FieldNotes: The Word For World is Blue (or is it Gold?)

The 100 Eskimo words for snow may be a myth, but the notion that one's world is shaped by one's availability of words is a well known fact. Without vocabulary, it may be impossible to discuss, or even think of real-world phenomena (See also: No one could see the color blue until modern times by Kevin Loria at Business Insider). This can be important aside from anthropological trivia, as Michelle Nijhuis argues in The Language of ChangeThe Last Word On Nothing:

....Much of the vocabulary of climate change is too new, too freshly repurposed, or too long denied to have much particularity at all. Climate change itself is vague and distant until it arrives in the backyard. Climate refugees are nameless until you meet one—or become one. Resilience, adaptation, sustainability, and self-sufficiency remain, for the most part, empty words.....

(More on the topic by Robert Macfarlane himself: The word-hoard: Robert Macfarlane on rewilding our language of landscape)

Peacocks Produce Sounds We Can’t Hear by Felicity Muth at Not bad science:

...The peacocks produced very low ‘infrasonic’ sounds while displaying to peahens. Such sounds, at less than 20 Hz, typically cannot be heard by humans, which is why you won’t have noticed them in a peacock display before. When the researchers played recordings of these infrasonic sounds to peacocks and peahens, the animals reacted, becoming more alert and running around more.....

'Allergic To All Known Chemicals?' by Henry I. Miller on his blog at Forbes:

When I was a Special Assistant to FDA Commissioner Frank Young in the 1980’s, a woman approached me after she had heard him speak at a public lecture about the importance of regulation. She told me how much she appreciated his diligence and passion about government oversight because, “My entire family and I are allergic to all known chemicals.”....

(Related: How to recognize (and talk to) a chemophobeby Ashutosh Jogalekar at The Curious Wavefunction)

Essential fatty acids, omega-3 versus omega-6,...is this the latest nutritiional fad or...? In Omega, OMG!, David Ramey, D.V.M. explains the chemistry and physiology of it all. If you eat just grass, you are probably OK when it comes to fatty acids. Just ask the horses:

....Oh, in case you wondered, fish oils are a really good source of omega-3’s. In fact, some studies show that they are the best source of omega-3’s for horses. The problem is that many horses don’t really like the taste of fish oils (with horses, it’s always something). Which is probably one reason why you never see horses staring hungrily at oceans, rivers, or lakes.....

Study Lends New Support to Theory that Early Humans were Scavengers by Dan McLerran at Popular Archaeology:

...“It turns out lions don't kill things all that often,” Pobiner says. “So getting a large enough sample size was challenging. Another challenge was sometimes having difficulty getting around to get to the carcasses even with my sturdy vehicle during the rainy season when it got really muddy or if I inadvertently drove into a warthog burrow.”...

Is DNA the Language of the Book of Life? by Regan Penaluna at Nautilus:

.....But do genes truly contain information in the same sense as words, books, or floppy discs? It depends on what we mean by information. If it’s the meaning represented by the words, books, or floppy disks, then no. Many philosophers agree that this kind of semantic information requires communication: an agent to create the message and another to interpret it. “Genes don’t carry semantic information, though. They weren’t made as part of an act of communication. So genes don’t literally represent anything, as people sometimes say,” explains Peter Godfrey-Smith, a professor of philosophy at CUNY. ....

The Evolution Catechism by Adam Gopnik at his blog at The New Yorker:

....What the question means, and why it matters, is plain: Do you have the courage to embrace an inarguable and obvious truth when it might cost you something to do so? A politician who fails this test is not high-minded or neutral; he or she is just craven, and shouldn’t be trusted with power. This catechism’s purpose—perhaps unfair in its form, but essential in its signal—is to ask, Do you stand with reason and evidence sufficiently to anger people among your allies who don’t?....

Save field biology skills from extinction riskby John Warren at Times Higher Education:

....There are now literally hundreds of textbooks, web pages and training courses that provide guidance on writing exam questions based around Bloom’s taxonomy. These documents frequently include lists of approved verbs that are deemed appropriate when writing questions for different levels or years of study. Bloom’s creed tells us that the lowest levels of cognitive skills involve recognising, identifying, naming and memorising. These abilities are considered inferior to the higher levels such as critically analysing, evaluating, criticising and reviewing. This sort of simplistic analysis resulted in field biology skills being excluded from university degrees time and time again as being too “simplistic”. However, ask those responsible for dropping these courses to distinguish Galium saxatile from Galium sterneri and they might just start to appreciate that identification skills are not so simple after all. The Galium example illustrates just why those who blindly follow Bloom’s taxonomy need to learn a little more about biological taxonomy. It is not a trivial skill to be able to differentiate between closely related plants. It is not a simple memory test. Rather, it requires critical analysis and many other higher skills. It demands logical thought processes and the review of a host of information. The final answer is usually arrived at on a balance of probability based on evaluating the likely underlying geology of the site where the plants were found. A field biologist who has read a landscape, reviewed the other co-occurring species and concluded that the specimen was probably G. saxatile, may wish to corroborate this by using a hand lens to determine in which direction tiny hooks along the leaves point. To the naked eye, these two plants look virtually identical. This level of complexity is why taxonomists generally take years to hone their skills, supporting our argument that identification is not a low-level cognitive skill.....