Akala, on Frankie Boyle's talk show, notes that colonialism and structural racism, bias, and privilege have a long price that privileged white folks are very quick to forget. Racism is not something historical; it is very real, and it's right there, right in front of us, all the time. We spend a lot of effort not to see it.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Akala About the Two Types at Canary Wharf
Akala, on Frankie Boyle's talk show, notes that colonialism and structural racism, bias, and privilege have a long price that privileged white folks are very quick to forget. Racism is not something historical; it is very real, and it's right there, right in front of us, all the time. We spend a lot of effort not to see it.
Explaining Brexit in Three Songs
Many on political left in the UK and the US are immune to self analysis.
They say they love their country, but would rather salute the idea that the majority are racist idiots rather than entertain the idea that they, on the left, have too often shown open contempt for the majority of the people in their own country.
The political left loves to say the poor, ignorant, "low-information voters" are "voting against their own economic interests".
And in that oft-repeated statement they display complete oblivion to the notion that they just insulted the very people whose support they need in order to actually govern.
Who are you calling poor and ignorant? Oh, we are knuckle draggers are we? You laugh at our track suits and sneer at our education do you? You talk a good game about tolerance and multiculturalism, but isn't it just a nice gambit to get cheap waiters and low-cost construction labor?
And around it goes.
The left says everyone who voted for Brexit is a xenophobe, even as they themselves reject tradition for the trendy, and elevate the exotic and foreign over the endemic and native.
And of course it must be "the multi-nationals" that pushed Brexit and "manipulated the ignorant poors" and never mind that it is actually the multinational corporations that love international banking and open border immigration. It is the multinationals that love the free trade laws that allow them to send good jobs oversees where people are willing to work for a bucket of fish heads.
The idea that the people of Britain are voting against "arrogance, ignorance and greed" of the sniffing snobs on the political left, every bit as much as they are voting against the rapacious predator corporations such as AIG, is an idea that so many on the political left cannot tolerate, or even pause to consider.
"I tell you these Brexit people are so backwards and ignorant that they still have dogs without papers and hunt things in forest, field and fen. Stupid racist fuckers. How come they will not let us lead them?"
Canine National Identity 1916
English Bulldog, German Dachshund, American Pit Bull, French Bulldog, Russian Borzoi.
The Pit Bull in the center says:
I'm neutral, BUT not afraid of any of them.
In two World Wars, it took the American dog to end the fence fighting.
Close to the Edge
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| Central Park, New York City |
Don't push me, 'cause I'm close to the edge. I just might lose my head.
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| Mirny, Yakutia, Russia diamond mind |
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.
Beryl Markham: Author of the Best Dog Story Ever?
Some things are obviously quite subjective, but if I were asked to name the greatest dog story ever told, I would say that it was written by Kenyan aviatrix Beryl Markham about a cross-bred bull terrier by the name of Buller.
Buller was Beryl's childhood dog, and the story takes place when she is about 12 or 13, and decides to go on a warthog hunting expedition with two local tribesmen.
Suffice it to say that this is a hunting dog story of the first order. In fact, it is such a good story, and so well told, that when Ernest Hemmingway read it, he wrote to his editor and friend Maxwell Perkins:
"Did you read Beryl Markham's book, 'West with the Night'? I knew her fairly well in Africa and never would have suspected that she could and would put pen to paper except to write in her flyer's log book. As it is, she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. . . But this girl ... can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers. The only parts of it that I know about personally, on account of having been there at the time and heard the other people's stories, are absolutely true. So, you have to take as truth the early stuff about when she was a child which is absolutely superb. She omits some very fantastic stuff which I know about which would destroy much of the character of the heroine; but what is that anyhow in writing?"
It was years after first reading West with the Night -- and after a fair bit of my touting her as a first-rate female writer -- that I discovered Beryl Markham probably did not write her memoire at all.
The stories are all true, as Hemingway noted, and Beryl Markham really did lead an extraordinary life (she was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic).
That said, it now appears the book itself was at least partially ghostwritten by Raoul Schuhmacher, her third husband, who was also an accomplished journalist.
But so what?
Whoever wrote the book, the stories are terrific and every bit as well told as Hemingway suggests.
If you have not read West with Night, you have missed a very good thing.
If you are going to the book store to pick up a copy (and if you do, you will thank me later), you might as well pick up a copy of Hemingway's The Green Hills of Africa while you are at it.
Both books should be read once every 10 years your entire life. They really are that good.
And for those who love this kind of thing, check out the brutal life and "insanely glamorous love triangle" between Bery Markham, Karen Blixen, and Denys Finch Hatton.
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
A Wolfhound Man to the Bone
Houdini Badger is Master of Mayhem
"Stoffel" the Honey Badger escaped his pen and was severely mauled by a lion in a nearby pen. Clearly, his caretakers had to find a way to keep him inside his enclosure for his own good. Easier said than done! After building what they thought was an impenetrable Alcatraz for the badger, his keepers came back and couldn't find the him the next morning. A game of cat and mouse then ensued, with a camera to record the amazing brain at work inside this tough little mustelid.
World Record Jack Russell Terrier
Twinkie the Jack Russell Terrier from California, USA has burst 100 balloons in just 39.08 seconds, breaking the previous record of 41.67 seconds set by Cally The Wonder Dog UK on Britain's Got Talent. Twinkie's mother, Anastasia, previously held the record.
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Why I Should Probably Not Move
The folks at Bankrate have compared U.S. cities based on some pretty broad categories including cost of living, healthcare, culture, and walkability. The cities are then ranked based on their overall score in those categories, with the idea that the higher the score the better the location for retirement.
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| Click to enlarge |
Within Arlington, my own neighborhood of Riverwood is ranked #1, and has a population of just 173 out of a population of 209,000 for Arlington.
Within Riverwood, we live in a stone house on the highest hill, at the end of a cul-de-sac, off of another cul-de-sac, but just one stop light to Georgetown.
We have lived in this house for 19 years. It was probably a good buy.
The Continuing Crisis
A school teacher from Merseyside in North West England (i.e. Liverpool) has been bombarded by hate messages after a typo in an advertisement had her advertising "terror puppies". Not quite a typo in my opinion. The dam, Fudge, is a Jack Russell, and the sire, Rodger, is a Patterdale terrier.
Remember: If you buy these pups, the terrierists win!
Walking the Pups
This is at a park about a block from me. It runs down a creek to the Potomac, connecting to a river-side wildlife corridor that stretches for a few hundred miles.
John Higginbottom. The Last Great Lurcherman
I reprinted a short segment of this piece from Gary Hosker's old website, and linked to the rest of it too back in 2007, but the link is now broken and so I post the entire story here as it's simply too good a parody to lose to the ages.If you know who this is really about, it a hoot, and if you don't know who it's about it's still a hoot.
John Higginbottom:
The Last Great Lurcherman
I drove north the three hundred long miles from my comfortable air-conditioned London office to interview a recluse, a self- styled eccentric, a man above men, a lurcherman. Name, John Higginbottom.
My journey started with a long drive north, then north and north again along the MI for what seemed an age. As the flat lands of the south turned first to gently rolling meadows of Northamptonshire and then to the hills of Derbyshire I drove ever onwards, finally arriving in the windswept dales of Yorkshire; a land where, if it's not raining one instinctively knows it must be snowing.
High limestone and millstone grit fells clad in an ever-present mist seemingly sweep up to the very base of the stratosphere. This North of England that lies on the wrong side of a theoretical line known as the north-south divide; a North of dark satanic cotton mills that belch black smoke out of imposing, discoloured and misshapen chimneys, chimneys reaching almost as high as the fells that surround them, blending with the landscape yet at the same time destroying it. A North of coal mines and colliers, of iron foundries and smelters, where work- hardened men lead lives so arduous their circumstances could best be described as an existence.
Yet, leave this industrial landscape that was once the pulsating heart of a proud British Empire and drive only a few short miles through the bitter driving rain and take a side road (track would be a more accurate description for metalled roads have yet to come to this part of Britain) signposted 'to the edge of the world' and one encounters an altogether unique England.
An England so blissfully isolated from the twentieth century that one feels encapsulated in an age long past. Sheep hardened by many a long winter shelter behind 'dry' stone walls from the ever present torrent of rain, where men still scrape a meagre living for themselves behind horse and plough, cultivating crops on half an acre of boulder-strewn land, subsistence living that is this England. Yes this can truly be called a place on the edge of the world. I took this path to find lurcherman John Higginbottom, John, a giant of a man with ruddy complexion, short greying hair, a beard of flaming red, and hands like the proverbial size ten shovel. Hands that were cut, bruised and contorted, he told me, through many a long desperate dig, rescuing his battle-hardened terrier 'Tootsie' from life or death conflicts with rabbit and other subterranean creatures, this reclusive, almost shy man refused to talk about.
John, a youthful forty-seven, a taciturn man who still retains most of his own teeth, was brought up in the Midlands and is a spot welder by trade. I asked him why? Why does any man try and live here, all alone pushing himself to the very limits of endurance in order to eke out a shallow existence in this particularly inhospitable place, with only the bark of his seven lurcher dogs and sound of the occasional crow for company. “Have you ever spot welded?” replied John philosophically. He sat quite still reading Kipling to himself.
Breaking the silence I enquired about the breeding of his battle-hardened terrier, Tootsie. “That,” explained John, ”is a Higginbottom terrier, the culmination of a twenty-five year selective breeding programme based on the Yorkshire terrier with just a dash of King Charles spaniel for temperament.”
Feeling that I had in some small way penetrated his rock-hard exterior and socialized myself with John, I asked, nay begged, to accompany him on one of his famous hunting expeditions - expeditions, on which I was informed, he uses his homogeneous pack of Higginbottom lurchers to hunt all legal quarry. For John truly is the last of the self-confessed great hunters.
John fell silent, gritted his teeth, pursed his lips, and went into deep thought, almost a trance as if he were going through a metamorphosis or having an out-of-body experience.
Then as suddenly as he had entered the trance he snapped back to reality, kicked his dog and snapped: “Yes, the mad are in God's keeping. Tomorrow morning, crack of ten thirty, not a minute later and I hope for your sake you have a high attention span.”
Glancing in my direction before walking into his meagre shanty home, shared with his pack of Higginbottom hounds, John continued “I insist upon complete and utter obedience from both my dogs and those who chose to follow me.” Fixing me with those steely blue eyes, he gave a penetrating stare, a stare that I would come to know as his force 7 stare. I felt as the Apostles must have felt on the banks of sea of Galilee. I was in awe of this demigod.
Next morning we set off across the fields at a quarter-past- eleven precisely. I asked John why he was late. “Time has no relevance here on the edge of the world,” replied he, wiping the sleep from his eyes.
'Ferrets, ferrets I must have ferrets,' he whispered gently. Suddenly he opened a hutch door, and plunged his gigantic hand into a cage of these ferocious little carnivores. Five ferrets bit deep into the flesh of each of his massive digits -- yet did this man flinch? Not he.
With blood trickling down his forearm he throttled each ferret in turn in order to prise them from his fingers. "Aren't you concerned about infection' I asked “No,” said he “The poker's in the fire. I'll cauterize the wounds when we return.” I glanced ominously at the cumulus clouds gathering overhead, said a silent prayer and thought – ‘If we return.’
With a steady stride we set out into the wilderness. At our heels trotted his seven lurchers’ beardie collie lurchers these, some of the best in the world (or so I was told) bred by David Ballcock. As with Tootsie, his Higginbottom terrier, these lurchers too were the result of an intensive twenty - five year breeding programme; a programme so genetically calculated as to make the breeding of thoroughbred racehorses or racing greyhounds pale into insignificance.
“John, why haven't you channeled your scientifically based genetic theories into creating the ultimate Waterloo Cup winning greyhound or a Derby winning race-horse?' Once again he went pale and then into a trance before replying: “Because my theories don't work.” Suddenly a rabbit ran from under our feet and John turned to his dogs and yelled, 'Mayhem, go!' All seven dogs gave chase opening up in glorious song. 'Yip, yip, yip, yip,' they sang. After a life or death run of five hundred and forty-six yards two feet seven-and-a-half inches, the rabbit struggled into the relative safety of its warren.
Higginbottom astounded me with his ability to judge distance so precisely. My astonishment must have shown on my face, for Higginbottom said modestly: “Oh, I forgot to mention, I’m the best judge of distance in the world.”
Six lurcher dogs stood over the hole 'marking' as John called it, while he explained in some detail the complexities of the chase or 'course' may be a more accurate description for such a distance, telling me how each rabbit must be given sufficient law and how, he had calculated, in a couple of years time he would have the best rabbit match-dog.
One lurcher, however, lay panting on the ground halfway between ourselves and the other Higginbottom lurchers, unable to move or catch breath. “Is this dog suffering from hybrid vigour?” I asked. With a look of total bewilderment Higginbottom turned on me, his steely blue eyes glinting in the midday sun. “I value that dog at ten thousand pound,” said he. “But why,” I queried. “Because that lurcher has the intelligence to know when he's beat, thereby saving valuable energy for the next grueling encounter with the most formidable of all quarry, the rabbit! No longdog in the world has comparable intelligence.” “Looks knackered,' said I, and walked on.
We left 'Myrtle' to recover and approached the six other Higginbottom lurchers that lay panting all about the warren. John pulled a ferret from his 'poacher’s pocket' and secured some electronic device or other around the ferrets neck. (There is story behind the locator, its invention and John Higginbottom, which will appear in later revelations from the diaries of Miss Wilhelmina Wordspinner.) Slowly, hesitantly, the ferret entered the rabbit’s subterranean refuge, but turned and came back to the entrance, all the while peeping in cuckoo clock fashion, in and out, in and out of the hole. John said this ferret had been trained by him to be especially wary of strangers (Higginbottom can train almost any animal to a very high standard).
Then as the ferret's head disappeared into the hole for the twenty-ninth time, John kicked in a clod of earth behind it. We waited five, six, seven minutes but nothing was seen or heard of either rabbit or ferret. John pulled a small box from one of the numerous pockets in his coat (each pocket filled with hunting essentials -- tape recorder, camera, stopwatch). I was informed this box would locate the ferret, and if the ferret it had managed to find its quarry, the rabbit, we would dig down to the combatants.
As Higginbottom swept the ground in a methodical fashion, the box burst to life, first with a loud crackle then a burst of the BBC's World Service. “Does this mean you have located your relentless little hunter and rabbit deep within the very bowels of the earth?”
John slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand, fell to his knees and in a gasping, strained voice said: “Ughhh, the locator's interfering with mi pacemaker.”
After John had made an almost full recovery we walked deeper into the hills, the weather deteriorating with every step of his enormous feet, while he recounted his many and varied hunting stories; stories so unbelievable I said he should write a book. How, thinks I, has one man managed to cram so much hunting into just one short lifetime?
John then started to tell me of his passion for collating data and statistics, and how bullshit baffles brains. I stood listening intently to the great man as he told me how, in his opinion, he was the greatest authority on the lurcher ever to have graced the face of the earth and how many young people regarded him as a latter-day 'Grizzly Adams'.
From nowhere, a crippled sheep sprang. Instantly without a word of command the lurchers gave chase. After a course that lasted thirty-eight point seven five seconds (John always times each gallop with a stopwatch) all seven dogs eventually came to terms with the sheep. John gave a great hysterical cry, begging me not to use my camera, as this would impair the lurchers' hunting ability. Calling each dog by name, then turning to look sheepishly back in my direction, he shouted : “Kill!” and his lurchers delivered the sheep into Abraham's bosom.
“That's the kind of obedience I insist upon,” said a blood-covered John as he fought his way into the mêlée to rescue a leg of mutton from the snapping jaws of his hellhounds.
We turned for home, cold and wet and dejected, my mind at its lowest ebb. John saw my bedraggled state and showing his concern for the weaker sex, he began to sing a hunting song. “Do you ken John Higginbottom at the break of day, do you ken Jon Higginbottom as your hounds view away, do you ken…..”
Back at the cottage that night, refreshed by a hot drink of cocoa made from ewe's milk, we dined as the Saxon kings of old, on the rescued leg of mutton John had so courageously saved. He talked endlessly of his many adventures with both rat and rabbit.
I asked John if he had any burning ambitions left to fulfill. “I'd like the dogs to catch a rabbit,” said he, casually tossing a tidbit to one of the lurchers that lay contented at his feet. After dinner we sat, John reading a book while he puffed at his short clay - pipe, blowing the most enormous blue smoke rings (he loved smoke rings) that seemed to hang in the air indefinitely, or curl round and round the ceiling.
I couldn't quite make out the title of the book John was reading. Without further ado I asked what book could so totally absorb such an articulate, self-confessed intellectual? He tossed the book casually over to me, a wry smile covered his face, as he said: “My bible.”
I opened the book and read the title 'The Big Blue Book of Lurchers' by John Higginbottom.
The hour being ever so late, John, seven very tired Higginbottom lurchers a Higginbottom Terrier and I, lay in front of an open log fire. John, however, could not sleep. His fingers that had been so savagely attacked by his ferrets were giving him jip. Yes, he had conveniently forgot to cauterize his wounds.
Driving home, I felt each long mile the car covered was taking me nearer to reality and civilization. I had left a giant of a man completely alone in his cottage at the edge of the world. Little did I appreciate the power of John's force 7 stare. As my diary entries will reveal, there was intrigue, scandal and mystery surrounding John Higginbottom Esq.
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The Size of the Fight in the Dog
During the First World War, the British Army recruited special battalions of men who were shorter than the normal minimum height of 5 ft 3 in. The dropping of height restrictions enabled otherwise healthy young men to enlist in a unit where others were also of similar height.
Some 3,000 short- statured men fought well in the Battle of Arras in March and April of 1917, before the battalions were all but wiped out in the Battle of Cambrai in November and December of that same year.
Pageantry Falconry With Snail
Because rabbits and hares were symbols of cowardice, innocence, and helplessness, medieval artists sometimes used them to satirize the rich and powerful.
Monday, June 27, 2016
The First "International Pageant of Pulchritude"
Did you know that organized annual doggie beauty pageants are older than human ones?Apparently true.
Wikipedia gives the history of the human beauty contest:
In May 1920 promoter C.E. Barfield of Galveston organized a new event known as "Splash Day" on the island. The event featured a "Bathing Girl Revue" competition as the centerpiece of its attractions. The event was the kick-off of the summer tourist season in the city and was carried forward annually. The event quickly became known outside of Texas and, beginning in 1926, the world's first international contest was added, known as the "International Pageant of Pulchritude." This contest is said to have served as a model for modern pageants.
Circus and freak show promoter P.T. Barnum apparently tried to hold a human beauty pageant in 1854, but his beauty contest was closed down by public protest, and he substituted dogs instead.
"Fitter Family" beauty contests were started at the 1920 Kansas State Fair, and grew out of a confluence of the dog show world and the eugenic movement, as I note in The Eugenics Man and the Kennel Club.
A formal system of beauty pageants started shortly after that.
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Wounds, Scars, and Terriers at Battle of the Somme
The battle now known as the Somme Offensive began on July 1, 1916, and continued through November 18 of the same year. In the preliminary artillery bombardment at the start of the Battle of the Somme, British artillery fired 1.73 million shells on the German lines. Despite the massive artillery pounding, the British suffered over 57,000 casualties (killed and wounded) on the first day of battle.
This was trench warfare at its worst, with more than a million men wounded or killed. The Somme saw the first use of airplanes and tanks in warfare.
One of the combatants at the Somme Offensive was a young Adolph Hitler who had with him a pet terrier he had captured in 1915, when the dog ran over from the British side. Hitler very much loved this dog, which he described as a "proper circus dog" because it knew so many tricks.
Hitler was wounded in the left thigh during the Battle of the Somme in October of 1916, when a shell exploded at the entrance to the dispatch runners' dugout. He was transferred to Munich and took the dog with him. He and the dog went back to the front in early 1917, but the dog was stolen from him in August of 1917, probably by the train station manager who had tried to buy the clever dog off of Hitler earlier in the day.
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Fort Frederick at 260 Years
The fort is shaped for maximum defense, with the four corners jutting out into arrowheads to provide a platform for shooters to defend against anyone attempting to scale the walls.
From 1786-1783, Fort Frederick was used as detention camp for British prisoners during the Revolutionary War, and from 1861-1862, it was occupied by Union Troops.
Downward Dog
Austin sits on the electric skateboard while running Lucy. It's almost like a little car!
Saturday, June 25, 2016
Running Lucy on an Electric Long Board
My son has been having a lot of fun running his Pit Bull, Lucy.
Austin rides a "Boosted" electric long board, which can go over 25 piles per hour and zip for as much as 15 miles, and Lucy either runs on a leash (where required) or with an e-collar from E-collar Technologies.
Today I went along on my folding Tern bicycle, and filmed it "old school" with a hand-held iPhone.
Eggs Past and Eggs Future
The picture above is a shot of a Victorian-era museum collection of wild bird eggs. These kinds of fantastic collections began around the time of Darwin, with egg collection an outgrowth of egg collections gathered for scientific purposes and a spontaneous outgrowth of curiosity about the diversity of the natural world coupled with the kind of relative (and conspicuous) wealth that allows people to travel to collect, buy and display curiosities that otherwise have no useful and practical purpose.
Bird egg collecting proved to be such a fad that collection of rare bird eggs threatened to tip certain rare birds over the abyss into extinction. In 1954, the Wild Birds Protection Act in the U.K. made it illegal to posses or own any wild birds' eggs taken since that time, and today it is illegal to sell any wild bird's egg, irrespective of their age -- a fact that is now true in the U.S. as well.
Ironically, old bird egg collections are an important resource for scientists studying bird biology, enabling them to track the rise of pesticides and other contaminants in the food chain.
The eggs, above, are a couple of odd ones I had around the house.
The dark one is an emu, the largest eggs is an ostrich, and the other two are chicken eggs that I had for breakfast.
I include the chickens eggs to show the scale of the other two, but also to show the diversity of what eggs can look like. Egg identification, without benefit of a nest or provenance, can be pretty hard, as bird eggs can change shape to some extent. Coloration and markings may also shift from bird to bird as well. Egg identification is an in-egg-zact science, especially where speciation is not complete (a surprisingly large number of birds) and the number of look-alike eggs are quite numbing.
Another small thought: We have pushed a lot of birds over the edge to extinction and near-extinction, but I am always struck by the fact that we never give credit to the fact that a lot of species (or what we would call species if they were wild) are now being created by man.
Chickens alone present a startling array of expressed diversity, to say nothing of cattle, roses, corn, broccoli, etc. We are already creating new species of birds (falcon and parrot hybrids are examples) and fish (hybrid trout, salmon, pan fish, etc.). to say nothing of the many odd things being done with recombinant DNA to make animals and plants grow larger, be more resistant to disease, and ship better.
We stand in the door of one of the largest booms in species creation ever, and yet when was the last time anyone gave that idea a nod? And yet, take a look at the two chicken eggs, pictured above. Would any birder claim these eggs were from the same species?
Friday, June 24, 2016
Next Generation Dogs, Batteries Not Included
Not only will the future give us more robots doing tasks now done by dogs (herding, retrieving, pointing, bomb and drug detection), it is likely to give us both robot pets (no poop, easy to program human-interaction software), and also give us better dog training thanks to "Skinner in a Box" robotic dog trainers with perfect timing that can give the dog endless walks and ball tosses.
- Related Posts:
** The Robots Are Coming
** Robots Rising
** Dog Meets His Mechanical Robot Overlord
** The Farmer Is a Robot, and So Is His Dog"
** Robot Training a Cat to Hunt and Retrieve
** Slave to the Machine
** Robot Dog Training Not Quite Ready
** From Pearl Harbor to a Robot Economy
** Robots That are Powered by Consuming Flesh
Free Brexit Thoughts
- If the bunny-huggers in the UK had allowed fox hunting, Britain would still be in the EU.
- If Cameron had restored fox hunting as it was, he would still be PM.
- In the UK, fox hunting is not about the fox any more than the gun debate in the US is about guns. These things are cultural dog whistles. They are about identity and tradition, and yes both have deep roots in the history of class warfare.
- For the Dems ion the US, the winning hand is to lose on guns, just as it was the winning hand to lose on fox hunts in the UK.
- Scotland will split off now. Assured.
- If the Dems win on guns, the only saving grace is Texas may finally secede.
- Simmer down and buy stock. Here's why: nothing has really changed with Brexit other than Britain has said 'no' to open door immigration. Trade between all countries will be as before, the Chunnel is still open, the Brits were never on the Euro, the earth still goes around the sun, and the tides have not shifted. Cameron's quitting is a child's hissy fit, which will do more to harm the markets than Brexit, but it all means BUY STOCK as this is a window for buying, at least until the market sobers up and corrects itself.
"Dog Training" the Invertebrates
Single-celled slime molds demonstrate the ability to memorize and anticipate repeated events, a team of Japanese researchers reported in January. The study [pdf] clearly shows “a primitive version of brain function” in an organism with no brain at all.
In their experiment, biophysicist Toshiyuki Nakagaki of Hokkaido University and colleagues manipulated the environment of Physarum slime-mold amoebas (near right). As the cells crawled across an agar plate, the researchers subjected them to cold, dry conditions for the first 10 minutes of every hour. During these cool spells, the cells slowed down their motion. After three cold snaps the scientists stopped changing the temperature and humidity and watched to see whether the amoebas had learned the pattern. Sure enough, many of the cells throttled back right on the hour in anticipation of another bout of cold weather. When conditions stayed stable for a while, the slime-mold amoebas gave up on their hourly braking, but when another single jolt of cold was applied, they resumed the behavior and correctly recalled the 60-minute interval. The amoebas were also able to respond to other intervals, ranging from 30 to 90 minutes.
The scientists point out that catching on to temporal patterns is no mean feat, even for humans. For a single cell to show such a learning ability is impressive, though Nakagaki admits he was not entirely surprised by the results. After working with the slime mold for years, he had a hunch that “Physarum could be cleverer than expected.” The findings of what lone cells are capable of “might be a chance to reconsider what intelligence is,” he says.
Over at Science Clarified, they have a few notes on training plants:
The instinctive behavior of a plant depends mainly on growth or movement in a given direction due to changes in its environment. The growth or movement of a plant toward or away from an external stimulus is known as tropism. Positive tropism is growth toward a stimulus, while negative tropism is growth away from a stimulus. Tropisms are labeled according to the stimulus involved, such as phototropism (light) and gravitropism (gravity). Plants growing toward the direction of light exhibit positive phototropism.
Charles Darwin wrote a book that details his exploits training earth worms. In The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Actions of Worms, with Observations on Their Habits, published in 1881, Darwin explains that he tested the brain power of earthworms by placing fat-soaked paper triangles on the ground and observed how the earthworms carefully pulled them into their burrows, always grasping them by the pointiest end, which was the most efficient way to pulling the fake "leaves" into a hole.
Planarian Flat Worms can also be trained.
In 1962, a fascinating and seminal paper was published by James V. McConnell of the University of Michigan. In it, he describes his pioneering studies with planaria in 1953, when he began wondering what would happen if he ‘‘conditioned a flatworm, that cut it in two and let both halves regenerate.
Which half would retain the memory? He found that “the tails not only showed as much retention as did the heads, but in many cases did much better than the heads and
showed absolutely no forgetting whatsoever. Obviously memory, in the flatworm, was being stored throughout the animal’s body ....”
In 1957, two groups of “worm runners” hypothesized that memory could be transferred from a trained animal to an untrained one.
They tried grafting the heads of trained flatworms onto the tails of untrained planaria. They tried grinding up the trained worms and injecting the pieces into the untrained worms. Finally, they decided to take advantage of the factthat under certain conditions, one flatworm will eat another. They conditioned a group of worms,
chopped them into small pieces, and hand-fed the pieces to untrained “cannibal” worms.
They found that the cannibals which had eaten trained worms gave 50% more conditioned responses than a control group of cannibals which had eaten untrained
worms. This demonstrated that a chemical substance being stored throughout the worms’
bodies -- probably RNA -- was responsible for memory transfer.
And then there is the training of snails, a task accomplished despite the fact that snails have a decision tree in their brain made up of all of just two cells.
First the team had to train their snails to remember a specific event. They used a technique called conditioned taste aversion, where snails are fed a yummy treat – sucrose or carrot juice – followed by a horrible taste, in this case bitter potassium chloride (KCl) solution. If the snails have learned, they will avoid the same sweet treat in the future, knowing that it is followed by a bitter aftertaste.The world has trained Fleas for a pretty long time:
To see how well the snails had learned, the team tested their trainees 9 min 30 s after training, counting how many bites they took of sucrose solution. The team found that 42% of the snails were good learners, not feeding on sucrose. The remainder fed on the sucrose solution, showing that some snails had remembered the bitter aftertaste, while others had not
The flea is taken up gently, and a noose of the finest 'glass-silk' is passed round his neck, and there tied with a peculiar knot. The flea, unfortunately for himself, has a groove or depression between his neck and body, which serves as a capital hold-fast for the bit of silk.
Crickets have been trained.
In China, cricket fighting is an ancient sport with gambling stakes at some matches exceeding a million yuan. Masters try to pick the strongest warriors and then train them using mouse whiskers or yard grass to be even more aggressive. To promote prowess and focus, a cricket needs to have sex before combat, and the fighting space must be free of pollutants like perfume, smoke and alcohol fumes.
Fox Versus Peregrine: Red In Tooth and Claw
Thought I would go and see if the peregrines had fledged this evening, good news they had but bloody bad news came along as I was watching... follow the images and you will see what happened... the last image only shows 2 youngsters.. the third was on the feeding table with mum not far from where the vixen came in.. Mr peregrine came in and attacked the vixen on the head..( I missed the shot as it was so fast).. vixen disappeared behind the rocks and I am fairly sure she went with the youngster for dinner.. Just a shame but that's nature for you.. hopefully I will report back with seeing 3 x youngsters tomorrow..
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Lucy and Austin Today
Austin and Lucy went to the mountains. I went to work. Guess who had a better day?
Brexit and The Liberal Case for Immigration Reform
The "Brexit" vote is today. However, it goes, it is likely to change a lot fewer things than most people imagine. That said, one of the chief issues has to do with immigration policy.
Here's the liberal case for immigration reform: Drawing the Line at the Border for Wildlife's Sake. This was written more than 10 years ago. The numbers need updating, but they have not declined.
America is a compassionate place. But having a heart does not mean you have to lose your brains. The United States cannot take all of the world's displeased and dispossesd, nor can we move all of the people of Somalia (or Indonesia or Guatemala or Ireland) to the United States. We have to draw a line somewhere and decide who we will take, how many we will take, and how we will enforce the law. These three questions underpin all immigration policy.
For 25 years I have listened to those on the Far Left and the Far Right answer the first two questions thusly: "More people that look like me."
It is with sadness that I note that the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Ancient Order of Hibernia, and the Ku Klux Klan all find common ground in that one answer.
I do not.
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