Nature | John Clarke Online

The Turtle Who Came to Swim

102208slowskys — An adult member of the Slowsky family.

The recent Comcast Xfinity ad campaign featuring the animatronic tortoises Bill and Karolyn Slowsky reinforces the attitude that turtles, or tortoises to be exact, are slow moving.

Occasionally a surprisingly large turtle lumbers through our yard. Sometimes we spy a baby, or perhaps an adolescent. And true to expectations, they are all painfully slow. Well, let’s face it, they’re carrying a lot of baggage.

Turtle Upright snapshot — A presumed Suwanee River Cooter Turtle after its swim in our pool.

But one day this past summer I saw a black, turtle-shaped object on the bottom of our pool. It was probably an adolescent, clearly not a full grown adult. At first I thought it had drowned, but that notion was quickly dispelled. It was moving, or more correctly, it was walking, as if it was entirely normal to be walking on the bottom of a pool.

From a distance it looked like a Box Turtle, and I suspected it had fallen into the unkempt pool while taking a stroll through our yard, just like the baby turtle being held in a 6-year old’s hands.

IMG_1512 rotate crop — Baby turtle pulled from our pool skimmer.

After observing this creature for awhile, I noticed it seemed to be in no distress whatsoever. He would occasionally walk up the sides of the pool, float at the surface taking a breather, and then at the first hint of something new in its environment, would quickly dive to the bottom, stubby arms and legs pumping mightily, seemingly in a near-panic.

What impressed me the most, was the speed with which he could move underwater. You think turtles are slow? Well, think again. The accompanying video will show you otherwise.

A Boy Scout Troop leader and amateur naturist helped me with a partial identification. It was not a Box Turtle at all, but a variety of aquatic turtle curiously named Cooter. Cooter turtles are aquatic turtles, but are known to travel considerable distances over land when it suits them, to relocate to another body of water. As they lumber over land, like their other turtle kin, they give no indication of their underwater agility. However, as the video shows, they can be very agile, and comically clumsy in their rush to avoid a potential predator.

After I’d netted the seemingly woe-begotten turtle and moved it to the lawn, I watched it just long enough to make sure it was alright, and then let it return to its wanderings. It never occurred to me that his visit to our pool may have been deliberate.

If I had detained it longer, and photographed it more carefully, I might have firmly identified it. But it really didn’t matter; whatever it was, it was soon on its way.

Webbed-foot-of-aquatic-turtle-6-05 — Webbed foot of an aquatic turtle.

My original thought that he was not an aquatic turtle but a terrestrial turtle accidentally fallen into the pool came from the observation that he walked on the bottom, like Navy salvage divers, and did not swim. I would have guessed that if he could swim, he would have. But apparently that assumption was wrong. Also, I was expecting an aquatic turtle to have webbed-feet, and this turtle’s feet were only half-webbed, as shown in the photos below. Maybe that’s why it could swim, but preferred to walk.

Although the turtle moved slowly and deliberately both on land and on the pool bottom, when spooked it moved very quickly. They are capable of a speedy get away when they feel threatened near the surface.

I don’t get the feeling that the Slowsky tortoises have that capability. But then, I could be wrong. Maybe I should ask Xfinity.

[youtube id=”aDmvJ_4jR_0” w=”600″ h=”500″]

Phytophotodermatitis and the Fig Tree from Hades

My fig tree is a diabolical, horticultural menace sprouted from a demon seed. I’ve tried to kill it, but it won’t die.

In general, I love trees, and figs, but this particular fig tree (Ficus carica for the Latin purists out there) has sorely offended me. It has attacked me, causing, as they say, bodily harm.

Fig Tree from Hell crop — My fig tree shortly after its attack. Looks innocent, doesn’t it?

And to top that, it doesn’t even produce edible figs. Some people call them goat figs, because only goats are undiscriminating enough to eat them. I’m guessing any goats eating my figs will be cursed — for eternity.

The conflict began like most conflicts, with an innocent encounter. I was using a water hose to tunnel under a concrete slab to install a 3-inch diameter drainage pipe. I then inserted a five-foot long piece of pipe. So far, so good.

But I decided I needed to replace that pipe with a longer, more flexible pipe, which promptly got stuck in the hole. Looking into the tunnel I’d made I saw that some relatively small roots were now in the way. I cut them with a lopper and then blindly inserted my left hand into the hole to help pull the pipe through.

It was a tight fit, and the back of my hand was grinding into the sand and the cut ends of the roots as I tussled with the pipe and finally pulled it through the hole. There was no pain associated with the sandpapering of my hand. But, as I later realized, I was grinding something toxic into the skin.

The next morning I looked at an irregular shaped red blotching on the hand. I assumed that the sandpapering from grinding against the sand grains had irritated the skin. But as time went on, the discoloration got worse, not better. A physician friend recommended a combined antibiotic and topical steroidal ointment, and bandages to protect the irritated skin. Dutifully applied for several days, that treatment resulted in absolutely no improvement. In fact, the discoloration seemed to worsen.

I continued to work on the drainage project outside, and, as it turned out, sun light seemed to make the discoloration worse.

A week later when irregular shaped blisters erupted, I realized that my skin had reacted to something in the sand, and the most likely candidate was fig tree sap from the roots I’d cut moments before inserting my hand.

The Internet revealed that fig tree sap was highly irritating to human skin. In fact, it appears to be an effective chemical weapon.

One Week Blisters — Warning: when magnified this looks pretty gross.

Quoting from AllAllergy.net, “Phytophotodermatitis is an acute skin reaction that may be easily confused with other causes of contact dermatitis. It is characterized by sunburn, blisters, and/or hyperpigmentation. The reaction takes place when certain plant substances known as psoralens, after being activated by ultraviolet light from the sun, come in contact with the skin. This report describes phytodermatitis due to contact with figs. (Watemberg 1991)”

Amazingly, the discoloration of my hand is still visible 6 weeks after the insult. But, I’m happy to report, that fig tree is not; visible that is. It was cut low to the ground. Eerily, it’s toxic sticky sap continuously coats the stump, so apparently that bedeviled fig tree is not entirely finished with its mayhem.

That sappy stump will, no doubt, be plotting a comeback this winter, out of pure botanical meanness. But I am firmly set on a plan of containment. Only time will tell whose chemical weapons are the more effective, the tree’s or mine.

Strangely, my war with the fig tree got me to thinking about art censorship. It’s true.

Most art devotees are aware of the stylistic device of placing a sculpted fig leaf in a strategic location to disguise the anatomical humanness of otherwise manly looking gods or athletes. Apparently, this form of censorship was foisted upon the art world by powerful religious prudes of the Enlightenment.

Two Weeks Fig Sap — Two weeks after exposure to fig sap.

Well, as I sulked about my long-lasting dermatological insult, I got to wondering; why would anybody even think of putting a fig leaf anywhere near what is arguably a sensitive part of the human body?

I strongly suspect that the artisans would not have deliberately incorporated fig leaves as part of their design, because they probably knew all too well just how irritating fig leaves can be.

I imagine Adam and Eve were both made rather uncomfortable by their leaves. Perhaps that was part of God’s revenge for their disobedience. Makes me wince to think of it.

But I digress. This current horror story ends like most horror stories; the foe fig is vanquished at the end. But just before the ending credits role, you catch a glimpse of the fig tree stump, still pulsing its hellish chemical weapons, and not at all fully dead. For all I know, it may already be planning its sequel, where it turns really nasty.

Lesson learned: I’ll be waiting for it, with gloved hands next time.

Cold Water Regulator Blues

It’s a black art, the making of scuba regulators for use in polar extremes; or so it seems. Many have tried, and many have failed.

Once you find a good cold water regulator, you may find they are finicky, as the U.S. Navy recently discovered. In 2013 the Navy invested almost two hundred hours testing scuba regulators in frigid salt and fresh water. What has been learned is in some ways surprising.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Looking at a pony bottle that saved a diver when both his independent regulator systems free-flowed at over 100 feet under the thick Antarctic ice.

The Navy has been issuing reports on cold water regulator trials since 1987. In 1995 the Navy toughened its testing procedures to meet more stringent diving requirements. Reports from that era are found at the following links (Sherwood, Poseidon). (Here is a link to one of their most recent publicly accessible reports.)

The Smithsonian Institution and the Navy sent this scientist to the Arctic to help teach cold water diving, and to the Antarctic to monitor National Science Foundation and Smithsonian Institution funded trials of regulators for use in the under-ice environment. What those studies have revealed have been disturbing: many regulator models that claim cold water tolerance fail in the extreme environment of polar diving.

The Navy Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU) has developed testing procedures that are more rigorous than the EN 250 tests currently used by European nations. (A comparison between US Navy and EN 250 testing is found on this blog). All cold water regulators approved for U.S. military use must meet these stringent NEDU requirements.

Nevertheless, we learned this year, quite tragically, that the Navy does not know all there is to know about diving scuba in cold water.

For example, what is the definition of cold water? For years the U.S. and Canadian Navies have declared that scuba regulators are not likely to freeze in water temperatures of 38° F and above (about 3° C). (The 1987 Morson report identified cold water as 37° F [2.8° C] and below). In salt water that seems in fact to be true; in 38° F scuba regulators are very unlikely to fail. However, in fresh water 38° F may pose a risk of ice accumulation in the regulator second stage, with resultant free-flow. (Free-flow is a condition where the gas issuing from the regulator does not stop during the diver’s exhalation. Unbridled free flow can quickly deplete a diver’s gas supply.)

DSCN3524 — The regulator on the left free-flowed, the one on the right did not.

While a freshly manufactured or freshly maintained regulator may be insensitive to 38° F fresh water, a regulator that is worn or improperly maintained may be susceptible to internal ice formation and free-flow at that same water temperature. There is, in other words, some uncertainty about whether a dive under those conditions will be successful.

IsolatorValve1 crop — An isolator valve that can be shut to prevent loss of gas from a free flowing regulator.

That uncertainty can be expressed by a regulator working well for nine under-ice dives, and then failing on the tenth. (That has happened more than once in Antarctica.)

That uncertainly also explains the U.S. Antarctic Program’s policy of requiring fully redundant first and second stage regulators, and a sliding isolator valve that a diver can use to secure his gas flow should one of the regulators free flow. There is always a chance that a regulator can free flow in cold water.

A key finding of the Navy’s recent testing is the importance of recent and proper factory-certified maintenance. Arguably, not all maintenance is created equal, and those regulators receiving suspect maintenance should be suspected of providing unknown performance when challenged with cold water.

This finding points out a weakness of current regulator testing regimes in the U.S. and elsewhere. Typically, only new regulators are tested for tolerance to cold water. I know of no laboratory that routinely tests heavily used regulators.

Phoque_de_Weddell_-_Weddell_Seal — Weddell seal on the Antarctic sea ice. Photo copyright Samuel Blanc. (From Wikimedia Commons).

Considering the inherent risk of diving in an overhead environment, where access to the surface could be potentially blocked by a 1400 lb (635 kg), 11 foot (3.4 m) long mammal that can hold its breath far longer than divers can, perhaps it is time to consider a change to that policy.

About to descend through a tunnel in 9-feet of ice on the Ross Ice Shelf.

A huge Weddell Seal blocks the diver’s entry hole. He looks small here, but like an iceberg, most of his mass is underwater.

The Immigrants in My Backyard

I admit it; I have long been angry at the immigrants living in my backyard.

When I moved my family back to Florida over twenty years ago, I was thrilled by the sight of the beautiful green anoles (lizards) scampering over the white stucco walls of our house.

Green_Anole_Lizard — Green Anole, from Wikimedia Commons.

But over the years the native green lizards have all but disappeared, replaced by the drab brown lizards which immigrated somehow from Cuba and the Bahamas.

We can’t get Cuban rum or Cuban cigars, but we have Cuban lizards. How did that happen?

Anyway, it is a well proven scientific fact (see pages 12-28 of the linked publication) that when Cuban brown lizards move into a territory, the Green lizard population plummets. Part of the reason is because the larger brown lizards eat the young of native Green Anoles. That alone is enough to make me angry with them; although human anger is better directed towards human atrocities than against instinctive animal behavior. I know that, as a scientist, but still there is the annoyance I cannot quench at the loss of the Greens who, after all, belong here.

One particularly cold morning when the temperature had uncharacteristically dropped to 20° F overnight, I found a Brown Cuban Anole had crawled up to our front porch, trying, I suppose, to get as close to the house’s heat as possible. And there he lay, stiff and dead.

I actually rejoiced in the immigrant’s vulnerability. I remember thinking, “Bet it doesn’t get this cold in Cuba, does it? See, you should have stayed;” as if that frozen lizard had a choice in the matter.

As a matter of curiosity, and definitely not sympathy, I moved his stiff body out on the sidewalk where the warming sun rays were beginning to fall. I was thinking perhaps the local cats would like their lizard breakfast with the chill taken off it.

Imagine my surprise when I found 20 minutes later that the lizard was moving, and a few minutes after that, had managed to scurry off into the garden. Well, you have to admire toughness; and who doesn’t enjoy a surprise?

In the past couple of weeks these little guys’ toughness and their surprising lack of fear has helped me to appreciate these invaders, just a bit.

DSCN8030 — He’s hard to see; a good survival strategy.

I have been pushing my physical limits digging drainage trenches through root infested sandy soil. Much to my surprise, the Brown Cubans have been watching me, closely. Apparently my disturbance of the ground stirs up insects and small worms which the Anoles then feed upon with lightning quick forays into the digging zone.

What surprised me, however, is just how close they approach the digging. The most extreme example of lizard fearlessness was when I used a string trimmer to mow down ground-cover so I could uncover an outdoor sump pump. A Brown Cuban was hanging upside down on the stucco wall of the house, barely a foot away, with clippings from the cutter flinging at high speed into the wall where the lizard remained still but vigilant. He was completely unperturbed by the machine noise and the constant barrage of vine debris. Tough little critter, I thought.

Apparently, he had only one thing in mind; the prospect for the sudden appearance of food stirred up by the string trimmer.

During another phase of the project, what seemed like the same large Anole perched himself on any high elevation available so he could watch my digging. Every once in a while he would hop down into the disturbed dirt to snag a morsel, seeming unconcerned by the fact that a steel shovel was working the earth.

On one occasion he ran 18 inches or so right up to my foot to snag some insect I had failed to see. At the foot of the giant — yes, that little guy was fearless.

DSCN8021 — The Foreman lizard, keeping a watchful eye on my work.

OK, I had to admit, no Green Anole had ever done that before.

As I continued to work one hot Saturday, covered in sweat, I began to enjoy my constant companion. So much so that I picked up a camera and started taking photos of him, without the flash of course. I didn’t want to blind him.

On one shot the flash went off unexpectedly just inches from his face. He bolted. After 10 minutes or so, when he was nowhere to be seen, I actually felt bad, thinking that I’d scared him, or worse, blinded him. Yes, I know it was strange, that the Brown immigrant hater, me, actually felt remorse for my carelessness with the camera.

Finally, after another 30 minutes or so, he showed up again, as if nothing had happened. And with that, I felt forgiven.

Obviously, my hard attitude towards these immigrants has softened. The more time I spend with them, the more I appreciate their positive qualities: fearlessness, willingness to appreciate me as a food provider. They are in a word, opportunistic. And that, I believe, gives them an advantage over the more timid native Green Anoles.

As for the Cubans feeding on the natives? Well, they get as good as they give. Neighborhood house cats, who are certainly not native either, feed nightly on the Cubans. I cringe when I watch a cat flip an Anole, of any color, into the air and down it head first in a single gulp. That is the way of nature, and the fact that I like it or not has no influence at all on the outcome.

The Battle of Tiny Titans

Broad-Headed_Skink-close-up — Broad-Headed Skink
(From Wikimedia Commons, photo credit Nvillacortabuer)

Seen up close, the contestants in this battle were impressive. One was a male Broad Headed Skink native to the Southeastern United States. The other was a male Minotaur Beetle. The insect contestant was plucked off a log in Atlanta, Georgia. The Broad Headed Skink was scooped off a red brick wall of a house in Waycross, Georgia. The Skink was fast, but not fast enough to avoid capture.

The Grandmother of the house warned me that the Skink was poisonous. After all, he had a red head. But in truth he wasn’t at all poisonous – he was simply a male, and his red head and broad, for a lizard, shoulders were apparently irresistible to female Skinks.

I moved that manly looking lizard to my office at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. I’d converted a 10-gallon aquarium into a terrarium, and it made a nice lizard home. To give him a sense of security, I placed into the glass enclosure an 8-inch long section of used radiator hose, and closed off one end. He had, in effect, a little den; and he took to it immediately.

I fed him live crickets which were easily found in the adjoining woods, or bought from a bait store. Each of those insects, once placed in the terrarium had a very short life span — they were quite defenseless against the large and relatively toothy lizard.

And that is where the Minotaur Beetle came in.

Male Minotaurs have the appearance of a horned tank. They are armed with weapons on their head and thorax to fend off attackers, and a seemingly indestructible chitin armor. I simply could not resist wondering what would happen when these two creatures met, face to face.

Minotaur Beetle (Typhaeus typhoeus), Photo by Jacob Fahr, used under Creative Commons License. Click for original source.

And so it began, this pairing of impressive but small beasts.

By hand I placed the miniature triceratops into the terrarium. He was much too bulky and self-assured to be threatened by me, and he seemed to accept that some God was placing him into a new world, a world to be conquered, and if possible, eaten.

He remained motionless for a moment, seeming to survey his new environment. Then he spied the dark tunnel which promised an interesting place to hide, and so he started lumbering towards it. I, of course, knew that a large Skink lay resting in the deepest recesses of that cave. Things were about to get interesting.

From a philosophical and historical standpoint, tunnels and caves have always been dual-natured. For humans they are a way into this life, and seemingly viewed by many on approaching the end of life. They provide safety and shelter, but are also a threat. One never knows what is lurking inside a newly encountered cave.

If the beetle was concerned, he didn’t show it; he headed straightway for the tunnel. Once his armored legs climbed into the radiator hose, they clicked with each step. Tic, tic, tic, – like the clicking of an old fashioned wristwatch. Tic, tic, tic, with about two clicks per second as each of the six legs carried him further into the cave.

After many dozens of tics I heard two reptilian hisses. I had never heard that Skink hiss before.

And then the fight began in earnest, with scratching, scraping, hissing and a general ruckus that lasted for five or ten seconds. Then silence — followed by tic, tic, tic, at a no more hurried or slowed pace than before.

The encounter was fought to a draw. The beetle vacated the hostile cave, and the much larger lizard chose not to pursue the well-armed intruder. The beetle emerged from the radiator hose unscathed with the exception of a couple of shallow teeth marks on its heavily armored carapace.

Nature had endowed that little beetle with the ability to repel assaults by creatures lurking in the dark, creatures twenty times longer than the beetle.

The beetle had earned its freedom, back to the same rotted log from which it was found. The Skink was also released into the wild shortly after, but not before those two combatants taught me a valuable lesson.

Actually, there were three participants in the lesson, if I count the crickets. As always, reproduction has something to do with it.

Crickets have no armament, but because they have no heavy armor they can jump and avoid some of their enemies. Because they advertise their presence by the chirping we associate with the essence of summer nights, they have a high probability of meeting a mate before they meet a predator.

In the experiment called life, the Minotaur is 180° out of sync with the cricket. They are slow and solitary, and have to be heavily armored to, on average, avoid being eaten prior to reproduction. My little experiment proved, to me at least, the wisdom of their biological design.

My little experiment also proved to me that the story of David and Goliath, even on a miniature and non-human scale, can be immensely satisfying. Predictably, Goliath was not slain, but neither was the dark beetle with a propensity for inhabiting dark spaces; spaces filled with the giant monsters of baby beetle nightmares.

“Keep the Placenta and Throw Away the Baby”

On the occasion of the birth of my daughter’s second child, I was reminded of one of the strangest medical conversations I’ve ever had. It occurred during the birth of my daughter, our second child.

I was on the staff of Shands Hospital and University of Florida School of Medicine, Gainesville, FL. My wife was pregnant with our second child. As a professional courtesy, the Chief of the OB/Gyn department had promised he would personally deliver our baby, regardless of when the time came.

When the time did come, in the middle of the night of course, I observed the baby’s head delivered but with the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around the baby’s neck. “Nuchal cord x2” is what the medical record later read. The only part of the baby I could see at that point in the delivery, the head, was a stunning blue color.

The color blue works well on Smurfs, but at that time Smurfs had not yet been discovered. So seeing our baby arriving with that color was a tad disconcerting.

With the confidence of thirty or forty years’ experience with deliveries of all grades of difficulty, the muscular gray-haired physician grabbed the loops of umbilical cord and attempted to slip them off the baby’s neck and over its head. But birth is by nature a well lubricated process, and those strangling loops were slippery enough to slip from his hands.

I think time slowed for me just a bit as I saw the blue baby and the experienced master of his craft thwarted by bodily fluids. It was, to use the medical vernacular, concerning, at least to me. However, time had not slowed for the obstetrician. Within another second he had repeated his attempt, and this time was successful.

As the baby pinked up and revealed herself to be a girl, my level of concern returned to normal, along with my heart rate.

Shortly thereafter, this kindly physician was attending to the second birth, the “after-birth” or the mother’s expulsion of the placenta. I remarked on the event often missed, or at least unappreciated, by the layman. I commented on what a wonderful yet transient organ the placenta is.

That was when he responded with the phrase in the title of this posting. “Sometimes I think we should keep the placenta and throw away the baby.”

It was a remarkable thing he said. Yet it was not intended, and I did not take it, as a comment about the inherent worth of babies. But rather it was a shared appreciation for the miracle of pregnancy and birth, and all the structures and systems the female body creates to nurture and sustain new life. Of course we share this miracle of the placenta with most mammals, such as rabbits, dogs, cats, and yes, even rats, but that does not make it less amazing.

From an engineering standpoint it is incredible to think that the connection between mother and child, a wonderfully and intricately designed anatomical throw-away, should in fact be discarded so unceremoniously.

Of course, non-human mammals eat the placenta, recycling some of the energy invested in that organ. But modern day humans usually discard it.

Usually; meaning the Internet abounds with suggested ways to prepare and eat the placenta. Well, like chocolate covered grubs, some tastes have to be acquired, I suppose. And then there is some element of cannibalism, the eating of human flesh, associated with this practice that thoroughly grosses this writer out. If it’s your thing, part of the ritual celebration of the creation of life, well, then it’s your thing. To each his own, as they say.

But the point is, at that moment, that physician and I both felt a sense of awe at what the human body sacrificed to bring a new human being into the world.

When the excitement of birth is over and the credits roll on the screen for the theater of life, don’t fail to notice the name of the Placenta as it goes by. Arguably, it’s every bit as important as the “gaffer” or the “grip” to the success of any theatrical event.

HumanKangaroo — Click the photo to go to the original source.

Without it, we would not be placental mammals. We would be, well, kangaroo type mammals, but without the tail. Children would develop and be suckled in pouches.

Interesting imagery there.

The Magic of a Perfectly Proportioned Body

running — Click on the photo to go to the source link.

I was challenged to a race by a five-year old little girl. If I was not so amazed by the outcome, I would be humiliated.

When I say little girl, I mean really little, like 38 pounds and about three and a half feet tall, with spindly arms and skinny legs. She was a little wisp of a child, and so I thought it funny that she would challenge me to a race around the yard.

After all, in my day I used to be a reasonable sprinter. I was not on a track team, but I was one of the fastest in my college gym class. My only concern was that I would have to hold back and pretend to let her beat me so she wouldn’t break down in tears. You know, pre-kindergarten kids have pretty labile emotions. They cry a lot.

As it turns out, they also laugh a lot.

Together we chose where the race would start and end, and before I knew it she was off, giving herself about a five-yard head start before telling me to start. Fair enough I thought; the puny child deserves a head start.

The only problem was, when I started running I found I was not closing the gap. Her tiny feet, with a diminutive stride, were eating up the yard at least as fast as were my much longer legs; maybe faster. Not being a trained runner she couldn’t resist looking back at me, laughing gleefully as she continued her headlong charge. I just knew she’d trip when she looked back, but yet she didn’t stumble. If anything, the distance between us was increasing.

Apparently I’d gotten out of practice.

I saw my chance to cheat — and took it (experience counts for something). As she ran behind a car parked in the driveway, I cut through a small garden and slid between the car and house, almost bowling over her startled father.

I’m sure she was shocked when I suddenly appeared just ahead of her, but exerting her champion-like dominance of the sport, she grabbed my shirt, pulled me back and shouted forcefully, “Get behind me.”

I obeyed of course, pleased by my outwitting of a five-year old, but not really wanting to teach her that cheating pays. So I let her win.

As I bent over with my hands on my knees, panting hard, I begged for mercy when she said she wanted to race again. I wouldn’t stand a chance the second time.

Being both a biologist and a physical scientist, I have marveled at the anatomical design of young children. They are perfectly proportioned for survival. For example, they are no match for a wrestling match with older kids or adults. Their weight and muscle mass is too small, and they understand that. Yet when it comes to running away from other kids, or adults, or wild animals, they would seem to fare pretty well. The amount of muscle mass for their weight is surprisingly well balanced, resulting in an amazing ability to sprint.

I would also have to conclude that my muscle mass to body weight ratio is no longer ideal — by a long shot. Therefore when she next challenges me to a race I may be tempted to say, “How about a game of scrabble instead?”

Would that be cheating?

Not Exactly a Horse Whisperer

Bundy Palomino Quarter Horse — Good horse

I have always been kind to animals, but for some reason animals have not always been kind in return. Case in point; horses.

While dating the girl who eventually became my wife, I was given a chance to prove my manhood by riding one of two horses. She chose her friend’s horse, a sedate, well-trained Palomino quarter horse mare, Millie, and I was given Trigger to ride, a tall, dark, manly-looking quarter horse stallion.

As a youth I had taken riding lessons, English style, which seemed to be a refined gentleman’s way to ride. Of course as a young teenager I was neither refined nor a gentleman, but I think my parents hoped something good would rub off on me, other than the scent of sweaty horse flesh. That early training did give me confidence, but it did not prepare me for Trigger.

The first thing I had to get used to when riding with the girl I was trying to impress, was the Western style saddle with a prominent saddle horn. English saddles have no such horns, simply because you don’t need to rope calves when engaged in gentlemanly riding. But that seemingly anachronistic saddle horn may well have saved my life.

Trigger was appropriately named. Every time I mounted that horse I seemed to trigger a rude bout of equine depravity. On one such ride, accompanied by my girl on Millie, we decided it would be good sport to transition from a canter to a full gallop. Great fun I thought.

Except Trigger did not make smooth transitions. His erratic, rough sprint caused me to lose my seat on the saddle, and with only one foot in a stirrup and one hand welded onto the saddle horn, my head was suspended inches from the unpaved, sandy road whizzing past, with the maniacal horse’s hooves slicing back and forth a scant nose distance from my face; or so it seemed.

Quarter horses are fast sprinters, and to that horse it didn’t matter if his rider was firmly seated or not. I must admit that being inches from hoofs and sandy road presented an interesting visual perspective. It’s not one you often see — and survive.

American-Quarter-Horse-Screensavers_1 — Crazy horse (click link to go to photo source, Softpedia)

During another horse riding adventure, my girlfriend and I were again riding Millie and Trigger, respectively, along that same sandy road. Once again we were galloping because that’s what young people like to do, (especially slow-learning ones like myself). Millie was commanded to slow and make a hard right turn onto an intersecting road. True to character, Trigger would have none of that.

Given the choice of going at light speed straight forward, or slowing and making a right turn, he chose the path least taken – a 45° angle through a plowed farmer’s field.

A horse’s mind is a difficult thing to fathom. Perhaps he was looking for intellectual freedom from the rider sitting atop him. I don’t think I was whispering to that demon horse as we churned up the newly plowed land. I was probably shouting things unkind, but he didn’t seem to care.

Like Pavlov’s dogs, I began to associate the color of that horse as no longer dark and manly, but as dark and brooding; or more appropriately, plotting. As my wife recently told me, it was lucky I wasn’t killed.

Recently, scientists have sought to determine experimentally whether horses are lazy or bored. Trigger was neither. He was, well, the word that comes to mind is… fiendish.

Perhaps you have known a seemingly diabolical horse like Trigger. If so, my condolences; but to be fair, I cannot blame the horse. As they say about dogs, children, and horseback riders: they all need training to be enjoyable.

A Conversation with a Cloud

I lay on the summer grass with a young lady friend of mine. We were holding hands affectionately, talking softly about nature, love, and a future that was fated never to happen. As we talked about nothing of lasting importance, I pointed to a dying cloud. All of the clouds drifting lazily overhead were dying as the day’s heat was dissipating and the air was becoming calm, preparing for evening.

I suspect it’s an infrequent event when someone points out an act of nature that had always been visible, but had never been noticed. Indeed, we watched, not saying a word, as the first of the day’s puffy clouds ceased to exist.

I was pleased with myself; glad that my prediction had been proven true, and pleased with her reaction. In fact, I was so pleased that I still remember that incident, many years later, even though the face of the girl has mercifully faded from my memory.

However, now that I have matured enough to ponder the imponderables of life, I realize there is more to the story. As I replay the event in my mind I realize that the cloud talked back to me.

I know that sounds bizarre, but all I can say is that my memories, perhaps having been repressed due to their strangeness, are finding their way back into my consciousness. Perhaps there’s a reason for their reappearance at this stage in my life.

I am not dying; the cloud closest to me seemed to be saying.

I was at first taken aback. After all, who’s ever heard a cloud speak.

I said I am not dying.

OK, if a cloud is willing to talk to me, I suppose I should respond. That would only be polite.

“Yes you are,” I argued, politely of course. “You’re getting thinner by the minute. In fact, you’re disappearing before my eyes.”

I’m not dying; I’m resting.

I laughed, with Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch in my mind.

“Well, resting or not, you’re quickly disappearing.”

But I’m still here.

“You’ll be long gone, any minute now.”

I am moisture; water vapor. That will still exist. It just won’t be visible to you.

“But your whiteness, your cloud, what you are, will be gone.”

I am not a cloud. I am moisture. A cloud is my physical appearance, but that changes throughout my life. And regardless of how I look, what I am, vapor, still exists.

“Well, you’re looking very anemic now.”

I am not anemic!

Apparently the fading cloud had feelings, and perhaps a little bit of a temper.

“Well, you are at least looking very benign right now.”

Like I said, I am resting. Today my mission is to provide shade. Today is an easy life for me.

“So, does that mean you’ll be reborn tomorrow?”

Of course.

“And you’ll look different?”

No two clouds are ever alike.

Strangely, I was beginning to understand that cloud, just a little perhaps, through some seemingly impossible way. And then I had an uncharacteristically profound thought, for a young man.

“You say the true you is nothing more than water vapor. Would you call that your soul?”

By now the cloud had completely disappeared, but I could still hear its voice in my head.

It is what I am. It is always there; it does not change. If that is what you call a soul, then so be it.

By now the voice of that thing that used to be a cloud was fading as the invisible vapor moved on.

Needless to say, I did not discuss what I was hearing with my then girlfriend. She moved on to another boy soon enough.

The next day dawned with building cumulus. There was instability in the air, and clouds were pregnant with moisture. Wishing for confirmation of what had happened the day before, I turned my attention to the nearest cloud.

“You look full of life this morning.”

I heard nothing.

I tried again, “You look very full of life this morning.”

You talkin to me boy? The cloud was growing vertically as well as horizontally.

“Well, I was trying to.”

Yes, I thought I heard you thinking I was pregnant.

I sincerely hoped that no one else could hear this … uh… conversation, if you could call it that.

You’re right, though. I’m about to give birth.

“To rain?” I wondered out loud.

Rain? Oh no. That’s the process, but not what is borne.

“I don’t understand”.

I give birth to puddles, ponds, lakes and oceans; any container that my rain falls into.

“Containers? Really?”

Tell me little man, do you have a mind?

I laughed. “Last time I checked. What a strange thing for a cloud to ask.”

OK, then where is it?

“In my head of course. In my brain.”

Oh you silly little man.

“What?”

Your brain is the container. Your mind is shaped by the container, but it is not the container.

It seemed very strange getting a lesson — well, maybe I could charitably call it a philosophy lesson — from a cloud. But then they tell me all knowledge is being stored in clouds. I wonder if this is what they mean.

Pay attention. I’m telling you important stuff here.

“I’m sorry; my mind was wandering.”

Minds do that. They don’t like being kept in containers; it’s too confining.

“Do tell.”

Do you know your mind survives even when your brain does not? Your mind can leave its container just like my water can leave its containers.

This was beginning to sound suspiciously like the ancient mind-body problem. Is the mind the brain, or vice versa?

Except that could not possibly be. After all, I was talking to a — cloud.

“So if we have a soul, you’re saying our soul retains its mind?”

You like that word, “Soul”. You used it yesterday.

“How do you know that?”

If you can believe it, that cloud chuckled, in a vaporous sort of way… I swear it did.

All information is shared in the clouds. That’s why I’m talking to you.

But to answer your question, yes. Your soul retains its mind. Actually, humans have been taught this for thousands of years. Yet most of them still don’t seem to understand. Which puzzles me — it’s really not that difficult.

“You know, I hate to be skeptical, but you seem way too smart for a cloud.”

Oh come now, do you really think clouds can talk?

For some inexplicable reason I was shocked by that question. Apparently I had already suspended disbelief as this second day’s conversation had become more and more interesting.

Having been forced back to reality, I answered. “Well … no. Not really.”

They’re a parable. It’s Me whose talking to you.

“Me who?”

There was no answer. I asked again, “Me who?”

That question has never been answered.

In Search of Glories

Recently my inner child took notice of a circle of light racing across the cloud tops as I cruised at 7000 feet and 180 mph with the prevailing westerlies at my back. I was headed east above the Gulf Coast between New Orleans and the Florida Panhandle, and the late afternoon sun crept ever lower behind my right wing. Like a fighter in loose formation, the ring of colored light was keeping pace with the aircraft, just in front of my left wing.

My adult self realized that the spot contained a shadow of the airplane, but the bright halos around the dark shadow puzzled me. When my inner child asked me what it was, I had no ready answer.

I’d seen those halos before without really understanding them, but now I had a chance to photograph them. I grabbed cameras and recorded the beautiful phenomenon while the autopilot kept the aircraft on course.

One of the advantages of general aviation aircraft is that we often fly at the altitudes of the DC3s, the early airliners. Which meant that at 7000 feet I could open a small window beside me without depressurizing the cabin and give the camera a clear view of what I was experiencing.

An understanding of what I was seeing would have to wait.

[youtube id=”sV90o44sCE8″ w=”700″ h=”600″]

With few exceptions, Glories remain in the realm of pilots and Angels. By association, many pilots feel privileged to see a glory. I know I do.

Without knowing the science behind glories, pilots may even interpret them as signs of the divine. After all, they do look suspiciously like halos seen in medieval religious art. Indeed, “glory” is another name for those iconic halos.

Science is only able to partly demystify the subject of glories. The best technical explanation is that glories are the result of reflections (back-scattering) of sunlight coming from directly behind the observer. The tiny spherical water drops in clouds are the objects that scatter the sun light. Oddly enough, the size of the water droplets determines the size of the glory, which by the way may contain multiple rings as seen on the videos in this posting.

Laven-Fig13 — MiePlot simulation of scattering of sunlight from r = 4.8 µm water drops superimposed on a digital image of a glory taken from a commercial aircraft. From philiplaven.com.

This process of ring formation from water droplets is called Mie Scattering, and is described mathematically by Mie Theory. Phillip Laven’s website, http://www.philiplaven.com/index1.html, provides an ample resource for the curious.

Glories have proven to be such an elusive quarry, that I, like many pilots, have developed a fascination with them. Therefore I could not resist making a brief video, with music, of the glories encountered on that one eastward flight. In it you see a classical glory, followed by a fleeting and hard to photograph glory on the side of a cloud, followed by apparent flight into an ever moving cloudbow.

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