7.5 billion ash trees are endangered in the United States. (Photo credit Elizabeth Flores, Star Tribune)
The culprit is the well-known emerald ash borer, an invasive Asian beetle that first arrived in Michigan seven years ago. The infestation has spread to Ohio, Canada, and now Minnesota, threatening to do a log power more damage than the famous Dutch Elm Disease. Federal and state authorities have responded to the emerald ash borer by limiting transportation of timber and wood products, but have been unable to quarantine the disease.
Now volunteers in are spreading out across Minnesota and several other states, collecting seeds which may be needed to restore the white, green, and black ash species if the current epidemic destroys the currently standing trees. Some of the seeds will be stored in the National Plant Germplasm System, a depository maintained by the Agriculture Department and at the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation. Others will be retained by Native American tribal authorities.
A map showing states and Canadian provinces at risk, with links to sources of local assistance, is available at the Emerald Ash Borer website.
Further details on seed preservation are available in a story written by Bill McAuliffe for the Star Tribune.
A young man, using his metal detector for the first time, walked about seven steps from his car and got a signal.
The four gold Iron Age neck ornaments, or torcs, date from between the 1st and 3rd Century BC and are said to be worth an estimated £1m... The find is the most important hoard of Iron Age gold in Scotland to date.
Neatorama has previously posted stories about a Viking hoard and an Anglo-Saxon hoard found in the British Isles. One factor that favors the discovery and preservation of these archeological treasures is the Treasure Act of 1996, an Act of Parliament that requires treasure hunters to turn in their finds to local authorities, but then guarantees them monetary compensation based on a market value of the treasure. In many countries without such laws, finds such as these would be sold on the black market or melted down for bullion, destroying the remarkable artistry of the pieces. The Treasure Act does not apply in Scotland, where this was found, but indications are that this fellow will be richly compensated in order to encourage others to report their discoveries.
At the BBC link the other pieces can be seen in a brief video.
In the late 18th century, Carl Schildbach was manager of a German estate famous for its ornamental park. He had no formal academic or scientific training, but at the request of his employer began compiling a reference collection of the natural history of each type of tree and shrub in the estate, eventually totalling 546 items...
“The format… was that of a box or casket, the raw materials for which were provided by the specimen itself, made up in the form of a book – varying in size from folio to duodecimo – with the ‘front cover’ forming a sliding lid…
For the left side of the ‘volume’ mature wood was selected and for the right side sapwood, while the fore-edge was made from heartwood; the top surface incorporated cross-sections from branches of various ages while the bottom surface showed a section through the trunk…
While the box itself served to illustrate the characteristics of the timber, the interior was reserved for an exposition of the whole natural history of the plant… a complete seedling is included to one side, with its roots, seminal capsule and first pair of leaves. In the centre of the box the tip of a branch displays buds and leaves in various stages of development…blossoms are shown varying from full blooms to faded flowers, while fruits are similarly represented at every stage in their development… Examples of associated parasites and lichens are included…”
The empress Catherine tried to purchase Schildbach’s collection, but he deeded it to his master, Landgrave Wilhelm IX; it now resides in the Naturalienkabinett in Kassel, where it is still used as reference material. Schildbach inspired several imitators, including Candid Huber, a Benedictine monk, whose collection survives in the Bavarian Burgmuseum. Peter the Great eventually acquired a collection for his Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg, and another resides in the Musee National des Techniques of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers in Paris.
Small-format photos of Schildbach’s collection are available at the webpage of the Naturkundemuseum in the Ottoneum at Kassel. The embedded photo is from a similar Holzbuch in a collection at the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe. Other examples may be seen here and here. The creation of such "wooden books" seems to have been primarily a European endeavor; a related project by Romeyn B. Hough collecting North American woods in book form (using thin sections of wood attached to cardboard within a conventional book binding) was produced at the turn of the last century.
A creature with a musical name presents a spectacular light show to the cameras of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's remotely operated vehicle. This ctenophore seems to be exhibiting bioluminescence, but what the "lights" actually represent is reflection or refraction of the photoflood lights from rhythmically beating cilia. The deep red color is a survival adaptation, helping to mask the bioluminescence of creatures it ingests, so that it does not itself become visible to other predators.
A seventh-grader in California has collaborated with her grandfather to produce a genealogical chart demonstrating that Barack Obama is related to all previous United States presidents (except for Martin Van Buren). This happens because Obama and the other presidents have family trees that can be traced back to John "Lackland" Plantagenet, King of England at the beginning of the 13th century.
Van Buren (who incidentally was the first U.S. president to be born in the United States) is excluded from the group because his ancestors were Dutch rather than English.
This young lady's accomplishment is remarkable in terms of the scholarship and genealogical research involved, but whether the result is important depends on one's view of the "descent from antiquity" concept, which has been used to demonstrate that immense groups of persons living today are descended from Genghis Khan, Charlemagne, Marie Antoinette, and other historical figures. A diagram at Wolfram Alpha demonstrates the genetic distance between tenth cousins; from that viewpoint such "relationships" are genetically trivial. A Neatorama post last year discussed the relationship of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Brangelina. The most scholarly compilation in this regard is probably Mark Humphrys' "Royal Descents of Famous People."
The other point of view, of course, is that our relationship with all other humanity is not trivial, but rather a principle that should guide everything from personal ethics to foreign policy. An article in The Atlantic discussed this concept of "everyone" being related to "everyone else" and noted that it carried another implication:
The same process works going forward in time; in essence every one of us who has children and whose line does not go extinct is suspended at the center of an immense genetic hourglass. Just as we are descended from most of the people alive on the planet a few thousand years ago, several thousand years hence each of us will be an ancestor of the entire human race—or of no one at all.
Mr. Dalton Chiscolm sued Bank of America for $1,784 billion trillion dollars. That's $1,784,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. In the International System of Units this amount would be expressed as 1.784 yottadollars.
The range of SI unit prefixes is shown above; "yotta" is the largest accepted prefix, used to measure things like the diameter of the known universe (in yards).
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who heard the case in Manhattan's federal court, presided over the Bernie Madoff trial, and thus is familiar with large amounts of money - but even he was impressed by the size of Mr. Chiscolm's claim. If every person on earth had as much money as Bill Gates, that total wealth would still only be 1/1000th of the amount requested.
The plaintiff was asked to provide further evidence to support his claim.
It has long been suspected that there are underground tunnels and caverns on the moon, presumably the residua of lava tubes. Now a group of scientists led by Junichi Haruyama of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency are reporting the discovery of a "skylight" leading into an underground cavern.
The hole measures 65 metres across, and based on images taken at a variety of sun angles, the hole is thought to extend down at least 80 metres. It sits in the middle of a rille, suggesting the hole leads into a lava tube as wide as 370 metres across... Since the tubes may be hundreds of metres wide, they could provide plenty of space for an underground lunar outpost. The tubes' ceilings could protect astronauts from space radiation, meteoroid impacts and wild temperature fluctuations...
Apparently the key to creating "brain tissue" is to mix acidic lime juice with the vodka. Then when you add the Bailey's Irish Cream via a straw, it curdles into cortical gyri. A splash of grenadine provides the blood. The ingredient list and instructions are at Folkinz. Via Found Here. You will need a couple of these if you plan to eat any of Jill's brain cake...
This is described as a "complete thermite weld." It's much more complicated than you might have anticipated. You will know within the first minute or so whether or not you are fascinated by the technology, the tools, or even the workmen's accents. There are also some cool fireproof "Donald Duck boots" near the end. For those with an interest, Part 1 of the video is here.
Model train enthusiast David K. Smith has built a miniscule train layout which works - the train travels in an ellipse, including through a "mountain."
"Thus, what was intended to be a Z scale model of a 4- by 8-foot HO scale layout became a Z scale model of a 2- by 4-foot N scale layout! After I picked myself up off the floor, I made a few quick calculations... the modeling scale would be an eye-popping 1:35,200, and the finished layout would measure .125 by .200 inches..."
The video shows the basics of the layout and the clever solution re the motor. Further details re the construction are here.
Media designer Shahee Ilyas has created pie charts showing the colors of the flags of over 200 nations.
Using a list of countries generated by The World Factbook database, flags of countries fetched from Wikipedia are analysed by a custom made python script to calculate the proportions of colours on each of them. That is then translated on to a piechart using another python script. The proportions of colours on all unique flags are used to finally generate a piechart of proportions of colours for all the flags combined.
Embedded on top is a screencap of a portion of the display, alphabetically arranged (Afghanistan, Albania...); the original at the artist's website will display the name of the country when a mouse is passed over the pie chart. The larger pie chart on the bottom is a composite of all the colors from all of the flags.
Via The Life and Times of Michael5000, who notes that the color violet/lavender/purple is notably absent from world flags (as is gray).
When flow from a teapot (or a liquor bottle) is very slow, the liquid has a propensity to dribble back along the surface of the spout.
"Previous studies have shown that a number of factors affect [dribbling], such as the radius of curvature of the teapot lip, the speed of the flow and the "wettability" of the teapot material. But a full understanding of what's going on has so far eluded scientists..."
Now scientists at the University of Lyon have identified a "hydro-capillary" effect that can be overcome either by thinning the edge of the spout, or by applying superhydrophobic materials to the lip. Superhydrophobicity is sometimes referred to as the "Lotus effect," because the leaves of the lotus and certain other plants (and the wings of some insects) are among the most water-repellant surfaces known to science.
It has been argued that dirty cars are more fuel efficient than clean ones for the same reason that dimples on a golf ball improve its aerodynamics during flight. The team at Mythbusters tested these hypotheses and found that a dirty car did NOT achieve improved gas mileage, BUT...
For a full-scale test, Adam and Jamie put a layer of clay on a car and did two more sets of runs on their track – one with a smooth clay surface, the other with dimples pressed into it. The respective fuel efficiencies were calculated as 26 and 29 miles per gallon. Although the original myth was invalid, the theory behind it was sound, leading to a final judgment of “Busted, Concept Plausible”.
Discussionthreads on several auto forums discussing the Mythbusters episode note that "shark skin" textures on military fighter aircraft (and on America's Cup yachts) serve the same purpose, that dimpling on the undercarriage of some Lexus cars reduces noise (by reducing friction), and that textured paint is banned on professional race cars.
Mythbusters achieved the dimpled effect using modeling clay applied to the surface of a Ford Taurus. It's not clear whether the same effect could be achieved with a ball-peen hammer.
Screencap credit. A brief YouTube video of the car (not the full episode) is here.
Adolph Hitler's "outburst" scene from the 2004 film "Der Untergang" ("Downfall") is an excellent example of how a cultural event can go "viral" as an internet meme. Because the original film was in German, complicated overdubbing is not required; creation of a parody can be achieved by the simple expedient of superimposing fake subtitles.
Dozens of such videos can be located with a quick search of YouTube, including ones in which Hitler reacts to sporting events, computer problems, Obama, Palin, Brett Favre, losing his home to foreclosure, the use of the term "grammar Nazis," and even the existence of the parodies themselves. The most recent example, embedded above, has him ranting about another meme - the "balloon boy" hoax.
Spanish photographer Jose Luis Rodriguez has won the 2009 Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year award with his photo of an Iberian wolf leaping over a gate. He used an infrared camera trap to capture the moment.
Iberian wolves have been persecuted by people who see them as a threat to game and livestock and because of ignorance about the supposed danger they pose... In Spain, the population of Iberian wolves - a subspecies of the grey wolf - is thought to number 1000-2000 in the north, with a few tiny, isolated populations in the south... What José Luis hopes is that his picture, 'showing the wolf's great agility and strength,' becomes an image that shows just how beautiful the Iberian wolf is and how the Spanish can be proud of this emblematic animal.
Link, where you can also access winning photographs in other categories.
