Stamp of the Day: tulip tree

For those of you that still wonder how an American tulip tree looks like (since all you saw was a brown fruit in my end of 2012 post), here it is on a Swedish (!) stamp.  This tall tree has large, yellow flowers that look a little bit like a tulip, but is related to magnolias.  In Sweden this tree only grows in botanical gardens, and the stamp was issued in honor of the Botanical Garden in Lund in southern Sweden.  We have these trees all around in the forest here around us.  The colonialists in North America used this plant against fevers and malaria.  The first time I saw one was at Kew Gardens in London and I thought then that it was named after the shape of the leaves.  I had yet to see the flowers, which are even more tulip-like. Liriodendron tulipifera, at your service!

Stamp of the day: Alpine Speedwell

This gorgeous flower is one of my favorites.  It grows in the mountains, is blue, and is not a gentian (which usually are known as the blue flowers).  Its English name is Alpine Speedwell, which is not at all as nice as its Latin name, Veronica fruticans, or Swedish name, klippveronika (it means Rock Veronica). The small flowers are deeply blue, but the most beautiful thing is the center ring that is the deepest red-purple you can imagine, with a white center.  Its English name comes of course from past medicinal uses of its relatives, 'speeding wellness', i.e., curing you.  I remember seeing this in flower in Abisko (northernmost Sweden) and other places in the Swedish mountains during our travels decades ago. On my wall here at home I have a nice, small watercolor painting made by my mom of this species. I wish you all could see this species in real life and really see how the blue, purple, and white draws your gaze into the center of the flower.  It also draws in pollinators of course, that is the whole evolutionary point.

The stamp is from Sweden and was printed in 1995.

red Stockholm memories

In April AREA and I visited Stockholm with OK during a few gloomy and sometimes sunny or snowy-rainy days, and had a wonderful time.  Here are some quick snapshots of memorable things we saw.  (click on the photos for larger versions)


Swedish kids love ketchup.  It goes on everything, mashed potatoes, meatballs, hot dogs, burgers, macaroni, spaghetti, etc.


Another red thing to inspire in gray April.  I don't know who made this red umbrella art installation, but it was great to see. Reminded me of Christo's work. (There are more photos of this on Flickr)


Unfortunately the great World War II poster from England has now just become a commercial marketing gimmick.


East meets West.  In the same office as the regular Swedish healthcare clinic (Vardcentralen) is the Traditional Chinese Medicine office.


Construction debris is recycled along the streets in giant orange bags that are lifted up and emptied in special trucks.


A very typical building with apartments in Stockholm.  Maybe built around 1930-40, maybe earlier?

Book review: How to survive the end of the world as we know it by James Wesley Rawles

After recently reading S M Stirling's Emberverse series and liking it (at least the 2 first books in each series), I decided to look into the survival literature, just in case 'what if' happened. Rawles' book How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It describes how you prepare for a doomsday scenario where government and facilities such as electricity, fuel and food deliveries, and communication breaks down.

His advice is to live in a place that can be self-sufficient for years, and that is defendable against rioters and other criminals when law and order is no more. He describes in details which food items that store well, what medicines to keep on hand, where to get training in First Aid, canning, shooting, and how to learn how to barter (and what to barter with).

The beginning of the book was OK, but it was lacking details for many things when it comes to food production, preservation, and medical issues. Most of the book is focused on details in radio communication, weaponry, and defense tactics. I realize that such knowledge and tools might become a way of surviving, but in the end, what will matter is if you can feed yourself for a longer time.

Of course this book includes a lot of right-wing frenzy, but the truth is that many of us could be much better prepared for a week or more without power, water, and ways of communicating - situations that have and will continue to happen based on hurricanes, storms, and other such events.

For example, more of us should know first aid. But going to army surplus and buying razor wire for cash (so it can't be traced) and hiding old silver coins in the walls for when the dollar is gone, that is not really my thing. But apart from the fear-mongering, there are some really good advice in it. I wish he had included more summaries such as tables and been somewhat less repetitive with his favorite abbreviations. The third, forth... fiftieth time he uses WTSHF (= when the shit hits the fan), it is kind of tiresome.

One interesting fact I learned was that dried wheat grain can be stored for 30 years if they are in moisture- and vermin-proof containers.

His best advice overall are:
1. Don't become overly dependent on gadgets.
2. Learn First aid.
3. Buy tools that last, which are usually older tools.
4. Don't assume that you have access to anything in the rest of society. Be as self-sufficient as you can.

Failed ad: cat tails

Maybe I am a stickler, one that loves things to be correct too much, but ads, news, and writings that get things botanically or scientifically really wrong bothers me tremendously.  Such as this ad for allergy medication Singulair.  Someone came up with the great idea to base an ad on 'cattails or cat tails'.  Well, if only... cattails, the plant (Typha), was allergenic (it is not or only mildly so), or looked like a grass (it does not). The photo is of a grass (timothy probably, Phleum, also sometimes called 'cat's-tail', but that is not common knowledge) spreading its pollen.  Having a common cattail plant there wouldn't have been a great design, I guess... So now, readers of this ad think that 1) cattails are allergens, and 2) look like grass, because of this miseducation from Merck.  Sorry guys, this will be one of my prime examples of lack of botanical knowledge in the advertising community. Embarrassing. 'Pinsamt', as we say in Swedish.  Would anybody put a sheep in an ad and call it a pig?  Didn't think so. But that is what happened here, but with plants.

Oh, no, it is not just this ad, I just found some more with similar issues.  They are doing the same thing with thistles (not allergens), and willows ('catkins', true, but not allergens either...).  This is like when people think they are allergic to goldenrods because they happen to flower at the same time as the ragweeds.... 

My son's allergy doctor didn't like when I asked her exactly which weeds my son was allergic too, because all she could say was 'weeds', that is what was written on the test results.  Same with 'trees', another positive allergy test.  I tried to explain to her that insect-pollinated plants didn't have large amounts of wind-dispersed pollen, so not all weeds and trees are allergenic...  Why are we letting ourselves be dumbed down in the flow of information? Isn't it better to know the truth even if it is slightly more complicated? Or am I just a cranky scientist?

The season of....

...imaginary ticks crawling on your skin has started in New Jersey.  Only problem is, some are not imaginary.  Our garden are full of ticks, brought there by deers and then caught in cat fur and pant legs and, for some reason, my long dark hair. So you go out in the garden, stuff your pants into socks (well, not always...), and then you go inside and an hour or two later you feel something crawling on your neck or arm, and it might be a tick.  The problem is that it isn't always one, often it is an imaginary feeling, a mirage from your brain.  Few ticks actually get stuck on us, but on the cats they love the area around their neck and we have probably pulled of 50 ticks from them in the last few weeks. We put them in a plastic bottle with water and soap to kill them.  The ones we found on ourselves we usually just put between two pieces of tape and throw in the garbage.  Did I mention how hard it is to kill ticks?  I honestly can't see any good ecological feature of ticks.  Do they have any positive use at all in an ecosystem?  I think they are just plain bad parasites, and annoying such as well.  I think it is time to buy Best Yet for the cats.

It is a tumultous world recently...

In Egypt the people won over the dictator, and there are some great stories and photos here, for example. Dictators are falling like dominos, finally.

In Italy, the prime minister has to go to trial for having sex with an under-age prostitute and then trying to influence the police work. 

In Sweden, temperatures are back down in the minus 20 Celsius (that is 0 F). Keep warm!

In Ecuador, an oil company is fined 9 billion dollars for destroying parts of the Amazon rainforest through oil drilling. (The company, Chevron, says it won't pay and that the courts are corrupt).

and,
what was the headline on Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet today?  "New parasitic worm found in foxes in Sweden,  now you can't be licked by your dog and pick mushrooms and berries in the forests anymore" (paraphrased, but true).  Come on, Aftonbladet - it is like you are turning into the left-leaning fear-mongering Fox News of Sweden... (link to story in Swedish - it is no longer on the top news, but it was in the middle of today)

How and why to do science...

I just read a very interesting and excellent article, The Truth Wears Off or The decline effect and the scientific method, by Jonah Lehrer in The New Yorker.

Very, very interesting... about how scientific experiments have issues, results can't be repeated, and the impact of our business way of doing science with grants and competition instead of long-term thinking and planning. How our brain is fooling us sometimes, how small sample sizes can randomly cause significant results, how we first want to prove we are right and how hard it is to think outside the box. Why aren't scientists talking about this more?  It also affects medicine and bad and good practices outside of science; it impacts our lives since we live in a logical, rational science-based society (at least most of us would like to).

Excerpt: "According to Ioannidis, the main problem is that too many researchers engage in what he calls “significance chasing,” or finding ways to interpret the data so that it passes the statistical test of significance—the ninety-five-per-cent boundary invented by Ronald Fisher. “The scientists are so eager to pass this magical test that they start playing around with the numbers, trying to find anything that seems worthy,” Ioannidis says. In recent years, Ioannidis has become increasingly blunt about the pervasiveness of the problem. One of his most cited papers has a deliberately provocative title: “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.”

Another article in WIRED talks about the dire straits for taxonomists... and here there simply is too little research and our articles are sometimes not cited at all for 10-50 years because we might be that last existing expert on that plant or animal group (not in my case, but anybody that works with invertebrates, for example).

Stamp of the Day: Garbage pickup

I have to admit that I never thought there would be stamps about garbage disposal ('sopor'), but there is.  And from Denmark of all places.  Relevance to this blog?  There is garbage pickup at our house tomorrow, and since LA is at Astronomy Science Camp this week it fell on me to get the garbage can to the road. I took the opportunity to wash about 8 waste baskets and garbage cans from the house with the garden hose, a step in the right direction of getting a cleaner house. I found these stamps while I was looking for stamps on the theme 'sweat', because we are having a horribly humid day here in New Jersey.  Did you know that we sweat calcium and magnesium, and even small amounts of lead? Hot and humid weather... not fun. I can feel the metal being excreted through the pores...

Things that I don't think were meant to be

I wonder, if paper wasps are good for anything? I mean, they don't pollinate anything, as far as I know they don't eat mosquitos or japanese beetles, and they seem so spend their days just annoying people.  I admit this is a very anthrophosophic viewpoint, but I think I have the right to it, since I got stung three times by the same wasp this morning, and now can barely walk due to a very large, swollen foot. I don't talk about  very useful parasite wasps that kill insect pests, but the ones that build there nests under gas filling lids on trucks (x 2 and two years in a row - ask PP), or inside hot tubs or nice deck lamps.  And then they attack you when you are minding your business just cutting grass in the vegetable garden, aiming for your ankle through the sock.  The one that bit me looked like a European paper wasp, but I don't know if they are in the US.  At least it was yellow and black, not brown. And since they don't die after stinging someone, it is now happily flying someone, while I have a foot like a swollen red club.  Not fair.

(PS.  OK, I so realize that evolutionary speaking nothing is here on earth for the purpose of making the life of humans easier, but in this case I think I am allowed to be a little bit selfish for a change.)

OK snapshot: "Sådan är kapitalismen"

At the newly privatized Swedish pharmacy-monopoly company Apoteket, they
have a special shelf for Feel Good products (Må bra). As if not everything
at this place should make you feel better... Or maybe these are products
to treat you if you feel too good? (photo by OK, text by LS)

Egg breaks record...

With the egg post yesterday, which was mailed out and twittered to many people (not by me), we broke our old record of visits per day. 526 people took a look at our blog and the peacock by the egg tractor. Thanks for the visit, come back whenever you like!

More news in the world: Sweden got its first gold medal this year in the Olympics, in Women's cross country skiing. Go Kalla, go!

Check out the ferocious hunger of the geckos of Madagascar in Chad's fantastic blogpost.

In Stockholm there is the yearly design week. Some photos here.

Everything you need to know about brain farts. (you might have to subscribe for free)

And the seeds for the garden are ordered. On its way are Sungold orange cherry tomatoes, tiny pickling cucumbers, sunflowers, Chioggia and red and golden beets, Swiss chard with orange, pink, and white stems, lettuce in many colors and shapes, and some flowers that I hope will survive the onslaught of bugs and mammals, as well as rain and drought. Gardening in New Jersey is more of a challenge than I ever expected.

New words for real things

Just got a very funny e-mail about the "winners of the Washington Post's annual Mensa Invitational, which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition". These are hilarious. Some research on the web tells us though that the newspaper Washington Post has no such real competition, however, they are playing along. Apparently this list has circulated on the internet for many years, with readers adding new definitions along the way. Anyway, some of these new words and definitions are very funny. I think bozone might be my favorite, or maybe Belzebug. Here you go, enjoy:

Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the Person who doesn't get it.

Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

Decafalon (n.): The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Glibido: All talk and no action.

Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

Ellis Island, real time travel

In June 2008 I visited the old, abandoned parts of Ellis Island's hospital. Ellis Island was the immigration center for New York and northeastern USA, and 12 million people came through here. With hardhats on we walked through old mental and infectious disease wards, corridors, the laundry rooms, the morgue, and the furnace rooms. So much is still the way it was when it was closed in mid 1900s, with doors, some furniture, and lamps, but a lot has been removed.

Many windows are broken or bordered up, but you still can get that feeling of history, how people were moved through this place to be treated for common ailments, give birth, or, if they weren't 'fit enough for the new world', then deported back to their old country. I don't know if any of my relatives came through Ellis Island, but it is possible. If we knew their names, we could look it up.

It was the best public hospital of its kind in America, and all free. Many doctors requested to do their training here because you got to see so many kinds of problems and learn cutting-edge treatments. We saw padded rooms for mental patients, an infectious disease ward with washable subway-tile walls, and the demonstration room in the morgue where they could to autopsies. Amazing enough, very few people died on Ellis Island, our guide told us, but in Wikipedia, the truth about everything, it says about 3000. More people died on the way over. Many children were born on Ellis Island , and most people that were sick were treated and then released to go on and live in America. If those walls could talk, imagine what stories they could tell!

PP and I finished watching the movie Golden Door tonight, about an Italian family leaving Sicily, traveling across the ocean and arriving at Ellis Island. It probably gives a rather realistic portrait of how life could have been. The movie is definitely worth watching, but it is slow. But the slowness creates a special feeling, and the filming and music is great.

I have posted my Ellis Island photos on Flickr, in this album: link.

Crazy fact: "Although Ellis Island is federal property and has always been historically considered in New York, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1998 determined that part of the island was territory of New York while most of the island, which was added after 1834, is within the territory of New Jersey."

Strange combinations

The Catholic patron saint St. Fiacre is in charge of (hold on!): gardeners, French cab drivers, and people suffering from haemorrhoids and veneral diseases.

What a combination. I can understand the connection between medicinal plants in gardens and diseases, but what are the French taxi drivers doing in there? Like Magnus, Brasse, and Eva said in the Swedish childhood TV program: - En ska bort! (one has to go). [this is kind of an internal joke for people that grew up in the 70s in Sweden]

Mixed things

Chinese food, worth a look: scorpions, insects and such

MADDER is not a herbal medicine against craziness, it is an herb related to coffee. Not sure why it was in a jar in an old pharmacy in Philadelphia. Mad, Madder, Maddest?




And check out what we saw this weekend:



Update: This fantastic photo was taken by and processed by AREA, and you can see more of her photos on her Flickr account. Check out the teal-colored Jaguar on her web site. I also have car photos from the same show on my Flickr account.

Helpless cat

Help, my legs are gone! (Smokey in inaction. She looses her legs at least several times a week.)

Stamp and Poem of the Day: Hepatica

Hepatica nobilis, also known as Liverleaf, Liverwort, Common Hepatica, Kidneywort, Pennywort, Leberblümchen, lehtosinivuokko, sinivuokko, blåsippa, on this Russian (=Soviet Union) stamp from 1983.

The Hepatica by Archibald Lampman ( in part)
Then flourish fairly, flower and glossy leaf,
Let no hand stoop to do thee any wrong,
God wot, thy pale mid time is very brief
To gather in the sunlight and the song;
_ - - - - - _ - - - - - - _

"It is a mild remedy in disorders of the liver, indigestion, etc., and possessing pectoral properties it is employed in coughs, bleeding of the lungs and diseases of the chest generally." (A modern herbal, Grieve, 1931)

Don't believe old folklore. Hepatica is poisonous in large doses.

Turtle soup anyone?

This is not really turtle soup, but turtle fat in an old sea turtle shell, that was over 2 feet (60 cm) across. A man sold tablespoons of the fat at the Otavalo market in Ecuador as a medicine. It looks like he didn't have many customers that day. It is sad to see how turtles are killed just for this and ground up or melted to be eaten and used for ethnomedicine that has no scientific basis.

Apparently sea turtle fat is commonly used in Africa:
"Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) fat is almost exclusively used in preparations and up to forty litres of oil can be extracted from a dead adult turtle exposed to full sunlight. It is used, either pure or mixed with honey, to treat convulsions and malaria (Togo), fever, fainting spells, liver problems and tetanus (Benin), as well as to induce vomiting (Togo, Bénin)."
"According to Togolese coastal villagers, bones of sea turtles are effective for the skeletal and muscular growth of children. Therefore, some mothers add turtle bones daily to the baby’s bath water; it is believed that the power of the turtle (especially the leatherback) on the nesting beach, will be transmitted to the child through this practice (Segniagbeto 2004)."

If a moose eats asparagus...

... does the pee smell funny?

It does in humans, but only some people can smell it. There is evidence supporting that both the odor of asparagus urine and the ability to smell it are genetically controlled. I know I am one of those that can smell it. Isn't science great sometimes!? Giving us answers to both important and unimportant questions.