Science and Art

Technically this is an ad for BMW. In reality it is one of the best short videos of Theo Jansen's kinetic sculptures.

Hat Tip:Myrmecos.net

Cold Air Inversion

This is a view of the far western end of Williams Lake on 16 Dec 2009, taken from the road leading up to Fox Mountain.

The low clouds evident in the picture are not natural clouds, but rather industrial emissions from the Epcor bioenergy plant and Soda Creek lumber mills, trapped in the valley by a cold air inversion.

Inversions occur when a warm front pushes over a layer of underlying cold air. Emissions from industrial activity rise until they hit the boundary between the two layers where the density difference between the warm and cold air block circulation between the two, and thus the emissions flatten out. This occurs frequently in the small valleys of British Columbia where many towns are located.

Today in Williams Lake the temperature above this inversion is approximately 13 °C warmer than the air below. Thus, while the recorded temperature early this morning was -4 °C at the airport (above the inversion), it was -17 °C in town. Quite a difference.

Characteristic of an inversion is a near complete absence of air movement in the cooler pooled air. When inversions last for days, significant deteriorations in air quality can occur, especially in communities where industrial activity is juxtaposed with residential areas, and when you have many people burning wood for heat, as in Williams Lake.

The changing density of warm air over cold can also lead to interesting visual affects. If the inversion lasts through the day, you may notice, from town, a distortion in the shape of the sun as it sets. With longer views of the horizon than we normally get in British Columbia, the refractive differences between the cold and warm air can cause a green flash the moment the sun sets. You might recall this phenomena noted in the Pirates of the Caribbean III.

"Ever gazed upon the green flash, Master Gibbs?"
"I reckon I've seen my fair share. Happens on rare occasion; the last glimpse of sunset, a green flash shoots up into the sky. Some go their whole lives without ever seeing it. Some claim to have seen it who ain't. And some say—"
"It signals when a soul comes back to this world, from the dead!"

Or it could mean that a layer of warm air overlays a layer of cold.

Photo Credit:Me

The Wood Tick

The male wood tick shown above was collected at Churn Creek (about 60km south of Williams Lake) in April of 2009. I managed to spot this tick at the top of a blade of grass immediately beside the trail upon which I was walking.

The wood tick, also called a sage tick, sheep tick, cattle tick or paralysis tick, unlike the winter tick, needs more than one host to complete its' life cycle. The stage that humans tend to pick up in the spring is the adult. It has already lived on two hosts (small mammals) at earlier stages in its' life cycle.

These ticks are common in the grasslands of British Columbia during April and May. Upon detecting carbon dioxide, vibrations or shadows, they climb to the top of blades of grass hoping to catch a ride on their next host. When they do find a host they slowly work their way to the groin, armpits or scalp, making sure not to bend any hairs suddenly which would make the host aware of their presence. Males, such as the one above, are on the host only to mate, and often in their scramble to find a female, they bend a hair making their presence known.

Females, once in a suitable location will settle down to feed. They bite, usually painlessly, and then secrete a glue-like substance around their mouthparts to hold them firmly to the host. This glue, along with some inflammation that may arise around the mouthparts, might make it seem that they are burrowing into the skin. Rest assured, ticks cannot do this. After a few days of feeding the ticks will drop off of the host to lay eggs on the ground.

The main concern with these ticks, in the Cariboo-Chilcotin is a slight risk of tick paralysis. Just what causes this is still uncertain, but people and animals suffering this condition will begin to stagger and lose muscular control. If the tick causing the problem is not removed, this will lead to death. Once removed, however, symptoms resolve in a little as 20 minutes.

These ticks do not carry Lyme disease. Lyme disease is carried by another tick entirely (genus Ixodes) of which, the particular species associated with transmitting Lyme disease to humans, is only found in the southern regions of the province--usually in cool dark forests. No documented case of Lyme disease has been recorded in the Cariboo-Chilcotin.

To remove a wood tick, grasp it firmly around the head region with tweezers and gently but firmly pull back. The tick will pull loose in about 15-30 seconds. Do not use gasoline, matches or any chemical on the tick as this may cause the tick to regurgitate into the wound and increase the risk of spreading infection.

For more information about ticks in the Cariboo-Chilcotin, click here.

Kellogg's and Bad Science

Advertisements for Kellogg's Mini-Wheats in the U.S. claimed that children eating their cereal for breakfast were shown in a study to be 20% more attentive at school.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has now ruled this advertisement was false.

The 20% cited in the advertisement was recorded only by a handful of students.  In fact, only half of the students in the study showed any improvement at all.  Further, the cereal was compared to students that had not eaten any breakfast at all.  Wouldn't it have been better to compare Mini-Wheats to students eating a different breakfast?

So, Kellogg's chose to misleading report a poorly designed study.  Why would a major corporation play so loosely with its' credibility. 

Hat Tip: Quackwatch

Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons (seanutbutter)

The Hunt

In just a few seconds this video shows just how strong the forces of natural selection are upon both predators and prey. The fox with its' keen sense of hearing and stealth--watch as it positions its' head to get directional information from its prey. The prey...well...let's just say that future populations won't be descended from the noisy ones.

Hat tip: Daily Dish

And The Winner of the Shiny Nickel Award Is....

The Shiny Nickel Award goes to Elizabeth Rennie.

Elizabeth, zeroing in on the clowns, identified the advertiser associated with the video posted yesterday.

She immediately recognized the advertiser as Philips TV, promoting the,"........ groundbreaking Cinema 21:9 LCD TV, the world’s first cinema proportioned television screen. I mean, come on, what else could clown-imagery represent?"

Yes, the clown imagery was a giveaway.

So, the coveted Shiny Nickel will soon be flying through the interdepartmental mail to Kamloops to our lucky winner, who has assured me that no computer resources were used in the winning of this award.

Photo Credit: Me.

For Something Completely Different

This is an ad.  Really.  Can you guess what it is for?

I'll post the answer tomorrow.

Hat Tip: Daily dish

Friends of Churn Creek

The Churn Creek Protected Area is the only grassland region in British Columbia in which the grassland ecosystem remains intact from low to high elevations.  After spending last summer working on a project in the south Okanagan (Williamson sapsucker ant diet), I can tell you how rare this is. There the vineyards run from the valley floor right up to the high elevation forest edge, leaving little of the natural ecosystem.  It makes it hard to contemplate partaking in a BC wine.

This past weekend a new society formed, the Friends of Churn Creek, to provide assistance to BC Parks in managing the Churn Creek Protect Area.  The goal is to help maintain this unique ecosystem.

Churn Creek is not your typical park.  The area is fairly remote and extremely arid with few services for parks visitors.  The park is suited to those who are looking for a quiet reflective experience as they look out over a great landscape of rolling hills and deeply carved valleys.  It is also a wonder for biologists fascinated with the ecology of plants and animals living in such an environment.

Photo Credit: Me (April 19, 2009). Left to Right: Ordell Steen, Fred McMechan, Anna Roberts

Energy Drinks

Energy drinks have become extremely popular with students.  The question has always been, are they safe?

Well, millions of cans have been sold and there is little documentation of health related issues.

A new study by Leah Steinke and colleagues in the Annals of Pharmacotherapy, however, has raised some concerns about the effect of energy drinks on the cardiovascular system.  

In this study fifteen people were given two energy drinks each day (100mg taurine and 100mg caffeine) for seven days.  Their blood pressure, heart rate and electrocardiographic (ECG) characteristics were measured prior to the study and then on Day1 and Day 7 over a few hours following consumption of the energy drinks.

Steinke and colleagues found that while there were no statistically significant affects associated with the ECG characteristics, the same could not be said for heart rate or blood pressure.  Heart rate was up 11% on Day 7 and blood pressure also increased.  Systolic pressure(i.e., the 'high' number in a blood pressure reading) was up 9.6% and the diastolic pressure (i.e., the 'low' number in a blood pressure reading) was up 7.8%.

Is this concerning?  Probably not for young healthy adults, however, for those with underlying but undiagnosed heart problems or high blood pressure, this could be very concerning. Especially with long term consumption.  These products clearly push the cardiovascular system in a direction that is unhealthy.

Caveat: this study was small (15 people) and the baseline health data was taken only immediately prior to the study.  Longer monitoring of the baseline data would help to determine just how much variability was natural for this small group.

Photo Credit: Grendelkhan, Wikipedia commons.

Research citation: Steinke L, et al. 2009. Effect of "Energy Drink" consumption on hemodynamic and electrocardiographic parameters in healthy young adults.  Annals of Pharmacotherapy 43(4): 596-602.

A Better Way to Identify Healthy Food

How can you communicate nutrition information to a public that usually does not know the difference between the major macronutrients (carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins)?

The answer might be to use a system that everyone already understands, traffic lights. Bridget Kelly and colleagues have just published some research (Health Promotion International 2009) looking at how well the public understands nutrition related labelling of food products.  

The traffic light system uses the colours green, amber and red to identify food components that are good, fair, and poor respectively.  An additional traffic light provides the overall health rating of the food.  It seems easy to understand even at a glance.

Kelly and colleagues found that consumers were 3 times more likely to identify healthy foods using the traffic light system as compared to a colour coded Daily Intake label and 5 times more likely when using a monochrome Daily Intake system.

Short story: a simple, broadly understandable system that works.

Nerd alert:  Kelly and colleagues used logistic regression to come to the conclusions given above. Reading through their methods section I can't say I'm totally happy with the technique used to identify model variables for the regression.  They should have used either a more a priori technique or gone with a stepwise logistic regression.  

Photo credit: www.choice.com.au

Blurring Unemployment Statistics

Above are the unemployment statistics for the Cariboo over the past 15 months.  Currently, the Cariboo has the second highest unemployment rate in the province, second only to the North Coast-Nechako which has unemployment at 11.1%.

Is unemployment in the Cariboo currently 10% as suggested by these data above from BC Stats? No, not really.  These numbers, while indicated for specific months, are actually averages of the previous three months.  Statistians use three month averages to smooth out their data--everyone wants a smooth graph right?  Graphs that show gradual transitions make politicians less likely to hyperventilate and the public to panic.

Unfortunately, occasionally this does not reflect the situation in the real world.  This is one such occasion.

Data Source: Labour Force Statistics: BC Stats.  Plotted by me.

Ant Robots

Robot technology seems to be leaping forward right now.  

Not sure when we will need to program in Asimov's three laws of robotics, but it won't be long.

Hat tip: Myrmecos blog

YouTube and Robot credit: Kåre Halvorsen (aka Xenta) from Norway

Dead Wood is Needed for Living Forests

What do we mean by a word like 'Waste?'

Generally we mean that it is useless and is a burden just to discard.  The less the better.

Why then do we use this word to refer to the dead standing or fallen wood in our forests?  It is anything but waste.  Rather, it is a vital resource for countless animals, plants and micro-organisms in our forests.  Its decayed fibre contributes organic material to our forest soils and helps to buffer soil pH.  It also acts as a water reservoir in forests where drought is common.

It can be called it waste only if we do not understand its function in forest ecosystems or it can be called waste by those who want to use it for other purposes.  This is the term used today by the BC government and the bioenergy industry to describe this resource.

Despite the desire by the modern forest industry to emulate (i.e., imitate) natural disturbances in log harvesting operations, the massive removal of tree biomass in no way emulates what normally occurs in nature.  How much biomass can be removed before we see a serious disruption to the ability of forest soils to regenerate new growth is uncertain.  Traditionally though, forestry operations in British Columbia have left more wood behind on cutblocks than occurs most areas of the world.  Still, this may not be enough.

Now, the bioenergy industry wants to greatly reduce the volume of remaining wood.  On a visit to a local bioenergy facility I once heard a manager talk about obtaining a Swedish machine to scrape and bundle the smallest pieces of wood from the forest floor.  Worse, the claim is made that this is a 'Green' technology. 

This month the Williams Lake Field Naturalists will present a resolution to the Annual General Meeting of the Federation of BC Naturalists.  It reads:

"Whereas, coarse woody debris (CWD) is a fundamental component of forest ecosystems, critical to:

1) providing habitat to many dead wood dependent organisms (e.g., fungi, insects, vertebrates) which in turn support a broader food web (e.g., insectivorous birds, bears);

2) providing energy to support forest resilience (e.g., ability to resist extensive damage from forest pests, climate change or invasive species);

3) providing water storage in ecosystems frequently experiencing drought;

4) providing pH buffering capacity to forest soils which become acidic as a result of biomass removal;

5) providing nutrient and structural components to forest soils in a province noted for low-productivity soils.

Whereas, management guidelines for CWD retention under the Forest and Range Practices Act are inadequate for protecting this resource under existing harvesting pressures, there is concern that additional plans for biomass removal by the bioenergy industry will exacerbate this problem.

Be It Resolved:  That Nature BC communicate to the Government of BC the need to develop a science-based woody debris (organic matter) management system with the view that maintaining CWD is fundamental to the sound ecological management of our forests."

I hope this helps to raise this issue in the minds of BC naturalists.

Photo Credit: Me

Energy and the International Space Station

Last week the International Space Station unfurled the last of its 8 paired solar panel arrays (each array is composed to two long panels, 5m by 34m long). The photo above, taken last week by the departing space shuttle, Discovery, shows all of the panels now in place.

How much energy does it take to run the space station?  Well, basic life support and essential operations on the station requires about 20 kilowatts (kW).  A single array generates around 15kW but they are exposed to sunlight only half the time.  Thus, approximately three of the 8 arrays are necessary for life support.

A typical home in Canada uses a bit more than 1kW on average (about 11,000 kWhr/yr).  This means that the 5 arrays not required for life support would provide enough energy for approximately 35 homes. 

How much did those arrays cost?  Each of the eight run about $300 million.  The station shown above is now estimated to be worth $100 billion.

Worth it?  I don't think so.  For that cost we could be seriously exploring the solar system using robots.  Is there life under the ice of Europa (one of Jupiter's moons) or on Titan (a moon of Saturn)?  These are questions 100 billion could have answered.

Photo credit: NASA, Discovery (STS-119, Shuttle Crew, March 25, 2009)

Pseudoscorpions

Pseudoscorpions usually go unnoticed because of their tiny size.  When someone does notice one, however,  they are often startled by the sight of this tiny animal with the long front legs and huge pincers.

This particular specimen was found just north of Williams Lake and passed along to me for identification.  These are arachnids (related to spiders and true scorpions) but unlike their namesake, the true scorpions, are not at all dangerous.

Pseudoscorpions feed mostly on other tiny animals such as mites.  They have been found in some old libraries where they are feeding on book lice or silverfish, which in turn are eating the books themselves.  Normally, however, they are found outdoors and are only occasionally reported as an indoor pest.  Having said that, I recall frequently finding them in my house in Winnipeg when I was a kid.  I can't say I've seen many of them in British Columbia although I know someone who was studying them here several years ago.

Photo Credit: Me

New Heart Cells

Seems the medical textbooks will need a bit of a rewrite.  It has always been believed that heart cells cannot regenerate.  Thus, while the cells may enlarge as you grow, it was believed that you died with the same heart cells with which you were born.

Not so.  A new study has shown that heart cells can replicate, although not that quickly.  Jonas Frisen and others have just reported in the journal Science that the heart replaces about 1% of all cells per year at age 25, falling to about 0.5% per year at age 75.

Two interesting aspects about this research. 

First, it establishes that a mechanism controlling heart cell replacement must exist.  Once that mechanism is understood there may be new hope for heart attack patients who have lost functional heart muscle.

Second, the methodology used was fascinating.  The standard technique used to determine cellular replacement in other animals is to radiolabel them (i.e., expose them to a radioactive chemical that the cells will incorporate into their strucure) and then look for new unlabelled cells. This can't be done in humans for ethical/health reasons.  Indirectly though, the world superpowers did this anyway.  Above ground nuclear testing created an abnormally high level of radioactive carbon (C-14) that anyone born before 1963 would have been exposed to.  It was following this radioisotope that allowed the measurements in this study to be made.

Photo Credit: New York Times

TRU News Release

TRU Launches New Corporate Partnerships

Thompson Rivers University, President Kathleen Sherf, announced today that the university will be partnering with several new corporate sponsors to compensate for projected shortfalls in government funding.  

"The goal isn't just to raise money, it is to connect students to the real world that exists beyond the halls of academia," said Dr. Sherf, "while helping to improve student life."  

The first sponsor will be "Stress3Essays.com," a company dedicated to improving student life by providing high quality essays for subjects ranging from emerging diseases in Biology to ethics in Philosophy.  

Faculty will be strongly encouraged to wear T-shirts to class bearing the logo of the current corporate sponsor (a new sponsor each month).  A contractual requirement for faculty to provide service to TRU will help to enhance compliance.  

Asked about the new initiative, faculty member Barbara Bearman in the English department responded,"After years of marking what students have been directly passing for thought, I'm encouraging them to subscribe to the Platinum Level Service.  It will be nice to finally read something coherent."  

Stress3Essays.com will be the official TRU corporate sponsor starting April 1st.  They will be followed by an on-line casino, "Guaranteed Winners," whose motto, "Who needs a degree to be rich?" has put them at the top of the very competitive on-line casino industry.

   

If I Have Seen So Far...

One of the most famous scientific quotations of all time was penned by Sir Issac Newton.  You know the one, "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of giants." Okay, the usual quote edits out the "ye."

I love this quote because it is used so often and so completely out-of-context.  Sort of like the phrase, "With all due respect...."

The quotation was included in a letter Newton wrote to a scientist known as Robert Hooke.  Hooke was an interesting character.  He was a brilliant scientist, versed in virtually every field.  However, he was poor for most of his life and worked as a lab assistant to other, better monied scientists.  Both Newton and Hooke had a reputation for be irritable and quarrelsome.

The quote arose after Hooke had accused Newton of stealing his ideas in a recent publication that Newton had written on optics.  Newton included the quote in his letter responding to this accusation.  

One other detail is of some significance.  Hooke was known to be very short.  Very short.  

The quotation isn't magnanimous at all.  It is an insult intended to deride a competitor physically.

The battle between Newton and Hooke continued throughout their lives.  After Hooke died and Newton became president of the Royal Society, the only known portrait of Hooke, hanging on the walls of the Royal Society, disappeared.  To date, we really don't know exactly what he looked like.

Portrait Credit: Issac Newton painted by Godfrey Kneller, 1689

The Winter Tick

The Winter Tick (Dermacentor albipictus)

This tick, one of many, just turned up on a young horse that was recently brought into the Williams Lake Stampede Grounds.  It is a pretty common tick in the Cariboo-Chilcotin, but not so much in the immediate Williams Lake area.

The winter tick is what we call a one-host tick because it completes its life cycle on a single animal, usually large mammals like horses, cattle or moose.  These animals pick up the tick in the fall, often in very large numbers.  Initially even a good horse groomer will not notice them as they are tiny, but as fall progresses into winter they will grow and then one day, a horse owner will feel hundreds or thousands of distinct bumps under the hair.  It may be suspected that the horse recently became a host for the ticks but, in fact, the ticks had been there for a few months.

Heavy loads cause severe itching for the host.  The host will try to rub off the tick by pushing up against trees or other solid objects.  Unfortunately, they rub so hard and frequently that they lose a great deal of hair which can impact their health during the winter.  The heavy hair loss gives rise to what are called 'Ghost Moose.'  Combine this condition with a late winter cold snap and significant mortality can occur.  Fortunately, this tick is not considered a serious risk for transmitting diseases.  

In the spring the ticks will naturally fall to the ground to lay eggs.  The eggs will hatch in about 6 weeks and then spend the summer dormant (sleeping) in the low vegetation.  In the fall they climb grasses or shrubs, in great numbers, and are picked up by the next host.

So, back to the young horse at the Stampede Grounds.  What to do? Simple.  Don't transport him around because this might spread the ticks at a time in the life cycle when eggs will be laid.  Just treat for the ticks as soon as possible and try to collect any that fall.

For more information about ticks in the Cariboo-Chilcotin, click here.

Photo credit: Me

Fire at the University of Manitoba

A Shock !

Today the fourth floor of the Duff Roblin building (Zoology) at the University of Manitoba caught fire.  I spent my undergraduate and graduate years prowling these halls and taught here for one year after finishing my Masters degree.   The firefighters are standing immediately beside my old office window in the Buller building.

I hope the damage is not too extensive.  There are a lot of memories in there (including driving my motorcycle through the building one night).

The building was named after a former premier of Manitoba.  Ironically, while Duff is losing a building, Duff's Ditch (the Winnipeg Floodway) is about to save the city from heavy spring flooding.

Photo Credit: David Lipnowski, Winnipeg Free Press

Chemistry Kits

I had one of these as a kid.  They were great.  Sure the first thing I did was blow some stuff up but that stopped when I realized I didn't have an endless supply of test tubes and beakers.

It is sad that kids today can't get access to simple chemistry kits.

Source: Wired Science

I Told You So

Twenty years ago, in 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground off the coast of Alaska dumping 40 million litres of oil into Prince William Sound.  

Today, Prince William Sound looks clean, but it isn't. A study has shown that a great deal of oil still remains.

Back in 1982, I pulled together some data that had been lying around in the lab in which I did my Master's thesis research.  It was dealing with how oil and water mix and the toxicity of this mixture.  I presented that data to a conference in Edmonton, attended by a great many representative of the oil and gas industry.  I was unprepared for the hostility the data and my presentation would receive, unfamiliar with the politics of oil.

One person wearing a suit of some expense--mine would have made Michael Moore proud--, took exception to the data showing the degree of toxicity.  He said something to the effect of, "It's all gone in a few years so who gives a damn!"

I replied that the 'visible' fraction of the oil on beaches would be gone, but the heavy fraction, composed of toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons would remain beneath the surface for a very long time.  This would move through the food chain and while it might not result in oil soaked sea otters washing up on the shore, it would still be causing damage.  This was not greeted well and suggestions of wild speculation rose from the floor.  There were around two hundred people attending, and from my perspective on the podium, no one seemed happy. 

Now we find ourselves twenty years down the road from the Exxon Valdez.  What is the research showing?  According to a recent interview with Jeff Short in Science News, who studied the spill for NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), about half of the original toxicity of the oil remains,..... mostly in the form of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.  

Photo Credit: Oiled bird: Courtesy of the Exxon Valdex Oil Spill Trustee Council

A Long Way To Go

These data are following the sales of new (red) and existing (blue) homes in the United States over the past several years.

The building of new homes in the US is critical for the Williams Lake lumber industry and these data do not look good.  

First, it isn't at all clear that the sales of new homes has bottomed out, although there isn't much left to lose.  Second, the gap between the sales of new and existing homes--slightly artificial because of the differing scales, but this is how the two are normally compared--is arising because of the resale of bargain foreclosed homes.  The low value of these homes is likely to out compete new homes for some time yet.  Third, the inventory of homes for sale is still very high as builders went crazy during the past few boom years.  

Short story: Sales of all homes are way down.  Inventory of existing homes is very high.  Of those homes that do sell, foreclosed existing homes will out compete new homes for some time. Need for dimensional lumber?  Not so much.

This situation will get better but it may take a long while.  People should be thinking about long-term options.

(Warning: this advice is coming from a biologist).

For a short video, explaining just how we got into this mess, click here.

Figure credit:www.calculatedriskblog.com

For The Record

The Alberta government needs to fact check their facts.

I was listening to CBC radio a few days ago when I heard that the Government of Alberta has added an on-line fact check feature relating to news articles about the province.  They call it "For the Record."

The CBC noted that the Alberta government was crying foul at a statement made recently in The Economist magazine regarding the tar sand operations.  The Economist (January 15, 2009) stated, "At some projects, leaks of toxic materials have polluted waterways."

In response, the Alberta government website stated, for the record,"Alberta has monitored and tested Athabasca watercourses for decades; all of our data indicates no evidence of contamination from the oil sands project."

Is the Alberta government telling the truth?  Not according to my memory.  

Sometime in the early 1980s (probably 1982) my Master's degree supervisor, Dr. Lyle Lockhart, at the Freshwater Institute in Winnipeg, was involved in providing expert testimony against Suncor (one of the big tar sand operators) relating to a spill into the Athabasca River.  The lab I was working in did some toxicity testing of the oil using duckweed as a bioindicator.  It was necessary to provide evidence of the toxicity of the material.

I recall the spill was caused by a fire that burned through the protective liner of a waste pond. The spill occurred in the winter as it was detected days after the event by a helicopter pilot who saw a huge plug of oil under the ice. 

Many charges were laid against Suncor but the province of Alberta handed the case over to a single lawyer who was overwhelmed with the legal paperwork created by a small army of lawyers for Suncor.   He had a nervous breakdown, at least that is what I was told, during the trial.  In the end, most charges were dismissed and Suncor was convicted only on a handful. If my memory is correct, total fines were in the few thousands of dollars.  Probably less than one week of lawyers fees.

I say that The Economist got it right.

Photo Credit: The Economist (tar sand operations near Fort McMurray).

US State of the Birds Report

The United States has just released its first State of the Birds report (click here), reviewing bird population trends in the US over the last forty years.  Over 800 species of birds were included in the report, and frankly, while there is some encouraging news, there isn't a lot.

The encouraging news comes mostly from bird populations associated with wetlands.  Strong conservation efforts over the past forty years, driven by agencies seeking to maintain waterfowl populations for hunting, have led to improvements in wetland bird populations (see Figure below).  The story, however, is not so encouraging for most other habitat associated species.  In particular, grassland and arid bird species are becoming increasingly unhealthy.

I suspect my experience in the south Okanagan this past summer was indicative of the problem.  I was working on a project examining the ant diet of the Williamsons Sapsucker, a forest nesting bird found in the highlands of the Okanagan and Kootenays areas.  While my project was taking a close look at how forest management was affecting this particular bird, it was obvious as you travelled through the valleys of the south Okanagan, naturally characterized by arid grasslands and pocket desert, that little natural habitat remained.  

While fruit orchards have long been established in this area, vineyards are currently expanding throughout the arid landscape.  As one travels down any of the area roads you encounter endless vineyards and very little natural landscape.  The vineyards now push high onto the hillsides of the valleys, running directly into the higher forest, replacing all of the native vegetation.  A plan to try and preserve some of the remaining native landscape in a new federal park is hotly derided by area farmers.  Signs saying "NO new national park" are found everywhere along the roads.

Unfortunately, grassland and arid landscapes are not producing a product (e.g., waterfowl) that attracts the interests of private agencies.  Birds are often viewed by farmers as pests and, as usual, commercial interests trump conservation when the two seem to conflict.  

If we fail to establish a national park in the south Okanagan, I think the decision will be an indicator for the broader prospects of these birds throughout N. America.  

Figure Credit: US State of the Birds report.

Birding by Microphone

I don't quite 'get' birding, but pretty much every naturalist I know 'does.'  Personally, give me a ten-lined June bug over a Canadian Warbler anyday.  

Still, those who are interested in birding are probably the most active conservationists on the planet.  The time they spend outdoors makes them keenly aware of the changes occuring to both the rural and urban environment that most people don't notice as they speed by at 50 km/hr.

Here is an idea to expand birding into the night.  A simple microphone system (cost perhaps $50.00) that can be hooked up to an old computer to record calls of birds migrating at night.  Developed by William Evans, formerly with Cornell University, the microphone is built from a flower pot, a dinner plate, some Saran Wrap, and a couple of cheap electronic components that apparently can be assembled in just a couple of hours.  Dr. Evans website, click here, provides step by step details.

The website also provides some simple software and the recordings of bird calls (spectrograms) that make the system work.  The one shortfall is that the records are specific to birds of eastern and central N. America.  However, it should not be too hard to input the spectrograms of western species. Anyone interested?

The tireless work of birders in recording bird sightings has created one of the best databases for following bird species abundances over time.  The US has just released a federally sponsored report on bird populations.  Much of the data is not good.  I'll post this tomorrow.

Hat Tip: Wired Science

Photo Credit: Williams Evans.  Photo of assembled bird microphone.

Letting Down Science

I recall one day, while working on my Masters degree back in the 1980s at the Freshwater Institute (a research centre for the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans), noticing a piece of paper taped to a hall wall. When I took a closer look I saw it was a research application created by some bureaucrat down in the basement of the institute.  One line had been circled in black marker and read "Expected Results."  Scrawled over the rest of the form, in thick black marker, was "If I knew what the results were going to be, I wouldn't need to do the experiment!"  There may have been an expletive tossed in there somewhere.  The author of that scrawl was Dr. David Schindler, now Professor Emiterus at the University of Alberta, and a world leader in freshwater biology.  

That piece of paper was a lesson I never forgot.  It emphasized the difference between those who engage in science for the process of discovery, and those who use science as a loose means to an end.

The New York Times today reports on the case of Dr. Joseph Beiderman, a child psychologist at Harvard.  Dr. Beiderman received 1.6 million dollars in consulting fees from pharmaceutical companies between 2000 and 2007.  His research relating to the use of anti-psychotic drugs in young children is currently being investigated by both Harvard and the US National Institute of Health.  One fact that came up during his deposition reminded me of that piece of paper taped to the wall more than 20 years ago.

It seems that Dr. Biederman had given presentations to drug companies telling them what his results were going to be before he started clinical trials.   Apparently this made sense to both the drug companies and Dr. Biederman.

All I can say is that Dr. Biederman is no Dave Schindler.

Hat tip: Page Donaldson

Photo Credit: Me.

The Feathers are Flying

The link between dinosaurs and birds was established back in the 1860s when fossils of the distinctly dinosaur and bird-like Archopteryx turned up in some German shale quarries.  Many biologists today argue that all modern birds should be considered dinosaurs.  It is an argument that makes sense.

However, it was only much more recently (15-20 years) that fossils collected in China were discovered that suggested that feathers were quite common within a larger group of dinosaurs, the theropods.  I was able to see some of these fossils when visiting Brisbane, Australia, where they were on loan from China, back in 2004.  This group of dinosaurs includes the velociraptors and Tyrannosaurus rex of Jurassic Park movie fame.  It seems the movie was just a few years behind the discovery.

Now however, feathers, or at least what seem likely to be feathers have turned up in an entirely different lineage of dinosaurs, the ornithosaurs (includes the Triceratops).  This was just reported by Hai-Lu You and colleagues in the journal Science.  Shown above is an artists reconstruction of what these newly discovered dinosaurs, Tianyulong confuciusi, may have looked like.  This suggests that either feathers evolved more than once in different lineages of dinosaurs or that the earliest ancestors of the dinosaurs had feathers.  It certainly creates a challenge for artists and museums with respect to how dinosaurs should be shown.

The feathers will undoubtedly be flying at the next international paleontology meeting.

Artist credit: L-D Xing.

Minister Clarifies Stand on Evolution. Not!

In an interview for the Globe and Mail, published Tuesday, the federal Minister for Science and Technology, Gary Goodyear, refused to answer a question about evolution.  When asked if he believed in evolution he responded, "I'm not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don't think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate."

But the question wasn't about religion, it was about evolution.  Clearly, the minister doesn't see the difference.

 

By the end of Tuesday, someone had obviously spoken to the minister about the matter.  In an interview with CTV News he now states that he does believe in evolution.  Does he?  

Here is how he framed it,"We are evolving every year, every decade. That's a fact, whether it is to the intensity of the sun, whether it is to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it is running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment."

Minister Goodyear is talking about what is called phenotypic plasticity, the physiological accommodation to stressors from environment within an individual (Note: phenotypes are measurable characterisitics of an organism, e.g., eye colour, blood type or bone density).  This is not evolution.  Unfortunately, it seems that Jane Taber, who interviewed Minister Goodyear for CTV did not know this either because she failed to follow-up, or at least no follow-up is reported.  

Evolution is the process by which gene frequencies within populations change through time. It gives rise to new phenotypes, new species, and whole new assemblages of organisms.  It isn't a knee problem that arises from wearing the wrong shoes that lasts until a new pair of shoes are purchased. 

Like so many politicians, Gary Goodyear has decided that words mean what he wants them to mean.  I am doubting that this matter will remain "clarified" for very long.

Photo Credit: Sean Kilpatrick, The Canandian Press, Globe and Mail (on-line), March 17, 2009.

Dolphin Bubble Rings

It seems that a couple of years ago a few dolphins, mostly female, began to blow bubble rings at Sea World in Orlando.  Once started this behaviour has spread to others.

At first I wondered if this was a carefully crafted hoax as the rings seem so improbable.  Not so, this is genuine and has been the subject of one scientific publication.

I have not been able to find a good explanation of the physics of the rings.  It would seem reasonable that they depend upon the air spinning to maintain their structural integrity.  I am not sure if a vortex is also required in the surrounding water.  They are rising when left to themselves although the camera angles make this difficult to see. 

Enjoy the video.

Video Credit: Chiajungchi, YouTube. Dec.16, 2007.  Musics "No one is alone in the woods" (John Williams). Boston Pops.

Obesity and What Doesn't Matter

Since the recognition of the existence of  macronutrients, (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) by William Prout (1785-1850) in 1827, their role in human nutrition and obesity has been hotly debated.  James Salisbury (1823-1905) took this information and started one of the first fad diets with his belief that human health was improved by a diet of chopped steak (Salisbury steak) and coffee.  John Kellogg (1852-1943) , in turn, ran health farms advocating a vegetarian diet with enemas.  He started the Kelloggs cereal empire.

Since the days of Salisbury and Kellogg little has changed.  Arguments still go back and forth over the health benefits of relative amounts of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in the diet and their role in obesity. Most of these debates have little to do with science so perhaps a new study that helps to clarify the science of this issue will have little impact.  Still, we might hope. 

Frank Sachs and colleagues have just completed a two year study following 811 subjects needing to lose weight.  They were randomly placed on one of four diets in which the relative amount of macronutrients varied.  Their findings were that none of the diets led to a significant difference in weight loss.  

The conclusion.  In dieting it isn't what you eat but how much that matters.

Reference: Sachs FM, and others. 2009.  Comparison of weight-loss diets with different compositions of fat, protein and carbohydrates. New England Journal of Medicine 360(9): 859-873.

Photo Credit:  JMH649: Wikipedia Commons.  Computed Tomography (CT) transverse scan of obese (right) and non-obese abdomen.

A Sky Less Blue

Astronomers have been complaining for a long time about the dimming of the night sky.  Light pollution from increasingly bright urban centres has been diminishing the ability of ground based telescopes to view the sky.  During the great blackout on August 14th, 2003, when most of the eastern seaboard in Canada and the United States went dark, the first thing most people noticed were the stars.

I'm not sure it occurred to anyone that something similar might be happening to the daytime sky, but apparently so.  Wang and colleagues have just published a new study in the journal Science showing that air pollution is scattering light particles making the clear daytime blue sky, less blue.

I recall a whimsical reference in Douglas Adam's "Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy," to a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue.  Our blue skies no longer seem so intelligent.

Shown above is a simulation of the affect achieved by combining the sky of San Francisco with pollution levels evident in southeast Asia.  

Reference: Wang K, and others. 2009. Clear sky visibility has decreased over lanPublish Postd globally from 1973-2007. Science 323 (5921)

Photo Credit: Brandon Keim (Wired Science) with direction from K Wang.

MSM Jumps the Shark

Mainstream media (MSM) is on the decline and perhaps there was no better explanation than what happened on the Daily Show this week.

With the global economy still in a nosedive, none of the traditional journalistic media (television, radio or newspapers) have gone after those whose short term get-rich schemes blew-up and brought down the economy.  In fact, many MSM outlets were complicit by convincing the public that the economic 'bus' was in great shape, when they should have seen that it was heading over a cliff.

Why did it take a comedy news show to express the outrage that the public feels toward both those who created this crisis and those who helped them?

What was really surprising about the beating that Jim Cramer (poster boy for the complicit MSM financial news outlet, CNBC) took this past Thursday from Jon Stewart, host of the Daily Show, was his total inability to defend his actions. This strongly suggests that many people, like Cramer, knew all along that the cliff was ahead, but decided to party on regardless.

When the New York Times is in a position where they are giving front page coverage to an example of exceptional journalism on a comedy news show, I'm thinking that the MSM has just jumped the shark.

Click here to link to the episode available in Canada.

Photo Credit: Associated Press.  Daily Show (Comedy Central Channel), March 12, 2009.  Left to right: Jim Cramer, Jon Stewart.

Vampires in Another Age

Forensic archaeologist Matteo Borrini from the University of Florence has discovered evidence of the late-medieval belief in vampires.  A skeleton unearthed from a plague burial site near Venice, believed to date from the mid-1500s has been found with a brick placed in the mouth.  It is thought this was an attempt to stop what was believed to be a vampire from feeding.

Plague victims were often wrapped in a burial cloth and placed into mass graves.  These graves often needed to be opened up to add new bodies.  It was noticed that some recently interred  plague victims were bloated with what seemed like blood in the mouths.  The thinking was the bodies were bloated from the consumption of blood.  

Today we understand the bloating arises from gas production in the intestines following death.  Further, the blood in the mouth was likely simply fluid from decomposition.  Holes in the burial cloths near the mouth, interpreted as the vampire chewing through the cloth, probably arose from the decomposition fluids dissolving the cloth.

It isn't hard to understand how such beliefs arose.  The plague had been killing millions of people throughout Europe since the mid-1300s and germ theory would not be developed for centuries. There was real cause for fear.  Spontaneous generation (that is, the formation of life from decaying material)  was widely accepted and supernatural beliefs such as witchcraft were strongly supported by the Church.

Photo Credit: Matteo Borrini. New Scientist. March 06, 2009.

Who's Connected?

Maps of academic discipline relatedness are not new.  Traditionally, those who study how academic disciplines interact have looked at the citations in publications.  In a new study, Bollen and colleagues have used the way academics click between publications listed by research search engines.  The full map, seen above, may be found by clicking here.

At Thompson Rivers University (TRU) there is one particular linkage that is interesting.  TRU is currently considering re-organizing faculties and one idea is to place social work and nursing together(positioned at 9 o'clock on the main map).  It is an idea that has raised concerns in both schools.  However, if you look at the map section expanded below, this just might make sense.

Data source: Bollen and others.  2009. Clickstream data yields high resolution maps of science. PLos One 4(3): e4803.

Welcome to Town

This past fall, a male Tegeneria agrestis (the Hobo spider), shown above, dashed across my living room floor late one night.  It's size and rapid movement caught my eye right away so it was quickly scooped up and off to my lab for identification (the pattern of the eyes and structure of the male palps is diagnostic).  A month later a female of the same species also turned up in my living room.  The fall is the usual time to see these spiders moving about as it is their mating season.

This is a first record for this species in Williams Lake so I needed to get the identification confirmed.  Robb Bennett, a spider specialist  in British Columbia has now confirmed these as Hobos.

The Hobo has spread across southern BC over the past several years.  It has an ill deserved reputation for being venomous, giving rise to lesions around the bite site.  How this belief started is unclear, but physicians often spread this idea to patients with lesions of unknown cause.  The Hobo is a European species and there are no European records suggesting this spider is venomous.  Further, there are no confirmed problems with this spider here either, still the rumors persist.

How widespread this spider might be in Williams Lake is unknown.  It is unlikely, however, that the only male and female happened to end up in the home of someone who could identify them.

Photo Credit: Me.  Smallest units on the photograph are millimetres.

Photography in the 21st Century

A year or two ago the Gigapan project began to create ultrahigh resolution photographs of notable places and events.  Recently the inauguration of Barack Obama was photographed using this technique.  As the name suggests the file sizes are huge, so to make this manageable, it isn't necessary to download these photos to view them.  

Above is Hanauma Bay on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu.  At their website (click here) you will find a link to this particular photograph.  Yes, you can zoom in to see who on the beach has a navel piercing.

Is that all?  No, Microsoft (you remember Microsoft?), has developed new free software called PhotoSynth (Photosynth.net) in which uploaded photos are compared and spatially linked.  This allows you to move from one photograph to another across a landscape or around an object which has been photographed from different angles.  If you have an expensive product you want to show potential buyers, take a series of photographs from different angles, upload and viola!

This was also done at Obama's Inauguration allowing you to move through the crowd in a variety of directions, jumping from one photograph to another.  However, it does require that you download some free software and create an account to view these synched photos.  Worth it? Sure.  You can even browse through a penguin colony.

Worth Five Minutes

Remind me one day to discuss Ant Colony Optimization Algorithms

Hat Tip: Myrmecos blog

Source: Bentekr (Posted on YouTube May 18, 2008).  Check out Bentekr's other Miniscule postings such as the Fight for the Lollipop.

Are We Alone?

Barely visible inside the circle is our planet, Earth.  This is the most distant image ever taken of our home world.  It was taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 at a distance of approximately 6 billion kilometres (5.6 light HOURS).

Credit for the photo must go to Carl Sagan for insisting that Voyager 1, as it left our solar system, turn around and take one last picture.  It is called the Pale Blue Dot.

Consider the task astronomers have taken upon themselves now.  This morning a new space telescope called Kepler was launched.  Its task is to detect similar sized planets, from a distance of thousands of light YEARS.

Over three hundred new planets have been discovered in the past fifteen years orbiting stars in our galaxy.  The instruments used have limited the discovery to very large planets by either measuring the gravitational wobble they produce in their home suns as they orbit, or by measuring the tiny decline in light that occurs as they pass across the face of their suns.

It is the latter technique that Kepler will employ to find Earth-like planets, a task of incredible precision.  Many media articles are suggesting that Kepler will discover life on other planets.  Not so.  It will simply determine if other planets similar in size to Earth exist and if they are in orbits where temperatures are conducive to what we think Life requires.  

If we find such planets then we may begin to really appreciate the probability that we are not alone.  We should know in a few years.

Photo Credit: Voyager 1. NASA.