Category: tourism

The Heart Wall in London

I love this!

I am writing this having listened to a programme on BBC Radio 4. (Was broadcast on Radio 4 on Tuesday, August 13th.) It shows how many, many people can have a really positive response to a dastardly negative occurrence such as the Covid outbreak or a pandemic.

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Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Why are those lost to COVID not formally memorialised? How politics shapes what we remember

Mark Honigsbaum, City, University of London

Every Friday, volunteers gather on the Albert Embankment at the River Thames in London to lovingly retouch thousands of red hearts inscribed on a Portland stone wall directly opposite the Houses of Parliament. Each heart is dedicated to a British victim of COVID. It is a deeply social space – a place where the COVID bereaved come together to honour their dead and share memories.

The so-called National Covid Memorial Wall is not, however, officially sanctioned. In fact, ever since activists from COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice (CBFFJ) daubed the first hearts on the wall in March 2021 it has been a thorn in the side of the authorities.

Featured in the media whenever there is a new revelation about partygate, the wall is a symbol of the government’s blundering response to the pandemic and an implicit rebuke to former prime minister Boris Johnson and other government staff who breached coronavirus restrictions.

As one writer put it, viewed from parliament the hearts resemble “a reproachful smear of blood”. Little wonder that the only time Johnson visited the wall was under the cover of darkness to avoid the TV cameras. His successor Rishi Sunak has been similarly reluctant to acknowledge the wall or say what might take its place as a more formal memorial to those lost in the pandemic.

Though in April the UK Commission on COVID Commemoration presented Sunak with a report on how the pandemic should be remembered, Sunak has yet to reveal the commission’s recommendations.

Lady Heather Hallett, the former high court judge who chairs the public inquiry into COVID, has attempted to acknowledge the trauma of the bereaved by commissioning a tapestry to capture the experiences of people who “suffered hardship and loss” during the pandemic. Yet such initiatives are no substitute for state-sponsored memorials.

What is remembered and what is forgotten?

This political vacuum is odd when you consider that the United Kingdom, like other countries, engages in many other commemorative activities central to national identity. The fallen of the first world war and other military conflicts are commemorated in a Remembrance Sunday ceremony held every November at the Cenotaph in London, for example.

But while wars lend themselves to compelling moral narratives, it is difficult to locate meaning in the random mutations of a virus. And while wars draw on a familiar repertoire of symbols and rituals, pandemics have few templates.

For instance, despite killing more than 50 million globally, there are virtually no memorials to the 1918-1919 “Spanish” influenza pandemic. Nor does the UK have a memorial to victims of HIV/AIDS. As the memory studies scholar Astrid Erll puts it, pandemics have not been sufficiently “mediated” in collective memory.

As a rule, they do not feature in famous paintings, novels or films or in the oral histories passed down as part of family lore. Nor are they able to draw on familiar cultural materials such as poppies, gun carriages, catafalques and royal salutes. Without such symbols and schemata, Erll argues, we struggle to incorporate pandemics into our collective remembering systems.

This lacuna was brought home to me last September when tens of thousands of Britons flocked to the south bank of the Thames to pay their respects to Britain’s longest serving monarch. By coincidence, the police directed the queue for the late Queen’s lying-in-state in Westminster Hall over Lambeth Bridge and along Albert Embankment.

But few of the people I spoke to in the queue seemed to realise what the hearts signified. It was as if the spectacle of a royal death had eclipsed the suffering of the COVID bereaved, rendering the wall all but invisible.

Waiting for answers

Another place where the pandemic could be embedded in collective memory is at the public inquiry. Opening the preliminary hearing last October into the UK’s resilience and preparedness for a pandemic, Lady Hallett promised to put the estimated 6.8 million Britons mourning the death of a family member or friend to COVID at the heart of the legal process. “I am listening to them; their loss will be recognised,” she said.

But though Lady Hallett has strategically placed photographs of the hearts throughout the inquiry’s offices in Bayswater and has invited the bereaved to relate their experiences to “Every Story Matters”, the hearing room is dominated by ranks of lawyers. And except when a prominent minister or official is called to testify, the proceedings rarely make the news.

This is partly the fault of the inquiry process itself. The hearings are due to last until 2025, with the report on the first stage of the process not expected until the summer of 2024. As Lucy Easthope, an emergency planner and veteran of several disasters, puts it: “one of the most painful frustrations of the inquiry will be temporal. It will simply take too long.”

The inquiry has also been beset by bureaucratic obfuscation, not least by the Cabinet Office which attempted (unsuccessfully in the end) to block the release of WhatsApp messages relating to discussions between ministers and Downing Street officials in the run-up to lockdown.

To the inquiry’s critics, the obvious parallel is with the Grenfell inquiry, which promised to “learn lessons” from the devastating fire that engulfed the west London tower in 2017 but has so far ended up blurring the lines of corporate responsibility and forestalling a political reckoning.

The real work of holding the government to account and making memories takes place every Friday at the wall and the other places where people come together to spontaneously mourn and remember absent loved ones. These are the lives that demand to be “seen”. They are the ghosts that haunt our amnesic political culture.

Mark Honigsbaum, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, City, University of London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

plus Wikipedia have a long article on the National Covid Memorial Wall. That then takes us to the website for the wall.

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As was written in the last sentence of the article; ‘They are the ghosts that haunt our amnesic political culture.‘

Humans are a strange lot and I most certainly count myself in!

A bond across two very different species

How The Dodo spoke of a dog and a wild shark bonding.

I do not know much about this story apart from the fact that it appeared in The Dodo recently and I took to it.

So please enjoy! (And that assumes you have not already seen the article!)

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Little Dog Forms Remarkable Bond With A Friendly Wild Shark

They meet up almost every day.

By Alana Francis-Crow

Published on Aug 16, 2024

For most dogs, their friend groups usually consist of a mix of humans and other dogs. But Lili, a 3-year-old dog who lives on a French Polynesian atoll called Fakarava, isn’t like most other dogs. She prefers friends who have gills and fins. In fact, her very best friend is a shark.

Ever since Lili’s mom, Emmanuelle Larchet, adopted Lili, she’s known that her dog has an affinity for all things aquatic. She started swimming in the lagoon near Larchet’s house when she was only a month old.

“She’s really a water dog,” Larchet told The Dodo.

There are around 100 sharks who live in this lagoon near Larchet’s house. So when Lili swims in the water there, she’s surrounded by them. While many dog parents would be terrified to see their dog swimming amongst sharks, Larchet knows that the sharks Lili swims with are nurse sharks, who are actually very docile creatures.

“We call them sea puppies because [they’re] like dogs, actually … They are very nice,” Larchet said.

Larchet likes to joke that when Lili swims around with her shark friends, it’s sea puppies meeting earth puppies.

Over the years Lili has been swimming in the lagoon, there’s one shark in particular she’s grown especially close with. His name is Sharky, and he and Lili visit each other almost every day. Larchet and Lili are able to recognize Sharky because he has a special marking on one of his fins.

Lili and Sharky like to explore their lagoon together. They enjoy splashing around in the warm, clear water.

“He comes to say hello every time she sees him,” Larchet said.

Even though Lili and Larchet are best friends themselves, Larchet is more than happy to share her Lili with Sharky. And even though Larchet watches Lili hang out with her shark friends all the time, it never gets old seeing them spend time together.

“[When] I see her swimming with Sharky, [I’m] so happy,” Larchet said.

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It is a lovely story!

Our amazing trees.

Beyond our imagination.

Until quite recently I had imagined that a tree was just a tree. Then Jean and I got to watch a YouTube video on trees and it blew our minds. Here is what we watched:

That led us on to watching Judi Dench’s video of trees:

Which is a longish introduction to a piece on The Conversation about trees.

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Trees don’t like to breathe wildfire smoke, either – and they’ll hold their breath to avoid it

Trees and other plants can’t escape wildfire smoke. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

Delphine Farmer, Colorado State University and Mj Riches, Colorado State University

When wildfire smoke is in the air, doctors urge people to stay indoors to avoid breathing in harmful particles and gases. But what happens to trees and other plants that can’t escape from the smoke?

They respond a bit like us, it turns out: Some trees essentially shut their windows and doors and hold their breath.

As atmospheric and chemical scientists, we study the air quality and ecological effects of wildfire smoke and other pollutants. In a study that started quite by accident when smoke overwhelmed our research site in Colorado, we were able to watch in real time how the leaves of living pine trees responded.

How plants breathe

Plants have pores on the surface of their leaves called stomata. These pores are much like our mouths, except that while we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, plants inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen.

A highly magnified view of stomata in a maize leaf. Umberto Salvagnin/Flickr, CC BY

Both humans and plants inhale other chemicals in the air around them and exhale chemicals produced inside them – coffee breath for some people, pine scents for some trees.

Unlike humans, however, leaves breathe in and out at the same time, constantly taking in and releasing atmospheric gases.

Clues from over a century of research

In the early 1900s, scientists studying trees in heavily polluted areas discovered that those chronically exposed to pollution from coal-burning had black granules clogging the leaf pores through which plants breathe. They suspected that the substance in these granules was partly created by the trees, but due to the lack of available instruments at the time, the chemistry of those granules was never explored, nor were the effects on the plants’ photosynthesis.

Most modern research into wildfire smoke’s effects has focused on crops, and the results have been conflicting.

For example, a study of multiple crop and wetland sites in California showed that smoke scatters light in a way that made plants more efficient at photosynthesis and growth. However, a lab study in which plants were exposed to artificial smoke found that plant productivity dropped during and after smoke exposure – though those plants did recover after a few hours.

There are other clues that wildfire smoke can impact plants in negative ways. You may have even tasted one: When grapes are exposed to smoke, their wine can be tainted.

What makes smoke toxic, even far from the fire

When wildfire smoke travels long distances, the smoke cooks in sunlight and chemically changes.

Mixing volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides and sunlight will make ground-level ozone, which can cause breathing problems in humans. It can also damage plants by degrading the leaf surface, oxidizing plant tissue and slowing photosynthesis.

Illustration of a burning tree with particles showing their size.
Smoke has particles much smaller than the width of a hair and gases that evolve in sunlight. Jen Burgess/IsolineStudios for BC Centre for Disease Control

While scientists usually think about urban regions as being large sources of ozone that effect crops downwind, wildfire smoke is an emerging concern. Other compounds, including nitrogen oxides, can also harm plants and reduce photosynthesis.

Taken together, studies suggest that wildfire smoke interacts with plants, but in poorly understood ways. This lack of research is driven by the fact that studying smoke effects on the leaves of living plants in the wild is hard: Wildfires are hard to predict, and it can be unsafe to be in smoky conditions.

Accidental research – in the middle of a wildfire

We didn’t set out to study plant responses to wildfire smoke. Instead, we were trying to understand how plants emit volatile organic compounds – the chemicals that make forests smell like a forest, but also impact air quality and can even change clouds.

Fall 2020 was a bad season for wildfires in the western U.S., and thick smoke came through a field site where we were working in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

On the first morning of heavy smoke, we did our usual test to measure leaf-level photosynthesis of Ponderosa pines. We were surprised to discover that the tree’s pores were completely closed and photosynthesis was nearly zero.

We also measured the leaves’ emissions of their usual volatile organic compounds and found very low readings. This meant that the leaves weren’t “breathing” – they weren’t inhaling the carbon dioxide they need to grow and weren’t exhaling the chemicals they usually release.

Side-by-side photos show the air was smoky, similar to a foggy or smoggy day, but no so think that you can't see the forest ahead.
A clear day at the Colorado test site, on the left, compared to the smoky day when trees responded to the poor air quality, on the right. Mj Riches, CC BY-SA

With these unexpected results, we decided to try to force photosynthesis and see if we could “defibrillate” the leaf into its normal rhythm. By changing the leaf’s temperature and humidity, we cleared the leaf’s “airways” and saw a sudden improvement in photosynthesis and a burst of volatile organic compounds.

What our months of data told us is that some plants respond to heavy bouts of wildfire smoke by shutting down their exchange with outside air. They are effectively holding their breath, but not before they have been exposed to the smoke.

We hypothesize a few processes that could have caused leaves to close their pores: Smoke particles could coat the leaves, creating a layer that prevents the pores from opening. Smoke could also enter the leaves and clog their pores, keeping them sticky. Or the leaves could physically respond to the first signs of smoke and close their pores before they get the worst of it.

It’s likely a combination of these and other responses.

The long-term impact is still unknown

The jury is still out on exactly how long the effects of wildfire smoke last and how repeated smoke events will affect plants – including trees and crops – over the long term.

With wildfires increasing in severity and frequency due to climate change, forest management policies and human behavior, it’s important to gain a better understanding of the impact.

Delphine Farmer, Professor of Chemistry, Colorado State University and Mj Riches, Postdoctoral Researcher in Environmental and Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The biggest tree in the world is reputed to be the General Sherman tree in California. Here is the introduction from WikiPedia:

General Sherman is a giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) tree located at an elevation of 2,109 m (6,919 ft) above sea level in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in Tulare County, in the U.S. state of California. By volume, it is the largest known living single-stem tree on Earth.

Amazing!

A delightful story

About a blind man and his dog being rescued.

Today’s post is a short video that has no sound. But don’t let that stop you from watching it.

Blind man and dog rescued after days stuck on trail.

A 55-year-old blind man and his dog have been rescued from the Rogue River trail in South-Western Oregon. They began hiking on the trail on July 3 or 4 with a friend. During the hike, the man began to experience heat exhaustion, so the friend left to try to call emergency services. A US Coast Guard helicopter crew airlifted them to safety and the man and his dog were taken to emergency medical services.

My understanding is that they were rescued on July 11th, just a week ago.

This is home!

Reflections on Oregon.

Or more precisely Southern Oregon.

We live in a beautiful State.

Roughly 100 miles North-East of us is Crater Lake.

Photo by Anukrati Omar on Unsplash

It was formed when this former volcano, “which collapsed on itself during an eruption just 7,700 years ago and slowly filled with melted snow, now stands as Oregon’s only national park.”

At over 2,000 feet deep it is the deepest lake in the United States of America.

There is a website, 16 Reasons Why Oregon is the Best State in the Country, and Jean and I believe it. Do visit this web page.

Oregon has acres and acres of forest and wild lands.

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash

Photo by Moss and Fog on Unsplash

Oregon has many truly wild places. Here is a photograph of one of Oregon’s famous waterfalls.

Photo by Chris Briggs on Unsplash

Here is a photo of the wild coast and the ocean.

Photo by KAL VISUALS on Unsplash

Photo by Jordan Steranka on Unsplash

As was said at the start, Jean and I live in a very beautiful part of America.

Plus the people are incredibly friendly.

Those solar flares

Plenty of news stories to choose from.

A massive solar storm is expected to hit Earth, possibly impacting our communication grids.

NOAA presented a report for May 12th that said:

EVENT:
A coronal mass ejection (CME) is an eruption of solar material. When they arrive at Earth, a geomagnetic storm can result. Watches at this level are very rare.
TIMING:
Several CMEs are anticipated to merge and arrive at Earth on May 12th.
EFFECTS:
The general public should visit our webpage to keep properly informed. The aurora mav become
visible over much of the northern half of the country, and maybe as far south as Alabama to
northern California.

Meanwhile, Earth.com presented the following (and it is a long but extremely interesting report):

Update: New solar flare, secondary peak today in this “Extreme” solar storm

By Eric Ralls, Earth.com staff writer

Update — May 12, 2024 at 8:04 PM EDT

The Sun released another powerful burst of energy today, known as a solar flare, reaching its peak intensity at 12:26 p.m. Eastern Time. The flare originated from a region on the Sun’s surface called sunspot Region 3664, which has been quite active lately.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, a spacecraft that keeps a constant eye on our nearest star, was able to capture a striking image of this latest solar outburst.

Solar flares are immense explosions on the Sun that send energy, light and high speed particles into space. They occur when the magnetic fields in and around the Sun reconnect, releasing huge amounts of stored magnetic energy. Flares are our solar system’s most powerful explosive events.

The NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has extended the Geomagnetic Storm Warning until the afternoon of May 13, 2024.

Understanding different classes of solar flares

Today’s flare was classified as an X1.0 flare. Solar flares are categorized into classes based on their strength, with X-class flares being the most intense. The number provides additional information about the flare’s strength within that class. An X1 flare is ten times more powerful than an M1 flare.

These energetic solar eruptions can significantly impact Earth’s upper atmosphere and near-Earth space environment. Strong flares can disrupt high-frequency radio communications and GPS navigation signals. The particle radiation and X-rays from flares can also pose potential risks to astronauts in space.

Additionally, the magnetic disturbances from flares, if particularly strong, have the ability to affect electric power grids on Earth, sometimes causing long-lasting blackouts.

However, power grid problems are more commonly caused by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), another type of powerful solar eruption often associated with strong flares.

Scientists are always on alert, monitoring the Sun for these explosive events so that any potential impacts can be anticipated and prepared for. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, along with several other spacecraft, help provide this early warning system.

Stay tuned to Earth.com and the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) for updates.

Update — May 12, 2024 at 9:41 AM EDT

The ongoing geomagnetic storm is expected to intensify later today, Sunday, May 12, 2024. Several intense Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), traveling from the Sun at speeds up to 1,200 miles per second, are anticipated to reach the Earth’s outer atmosphere by late afternoon.

Over the past two days, preliminary reports have surfaced regarding power grid irregularities, degradation of high-frequency communications, GPS outages, and satellite navigation issues. These disruptions are likely to persist as the geomagnetic storm strengthens.

Auroras visible across the continental United States

Weather permitting, auroras will be visible again tonight over most of the continental United States. This spectacular display of lights is a direct result of the ongoing geomagnetic storm.

The threat of additional strong solar flares and CMEs, which ultimately result in spectacular aurora displays, will persist until the large and magnetically complex sunspot cluster, NOAA Region 3664, rotates out of view of the Earth. This is expected to occur by Tuesday, May 14, 2024.

Solar activity remains at moderate to high levels

Solar activity has been at moderate levels over the past 24 hours. Region 3664 produced an M8.8/2b flare, the strongest of the period, on May 11 at 15:25 UTC. A CME signature was observed, but an Earth-directed component is not suspected.

Solar activity is expected to remain at high levels from May 12-14, with M-class and X-class flares anticipated, primarily due to the flare potential of Region 3664.

Energetic particle flux and solar wind enhancements

The greater than 10 MeV proton flux reached minor to moderate storm levels on May 10. Additional proton enhancements are likely on May 13-14 due to the flare potential and location of Region 3664.

The solar wind environment has been strongly enhanced due to continued CME activity. Solar wind speeds reached a peak of around 620 miles/second on May 12 at 00:55 UTC. 

A strongly enhanced solar wind environment and continued CME influences are expected to persist on May 12-13, and begin to wane by May 14.

Geomagnetic field reaches G4 “Severe” storm levels

The geomagnetic field reached G4 (Severe) geomagnetic storm levels in the past 24 hours due to continued CME activity. 

Periods of G3 (Strong) geomagnetic storms are likely, with isolated G4 levels possible, on May 12. Periods of G1-G3 (Minor-Strong) storming are likely on May 13, and periods of G1 (Minor) storms are likely on May 14.

Stay informed and enjoy the light show

As the geomagnetic storm rages on, we must remain vigilant and prepared for the potential consequences. Monitor official sources for updates on the storm’s progress and any further disruptions to our technological infrastructure. 

Take a moment to step outside tonight and marvel at the incredible auroras painting the night sky — a stunning reminder of the raw power and beauty of our Sun.

While these solar storms can cause temporary inconveniences, they also provide us with an opportunity to reflect on our place in the universe and the awe-inspiring forces that shape our world.

Stay tuned to Earth.com and the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) for updates.

Understanding geomagnetic solar storms

Geomagnetic storms are disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field caused by the interaction between the solar wind and the planet’s magnetosphere. These storms can have significant impacts on technology, infrastructure, and even human health.

Causes of geomagnetic storms

Geomagnetic storms typically originate from the Sun. They are caused by two main phenomena:

  • Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs): Massive bursts of plasma and magnetic fields ejected from the Sun’s surface.
  • Solar Flares: Intense eruptions of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun’s surface.

When these events occur, they send charged particles streaming towards Earth at high speeds, which can take anywhere from one to five days to reach our planet.

Effects on Earth’s magnetic field

As the charged particles from CMEs and solar flares reach Earth, they interact with the planet’s magnetic field. This interaction causes the magnetic field lines to become distorted and compressed, leading to fluctuations in the strength and direction of the magnetic field.

Impacts on technology and infrastructure

Geomagnetic storms can have significant impacts on various aspects of modern technology and infrastructure:

  • Power Grids: Strong geomagnetic storms can induce currents in power lines, causing transformers to overheat and potentially leading to widespread power outages.
  • Satellite Communications: Charged particles can damage satellite electronics and disrupt communication signals.
  • GPS and Navigation Systems: Geomagnetic disturbances can interfere with the accuracy of GPS and other navigation systems.
  • Radio Communications: Storms can disrupt radio signals, affecting communication systems that rely on HF, VHF, and UHF bands.

Aurora Foundation

One of the most visually striking effects of geomagnetic storms is the formation of auroras, also known as the Northern and Southern Lights.

As charged particles collide with Earth’s upper atmosphere, they excite oxygen and nitrogen atoms, causing them to emit light in various colors.

Monitoring and forecasting

Scientists continuously monitor the Sun’s activity and use various instruments to detect and measure CMEs and solar flares.

This data helps them forecast the timing and intensity of geomagnetic storms, allowing for better preparedness and mitigation of potential impacts.

Historical geomagnetic storms

Some of the most notable geomagnetic storms in history include:

  • The Carrington Event (1859): The most powerful geomagnetic storm on record, which caused widespread telegraph system failures and auroras visible as far south as the Caribbean.
  • The Halloween Storms (2003): A series of powerful geomagnetic storms that caused power outages in Sweden and damaged transformers in South Africa.
  • The Quebec Blackout (1989): A geomagnetic storm that caused a massive power outage affecting millions of people in Quebec, Canada.

Understanding geomagnetic storms is crucial for protecting our technology-dependent world and mitigating the potential risks associated with these powerful space weather events.

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This was a very lucky moment

A hiker in Arizona saw a dog hiding, and scared!

This is such a lovely tale and one that defies all the odds.

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Hiker Stops In His Tracks When He Sees ‘Amber Eyes’ Peeking Out From Crevice

No one has any idea how she got up there ⛰️

By Caitlin Jill Anders, Published on May 3, 2024

A Good Samaritan was hiking a narrow, slippery trail on Lookout Mountain in Phoenix, Arizona, and was very focused on his hike until something caught his eye. He was about half a mile up the mountain and a little off the beaten path when he caught a glimpse of light reflecting off of something — and was shocked to realize it was a pair of amber eyes.

The eyes belonged to a very scared dog huddled up in a tiny hole in the side of the mountain. She was completely blending in with her surroundings, and if she hadn’t had such piercing eyes, the hiker may not have noticed her. He had no idea how she’d managed to get up there, but it was clear that she’d been stuck for a while and might not be able to last much longer.

The Good Samaritan quickly contacted the Arizona Humane Society (AHS), who sent two emergency animal medical technicians, Tracey Miiller and Ruthie Jesus, out to help while he waited with the pup until they arrived. The dog was definitely scared but seemed open to getting help.

“This Good Samaritan waited probably almost two hours, and then we found this incredible dog, who incidentally is literally the same color as the dirt,” Jesus said in a press release. “She blends in so much, the complainant told us that he wanted to call her Bright Eyes because when he hiked past her, that was literally the only thing he saw was her amber bright eyes staring back at him.”

After a quick and careful assessment on the side of the mountain, the technicians determined that Bright Eyes was dangerously dehydrated with cut-up paws and a wound on her rear end.

“She was really sweet and letting me pet her head, but she absolutely did not want to come out of that den, so I kind of had to just sort of pull her out,” Jesus said.

She was definitely too weak to walk with her rescuers down the mountain, so the technicians took turns carrying her until they reached the ambulance. Bright Eyes was calm the whole time, so grateful to finally be safe.

“She actually really just relaxed and seemed to enjoy being carried down the mountain,” Jesus said. “But it was a very teeny-tiny rocky trail that was pretty slick, and so Tracey and I took turns carrying her down the mountain, and she was just an absolute angel. She knew we were getting her to safety.”

It’s still a mystery as to how or why Bright Eyes ended up on the mountain in the first place, but the important thing is someone found her and now she’s getting the care she needs.

“We were so elated to be able to get her,” Jesus said. “She was just so dehydrated. I think she’d probably been up there several days and that was probably her last day, and this Good Samaritan really just saved her life.”

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Frankly, there’s nothing more to add to this account. For it captured all that so many people do for dogs.

P.S. All the above photographs were supplied by the Arizona Humane Society. Please take a look at their website.

Stonehenge

A fascinating account of this English site.

Although I was born in London in 1944, as a result of an affair between my father and mother, my father had two daughters with his wife, Maud, and Rhona and Corinne, for they were their names, took me under their wing. In the 50s Maud, Rhona and Corinne all moved to Devon and I started going regularly to Totnes. When I started driving I usually stopped for a break close by Stonehenge so the site has a special interest to me.

So when I saw this article in The Conversation it had to be shared.

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Stonehenge may have aligned with the Moon as well as the Sun

Stonehenge during winter solstice sunset Chuta Kooanantkul/Shutterstock

Fabio Silva, Bournemouth University; Amanda Chadburn, Bournemouth University, and Erica Ellingson, University of Colorado Boulder

When it comes to its connection to the sky, Stonehenge is best known for its solar alignments. Every midsummer’s night tens of thousands of people gather at Stonehenge to celebrate and witness the rising Sun in alignment with the Heel stone standing outside of the circle. Six months later a smaller crowd congregates around the Heel stone to witness the midwinter Sun setting within the stone circle.

But a hypothesis has been around for 60 years that part of Stonehenge also aligns with moonrise and moonset at what is called a major lunar standstill. Although a correlation between the layout of certain stones and the major lunar standstill has been known about for several decades, no one has systematically observed and recorded the phenomenon at Stonehenge.

This is what we are aiming to do in a project bringing together archaeologists, astronomers and photographers from English Heritage, Oxford, Leicester and Bournemouth universities as well as the Royal Astronomical Society.

There is now an abundance of archaeological evidence that indicates the solar alignment was part of the architectural design of Stonehenge. Around 2500 BC, the people who put up the large stones and dug an avenue into the chalk seemed to want to cement the solstice axis into the architecture of Stonehenge.

Archaeological evidence from nearby Durrington Walls, the place where scientists believe the ancient people who visited Stonehenge stayed, indicates that of the two solstices it was the midwinter one that drew the largest crowd.

But Stonehenge includes other elements, such as 56 pits arranged in a circle, an earthwork bank and ditch, and other smaller features such as the four station stones. These are four sarsen stones, a form of silicified sandstone common in Wiltshire, that were carefully placed to form an almost exact rectangle encompassing the stone circle.

Only two of these stones are still there, and they pale in comparison to their larger counterparts as they are only a few feet high. So what could their purpose be?

Aerial view of Stonehenge
Only two of the station stones are still there. Drone Explorer/Shutterstock

Lunar standstill

The rectangle that they form is not just any rectangle. The shorter sides are parallel to the main axis of the stone circle and this may be a clue as to their purpose. The longer sides of the rectangle skirt the outside of the stone circle.

It is these longer sides that are thought to align with the major lunar standstill. If you marked the position of moonrise (or set) over the course of a month you would see that it moves between two points on the horizon. These southern and northern limits of moonrise (or set) change on a cycle of 18.6 years between a minimum and a maximum range – the so-called minor and major lunar standstills, respectively.

The major lunar standstill is a period of about one and a half to two years when the northernmost and southernmost moonrises (or sets) are furthest apart. When this happens the Moon rises (and sets) outside the range of sunrises and sets, which may have imbued this celestial phenomenon with meaning and significance.

Diagram showing Moonrise positions on a horizon.
The range of Moonrise positions on the horizon during minor and major lunar standstills. Fabio Silva, CC BY-NC

The strongest evidence we have for people marking the major lunar standstill comes from the US southwest. The Great House of Chimney Rock, a multi-level complex built by the ancestral Pueblo people in the San Juan National Forest, Colorado, more than 1,000 years ago.

It lies on a ridge that ends at a natural formation of twin rock pillars – an area that has cultural significance to more than 26 native American tribal nations. From the vantage point of the Great House, the Sun will never rise in the gap between the pillars.

However, during a major standstill the Moon does rise between them in awe-inspiring fashion. Excavations unearthed preserved wood that meant researchers could date to the year episodes of construction of the Great House.

Of six cutting dates, four correspond to major lunar standstill years between the years AD1018 and AD1093, indicating that the site was renewed, maintained or expanded on consecutive major standstills.

Returning to southern England, archaeologists think there is a connection between the major lunar standstill and the earliest construction phase of Stonehenge (3000-2500 BC), before the sarsen stones were brought in.

Several sets of cremated human remains from this phase of construction were found in the southeastern part of the monument in the general direction of the southernmost major standstill moonrise, where three timber posts were also set into the bank. It is possible that there was an early connection between the site of Stonehenge and the Moon, which was later emphasised when the station stone rectangle was built.

The major lunar standstill hypothesis, however, raises more questions than it answers. We don’t know if the lunar alignments of the station stones were symbolic or whether people were meant to observe the Moon through them. Neither do we know which phases of the Moon would be more dramatic to witness.

A search for answers

In our upcoming work, we will be trying to answer the questions the major lunar standstill hypothesis raises. It’s unclear whether the Moon would have been strong enough to cast shadows and how they would have interacted with the other stones. We will also need to check whether the alignments can still be seen today or if they are blocked by woods, traffic and other features.

The Moon will align with the station stone rectangle twice a month from about February 2024 to November 2025, giving us plenty of opportunities to observe this phenomenon in different seasons and phases of the Moon.

To bring our research to life, English Heritage will livestream the southernmost Moonrise in June 2024, and host a series of events throughout the year, including talks, a pop-up planetarium, stargazing and storytelling sessions.

Across the Atlantic, our partners at the US Forest Service are developing educational materials about the major lunar standstill at Chimney Rock National Monument. This collaboration will result in events showcasing and debating the lunar alignments at both Stonehenge and at Chimney Rock.

Fabio Silva, Senior Lecturer in Archaeological Modelling, Bournemouth University; Amanda Chadburn, Member of Kellogg College, University of Oxford and Visiting Fellow in Archaeology, Bournemouth University, and Erica Ellingson, Professor in Astrophysics, Emeritus, University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Well I learnt something from this, which just goes to show that we are never too old to learn.

To come back to the article, the skills of those ancient peoples were just awe-inspiring.

Picture Parade Four Hundred and Twenty-Nine, not!

It is about Whale songs and is just a fabulous sound!

Last Friday there was an item on the BBC about whale song. It appears I can publish the article for you all. It is my choice over my regular Sunday Picture Parade. I hope you agree! Update: The track just 26 seconds long cannot be reproduced in this post.

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Whale song mystery solved by scientists

21 February 2024, By Helen Briggs and Victoria Gill,Science correspondents, BBC News

Humpback whale breaching near Bering Island, Kamchatka, Russia – Olga Filatova, University of Southern Denmark

Scientists have worked out how some of the largest whales in the ocean produce their haunting and complex songs.

Humpbacks and other baleen whales have evolved a specialised “voice box” that enables them to sing underwater. 

The discovery, published in the journal Nature, has also revealed why the noise we make in the ocean is so disruptive for these ocean giants. 

Whale song is restricted to a narrow frequency that overlaps with the noise produced by ships. 
“Sound is absolutely crucial for their survival, because it’s the only way they can find each other to mate in the ocean,” explained Prof Coen Elemans, of the University of Southern Denmark, who led the study. 

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“[These are some] of the most enigmatic animals that ever lived on the planet,” he told BBC News. “They are amongst the biggest animals, they’re smart and they’re highly social.”

Humpback whale song (For whatever reason the track cannot be listened to on this blog. That is a great shame as the song is magnificent. So please go to the BBC website for this; the link is https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68358414 )

Baleen whales are a group of 14 species, including the blue, humpback, right, minke and gray whale. Instead of teeth, the animals have plates of what is called baleen, through which they sieve huge mouthfuls of tiny creatures from the water.

Exactly how they produce complex, often haunting songs has been a mystery until now. Prof Elemans said it was “super-exciting” to have figured it out.

A diver descends between three juvenile humpback whales the size of buses – Karim Iliya

He and his colleagues carried out experiments using larynxes, or “voice boxes”, that had been carefully removed from three carcasses of stranded whales – a minke, a humpback and a sei whale. They then blew air through the massive structures to produce the sound. 

In humans, our voices come from vibrations when air passes over structures called vocal folds in our throat. Baleen whales, instead, have a large U-shaped structure with a cushion of fat at the top of the larynx.

This vocal anatomy allows the animals to sing by recycling air, and it prevents water from being inhaled.

Artwork indicating the cartilages of the larynx in a humpback whale – Patricia Jaqueline Matic, Vienna

The researchers produced computer models of the sounds and showed that baleen whale song is restricted to a narrow frequency which overlaps with noise produced by shipping vessels. 

“They cannot simply choose to, for example, sing higher to avoid the noise we make in the ocean,” explained Prof Elemans. 

His study demonstrated how our ocean noise could prevent whales from communicating over long distances. That knowledge could be vital for the conservation of humpbacks, blue whales and other endangered giants of the sea.

It also provides insight into questions that researchers have been asking for decades about these eerie songs, which some sailors used to attribute to ghosts or mythical sea creatures.

Whale communication expert Dr Kate Stafford, from Oregon State University, called the study “groundbreaking”. 

“The production and reception of sound is the most important sense for marine mammals, so any studies that elucidate how they make sounds has the potential to move the field forward,” she told BBC News.

Researchers say evidence of the harm ocean noise pollution can do has been building for decades –
Alamy

The research also paints an evolutionary picture – of how the ancestors of whales returned to the oceans from the land, and the adaptations that made it possible to communicate underwater.

The way so-called toothed whales produce sound is better understood, because the animals are easier to study. These marine mammals, which include dolphins, orcas, sperm whales and porpoises, blow air through a special structure in their nasal passages.

Dr Ellen Garland, from the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St Andrews, said: “I’ve always wondered exactly how baleen whales – especially humpbacks, which my research is focused on – actually produce the variety of sounds they do.

“Studying large whales is extremely challenging at the best of times, but trying to uncover how they produce sound when you may not even be able to see them underwater while vocalising is an added level of difficulty, so these researchers have been very creative.”

Dr Stafford added that the mammals’ ability to make such complex vocal signals was “remarkable” and highlighted “how special these animals are”.

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There! I do hope you all agree that this was very worthwhile. Plus, you all got to listen to those twenty-six seconds of the very beautiful sound.

Water, water, everywhere, but …

A dramatic article from George Monbiot about water!

I read the latest from George Monbiot yesterday morning and was startled. Startled because I hadn’t thought of it before. Startled because here in Merlin, Southern Oregon we have had so much rain since the beginning of November, 2023 that our acres are swimming in the wet. Startled since that time also our Bummer Creek, which flows across our land, has been at record depths.

But this report is incredibly important and I wanted to share it with you, as I have Geo. Monbiot’s permission for so doing.

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Dry Run

Posted on11th March 2024

The mega-droughts in Spain and the US are a portent of a gathering global water crisis.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 4th March 2024

There’s a flaw in the plan. It’s not a small one: it is an Earth-sized hole in our calculations. To keep pace with the global demand for food, crop production needs to grow by at least 50% by 2050. In principle, if nothing else changes, this is feasible, thanks mostly to improvements in crop breeding and farming techniques. But everything else is going to change.

Even if we set aside all other issues – heat impacts, soil degradation, epidemic plant diseases accelerated by the loss of genetic diversity – there is one which, without help from any other cause, could prevent the world’s people from being fed. Water.

A paper published in 2017 estimated that to match crop production to expected demand, water use for irrigation would have to increase by 146% by the middle of this century. One minor problem. Water is already maxed out.

In general, the dry parts of the world are becoming drier, partly through reduced rainfall; partly through declining river flow as mountain ice and snow retreats; and partly through rising temperatures causing increased evaporation and increased transpiration by plants. Many of the world’s major growing regions are now threatened by “flash droughts”, in which hot and dry weather sucks moisture from the soil at frightening speed. Some places, such as the southwest of the US, now in its 24th year of drought, may have switched permanently to a drier state. Rivers fail to reach the sea, lakes and aquifers are shrinking, species living in freshwater are becoming extinct at roughly five times the rate of species that live on land and major cities are threatened by extreme water stress.

Already, agriculture accounts for 90% of the world’s freshwater use. We have pumped so much out of the ground that we’ve changed the Earth’s spin. The water required to meet growing food demand simply does not exist.

That 2017 paper should have sent everyone scrambling. But as usual, it was ignored by policymakers and the media. Only when the problem arrives in Europe do we acknowledge that there’s a crisis. But while there is understandable panic about the drought in Catalonia and Andalusia, there’s an almost total failure among powerful interests to acknowledge that this is just one instance of a global problem, a problem that should feature at the top of the political agenda.

Though drought measures have triggered protests in Spain, this is far from the most dangerous flashpoint. The catchment of the Indus river is shared by three nuclear powers – India, Pakistan and China – and several highly unstable and divided regions already afflicted by hunger and extreme poverty. Today, 95% of the river’s dry season flow is extracted, mostly for irrigation. But water demand in both Pakistan and India is growing rapidly. Supply – temporarily boosted by the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush – will, before long, peak and then go into decline.

Even under the most optimistic climate scenario, runoff from Asian glaciers is expected to peak before mid-century, and glacier mass will shrink by about 46% by 2100. Some analysts see water competition between India and Pakistan as a major cause of the repeated conflicts in Kashmir. But unless a new Indus waters treaty is struck, taking falling supplies into account, this fighting could be a mere prelude for something much worse.

There’s a widespread belief that these problems can be solved simply by enhancing the efficiency of irrigation: huge amounts of water are wasted in agriculture. So let me introduce you to the irrigation efficiency paradox. As better techniques ensure that less water is required to grow a given volume of crops, irrigation becomes cheaper. As a result, it attracts more investment, encourages farmers to grow thirstier, more profitable plants, and expands across a wider area. This is what happened, for instance, in the Guadiana river basin in Spain, where a €600m investment to reduce water use by improving the efficiency of irrigation has instead increased it.

You can overcome the paradox through regulation: laws to limit both total and individual water consumption. But governments prefer to rely on technology alone. Without political and economic measures, it doesn’t work.

Nor are other technofixes likely to solve the problem. Governments are planning massive engineering schemes to pipe water from one place to another. But climate breakdown and rising demand ensure that many of the donor regions are also likely to run dry. Water from desalination plants typically costs five or 10 times as much as water from the ground or the sky, while the process requires masses of energy and generates great volumes of toxic brine.

Above all, we need to change our diets. Those of us with dietary choice (in other words, the richer half of the world’s population) should seek to minimise the water footprint of our food. With apologies for harping on about it, this is yet another reason to switch to an animal-free diet, which reduces both total crop demand and, in most cases, water use. The water demand of certain plant products, especially almonds and pistachios in California, has become a major theme in the culture wars, as rightwing influencers attack plant-based diets. But, excessive as the watering of these crops is, more than twice as much irrigation water is used in California to grow forage plants to feed livestock, especially dairy cows. Dairy milk has much higher water demand even than the worst alternative (almond milk), and is astronomically higher than the best alternatives, such as oat or soya milk.

This is not to give all plant products a free pass: horticulture can make massive demands on water supplies. Even within a plant-based diet, we should be switching from some grains, vegetables and fruit to others. Governments and retailers should help us through a combination of stronger rules and informative labelling.

Instead, they do the opposite. Last month, at the behest of the EU’s agricultural commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski, the European Commission deleted from its new climate plan the call to incentivise “diversified” (animal-free) protein sources. Regulatory capture is never stronger than in the food and farming sector.

I hate to pile yet more on to you, but some of us have to try to counter the endless bias against relevance in politics and most of the media. This is yet another of those massive neglected issues, any one of which could be fatal to peace and prosperity on a habitable planet. Somehow, we need to recover our focus.

http://www.monbiot.com

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Oh dear, oh dear!

One hates to be alarmist and yet Monbiot is a very smart reporter and this is truly important.

Oh dear, oh dear!