World's Largest Plant

An underwater image of the seagrass in Shark Bay in Western Australia.

CNN —  The world’s largest living plant has been identified in the shallow waters off the coast of Western Australia, according to scientists.

The sprawling seagrass, a marine flowering plant known as Posidonia australis, stretches for more than 112 miles (180 kilometers) in Shark Bay, a wilderness area protected as a World Heritage site, said Elizabeth Sinclair, a senior research fellow at the School of Biological Sciences and Oceans Institute at The University of Western Australia.

That’s about the distance between San Diego and Los Angeles.

The plant is so large because it clones itself, creating genetically identical offshoots. This process is a way of reproducing that is rare in the animal kingdom although it happens in certain environmental conditions and occurs more often among some plants, fungi and bacteria.

“We often get asked how many different plants are growing in a seagrass meadow. Here we used genetic tools to answer it,” said Sinclair, the author of a study on the seagrass that published late Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

“The answer definitely surprised us – just ONE! That’s it, just one plant has expanded over 180 km in Shark Bay, making it the largest known plant on Earth,” she said via email.  READ MORE...

Dog Lover

 

My Writiing

 

In case you were wondering, I have been seriously writing stuff since 1972...  my writing started out with poetry, and today, I have written over 42,000 of those little jokers and have been posting them on my poetry blog reflectionsinthoughts.blogspot.com

In addition to my poetry, I have written over 1,200 opinion articles that were posted on LINKEDIN and was planning to continue, but the LINKEDIN team said that I posted something that was not appropriate and I was kicked off forever...  I explained to them my account was hacked but that did not matter.

In 2015, I retired and started writing novels.  Each novel is right around 90,000 words or about 300 pages...  I have written 6 novels but the online storage had a problem and one of those novels has only 3 of 12 chapters and will have to be reconstructed.

My novel titles are:

1. Earth's Hidden Keys
2. Beyond the Milky Way
3. Holding On
4. Lost Creek Diaries
5. Hunting the Scorpion Scarab
6. Deception in Paris (will need to be reconstructed)
7. The Ghost Dancer

Earth's Hidden Keys was the first novel that I wrote and I am in the process of editing it so that it is acceptable to me and the publishers at Amazon through Kendal...

Earth's Hidden Keys is somewhat spiritual as well as SciFi as good is pitted against evil which is somewhat of a trite storyline but one that still works.

Beyond the Milky Way is Scifi as well.  Holding On is about the downfall of a wealthy man who reached out too far. 

Lost Creek Diaries is about sexual exploitations at a southern college that dates back to the civil war.

Hunting the Scorpion Scarab is a spy novel set in Egypt

Deception in Paris is another spy novel set in Paris that revolves around nuclear energy and a spy who woke up after a long coma.

The Ghost Dancer is about drugs and human trafficking on Native American Reservations that involves the family of a Native American FBI agent.

In 2001, my daughter gave me a diary and a book with several lessons on how to start writing with a variety of exercises.  I have been writing in notebooks ever since every day without exception...  I take my composition books everywhere and go through about 4-6 each year and have kept them all...

Writing is just something I do now...

Back Surgery

In three days, I will be going in for back surgery...  actually it is called PLIF surgery to fuse my lumbar vertebrae. L2-L3-L4-L5 & S1 will be fused which is considered to be a 4 level fusion...   and, I will not be able to drive a vehicle for 4-6 weeks nor will I be able to do any physical therapy for 12 weeks other than walk a little bit on a flat surface each day.  It is the most major surgery that I have ever experienced or will experience including 3 heart surgeries...  The photo below left is probably how my back is going to look after the surgery...  but there will also be 2 rods on either side as well...

you cannot always find a photo to match up with your surgery...  

I have been told that the surgery will last about 4-6 hours and that I will spend at least one night in the hospital but no more than two nights...

Hospitals are not the best place to recover from surgery even though there is a nurse assigned to take care of you...  you are in a strange room, using a strange bathroom, and strange people keep coming in to run tests and wake you up...

However, sometimes the food is actually pretty good, I must admit...

Unfortunately, I will not be able to post anything for several days...  after this coming Tuesday, and Wednesday's post reflects my situation as well as reminds you of my circumstances.  I trust you will give me a few days to recover before I start posting and writing again.

My doctor said that there is nothing that I did to cause this to happen...  that it is just AGE and had I not have been as active as I was, it would have been worse...  until the last couple of years, my wife and I used to walk 5 miles a day, 7 days a week unless it was raining, snowing, or too cold.  We also stopped eating red meat and fried foods 15 years ago and limited our intake of alcohol.  I quit smoking at the age of 40 and have never looked back.

Life is strange but you must do the best that you can with what you have been given.

 

Learning to Live

 Life...  seems to be a concept that most of us take for granted...  in that, we will always be around until we get old or until it is our time to go whichever is the longest amount of time...  and, therein lies the problem.  We assume that our lives are relatively protected and that we will live out our normal and expected lifespans...  and, while that may be true up to a certain extent, we have lost sight of the overwhelming importance of life...  in that it has been given to us to appreciate not waste.

Most of our lives are, in fact, wasted...  and, we waste them on the stuff that we have been told is not just important but necessary...  the accumulation of wealth which includes both money and assets...  assets being the toys that we purchase, make, or steal along the way.

How much money do you have to earn before you decide that you have earned enough?  And, when you have all that money what will you do with it?

• Buy homes
• Buy clothes
• Eat at Restaurants
• Buy cars
• Take vacations
• Buy Jets
• Give it to charity

There will always come a point in time, where after earning all your money, you just get tired of spending and going places...  it all becomes routine and boring.

However, everybody feels like they would like to give it a try and that willingness usually comes from people who don't have much to begin with...

Being wealthy to some degree makes you lazy...

• you don't drive anymore
• someone cooks all your food
• someone does your maintenance
• you play golf and watch stuff
• someone does your shopping

It is like being on an all-inclusive vacation for your entire life...

Do you really think that after a year or two that would still be fun?

HOWEVER,

being poor is not fun either...  and, being poor is not something that you want to try out for a few months or years.

What you want to be is WELL OFF enough so that you no longer have to worry about money or having to take out money from savings to fix an emergency...  Well enough off, so you can buy what you want when you want it, as long as your purchase is frugal, necessary, and not outrageous...   For example. you don't need a $150,000 vehicle just because you have the money.  Nor do you need a 10,000-square-foot home just for you and your spouse.  

As you get older, you will see the wisdom in my article...  My mother, once my father died, had to downsize from a 6,000 square foot home to an apartment less than 1,000 square feet.   She only took those items she had to have and let go of all the rest that she had spent a lifetime collecting...

Starbuck's Cups

 

Oldest Tree in the World

GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK -  Thousands of feet above the Nevada desert, in a part of Great Basin National Park that tourists rarely see, park ecologist Gretchen Baker neared the top of Mount Washington and raised her binoculars. There just below, sprouting directly from the limestone, grew some of the oldest living things on Earth.

Great Basin bristlecone pines, their dense pale trunks twisted like thick rope by centuries of gusting wind and rain, thrive here in part because so little else does. At altitudes near 11,000 feet along Nevada’s rocky Snake Range there are no grasses, no brush, few pests, no competition. No people to start wildfires. No nearby trees to spread pathogens.

With nothing around to kill them, these ancient beasts are left alone year after year to simply do what they do: store water in needles that can live for decades and pack on the teensiest bit of heft at a time. The wood grows so slowly it gets too dense for beetles or disease to penetrate.  READ MORE...

Classic Sunday Morning Newspaper Cartoons

 

Opening A 830 Million Year Old Crystal

Scientists recently announced the tantalizing discovery of ancient prokaryotic and algal cells – which may potentially still be alive – inside an 830-million-year-old rock salt crystal. Now, the researchers have spoken a little bit more about their recent study and suggested they have plans to crack open the crystal in the hope of revealing whether this ancient life is truly still alive.

Initially reported in the journal Geology earlier this month, the team used a selection of imaging techniques to discover well-preserved organic solids locked within fluid inclusions embedded in an 830-million-year-old piece of rock salt, also known as halite. They argue that these objects bear an uncanny resemblance to cells of prokaryotes and algae.

Crystalized rock salt is not capable of sustaining ancient life by itself, so the potential microorganisms are not simply locked within the crystals, like an ant trapped in amber. As rock salt crystals form through the evaporation of salty seawater, they can trap small amounts of water and microscopic organisms in primary fluid inclusions.  TO SEE VIDEO AND READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Iceland Waterfall

 

Sunken City in Tigris River

A team of German and Kurdish archaeologists have excavated a 3400-year-old Mittani Empire-era city that has emerged in the Tigris River.

The settlement was previously submerged with the construction of the Mosul reservoir, but has since re-emerged due to lower water levels caused by extreme drought.

The city, located in present-day Kemune in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has a palace and several large buildings that could be the ancient city of Zakhiku – an important centre in the Mittani Empire (1550-1350 BC).

Bronze Age city resurfaced due to drought

Iraq can be affected by climate change, often resulting in extreme drought for months. This has caused major difficulties for the agricultural sector and the draining of large amounts of water drawn from the Mosul reservoir to support farmers crops. The lower water levels has allowed the reappearance of the Bronze Age city, which up until now has never been investigated by archaeologists.

Within a short time, archaeologists have mapped large areas of the city and documented the palace, several large buildings, a fortified wall, towers, multi-storey storage buildings and an industrial complex.  READ MORE...

Curious Window Cat

 

US No Longer Energy Independent

 In case you have forgotten, the United States was energy independent when Donald Trump was President.  On the first day of office, Joe Biden cancelled the XL Pipeline and halting drilling on federal lands...  

This one action made the US energy dependent and in order to meet our demand we had to start importing oil from other countries...

If this was not bad enough, imported oil is not as clean as the oil we were pumping at home, so we are hurting the environment more than when we were energy independent...

To add insult to injury, we are now talking with Saudi Arabia about buying crude oil from them and not too long ago in the past, Biden had said that he condemned Saudi Arabia for killing their journalist...  Biden made the claim that he would never do business with the Saudi Prince...

So, this is a big change...

Now, we all know that the price of gasoline has more than doubled since Biden has been President, and a few months ago, he blamed that increase on COVID...  now he is blaming that increase on Putin because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine...  and while those two events may have contributed to our problem, the main reason for gas price increases is what Biden did on his first day of office...

The big insult to the American People is the fact, that Biden believes the American People are too stupid to see that he is LYING...

How can you ever trust what Biden says???

Luck or What???

 

Yesterday, I spent the day in Knoxville, first at the hospital where my back surgery will take place making final preparations, then to the mall for lunch, then to a department store to return an item that was the incorrect size, then to SAMS for several bulk purchases, then on the way home we stopped at a grocery store to pick up an item or two...

In the past year, we have made essentially this same trip over 100 times or more and at every one of these stops, the parking lot is always 80-95% full, and we end up parking almost as far away as you can park...  And, while the walk is cumbersome with a cane and sometimes slightly uphill, it only takes about 15 minutes.

Today, our first stop was exactly what we expected, all the handicapped spaces close to the main entrance were taken and we had to park in a lower parking lot and make the 15-minute journey (more uphill than normal) to get to our destination.

Interestingly, ALL THE OTHER FOUR STOPS, we found a handicapped parking space (1 left which means someone had just pulled out) at all our remaining stops and locations...  this has never happened before...  we might find 1-2 but never 4 in a row...

Is this what someone refers to as LUCK?

It is doubtful that this kind of luck will ever happen again...  that is to stay 4 spaces in a row...  so, it becomes an incident that I think is worthy of my comments...

Sawing Stone

 

Our US Electric Grid

CNN: As heat ramps up ahead of what forecasters say will be a hotter than normal summer, electricity experts and officials are warning that states may not have enough power to meet demand in the coming months. And many of the nation’s grid operators are also not taking climate change into account in their planning, even as extreme weather becomes more frequent and more severe.

All of this suggests that more power outages are on the way, not only this summer but in the coming years as well.

Power operators in the Central US, in their summer readiness report, have already predicted “insufficient firm resources to cover summer peak forecasts.” That assessment accounted for historical weather and the latest NOAA outlook that projects for more extreme weather this summer.

But energy experts tell CNN that some power grid operators are not considering how the climate crisis is changing our weather — including more frequent extreme events — and that is a problem if the intent is to build a reliable power grid.

“The reality is the electricity system is old and a lot of the infrastructure was built before we started thinking about climate change,” said Romany Webb, a researcher at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “It’s not designed to withstand the impacts of climate change.”

Webb says many power grid operators use historical weather to make investment decisions, rather than the more dire climate projections, simply because they want to avoid the possibility of financial loss for investing in what might happen versus what has already happened. She said it’s the wrong approach and it makes the grid vulnerable.  READ MORE...

Sunrise from Space

 

Retirement Lessons

BY JOHN EDWARDS

I am fully settled into my retirement after thoroughly enjoying the first 5 years. For me, retirement is akin to a permanent summer vacation: I get to do what I want, when I want, where I want, and with whom I want. With no undue obligations. I am fortunate to be in such a position.

To be sure, the pandemic experience has put a damper on life, especially prior to widespread vaccine availability. But my wife and I have adapted and survived, even thrived. That being stipulated, there are some things I have gotten wrong and hope to change over the next 5 years. These are lessons that, if applied well, will make life more interesting, more enjoyable, and more healthy. That, in any event, is the plan.

The lessons learned revolve around the subjects that are important to me in retirement and include, in no particular, order: travel, health, mental engagement, friends and family, and living my way.

Lesson 1: Travel Is Important (We Want More, More, More)

My wife and I did not travel much when working. We were too busy. So it wasn’t until we had more time in retirement that we fully realized what we had missed. And how enjoyable the exploration of new and the revisiting of known places really is. However, with the notable exception of cruising, we don’t especially like the act of traveling, per se, but we both enjoy the planning and the anticipation of travel and exploring our destinations once we arrive.      READ MORE...

Foolish Jump

 

Burden of Identity

As students have confronted the many challenges of the past two years, they’ve leaned on their professors for support. They’ve asked for accommodations, extensions, and flexibility. They’ve sought help coping with personal issues, including strains on their mental health.

It adds up to a lot of extra work for instructors. But that work has not been distributed evenly. Professors who are white, cisgender men performed less emotional labor — that is, managing students’ feelings and their own — in the early stretch of pandemic teaching than did their colleagues, according to a recent study based on faculty surveys from three colleges.

That uneven burden is driven by the different demands that students place on professors of different identities, according to the paper “Teaching College in the Time of Covid-19: Gender and Race Differences in Faculty Emotional Labor,” published in the journal Sex Roles. Instructors who are white, cisgender men, it says, have a “status shield” that protects them from students’ requests.

Cisgender men and women of color, white cisgender women, and gender-nonconforming professors did not have that protection, it found.

Both the data and further interviews suggest that “women of color were already tapped out,” says Catherine White Berheide, a professor of sociology at Skidmore College and the paper’s lead author. What changed, in other words, was that male professors of color and female, white professors began doing the amount of emotional labor that female faculty of color were already doing.

The study has limitations: Its sample is 182 professors at three small, private liberal-arts colleges. But its findings are in keeping with the literature on how instructors’ identities — and, especially, students’ perceptions of them — affect the work of teaching. With faculties still dominated by white scholars — and, at the senior level, men — students don’t grant the same authority to instructors who don’t match the classic portrait of“professor.” That makes teaching harder.  READ MORE...