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Yes, we'll have no bananas
This is a rather depressing report on the spread of a blight that threatens bananas, worldwide! This may not seem particularly important to some people, but in many tropical areas bananas are a...
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An Unpleasant Pheasant
Winter is open season for pheasant hunting. Families and friends come together to bond over the hunt. Dogs are released into the underbrush to scare up a few of the birds into the gunsights of the...
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Impending travel
In times now long past, the Phactors always traveled for the holidays because all of our relatives, and many old friends, lived in New York State. This involved running a gauntlet of potentially very...
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TMI Friday: The Grinch Syndrome
Last week, I blogged about the "Santa Claus" Syndrome. Taking inspiration from the "Worst ever Christmas story ever" from the "Gremlins" film, I clawed through the medical case literature to see...
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This is the best new year resolution you can make
New year resolutions should be about multiplying your strengths, while making a note of your weaknesses Soon many of us will be tempted to make new year resolutions. Perhaps you’ve been egged on by...
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Which is more urgent: military drones or a cure for cancer?
A Global Hawk droneThe U.S. government has an answer: drones. Drones and other weapons of destruction are vastly more important than healing people - or at least that’s what one might think, based on...
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Actual Top Ten Animals of 2013
Not so much a popularity contest as an altitude contest.10: Himalayan Jumping SpiderThe fuzzy and springy Euophrys omnisupersteslives on the world's highest mountains. It's been found 6,700 meters (a...
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Kris Kringle Mart
Yes, our arrival in Germany was on the 27th and that is past Christmas, but in Hamburg, the Christmas markets were still going strong, which is nice because this is a new experience. It was very...
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A Little Bit on Lesser Dung Flies
Copromyza stercoraria, photographed by Blaauw7.The fly in the picture above is a typical member of the Sphaeroceridae, a family of over 1300 species of small flies that include some of the most...
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Out with the old
New Year's has never been much of a big deal; what's the point? OK so you start a new calendar. Mostly the New Year is just one of those sign posts or markers to indicate where you are, like one of...
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New Year's fireworks spectacular
One of the reasons to travel is that you learn new things. And so far the most surprising thing TPP has learned is that at midnight on New Years, you basic steady, rational German becomes a...
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The Hydrobiinae: North Atlantic Mud-snails
The fine-looking animal above (photographed by Roy Anderson) is Hydrobia acuta neglecta, a member of the subfamily Hydrobiinae of the family Hydrobiidae. Most members of the Hydrobiidae are freshwater...
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Dr. Zomb is watching you!
Mentalist and magician Ormond McGill is well known for his books on hypnosis and mentalism. He was featured on the cover of the February 1989 Linking Ring. Among magicians however, it is not so known...
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What I read (2013)
(Grade A-F, no E's) Title-Author Additional thoughtsA- Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey. A great read. Completes the series and answers those questions that can be answered while throwing up their...
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Snoozing Bats Tune Out Traffic Noise
For an easily crushed animal that rests during the day, a highway seems like maybe the worst possible home. Yet some bats pick roosts that are under bridges, or in other spots booming with human noise....
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Mosses back from the holidays
I am back from the holidays and some moss photography and blogging is on the menu for my upcoming weekend. In the meantime, check out this great post by Juan Carlos Villarreal on Peat, Whiskey, and...
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Strangest thing you can see in Ulm
Many things you expect to see in small southern German cities: cathedrals (check), the rathaus (check), city squares (check), clocks and sundials on the sides of buildings (check), quaint old...
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Turing and the ecological basis of morphogenesis
about #AlanTuring #morphogenesis #ecology It is recently published a paper (in open access) dedicated to the morphogenesis. The work (and the model) is inspired by Alan Turing: Our results demonstrate...
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TMI Friday: How long ?
This weeks victim/perpetrator showed up to Hirosaki hospital with blood in his urine. The doctors spotted that he had a foreign body that had wormed it's way up into his bladder, but they couldn't...
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