The Four Ages Of Sand

How to get ahead in blogging

Aaron and I watching the wonderful film How To Get Ahead in Advertising.  The unbalanced and paranoid Denis Dimbleby Bagley (played by Richard E. Grant) obviously reminded him of someone closer to home because he sent me this today: 

Normal service resumed

Oh dear, no posts for 4 days? What's going on?

I was finishing the next part of the MA and didn't get a minute to myself. It's going well so far; my last essay got 88%. The latest one is about the liberal conception of self (available on request).  I thought it would be dull (the subject, I mean) but it actually turned out to be fascinating. No really. 

So what's been happenening while I was away?

Alan R sent in a very useful equation:

He also pointed out that despite my claim that cheese doesn't come from a plant, there is such a thing as a cheese plant:

And he also announced the good news that the government has listened to 4AoS!

At last, all our campaigning has paid off. The Government has introduced SPAG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar) tests for all 11 year-olds to see if they know how to use apostrophe's correctly.

The other Alan alerted 4AoS to the big news story of the week, the father who took both of his children out of a Devon primary school after one was refused lunch because the family owed £1.75:

"They normally phone parents to let them know that their account doesn't have any money, and that their child won't get a lunch that day unless the account is credited."

Mr Lynn said: "I hold my hand up. I usually put £10 on at a time. That's my fault. But for them to take that course of action with my son seems incredible.

Gary Lynn, who has also resigned as a governor at Hayes Primary School in Paignton, accused the school of "physical and emotional neglect" reminiscent of Oliver Twist.

Full story here

And thanks to David for sending this in: more evidence that life came from outside the Earth.

 

Hi Iain,

Thought you might like this:

https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2013/Jun/NR-13-06-02.html

Life on Earth shockingly comes from out of this world

Anne M Stark, LLNL, (925) 422-9799, stark8@llnl.gov

Early Earth was not very hospitable when it came to jump starting
life. In fact, new research shows that life on Earth may have come from out
of this world.

Lawrence Livermore scientist Nir Goldman and University of Ontario Institute
of Technology colleague Isaac Tamblyn (a former LLNL postdoc) found that icy
comets that crashed into Earth millions of years ago could have produced life
building organic compounds, including the building blocks of proteins and
nucleobases pairs of DNA and RNA.

Comets contain a variety of simple molecules, such as water, ammonia,
methanol and carbon dioxide, and an impact event with a planetary surface
would provide an abundant supply of energy to drive chemical reactions.

"The flux of organic matter to Earth via comets and asteroids during periods
of heavy bombardment may have been as high as 10 trillion kilograms per year,
delivering up to several orders of magnitude greater mass of organics than
what likely pre-existed on the planet," Goldman said.

Goldman's earlier work is based on computationally intensive models, which,
in the past, could only capture 10-30 picoseconds of a comet impact event.
However new simulations, developed on LLNL's supercomputers Rzcereal and
Aztec, Goldman used much more computationally efficient models and was able
to capture hundreds of picoseconds of the impacts -- much closer to chemical
equilibrium.

"As a result, we now observe very different and a wider array of hydrocarbon
chemical products that, upon impact, could have created organic material that
eventually led to life," Goldman said.

Comets can range in size from 1.6 kilometers up to 56 kilometers. Comets
passing through the Earth's atmosphere are heated externally but remain cool
internally. Upon impact with the planetary surface, a shock wave is generated
due to the sudden compression. Shock waves can create sudden, intense
pressures and temperatures, which could affect chemical reactions within a
comet before it interacts with the ambient planetary environment. An oblique
collision where an extraterrestrial icy body impacts a planetary atmosphere
with a glancing blow could generate thermodynamic conditions conducive to
organic synthesis. These processes could result in significant concentrations
of organic species being delivered to Earth.

The team found that moderate shock pressures and temperatures (approximately
360,000 atmospheres of pressure and 4,600 degrees Fahrenheit) in a
carbon-dioxide-rich ice mixture produced a number of nitrogen-containing
heterocycles, which dissociate to form functionalized aromatic hydrocarbons
upon expansion and cooling. These are thought to be prebiotic precursors to
DNA and RNA base pairs.

In contrast, higher shock conditions (about 480,000 to 600,000 atmospheres of
pressure and 6,200-8,180 degrees Fahrenheit) resulted in the synthesis of
methane and formaldehyde, as well as some long-chain carbon molecules. These
compounds are known to act as precursors to amino acids and complex organic
synthesis. All shock compression simulations at these conditions have
produced significant quantities of new, simple carbon-nitrogen bonded
compounds upon expansion and cooling, which are known prebiotic precursors.

"Cometary impacts could result in the synthesis of prebiotic molecules
without the need for other 'special' conditions, such as the presence of
catalysts, UV radiation, or special pre-existing conditions on a planet,"
Goldman said. "This data is critical in understanding the role of impact
events in the formation of life-building compounds both on early Earth and on
other planets and in guiding future experimentation in these areas."

The research will appear on the cover of the June 20 issue of The Journal of
Physical Chemistry A.

 

Answer to "What is it? 305"

Surely not another butterfly??

Posted by: Alan | June 10, 2013 at 09:56 PM

Ha, shows what you know; it's something COMPLETELY different. 

It's a moth.

What is it? 305

Gosh, it's over a month since the last wii? 

Surely not another butterfly??

Nearly done now, just hang in there. This one was in a stream, deep in the woods around the village of Ejida, Venezuela. I haven't been able to ID the species yet.

Yellow fir! It's marvellous really

And here's the video of it in the water:

 

Another butterfly: Mesotaenia vaninka vaninka in Venezuela

Ooo this one is lovely: the magical Mesotaenia vaninka vaninka 

Great Spotted Woodpecker in the graveyard

I spend a lot of time in the graveyard next to the college. It's very peaceful and there are lots of birds. Here's a Great Spotted Woodpecker feeding its chicks yesterday.  Filmed from about 60 yards away

Ps. Alan R: do you know if that's far enough away from the nesting birds? I'd hate to disturb them.

 

 

Tuna and cheese

Gosh, as I get older, all the old certainties fall away. First up, I learned that monkey nuts have nothing to do with monkeys at all, but are in fact nuts! Alan sent me the news that a supermarket chain had to withdraw its nuts because they failed to make this clear on the packet:

May contain nuts

Then I discovered that tuna is actually a fish!

UKIP's Elizabeth Ransome asked the question on Twitter: “I no [sic] this is probably a stupid question but is tuna a real fish likes ones that swim in water?”

(There are no stupid questions Elizabeth, only stupid people)

And today I found out that cheese is not from a plant. Whatever next??

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/childrens-food-ignorance-revealed-070728670.html#9Of8ITw 

Another day, another butterfly: Astraptes alector Flasher - Hesperiidae

Well, a Skipper to be precise; an Astraptes Alector flasher - Hesperiidae. This was in a park in Merida, Venezuela last year:

 

Tom Field on the up and up!

I was in WHSmith the other day, picking up the latest issues of Practical Poultry and Royal Life:

And I found myself flipping though Sky and Telescope and came across an article by Tom Field

Could this be our very own Tom Field, of RSpec fame, and more importantly, a regular on 4AoS? 

I checked with him, and yes indeed, it is him. And he's now a Contributing Editor for the mag. Nice! 

 

 

A beautiful Wheatear (and very tasty too, apparently)

Alan saw a Wheatear this week, and managed to get this rather decent shot of it:

Not a common bird theses days:

It’s a lucky walker who spots a wheatear today. Records show only a handful of breeding pairs exist. However, there’s always the chance of sighting those dropping by en route either to or from further north. Distribution maps show its main summer haunts to be west of the Severn and north of the Humber.

Why so few left? Er because most of them have been eaten

Desaturated, it looks like an infrared image, don't you think?

 

 

 

Jumping for the girls

Following on from the jumping bird video yesterday, David makes a good point about what's going on:

...I suspect it's just a mating display.

It's pretty flashy; but I find offering to buy someone a drink works better.

Speaking for myself though, I've always has GREAT success with the jumping thing.

 

 

Jumping bird in Venezuela

This little seedeater was jumping up and down at sunrise, and was still doing it when I came came back a couple of hours later. (Slowed to 10% original speed from 1 min) 

 

The "two-headed" butterfly revisited: Togarna Hairstreak (Arawacus togarna)

Remember the "two-headed" butterfly? (See previous post for explanation)

Well, here the video! I filmed this last year, but as with previous post, it's taken me months to process all the clips. I've also got round to identifying it. It's a Togarna Hairstreak (Arawacus togarna)

This one's worth seeing full screen too:

 

Diaethria neglecta/Diaethria clymena butterfly

Regulars will rmember the incredible 89 butterfly from Venezuela, posted nearly 3 years ago:

Well, now here's the video. I filmed this last summer but only just got round to processing it. 

 

Eric Weinstein may have found the answer to physics' biggest problems

This is way over my head, but as David suggests, I'd better blog it now, in case he's right, so I can tell people that they "saw it here first"! (Or in the Guardian...)

A physicist has formulated a mathematical theory that purports to explain why the universe works the way it does – and it feels like 'the answer'

Eric Weinstein's theory is the first major challenge to the validity of Albert Einstein's Field Equations. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

Weinstein begins the paper in which he explains his proposal with a quote from Einstein: "What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world." Weinstein's theory answers this in spades. Very little in the universe is arbitrary. The mathematics explains why it should work the way it does. 

Full story here 

Another day, another hummingbird

I'm still extracting little bits of magic from all my rubbish filming last year. I was waving the camera around like a madman for ages, trying to film this little hummingbird (it's around 1.5 inches long) deep in woods in the foothills of the Andes, and thought I'd failed, but a careful look through all the footage revealed just a second or 2 of useable footage. Slowed to 25%, stabilsed, cropped and enhanced, and hey presto! Not sure of the species yet.