Syrinx

I like to think I know a little something about birds, but even after years of study, I'm still discovering new information. I received a bookmark in the mail some weeks ago from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology which showed a picture of a Wood Thrush on one side and factoids about the bird on the other. From the bookmark:

"Thrushes have a complicated syrinx (song box) that allows them to sing two notes at the same time and harmonize with their own voice."

From the website, pertaining to all birds, not just thrushes:

"All calls and songs come from the syrinx, a unique organ in the bird's body cavity at the division of the trachea and bronchi. The elaborate syringeal muscles enhance the frequency of their songs. The syrinx consists of two independent halves that can produce two different sounds at the same time."

In Greek mythology, Syrinx was a nymph and a follower of Artemis, well known for her chastity. She unfortunately encountered the randy Pan whilst on a hunt and rather than submit to his attentions, cried out to her water nymph friends who turned her into a clump of reeds. Not one to waste an opportunity, Pan harvested the reeds and made a musical instrument, known today as panpipes or the syrinx.

Wood Thrush photo by Badjoby on Flickr.

My New Year's Resolutions

My New Year's Resolutions for 2009:

• Run a 15K mini-marathon
• Run a half marathon (I don't know if this will happen, but I'm going to train for it)
  
• Get my weight down to xxx (you don't need to know the exact number now, do you?)
  
• Complete three ArcGIS classes
• Develop the perfect recipe for whole wheat bread in my bread maker
• Finish three knitting projects and six sewing projects
• Update this blog on a regular basis
  

Blizzard!

The predicted snowstorm has been upgraded to a blizzard. It's Cincinnati's first blizzard since 1978! Staying home from work today was truly a capital idea. I think we've had four or five inches of snow so far and we're expecting up to a foot total snowfall. I'm so very ready for spring.

I spent the day studying my Intro to ArcGIS course work and I love GIS. It's so much fun playing around with maps. I see a new career blossoming before me.

Finally, I leave you with this interesting New York Times article about MSG. I worked for many years in a Chinese restaurant and the "no MSG!" people always got under my skin. So many would claim to be deathly allergic but would still order the hot and sour soup or the eggrolls after I (not so) patiently explained that those items contained MSG and there was nothing we could do about it. I still think claiming to have an allergy when none exists does a real disservice to those people who have genuine life-threatening allergies, such as those to peanuts or shellfish.

Grass Fed Beef

I decided to make some Pineapple Beef Curry from the ground beef I purchased at Red Sun Farm a couple of weeks ago. I tried today to determine the difference in number of calories per serving that would result from switching grass fed beef for the typical corn finished beef and it was no easy task! Even though I found many websites touting the health benefits of grass fed beef and many suppliers, virtually none of them posted a simple Nutrition Facts label. This wasn't due to unwillingness to provide the information, simply that it's not required for single ingredient items such as beef (or indeed, coffee) coupled with the fact that the nutritional analysis is very expensive. I did find several interesting facts along the way though, including:

• Grass fed beef has 1/2 to 1/3 the amount of fat as does corn finished beef
• Grass fed beef is two to six times higher in Omega-3s and other healthy fats and is much lower in saturated fat
• Grass fed beef contains more vitamin E
• The e. Coli count is much higher in grain finished beef than in grass fed

This information and much, much more is available at EatWild.com. After reading and weighing the pros and cons for a couple of hours, I had to come to the conclusion that there are only two reasons not to eat grass fed beef as opposed to corn finished; taste and cost. Some people find grass fed beef too gamy for their tastes. I'll reserve my judgment on taste until I've actually tried it, although I don't think that will be an issue for me; I mean, I've eaten moose and liked it. But grass fed beef is more expensive, mostly because it tends to come from smaller producers. For me, cost isn't much of an issue since I don't eat much meat (I've only had beef once in the past 5 months), so I can afford to splurge a bit.

At the end of the day, it's really very simple. Letting cows be cows, and doing what millions of years of evolution have honed them to do (eat grass very efficiently) is better for the cows, better for the environment and ultimately, better for us.

Still, after two hours digging, I didn't find a simple calorie count until I stumbled across the nutrition information for Wild Oats Organic Grass Fed Beef Burgers. Using that and some raw calculations from the information I did find, I've decided I'll assume grass fed beef has about 80% of the calories as the conventional stuff. That's good enough for my calorie counting purposes.

Citizen Scientists

One doesn't have to hold a science degree to contribute to the sum of human knowledge. I just learned of a new project today, called Budburst, which is enlisting the help of citizen scientists across the country to record the timing of the leafing and flowering of plants.

People can also help with monitoring amphibian populations through FrogWatch, sponsered by the National Wildlife Federation. The website has helpful identification tools, including sound recordings of the calls and croaks of various frogs and toads.

This very weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count, which is a huge four-day event involving people reporting the number and species of birds found around their homes. Anyone can participate; this is a great introduction to the world of birding for novices. It doesn't involve any special equipment other than eyes and ears (although binoculars really are helpful).

Faience

I broke down and purchased Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile tonight, which is an ancient Egyptian city builder computer game. I've long been partial to city builders: Caesar, Pharaoh, Emperor, I've played them all. In Children, one of the city shops is an artisan who sells faience jewelry. I vaguely remember purchasing "mummy beads" at the Cincinnati Art Museum when I was a kid and I seem to remember the word faience associated with them. I also remember the beads had a peculiar smell to them, not unpleasant but odd and undefinable for me at the time.

Faience, as it turns out, is the oldest manufactured artificial substance, first produced (probably in Egypt) around 5,500 years ago. It is a non-clay ceramic substance, primarily composed of crushed quartz or silica mixed with lime, soda or ash, which is finished by glazing and firing in a kiln. In ancient Egypt, faience was used to produce many different types of objects, from beads and jewelry to figurines and pottery. The typical color of a finished piece was a lovely blue-green due to the copper used in the glaze, although many other colors of glazed faience were also produced.

The only place traditional faience is still being made is in Iran; the modern Egyptian version is mostly made from soapstone for the tourist trade. This makes it unlikely in the extreme that my 50 cent strand of "mummy beads" was actually faience. In fact, they may have been made of some sort of resinous material, which would account for the odor. I'd love to have some again and I always look for "mummy beads" whenever I go into a museum gift shop now, but I haven't managed to find any.

Go... look at some carrots or something

Because I am entirely knackered, out of ideas and haven't learned anything new today, I'm simply leaving a link to the World Carrot Museum. I love a world that has such a place in it.

People are going to think I have a squirrel fetish...

Everyone knows that squirrels bury nuts to store food over the winter and it's easy to observe this behavior in the fall. A scientist working in Wilkes University has found that when squirrels know they're being watched doing this, they will "pretend" to bury something about twenty percent of the time. It doesn't matter if the observer is another squirrel, a bird or a human either, they know they're being watched and start hiding invisible nuts:

Hot Chile Hands

I was watching an episode of Good Eats today when Alton mentioned a remedy for hot chile hand syndrome (see my earlier post on the subject.) According to Alton, and backed up by Soup Song, you can also neutralize the fiery effects of capsicum on the tender flesh of your fingers by occasionally dipping them in a one to five mixture of bleach and water. Here is what Soup Song has to say on the matter:

IF YOU'RE TOO STUBBORN TO WEAR RUBBER GLOVES WHEN YOU'RE CUTTING CHILES AND THEN JUSTIFIABLY WORRY ABOUT RUBBING YOUR EYES OR PERFORMING OTHER BODILY FUNCTIONS. And this goes double for people who wear contact lenses and have to take them out at some point. WELL, there really IS a bonafide solution here--and I do mean solution. Just get yourself a little bowl of clorox (bleach), diluted 5 parts water to 1 part bleach, and so long as you dip your fingers in from time to time you've got the problem licked. Why? Capsaicin compound is not soluble in water, but chlorine or ammonia turns it into a salt, which IS soluble in water. Please be advised, though, you should never soak your hands in this solution--that will compound the problem and cause burns. Just dip the fingers quickly. Alternatively, one reader advises that you can also protect your hands by coating them lightly with vegetable oil as a barrier--not as good as rubber gloves, but the same principle.

I just want to add here that Soup Song is one of my favorite web sites. Of course, I adore soup and generally make a pot of soup (or stew) once a week or so. Soup Song feels the same way I do about soup. They tackle everything soup related, from recipes to history to folklore and song.

Hot Hot Hot

Yesterday I chopped up half of a Serrano chile for my Thai basil turkey, with no problems whatsoever. Tonight I chopped up the other half of the chile for some soup and I've managed to give my fingers a hot pepper burn.

Peppers contain capsaicinoids, most concentrated in the seeds and internal membranes, and these chemicals stimulate the pain and thermal receptors in nerve endings. Capsaicinoids are oil soluble, so once they've absorbed into the skin, they can't be washed away with soap and water. This is why one should always wear rubber gloves when chopping hot peppers, at least if you're me.

It's hard to imagine the fiery cuisines of India, Thailand, China and many other countries without the kick of chilies, but these hot peppers originated in the Americas and were introduced to Europe by Christopher Columbus himself. From there they soon spread to Africa and the Orient and became essential ingredients.

More About Squirrels and Oaks

I decided to do an "Urban Hike" today and walked around Eden Park, roughly following the route I mapped out a couple of days ago. It was quite a nice walk, but I find I really prefer trails to sidewalks. People drive too fast through the park and I found myself wanting to shake my tiny fist at them and shout at them to slow down. And get off my lawn.

I was still thinking about squirrels and oaks today, probably because I live in close proximity to both. When I took my laundry to the basement this morning (I have to go outside to do this) there was a squirrel chattering at me from the security of a hundred year old oak tree.

Every few years, oak trees produce a synchronized bumper crop of acorns, a process known as masting. The abundance of food for the squirrels in turn causes a furry population boom the following year; well fed squirrels produce more squirrel pups. In colonial times, when the forests were more extensive and less fragmented, this often led to huge mass migrations during September as the squirrels left the area in search of new territories. In 1803 Lewis and Clark witnessed one of these mass emigrations, noting squirrels swimming across the Ohio River. Lewis assumed they were moving south for the winter. Other historical records report masses of gray squirrels so dense that it would take a month for the army to pass through.

The following text was copied from this website, but I can't find the author's name, else I would attribute:

During modern times, squirrel emigrations have not been as spectacular because of the cutting and fragmentation of the vast hardwood forest does not normally allow the build up of the same size squirrel mess as previous eras. But in 1964, millions of squirrels emigrated from the north of Georgia to the south. "One squirrel was reported swimming across the Allatoona Reservoir and encountered a boat in his path. It didn’t stop him. He just ran up an oar, jumped in the boat, ran across the man in the boat, and jumped back into the water continued his swim south. Normally wild squirrels in the woods are scared of man but during migration they lose their normal fear.

In 1968, a migration of squirrels occurred in most of the eastern United States; Alabama, the Carolinas, Georgia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. In New York, one hundred thousand drowned squirrels were pulled out of one reservoir. The number of squirrels killed by automobiles was a thousand times as high as usual. Some estimates of the squirrels number went as high as eighty million.

Morris Chairs and Paternosters

I came across a couple of unfamiliar terms in novels I've read recently and they demanded research.

In Fangland, there was mention of a paternoster located in an ancient hotel, which, judging from the description, was a cross between a dumbwaiter and an elevator. As it turns out, it is a constantly moving, open, cyclical elevator. It looks dangerous as hell if you ask me. See for yourself:

About this video: Invented in 1884 as the "cyclic elevator," the paternoster is an open-front continuously-moving elevator.
This example, one of the few still in operation, is in the Albert Sloman Library at the University of Essex.

Also over at YouTube is an excellent student video called Ups and Downs filmed using a paternoster.


The Morris Chair is far more benign; an early reclining chair designed in the 1860s in Sussex, England and marketed by the William Morris Company. They are prized as antiques and are still being produced today. In this picture you can see the adjustable back brace which allows for the angle of recline to be changed.

Sailing? In January?

In the town of Beer, Devon, England
Originally uploaded by lilysecret42

I registered for a sailing class today! It will take place in May; with three hours classroom and three hours hands-on out at Brookville Lake. I'm very excited. I've wanted to learn something about sailing for years but the opportunity never presented itself.

I found the advert in Craig's List and made up my mind to take the class in about two minutes. I didn't know there was anyone offering classes locally. Hueston Woods has some rentals of little Sunfish, so I may actually get a chance to practice what I learn this summer.

Yes, what I really need is another expensive hobby.