Sleeping in and Lorikeets

12-31-2005 We are in the Florida mode. There is no reason to get up early. Our dog is in the kennel up north so it isn’t wandering around the bedroom tinkling its bell asking to be let out and especially to be fed. The horses are also up north so there is no guilt being felt by delaying the hay and grain. We all trundled off to the new Naples garden center which also had butterflies, lizards, and lorikeet birds. One Lorikeet hoped on my nice and didn’t want to leave. After some effort we moved it to my nephew and then to the bird keeper. It just seemed to want to sit on someone. Then it was back for a swim in the Gulf followed by the pool and Jacuzzi. Much of the time was taken up by playing tag with my nephew and nice who seemed to have an in exhaustible source of energy. Their favorite game was drown the uncle.

We had baked brie and chips and salsa for appetizers washed down with margaritas. Then we all trooped out to the lawn on the Gulf to watched the Naples fireworks. This strategy avoided the mess near the pier but the fireworks were somewhat distant. Also, the wind was slight with the smoke hanging over the town pier obscured many of the displays. Anyway, it was fun. Tim and I then cooked steaks on the grills by the west pool. For our own steaks we applied substantial amounts of garlic salt and chili powder but in an act of kindness left these condiments off those for the rest of the family. After a great meal and good wine we played the card game bluff till midnight. We used two decks of cards. I was caught on one of my bluffs and ended up with the majority of two decks in my had as the discard pile was rather large at the time of my demise.

Swiming in the Gulf and Cloyde's

12-30-2005 The Gulf was cold, about 65 degrees, but Ben, Sola, Tim and I ventured into the salty water. All of us made the “up to the neck” club as with time the body numbs up and you don’t notice that your peripheral circulation is shutting down. I came out and hopped in the Jacuzzi only to have my fingers start to tingle as the circulation returned to the more distant portions of my body. In the late afternoon we all got dressed up and ventured out to Cloyde's Steak & Lobster House in the “Village” a couple of miles north of the condo for their early bird special. At this time of year you have to hit a half hour window to get the early bird. The portions are smaller than later but really are just about the right size.

Brother in law arrives

12-29-2006 My brother in law and his family arrived from Philadelphia.
Their son Ben didn't make this picture on the condo balcony.

Walking and Intelligent Design.

12-28-2006 As on most mornings, I did a mile or two walk with my mother along the beautiful Gulf Shore Blvd. North with glimpses of the Gulf, Bay and sophisticated plantings. Each condo is a little different with many providing a very pleasant visage. Since her dog is up North in Ohio she walks me instead. At 85 she is doing very well in her exercise but slows a little after golf season.

There is much being said in the local paper about intelligent design. I do not believe that the subject belongs in science classes but do believe that it is appropriate for the study of history, government and philosophy. The incompatibility comes from the fact that science does not allow miracles but religion requires them.

It is interesting to speculate on the possibility of creating an Earth that inyoung but looks old as demanded by Intelligent design. As we gain in technological expertise, it is becoming more and more possible to do just that. Using today’s technology we could fool people who lived one hundred years ago by placing bones of the proper composition in the proper setting. We might even be able to fool scientists from 50 years ago by using the proper isotopic ratios making the material look old to the sophisticated chemist of that time. Just imagine what people a few hundred years in the future could do to fool us. There is even work to create the first synthetic organism. Although it will be only a lowly mycoplasma, the proof of principle will have been accomplished. While we will soon be able to perform intelligent design on our own; our future abilities do not prove that and intelligent designer was active in the past. In fact, with our new ability to see the structure of the genome of many organisms in detail and plot the progress of evolution, it does not look well designed at all. Our genome is quite a mess, nothing that an intelligent designer would create. It looks just like something produced by random mutation followed by natural selection.

The Dock in Naples Fl

12-27-2006 Lunch at the dock I toured the boats at the town dock next to the restaurant and talked to a couple who had sailed around the coast from Houston in what looked like a 45 ft Benateau. He was coming down the mast from replacing his wind instruments with his wife handing the halyard that was holding him up. At moments like this you have to be sure your wife really likes you.

Naples Dinner Theater

12-27-2005 After another glorious day on the beach. We four went to see “High Society” at the Naples Dinner Theater. As usual, it was excellent.

Gaia, Fishing and Christmas in Naples

It has been a wonderful Christmas in warm sunny Naples Florida. We are at my mother in laws staying in a beautiful condo on the Gulf of Mexico with my wife, mother and more family to come later. The food has been great and I received several books on science as presents including Lovecock’s latest rendition of his original book on Gaia. I am a believer in Gaia or that all the biology of Earth forms a single mega-organism. Often, commuting down route 128 I have felt like a mindless corpuscle being swept along as a small part of some gigantic organism. We are ourselves composed of billions of relatively independent living organisms. Although the environments are artificial, each can live independently of our body in the proverbial Petri plate. So why not accept the mega organism Gaia which is also composed of individual organisms all working together to make the Earth compatible with existing life? There is considerable evidence that for over 2 billion years life has been altering the environment to keep it compatible with living organisms. The Earth is chemically out of balance and kept that way be living organisms. There are many concerns today about our effect on the environment and our pushing it away from some “natural” state. Pushing the environment away from some “natural” sate is what life has been doing for the last 2 billion years. I am not for every change our species has wrought on the Earth but we should be careful that our environmentalism doesn’t create more problems than it solves. In Brazil there has been a push for ancient slash and burn farming rather than modern fertilizer based agriculture. This has resulted in thousands of ancient species being eliminated by destruction of the ran forest. It would have been better to farm less land intensively and left the rain forest alone.

Yesterday I was out on the Gulf with 20 other people supposedly deep sea fishing. No fish was hurt. Not a one of us caught anything and some lost. The sea was very rough with swells higher than the boat. Our trip out was directly reminding me of past experiences on horses who were intent on my removal. Our deranged captain was providing a ride similar to that on a bucking bronco. It was amazing that the guy next to me could throw up so much and for so long. Counting the bait that was lost and the digestive juices expelled, we put more in than we took out. The fish had nothing to fear. I did see one large sea turtle but other than the pelicans and sea gulls, no other sea life.

Christmas in Naples

12-25-2005 We had a pleasant Christmas in Naples with gift unwrapping in the morning and the turkey dinner in the afternoon. It was great especially the candied sweat potatoes. I received several books on cosmology. All the girls go holiday shirts. Many thanks to Vesta for having us all down to the condo.

Intelligent design defeated - Getting ready to fly South

From Pennsylvania judge and CNN "We have concluded that it is not [science], and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents," Jones writes in his 139-page opinion posted on the court's Web site.

On the home front, the furnace cleaning guy made it this cold but clear morning. We are leaving for the South tomorrow and were worried that his visit would be postponed. At this time of year one wants to make sure that things are working as well as possible. He said that our furnace was in superb shape. Such a glowing evaluation of our heating system makes me nervous.

Last year we installed a temperature monitor that calls us if our homes internal temperature drops below 45 degreed F. You can also call the machine for an update including the status of its back-up battery. We are also having people take care of the horses and check out the house on a daily basis. One lady may even stay a few days. Hopefully, the parties will leave the house relatively intact.

I am taking my laptop on the trip but my mother-in-law doesn’t have an internet hookup. But not to worry as I can hook the laptop up to my cell phone. On giving the system a try and it promptly crashed my computer. I thought Microsoft XP would not crash. After about two hours on the phone with the people from Verizon we got it working. The solution was to delete various parts of their software until the computer didn’t crash when the communication software was activated. Another try today showed the system working well but slowly. It only chugs along at 14.4k baud. My first modem communicated at 0.3k baud. Although very slow one could read incoming text as it crept across the screen. Back then there was no such thing as graphics. So, even 14.4k baud is not so bad, especially as I have a ton of unused minutes.

Where did you come from - National Geographic Genographic

Last night I signed up to be sampled for a human genome study sponsored by National Geographic and IBM https://www5.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html?fs=www9.nationalgeographic.com .

They will send a sampling kit, then analyze the cheek swab samples and provide data on geographical location of one’s ancestors. I believe that they are using mitochondrial and Y chromosome DNA so that they can look at both maternal and parental lines. I have a friend who claims to be an American Indian and I am trying to get him to sign up to see if he is telling the truth. The kit costs $100 and I assume that some of the proceeds go to fund sampling in other parts of the world.

The following is from their site:

The National Geographic Society, IBM, geneticist Spencer Wells, and the Waitt Family Foundation have launched the Genographic Project, a five-year effort to understand the human journey—where we came from and how we got to where we live today. This unprecedented effort will map humanity's genetic journey through the ages.

The fossil record fixes human origins in Africa, but little is known about the great journey that took Homo sapiens to the far reaches of the Earth. How did we, each of us, end up where we are? Why do we appear in such a wide array of different colors and features?

Such questions are even more amazing in light of genetic evidence that we are all related—descended from a common African ancestor who lived only 60,000 years ago.

Though eons have passed, the full story remains clearly written in our genes—if only we can read it. With your help, we can.

When DNA is passed from one generation to the next, most of it is recombined by the processes that give each of us our individuality.

But some parts of the DNA chain remain largely intact through the generations, altered only occasionally by mutations which become "genetic markers." These markers allow geneticists like Spencer Wells to trace our common evolutionary timeline back through the ages.

"The greatest history book ever written," Wells says, "is the one hidden in our DNA."

Different populations carry distinct markers. Following them through the generations reveals a genetic tree on which today's many diverse branches may be followed ever backward to their common African root.

Our genes allow us to chart the ancient human migrations from Africa across the continents. Through one path, we can see living evidence of an ancient African trek, through India, to populate even isolated Australia.

But to fully complete the picture we must greatly expand the pool of genetic samples available from around the world. Time is short.

In a shrinking world, mixing populations are scrambling genetic signals. The key to this puzzle is acquiring genetic samples from the world's remaining indigenous peoples whose ethnic and genetic identities are isolated.

But such distinct peoples, languages, and cultures are quickly vanishing into a 21st century global melting pot.

That's why the Genographic Project has established ten research laboratories around the globe. Scientists are visiting Earth's remote regions in a comprehensive effort to complete the planet's genetic atlas.

But we don't just need genetic information from Inuit and San Bushmen—we need yours as well. If you choose to participate and add your data to the global research database, you'll help to delineate our common genetic tree, giving detailed shape to its many twigs and branches.

Together we can tell the ancient story of our shared human journey

We left the chimps long ago

New studies show that we and chimps had a common ancestor between 5 to 7 million years ago. This estimate is thanks to Blair Hedges, an astrobiologist at Penn State. The only challenge to this would be my own experience. I am sure that several of my college fraternity brothers diverged from chimps much more recently. What to you think?

My Christmas shopping is almost done and we are soon to fly south to Florida. If my cell phone modem works I hope to continue this blog through the Holidays.

Merry Christmas to all

The English are crazy - Kill a Badger, Save a Cow?

The English are a strange group. They recently outlawed the killing of foxes via fox hunting and now they want to kill off European badgers. Save a fox and kill a badger. The rational is that these badgers carry TB and can transmit it to cattle which has been a major problem in the past. Trials have been done and in some cases, the transmission to cattle actually increased after the badgers in an area were killed. The explanation is that when badgers in one area were killed those in adjacent areas roamed more widely and infected more cattle. The cattle farmers take this result as proof that they should get all the badgers so that there are none left to roam. The environmentalists say that the results show that culling will not work. What will the English do? They will keep a stiff upper lip and do something absurd.

A walk in the woods; the evolution of dogs and the future of humans

Today the temperature hovered around freezing and I took the dog out for a walk of a few miles in the town forest. The air was crisp and cool and a little chilly at the start. As the dog and I walked on my temperature rose, hat came off and coat was unzipped but later in the shade I bundled up again. The dog always starts pulling at the leash but as the miles pass it tends to lag behind. I don’t have to pull her but I don’t have to pull her back either. It had rained yesterday so there was a crust in some places but in general the going was easy.

I was reading about the dog genome and estimates that they were domesticated tens of thousand of year ago. The canines have been with us for a long time and it is sobering that we have changed their configuration so much in such a short time. This is one plastic genome. What will happen in our future as we gain the ability to modify our own genome for cosmetic purposes? Will blonds predominate? Will the average bust size increase? Will we have hermaphrodite appear with both male and female genitalia? Some gays are trying this through surgery today. It will soon be possible to create true test tube babies freeing women forever from the pain and discomfort of child bearing. This will allow women to drink and get stoned without affecting their fetus developing in a distant laboratory. Will convenience win? Where will it go?

Skiing on a cold but beautiful day and motion sensitive lights

This morning the outside temperature reading in my car was -7 degrees F as my old jeep creaked its way to Johnson’s. I should not complain as it has carried me over 260,000 miles with only minor though expensive replacement of parts. After breakfast, I went skiing at Mt. Wachusett anyway although my wife demurred. The purpose of this expedition was to test my knee post surgery. All went well. It was a little nippy at the start but I had prepared with many layers of clothing and boot and glove warmers. The day was bright and sunny with little wind. After a few runs my body temperature came up and I was in the groove. This euphoria continued until lunch without a stop. I did most runs, even a black diamond though it was the least well groomed with the surface being what they call granular. After I returned home, it was time to put in the new motion-sensing floodlight. All went well except for my dropping a critical nut in the snow. Recovery was not possible. The screw was metric so most of my ancient horde in the basement would not work. I purchased a new nut for $0.13 only to find that while it fit the screw it was too big for hole in the fitting in the light. More searching the nooks and crannies of the basement turned up a metric nut of the correct size. The job was finally done. We are expecting a guest for supper and hopefully the thing will work when she arrives. The position of the light required movement of a holiday flag to a new location closer to the front door so that its waving in the wind would not turn on the light.

Bears for children in distress and State Police

Today at our Rotary meeting, we collected teddy bears and the odd Snoopy for the State Police. Each officer keeps one in their cruiser for young children that they may encounter in the line of duty that need comforting. The receiving officer who attended the meeting is a ex-marine who we met at the Fox Hunt. She is also in the mounted patrol. Our club has provided bears before but I believe that this is the first time that an officer was present to accept them.

Find that dog – Dog tracking collars

Friends are looking into radio transmitting dog collars. When out hunting hounds can really go and forget about their position in this life, property of us humans. When they are on the sent nothing else matters. These things cost about $1500 for a receiver and two collars. Battery life and moisture sensitivity are also issues. It is interesting that some collars will transmit whether the dog is moving, barking or has something up a tree.

GPS systems are also available but require the use of a GSM cell phone to interrogate the GPS unit and a clear view of the sky so 4 satellites are always in view. My personal experience with GPS in the forest is that the signal is often lost due to trees and gullies. Also, the less expensive ones just give a position by latitude and longitude that have to be translated into a position by some other means. Software programs exist to do this but one would have to go running thought the woods carrying a laptop. There are some systems that will call your GSM phone when the dog go outside of set boundaries such as out of your yard. It seems to me that there is an application here for tracking teenagers.

Snowshoeing in the town forest

It was cool and crisp as I hiked my way down the trails of the town forest on snowshoes provided by a friend. They are much appreciated. I am thinking of getting some and this was a good chance to try out the modern style. We have a pair of the old wooden type that are very wide and difficult to use. The new narrow aluminum type is great for the snow on trails which is relatively hard and not too deep. These snowshoes also had crampons on the bottom to give a very secure grip when going up or down hill. In general, they worked very well. My knee, which was operated on about a month ago, gave me little trouble. It is a little sore this morning but not bad. I was thinking of going skiing today but it is very cold and my knee probably needs a rest. Perhaps tomorrow or Thursday I will give the slopes a try. Tomorrow morning I have a Rotary meeting at which we will present teddy bears to the state police for their Christmas drive.

Littleton Horse Owners Christmas Party and a Hanging Moose

Saturday I attended the LHOA Christmas Party at a local Chinese restaurant. It is always at a Chinese restaurant and as my wife doesn’t like Oriental food it is the only time that we go to such a restaurant. They always have a Yankee swap where one picks a number and chooses a gift in turn. The gift must be opened for all to see and you have a chance to exchange your gift for someone else’s. It is best to be first because at the end you can choose any gift. Second is worst as you only have one gift to choose from. I was 14th which is not a bad position. My gift was a lead rope which for some reason I traded for a Moose wall hanging (see photo). When my wife’s turn came she traded her gift, a ceramic holiday figure that would have to dusted, for the lead rope. I apologize to the guy who had both of use steal a gift from him. This club is big on awards and I got one for showing up (see photo). Some sage once said that 90% of life is just showing up.

Rotary and the Salvation Army

Today I did my part as a Rotarian helping to ring the Salvation Army bell at a local grocery. We also gave out free candy. People gave us money and we gave them tooth decay and diabetes. Most folks were very nice and we had a full pot. A lady came by and exchanged our full pot for an empty one. I hope that she really worked for the Salvation Army. Al least she had the right type of pot.

A snowy day with time to think about evolution and Sigma Xi

Fluffy white snow is quietly falling outlining our dark split rail fence. The pasture beyond is covered in a blanket of white with the brown woods beyond. I am in my office enjoying the view.

We have not been able to receive telephone calls for about a day. One can dial out but the phone rings once and hangs up on incoming calls. Fortunately, we have cell phones. Verizon is sending someone between 8:00am and 6:00 pm; that is if they can get through the snow.

This morning my Email contained a note from Sigma Xi, the honorary society for those who author scientific papers. I have been a member for about 30 years. It also lobbies on issues that affect the practice of science and some of the latest efforts are presented on the link below. The URL contains links to articles in American Scientist on topics related to evolution and the intelligent design controversy. It is a good resource.

http://www.sigmaxi.org/resources/evolution/index.shtml

It is very cold in Massachusetts – How do horses and plants cope?

Our horses are very fuzzy as their hair is standing on end to reduce air convection extending their bio insulation layer. We hairless humans have lost that ability. How do plants keep from freezing?

I found the following on the web.

Brrrr! How do outdoor plants avoid freezing to death? Not being able to don gloves and a scarf, or shiver, to keep warm, it's a wonder that trees and shrubs aren't freezing to death outside. Sometimes, of course, they do. But usually that happens to garden and landscape plants pushed to their cold limits, not to native plants in their natural habitats. Think about it: Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, not a particularly cold temperature for a winter night, and plants contain an abundance of water. Water is unique among liquids in that it expands when it freezes, so you can just imagine the havoc that would be wreaked as water-filled plant cells froze and burst. Nonetheless, hardy trees and shrubs survive temperatures well below freezing each winter, and those of boreal regions live where temperatures dip below even minus 150F. Water, whether in a plant cell or a glass, does not always freeze when chilled below 32F. To freeze, water molecules need something around which to begin grouping to form ice crystals, a so-called nucleating agent. Without a nucleating agent, water will "supercool" and remain liquid to about minus 40F, at which point ice forms whether or not a nucleating agent is present. All sorts of things can serve as nucleating agents – bacteria, for instance – so plants may not be protected all the way down to minus 40F by having their water supercool. But winter temperatures don't plummet that low over much of the temperate region, so just a bit of supercooling may be all a plant needs to survive winter cold. Plants have another trick for dealing with the cold, one that is effective well below that minimum supercooling temperature. That trick is to let water freeze only outside their cells, where the ice won't cause damage. Cell membranes are permeable to water, so as temperatures drop ice crystals that form outside plant cells grow with the water they draw from within the cells. The plant is now threatened more by dehydration than by freezing. One other thing at work for the plants here is something called freezing point depression, a term you may remember from high school chemistry. Basically, whenever you dissolve something in water, you lower the resulting solution's freezing point, more so the more that's dissolved. Plant cells are not pure water, and as the liquid in those cells losing water becomes more and more concentrated, the cells' freezing point keeps falling. The plant is not a passive player in this cold story. In preparing for cold, cell walls strengthen and sugars that concentrate in the cell sap are produced, as are compounds that alter cell permeability to water. And here is where we gardeners can step in. Light supplies the energy that plants need to prepare for cold, so we can make sure to locate and prune plants so they get adequate light. Fruits are energy sinks, so we can also make sure not to overcrop a plant, especially one that is borderline hardy. Besides preparing plants for the cold, we can play around with microclimate, the climate right around a plant. Plants near south-facing walls, near paving or sheltered from north winds keep a few degrees warmer than their more exposed counterparts. Swaddling a plant for winter, such as is often done with roses, does nothing for its appearance but does give it a few extra degrees of warmth. A plant needs to experience some cold before it can undergo those previously mentioned changes with which it prepares for cold, so never swaddle a plant too soon in autumn. Unfortunately, all this fiddling with a plant to help it through winter palls in the face of genetics. The very most that we gardeners can do to help trees and shrubs face winter is to plant those that naturally tolerate the amount of cold our winters are apt to serve up. Around here, plan on winter temperatures plummeting to about minus 20F. Lee Reich, a New Paltz horticulturist, writes a weekly garden column for the Times Herald-Record. Feel free to e-mail questions to springtown@netstep.net and he'll answer them directly or in this column. His Web site is www.leereich.com.

What is a “theory” – cosmology, intelligent design and string theory

Lawrence Krauss, a professor of physics at Case Western Reserve University, has an article in the Dec. 3 2005 issue of New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/) called “Mind your language”. In it he says “A scientific theory is a logically coherent and predictive system that has been tested against experiment or observation”. Thus, since the string “enterprise” has not produced predictions that can be verified by experimentation, it is not a theory. This definition of “Theory” gets around the complaint of Intelligent Design folks who say that evolution is just a theory implying that it has not been verified. Of course it has been verified. Krauss’s definition of the word “Theory” includes verification and could only be used with ideas that have been substantiated by experimentation. Thus, the string “enterprise” or intelligent design “enterprise” would not be theories. This is not common usage and is confusing. It seems to me that using the phrases proven or substantiated theory would be a better means of indicating verification than just the word by itself. To most people the word theory does connote something that is conjecture. It may be a conjecture that has been substantiated through experimentation, has been refuted through experimentation or not rigorously evaluated. Come to think of it, it seems to me that the word conjecture would be best for unproven theories. Conjecture seems to emphasize the lack of proof or substantiation. Perhaps we should have conjectures and proven conjectures and stop using the word “theory” all together as its definition has become so muddled.

By the way, I have asked Santa Claus to bring me Krauss’s new book, “Hiding in the Mirror”

Age over youth

A college student at a recent USC football game challenged a senior citizen sitting next to him, saying it was impossible for their generation to understand his.
"You grew up in a different world," the student said, loud enough for everyone around them to hear. "Today we have television, satellite positioning, jet planes, and space travel; men have walked on the moon; our spaceships have visited Mars; and we even have nuclear energy, electric and hydrogen cars, cell phones, and computers with high-speed processing."

Taking advantage of a pause in the student's litany, the geezer said, "You're right. We didn't have these things when we were young, so we invented them, you little twit. What are you doing for the next generation?"

I love senior citizens!

The chemistry of Drag Fox Hunting

I searched through my “Perry’s” which was the chemical engineer’s bible in my day. A close organic compound to your anise oil in terms of boiling point was nicotine. Nicotine boils at 247C and anise oil boils at 238C (460F). The vapor pressure/temperature profile for nicotine follows as (vapor pressure in mmHg/temp degrees C): 1/62, 5/92, 10/107, 20/124, 40/142, 60/155, 100/170, 200/194, 400/220, 760/247. Normal graph paper is useless for plotting this for your temperature range so I would try semi-log paper which I do not have. Maybe you could extrapolate down to your temperature region to guess at the change in vapor pressure between 77F (25C) and 32F (0C).

I also looked at organic compounds that had vapor pressure data for your temperature range; that is, from 25C down to 0C. Here is that data:

Degrees C Degrees C Degrees C
V.P. mmHg N-nonane N-butyl Pentachloro-
Ketone ethane
1 1.4 -1.4 1.0
5 25.8 19.7 27.2

It appears that many organic compounds undergo a 5-fold drop in vapor pressure between 25C and zero C. If I were working your problem I might conclude I had to increase the concentration of anise oil 5-fold to get the same vapor pressure at zero C as at 25C.

I sure am glad I no longer have to earn my living by my expertise in chemistry and vapor pressures. Good luck.

Congratualtins to Rhonda nd Christian - fox hunting