Tuesday, April 30, 2019


Couldn’t resist. Been there right?



Maybe he was looking at this.



Meet the Sloan’s viperfish: It uses light-producing photophores to lure unsuspecting prey toward its mouth—where hinged teeth rotate inward to trap its prey.


Animal Stuff

The fangtooth moray eel's dagger-sharp teeth really make an impression—and those are just the teeth we can see. On the weaponry hidden deep inside the eel’s throat:

 Glad I never ran into these guys but did have six Green Panamic Morays checking me out once. Got too close to a "nest".

Mating season turns these normally solitary mountain hares into hostile foes. Males duke it out for the most prized mate—and females aren't passive spectators.





Nature photographers will often come across some rather eyebrow-raising things out in the wild. Nothing is a better example of this than what Finnish photographer Lassi Rautiainen managed to capture – a wild bear and wolf keeping a close friendship out in the wilderness. “It’s very unusual to see a bear and a wolf getting on as this” Lassi explains, yet the female grey wolf and male brown bear seem to be getting on fine as evidenced by the photographs of them with one another. They were actually spotted together for a whopping ten days, where they would enjoy each other’s company for quite some time, often between 8 pm and 4 am.



Animals, gotta love them



A small tribute to the women. I was raised by four strong, independent, intelligent women...I owe them much.


“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life Walt Whitman

Edward Robert Hughes - A Young Beauty, 1875.
 



President Wilson suffered a severe stroke in October 1919. Edith Wilson began to screen all matters of state and decided which were important enough to bring to the bedridden president. In doing so, she de facto ran the executive branch of the government for the remainder of the president's second term, until March 1921.[1


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Wilson#/media/File:Edith_Wilson_cropped_2.jpg



The only direct reference to Agent 355 in any of the Culper Ring's missives was from Abraham Woodhull ("Samuel Culper Sr."), to General George Washington.[3] Woodhull described her as "one who hath been ever serviceable to this correspondence."[4]
The true identity of Agent 355 is still unknown, but some facts about her seem clear. She worked with the American Patriots during the Revolutionary War as a spy. She would have been recruited by Woodhull into the spy ring.[1] The way the code is constructed indicates that she may have had "some degree of social prominence."[2] She was likely living in New York City,[5] and at some point had contact with Major John Andre and Benedict Arnold.[6][7] One person who may have been Agent 355 was Anna Strong.[5] She was Woodhull's neighbor.[5] Another theory is that Agent 355 may have been Robert Townsend's common-law wife.[1] Stories about Townsend state that he was in love with Agent 355.[8] John Burke and Andrea Meyer have made a different case for 355's involvement in the spy ring using circumstantial evidence that she may have been close to Major John André and also to Benjamin Tallmadge, thereby protecting Woodhull from accusations of being a spy.[9] Other possible candidates for 355 include Sarah Horton Townsend and Elizabeth Burgin.[10]
It is also occasionally believed that there was no Agent 355, but rather that the code indicated a woman who had useful information, but wasn't "formally connected to the ring."[11] The code itself may have referred to "a woman," not an agent who was a woman.[3]
Agent 355 is thought to have played a major role in exposing Arnold and the arrest of Major John André, who was hanged in Tappan, New York.[1] She may have been member of a prominent Loyalist family which would put her within easy reach of British commanders.[1][4]



On April 26, 1777, Sybil Ludington rode her horse, Star, 40 miles (64 km) through the night in Putnam County, New York, to warn approximately 400 militiamen under the control of her father that British troops were planning to attack Danbury, Connecticut, where the Continental Army had a supply depot. On her way to gather her father's troops, she warned the people of Danbury.
Sybil's father, Colonel Henry Ludington, had fought in the French and Indian War. He volunteered to head the local militia during the American Revolution. Due to her father's position, Sybil had to move from town to town following her father, and unknowingly played an important role in the success of the colonies. The afternoon after Sybil warned residents of Danbury, the British troops burned down three buildings and destroyed multiple houses, but did not kill many people. Unlike accounts about the rides of Paul Revere and William Dawes before the outbreak of the Revolution, little was told of Sybil Ludington's ride for personal reasons; the only record of this event was written by her great grandson. Ludington's ride started at 9 p.m. and ended around dawn.[5]





The gardener has a long, touchy-feely relationship with the soil. As every good cultivator knows, you assess the earth by holding it. Is it dark and crumbly, is there an earthworm or beetle in there, is it moist, and when you smell it, are you getting that pleasant earthy aroma?
All these signs are reassuring, and have been through the ages, but they are mere indicators of something much greater and infinitely mysterious: a hidden universe beneath our feet.



Don't forget the trees, Mother Earths connection to the sky

Some miscellaneous interest items 

Overbite from soft foods has left us with the ability to pronounce and v and f 



While they were once widely feared, lesser long-nosed bats are gradually attaining something of a hero-like status, thanks to their critical role in pollinating the agave plants used to make tequila.


Almost 13,000 Years Ago, a Comet Impact Set Everything on Fire

Roughly 12,800 years ago, planet Earth went through a brief cold snap that was unrelated to any ice age. For years, there have been geologists that have argued that this period was caused by an airburst or meteor fragments (known as the Younger Dryas Impact Theory). This event is believed to have caused widespread destruction and the demise of the Clovis culture in North American.

More Evidence that Planet 9 is Really Out There

What’s going on in the distant reaches of our Solar System? Is there a Planet 9 out there?
Out in the frigid expanse of our System, there are bodies on orbital paths that don’t make sense in terms of our eight-planet Solar System. There seems to be an undiscovered body out there, several times more massive than Earth, shaping the orbits of some Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), and driving astronomers to look deeper and more thoroughly into the extreme reaches of our System.
What they’re looking for is the mysterious, and so far unproven, ninth planet.




Dr. Scott Sheppard and his team are searching for the elusive and unproven Planet X (aka Planet 9), a hypothetical planet way out in the Solar System that is supposedly more massive than Earth and is causing objects in that neighborhood to clump together. As the team examines the nether regions of the Solar System looking for Planet X, they keep finding planets further and further away.


And it's all chemistry, what a trip!




























Saturday, March 30, 2019


 Much has happened in my life in the past two years and it has been a time for change.
 My time with The Whale People is over. But we will always be family as I will be with my Mexican community in El Cardonal where I spent the best 14 years of my life.

In my third year of tracking the humpbacks. Beside me is my first and most valuable "pangero", Vicente Lucero. Ah, the adventures we had with the Whale People! This is the way I wish to be remembered. When I dove in with a pod of mother Orcas that were teaching their offspring how to herd and hunt Mobulas, he turned to the two young ladies on board (Lexie and Tyler Cook) and simply said, " Herme (his name for me), he's loco". One of the greatest compliments of my life. And to the other pangeros I had the joy and honor to work with, Ishmael, Antonio, Roberto, Chente, Martine, "que les vaya bien amigos."

 Yet there is no sadness in leaving all this behind, just a joyful anticipation of my next level of enlightenment...I have so far to go and learning has always thrilled me.

I won’t go into detail but a cancer has invaded my throat and I am weakening fairly rapidly though given loving impetus by all my family here to stay strong. It is not the first time I have been given sanctuary in my daughter Kersti's home and the support of her husband Bill Evans in providing me a comfortable haven as I enter my next journey.



This is my new “Shangri La” and is as cozy a place as was my AirStream home all those years in Mexico. Cleaning out my trailer I came across this very old, 1956 school notice of a track meet where I and two of my dearest friends excelled. I post it because it was kind of the beginning of the journey which is now ending. Damn, I had an arm! Came in real handy in water-polo in high school even though I played center guard. Bob Kinsley; I loved giving you a good feed for a shot (Bob was an outstanding center forward) because I knew you would blast the net with that skill and strength that we could all depend upon.



One friend in particular that I want to memorialize in this blog because he was the best friend I ever had. He passed to his next journey on May 17th, 2015 but not before I had the chance to introduce him to Whale World.



His name was Frank Denney and I miss him deeply. We were always discovering together, whether hiking in The High Sierra or sneaking into The 3rd and Peerless burlesque theater in San Francisco. 

We changed places often.


Much to remember now. I have been blessed with many loving friends and tried my best to be worthy of that love and respect. Much to contemplate and it has been good.



This was one of my most moving moments just before leaving. Saying good-bye to my dear “Q’s” who you have heard of before. Jean-Luc and Brigitte. They will become the owners/caretakers of Shangri La. Their love for that piece of paradise and the community is equal to mine, I am so thankful. This picture taken by another of my "Angel People", Christina Geyer in her home in Los Barriles where she and husband Chris have often given me "shelter from the storm".



I now open my heart to being with family and seeing my new journey unfold. I will soon be with my son Zack, whose unshakable fight for justice has brought unending pride for me, for a weekend of father/son bonding and maybe, just maybe, the mother of my children, Macy, my first love.


You will know all is good if the blogs keep coming; it has been a delight sharing with you all. This blog has substituted for the incredible high I experienced during my years teaching at Mendocino College in Ukiah. To all of you, thanks for putting up with my rather eccentric approach to education. I may have years to come yet but they will need to be quality.

That’s it for this month’s blog. Science etc in May. I leave you with this picture; too extraordinarily beautiful not to share. And may she be protected by the soul of the lion.












Wednesday, February 27, 2019




Every now and again I see a picture, or experience a moment of such beauty and tranquility that all else is forgotten. Just one thing exists….peace in my soul. I become the moment. Perhaps it does you too, I hope so.



This too creates that kind of moment. There is so much beauty in this world and it is all magic.



And if it can’t be experienced directly it can be found in the writings of those who have felt it, loved it and recorded it.




Sometimes with words so eloquent and profound that they bring tears to my eyes and a special love in my heart. Thank you mom for being a reader and in your gentle, unobtrusive way of introducing me to the magic of books.

And within it (the magic) endless opportunities to be astounded if we just take a minute to “stop the world” as Don Juan suggested to Carlos Castaneda.



Three hearts, two rectangular eyes, one transparent body: It's the glass octopus, one of the many "aliens of the deep" that Solvin Zankl Wildlife Photography captured in the depths of our oceans: bit.ly/2mC3yNi


And if we peer into the vastness of The Great Mystery we see wonders beyond imagination.



The number of stars now known to be in the universe is:

2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.  More than there are grains of sand on the earth.  Odds are pretty good earthlings aren’t the only life forms in the universe.

Attaching is a Hubble photo of “The Pillars of Creation”, a 40-trillion mile tall cloud of gas and dust forming into new stars.  The nebula had lived its moment and been destroyed over 1000 years by the time the light for this photo reached Hubble in 1995.  In our constantly regenerating universe.


And thanks to The Hubble Telescope many of the wonders have been disclosed to us....thank you all that brought that wonderful instrument into our lives.

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of a concentration of stars within the globular cluster NGC 6752.


 Hidden among the stars is an image of a background galaxy that is much farther away. The diminutive galaxy, named by its discoverers as Bedin 1, measures only around 3,000 light-years at its greatest extent — a fraction of the size of the Milky Way. Not only is it tiny, but it is also incredibly faint. These properties led astronomers to classify it as a dwarf spheroidal galaxy that is as old as the universe.


Astronomers Process Hubble’s Deepest Image to get Even More Data, and Show that Some Galaxies are Twice as big as Previously Believed.
 
It allowed us to spot auroras on Saturn and planets orbiting distant suns. It permitted astronomers to see galaxies in the early stages of formation, and look back to some of the earliest periods in the Universe. It also measured the distances to Cepheid variable stars more accurately than ever before, which helped astrophysicists constrain how fast the Universe is expanding (the Hubble Constant).



It did all of this and more, which is why no space telescope is as recognized and revered as the Hubble Space Telescope. And while it’s mission is currently scheduled to end in 2021, Hubble is still breaking new ground. Thanks to the efforts of a research team from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Hubble recently obtained the deepest images of the Universe ever taken from space.


Back to earth:

Isn’t this majestic creature just too beautiful for words?



African Kudu

And the birds, oh my the birds, once dinosaurs, now ain’t that a hoot! Also absolute rulers of the terrestrial world (I don’t mean in the aggressive sense but in that they were so diverse that they were able to occupy almost every niche in the biosphere) for 150 million years, now rulers of the skies....mind bending!

  
American Bald Eagle



Taiwan Blue Magpie (Urocissa caerulea)



Don’t know the name of this one but if you think it faked, google “colorful bird images” and be enchanted. Latest estimated number of bird species in the world – 18,000.

Now here’s something to consider and exercise one’s imagination. Imagine traipsing through a forest, growing thirsty, and stumbling on a small pool of water in the knot of a log. How would you drink it? If you had a straw, you might use that. A dipper cup would be handy. Or perhaps a sponge?



Faced with this situation, wild chimpanzees employ a technique called leaf-sponging: they scrunch a ball of leaves in one hand, dip it in the water, and wring it out into their mouth. But a recent paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences shows that chimpanzees in Uganda have developed a new technique of sponging — and are passing it along via social learning.

Some people honor all this with their art, “good on ya, artisans”!



This artwork is created by Jeffro Uitto. Please credit the artist. https://www.facebook.com/.../les.../2350429158324326/
http://www.jeffrouitto.com/

A tribute to two people who deserve to be remembered.




Clara Belle Williams was the first African-American graduate of New Mexico State University.
Williams was born Clara Belle Drisdale in Plum, Texas in October 1885. She pursued her education at the Prairie View Normal and Independent College, graduating as valedictorian in 1908. She married Jasper Williams in 1917; their three sons became physicians.[1]
While teaching at Booker T. Washington School in Las Cruces, Williams in 1928 began to enroll for summer classes at New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1937. She was the first African-American to graduate. Williams took graduate classes into the 1950s.[1]
In 1961 New Mexico State University named a street on its campus after Williams; in 2005 the building of the English department was renamed Clara Belle Williams Hall.[2] In 1980 Williams was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws degree by New Mexico State University, which also apologized for the treatment Williams was subjected to as a student.[3]





 Vivien Thomas, African-American surgical technician who developed the procedures used to treat blue baby syndrome in the 1940s. Thomas was also offered the position of Chief of Surgery at his alma mater, Johns Hopkins in 1941.


So many contributions. And check this out, no wonder, eh?




Just a couple more nods to the pursuit of knowledge.


High-performance golf clubs and airplane wings are made out of titanium, which is as strong as steel but about twice as light. These properties depend on the way a metal's atoms are stacked, but random defects that arise in the manufacturing process mean that these materials are only a fraction as strong as they could theoretically be. An architect, working on the scale of individual atoms, could design and build new materials that have even better strength-to-weight ratios.
In a new study published in Nature Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering and Applied Science, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Cambridge have done just that. They have built a sheet of nickel with nanoscale pores that make it as strong as titanium but four to five times lighter.




A little archeology

DUNEDIN, NEW ZEALAND—Katherine Hall of the University of Otago suggests that Alexander the Great may have died of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological condition, according to a Live Science report.



Hundreds of years after his death, historians wrote that the king of Macedonia had died at the age of 32 in June of 323 B.C. in Babylon, after a brief illness characterized by fever and paralysis. Many believed he had been poisoned. The historic record also suggests that Alexander's body did not decay for seven days after he was declared dead. Hall suggests these symptoms could be explained by Guillain-Barré syndrome, which is an autoimmune disorder that causes gradual paralysis and could have put Alexander into a deep coma resembling death. In addition, while the syndrome is generally extremely rare, it occurs more often in the region where Alexander died, particularly in the spring and summer. For more, go to “In Search of History's Greatest Rulers: Alexander the Great, King of Macedon.”



 

A pencil drawing by a 16 year old Irish girl has won a National Art Competition. Shania McDonagh is tipped as a future top artist. The man she drew is a Fisherman and Seaweed Harvester named Coleman Coyne. There's a story in every line.


It’s what I grew up taught that showed character, experience and yes, a story in every line. May The Great Mystery journey with you all.