The Year Without a Fall

     November ended on another cold snap with snow this time.  Temperatures were near freezing all month.  Couple that with a summer that didn't end until my birthday (Oct. 21), and you have a fall season that only last about two weeks!  Fall is usually short around here in the Seattle area, lasting two months tops, but never like this.  It is certainly one for the record books.  My hope is that this pattern doesn't continue to worsen as a symptom of global warming.

Umwelt: What Animal Senses Reveal About Hidden Realities in Nature

    Humans are the only species with the ability to physically map environments using their hands.  Cartography is one out of many privileges that came from our dexterous ability to manipulate objects.  But are other animals capable of mapping environments, if not by recording them, then at least with their senses?  If so, which are the ones better at it than us?  We can use the concept of umwelt, or the world as it is experienced by another organism, to answer such questions.

    Obviously, many animals have the same senses we have, but some have such refined ones that it is difficult to comprehend.  Take sight for instance; the mantis shrimp can see in 12 dimensions of color, which humans aren't capable of imagining.  Others have far better hearing, like the elephant, which can hear the calls of others up to 6km away.  Catfish have taste buds all over their bodies; they are literally mapping the environment around them with the sense of taste.  Scorpions can detect the footfalls of their prey using ground sensors, while harbor seals can track fish using their whiskers- a result of tiny variations in aquatic pressure.  In quieter eras, whale calls could carry across an entire ocean, presumably allowing them to navigate long distances.  Birds and turtles can also navigate long distances by sensing the Earth's magnetic field.  Spiders take off by sensing electric forces in the air that they can attach with.  Dolphins can map the physical anatomy of most ocean creatures by using echolocation; they can literally see inside our bodies while mapping their surroundings using sound.  Others can detect infrared or ultraviolet light in their surroundings.  The treasure chest of natural cartography is large and seemingly magical.  Imagine a being imbued with all these remote sensing abilities; you would have an organic super-being with finer detection than our most advanced satellites.

    Otherwise, the range of animal sense abilities are scientifically staggering.  The killer fly's ultra fast vision allows it to capture quick flying insects in the span of a human blink.  It can literally slow down time, at least relative to us, allowing for a slow-motion view of the world, which might explain why their life spans are so "short".  Because they see the world in slow-motion, their perception of time is dilated, allowing them to live longer in the same amount time that we would perceive.

    The naked mole rat is insensitive to normal pain, like those involving acids or capsaicin.  Sea otters have the most dexterous hands of any species, including humans- fascinating when you consider how this ability co-evolved with our superior brains.  Many birds can detect details in songs that humans cannot perceive; it seems they hear the natural world as a symphonic mess in slow-motion.  The greater wax moth hears higher frequencies than any other animal.  The platypus' bill can sense both pressure and electric fields, which it might combine into a single sense best described as electro-touch.  Turtles can sense multiple magnetic dimensions, not just one.  An octopus's arms are partly independent; they can sense and explore the world without direction from a central brain.

 

    I discovered all these amazing abilities reading the unforgettable book An Immense World by Ed Wong.  It helped me imagine what it's like to view the world from a wider perspective.  Every animal in the book is a fascinating case study in alternate perceptions that would enhance our scientific abilities if we had them.  What I suspect is that some animals are better at detecting "hidden" realities behind the physical one we perceive, lending credence to possible religious or supernatural ideas that some humans might have more access to than others.  The more we realize how limited our perceptions are, the more we must remember to keep our minds open.  I can't recommend this book enough.

Fun Facts on Climatology

• Polar regions are normally the driest regions on Earth by water vapor- not deserts- because little energy is available to evaporate water, which is also stifled by cold air.
  
• Faint Young Sun Paradox: apparent contradiction between a weak sun but relatively warm global conditions. Stars get bigger and hotter as they grow older. In early Earth history, solar output was 25 to 30% less, but there is no evidence the Earth was frozen. This is reconciled by the greenhouse effect, or radiation emitted from Earth is reflected back down to warm it. High CO2 levels in early Earth decreased as a result of plant evolution and proliferation, keeping the climate steady. However, as there is no evidence that such large concentrations of CO2 existed to create such a greenhouse effect, other explanations involve ammonia versus methanogens- the demise of the methanogens may have caused the first Global Ice Age
• The mean elevation of Antarctica is 2,200 M or 7,200 ft., which far exceeds that of any other continent. Such high elevations lead to low temperatures and low atmosphere pressures. The Bentley subglacial Trench extends 2,555 M or 8,382 ft below sea level and is currently locked between beneath an extensive ice sheet lowest point on Earth that is not under seawater. Lake Vostok is a huge subglacial lake that receives meltwater from 13,000 ft of thick ice above it.
• The ITCZ can buffer north hemisphere summer precipitation by adding to monsoon totals, as seen in cities like Mumbai.  In some places they split, such as Columbo, Sri Lanka. Others don't even have a monsoon, which see a strong summer precipitation from the ITCZ.
• Without the Coriolis force, Hadley cells would start at the equatorial low pressure and end at the polar low pressure.
• Mid latitude cyclones distribute energy by pushing cold fronts south and warm fronts north. A cold front progresses around a mid-latitude cyclone faster than a warm front because it is denser. The warm front migrates with the storm that doesn't radically change position. Systems decay once the occluded front reaches the upper-level ridge.
• Europe is not an ideal source region for very cold air masses, unlike Canada and Siberia, which is why it is a milder continent than the others. The North Atlantic drift also contributes to temperatures.  Icebergs are not found on the Scandinavian Coast due to the warmer conditions.
  
• More people are believed to die from drowning in the Sahara Desert than thirst because of significant rainfall events, which are typically convective thunderstorms that produce downpours.
• Tropical cyclones do not occur in the South Atlantic, contrary to similar parts of other oceans. This spares Brazil the brunt of tropical storms.
• If the world's current cryosphere were to melt, then sea level would rise by about 67M or 220 ft.
• Paleotempestology is the science of identifying signatures of ancient storms primarily from sediment records.
• There was a period from 10,000 to 7,000 BC known as the Hypsithermal in which global temperatures averaged approximately 2° C higher than today. Most models indicate this is where global warming will put us. If we survived it before, need we worry?  Yes, because many environments will become inhospitable to our growing population, causing refugee crises. Coupled with pollution and loss of biodiversity, the future looks far bleaker than the past.
  

The Evolution of Violence and Extinction in Social Systems

     In John William's novel Butcher's Crossing, there is a memorable passage about a bison massacre, when a young man from the city becomes so unnerved that he cannot help the others in his group with killing and skinning them.  Gradually, as the hunt gets longer by days, he becomes desensitized to the art of butchery, toughening his ability to extract from the buffalo herd what people need to survive: meat, skin, etc.  Alluding to the title, butchery becomes a nostalgic intersection of past and present, between the modern practice of mechanical, alienated slaughter and the prehistoric practice of hunting and skinning animals to survive.  Originally, violence was a natural way to consume what we needed to survive as a species, which you can't fault us for, since most others do the same.

    This seed of desensitized violence is buried deeply in the subconsciousness of humans.  When civilization started, transforming prehistoric villages into cities, the nature of violence also transformed, as there is hardly any evidence for warfare existing prior to the urban revolution.  War and pillage became the new norm for channeling violence as cities competed with one another for resources- something their ancestors didn't need to worry about.  Agriculture and the inherent rise in population demanded submission from places abroad, places that usually had an abundance of what was needed to sustain the cities.

    A second transformation occurred after the Industrial Revolution.  As slaughter became even more mechanized, so did war.  Tanks, planes, and other advanced weaponry meant that violence had to be channeled in new ways.  The subconscious urge to hunt, destroy, to take life for sustenance, was squeezed into outlets that could only be found in the consumer culture of service economies.  Television and film violence came in higher demand as war receded.  Violent contact sports gained appeal.  Private gun ownership skyrocketed.  Video game violence became a primary outlet for young aggression needing to escape, if not literally then at least figuratively.  In a literal sense, the rise in gun violence and mass shootings over the past 50 years is a prime symptom of our detachment from "natural violence"- the form we inherited from prehistory, when food and clothing weren't served to us on a silver platter, so to speak.  Big game extinction has also been an unfortunate side effect; bison are an example of a species we hunted to near extinction, to serve all these needs.

    According to the National Park Service, bison were the most important ecological force on the Great Plains of North America for millennia, fertilizing the vast and fertile frontier with their grazing habits, which we ignorantly capitalized on*.  That's one reason I wasn't able to stomach reading about the massacre in Butcher's Crossing, which is a book of fiction.  When we consider the decimation of our bison population, what happens in the novel isn't far from the truth.  And this is happening all around us, all the time.  It seems we are not only becoming desensitized to uncivilized violence, but the violent extinction of keystone species as well.

A bison extermination map, nearly matching the geographic range of the Great Plains.  From Wikipedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Extermination_of_bison_to_1889.png

 

    To combat this new society of consumer violence, I suggest rather contentiously exposing children to natural butchery when they are young (10-15).  It should desensitize them early on, not fester an innate desire to see blood as they reach adolescence.  Integrating farming and butchery into the classroom, or deprivatizing farming itself, would ideally allow for a more natural exposure to violence that is consistent with our biology.  A beneficial side effect would be some much needed regulation on slaughter farms hosted by big corporations, which pack animals into tight spaces and fatten them up for consumption.  Organically raised, pasture-based farming would better demonstrate to children the need for a more localized supply chain that reduces pollution, global warming, and shows more concern for animal rights.  Vegetarians or highly sensitive children could opt out, as most women and children did in prehistoric villages.  Finally, such a shift would help future generations understand the need for preserving species instead of violently eradicating them for profit.  If children see the practical value of hunting, they will be less likely to do it for recreation.

*National Park Service.  https://www.nps.gov/articles/bison-bellows-8-18-16.htm

Lulu's Light

A poem dedicated to my second son, Lucas:

Porcelain dream baby the soft morning awakens,

Colors awash by sunglow off the minted pane,

Dazzling crystals of gentleness whitening his eyes,

Woven sheets of clean figurines unleashing joy.

Arise, merry youth, cooing to the ambient chorus,

Rift of the horizon's overture, a steady hymn,

Rays that penetrate his glossy eyes, barely used,

Augmented orbits of innocence in their reflection.

Grace he found in the reckoning of sunrise,

Lullaby fragments that patterned his solace,

A love returned, amplified by warmth of slumber-

Life begins where heaven meets the earth.

Deinococcus Radiodurans, the Superbacteria

     Deinococcus Radiodurans is a bacteria that can endure extreme radiation.  Blow up a nuclear bomb and it might be the only living thing left, making it useful in the breakdown of nuclear waste.  It could also be effective in cancer treatment.  If researchers find it absorbs radiation in the body, it would ideally protect human cells during radiation therapy, while attacking cancerous ones.

    Not only that, but the bacteria can survive extreme cold, dehydration, acidic environments, and even a vacuum, making it a polyextremophile- an organism that can survive in multiple extreme environments.  When the world is ending and all species are facing extinction, this "superbacteria" may be the only life form left.

Deinococcus Radiodurans, the baddest bacteria in the world.  Image source: Wikipedia

 

Time Analysis, The Great Chain of Being, Eternal Recurrence

     In the first millennium AD, the Neoplatonist view of The Great Chain of Being was an attractive way of merging natural science with religion.  Like evolutionary laws, there is a hierarchy of being in metaphysical realms, based on how developed souls are.  It remains to be seen if there are souls more advanced than the creatures of earth, but if we are to believe all the mystics through history, they certainly exist but only on "planes" that differ from physical reality.  I'm open to the idea of larger structures in the physical universe possessing "souls" that are more complicated than ours.  For example, if the earth and sun had souls, they would probably be higher on the hierarchy.  

    St. Augustine made an interesting point about the conception of time being an integral measure on the Great Chain of Being.  He believed these conceptions were directly related to the power of mind.  A rock, having no power of mind, has no conception of time or memory.  Plants and fungi may have faint conceptions of it, but that would be hard to measure.  Small animals have fleeting memories; therefore the past and future seem to mingle with the present for them.  Larger, more sophisticated animals perceive time in higher dimensions; the past becomes larger as memory improves; the future becomes more predictable as intuition evolves.  Humans, having the highest ability to reason, stretch the limits of time beyond what we are capable of perceiving directly.  Higher beings, which may involve angels and other specters, can presumably bend time to their consciousness, experiencing it at will and possibly simultaneously with other minds in other periods of time.  The grand unifier of the integral would be God itself, experiencing all time as a single perception.

    I have never thought of time in such a manner.  It's always been about the pagan-Buddhist form of eternal recurrence for me.  I am not ready to abandon my preference, but there is an elegance to the Great Chain's order that moves me to wonder.  For if reason is a function of time analysis, there is nothing more qualified to discover God.  It seems to me eternal recurrence and the Great Chain are not mutually exclusive, as beings could move up or down the hierarchy in cycles of rebirth.

The Great Chain of Being.  From the top: God > angels > royalty > commoners > animals > plants > nonliving things.  Didacus Valades, Rhetorica Christiana, 1579.  Image source: Wikipedia.