Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be, but first I need more coffee.
I knew that bees were disappearing in the US and it is very alarming, but I didn’t know it was starting to happen in Deutschland. At best honey and fruit is going to get a lot more expensive. At worst world the human race is doomed. Killer bees don’t sound so scary after learning about this.
Der Spiegel – Are GM Crops Killing Bees?
BBC News – Vanishing bees threaten US crops
science friday (podcast) – Honeybee Problems
That isn’t a typo. Alas, I didn’t make it up. I just heard it on a Science Friday podcast about how invasive worm species are destroying soils in the northeast US. It seems that they turn patches of forest floor that were once full of organic material into bare patches. These are forests above the glacier line. Presumably during the last Ice Age the hundreds of feet of ice killed off the native earthworms, so you generally don’t find them in northern soils.
The invasive species are from Europe and Asia. The venerable nightcrawler is a European import. The speaker said that most of these imported worms came either in the ballast of ships or in plants brought over by immigrants. Native species aren’t moving northwards the way the invasive ones are and given the northerly range these worms have in their native habitat they wouldn’t be expected to move that far north, so global warming may be affecting them. Hence, global worming.
Give it a listen. It’s fascinating: Science Friday March 23, 2007 Earthworms.
I’m debating whether or not I’ll just feed my current blog into this livejournal or keep a separate blog here. I could just copy and paste the ones I want to put out here.
It’s an interesting experience getting older, knowing at some point you reach the full height of your physical and mental powers and then begin their gradual decline. I’ve passed my physical peak and now begins the physical gradual decline. Let’s hope it’s a gentle slope. Now I get to experience problems that come with not so much age as it is my genetic predisposition.
I have a frozen shoulder. 50/50 chance of guessing the correct one. It seems that women, diabetics, and redheads are prone to it. Basically, the cuff surrounding the ball and socket become inflamed and limits mobility. It will take months of stretching to restore most of the mobility. I am not female nor diabetlic, but I do have reddish hair. I wonder if a female diabetic redhead is thrice as likely to develop a frozen shoulder.
How did it happen? I strained my arm trying to start a gas powered leaf blower. I must have pulled the cord fifty times very hard. I thought it would heal up. It didn’t. Went to the doctor. He examined my arms and took X-rays. No torn muscles, no damaged bones. All good. It’s not pleasant and can be painful at times, but when I know what ailments friends, family, and acquaintences suffer from, I feel fortunate. The rest of me is in pretty darn good health. I could lose a few pounds again. It sucks when you stop exercising on a regular basis. Your waistline behaves like the imperceptably slow inflation of a balloon.
Update – I went to my first physical therapy session today. He assessed my mobility or lack theirof. Then he worked on my shoulder a bit and then showed me a number of exercises which I did. At the end he hooked up some electrodes and slapped an ice pack on my shoulder. I sat their for fifteen minutes while my shoulder was frozen and electrocuted at the same time. I get to go back a few more times and then I get to do the rest on my own sans electrodes.
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