Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Category: Nature

  • Storms Of My Grandchildren

    I’m currently reading James Hansen’s Storms Of My Grandchildren – a thoroughly researched, and terrifying, look at climate change.
     
    I don’t actually have any grandchildren; the nearest my genes have come to carrying on are my nieces, nephews and great-nephew. While I don’t worry for myself, I am concerned about the state of the world that we are leaving for them.

  • Art and Life

    Years ago, I sat in the cinema watching Hollywood’s take on Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. One of the bits that stuck in my mind was the crystal cave sequence. Impressive though it was to my young mind, it simply cannot compare to the real thing…
     
     

  • The Uniqueness of Humans

    Here’s another terrific presentation from the incomparable Robert Sapolsky, this time giving an address to a graduating class of students. Well worth watching.

  • The Unbroken Thread

    Another wonderful mashup in the Symphony of Science series; this time with Carl Sagan, David Attenborough and Jane Goodall…
     
     

  • Getting Colder…

    We’re having a cold snap at the moment, and some of the visitors to the garden have noticed the bird feeder…

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  • The Wonder of Parasites

    I’ve blogged about my wonder concerning Toxoplasma gondii before. I’ve also blogged about Robert Sapolsky before. It gives me great pleasure, therefore, to be able to point you towards a video of Robert Sapolsky talking about Toxoplasma gondii. This is literally mind-blowing stuff. Go watch it.

    Shiver when you consider the fact of the interest from the US military in this parasite. And then wonder if a future autopsy of Jeremy Clarkson will reveal that his brain was riddled with Toxoplasma gondii cysts. I think the likelihood is high.

    There’s also a section at the end, which is not reflected in the transcript, about research on premature ageing. That is also worth listening to and reflecting upon.

  • Flood Prone Areas

    Reading about the floods resulting from the heavy rainfall in Cumbria last week made me think about the potential for disaster here in the Netherlands. By coincidence, I see that the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics published an item on the 19th November that states that 6 million people live in flood-prone areas of the Netherlands, and those areas are also where one-third of the GDP is generated. It’s small comfort to note, looking at the map on that page, that we have at least relocated ourselves from the heart of a flood-prone area to one which is not.

  • Meteor Over The Netherlands

    I happened to be outside yesterday at around 7 pm and caught a sight of a very bright meteor passing across the sky in a Northerly direction. Apparently, it was visible from over all of the Netherlands, because many people reported it to the Dutch weather service.
     
    Needless to say, I didn’t have my camera handy, and my mobile is an old-fashioned one that, shock, horror, only makes and receives telephone calls. So I don’t have a photograph of it. I’ve also only been able to find just one on the web, thus far. A pity, because it certainly was very spectacular.

  • A New Definition of the Word “Safer”

    Jerry Coyne, over at Evolution is True, shares a heartwarming tale of a botfly larva that took up residence in a woman’s head (complete with video). She had it removed, but he says that it is much safer to let it come out on its own. This is obviously a new definition of the word "safer"… I don’t think I would feel comfortable about knowingly carrying a maggot munching away inside my skull, letting it grow until it felt the impulse to burrow out in its own good time…

  • Another New Arrival

    While taking the dog out for a walk today, I noticed that another one of Herman’s cows had just given birth to a calf. What I found interesting was the way the other cows gathered round to stand guard while the mother licked her calf clean.

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  • A Narrow Escape

    I was mowing the lawns today, when suddenly I noticed something in front of the mower. First of all I thought it was a bundle of grass, and was about to carry on. Then I looked more closely and paused…

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    I think it’s a green chaffinch fledgling. It does seem a bit late in the season to have fledglings, but what do I know?

  • New Arrivals

    Our neighbour, Herman, is a milk farmer. A week ago, one of his cows gave birth to triplets. This only happens 5 times out of 10,000 births in cattle. What made it even more special is that all three of the calves are strong and healthy, and one of the calves has the father’s red and white colouring, while the other two have the mother’s black and white colouring.

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    You’ll notice that Herman’s dog, Rico, is also curious about these new arrivals. Being a Great Dane, he’s a good deal bigger than they are at the moment…

  • Without A Leg To Stand On

    Here’s an absolutely fascinating video about Robert Vickers, who has Body Identity Integrity Disorder (BIID). Basically, from a very early age he felt that his left leg did not belong to him, and he wanted to have it removed. When he was thirty, he succeeded in damaging it so much that it had to be surgically amputated. Now he feels complete…
     
    (hat tip to Vaughan, over at Mind Hacks for the link. His post has further links and comments about BIID that are interesting in their own right)
     

  • Passion or Greed?

    The scientific tale of Ida, a 57 million year-old primate fossil, is amazing enough, but what I found almost as striking was the light it also casts on the human passion for ownership. The tale of how the fossil passed from private hands into public ownership for the staggering sum of $1 million seems to me to illustrate that passion and greed are darkly interconnected.

  • Squirrel Nutkin

    One of the things I like about my daily walk in the woods is the chance of observing some indigenous wildlife. Yesterday, for example, I managed to photograph a Red Squirrel going about its business. Usually by the time I’ve registered that there’s a squirrel nearby, it moves round a tree trunk to hide itself from view. This one was a bit more obliging – well for a minute or two, before the flight response kicked in…

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  • Spring Awakening

    Spring has well and truly arrived around here. It’s a nice time of the year.

  • Do I Look Fat In This?

    Neurophilosophy has a great post on the latest research into body integrity and identity disorders.

  • Hack Your Brain

    The Boston Globe has a terrific "how-to" article on five simple ways to fool your brain.
     
    (hat tip to Neurophilosophy for the link)

  • God Is A Spandrel – Part II

    The last time I read an article by Michael Brooks, I found it rather odd. I’ve just read another article by him, and this one I found to be rather interesting – perhaps because he is fully in science journalism mode, rather than offering up his own speculations.
     
    It’s an article in New Scientist entitled Born Believers: How Your Brain Creates God. Like an article in the NYT, which I pointed out a couple of years back, it explores the scientific debate on whether religious beliefs are the result of an evolutionary adaptation or arise as a by-product of some other adaptation. Now, just as then, it seems to me that the evidence points to religious belief being a spandrel – a by-product of other evolutionary adaptations.
     
    (hat tip to Epiphenom for the link to the NS article)

  • Biomechanics

    Carl Zimmer is an excellent writer on science subjects. Here’s a good example: The Flesh of Physics.