Cuyahoga - River on Fire

Apparently Cuyahoga River, which feeds into Lake Erie, has caught on fire at least 13 times. That's right. That's a river burning. River, as in water. Not that it mattered much when it was covered in oil and even less pleasant stuff.

The big fire, in 1969, was big enough to badly hurt two railway bridges and served as a wake up call to the extent of pollution.

There really is a smily face on Mars

The real world is weird like that.

The Ants

"The neglect of ants in science and natural history is a shortcoming that should be remedied, for they represent the culmination of insect evolution, in the same sense that human behings represent the surimit of vertebrate evolution." (Hölldobler and Wilson 1990, "The Ants")

"A "supercolony" of the ant Formicia Yessensis on the Ishikari Coast of Hokkaido was reported to be composed of 306 million workers and 1,080,000 queens living in 45,000 interconnected nests across a territory of 2.7 square kilometers." (Hölldobler and Wilson 1990, "The Ants", p.1)

"A notorius colony [of Pharaoh's ants (Monomorium pharaonis)] occupied the entire Biological Laboratories of Havard University during the 1960s and 1970s. An extermination campaign was finally undertaken when workers were discovered carrying radioactive chemicals from culture dishes into the surrouding walls. (The incident was made the basis of the melodramatic scientific novel Sprials by William Patrick, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1983)." (Hölldobler and Wilson 1990, "The Ants", p.2)

"What makes ants unusual even in the select company of eusocial insects is the fact that they are the only eusocial predators occupying the soil and ground litter. Termites live in the same place and also have wingles workers, but they feed almost exclusievely on dead vegetation." (Hölldobler and Wilson 1990, "The Ants", p.29)

"At this point many more workers pour out of the nest, running excitedly around it and attacking any moving object encountered (including the careless myrmecologist)." (Hölldobler and Wilson 1990, "The Ants", p.149)

"Aging workers of the green tree ant of Australia (Oecophylla smaragdina), who are distinguished by reduced fat bodes and ovaries, emigrate to special "barack nests" located at the territorial boundry of the colony. When Oecophylla workers from neighbouring nests or other invaders cross the line, these guards are the first to rush to the attack. (It can be said that a principle difference between human beings and ants is that whereas we send our young men to war, they send their old ladies)" (Hölldobler and Wilson 1990, "The Ants", p.174)

"Among the more arresting spectacles in the ant world are the dense retinues of certain species that guard the mother queen as she moves from one nest site to another." (Hölldobler and Wilson 1990, "The Ants", p.194)

http://www.antweb.org/index.jsp

John Williams is the man

Speaking of John Williams' score - this is a really cool (playback) video of Moosebutter's tribute

"'Oooh, ahhh.' That's how it always starts. Then later there's the running and the screaming"

Re-watching the three Jurassic Park films, and re-reading the first book, I have three main conclusions
- These films are bloody brilliant! Especially the score.
- Labwork is much more fun when you pretend to clone dinosaurs.
- Meat is actually rather rich on lysine... (Thanks Maja)

Whoever passes the Turing test is a liar

An Asimoivan robot wouldn't pass the Turing test. In order to pass the test, and thus be deemed a true sentient being, the robot would have to lie about its nature. This is forbidden by the second law of robotics.

Unless, of course, the tester was not a human but a fellow robot, with all possible interesting definitions of "sentient" and "human" that might show up in that conversation.

Med tåg till valarna

Morgonrufs på Vännäs station


Garanterat järvsäkert


Jag, mormor och gamla minnen


Narvik i kvällssolen


Fikapaus


Valsafari i Andenäs


Västerålens nordspets


Kaskelotten Glen (känns igen på sin vita ryggfläck)


Glen posar inför safaribåten


Fiskebåt med följeslagare


Dykande kaskelott. Fenans vikt mäts i ton


There she blows!


Låt oss säga att ur intet kom en mås...


Dykande val med Vesterålens klippor i bakgrunden


Valskådning. Notera sprutmolnet


Stämningsbild - båt i motljus


Berg, hav och moln


Mer berg, hav och moln


Skarvar på tork


Rorbur i Andenäs


Bo för mås och människor



Morgonstretching


Rariteten på valmuséet - det strandade kaskelottskelettet


Örn flyger framför klippa


Skarv och Lunnefågel


Lunnestim. Notera regnet


Lunne i flykt


Bad i Bleik. Fågelfjäll i bakgrunden


Det var kallt


Tångbädd i vackra färger


Vyer vid havet


Berg och moln


Moln och berg, och även snö


Snö, berg samt dessutom moln


Svolvær fritidshamn

Leeloo Dallas Multipass

Copyright: The owners of the film.

And a million miles away a butterfly flapped its wings ...

There is always a bigger fish, but sometimes the small are the ones that count. In the field of oceanography a recent Nature paper suggests that biologically generated turbulence - swimming and other movements - from the multitude of organisms actually contribute significantly to the mixing of water in the ocean. This mixing does not necessarily come from the animals actively pushing water around, but rather from the viscosity of water itself, which makes a portion of water stick to the animal and follow its movement between the strata of the ocean.

Warm and cold water from different layers mix, energy is transferred, gas are moved between water bodies of different solubility - and in the end the water movements, weather and climate of the whole biosphere is affected. "Even the smallest creatures in the acids of the marsh", as the troubadour sings.

The capacity of the jellyfish Mastigias for moving water is demonstrated in this neat video, with the help of some ink.

Copyright: Katija & Dabiri

The police, the professor and the president

Copyright: xkcd

I haven't done much of political commentary on this blog yet, so I suppose this is as good a start as any. The commentary in question of course belongs to the author of the webcomic xkcd rather than me, but even so it shows what I in the depth of my heart feel should be the next chapter in the story of the police, the professor and the president.

Update 090817: Press secretary Robert Gibbs has revealed the three involved gentlemen's choice of beer. Apparently President Obama had a Bud Light, Professor Gates had a Red Stripe and Sergeant Crowley a Blue Moon. If I had to choose I would go with the professor on this one. Blue moon is not as dark as I like them, but there is plenty of taste.