Rain, Rain and More Rain and a Selene 47

It is still raining which is delaying the commissioning of the Windchaser which may not get completed until the end of May. The reason is that tomorrow I am to start a trip to bring a Selene 47 passagemaker from Ft. Lauderdale FL to Rhode Island. It will be my first blue water adventure. Packing is in progress but as we will have a couple of days in Ft. Lauderdale before departure, it will be possible to purchase any items forgotten. We are trying to purchase some land in North Carolina at the same time so coordination could be an issue as we will be out of cell phone range for several days. Nothing is simple.

A medical test for sexual orientation

The following is from Science Magazine’s ScienceNow web site. Will job applicants in the future be screened for sexual orientation? Although expensive, it is now possible. Another implication of the work cited below is that sexual orientation is a biological not psychological phenomenon. The brain is really wired that way.

Gay or Straight? The Nose Knows
By Laura BlackburnScienceNOW Daily News9 May 2006
When it comes to responding to pheromonelike chemical signals, lesbian women are much more like heterosexual men than their straight counterparts, according to a new study. The findings could lead to new insights into the neural basis of sexual preference and behavior, say the researchers.
Pheromones are the ultimate aphrodisiacs. Many animals use the sex-specific scents to sniff out their partner of choice. The pheromones of female moths, for example, can attract a mate from several kilometers away. Whether the substances also play a role in human mating is less clear. Potential candidates include AND, a progesterone-derived molecule found in men's sweat, and EST, which is related to estrogen and found in pregnant women's urine. But neither has yet met the strict criteria that would define it as a pheromone.
Nevertheless, the compounds do seem to have sex-specific effects. In response to a whiff of AND, heterosexual women and homosexual men respond in the same way: The front part of their brain's hypothalamus, which plays a role in sexual behavior, starts to rev up. Heterosexual men, on the other hand, don't respond to AND. For them, EST hits the spot (ScienceNOW, 9 May 2005).
Neurologist Ivanka Savic-Berglund of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues wondered how lesbian women would respond to these substances. The team gave 12 lesbians a sniff of AND and EST and used positron emission tomography to measure blood flow in their brains. They then compared these results to those obtained from their previous studies on heterosexual men and women.
Much like heterosexual men, lesbians responded to EST but not AND. The way that EST activated the hypothalamus, however, was not identical in the two groups. In other words, the brain's response to female compound differed slightly depending on whether a man or woman was doing the smelling. This contrasts with the results of the previous study, in which the brain's response to a male hormone (AND) was almost exactly the same, regardless of the smeller. Thus, says Savic-Berglund, while gay men and straight women have an essentially identical response to an attractive hormone, gay women and straight men differ slightly in this response. This discrepancy may indicate that homosexuality does not work the same way in men and women--at least on a neural level, the team reports online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"This is a very nice study, with clear findings" says neuroscientist Sandra Witelson of the de Groote Medical School at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. Further research will allow scientists to unravel whether the relationship between sexual preference and brain response is learned or "hard-wired" into the brain and will give valuable insight into the differences between male and female homosexuality, she says.
Related sites
· Overview of human pheromones
· Positron Emission Tomography Scanning

Return to Port Clinton Ohio

After an excellent visit Mom has returned to Ohio via the infamous Logan airport. Things went smoothly but there are so many hurdles today that just going to the airport is exhausting. Central parking is being modified it yet again. It seems that they are adding additional floors to the parking lot one section at a time. Central Parking is now configured as two parking lots with bridges between them. You and enter at the western parking lot and then have to go through a maze watching the signs carefully to ensure that you get to a space somewhere close to the terminal from which you are going to embark. There are all sorts of zigs and zags and up and downs and restricted areas. It can be done but one has to be very observant. Fortunately for mom, Continental Airlines and gates are very close together in terminal C so we didn’t have to get a wheelchair for her. However, in going through security because of her pacemaker they had to take are aside and look for bombs and knives in a special area. It was something to watch my ad of 85 year old mother with their arms extended been patted down and scrutinized with a wand by one of the agents. I’m sure that this level of attention is a warning to would be terrorists. However, it all worked well ans she had a pleasant flight to Cleveland and was able to meet my brother in baggage claim.

Fox Hunting in Lincoln MA

The day was overcast and cool for May but our intrepid foxers ventured forth into the wilds of Lincoln MA to spread anise on the foliage. No large beasts were encountered and all returned safely to ground. My mother had come later with my wife who rode her main horse in the field. The hounds did a great job giving excellent voice as reported by Mrs. Glass. A small “tailgate” was enjoyed by the respectable but small field until it rained on the party. While not good for the “tailgate”, the rain is a bonus for my newly planted garden. Tonight it is dinner at Gibbit Hill followed by a talk at the Nashoba River Watershed Association. The picture is a Google satellite view with out path indicated by triangles.

Walking along the Nashua

I arose to an automatic coffee maker that had turned on at the appointed time and managed to spread coffee and grounds all over the counter. Fortunately it is a small four cupper and the mess was relatively contained. After filling Mom with coffee, active culture yogurt and cranberry crunch cereal we headed off to walk the dog through Riches Tree Farm along the Nashua river. There was little wind and the river serene as it meandered out of Groton. Walking a poodle is not easy as there is more stopping to get the latest scent followed by running ahead to the next one. One gets as much arm exercise as leg exercise in the process.

After the walk it was time to rototill the garden. It is not a large garden and I don’t have a rototiller so a small one was rented from a local garden center. It could really turn up the earth while throwing out rocks and working in horse manure and lime resulting in and excellent seedbed. A trip with Mom to the garden center allowed the purchase of sugar snap peas, lettuce, onions and kohlrabi. These veggies did not fill up the garden but represent the first batch to be followed by others in order to provide a constant stream of the green stuff. Friends from Groton came to dinner in the evening. They spent their winters at the same condo in Florida that Mom and Dad enjoyed for years. We had an excellent supper of steak tips with all the fixings. They are horse people and the husband is a Harvard grad who taught plant physiology at Tufts; so we all had something to talk about.

An excursion to New Hampshire and Maine

After much coffee, yogurt and cranberry crunch cereal we headed up North with our dog Gidget past Manchester, Concord and Franconia Notch to tour New Hampshire and central Maine. The day was beautiful with clear blue skies and only the occasional white fluffy cloud. The trees were just starting to leaf out but less so as we headed North. There was still snow on some of the otherwise green slopes of Cannon Mountain and of course, the top of Mount Washington shown white in the distance. In fact, the road to the top of the mountain was closed half way up to the top due to snow and ice. The ranger still wanted to charge us $20 for going four miles on the portion that was open so we demurred. After steak tips in Conway NH; our little group headed East past Sebago lake to the shore and South Freeport. My boat was sitting “on the hard” patiently waiting for it’s spring make over which should happen later in the week after Mom has returned to her place on the lake in Ohio.

Fox Hunting in Pepperill

Today the Old North Bridge Hounds galloped through the woods of Pepperell, MA near the boarder with New Hampshire. As usual, I joined other nature lovers in spreading anise over the recently blooming foliage for the hounds follow. We did a couple of different tracks ending up back at the start for the “tea” which is euphemistically called the “macho men’s tea” as most are organized and carried out by women. The “tea” included grilled sausages form a purveyor German sausage in Saugus and rather potent baked beans that are a specialty of one of the Masters of fox hounds. All went well with my mother enjoying the event. For this hunt, my wife led the field, as she is very familiar with the territory and the owner of the property was ill and could not perform the noble task . The picture is a satellite view of the area with our path overlaid on the image.

Mom's visit

My mother is visiting for a week from Ohio. She is 85 and doing quite well for her age. Friday we ventured south to the Tower Hill Botanical Garden in Boylston MA, http://www.towerhillbg.org/ , for a pleasant walk and lunch. Although beautiful, many of the exhibits were yet to bloom forth so the gardens were not as well flowered, as they will be a little later in the year. I especially like their systematic garden that arranges the plants in groups of relatedness highlighting the evolution of the plant world. The garden has several trails including one that goes to the top of the hill which has thie above view looking toward west.

A beautiful drive from Boston to Groton

The rain ls falling through heavy fog while I set at the cafe window waiting for my mothers plane to land at Logan airport. So far, it is only 5 minutes late. Parking is as usual a mess with the only available space being on the weather exposed top level of central parking. However, the space was close to the elevator providing easy access to the bridge to terminal C. Mom arrived and was in a wheelchair being pushed by an agreeable fellow of eastern European extraction. The long walks in an airport are difficult for her although short walks are no problem. After retrieving her small suitcase the three of us took the elevator to level 4 in order to cross the bridge to the parking lot and pay the ticket before proceeding to the top rainy level. Heaven help you if you don’t pay before trying to leave the lot. Fortunately our eastern European friend wheeled Mom all the way up to the car and we proceeded to drive out. This parking lot is always in flux and is some sort of gigantic intelligence testing machine. I passed with flying colors as none of the many poorly marked turns were missed and we exited the facility in good time with no mishaps. To make the return trip more interesting we took Storrow drive up the Charles, an saw a crew out practicing in the rain. Then we journeyed up rt. 2 to Lexington, passed the Allcott house in Concord and down monument street enjoying the many lovely homes and fields. Then we journeyed through Carlisle, Westford, Littleton and finally Groton taking in the bucolic views all the way. Once home and inspected by Gidget we had a lunch of tea and cookies admiring Wendy’s many beautiful flowers bathed in a gentle mist.