Wednesday, October 19, 2011

LAROSE FOREST

And now ... something pleasant. I drove Terri to Larose Forest Tuesday afternoon. When we got near the forest, she became VERY excited and started crazy frenzied barking "Oh boy! oh boy! I smell woods! I wanna run in the woods!" (or something like that). I poured water into her bowl and left it by a tire and let her wander around as there was only one other car parked in the lot.

Shortly after, a white car arrived but instead of parking, the driver drove around slowly, going uphill beside the road and around again slowly; stopped a distance away, drove around and finally parked. A man and his young son got out. He said that his son thought Terri was a wolf. Ha ha ha! Other owners of Belgian shepherds have heard that one before. The boy came over and petted Terri happily; then they proceeded to run around together. Terri loved having somebody chase her.


Terri and I walked along the dog sledding trails which were surprisingly dry and not slippery, despite the recent rains and fallen leaves. It was a perfect day for such a walk -- comfortable for a cozy sweater and jeans. I didn't need the jacket that I brought "just in case". Terri had fun playing with the many sticks she found along the trail. There were signs up warning not to allow your dog to chase deer. Terri has an excellent recall so I wasn't concerned she would cause trouble. It certainly isn't fair to deer to make them run in fear of wolf-like animals; they could injure themselves running fast amongst the trees and above-ground roots and branches.


Before heading home, my curiosity sent me driving through some roads in the forest and I was rewarded with sights of sunlit leaves amongst shaded branches.

Somebody is logging tall pines not far from the parking lot. The log piles appear to be made up of only the oldest, tallest pines in that part of the forest. Just past the logging area is a small pond with a sign stating: Nesting site for turtles. Respect. Do not disturb. I hope the logging operations don't disturb the turtles if they are still in the area.

There is a "Mush Larose" page at Facebook for people interested in participating in various sledding, skijoring, dog/biking activities.

Friday, October 14, 2011

UGLY TV

No, this is not about DWTS or similar "reality" TV (though it could have been). It's about the truly disgusting things I've watched recently and will never watch again, even though the info is (somewhat) educational.

I've found Monsters Inside Me to be strangely compelling and useful if you want to know how to avoid rare human parasites. I guess these stories of parasites aren't scary because they are so rare and unlikely to happen to me (I don't walk barefoot, I don't travel to third world countries).

Rat Busters NYC -- really, who thinks up these programs? The story of a rat infestation requiring breaking down walls, ceilings, and cement floors to find the source is enough to make you want to move to a clean icy igloo. While watching the exterminators setting traps for rats in a warehouse, I wondered if any pest control company has considered specializing in a pack of rat terriers to catch and kill rats and mice.

The ugliest program was on Animal Planet. Bedbugs are small creatures but they are spreading across the USA and probably Canada too. They can be picked up from hotels and other places where you use furniture.
- Bedbugs bite people for their blood.
- There are dogs trained to detect their odor.
- 120° steam can kill them.
- Rubbing alcohol kills them but it is flammable so you don't want to use it any place there could be a spark.
- Carbon dioxide can flash freeze them.
- Heating a house to 120°+ can desiccate them, but they may find cooler spots to hide in so the exterminator needs to check for cool areas.
- Heating clothes in a hot dryer for 30 minutes should kill them.
- The program didn't say whether diatomaceous earth could kill them.

Now, a pleasant photo to put that ugliness out of mind:
Freshly fallen white snow, anyone?

Monday, October 3, 2011

DOG PERSON ?

Dog person or people person ?

It would be obvious to anyone who knows me that I'm a dog (and cat) person. I now spend most of my time with Terri and Flower. They are sweet, furry girls who are a daily source of joy. I saw a sign on FB that states my situation perfectly:

The difference between dogs and people: dogs spend most of their time NOT being annoying, people are the opposite.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

REINVENTING GRAVITY

Reading Reinventing Gravity by John W. Moffat is like reading a mystery. He builds his case towards an alternative theory of gravity gradually by taking us through the history of science to demonstrate how old theories need to be updated or overthrown when more precise observations are made of nature.

The mystery of the nature of space-time is revealed and all seems well until newer observations and measurements show flaws in Newton's and Einstein's theories. Black holes, dark matter, and dark energy have been postulated to update those theories to fit new observations. They have been accepted by many scientists but do these objects really exist?

Moffat writes:
Let me state the current situation very clearly. There are only two ways of explaining the wealth of observational data showing the surprisingly fast rotational speeds of stars in galaxies and the stability of clusters: Either dark matter exists and presumably will be found, and Newton's and Einstein's gravity theories will remain intact; or dark matter does not exist and we must find a new gravity theory.

This book is a GREAT read for anyone who fits into the author's intended audience: "the curious non-physicist who loves science" or "the reader with a more technical background in physics".

Moffat's alternative theory refutes some of the statements in Timeline of the Universe shown below.

Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Radiation


The detailed, all-sky picture of the infant universe created from seven years of WMAP data. The image reveals 13.7 billion year old temperature fluctuations (shown as color differences) that correspond to the seeds that grew to become the galaxies. The signal from the our Galaxy was subtracted using the multi-frequency data. This image shows a temperature range of ± 200 microKelvin.

Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team


Timeline of the Universe


A representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.7 billion years. The far left depicts the earliest moment we can now probe, when a period of "inflation" produced a burst of exponential growth in the universe. (Size is depicted by the vertical extent of the grid in this graphic.) For the next several billion years, the expansion of the universe gradually slowed down as the matter in the universe pulled on itself via gravity. More recently, the expansion has begun to speed up again as the repulsive effects of dark energy have come to dominate the expansion of the universe. The afterglow light seen by WMAP was emitted about 380,000 years after inflation and has traversed the universe largely unimpeded since then. The conditions of earlier times are imprinted on this light; it also forms a backlight for later developments of the universe.

Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team