Category: Nature

– Bill Bryson on the current state of the British Countryside; an interview in today’s Observer.

 

What he says goes for here in the Netherlands as well – perhaps even more so. Since moving to what passes for the country in a densely-populated country such as The Netherlands I’ve become aware of how little of "Nature in the raw" there is, and how much of an agrarian machine exists here. It’s like Disneyland – a simulacrum of reality (or Hyper-Reality, as Umberto Eco puts it so well); in this case, a simulacrum of Nature. That’s not to say that I don’t take pleasure in it, I certainly do; but unmanaged wilderness it ain’t.

 

Bryson talks about the loss of hedgerows. They are almost unknown here. I am struck by the amount of electrified fences I see as I walk or cycle around the region. Hedgerows – a vital part of preserving wildlife and bio-diversity – seem to be an extinct species here in The Netherlands so far as I can see.

We’ve had a wooden floor put in the bedroom at the farmhouse. While that’s been going on, we’ve spent the last couple of nights sleeping in a room in the outhouse. A bit basic, but doable – and the plan is to turn that room into a guest bedroom anyway. The room has a small attic above it, which is accessible from the workroom next door.

 

The first night we were vaguely aware of the patter of tiny feet, but last night the patter appeared to turn into a full scale barn dance. And either the mice were wearing hobnailed boots, or we may have a larger species of rodent to deal with. This will explain the selection of traps that the previous owners left in the workroom. I shall get some practice in. Oh, and a cat.

There’s a good interview (by Emma Brookes) of David Attenborough in the Guardian today. Attenborough is one of my personal heroes. A gentleman and a scholar.

Once again, Carl Zimmer has come up with yet another fascinating story about one of Mother Nature’s parasites: this time it’s a story about a parasitic wasp and its pet cockroach. It is amazing to conjecture how these parasitic relationships manage to evolve, and yet clearly they do (no, Virginia, Intelligent Design didn’t play a role).

A tip for parents – if you’re taking your child to the zoo, please ensure that he, she or it does not wear inappropriate clothing.

 

(hat tip to Neatorama)

When I was a boy (many, many years ago), I was occasionally able to visit London because my aunt and uncle lived there. I invariably went to visit the Science Museum in Kensington (it was free) and I usually managed to have enough money to pay for a ticket to the London Planetarium. This was always a magical place to me. Sitting in the dark, apparently watching the night skies wheel and turn above me. When the lights went up, there was the alien-looking machine in the centre of the room that created all this magic – the Zeiss projector. I’m sure these visits to the London Planetarium fanned my interest in astronomy. Later, when I was studying electrical engineering at Liverpool University, I took a summer job at the Liverpool Museum, where I wound up operating the machinery of the small planetarium that had recently been opened in it. I was as happy as a pig in clover. 

 

I mention all this, because today I learned that the bastards of Madame Tussaud’s (who own the London Planetarium) have decided to close down the planetarium and use the space to stuff in yet more waxworks of "celebrities". As the Guardian sorrowfully says today: "takings at the till triumph over educational enrichment". 

 

Society’s obsession with the wrong sort of "stars" is going too far, I tell you. It amazes me that, given the choice between the majesty and infinite mysteries of the heavens on the one hand, and the trivialities of Posh and Becks and Hello magazine on the other, that so many people choose the latter without a second thought. Perhaps I’m just turning into a misanthrope.

 

I suppose that I can take some crumb of comfort from the fact that, even if the London Planetarium is closing, there are still plenty of planetaria left to visit in Europe.

I’ve mentioned Carl Zimmer’s fascinating book Parasite Rex before. He’s returned to one of its themes (that viruses alter host behaviour) in his blog. In "The Return of the Puppet Masters" he leads off with the rather startling question: are brain parasites altering the personalities of three billion people? Go and read it. I’m just mindful of the fact that we will need to get a cat to keep the mouse population down around the farmhouse. If I don’t already carry Toxoplasma gondii in my brain, I probably soon will do.

Is James Lovelock over-egging the pudding, or is he right to give his warning? The cynic in me sees a connection between the article and the fact that his new book is due. Still, part of me thinks that all is not well with our ecosphere, and that the balancing act is at risk. Will it become morbidly apparent during my lifetime? Probably not, but I do worry for today’s youngsters. My great-nephew had his birthday yesterday. What sort of world will he take over from our stewardship?

A striking phrase from a thought-provoking piece by Olivia Judson in the New York Times. She moves aside the stone of faith to reveal the wonder of life.

 

(hat tip to Tara C. Smith over at the Aetiology blog)

Fascinating study summarised by Hilzoy over at Obsidian Wings. Could it really be true that sexually differentiated object preferences arose prior to the emergence of hominids?

The Improbable Research blog comes up with a corker today: the boar semen collection music video.

 

I don’t know where to start with this. I dislike corporate videos that have totally inappropriate background music, but this one is in a whole new league. And then the use of the pneumatic tube system… I have fond memories of a childhood where these things were used in department stores to collect money and return change from a central cashier. Those memories have been seared from my brain as a result of this video.

One of the things about our move to the farmhouse next year is that Martin will once again get to have a dog. He hasn’t had one for the last twenty years because he didn’t think it would be right to keep a dog in a town. Once we are in the country, then there’ll be plenty of space to exercise a dog. We are also planning to get a cat to keep the mouse population down around the farmhouse.

 

Of course, pets are not just for Christmas – they need to be looked after. And as a timely reminder, Tom Reynolds, over at the Random Acts of Reality blog, reminds us of an old, but gold, piece of advice: how to give pills to pets.

A rather worrying report in the New Scientist this week, about the fact that the Gulf Stream may be changing. It’s the Gulf Stream that prevents us from having really severe winters, and if that goes, then we’ll definitely be holding the Elfstedentocht every year.

Following on from the delightful discovery that male mice sing to woo the female, comes a story that scientists have recorded icebergs "singing". Methinks the word "singing" is a tad wishful thinking – part of the song sounds like an extended fart to me, but then perhaps I have no romanticism…

 

(hat tip to Neatorama)

Well, it looks as though David Attenborough – that grand old institution of nature films – has done it again. Last night the first episode of his new series – Life in the Undergrowth – was aired on BBC TV. I sat in front of it with mouth open and eyebrows raised for most of the time at the beauty and diversity of life on spaceship Earth.

 

And nowhere more so than at the sequence of the mating of Leopard Slugs. The BBC has put a shortened (they’ve cut out the foreplay!) video clip of it up at the programme’s web site here. It’s pretty low quality (I never did think much of Real Networks technology), so you’ll miss a lot from the original. Nonetheless, something of the beauty and strangeness of this hermaphroditic mating comes across.

I mentioned that we’ve discovered that we have crayfish living under the house. Today’s Observer carries a story about the American Red signal crayfish that is apparently ravaging the riverbeds of the UK. Oo-er. Looking again at the photo I took of the crayfish, it does appear to be red. Oo-er again… The final quote in the story sounds rather worrying:

Yet again, ooo-errr… Methinks I need to put crayfish on the menu pretty damn quick.

The WorldChanging blog has an entry on an interesting new idea: using gravitational attraction to deflect asteroids. The Hollywood scenario of blowing up an asteroid that is on course to hit earth is not a good idea. Somewhat better might be to use rockets to nudge the asteroid out of the way. But now, a new idea has been proposed: simply park a large mass (say 20 tons or so) next to the asteroid for a year or two. The slight gravitational attraction between the asteroid and the large mass would be sufficient to alter the asteroid’s orbit. The catch is that to get a big enough change in orbit, you would have to do it 20 years ahead of when the asteroid would otherwise hit the earth. Still, NASA does have the NEO programme, which tracks asteroids that have a chance of hitting earth.

 

And if you want to find out for yourself what the effect would be of an asteroid hitting your neighbourhood, then the University of Arizona has a handy-dandy computer program for you. Simply feed in your chosen parameters and find out whether you would be vaporised or merely treated to an impressive fireworks display.

This week’s New Scientist reports that a new species of lemur has been named after John Cleese – the Avahi cleesei. The John Cleese franchise is taking over the world, I tell you. I see that after his successful appearance as Dr. Twain Weck in the Institute of Backup Trauma, he appears to be coming back in a new webinar to be launched in five days time…

It’s the time of year when the Taurid meteor shower comes around. There seem to be indications that this could be a good year, producing a higher number of fireball meteors than usual. Watch the skies!

Another interesting perceptual illusion. Don’t always think you see what you think you see…