Thursday, October 30, 2008

noses 43.nos.4993 Louis J. Sheehan

A mold that gives hibernating bats fuzzy, white noses turns out to be a previously unknown form of cold-loving fungus. And it may be a cold-blooded killer too.

A novel form of a Geomyces fungus ranks as a possible cause of the deadly white-nose syndrome recently described in New England bats, David Blehert of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisc., and his colleagues report online October 30 in Science.

White-nose syndrome, described only in the last two years, strikes its victims during their winter hibernation. Bats cuddled along the walls of caves or mines develop a white fuzz on their noses and wings, grow gaunt and then die.

A recreational explorer’s photograph from Howes Cave west of Albany, N.Y., in February 2006 provides the first record of the syndrome, Blehert says. Five sites turned up in New York state the next winter, and 33 in four states in winter of 2007.

“The bat community is alarmed,” says Marianne Moore of Boston University, who studies bat immunology. The syndrome has hit at least six species, including the widespread little brown bat and the endangered Indiana bat.

Hibernation sites struck by the syndrome lose 80 to 100 percent of their bats on average, Moore says. Northeastern bats hunt insects, including some pests, she says, so a sudden bat deficit “could be a huge problem.”

Knowing at last what the fungus is will let biologists develop screens to search for it and see if it’s the cause or just an opportunistic mold attacking a weak animal, says Blehert.

Culturing and identifying the fungus causing the white nose-fuzz wasn't easy, Blehert says. When researchers first took samples from stricken bats to grow on lab dishes, many microorganisms appeared but none was consistently linked to the sick animals. Researchers reluctantly decided to try refrigerating their lab cultures; the chill mimics cave conditions but slows down microbial growth.

The strategy worked though, as a Geomyces fungus gradually appeared, flourishing at between 5 and 10 degrees Celsius. It had spores in a fat-banana shape that researchers had never seen before. The mold showed up in most of the bats sampled and matched spore scrapings prepared directly in the caves.

Other molds grow at low temperatures, as the neglected corners of any office refrigerator will prove. What’s unusual about the new Geomyces mold is that it won’t tolerate higher temperatures, Blehert says.

Human noses, for example, are way too warm and probably too active for the fungus. In hibernation though, “a bat for all practical purposes is almost dead,” Blehert says. The heart rate of an alert bat, some 700 beats per minute or more, drops to about four beats per minute during hibernation, and its body chills to only a few degrees above the ambient temperatures in the cave.

That’s good news for bats that migrate or live far to the south. Northern hibernating species, however, could be at risk from the possible spread, he says.

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stone age 54.sto.412 Louis J. Sheehan

Two phases of cultural development in southern Africa heralded Stone Age human migrations, a new study suggests. http://members.greenpeace.org/blog/purposeforporpoise

Technological revolutions rocked our world long before the information age. Between 80,000 and 60,000 years ago, it was spurts of innovative toolmaking, rather than extreme climate changes, in southern Africa’s Stone Age cultures that heralded a human exodus out of Africa, a new investigation suggests.

Environmental changes in southern Africa, including those brought on by a massive volcanic eruption in Sumatra around 74,000 years ago, played a secondary role at best in instigating ancient cultural advances and intercontinental migrations, say geologist Zenobia Jacobs of the University of Wollongong, Australia, and her colleagues. Other researchers regard ancient climate fluctuations as key motivators of human movement out of Africa.

Jacobs’ team dated sediment at nine sites that have yielded remains of either of two key toolmaking traditions in southern Africa, known as the Still Bay and Howieson’s Poort industries. Still Bay tools were made by striking flakes off prepared pieces of stone for use as lance heads or skinning knives. Howieson’s Poort implements included small blades, scrapers and chisels. Symbolic artifacts and personal ornaments have been found with both tool types.

“Still Bay and Howieson’s Poort industries may be the southern African manifestations of a pan-African technological revolution that catalyzed human migration out of Africa,” Jacobs says.

Both industries flourished for brief periods, the scientists report in the Oct. 31 Science. The Still Bay industry only lasted from about 72,000 to 71,000 years ago. The Howieson’s Poort industry emerged around 65,000 years ago and ended shortly after 60,000 years ago. No known climate changes accompanied the rise of these ancient cultures, suggesting that such bursts of innovation were not responses to environmental change, the investigators propose.

Age estimates relied on measures of doses of ionizing radiation trapped in single grains of quartz from artifact-bearing soil. The method can determine how much time has passed since soil was exposed to light. The researchers calibrated those dates with earlier age estimates for the sites based on oxygen isotope data from Antarctic ice cores — providing more precise dates.

“This is the single most important geochronology paper on the origins of modern humans in the last 20 years,” remarks anthropologist Curtis Marean of Arizona State University in Tempe. Jacobs’ group provides the best estimates to date for the timing of the Still Bay and Howieson’s Poort industries, he says.

Other researchers have suggested that a time gap existed between these Stone Age cultures, notes anthropologist Teresa Steele of the University of California, Davis. But more surprising is the new study’s further suggestion that about 10,000 years passed between the end of the Howieson’s Poort industry and the start of ensuing toolmaking traditions in southern Africa, Steele says.

Jacobs’ new age estimates for the two ancient cultures may vary by as much as several thousand years in either direction, making it difficult to confirm that environmental changes did not inspire toolmaking innovations, she adds.

Evidence of a roughly 7,000-year gap between the Still Bay and Howieson’s Poort industries suggests that people left southern Africa during cold, dry episodes that regularly occurred as the last Ice Age approached, comments anthropologist Stanley Ambrose of the University of Illinois in Urbana. Genetic and linguistic studies indicate that those groups moved to eastern Africa.

Ambrose suspects the new dates for the two tool industries are slightly off, though. Ice cores such as those used by Jacobs’ team offer limited insight into the timing of ancient climate changes, he says. Sections of cores can only be dated by correlating geochemical markers in the ice with evidence from datable events elsewhere, he says.

A better set of comparison dates for Jacobs’ study comes from another Stone Age site in southern Africa, Blombos Cave, Ambrose asserts. Still Bay artifacts found there have been dated to between 77,000 and 74,000 years ago. If that’s true, then the Still Bay industry may have been cut short by a widespread ice age that followed a massive volcanic eruption on Sumatra 74,000 years ago, he hypothesizes.

When the Howieson’s Poort industry eventually got off the ground, it represented the first time that local bands in southern Africa expanded into a network of interacting groups, Ambrose holds. That not only sparked a huge increase in the long-distance transport of stone for tool making but enabled risky journeys out of Africa, in his view. http://members.greenpeace.org/blog/purposeforporpoise

Jacobs doubts that the Sumatran volcanic eruption or any other climatic event directly affected ancient southern Africans’ cultures. Innovations in stone toolmaking may either have caused or resulted from population expansions and migrations within Africa, she says.

Scientists now need to gather data on local environmental changes in southern Africa to see if they correspond to the Still Bay and Howieson’s Poort industries, Marean suggests. “That is soon to come,” he says.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Eurystheus 776.eur.453 Louis J. Sheehan

The Typhon was one of the giants who rose up against the gods after they had successfully suppressed the Titans. Some of the giants had a hundred hands; others breathed fire. Eventually they were subdued and buried alive under Mt. Etna where their occasional struggles cause the earth to shake and their breath is the molten lava of a volcano. Such a creature was Typhon, the father of the Nemean lion.

Eurystheus sent Hercules to bring back the skin of the Nemean lion, but the skin of the Nemean lion was impervious to arrows or even the blows of his club, so Hercules had to wrestle with it on the ground in a cave. He soon overcame the beast by choking it.

When, upon his return, Hercules appeared at the gates of Tiryns, Nemean beast pelt on his arm, Eurystheus was alarmed. He ordered the hero henceforth to deposit his offerings and to keep himself beyond the city limits. Eurystheus also ordered a large bronze jar to hide himself in.

From then on, Eurystheus' orders would be relayed to Hercules through a herald, Copreus, son of Pelops the Elean.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

eighth labor Hercules 667.8.k445 Louis J. Sheehan

This is a retelling of the eighth of twelve labors the Greek hero Hercules performed for Eurystheus

In the eighth labor Hercules, with a few companions, heads to the Danube, to the land of the Bistones in Thrace. First, however, he stops off at his old friend Admetus' house. There Admetus tells him the mourning he sees around him is for just some member of the household who has died, but not to worry about it. He insinuates the dead woman is no one important, but in this he deceives. It is Admetus' wife Alcestis who has died, and not just because it was her time. Alcestis has died in place of her husband.http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

His concern assuaged by Admetus' statements, Hercules takes the opportunity to indulge his passions for food, drink, and song, but the staff is appalled. Finally the truth is revealed and Hercules, suffering a pang of conscience again, goes off to rectify the situation. He descends into the Underworld, wrestles with Thanatos, and returns with Alcestis is tow.

After a brief scolding of his friend and host Admetus, Hercules continues on his way to an even worse host.

Ares' son Diomedes, King of the Bistones, in Thrace, offers newcomers to his horses for dinner. When Hercules and his friends arrive, the king thinks to feed them to the horses, but Hercules turns the table on the king and after a wrestling match -- prolonged because it is with with the war god's son -- Hercules feeds Diomedes to his own horses. This meal cures them of their taste for human.

There are many variations. In some Hercules kills Diomedes. Sometimes he kills the horses. In one version of Euripides, his Heracles, the hero harnesses the horses to a chariot. The common thread is that the horses eat people and Diomedes dies defending them. http://myface.com/Louis_J_Sheehan

In Apollodorus' version, Hercules brings the horses back to Tiryns where Eurystheus, once again, releases them. They then wander off to Mt. Olympus where wild beasts eat them. Alternately, he breeds them and one of the descendants becomes the horse of Alexander the Great.

Louis J. Sheehan

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Twelfth Labor uur99434.tl.76 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Twelfth Labor - Hercules (Heracles - Herakles)

Apollodorus Labor 12 - Hound of Hades

This is Apollodorus' tale of the twelfth of twelve labors the Greek hero Hercules performed for Eurystheus, the bringing back of the hell hound Cerberus. This was not the first time the hero had to venture into the Underworld.

[2.5.12] A twelfth labour imposed on Hercules was to bring Cerberus from Hades. Now this Cerberus had three heads of dogs, the tail of a dragon, and on his back the heads of all sorts of snakes. When Hercules was about to depart to fetch him, he went to Eumolpus at Eleusis, wishing to be initiated. However it was not then lawful for foreigners to be initiated: since he proposed to be initiated as the adoptive son of Pylius. But not being able to see the mysteries because he had not been cleansed of the slaughter of the centaurs, he was cleansed by Eumolpus and then initiated. And having come to Taenarum in Laconia, where is the mouth of the descent to Hades, he descended through it. But when the souls saw him, they fled, save Meleager and the Gorgon Medusa. And Hercules drew his sword against the Gorgon, as if she were alive, but he learned from Hermes that she was an empty phantom. And being come near to the gates of Hades he found Theseus and Pirithous, him who wooed Persephone in wedlock and was therefore bound fast. And when they beheld Hercules, they stretched out their hands as if they should be raised from the dead by his might. And Theseus, indeed, he took by the hand and raised up, but when he would have brought up Pirithous, the earth quaked and he let ho. And he rolled away also the stone of Ascalaphus. And wishing to provide the souls with blood, he slaughtered one of the kine of Hades. http://www.soulcast.com/Louis8J8Sheehan/
But Menoetes, son of Ceuthonymus, who tended the kine, challenged Hercules to wrestle, and being seized round the middle, had his ribs broken; howbeit, he was let off at the request of Persephone. When Hercules asked Pluto for Cerberus, Pluto ordered him to take the animal provided he mastered him without the use of the weapons which he carried. http://www.soulcast.com/Louis8J8Sheehan/
Hercules found him at the gates of Acheron, and cased in his cuirass and covered by the lion's skin, he flung his arms round the head of the brute, and though the dragon in its tail bit him, he never relaxed his grip and pressure till it yielded. So he carried it off and ascended through Troezen. But Demeter turned Ascalaphus into a short-eared owl, and Hercules, after showing Cerberus to Eurystheus, carried him back to Hades.

Alcmena 5567.her.jjf78 Louis J. Sheehan

While it was a pretty amazing feat to clean the Augean Stables -- by diverting a body of water -- a greedy Hercules tried to exact double reward/payment for it. Neither of his bosses would pay. King Augeas of Elis refused to surrender one tenth of his cattle after learning that Hercules had been hired by someone else to do the task, and Erystheus said that a task undertaken for pay couldn't count as a (community service) labor. (See the reason for which Hercules undertook the labors in Hercules Labors - Madness and Atonement). In effect, it was a dirty job and a double or triple cross when Hercules exacted his revenge. However, when people talk about the Augean Stables, they usually mean only the incredible feat of cleansing and nothing else.
See: Apollodorus on the 5th Labor. http://myface.com/Louis_J_Sheehan

More interesting to me is the comment by deTraci on the influence of stepfathers:

It was expected to be an unpleasant task for the hero, but since he'd grown up with not one but two stepfathers renowned for wisdom - including one of my faves, King Radamanthes of Crete - Hercules simply rerouted two rivers to do the job.

I've studied Hercules for many years, researching this point and that, forgetting more than I remember. One point I had forgotten or, possibly, never noticed, is that Rhadymanthys married Hercules' mother Alcmena. I checked in Timothy Gantz' Early Greek Myths. There appear to be two main versions of this story.

In the Afterlife:
In one, Alcmena marries Rhadymanthus after death in the Isles of the Blessed (Antoninus Liberalis 33). Alternately, Hercules gives his mother to Rhadymanthus in marriage in the Elysian Plains (Palatine Anthology 3.13).
In Life:
In the second version, Alcmena marries while still alive, but after the death of her first husband, Amphitryon, Hercules' human father (or stepfather). Alcmena and Rhadymanthus live in Boeotia (Apollodorus 2.4.11, Plutarch Lys. 28.5). Amphitryon died in a battle between the Thebans and the Minyans in which Hercules, an adult, also fought.

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

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Augean Stables I 556.as.3345 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

When Sen. Joe Biden suggested that a potential Obama administration would have to be "cleaning the Augean Stables" a la Hercules, it wasn't long before I was being asked just what are those stables and where in Greece are they?

The Augean Stables - not to be confused with the Aegean Islands - were owned by a king named Augeus who possessed a huge cattle stable in the region of Elis in the Peloponnese which had never been cleaned during its many years of use. Putting it right became one of the 12 Labors of Hercules, task number five to be specific, who was given a single day and night to clean them out. It was expected to be an unpleasant task for the hero, but since he'd grown up with not one but two stepfathers renowned for wisdom - including one of my faves, King Radamanthes of Crete - Hercules simply rerouted two rivers to do the job. Augeus felt cheated, but the job was done.

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

sejanus 884.tib.43 Louis J. Sheehan

Lucius Aelius Sejanus came from Etruria and was the son of Strabo (an equestrian who was to become praetorian prefect and then governor of Egypt). Sejanus was a trusted advisor of the second Roman emperor, Tiberius.

When Tiberius came to the throne, he appointed Sejanus praetorian prefect. Sejanus began to manipulate the praetorian guard into a personal guard for the emperor for efficiency and power. When Tiberius' son Drusus died in 23, Sejanus tried (unsuccessfully, because as an equestrian he was too low class) to marry his widow Livilla. Even without the marriage, he continued to amass power, and when Tiberius retired to Capri in 27, Sejanus was left as regent. Sejanus became co-consul with Tiberius in 31.

Sejanus tried to destroy the Julio-Claudian heirs and may have conspired with Livilla in the death of Drusus. Opposition to Sejanus resulted in charges of treason (maiestas). The informers (delatores) received part of the estate of those accused of treason. Sejanus' power came from two sources, the 9000 praetorians and the support of the emperor, but when Tiberius learned that Sejanus was plotting against him, he had Sejanus arrested and executed on October 18, 31 A.D. Following his death, the supporters and family of Sejanus were hunted down.

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

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Monday, October 20, 2008

transportation 883.we Louis J. Sheehan

The United States is already feeling the effects of climate change that’s mostly caused by humans, says a long-awaited U.S. summary of climate science released May 29.

The report is “a one-stop-shop” for what’s known about causes and effects of climate change in the United States, said Sharon Hays of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as she introduced the document at a press conference the morning of May 29. Issued by the National Science and Technology Council and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the report draws on scientific papers from researchers around the globe.

The previous science assessment, required by the Global Change Research Act, came out in 2000. The required follow-up assessment has lagged, though. Today’s assessment is two days ahead of a May 31 deadline set by a federal court after environmental groups sued to demand its release.

The new report is “a wonderful example of what happens when federal scientists are given the freedom to actually do their jobs,” says Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. The Center joined two other groups in the suit that prompted the deadline from the U.S. District Court of the Northern District California Oakland Division in August, 2007.

“I think it’s quite a thorough and comprehensive summary of the science that’s out there,” says Mike Brklacich of Carleton University in Canada after a quick look at the report. “I didn’t read it and say ‘Oh my God, thousands of voices have been suppressed again in the science community.”

WILDER FIRESAs temperatures warm, wildfires will very likely intensify. Already recent years have brought increases in both their extent and severity. Courtesy of National Park Service

Brklacich does say he’d like to see more consideration of the interconnected effects of climate issues, but says that report’s approach is common in the field.

The assessment starts with the question of cause: “Studies that rigorously quantify the effect of different external influences on observed changes (attribution studies) conclude that most of the recent global warming is very likely due to human-generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations,” stated the report.

Hays jousted a bit with reporters during the press conference over whether the report signals a change of heart in the administration. “It’s simply not correct to say that this is the first time we’ve recognized the link between greenhouse gases and climate change,” she said. She cited a speech in 2002 in which President Bush referred to a National Academy of Sciences report making the link. Asked about later statements that there’s debate over the cause, she said, “There has been a debate.”

The report, after dealing with the cause, lists changes already observed within the United States. Average temperatures have risen in both this and the last century. Increasingly more of the annual precipitation fell as rain rather than snow during the past five decades. Several droughts have been severe but the last 50 years overall saw a tendency toward decreasing severity and duration of droughts. Sea level has been rising 0.08 to 0.12 inches per year along most of the U.S Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

For the future, the report notes that most of the models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports predict average warming in the United States this century topping 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Changes in five out of the 21 models used in the IPCC report shot above 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit. The report also draws on IPCC projections of global sea level rise between 7 and 23 inches this century.

In determining what all this means to Americans, the assessment pulls work from topical reports called SAPs, some of which are still to be published. Most discussion of energy to date has focused on how to reduce emissions, the report says, but climate changes will the affect these industries. In places, hydropower or nuclear plants will have less water.

Transportation will feel the difference too. Railroad tracks may buckle and highways more easily soften into ruts with hotter, more frequent and longer lasting heat spells. Coastal flooding and landslides will slam roads and rails as well as ports. http://ljsheehan.livejournal.com/

For farmers and resource managers, the new report also draws a SAP summary about agriculture released earlier in the week by the Climate Change Science Program. “We’re seeing effects happening rapidly, more rapidly than some of us expected,” says Anthony Janetos, one of the lead authors and director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute in College Park, Md.

“ An important feature of this report is that it dispels the commonly held notion that the United States and other wealthy nations will be spared the worst impacts of climate change,” says ecosystem biologist Jay Gulledge at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Va. Having the wealth doesn’t mean having the will to deal the problems, he says. “The Congress and the White House have much work to do to prepare our country to deal successfully with climate change.” http://ljsheehan.livejournal.com/

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

stalagmite 7773.r4 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire. The dates at which some Midwestern cave formations began to grow could help researchers chronicle the earthquake history of Missouri and surrounding states, according to work reported October 5 in Houston during the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

During late 1811 and early 1812, a series of major quakes rocked the New Madrid Seismic Zone, a fault system named for a small town in southeastern Missouri near the center of those temblors. Scientists often can estimate the age of older, prehistoric quakes along those faults by analyzing wood or other organic debris trapped in pockets of sand and forced to Earth’s surface during a quake, says Keith C. Hackley, a geochemist with the Illinois State Geological Survey in Champaign. But many such features have long been plowed or otherwise disturbed by farming, rendering results of analyses ambiguous.

Hackley and his colleagues have now used geochemical techniques, including uranium-thorium dating, to analyze material at the base of stalagmites found in caves between 180 and 230 kilometers north of the epicenters of the 1811–1812 quakes. Many of those stalagmites started growing about 195 years ago, when the massive temblors — estimated to range around magnitude 8 — may have cracked rocks overlying the caves. When these rocks cracked, mineral-rich groundwater seeped into the caverns from new locations and started generating new stalagmite formations. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de Other stalagmites that the team analyzed began growing about 90 years ago, about the time that a magnitude-5 quake shook a region just east of the caves, says Hackley.

These results hint that stalagmites could provide useful information about ancient quakes in the area, Hackley says. Preliminary analyses of about 60 formations found in caverns throughout southern Illinois, Indiana and Missouri suggest that major quakes occur in the region about once every 500 years or so. If correct, that frequency would confirm similar results obtained by less-accurate analyses of material gathered from sand blows or trenches dug during previous field studies. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Destruction_of_Army_Group_Center