This morning while procrastinating over my take home exam, I read and summarized a new bit of research from the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Researchers there worked with a brittle star that is common in the north sea sediments to determine how it would react to short to mid term exposures to a more acidic ocean. This is highly relevant since the ocean has been growing slowly more acidic, and a large number of marine invertebrates, including many commercially important ones, have shells, or exoskeletons of calcium carbonates. As the ocean pH goes down, those creatures will be stressed trying to maintain their shells.

Who is going to be affected? The list is long and distinguished – Corals, lobster, crabs, shrimp, oysters, clams, scallops, mussels, pteropods, sea stars, sea urchins, snails, conch, crinoids and lots more.  What’s more many of these creatures are very important because they are bio-engineers creating habitat (corals and oysters) or they filter the water and sediments to keep them clean (oysters, clams, mussels).  Many are also key species in the diet of other commercially and ecologically important species. Understanding how these organisms will react to acidification is important if we are going to have any hope of protecting the ecosystem we rely on for so much of our food let alone recreation and other uses. Check out the discussion at The Other 95% (that’s all the world without a backbone).

I have also added a critical review of Franklin’s The Most Important Fish in the Sea. It is a significantly shortened, readers digest version of a critical review submitted for one of my classes.

Edited: Replaced that wimpy hacked version of SRV’s Texas Flood with the full cut from the same concert that runs 9:34

• Lise Meitner – Physics
• Shirley Jackson – Theoretical Physics
• Henrietta Swan Leavitt – Astonomy
• Laurie Marker – Biology
• Barbara Block – Marine Ecology and Biology
• Lisa Levin – Marine Ecology / Oceanography
• Cindy Lee Van Dover – Oceanography
• Rosalind Franklin – Biology
• B. Galdikas – Biology
• Meave Leakey – Paleontology
• Louise Leakey – Paleontology
• Mary Leakey – Anthropolgy
• Jane Goodall – Biology and Anthropology
• Sylvia Earle – Marine Biology / Oceanography
• Eugenie Clark – Marine Biology
• Marie Curie – Chemistry and Physics
• Irene Joliot-Curie – Chemistry
• Helene Langevin-Joliot – Physics
• Caroline Herschel – Astronomy
• Gerty Cori – Biochemistry
• Maria Mitchell – Astronomy (bio)
• Sue Hendrickson – Paleontology
• Jennifer Blank – Geochemistry
• Jill Tarter – Astronomy
• Beth Shapiro – Biology
• Lisa Kaltenegger – Astrophysics
• Amber VanDerwarker – Anthropology
• Elizabeth Catlos – Geochemistry
• Penny Boston – Biology
• Diana Northup – Biology

While most of these we came up with without resources, it helped for some of them that Johann has his “Scientist Trading Cards” list, which all of these ladies are on. I figure his lists are the equivalent to “class notes” for us. When we have time maybe we can do a part two… that and go back and hyperlink these to bio pages and lab pages. ed. Done!

Oh and for the record Penny Boston and Diana Northup have some of the coolest named study subjects (at least for Johann): Snottites and phlegm balls.

S’not funny. That’s what they study… no really.

My son and I took a ride down to the Fort Rachel Marina at the end of the street today — his first long(ish) venture on his his new bike. On the way back from the marina we stopped at the tiny public boat launch that is shoehorned between a couple of buildings.

Every time we stop there we find something interesting. A few days ago while on our evening family walk we watched a black-capped night heron stalk, catch and eat a few small fish there. This time we were disappointed until we noticed a moving rock in the shallows. It turned out to be a mating pair of horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus). This is the time for them and the high tide was coming up fast, but it was really strange seeing them coming up in the boat launch. A narrow area of gravel, rock fill and silt, the female used her shell flange to clear rocks down to the silt layer, all while dragging the seaweed covered male along behind her.

Johann and I watched the pair of living fossils for about 15 minutes, talking about their ecology, biology and history all while they continued about two feet away from us. It was great since he was able to see the compound eyes very closeup, and see the hinged shell in action. It was also great to hear him tell me how they were relatives of the –now extinct — sea scorpion and that they are very special since they have survived for milions of years including the PT Dying — his name for what is known as the Permian-Triassic Extinction event in which 90% of Permian era marine species went extinct.

The picture above (poor as it is) is from about an hour later when we went back by there on our family walk. We could see about a half dozen spots where the female had cleared a “nest” to lay the eggs that will hatch out in 14—15 days. With any luck we will be able to catch a glimpse of the hatchlings in the next two to three weeks.

As I was exploring this, my 4 year old came over and thought it was a great game. He picked up his magnifying glass and started “helping” me make the transcriptions and asking me about the document. After explaining that these were images of very old writings and how writing has evolved over time, he caught right on — in fact he took over. Now his homepage includes links to the palaeogrphy page right beside Disney, PBSKids and Nick Jr.

We have turned the easier pages (a bit subversively) into a writing exercise. Johann is given the page to be transcribed (printed from the provided PDF) and then writes out each line in one of his notebooks. My wife or I then check his transcription, not so much for accuracy of the transcription as for his own letterforms.

It has turned into a wonderful tool, since he views it as a bit of detective work and enjoys the entire process. I was a little concerned at first that the old letterforms and spelling might be distracting or even undermine his own lettering. Fortunately, that has not proven to be the case. He already has a solid writing foundation and understands that these are old forms and no longer accepted in general writing. I do fear that we may have introduced him to ligatures a bit prematurely and may be seeing them in his own writing in the future — but is that really such a bad thing?

He is a bit thrown (as am I at times) by the interchangeable use of “u” and “v” or “i” and “j”. Some of the abbreviations — ommitting an “m” or “n” by putting a wavy line above the preceeding vowel — also give him a bit of a pause. Then again he does understand that “ye” is not “y” and “e” but is really the old english y-form of “Þ” and “e”. Þ (the character thorn) is pronounced “th”, so when we see “Ye” on modern signs they really mean “Þe” which is really “the” and is pronounced thē or thə not yē.

On a side note, am I mistaken or is there no SGML character entity for e-macron (ē) or schwa (ə) ?
Surely with their heavy use for liguistic purposes this is an oversight?

“Son, if you and yours in this room continue to give these people the mantle of legitimacy, then the men under my command who died back there in Bastone will have died in vain. The war against the enemy of mankind didn’t end in Berlin or Tokyo or Seoul, that war goes on today. That war is being fought by men and women every bit as brave as the men who I served with in the past.

…

“People are going to die in this war until someone says “I surrender”. If you are ready to surrender, I suggest you do so, for the rest of us, I have just one word for you:

“Nuts!“

I am growing more and more troubled by events here at home, events and policies of the government and various parties.

I have a big problem with voices of dissent being hushed with choruses of “unpatriotic” or “traitor”, especially when many of those raising the chorus are our leaders who, one would hope, have studied the political history of this nation to see that dissent and debate are key elements of it’s success as a democratic republic. Democracy is a difficult proposition at best. The needs of so many, often disparate, groups of people need to be meshed into one, hopefully universally just, system of laws and policies. Add to the internal issues the policies that should be adopted externally to both protect our own citizens, aid our allies, and put forward a good example of modern democracy and it is a tribute to any modern democracy that anything gets accomplished.

Discussion and debate are necessary for this to happen, those in power must realize and accept that not everyone will agree with their policy, even if the majority have agreed that it is the best course. Those who do not agree, have every right to peacefully voice their opinion. In fact it could even be said that their speaking their opinion is a duty to ensuring a lasting democracy. It is vital that those who actively voice their dissent from the national policy must do so with responsibility–they must rest their arguments on facts and opinions based on fact rather than cite wild allegations. They should criticize laws and policies, not those charged with carrying out the laws and policies of the state as part (or all) of their job. On both sides of this issue there has been growing abuse. Too many, or at least the most vocal and reported, demonstrations have been attacking not only policy but those charged with carrying out the policy of the US abroad. Simultaneously however there has been a seeming shift in the attitude of high level administration officials that makes them accuse any who disagree publicly with policy as ?unpatriotic.?

One issue in particular that continues to disturb me, especially with the background I have and that of members of my family, is the relative lack of action on the ?Plame affair.? I do not know the answers or all of the particulars, but it seems indisputable that high level administration officials leaked information that, if true, would be a major violation of law. (I won’t even venture into the realm of possible damage’s to national security and national resources.) Why has nothing happened? Why did it take almost 3 months for the story to break in the general media? What happened to the promise of returning honor to the White House?

Then there are stories of privacy violations and immigration issues, granted they may be isolated in the news, but they appear to be all too real and frequent. If this story is true, it is extremely upsetting.

These are not the actions and policies of the nation whose ideals I could easily defend and serve as a member of the armed forces. I only hope that it can quickly recover, and the best way of ensuring it’s recovery is working within the system—voting, peaceful smart dissension, discussion and debate. I am beginning to believe that no matter my personal political beliefs towards one party or another, it is time to change regimes. Not that the current regime has necessarily done things wrong—that is a different debate—but because the climate against dissent, debate and discussion is very disturbing and in my opinion more of a threat to democracy than anything else currently arrayed against it.

Margaret Chase said it over 50 years ago in her “ Declaration of Conscience” to her colleagues in the Senate:

Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all to frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism –

The right to criticize;

The right to hold unpopular beliefs;

The right to protest;

The right of independent thought.

The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know some one who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us doesn’t? Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in.

Just as relevant today as it was 50 years ago, perhaps even more so.

Captain Kidd, in fact did visit the area in the 1680′s as a buccaneer and again just before his capture and return to England. It is known that he stopped at Block Island and tried to use the influence and friends he had in New York to gain a pardon from England. His efforts failed and he was captured in June of 1699 and jailed in Boston to await return to England and trial.

From his 1690′s visit Kidd was rumored to have sailed far up the Connecticut river. There are many tales of buried pirate treasure on islands in the Connecticut River, Block Island, the Mystic coast, even Boston Harbor. There was in fact some buried treasure of Kidd’s recovered from Gardiners Island, just after his arrest in 1699.

All good fun, and a bit of history–or legend–from Mystic.