ENVISIONING A WORLD OF WOMEN

Well, as if we did not have enough to worry about already.  Global warming, Ice Ages, Terrorists, Food supplies, Clean water, Health Care, Politicians saying: "We just want to help you."  Now this, a defective Y chromosone.  Fellows, we were planned with obsolescence.  Is this proof of Intelligent Design?  If so, we need to talk to Her about it right now.  I hope you will miss us, just a little bit.  Don't cry for us Argentina.  --John-- 

ENVISIONING A WORLD WITHOUT MEN

The Y chromosome is deteriorating

By NICK WATT
LONDON, April 28, 2008

Imagine a world without men: Lauren Bacall but no Bogie, Hillary Clinton but no Bill, no Starsky or Hutch.

This isn't just an unlikely sci-fi scenario. This could be reality, according to Bryan Sykes, an eminent professor of genetics at Oxford University and author of "Adam's Curse: A Future Without Men."

"The Y chromosome is deteriorating and will, in my belief, disappear," Sykes told me. A world-renowned authority on genetic material, Sykes is called upon to investigate DNA evidence from crime scenes. His team of researchers is currently compiling a DNA family tree for our species

Y Chromosome 'Fatally Flawed'

The Y chromosome is passed from father to son, it's what makes babies into boys. Basically the human template is a female: the Y chromosome kicks in a few weeks after conception and makes a boy. "Men are genetically modified women," explained Sykes. But unlike other chromosomes, the Y chromosome can't repair itself and will, says Sykes, disappear altogether in about 125,000 years.

"Every generation one percent of men will have a mutation which reduces their fertility by 10 percent," explained Sykes. Unlike most chromosomes, the Y does not travel through the generation in pairs, so can never repair itself from a mirror. Flaws are never repaired. "So if that goes on for generation after generation," Sykes argued, "eventually there are no functioning Y chromosomes left."

So no more men … sparsely populated sports bars, Ferrari would lose the lion's share of its business, and Hooters would probably go out of business.

It's a long time, 125,000 years. But we men have a far more immediate problem: sperm counts have fallen by an incredible 20 percent in the past 50 years. Stress? Alcohol? Environmental pollution? Who knows, but it's deeply concerning for those of us with a vested interest in the survival of the male.

 

Sykes has received hate mail. "To seem to be saying that men will become extinct, which is what I am saying," he mused. "I've had all kinds of messages from male groups saying, 'how can you betray your gender?'"

But would the absence of men make the world a better place? There would be far fewer wars without men on the planet, and the U.S. prison population would drop a colossal 97 percent. Road deaths in the U.S. would fall 70 percent. The Olympics would be half as long, which some people might view as a good thing.

Female-Only Reproduction

But surely, flawed Y chromosome or not, bad behavior or not, we are needed for procreation. Women can't have babies without us … right? I'm afraid, pretty soon they won't need our sperm, our chromosomes, our anything.

Until now, female-only reproduction has been limited to the plant and animal kingdom. So-called parthenogenesis, observed in the Cape Honey Bee, the Kimono Dragon and the hammerhead shark. In humans: confined to 1950s B movies. But Sykes says the technology for women to procreate without us is just around the corner.

"Within the next few years you will get two women having a child who is the biological child of both of them," Sykes said. "And entirely normal in every respect, but always female." They've already done it with mice. Two mothers: the genetic material from one used to fertilize the egg of the other.

Two Mommies

The picture that Professor Sykes is painting is of a nuclear family without a man in sight. We went in search of what could be the template for the survival of our species. Laura and Natalie are a lovely couple who live in South London with their 13-month-old daughter Sanne. They agreed to let our all-male crew take a peek into their lives. Natalie actually gave birth to Sanne. The sperm came from an anonymous donor. She's raised by two moms.

"That the child will be well balanced with just two moms: Well, that's been proven back in the 40s," explained Natalie, who is also a child psychologist. "It's the care giving and the relationship between the care-giver and the infant that is the important part."

Laura, who right now is the bread winner, thinks any family will work as long as the child is, "getting the attention, the affection, the discipline." Looking at her very contented daughter, Laura told me, "She's obviously confident. She's very stable and secure. So I think so far we're doing okay."

Laura attended both the dads' and the moms' prenatal classes. I asked Natalie if having Laura as the partner was better than having a man? "I had actually a couple of mothers saying, 'Well, at least Laura's a woman she will understand better.'" Natalie told me. "And I said, 'no.' … She was exactly the same as the dads!"

Could Laura mount a defense? "I would like to think that I separate from the dads in that I'm not hooked on the ball games and things like that," she explained. And I must say, she was knee-deep in diaper changing and feeding time while we were hanging out.

So judging by this family, two moms aren't necessarily better, but can be just as good. But surely they must need a burly man for some things? I offered to put up some shelves, or change some light bulbs. "Actually, Laura is very, very handy," Natalie told me, trying not to hurt my feelings.

"My father's a mechanic, so there's nothing about a car that disturbs me," explained Laura. "I've also … I renovated a house. So, I'm really not concerned about that either."

Maybe our only hope as men is that women decide to keep us alive for their own amusement. For the pop music, perhaps, or maybe the dancing. We can be good at that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then again, they might keep a few of us around to just get even with  (john)

 

 

 

SORRY TO RUIN THE FUN, BUT AN ICE AGE COMETH

I was reading our good friend, and one of the last true cavemen, Cavey's blog, about all the things that global warming is, can, and will cause.  Reading his reminded me of this article I came across this past week. An alternative view of our climate today.  The author puts all of his information, from global warming, to The Little Ice Age, The Medieval Warm Period, Sunspots, and historical records.  I think you will find this article very interesting to say the least.  And without the Medieval Warm Period, we wouldn't have the wonderful history of the Vikings!  (I have to give it to the Aussies, I find some of the most interesting and thought provoking articles and information from their news sites) 

It is on the long side, but I hope you enjoy the article   JohnOh

 

SORRY TO RUIN THE FUN,

BUT AN ICE AGE COMETH

by: Phil Chapman --  April 23, 2008 -- The Australian

THE scariest photo I have seen on the internet is www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity.

What is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot.

Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.

All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence that 2007 was exceptionally cold. It snowed in Baghdad for the first time in centuries, the winter in China was simply terrible and the extent of Antarctic sea ice in the austral winter was the greatest on record since James Cook discovered the place in 1770.

It is generally not possible to draw conclusions about climatic trends from events in a single year, so I would normally dismiss this cold snap as transient, pending what happens in the next few years.

This is where SOHO comes in. The sunspot number follows a cycle of somewhat variable length, averaging 11 years. The most recent minimum was in March last year. The new cycle, No.24, was supposed to start soon after that, with a gradual build-up in sunspot numbers.

----This link is the site mentioned, for the sunspot activity, http://www.spaceweather.com/   also interesting for sun photos through different filters AND a fantastic series of Rainbow pictures and rare rainbow effects from around the world -- John--

 It didn't happen. The first sunspot appeared in January this year and lasted only two days. A tiny spot appeared last Monday but vanished within 24 hours. Another little spot appeared this Monday. Pray that there will be many more, and soon.

The reason this matters is that there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and Earth's climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from 1790.

Northern winters became ferocious: in particular, the rout of Napoleon's Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 was at least partly due to the lack of sunspots.

That the rapid temperature decline in 2007 coincided with the failure of cycle No.24 to begin on schedule is not proof of a causal connection but it is cause for concern.

It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850.

There is no doubt that the next little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything warming may do. There are many more people now and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the US and Canada. Global warming would increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it.

Millions will starve if we do nothing to prepare for it (such as planning changes in agriculture to compensate), and millions more will die from cold-related diseases.

There is also another possibility, remote but much more serious. The Greenland and Antarctic ice cores and other evidence show that for the past several million years, severe glaciation has almost always afflicted our planet.

The bleak truth is that, under normal conditions, most of North America and Europe are buried under about 1.5km of ice. This bitterly frigid climate is interrupted occasionally by brief warm interglacials, typically lasting less than 10,000 years.

The interglacial we have enjoyed throughout recorded human history, called the Holocene, began 11,000 years ago, so the ice is overdue. We also know that glaciation can occur quickly: the required decline in global temperature is about 12C and it can happen in 20 years.

The next descent into an ice age is inevitable but may not happen for another 1000 years. On the other hand, it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even faster than in typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027.

By then, most of the advanced nations would have ceased to exist, vanishing under the ice, and the rest of the world would be faced with a catastrophe beyond imagining.

Australia may escape total annihilation but would surely be overrun by millions of refugees. Once the glaciation starts, it will last 1000 centuries, an incomprehensible stretch of time.

If the ice age is coming, there is a small chance that we could prevent or at least delay the transition, if we are prepared to take action soon enough and on a large enough scale.

For example: We could gather all the bulldozers in the world and use them to dirty the snow in Canada and Siberia in the hope of reducing the reflectance so as to absorb more warmth from the sun.

We also may be able to release enormous floods of methane (a potent greenhouse gas) from the hydrates under the Arctic permafrost and on the continental shelves, perhaps using nuclear weapons to destabilise the deposits.

We cannot really know, but my guess is that the odds are at least 50-50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming in coming decades.

The probability that we are witnessing the onset of a real ice age is much less, perhaps one in 500, but not totally negligible.

All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinders and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead.

It will be difficult for people to face the truth when their reputations, careers, government grants or hopes for social change depend on global warming, but the fate of civilisation may be at stake.

In the famous words of Oliver Cromwell, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Phil Chapman is a geophysicist and astronautical engineer who lives in San Francisco. He was the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut.

 

For More Information on The Little Ice Age, and The Medieval Warming  following are some links --John

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid=10046   On The Brink of a new Little Ice Age? --  Woods Hole Institute

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/resource1000.html     NOAA National Satellite and Information Service

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455   Abrupt Climate Change -- Woos Hole Institute

http://www.pbs.org/saf/1505/features/lia.htm  Hot Planet Cold Comfort -- Scientific American Frontiers  PBS

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/vikings_during_mwp.html  The Vikings During the Medieval Warm Period --

 

SAFE --- THE PICTURE PERFECT THEME

As a child, I always felt safe in my Mom's or Dad's arms, I was truly blessed with the parents I had.  But that was a long time past, and we learn all to soon that the world is not so safe. I used to feel safe in a lover's arms, but too soon we learn, one can do hurt as well as be hurt.  Today, as I was pondering on the theme, I realized one of the few places I really feel safe and at ease, is in the hills, the mountains; or beside a stream; or along a quiet beach.  And I always find comfort and safety in the Psalms no matter where I am at. -- John--

ps/ And Chocolate.

2006, Mt. Lassen Park, Sony Mavica

Psalm 121

 1  I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,

 from whence cometh my help.

 2  My help cometh from the LORD,

which made heaven and earth.

 3  He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:

 He that keepeth thee will not slumber.

4  Behold, He that keepeth Israel,

 shall neither slumber nor sleep.

  5  The LORD is thy keeper:

the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.

 6  The sun shall not smite thee by day,

nor the moon by night.

 7  The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil:

He shall preserve thy soul.

 8 The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in,

 from this time forth, and even for evermore.

If you are not a part of PPF and would like to join in all the fun just follow this link --------->PICTURE PERFECT

 

BIOFUEL AND KUDZU

By the headlines and what we are seeing in the stores, it looks like those few voices crying in the wilderness who were warning not to use food crops for biofuels.

I had wondered why KUDZU was not being used for producing biofuels, but figured it must be the wrong type of plant.  KUDZU is amazing stuff.  I first saw it in the mid 1970s when working on Bekin Van Lines, I took a break from college and working on a cross country moving van was a great way to see the country, plus get paid for it.  And I learned more on that trip than I did in most college classes.  KUDZU is something out of a science fiction movie covering forests, roads, houses, cars, telephone poles.  I wouldn't have believed it if I had not seen it. The locals would kid us 'foreigners' about not pulling off the road to sleep in a KUDZU infested area as we would be covered by morning.  I could almost believe it.

 

 This is a pine forest that has been completely covered over in Kudzu, That is a house is the very center.

With the stories of food shortages and large price increases, it made me once again curious if anyone had done any research on KUDZU as a biofuel.  After all, congress is throwing very large sums of money to produce fuel from food crops, and the Law of Unintended Consequences looks like it is in full operation. 

Kudzu covers an old factory in Rockingham, N.C., in this 1999 file photo. (Chuck Burton/Associated Press)

Which lead me to this study from the United States Dept. of Agriculture --  Agriculture Research Service.

Publication Date: October 24, 2006
Citation: Gjerstad, D.H., Ziska, L.H., Runion, G.B., Prior, S.A., Torbert III, H.A., Rogers Jr, H.H. 2006. The Potential Use of Kudzu as a Biofuel [Abstract]. Alternative Energy Solutions from Alabama's Natural Resources Conference. CDROM

Technical Abstract:

Recently, tremendous effort has been put forth to identify plants with potential to be used as biofuels. Kudzu (Pueraria lobata [Willd.] Ohwi), while native to the Orient, has proliferated as an invasive weed throughout the Southern U.S. It is currently at or near the top of invasive species lists for virtually every southern state. Kudzu, as a member of the Fabaceae family, is a natural nitrogen fixer and, thus, grows rapidly across the landscape with no inputs (e.g., fertilizers). Given its perennial growth habit, its rapid growth rate, and the fact that kudzu has a high starch content (particularly its root system), its potential as a biofuel could be tremendous. However, to date, this potential has gone unstudied. We propose to initiate an investigation into this potential by quantifying above- and belowground kudzu biomass production, and associated starch and nutrient content. This initial work will lead to more in-depth studies of potential kudzu production systems, harvesting techniques, and cost/benefit analyses. (Last Modified: 04/21/2008)

(Bold type and larger text added by blogger)

Those used to be trees, and that used to be open grassland.

So if I understand this, it would seem that our beloved congress, who only look out for the good of The People, have us bent over again, as they give our money to corporate farms and biofuel producers.  When if KUDZU does deliver on the potential the Research Service thinks it will, we would have an unlimited supply of Kudzu and  even return some of our Southern States lands to pre Kudzu use.  Does anyone from the South have any input or anything to add, Please do.

MONOCHROME MONDAY

My first try at Gary's Monochrome Monday event.  All of you looked like you were having so much fun I decided to try, and Gary gave us some excellent hints and lessons on how to do this.  This was taken from an overlook at Aptos Village, Calif.   It was a gray and overcast day, the only things that really stood out was the vibrant green of the groundcover, and a little red sports car, everything else was subdued like the sky.  This is the day I met Linda and Cherie, so needless to say with those two as company, it did not seem overcast or gray at all!! Even when it started sprinkling.

 

I used the MGI Roxio 4 editing program, I have no idea what I did except play with buttons. I do know I used the eraser tool to uncover the colors again as Gary suggested.

This is the Orginal

Thank you for looking.

 

 

FRAGILE A PICTURE PERFECT THEME

This was difficult,  I was hoping to have some obsidian fingers wire brushed out of pumice, but was too far behind to finish that, so on thinking what is the most FRAGILE thing I know of, it came to me, and for your consideration I present, my view of the most FRAGILE thing:

THE MALE EGO

The Camera is a Kodak Z612.  I shoulda'  shaved!!

If you are not a part of PPF

and would like to join in all the fun

just follow this link --------->PICTURE PERFECT 

 

SO MANY PILLS, SUCH A SMALL GLASS OF WATER

 Watching the news this morning, I was fascinated by all the medicine ads, for this, for that, for things I have never even heard of!!  The wonders of modern medicine, but what caught my ears was what they were saying after their words about how marvelous the medicine is.  Things like, may cause bleeding, may cause severe upper respriatory afflictions,  loss of movement in lower extremities may occur,  in certain people temporay loss of sight, some people have been know to  ______  (fill in the blank!), and my favorite, May cause death!!

I looked at my own meds.  One lists:  Dizziness, drowsiness, fatique, nausea, headache, and constipation, those are the normal ones, lower down the rare ones are: severe constipation, easy bruising/bleeding, yellowing of the eyes/skin, sudden dizziness/fainting, vision changes, severe/persistant nasea, seizures.  Oh and I forgot trouble breathing.

Another one: Headache may occur.  The possible severe effects listed are: muscle problems, tenderness, change in the amount of urine, yellowing eyes/skin, dark urine,  severe fatique, stomach/abdominal pain, and persistant nausea.

One more: Flushing of the face/neck, warm feeling, headache, burning, sweating, chills, tingling, Dizziness, stomach upset, heartburn, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea may occur. The serious effects are: severe dizziness/fainting, fast/irregular heartbeat, severe headache-migraine, unusual joint pain, swelling of legs/arms, vision problems, severe stomach pains, black tarry stools,  and the rest goes downhill from there.  

These are only three of eight I take.  I picked them out of a pile of prescription hand outs, so not sure if these are the worst of my meds or not.  And none of what I wrote above lists the allergic reactions that can occur with the meds!!   All I can say is if the meds don't kill me, I should be fine!!  Better living through Chemistry!!!

 

And one of my favorite pills of all time, it now even comes in flavors!!

APRIL 15th TIME FOR US TO BEND OVER

Even a cartoon can speak a thousand words:

 

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. --    Winston Churchill     

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The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.  --  Will Rogers

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The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. --  Mark Twain 

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The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax --  Albert Einstein

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 Taxation with representation ain't so hot either -- Gerald Barzn

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Did you ever notice that when you put the word "The" and "IRS" together it spells "THEIRS"?  -- Anonymous

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It is a good thing that we do not get as much government as we pay for. -- Will Rogers

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The most laughable (government) criticism is that tax cuts are a 'free lunch.' The American people's work created that money. Only in Washington could there be a belief that letting people keep more of what they create is a giveaway. -- Forbes, August 26, 1996

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I do not mind having to pay taxes, I only would like to see the congress, career politicians, spend it like it was their own money, and wisely, I would even settle for some common sense. --  John "Don't Get Me Stated" Oh

 

 

I FELT THE EARTH MOVE!!!!!!

I first heard of this, Lord knows how many years ago, in a collection of Science Fiction short stories.  Hey, it is only  a story, nothing to worry about!  Then many years later I read of the theory in a serious science magazine.  Only a theory, and only held by the author at that time I am sure.  But now, it is a much more accepted theory, and more proof has been discovered recently.  Amazing how many theories throughout our worlds history have been shoved aside by the powerful, or just because it 'cannot be so', only to be proved years later.  It is going to be unbelievable what wonders our children and grandchildren will see, what theories we hold as the truth will be found to be wanting.   I hope you enjoy the read.  Might be the time to buy land in Siberia.

(Thornton by Jim Tooney in Sherman's Lagoon strip)

I don't think this is the Artic anymore Toto!!

Ancient Imbalances Sent Earth's Continents "Wandering"

Anne Minard
for National Geographic News  --  April 7, 2008

A new study lends weight to the controversial theory that Earth became massively imbalanced in the distant past, sending its tectonic plates on a mad dash to even things out.

Bernhard Steinberger and Trond Torsvik, of the Geological Survey of Norway, analyzed rock samples dating back 320 million years to hunt for clues in Earth's magnetic field about the history of plate motions.

The researchers found evidence of a steady northward continental motion and, during certain time intervals, clockwise and counterclockwise rotations.

 

 

Enlarge Photo

That pattern matches the predictions of a phenomenon known as true polar wander, a theory first proposed in the 1950s.

The theory states that at times  Earth's  surface mass becomes imbalanced. The continents become dramatically offset from the planet's spin axis and so move rapidly to right themselves.

The new study shows evidence for such motion within the past 320 million years that would have been enough to shift the continents by about 18 degrees latitude.

A change like that today would put Richmond, Virginia, where Mexico City is now.

Island Hot Spots

"I am surprised that our results clearly indicate those episodes of true polar wander at all," Steinberger said.

"Up until now, there wasn't really any agreement in the community about the existence and amount of true polar wander."

That's because the phenomenon has been difficult to distinguish from the slower motion of  tectonic plates  traveling over the underlying mantle, Steinberger said.

Scientists often use hot spots, relatively fixed thermal plumes of material that rise up from the deep mantle, to track the paths of plates. The  Hawaiian Island Chain is thought to be an example of a hot spot.  But geological records of suitable hot spot chains only go back about 130 million years.

A convergence of improvements to geologists' tools paved the way for the team to probe further back in time, Steinberger said. 

"We use an updated global plate-tectonic reconstruction and integrate suitable paleomagnetic results from all continents," he said.

The authors were then able to compute the global average of continental motion and rotation as far back as 320 million years ago.

Paleomagnetic records like the ones used in the study can provide a new reference frame for relating surface motions to deep-mantle processes, the authors say.

The study appeared in last week's issue of the journal Nature, and another paper elaborating on the results is in press with Reviews of Geophysics.  

Same on Mars?

Given current understanding of Earth's geology, Steinberger is puzzled that true polar wander doesn't show up more often in the planet's history.

"It points toward a long-term stability … which is not expected from fluid dynamics, something which currently geodynamicists try to understand."

Papers published in the journal Science in 1997 and 1998 proposed a much more dramatic polar wander associated with the Cambrian Explosion, a huge diversification in species that shows up in the fossil record beginning around 550 million years ago.

Co-authors of those studies suggested that Earth's continents were thrown asunder relative to the planet's spin axis by about 90 degrees at the time.

One of the researchers, Joseph Kirschvink of the California Institute of Technology, theorized that the shift happened after one or more major subduction zones in the ancient oceans closed down during the final assembly stages of the supercontinent Gondwanaland.

That sent the entire continent rotating at almost a right angle beginning about 534 million years ago, said the authors of the earlier work.

About 16 million years later, North America darted from deep in the Southern Hemisphere to the Equator.

"Even the type of marine rocks deposited on the various continents—carbonates in the tropics, and clays and clastics in high latitudes—agree with these paleomagnetically determined motions," Kirschvink notes on his Web site.

Kirschvink's co-author David Evans, now an associate professor of geology at Yale University, said he's most excited about a relationship between the latest paper and one that came out in Nature last year.

The 2007 study proposes similar continental shake-ups on Mars.

"In the geosciences, we as a community have continued to be impressed by the differences among all the terrestrial planets," he said.

But when it comes to polar wander, Earth and Mars might not be so far apart.

Evans said large igneous regions on both planets—Tharsis on Mars and the central Atlantic magmatic province on Earth—were so massive that they threw their host planets off balance in the distant past.

 

I OWE MY MOM FOR SO MUCH

We should all remember our Mom's each day of the year, not just one special day!.  Sure, use Mother's Day for something extra special for Mom, but remember her  the rest of the year too! This is for all you special Moms out there

-- John--

******

 I OWE MY MOTHER

1. My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE.
'If you're going to kill each other, do it outside.
I just finished cleaning.'

2. My mother taught me RELIGION.
'You better pray that will come out of the carpet.'

3. My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL.
'If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you
into the middle of next week!'

4. My mother taught me LOGIC.
' Because I said so, that's why.'

5. My mother taught me MORE LOGIC.
'If you fall out of that swing and break your neck,
you're not going to the store with me.'

6. My mother taught me FORESIGHT .
'Make sure you wear clean underwear,
in case you're in an accident.'

7. My mother taught me IRONY .
'Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about.'

8. My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS .
'Shut your mouth and eat your supper.'

9. My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM.
'Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!'

10. My mother taught me about STAMINA.
'You'll sit there until all that spinach is gone.'

11. My mother taught me about WEATHER.
'This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it.'

12. My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY.
'If I told you once, I've told you a million times.
Don't exaggerate!'

13. My mother taught me the CIRCLE OF LIFE .
'I brought you into this world, and I can certainly take you out.'

14. My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION .
'Stop acting like your father!'

15. My mother taught me about ENVY .
'There are millions of less fortunate children in this world
who don't have wonderful parents like you do.'

16. My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION.
'Just wait until I tell your Father.'

17. My mother taug ht me about RECEIVING.
'Are you going to get it when you get home!'

18. My mother tau ght me MEDICAL SCIENCE.
'If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going
to get stuck that way.'

19. My mother taught me ESP.
'Put your sweater on; don't you think
I know when you are cold?'

20. My mother taught me HUMOR .
'When that lawn mower cuts off your toes,
don't come running to me.'

21. My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT .
'If you don't eat your vegetables,
you'll never grow up.'

22. My mother taught me GENETICS
'You're just like your father.'

23. My mother taught me about my ROOTS..
'Shut that door behind you. Do you think
you were born in a barn?'

24. My mother taught me WISDOM.
'When you get to be my age, you'll understand.'

25. And my favorite: My mother taught me about JUSTICE .
'One day you'll have kids, and I hope
they turn out just like you 

DOES A COPROLITE BY ANY OTHER NAME STILL SMELL AS SWEET?

First of all, apologies to Sir William Shakespeare for paraphrasing one of his well know lines. -- This article interests me for several reasons. First, it has pushed back the accepted date of human presence in the US by at least 1,000 years. Second, the manner in which the early date was discovered, and thirdly, that someone can proudly  say, after years and years of college and university, when asked what they do, can proudly respond:  "I work with crap."  Enjoy -- John

 

Ancient Poop Gives Insight Into First North Americans

CBCNews.CA  The Canadian Press

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/04/04/tech-poop-fossil.html

New evidence shows humans lived in North America more than 14,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than had previously been known.

Fossil feces discovered in a cave in Oregon yielded DNA indicating these early residents were related to people living in Siberia and East Asia, according to a report in the online edition of the journal Science.

Newly discovered fossilized human feces from a cave deposit in Oregon are the oldest evidence of humans in North America, according to a study in the journal Science. (Dennis LeRoy Jenkins/Associated Press)   [ I don't know about you Dear Reader, but this does not look fossilized to this humble blogger! -- John]

Humans are widely believed to have arrived in North America from Asia over a land-bridge between Alaska and Siberia during a warmer period.

A variety of dates have been proposed, and some are in dispute.

"This is the first time we have been able to get dates that are undeniably human," said Dennis Jenkins, a University of Oregon archeologist.

Few artifacts were found in the cave, leading Jenkins to speculate that the people stayed there only a few days at a time before moving on, perhaps following game animals or looking for other food.

Diet included squirrels, bison and sunflowers

The ancient poop — coprolites to scientists — gives an indication of the diet of these ancient Americans, Jenkins said.

While the analysis is not yet complete, he said there are bones of squirrels, bison hair, fish scales, protein from birds and dogs and the remains of plants, including grass and sunflowers.

The oldest of several coprolites studied is 14,340 years old, said co-author Eske Willerslev, director of the Centre for Ancient Genetics at Denmark's University of Copenhagen.

"The Paisley Cave material represents, to the best of my knowledge, the oldest human DNA obtained from the Americas," he said. "Other pre-Clovis sites have been claimed, but no human DNA has been obtained."

The prehistoric Clovis culture has been dated to between 13,200 and 12,900 calendar years ago and is best known by the tools left behind.

The date for the new coprolites is similar to that of Monte Verde in southern Chile, where human artifacts have been discovered, added Willerslev.

It isn't clear exactly who the people living in the Oregon caves were, Jenkins said, since there were few artifacts found. He said there was one stone tool, a hand tool used perhaps to polish, grind or mash bones or fat.

Human migration from Asia to North America

"We are not saying that these people were of a particular ethnic group," Jenkins stressed. "At this point, we know they most likely came from Siberia or Eastern Asia, and we know something about what they were eating, which is something we can learn from coprolites. We're talking about human signature.

"If you are looking for the first people in North America, you are going to have to step back more than 1,000 years beyond Clovis to find them."

The Oregon find, along with indications of human presence at other locations, adds to the evidence for a pre-Clovis human presence in North America, said Michael Waters, director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University.

"The genetic evidence from the coprolites from Paisley Caves is also consistent with the current genetic data for the peopling of the Americas — that the earliest inhabitants of the Americas came from Northeast Asia," added Waters, who was not part of the research team.

Anthropologist Ripan Malhi of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, said this data along with material from Alaska provide increasing "evidence that ancestors of Native Americans used a coastal route during the colonization of the Americas." Malhi was also not part of the research team.

Jenkins said that discoveries like those in the Oregon caves "help us to reconstruct the American past."

"Our heritage is really important, and it is important to the majority of the American public. If you don't know where you come from, it's hard to have a feeling of community, of participation."

(A little more information on the Paisley Caves  -- John)http://www.uoregon.edu/~ftrock/paisley_caves_description.php

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And just to show you we are not talking about your everyday normal crap, I present a cut and polished Coprolite pendant.  Do I need to mention that these coprolites are from Dinosaurs?

by Belle Rustique Jewelry http://www.bellerustique.com/ss_pendants.htm

 

 

And another by Tony Payne http://picasaweb.google.com/tonypay1/TonySCustomJewelryBlog/photo#5127935230802235554

What better way to tell that special someone you love her than to give her a piece of crappy jewelry to wear!!

 

Wow, surprised and happy I found this when lookng for music, Lydia Pense and Cold Blood takes me back to the Daze and Haze times, not sure what ever happened to her, last I heard she was living up near Humboldt county and working with animals. It was once said of her, she would be the next Janis Joplin.

FRAMED --- PICTURE PERFECT

This theme, I knew immediately what I wanted to post.

can be clicked on for a larger, more detailed view

Camera is a Kodak EasyShare Z612

This is one of six cells in our local Old Monterey Jail,  three have this open grill work, the three on the opposite wall have a solid metal door, with a small barred opening to look in, and small holes in the lower part of the door for a semblance of ventilation.  The same thin barred window is high on the exterior walls of those cells too.  It was in use from 1854 until the unbelievable date of 1956.  So much history in our little town.  And here is where FRAMED comes in.

Our town has a famous bandit in it's past, several actually, but Tiburcio Vasquez should be more famous than he is.  Most have never heard of him.  He was born Jose Jesus Lopez in 1835 in Monterey.  Strangely the family home, which is still standing, is situated right across the street from the old Monterey jail! 

He was an educated young man for the day and age and considered quite handsome and known as a ladies man (and yes, a lady led to his downfall).  He did not take the change very well from the Mexican government to the Republic of California and then the US taking the Republic in as a territory.  He knows how the laws were before and how his people were treated after the take over.  At a fandango (dance) one night in downtown Monterey, (various accounts put his age at 15 or 17),  there was trouble, over women, between the "gingos" and Lopez and his friends,  the local  Constable William Hardmount was called.  Accounts vary, but Hardmount was shot in the head and died instantly.  Fearing to be blamed Lopez and his cousin,  Anastacio Garcia, fled. Their third friend, Jose Higuera (another old Monterey family name) stayed as he had done nothing.  He was abducted the next day by a vigilante group and hanged.  So much for justice, Lopez was basically FRAMED and found guilty without a trial.  This is the point where he changed his name to Tiburcio Vasquez.  His criminal career spanned over 20 years, and he was feared from Southern to Northern California.  More feared than our better know California bandit Juaquin Murieta, who was only active for a few years.  He was tried in San Jose and strangely sentenced to hang for three murders in  a Tres Pinos (Monterey county) robbery, not the Monterey murder. It is said that the ladies would line up to see him and even bribe the sheriffs to see him.  He was hung on March 19, 1875.  His last written statement was:

 "A spirit of hatred and revenge took possession of me. I had numerous fights in defense of what I believed to be my rights and those of my countrymen. I believed we were unjustly deprived of the social rights that belonged to us."

His last word from the gallows was:

"Pronto"  (rapid, fast)

 

He is really a very interesting character, and although my post is longer than I had hoped it would be, there is still so much more to his story.  For more reading on Tiburcio Vasquez, and please bear in mind there are several versions of his story:

http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/la/scandals/vasquez.html

http://www.inn-california.com/Articles/biographic/vasquezbio.html

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-tiburciovasquez.html

http://www.monterey.org/museum/jail.html

 

 

 

VAYA CON DIOS (MAY GOD BE WITH YOU)

Written by Larry Russell - Buddy Pepper - Inez James  Performed by Freddy Fender Now the hacienda's dark the town is sleeping Now the time has come to part the time for weeping Vaya con dios my darling vaya con dios my love Now the village mission bells are softly ringing If you listen with your heart you'll hear them singing Vaya con dios my darling vaya con dios my love Wherever you may be I'll be beside you although you're many million dreams away Each night I'll say a prayer a prayer to guide you To hasten every lonely hour of every lonely day Now the dawn is breaking through a gray tomorrow But the memories we share are there to borrow Vaya con dios my darling vaya con dios my love Wherever you may be... (Vaya con dios my love)

LOOKING IN THE OPAQUE

Amber inclusions have always fascinated me, even before Jurassic Park.  The way science is progressing, advancements made so rapidly now.  Each major technological step is followed quicker by the next, think of the first natural rock to be used as a tool, the the jump to being able to chip a cutting edge, then to making knives and arrows, from the stone age to the bronze, from the bronze to the iron,  from iron to steel,  from steel to Techno, and now it seems something new is added each day or week instead of waiting hundreds of years.  Sometimes it seems too obvious that our advancements have already out paced our ability to use them wisely. . . Enjoy the read Dear Friends, I found it fascinating.  John  (The background picture is a piece of Baltic Amber, I had to change the background, that prehistoric tick in amber was freaking me out!!)

 

Secret 'dino bugs' revealed

By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News

The X-ray techniques produce images with remarkable detail

It is like a magic trick - at first there is nothing and then it appears: a tiny insect unseen by any eye for 100 million years.

We are with Paul Tafforeau who is scrolling through images on his computer.

His pictures have been produced by a colossal X-ray machine that can illuminate the insides of small lumps of clouded amber (fossil tree resin).

As he plays with the settings, what starts out as grey nothingness suddenly becomes the unmistakable outline of a "wee beastie".

Who knows? This little creature could once have buzzed a dinosaur. It's certainly the right age.

Tafforeau is a palaeontologist. But whilst others of his profession will be in the dirt with a rock hammer and trowel, you'll find him at the end of one of the most remarkable "cameras" in the world.

The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, produces an intense, high-energy light that can pierce just about any material, revealing its inner structure.

How the insects are illuminated

Tafforeau and colleague Malvina Lak have put kilos of opaque amber chunks in the way of this beam and have found a treasure trove of ancient organisms.

From more than 600 blocks, they have identified nearly 360 fossil animals. Wasps, flies, ants - even spiders. There are also small fragments of plant material. All of it caught up in the sticky goo of some prehistoric tree and then locked away until modern science provided the key.

Everything comes from the Charentes region in south-western France.

Electrons are fired into a linac, or straight accelerator. They're boosted in a small ring before entering the storage ring. The superfast particles are corralled by a train of magnets. Energy lost by turning electrons emerges as intense light (X-rays).

 

 

 

 

Most of the organisms are minuscule. For example, one of the discovered mites measures just 0.8mm across. A fossil wasp is large by comparison at 4mm in length.

"The small size of the organisms is probably due to the fact that bigger animals would be able to escape from the resin before getting stuck, whereas little ones would be captured more easily," explains Malvina Lak, who is affiliated to the University of Rennes.

You can tell the ones that were trapped alive as opposed to the ones which must have been dead and blown into the goo. The live bugs were frozen with legs flailing. The dead, on the other hand, were encapsulated with legs curled up underneath them. (kind of gives a whole new view of that classic Vincent Price, THE FLY scene, where the fly/human, stuck in the web screams in a very high voice: "Help me!!!! Help me!!!!!!"--John).

 

The 850m-circumference ring has 32 magnet clusters, or cells. Electrons turned by plain magnets produce 'standard' X-rays. Particles 'wiggled' at undulator magnets emit stronger X-rays. X-rays can't turn with electrons and head straight down beamlines.

 

 

The ESRF synchrotron is using a quick-fire process to screen the ambers. First, block batches are loaded into the beamline and imaged using a high-contrast, high-resolution form of X-ray radiography.

This identifies the ambers that have interesting inclusions. These then undergo another session in the beamline which builds up 3D images of the trapped insects.

 

 

Experiment 'hutches' receive the most intense X-rays in Europe. The light probes materials on the atomic and molecular scale. Robots can place many samples in the beam for rapid science. ESRF data leads to new materials, drugs, electronics, etc.

(Is it just me, but there seems to be something very wrong with having the control cabin at the end of the x-Ray beam!! --John)

 

The ESRF synchrotron is using a quick-fire process to screen the ambers. First, block batches are loaded into the beamline and imaged using a high-contrast, high-resolution form of X-ray radiography.

This identifies the ambers that have interesting inclusions. These then undergo another session in the beamline which builds up 3D images of the trapped insects.

"Micro-tomography is based on radiography but instead of a single picture, we are taking pictures during rotation of the sample," explains Dr Tafforeau.

"For a complete rotation, we will take more than 1,000 radiographs - and from all these radiographs, we can reconstruct virtual slices; and after using a 3D processing tool, we 'extract' the specimen from the amber."

 

 

A finished 3-D plastic model.

 

This virtual insect can be spun around on the computer screen. With resolution on the micron scale (millionths of a metre), fine anatomical details jump out.

But here's the really neat part. All that electronic information can be fed to a 3D plastic printer to make a physical model. A bug that in reality is less than a millimetre long and hidden inside a resin block then becomes a 30cm-long facsimile you can hold in your hand.

"In some ways it is better than having the real animal," says Dr Tafforeau, as he turns a giant plastic wasp in his palms.

"If you think about it, the real wasp is 4mm and to see it you would need a microscope; and if it's in opaque amber you need a synchrotron. Once it's done as a plastic print, you can see what you want."

The work is providing new insights into the ecology of Charantes in the Mesozoic Era. Many of the newly identified bugs are water-related: they would have lived around an esturine environment

The translucent ambers gathered from the region had already indicated this; but the investigation of the opaque ambers at the ESRF has now strengthened this interpretation.

Paul Tafforeau, Malvina Lak and colleagues have high hopes for the techniques they are developing in the synchrotron.

In a paper to be published in the scientific journal Microscopy and Microanalysis, they suggest their work could form the basis of an alternative means of cataloguing new species trapped in amber.

 

 

The 850m-circumference synchrotron dominates the landscape

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Traditionally, every recorded organism will have a reference specimen, or holotype, deposited in a museum.

This specimen will be made available to any scientist who wishes to examine it or compare it with further discoveries.

But this presents a unique problem for insects caught in opaque amber. How do you deposit a reference you cannot see?

The ESRF team proposes that in future such holotypes be composed of the amber block, all the electronic data from the synchrotron and the 3D plastic print.

The type of work undertaken by Tafforeau, Lak and colleagues can only be done in a synchrotron; but it is time-consuming work.

Long-term, the ESRF hopes to upgrade its facilities. The improvements its plans are likely to open up many new avenues for "virtual palaeontology".

At the moment, the X-ray beam is no more than 4cm wide. An enhanced ESRF will be capable of producing a beam 25cm across - wide enough even to image the entire skull of a fossil human.

"We needed four days to scan 10kg of amber. With a larger beam and a wide-field detector, in four days we would be able to scan perhaps 100kg of amber; and with even better results," said Dr Tafforeau.