencing" — the state will be able to draw electronic fences around oyster sanctuaries, which will trigger an alarm when vessels break the virtual barrier.

"This is like a force multiplier for us. It allows us to have more eyes on the water when we have less people on patrol," Johnson says..

Danny Webster of Deal Island, Md., who fishes for oysters, says he doesn't have a problem with surveillance measures. He says he hopes it stops people who are gaining an unfair advantage by raiding oyster sanctuaries.

"Most watermen are honest, and that will weed out the watermen who aren't. I say get rid of the bad apples and we'll get our respect back," Webster says.

The second story, in the Annapolis Capital, follows a MD DNR crew out on patrol at night, seeking oyster poachers.  They are notified that the high power radars have observed two boat entering oyster sanctuaries on the Eastern Shore.  The night goes largely uneventfully; they find no poachers at work, and in the end, run out of gas before making it back to the dock, and require a tow to get home.  A rather ignominious end to the whole affair.  I know DNR sometimes has trouble finding money for gas, but there's really no excuse leaving the dock without enough to complete you tour, or at least knowing when to turn back safely.  They even make high-tech gadgets to monitor your fuel flow so you can know to a pretty good point just how far you can go.

Does Alzheimer's Disease Start in the Liver?

Study points to liver, not brain, as origin of Alzheimer's plaques

In the study, the scientists used a mouse model for Alzheimer's disease to identify genes that influence the amount of amyloid that accumulates in the brain. They found three genes that protected mice from brain amyloid accumulation and deposition. For each gene, lower expression in the liver protected the mouse brain. One of the genes encodes presenilin—a cell membrane protein believed to contribute to the development of human Alzheimer's...

...This finding suggested that significant concentrations of beta amyloid might originate in the liver, circulate in the blood, and enter the brain. If true, blocking production of beta amyloid in the liver should protect the brain.

To test this hypothesis, Sutcliffe's team set up an in vivo experiment using wild-type mice since they would most closely replicate the natural beta amyloid-producing environment. "We reasoned that if brain amyloid was being born in the liver and transported to the brain by the blood, then that should be the case in all mice," Sutcliffe said, "and one would predict in humans, too."

This is a big deal. If much of the amyloid that causes Alzheimer's plaques in man is also produced in the liver, it would be much easier to treat the liver to reduce the production of the amyloid than the brain.  The brain is protected by a pretty tight blood brain barrier that prevents many treatments from actually medicating the brain tissue itself.  Faster please.

Earliest Americans were Fishermen

Island tool finds show early settlers' diversity

Caches of tools and animal remains from around 12,000 years ago, found on islands off the California coast, have given remarkable insight into the lives of the first Americans.

The finds show fine tool technology and a rich maritime economy existed there.

The tools vary markedly from mainland cultures of the era such as the Clovis.

The finds, reported in Science, also suggest that rather than a land route to South America, early humans may have used coastal routes.

A team studying California's Channel Islands, off its southern coast, has found that the islands show evidence both of differing technologies and a differing diet, even among the few islands.

"On San Miguel island we found a lot of pretty remarkable tools, but the animal materials there were largely shellfish," said Torben Rick, an anthropologist from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

"Over on Santa Rosa, that site was dominated by bird remains and a few sea mammal and fish remains... and no shellfish at all.

"What's interesting about that is it shows us not only were these people out there living a coastal life, but they were taking advantage of the full suite of resources available to them; they had a very diversified maritime economy."

This is way cool.  The popular view of the early settlement of the Western Hemisphere is that large mammal chasing proto-Indians crossed the Bering Strait, and proceed to occupy the North American continent with the short lived Clovis culture and it's successors.  Recently, as science goes, an alternative, or perhaps complimentary theory has been advanced, that some pre-Clovis cultures came along the coastlines, living a more coastal centered life, and rapidly colonized the coastline of North and South America, and may have contributed significant diversity to the populations that ultimately settled the Americas.  This find would seem to me to support that hypothesis.

Extraterrestrial Life Found?

A new report by a NASA scientist suggests that fossil bacteria have been found in a rare meteorite.

Dr. Richard B. Hoover, an astrobiologist with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, has traveled to remote areas in Antarctica, Siberia, and Alaska, amongst others, for over ten years now, collecting and studying meteorites. He gave FoxNews.com early access to the out-of-this-world research, published late Friday evening in the March edition of the Journal of Cosmology. In it, Hoover describes the latest findings in his study of an extremely rare class of meteorites, called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites -- only nine such meteorites are known to exist on Earth... In what he calls “a very simple process,” Dr. Hoover fractured the meteorite stones under a sterile environment before examining the freshly broken surface with the standard tools of the scientist: a scanning-electron microscope and a field emission electron-scanning microscope, which allowed him to search the stone’s surface for evidence of fossilized remains.

He found the fossilized remains of micro-organisms not so different from ordinary ones found underfoot -- here on earth, that is.

A scanning EM photo of a CI1 meteorite (right) and the giant bacterium Titanospirillum velox (left).

Color me as skeptical.  Rocks are full of all kinds of weird little shapes that got there by all kinds of processes that don't necessarily include living organisms.  Considering the proposed origin of the Cl meteorites, it would seem to me to unlikely that bacteria would be floating around in space in the outer reaches of the early solar nebula to be trapped and included in the meteorite.

CI group - This group, named after the Ivuna meteorite, have chemical compositions that are close to that measured in the solar photosphere, neglecting gaseous elements. In this sense, they are chemically the most primitive known meteorites. They typically contain a high proportion of water (up to 22%), and organic matter in the form of amino acids and PAHs. Aqueous alteration promotes a composition of hydrous phyllosilicates, magnetite, and olivine crystals occurring in a black matrix, and a possible lack of chondrules. It is thought they have not been heated above 50 °C (122 °F), indicating that they condensed in the cooler outer portion of the solar nebula.

Beach Report, Sunday, March 6, 2011

We managed to get out today between rain showers.  Not surprisingly, it was gray and misty, but with a warmish south wind, it was a nice walk

Skye was pretty eager, since she got ripped off yesterday by our spending the day in D.C.

Biology Lesson du Jour

The Trouble with Truffles

Two people from North Carolina are carrying on a nasty legal battle over truffles:

Over the past few years, the two have sued and countersued in Orange County Civil Superior Court over business plans, trade secrets and the sale of specially inoculated trees that grow truffles on their roots.

Their case has been in and out of mediation. Now, they are at a standoff, waiting for the court to decide who was wrong.

Black Truffle

The fact is, neither is digging up that many truffles. Although about 80 orchards make up the tiny North Carolina truffle industry, the harvest this year was probably not even 50 pounds, said Jane Morgan Smith, the recent past president of the North American Truffle Growers Association and one of the first people to grow them successfully in the state.

White Truffle

Still, if the fungus comes, the payoff could be huge.

Truffle orchards could help replace tobacco as a crop and preserve farmland. Cooks who embrace local food could stop looking to Europe for their truffle fix. And the two warring truffle growers could make hundreds of thousands of dollars just by digging around the roots of their trees.

An acre of trees cultivated to grow high-quality black Perigord truffles (the Tuber melanosporum, nicknamed the black diamond) can produce at least 75 pounds. Even at a wholesale price of about $600 a pound, a truffle farmer could earn $45,000 an acre.

Truffles come in two colors, black and white. But there are several native species of truffle in the United States that are all highly sought after. Truffles grow symbiotically on the roots of oaks, live oaks and hickories.

Trained pigs are often used as truffle hunters.  Wild hogs eat truffles naturally, so pigs have an innate interest in finding them and eating them.  Curiously, pigs are particularly attracted to truffles because one of the scent components of truffles smells like androstenol, a sex pheromone in boar saliva.  Dogs can also be used to find truffles, although they lack the innate desire to eat them, they make up for it with a keen sense of smell (maybe they like boar saliva), and a desire to please the boss and get a treat.

Once upon a time, I dug up what I think were white truffles in our yard.  They smelled wonderful, but I couldn't persuade Georgia that they were edible...  Given the prices of truffles, it's unlikely that they will form any significant part in our diet anytime soon.

Celebrating Female Scientists (Rule 5)

Perhaps better known as Darth Vader's girl friend and recent Oscar Best Actress winner for "Black Swan", and the 4th best dressed woman at the 2011 Oscars, Natalie Portman is among the rare Hollywood stars with a scientific background.  She left acting in 2000 to pursue a degree in psychology at Harvard:

The study investigated object permanence – the ability to understand that objects do not disappear from the world when they are out of sight, something that typically develops in the first year of life.

Portman’s study, led by neuroscientist Dr Abigail Baird, used a relatively new method for measuring brain function called near-infrared spectroscopy.

This technology relies on the fact that near-infrared light can penetrate the skull, and that blood carrying oxygen, and blood that has given up its oxygen, absorbs the light differently.

 See, she's not just a pretty face and a talented actress, even if she is that, she's is, or at least has been a working scientist: 

During the study, infants were shown a toy, which was then hidden under a cloth. Children who have object permanence – who know that it hasn’t disappeared – look for it under the cloth.

Children without this skill just ignore the cloth and look for something else to do, because the memory of the toy is gone.

The study tested 20 infants, every four weeks, from the ages of 5-12 months. To see what changed in the brain as the ability emerged, the researchers compared infrared light absorption from a time when the kids first looked for the toy, to an earlier time, when they just forgot that it existed when it was out of sight.

She even has that holy grail of young scientists, a published paper, which is even pretty well cited:

The paper was eventually published in the journal Neuroimage, under Natalie’s real name, with the title ‘Frontal lobe activation during object permanence: data from near-infrared spectroscopy’.

It has since been cited by at least 20 different studies that have built on its findings.

And if you want to read the study in full, it is available as a pdf file at the link below.

pdf of Neuroimage paper.

Note: the name on the paper is Natalie Herschlag, her given name.





She's welcome to come muck around in my lab any old time...



Now linked by Wombat-socho (at the the other McCain).

When Cupid Bends His Bow

Pinched from Theo's, who borrowed it from Mitchieville.

Georgia Sends Flowers and Chocolate

There is a big orchid show at the Botanical Gardens, and Georgia spent a good deal of her day there with the camera

To Heck and Back

 I had to go to DC today for a meeting.  Georgia came with me, but went to the Botanical Gardens instead of to the talks. I have a bunch of pics..




The Washington Monument at the end of the Mall as we crossed from parking at the Museum of Natural History to the site of the meeting

 A slant view of the Museum of Natural History.

 The Castle.  The main administrative building of the Smithsonian.

A View of the Future

It doesn't have to be this way...

BP Off Hook in Gulf Dolphin Deaths?

Cold water flowing into Gulf may have killed baby dolphins

MOBILE, Ala. -- Cold water may have killed the dolphins washing up in Mississippi and Alabama, scientists with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab said Wednesday.

They point to an apparent correlation between large pulses of chilly water that flowed into Mobile Bay during January and February and the subsequent discovery of dozens of stillborn dolphin calves in area waters.

Data on water temperature and river flows show periods in each month when bay waters dipped into the 40s for days at a time. Shortly after bay temperatures dropped precipitously, dead stillborn dolphins began washing ashore in Alabama....

...“The timing for everything works out pretty well. We had the one significant snowfall event in the middle of January. After that, the timing is right in terms of the snow melting and arriving in Mobile Bay as a freshet, this pulse of cold, fresh water that arrives and then dissipates,” said Monty Graham, a marine biologist with the Sea Lab.

 I'll bet BP ends up paying anyway.

Before You Accuse Me...

Take a look at your self.

It turns out that Rhode Island has a unusual wording in it's laws regarding witness testimony that:

a statement by a witness identifying a criminal suspect will be admissible at trial only if the witness also took a good look at herself just before she identified the perpetrator.

Yep, I'm gonna do it...

Zero Tolerance Claims Another Victim, Chivalry

Middle school student suspended for opening door

COURTLAND—A Southampton Middle School student was suspended Thursday for opening an exterior door for a visitor.

“Students are not allowed to open the doors, and if anyone does, they will be suspended,” said Dr. Wayne K. Smith, executive director of administration and personnel...

...Smith said everyone knew about the policy and its consequences. The middle school student was the first to be suspended for opening a door. Smith did not say how many days of suspension the unidentified student received.

According to an anonymous e-mail sent to The Tidewater News, the “A” student opened the door for a woman he knew, who had her hands full. The e-mail also indicated the student received a one-day, out-of-school suspension.

Why isn't a simple "Don't do that again" sufficient?  Will the teachers cutting school in Wisconsin and getting fake doctor's notes be held to s similar standard?  How about administrators who wander in a little late?

Good News! ($#!* My Brother Sends)

Science Says Staring at Women's Breasts is Health for Men!

GERMANY (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - Guys, listen up. A study says it is actually healthy to stare at a woman's breasts...The study found the men who stared at breasts more often showed lower rates of heart problems, a lower resting heart rate and lower blood pressure. The authors of the study recommend that men stare at breasts for 10 minutes a day.

Aw come we didn't need science to tell us that.  Why don't our wives want us to be healthy?

And, just as a bit of medicine...

HS Basketballer Throws Winning Basket in OT, Collapses and Dies

High school basketball player in west Michigan dies after winning shot

Michigan high school's star basketball player collapsed on the court and later died after making a game-winning layup in overtime to cap his team's perfect season.

Wes Leonard of Fennville High died Thursday night, Holland Hospital spokeswoman Deb Patterson said. A cause of death has not yet been determined.

In an infinite universe, everything possible would happen an infinite number of times, but still...

Pilfered from Ace.

Border Enforcement Ain't Bean Bag

Bringing a Bean Bag to a Gunfight

Records show agents fired beanbags in fatal border gunfight
Brady McCombs Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Thursday, March 3, 2011 12:00 am

Border Patrol agents shot beanbags at a group of suspected bandits before the men returned fire during a confrontation in a remote canyon, killing agent Brian Terry with a single gunshot, records show.

And an illegal immigrant wounded in the gun battle who is now the only person in custody linked to the slaying contends he never fired a shot, according to FBI search warrant requests filed in the U.S. District Court in Tucson.

The documents provide the most detailed version yet of what happened in the deadly gunbattle Dec. 14 in Peck Canyon, northwest of Nogales.

The documents say the group of illegal border entrants refused commands to drop their weapons after agents confronted them at about 11:15 p.m. Two agents fired beanbags at the migrants, who responded with gunfire. Two agents returned fire, one with a long gun and one with a pistol, but Terry was mortally wounded in the gunfight.

This is the same border patrol agent killed by guns the ATF allowed to be sold into Mexico, as part of a sting operation.  Read it all, and be prepared to be pissed off.

Maryland Ending Crab License Buy Backs

Commercial Crab License Buyback Ends March 11

ANNAPOLIS (March 3, 2011) — The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is ending the Limited Crab Catcher (LCC) commercial license buyback program after retiring nearly 700 LCC licenses in about a year and a half. DNR is no longer offering to purchase LCC licenses as of March 11.

"The Chesapeake Bay blue crab is part of what makes us Marylanders," said DNR Secretary John Griffin. "With the support of Senator Mikulski and blue crab disaster funds, we were able to reduce the amount of latent licenses with this buyback.”

The program reduced the number of commercial crabbing licenses in order to ensure effective management of a sustainable blue crab fishery.Last year, DNR's winter dredge survey showed a dramatic 60 percent increase in Chesapeake Bay’s blue crab population.

DNR bought back LCC licenses for $2,360 beginning in August 2009. Funding for the program came from a Federal Blue Crab Fishery Disaster Grant, which was secured through the efforts of Senator Barbara Mikulski with assistance from the Maryland Congressional Delegation. The funds were issued by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service.

So, basically the Federal government paid for the state to buy out the licenses.  I'm kind of ambivalent about this, not the buy out, but the fact that the federal government (and thus us, and in reality our children) are paying the bill (with interest).  There was too much fishing effort being extended on crabs, and this will help that by decreasing the number of people who can crab commercially.  At the same time, most of the licenses sold were undoubtedly among the least active ones, belonging to part time watermen, so we may have paid a lot of money for not much. 

As for the federal government doing the paying, the blue crab is a migratory species, that crosses several state lines during it's life cycle, so it may well be appropriate for the feds to take a strong role in it's management.

I Blame Free Internet Porn and Video Games

Abstinence Rises Among Young People

Among the findings of a sweeping federal government survey of American sexual behavior is one that may surprise those bewailing a permissive and eros-soaked popular culture: More than one-quarter of people interviewed in their late teens and early 20s had never had sex.

And the number was growing.

The latest round of the quaintly named National Survey of Family Growth found that among 15-to-24-year-olds, 29 percent of females and 27 percent of males reported no sexual contact with another person ever - up from the 22 percent of both sexes when the survey was last conducted in 2002...

Lot's of, well, interesting data in the report:

Among 15-to-17-year-olds, 7 percent of females and 10 percent of males report having oral sex but no vaginal sex. That fraction, however, declines rapidly among older respondents. In the 20-to-24 age group, only 3 percent of females and 4 percent of males report oral-sex-only activity.

What, people grow up?

Across the entire age span surveyed - 15 through 44 - 13 percent of women reported some "same-sex sexual behavior" in their lifetime, compared with 5 percent of men. For women, the fraction was up slightly from 2002, and for men, it was down slightly.

I credit Katie Perry

Among 18-to-44-year-olds who described themselves as heterosexual, 9 percent of women and 3 percent of men reported having same-sex encounters. On the other hand, 15 percent of women and 12 percent of men who described themselves as homosexual or bisexual had never had a same-sex experience.

So a lot of so called "bisexuality" is talk, not action?  Whoda thunk?  Posers...

I Thought Skynet Was an Air Force Project?

Is the Navy Trying to Start the Robot Apocalypse?

Whenever the military rolls out a new robot program, folks like to joke about SkyNet or the Rise of the Machines. But this time, the military really is starting to venture into robot-apocalypse territory: swarms of little semi-autonomous machines that can team up to manufacture complex objects (including, presumably, more robots).

That’s right, the only thing scarier than a swarm of intelligent military mini robots is a swarm of intelligent military mini robots in control of the means of production. And your Navy is hard at work on making it a reality.

The U.S. Navy recently issued a proposal for aspiring mad scientists to build it “a coordinated and distributed swarm of micro-robots” capable of manufacturing “novel materials and structures.”...

So these mechanical swarms might eventually be capable of building other, shape-shifting robots? What could possibly go wrong?

That Meanie!

Wisconsin communities assess impact of state recycling cuts

From villages such as Belleville in southern Dane County to the city of Madison, officials in Wisconsin communities Wednesday were studying the dramatic cutbacks in recycling proposed in Gov. Scott Walker's budget and trying to figure out how to keep their curbside programs running.

Walker proposed ending state-mandated community recycling, which was signed into law by Gov. Tommy Thompson in 1990, as well as elimination of the grants that help local governments pay for recycling — about $32 million statewide to 1,018 communities.

Remember, if they're not paying you to take it, it's not recycling, it's just premium garbage collection:

NSFW language. Penn drops the F-bomb with abandon.

23 Years of Windows Upgrades

Some guy installs every version of Windows on a computer, upgrading each time.  Doom II works on all of them.

Where Am I?

Not the sharpest tack in the box.

Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite!

Get ready for a blitz of bedbug cases in summer 2011

The bloodsuckers are already entrenched in the city (NYC) and, like cockroaches, tend to thrive in July, August and September, said Jeffrey White, a research entomologist for Bedbugcentral.com.

"I firmly believe that this year is going to be worse than last year," White said at a bedbug seminar Wednesday

"If we combine the seasonal trend, with the bugs getting more and more embedded in our community, that allows the bugs to make that resurgence all the more stronger."

Nearly 7% of adults in the city - 404,000 people - reported bedbug infestations in 2009, the Health Department said.

So how do you avoid bringing them home if you happen to visit an infested motel or hotel?

• Inspect hotel room mattresses, bedding, furniture and closet hangers for signs of infestation.
• Never put clothes in hotel drawers or on a hotel floor.
• Travel with resealable bags large enough to hold clothes.
• Use dissolvable laundry bags when traveling. The bags can go straight from your suitcase to the washing machine.
• If in doubt, don't bring belongings in the house.
• Check your laptop. The bedbugs are attracted to the heat and body oils on the computer.
• Periodically inspect cribs, mattresses, box spring, head and foot boards and under the bed for signs of bedbugs. "After they've fed at night, they go and hide in the cracks and the crevices of the headboard and wait for you to come back to bed," said Gemma Holmes, owner of the Nashville-based Holmes Pest Control.
• Check the alarm clock on your nightstand, along with electrical outlets. "It's a warm spot," Holmes said.

Another thing to worry about when traveling, bedbugs in you laptop.  Never heard about soluble laundry bags, though.  I might have to find a use for those.

Meet the New Boss

EPA names new Chesapeake Bay adviser 

RICHMOND, Va. — The Environmental Protection Agency has named a new senior adviser to oversee the agency's massive restoration of the Chesapeake Bay.

Jeff Corbin, a former assistant secretary of natural resources in Virginia during the Kaine administration, was named to the post by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson in an announcement made public on Wednesday. He is currently a senior adviser to an EPA regional administrator.

In his new job, he will coordinate every aspect of the bay's cleanup, including working with the six states and District of Columbia within the 64,000-square-mile water-pollution-control project — the largest ever undertaken in the United States.

Corbin spent a decade with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation as a scientist and Virginia deputy director of the group, a leading advocate for the bay. He also worked as an environmental geologist and water quality specialist for the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission.

The fact that he's been a working scientist gives me hope.  The fact that he took it to CBF worries me a little, because it suggests he's already made up his mind about what's right.

I Need Another Coffee, Strong and Black

Bitter tastes make you more judgemental 

DON'T drink and judge - bitter tastes alter your moral compass, making you more judgemental.

So say Kendall Eskine at the City University of New York and colleagues, who asked 57 volunteers to rate how morally questionable a set of scenarios were on a scale of 1 to 100. These included a man eating his already-dead dog, and second cousins engaging in consensual sex. The participants also indicated their political orientation.

Before and halfway through the exercise, participants were given a bitter drink, a sweet juice or water.

Those who drank bitter drinks were much harsher in their judgements than those who drank water, giving scenarios a score that was on average 27 per cent higher. Intriguingly, politically conservative individuals were more strongly affected by bitter tastes than liberals (Psychological Science, DOI: 10.1177/0956797611398497).

 I have about a thousand intern applications to read...

Fracking Earthquakes!

Earthquakes in Arkansas May Be Man-Made, Experts Warn

The sudden swarm of earthquakes in Arkansas -- including the largest quake to hit the state in 35 years -- is very possibly an after effect of natural-gas drilling, experts warn.

At issue is a practice called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," in which water is injected into the ground at high pressure to fracture rock and release natural gas trapped within it.

Geologists don't believe the fracking itself is a problem. But Steve Horton, an earthquake specialist at the University of Memphis and hydrologic technician with the U.S. Geological Survey, is worried by a correlation between the Arkansas earthquake swarm and a side effect of the drilling: the disposal of wastewater in injection wells...

The theory goes that the fluids being injected are lubricating the stresses in the rocks, leading to the quakes.  There is some activity in the mid section of the country, not much compared to say, California, but the New Madrid seismic zone, in the region where Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas meet is active, and produced a major quakes in 1699 and 1811-1812.  Geology shows previous pre-historical large quakes.

Could the stresses that lead to earthquakes be, in part, relieved by the lubrication from fracking waste disposal, and could that forestall or even prevent later major quakes in the region?  Or the quakes could just be natural:

Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey, said the quakes are part of what is now called the Guy earthquake swarm — a series of mild earthquakes that have been occurring periodically since 2009. A similar swarm occurred in the early 1980s when a series of quakes hit Enola, Ark.

Ausbrooks said geologists are still trying to discover the exact cause of the recent seismic activity but have identified two possibilities.

"It could just be a naturally occurring swarm like the Enola swarm, or it could be related to ongoing natural gas exploration in the area," he said.

Yet More $#!* My Brother Sends

India's Lake of Death

In 1942 a British forest guard in Roopkund, India made an alarming discovery. Some 16,000 feet above sea level, at the bottom of a small valley, was a frozen lake absolutely full of skeletons. That summer, the ice melting revealed even more skeletal remains, floating in the water and lying haphazardly around the lake's edges. Something horrible had happened here...

 Nicely macabre find.

...As it turns out, all the bodies date to around 850 AD. DNA evidence indicates that there were two distinct groups of people, one a family or tribe of closely related individuals, and a second smaller, shorter group of locals, likely hired as porters and guides. Rings, spears, leather shoes, and bamboo staves were found, leading experts to believe that the group was comprised of pilgrims heading through the valley with the help of the locals.

All the bodies had died in a similar way, from blows to the head. However, the short deep cracks in the skulls appeared to be the result not of weapons, but rather of something rounded. The bodies also only had wounds on their heads, and shoulders as if the blows had all come from directly above. What had killed them all, porter and pilgrim alike?

Among Himalayan women there is an ancient and traditional folk song. The lyrics describe a goddess so enraged at outsiders who defiled her mountain sanctuary that she rained death upon them by flinging hailstones “hard as iron.” After much research and consideration, the 2004 expedition came to the same conclusion. All 200 people died from a sudden and severe hailstorm.

Ouch.  

Today's Cooking Lesson

Check out these plums

MD Senators Noodge Army Corps on Aquaculture

Senators Urge Army Corps of Engineers to Expedite Oyster Aquaculture Permits

WASHINGTON (March 1, 2011) – U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and Barbara A. Mikulski (Both D-MD), made a personal appeal to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today for it to streamline the permit process for oyster aquaculture. Both during a meeting on Capitol Hill and in a letter, the Senators expressed their support for a General Permit for Maryland waters, which would be used in lieu of individual permits. General Permits are used when a number of similar conditions need to be met and the risk of environmental harm relatively low. If the applicant can satisfy the basic requirements, permitting is faster, more predictable and administratively easier to manage.

Follow the link to see the actual letter Sen Cardin sent to the  ACOE.  As an advocate for aquaculture in the Bay, I applaud this move.  In general, I'm in favor of less bureaucratic red tape making business needlessly  difficult as well.

O'Malley Drops Septic Proposal

O'Malley yields on bid to curb septics

Gov. Martin O'Malley gave up Tuesday — for this year at least — on his bid to restrict rural and suburban development on septic systems, agreeing to a key House leader's call for more study of a proposal that has drawn fire from rural and suburban lawmakers and developers.

The governor's office released a brief letter to Del. Maggie McIntosh, head of the House Environmental Matters Committee, defending his proposal but acceding to her request that a task force be formed to hash out how septic systems fit into larger efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay and preserve farmland from sprawling development.

In her own letter to the governor, McIntosh, a Baltimore city Democrat, had said while she agreed that the state needs to do a better job of curbing sprawl and "the proliferation of septic systems" that pollute the bay, she believed that "an outright ban could and would have a disproportionate impact on several counties in Maryland."

 Umm, I guess this is about what I expected, and probably a reasonable outcome.  The proposal really does need more thought before they go out and ban new housing as we know it all over the state.  While I would love to see sewage in my own neighborhood (safely underground I would hope), I think the economics dictate against it.  Given that septic contributes only 8% of nitrogen to the Bay, and this fix would do little to alter that, it's not something that needs to be implemented in a rush.

Previous posts on the proposal are here, and here.

The Real 'Sword in the Stone'

The Sword in the Stone at Montesiepi Chapel 

The legendary sword in the stone, often linked to king Arthur’s legend, does exist. Not in Avalon, of course, but in Italy. One can see it in the Montesiepi chapel, near Saint Galgano Abbey in Chiusdino, in Tuscany.

Galgano Guidotti was born in 1148 near Chiusdino. After spending his youth as a brave knight, in 1180 Galgano decided to follow the words of Jesus and retired as a hermit near his hometown.

He is said to have stuck his sword onto a rock in order to use it as a cross for his prayers. One year later Galgano died, and in 1185 Pope Lucius the 3rd declared him a saint...

Putting the Eew in Sewage

Low-flow toilets cause a stink in SF

San Francisco's big push for low-flow toilets has turned into a multimillion-dollar plumbing stink.

Skimping on toilet water has resulted in more sludge backing up inside the sewer pipes, said Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the city Public Utilities Commission. That has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park and elsewhere, especially during the dry summer months.

 Those unanticipated consequences...

Now officials are stocking up on a $14 million, three-year supply of highly concentrated sodium hypochlorite - better known as bleach - to act as an odor eater and to disinfect the city's treated water before it's dumped into the bay. It will also be used to sanitize drinking water.

That translates into 8.5 million pounds of bleach either being poured down city drains or into the drinking water supply every year.

Remember Rubik's Cube?

Fracking In the News

Fracking, the method of hydraulically fracturing bedrock to release natural gas for wells, was a big part of the 'Bay News' today, with three separate articles published, all seemingly aimed at stirring up alarm over the practice:

Regulation Lax as Gas Wells’ Tainted Water Hits Rivers

The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=homepage&src=me 

Opinion: Fracking Pollution Much Worse than Reported

Green Chip Stocks Blog

http://www.greenchipstocks.com/articles/fracking-pollution-much-worse-then-reported/1261 

  

Blog: Baltimore's drinking water at risk from shale gas waste?

The Baltimore Sun

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/features/green/2011/02/nyt_finds_radioactive_shale_ga.html

The latter two reference the first NYT article, but the fact that they came out simultaneously suggests a significant media push by someone to highlight the potential risks of fracking.  Prominently mentioned in all three articles is the potential for fracking waste water to carry radioactive materials (radium and uranium from the fractured rocks) into the surface waters.  In no case do they actually reference specific studies outlining how much radioactivity may be released into the surface waters (I would guess the actual measurements at this point are few in number and highly variable), but but raise radioactivity as a major "red flag."  Their point is that fracking fluids are frequently disposed of by trucking them to sewage disposal sites, and including them in the sewage for treatment.  They assert that the sewage treatment processes are not efficient at removing the radioactive elements, and that they largely pass through the treatment plants.

All of this may well be true, but I would like to see the numbers, concentrations of radioactive elements in the fracking fluid and the relative dilution that occurs, first, by adding the fracking fluid to an ongoing sewage load, and second, when that treated sewage is discharged into a larger stream.  Then I might be convinced. But I'm suspicious when the issue of radioactivity is raised, mostly because few of the public at large and even in the academic community beyond the "initiated" understand how ubiquitous radioactivity and radioactive elements really are.

At the same time, it is incumbent upon the fracking industry to frack safely, and not subject the rest of us to unnecessary risks.  If there really is a risk to the water supply and the Bay from this source I want it evaluated and dealt with in a safe manner, even if it raises the prices of natural gas extracted from that source.

Revealing the River Styx...

A radical idea for helping Baltimore's harbor - uncover the Jones Falls

An environmental blog from Baltimore relays this proposal to open the Jones Falls to the surface:

...some architects from the University of Virginia are proposing a radical remedy - "daylighting," or uncovering, part of the lower Jones Falls, which which flows underground two miles under city streets before emptying out in the harbor.

The Jones Falls was actually the birthplace of Baltimore, where the first settler, one David Jones, built his house along its banks in the 1600s. The river was a source of drinking water for the fledgling city, and ships reportedly could sail as far inland as Calvert and Lexington.

But growth, flooding and pollution inspired efforts to drain, tame and ultimately bury the troublesome water way around 1915. Finally, in the early 1960s, the subverting of the Jones Falls was completed with the construction of the expressway of the same name along and atop its course. It's just the largest of Baltimore's streams to get buried - experts estimate that two-thirds of the city's waterways are underground now, serving as conduits for storm water washing off city streets and parking lots.

That lower stretch of the Jone Falls is like the mythical River Styx - musty, foul and eternally in darkness. I paddled with some others upstream from the harbor many years ago, and the only living thing we encountered was a somewhat startled looking pigeon roosting in the gloom...

I rather approve of this, although I suspect it will be very difficult to get control over all the land and structures above it.  I've seen some surprisingly pleasant streams in the the midst of urban ruin in places in Washington D.C.  I believe people benefit by being in contact with their environment on a daily basis, even if its only a somewhat scruffy urban stream.

I think It's a Touch High

Quint's Fishing Rod from 'Jaws' for $6,000 to 8,000

Comments from the peanut gallery:

Capt. Dave: I'd go for it except that I hate Mildrum roller guides. 

Ricky: It's been soaked with water too. Do not want. 

Thanks PJ.

Consumer Reports: GM Volt Sucks

GM's Volt 'doesn't really make a lot of sense'    

Washington — Consumer Reports offered a harsh initial review of the Chevrolet Volt, questioning whether General Motors Co.'s flagship vehicle makes economic "sense."The extended-range plug-in electric vehicle is on the cover of the April issue — the influential magazine's annual survey of vehicles — but the GM vehicle comes in for criticism.

"When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn't particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it's not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy," said David Champion, the senior director of Consumer Reports auto testing center at a meeting with reporters here. "This is going to be a tough sell to the average consumer."...

So why did we bail out GM again?

What's 25 tons of Carbon Dioxide?

One year of Obama's house trainer, flown in weekly from Chicago.

...Couldn't they have just hired someone in D.C. to take over the training? The Yellow Pages provides over 56 entries under "Personal Fitness Trainers" alone, most of whom would have been able to reach the White House by bike.

Doing so would have at least been consistent with Obama's statements about the need to reduce emissions. Last July, Obama announced that he wanted federal workers to cut down on business travel and commuting by car in order to reduce emissions produced by the federal government:

The White House was announcing Tuesday that the government will aim to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from indirect sources like employee driving by 13 percent in 2020, compared with 2008 levels...

I guess saving carbon emissions isn't so important after all.  And after all the trouble I go to to car pool.