While I was off having fun in the Davis Mountains, my wife had a job at a local steak house. She found that she didn’t care much for the food industry. What she didn’t realize is that she should have been working at the Applebees in Hutchinson, Kansas, where they leave $10,000 tips on a $26 tab.
I went tried to go birding last weekend. The west Texas heat was so oppressive, and the bird activity so abysmal, that I quickly turned my focus to photographing butterflies, dragonflies, and some other cool stuff.
I’m just now getting around to putting the pictures up. There are some really nice ones, like this guy — a Roseate Skimmer (Orthemis ferrugineas).
Roseate Skimmer — Orthemis ferrugineas
In addition to the insects, I also managed to get several nice shots of a really cool reptile, and several of birds. So be to check out the whole album.
If there’s any work that cats willingly do, it’s eventing new ways of laziness. And The Bruce is no exception. One of his favorite things to do is pick the spot on the floor where the afternoon sun comes through the windows. At the very time when my wife and I are burning up and wish to close the blinds to keep the heat out, this bizarre creature in a solid fur coat goes and sits directly in the sun…
My wife has taken a job as a teacher’s aide with a local elementary, as she awaits that first real teaching job. Yesterday, a teacher had caught something on the playground and put it in a fish bowl. Taking a look at it, she asked him, “Do you know what that is?” He answered it was a ground squirrel. “Do you know what kind?” He didn’t. “I believe it’s a Mexican ground squirrel. I think the scientific name is Spermophilus mexicanus… I’m married to a biologist,” she added as way of explanation.
Spermophilus mexicanus. My heart swelled with pride. How did she learn such valuable information? I haven’t forced her to remember any taxonomy. Naturally, as any good biologist does, I use it where ever I can, mainly for myself so that I can remember. But how she remembered it, I confess, I do not know.
That evening after telling me the story, she asked if I thought there was a risk of rabies. “There certainly is,” I replied. “There’s a risk of plague too.”
My wife looked at me in surprise. Like most people probably do, she thought plague was something of the past that doesn’t affect the U.S. Though I remembered few details, I knew it was still around in the fleas of some rodents, and that each year a small number of Americans get infected.
I decided to do the most basic of research. From the CDC’s site on plague, I learned that Spermophilus mexicanus is likely a perfect vector.
Rock squirrels and their fleas are the most frequent sources of human infection in the southwestern states. For the Pacific states, the California ground squirrel and its fleas are the most common source.
What the CDC left out was the classification of those two squirrels. Spermophilus variegatus and Spermophilus beecheyi respectively. Thus they are very closely related to Mexican ground squirrel. The CDC continues:
Many other rodent species, for instance, prairie dogs, wood rats, chipmunks, and other ground squirrels and their fleas, suffer plague outbreaks and some of these occasionally serve as sources of human infection.
Now, not wanting to sound alarmist, I should note that the chances of getting infected are very low.
In the United States during the 1980s plague cases averaged about 18 per year. Most of the cases occurred in persons under 20 years of age. About 1 in 7 persons with plague died. [and elsewhere] In the U.S., 1 to 40 cases reported annually (avg = 13 cases) by western states, 1971-1995.
There also have been very few cases of plague that have turned up in Texas, though apparently God is smiting New Mexico and Arizona.
Still, it might be a good time for the teacher to let the poor critter go. Perhaps parents would feel a little better with a hamster, no?
In 2004, scientists announced the discovery of a new species of small hominid which lived on the island of Flores (Indonesia), which they dubbed Homo floresiensis. The media, ever the bastions of scientific truth and accuracy, immediately popularized the discovery by calling H. floresiensis hobbits.
Recently however, a debate has flared up on what H. floresiensis really is. In particular, one of the specimens has a very asymmetrical skull which some scientists are now claiming is the result of disease. Other features of the skull, which were originally reported to be distinct from modern day humans, are now being challenged as falling within the range of modern day and prehistoric humans from that region of the world.
I don’t have anything to add to that discussion. Anthropology and human evolution are hardly my area of specialty. For a quick read about the situation though, MSNBC has the details. For a thorough but technical account, John Hawks’ anthropology blog provides (as always) a great deal of information on the controversy.
Here’s what I find so terribly interesting about the whole thing. It’s a beautiful example of how science works! Some scientists find some data, put the pieces together, go through the process of peer review, and publish a claim — “hobbits” on Flores! Some other scientists review their data, find that they may be a better explanation than “hobbits on Flores” and publish a rebuttal. A skirmish begins. People take sides and scientists take their best shots at each other in trying to explain these finds. Egos are perhaps bruised and battered along the way, but in the end, what we learn about these fossils is far more robust because of the scrutiny they receive.
In short, this is a beautiful example of science at work. This controversy and debate is not a sign that there’s something terribly wrong with science or the original researchers, but rather it’s exactly what healthy science is supposed to do.
Yet, I would bet everything I own on the predictable creationist rejection of this find. Whatever the consensus comes to be, creationists will use this debate, this robust discussion, to say to their followers, isn’t science sick. Science is damned if they get it wrong — that the fossils turn out not be a new species, H. floresiensis — because creationists will forever use it as an example of incompetence. But even worse, if science decides that H. floresiensis really is deserving of classification as a unique species, creationists will point to the controversy as proof that we’re wrong.
Does anyone doubt this? When creationists commonly go back 80 and 100 years to point to controversies or hoaxes (piltdown man, Nebraska man, etc) that existed in the past, and completely ignore that science has long ago fixed its mistakes, I have no doubt they’ll do exactly the same with H. floresiensis.
It’s really sad to me. At it’s highest levels, it’s incredibly dishonest — which is something that creationist leaders should know better than. For the most part though, it’s simply a matter of ignorance. Many people don’t understand how science works. They don’t understand that the controversy is a good thing, not a bad thing.
This debate on how exactly to classify H. floresiensis is a great teaching moment for those willing to learn. We should all sit back and be content to see what happens. Whatever direction it takes, the answers, as well as the process, will lead us closer to the truth.
Because of eye candy like this. You just can’t see little buggers like that in the states (though we’ve certainly got eye candy of our own).
And if you’ve never seen the Ben Cruachan Blog before, you should bookmark or RSS it. Getting a dose of bird pictures from down under is fun.
This one’s just fun. My wife told me about a video she’d seen the other day. The band sets up a series of treadmills that run in opposite directions, on which they can walk across to perform some very interesting choreography. The entire thing was filmed in one take too. The band is named Ok Go, and the song is “Here It Goes Again.” Enjoy.
I’ve got a bit of confession to make. I hate country music and country musicians — with a passion. Is that fair? Probably not. Am I biased? I’d have to say so. Am I committing the cardinal sin of stereotyping a large group of people based on the actions of a few? Guilty as charged.
It’s hard not to with stories like this one. Did you hear about Troy Gentry? The guy’s being prosecuted for killing a black bear with a bow and arrow. Now I’m not opposed to hunting (though I’m a lot happier when the prey has hooves and a white-tail – technical schematic here.) So what could be so horrible to deserve prosecution for the manly action of hunting a fearsome predator with a bow and arrow?
Perhaps shooting a tame bear in a cage, then tagging it and doctoring video to make it look like you shot it in the wild… Which is what he and the ranch owner reported to the state of Minnesota.
His defense sounds like it’s going to be a real winner.
“Troy absolutely denies that he knowingly and willfully did anything illegal, and is confident that he will be exonerated,” said his Minneapolis-based attorney, Ron Meshbesher, who said Gentry has never been interviewed by authorities. “They don’t know his side of the story. He was told it was proper and legal to kill the bear.”
Don’t you love it? Words like knowingly and willfully, proper and legal. No one’s denying that poor Troy protected his family by killing the ranch pet in the cage. They just say he didn’t know it was wrong. Apparently, it’s not even the killing that was illegal. It was doctoring the tags and reporting it to the state — and that’s what prosecutors will have to show Gentry knowingly did to win a conviction.
You know, for some reason I’m not as angry at lying to the state. It’s clearly wrong, but I mean, it’s just Minnesota. It’s the killing that infuriates me. Hunters, a question: Why do people hunt with bow and arrow instead of a gun? I think I know the answer, but someone can correct me if I’m wrong. It’s a challenge, it’s a lot harder, and I can imagine that the excitement and satisfaction of taking prey with these tools is a lot greater. And I respect that.
But drawing your bow and arrow on a caged animal? I don’t give a rat’s behind if it’s legal or not. It’s shameful.
Now I have to admit that I didn’t even know who Troy Gentry was before this story. He’s half of the popular (with who?) duo Montgomery Gentry. But upon a little investigation, he quickly fit right into my stereotype of all that’s wrong with country music. For example, in an article on an upcoming album that would make Stephen Colbert very proud, the writer expresses:
This album reflects a deeper exploration of the issues Eddie Montgomery & Troy Gentry have always deemed important: family, religion & the US Armed Forces.
What else is there really?
It’s the smarminess of country music that I can’t stand. It’s the “family values” that look an awful lot like softcore pornography. (Possibly not safe for work, but incredibly educational if you’ve not flipped through CMT recently). Country music has become one more way that culture gets entwined with religion.
Now I’m not advocating that we abandon popular forms of music, including country music if that’s what you like (though your ear for music has obviously been bludgeoned beyond repair). I personally love a vast array of rock music, though I clearly recognize that some of it doesn’t share my moral values.
It’s just that I prefer my decadence to be clearly labeled as such.
The Bruce has always been a cat of weird proportions. Small head, very small ears curled downwards, large eyes, long legs, etc. But every now and then, you look over to see him doing something very bizarre.
In this picture, he looks like he could pass as a kangaroo. His tail is bent just the right way, and the flat part of his back feet are parallel with the ground. For what it’s worth, he’s got such a flabby belly that I’m sure there’s a pouch down below too.
On another occasion (one where I couldn’t reach the camera fast enough), he looked just like a seal, with his legs bent and tucked under him like a seal who’s flippers angle backwards as they move through the water.
With The Bruce, you just never know what you’re going to see next.
A study reported by National Geographic News places the U.S. near the very end of a shameful list.
Yes, only Turkey rejects evolution more than the United States.
The reasons are what you’d expect — religion — but even I was surprised by the low percentage. Only 14% of U.S. adults thought that evolution was “definitely true.” Oh, I could rant and rave about the way evolution is a theory with every bit as much footing as our other theories in science. I could point out that science seeks truth with a lower case t, not ultimate meaning. I could point out the utility of science, and that the 86% of U.S. evolution rejectors already turn to evolution when they seek medical care, and that in our lifetimes, our knowledge of evolution and its application to medicine will increasingly deepen. Indeed, the article makes this point for me.
Third, the study found that adults with some understanding of genetics are more likely to have a positive attitude toward evolution.
I could do all these things, but as they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
National Geographic also offers a great solution to this problem. An excellent article by David Quammen titled Was Darwin Wrong? which appeared in the print edition of the November 2004 magazine. (Alas, the online version lacks the pretty pictures.)
I also offer my own solution. It’s meager, and perhaps a little incomplete. (I could add more to it while condensing it some to make it tighter). But I like to think it’s not bad. My old article on the basics of evolution. Though I’m but a humble grad student, the U.S. would do well to read it. At least 86 percent of them would.
