Scrabble Rule Change

Proper nouns allowed

Well, this is earthshaking news. Mattel has changed the rules of the board game, Scrabble.

The rules of word game Scrabble are being changed for the first time in its history to allow the use of proper nouns, games company Mattel has said.

Place names, people's names and company names or brands will now count.

Source: "Proper nouns come into play in Scrabble rule change", BBC News, April 6, 2010.

Later in the article, Mattel (a Mattel spokesperson, surely) says that there will be no rules about right or wrong spellings of proper nouns. It's hard for me to understand how that will work, but I guess it will be all right for those who want to play by those rules.

Keely and I have already decided that we will continue to play by the traditional rules. In our house, that means that no proper nouns at all are allowed.

The appearance of Scrabble in world news gives me an excuse to share our Easter afternoon Scrabble game. It was a good one! At the end of the game, we both had three letters left, and the score was 680 (Keely) to 756 (me). In a stunning moment of pure genius, Keely saw that she could play all three of her letters (E, I, and W) in the following location on the board.

The blank letter is a T. Do you see the place where Keely played? Click here to see the word that earned her 102 points and moved her to the lead, 782 to 770. (In anatomy, an iter is a passage or canal, particularly in the brain.)

I played my last three letters and got another 27 points, making the final score 809 to 782 in my favor. Looking at the completed game now, I don't even remember the places where I played. I won, but it hardly seemed a victory after Keely's spectacular coup.

That's how Scrabble is supposed to be played. Proper nouns would spoil everything!

UPDATE: It turns out that the U.S. version of Scrabble, owned by Hasbro, has not changed its rules. See the comments below for a link.

Dog News

For dog lovers

Three interesting articles:

• Puppies save three-year-old boy lost in freezing Virginia woods
• Studies show that dogs have a sense of fairness
• The greatest dog history forgot

And another incident of bad food from China (probably):

Australian Veterinary Association warns poisoned meat causing kidney damage in dogs

Do most pet foods disclose the origin of the ingredients?  I'm going to conduct an investigation on cat food.

Whooping Crane Migration

Helping endangered cranes survive

Carolyn Hall, of Bassett, NE, sent a link for Operation Migration, a group that is helping to establish a new flock of migratory whooping cranes. This flock will winter in east Florida and summer in central Michigan.

Eggs are collected in the wild and hatched in incubators. Even before the eggs are hatched, the baby birds are imprinted with the sound of ultralight aircraft, the "birds" that will eventually lead them as they migrate. The imprinting with ultralights continues as the baby birds are born, grow, and learn to fly.

This year's "crop" of whooping crane chicks is now migrating from Michigan to Florida, and the ultralights are teaching them the safest route. You can read a daily log of their progress in the Field Journal. Start at the bottom of the page to read the entries in chronological order.

Today's entry includes a video of the young whooping cranes taking some exercise after a couple of days on the ground due to weather conditions. With a wingspan of 7 to 8 feet and long legs stretched behind them, they are beautiful in flight -- and a joy to see, because they are rare and precious.

According to Operation Migration's Crane Count, the total population of all whooping cranes (wild and captive) was 539 on July 14, 2008.

Related: Whooping Cranes Threatened by Wind Farms

Spivey, Kansas: Busy with Oil

Oilfield parts keep a little town on the map.

My sister-in-law Kathy sent a link to a Wichita Eagle article about Spivey, Kansas. Kathy is the office manager for one of the oilfield-supply companies mentioned in the article.

Spivey is located in the Spivey-Grabs oilfield of Harper and Kingman counties in south central Kansas. It's also centrally located within a wide area of oil and natural gas production that stretches across southern and western Kansas and northern Oklahoma. Because of its location, Spivey has become the headquarters for several companies that supply parts for all phases of oil and gas production -- drilling the wells, pumping the petroleum, and bringing it to market it via pipelines, storage tanks, etc.

The Spivey Field, located in Kingman and Harper Counties, South Central Kansas, was discovered in 1949. Development of oil and gas reserves from the Mississippian Chert Formation, at an average drilling depth of 4,250 feet, has been continual since discovery... Great lateral extent, thick pay sections, and long-lived production characterize the reservoir.

Source: a 1998 report by the 3TEC Energy Corporation

It's hard for me to say much about Spivey without repeating what the Wichita Eagle writer said. It's just a little, dirt-street town. The school, the truck stop, and the church are all closed. You can't even buy a newspaper or a loaf of bread in Spivey. Less than 100 people live there, but the oilfield-supply companies will be in Spivey for the duration.


Related:
Oil Drilling in the Land of the Free
Old-time photo of Spivey

Classifieds at WalMart.com

WalMart undercutting local newspapers

I learned today that WalMart.com has a free online classified ad service. It seems to be intended mainly for private party use. The Terms of Use say that ads that "engage in any commercial activity" may not be posted.

I noticed that the ads contain many homes for sale by realtors, which would surely be commercial activity, but maybe that's considered OK since the sellers are private parties.

The classifieds site is powered by Oodle, a classified ad aggregator. Oodle gathers classified ads from a variety of sources and makes them searchable. Ads from all sources that match any certain search query are then displayed on an Oodle page with links to their sources.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was not pleased to learn that their newspaper ads were appearing in the WalMart classifieds. WEHCO Media, which owns the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and ten other Arkansas newspapers, decided to withhold their ads from the WalMart/Oodle site.

While WEHCO realizes it must compete for classified ads and audience, the company says it does not see the advantage in helping classified competitors, especially since classified content is a major reason for reading a newspaper or its Web site, and classified revenues are a major source of funding news gathering, reporting and journalism. (Source)

Having worked several years in classified advertising at Hopkinsville's locally-owned daily, I sympathize with WEHCO Media. Newspapers already face competition on all sides. Dwindling circulation numbers affirm that the public has many choices about where to read the news and advertisements. It's adding insult to injury for WalMart/Oodle to republish a newspaper's classified ads as well as offering free ads.

Classified advertising is a vital revenue source for small newspapers. WalMart's not really interested in the money, though. WalMart wants to take over the traffic that classified ads bring to the local newspaper. They want the public to develop a habit of visiting the WalMart website regularly.

On first glance, free ads may seem a nice service, but it's not helpful to any community if the newspaper goes broke or its owners are forced to sell out to a large newspaper chain.

Really, it reminds me of the Bible's account of David and Bathsheba. David had great riches and plenty of women already, but he looked out from his palace rooftop and saw Bathsheba, the wife of an ordinary soldier, and he wanted her too. That's what WalMart is doing -- looking out from their piles of wealth and seeing something else they want, something that still belongs to small, local firms, in many cases.

A hat tip goes to The Rural Blog, where I learned about the ad controversy in Arkansas. By the way, I've deliberately not linked to either WalMart or Oodle. It's my symbolic bit of protest.

Shingles Shot Now Available

Chance of shingles reduced with shot

According to a May 16, 2008, Associated Press news report, a vaccine for shingles (herpes zoster) is now available. Vaccination is highly recommended for people who are 60 and older. It's even recommended for people who have had shingles already.

I'm fortunate that shingles broke out on my hand (rather than my face or elsewhere), and I hope that I'll never have them again if I take the shot.

My cousin Alta wrote the following about her experience with shingles:

Shingles, I know how they hurt. I had them 6 years ago on the left side of my face including my left eye, which they thought I would lose my eye sight but the shingle was behind the eye so that helped. I have lot of eye scares from the shingles so can't remove the cataract that is forming. Too dangerous but I can see out of it, but not as good as I would have.

Source: E-mail, 6-8-08

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) cites statistics for shingles and some common complications.

Approximately one in three persons will develop zoster during their lifetime, resulting in an estimated 1 million episodes in the United States annually.

A common complication of zoster is postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), a chronic, often debilitating pain condition that can last months or even years. The risk for PHN in patients with zoster is 10%--18%.

Another complication of zoster is eye involvement, which occurs in 10%--25% of zoster episodes and can result in prolonged or permanent pain, facial scarring, and loss of vision.

Approximately 3% of patients with zoster are hospitalized; many of these episodes involved persons with one or more immunocompromising conditions.

Deaths attributable to zoster are uncommon among persons who are not immunocompromised.

Source: CDC document, "Prevention of Herpes Zoster." This document also notes that 99.5% of U.S. citizens test positive for varicella (chicken pox), and about 50% of those who live to age 85 will contract zoster (shingles.)

Before my current outbreak of shingles, I wasn't aware of the high likelihood of getting the disease, the possible complications, or the vaccine that's now available. I'm better informed now. I intend to have the shingles shot as soon as possible.

Wabash Valley Earthquake, April 18, 2008

Whole lotta shakin' goin' on

An earthquake of 5.2 magnitude occurred at about 4:35 this morning in the Wabash Valley of southeastern Illinois, roughly 40 miles northwest of Evansville, Indiana

I was sound asleep in bed when it happened, but the shaking of the house woke me up. Dennis was up and busy with his morning routine -- doing his exercises, running the washing machine, and getting ready for work.

In my sleepy stupor, I imagined that the washing machine was shaking the whole house during its spin cycle. I thought that the load of clothing must be terribly unbalanced. The shaking quit after a few more seconds, and I went back to sleep immediately.

When I got up this morning, Keely asked me if I had felt the earthquake in the night. She had built it into a dream about a bulldozer hitting the house, causing the walls to shudder. Like me, she didn't realize it was an earthquake when she felt it.

Our experiences were nothing like those of people near the epicenter:

At Mesa Lake, retiree Harvey Manor described the quake as "a deep roar."

"I got out of bed. It was ominous ... a deep roar. I knew it was an earthquake," Manor said. "I thought it might be the big one they've talked about us having.

Source: "Earthquake, aftershocks rattle Tri-State" by Rich Davis and Ryan Reynolds, Evansville Courier & Press, April 18, 2008

At about 10:15 this morning, I felt an aftershock. The floor quivered slightly, the dishes and glass shelves in the china cabinet rattled a little and I noticed that the ceiling fan blades were trembling. The Evansville Courier & Press (article cited above) reports the 10:15 a.m. shock at 4.5 magnitude.

Over a dozen aftershocks have exceeded 3.0 magnitude, but that's the only one I've noticed. It's my day off, and I took a nap after everyone left this morning. Apparently none of the aftershocks were strong enough to wake me up.

Did you feel this earthquake or any of its aftershocks? Please tell us about it in the comments. Also, you can make a report to the U.S. Geological Survey website about this quake.

Day of the Robot

Most modern robots don't look much like the Jetsons' maid.

How many robots have served you today? Chances are, you've used some kind of a money-handling robot. Perhaps it was the ATM machine, the self-check lane at the grocery store, or the pay-at-the-pump at the gas station.

Robots are mechanical devices, controlled by electronics, that do jobs previously done by humans. Even modern household appliances like automatic dishwashers, washing machines, bread-baking machines, etc. could be considered robots. They may not have the intelligence and lovability that Rosie of the Jetsons did, but I do appreciate them!

Modern robots in everyday use include everything from big-armed automatic car washes to the tiny "scopes" that doctors send into various parts of our bodies. (And personally, I prefer car washes!)

My husband's cousin learned to be an electrician at the Allis Chalmers plant in Independence, MO, in the late 1960s. Later at General Motors in Kansas City, he was trained in industrial robotics and spent the rest of his working years doing that, quite profitably. A neighbor of ours (sadly, now deceased), who lived down the road about 2 miles here in Kentucky, traveled all over the country setting up robots in factories.

Today, I read about a robot that should be popular for both homeowners and commercial lawn-care firms -- a little remote-controlled gizmo that scoots through gutters. It uses augers and a brush to whiz out the leaves and collected crud.

The (South) Koreans have launched an ambitious program that is supposed to put a Ubiquitous Robot Companion in every home by 2020. One model is a roly-poly Rosie-like robot that's probably pretty cute in action, especially while it's doing work for you!

The robots will clean up homes, care for pets, read to children and identify visitors... Half of them will be controlled remotely via cell phone.

Source: Robots to do Household Work in South Korea, UPI article published on Physorg.com, July 03, 2006

Another article about Korea's rapid advances in household robotics reports that South Korea put 72% of their households on broadband in just five years! Based on the rate that broadband has been adopted in western Kentucky, Ubiquitous Household Companions may be available and affordable by the time my children are grandparents. But that's another topic.

Technorati tags: robots, household robotics, robots in everyday life

Another Bagged Spinach Recall

Salmonella found in fresh spinach bagged by Metz Fresh

Over 8000 cases of fresh bagged spinach were recalled today by Metz Fresh LLC of King City, Calif. A single sample on their lines tested positive for salmonella, but they're recalling the entire batch.

90% of the recalled bags of spinach is still in the warehouses and won't be released. The rest of it is -- well, somewhere else. If you have fresh spinach on hand, you should check whether it fits this description:

The recall covers 10- and 16-ounce bags, as well as 4-pound cartons and cartons that contain four 2.5-pound bags, with the following tracking codes: 12208114, 12208214 and 12208314.

Source: "Salmonella Scare Prompts Spinach Recall", by staff, Associated Press, August 30, 2007.

I tried to visit the Metz Fresh website, but the page wouldn't open. Possibly, their server has crashed due to a sudden influx of visitors! However, you can still visit the Google cache of the Metz Fresh website.

I feel sorry for Metz Fresh -- no company wants this kind of publicity -- but I applaud them for issuing an extensive recall that should (we all hope!) take care of the problem.

I checked the news for what was going on with spinach after the blog got a few hits from people searching for "Netz spinach recall" and "Netz contaminated spinach." They need to search for "Metz," not "Netz" (which is my last name, you know.) The search engines were sending them to "Bagged Spinach Warning," a post I wrote a year ago when E. coli bacteria took fresh spinach off the market for a while.

Technorati tags: spinach recall, bagged spinach warning, Metz Fresh

Mars on August 27

I hoped it was true, but it isn't.

Have you received any e-mail lately about Mars being unusually close to earth on August 27? I have received it from several people, and I was quite interested in it. I thought I'd do a little research and perhaps write about it on the blog. I was hoping for a clear night on August 27 so I could observe the phenomenon.

A quick search for "Mars August 27" yielded some surprising information: this planetary event happened in 2003, and the e-mails for it are still circulating.

Now that I think about it, it does seem that I remember this happening with Mars. I should remember it more clearly than I do, but I was pretty busy at that time. It was the beginning of the Iraq war and Dennis had gone to Kuwait for AAFES. Keely was starting college, Isaac was starting high school, and I was working full-time. All in all, I probably didn't have much time to look at the late-night sky.

Technorati tags: urban legend, Mars on August+27, August 2003

How Lariats Are Made

Some Interesting News...

The Billings Gazette (Billings, Montana) has an interesting article: "King's Saddlery Knows the Ropes." It's about King's Saddlery and King Ropes in Sheridan, Wyoming, and it describes the process of making a fine lariat. I think you'll enjoy the article if you're interested in western history and lore.

Thanks to Sarpy Sam at Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere for posting the link.

Technorati tags: handmade, lariat making, rope making, lariat, rope, King's Saddlery, King Rope,

Big Bluestem Honored

Life In Missouri... More About Trees and Plants...

Today, big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) was named the official Missouri State Grass.

4th grade teacher Christine Schmidgall and four successive classes of fourth graders in Rolla, MO, were instrumental in the naming. They worked with their state representative, lobbied the legislature, and even testified before a subcommittee. No wonder the governor came to their school to sign the bill into law.

“Big Bluestem has been here for 10,000 years,” said Schmidgall. “One of the neat things about it is that it grows nine to 12 feet above the ground, but its roots go 10 to 15 feet below and nourish the soil as they decay. Really, it’s incredible, and truly native to the state.”

Source: "Blunt Signs Big Bluestem Bill," by Kristen Jump,The Rolla Daily News, June 12, 2007

The Associated Press was less ecstatic about Missouri's new state grass. Perhaps they were trying to be more "fair and balanced" than the hometown newspaper of the teacher and kids who successfully lobbied for big bluestem.

According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture Web site, big bluestem can be a "weedy and invasive" plant. But the agency also said the grass is good for livestock grazing, erosion control and also can provide a place for nesting by birds and other animals.

Source: "Big bluestem is now state’s official grass", by staff. Associated Press, June 12, 2007

The grassy topic of this post may be unpleasant to readers who are allergic to grass pollen. It's a rough time of the year for hay fever sufferers. I hope the clump of big bluestem at the top of this post doesn't make anyone sneeze or break out in hives.

Technorati tags: big bluestem, Missouri state grass, Missouri, 4th grade, native grass

Wild Turkey Breaks Bus Window

Some Interesting News...

This story goes into the "Not surprising" file:

EAST HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - A school bus driver suffered cuts Tuesday when a wild turkey crashed through the windshield of her bus on Interstate 84.

The bus was carrying 36 fifth-graders and four adults on a field trip from Windham Middle School to Indian Rock in Meriden when a flock of turkeys flew into the bus' path, police and school officials said.

One bird went through the windshield, police said...

Source: Wild Turkey Injures School Bus Driver

The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (CT DEP) says their turkey toms can weigh 15 to 25 pounds and turkey hens can weigh 8 to 12 pounds.

The CT DEP also gives this bit of general information about their local turkey species:

In the United States, five subspecies of wild turkey inhabit 49 states except Alaska. The subspecies which exists in Connecticut, Meleagris gallopavo silvestris, ranges from southern Maine to northern Florida, west to eastern Texas and north to North Dakota.

Given the size of the bird and the inertia of a bus traveling 55 mph or more, it's not really a surprise the window broke. The driver suffered cuts from the glass but will be all right, apparently. There were no other injuries, though some of the kids had glass in their hair.

I haven't yet had a dangerous road experience with a turkey, but I've had a close call with a turkey buzzard that flew up from a roadkill morsel toward my windshield. They're big birds, but not nearly as large as a turkey tom.

Technorati tags: accidents, school bus safety, wild turkeys

800-Year-Old Arco Valley Pearl To Be Auctioned

Some Interesting News...

An interesting pearl auction will soon take place in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. One of the world's largest natural pearls, the Arco Valley Pearl, is being offered for sale. The auction house Lifestyle Auctions suggests in the catalog that this famous pearl might bring $6 to $8 million.

Here's a description of the event from Lifestyle Auctions' homepage:

Featuring:

A SPECTACULAR EVENING AND AUCTION OF EXCLUSIVE PEARLS;

AN EVENT OF AFFLUENCE, SOPHISTICATION, STYLE AND BEAUTY.

A GLORIOUS REVIVAL OF PEARLS INTERNATIONALLY AND LOCALLY, REPOSITIONING ABU DHABI ON THE INTERNATIONAL MAP OF THE PEARL INDUSTRY AS AN ACTIVE CENTRE.

The auction was supposed to take place today (May 3, 2007), but due to a death in the Abu Dhabi royal family, it has been postponed. This unfortunate and unforeseen complication does allow anticipation and interest to continue building until the auction finally happens.

All of the 24 auction lots are pearls. Some of the pearls are set, some are loose, some are small, some are large, and one is HUGE! The huge one is, of course, the Arco Valley Pearl. Can you imagine? It is 3.1 inches long, and it weighs 575 carats (115 grams or a little over 4 ounces.)

The Arco Valley Pearl has a wonderful history that dates back to the 12th century in Mongolia. In a list of famous pearls, it says that the Arco Valley Pearl was "offered by Marco Polo to Khubilai Khan, emperor of China." However, most current newspaper articles about the pearl are saying that Kublai Khan gave the pearl to Marco Polo as a gift.

The pearl is named for the Arco Valley of Austria where a prominent family owned it. The whereabouts of the pearl during the centuries between Marco Polo and the Austrian family are unknown.

The current owner of the pearl is an Abu Dhabi jeweler, who bought the pearl just a few weeks ago from a French person who wishes to remain unknown.

It will be interesting to see how much the pearl sells for and who buys it. If a private party buys it, it is quite possible that they will not want their name published. The nation of China is said to be interested in it; they see it as a treasure that should return to China.

Just one photo of the pearl seems to be available on the internet, and it is the same photo that you can see in the auction catalog for Lot 21.

If you're in the mood to look at beautiful pearls, you will enjoy the Smithsonian online exhibit, The Allure of Pearls. The largest of the pearls in that exhibit was 125 grams smaller than the Arco Valley Pearl.

The largest pearl ever found (that we know of) is the Pearl of Lao-Tzu, also known as the Pearl of Allah. It weighs 14 pounds, and it was found by a Philipine diver in 1934 in a giant clam in the Palawan Sea.

Technorati tags: Arco Valley Pearl, pearls, auction, pearl auction

Advice for Mushroom Hunters

More About Trees and Plants... Some Interesting News...

This advice comes from the Mammoth Cave National Park mushrooming regulations.

Mammoth Cave is a popular place to hunt morels, and park rangers are concerned that the morel population may be seriously affected by the volume of mushrooms that is removed each spring.

Regulations designed to prevent a depletion include the following:

• No more than 2 gallons of morels per person per day may be removed.
• Morels must be collected and carried in a mesh bag (like the bags that onions are packed in) so the spores can fall out and propagate the species.

These are sensible suggestions for mushroom hunters all the time, not just in Mammoth Park, especially the one about the mesh bag. We don't want mushrooms to go extinct. They're too good!

From a news item in Kentucky Living, May 2007, Volume 61, No. 5, p. 21.

Technorati tags: morels, mushrooms, mushroom hunting

Pet Food Recall

More About Birds and Animals... Some Interesting News...

I've been listening to the many pet food recalls during the past few weeks, secure in the knowledge that I had enough cat food to last for a while.

The supply is dwindling, though, and I'll have to buy more cat food soon. It's a bit worrisome to do so because of the recalls. I hope that no recalled products are still on the store shelves. I hope that the cat food I buy won't be ruled unfit for consumption after I've already fed it to Skittles and Casper.

The FDA has a page of helpful information about the pet food recalls including a list (supposedly complete) of all the products. Happily, our brand of cat food isn't listed, but over 100 pet foods have been recalled.

I read today that the FDA is investigating whether the contamination of the Chinese grain products (wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate in the U.S. and corn gluten in South Africa) may have been intentional in order to make the protein content appear higher.

"Melamine was found in all three of those — it would certainly lend credibility to the theory that it may be intentional. That will be one of the theories we will pursue when we get into the plants in China," Stephen Sundlof, the FDA's chief veterinarian, told reporters.

Chinese authorities have told the FDA that the wheat gluten was an industrial product not meant for pet food, Sundlof said. Still, melamine can skew test results to make a product appear more protein-rich than it really is, he added. That raises the possibility the contamination was deliberate. (Source)

Young Prince Casper strolls through his domain

Technorati tags: pet food recall, pet food, pets

Christian County's 2006 Tornado Revisited

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

Today I drove through some of the area northeast of Hopkinsville, KY, that was hit by an F3 tornado on April 2, 2006. This tall sycamore tree still has some roofing metal caught in it. Plenty of damage is still visible to property and trees but some buildings have been replaced and some have seen some repair.

The tornado was a strange but interesting experience as a blogger. My blog was new at that time, and I was lucky to get 50 page-views a day. Suddenly, I had several hundred page-views a day from people across the nation and around the world who were trying to find out about the tornado. I suppose that many of them had family or friends here or had once lived here themselves. I tried to report some of the news and provide some links for them.

The Kentucky New Era has run a couple of follow-up stories lately about the tornado. In a report published on March 13, 2007, a lady said she had received a lot of help from the American Red Cross and she was grateful for it. When the tornado hit, she and her husband were thrown out of their mobile home onto the top of their car. Both their home and their car were destroyed, and they spent several days in a Nashville hospital. They ended up selling their property and moving to a home in town.

On March 14, 2007, the Kentucky New Era reported that the Christian County Road Department was nearly finished with assistance to the tornado cleanup. A state of emergency was declared after the tornado to allow the Road Department to haul storm debris from private property to the landfill.

The storm cleanup has cost the Road Department $423,000. The county will receive a $250,000 grant from the Commonwealth of Kentucky to help with the expense. About 3,000 tons of debris have been taken to the landfill.

The tornado posts I made last year were:

• Stormy Weather Tonight
• Tornado in Christian County, KY
• Official Report on Tornado in Christian County, KY
• More About the Tornado of April 2, 2006
• Tornado Damage to Trees

Technorati tags:

tornado
F3 tornado

Enjoy Your Coffee

Some Interesting News... And What I Think About It...

Scientific American reported a few days ago that a cup of coffee contains soluble dietary fiber -- the same sort of cholesterol-lowering fiber that is found in oatmeal.

The article* states that 16 ounces of coffee can contain as much fiber as an apple (though of course, it doesn't have the vitamins that an apple does.) It also states that freeze-dried coffee has the most fiber.

Other studies have found that coffee contains many antioxidents and caffeinated coffee may reduce the chance of developing Alzheimers, type 2 diabetes and Parkinson's disease. You don't have to feel guilty about enjoying a cup of real coffee, despite what some militant coffee tee-totalers or hard-core decaf drinkers may try to tell you.

Do I sound strangely passionate on this topic? I suppose it's from being around the old folks at church for many years. They want decaf if they drink coffee at all, and a couple of them are rather opinionated about their preferences.



* " Need Fiber? Have Some Coffee" by Coco Ballantyne. Published by Scientific American on March 13, 2007.


Related post: "Coffee is good for you!"

Technorati tags:

coffee

Nuthatches Speak Chickadee

More About Birds and Animals... Some Interesting News...

You might enjoy reading this AP story: Birds learn meaning of other species' call.

It seems that chickadees give specific information in their warning cries about the type of predator they have spotted, and nuthatches understand the specific information and respond appropriately.

For example, nuthatches understand chickadee warnings for small fast raptor predators and they respond by grouping up, ready to mob the threatening bird. The article describes how this was tested by playing chickadee calls on a loudspeaker.

The old expression that "Birds of a feather stick together" is still correct, but it's apparently not inclusive enough. These little birds operate more like the Arab proverb, "My brother and I against my cousin. My cousin and I against the enemy."

Nuthatches and chickadees are birds we often see around our feeders.



Public domain images from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Institutes of Health.


Technorati tags:

chickadees
nuthatches

The Southern Buffalo

North America's native cattle

USDA photo by Jack Dykinga

This seems to be Bovine Day on the blog, so I will post a link to an interesting article about North America's native wild cow, the buffalo: "Bison herd a link to Texas' history". (Note: When I checked this link on 4/3/11, it was extinct. The article may be purchased from the Dallas Morning News.)

The article tells the story of a small herd of southern buffalo that were rescued from certain extinction by Charles Goodnight, a Texas rancher of fame and legend, and his wife Mary Ann Goodnight. Descendants of the herd are now the official Texas Bison Herd.

Through the years, some of the buffalo in this herd have been cross-bred with cattle and have picked up some cattle genes. Others in the herd are still 100% buffalo. The genetically pure animals are a particularly important gene pool for the buffalo species because they carry some bison genetic markers that are rare or non-existent in other herds.

From the article, a comparison of the southern buffalo:

Characteristics : North American bison males may reach a length of 10 1/2 to 12 feet, while females may be 8 to 10 feet long. Weight ranges from 1,800 to 2,000 pounds for males and 700 to 900 pounds for females. Southern bison are generally smaller than northern bison and lighter in color. Some bulls may reach 6 feet at the top of their hump. Both males and females have short black horns curving upward then inward with narrow tips.

The eastern buffalo has been extinct since 1825. It too was a smaller animal than the Plains buffalo. Neither the southern nor the eastern buffalo were true subspecies. However, there were obviously regional differences in size and coloration.

TAXONOMIC NOTES Two subspecies are recognized: the plains bison (B. b. bison) was once widespread from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, and from the Canadian prairies to northeastern Mexico; the larger, darker and warier wood bison (B. b. athabascae) lived farther west, extending northward as far as the Northwest Territories and possibly as far west as the Bering Sea coast of Alaska. Two other races were listed at one time but no longer are considered valid, and are extinct in any case. They were the pale-colored mountain bison (haningtoni) of Colorado, and the eastern bison (pennsylvanicus) of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, which was almost black with a grizzled face and smaller hump. There are large numbers of plains x wood bison hybrids in Yellowstone (U.S.) and Wood Buffalo (Canada) national parks and elsewhere. The only remaining pureblooded wood bison are found in sanctuaries in the Northwest Territories and Alberta. (Source: "Bovids", an informational page from Safari Club International.)

I found the following quote about buffalo on a page titled, "Old Mobeetie Texas Association: Red River War.

The southern buffalo were long and tall and slabside. They were like the Texas cattle in build while the northern buffalo were more like the Hereford. They were probably the same specie, but the northern bison had longer, blacker, and better wool. The southern buffalo’s wool turned yellow in the fall. (Attributed to J. Wright Mooar, Buffalo Hunter)

Here is another comment on the various appearances of American buffalo from someone who lived much closer to the age of the buffalo than we do:

Had the bison remained for a few more centuries in undisturbed possession of his range, and with liberty to roam at will over the North American continent, it is almost certain that several distinctly recognizable varieties would have been produced. The buffalo of the hot regions in the extreme south would have become a short-haired animal like the gaur of India and the African buffalo. The individuals inhabiting the extreme north, in the vicinity of Great Slave Lake, for example, would have developed still longer hair, and taken on more of the dense hairyness of the musk ox. In the "wood" or "mountain buffalo" we already have a distinct foreshadowing of the changes which would have taken place in the individuals which made their permanent residence upon rugged mountains. (Source: The Extermination of the American Bison, by William Temple Hornaday (1854-1937), published in 1889 by the Government Printing Office in Washington D.C.)

In an article titled, "The West: Buffalo Hunting on the Great Plains: Promoting One Society While Supplanting Another" by historian and lecturer Keith Miller, three major causes are cited for the final near-extinction of buffalo on the American continent in the late 1800's. First, a very efficient process had been developed for tanning the hides. Second, gun technology improved during and after the Civil War, so the rifles used by buffalo hunters were more accurate and more powerful than ever before. Third, the railroads made it possible to ship massive quantities of buffalo hides.

In the period 1872-1874 the bison hunts in the southern plains peaked, for example, with a buffalo death toll of 4,374,000. To that level of killing by white hunters must be added the 1,215,000 bison taken by Indians on the southern plains.

Such an horrendous slaughter had prompted the action of Congress. First, in 1872, that legislative body voted for a measure to limit buffalo hunting, and then, in 1874, passed a much more restrictive bill. But, to no avail, because President Ulysses S. Grant declined to sign either proposed law. So, the killing continued unabated. With this result--by 1875 the southern buffalo herds ceased to exist.

Source: "The West: Buffalo Hunting on the Great Plains: Promoting One Society While Supplanting Another" by Keith Miller