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Regional Desserts You Need To Try
All-American desserts like apple pie and ice cream sundaes can be found from sea to shining sea. But other dessert foods take some seeking out. For example, you'll have to travel to Key West to get your hands on a real key lime pie. And you'll need recipes straight from a Southern grandma's cookbook to get some of America's best desserts right. Many of the most nostalgic desserts from the West Coast are still unheard of in the East. But why not spread the love? From pies to cookies to cakes and so much more, here are some of America's best regional dessert foods you need to try.
Apple cider doughnuts
Every New Englander knows that apple picking is one of the essential fall weekend trips to take every year. And while the apples themselves are great, there's nothing quite like a warm apple cider doughnut at the end of a long day on the orchard. The flaky, sugar-coated doughnuts are the perfect fall dessert. If you do make it to one of the best apple orchards in America, don't leave without trying one.
When you think of Alaska and dessert, your brain might go right to baked Alaska, one of the most retro desserts out there. But as anyone who knows better will tell you, baked Alaska isn't from Alaska at all — and the state has a few fabulous desserts of its own. Akutaq, also called Eskimo ice cream or Alaskan ice cream, is made by mixing together oil, shortening, a variety of berries, sugar and, traditionally, whitefish or tallow. "Akutaq" is a Yup'ik word that means "something mixed." Original recipes from long ago were created by natives of Alaska to bring on long hunting trips for survival, and often didn't include sugar. Recipes have adapted over time, and now many Alaskan families will have a recipe of their own that's been passed down for generations.
Bananas Foster
Bananas Foster is one of those foods you'll remember if you grew up in the '50s. The dish originated in New Orleans during that decade because the city had large imports of bananas. It's boozy and super sweet, made from cooked bananas and vanilla ice cream that's drenched in a sauce made from butter, brown sugar, banana liqueur and rum. Before they are served, the bananas are flambeed with the sauce, caramelizing the edges of the syrupy dish. You can also make a simpler version at home using your slow cooker.
Famously originating at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans, beignets are a type of French doughnut every Louisiana visitor should try. They're fluffy and look like small, powdered sugar-dusted pillows. Typically, these Southern treats are made from deep-fried choux pastry, but other types of dough can be used as well. For a fresh twist, try this recipe for blueberry beignets that are too good to pass up.
Black and white cookies
If you're from New York, you know the nostalgic joy of a black and white cookie. Every good NYC bakery, bodega and bagel place has a black and white cookie for sale, whether baked fresh, pre-packaged or wrapped in cellophane. Half chocolate-frosted, half vanilla-frosted, the base of these treats taste more like a cake than a cookie.
Boston cream pie
True to its name, Boston cream pie is one of the most iconic desserts in America and is cherished by residents of the city. Boston cream pie is a yellow butter cake filled with custard and frosted with a chocolate glaze. You could try making your own at home, but no one does it better than Massachusettsans. Residents of the state love the dessert so much they passed an ordinance in 1996 declaring it their official "Dessert Emblem."
Also known as the Buckeye State, Ohio is home to buckeyes, one of the foods you can only find in the Midwest. The treats were named for their resemblance to the nuts that grow on a buckeye tree, which used to cover Ohio's landscape. The candy is made by mixing together peanut butter with butter and powdered sugar, rolling it into balls and dipping the mixture in sweet milk chocolate.
Chess pie
Chess pie was first invented in England before migrating to New England and Virginia where it became popular in part because of its simplicity. Chess pie is known as the "ultimate pantry pie" since the recipe is so simple. You just need a pie crust and can make the filling with items you probably already have in your pantry: flour, butter, sugar and eggs. The result is a sweet, dense pie that inspires plenty of variations. Some popular flavors of chess pie are buttermilk, lemon and chocolate.
Coca-Cola cake
Southern dinner recipes use Coca-Cola with surprising frequency, and dessert recipes are no different. The South loves its soda, deeming Coca-Cola the "Champagne of the South," and they love this cake too. Though Coca-Cola now has its own recipe for the cake, they didn't invent it. It's been around since the 1950s, when it was occasionally found in newspaper articles in Charleston. The cake is known for being super sweet. In addition to cocoa, tons of sugar, buttermilk and (of course) Coca-Cola, there are also marshmallows in the mix.
Mayday pie
You probably know this Kentucky dessert by a different name: Derby pie. However, Kern's Kitchen, the Louisville bakery that invented Mayday pie, copyrighted the name "Derby pie" and has earned a reputation for protecting the name quite aggressively, so it's often referred to by the more generic title "Mayday pie" or "that horse race pie." The pie — which is similar to pecan pie and chess pie — is made with bourbon, chocolate and walnuts. Here's how to make a version of your own at home. We encourage pairing it with one of the best Kentucky Derby cocktails.
Do-nothing cake
A "do-nothing cake," also known as a Texas Tornado cake, gets its name because of how simple it is to make. Back before boxed cake mixes were a thing, baking something so easily was a novel concept. While you have to do a bit more than nothing, all it takes to whip one of these up is to dump a few pantry staples into a bowl with canned, crushed pineapple and give it a quick whisk. Then you pour the batter in a pan and bake until it's done. The frosting of this cake is simple, as well, consisting of coconut, chopped nuts, butter and sugar. Your final result is a cake way better than something made out of the box.
Gooey butter cake
Gooey butter cakes are gooey and, yes, loaded with butter. They were supposedly invented by accident when a baker in St. Louis, Missouri, mixed up the amounts of butter and flour that were called for in a cake recipe. If you know how to make it right, the consistency should be similar to that of a brownie. This cake is so delicious, you can eat it any time of day. That's why it's one of the dishes you just might find on a Midwestern breakfast table.
Hummingbird cake
A hummingbird cake is the cozy combination of banana, pecan, pineapple, cinnamon and nutmeg. This dessert is often served with a thick cream cheese frosting. Hummingbird cakes have become a popular Southern dessert option, though they were actually invented in Jamaica and named after the official national bird of the island country.
Italian cookies
New Jersey and New York have no shortage of Italian bakeries, most of which sell a variety of cute little Italian cookies. Spumoni slices, butter cookies, biscotti, spritz cookies, pignoli cookies, pizzelles and biscotti are just some of the array of treats you'll find behind bakery windows. Some are covered in sprinkles, others are chocolate-dipped. You really can't go wrong; families in the Northeast will bring home a variety in a box or stop in a bakery to grab a few as a midday treat.
Key lime pie
Key West is famous for its beaches and for good reason, but this stunning, sunny destination is also worthwhile for its pies. Sure, you may have tried a key lime pie elsewhere, but they probably paled in comparison to what you can get at some of the best restaurants in Florida. For the uninformed, a Key lime pie features a dense, graham cracker crust and a creamy, tangy Key lime filling. A dollop of whipped cream on top makes this pie a true slice of paradise.
Lane cake
Alabama's lane cake, also called a prize cake or Alabama lane cake, is one of the most famous foods in America. It's made from layers of white sponge cake held together by layers of bourbon-soaked raisins and coconut and a white meringue frosting. The dessert was made famous after being mentioned in Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," and was named Alabama's official state dessert in 2016.
Marionberry pie
If you're ever in Oregon, this dessert is a must-try. A marionberry is a specific variety of blackberry that's rarely found outside the state. The berry was specially developed at Oregon State University in 1945 and tastes sweeter and more complex than your average blackberry. Unfortunately, the berries don't ship well due to their fragile nature. But in Oregon, they account for approximately half the blackberries grown in the region.
Mississippi mud pie
Mississippians love their mud pie, and it's easy to see why. The crust is made from chocolate cookies and chopped pecans, while the smooth filling is made with coffee-flavored liqueur, vanilla extract and chocolate. All of this is topped with a generous portion of whipped cream and, often, a few extra chocolate shavings. The pie gets its name because the chocolatey interior is dense and messy-looking enough to resemble the murk of the Mississippi River.
Moravian sugar cake
The Moravian sugar cake is native to Pennsylvania and North Carolina, having origins in Moravian Church settlements in these states. It tastes and looks similar to a mashup of coffee cake and bread pudding and has an interesting secret ingredient — mashed potatoes. The thick, yeasty dough is baked and forms dimples, which are then filled with pockets of melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon that creates a crust that simultaneously sinks into the cake and creates a layer of sugary crust on top.
Scotcheroos are one of the greatest foods to come out of the Midwest. A scotcheroo is a dessert bar made from crisp rice stuck together by butterscotch, chocolate and peanut butter. They require zero baking and can keep for hours without being refrigerated, making them the perfect summertime treat. Here's how to make a batch for yourself (and more than a few friends).
Shave ice
If you ever travel to Hawaii, don't leave before trying a helping or two of shave ice. It's similar to a snow cone, but rather than crushed ice, shave ice is made with, well, shaved ice. You'll hear it referred to by Hawaiian locals as either "ice shave" or "shave ice," and the dessert is often served with locally inspired flavors such as passion fruit, guava, lychee and coconut.
Shoofly pie
Shoofly pie originated in the 1880s from the Pennsylvania Dutch, whose families needed to find a use for shelf-stable ingredients such as lard, molasses and flour during harsh winters. The molasses-based pie rumoredly got its name because the sweet, sticky mix of molasses would attract flies to the kitchen. Try making this tried-and-true dessert at home. After you make the crust, the sweet filling comes together in close to 10 minutes.
Smith Island cake
Named after an island located off the coast in the Chesapeake Bay, Smith Island cake was declared the official state dessert of Maryland in 2008,. On Smith Island, locals will sometimes refer to the cake simply as "layer cake," which is pretty accurate. The cakes typically have at least eight thin layers — normally more — of yellow cake, between which you'll find generous amounts of chocolate frosting.
Sugar cream pie
Sugar cream pie goes by many names: Hoosier sugar cream pie, Indiana cream pie and Indiana farm pie, to name a few. And, if you couldn't tell, it's the pride and joy of Indiana. Residents will tell you that sugar cream pie was first invented the year the state was established in 1816. The custard filling is made with vanilla, sugar and heavy cream.
Texas sheet cake
Texas is home to more than a few iconic recipes, including some seriously decadent desserts. The Texas sheet cake, also known as "cowboy cake," is no exception. Served on a large sheet tray and surprisingly easy to make, this is the perfect treat to feed a crowd. It's dense, chocolatey and rich, made with buttermilk, cocoa and butter then topped with pecans and a decadent fudge chocolate icing. Once you've tried this recipe from Texas, indulge your sweet tooth with the most iconic desserts from every state.
More from The Daily Meal:
The Most Iconic Food From Every State
Regional Breakfast Foods You Didn't Know Existed
Regional Dishes You've Never Heard Of
The Best Food and Drink in Every State for 2019
Dishes You'll Only Find in the Midwest


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24 February 2017
I'm tired of blogging, and I'm scheduled to give a lecture next weekend, so I'll plan to use much of this coming week to get materials ready for that. You guys are on your own for a while.
From the archives of The New Yorker.
Nazi-grave robbers are not Nazi grave-robbers
"In Latvia, it is normal for you to have dead soldiers on your yard," Esmits said. "When people came back to their homes after the war, they saw there was a dead soldier here and a dead soldier there, and they just buried them."..Much more at the source.
During the final months of World War II, Latvia was the site of especially bloody battles between German and Soviet forces. Approximately 350,000 Nazis were cut off here from the rest of the German line in the autumn of 1944, in what became known as the Courland Pocket. In the months that followed, about 100,000 of them were killed...
... in recent years, the often illicit market in Nazi memorabilia has intensified, creating a new class of diggers across eastern Europe that is at odds with Esmits's work. Of particular interest are relics... Some $50 million in military memorabilia is sold each year, according to an estimate by the Guardian, and Nazi items fetch a premium...
For the Volksbund, grave robbing remains a persistent problem, especially in Russia and Ukraine. "Grave robbers blight our work," Kirchmeier says. Many illegal diggers dutifully give over information to officials if they come across a dead body, he says, but others "open graves and then take out anything they can sell—steel helmets, pieces of equipment, medals, belt buckles, personal mementos belonging to the dead, sometimes even the skull, leaving the rest of the bones on the forest floor."
Yngve Sjodin, a Norway-based militaria seller who sometimes digs with Legenda, says he was confronted with a "black digger" during one of his first digs for soldiers in Latvia, in 2014. "He screamed at us that it was his forest," he says, "and started attacking the guy next to me." He adds, "The driving force for the black diggers is money, which they need to survive, or party, or whatever."
Metabolic markers for chronic fatigue syndrome. Fascinating.
Excerpt from an abstract at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science:
"Dauer," btw, is the German word for "duration."
We targeted 612 metabolites in plasma from 63 biochemical pathways by hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography, electrospray ionization, and tandem mass spectrometry in a single-injection method. Patients with CFS showed abnormalities in 20 metabolic pathways. Eighty percent of the diagnostic metabolites were decreased, consistent with a hypometabolic syndrome...More on dauer, which resembles hibernation, but is not the same thing:
Our data show that despite the heterogeneity of factors leading to CFS, the cellular metabolic response in patients was homogeneous, statistically robust, and chemically similar to the evolutionarily conserved persistence response to environmental stress known as dauer.
Many of the pathways and metabolites that were abnormal in CFS are also known to be features of dauer, a well-studied, long-lived survival and persistence state triggered by environmental stress...This is really quite interesting, since most people probably have a bias toward assuming that "chronic fatigue" is a psychological or emotional disorder. The idea that it is a mitochondrial disorder is thought-provoking.
The developmental stage of dauer is a hypometabolic state capable of living efficiently by altering a number of basic mitochondrial functions, fuel preferences, behavior, and physical features. Dauer is comprised of an evolutionarily conserved and synergistic suite of metabolic and structural changes that are triggered by exposure to adverse environmental conditions. Entry into dauer confers a survival advantage in harsh conditions. When the dauer response is blocked by certain mutations (dauer defectives), animals are short-lived when exposed to environmental stress. These mutations show that the latent ability to enter into a hypometabolic state during times of environmental threat is adaptive, even though it comes at the cost of decreasing the optimal functional capacity..
"Dauer," btw, is the German word for "duration."
Bees are endangered. Or not.
USA Today:
A bumblebee is now on the endangered species list for the first time in a "race against extinction," the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday.Counterpoint from the Washington Post:
The agency placed the rusty patched bumblebee on the list because of a dramatic population decline over the past 20 years. Since the late 1990s, the population of the species has plummeted 87%.
Named because of the rust-colored marks on its back, the bee was once common and abundant across 28 states from Connecticut to South Dakota. Today, the bee is only found in small, scattered populations in 13 states...
It's not just the rusty patched bumblebee that is struggling in the U.S. Other species have experienced dramatic declines in recent decades. The reduction is believed to be caused by a combination of habitat loss, disease, pesticide use, climate change and an extremely small population size...
This is the first bee of any type in the continental U.S. to be placed on the list. In September, the Obama administration designated seven species of bees in Hawaii as endangered.
You've probably heard the bad news by now that bees were recently added to the endangered species list for the first time. But if you're part of the 60 percent of people who share stories without actually reading them, you might have missed an important detail: namely, that the newly endangered bees are a handful of relatively obscure species who live only in Hawaii.
The bees you're more familiar with — the ones that buzz around your yard dipping into flowers, making honey, pollinating crops and generally keeping the world's food supply from collapsing? Those bees are doing just fine, according to data released by the USDA this year...
The number of commercial bee colonies is still significantly higher than it was in 2006, when colony collapse disorder — the mass die-offs that began afflicting U.S. honeybee colonies — was first documented...
"Honey bees are not about to go extinct," Kim Kaplan, a researcher with the USDA, said in an email. "It is the beekeepers who are in danger, facing unsustainable economic losses."
"Flash in the pan" explained
The flash pan or priming pan is a small receptacle for priming powder, found next to the touch hole on muzzleloading guns. A small amount of finely ground gunpowder is placed in the flash pan and ignited. The flash of flame travels through the touch hole igniting the main charge of propellant inside the barrel,,,Photo credit.
The ignition of the main charge from the flash pan was not a guaranteed operation, however, and sometimes it failed. In those cases the spark would flash in the pan, but the gun would fail to fire. This led by the end of the 17th century to the expression "flash in the pan" to mean a failure after a brief and showy start, or momentary sensation of no real importance.
The power to arrest peaceful demonstrators
Claiming people are being paid to riot, [Arizona] Republican state senators voted Wednesday to give police new power to arrest anyone who is involved in a peaceful demonstration that may turn bad — even before anything actually happened...
But the real heart of the legislation is what Democrats say is the guilt by association — and giving the government the right to criminally prosecute and seize the assets of everyone who planned a protest and everyone who participated. And what's worse, said Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, is that the person who may have broken a window, triggering the claim there was a riot, might actually not be a member of the group but someone from the other side...
But Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said that chilling effect is aimed at a very specific group of protesters."You now have a situation where you have full-time, almost professional agent-provocateurs that attempt to create public disorder,'' he said."A lot of them are ideologues, some of them are anarchists,'' Kavanagh continued. "But this stuff is all planned.''There's something else: By including rioting in racketeering laws, it actually permits police to arrest those who are planning events. And Kavanagh, a former police officer, said if there are organized groups, "I should certainly hope that our law enforcement people have some undercover people there.''
Classic black ops. You plant your people in a peaceful group, have your guy perform an illegal violent act, then arrest all the others.
More details at the Arizona Capitol Times.
Addendum: A hat tip to reader Elaine M, who found a followup report that this legislation is now dead.
Note: found this via a new subreddit: r/esist.
Addendum: A hat tip to reader Elaine M, who found a followup report that this legislation is now dead.
"As he listened to the callers, Mesnard realized their belief that the legislation was intended to curb free-speech rights outweighed any merits its supporters might put forward."
Note: found this via a new subreddit: r/esist.
"r/esist is a sub dedicated to compiling resources and fostering discussion to help resist the damage the Trump administration is doing to our country and the world."
Golf: 25 hours. Foreign relations: 21 hours
Donald Trump regularly assailed President Barack Obama for playing golf, then spent the first weekends of his own presidency doing just that. He attacked Obama for using Air Force One to campaign, and did it over the weekend just a month into the job. He mocked Obama for heading out of Washington at taxpayer expense, but appears to have no qualms about doing so himself...
"Donald Trump has zero worry about contradicting himself, because he does it all day long," said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian who has met with Trump. "He figures he can get away with it because he does it all the time. There is no worry about it. He says one thing and then does another, and his supporters don't hold it against him.
"Trump said last August that if he became president, he wouldn't have time for golf. "I'm going to be working for you, I'm not going to have time to go play golf," he said at an event in Virginia.Text from Politico. Infographic via Elle.
22 February 2017
Goodbye to "Arbroath"
I started TYWKIWDBI in 2007, and within a couple months I had found my way to Nothing To Do With Arbroath, one of the best-known and best-loved blogs on the internet. Kevin Norman Gray harvested the news sites of the world to collect oddities and ephemera. In the last ten years I've used Kevin's blog as a "via" for over 200 posts, because his material was very much "things you wouldn't know."
Readers of "Arbroath" were startled this past November to see a personal post from a blogger who was always very private; he reported having an illness which would hamper his blogging. Sadly, he wrote a final post in January detailing a terminal illness, and shortly thereafter a blog reader found and posted a link to a death notice, which was later confirmed by the family.
Bloggers and blog-readers everywhere will miss Kevin's eclectic approach. Nothing To Do With Arbroath is still up, and since the blogspot host is free, it will probably remain available for the near future; I invite you to visit and browse. I note that I still have a couple dozen of his posts in my bookmarks folders, so I may do a compilation post in the future.
Rest in peace, Kevin.
Locate structurally deficient bridges near you
The Washington Post offers an interactive map which lets you click on your county and then zoom in to identify bridges that have been deemed structurally deficient (and others that are "functionally obsolete.")
"Megachiropteran cinematographer"
Wordsmiths interested in anagrams will find an interesting study at the Universe of Discourse. Examples of some of the more interesting long ones include -
Related, and well known to cryptic puzzle enthusiasts, is this anagram maker.
There are lots of multi-word interesting anagrams, such as
These are clever:
And this one is arguably the most impressive because of its logical consistency:
7 admirer marriedThat source also provices a link to an apparently comprehensive list of 38,333 anagrams.
7 admires sidearm
8 negativism timesaving
8 peripatetic precipitate
8 scepters respects
8 shortened threnodes
8 soapstone teaspoons
9 earringed grenadier
9 excitation intoxicate
9 integrals triangles
9 ivoriness revisions
9 masculine calumnies
10 coprophagist topographics
10 chuprassie haruspices
10 citronella interlocal
11 clitoridean directional
11 dispensable piebaldness
11 endometritria intermediator
Related, and well known to cryptic puzzle enthusiasts, is this anagram maker.
There are lots of multi-word interesting anagrams, such as
INCONSISTENT is an anagram of N IS, N IS NOT, ETC.
These are clever:
Dormitory = Dirty room
Evangelist = Evil's agent
Desperation = A rope ends it
The Morse Code = Here come dots
Mother-in-law = Woman Hitler
Snooze alarms = Alas! No more Z's.
Eleven plus two = Twelve plus one
Clint Eastwood = Old West action
Slot machines = Cash lost in 'em
Conversation = Voices rant on
Norwegians = Swen or Inga?
The piano bench = Beneath Chopin
Southern California = Hot sun or life in a car
And this one is arguably the most impressive because of its logical consistency:
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter ScottAnd finally there is a chemical anagram, in which 30 chemicals anagram to 30 other ones the sum of whose atomic numbers is the same.
is an anagram of
A novel by a Scottish writer
"Biotwang" emanating from the Mariana Trench
YouTube link.
After months of speculation, scientists have finally identified the most likely source of a creepy audio recording from the deepest part of the ocean... [it] features five different sounds ranging from metallic to biological, and has been nicknamed the Western Pacific Biotwang...While these sounds are entirely unique in the scientific record, the best clue Nieukirk's team had for identifying them was an equally bizarre recoding from 2001, made in Australia's Great Barrier Reef... Known as the minke whale 'Star Wars' call, it sounds just as alien as this more recent recording, and the researchers say that based on similarities of frequency and structure, the Western Pacific Biotwang likely comes from the same type of animal.
It's easy to understand how ancient mariners would get creeped out by sounds echoing through the wooden hulls of their vessels in mid-ocean at night.
Credit only where credit is due
In his chapter on word choice, Harold Evans rightly takes issue with the misuse of the term "credit" in news media. In 2014, Boko Haram was "credited" with the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria. A year later, on the night of the terror attacks in Paris, a TV commentator reported that no one had yet "claimed credit." This is to ventriloquize the terrorists: to claim credit for an act is to imply its righteousness. Evans proposes a clearer-sighted alternative: "Nobody has yet admitted . . . responsibility."From an essay about the proper use of the English language in this month's Harper's. I quite agree with the sentiment expressed.
21 February 2017
The making of Planet Earth II
I watched the first episode ("Islands") last night. Excellent.
Via Neatorama.
19 February 2017
Snopes confirms that Mencken did make such a pronouncement in 1920 (using the term "downright moron").
In this case the attribution to Henry Louis Mencken, a prominent newspaperman and political commentator during the first half of theMencken biography.
20th century, is accurate. Writing for the Baltimore Evening Sun on 26 July1920, in an article entitled "Bayard vs. Lionheart" (and reprinted in the book On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe), Mencken cynically opined on the difficulties of good men reaching national office when the scale of their campaigns precluded them from directly reaching out to large segments of the voting public:
The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
"Swanga" illustrated
Many more pix here. This is part of SLAB culture in Houston:
Like most automotive hobbies, the Houston SLAB scene starts with the belief that the factory's work needs improvement... Depreciated American luxury cars are the norm: Cadillacs, Buicks and certain Oldsmobiles are preferred. Lincolns/Panthers and Chryslers are cool too, even Jaguars and Quattroportes pull it off vis-à-vis distinctly luxurious proportions. But don't break your budget on the ride, GM's W-body is one of the most common platforms for good reason, as costly modifications are necessary to pay homage to the Pimp Riders while advancing the game...Discussion at the WTF subreddit, including whether such hubcaps are "street-legal."
- Massive stereos....
- Kitted out power popping trunks, slathered in custom vinyl and personalized phrases in neon/mirrors.
- Wire wheels much like the Cragar units supplied as OEM for Cadillac in 1983 and 1984, except replacing the fragile tin content with 100% steel. Texan Wire Wheels sells them as "83s" and "84s", seemingly cornering this niche market...
Image via.
Save the frogs !
Amphibian survival can be a natural biomarker for subtle environmental changes. A poster promoting a frog exhibit at the Vancouver Aquarium reminds everyone why frogs are important.
Early humans didn't just "walk across Beringia"
Most well-informed people understand that the Americas were populated by early humans who crossed from Asia via the glacial-age land-bridge at Beringia. But too many people have the misconception that once the land bridge formed (when sea levels dropped because oceanic water was tied up in glaciers), humans just marched across to the new world. The process of crossing probably extended over thousands of years - and a new paper reports that this may have been long enough for the human genome to have evolved during the process.
In fact, the word 'bridge' definitely conjures up the wrong image. It was a geographic region, often called Beringia, and people lived there for so long that it probably would have been ludicrous to them that we could think of their home as transient. Current estimates suggest that people lived there for between 5,000 and 8,000 years, starting about 23,000 years ago.I don't mean to oversimplify the process. The crossing may also have involved watercraft, and some subpopulations may have traversed the region more quickly. And the Beringia crossing may have been supplemented by trans-Pacific voyages and/or by trans-Atlantic migrants from Solutrean regions. But the PNAS paper does suggest that the time spent in the subarctic crossing may have influenced the Native American genome.
That is a long enough time for natural selection to have had an effect on the genome of people who lived there, according to a paper in PNAS this week. The Beringians would have faced distinct diseases, food constraints, and climate conditions, and natural selection would have helped those with the right genetic adaptations to thrive in that environment. According to the new paper, we can see evidence of that natural selection in modern Native American populations...
Specifically, there's evidence to suggest that three genes involved in metabolizing fatty acids (called the fatty acid desaturases, or FADS, genes) show changes that might be the result of adaptation to a diet high in protein and fats. That sort of diet tends to be one of the side-effects of living in the Arctic.
Every picture tells a story...
Image cropped slightly for size from the original at the WTF subreddit, where the location is reported to be Renaissance Festival near Charlotte, North Carolina. (although I prefer the comment "Which Walmart is this?")
What the melting snow reveals
A backyard that was covered with snow during the winter appeared frozen and lifeless on the surface. Underneath that snowpack, protected from frigid airtemps, local rodents were busy scavenging. An early mid-February warm spell has revealed their foraging paths, from the woods and the neighbor's yard to the area under the birdfeeder on our deck, and out toward occasional tossed bread crusts. Raptors and foxes are able to ambush these rodents.
Related old post: A fox dives into DEEP snow - update #2. Worth revisiting, if only for the second video showing a domestic dog pouncing a baby's shadow.
15 February 2017
Evidence of agroforestry in the ancient Amazon
Football field sized patterns of deep ditches dot the landscape of northwestern Brazil. The discovery of these huge earthworks, which date back almost 2,000 years, has triggered intense debate regarding their origins among archaeologists and ecologists...Much more discussion at the Christian Science Monitor. See also the Wikipedia page on terra preta and my 2012 post 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.
It wasn't until the late 1970's that deforestation first revealed the geoglyphs hiding under upland rainforest. Covering more than 5,000 sq. miles in the Brazilian state of Acre, more than 450 large-scale earthworks...
A relatively heavy charcoal layer suggests that the new residents cleared the bamboo forest with fire, letting the fast-growing palm trees spring up to fill the space left behind. Over the long term, one would expect the palms to be overtaken by slower-growing plants, but that's not what the team found.
Instead palms flourished for three thousand years, likely encouraged by the human newcomers, who could use them for food and building material. Dr. Watling suspects they engaged in practices including planting seeds, transplanting saplings, and weeding out undesirable plant species, as well as light burning and farming. She calls these techniques agroforestry: "[maintaining] the forest but [changing] its species composition to make it a more livable place."
Photo credit: Jenny Watling/Caption.
Offered without comment
Res ipsa loquitur. Via.
Impact of Western culture on the arctic
"Hudson Bay Company store covered with furs, Churchill, Manitoba, c.1906-09."Image cropped for emphasis from the original posted at a gallery in The Guardian. Photo credit Geraldine Moodie.
Worse than ISIS?
A real company that is probably getting a lot of grief about its name nowadays. Via.
13 February 2017
Airplane oxygen masks explained
Excerpts from an article in the Travel section of The Telegraph:
"Up front, the pilots will don their own masks and commence a rapid descent to an altitude no higher than 10,000 feet," he continues. "If the emergency descent feels perilously fast, this isn't because the plane is crashing: it's because the crew is doing what's it's supposed to do."..This is important:
According to Airbus, if a plane loses pressure at 40,000 feet, those on board have as little as 18 seconds of "useful consciousness" without supplemental oxygen...
...what you're supplied isn't exactly oxygen – nor is it not compressed air in the scuba diving sense. Oxygen tanks are heavy and bulky so aircraft use a more complicated system. The panel above each seat actually contains a cocktail of chemicals that, when burned, release oxygen. They might include barium peroxide, a fine white powder used in fireworks, sodium chlorate, more commonly used as a weedkiller, and potassium chlorate, a staple of school science lab experiments (it reacts violently with sugar).
Tug the mask, like you're told in the demonstration, and the chemical process starts. Once it starts, it cannot be stopped until everything's burned up (around 12-15 minutes...).
Do not expect the bag to inflate. Passengers have reportedly suffered hypoxia after believing their mask was broken because the bag wasn't inflating, prompting them to remove it. Hence the warning given during every safety briefing.I don't know if the standard passenger mask is a "partial rebreather," capturing exhaled air, which even if "once-used" still has usable oxygen available, or a "non-rebreather."
"Oxygen is supplied in a constant flow," explained a BA spokesman. "The bag does not inflate like a respirator bag used in a medical theatre. How full it gets depends on an individual's rate of breathing. If the rate of breathing is very quick, air is inhaled at a faster rate and so the bag will inflate less. If all the air isn't inhaled, some will remain in the bag, partially inflating it."
The oxygen generator can also get extremely hot – so don't touch it – and passengers may even notice a burning smell (so don't be alarmed).
More information at the FAA.
Finding "dark skies"
Those who wish to see the skies as their grandparents did and appreciate the magnificience of the Milky Way would do best to find a "dark sky" away from the contaminatin of urban lighting. I made the screencap above from a world map at DarkSiteFinder.
It's zoomable to tell you which way to drive from Salt Lake or Park City for stargazing -
- and it covers the entire world -
?why the hot spot in subSiberian Russia? Perhaps burning natural gas from oil fields?
Found via an article at FiveThirtyEight about The Darkest Town in America, which discusses the environmental and health effects of nocturnal light pollution.
And this is related: an aerial view of a community in the process of switching from conventional sodium lights to LEDs:
Discussed at the Mildly Interesting subreddit.
The CIA has a Flickr account
You can explore their photos, including a large number of recently-declassified maps (such as the one above showing world traffic in ivory) at their Flickr page.
12 February 2017
Jurassic lacewing vs. modern butterfly
"A study out today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society: B that features IU paleobotanist David Dilcher as a co-author identifies a Jurassic-age insect whose behavior and appearance closely mimic a butterfly — but whose emergence on Earth predates the butterfly by about 40 million years.
Dilcher — who made international headlines last year for his role in discovering the mythical "first flower" — said these proverbial "first butterflies" survived in a similar manner as their modern sister insects by visiting plants with "flower-like" reproductive organs producing nectar and pollen."
"The butterfly-like insects, which went on to evolve into a different form of insect from the modern butterfly, is an extinct "lacewing" of the genus kalligrammatid called Oregramma illecebrosa. Another genus of this insect — of the order Neuroptera — survives into our modern era, and are commonly known as fishflies, owlflies or snakeflies...Text and images from Indiana University, via Vice's Motherboard.
... another evolutionary innovation found in the ancient lacewing fossils' wings remained remarkably unchanged over the course of millennia: so-called "eye spots."
This unique pattern on the wings, arising over 200 million years ago, is nearly identical to markings on the modern owl butterfly. To this day, owl butterflies use these circular marks as a defense mechanism against predators, which mistake the spots as the eyes of a larger, more threatening animal."
Reposted from 2016 in recognition of Darwin Day.
Butterflies can change their spots
Some butterfly wing patterns incorporate "eyespots" such as those seen in my photo of an Eyed Brown above. It has been well understood that one of the purposes these spots serve is to confuse a predator, as shown by the wings of this Common Buckeye I found with multiple beak-shaped defects in the area of the eyespots:
The process is demonstrated in this video by researchers at Oregon State University. Mantids are shown attacking the head/thorax of butterflies without prominent eyespots, but the wing margins of those with eyespots:
What is most interesting is that the butterflies are the same genus and species, differing only in seasonal appearance. (data and discussion published here). The implications are explained at The Scientist:
Prudic and her collaborator found that the dramatic eyespots on the wings of Bicyclus anynana individuals in the wet season were more effective at fooling mantid insects, the butterflies' main predators during rainy times, than the more diffuse wing spots of the dry season forms, which are preyed upon mostly by birds. The researchers even found that pasting wet-season spots onto dry-season butterflies had the same effect. Conversly, dry-season patterns [less-prominent eyespots] served to conceal the butterflies better from birds in its eastern African woodland habitats. "Having the right type of eyespot in the right season allowed the butterflies to live long enough to lay eggs and have more offspring in the next generation," Prudic said. "With the wrong eyespot at the wrong time, they were quickly annihilated by the mantids."Fascinating.
Reposted from 2015 in recognition of Darwin Day.
My "elfin ear" is actually a "Darwin's point"
Darwin's point is found in the majority of mammals, and humans are no exception. It is most likely used to help focus sounds in animals, but it no longer has a function in humans. Only 10.4% of the human population still has this visible left-over mark of our past, but it is possible that a much larger number of people carry the gene that produces it as it does not always cause the ear tubercle to appear. The point is a small thick nodule at the junction of the upper and middle sections of the ear.Since the "plica semilunaris" is vestigial structure and therefore a sign of evolution, I'm delighted to display it. Darwin described it as a "surviving symbol of the stirring times and dangerous days of man's animal youth."
As a child I wasn't aware that I had it until I first went to school and some children began to tease me about my pointy ear. My mom advised me to tell them it was my "extra brain power" (which I'm sure failed to impress first-graders). For children nowadays such a rationale would not be necessary; indeed an "elfin ear" would be a mark of prestige - one which some body-modifying teens (?Goths) try to attain by plastic surgery.
Link found at The Presurfer; thanks Gerard.
Reposted from 2009 to add this rather impressive example of a vestigial structure:
A teenager with a 20cm "tail" growing at the bottom of his spine has undergone surgery to have it removed. It started to appear on the 18-year-old's back just after his 14th birthday...Via Nothing to do with Arbroath.
"It was cosmetically and psychologically disturbing for him." Although surgically removing a tail isn't a very complicated procedure, it must be carried out by a neurosurgeon as the growth of tail involves a part of the spinal cord.
Reposted from 2016 in recognition of Darwin Day.
On the Origin of Fantasies
"The Battle of the Fruit and Vegetable Soldiers," shown above, is a little-known illustration on one of the 28 surviving pages of the original manuscript of Darwin's On the Origin of Species.
...remember that Darwin and his wife Emma... had a huge family of ten children. Scholars believe that a young Francis Darwin, the naturalist's third oldest son, drew this on the back of Darwin's manuscript for On the Origin of Species.Personally, I prefer this one, with its fanciful butterfly:
Additional examples, including the scrawling of a toddler, are shown at the article at The Appendix. A big tip of the hat to reader Andrew for alerting me to the existence of this "quarterly journal of experimental and narrative history."
Image: Cambridge University Library
Reposted from 2014 in recognition of Darwin Day.
Vatican: Evolution is acceptable, doesn't disprove God
On the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species, the Vatican is sponsoring a conference of scientists and theologians to discuss the interface of religion and science.
Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the Catholic Church doesn't stand in the way of scientific realities like evolution, saying there was a "wide spectrum of room" for belief in both the scientific basis for evolution and faith in God the creator.
"We believe that however creation has come about and evolved, ultimately God is the creator of all things..."
"The false contraposition between Darwinism and the Church," is how the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, headlined its story on the conference...
Pope John Paul II articulated the church's position most clearly in a 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, in which he said the theory of evolution was "more than a hypothesis."
But the Vatican's position became somewhat confused in recent years, in part because of a 2005 New York Times op-ed piece signed by a close Benedict collaborator, Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn [who] seemed to reject traditional church teaching and backed instead intelligent design...
Vatican officials later made clear they did not believe intelligent design was science and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in school science classes only created confusion.
Francisco Ayala, a former priest and professor of biological sciences and philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, called intelligent design and creationism "blasphemous" not only to science but to the Christian faith.Reposted from 2009 in recognition of Darwin Day.
The remarkable "Rainbow Finch"
An endangered bird, of which only about 2,000 are known to exist in the wild (in Australia).
It was discovered by the Ornithologist John Gould who named the finch after his wife rather than himself. First called the Lady Gouldian Finch, the lady part of the name has been largely dropped, possibly because it was something of a mouthful, but most likely because Mrs Gould was no Lady (this is a reflection on her lack of title rather than her personal behavior).
Gould himself is largely forgotten outside of ornithology circles and
, where he discovered the Finch in 1840. This is a shame as without him we would not have had the concept of ' Australia 's Finches' from the Galapagos. Darwin himself thought that the specimens he collected were variants of other species (albeit including the finch). It was Gould who classified the twelve distinct new species that formed a new finch group. Darwin
Reposted from 2009 in recognition of Darwin Day.
The inheritance of acquired characteristics
Everyone who is well educated in science understands that adults don't pass on acquired characteristics to their children - a child can't have a scar that resembles daddy's war wound (at least not on a genetic basis).
It turns out that that's not exactly true. Organisms can inherit an acquired trait because not all inheritance is dependent upon DNA. Welcome to "epigenetics:"
It turns out that that's not exactly true. Organisms can inherit an acquired trait because not all inheritance is dependent upon DNA. Welcome to "epigenetics:"
A certain laboratory strain of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has white eyes. If the surrounding temperature of the embryos, which are normally nurtured at 25 degrees Celsius, is briefly raised to 37 degrees Celsius, the flies later hatch with red eyes. If these flies are again crossed, the following generations are partly red-eyed – without further temperature treatment – even though only white-eyed flies are expected according to the rules of genetics...Reposted from 2009 in recognition of Darwin Day.
Environmental factors, which change the characteristics of an individual and are then passed on to its offspring, do not really fit into Darwin's theory of evolution. According to his theory, evolution is the result of the population and not the single individual. "Passing on the gained characteristics fits more to Lamarck's theory of evolution", says Paro.
However, he still does not believe Darwin's theory of evolution is put into question by the evidence of epigenetics research. "Darwin was 100 percent right", Paro emphasises. For him, epigenetics complement Darwin's theory. In his view, new characteristics are generated and passed on via epigenetics, subject to the same mechanisms of evolution as those with a purely genetic origin.
Islamic views of evolution
Selected passages from the Wikipedia entry on the subject.
Here's a relevant prior post.
Reposted from 2009 in recognition of Darwin Day.
Islamic views on evolution are diverse, ranging from theistic evolution to creationism. Muslims believe in a God as the Creator, as explained in the Qur'an. Throughout history some Muslim thinkers have proposed and accepted elements of the theory of evolution, while believing in the supremacy of God in the process. In modern times, some Muslims have rejected evolution, and teaching it is banned in some countries. The main schism between Islam and evolution is in the Adamic descent of human beings, a concept which modern biological anthropology rejects as mythology...I find it interesting to see "Darwinian" theories expressed a millennium before Darwin. This post is of necessity a rather perfunctory summary of a complex subject, so feel free to add comments. And see also "The Qur'an & Space Science" at The Turbid Blog.
The Qur'an does not contain a complete chronology of creation. It declares variously that it took "six ayums" to create the "seven heavens [or firmaments] and earth" An 'ayum' is defined as a stage, or a relative quantity of time rather than a 24 hour period...
Certain verses in the Qur'an are claimed by Muslims to be compatible with the expansion of the universe, Big Bang and Big Crunch theories...
The Mu'tazili scientist and philosopher al-Jahiz (c. 776-869) was the first of the Muslim biologists and philosophers to develop an early theory of evolution. He speculated on the influence of the environment on animals, considered the effects of the environment on the likelihood of an animal to survive, and first described the struggle for existence, a precursor to natural selection. Al-Jahiz's ideas on the struggle for existence in the Book of Animals have been summarized as follows:
"Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring."...In the 13th century, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi explains how the elements evolved into minerals, then plants, then animals, and then humans. Tusi then goes on to explain how hereditary variability was an important factor for biological evolution of living things:
"The organisms that can gain the new features faster are more variable. As a result, they gain advantages over other creatures. [...] The bodies are changing as a result of the internal and external interactions." ...Evolutionary biology is included in the high-school curricula of most Muslim countries. Science foundations of 14 Muslim countries, including Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, and Egypt, recently signed a statement by the Interacademy Panel (IAP, a global network of science academies), in support of the teaching of evolution, including human evolution. Little is known about general societal views of evolution in Muslim countries.
A 2007 study of religious patterns found that only 8% of Egyptians, 11% of Malaysians, 14% of Pakistanis, 16% of Indonesians, and 22% of Turks agree that Darwin's theory is probably or most certainly true, and a 2006 survey reported that about 25% of Turkish adults agreed that human beings evolved from earlier animal species. In contrast, the 2007 study found that only 28% of Kazakhs thought that evolution is false. According to Salman Hameed, writing in the journal Science, there exists a contradictory attitude towards evolution in the Muslim world. While Muslims accept science as fully compatible with Islam, and most accept microevolution, very few Muslims accept the macroevolution as held by scientists, especially human evolution.
Here's a relevant prior post.
Reposted from 2009 in recognition of Darwin Day.
"God has given you one face and you make yourselves another"
Mug shot via the Washington Post.
Title quote from Hamlet, Act III, Scene I.
Recently-discovered photo of a younger Harriet Tubman
"In the photo, Harriet Tubman is still relatively young, perhaps in her early or mid-forties. She would live into her 90s, and many of the photos of her show her as an older woman."More at Atlas Obscura, via Neatorama. Photo: Swann Auction Galleries.
Indoor skydiving
"The 2017 WindGames were held in Spain last weekend for competition in indoor skydiving. The winner of the freestyle category was 14-year-old Kyra Poh of Singapore, who was competing against adults for the first time."Via Neatorama.
Overwintering Monarch population down
The number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico dropped by 27% this year, reversing last year's recovery from historically low numbers...More at The Guardian.
The experts say the decline could be due to late winter storms last year that blew down more than 100 acres (40 hectares) of forests where migrating monarch butterflies spend the winter in central Mexico...
Last week, authorities detained a man trying to truck about a dozen huge tree trunks out of the butterfly reserve, using false papers asserting the trees were diseased and were being removed to reduce risk. In fact, investigators found the trees had been healthy...
The loss of forests in Mexico and milkweed north of the border has proved devastating. This year the butterflies covered only 7.19 acres (2.91 hectares). Last year, the butterflies covered 10 acres (about 4 hectares), compared with 2.8 acres (1.13 hectares) in 2014 and a record low of 1.66 acres (0.67 hectares) in 2013. That is still well below the 44 acres (18 hectares) they covered 20 years ago.
Diagonal drawer
Not an error. It has a logical explanation (clues in the photo).
In praise of walking
Three excerpts from Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot:
"...once you begin to notice them, you see that the landscape is still webbed with paths and footways... pilgrim paths, green roads, drove roads, corpse roads, trods, leys, dykes, drongs, sarns, snickets - say the names of the paths out loud and at speed and they become a poem or rite - holloways, bostles, shutes, driftways, lichways, ridings, halterpaths, cartways, carneys, causeways, herepaths."I can't rate the entire book because I only had time to browse a couple chapters, but I do enjoy a book that challenges me with new words.
"Americans have long envied the British system of footpaths and the freedoms it offers, as I in turn envy the Scandinavian customary right of Allemansratten ('Everyman's right'). This convention - born of a region that did not pass through centuries of feudalism, and therefore has no inherited deference to a landowning class - allows a citizen to walk anywhere on uncultivated land provided that he or she cause no harm; to light fires; to sleep anywhere beyond the curtilage of a dwellilng; to gather flowers, nuts and berries; and to swim in any watercourse..."
"Soren Kirkegaard speculated that the mind might function optimally at the pedestrian pace of three miles per hour, and in a journal entry describes going out for a wander and finding himself 'so overwhelmed with ideas' that he 'could scarcely walk'. Christopher Morley wrote of Wordsworth as 'employ[ing] his legs as an instrument of philosophy'... Nietzsche was typically absolute on the subject - 'Only those thoughts which come from walking have any value' - and Wallace Stevens typically tentative: 'Perhaps/The truth depends on a walk around a lake.'' In all of these accounts, walking is not the action by which one arrives at knowledge; it is itself the means of knowing."
drove road/droveway - road or track along which livestock are (or historically were) regularly driven
corpse road
sarn - (Welsh) a causeway
snicket - A narrow passage or alley (Northern England). Synonyms: ginnel, twitchel.
lichway - path by which the dead are carried to the grave
08 February 2017
Prom night
Every time I see this cartoon I am reminded of the classic one-liner "Other than THAT, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
Relevant link for those unfamiliar with the backstory.
Holloways explained
Several days ago I started reading The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, in which the author "sets off from his Cambridge home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads and sea paths that form part of a vast network of routes that crisscross the British landscape..."
I added "holloway" to my list of words to look up. Then by coincidence I encountered a recent post by Miss Cellania on The Sunken Lanes of Europe, citing Amusing Planet, which has a gallery of photos (whence the embed).
Details at Wikipedia:
A sunken lane (also hollow way or holloway) is a road or track that is significantly lower than the land on either side, not formed by the (recent) engineering of a road cutting but possibly of much greater age.Fascinating, both visually and conceptually.
Various mechanisms have been proposed for how holloways may have been formed, including erosion by water or traffic; the digging of embankments to assist with the herding of livestock; and the digging of double banks to mark the boundaries of estates. These mechanisms are all possible and could apply in different cases.
Sweden mocks Trump's minions
As reported by The Guardian:
Sweden's deputy prime minister, Isabella Lövin, has published a photograph of herself signing a climate bill surrounded by her closest female colleagues, apparently mocking a photo of US president Donald Trump.More at the link.
Lövin, who also serves as environment and development aid minister, is seated in the photo at a desk as she signs the bill under the watchful eye of seven female colleagues, including one who is visibly pregnant.
Related: 'What happens to us?' Why Sweden is so worried about the Trump administration.
Medieval funeral poetry on an ostrich eggshell - updated
Archaeologists have uncovered a 500-year-old ostrich egg covered in Arabic poetry. The verses mourn the death of a loved one.Photo and text from Nature, via Erik Kwakkel.
The egg was found in the Red Sea port of Quseir, Egypt. In the fifteenth century, Quseir was a hub for trade between the Middle East and India, and a stop on the pilgrim route between North Africa and Mecca...
The shell is covered with quotations from the Koran and poetry: "It describes the soul's journey from death to life," says historian Dionisius Agius, of the University of Leeds, who is analysing the text.
Eggs bearing Arabic writing are rare, although another was found in Quseir 20 years ago. The ancient Egyptians used ostrich eggs for perfume containers and drinking cups, and the country's Coptic Christians hung them as lanterns in their churches.
Addendum: Reposted from 2010 to note that ostrich eggs were also used as a form to create some of the world's first globes, as reported at National Geographic:
A recently discovered globe from the early 1500s, carved onto ostrich eggs, may be the oldest globe of the New World ever identified...I learned about this from the podcast of No Such Thing as a Fish.
Throughout history mapmakers have turned to creative materials: There have been maps made of sticks or drawn on sealskin, vellum (calfskin parchment), or blocks of wood... But globes created from ostrich eggshells are not common, and for this reason—regardless of its age—the artifact is rare.
Neil Gorsuch's yearbook quote
In the 1988 Columbia University yearbook, the quote accompanying Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch's photo comes from Henry Kissinger -
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."However, Snopes notes that "determining Gorsuch's intention in offering this quote back then is a matter of speculation. It should be noted that Gorsuch founded a school newspaper called The Fed at Columbia University, which frequently published satirical content."
Rolling shutter effect revealed by a blink
Discussed in this Pics subreddit thread (image cropped for emphasis from the original).
See also this 2010 post: How the rolling shutter effect is generated.
06 February 2017
Interesting fact about cacti
There are 1750 species of cacti. 1749/1750 are native only to the Americas.
The natural distribution of cactus species occurs exclusively in the New World with a single exception. This range includes North and South America, Central America, and the adjacent Islands such as the Caribbean and Galapagos islands. Rhipsalis baccifera, an epiphytic species, is the sole exception that can be found in Madagascar, tropical Africa, the Seychelles, Mauritius, Reunion, and Sri Lanka as well as tropical America.Think of all the great deserts of the world that don't have cacti: the Gobi, Sahara, Australia's Victoria. But it's worth adding this point from the Reddit discussion:
While there are not cacti in those deserts it should be noted there are cactus-like plants. Cactus belong to the family Cactaceae. These are "New World" plants that are only (except 1) endemic to the Americas. Meanwhile the Eastern continents got "Old World" plants to fill those ecological niches, many of which belong to the family Euphorbiaceae. This is not a cactus. This is also not a cactus. And another "not" cactus (image below)
The difference between cacti and cactiform succulents is explained here. You learn something every day.
Top photo credit, via the TIL subreddit.
Vestigial body structures
The palmaris longus tendon info was new to me.
Good talking points for discussions with children, or with doubters of evolution (though unlikely to be effective with the latter).
"Gott mitt uns"
Military leaders have always told their cannonfodder that God is on their side.
Gott mit uns ("God with us") is a phrase commonly used in heraldry in Prussia (from 1701) and later by the German military from the period spanning the German Empire (1871 to 1918) to the end of the Third Reich in 1945.Blogged in order to mention a lighter aspect I heard on a podcast of No Such Thing As A Fish. During the Christmas Truce of WWI, German soldiers erected a sign displaying the motto. Their English counterparts put up another, which said "We've got mittens too."
The Imperial Russian motto, "Съ нами Богъ!" ("S nami Bog!"), also translates the same.
Nobiscum Deus in Latin, Μεθ ημων ο Θεος (Meth imon o Theos) in Greek, С Hами Бог (S Nami Bog) in Church Slavonic, or God with us in English, was a battle cry of the late Roman Empire and of the Eastern Roman Empire. It is also a popular hymn of the Eastern Orthodox Church, sung during the service of Great Compline (Μεγα Αποδειπνον).
It was used for the first time in German by the Teutonic Order. In the 17th century, the phrase Gott mit uns was used as a 'field word', a means of recognition akin to a password, by the army of Gustavus Adolphus... In 1701, Frederick I of Prussia changed his coat of arms as Prince-Elector of Brandenburg. The electoral scepter had its own shield under the electoral cap. Below, the motto Gott mit uns appeared on the pedestal.
This $10 bill looks funny.
It's taped on a wall, presumably for the education of some employees. Do you know why it looks funny? Answer below the fold.
Controversial "A2 milk" discussed
From The Atlantic:
Cow's milk gets a bad rap. Over the past few decades, it's been maligned for everything from fat and sugar levels to synthetic-hormone and antibiotic content. It has faced fierce competition from alternatives like almond milk and soy milk. But what if the most dangerous thing in a glass of milk all this time has been something much more elemental?Much more at the link.
This was the question puzzling the New Zealand scientists Bob Elliott and Corran McLachlan in 1993, when their studies of Type 1 diabetes and heart disease pointed to milk as an unlikely culprit—specifically, a variety of milk known to scientists as A1, the ubiquitous variety stocked in most of the world's grocery stores. A1, the research suggested, produces inflammatory compounds in the human digestive system that can cause mild symptoms like stomach pain, or much worse.
The research also showed, however, that a second type of milk—a variation known as A2—did not have these effects. McLachlan posited that A2 could be better for overall health, and maybe even digestible by those who consider themselves lactose intolerant...
Now, A2 milk stands poised to take these niche markets by storm—but first American consumers will have to be convinced that it's actually good for them...
American dairy lobbies remain skeptical, though. Both the Dairy Farmers of America and the National Milk Producers Federation are aware of the trend—and dismissive of it...
Since A2 milk hit shelves in California in 2015, worries within the American dairy industry have mirrored those of commodity farmers Down Under, where A2 has already outstripped organic milk sales. Mainstream American dairies have expressed concern about how the introduction of these products will affect their existing product sales...
For now, this mixed attitude toward A2 genetics prevails in the U.S. A2MC could be on its way to changing the world, or cresting toward a quiet end. With the company shooting for a full presence in the U.S. market by next year, consumers have reason to hope that more research will be conducted before the onus is on them to make the call.
Don't park like an asshole
Forward this image to any acquaintances of yours who think it's o.k. to infringe on the broad space next to a handicapped parking spot.
Photo cropped for size from the original here.
The Bowling Green Massacre Victims Fund
The image above is a screencap. You can access a live "donate" button and reveal the creators of the spoof here (safe to click).
A tip of the blogging cap to reader Stan Banos for sending the link.
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This is Scientific American's 60-Second Tech. I'm Larry Greenemeier. Got a minute?
Healthy eating isn't just what you eat and when you eat but how fast you eat as well.
Treating every meal like a track meet can cause indigestion and, some say, weight gain.
But a new gadget could help people eat more slowly.
It was on display at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
It looks like a simple fork, but the high-tech utensil called the HAPIfork is outfitted with sensors.
They measure the number of times you place the fork in your mouth per minute,
the intervals between these fork servings and how long it takes you to finish your meal.
If you're plowing through your food, HAPIfork vibrates and flashes an LED.
Better than a slap on the back of your head from your mother.
HAPIfork maker HAPIlabs says the fancy fork will cost about $100 when it hits the market later this year.
It comes with software that lets you track and share info about your eating habits via computer or smart phone.
If soup is your thing, they're also working on a HAPIspoon.
Which should cause quite a stir.
Thanks for the minute, for Scientific American's 60-Second Tech. I'm Larry Greenemeier.
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- 单句循环:∞


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To most Americans electric cars are as new a concept as the first combustion vehicles were to horse-and buggy-drivers in the early years of the 20th century. But to the organizations around the world that have been working to make modern electric cars a consumer reality, it has taken decades to get to this point. In fact, the electric car industry is old enough now that it has developed its own internal conflicts—the biggest of which centers on vehicle charging. Unfortunately, engineering groups and consortiums are developing different standards for a quick jolt, and if the differences are not resolved, the burgeoning electric vehicle industry may stumble.
The goal, of course, is to enable electric-car owners to charge their vehicles as effortlessly as they would fill up at a gas pump. Common standards are what makes that possible. In the U.S. the organization tasked with developing these charging standards is the Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE). In January 2010 the SAE approved the so-called J1772 standard governing slow- to moderate-speed electric car charging. Every major electric car manufacturer, and most start-up ones as well, have committed to using J1772 in their existing and future products. In 2011 more than 15,000 of these J1772-compatible stations are planned for installation in early deployment communities around the U.S.
But the J1772 standard accounts only for charging at relatively low speeds. On a 110- to 120-volt circuit it can add about eight kilometers of driving range for every hour of charging, and on a 220- to 240-volt circuit, it can sustain between 24 and 100 kilometers of driving range for every hour of charging (depending on individual vehicle and station specifications).
To create more parity between electric and combustion engine cars, the industry has been developing so-called DC fast charging—which can nearly top off an electric car's battery pack in less than half an hour. (The typical range of a fully charged car is 160 kilometers.) This type of charging requires a gas pump–size station attached to an industrial power supply. Although the size and voltage make DC fast charging unsuitable for the home garage, it should be sufficient at commercial charging stations.
Two competing standards
A few pioneers have forged ahead with this fast charging, with Nissan and Mitsubishi taking the lead. Yet the standard they have chosen—called CHAdeMO and developed by a consortium of Japanese companies—will soon face competition from another standard under development by the SAE.
The SAE expects to have its DC fast-charging standard ready within nine months, and carmakers and station manufacturers should have equipment samples in the fall to begin their internal testing, says Peter Byk, an SAE engineering specialist. The final standard should come by the end of this year and no later than the first quarter of 2012.
It will be at least 2013 before the SAE standard starts showing up in consumer vehicles. In the meantime there will be nearly 700 CHAdeMO stations in Japan, 500 in the U.S. and 300 in Europe by the end of 2011. By the time the first SAE–compliant DC fast-charging–equipped cars hit the road there could be perhaps thousands of CHAdeMO stations in the U.S. alone, according to John Gartner, a senior research analyst with Pike Research and author of an upcoming report on the state of DC fast-charging technology around the globe.
"As Nissan and Mitsubishi start selling electric cars in mass volume, they want to provide the functionality that DC fast-charging entails, so the initial products to hit the North American market went with what was the closest available standard and that was CHAdeMO," Gartner says.
Nissan began selling its LEAF all-electric car last November and has plans to sell more than 200,000 of them a year by 2013. Mitsubishi began selling the all-electric i-MiEV in select locations around the globe last year and will start selling it on the North American market at the end of 2011. Adding DC fast-charging capability to both of those vehicles is an extra cost option at the time of purchase, and many consumers have opted for it, especially on the West Coast where CHAdeMO infrastructure will be widespread.
Given the sales targets of both companies, the potential for CHAdeMO adoption could be on the order of tens of thousands to perhaps more than 100,000 vehicles by the time the SAE fast-charging standard is available in its first consumer electric vehicle.
Universality has its benefits
The current SAE fast-charging design calls for a hybrid combo that would be backward compatible with the J1772 standard but would also support DC fast-charging through a universal cable.
A universal charging standard has benefits in terms of cost savings and ease of engineering, and according to some, the SAE standard also has technical improvements over CHAdeMO designed to make it future-proof and safer to boot. BMW, which in 2013 will start selling their first mass-market all-electric vehicle, the i3, has been working in close collaboration with the SAE to develop the universal charging standard.
"We have a lot of problems with different standards around the world already," says Josef Krammer, team leader for charging systems at BMW. "We deliver our vehicles everywhere, and it's very difficult if we have to adapt our charging systems for each region."
According to Krammer, although CHAdeMO works, its major drawback is that it requires a second charging port in addition to the 110- to 240-volt AC port—which drives up both space and cost requirements. In addition, SAE's Byk says that CHAdeMO uses an older communication standard not expected to work well with coming smart grid technologies. Also, it is less safe because instead of relying on the physical contact with the ground to shunt short circuits, it relies on a ground fault interrupt, which monitors the line for imbalanced loads and shuts it off if it senses a surge. It is like the difference between having an alternate pipe for the sewage to drain into (physically grounded) and having a way to shut off a burst sewage pipe (ground fault interrupt).
Gaining a competitive advantage
Even so, Nissan says that CHAdeMO meets the needs of electric car drivers now and into the future. "As of today, CHAdeMO is the only proved DC quick-charging system," says Hideaki Watanabe, corporate vice president, Nissan Motor Co. "We are working with our partners to deploy CHAdeMO throughout the world, and we didn't want to take a 'wait and see' approach. We wanted to be a proactive player and deploy fast charging solutions now."
The existence of multiple standards may not actually be a big deal, says Pike Research's Gartner. "The real losers are the carmakers who are waiting to provide fast-charging support while their Japanese competitors increase market share," he adds.
What effect will it have on adoption rates?
Gartner envisions a future where both standards exist as parallel options. "Because of its penetration rates CHAdeMO won't ever become obsolete," he says. "Just because SAE says they are making a global universal standard doesn't mean the Japanese manufacturers are going to switch." As Gartner sees it, manufacturers will want to take advantage of the infrastructure that is already in place. "If there are already hundreds of stations on the ground—soon to be thousands—why wouldn't a manufacturer choose that option?" he asks.
But BMW does not think this parallel-option scenario will work. "Over the long term, I don't think that multiple standards can co-exist in one region," Krammer says. He cites the need for uniformity between all vehicles and convenient consumer access as the major reasons for this. SAE's Byk agrees, and says that the convenience of universal plug format, coupled with the majority of manufacturers adopting it in the long term will likely force the market to move away from CHAdeMO.
Regardless of whether one DC fast-charging standard wins, in the short term the controversy is sure to cause some confusion in marketplace, although Gartner does not think it will have much of an effect on adoption of electric cars. "The typical consumer still can't distinguish between hybrids and electric cars," he says. "If that basic distinction is still missing, then the DC fast-charging issue is one that means very little in terms of market adoption rates of electric cars in general."
Power Politics: Competing Charging Standards Could Threaten Adoption of Electric Vehicles
Can a new, global standard take on an existing, widespread fast-charging system? Plus, a timeline of electric-vehicle milestones
To most Americans electric cars are as new a concept as the first combustion vehicles were to horse-and buggy-drivers in the early years of the 20th century. But to the organizations around the world that have been working to make modern electric cars a consumer reality, it has taken decades to get to this point. In fact, the electric car industry is old enough now that it has developed its own internal conflicts—the biggest of which centers on vehicle charging. Unfortunately, engineering groups and consortiums are developing different standards for a quick jolt, and if the differences are not resolved, the burgeoning electric vehicle industry may stumble.


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Monday, November 21
Daily Farm Photo 11/21/05: Seeing the Moon on a Sunny Day
Are You Remembering To Look Up?
9 comments:
Oooooo, firsties! Great photo, as usual! Looking at the sky is a wonderous thing.........ReplyDelete
I spend a LOT of time looking up. There's so much to see!ReplyDelete
Beautiful photo.
- Anonymous11/21/2005 8:22 AM
Pretty picture! And I LOVE your new banner - it's so cool! :)ReplyDelete
Happy Monday, Susan!
Beautiful picture - I so love looking at the moon.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous11/21/2005 10:22 AM
if you ask why i keep coming back.. other than the food recipesReplyDelete
its because you have great photos of the wide country space which i miss very much.
I looked up just now all i see is the opposite building. arhh athens
when I was in france.. I wake up, grab my tea and just look up the skies.
Yup, I look up all the time. New views daily.ReplyDelete
The only thing constant is change.
Have a great day.
Another one of those angles that I totally miss when trying to take a good photo. I look up quite often, but somehow never quite get the picture right!ReplyDelete
Hi Kat,ReplyDelete
Yes, looking at the sky is definitely a wonderous thing!
Hi Jamie,
Good for you. I would spend even more time looking up, but the terrain here is rough and I'm prone to tripping. Plus in the summer you have to watch out for snakes. : )
The other night the moon was still asleep, and you could see so many stars in the sky the whole thing practically looked white. Incredible.
Hi Jeff,
Glad you like the new banner. I think it really spiffs things up around here. : )
Hi Karen,
I, too, have a thing for the moon. It's mesmerizing, even at 3am when you're stumbling around in the dark on your way to pee.
Hi Sha,
I'm so glad you keep coming back. I always love your comments.
Hi Heather,
: )
Hi Amy,
Do you take a few photos at slightly different angles? Do you try moving around and looking for the perfect shot? I've seen some lovely photos you've taken, by the way. : )
hi susan, just found you today, boy have i been missing out! i've lived in cities and i've lived in the country. i am happier and more content living in the country by far. currently i live in suburbia, it could be worse, but could also definitely be better! so i've made a start. i put in 3 4x4 raised beds this year, and got a coop and 3 laying hens. fraid i can't have any large livestock due to zoning laws, thats a bummer. i own my home and the 1 next door where my daughter, her husband and their 4 kids live. thats nice having family close, (well, most of the time, lol) i'm thinking about seeing if i can find someone who'd like to trade 2 houses in town for a country place with a few acres. enough room for a steer, a horse, some chickens assorted dogs and cats, oh and 7 people to serve them!!! i don't know though, i'm 62, my husband and love of my life for 35 years passed last year, (almost 1 year exactly). i don't want to do something i'd regret because of how lost i am without him, but on the other hand, i'm not getting any younger! for now though i'll probably work at becoming more self sufficient, i'm realizng how very dependent i was on michael (myReplyDelete
husband) for pretty much all my adult life. i have a bunch of projects in the works, a rain water collection system, chicken tractor, more raised beds, and the list goes on!!! so anywho, it's nice to "meet" you, i'll be back. Thanks for the great recipes! sorry this is so long, i do tend to ramble! molly
December 2015 update: Hi! For some reason I can't figure out, Blogger hasn't been letting me leave comments on my own blog (!) for the last several months, so I've been unable to respond to your comments and questions. My apologies for any inconvenience! You're always welcome to email me: farmgirlfare AT gmail DOT com.
Hi! Thanks for visiting Farmgirl Fare and taking the time to write. While I'm not always able to reply to every comment, I receive and enjoy reading them all.
Your feedback is greatly appreciated, and I especially love hearing about your experiences with my recipes. Comments on older posts are always welcome!
Please note that I moderate comments, so if I'm away from the computer it may be a while before yours appears.
I try my best to answer all questions, though sometimes it takes me a few days. And sometimes, I'm sorry to say, they fall through the cracks, and for that I sincerely apologize.
I look forward to hearing from you and hope you enjoy your e-visits to our farm!


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What is the OECD POV AND LRTP SCREENING Tool?
Features of the Tool
1. Simple and easy to use
The Tool has a "Main menu" for entering data and results are shown in easy to read graphical mode, which allows even beginners to utilise it easily.
2. Flexible Data Management and Model Setting
Users can chose chemicals from a database installed in the Tool, or enter data for chemicals of interest, i.e. physical-chemical properties and degradation half-lives. It is possible to transport users' own databases, and store them within the Tool. It is also possible to change model settings.
3. Representative of several models
The model in the Tool was developed as a "consensus model" reflecting features of several existing multimedia fate and transport models.
4. Graphical and Numerical Output
The result of model calculation is shown in both numerical and graphical outputs, such as:
How was the Tool developed?
The Tool has its origin at the OECD/UNEP Workshop on the Use of Multimedia Models held in Ottawa, Canada in 2001. After the workshop, an OECD Expert Group for the Follow-up to the OECD/UNEP Workshop was established. Between 2002 and 2005, the Expert Group developed a consensus model based on existing predictive approaches to environmental persistence and long-range transport.
The software has been developed by Switzerland in co-operation with Germany, under the supervision of the OECD Task Force on Environmental Exposure Assessment (TFEEA), and in co-operation with the participants of the OECD/UNEP Training Workshops on Application of Multimedia Models for Identification of POPs held in 2005 and 2006.
The software (Version 2.1) was endorsed by the TFEEA in late 2007, and published in April 2008. The updated Version 2.2 was released in April 2009.
Download the Tool and related materials
The OECD Pov and LRTP Screening Tool (Version 2.2)
Requirements for the software: MS Excel 2002 or higher on MS Windows MS Excel 2004 for Macintosh on Mac OS X (The Tool will not work with MS Excel 2008 for Macintosh.)
The software is described in detail in the journal article by F. Wegmann et al(2009), Environmental Modeling & Software 24, 228-237.
Related Documents


text: Here you will find articles on how to solve specific issues related to ESI's software solutions. Missing ESI products will be added progressively. Each article has a short abstract which is accessible to everyone. As logged users you can see the full article with all attached screenshots, and you can post comments related to each article.


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From The Archives
1906 Queen Anne Victorian
Carl's Addition Historic District
Siloam Springs, Arkansas 72761
Siloam Springs, Arkansas 72761
Elegant Restored Queen Anne
Home was built by Edward McCullough who owned the first grocery store in Siloam Springs. House is located in the Carl's Addition Historic District which is on the National Register. House is walking distance to John Brown University and downtown with quaint antique and coffee shops.
|Full Baths
|Heated Sq. Ft.
- 1st Floor Bath
- 1st Floor Laundry Room
- Basement
- Breakfast Room
- Dining room
- Foyer
- Walk-Up Attic
- Automatic outside lights
- Carport
- Fenced Yard
- Porch
- Rear Deck
- Storm Windows
- 2nd Staircase
- Built-in Bookcases
- Carpet
- Ceiling Fans
- Grand staircase
- Jacuzzi
- Natural gas fireplace
- Wood floors
- Central air
- Dishwasher
- Disposal
- Gas heating
- Range
- Refrigerator
- Security System
- Sprinkler System
- 10-foot Ceilings
- Claw-foot Tub(s)
- Pocket Doors
- Servant's Staircase
- Stained Glass Window(s)
- 2 on-demand water heaters
- Life Time Metal Roof
- One year home warranty
No Contact Information.
This listing is archived and is not for sale.
Contact information is not available for archived listings.
Archived in August, 2016
Comments & Feedback
All information deemed reliable but not guaranteed and should be independently verified. All properties are subject to prior sale, change or withdrawal. OldHouses.com is not responsible for any typographical errors, misinformation, misprints and shall be held totally harmless.


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Facing the cliffs of Naqsh-i-Rustam and their royal tombs stands the Ka'bah-i-Zardusht, which was probably built in the first half of the sixth century B.C. This square tower, forty-one feet high and twenty-four feet square, rises from a terraced platform. It is constructed of large blocks of limestone joined without mortar and held together by means of iron cramps. Stone steps lead up to the entrance, which opens into a large single room. Scholarly opinions about the purpose of the Ka'bah are divided. Some think that it was the burial place of an early Achaemenian king; others, that it was later used as a fire temple of the goddess Anahita, where the Sasanian kings were crowned.
In 1936 excavations of the tower uncovered a Sasanian trilingual inscription, in Middle Persian, Greek, and Parthian, that Shapur I had had engraved on three sides of the structure. In it he described his three victorious campaigns against Rome (between 243 and 260 A.D.). Scholars today accept this description as historical fact. It is also an important record, for this was the last time that Greek was used in Iranian inscriptions.
- Naqsh-i-Rustam, The Tower, Known as the Ka'bah-i-Zardusht, Near the End of the Excavation, View from the Top of the Cliff, P 61069
- Naqsh-i-Rustam, Tower at the Start of the Excavation, P 59020
- Naqsh-i-Rustam, Excavation of the Stairs of the Tower, P 60746
- Naqsh-i-Rustam, Tower Opposite the Cliff, after Excavation, Direction of View, SE, P 61112
- Naqsh-i-Rustam, Tower Opposite the Cliff, E Face, Upper Portion, P 61081
- Naqsh-i-Rustam, Tower Opposite the Cliff, N Face, P 61079
- Naqsh-i-Rustam, Excavation of the Tower with the Middle Persian Inscription of Shapur I on E Wall, P 57206
- Naqsh-i-Rustam, Dr. George Cameron Reading the Middle Persian Inscription on E Wall of the Tower, P 60787
- Naqsh-i-Rustam, Part of the Parthian Version of the Inscription of Shapur I on W Wall of the Tower, PS la
- Naqsh-i-Rustam, Two Fire Altars, P 57194


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Thursday, January 12, 2012
Garden Journal 1/12/12: Crazy Winter Weather
19 comments:
So far winter has not shown up here in lower Alabama.ReplyDelete
No snow here, but the temperature is dropping,a nd last night we had thunder. Local "wisdom" says that thunder in winter is a sign of snow in the next 7-10 days. I've got my fingers crossed. Otherwise the first garden catalogs came in recently so I've gotta get that thinking cap on soon!ReplyDelete
Very warm here today, wearing a straw hat.ReplyDelete
All the corms and bulbs are coming up.
I got the wacky weather too.. my bulbs had already sprouted their leaves before this snow! What will happen to them this year? Is there anything I should do to help them re-bloom in (real) spring?ReplyDelete
Congratulations on the new room with a view!ReplyDelete
Farmgirl, please share your seed order(s). Am dreaming here and any inspiration is always appreciated! Stay warm.Replies
That's a great idea. Makes me wonder why I haven't been posting my seed orders all these garden blogging years - especially since I would then know where to find them in the future, lol.
Will do - just as soon as I actually get them finished. . . :)
The same thing has happened here in Wisconsin! Yesterday I was doing yard work and thinking of letting the chickens out of their winter quarters, and this morning it's 17 degrees with half a foot of snow on the ground and rain in the upcoming forecast. So far it's been one of the strangest winters I can remember.ReplyDelete
we have similar temperature swings in washington state, too. one day in the high 40s and the next 3 days in the 20s! however, we've had no snow yet, and all my greens are still going. and i've taken advantage of the late real freeze to get my garlic planted this season still.ReplyDelete
Hi, Farmgirl!ReplyDelete
Love to read your posts. We have kales, lettuce and broccoli in my first ever winter garden. I'm in Tulsa and our winter has been pretty erratic - highs in the 30s one day and then in the upper 50s and low 60s the next. Can't complain, though, we haven't had any massive ice storms so far.
Love your recipes, too! They're inspiring the inner baker in me. :)
Our winter in Western Washington has been shockingly mild - so far. They're calling for flurries over the next few days but it doesn't sound like anything substantial. It's staying in the mid-20s overnight, good for killing all the gnats that hatched during a warming trend a couple of weeks ago. Nothing is growing in our garden, save weeds, but this is the perfect time to start planning for our summer garden redesign!ReplyDelete
Hi! I'm on the Gulf Coast of Texas and winter gardening is great here! I had to finally pick all of my tomatoes last night due to a forecast of a freeze. I have tomatoes all over my kitchen. I look forward to roasting them and freezing any that don't get eaten up! Fall tomatoes are so much easier here than spring - fewer bugs and less disease to contend with. I also have cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, chard, carrots, beets, lettuce, turnips, fennel, garlic, shallots, leeks and herbs growing. I also just planted sugar snap and snow peas. I even have two pepper plants (banana and yellow bell) still producing so I can't see pulling them yet.ReplyDelete
Our weather is erratic around here. Earlier this week it was 75, last night a freeze. Thank goodness we are finally getting rain after our terrible drought through the spring, summer and fall last year.
I love your blogs. You've inspired me to bake bread which my husband loves! I look forward to each posting, thanks.
I was shocked to harvest the last of my fall crop of head lettuce earlier this January. It still looked really food and I thought I has pushed my Virginia weather luck by leaving it over Christmas. We too have had crazy 50 degree days followed by thunder snow. But taking a quick survey around yesterday I saw NEW mesclun coming up!!ReplyDelete
I doubt that it will amount to any spectacular head, but it's a reminder of how amazingly persistent nature can be!
What do you use the sawhorse for in that bed?ReplyDelete
Hi Everybody,ReplyDelete
Thanks for your newsy comments. It's so much fun hearing about gardens and weather all around the country! :)
Wow..you were brave to get out and work in the weather..but if it needs done...get the clothes on and get it done is what I say. We had a little taste of cold weather..but it is better than the grey grey rain. I am just about ready to bite the bullet and order some of seeds I've been looking at ...penquin gourds, and some of those Fortex beans everybody raves about. I have a lot of seed stashed in the freezer..but ordering new is more fun than digging out the old.ReplyDelete
Snow at the moment, though it's been weirdly mild the rest of the winter.ReplyDelete
My big planting plans this year are probably going to include a cover crop, as I'm expecting a baby in July (surprise!). Really bad timing for gardening. A pared-down garden seems to be in order, though I won't give up on it entirely. Never.
We've been getting the same weather here and I'm in NW Pennsylvania! Winter finally showed up a couple days ago and I'm hoping this time it's here to stay. (I see no point in mopping all the floors when the entire driveway is mud. Oh and we have a dog. lol)ReplyDelete
The tiniest bit of snow on the ground here, but an unusually small amount for Minnesota winters! I'm envious of your large garden! With winter coming late here, I managed to dig out a new garden and plant garlic this fall, but the space is nothing compared to yours.ReplyDelete
x Katherine
Thanks to discovering this blog (thru Pinterest) I am going to sow my lettuce the last weekend of february. I loved seeing your plot of mixed greens. I plan to buy into a share at a community garden to grow sunflowers; and in my home garden i will grow peas, lettuce, radish, carrots, cabbage and broccoli. squash and tomatoes of course...a few peppers and onions. but lots of flowers. thats my best farmers market item. at least until i get better at food! Love this blog.ReplyDelete
March 2013 update: My apologies for the inconvenience - I know word verification is a pain - but I've had to turn it on to help stop the ridiculous number of anonymous spam comments I've been getting every day. Thanks for your understanding.
Welcome to InMyKitchenGarden.com! Thanks so much for taking the time to write. While I'm not always able to reply to every comment, I receive and enjoy reading them all.
Your feedback is greatly appreciated, and I especially love to hear about what's going on in your own garden. I know, too, that other readers also delight in reading about your garden successes, failures, helpful tips, and lessons learned. Feel free to leave comments on older posts!
I try my best to answer all questions, but sometimes it takes me a few days to get to them. And sometimes, I'm sorry to say, they fall through the cracks, and for that I sincerely apologize.
I look forward to hearing from you and hope you enjoy your visits to my kitchen garden!


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Here is the first prayer for the Mass of 23 December, the last full day of Advent before the Vigil of Christmas.
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus,
nativitatem Filii tui secundum carnem
propinquare cernentes,
quaesumus, ut nobis indignis famulis tuis
misericordiam praestet Verbum,
quod ex Virgine Maria dignatum est caro fieri,
et habitare in nobis.
This is an ancient prayer from Rotulus 24 published with the Veronese Sacramentary.
If in the other prayers from the Rotulus there are images of light and splendor, this prayer has the counterpart of "sight", in cerno. Cerno is "to separate, sift" and thus "to separate, distinguish by the senses, mostly by the eyes, i. e. to perceive, see, discern".
Almighty everlasting God,
as we are discerning that the Nativity of Your Son according to the flesh
we beseech You, that the Word grant mercy to us Your unworthy servants
for it deigned to be made flesh from the Virgin Mary
and dwell amongst us.
That use of dignatum est isn't very common, and so it should spark interest right away. In looking around for how this has been used by ancient writers, I found an interesting passage in a letter of Fulgentius of Ruspe (ep. 7.18):
Deus ergo factus est Christus ut Christus esset deus homoque perfectus, quia verbum dignatum est caro fieri, ut caro posset verbi, hoc est dei, nomine nuncupari. … God therefore became Christ so that Christ might be the perfect God and man, for the Word deigned to become flesh, so that flesh could be proclaimed by the name of the Word, that is God's.
Nuncupo, as your own copy of the Lewis & Short Dictionary will tell you, is not merely "to call by name, to call, name",, but also "to name publicly before witnesses as one's heir" and "to announce publicly, proclaim formally". The naming is critically important here. The Word becoming flesh resounds. It is God's manifest claim of paternity over humanity, an indestructible bond.
What catches my attention in the Collect is the interplay between the form of indignus with dignatum est.
We are unworthy (nos indigni) but it was deemed a worthy thing (dignatum est) that the Word should become flesh (Verbum caro fieri).
Almighty ever-living God,
as we see how the Nativity of your Son
according to the flesh draws near,
we pray that to us, your unworthy servants,
mercy may flow from your Word,
who chose to become flesh of the Virgin Mary
and establish among us his dwelling,
Jesus Christ our Lord.