Helping monarch migration and a Fish doorbell

 Monarch butterflies are the only butterfly that goes on an annual migration.

It was assumed that it's multigenerarional but to my own astonishment, it's one butterfly that lives 8 months making this impossible thousand mile journey to Mexico or California. The returning butterflies take about three generations.

Thanks to lightweight GPS tags scientists were able to discover this. The public can participate by putting stickers through monarch watch on their underwing.

Obviously planting swamp milkweed is another valuable resource. Only plant they eat and no other.

Nature is astonishing.

The season for the fish doorbell in the Netherlands is over but come next season anyone can participate to let fishies through a canal door so they can migrate and breed. I would have posted it sooner, but saw no fish on the underwater camera and then forgot.

https://youtube.com/shorts/vgTo4fJNsHQ

For next season:

Turner sunsets climate change

 As a child like all other children I loved dinosaurs, painted rainbows and admired very rare beautiful sunsets.

Mostly boring sunsets. Sol dropping down without much color in the surrounding atmosphere. My generation rarely saw them and when I first came across Turners work I assumed he was simply part of impressionism fascinated by adding color. Art books rarely talked about anything beyond technique and analysis.

Turner painted sunrises/sunsets obsessively. (1750s)

Turners obsession came during the first industrial revolution. A time when Fossil fuels and particularly steam technology changed the colors of the sky. Back then pollution wasn't much of a concern.

For the last decade I'm seeing individuals all over the world take pictures of rainbows all over the world and something I enjoyed for its beauty and rarity I no longer do.

All these incredible sunsets and rainbows mean increased particulates in the air. Increased through moisture and a lack of settling onto the ground during the day.

Sahara dust windstorm pollution active volcanoes wildfires contribute to this phenomenon especially around evaporating lakes and rivers. Basically soot dust chemicals sea salt ash etc.

Another factor is Co2. Creating heat domes. Humans thrive at 200 to 380 ppm. We're at 420 ppm at the moment. It's one of the reasons our population grew. Dinosaurs thrived at 700 co2 to 2500 co2 ppm. That level would have been toxic to us long term and lasted for 150 million years. Most likely due to supervolcanoes brought about by tectonic plates shifting.

I was watching a relatively recent interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger. When he was governor he couldnt convince anyone; no one cared about smog or pollution, but when he exaggerated that babies were dying he was able to get enough public support to get his bill passed.

I've mentioned before, while obviously important to me and my readers most people don't care about biodiversity, mass extinction but affect health noticeably and we probably would have had better success in preventing this.

P.S. forgot this good article on rainbows

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/rainbows-climate-change-increase-myths-omen

Climate change heatwaves chernobyl

 This is a brief post on a very big topic and my frustration with current events.

Working in other countries gave me an appreciation what a gigantic and complex system we live in and on and how little we know and what affects one continent will affect another eventually. Can't be American or euro centric here.

Europe has just been through an incredible heatwave that shouldn't happen at all in June (not even in Spain) and especially not for an entire month.

My friend vacations in Croatia every year and told me that two years ago the ocean was cold on top and warm on the bottom and continues the opposite of what it should be doing.

The reason why I'm not fond of ancient or prehistoric geology/history is because we can only guess what truly happened and there is too much opposing research.

The Sahara was an ocean 30 million years ago. A quick search did not reveal what turned an ocean into a desert and hiw long it took.

What were dealing with now is a combination of tectonic plate movement, ocean currents, weather patterns, heliophysics (how the sun influences us) and little to no idea how all these systems interact and are connected.

If we don't know that, we don't know how we can fix it.

This is a simplified map of ocean currents.

These are just ocean currents. The AMOC an Atlantic current has slowed down. How significant that is is unknown.

There is no question that the speed of current climate change is anthropogenic, but cataclysm have happened in the past. The ancient Egyptians are the perfect example. The verdant nile was no more, a successful civilization disappeared. Many theories abound.

This time we are focused too much on Fossil fuels. I don't think thy are the sole reason and the only solution.

What concerns me is Chernobyl. There is an ecosystem again because nature fills a void. The animals aren't thriving they are suffering short lifespans, illness mutations. The fact that green frogs are now black to adapt to radiation means that this has happened before. Not man made radioactivity but radiation has triggered some gene to produce melanin. Amphibians have been around for millions of years. Did they deal with a cloudless sky and radiation from the sun?

There is a reason that genetic contingencies exist on a hostile planet.

Food for thought and science.

Color vision Tetrachromacy

 Neurodivergence is a non medical term used mostly in sociology and psychology. It's unfortunate because it should include people whose brains have aptitudes that gives them better processing than others. Think mozart when it comes to music or Michelangelo in art.

Color vision is among those. Science continues to make new discoveries based on what we can measure. Tetrachromacy is having extra cones (a fourth) which enables seeing more colors than is average. Its X linked so 10% of women have it. Males have it as well but it's very rare. I suspect that famous artists male or female had it and chose to go into art as a result. Most humans are trichromatic. About 2% of males and 10% of females are tetrachromatic.

I have it. At the time I grew up it was not known so people around me didn't understand that when they saw beige, I saw beige with a green tinge to it. As a child when my parents decorated my room in primary colors they initially could not understand why I hated it. The wrong color (as I perceive it) irritates me.

A black cat to me doesn't exist. I see the rust brown in its fur without requiring direct sunlight. Virtually all deeply saturated red roses to me have a bluish tint to them as well.

I've stopped giving advice on wall paint; there is no point telling someone that the beige they've chosen has a pink tone to it if they cannot see it anyway.

This article is quite good and really resonated.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140905-the-women-with-super-human-vision

Industries have long employed people with senses that are above average. The food industry has taste tasters who have more taste buds. The perfume industry employs people who can smell more notes to develop perfumes. And so on.

heres a parrot displaying its color vision:

https://youtube.com/shorts/EaNMdrPmpMk

I am a bird.

Murderbot phenomenon. Neurodiversity. Neuroinclusivity

 I just finished watching the series. I have not read the books and no matter how good I  probably won't because they are contributing to a problem. The books were first published in 2017 around the same time that I started to notice that everyone was self diagnosing with adhd autism spectrum ptsd trauma and so on.

I only know that Wells has a BA in Anthropoligy has won numerous awards (Hugo and nebula) and based on some of the discussion threats her books are helping people accept themselves. They are also traumatizing victims.

Damn.

Murderbot is not a robot. It's a genetically engineered human with wetware (implants) and superpowers. Giving a security machine the ability to feel physical pain is implausible.

Back to armchair psychology. Around 2017 a physicist who is popular on social media and educates with millions of followers claimed that he had adhd because he listens to music while working out mathematical problems. That's not adhd, it's attention seeking. Lots of people listen to music to exclude background noise and to help them focus.

Two years ago something was circulating that adhd people also have a strong sense of justice. One has nothing to do with the other; it's comparing an apple to a car.

This is dangerous because it takes resources away from people who have a medical condition. 

It also puts women back into the stone age with its all in their head. The wife of a friend was diagnosed with all kinds of mental health issues for fatigue and depression in her thirties. By the time someone took her seriously she almost didn't win her fight against the big C.

What often happens is that people who suffer from A and D. Diagnose others with the same in search of kindred spirits. It's an impossible selfish self absorbed disease. The anecdote that I will share: I attended a conference in 2015. Lively discussion afterward. A young student stood at the same table and interrupted: you look very sad, she said. I had a really bad headache so I suppose it showed. It was inappropriate and made every one uncomfortable. 

As to the new term of neurodiversity? Again. It's being misused by lay people. To use murderbots eg. Some people are shy, introverted don't make eye contact. Nothing wrong with them. They're personality traits of individual personalities. I mentioned in the past that ALL scientists have obsessive compulsive traits. It's an asset from birth. Can't solve it the first 20 times? OC traited people keep trying until they do.

Teachers can be the worst. Classes get bigger and teachers can no longer spend time with students who are hyperactive. The labels can stick and destroy. Many students can't sit still. So what?

Online im seeing a lot of lay people psychoanalysis. Its detrimental. Ive gotten into arguments and will not be back on those blogs. In real life i have friends asking me to diagnose others. Sometimes a jerk is just a jerk. Sometimes a rebellious teen is just exploring where they fit in. 

Countless examples. 

Focusing on fixing people with whom nothing is wrong is preventing fixing the societal problems that are causing mental health issues to begin with.

1950s mentality and scifi shows discussion

 I've been catching up on some scifi series

Dark matter 2015

The expanse 

Asimovs foundation

There are a few spoilers but they don't reveal much.

Some thoughts and bullet points

The negative: all three shows have shown the same disrespect to their fans and viewers. Some producer canceling them for no good reason and not providing fans with at least a longer finale that provides a conclusion. Frequently happens in scifi. All three are formulaic. After the success of game of thrones. Main characters are killed off with impunity. Their arc makes no sense, every few episodes they are different people. All have cliffhangers in every episode.

People liked the expanse. While I thought it's interesting it was too horrific, turned into a battle of various factions and unions in one season. Themes

Memory

Individuality vs hive mind

Terra and bio forming with horrible results

Colonizing

Exploitation of blue collars

War

Science fiction when done well explores current fears and extrapolated them into the future.

Out of all of them I liked Foundation the most although it veers from asimovs work significantly it does include the law of robotics, the fall of the Roman empire repeated into the far future.

Math used as predictive model for human behavior "psychohistory" which asimov should have called behavioral predictions had it been a major field in the 50s. Today we call it AI.

Asimovs writing was based on 1940s/50s fears and science. The world was recovering from a world War. Psychology was a big field. Replaced by neuroscience since then. Fears of authoritarian governments.

Basically scifi progressed in the 80s and 90s with benevolent aliens, peace in the universe and a hopeful future in startrek, iain banks, Alistair Reynolds.

The author of dark matter went public with his dissatisfaction about what was done with his creative work.

Why movie studios are giving us 50s mentality with a little contemporarization instead of telling more hopeful stories when we have progressed and moved on?

Ignorance is not bliss, neither is lack of kindness

 A friend of mine never went to university but is very smart and managed an auto didactic education in chemistry biochemistry and natural health. He sometimes didn't understand the basics and distrusted anything corporate.

One of our conversations involved antiperspirant. He told me that he was using a crystal because aluminum causes cancer.

No it doesn't. How are you using a crystal?

It's a stick. You apply it the same.

What's it made out of?

All natural. Potassium aluminum sulfate.

That's an aluminum salt. You're using the pure mineral.

I told him that my corporate antiperspirant contained aluminum chlorydrate also an aluminum salt, but a weaker one. Diluted with additives for scent, oils for glideability, antimicrobial etc. After undergoing a lot of quality control and testing to reduce irritation. Basically his natural stick was putting more aluminum onto his skin at 18 bucks a stick compared to my run of the mill one.

He's smart and when he fell for the unregulated natural health sector he had consumed so much omega369 oils that he admitted it had made him overweight and ill. When it came to my friend we could agree to disagree or come out wiser and more knowledgeable.

In the last decade ignorance has gotten worse. Keep people ignorant and you can sell them anything. The aggression with which people share their pov has gotten much worse based on what they read online.

Although it makes me unhappy, spouse, my voice of reason, told me that I need to accept that consideration, kindness and knowledge are on hold. It's okay to go after "useless" scientists now. That governments are campaigning against universities to cut funding and research and to turn it over to corporate interests is something that people care as little about as they did about climate change forty years ago . If the public doesn't know, it won't advocate.

I was thinking about about a good example when the universe gave me one. 

There is a hybrid cafe/variety store that I grab a few items from. Sometimes I sit outside for a bit before walking back. I just purchased something so I do not need to consume anything more. It's family run and the owner Linda loves to chat and tell me about conspiracy theories as well as her opinions. Sometimes I correct her, sometimes I don't bother.

I've had to listen to her tell me that the guy who owned an island had been spotted in Dubai (TikTok says). Her indifference to synthetic food replacing more expensive meat products or cocoa for the same price. Despite being a second generation immigrant she voted against herself. I told her about the lack of measures against heat waves. She told me she didn't care if people suffer and it's not the government's responsibility. (Actually, it is). I gave up.

I sat outside for a bit to unwind. The waiter, a new kid, asked if I wanted anything. I'll just sit here for a few minutes. Can't sit here if you don't order anything. Seriously? I just bought something. I wasn't in the mood to explain (i had longcovsssh so i still get sudden fatigue), so I left. He stood up to follow. You could have just asked he said (im also done owing anyone common courtesy when they have none). He wanted an argument I wasn't going to give him one. I wish you bad luck, I said.

He became scared. His belligerence stopped. He was trying to get me to lift the curse. Not how it works, i said. You were mean, i added as i walked away. In his world superstition ruled over science and just being a decent human being.

This is how we got here.

I made the decision recently to go against my nature and stop educating. There's no point. People want to believe what they read, even if it's wrong and not a day goes by when I don't have to listen to a flat earth moment.