I recently volunteered at a new Columbus, OH area metro park. The first volunteer update I received mentioned they were interested in knowing when articles about the center appear. Here are a couple methods of tracking such information that I shared with the volunteer coordinator:
If you would like to receive email whenever a new story about the audubon center shows up, do the following:
Set up a gmail account (I will send you an invite if you request me to do so)
Experiment with google query that you want to use, something like: columbus audobon metro park
Go to: http://www.google.com/alerts
Enter your search string under Search terms:
You will receive email on your gmail account every time something new shows up
If you know about feed readers like Google Reader, here is another approach:
I created a Yahoo Pipe to look across numerous Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds for Columbus area newspapers.
This link should be placed in an RSS Feed reader like Google Reader. It creates a whole bunch of text that can be parsed by your favorite feed reader.
It looks for any of the following:
audubon center
scioto audubon metro park
audobon metro park
columbus
(I threw in columbus so that it would always return something – I may take it out or use something a little less likely to cause a match)
I love finding new ways to get information out of the Internet. Anyone reading this who has a better idea, please leave a comment.
Just saw “Cider House Rules”. The story investigates the people who spend their lives dealing with the consequences of bad decisions. Privileged people amuse themselves with the notion that they make the rules, but the Victorian rules of conduct have little application to real life, especially to the poor and dispossessed. People make up rules of conduct as they go along, sometimes resulting in liberation, sometimes in disaster.
The first half of the story is set in an orphanage with observations of young minds yearning to be loved, trying to make sense out of chaotic brushes with death and hope. Childhood innocence is contrasted with the hard realities of abortion and abandonment, and a woman’s lack of control over the forces at work within and upon her own body.
The second half of the story examines the initiation of Homer Wells, a young man whose moral compass was formed strictly within the confines of the orphanage. He finds friendship and temptation and learns about the moral confusion that leads so many women to the doors of the orphanage. Only by giving in to his own temptation does he gain the insight to deal with the consequences of other people’s actions without passing judgement.
As the protege’ of the gifted but flawed doctor of the unwanted, Homer eventually surrenders to necessity to take his unique place in the world.
“Goodnight, you princes of Maine, you kings of New England”
On a strangely related note, this article about a water test kit, “so easy that even a kid can use”, would have been nice to have during those science project days.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2005/1209-testing_water.htm
Young minds need guidance and encouragement to see the rewards that can flow from “doing the hard stuff”.
On Saturday, October 10, my wife and I were at U of Rochester to see Steven Chu and our freshman student. Chu gave what seemed like a major speech. He said the 2nd Industrial revolution must replace fossil fuels with renewables. Otherwise global warming is set to raise temperature by 5 degrees celsius which will melt glaciers and raise ocean levels. He said, “George Will and other global warming deniers are allowed to have any opinion, but they are not allowed to have their own data.” He examined the data (with error bars) and gave a convincing argument. He then proceeded to show how gloom and doom predictions from the likes of Malthus and Ehrlich have been mitigated by inventions of the likes of Norman Borlaug who ushered in the Green Revolution with high yield grains. He then urged us to invent renewable energy sources to offset the crisis of releasing too much fossilized carbon into the atmosphere. He is starting Bell Lab-lets around the country to fund research. This is a major announcement, but it didn’t get covered as far as I can tell.
Update:
Other topics covered in the Steven Chu speech:
Besides using heat reflecting colors for rooftops, energy efficiency in homes is one of the lower-cost means of lowering our carbon footprint. Banks should make money available for new home buyers to insulate their homes and buy double-pane windows. A few thousand dollar investment could be recouped in a few years through reduced heating and cooling costs. By documenting energy efficiency improvements, the homeowner may receive a higher sales price for the property.
Chu told the story of how increased appliance efficiency reduces energy demand and can save money. Once the lawyers and lobbyists got out of the way, engineers designed refrigerators with better insulation. The added R-factor led to such high efficiency gains that smaller compressors requiring less power could be used.
Steven Chu mentioned that increased reliance on nuclear power should play a role. He flashed up a picture of newly design Westinghouse nuclear power plant, and stated that he personally feels that the nuclear waste problem can be dealt with. He didn’t state how this is to be done. I wondered if he really meant it.
References:
Steven mentioned a book called the Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlichin 1968 that predicted that hundreds of millions would starve in the 1970’s and 1980’s because population growth is out stripping agricultural production. Although population has increased from 3.2 billion in 1968 to 6.5 billion in 2005, the dire predictions of starvation were staved off by the Green Revolution which is often credited to Norman Borlaug for increasing crop yields. Borlaug died Sept. 2009 and is credited for saving a billion lives. Another important innovation was the development of artificial means of fixing nitrogen in the soil through the use of fertilizer. Carl Bosch won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1931.
Something I wondered about while going for a run today: Would it be possible to map my favorite runs and get the exact distances? Sometimes I run on bikepaths and on forest pathways. It should be possible to estimate about how far I’m traveling. MapMyRun seems to do what I want, though it is too commercial to include in my blog. The beautiful parts of this run start when I reach Wolf Park. There is a walking bridge across Alum Creek which I always find interesting. Sometimes I just cross it one way and turn around to go back. It’s fun to watch the ducks feeding in the stream. Last year some rocks were removed because it was thought that pollution was being deposited in the resulting slow spots at the base of the rocks. Now the water streams more smoothly. Unfortunately the Crested Night Herons no longer come to this spot to fish. I hope they don’t move their nests from the tall trees above Preston Road. Judging from the lack of bird poop below the nests, I’m afraid they have moved on.
This is one of my old standby runs. It has been over a year since I last ran it (without walking). The distance is 5.67 miles.
I’m not a big pursuer of self-help books, but this interview with the author seemed quite good.
http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4092.html
It talks about emotional vampires and how to deal with them.
There’s the Narcissist, the Victim, the Control Taker, the Splitter, and the Fault Finder (mwah?). How do we deal with each of these emotionally burdensome personalities? If we fall into these emotional traps, how are we impacting our friends?
It also deals with envy and jealousy, and suggests the most effective counter attack is to work on our own self-esteem.
It only takes a half an hour to listen, and ends with some insights of how the recession is affecting us and strategies for helping our friends and loved ones cope.
This is a special winter opportunity for those living near Columbus, Ohio. It is a rare chance to see displays and the professional scientists who are spending their lives studying about the natural world, both past and present.I spent a few hours making the rounds and will share some of the insights while the memories are still fresh.
Darwin was a recurrent theme at many of the displays. It is the 150th anniversary of the publishing of the Origin of Species. Make sure to get hold of a copy of National Geographic from February 2009.
An ornithologist displayed birdcalls from warblers collected around western Washington and Oregon. Spectrograms were on display which showed the variation of frequency with time. We could press buttons to actually hear the call of males of the species. All of the calls start out the same, but different individuals have different trills at the end of their calls. The map showed the distribution of calls around the region. The males learn their calls from their fathers. The warblers migrate, but return to their home regions. The scientist mentioned that the females of this species are not selective about the particular call of the males they choose to mate with. This is probably good for biological diversity, though it does raise a question about how the geographical distribution of calls can be maintained.
Spectrogram of a Cardinal
Then we spoke to a scientist with recording equipment. My wife was recorded and we could study the time domain view as well as the spectrogram of her voice. We compared this to birds and other animals.
Next, we experienced arachnophobia as we examined live tarantulas and black widows as well as the preserved body of a brown recluse spider. We could see the red hour glass on the black widows and learned that they like to live in basements and sheds, places where the air is undisturbed. We then saw a preying mantiss devouring a cockroach.
We then viewed an amazing journey through gut of a mite. The camera view entered the mouth which had parallel ridges. Down the gullet we travelled through a seemingly endless labyrinth of channels. These images are taken from an actual mite using Synchotron-X-ray-Tomography. This technique allows 3-D reconstruction of structures lying below the surface at the submicron level.
We moved on to look at a microscopic protozoan that lives in pond water. It was magnified 100 times . It rotated around and around using antennae as paddles. We could see legs, two eggs, gills, and eyes. The scientist told us it was stuck in place on a bubble of air. (Damn that surface tension!)
Then I went into the fossil room. I saw something about the size of a head of cabbage. I guessed it was a stromatolite, one of the earilest forms of life on Earth. The scientst told me that it was a kind of sponge that still exists today. It is found in caves in the Carribean. Each layer consists of thousands of individuals living in a colony. They are not sure why there are cabbage leaf-like layers. Many periodicities are measured in the fossil record. Many times, paleontologists are at a loss to explain whether it is seasonal like tree rings or epochal like changes in ocean levels. One scientest did show that the number of days in a year used to be greater during the Devonian. Was this is because the rotational speed of the earth was greater or the orbit of the earth was different? That’s another question for next year.
I was extremely pleased to see a fossil from Caesar’s Creek. I recognized the it from a recent trip documented here. The scientist helped identify all the different kinds of animals. I learned that the lily-like crinoid was really an animal. The rock is indeed limestone.
Ordovician Fossils from Caesar Creek, Ohio
Then Anne and I went into the insect room where our son, Jerry, has been an intern for the last two years. We saw the tiny scielionadea wasps that are almost too small to be seen without a magnifying glass. Jerry had to view them under a microscope to tell male from female. The undergrads and interns often mount the insects on paper, pins or clay, so that the more-experienced scientists can do further studies with microscopic cameras.
Anne Visits the Insect Lab
Doug and Shannon Visiting the Insect Lab
Jerry Holds Forth
Insect Biologists
Sarah
Entrance to Insect Lab
I then visited the plant DNA lab and saw three scientists describing the encoding of life I learned that each cell has almost 6 feet of DNA coiled up in the nucleus. The entire genome is encoded with paired nucleotides designated A, G, T, C. We compared different species of orchids and observed code substitutions. The scientist explained that some substitutions could change how the entire sequence is read, while other substitutions have a minor effect. All of the substitutions are subject to random changes. I asked for an example of how those sequence changes might cause a change in the form of a species. The scientist took in a big breath, and said, “That is the topic of my research. There are two phases of photosynthesis, a daytime and night time phase. I am studying a species whose genome has mutated so that the night time phase of photosynthesis does not work That gene is what is called a fossil gene. And yet the plant survives. It sends out chemical messages from its roots that causes another species of plant to provide essential nutrients.”
Back in the museum, I saw a video of a fresh water clam dangling a protrusion from its bivalve. A darter fish was attracted and actually bit off a small piece. The scientist explained that the continental US has more fresh water mollusk biological diversity than all the rest of the continents combined. However, they require fish to help spread their offspring. I agreed that it was fascinating to observe the many forms of life and the complex ways they find to survive and propagate. I was curious about who would fund the search for knowledge. The scientist explained that the fresh water mollusks were very sensitive to pollution. We risk losing them if we allow our streams and rivers to become polluted. In some cases a stream may have many adults of the species, but the population could still be in collapse if new generations of mollusks were not being produced. They often gather a gravid female and observe how it interacts with fish species in the lab. Then they know what to look for in nature. I asked if it would be possible to train non-scientists to take part in the monitoring of fresh water molusks in nature. He agreed it may be possible, but that it takes a special individual to go snorkeling in shallow rivers and streams to observe these interactions so essential to the preservation of the species.
I finished my tour in the horticultural room. I learned how plants are pressed and preserved. They use white glue like Elmer’s to glue the sample to paper. Large twigs can be sewn or taped. I observed a display entitled “Bark is a Many Splendored Thing”. It was used in many medicinal remedies down through the ages. Today, we take aspirin without thinking of where it originated. Then I got a nice lecture on the reproduction of ferns. I observed the disk shaped spots on the bottom of fern leaves. I could see numerous spores within the circle.
Plant Press
Reproductive Life of Ferns
If you live nearby Columbus, Ohio and would like to find out more about the natural world, then make sure to make it to the open house next winter.
rating: 4 of 5 stars This book is an attempt to cope with deep, unrelenting sorrow that comes from loss of soul mates. Through no fault of her own, Joan had a very bad year there. She shares insights about grief and methods of avoiding the vortex of despair that sometimes confronts us. I hope I will not be as hard on myself if I am faced with such loss. She made me feel for all the parents who have had to bury a child. One life lesson is to do everything possible to give sick loved ones the time to recover. Don’t let impatience on anyone’s part cause you to increase their risk when a day or a month will give them the time to become stable again. If the worse comes to pass, there is no turning back the clock, and there is no controlling your emotions that replay your role in events. That replay function is a survival mechanism we inherit from our cave-dwelling and tree-clinging ancestors, but it can be as painful as hell nevertheless. You have to use every trick in this book and more to learn life’s lessons without giving in to despair. We are survivors, so most of us will find a way to carry on with the memory of all that is good about our lost loved ones in the forefront of our consciousness.
The book will dig up your own feelings of loss over a beloved pet or person. View the book as part of the hard work of growing up and learning to take the good with the bad. As Joan’s husband told their daughter, “It all evens out.”
Read this when you’re feeling strong, and then go and give all your loved ones a hug.
At first I felt let down by Obama’s inaugural address. I showed it live in my Physics class and was overly concerned about the technical details like volume and lighting levels. It lacked the practiced rhythms of a stump speech which Obama would have had the chance to refine. He talked way too fast for my slow ears to hear what the author of this article was able to discern. That’s how history gets made. The significant ones, like the Gettysburg address, are lost on most listeners. After the speech my class discussed a solar energy physics problem. Everyone agreed that green collar jobs would help get our economy on track.
Please take the time to read and discuss, before attending to those necessary “matters of consequence” which fill up our years.
The speech analysis:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/21/195515/922
Text and video of the speech:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090120/ap_on_go_pr_wh/inauguration_obama_text
Here’s one of my favorites:
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.
Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.
Novelist, essayist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry makes a rare Houston speaking appearance Wednesday night when he delivers the 2009 Friends of Fondren Library Distinguished Guest Lecture.
Q: What will you talk about at Rice?
A: The end of the culture of the book. I’m pessimistic. Mainly it’s the flow of people into my bookshop in Archer City. They’re almost always people over 40.
There are lots of high tech options for reading. I have enjoyed listening to books on tape, CD, and mp3. There are lots of classics in mp3 format on the Internet, that can be had for nothing. A long car ride is transformed by listening to stories involving dogs. I think I get more from reading at my own pace. I asked for a Kindle for my birthday. I have two nieces who both read. My younger son actually reads every book that is assigned. (Sadly, I did not when I was in school.)
It’s a question of culture. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, a kid does not respond to a good example. However, it is well worth the effort, and most of them come around, if we are persistent enough. The persistence comes from an appreciation of what our parents did for us. And if we were ignored or maltreated, then living to be different from a bad example is almost as good as trying to live up to a good one. When kids are little, read to them until THEY are exhausted. Let them choose their favorites to be read again. You will make an indelible impression on them. Now that a grand daughter is due, we are digging out the old baby books. My younger son reads them in the same voice I used. For instance: Mike Mulligan’s Steamshovel read like Walter Cronkite. I would like to list kids books along with appropriate ages and suggestions for presentation. You cannot beat Chika-chika-boom for teaching rhythm and poetry to 2-year olds.
What goes around comes around. As I recovered in the hospital my son helped me get to sleep by reading a play out loud.
Believe me, I know it’s a struggle, but what else are we going to do for 10-30 years of retirement? You can see the universe in the pages of a book. I hope to read nearly everything Darwin, Twain, and Thoreau had to say. Then I will share the best with whomever will listen. I would like to retire and read more books in ten years than I read my whole life. A man named Garth Cate married my grandmother in the 1950’s. They were already over 60. Garth taught us to value reading and to think for ourselves. I’m hoping to be an elderly role-model in my turn. That is probably as big as goal as any I can think of.
This is going to be a different kind of posting. It is about a random act of caring at the crossroads of music and technology. I am a child of the sixties and count myself fortunate to have been at Woodstock at age 18 where the seeds of my activism were planted by the likes of John Sebastian, Joe Cocker, Country Joe, Jimi, and Joni. I recently sent a note to one of my favorite podcast shows called Musician’s Radio, where I listen to interviews with survivors of the bygone era of my youth such as Graham Nash and David Crosby. Whether young or old, the guests all speak with a level of frank humility that gives the show an air of authenticity. The tagline of the show is “For Musicians, By Musicians”. I find the allusion to the Enlightenment hopes of Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln inspired, and anything but corny or misplaced. Although I am but a rank amateur, the show inspires me to let music into my life and direct other kindred spirits in the ways of righteous musicality.
While updating my list of podcast favorites, I noticed why my podcatching software had difficulty downloading the last couple shows from Musician’s Radio. I had worried the show had fallen into hard times. As the following exchange will prove, my concern was unfounded.
Error in Musician’s Radio RSS feed
I love your show and recommend it widely. However, there has been a PHP bug in your RSS feed for at least a few months. Whenever I upgrade Ubuntu on my Desktop/Web Server, I have to remember to update the php.ini file.
I suspect the bug can be fixed by setting output_buffering = On in your php.ini file.
I run Firefox on Ubuntu. This is what I see when I try to view your RSS feed:
A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Warning
Message: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/musicia9/public_html/index.php:4)
Filename: controllers/rss.php
Line Number: 52
Greg Hoke
I got two very kind responses. This one came from the web developer, and, yes, I got a kick out of it. Can you tell?
Musician’s Radio RSS Feed
Hi Greg,
I’m the original developer of the site, and wanted to thank you for emailing your suggestion to fix the RSS feed. They forwarded it on to me and I took a look, and thought you’d get a kick out of the problem if you’re a developer yourself.
[...Techno-trivia didacted...]
Anyway, thanks again for emailing them, otherwise it probably never would have come to my attention.
Rock on,
- Dylan
I also got a note from one of the frequent hosts of the show, Kevin McCormack
Thanks from Musicians Radio
Greg-
With your help we are hopefully getting to the bottom of this and some other issues.
I really appreciate your taking the time.
Glad you like the show.
Best,
Kevin
I just checked. The Musician’s Radio RSS feed is fixed! Subscribe to it and enjoy! It is sure to please.
