... hi.

Sorry to everyone out there. It has been a hectic week here at Potspoon! Between school and self actualization (hehe, big word) when I finally was ready to post something, bam!, something else. I would rather not talk about too much, but know that the pupae mostly emerged. I expect the rest tomorrow. School is still eh. Floyd is happy. The hubs likes his job. So there are some good things in there. Oh yeah, and I still live in paradise. Perspective. Gotta keep it in perspective.

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Such a Tease

Just wanted to give you a tease

of what I have on tapebut first I have to figure out the time-lapse setting.... hehe

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Potspoon! Making an Emerging Cage

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This is a quasi-instructional video teaching you how to make a simple "pupa box" using a shoebox, paper towels, glue, and pupae of course! In this episode I am hanging glorious monarch butterfly chrysalis. Make your own and save some butterflies!

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Update on Pupa

I finished the temporary emerging cage for the pupae. They are all hung and ready to go. I will hopefully post pictures as they emerge (if I am here). I am making a mini video on how to make one of your own so you can be a butterfly defender, too. It should be up tonight... I hope. I know the "other" videos I promised haven't been posted, but this is short and not really "wildlife" related, so editing was a breeze. Oh, I am SO making a butterfly defender logo/award. There are some of you that really deserve one already! Don't the pupae look happy and cozy? By the way, singular or plural is pronounced PEW-puh, although some sticklers pronounce the plural form PEW-pee but I think that sounds gross.


emerging cage by M Moya is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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Saving Pupa

Today was a quiet day at work, but after work was fantastic. I went to my favorite beach, Brewers Bay, out by the university and came across something very exciting... I was looking at all the lovely monarch caterpillars munching on milkweed and lo and behold, PUPAE. Pupa is a fancy way of saying the third stage of an insects life. In the butterfly life-cycle, this is known as the chrysalis. It is a cocoon for moths... well there are a few exceptions, but I digress. These were lovely monarch chrysalises. Being the butterfly defender that I am, I had to take them to save them from unknown fate. We are actively breeding butterflies in St. Thomas, so we try to save the pupae (plural for pupa) in case they fall off the plant, get eaten, etc. Aren't they lovely? See the beautiful gold crown? That's why they are called monarchs! I got quite the haul. Did you see how many were on one leaf? So now I will mount them since they need to hang and keep them till they emerge and release them. I am so excited!

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I've been tagged.... NOOOOO!!!

Okay well, it's not that bad, but since I did this one recently I am only posting a link back to the answers I put. Jennifer at Little Green Secrets got me this time. I also agree with Jennifer in the aspect of I need to run away faster from these things, but I needed to post something. See, that wasn't as painful as it could have been... Off to work I go. I will say hi to the lovely butterflies for you all!

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Update on Space Station Tourist

The space capsule bringing back Richard Garriott, the space tourist mentioned in an earlier post, landed safely yesterday in Kazakhstan. He had this to say: "What a great ride that was." (What a great ride that was???? Like it was a carnival ride?) The landing was uneventful which is good. They have had a few problems in the past with capsules returning. You can see some footage of the returning crew on the BBC and read more on the Discovery News site.

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Yummy Snacks

This picture is small but I'm sure you can guess what it is... yummy crispy rice (yes crispy rice, I'm ghetto and bought the cheaper cereal) treats with Ghiradelli chocolate chips (on sale, woot!) melted in... mmm. I don't like the square rough edges of cut crispy rice treats so I roll them into balls. Needless to say, they didn't last long.

I had to post this because they were that yummy.

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Some "Happy" Pictures

So I am posting these pictures for a weekly event called "Thematic Photographic" over at Written, Inc. I was told about this a while ago and posted to this the first time with the "nature" theme. Well, the lovely lady at Sealaura inspired me yet again when I saw her "happy" pictures.

The first one is of the hubs at a shooting gallery on Coney Island. He looks so happy and almost nostalgic standing there with the fake rifle. The stuffed toys look like they are smiling, too.

To the right of that is a cake from my sister's bridal shower. I thought it was a happy looking cake.

The third one is a seagull that was hovering over us on a ferry to Virgin Gorda. If you click on the picture to see it bigger he looks very happy.

The quality doesn't look that great because these are ACTUAL PHOTOS! Remember those? I scanned them into my computer and I really had no idea how much my scanner sucked. The photos were taken with my trusty 35 mm Pentax ZX-7 35mm SLR Camera. I also typically use my Pentax 28-80 zoom lens. It is a pretty all purpose set up and sometimes this is all I want because I hate carrying around expensive gear. I'm clumsy and forgetful. Bad combo for my nice photo gear! I just wish these photos would have scanned better... they look great and crisp in person.

I am not sure why I just gave you all that techie jargon. I suppose it is because I hate my digital camera, but LOVE my 35 mm.

Now the legal stuff... same as before... The only reason I do this is because (believe it or not) I have had photos taken from me and credited to others.... grumble. Go ahead and use it... just give me credit please!


happy by Marizela Moya is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at scienceforfood.blogspot.com.

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A "Spotless Mind"

A recent study by researchers at the Georgia College of Medicine found a way to "erase" memories. In a study with mice, they found that a particular protein admitted in high quantities while recalling an event will erase a memory.

I never could tell how they know that mice are or aren't remembering. Do they ask them? How do the mice respond? I will have to check into this.

Either way, would you consider erasing a memory a la Eternal Sunshine...? Apparently it is not that far off. You can find the article here.

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Overcoming My Mind

We all have our ups and downs. It is an inevitable part of being human (or any animal really, I KNOW Floyd is moody). Sometimes the ups don't last as long as we would like and it seems at times that the downs last forever. It's hard to do, but remembering the good is even more important during the downs than we realize. For some of us, however, the ups and downs spin out of control. They are not just situational highs and lows, they are emotional highs and lows so extreme we cannot control them. At all. I know many people think: 'they are YOUR emotions, how could you not control them?' but we can't at all.

The point I am trying to get to is a topic that is near and dear to me. This is a topic that requires me to admit something about my self I have only ever even mentioned (sort of) once on this blog before. I am bipolar. It's true. I have medical records dating back more than 13 years and covering various professionals that all agree. I'm stuck. There is no way around it. Well, there is LOTS of medication, but lithium almost killed my kidneys.

Why, all of a sudden, am I telling you this? Mostly, it is a way for me to teach something else science related while breaking down certain stigmas attached to this topic. Partially, it is to give myself a pep talk and to let me know that it is okay and not my fault. Weird, I know.

First and foremost, a definition:

According to One Look, bipolar means having two poles, like Earth. Throw on the word "disorder" to that (I really hate that word) and you get

▸ noun: a mental disorder characterized by episodes of mania and depression

Now what this means is I am mental and manic and depressed. Okay, not QUITE that mean, but really it just means I go from high to low in periods. Seasonally and daily in my case. Instead of a perfect seasonal sine wave going down for fall and spring and up for summer and winter, the overall trend is up and down but with little "mini" ups and downs in between. To illustrate this, I, well, made an illustration (hehe).

fig. 1 episodes

Sounds like fun, right? Well my husband says it keeps things interesting, like sleeping with a different woman everynight! *sheesh* As you can see, he is actually very supportive and through the years, I have developed a sense of humor about this.

What causes this?

I don't really want to rewrite everything I see today so you get a quote from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI for short):

While the exact cause of bipolar disorder is not known, most scientists believe that bipolar disorder is likely caused by multiple factors that interact with each other to produce a chemical imbalance affecting certain parts of the brain. Bipolar disorder often runs in families, and studies suggest a genetic component to the illness. A stressful environment or negative life events may interact with an underlying genetic or biological vulnerability to produce the disorder. There are other possible "triggers" of bipolar episodes: the treatment of depression with an antidepressant medication may trigger a switch into mania, sleep deprivation may trigger mania, or hypothyroidism may produce depression or mood instability. It is important to note that bipolar episodes can and often do occur without any obvious trigger.

This, in a nutshell, states that we really have NO CLUE! Somewhere, though, I have faulty wiring. How to fix faulty wiring? Well, we don't have little nanobot electricians (yet) but we can load up on chemicals.

How does it affect a person's life?

Severely.
I don't mean to sound morose, but it affects everything... especially school. Some days I am super gung-ho and can't wait to learn and research and learn and talk talk talk. These are usually my manias. This is great except my papers sound like my thought process: a tornado flinging thoughts at you. Other days I can't even get myself to think about doing my homework or even getting out of bed. At times I go to school just to argue with people. Other times I am there, but my notes are more sketchbook pages.
The worst part is I know the stuff but since I don't go to a Big State U, I can't just rely on my test scores to float me. Homework = FAIL. The advantage is I am a discussion based learner so the small classes accomodate that. That is why I am still an undergrad at my age with an okay grade point average even though I am super passionate about science. I can't stay focused and I can't really learn the way I KNOW I can. This could be due to a really horrible standardized education system, but that is a topic for one of my soon-to-return Debate!s.

Back to the topic, bipolar disorder can so severely affect people, they can be considered disabled. I, however, am stubborn, and even though my case is severe I force myself to be a "normal" functioning member of society. It may lead to me having odd jobs (painting ornaments, working with butterflies, barking) and having a hard time with authority at times, but I make it work. I know what my triggers are and I have an amazing support network (the hubs and my best friend/mother). There may be many people you know who are bipolar as well and you may not notice or simply think they are nutty and silly.
A book I read when I was younger made me realize I was not alone. It's called An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness and it was the first time I saw on paper what I had been trying to describe all along. I read it when I was about 14 years old and is one of the books that has deeply impacted me over the years. I began to talk more freely about my condition and found other people who thought they were alone as well. Until you know what you have, you feel as if everyone and everything is going crazy and you can't grasp why what you are doing and feeling is wrong. When you know, you can (occasionally) step back and say, "it's okay, it's just a swing." It is a bit hard to overcome, but I am driven and know that even if it takes me 10 years to finish my degree (I hope not) I will do it because this is what I love and I am not going to let my malfunctioning neuropathways stop me!

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A Shameless Plug

Thanks to A Blog Around the Clock for the info on this... Apparently there is a college scholarship available for bloggers currently enrolled in post-secondary education. The cool part about this scholarship is not only do you apply (I did), but you can get others to nominate you. (HINT)

Here is part of the short (300 word essay) I wrote.

Teaching in any medium has always been— at the lack of sounding cliché— one of the "noblest professions" to me. Encouraging someone to get excited about learning, to get others to question and explore is not only a feat few can accomplish successfully, but is a requirement to true progress in a society. Without constant questions and the need for knowledge, we stagnate as a people... Blogging gives me the freedom to experiment on ways to not only teach, but to entertain and pass on information as well.

So now, my dear readers, (HINT) go nominate a student, or many students (I applied, then nominated a few others), that you deem worthy of a blogging scholarship! To find out more, feel free to email me: marimoy {at} juno [dot] com.

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Positive Effects of Global Warming

Okay, I know what you are thinking... there is NOTHING positive about global warming. Well, you are wrong. It's all in how you look at things. In a brilliantly written opinion piece at the BBC website, Russell Mittermeier points out that our very serious climate change issue has rallied together people from all walks of life, of very different backgrounds and united them for a common good. The animals in danger of extinction no longer just have a few "weirdo hippies" to look out for them, now almost everyone is! There is strength in numbers and now, more than ever, are people trying to change how they impact the world ecologically. This is a good thing. So there really is a silver lining to all of this... This gives me a little more hope.

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Mushrooms Have Invaded My Parsley

You see that??? It's growing out of my parsley. This is kinda neat except I can't for the life of me figure out what type of mushroom it is... but wait. What's this???

more of them???? Where did they come from?

I took a picture of the underside because this helps with mushroom identification.

I just want to know what they are. Are there any mushroom experts out there? I have looked on a ton of websites, but nothing really seems like this one. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I like mushrooms and if they are not gonna kill my Floyd, these are cute and I could keep them in the garden. Help!

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An Aside for Something of Quasi-Great Importance

I cut my hair! Yes yes, I know... this is not science, food, or music so what the heck Mimi??? Well it is an ART! ha! As The Queen (aka my mums) can attest to, I haven't paid for a hair cut in years. I do my own hair, in the bathroom. I must say, I am quite please with this one, too.






And now for the crowning glory.... a piece I like to call "the back of my head with socks"

Thank you for participating in the show.

:D

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Gorilla Brains

As humans, we use the left side/hemisphere of our brain for communications skills. Well, apparently, so do gorillas. This is according to a recent study done by the University of Sussex. This is a snippet of what was posted on ScienceDaily:

"We shared 23 million years of evolution with great apes and then diverged approximately six million years ago. Gorillas have highly-complex forms of non-verbal communication. I think we are looking back at what sort of communication skills we may have once had."

Previous studies by other researchers have found that chimpanzees show a right-handed preference for manual tasks. But Dr. Sebestyn Forrester's research is the first to indicate a link between right-handedness and communication in apes.

She goes on to explain that apes use a lot of the same nonverbal communication we do: hugs, smiles, eye gazes, points, frowns and tons more are examples. Now while many won't agree with the evolution bent on this.... it is amazing how brilliant these animals are. Hopefully this will encourage people to save these intelligent creatures from almost certain extinction. To really see the dynamic social interactions between gorillas, there is a great movie, Mountain Gorilla
that really makes you see how similar their reactions and interactions are to humans'.

Of course, no topic about gorillas can finish without mention of the most famous gorilla, Koko. This ape can really communicate. If you go to her (well not REALLY her) website, you can find out more ways of protecting these amazing animals and learn more about her story.

Note: I am not affiliated with koko.org in anyway, I just think they are awesome. Also, image is courtesy of ScienceDaily.

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Unscathed

Thanks to everyone for their warm wishes. The island survived for the most part unscathed and most of us still have power. My peppers survived. Phew! It was fun pretending to be a meteorologist for the time being. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming!

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Hurricane Omar Update on Potspoon!

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Here is our silly "news" update on our impending doom. Enjoy!

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Hurry Up to Wait...

The butterflies are safe. The shutters are in place. The potted plants are in. Now... we wait. As you can see from the image above, all of the different models put this lovely gentleman right over St. Thomas. Now it is just a matter of when. According to NOAA, the storm should reach late tonight or early tomorrow morning. WAPA will be cutting our power when wind speeds pick up. This is to avoid live wires in the road. How am I supposed to entertain myself in this dark house?!?!? Just kidding. Maybe it will give me a chance to clean up some more... or sleep. Yup. Sleep wins.

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WOW is he slow...

So Omar is moving about 6 to 9 miles per hour according to NOAA. This is bad, because when he gets here, he will have had time to get tougher! They do expect him to be here by tonight. Yikes. Off to the Butterfly Farm I go. Gotta save our babies before the storm gets here.

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Update on My Guest: Omar

The only reason I am going to update as much as possible is because I don't know if/when the power will go out so everyone I know in real life and on the blogosphere can know what's up. It's official. Omar is a hurricane and it is headed this way. The projected path moved more east so it is right over us! We are now under tropical storm warning and hurricane watch. Tomorrow I have to go to the Butterfly Farm and capture butterflies to move them into the lab. It's very quiet right now. Eerily so.

Here is the latest projection according to NOAA. Oh nos! As I was typing, NOAA updated again and we are under hurricane warning now! This is exciting! Well, as exciting as the threat of impending doom (yes, that was an Invader Zim reference) can be. As a science geek, I relish the after hurricane biodiversity research I can do, but I worry about not being able to shower. Hehe. It's late. I am babbling.

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A Mid -Week Visit From Omar

Well, since most of my readers don't live in the tropics, I figured I would give you an update on our conditions. Classes for the remainder of the day were canceled and will be until further notice. Why? Well, Omar is supposedly coming to visit and we need time to tidy up the place for our last minute guest. As I sit here eating my delicious puttanesca, I am glad that the hubs and I eat at home often because it means we have a ton of food at the house. Our pantry is well stocked. Part of it is our zombie escape plan. Another part is our healthy fear of starvation. Overall, it's nice that we have so much food in the house. We even have 72 hour kits. For those not in the know, a 72 hour kit is a kit that is updated hopefully twice a year, usually once a year (that's us), and sometimes not at all (shame on those people). It contains enough food and supplies (i.e. rope, flashlight, medications) to last you the first 3 days after an emergency. It is like hurricane preparedness for everything else that could happen. If the zombies come, we are ready!

Now back to our guest. As you can see, the projected path centers him right over us. Not cool. If you didn't notice, I have a little countdown clock on the top left of this page. I anxiously await the end of hurricane season. While hurricanes are awe inspiring (to me) and beautifully vicious, I live on a REALLY small island. So you really think the US is going to help us, a little cruise ship harbor, before it helps Puerto Rico? Nope. Puerto Rico has more pull. They have factories and coffee and chocolate and stuff. We have jewelry stores. They win. I know it is only a Tropical Storm, but those are the ones that fall apart and turn into a bunch of little storms with tornadoes! Yikes!

So now that I am done eating and typing, I am going to attempt to button down the hatches or whatever they say. Good thing... I have a gas stove so we can still cook yummies! WOOT!

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Fly Me to the Moon...

Or at least the Space Station. I really wish this was an option available for the masses.

Recently, Richard Garriott bought himself a ticket to the Space Station for a mere $30 million. He is a video game designer. His father, Owen Garriott is an astronaut who spent 60 days on the Space Station in 1973. Richard, however, is not going as an astronaut, he is going as a space tourist. His father will be giving him support from mission control in Moscow. He will be doing some research for certain companies who helped foot the bill.

He is currently the 6th person in the world to buy his way into space. The flight up was yesterday and they dock tomorrow. He will be on the Space Station for a total of 10 days. What a wicked trip. Makes my vacation seem dull... although being closed up with a bunch of people you don't know on a station above Earth doesn't sound better than seeing a horse in the wild... hehe. I am a dork.

Photo is from NASA and because it is a government website, is public domain.

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Midnight snacking....

Since my digital camera is currently indisposed, you are gonna have to trust me on this. I grow a lot of herbs and things and one of the plants we can't keep up with is the mint. I love my mint, but it is getting out of hand. Instead of making a little tzatziki, WE MADE A LOT! A ridiculous amount. That is fine with me though as not only is it great on my veggie burger (no, I am NOT vegetarian, I just love me a good veggie burger) but apparently also great on an English muffin at 3 in the morning with really good capocollo (really good cured ham stuff) and cheese. Here is the closest thing to a recipe I could come up with: (caution, it makes a ridiculous amount)

Tzatziki Yum:

32 oz plain yogurt (try to use up at least 10 ounces for something else... we made banana smoothies)
2 Cucumbers
As much fresh mint as you can stand (we used a Nick sized handful of leaves)
Ditto for garlic (a LOT in ours, we are garlic-philes)
Lemons (if using Greek yogurt, use 2... if regular yogurt, 1 will do, don't want it too runny)
salt and pepper also to taste....

This is why I am bad with recipes. I end up doctoring everything anyway... On to directions...

We grated the cucumber, but using a mandolin to get thin slices would be nice. We don't have one of those. We mixed that into the yogurt. Then we chopped up like 5 cloves of garlic (unless you love garlic, I recommend 1 clove). You WILL smell like garlic for the rest of the day if you use this much! We also chopped the mint using a style with a fancy name I can't remember. Wait, it was a chiffonade. Sounds important. We mixed this in also. Then we squeezed as much lemon in there as we could. Salt and pepper to our liking and Voila! Yummy tzatziki! We added a bit of cumin after, but I couldn't taste the difference. Nick swears there was one.

This will really fill up the container, even if you have already used about a third of the yogurt, but you can use it on any sandwich/buger/thing. We made lemon chicken wrapped in paratha with tzatziki and lebanesse hummus and it was yum. This was a very mixed culture dish. Also great for dipping veggies into. This keeps for a bit.

Enjoy.

And really, about the garlic... be careful! Once it sits over night, it really takes on the flavors of all that is in there.

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Madame Mimi's Psychic Intuition

HOLY COW! I was wondering why I decided to write a post on the seismic activity here and apparently Mother Nature decided to prove me right! If you read the caption to the right, you will see that the earthquake we had at around 7 this morning, waking me from my deep deep slumber, was a magnitude 6.1! That means lots of exclamation points in this post apparently.

Luckily nothing happened. No power outages like last time for the little one we had. Silly WAPA. WAPA is our power company. We are really dated and need a new one (if anyone reading this works for a power/energy supplier, please move here). That is an aside however. I am just laughing that I couldn't figure out why I was writing my post yesterday, but it comes in handy now!

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I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet...

...and NO... it's not because I live near a train. St. Thomas is actually very earthquake happy. We have them here very frequently so they are all really small. Occasionally they get big enough to feel. A few weeks ago we had a little guy, but I felt it quite easily. It surprised me and Floyd had her tail between her legs. It was only a 2.7 magnitude quake, but being on top of a mountain makes it feel a bit bigger, I guess. I know I have been through bigger (according to news) but had no idea because I was at sea level. We have earthquakes here because we are on the edge of the very tiny Caribbean Plate. There are still some people who don't believe in tectonics, but regardless, there is movement from all the plates around us and we have earthquakes and volcanoes in this part of the world.

We are being pushed around by the (MUCH LARGER) North American Plate, South American Plate, Nazca Plate, and Cocos Plate. You can see the believed plates on the image at right.

I am not really sure why I started talking about this, but Maybe it is because the neighborhood dogs all started howling then got quiet, like the last earthquake... except Floyd. She doesn't make noise. Maybe when I remember where I was going with this, I will come back and add to it. *sheesh*

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Dropping the Ball, then Kicking the Heck Out of It!

So I didn't post yesterday even though I said I would post everyday in the month of October. It's also Wednesday, and I just do not have the inspiration to do my weekly Debate! again. Maybe it is because of all the political debates recently. I just don't have the patience for it. I do, however, have the energy to do a little bit of sciency news snippets! Here goes:

Fish with Fingers: Researchers have taken x-rays of a fish fossil, Panderichthys, and found that there are rudimentary fingers in the fins. This show that rudimentary fingers were first seen in development earlier than first thought. Weird, huh?

A "Nobel" Woman: The Nobel Prizes are being announced and this week the talk was all Chemistry. It seems to be on all the news sources. However, the award for physiology and medicine has already be granted and one of the winners was a woman! Françoise Barré-Sinoussi from France won the prize for her earlier work discovering HIV. I can't believe they are finally honoring her. Originally this was posted on Women in Science and apparently I missed it. (DOH!)

"Tubular" Solar Energy: A company in California, Solyndra, Inc., designs photovoltaic (solar) cells that are cylindrical in shape to capture light from many angles. This increases the amount of energy one can harness from the sun.

Life Saving Birds: A study done at Washington University in St. Louis shows that areas high in bird diversity have lower risks of West Nile Virus. Yay for mosquito eating birds!

Going Glacier Gone: A study done by United States Geological Survey (USGS) show that Alaska's glaciers are disappearing despite people's assumptions that climate change is a farce. More than 99% of the glaciers in Alaska are retreating at an alarming pace.

Now you guys are all filled with science news! Happy Wednesday!


Photo of Panderichthys courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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Amazing Scientistas

Peggy over at Women in Science always posts amazing and inspiring articles about, well, women in science. Recently she posted about the Smithsonian Flikr Photostream and how even though at first glance, the portraits of scientists and inventors are men, there are women in the group. Peggy goes on to give us brief histories on some of these women and I rather think these women more worthy of role-modeldom then some (not all) of the politicians, celebrities, and fashionistas we see mentioned everywhere today. You should check out her site. It makes you proud to see what women had to go through just to get a sort of equality in the world... especially in the sciences!

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Sunday is SUN DAY

I went to Coki Beach today and wanted to share a bit of my favorite pictures from times past at this lovely beach. But first...

A story behind the locale... Coki Point (spelled Koki also) is named after cute little Coki (Coqui) frogs (Eleutherodactylus spp.) that are common to this and neighboring islands. They are tiny little frogs, called such because of their nighttime song, co-KI co-KI, that fills the night air, especially on this point. These frogs are PLASTERED all over any Puerto Rican souvenirs you may get. I love the sound they make.

They have recently been introduced to Hawai'i as an invasive species. Hawai'ians do NOT like these little frogs as much as we do. They were introduced on hibiscus plants that were shipped to Hawai'i from nurseries in Puerto Rico. Apparently, there are not enough hibiscus plants there, so they get them from this part of the world.

There are TONS of species of Coqui frogs. You can get more info here. Now, on to pictures from 3 birthdays ago when the mother figure came to visit. I love my mom!

This is my cousin in front of the beautiful sapphire water at this beach. Note: the pictures were not touched up. The water IS that blue here.


This is me and Mom (Mom's on the left) snorkeling in front of the now quite famous observatory at Coral World. I am so proud of my mother. She had never gone snorkeling before and we were in about 25 feet of water. Yay mom!

Okay. That is all you get. No more pictures! HA! That is just to make you want to come and visit... nah, really, my internet is being slow today. I'm on satellite so it happens sometimes.


Photo of Eleutherodactylus coqui courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

All the rest are by me and the hubs... some years ago.

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The Easiest Way to Burn Fat!

... is apparently to do nothing.

In a recent study, mice that were given high fat diets but kept pretty sedentary were less likely to become obese than their very active, also over fed counterparts. Here is a quote from Nerdy Science Blog explaining:

In order to maintain body temperature, warm-blooded animals, including humans, continuously burn fat. It is believed that by burning more fats, people are less likely to become obese. Leslie Kozak and colleagues at Pennington Biomedical Research Center challenged this prevailing thought showing that burning less fat actually reduces the risk of obesity.

There is a lot more to this, including certain genes involved, but this is the gist: if you stay cool (i.e. don't move around) your body works hard to keep it's temperature up, thus, burning more fat. Sounds easy to me... now whether this actually works... we'll see. You can find out more at The Journal for Biological Chemistry.


Photo is Public Domain and can be found here.

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Open Access Day

Thanks to A Blog Around the Clock for the heads up on this.

My Debate! last week was about Open Access and whether or not it should be done and why. Well, apparently October 14th is Open Access Day. This is a day in which various institutions teach people about Open Access and all it entails. Click on the banner above and read about it. This is especially useful to anyone with a connection to a university because this may affect you sooner than you think. Some argue that it has and you don't know it yet!

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The Black is Back

The first Black Rhino (Diceros bicornis) from a breeding program was released into the wild recently and the BBC was there to see it. This is really amazing seeing as the population is about 500 today down from an estimated 20,000 in the 1970's. The videos are amazing and it is great to see that their breeding is overcoming the major setback of last year.

Rhinos are solitary creatures that only come together for mating. Because of this, and the fact that gestation is up to 16 months, they don't really breed at a very rapid pace. It has been an effort to get this far with these majestic and powerful creatures. I am excited to share this story with you all. Hopefully, I will be able to see Black Rhinos in the wild one day. I was worried I wouldn't be able to a few months ago!

Photo used under license via Creative Commons.

Photo taken and uploaded by Matthew Field http://www.mattfield.com

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ho humm

SOOOO I was was going to post something for Debate! about intellectual property and big labs vs. individual ideas, but I couldn't get it out quite right. I am too bogged with so many things. I am really high strung recently, too, so my attention span is zip. I think this is what "they" call my manic days.

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Making the Difference...

So the amazing women at ScienceWomen started a readers' challenge for through Donors Choose. This website takes applications from public school teachers that are in less fortunate areas of our country for a listing on their site to raise money for school materials. The donations are completely tax deductible and you get those great warm fuzzy feelings. This is an amazing program so I have to give kudos to Alice and ScienceWoman, the two ladies behind the blog, for sending out this challenge. Click the banner below to go to their specific challenge, in which classes chosen were science based, or click the link above to see all the ways you can help. The amounts needed are negligible and it is a shame that schools even need to ask for those quantities for simple things like rulers. Don't buy lunch today and donate $10 to a classroom. It's money better spent!

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National Blog Writers Month

Thanks to Kitt of The Kittalog for the heads up on this. I almost forgot! October is National Blog Writers Months, affectionately referred to as NaBoWriMo, in which all participating bloggers promise one post per day throughout the month. If I blog one post per day, I get lip balm. How exciting! Who doesn't need lip balm in the coming months? Even here in the sunny Caribbean we do as it gets horribly dry here. The good news is it will force me to come up with something everyday... the bad news is you may get tired of me! :oD Since I know I won't be able to keep my resolution, I am resigning myself to a loss, but do want everyone to check out the main site for the woman behind the madness, The Soap Crone. She has yummy, all natural, body goodies. I am not affiliated in anyway, I just love good soap!

Don't worry, I will post my new Debate! later....

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