Kate Rauner's Blog, page 57

Horrible Creatures Have a Place in the World – How Revolting #poem #poetry #biology #nature

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Tick fossilized in amber – they’ve been around a long time

My dog is scratching at his fleas,

There’s mistletoe throughout my trees.

Can climate change be all bad

If it kills a few of these?

Egg to larva to adult,

From fish to foul they catapult

Their complex lives to realize,

Or from seeds and spores result.

Successful parasites don’t kill,

They want their hosts to thrive, yet still

Niches open when they go

To creatures worse that will.

Some are horrible, it’s true,

We won’t miss River Blindness soon.

Next time your tummy’s sick, just know

They’re part of Mother Nature’s glue.

by Kate Rauner

Thanks to a study published in the journal Science Advances, completed with the help of the U.S. National Parasite Collection, as well as specialized databases of ticks, fleas, bee mites, and feather mites; and to techtimes Many thanks to the

Carter Center, because some parasites simply have to go. But it’s interesting to think about the little nasties we’ve adapted to live with – and them with us.

My poetry collections are available on Amazon, Smashwords, Apple, or your favorite retailer. Read a preview here or visit your favorite store

Filed under: Poetry Tagged: balance of nature, biology, climate change leads to extinctions, parasites, River Blindness

Fascinating Premise is an Excuse to Pit Ancient Armies in Battle #review #bookreview #scifi

[image error]Segments of the Earth are suddenly transmorgified into their own past – “a patchwork of eras, from prehistory to 2037, each with its own indigenous inhabitants”. Two small groups of “moderns” from 2037 briefly make contact and agree to meet in the only place where a technological signal has been detected – Babylon. Along the way they meet Victorian era British soldiers and two famous ancient armies – led by Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan.

What I thought of the story

The book claims Clarke’s Space Odyssey series as its inspiration – a time odyssey instead of a space odyssey. I guess that’s why it opens with furry pre-human hominids. While interesting, they only appear occasionally and don’t add much to the story.

Once the premise is established and the weird world explored a bit, the book slows down. Its main purpose seems to be to show us what it would be like to live in the ruling courts of Alexander and Genghis. Very smelly among other things.

When two rulers dedicated to world conquest meet, it may not be much of a spoiler to say mayhem ensues. Personally I’m not a big fan of battles and began skipping entire chapters. The book ends in a mystical alien sort of way which allows a narrator (not a character) to provide a glimpse of what’s going on.

I liked parts of the book and skipped other parts, so that averages out to an “okay” rating from me.

What others are saying

As you’d expect from a legandary author, Time’s Eye has a high sales rank on Amazon – roughly top 7% in its time travel category on Kindle. (Amazon is starting to hide the data that lets me calculate a rank, so I may not be able to do this in the future.) From 109 reviews it gets 3.7 stars, which isn’t bad.

Readers who disliked the book found the middle with its long trudge to Babylon boring. Others called it “entertaining” and “interesting if not compelling,” while some say they’re going straight off to buy the rest of the trilogy.

About the hardcover book

I’m always a little skeptical when a book’s description starts by telling me how famous the authors are. Here’s the pitch:

Sir Arthur C. Clarke is a living legend, a writer whose name has been synonymous with science fiction for more than fifty years… a genuine visionary. If Clarke has an heir among today’s science fiction writers, it is award-winning author Stephen Baxter… [who] demonstrated dazzling gifts of imagination and intellect, along with a rare ability to bring the most cerebral science dramatically to life. Now these two champions of humanism and scientific speculation have combined their talents in a novel sure to be one of the most talked-about of the year, a 2001 for the new millennium.

I guess that’s inevitable when a publisher has a living legend in its stable.

I read an old hardcover edition from 2004 which included a CD with two of Baxter’s novels (downloadable pdf files that I haven’t read yet, but I reviewed another of his books here) If you buy a used copy be sure to ask if the CD is included.

There was also a pdf on how the book was created (which includes author biographies and lists of works). From these notes and wikipedia I get the impression that Clarke and Baxter developed the outline for the book and Baxter wrote it. Maybe that applies to all three of the books in the trilogy, since the last was published in December 2007 and Clarke (who had been ill for years) died three months later. A sad day.

Filed under: Science Fiction Tagged: Alexander the Great, alternative history, book review, Genghis Khan, review, science fiction, SciFi, Sir Arthur C Clarke, space aliens, Stephen Baxter, time travel novel

How Hard Can a Hurricane Blow? #poem #weather #hurricane

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Hurricane Isabella from space – size rivals the curve of the Earth

Saffir and Simpson wanted to show

Just how hard a hurricane blows.

So they crafted their wind scale

And up it goes into the gale.

Less than one hundred miles per hour

Category One has plenty of power.

With a hundred fifty, Cat Five batters,

And no Cat Six, cause it don’t matter.

How much harder could it blow?

Depends on ocean heat below.

Warm water is a monster’s fuel

And temperatures creep as we review.

Above Cat Five, it’s all the same,

Smashed and flattened, broke and maimed.

by Kate Rauner

Try my poetry collection – inspired by science.

Thanks to Herbert Saffir and Robert Simpson, and livescience

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Ocean warming over time – check out the trend over many years

Filed under: Poetry Tagged: how bad can a hurricane be, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, Saffir-Simpson Scale, weather, wind speed

Science has Answers But What’s the Question? #energy #technology #science #psychology

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Early steam engine – powered by wood or coal – now historical display

Coal powered the Industrial Revolution and gave us our modern lives.

The core concept of factories was embraced by the mid-1800s but throughout the 20th century the revolution spread through steel, chemicals, petroleum, automobiles, and beyond. Oil rose in importance but coal remained a vital source of power.

Unfortunately, coal is dangerous to life and health. While its benefits are shared across the nation, impacts are local. Mining districts are permanently blighted and scarred, and miners are sickened and injured. We’ve made a deal with the devil in some ways, but who wants to return to a feudal agrarian world? Not me.

Natural gas is replacing coal to fuel power plants because it’s cheaper. While there are also issues around gas production, it’s better than coal. Renewable energy is also surging. There may always be some coal used as a chemical – in certain steel production for example – but bringing back coal is like bringing back film or horseshoes.

Mining towns bore the brunt of coal’s problems and they bear the brunt of  coal’s demise. And not just lost wages. Working hard as part of a team, developing skills, admiring and being admired by your friends – all good for the soul despite the hazards, and lost to too many coal miners. Due to the nature of mining, these displaced miners often live in remote rural areas where finding new jobs, new homes, and new communities is hard.

Can technology save coal? Can it burn “clean,” can workers be protected, and can landscapes be reclaimed? Probably, but no one wants to pay for it.

President Trump recently touted a ‘brand-new coal mine, where they’re going to take out clean coal — meaning, they’re taking out coal, [and] they’re going to clean it,’ referring to a Corsa Coal Corporation mine that is projected to open in 2018.

What does that mean? Rock and soil are washed out of coal at the mine, but “clean coal” usually means contaminants and carbon are captured at the power plant stack and sequestered somehow, locked safely away from our environment.

Politicians get away with fuzzy words because “clean coal” has no universal definition. But there are a handful of technologies under development that generally fit the phrase.

Grabbing CO2 from flue gas to use elsewhere or inject underground – that’s one idea.
Reacting CO2 with some other waste chemical like hydrogen sulfide to make a stable compound – there’s that.
Converting coal into “syngas” removes nasty contaminants for later disposal and cleaner burning – also possible.
More at livescience

All these technologies use costly equipment and you may need to burn thirty percent more coal to power the “cleaning.” None of them complete economically with natural gas or, increasingly, renewable energy.

Even politicians who make speeches about clean coal quietly propose to reduce the funding to develop these technologies – and government funding is necessary because “clean coal” isn’t ready to go yet and private companies don’t see it as profitable.

The insanity of politics aside, real problems exist for real people. What will happen to ex-miners, sons and daughters who expected to work in and around mines, and their dying towns? We could provide pensions, pay for schooling, and move people away for less money than “clean coal” would cost. If this were China that might happen. It would take a dictator to accomplish because culture is very hard and slow to change. We could deal with bodies easily enough, but what about spirits?

Science may provide an answer, but through psychology rather than chemistry.

Going to Amazon today? Click over there now on my link.

Filed under: Neat Science News Tagged: how do we help miners and mining towns, natural gas, power plants, renewable energy, what does clean coal mean, what is clean coal

This is the Strange Value of the Best Fossil Poo #dinosaurs #fossils #science #evolution #poetry #poem

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This legendary fossilized feces specimen is named “Precious”

Brontosaurus is amazing,

And likewise is T Rex,

But what about the beetles

That hold food chains erect?

Fin rays and fish scales

And bits of parasites,

The ins and outs of ecosystems

Found in coprolites.

Ancient relationships

That underlain the world

Of millions of years ago,

Their secrets are unfurled.

Synchrotron

Micro

Toe – mography

Without destroying fossils

Enables us to see

Deep into the past

Of ecology,

To reconstruct

just who ate whom

On life’s ancient tree.

by Kate Rauner

Thanks to phys.org, and read more on wikipedia. More poo poetry here

Turkeys Tell the Tale #history #archeology #nativeamericans

[image error]You may have heard that ancient North American people of Southwest Puebloan cultures, such as found at Mesa Verde, disappeared, but actually they moved and assimilated into other cultures. New evidence of where they went comes from a surprising source: turkeys.

Native American people had long kept turkeys and when they moved the turkeys traveled with them.

Severe drought in 1277, coupled with resource depletion and social upheaval, is thought to have triggered a massive migration… ‘What we found was good evidence of a substantial influx of turkeys into the northern Rio Grande region that had the same genetic composition as turkeys from the Mesa Verde region.’

Scientists extracted mitochondrial DNA from turkey bones found at various historical sites to track these ancient people. The trails people leave behind them can be surprising.

Thanks to sciencedaily.com

Filed under: Neat Science News Tagged: ancestral Puebloans, DNA, Mesa Verde, turkeys, where did the Anasazi go

Journey to Eclipse 2017 #eclipse #poem #astronomy #nature

[image error]Another Eclipse 2017 poem, inspired by my journey to the eclipse centerline in the Boise National Forest – hurray for America’s public lands. The path of totality was about 70 miles wide for this eclipse and crossed the continent. The difference between 99% and 100% totality is day and night. Even a sliver of the sun’s disk is too bright to look at naked-eye and loses the corona in the glare. Well worth the travel and deserving of a rhyme.

The car is packed, we could escape

A zombie apocalypse,

But on this trip instead we chase

A total solar eclipse.

Nebraska may be cloudy

So Idaho’s our bet.

We carry everything we need, for

The best view we can get.

From the mountains of New Mexico

Through ponderosa pine,

A partial isn’t good enough,

We seek the centerline.

On the plains of Arizona

Our camping gear’s a plus.

The centerline is farther north

And so push-on we must.

Keep the gas tank topped,

There could be short supplies

Cause people are converging

To gaze into the sky.

Blood red rocks of Utah,

The finest that we see,

We leave behind without a stop

To chase totality.

Squirrels chirp out their annoyance, as

In Idaho we climb,

To a forest meadow,

To the centerline.

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Eclipse camp

There’s time to lounge in camp

But First Contact will come soon

On the centerline

In the shadow of the Moon.

by Kate Rauner

Perfect conditions and a happy surprise – sunspots! It’s the bottom of the cycle so we weren’t expecting that. They don’t affect the eclipse – just add to viewing fun. Read more about the eclipse here.

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Projection of Sun shortly after First Contact

Filed under: Poetry Tagged: American west, eclipse first contact, my journey to the eclipse, poem, poetry, total solar eclipse 2017, travel

Lead Dawn to Day #haiku #port #moon #sun #astronomy

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Moon seen from Earth orbit

Ancient crescent Moon

Leads the Sun into the sky

And the dawn to day

We call it “new” when the Moon stands between Earth and Sun and the side turned perpetually towards Earth is in darkness. Because of the bobbles and eccentricity of orbits, this configuration doesn’t often  give us earth-bound observers a solar eclipse. But on August 21st 2017 it will – across mid North America. It’s just a footnote to orbital mechanics, but still a thrill

Eclipse Hits New Heights [lol] at the Nifty Back Road Cafe #eclipse #poem #poetry #ThursdayThoughts

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That’s me! A picture of a picture – t-shirt from one eclipse, projecting another

It’s my pleasure to be hosted at The Back Road Cafe where you’ll find a range of writers’ fiction and fact, poetry and prose, short stories, and quotes – and musings from host Dale Rominger. Click on over and see if it becomes one of your favorites.

 

Filed under: Neat Science News

Eclipse Hits New Heights [lol] in the Nifty Back Road Cafe #eclipse #poem #poetry #ThursdayThoughts

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That’s me! A picture of a picture – t-shirt from one eclipse, projecting another

It’s my pleasure to be hosted at The Back Road Cafe where you’ll find a range of writers’ fiction and fact, poetry and prose, short stories, and quotes – and musings from host Dale Rominger. Click on over and see if it becomes one of your favorites.

 

Filed under: Neat Science News