Reflecting…

Prolific Swallowtails

We’ve had a prolific number of swallowtails this summer. This new hatchling has pumped itself into shape and is drying its wings before flying off. (You can mouse over and click the image to enlarge it.)

We’ve had more than thirty caterpillars feeding on parsley and fennel during the latter part of July and early August. This pair is resting before starting to feed again. Most of the caterpillars have hatched. A couple have not formed chrysalises and one died for no discernible cause.

I’ve found it necessary to protect them because mockingbirds have been especially aggressive in feeding on the chrysalises. I had not seen this in past summers, perhaps because I just didn’t observe it. But this summer my wife saw a bird pecking and eventually pulling something from the stalk.

I checked and discovered the bird had pulled at two chrysalises. The first was punctured and damaged, the second was removed completely from the stalk. My wife said the bird flew away with something in its beak. So we have been watching and capturing caterpillars when they start to walk away from feeding and before they attach to a stalk. We put them into a mesh butterfly pavilion with several long twigs and all but two have attached to the twigs.

The other two attached to the plastic reinforcement strip along the top of the pavilion. We’ve had chrysalises attach like this before and they usually hatch without problems. It’s a hassle to open it and put other chrysalises into the container, but with care it can be done.

So far this summer we’ve seen a dozen swallowtails hatch and we’ve got nineteen chrysalises in two pavilions right now.

Posted on August 10th, 2008 by larryhol
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Mercury is Shrinking

As I was reading a small handbook on the planets this weekend I was surprised to happen upon an online article that reports the planet Mercury is contracting.

Less is known about the closest planet to the sun than some of our other neighbors in the solar system but on July 3 NASA reported out new information gathered in January by its MESSENGER flyby. A summary by Kenneth Chang in the Science section of the New York Times is the most concise, clear summary I’ve seen, at least for a layperson such as I.

Among the new information included in these reports is the contraction of the planet. According to NASA scientists Mercury’s core is cooling and this causes the planet to contract. The core makes up 60% of the planet’s mass. As a result of new information they say contraction is one-third greater than previously thought. The BBC says the diameter of the planet has shrunk by slightly more than a mile since the last flyby in 1975.

The cooling core also creates a “magnetic dynamo” that results in more complex interactions between the core, the geology of the surface, the exosphere and the magnetosphere than was previously thought.

Posted on July 5th, 2008 by larryhol
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A Storm on Saturn

There’s a storm on Saturn and astronomer Trevor Barry has captured it in images made from his location in the remote Australian outback. The BBC has posted a delightful video stream of Barry’s explanation which reveals his love for astronomy and appreciation for the wonders of the night sky.

A retired miner, Barry completed a post-graduate degree in astronomy after retirement. His enthusiasm is as clear and engaging as his astrophotographs. Great images and narrative.

Posted on June 23rd, 2008 by larryhol
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The Rock Cafe

When the news came last week that the Rock Cafe in Stroud, Oklahoma had burned it felt as someone had punched me in the stomach. Shock and sadness. I have no financial interest in the Rock. Haven’t lived near it for years and probably won’t get back to see it if it’s rebuilt.

But these realities seemed insignificant as I thought about the Rock as an icon on historic Route 66 and a part of my personal history. I grew up only a block from route 66 in Stroud and a cousin lived in the green house on the corner which shares the Rock’s parking area. When I spent the night there I recall the neon glow of the Rock’s sign illuminating the room and the sound of idling truck motors whose drivers stopped for a break. In that small town, the Rock was the only late night place and truck traffic was heavy on route 66, the primary roadway between Oklahoma City and Tulsa before the Turner Turnpike opened.

As a youth, I delivered the Tulsa World in the morning darkness, throwing papers from a bicycle. Sometimes after completing my route the Rock was often my last stop before going home and dressing for school.

My wife also spent many pre-dawn mornings in the cafe where her grandmother was a cook and her mother waited tables (and booths). She went to work with them at 4:00 am and waited for school to open much later in the day.

The Rock had a coin-operated jukebox on the west wall in those days and it cranked out country music non-stop. Those songs were the background of our lives. And when the jukebox wasn’t pumping out Ernest Tubb or Lefty Frizzell, a radio behind the counter was tuned to KVOO or KRMG in Tulsa, both of which served up country music at the start of the day.

The Rock was part of the environment. It became a touchstone locked in memory.

This past winter I worked on a replica of the cafe for a model train layout. I searched the Internet for photos, looked for appropriate building materials and even found a dealer who sells electroluminescent scale lighting components for signs. The original Rock was ringed by a single tube of green neon at the roofline and it featured a 50’s style neon sign crafted by Tuny Monday who ran a thriving sign business in Stroud in that era. Monday’s signs were erected throughout Oklahoma and are among the cultural artifacts that symbolize the fifties.

So the loss of the Rock felt personal, as if a part of my history had gone away and the pangs of loss were real.

A great post on the history of the Rock is here. A YouTube video of the fire in progress is posted here.

The good news is that Dawn Welch, the current owner, says she will rebuild. Welch has been a creative, persistent manager of the Rock, making it a must-see stop for those traveling the historic Mother Road. She secured recognition in the National Register of Historic Places, for example. The day after the fire Welch told the Daily Oklahoman, “This can’t be the end to the story (of the Rock).”

Having secured the Rock as an important icon on the road between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, her determination and track record should give hope to those who care about the cultural legacy of this great icon in our motoring history.

Posted on May 31st, 2008 by larryhol
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Experiencing Chicago

I spent most of today experiencing Chicago as part of a city scan looking at reinvention. The idea was to get perspective on how reinvention has been carried out successfully and how it has made a difference to people.

It was a fascinating, extraordinarily enlightening experience.

With two colleagues I visited Millennium Park. It’s an environment that changes how people relate to the city and to each other through innovative public art. It’s built over a part of historic of Chicago, the rail yards that at one time made the city the shipping hub of the interior of the country. This was the Chicago of Carl Sandburg who immortalized it at the turn of the century:

Hog Butcher for the World,

Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;

Stormy, husky, brawling,

City of Big Shoulders:

On those shoulders Millennium Park has been built, respecting the past but using it as a foundation for a community gathering-place today and into the future.

Chicago is a pioneer of public art–provocative, engaging and challenging. The “bean,” a chromium reflective orb shaped as a bean creates an interactive space that not only engages individuals peering at themselves and the altered skyline reflected back at them, it also puts them into interaction with others who are likewise mesmerized by the altered reality reflected in the chrome.

This results in an opportunity, if taken, to speak with others, to smile, to take pictures for each other, and to comment on the art itself. The bean demonstrates how environment affects human interaction.

Walk across the street and enter into the city as it exists without art–a commercial beehive of people going about–and it’s much less likely you will strike up a casual conversation or interrupt those walking intently to carry out whatever mission it is they have to complete.

What I noticed is that people in the park were friendly, relaxed and willing to interact. When we asked them to comment on what it means to “re-imagine” they gave us interesting answers. One of my colleagues had scavenged an advertising board from a nearby department store with the word reimagine printed over cherry blossoms. When she asked her interviewees to hold it for a photo they not only agreed, they frequently asked us to pose with them.

Many factors contributed to this of course, but a significant reason was the engaging art and the environment it establishes. It was an enjoyable, instructive afternoon.

Posted on May 23rd, 2008 by larryhol
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Art Out of Misery

From Allison:

Out of misery comes an artistic sense of humor.

A PALESTINIAN ARTIST AND THE WALL ….

تشكيلي فلسطيني يبدع في الرسم على الجدارفنان بإسرائيلالعازل

Posted on May 17th, 2008 by larryhol
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“Extraterrestrial Brothers”

The chief astronomer at the Vatican says the possibility that “extraterrestrial brothers” exist in the universe isn’t incompatible with belief in God. He says they may be in greater harmony with the Creator than humans and they may be higher evolved. (Not that that the latter would be particularly difficult. I would hope they include sisters as well.)

Posted on May 15th, 2008 by larryhol
Filed under: astronomy | 3 Comments »

National Dark Skies Week

It’s National Dark Skies Week. It’s a week to consider how we use, or abuse, artificial light in a 24/7 world as Sky and Telescope write Kelly Beatty notes.

The more we install outdoor lights without appropriate shades and aimed to the sky, the less night sky we see. It’s a form of pollution that is often overlooked except for amateur or professional astronomers.

But the skies are becoming less accessible to all and our ability to see the beauty of the galaxy and beyond is being slowly and almost imperceptibly being destroyed.

National Dark Skies is an attempt to create awareness and to provide information about options to install lights and also protect the view of the heavens.

Posted on March 30th, 2008 by larryhol
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Monarch Habitat Destruction

The destruction of Monarch butterfly habitat by illegal logging has been documented by satellite photos.

The conclusion drawn by researchers is grim.

“The researchers are greatly concerned that the entire monarch butterfly migration and overwintering phenomenon in eastern North America may collapse in the near future if the Mexican government does not fully enforce the logging ban.”

Posted on March 8th, 2008 by larryhol
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Earth Views

While searching for astronomy information I stumbled upon this website http://www.solarviews.com/eng/earth.htm which offers views of the solar system from various sources. I’ve not happened upon this site before and was pleased to find earth views (among many other great photographs) that I haven’t seen before.

Most views in publications and other media in the U.S. place North and South America in the center of focus. I’d actually looked for other views and found only partial views of other regions of earth.

Solarviews offers continental views as well as partial views of regions.

A view of eastern hemisphere.

The composite images are the result of digital stitching. This is explained on the site in more detail. The considerable work that went into creating these images is transparent to us when we see the finished image. But it’s quite an interesting process.

The African continent from 700 kms. above. The African view seems clearer to my eyes, perhaps because of contrast between earth and water. But from any view it lives up to its nickname, big blue marble.