100 Posts on the Wall

Like sea turtles, blogs are born in abundance, but nearly all fail to reach maturity. Exeterra was born just over four months ago (20 March, 2007), and this is Exeterra's 100th post. At the time of this writing, the site has received over 1000 hits since March. In the blogosphere, that is tiddly-winks - no - that's sub-tiddly-winks. The Big Dogs of the blogging world each get millions of hits every month. But still, most blogs (and there are more than 71 million of them) wink out of existence after little more than a few posts and a few dozen hits. So this is something akin to Exeterra being a sea turtle adolescent. Odds of reaching full size are still remote, but I've been lucky to make it this far.

Here's a round of drinks to another 100 posts.

Mythbusting Monday IV: Daddy Longlegs are the Most Venemous Spider in the World OMG!!!!11!1

This week's myth is one that I heard frequently as a kid from other kids. It was usually told breathlessly and with a touch of bravado. Hey, be careful with that - don't you know the daddy longlegs is the most venemous spider in the world?! It's teeth are too small to bite you -- unless it can get to that little web of skin between your fingers - then you're DEAD!

Ok, where to start with this one? First of all, the name Daddy Longlegs refers to 3 different species groups, and only one, the least commonly used reference, is a spider. The most common reference in North America is to any number of species (6,400+ to be specific) of harvestmen. They often live in cellars, caves, and shady spots. Although they are arachnids like spiders (eight legs) they are as distantly related to spiders as they are to scorpions. This is a harvestman here to the right. They look like little balls with big stick-like legs. Their bodies have one segment (spiders have two) and they are not venomous.

In the UK, the name Daddy Longlegs refers to a flying insect, the crane fly, of which there are 14,000+ species. These are not related to spiders in the least (they've got big wings! How can you confuse that with a spider?) I'm not sure how long the name daddy longlegs has been used to refer to crane flys, but it may predate the reference to harvestmen. The earliest reference I can find is the poem The Daddy Longlegs and The Fly by Edward Lear published in 1871. Given that Lear was all about creating nonsensical yet descriptive words, Daddy Longlegs seems quite fitting. Again, no venom.

In some parts of the northeast US, Daddly Longlegs refers to the cellar spider. This is a spider, and all spiders have some kind of venom. But it's venom is very weak, weaker than a single ant bite. It is of roughly similar size and appearance to harvestmen, but still distinctive enough that it would be difficult to confuse the two.

Ok, so we know we're talking about three species groups here, only one of which is a spider, but none of them pose any threat to humans. To me, the most ridiculous part of this myth was always the if it bites you between your fingers your're DEAD aspect. Why? That makes no sense! The skin between your fingers is not even particularly thin. I can think of many places in the body with thinner and more sensitive skin than that. Why not the perineum? Now that would be a fun myth to test.

Update on Rob

Time for an update on my brother Rob. As you may recall, he recently nearly passed away after being buried alive at the beach (longer version).

The whole family is doing well, and continuing to return to normal, though still shaken. Rob and Charlie are doing much better than one might expect, perhaps because of the resiliency of their young age.

There is a written story and video from CBS' The Early Show you can watch. The video is embedded on the right side of the page (sorry for the rather anti-open-source/ad-laden nature of CBS' videos - they should take a lesson from YouTube and Google and let their data be free. Ah well, at least it is hi-res.) The CBS video is about five minutes, and my family is interviewed for perhaps two minutes - but they filmed my family for over three hours.

In other words, they filmed almost exactly 100 times more material than they used. I wish the network/cable news shows would be as thorough with the 'big' stories instead of the standard operating procedure of regurgitating gov. press releases. I think they're starting to learn the lessons of the last six years, if slowly.

Weekend Circular Bubbles

Ok, now underwater bubbles may not seem that interesting, but you've got to see this. What amazes me the most is that he has so much air in his lungs for so long.



If you have suggestions for particularly funny or amazing videos to be posted here, by all means let me know.

Social Policy: It's Time For a MOT

You should all read Ben Goldacre's latest Bad Science article. Ben is one of the leading science warriors of the day - laying waste to pseudofacts and junk science like a level 34 Paladin amongst kobolds.

The basic premise is that social policy - something governments spend hundreds of billions on - is very rarely tested with scientific methods - particularly with controlled, randomized trials. These trials would be easy to do, and not very expensive. They could tell us whether a social policy actually works. If you're going to spend hundreds of billions of pounds/dollars on untested social programs, doesn't it make sense to spend mere millions to see what effect they actually have? Of course, sometimes controlled trials are not feasible for practical or ethical reasons - we can't randomly assign innocent people to prison to see what happens - but we can randomly assign people already in prison to various rehabilitation programs and monitor the varying outcomes of these programs. As always, strict watchdogs will need to ensure the scientific testing process remains ethical, but I believe any risk associated with these trials is far outweighed by the existing danger of present programs. Take DARE, for example. After more than 20 years, many billions in government dollars, and implementing the program on 36 million children, the effects of the program were finally tested. Instead of reducing drug use, it was found the DARE program increased drug use (including alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs) and lowered students' self esteem. Great stuff, huh? Now that is unethical. We could have saved a lot of money and a lot of grief if the program had actually been tested at some point previously in those 20 years. What was the conversation like? "Hey Frank, we've used this program on 36 million kids, maybe we should see what effect it has?" "Yeah Bob, you may be on to something."

Ben makes the point that in the recent past doctors opposed using controlled trials to test drugs and medical techniques. When trials finally were introduced it was found that many drugs of the past were in fact useless (hey, remember blood letting?), and often caused horrible unnecessary side-effects. Now it is unthinkable to introduce a new medication without testing its effects. Why are we not testing social policies? They are just as universal and societally relevant as medicine.

The fact that we don't already test social policies is frankly bizarre. It's like we don't want to know whether these programs work or not. Like endorsing a social policy is a matter of faith rather than deliberation. Like we don't want to find out the experts might have been wrong all this time. Thanks, but I'll go for the controlled trials.

That's One Hungry Hippo

From Boing Boing, an endearing tale of a South African Pet House-Hippo:

(Warning: it goes from cute, to unbearably cute, to slightly creepy, to cute again.)



This is the same basic process in which humans have domesticated all animals - Jessica (though tame) is still wild, and potentially dangerous. Hippos kill more people in Africa than sharks, lions, and just about every other animal. But after a few dozen generations of similar treatment, it would be entirely possible to have permanently domesticated hippos. The domestic cow, which descended from the mighty aurochs, was surely much more dangerous to domesticate, weighing twice the weight of modern cattle.

So who's up for domesticated hippos? Can we have a pygmy version?

Mythbusting Monday III: Sugar Causes Hyperactivity

Many parents, teachers, and others strongly believe that giving sugar to children causes them to be hyperactive. These anecdotes have been tested in scientific trials (Milich, Wolraich, & Lindgrin, 1986; Krummel, Seligson, & Guthrie, 1996), and the results are quite interesting. In double-blind trials where half of children received sugar and the other half received nutrasweet or some other artificial sweetener, parents reported more hyperactivity when they believed their children were receiving sugar - even when they didn't - and reported less hyperactivity when they believed they did not have sugar - even when they did. In other words, the parent's expectations of hyperactivity determined whether they thought they observed hyperactive behaviours, and actual sugar consumption had no effect. It's classic confirmation bias - when we believe something we focus on supporting evidence while ignoring unsupporting evidence.

Perhaps the origin of the sugar --> hyperactivity myth is that children often consume the most sugar at exciting times (a birthday party, going on a special trip, etc.) and these kinds of events illicit hyperactivity no matter what has been consumed. A parent or teacher may assume the sugar is causing the hyperactivity when really it is just the exciting situation. This is the representativeness heuristic - the belief that two phenomena are related because they share a similarity - in this case a similarity in occurring at the same time. This belief is then supported in the future through the confirmation bias.


And in case you are wondering, high levels of testosterone do not cause violence, and low levels of serotonin do not cause depression. These are both implicated (i.e., violent people tend to have higher levels of testosterone and depressed people tend to have lower levels of serotonin) but simply giving someone an injection of testosterone will not make them any more violent, and artificially lowering someone's serotonin levels will not make them depressed. Both are complicated relationships with additional unidentifiable variables that seem to cause both the chemical imbalance and the behavioural change. The truth is, scientists do not truly know what causes almost any complex behavioural pattern. So if someone says a behaviour pattern is all down to just one dietary ingredient, or just one hormone, or just one neurotransmitter keep in mind that what they are saying is a pretty massive simplification, and not a very accurate one.

How To: Keeping Your Organic Garden Fertile

Often times when people find out I'm vegan, they look at me with astonishment and say, 'But how do you get any protein!? Don't you have to take special pills or injections?' The answer of course, is a laughable no. A reasonably healthy diet will provide plenty of protein without any special measures. Likewise, reasonably intelligent gardening methods will ensure your organic garden stays fertile and healthy. In fact, you can do so with little or no extra expense.

First a brief overview of plant nutrition: There are three main nutrients every plant needs: nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium (N-P-K). When you see three numbers on commercial fertilizer (like 10-10-10, or 20-5-5), these are just the percentage of N, P, and K. So 5-5-5, 10-10-10, and 20-20-20 contain the same equal proportions of N-P-K but in increasingly strong concentrations. Nitrogen is used primarily in green leafy growth. Phosphorous is used mostly in root growth. Potassium is used primarily in fruit formation. Non-organic fertilizers provide an abundance of N-P-K, but there are a few problems: the nutrients leach away quickly, and go into the groundwater. Furthermore, a strict N-P-K diet is a little like a diet of sugar and vitamins - it will keep you alive and growing, but it is essentially junk food. There are many dozens of other nutrients and symbiotic micro-organisms that make plants healthier and more robust. Organic fertilizer sticks around longer instead of leaching away with the rain, and it provides those extra trace nutrients and micro-organisms that growing plants need.

I'll provide three levels of effort in terms of fertilization: Easiest, Easier, and Easy. If you are a serious gardener, you'll want to do all three. Each of these methods provide a good, well-balanced mix of N-P-K, so you don't have to worry about using too much of one nutrient. Don't use much fertilizer on baby plants or seeds, as this can be harmful to them.

Easiest: Liquid fertilizers can soak into the soil quickly, providing a boost to established plants. Liquid fertilizers are all around you: old coffee and old tea are some of the most readily available. Just dilute with water and spread around the base of your plants. Here's what I do: I take all my households' tea bags (about 20 a week), tear each of them into two pieces, and dump them in a large watering can. This gets all the leafy bits inside to mix around with the water in the watering can. Every Saturday I empty the tea-filled watering can on my tomatoes and corn, and it works beautifully. You can also water ('tea') your houseplants this way.

Easier: Start composting. Take all your garden waste and stick it in one pile. You can use an enclosed plastic bin, an open wooden structure (easy to make with old pallets), or just leave it loose. If you are using an enclosed plastic bin, you can stick food waste in there as well as the garden waste. Turn the mix every month or so with a shovel/spade/digging fork. After 6 to 12 months, you'll have beautifully rich topsoil. Dig it into your garden in the off-season, and the nutrients will last all year. Supplement with liquid fertilizers for extra hungry plants like corn.

Easy: Get a Wormery! This is a special bin that holds tiger worms (aka red wrigglers). You just dump your food waste in the sealed bin (any food waste - veggies, fruit, meat - even bones), and the worms eat it. The liquid waste the worms leave behind is called castings, and these drain down to the bottom of the bin, where there is a tap. Turn the tap, and the liquid castings drain out the bottom. These castings are chock full of every trace nutrient and micro-organism a plant could want - very powerful stuff. I bottle these castings in 2 litre bottles throughout the year, and use them in the growing season. Every week or two in June, July, and August, I take 1 litre of worm castings, dilute it in water 1 to 10, and our this mix around the base of my plants. They love it. When the wormery gets full (about once a year) and the contents resemble top soil, empty the contents into a wheelbarrow and mix it into the rest of your garden (best done in November when the growing season ends). This adds plenty of organic material which improves the overall condition of the soil. Make sure at least a few worms are still in the wormery and start the process all over again. The great thing about this system is that it also eliminates your food waste from going into a landfill - which typically comprises 1/3 of all landfill waste.

There are plenty of other fertilizing methods. The fine people at Shillingford Organics use a nettle tea system (basically nettle plants rotting in water) to fertilize all their poly-tunnel plants, and they produce the best vegetables I've ever had (better than mine!) - and they manage to feed a few hundreds local households this way. Comfrey and seaweed also work well in this method. I also compost my pet rabbits' litter waste (shredded paper and rabbit droppings) which is odourless. In the late autumn, I put my bunnies in the garden, and they eat all the old plants to the ground, 'fertilizing' as they eat. Growing beans, clover, or other legumes boosts nitrogen in the soil. You can usually get free compost from your local government. You can also be lame and just buy compost or other organic fertilizers. There is no limit to the methods creative organic gardeners can use to keep their soil not only fertile, but healthy as well.

Maters!

It has been a good while since I've done a gardening post, so I figured it was about time. Since my tomatoes are starting to fruit, I thought I would cover them. Although I'm growing a few standard boring ol' regular varieties, the heirlooms are my pride.



Brandywine Tomato
Solanum lycopersicum

When Plato theorized his conceptions of the Forms - that is the blueprints of perfection which earthly particulars aspire to - surely he was thinking of the Brandywine Tomato as the perfect Form for all lesser tomatoes. Well, he would have if the Brandywine had been around then. Brandywines simply outperform every other tomato in terms of taste. The only bad thing about Brandywines is that once you try them, you may just find supermarket tomatoes too mealy and watery to be edible. I can't wait for this year's crop to be ready, they just go so well with my heirloom lettuces.

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Yellow Perfection
Solanum lycopersicum

Ok, I've yet to taste any of these little yellow babies yet, but the plants look gorgeous so far, and other yellow varieties have been quite good. Don't those 'maters just look delectable? Yellow tomatoes have less acidity than red ones, which is either a good or a bad thing depending on your preferences. I think the yellow and red colour contrast is especially nice in salsas, sandwiches, and salads.

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On Sunday, I'll write an additional gardening post about keeping your organic vegetables well fertilized. Veggies like tomatoes and corn can get quite hungry and need to be fertilized, but thankfully you can do this organically (and for free!) with household waste products. Look for a How To post on Sunday.

Mercy.

Two days ago I received some very disturbing - and relieving - news. As you may know, I have two younger brothers who are three-year old twins. Rob is pictured here on the right.

My family had been spending the week at the beach in Florida. One day near the end of the trip, Rob had an accident. He was trapped in a phenomenon known as a spontaneous sand cave-in. An anomaly in the beach sand caused the surface of the beach to collapse when Rob stepped on it, with the surrounding sand filling in the collapsed area, burying Rob alive. Although not well known to the public, more people die this way at the beach than because of sharks. In Rob's case, no one saw the cave-in; my family - only a few feet away - just realized he was gone. He was buried for a full five minutes before anyone realized what had happened. By a miracle, he was found and dug out in time to save his life. Although incredibly traumatic for all involved, there were no injuries, and Rob is doing well.

It is rare to survive a spontaneous sand cave-in - and nearly unheard of to survive when nobody actually witnessed the cave-in. The phenomenon is becoming more well known, and the issue has just recently entered the mainstream media consciousness. Because of this recent interest, the story and a brief interview with my family will be appearing on CBS' The Early Show on Tuesday, July 24 at 7:30 am EST - the segment is about 4 minutes long and contains other people's stories/input as well.

I found out about the accident after it happened, and it was still traumatic for me just hearing about it, even knowing he was fine. So far this week, it's been difficult to focus on much else. I cannot imagine the unbelievable horrible experience for my family that was there. A full - and heartwrenching - account is on my step-mom's blog.

Yeah, my step-mom has a blog, and it's much more popular than mine, and it's about knitting. Want to make something of it?

New Modest Mouse Album = Delicious

The new Modest Mouse album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, is just gorgeous (but what else is new?) Parting of the Sensory and Education stick out to me right now as being particularly amenable to putting on repeat, but all of the songs are great. I love that they've produced nearly an album a year for 10 years now - spread across three labels - and nearly every song on every album has been a keeper. Their sound has changed substantially throughout, but it has always been Quality, and the themes are stable.

Your orders are to listen to the album now. It takes a few spins to settle in, but when it does, wow.

Mythbusting Monday II: Man-Eating Badgers Not Actually a Secret Terror Weapon of the British Army

This myth may not be as well known in the US and UK, but apparently in Iraq many of the people around Basra believe the British Army has been releasing man-eating bizarro badgers into Basra to eat and terrorize the populace.

They appear to be non-dangerous honey badgers who have come to the area because of flooding in their usual habitat north of the city.

Best. Myth. Ever.

As web-based political cartoonist August Pollak says, not many people in the world get to say, "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." as a part of their official duties.

When I was living in Reading, England nearly four years ago, I was watching tv with one of my then-housemates. One of those when-animals-attack shows came on. When these come on in the US, they usually feature rather horrific encounters with bears, alligators, mountain lions, or zoo elephants. In the UK edition, the highlight of the 'wild animal encounters' was a badger that got stuck in somebody's empty swimming pool. A badger. I was discussing this with my housemate whom I was watching with, and she said of badgers: 'They can be quite vicious you know.' Alaska has grizzly bears. India has cobras. Africa has black mambas. South America has tiny barbed fish that swim up your urethra when you pee in the water. Australia has an untold number of nightmare creatures. England has badgers.

Pmmfth. That was me stifling laughter at how non-dangerous Europe is compared to every other continent in the world.