Articles by Biodiversivist

Seattle Times editor wants to stick it to bicyclists

My wife snipped an editorial out of the Seattle Times for my perusal a couple of weeks ago. James Vesely, the opinion page editor, thinks that Seattle bicyclists should be taxed and licensed. My wife, a bleeding-heart liberal who never saw a tax she didn't like, was incensed that the Times editorial page editor would waste print space on such a petty issue.

Scientists find source of gregarious behavior (in grasshoppers)

This week's edition of Science has an interesting paper on the swarming behavior of desert locusts. It's initiated by high levels of serotonin. I'll wager E. O. Wilson is very excited about this.

From an informative article in the BBC News:

"Serotonin profoundly influences how we humans behave and interact," said co-author Dr Swidbert Ott, from Cambridge University.

"So to find that the same chemical is what causes a normally shy, antisocial insect to gang up in huge groups is amazing."

Indeed. Got me to wondering about other examples of swarming behavior. I'm thinking Super Bowl. Which got me to wondering about the Super Bowl ads mentioned by Kate Sheppard.

The Ecomagination ads made me smile. They made me feel good inside. Given the opportunity, I may find a way to thank GE for making me feel good. Drinkability made me laugh. I may subconsciously decide to buy a Bud Light the next time I'm at a bar just to rekindle that feeling.

New travel and cooking shows valorize the very practices destroying frogs and other living things

Remember when food shows were about cooking stuff? Now we have shows featuring guys who travel the world stuffing food in their pie holes just so they can tell us how it tastes (usually while the food is still in their mouths). You just can't get a fresher description than that. Because we can only eat so much, we can now entertain ourselves between meals by watching other people eat.

The latest incarnation is the Man V. Food show where Adam Richman runs around the country trying to eat the ubiquitous gargantuan promotional meals offered by so many restaurants, which include everything from a seven-pound monster breakfast burrito to an eleven-pound pizza (which was barfed back up).

One show I find particularly irritating is the Travel Channel's Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, who for some reason reminds me of a turtle. He eats a lot of wildlife, which can't help but fan the flames of the growing wild food trade that's consuming biodiversity. From a recent NYT opinion piece:

As global wealth rises, so does global consumption of meat, which includes wild meat. Turtle meat used to be a rare delicacy in the Asian diet, but no longer. China, along with Hong Kong and Taiwan, has vacuumed the wild turtles out of most of Southeast Asia. Now, according to a recent report in The Los Angeles Times, they are consuming common soft-shell turtles from the American Southeast, especially Florida, at an alarming rate.

Here he is eating a still beating frog heart:

How to save the planet with heated clothing

I spend a lot of time in a secret underground laboratory (basement workshop/office). It's my version of a Man Cave. In place of a big screen TV, pool table, and bar, it has (along with every power tool known to modern man) an oscilloscope, a table saw, and a box of red wine sitting on top my computer tower.

It's also completely unfinished (exposed studs) and unheated, with no insulation in the walls whatsoever. The temperature at my desk is presently 52 degrees and thanks to the thermal mass of the concrete walls and floor, will remain at this approximate temperature for the four coldest winter months. It's 39 degrees outside as I write. The cave analogy isn't too far off.

Staying warm while sitting on one's ass in front of a computer for hours on end in a 52 degree room can be challenging.