notes

Jun. 15th, 2008 09:29 pm
[personal profile] eub
Impossible thing of the morning: to clean aphids off an eryngium flowerhead by hand.

We have two varieties of wineglasses. The bowl of one resonates a major third higher than its foot does, and the other's bowl is a second higher than that, and its foot is a fourth down, so ending a fifth down from the first's bowl.

Date: 2008-06-16 04:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eub.livejournal.com
Also,
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/32652/title/Life_down_deep
R. John Parkes, a microbiologist at Cardiff University in Wales, and his colleagues analyzed nine samples of sediment drilled off the shore of Newfoundland at depths between 860 and 1,626 meters beneath the North Atlantic seafloor.

Their analyses suggest that each cubic centimeter of those sediments, on average, holds around 1.5 million microorganisms in pore spaces.

About 60 percent of those cells are alive and could reproduce, the team’s tests suggest. Also, microscopy reveals that many of the cells found in the North Atlantic samples — in one sample, nearly 12 percent — were caught in the act of dividing, the researchers reported in the May 23 Science.

Although the numbers of microbes found in the deep sediments are much thinner than the 1 billion or so that live in each cubic centimeter of sediment near the surface of the seafloor, “these are still very significant cell populations,” Parkes says.

The temperatures of rocks at the depths the team drilled range from 60° Celsius to more than 100° C, he says. Known types of microbes can survive in temperatures up to around 120° C, which corresponds to a sediment depth of about 4 kilometers, Parkes says. If microorganisms thrive throughout seafloor sediments above that depth, the material could house about 70 percent of the microbes now alive on Earth, Parkes says.

Date: 2008-06-16 05:11 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] randomdreams.livejournal.com
1. Ladybugs?

2. Are you familiar with glass organs, that use nested, tuned bowls rotating on a spindle and someone plays them? They were very popular in the late 1700's; big-name composers wrote songs for them.

Date: 2008-06-16 05:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] marzipan-pig.livejournal.com
My dad and his work friends played the wine glasses at him and my mom's wedding, though he's never told me the scale.

Date: 2008-06-16 05:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] marzipan-pig.livejournal.com
er, his and my mom's

Date: 2008-06-16 06:19 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] beaq.livejournal.com
Good lord, man, that's what Waterpiks were *made* for.

Hm. Maybe I'd better check my eryngium.

Date: 2008-06-16 02:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] indigodove.livejournal.com
I am delighted by your wineglass observations :-)

Date: 2008-06-16 06:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mh75.livejournal.com
hey, i got a special plant wipe at the flower and garden show that is supposed to clean aphids. I don't have aphids right now. Want it?

Date: 2008-06-17 05:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eub.livejournal.com
Maybe. Have you ever known anyone to convince ladybugs to stay and eat what they (the ladybug herder) wanted eaten?

I've heard of them, as glass harmonicas, but have never seen one.

Date: 2008-06-17 05:31 am (UTC)

Date: 2008-06-17 05:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eub.livejournal.com
Thank you, and I am curious what an aphid wipe is, but I think it will be very difficult to get into this plant with it. It's very spiky.
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