I had no idea these things existed

 

I've heard of machines that deploy barbed or razor wire, making it easy to set up fences, obstacles, etc.  However, I'd never heard of a machine that got rid of those fences, even decades after they'd been strung.

A wire winder mounted on a skid steer can roll up a half-mile of old fence in about two minutes, a task that would probably take a half-day to accomplish by hand, said John Graves, director of conservation and resource management for the Sheridan Community Land Trust.

“It’s pretty darn cool,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “To sit there in the cab of the skid steer and watch that wire come in, it’s great.”

The importance of removing old barbed wire and woven-wire fences can’t be overstated, said Steve Martin, Wyoming director of the North American Pronghorn Association.

Old fences can block pronghorn from reaching thousands of acres of habitat in the Red Desert and other places in Wyoming and Montana, Martin told Cowboy State Daily.

There are countless miles of fence that must be removed and replaced with wildlife-friendly fencing, he said.

. . .

“Unlike deer and elk, pronghorn will rarely, if ever, jump a fence. They want to crawl under it,” he said.

So woven-wire fences are particularly hard on pronghorn, he said, because there’s no way to get underneath them.

Researchers from the University of Wyoming concluded that fences trapped pronghorn in areas of the Red Desert during the harsh 2022-2023 winter, and many of them died.

Recent upgrades to wildlife-friendly fences in the Red Desert opened up about 10,000 acres to pronghorn, Martin said.

There's more at the link.  Here's a brief video clip of the wire winder at work.

That's pretty ingenious.  I wonder who came up with the idea?  It's just another addition to the huge variety of tools and equipment that can be hung onto or off of skid-steer machines.  I saw one around here that had more than a dozen different attachments arranged in a long row at one side of the yard.  The driver could simply drive up to a gap in the row, drop the attachment he'd been using into the open space, drive to the next gizmo he needed, connect it up, and away he went.  It can't have taken more than a minute or two per attachment.  That's productivity for you!

Peter

So much for meat and water!

 

I'm sure most of my readers have grown used to vegetarians vegans anti-meat activists trumpeting that it wastes far too much water to produce a pound, or a kilogram, of beef, compared to just eating vegetables and fruit.  Turns out they've been fudging the numbers, to put it mildly.

From Sama Hoole on X:

The crime they see: 15,415 litres of water to produce one kilogram of beef. Every campaign, every documentary, every leaflet through the door since about 2012.

The crime they do: not reading the paper.

The figure is real. It comes from Mekonnen and Hoekstra at the University of Twente, and it is careful, peer-reviewed work. What the campaigns strip out is that the same authors split that number into three parts, because the three parts are not the same thing at all.

Green water is rain. It falls on the grass. The cow eats the grass. For beef, green water is about 94 per cent of that headline.

Blue water is the stuff that matters. Rivers, lakes, aquifers. The stuff that gets pumped, metered, fought over in court, and does not come back.

So here is the blue water, in litres per kilogram, from the same authors, same method, same units.

• Pistachios: 7,602
• Almonds: 3,816
• Walnuts: 2,451
• Dates: 1,250
• Cashews: 921
• Beef: 550

Read that last line again, then go and look at what is in your granola.

The 15,415 counts rain that fell on a Welsh hillside as a cost, against an animal that was standing in it, on land where nothing else grows, in a country where rain is the one thing we have never once been short of.

The pistachio is drinking fourteen times more of the water that actually runs out.

I've no doubt the "greenies" will object that most of the rainwater runs off and feeds their vegetables, so it's by definition "greener" than beef anyway:  but that's splitting nutritional hairs, IMHO.  I'll continue to favor a carnivore diet, thank you very much!

Peter

When large-scale weather threatens large-scale consequences

 

I'm sure most of us have read news reports about the imminent return of the climate phenomenon known as El Nino, possibly in the form of a so-called "super" El Nino, far stronger than "normal" events of this kind.  There have been all sorts of alarmist forecasts about drought, flooding, and everything in between.  However, the big story may be the effect of this climate phenomenon on global commerce and industry, regardless of whether it's rainy or sunny.  TT Club, a "provider of mutual insurance and related risk management services to the international transport and logistics industry", examines the implications.

El Niño events are part of a naturally occurring climate cycle, but “super” events are characterised by exceptionally high sea surface temperature anomalies, which are far less frequent and significantly more disruptive. Current forecasts are suggesting that a very strong event is increasingly likely, with some indicating increases well above historical norms. The result is not a single point of failure, but rather a synchronised, multi-regional disruption that has potential to affect the interconnected global supply chain.

. . .

Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the current outlook is the convergence of climate and geopolitical risk factors. When overlaid with El Niño-induced climate shocks, the potential for cascading effects increases significantly.

For example: 

• Reduced fertiliser availability may exacerbate the impact of drought on crop yields
• Higher fuel costs may increase the cost of transporting goods
• Trade route disruptions may amplify delays caused by weather-related events
• This interconnected risk landscape highlights the need to view El Niño not as a standalone hazard, but as part of a broader system of interdependent risks.

. . .

The critical point for global businesses is that exposure is rarely limited to the location of the physical hazard. Organisations may face indirect impacts through suppliers, commodity markets, logistics networks, energy systems, insurance costs and customer demand.

Key global vulnerabilities include: 

• Food and commodity price inflation driven by crop losses or supply uncertainty
• Disruption to agricultural, industrial and consumer-goods supply chains
• Transport delays, port disruption and reduced reliability across maritime and inland logistics routes
• Energy market volatility linked to higher demand, reduced hydropower output and infrastructure stress
• Increased insurance, financing and working-capital pressures as businesses respond to greater uncertainty

For internationally exposed organisations, these second-order and third-order effects may prove just as significant as direct physical risks. The practical implication is that El Niño should be assessed not only by geography, but by dependency: where goods are sourced, how they are transported, which inputs are most constrained and where alternative capacity exists.

There's more at the link.

That's an often underestimated factor in many plans:  military, political, business, disaster, whatever.  A factor that is described in geographical terms - like El Nino, often termed the "southern oscillation" of weather patterns - can have effects far outside that geographical area.  I'm sure most US businesses on the East Coast aren't planning for any major disruption due to weather that might affect the West Coast of this country, but that's very short-sighted.  What about Europe, or Asia?  I'm sure many nations on those continents are dismissing El Nino as "someone else's problem", but if, as the article suggests, we define it by dependency on economic activity in the area where it occurs, that dependency reaches into every corner of global markets, both imports and exports.

Even on a small scale, in terms of personal planning for the next year or two, this bears thinking about.  For example:

• Is my employer (and hence my job) likely to be affected by El Nino, positively or negatively?  Could it determine whether or not I have a job at all this time next year?
• What about our household emergency planning?  Are we assuming that certain staple foods and basic necessities will always be both available and affordable, or might the advent of El Nino-related weather patterns affect that?
• Are we planning to travel anywhere over the next year or two?  Will airline flights be affected by El Nino?  Will they become more or less affordable?  What alternatives are there?

Just a few areas where we might all do well to consider what's going on in our atmosphere and our oceans at present.

Peter

This kinda blew my mind

 

This extraordinary report on the BBC has me goggling.

Whale graveyard dating back five million years discovered

An enormous whale graveyard around 1,200km (745 miles) long has been discovered in the south-eastern Indian Ocean.

The site, which is 7km (four miles) deep, has been found in the Diamantina fracture zone, a range on the sea floor of ridges and trenches.

But it is the age of the remains - some from 5.3 million years ago - that has prompted huge excitement in the scientific community.

The underwater necropolis, which was discovered by a team of researchers from China, Italy and New Zealand, is teeming with organisms and species that "may be new to science", according to journal Nature.

One of the study's authors Xiaotong Peng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said: "Discovering a necropolis of this scale was completely unexpected.

"The size of distribution, the depth and the age range were far beyond anything we had imagined."

During 32 dives to the site, explorers collected samples from 485 whale-fossil sites and active whale falls, and found a treasure trove of remains, including one extinct whale's skeleton.

The beaked Pterocetus benguelae, which is 5.3 million years old, was discovered to be one of the fossilised skulls in the graves.

A five-metre long Antarctic minke whale's carcass was the largest discovery made.

A new species which the team has called Pterocetus diamantinae, after the site, was also uncovered.

Jellyfish, worms and crustaceans are among the community of creatures living off the huge spread of carcasses.

"Peng and colleagues' encounter with a vast fossil graveyard is a truly unique discovery," Stephen J Godfrey of the Calvert Marine Museum wrote in Nature.

There's more at the link.

There's also this video report on the discovery.

How on earth did so many whale carcasses end up in such a relatively small area?  Is it possible that some species of whale may deliberately go to that part of the sea to die, just as elephants were reputed to go to the "elephants' graveyard", a hidden valley where they lay down to die?  The elephant myth has long since been refuted, but I'm willing to bet some will raise it again in connection with the whales.

This is absolutely fascinating.  I daresay there are decades of research ahead in that area.

Peter

The ultimate put-down of the anti-meat scammers

 

Watts Up With That? links to this tweet.  Click the image below for a larger view on X.com.

That's a beautifully simple explanation - and every word of it is true.  You'll never hear vegetarian and vegan activists admit to that, though.  If they did, they'd expose their scam operation for what it is.  They rely on scaring people into taking them seriously - and this tweet demonstrates that they're anything but serious.  Their loud screams about the permanent climate damage caused by eating meat and breeding cows are nothing more than "sound and fury, signifying nothing".

Pass it on.  The more people who understand this, the better.

Peter

Where did the water go?

 

I was interested (and somewhat amused) to read that the biggest reforestation project in the world has had some - wait for it - unintended consequences.  Say it ain't so!

China’s massive tree-planting push has long been hailed as a climate win. But new research shows the country’s ambitious effort to slow land degradation, and fight climate change, has also reshaped its water supply in surprising, and sometimes uneven, ways.

When China dramatically expanded forests and restored grasslands under its "Great Green Wall" initiative, it didn’t just change what the land looked like, it changed how water moves between the ground and the atmosphere.

. . .

“They’ve actually increased forest cover by 15% over the last five decades,” [meteorologist Jennifer] Gray explained. “If you think about the amount of moisture that those forests are releasing into the atmosphere, it is just an incredible amount.”

. . .

What surprised researchers most wasn’t that water moved, it was where it ended up. “What’s so remarkable about this study is the scale of it and the unintended consequences,” Gray said. “The rain was distributed in completely different ways and in completely different places.”

The reason lies in the atmosphere itself.

“The atmosphere and the winds can actually transport moisture more than 4,000 miles,” Gray explained. “So if you plant trees in one area that doesn’t mean that that’s exactly where it’s going to rain.”

. . .

That’s why Gray says climate solutions can’t stop at planting trees. “It puts an exclamation mark on the importance of having city planners get involved, water management folks get involved as well,” she said, “so this can be carefully thought out as to where the water is going to be distributed once you do something like this.”

There's more at the link.

This is fascinating to me.  I've never figured out how bureaucrats and political functionaries can dictate to Nature - "We are going to do this, to force you to do that" - without any real understanding of how Nature works, the interplay of forces and influences that mold and shape the world we live in.  It seems ridiculous on the face of it;  what my father would call "farting against thunder".  The power of natural forces is so enormously greater than anything of which we can conceive that it makes fools of the bureaucrats who think that way.  Perhaps this is yet another example of the folly that led to Mao's megalomaniac "Great Leap Forward", which led directly to the "Great Chinese Famine" and caused tens of millions of deaths.

I think it's a laudable ambition to halt desertification by reforestation . . . but just reforesting thousands of square miles doesn't mean they'll be transformed into the microclimate you want them to have.  I'll be watching the progress of similar projects with great interest.  Ethiopia is planting 50 billion trees;  there's the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel;  and India has The Great Green Wall of Aravalli.  I wonder if they'll all run into the same problem?

(There's also the colonial-era Great Hedge of India, designed to prevent unwanted border crossing in either direction.  Perhaps the Border Patrol might like to investigate that project?)

Peter

The day they blew up a river to save Yellowstone

 

I came across a very interesting article about the 1988 wildfires in and around Yellowstone National Park (the biggest and most dangerous in the Park's history), and how local farmers, ranchers and residents partnered with the National Park Service to save West Yellowstone from the encroaching flames.  Here are some excerpts.

The plan was to surround West Yellowstone with irrigation pipes and sprinklers to dampen the ground, stopping any flames before they reached homes and businesses. As the park’s busiest gateway community, ensuring West Yellowstone’s survival was critical.

Howell and several other farmers hauled all the industrial-sized irrigation pipe they had available to West Yellowstone, but that wouldn’t be enough to stop the fire.

The critical factor was finding an adequate water source to feed the pipes.

To pump water through the pipes, they needed a hole — and fast.

There wasn’t time to excavate the bank of the river, so they blasted it with explosives.

. . .

Bryers ... cut any trees that had fallen or were leaning into the trail to ensure large vehicles and their irrigation pipes could reach the river.

There was a surprise waiting for Bryers when he emerged from the forest at the riverbank: Yellowstone District Ranger Joseph Evans.

“Joe was scratching his head as I came out of the opening in an orange Ford truck,” Bryers said. “He said, ‘You can't be driving in here and using chainsaws.’ So I go, ‘I can't believe you haven't heard. I'm clearing the way for a big line of diesel trucks hauling pipe.’”

Despite having the full permission of the NPS and Clyde Seely, the fire commander, nobody had informed Evans that Bryer would be cutting through Yellowstone’s trees to get to the Madison River.

“He went off to see what in the world was happening,” Bryers said. “There was a lot of miscommunication back then.”

. . .

Soon, an unassuming Ryder rental truck arrived at the western bank of the river. Inside was a large amount of detonating cord, supplied by the federal government, that would be used to create the crater.

“They did one blast, and it turned out it wasn't quite enough to make the crater they needed,” Bryers said. “So, they put a bunch more of it in there for a second blast.”

. . .

After the second detonation, [Bryers] noticed that a 7,500-pound boulder had crashed through the top of the Ryder truck, landing on a massive coil of detonating cord.

“I wish that I would have got a picture of it, but I didn’t have my camera,” he said. “That rock was just sitting there on top of all the explosives.”

. . .

The fire got concerningly close. Bryers was laying out a line of pipe from Duck Creek to the Fir Ridge Cemetery north of town when the fire caught up to him.

“Me and another fella stripped naked and jumped into the deep part of Duck Creek,” he said. “We wanted to come out and dry off, but there were a bunch of surprised Idaho farm boys watching from the bank.”

. . .

The crater blasted into the Madison River is long gone, slowly filling with sediment until it disappeared completely a few years after the fires.

However, Bryers said the crater was a fishing hotspot until it was filled in.

“Trout liked to find a nice, deep, slow spot in the river, so I told my fly fishing friends about the crater,” he said. “They caught some big fish out there.”

There's more at the link.

It's a great story of ordinary folks working together to save a vital part of America's natural history.  It must have been utterly exhausting for all concerned, but they got the job done.  Highly recommended reading.

Peter

What a not-so-beautiful noise...

 

... with apologies to Neil Diamond, of course.

This morning, friend Alma Boykin put up this video clip of the sounds of cicadas in Texas.

It reminded me that I find American cicadas to be so quiet that they're hardly noticeable.  My friends here tell me I'm crazy, that they're really loud . . . but I come from southern Africa, where cicadas can be so loud that you could use them as an instrument of torture - like this:

Must be a different variety of cicada, I guess, or maybe a lot more of them.  I have many memories of camping where the noise was so great, one had to use earplugs to try to fall asleep.  (That was its own hazard, as "things that go bump in the night" were very frequently encountered in the bush, and one needed to be able to hear them in order to do something about them - before they did something about you!  We usually had someone awake and alert, or at the very least not using earplugs.)

Peter

Well, excuse ME!!!

 

I had to laugh at this photograph, found on Gab:

I'd love to hear a translation of the thoughts of the hummingbird on the bottom...

Peter

Rather shorter than my driving time!

 

It seems there's a new world record for the longest distance covered by a single flash of lightning.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has confirmed that a 515-mile-long "megaflash" of lightning in 2017 is a new world record.

The flash, a term for lightning inside a cloud that does not hit the ground, moved from northern Texas into Missouri and was part of a Mesoscale Convective System, a large complex of thunderstorms, on Oct. 22, 2017. This new lightning flash beats the previous record of 477 miles set by a flash on April 29, 2020.

There's more at the link.

If I'm reading that image correctly, the flash took about 7 seconds to cover 515 miles.  Having driven over a similar route between Texas and Missouri in the past, I can only wish that road travel was even a thousandth of that speed!

Peter

A kleptomaniac Reynard?

 

I had to smile at this report from Wyoming.

At least one fox has been stealing shoes from campers in Grand Teton National Park, so far racking up a score of at least 32 shoes absconded with. 

It’s become such a problem that the sly fox has become the park’s “most wanted” criminal.

There might be more than one fox involved — a vulpine shoe theft ring, if you will.

Wildlife experts aren’t sure why the fox or foxes decided to start making off with shoes from the Lizard Creek campground. It could be because the furry bandits like their scent, even though humans find stinky shoes repugnant. 

Or, it could be out of curiosity with a touch of mischief.

There's more at the link.

It's odd how animals can develop a taste, or desire, for human artifacts.  Crows and magpies are renowned for picking up small, shiny things, and even giving them as gifts to humans in exchange for food.  Dogs will chew on their owner's shoes, cats will collect and hide small things, and so on.

In Africa, one of the oddest lessons I learned is that one should not carry a bush knife with either a leather-wrapped hilt (as in the famous Marine Corps KA-BAR knife) or a soft wood hilt that can absorb liquids and odor.  If one uses it to clean, skin and joint an animal, blood will impregnate the hilt, which will retain that scent.  Scavengers such as hyenas can scent that from a surprisingly long distance, and will raid your camp site at night while everyone's asleep, picking up the alluringly smelly knife and taking it with them.  If you find it again, the hilt will be chewed to shreds.

The footsy fox in Wyoming makes me wonder what future archaeologists will think, if they excavate its den and find it packed from top to bottom with single shoes, all of different sizes and designs . . .

Peter

A travel tip I wouldn't have considered

 

I've never thought that wrapping up my vehicle might be a worthwhile precaution before hiking a trail, but it turns out that in parts of this country, it's not a bad idea.

From the awe-inspiring views of the Grand Canyon to the geysers of Yellowstone, millions of people travel to national parks across the United States every year. The parks are home to countless animals, including one mountain-dwelling critter that can ruin a day in the great outdoors.

Marmots will pillage backpacks left unattended in search for a snack, and at Sequoia National Park's Mineral King trail, the rodents have been known to chew on tubes and wiring on the underside of vehicles.

To prevent damage in such a remote location, officials recommend hikers wrap their vehicles in a large tarp, which looks unusual, but deters marmots from chomping on a radiator hose or a brake line.

. . .

In the past, hikers used to surround their vehicles with chicken wire, but over time, the marmots learned how to evade the wire and reach the vehicles.

"On several occasions, marmots have not escaped the engine compartment quickly enough and unsuspecting drivers have given them rides to other parts of the parks; several have ridden as far as Southern California," the NPS explained.

There's more at the link.

I'm not familiar with US marmots, but I've had lots of encounters with the very similar species that South Africans familiarly refer to as dassies (actually a species of hyrax).  They're endemic on Table Mountain in Cape Town, and have "colonized" the area around the upper cable car station.  They unashamedly beg food from patrons at the restaurant there, so much so that they're typically so rotund and corpulent that they can't move in a hurry.  That provides the local eagles with a plentiful meat diet, but there are so many dassies waiting their turn at the tourist buffet that the numbers never seem to drop.

No need to tarp your vehicles there - for a start, they're 3,000 feet below, parked on the road leading past the lower cable car station, and besides, the dassies are so well fed by tourists that they'd turn up their noses at engine cables and wires.

Be that as it may, I suppose marmots, hyrax and similar critters have developed all over the world to fill a specific ecological niche.  We're simply supplementing their diet by parking nearby.  Does that mean that tarping one's car to keep them out is interfering with natural selection?

Peter

Two great images

 

I found both these images while scrolling through photographs on social media.  One was just amazing:  the other made me laugh out loud.

The first is a fantastic ultra-close-up shot of a dragonfly covered in water droplets.  The sheer artistry of nature can be breathtaking.

The second is just too funny.  Babies' expressions are often that way!

Captures the moment perfectly, doesn't it?

When I have a couple of minutes to spare, I enjoy browsing through photographs like these.  They can really brighten my day.  I hope these two brightened yours.

Peter

J. K. Rowling brings the smackdown - again

 

Author J. K. Rowling has once again spoken out about the trans question, at length and in masterful fashion.  I like her attitude so much that I'm going to quote her May 3rd post on X in full, presuming her permission.  (She writes from Britain for a largely British audience, hence some of her internal references may not be familiar to American readers.  That doesn't make them any less accurate.)

In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK's Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it's possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These letters do nothing but remind us of what we know only too well: that pretending to believe these things has become an elitist badge of virtue.

I often wonder whether the signatories of such letters have to quieten their consciences before publicly boosting a movement intent on removing women's and girls' rights, which bullies gay people who admit openly they don't want opposite sex partners, and campaigns for the continued sterilisation of vulnerable and troubled kids. Do they feel any qualms at all while chanting the foundational lie of their religion: Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men?

I have no idea. All I know for sure is that it's a complete waste of time telling a gender activist that their favourite slogan is self-contradictory nonsense, because the lie is the whole point. They're not repeating it because it's true - they know full well it's not true - but because they believe they can make it true, sort of, if they force everyone else to agree. The foundational lie functions as both catechism and crucifix: the set form of words that obviates the tedious necessity of coming up with your own explanation of why you're one of the Godly, and an exorcist's weapon which will defeat demonic facts and reason, and promote the advance of righteous pseudoscience and sophistry.

Some argue that signatories of these sorts of letters are motivated by fear: fear for their careers, of course, but also fear of their co-religionists, who include angry, narcissistic men who threaten and sometimes enact violence on non-believers; back-stabbing colleagues ever ready to report wrongthink; the online shamers and doxxers and rape threateners, and, of course, the influential zealots in the upper echelons of liberal professions (though we can quibble whether they're actually liberal at all, given the draconian authoritarianism that seems to have engulfed so many). Gender ideology could give medieval Catholicism a run for its money when it comes to punishing heretics, so isn't it common sense to keep your head down and recite your Hail Mulvaneys?

But before we start feeling too sorry for any cowed and fearful TWAWites who're TERFy on the sly, let's not forget what a high proportion of them have willingly snatched up pitchforks and torches to join the inquisitional purges. Call me lacking in proper womanly sympathy, but I find the harm they've enabled and in some cases directly championed or funded - the hounding and shaming of vulnerable women, the forced loss of livelihoods, the unregulated medical experiment on minors - tends to dry up my tears at source.

History is littered with the debris of irrational and harmful belief systems that once seemed unassailable. As Orwell said, 'Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.' Gender ideology may have embedded itself deeply into our institutions, where it's been imposed, top-down, on the supposedly unenlightened, but it is not invulnerable.

Court losses are starting to stack up. The condescension, overreach, entitlement and aggression of gender activists is eroding public support daily. Women are fighting back and winning significant victories. Sporting bodies have miraculously awoken from their slumber and remembered that males tend to be larger, stronger and faster than females. Parts of the medical establishment are questioning cutting healthy breasts off teenaged girls is really the best way to fix their mental health problems.

One seemingly harmless little white lie - Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men - uttered in most cases without any real thought at all, and a few short years later, people who think of themselves as supremely virtuous are typing 'yes, rapists' pronouns are absolutely the hill I'll die on,' rubbing shoulders with those who call for women to be hanged and decapitated for wanting all-female rape crisis centres, and furiously denying clear and mounting evidence of the greatest medical scandal in a century.

I wonder if they ever ask themselves how they got here, and I wonder whether any of them will ever feel shame.

It remains mind-bogglingly strange to me that basic common-sense wisdom like that attracts hatred, venomous counter-attacks and intolerance from many who should (and, let's face it, do) know better - even those who've made their own fortunes by acting the roles of her characters on stage and screen.  As far as I'm concerned, such attacks have become a litmus test for my judgment of an actor's entertainment worth.  If they participate in such attacks, it's a pretty good indication that they're not interested in the truth of the matter.  They're driven by propaganda and messaging rather than facts:  yet, because the facts (medical and biological) are so relentlessly against their point of view, they choose to attack the facts and those who propagate them rather than modify their attitudes.  That says far more about them than it does about the issues involved.

Thank you, Ms. Rowling, for being a relentless crusader for the truth.  I wish there were more like you.

Peter

A fascinating monochromatic world

 

The BBC's "In Pictures" page hosts regular features with photographs from all over the world;  some from professional photographers, some from anyone who wishes to contribute or enter.  They recently published a feature titled "Your pictures on the theme of 'monochrome'."

Black-and-white photography has always interested me.  As a young man I had a fairly extensive camera outfit, first an Olympus OM-1, then a Nikon system, and did a lot of work in monochrome.  I enjoyed the challenge of expressing what I saw without referencing a color palette, particularly when it came to portraiture and the human body.  Therefore, I was very interested to look through the photographs in the BBC's article.  This one, in particular, caught my eye.  It's titled "A pelican making a splash."  Click the image for a much larger view.

That's a fascinating interplay of feathers, droplets and the surface of the water.  The photographer must have been in exactly the right place at just the right time to capture it.  I envy him!

The other photographs in the article are also well worth viewing.  Open each one in a new tab or browser window to magnify them to full size.

While you're there, check out the other articles listed on the "In Pictures" page.  There are several very good ones.

Peter

The reality of skin color

 

Found on MeWe from Marc Adkins (sorry, MeWe won't provide a direct URL to his post):

Of course, that's absolutely true.  That really is why darker skin hues are concentrated in hotter regions of the globe, and lighter ones to the north and south of that, in cooler climes.  We've evolved the shades of skin as a defensive measure against some of what mother Nature can do to us.

Nevertheless, to hear racists (of any color) rail and bitch and complain against (any and all other colors), it's obvious they've never heard of that reality.  Sure, there are cultural and educational and societal differences too, but they always point to race as the problem, and they always identify skin color as the identifier for race.  No, dummy, that's not the issue - that's a mere defensive mechanism against nature.

Peter

Fascinating!

 

It's a big momma!

Scientists from the Schmidt Ocean Institute studying deep-sea habitats off Chile recently came across a rare and mesmerising sight: A giant squid mother carrying its eggs.

Usually, squid species lay their eggs on the seafloor and leave them alone after they despatched them, but this species of squid – the black-eyed squid (Gonatus onyx) – carries and broods its eggs for several months and therefore is one of only two so far confirmed species that are known to take care off their offspring after spawning.

While releasing the video via social media, the Schmidt Ocean Institute said: “A female Gonatus onyx will carry her large egg mass for months, keeping it suspended from hooks on the squid’s arms. It is a dangerous time… brooding squid cannot move very quickly, and may be easy prey for deep-diving marine mammals.” 

“After laying the eggs she will go without feeding, and by the time they hatch, she will be close to death,” the Institute added.

There's more at the link.

Nature never ceases to amaze me with its infinite variety.  How many of those 3,000-odd eggs will grow to maturity?  Not many, I'd guess, otherwise we'd be overrun with giant squid.

Peter

I did not know that...

 

I was intrigued to read that moose are preyed upon by killer whales in northern climes.

In coastal areas in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, moose face terror on another level — possibly getting devoured by killer whales.

“The possibility for killer whales to kills moose is rare, but it does happen, and it’s been documented,” Alaska Department of Fish and Game spokesman Riley Woodford told Cowboy State Daily.

Killer whales, or orcas, are extremely intelligent and at the top of the marine food chain.

They live and hunt in groups called pods, which are much like wolf packs. In areas with coastal moose populations, orca pods will take advantage of moose swimming in deep water across coves or between islands.

. . .

... recent research suggests that at least in some areas, orcas gobble moose more often than previously thought, Forbes Magazine reported this year.

Moose apparently crave the sodium in aquatic vegetation, and they’re willing to swim to get to it, according to researchers.

It’s when moose are crossing big water, like Alaska’s coves, that they might be at risk of being hunted down by killer whales, Woodford said.

There's more at the link.

I mentioned to my wife - who lived for years in Alaska, as regular readers will know - that I was surprised to hear that.  I'd never have thought of moose as prey for sharks or orcas.  She told me that moose can actually walk for short distances underwater, across the bottom of ponds, streams, rivers and inlets - they don't just move through water by swimming.  Apparently some divers have been known to come across moose casually walking past them underwater, to their considerable surprise!  She says that when moose move through shallow coastal waters (for example, from the coast to an island, or island to island), it's relatively easy for killer whales to get to them.  It doesn't happen regularly, but often enough that it's a known thing.  You can read more about it here.

That must be a heck of a sight . . . half to three-quarters of a ton of moose against several tons of killer whale.  I imagine that while swimming, the whale has most of the advantages;  but if the moose is in shallower water and can stand on the bottom, dig in its feet and kick, it might inflict some pretty nasty injuries on a whale, too.  If a full-grown moose can injure a brown bear severely enough to cripple it, it might do something similar to an orca.

Peter

Seaweed underwear???

 

This report from the BBC raised my eyebrows.

It sounded too good to be true, and a manufacturer's Web site is even more so.  I fail to understand how seaweed can continue to provide "natural" benefits after being so unnaturally processed, pulled, poked, prodded and shredded into something it was never designed to be.  However . . . what do I know?

If this trend continues, I can see all sorts of locavore-style clothing options.  Live in the south-eastern US?  How about kudzu underwear?  In Texas, how about mesquite unmentionables?  In the southwestern US, how about cholla?  (Minus the prickles, of course!)

Any other suggestions, readers?

Peter

I think the Mormons would object to romping with brine shrimp in their back yard...

 

When someone tries to tell you that "the science is settled", ask them to define "science".  If they believe that something like this is "scientific" in any way, shape or form, I think you can safely ignore them from that point onward.

Behold:

The article's abstract is even more confusing:

The article aims to transform narratives surrounding Utah’s Great Salt Lake, often referred to as “America’s Dead Sea,” by reimagining how brine shrimp (Artemia franciscana) are perceived in science, culture, and art. It introduces the concept of hydrosexuality to bridge these realms, thereby enriching feminist blue posthumanities and feminist biology through art-based practices and queer advocacy. By navigating the environmental narrative of the GSL, the hydrosexual perspective challenges settler science by exploring the connections between the reproductive system of brine shrimp and the economy, ecology and culture. The article provides a framework for integrative cultural analysis that bolsters arguments about the multilayered exploitation of the lake and amplifies voices that recognize the brine shrimp as vital to the survival of multiple species and to the GSL as a unique ecosystem. Furthermore, this cultural analysis draws inspiration from low trophic theory and Queer Death Studies. This multifaceted approach is exemplified by two case studies in the arts, which gradually alter white humans’ perceptions and understandings of the brine shrimp, helping to reimagine the GSL in the context of rapid climate change.

After reading that, I couldn't help but wonder whether this was another "prank the science journal" effort, where a fake article was so cleverly written as to confound the editorial staff and persuade them to publish it.  Alas, not, it isn't.  To confirm the authors' perspective, they even created a video showing themselves in a "Cyber wedding to the brine shrimp".

I absolutely, emphatically do NOT wish to know how the honeymoon played out!  I suspect crabs have nothing on brine shrimp when it comes to consummation . . . !

I rather suspect that any allegedly "reputable" and "scientific" journal publishing such utter crap has lost all claim to being either "reputable" or "scientific", and can henceforth be classified (in its print editions, at least) as birdcage liner and/or emergency TP.

Peter