A few nights ago, I was again reminded on the uniqueness of my name. I was asked "what do your parents do, are they like archeologists or something?" To which I responded "no" and told them the current positions my parents held. The person asked again if they were archeologists or paleontologists. I didn't see where this was going and repeated "no" again. Then said person commented on my name, to which I replied, "What's wrong with my name?" The response was, "With a name like yours, it just sounds like your parents ought to have studied dinosaurs or something." By this point I finally get where this is going--Triceratops!
I was first informed of my apparent namesake, by a grandmother, my sophomore year of undergrad. She said every time she heard my name she was reminded of the dinosaur her grandkids played with. I thought it was great! Not everyone has a dinosaur nickname or even name!
For a little paleontology lessoon: Triceratops are native to North America; they are herbivores and most notably have a large frill and three horns attached to the head. Triceratops literally means "three-horned face" (greek origin). They were rather large animals, small I suppose, compared the T-rex, but large compard to animals around today. Dimensions: ~27 ft in length, ~9.5 ft in height, and weighing 6-12 tons. If you've seen specimens in museums, they are rather amazing. All dinosaurs are really! They ate mostly low lying plants and had 430-800 teeth, which suggests that they ate palms and cycads! The theories surrounding the purpose of the horns include combat and social display and behaviour.
There is also a dinosaur type species named ceratops (pronounced SER-uh-TOPS) meaning "horn face". They are similar to the Triceratops in most things, save for the number of horns.
This whole post is amusing to me! A homonym is a word that is spelled differently, sounds the same, but has a different meaning or somebody with the same name as somebody else. A hominid is a member of the primate order, including human beings. Our names are relatively similar, homonym, and I'm a hominid!
I suppose this post makes more sense to those who know my name, for those who don't, take a wild guess!
Friday, July 24, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Drunken Trees
I bought a CD a couple months ago by First Aid Kit with the title "Drunken Trees". I was searching online for a place to purchase the CD and came across a wikipedia page dedicated to "drunken trees".
To my surprise, drunken trees are a natural phenomenon. They occur when trees tilt, basically. They're displaced. This happens mostly in subarctic forests, when the permafrost melts and the trees starting leaning and tilting at odd angles, losing thier normal vertical stance, appearing drunk. These drunken trees can actually die from their displacement and the melting can upset the whole forest ecosystem by causing whole forests to die.
My PhD work also involves working in forest ecosystems and while none of my forests are that far north, I do find the whole drunken trees phenomenon intriguing. Maybe some day I'll be able to study those forest ecosystems when I have my own lab. For the time being, I'm content to learn all I can about "my" forests!
By the way, Al Gore sited drunken trees as evidence for "global warming". And First Aid Kit is a duo from Sweden, so they might have actually seen the drunken forests first hand.
To my surprise, drunken trees are a natural phenomenon. They occur when trees tilt, basically. They're displaced. This happens mostly in subarctic forests, when the permafrost melts and the trees starting leaning and tilting at odd angles, losing thier normal vertical stance, appearing drunk. These drunken trees can actually die from their displacement and the melting can upset the whole forest ecosystem by causing whole forests to die.
My PhD work also involves working in forest ecosystems and while none of my forests are that far north, I do find the whole drunken trees phenomenon intriguing. Maybe some day I'll be able to study those forest ecosystems when I have my own lab. For the time being, I'm content to learn all I can about "my" forests!
By the way, Al Gore sited drunken trees as evidence for "global warming". And First Aid Kit is a duo from Sweden, so they might have actually seen the drunken forests first hand.
"A forest of these trees is a spectacle too much for one man to see." David Douglas
"Our hearts were drunk with a beauty our eyes could never see." George William Russell
Friday, July 17, 2009
"Annelid"ical Philosophy
I recently finished reading a book by Amy Stewart, The Earth Moved: on the remarkable acheivements of earthworms. I enjoyed the read, especially since a large portion of my PhD will be dedicated to earthworms and soil processes.
The book presented some interesting philosophical points and being paired with my recent trip to a Native American reservation, I now have a whole different view of the earth and earthworms.
One thing the author said included the fact that earthworms can regenerate themselves and humans cannot. "I am left with the troubling conclusion that the worm's survival may, in the grand scheme of things, be more important than my own." I also learned that part of the Native American view of earth and nature puts humans at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak. Nature and earth are on the top of the food chain. It's a chain of dependency really and respect. The earth, soil, is self dependent and hence deserves the most respect. Humans on the other hand are solely dependent on the ground we walk on. Earthworms have to be pretty high on that food chain because they only depend on soil and plants for nutrients. This Native American view sort of matches the "troubling conclusion" of Amy Stewart. The survival of the earthworms is in a sense more important than our survival. The earth would survive without humans, but humans would not survive if the soils of the world died. (I'm reminded of the series "Life After People" from the History Channel.) So in that sense, human survival is not as important as that of our soils.
Another thought provoking quote from the book included one from Adam Philips, Darwin's Worms, 1999, "What would our lives be like if we took earthworms seriously, took the ground under our feet rather than the skies high above our heads, as the place to look, as well, eventually, as the place to be? It is as though we have been pointed in the wrong direction." While I think the heavens are a glorious place to look, I see the point and purpose of this quote. Our earthly bodies will eventually rest in the ground. I don't think we realize the, dare I say, the significance of this. "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return" Genesis 3: 19.
The word human has its origin in the latin meaning earth or ground. Humus, a term used when discussing soil, has the same latin origin. Humus is degraded organic matter in soil or stabilized organic matter. Humans are made of organic matter. "For dust we are and to dust we return."
I have a lot more to learn about earthworms and Native American culture, but for now I'm developing a deeper respect for the processes of soil science.
I'm still amused by the title I came up with for this post! I think I'll resurrect it for some of the presentations I have coming!
The book presented some interesting philosophical points and being paired with my recent trip to a Native American reservation, I now have a whole different view of the earth and earthworms.
One thing the author said included the fact that earthworms can regenerate themselves and humans cannot. "I am left with the troubling conclusion that the worm's survival may, in the grand scheme of things, be more important than my own." I also learned that part of the Native American view of earth and nature puts humans at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak. Nature and earth are on the top of the food chain. It's a chain of dependency really and respect. The earth, soil, is self dependent and hence deserves the most respect. Humans on the other hand are solely dependent on the ground we walk on. Earthworms have to be pretty high on that food chain because they only depend on soil and plants for nutrients. This Native American view sort of matches the "troubling conclusion" of Amy Stewart. The survival of the earthworms is in a sense more important than our survival. The earth would survive without humans, but humans would not survive if the soils of the world died. (I'm reminded of the series "Life After People" from the History Channel.) So in that sense, human survival is not as important as that of our soils.
Another thought provoking quote from the book included one from Adam Philips, Darwin's Worms, 1999, "What would our lives be like if we took earthworms seriously, took the ground under our feet rather than the skies high above our heads, as the place to look, as well, eventually, as the place to be? It is as though we have been pointed in the wrong direction." While I think the heavens are a glorious place to look, I see the point and purpose of this quote. Our earthly bodies will eventually rest in the ground. I don't think we realize the, dare I say, the significance of this. "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return" Genesis 3: 19.
The word human has its origin in the latin meaning earth or ground. Humus, a term used when discussing soil, has the same latin origin. Humus is degraded organic matter in soil or stabilized organic matter. Humans are made of organic matter. "For dust we are and to dust we return."
I have a lot more to learn about earthworms and Native American culture, but for now I'm developing a deeper respect for the processes of soil science.
I'm still amused by the title I came up with for this post! I think I'll resurrect it for some of the presentations I have coming!
Thursday, July 9, 2009
I have a "wait" problem
Like this blog and in most things, I tend toward procrastination. Fifth grade was a bad procrastination year for me and I can pretty much pinpoint that as the time my problem began. I waited till the night before to start reading the book I had a project due on the next day; I never finished another book project that I'd actually read the book for because I ran out of time; I handed another project in when the teacher handed them back to the other students. That was a bad year for my "wait" problem. Fast forward to junior year of high school: it was group project for my chemistry class and as a group we waited till the night before to do it all, we stayed up all night to finish. That was the first of my all-nighters. More were to come in college, about one a semester. Now that I'm in grad school, I'm getting better at managing my "wait". I now, however, have atleast 3-4 all-nighters a semester, not because I've waited till the night before to start working on it, I just have a lot more to do.
"There's no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it."
"There's no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it."
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