Category Archives: natural history

current affairs, natural history, science

Hills are Alive with the Sound of Ants

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There was an incredible article in The Times last Friday (6 February) … Scientists have discovered that ants talk to each other, and they now have miniaturised technology to such an extent that they can listen in. You can find the whole article online here; what follows is a very condensed version:

Advances in audio technology have enabled scientists to discover that ants routinely talk to each other in their nests. Most ants have a natural washboard and plectrum built into their abdomens that they can rub together to communicate using sound. Using miniaturised microphones and speakers that can be inserted unobtrusively into nests, researchers established that the queens can issue instructions to their workers.

The astonished researchers, who managed to make the first recordings of queen ants “speaking”, also discovered that other insects can mimic the ants to make them slaves. Research several decades ago had shown that ants were able to make alarm calls using sounds, but only now has it been shown that their vocabulary may be much bigger and that they can “talk” to each other. Improvements in technology had made the discoveries possible because it meant the ants could be recorded and subjected to playbacks without becoming alarmed.

By placing miniature speakers into the nest and playing back sounds made by a queen, the researchers were able to persuade ants to stand to attention […] It remained unclear how much the ants relied on sound for language but he suspected that further analysis would reveal a wider vocabulary than had been seen yet.

The most important discovery is that within the ant colony different sounds can provoke different reactions […] It’s within the power of the ant to play different tunes by changing the rhythm with which they rub […] The detection of the role of sounds provided the “final piece of the jigsaw” to explain how [some species of butterfly] caterpillars survive in ants’ nests and should help to guide conservationists in trying to save the endangered European mountain species.

[The] new work shows that the role of sound in information exchange within ant colonies has been greatly underestimated.

history, memes, natural history, photography, pleasures, science, thoughts

Wonders of the World Meme


Wonders of the World Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s meme is to say what you think the 12 Wonders of the World are? This can be man-made, natural, things you’ve seen, things you haven’t! Or a mixture!

So here are my twelve …

1. Power of Natural Forces, especially the sea
2. Existence of Life. Even as a scientist just the sheer chemical and anatomical complexity blows my mind
3. Diversity of Life, from amoeba to elephant; from top of Everest to ocean depths
4. Amazon: the rainforest, the fish, the parrots
5. Cats, from domestic cats to terrifying tigers
6. Human Intellect / Mind, without which we wouldn’t have any of the following …
7. Agriculture. How do you get from being a hunter-gatherer to a settled community growing rice and pigs?
8. Stonehenge, being a representative of all incredible building by ancient peoples who as far as we know had no writing and no recognisable mathematics
9. Bread and Wine. How did anyone go, A, B … X to discover them; bread especially
10. Writing, without which we wouldn’t have society or literature
11. Medieval Cathedrals: complex architecture, brilliantly built with no advanced mathematics or science
12. Zero, without which we wouldn’t have maths or science

1. Stormy Seas, 2. Coral Reef, 3. Bugs life, 4. Rainforest Parrot, 5. Wild Jaguar, 6. The Labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France, 7. Terraced Rice Fields of Sapa, 8. Stonehenge, 9. Wine and Bread, 10. Book of Hours : Use of Sarum, Prayer to St. Thomas Becket of Canterbury (circa 1330), 11. Focs artificials gòtics, 12. zero

As always these are not my photos so please follow the links to enjoy the work of the photographers who did take them!

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

beliefs, environment, natural history, topographical

Recycle Your Christmas Cards

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Those of us who still believe in giving and receiving Christmas cards generate a vast mountain of waste paper every year. This paper is valuable and important because of (a) the number of trees used to make it, (b) its ability to be recycled into more paper products and (c) its potential to occupy valuable landfill and generate greenhouse gasses.

Now I know some people recycle their cards by reusing (parts of) them to make gift tags or other cards. But most of us don’t. So this is a plea … please recycle your Christmas cards!

If you are in the UK** I would ask that you use the scheme run by The Woodland Trust in conjunction with WH Smith, Tesco, TK Maxx and Marks & Spencer. The funds generated from this scheme will be used by The Woodland Trust to plant thousands of trees at sites across the UK – trees which will enhance our enjoyment of the countryside, restore some of Britain’s lost forests and make a major contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gasses.

The scheme’s essential details are:
When: 2-31 January 2009
Where: WH Smith1, Tesco2, TK Maxx and Marks & Spencer3
Why: To create much needed new UK woodland; help to create the largest new native forest in England.
Who: The Woodland Trust
How: Take your cards to bins in participating stores and The Woodland Trust will recycle them and use the proceeds to plant thousands of trees at five UK sites

1 UK mainland WH Smith high street stores (excludes all WH Smith Travel stores, Isle of Wight, Belfast and Channel Islands)
2 Tesco supermarkets plus selected Tesco Express outlets
3 M&S stores plus selected M&S Simply Food outlets

A few more facts from The Woodland Trust’s FAQ:

1. If everyone in the UK recycles just one Christmas card this will generate enough money to plant 15,000 trees – that’s a wood the size of 30 football pitches – and save 1570 tonnes of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases.

2. In the 12 years this scheme has been running, 600 million cards have been recycled. This has enabled the Woodland Trust to plant 141,000 trees, saving 12,000 tonnes of paper from landfill and preventing 16,000 tonnes of CO2 from going into the atmosphere.

3. The UK is one of the least wooded countries in Europe with just 12% woodland cover compared to the European average of 44%. Only one-third of UK woodland is wildlife rich broadleaf woodland, something The Woodland Trust is aiming to double.

4. The Woodland Trust is the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity with 300,000 members and supporters. The Trust has four key aims: (a) No further loss of ancient woodland; (b) Restoring and improving the biodiversity of woods; (c) Increasing new native woodland; (d) Increasing people’s understanding and enjoyment of woodland. Established in 1972, the Woodland Trust now has over 1,100 sites across the UK in its care covering approximately 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres). Access to its sites is free. Further information can be found at http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/.

What about Christmas wrapping paper and Christmas trees? These are not included in the scheme but most local authorities in the UK have schemes for recycling these too. For instance my borough collects Christmas trees at about 20 key sites (mostly local open spaces) across the borough and then composts the trees. And non-plasticised gift wrap can be recycled with other paper recycling.

** If you’re not in the UK then please hunt out the equivalent scheme in your country and at least make sure your Christmas cards, wrapping paper and Christmas trees don’t end up in landfill.

natural history, photography, topographical

Professor Yaffle Goes Shopping


Professor Yaffle Goes Shopping, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Green woodpecker on our west London lawn; I guess he was enjoying the ants which seem to abound in our garden.

Not wonderful photos as I was having to use my biggest lens at an awkward angle from the open study window in dreadful November light and having to push the ISO rating to get anything I could handhold. This probably the best from at least 150 shots taken over a period of 20 minutes.

A few more from this series on my Flickr Photostream.

medical, natural history, people, personal, science, sexuality, thoughts

30 Years!

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Last night we had a little celebration. Only a little celebration over a bottle of wine followed by an early-ish night. For why? Because Noreen had hunted back through her old diaries (who has the time and discipline for these things? I never did) and discovered that we first properly went out together on 24 November 1978. I said I thought it was earlier, like late October, but she insists on the veracity of her pretty comprehensive journal from those days. So I figured I’d say “thank you” and not argue.

There are other such mini-celebrations coming up: the first time we had sex, 15 or 16 December; engagement on 30 December (well that was when Noreen dropped the bombshell on her mother anyway); Noreen moved in with me the following May; and we married in September 1979.

If you think that’s all a bit quick, well we had known each other for at least 3 years. We both knew, but didn’t tell the other, how we felt for each other. And then we almost lost contact after a disagreement when we both thought we’d screwed up and lost the other. But somehow we managed to stay in contact; just. Then unexpectedly Noreen asked me to her birthday bash in early October 1978. The rest, as they say, is history!

But hey, I realised properly last night that it is just as good as it always was. We’ve had our ups and downs – who doesn’t?! The first 2-3 years were hard – we fought; I was depressed; we had a crummy rented flat. When we bought the house in mid-1981 mortgage rates were very high – people today think they have it hard, we started our mortgage paying 14.5% interest, and after 6 months it was up to 17.5%!! That hurt. Many couples would I’m sure have thrown in the towel. But we stuck it out; somehow. And it’s got better; we don’t fight any more; we discuss, compromise and agree a way forward. By diligence we managed to pay off the mortgage seven years early. And we still have great sex; it’s different now from the early days but it is still great.

How have we done it? We don’t really know; we ask each other this question fairly regularly. But there are a number of key factors: a shared sense of humour; shared interests but also our own separate interests; doing things together but also separately; but perhaps most importantly we talk – all the time! And like all good relationships it is multi-faceted varying between friend-friend, parent-child, adult-adult, child-child, lover-lover. Even when, say, lover-lover is missing (as it will be sometimes) many of the others are there and keep things ticking along. Where relationships hit the buffers seems to be when many of the roles are missing and they degenerate into child-child, parent-child or enemy-enemy. (I’ve written more about this on the Theory of Relationships page of my Zen Mischief website.)

If we could make another 30 years we’ll both be getting on for 90. And who’s to say we can’t? Onward and upward! Here’s to many more happy years together.

books, memes, natural history, personal, photography, pleasures, science

Animal Meme


Anmimal Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

1. Cat’s eye, 2. Jaguar im Manu Nationalpark in Peru, 3. Steve-O, Which Channel is CNN ?, 4. Eeyore, 5. Not Afraid, 6. Alice Liddell and the Cheshire Cat, 7. Aquarium, 8. Sporting Lucas Terrier – Wandle Peter, 9. Morgana a fada!, 10. Animal skeleton, 11. Little Black Cat, 12. Small Fish from the Amazon

Questions and Answers:
1. What is your favorite animal? Domestic cats
2. Laws have changed, you now can own an exotic or wild animal as a pet. What animal would you own? Jaguar, they’re just slightly more manageable than tigers
3. Some people are cat fanciers and some are canine cuddlers. Which is is for you cats or dogs? Cats, every time; no question; cats are magic
4. What one word best describes your personality? What animal do you associate with that word? Depressive, so it has to be Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh tho’ I’d much rather be Tigger
5. Confess! What animal/insect/reptile/amphibian are you secretly (or not so secretly) afraid of? I don’t do “afraid”; I’m certainly in awe of the big cats; and I hate maggots; but I’m not afraid of anything
6. What was your favorite animal character from a children’s book when you were younger? Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland; I never did work out how to do that gradual disappearing trick. 🙁
7. You’re spending the day at the Zoo, it’s getting close to closing and you’re tired, but you’re definitely not leaving until you see the . . . Aquarium. Hah! Caught you! You thought I was going to say the big cats, but I’ve already seen them. 🙂
8. What kind of pet did you have when you were a kid or do you remember a particularly unusual pet you had? When I was 7 we got a small dog, a Lucas Terrier; but there were always cats at home too.
9. If you were to be reincarnated as an animal, what would you want to be? Why? Domestic cat with me to look after me
10. Animals in films always seem to tug at our heartstrings. What cinematic animal was your hero or a favorite? No animal hero or favourite ‘cos I don’t do films; I never did; it isn’t in my culture
11. If you had a stuffed animal as a child, what was it (extra points if you remember its name)? Little Black Cat and yes here he is, the original, snapshotted (can I say that?) specially for this occasion!
12. National Geographic has hired you to go on a photo shoot anywhere in the world you choose. What animal would you want to showcase in your full-color magazine spread (and where are you traveling to)? Fishes of the River Amazon and while we’re there we’ll have a few jaguars and parrots for good measure

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

medical, natural history, personal, photography, pleasures, science, thoughts, topographical

What I Done on My Holidays

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At the beginning of June Noreen and I had two weeks holiday (well time off work anyway). For a variety of reasons, not least that we couldn’t get anyone to feed the cats, not even our local cattery, we didn’t go away. As always we intended to have lots of days out but due to basic knackeration and idleness we failed. So here is what I did done on my holidays …

  • Took lots of photographs of the garden and especially the roses
  • Supervised the gardener reconstructing the compost heaps
  • Got a boot-load of old stuff (dead printers, garden shredder) taken to the tip
  • Proofread Anthony Powell Society quarterly Newsletter and sent it to printer
  • Paid loads of bills
  • Turned out the toot from our wardrobes and threw out a load of old shoes, underwear, etc.
  • Reviewed the draft new Anthony Powell Society website (still under development at the time of writing)
  • Got a haircut
  • Tidied up my PC hard disk
  • Photoshopped lots of photos and posted them to Flickr
  • Caught up on the pile of magazines to read by the bed
  • Had some extra sleep
  • Cooked lamb curry, vegetable curry and trout & pasta
  • Decided not to buy a new bike (‘cos I know I’ll end up not using it, like I didn’t use the last one)
  • Attended a charity trustees meeting, and unexpectedly had to chair it
  • Went to London Zoo
  • Went to the garden centre and bought loads of plants (some acers, a rose, a passion flower, lots of small things) and some terracotta pots for the patio
  • Had a major tidy-up and repotted lots of plants on the patio
  • Stayed up late but still got up fairly early (at least on some days)
  • Had several siestas
  • Went to Kew Gardens
  • Spent lots of time pottering in the garden
  • Got slightly sunburnt
  • Wrote several weblog posts
  • Had sex, several times
  • Totally buggered my sleep pattern and failed to get up early on the days I wanted to (which is why we didn’t have as many away-days as planned)
  • Processed a raft of literary society membership renewals and other admin; three afternoons worth!
  • Tried to agree what we should do for an autumn holiday – and failed!

Such is the stuff of doing nothing.