The Coconut Crab – Lessons in the Big and Marginally Dangerous

So, let’s start this all off by showing you the picture that piqued (I fear this far too subdued a word) my interest:

Snopes.com has listed the authenticity of this photo as “partly true” as they haven’t been able to authenticate the origins of the photo, but as I’ll explain, it’s well within the realm of believability.

These guys are known by multiple names including coconut crab due to their ability to crack coconuts with their claws to access the meat inside, robber crab due to their alleged propensity to steal shiny objects, as well as palm thief. Their range is associated with coasts of the Pacific and Indonesian Oceans.

They are considered the largest land-dwelling arthropods, apparently pushing the size limits of terrestrial organisms with exoskeletons. I did a little digging and it appears there are two possible reasons for this. The most cited reason is the oxygen content of the air.  Animals with exoskeletons have a tougher time with gas exchange through their hard shells and need to devote a fair amount of surface area to the deed. The bigger they become the harder this task becomes (See this ScienceDaily article for more on this). While I’m not sure how valid the second conjecture is in this particular case, I found the suggestion that the weight of the exoskeleton eventually becomes too much to bear for large land-bound crabs as compared to aquatic species. This is certainly true for animals like whales that start to suffer from their weight on land when stranded, I’m just not sure how much this is true for coconut crabs. They can have leg spans reaching up to 3 ft which is one reason that 1st startling picture seems possible (although I found quite a bit of arguing online about several elements of the photo that might suggest it has been photo-shopped, not the least of which includes the unlikelihood of this species to be roaming around during the day as it tends to get too hot for them).

They are definitely considered generalists and will go after a large variety of food. It seems this means mostly fruit and plants but apparently also means turtle hatchlings, rats, and sometimes dead things. I can’t relay the horror I feel at the citation in the wikipedia article indicating coconut crabs may have eaten Amelia Earhart’s body or at least dragged her bones off. It can at least be said then, that coconut crabs can hardly be called discerning creatures.

As adults, these animals have no natural predators save the locals who savor them as a delicacy as well as an aphrodisiac. This little crab fetish has actually given the crabs worldwide protected status. As perhaps a karmic payback of sorts, there have been cases of food poisonings from dining on the crabs related to their occasionally toxic diets.

So don’t say I never taught you anything…

We Could be Heroes…and Wear Spandex

(First off, does anybody know why the plural of hero is heroes and not heros?) I went to a movie last night with a friend and saw a trailer for a movie coming out called  Kick-Ass:

It reminded me of hearing about real people who were dressing up as super heroes. I found reallifesuperheroes.org, and instead of finding a lot of stealth vigilante crimefighting, found tips for activism and the general improvement of local communities. The super hero guises seem to be for purposes of instilling some fun into local action and bringing a larger-than-life feel to the role of real-life heroes. There are certainly some superhero hotties among the ranks and like you’d expect, perhaps a few folks that should have shunned the spandex. Another glossy portal for the hero-inclined is superheroes anonymous – “a collective of real life superheroes dedicated to inspiring the superhero in all people through outreach, education, and creative community service.” Apparently, they’ve inspired a documentary so we definitely all have that to look forward to!

If you’d like to keep track of our adventurers in occasionally ill-fitting costumes, scope out the World Superhero Registry.

So, I’m hooked on these do-gooders, these regular folks who’ve decided to become active in shaping the world they’re part of, but that’s not say there aren’t people out there with a touch of the mystical, who might be a little more than ordinary. I like this site, that has profiles of people with fantastic abilities on par with what we envision for our superfolk (although, a couple of these are more riddley’s believe it or not fodder, with more shock value than real intrigue) . I was most taken with Ben, a teenager who lost his eyes to cancer and is savvy at athletics and other activities due to his ability to use “echolocation”.  He makes a clicking sound and  listens for the quality of the sound when it returns, almost like a real-life variation on Daredevil. Below is part 1/5 of an intriguing documentary featuring Ben (the additional parts can be found directly on youtube):

Eating Guilt-Free Icecream, Ben and Jerry’s Makes it a Reality

So, no, Ben and Jerry’s has not come up with the elusive no-calorie Chunky-Munky, but they have taken some of their already people-conscious policies a step further. In 2005, the company decided to start using Fair Trade Certified products. For those unfamiliar with this certification, it means that the products bearing this label were produced with important social, economic, and environmental considerations in mind.

Ben and Jerry’s now have decided to make as many of the ingredients as possible contained in their ice creams fair trade certified. Read the full press release here. This is just a step of many the company has taken to improve the world around them (as if their ice cream wasn’t enough!). Check out the Ben and Jerry’s Foundation, and their activism webpage.

Now I will enjoy my favorite Ben and Jerry’s flavor, Turtle Soup, just a little bit more.

So how do you feel about hellameters?

I found this amusing in part because I’m an east coast girl who enjoy the use of “hella-” as a descriptive. For the full article, check out the California Aggie, the excerpt below should give you the gist however:

The Southern versus Northern California slang rivalry may soon be put to rest thanks to the help of UC Davis physics student Austin Sendek.

“Hella,” the popular NorCal slang word meaning “a lot” or “very” is commonly contested among Northern and Southern Californians and until this point has not been associated with any specific measurement.

Now, Sendek hopes to give hella new meaning – representing 10 to the 27th power to be exact.

After joking about “hella volts” in an electric field in an in-class experiment, Sendek created the Facebook group “The Official Petition to Establish ‘Hella-‘ as the SI Prefix for 10^27.” Within one week, group membership grew to over 8,000, with people hailing from all over the United States.

“I made it a group on Facebook as a joke,” Sendek said. “But when a professor from Rhode Island signed the petition I realized that we might actually be on to something.”

Currently, the International System of Units has prefixes up to 10^24, and because the system increases by increments of three, 10^27 is the next in line. Measurements for the universe could be indicated with the prefix at 1.4 hellameters, and the sun’s energy, at 0.3 hellawatts.

“Hella” is typically used by Northern Californians and tends to be unpopular among Southern Californians, creating a colloquial war between the two.

Delta Spirit – Spreading a Whole Lotta Soul

So I ♥ these guys, I mean it. Course I do share my heart with many musicians but these guys have got so much soul I can barely stand it. I found out I just missed them by a couple days when I recently checked their tour dates. I do this often. I hear tell there’s a site where you can get updates on when all your favorites are touring- I will need to scope this out and share. Anyway, here’s a bit of what I’m talking about:

Weight-Lifting Ant Wins Photo Contest

So, I have a sick delight in writing an incorrectly modified sentenced. The ant did not win the contest per se; Dr Thomas Endlein did for taking a picture of said ant. (Susan, if you’re reading this, I’m kinda sorry; but not entirely. I also don’t know if I just punctuated that sentence correctly. I fear you may be squirming a little right now…)

According to the BBC article:

The image shows an Asian weaver ant hanging upside down on a glass-like surface and holding a 500mg (0.02oz) weight in its jaws.

It was taken by zoology specialist Dr Thomas Endlein of Cambridge University as he researched insects’ sticky feet.

Dr Endlein won £700 in photographic vouchers from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

The research shows how ants change the size and shape of the pads on their feet to enable them to carry heavier loads.

He hopes it could help scientists develop better glues.

“The pads on ants’ feet are self-cleaning and can stick to almost any type of surface,” he said.

“No man-made glue or adhesive system can match this. Understanding how animals can control their adhesive systems should help us come up with clever adhesives in the future.”

Visual Economics – What the Recession Actually Looks Like

My friend posted this the other day. I’ve seen it before but it’s still as impressive seeing it again. I’ve been swept up in the difficulty of the economic times searching for work and working a little slight of hand with my bank account (trust me, this is not a complaint – in general, I manage to keep my chin up and my efforts moving forward) but one thing that has made this instability a little easier is knowledge that it’s not really me per se; this is a stagnation hitting the entire country.  We hear a lot about the numbers in news talk but I like when I get to see information visually (one of the reasons I like GIS – Geographic Information Systems, which allow you to express and manipulate data in visual form) – certain patterns are more visible, all the information can be seen at once, and it tends to be more striking. So this, dear readers, is what the recession looks like:

(a glossier, sharper version of this is available on the abc website, I just couldn’t embed it within this post)

To acclimate you – lighter colors mean lower unemployment rates, darker colors – reds, maroons, navy blues, blacks – mean higher rates of people without work, and on many accounts, it’s likely these are underestimated to some degree.

I am more heartened, regardless, as I see more listings for jobs than I did a year previous, even if the competition is still fierce. Certainly, most of this amounts to a big waiting game but in a lot of senses this has allowed me to re-prioritize some things and get more creative – both things unlikely to hurt in the long run. This seems to be happening on a country-wide level, as more people are spending time with their families. If you do an internet search, you can find many takes on what may also be considered the positives of this downturn in our pockets. I’m not trying to sugarcoat desperate times, but sometimes the ability to learn what truly fulfills us and the ability to cast of the rest can slip in with all the ugly stuff…

When Humans Attack – Stories of People-Induced Catastrophes

We, as a species, have a long history of screwing things up and occasionally learning from our mistakes so the negatives aspects of history won’t be repeated. But sometimes, an opportunity comes along to screw things up so monumentally, we can’t pass it by. The two examples I’d like to highlight today involved the creation of what would commonly be perceived as natural catastrophes were they not likely connected to anthropic stupidity.

The first example involves a mud volcano plaguing homeowners in Indonesia. According to the WIRED.com feature:

“Villagers near Sidoarjo noticed a mud volcano beginning to erupt at 5 a.m. local time May 29, 2006. It was about 500 feet from a local gas-exploration well. Every day since then, the Lusi mud volcano has pumped out 100,000 tons of mud, or enough to fill 60 Olympic-size swimming pools. It has now covered an area of almost 3 square miles to a depth of 65 feet. Thirty thousand people have been displaced, and scientific evidence is mounting that the company drilling the well caused the volcano.”

The cause of the mud volcano has been debated in the journal “Marine and Petroleum Geology”, with the lead drilling researcher for the company implicated in this royal screw-up pointing a finger at earthquakes that occurred within geographic proximity to the volcano. Other researchers, however, are casting skepticism on this possibility. Further details concerning the current research and arguments against the drilling company’s posturing can be read here.

Before reading about this, I had never even heard of mud volcanos but apparently there are over 1000 of these identified on land and in shallow waters with an estimated 10,000 more possibly residing on continental slopes and abyssal plains.
Read the wiki entry here.

So I am truly saving the best for last with the draining of Lake Peigneur, located in Louisiana. This epic blunder (or epic fail if you prefer) is also related to a drilling incident involving the Diamond Crystal Salt Company. I will briefly describe the incident that occurred in 1980, 1 year before I was born, but the full effect can only really be captured by watching the footage produced by the History Channel:

Basically, these guys drilled through the bottom of the lake into some active salt mines. When they pulled the drill bit out, it was like yanking a bathtub stopper out. Instead of rubber duckies, however, the water sucked down 11 barges, 1 tugboat, a house, trees, and significant amounts of land among other things. The sucking power of the vortex was so strong, it actually reversed the flow of Delcambre canal, normally an outlet to the ocean, so water streamed into the lake. Amazingly, not a single of the 55 salt miners died, a testament to proper training and fast thinking.

The lake is still there but the ecosystem is utterly unrecognizable as compared to its original state. The inflow of saline ocean water during the catastrophe caused the lake to permanently become brackish; fisherman can now catch salt-water species that were never seen before the incident. The depth regime of the lake has also been altered significantly.

Read an entertaining and informative account of Lake Peigneur’s unfortunate suffering here.

Standing Out in the Crowd

Thanks to my mom for posting this interesting album on facebook…

The WHNT news website, serving the huntsville, AL area, posted a photo album featuring photos culled from multiple sources of rare and exotic animals that either completely lack pigment (albinism) or have severely muted coloring (leucism). The photos below represent my favorite submissions:

One of the reason these conditions tend to be on the rarer side is they make an organism tend to stand out in their natural habitat which can increase levels of predation; apparently the same can be said for humans suffering from albinism. According to the New York Times, there has been a rash of murders aimed at albino Tanzanians because their body parts are believed to have magical powers. Officials are trying to protect their local albino population but are still failing in many regards. Beyond being fearful for their lives, albinos living in the country are also struck with health problems related to the large degree of sun exposure in that part of the world. Read the full article here.

Reworking Biology To Fit Our National Security Needs – A Scary Premise

Here comes the latest in the line of unsettling instances of tampering with the natural processes of biology. I read this feature on Wired.com:

“The Pentagon’s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic organisms” that can live forever — or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.

As part of its budget for the next year, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating “the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.” The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to “produce the intended biological effect.” Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can “ultimately be programmed to live indefinitely.”

Of course, Darpa’s got to prevent the super-species from being swayed to do enemy work — so they’ll encode loyalty right into DNA, by developing genetically programmed locks to create “tamper proof” cells. Plus, the synthetic organism will be traceable, using some kind of DNA manipulation, “similar to a serial number on a handgun.” And if that doesn’t work, don’t worry. In case Darpa’s plan somehow goes horribly awry, they’re also tossing in a last-resort, genetically-coded kill switch”

The feature goes on to mention some of the ethical considerations that may plague Darpa’s efforts. Read more at http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/pentagon-looks-to-breed-immortal-synthetic-organisms-molecular-kill-switch-included/#ixzz0eonuOQDa