Daily Science Dose

Dystopia. Not a medical symptom, but, say, a world that is the opposite of utopian. A world where the government might, say, suppress scientific facts from the people, to better, say, control popular beliefs and to further their own political/moral agenda.

Maybe dystopia is extreme. But. What’s this? Dr. Richard Carmona, the previous surgeon general under the Bush administration, has testified before the House of Representatives today, saying that he wasn’t allowed to talk about certain topics, including stem cell research. He says he was muzzled.

Muzzle is a fun word to use.

I’m not really into talking politics, at least not blogging on political issues, but when it comes to politics vs science, I might like to spread the word. It sorta riles me up, this.

Rile is a fun word to use.

Boo, politics. Boo. A pox on you, current administration. I don’t know which pox. Maybe monkeypox? Nah, monkeypox is sorta hard core. Maybe cowpox (pic here). That’s more like it.

Anyway. Back to this muzzling business. I’m sure such things happen to a certain degree during every administration, but here’s what some other former surgeons general said to Carmona: “We have never seen it as partisan, as malicious, as vindictive, as mean-spirited as it is today, and you clearly have worse than anyone’s had.”

People are so weird, no? It’s always like high school, over and over and over again.

I have no science to back up that last statement.

ps - Dear government, I would never really want you to have a pox, so please don’t come and get me. I was just using it in the…you know…old-timey sort of way. “A pox on your house!” I only brought up monkey and cowpox because I thought it a good opportunity to expose my readers to the wide world of pox.

pps - Isn’t it creepy that I feel it necessary to write the ps that I just did? But, I don’t want to be muzzled or poxed. I do not want to rile, lest I, um, get extra parking tickets. Or something like that.

ppps - Here’s a NPR article that gives more details of Carmona’s experience.

pox, high school, monkeypox, cowpox, Carmona, surgeon general, muzzle

1. There isn’t all that much more that I’d like to say about copepods at this time. I’ve got a microscope, and will attempt to photograph one close-up. Until then, let’s shelve this copepod topic.

2. That haze you see in the sky around cities? You know, that brownyellowdust sorta colored layer that sits on top of everything? That’s pollution, right? That’s, like, bits of dirt and dust and particles and all, right?

No. Two-thirds of the haze that you see is haze-colored gas. You are literally seeing the air.

If you live out in the country and see some haze, 90% of that consists of various gasses.

I wonder whether I could trap some haze in a jar. Wouldn’t that be nice? Like lightning bugs, but not.

haze, pollution, air

I’ve got a little video for you.

The tubifex worms have set up a charming little community within the baby snail tank, and I wanted to capture it on video, so that I could share it with you, and go into more detail about the life of a tubifex worm. As I was taping them, I discovered that they were not alone in the baby snail tank. O wonder of nature! More life to be found in the tank of death!

This video starts with one of several happy clusters of tubifex worms. You’ll notice that they’re part-ways out of the gravel. That’s their tail end. They’re absorbing oxygen with their tails, while digging around below for treats. They duck in and out of the rocks at times, and you’ll see one or two rooting around face-first.

Keep an eye out for white specs scooting across the glass. They’re tiny. They’re fast. They’re copepods!

I’m going to be doing a bit of research this weekend, so expect a full copepod post next week.

Here’s a lovely drawing of some copepods. Ernst Haeckel drew and colored them. I don’t think God colors copepods, not the way Ernst Haeckel did. Most real live copepods are transparent.

Copepods are very important as far as the circle of life on the planet is concerned. They are part of plankton, which in turn becomes part of most of the life in the sea, which then becomes part of you and me, one way or another.

This website says it better than I can:

“They are considered the most plentiful multicellular group on the earth, outnumbering even the insects, which include more species, but fewer individuals! Particularly, the copepods are the dominant forms of the marine plankton and constitute the secondary producers in the marine environments and a fundamental step in the trophodinamics of the oceans.”

Pretty impressive, no? If you’re not into words like trophodinamics (dynamics?), it pretty much means…maybe I said it better. Circle of life and all that jazz.

Some fun facts before I leave you for the weekend:

Copepods host the parasite that grows up to become the Guinea worm. Do you know what the Guinea worm is? If the answer is no, we’ll have to fix that!

Copepods are crustaceans, like shrimp and lobsters.

Those are your two new fun facts. Please do be sure to make use of them this weekend.

Thank you.

copepod, crustaceans, Guinea worm, tubifex, parasite, plankton, circle of life

The dirt info…I’m just gonna throw it out there.

Dirt is brown because:

1) Plants die and fall down on the ground.

2) Saprobes, microbes, they eat the dead plants. Yum yum.

3) These microbes can’t eat all of it, so they leave behind some carbon, and that carbon stays in the soil. You can also say that the microbes leave humic substances. Wiki says, “Humic substances arise by the microbial degradation of biomolecules (lipids, proteins, carbohydrates, lignin) dispersed in the environment after the death of living cells.”

4) The carbon/humic stuff is brown.

5) Thus, dirt looks brown. Usually. Sometimes, if there’s, like, clay and sand and other weird deposits, it might look less brown. If there’s less carbon, chances are the dirt will be less brown.

Would you like to read more about dirt being brown? Here’s a link to the LiveScience article that told me about it all.

Speaking of saprobes (as I said above, the bacteria that break down the dead plants are saprobes because they eat and break down dead things), Tubifex worms are saprophages, or detritivores. Detritivore - an animal who eats detritus, like rotting dead things or organic waste material. The term is applied to animals, to real fancy-like, complex living things. Microbes are not detritivores, but the detritivores sometimes break dead things down so that they are easier for the microbes to eat. They work as a team in that way, helping to keep our dirt brown.

Smiling emoticon.

For those of you interested in how detritivores can help save your fishtank, check out this link.

detritivores, dirt, worm, saprobes, carbon, organic waste, soil

I know that I’m supposed to be doing dirt, but the stork brought a special delivery my way today!

That’s not entirely accurate. The stork must have brought this delivery some time ago. Still, o happy day! I’ve got some new friends, and their name is Tubifex tubifex!

While cleaning the baby snail tank, I noticed some stringy things floating. Suspicious, since baby snails shouldn’t be making such things, I scooped one out into a bucket and took a better look. It was moving. Alive-like moving - stretching, reaching, coiling. I waited for the water to settle, but the string thing kept at it and my suspicions were confirmed - a worm!

Here’s some video.

Meet the tubifex worm, a/k/a sludge worm, from the phylum Annelida (another link here). Annelids are the segmented worms, and include earthworms and leeches.

Tubifex worms are found in sediments in lakes and rivers throughout the world. They can go quite a long time without food or oxygen, and can survive in polluted environments where other animals cannot.

How did this worm get into my baby snail tank? Stork deliveries aside, the worms must have come from the algae wafers that I feed the baby snails. Tubifex worms are often an ingredient in fish food, even in some algae wafers. They can form cysts to protect themselves from drying out and then, when conditions are right, spring forth into, say, my baby snail tank. It’s one way these guys get around.

I was concerned, when I first saw the worm, worrying it might be a parasitic worm that could be harmful to humans or baby snails. But no - we should be just fine, me, the worms, and the baby snails, so long as these worms weren’t hanging around in sewage before encysting and becoming trapped in an algae wafer. Many tubifex worms sold live for aquarium use have come from sewage-contaminated sediment, and therefore carry harmful parasites.

Does anyone have a…microscope I can borrow?

Here’s hoping that my worms are clean.

tubifex, worms, snail, aquarium, parasite

ps - I’ll get to the dirt soon. Promise.

Sorry I missed you yesterday. I was, as the title above indicates, stalled and stuck to the floor. That would be my depression.

It’s getting better. I don’t have anything bad to say about Cymbalta at this point. Okay, I have a few things to mention. Extra stomach acid which burns my guts. Kombucha seems to help with that. Yawn came back, but seems to be fading. And I’ve got this voluntary repetitive motion thing that happens at least once a day.

I’m seeing my doctor in a few hours, so I’ll ask him what this repetitive motion thing is, and then I will tell you all about it.

Now, I must be off so that I can type to you about dirt!

kombucha, Cymbalta, depression