Readers’ wildlife photographs

December 1, 2015 • 7:30 am

Reader Darryl Ernst sent photos taken by his eleven-year-old daughter Brianna, who’s had photos here before. She sets the record for Youngest Contributor, but you can’t tell that from hr photos. Darryl’s notes:

My family and I were at Sebastain Inlet, Florida, in early October on a windy day and, of course, took some pictures. There is typically a large variety of birds at the inlet and this day was no different, but there was a large group of Wood Storks that stood out because I usually only see them singly.
So, attached are three pictures of Wood Storks (Mycteria americana). The first image gives a good view of just how homely their face, head and neck is. The second picture shows how beautiful they can be in flight. The third picture is a portrait of a young Wood Stork that has not yet lost the feathers on his neck and head. He wasn’t quite sure of the human with the camera.

Wood Stork 1

Wood Stork 2

Wood Stork 3

And finally, another portrait. This time of a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias). I encourage you to enlarge this image to see the details of the feathers and beak.
As usual all images were taken by my daughter Brianna. I’d like to take some pictures but she never lets me use the camera I bought for her.

Great Blue Heron 1

And, for a change of pace, some diverse animals and plants by reader Mike Lewis. His notes (readers are invited to identify the plant):

I’ve been following your website blogs and tweets for a while now and I’m always particularly impressed by the quality of readers photos.  Finally took what I thought were a few decent shots with my new camera (Olympus Stylus 1) while on holiday recently in Maderia.
Three shots of (I think) a Madeiran Wall Lizard (Lacerta dugesii) feeding on the fruiting body of some plant I am unfamiliar with, the first two shots included for perspective and a close up of which I am quite pleased. As a bonus I’ve included a shot of another animal hunting, (probably lizards!).
All shots were taken in the Monte Palace Botanical Gardens, Madeira, late November 2015.

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Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon lagniappe)

December 1, 2015 • 5:24 am

It’s Tuesday, the have apprehended the University of Illinois student who made the threat that closed our campus yesterday, and the threat, as I suspected, wasn’t credible. Campus is back open for business today, and it’s also the day of my semiannual tooth cleaning. On this day in 1885, the soft drink Dr. Pepper (“10 2 4“) was served in Waco, Texas, Woody Allen was born in 1935, and the evolutionary geneticist J. B. S. Haldane died in 1964 (I have two letters from him that were given to me by other evolutionists). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili monopolizes Andrzej’s arm and also wheedles him for cream (the yogurt container to Andrzej’s left is also the container used for Hili’s favorite dairy product):

Hili: Cream is also sold in such containers.
A: I know.
Hili: Knowledge isn’t enough.
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In Polish:
Hili: W takich opakowaniach sprzedają również śmietankę.
Ja: Wiem.
Hili: Wiedza to jeszcze nie wszystko.

And, in Wroclawek, Leon the Dark Tabby, who wasn’t allowed to attend the wedding of his staff Elzbieta and Andrzej, nevertheless benefits from the wedding largesse:

Leon: Hmm which bunch of flowers I will munch on today?

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(Malgorzata’s explanation: Elzbieta and Andrzej got plenty of flowers at their wedding.)

Monday afternoon gifs

November 30, 2015 • 2:00 pm

by Matthew Cobb

Three tw**ted gifs for a Monday:

JAC: Readers should feel free to explain the last illusion.

An adorable baby tiger and a stately egret

November 30, 2015 • 1:00 pm

UPDATE:  They caught the threatmaker, who appears to be a student at a nearby school, the University of Illinois at Chicago. We got this:

From: Robert J. Zimmer, President
To: University of Chicago Campus Community
The University of Chicago has received confirmation from the FBI that an individual is in custody in connection with yesterday’s threat against the University.
Classes and events remain canceled for today. The security precautions we announced last evening remain in effect for the remainder of the day. We understand that law enforcement officials will provide more information on the investigation later this afternoon. Once we have this additional information, I will write again with more details, including our plans for tomorrow.
______________

I’m still locked up in my office but the campus and my building are deserted, as everybody’s afraid of getting shot. So far nothing out of the ordinary has transpired, though.

To celebrate my survival, I’m putting up a video that advertises National Geographic’s Big Cat week, and appearing on PuffHo. I dislike both of those sites, but I can’t help putting it up because it has an adorable baby tiger, though Millie doesn’t seem to be enjoying her stint on t.v.  I’d give a lot to be that guy! Also, don’t miss the 50-pound black leopard (“panther”) following Millie’s appearance.

Click on the screenshot to to go the video:

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To counterbalance the squee, here’s a video by Tara Tanaka showing the magnificent reddish egret (Egretta rufescens) fishing. I have no idea how it spots the birds, as it appears to be looking around nonchalantly before it strikes. Her notes;

Earlier this year I put the finishing touches on my video of a Reddish Egret showing off his dance and hunting moves. I hope you enjoy it.

This video was shot in 4K and 1080 96fps using a GH4 + 20/1.7 mounted on a Swarovski STX 85 spotting scope. It was digiscoped by manually focusing the scope.

This bird has a limited range, and I’ve never seen one:

egre_rufe_AllAm_map

 

h/t: Rick

The New York Times prints a FAQ piece on climate change

November 30, 2015 • 11:45 am

It’s hard for most of us to keep up with the issue of global warming, which I don’t see as a “controversy” because virtually all scientists agree that anthropogenic warming is happening and that we’re in trouble. But unless you’re a weather fanatic, there’s simply too much information and discussion out there. Is there a place you can go to see what the consensus is, and how bad things will get?

Never fear. The New York Times has just published a useful piece called “Short answers to hard questions about climate change,” which has succinct answers to 12 FAQs about climate change. The upshot: things are heating up fast (“The heat accumulating in the Earth because of human emissions is roughly equal to the heat that would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs exploding across the planet every day”); there’s virtually no doubt that this is cause by humans; the warming could cause serious trouble within a century; the best thing you can do is reduce your number of plane flights; technology may help but we’re not spending enough to develop it; and the opposition comes from libertarians (viz., Matt Ridley) and economic interests like fossil-fuel companies.

Is there any hope? I have very little. The article claims that the summit meeting now taking place in Paris is a cause for optimism, showing that world leaders are finally taking the problem seriously. But it also notes, correctly, that until individual citizens begin to act on the scientific consensus, realize the trouble we’re in, and begin agitating for change, little change will occur. And I’m not optimistic about that, because this agitation won’t happen until people begin personally suffering from climate change. Abstractions and pictures of shrinking icecaps are not nearly as powerful a motivation as seeing your beachfront home inundated by rising seas or your crops destroyed by drought.

But you should read the piece and get informed.

A court liberalizes abortion laws in Northern Ireland

November 30, 2015 • 10:45 am

Reader Piet called my attention to a BBC post giving a new ruling from the Belfast High Court on abortion. Up to now, abortion in Northern Ireland (NI), like that in its southern neighbor the Republic of Ireland, is legal only when pregnancy endangers the life of the mother or poses a permanent risk to her mental or physical health. That does not include cases of rape, incest, or that of a fetus having a “fatal fetal abnormality” (FFA) that would certainly result in a dead or doomed fetus but that does not endanger the mother’s life. The penalty for violating this law in Northern Ireland is the harshest in Europe, for it can involve life in prison!

I find these rulings completely irrational and retrograde, and they certainly derive from religious doctrine. It’s especially odd because Northern Ireland is part of the UK, and in England it’s legal to get an early-term abortion. Many Irish women travel there when they’re pregnant.

As the BBC notes, a case was inspired by NI resident Sarah Ewart, who was carrying a fetus with anencephaly, a fatal condition in which the fetus is missing major parts of the brain. Although such babies are either born dead or die shortly after birth, Ewart was being forced to carry that infant to term. She went to England to get an abortion, and the attention to the case caused NI’s Department of Justice to ask the Court for its opinion.

Justice Horner ruled that Northern Ireland’s restrictive abortion law indeed violated Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which says this:

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From Horner’s  decision 

“In the circumstances, given this issue is unlikely to be grasped by the legislature in the foreseeable future, and the entitlement of the citizens of Northern Ireland to have their Convention rights protected by the Courts, I conclude that the Article 8 rights of women in Northern Ireland who are pregnant with FFAs or who are pregnant as a result of sexual crime are breached by the impugned provisions.”

Horner also asked that Northern Ireland’s present law be scrutinized to see if there’s any way it could be considered compatible with this Article. If it wasn’t, then that law was illegal.

Of course if Northern Ireland’s law is illegal, then so is the Republic of Ireland’s. But as far as I know, these Articles are advisory, so a country like the Republic of Ireland that breaches them is not kicked out of the EU.

Amnesty International celebrated the ruling, and on its site also quotes Ms. Ewart:

“I hope that today’s ruling means that I, and other women like me, will no longer have to go through the pain I experienced, of having to travel to England, away from the care of the doctors and midwife who knew me, to access the healthcare I needed.”

“I, and many women like me have been failed by our politicians. First, they left me with no option but to go to England for medical care. Then, by their refusal to change the law, they left me with no option but to go to the courts on my and other women’s behalf.

“I am an ordinary woman who suffered a very personal family tragedy, which the law in Northern Ireland turned into a living nightmare.”

When most liberal democracies are liberalizing abortion rights, Ireland and Northern Ireland still prohibit abortions of doomed fetuses, or those resulting from rape or incest. What benighted morality would force a woman to carry such infants to term? Oh, right: religious morality.

You won’t believe these pictures of molecules!

November 30, 2015 • 9:30 am

Well, I just wrote my first clickbait headline as a test to see if it attracts readers. I’m referring here to a 2.5-year-old paper that just came to my attention; I call it to yours because although the chemistry is complicated, the pictures are lovely. The work in question is by Dimas de Oteyza et al. and appeared online in Science Express in March of 2013 (reference at bottom; free download). There’s also a blurb at the campus news site at UC Berkeley, where the work was done.

The research was an attempt to synthesize large structures of “graphene“, a honeycomb of hexagonal carbon structures that has a lot of practical uses. But rather than detect the products of their reaction through chemical analysis, they decided to do it visually using non-contact atomic force microscopy (nc-AFM; see below). They started with reactant 1 below, heated it and chilled it on the visualization surface (this stops molecular motion cold), and looked at the products.

The figure below shows the outcome. The chemical structures are at the bottom, the top row gives the visualization from coarser scanning tunneling microscope (STM), which uses a fine metal tip that moves across the sample.

But look at the second row, which shows the improved resolution with nc-AFM. You can see the chemical bonds themselves and the hexagonal carbon structures with double bonds. When I was a kid, I used to say that all our evidence for atoms and molecules is indirect: based on prediction and observation on the macro level. It’s astounding to me that humans have now developed the technology (and I emphasize that all of this technology comes from raw elements and molecules found on Earth) to see individual atoms and molecules.

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(From UC Berkeley figure): Non-contact atomic force microscope (nc-AFM) images (center) of a molecule before and after a reaction improve immensely over images (top) from a scanning tunneling microscope and look just like the classic molecular structure diagrams (bottom).

Here’s the amazing way they visualized these molecules: an nc-AFM appartus that scans the surface of the plate using a single carbon monoxide molecule as the probe, which moves back and forth over the molecule—not touching it—on the chilled plate. The CO molecule’s interaction with the big carbon molecules is detected by displacement of the plate, which is then converted into images by a laser hitting the plate, producing a readout of displacements in all three dimensions:

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An atomic force microscope probes a molecule adsorbed onto a surface, using a carbon monoxide molecule at the tip for sensitivity.

Ain’t humans smart?

According to the authors, this isn’t just a neat trick, for they say they’ve gotten insight into the precise chemical mechanisms,induced by heat, that convert the molecule on the left to the three molecules on the right; and they give a detailed scenario (of interest only to chemists) of what has happened. For our purposes, we can just gape in awe at what we can see happening, and the fantastic apparatus that helps us see it.

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Oteza, D. G. et al. 2013. Direct imaging of covalent bond structure in single-molecule chemical reactions. Science 340: 1434-1437