Category Archives: biology

Getting Cute at Disneyland

What do they say?  It’s never too late and you’re never too old?   I finally made it to Disneyland (Anaheim) last week.

There we were: doing all the rides – some several times, eating food that’s bad for us, buying stuff we don’t need.  I so want to take the Star Tours sim home with me.

It’s a hard experience to knock.  Except, looking round, aren’t the Disney icons a bit thin on the ground, especially that icon of icons – Mickey Mouse.  Where’s the guy off the TV with his big mouse head, big mouse eyes and ears, flowing tailcoats?  Okay, between whipping round Space Mountain and transfering the contents of the flume into my fleece, our accessibility to roaming mice is limited; but I’m still half disappointed (half thankful too) we’ve avoided a mugging by the world’s cutest rodent – me with my ‘1st Visit’ badge an’ all.

Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse (Photo:Tim Jones at Disneyland, Anaheim)
Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse (Photo:Tim Jones at Disneyland, Anaheim)

Then at the end of the day, as we sit munching Mickey surrogate pretzels, the mouse himself finally shows on the Parade float; and with that box ticked, we head home to live happily ever after.

Hurtling down LA’s great big freeway, I can only mull, through waves of incipient indigestion, the definitive paper on ‘the impact of twelve hours of corn dogs, ice cream and churros on the human body under intermittent acceleration to 3g’.  Shelving that due to data-weakness in cotton candy (with a recommendation for further work), I move to the important question of why exactly is Mickey Mouse so very popular?  Some thirty years ago, evolutionary biologist and sometime Disney scholar Stephen J Gould asked the  very same question.

Gould’s essay, Mickey Mouse meets Konrad Lorenz, originaly pubished in the May 1979 issue of Natural History, and reappearing as  ‘A Biological Homage to Mickey Mouse‘  (link to pdf) in the Panda’s Thumb collection of essays, is a light-hearted yet sound scientific analysis of how Disney artists changed Mickey’s features over the years to make him more innately appealing to us.  Perhaps not knowingly, but in biological terms they’d neotenized him, migrating his more adult features to the juvenile forms we see, and are programmed to endear, in human children.   It’s one of my favourite pieces of science communication and a recommended read.

Disneyland (Photo:Tim Jones)
Disneyland (Photo:Tim Jones)

Animals, real or caricatured, score high on the cute scale if they have: (a) a large eye size compared to head-length, (b) a large head size to body-length, and (c) a large cranium (Gould measured a ‘cranial vault’ ratio for this, only meaningful for Mickey in profile, but equating to what Lorenz describes as “predominance of the brain capsule”).  They display short, thick, extremities – like  stubby legs (Disney achieved the illusion by putting Mickey in shorts), and a short snout (in cartoonland, only villains sport pointy snouts  – think the weasels from Who Framed Roger Rabbit).

The principles from Lorenz’s and Gould’s work have been applied to everything from vehicle design to this assessment of how cute NASA’s Mars rover Spirit is,…to pretzels.

 Applied to animals, they suggest our attitude, affection, concern, and the general way we treat species will be influenced by how closely each resembles a human child – how juvenile they appear.  Conservationists call it ‘survival of the cutest’ –  whereby public conservation support favours attractive species over more deserving cases under a greater threat of extinction.   It’s the reason pandas and badgers get more sympathy than the Purple Burrowing Frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis), or the Helmeted Hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil) – to pull a couple of real lookers from the IUCN Red List; the former is ‘endangered’, the latter a ‘near threatened’ species.

Even favoured species like dolphins fall off the radar once a variant moves away from a norm we can easily anthropomorphise.  Compare the  Ganges (endangered) and Yangtze (critically endangered, possibly extinct) river dolphins with their slightly odd-looking extended beaks, with the familiar smiley Common Short-Beaked dolphin (‘Least Concern’ on the IUCN list).

Purple Burrowing Frog

 

Helmeted Hornbill. Not such a pretty boy (Wikicommons)

I’m bringing badgers into this because of their prominence in the UK news at the moment, where the government has introduced a controversial culling policy to reduce Bovine TB, which badgers carry.   Controversy centres on the effectiveness of culling (by shooting at feed lures) over other controls like vaccination, and a general point on how transparently science or politics based the decisions have been.  In terms of its conservation status, the Eurasian Badger (Meles meles) is classified by the IUCN as a ‘least concern’ species.

Eurasian Badger

Taking nothing away from the arguments, it’s interesting to test the badger against Gould’s cuteness criteria to see how looks might be influencing popular support.  I got the idea from this Guardian piece that’s against the culling, but suggesting that with respect to “one of Britain’s best-loved animals”…”our attachment to badgers may be irrational” (as is culling, in that author’s view).

Off the blocks things don’t look so good, Mr Badger being a fully paid-up member of your actual weasel family an’ all.  But he’s not stoatish, and from various photos on the web (my preferred methodology short of taking callipers to roadkill), I score him an apparent head to body ratio of five (20%), falling to four (25%) when he bunches up like they do.  Not even up with Mickey’s early Steamboat Willie incarnation at 35%, but still in the ballpark.

Compared to Mickey’s eye to head ratio of 27% to 42% over his career, our badger comes in at unbecoming ratios as low as 7% (measured up the snout, nose to ear) to at best 15% (measured in profile).  But look again.  What we really see in a badger’s face isn’t its beady little weasel eyes, but that glorious stripe (think pandas eyes).  Calculated on stripe width at the eye, the ratios triple, up to a far cuter 35% for the profile.  On the stubby legs criterion the badger is home and dry; it’s hard to even make them out under the fur – a bit like Disney hiding Mickey’s spindles under baggy shorts.  The snout is an enigma though, and there’s no getting round it.  Does the apparent integration of snout, cranium and neck into a continuous cone soften the effect?  Or maybe we see tufty ears and forgive the pointy nose?  On balance though, based on the numbers but with some reservations, I’m going to give the badger his cute badge.

California Ground Squirrel (Photo:Tim Jones)
California Ground Squirrel. Fillng his face – incidentally – improves his cute ratios

I’m not sure the Germans would agree though.  A more oblique cuteness indicator mentioned by Gould, but one I like if only for its reminder of that mouthful of letters Germans use for squirrel – Eichhörnchen – is the wider association of the German diminutive form with certain animals and not others.  So there’s also Rotkehlchen for Robin and Kaninchen for rabbit – all officially cute animals.   I wonder if the trend follows in other countries using a diminutive suffix?  Anyways, the Germans have nicht so honored the badger, who’s a plain simple Dachs (the origin of Dachshund, no less).  I’m making my own stories up now, but have just too many Germans Robin (Photo:Tim Jones)been bitten by (rabid or otherwise) Dachs?  Is the Dachs ‘one of Germany’s best-loved animals’ ?  Guinea pigs are off the cute scale, but Peruvians don’t lose sleep over serving them up for lunch.

And what do North Americans make of their badger, with it’s somewhat skunky appearance?  (To my eyes, the American badger is actually flatter faced and all-round cuter)  And before I diss. skunks too far, remember Pepé Le Pew? – not a million miles off Mickey on the cute ratios.  I don’t know how far Gould and Lorenz factored in cultural variables like these; could be an interesting research topic.

Pepé Le Pew. Even skunks can be cute (Copyright: Warner Bros.)

To wrap up then.  On badgers, I suspect some folks do support them just because they’re cute, but I’m also sure many look rationally at the bigger picture.  Aside from Gould’s criteria, perhaps we should just ask ourselves if, under similar circumstances, we’d put the same effort into saving the poor old Purple Burrowing Frog?

At end though, any improved awareness of factors that influence our thoughts and actions, but are outside our immediate consciousness, is valuable.  That’s what Gould is doing.  I’m just relaying the message and expanding it a bit.

I also like badgers.  And gibbons.

 

 

References

Mickey Mouse meets Konrad Lorenz. Natural History 1979, 88 (May): 30-36.

At the Planetary Society Blog, HERE, Melissa Rice tests the appearance of NASA’s now defunct Mars rover Spirit against the same Gould cuteness criteria discussed in the post.  Fantastic!

Charlie’s Rose

Charles Darwin wrote about roses in his The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, but I’m guessing he didn’t expect a variety would be named in his honour.

Charles Darwin rose in the grounds of the Huntington Estate, San Marino (Photo:Tim Jones)
Charles Darwin rose in the grounds of the Huntington Estate, San Marino (Photo:Tim Jones)

I stumbled upon these today in the gardens of the Huntington (Library, Art Collection, Botanical Gardens) Estate in San Marino.    According to this rose dealer, the variety is hardy, with a ‘strong and delicious fragrance that varies between a soft, floral Tea and almost pure lemon according to weather conditions’.  Sounds like it would be right at home at Darwin’s former home in Kent (where it may indeed be for all I know).  Whatever.  Compared to some of the other blooms on show today, most of which were wilted or entirely dropped off in the December chill, these Darwin specials are putting up a pretty good show.

Charles Darwin rose (Photo:Tim Jones)Charles Darwin rose tag (Photo:Tim Jones)

Contrary to popular opinion, the British aren’t all manic gardeners, and I wouldn’t ordinarily get over-excited about a rose garden.  But spurred on by the father of evolution, I scouted out a few more scientifically inspired varieties.  Marie Curie is hanging in there but looking the worse for wear:

Marie Curie rose (Photo:Tim Jones)And one Archimedes would have approved of:

Eureka rose (Photo:Tim Jones)

Leonardo needs some tidying:

Three for the astronomers:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The geologist’s choice looks the part:

 

 

 

 

Arctic explorers only:

Then a few others that aren’t really scientific but I find interesting, intriguing or odd – I didn’t expect to find ‘Pimlico’ and the ‘Radio Times’ in California – included:

Whisky Mac, Anne Boleyn, Radio Times, Brilliant Pink Iceberg, Brownie, Everest Double Fragrance, Moon Shadow, Bewitched, Pimlico ’81, Amelia Earhart, The Doctor, School Girl, Yellowstone, Octoberfest, Charles Dickens, Dynamite, and Smiles.

Maybe gardening’s not so boring after all.

Huntington Rose Garden on a sunnier day in 2013 (Photo:Tim Jones)
Huntington Rose Garden on a sunnier day in 2013 (Photo:Tim Jones)

Steven Pinker in conversation with A.C.Grayling at the Wellcome Collection

I’m conscious the blog has a science-celeb Picture Posty feel of late; but remember: (a) there have been an unusual number of cool events in London the past couple of weeks, (b) you like this stuff :-P, (c) someone’s got to do it.

Steven Pinker at the Wellcome Collection (Photo:Tim Jones)
Steven Pinker at the Wellcome Collection (Photo:Tim Jones)

More importantly, you need to know tonight’s conversation with Anthony Grayling and Steven Pinker at the Wellcome Collection was quite excellent, and it’s well worth catching the BBC World Service broadcast of the event on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day: details here.

A.C.Grayling at the Wellcome Collection (Photo:Tim Jones)
A.C.Grayling at the Wellcome Collection (Photo:Tim Jones)

The Pinker canon of academic and popular science writing covers broad ground: from the ‘Stuff of Thought‘s analysis of language and the (amazingly dull sounding but actually very interesting) irregular verbs, through the controversial nature-nurture territory of the ‘Blank Slate‘, to pontification on the (relative) demise of global violence in the recent ‘The Better Angels of Our Nature‘.

Tonight, Grayling steered the Canadian psychologist through the whole smash in about 80 minutes, including a good twenty minutes or more of intelligent audience questions.  The proceedings were introduced as part of the ‘Exchanges at the Frontier’ series by Wellcome’s lead on public programmes Ken Arnold, and Charlie Taylor for the BBC.

Watch out for the broadcast; but as usual here’s a few facts, quotes, stuff-that-I-remember-or-jotted-down, mindless ramblings, as a taster:

The first part of the conversation was about language.  Discussing a generic mental model of how we use metaphor in day-to-day speech, Pinker used the example of  ‘grasping an idea’, ‘getting across’ an idea, to ‘unpack’ an idea – asking us to take the underlying metaphor as a little marble in a box.  The box here is language, we communicate by sending the box, we open the box, the marble inside is the meaning. (Re communication and meaning, also check out my post on James Gleick’s The Information re Claude Shannon, and follow your nose from there.)

Steven Pinker and A.C.Grayling in conversation at the Wellcome Collection (Photo:Tim Jones)
Steven Pinker and A.C.Grayling in conversation at the Wellcome Collection (Photo:Tim Jones)

On another tack, Pinker linked our tendency for profanity – swearing – to the emotional parts of our brain (rather than the rational/cognitive) and activation of the ancient mammalian ‘rage circuit’ – as likely to be triggered by stubbing our toe or sitting on a cat (in which case from the cat’s perspective).  The cat yowls to startle an attacker; our evolutionary hangover induces a good old-fashioned “F***!” (In deference to the BBC he didn’t say it quite like that).

A round of audience questions on language: “Gentleman in the russet tee-shirt” (in the nicest possible way, Grayling is very good at this), and we’re on to subtlties of the mind.  Pinker elaborates his Blank Slate quote “The conscious mind – the self or soul – is a spin doctor, not the commander-in-chief” with reference to how we lie to ourselves (we do), as a means of sounding more convincing when we lie to others: a kind of practice for consistency.  (Pinker referred to Robert Triver’s on this theme, who’s views are expanded here in the Guardian.)

Answering a related audience question on the necessity of language for introspection (e.g. in babies with no language yet), Pinker referenced the ‘default network’: simply put, what your brain is doing when you’re not really thinking on anything in particular.  This seems pretty key, that we can think unconsciously and experience concepts without language.  And while I take Pinker’s point that children must have some non-language dependent cognitive ability to be able to adopt a language in the first place, I suspect there’s a lot we don’t know.

Moving to his latest focus – violence –  Pinker contrasts our violent impulses (e.g. predation, rage) with a counter-tendency for self-control: the infrastructure for his latest book’s broader thesis of inner demons versus better angels.   The ensuing discussion on murder, ideological violence and sadism (an acquired taste, like chili peppers) is probably best left for your Christmas Eve listening.

So what happens when the better angels pull ahead of the pesky demons?

Pinker says we get a general decline in violence.  One that he can illustrate with statistics of murder rates, wars, attrocities – you name it – it’s declined; not necessarily in absolute terms, but on a pro-rata basis for a given population (in the book Pinker explains why this might be a sensible way of measuring things).

Graphs aside though, with all the turbulence in the world today (economic and otherwise), the thrust of the wind-up Q&A was around how permanent this new low-violence regime might be.  Encouragingly – just what we’ll need at Christmas – Pinker suggests Greece won’t in fact be going to war with Germany anytime soon [despite everything], and, likewise, the USA and China will be cool (think: “they make all our stuff, we owe them too much”).

So.  For the most part. We can.  Relax.

 

(p.s. I asked my own question on how the observed virtuous developments in culture and human nature might somehow express (or have been expressed) in our biology, whether through  genetics or epigenetics, and got a good answer from Pinker. They’re bound to broadcast that bit, but if they don’t I’ll expand in a future post). Update:  [they did here]

 

 

David Attenborough – Darwin Lecture 2011, ‘Alfred Russel Wallace and the Birds of Paradise’

Tonight I joined the 2011 Darwin Lecture, with Sir David Attenborough speaking on ‘Alfred Russel Wallace and the Birds of Paradise’,  organised and hosted by the Royal Society of Medicine in association with the Linnean Society of London.

David Attenborough at the Darwin Lecture 2011
Sir David Attenborough (Photo:Tim Jones)

Fresh back from a trip to Borneo – no less, the spritely 85-year-old was introduced by Professor Parveen Kumar, President of the Royal Society of Medicine, and Dr Vaughan Southgate, President of the Linnean Society.

Be it via the TV or lecture theatre, David Attenborough plays to full houses all the time, and this November evening was no exception.

His account of Wallace’s ocean voyage to the Malay Archipelago and pioneering observations of that unique group of theatrical show-offs: the Birds-of-paradise, made for an informative and fun evening – all the merrier thanks to a generous ration of film clips showing the birds’ unlikely courtship rituals.

But the real take-home for me was Attenborough’s poignant re-telling of the Wallace-Darwin story: How the two  independently arrived at that world-changing idea for the origin of species – natural selection –  whereby only the better-adapted offspring of animals survive and pass on their qualities to a new generation.

David Attenborough at the Darwin Lecture 2011 Photo by Tim Jones
Sir David Attenborough (Photo:Tim Jones)
Male Great Bird-of-paradise (Wikicommons)

Darwin had for years been working on his own version of natural selection from the comfortable surroundings of his home Down House, but had held back from publishing.

Then in 1858, Darwin receives a letter from Wallace, incapacitated with Malaria and holed-up in a shack on the Mollucas Islands of the Malay Archipelago.  In it, he asks Darwin for an opinion on some ideas he’s had on the introduction of new species: ideas very similar to Darwin’s own.

David Attenborough at the Darwin Lecture 2011 Photo by Tim Jones
Sir David Attenborough (Photo:Tim Jones)

Wallace’s communication is a bombshell.  Yet for Darwin, the fear Wallace might publish first, pipping him at the post, is nothing compared to his horror of being branded a thief.  So, after consultation with his scientific confidants, including Joseph Hooker but necessarily excluding the remote Wallace – Darwin’s camp decide a joint announcement of their common idea should be made at the Linnean Society in London, in the form of two short essays comprising Wallace’s note and a summary of Darwin’s work.

Sir David Attenborough (Photo:Tim Jones)
Sir David Attenborough (Photo:Tim Jones)

All goes to plan at the Linnean, and in due course Darwin publishes the full text of the ‘Origin of Species’ – with all the turbulent aftermath that comes with it.   Wallace is comfortable with events, and pleased by the new associations he sees himself making in Darwin’s circle.  He remains abroad, observing his beloved Birds-of-paradise .

David Attenborough and Vaughan Southgate at the Darwin Lecture 2011 Photo by Tim Jones
Sir David Attenborough, Dr Vaughan Southgate (Photo:Tim Jones)

Darwin, Attenborough said, made known his view that Wallace was capable – had he enjoyed Darwin’s own means – of producing the ‘Origin’ himself.  Wallace on the other hand was more than grateful that the painstaking task of collation, supporting work, and documentation demanded of the masterwork had fallen to Darwin.   In the lingo of the day, they’d reached a gentlemanly solution with no ill feelings all round.

David Attenborough at the Darwin Lecture 2011 Photo by Tim Jones
Sir David Attenborough. At the end of his lecture he received a framed memento of the event and an award from the Society for the History of Natural History. (Photo:Tim Jones)

Wallace produced much original work based on his observations of bird populations in the Malay Archipelago, which he captured in his book of the same name (The Malay Archipelago). Specifically, he identified the so-called ‘Wallace-Line‘ that runs between the islands of Bali and Lombok, separating two geographic regions whose animals Wallace found to be distinct and associated with either Australian or Asian origins.  What he’d observed, without recognising it as such, was a product of moving land masses – or plate tectonics.

Related video:

David Attenborough talks about his fascination with birds of paradise (Nature Video)

 

 

Radiant Genes

A couple of months back, I sent away for a free set of genome fridge magnets from the Open University.  Problem is, our fridge is a built-in one hiding behind solid Brazilian Rosewood chipboard/oak veneers; and they aren’t magnetic.

One cool radiator....

Talk about blessing in disguise.  Now we have this fantastic genome-inspired  central heating radiator.  Good eh? (There’s me, then there’s Damien Hirst.)

So, 22 matching pairs of chromosomes, plus an X-Y pair (because I claim to be male; females have an X-X pair), for a total of 46.

Cool radiator.  Result.

 

Ducks per Second: A Most Useful Unit of Velocity

Figure 1 - Sand Martin approaches from rear of convoy
Figure 2 - Sand Martin passes over second duck in convoy

When I lived in the Midlands of the UK, away from the bussle of London’s controlled airspace, one of my pleasures on an evening was to hire a light aircraft at my local airfield and tootle off for an hour or so practicing maneoveurs and generally enjoying the sunset – all very peaceful.

Except, one evening when I was out tootling above the Cotswolds; like a flash, an RAF Tornado jet whooshed from under me, matching my track but far exceeding my speed, and all uncomfortably close – a disappearing dot before I could blink.

In fact, he was probably a good 500 ft below me and certainly had on-board radar – so nothing actually dangerous going on. (There’s a popular myth  – that may be true – that on such occasions the military use light aircraft for practice interception.)

Anyhow, it made an impression on me, and today the memory returned unbidden with these two photographs snapped at the Rick Pond in Hampton Court Park.  They show a Sand Martin in a low-level, high speed pass over a convoy of ducklings – as bemused, no doubt, as I was 4000 feet above the Cotswolds (Figs 1 & 2).

Low-flying Sand Martin (Riparia riparia) with Mallards

I’d been trying to catch the Martins’ aerobatic fly-catching with no success, and started snapping the ducks more as a gesture of resigned failure. I only spotted the Martin when I downloaded the flash card.

This type of ‘buzzing’ seems to be in the Sand Martin’s nature. People on the bank get similar treatment – the bird coming from behind, passing within inches of heads, as if honing their own targeting systems.

I’d left the camera in rapid fire mode of 8 fps, so the time interval between the two photographs is known.   If we also know the length of a duck, we can calculate the Martin’s speed, in ducks per second –  or more tedious conventional units.   So:

Assuming SML = 0.3m  (Standard Mallard Length)

Time between pictures at 8 f.p.s = 0.125 s

Ducks passed between frames = 5.75 (use the grid to measure; one duck = 2 grid squares)

Bird Velocity = (5.75/0.125) = 46 ducks / second (Systeme Canard)

or  (46×0.3)                              = 13.8 metres / second (SI)

0r  (13.8×2.24)                         = 31 m.p.h.

There we have it.  Hugely practicable and useful method for measurement of the velocity of birds over water 🙂

And this is quite possibly where the Sand Martins live.  A short hop at 31 mph.

Eel Pie Island Sand Martin Bank (Photo: Tim Jones)

 

Cygnets and Swan Necks – a Case of Lead Poisoning?

Cygnets on 10th May, about a week old

Meet the new arrivals.  At a pool close to where I live in the south of England, I’ve been following the progress of these cygnets since their birth five weeks ago; the  picture and the video were taken about a week after hatching.

The same breeding pair has built a nest in the same spot for the last four years: sometimes they get lucky – othertimes it looks like they go through the motions – or maybe the youngsters get dispatched by predators  before I see them.

And for sure, it’s not all sweetness and light.  Since I shot the video, one of the cygnets has developed a problem with its neck.

Swans , and particularly cygnets in their first year, are vulnerable to a host of threats: from natural predators like herons, crows, magpies and foxes;

to a bunch of man-made hazards including:  being shot at, getting caught up with fishing tackle, lead poisoning, being attacked by pet dogs, crashing into electricity pylons, and getting run down by cars.   Even well-meaning but misguided feeding can be injurious – mouldy bread is poisonous to swans.

When I visited the brood on 30th May, when the cygnets were about three weeks old, I noticed one of their number struggling to keep its head up.  That might be caused by an injury, but it’s also a known symptom of lead poisoning.

Cygnets on 30th May, one is having trouble holding its head up
Lead fishing sinker weights are banned in the UK

As Doreen Graham of the Scottish Society for the Protection of Animals said in this 2007 BBC report : “Lead poisoning is quite easy to identify in a swan because they cannot lift their heads and their heads are resting on their backs”.  There was a particularly bad spate of lead poisoning during the 1960s, although since then, with a ban on lead fishing weights, or sinkers, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) believes the problem has diminished.

Lead shotgun pellets are the other likely culprit.  There are bans or restrictions on the use of lead shot throughout the UK, with detail variations across the devolved constituencies; but there’s always the danger of legacy poisoning from old pellets lying in the reeds or on the pool bed.

All swans rest their heads and necks at times – it’s how they rest and sleep; but this one’s doing it most of the time, standing out from the group:

The other cygnets appear to sense the difference,  taking the occasional peck at their handicapped sibling:

While the parents appear indifferent:

Fast forward to 8th June, when the cygnets are a month old, and at first sight there’s an improvement: it’s all heads-up in this convoy.  But on closer inspection, number 4 from the left isn’t quite right:

Cygnets on 8th June

and in this pre-roost preening session, there’s clearly still a problem:

As twilight deepens, the female swan, or pen, climbs into the nest, followed by the cygnets:

It’s easy to make up stories, but here a parent appears to attend the neck of one of the cygnets (I can’t confirm it’s ‘the’ cygnet):

And they settle for the night:

For now, the afflicted cygnet appears to be growing at a normal rate and, despite some earlier sniping by siblings, appears to be accepted by the group.   I’ll be keeping an eye on this family  over the coming weeks and update the blog with any developments.

 

 UPDATE 8 July

Happy ending.  Here’s the whole crew on 19th June – 11 days after the pics above.   All six cygnets holding their heads up high.  I’ve only just got round to updating, but if they’ve got this far they’re probably going to make the distance.  Whatever was wrong with the afflicted cygnet seems to have worked itself through/out.  (Not that these guys aren’t still in a warzone.)

 

SEE ALSO:

Lead gunshot ‘poisoning UK birds’ (BBC News October 2012)

 

Sources

1. The Swan Sanctuary

2.RSPB – Mute Swans

3. North West Swan Study (northwestswanstudy.org.uk)

4. The Threats to Wildlife from Pollution (Conservation Issues UK)

Something’s Brewing in Darkest Surrey

Wine fermenting in a demijohn (photo: Tim Jones)

Q – What did the grape say when an elephant stepped on him?

A – Nothing.  He just let out a little wine.

The first alcohol I ever drank was home brewed.  I was twelve when the evil liquor – orange and raison wine – was served up by my refreshingly enlightened policeman uncle of all people.  We’d visit the house and find these wort-filled vessels in the bathroom, glug-glug-glugging as bubbles of carbon dioxide chugged through little glass airlocks.

Not that I was swilling the stuff in quantity you understand, but what better introduction to the practical application of biochemistry and chemical engineering.  Who knows what influence these little episodes have on later life decisions?

Six years later, as an impoverished student at Birmingham University, I was brewing my own 40 pints of  barely drinkable delicious Mild Ale (pronounced ‘m + oiled’ in the local dialect).  And while I never got into the brewing habit big time, I still on occasion reach for the demijohn and yeast – like recently, prompted by the  promise of summer blackberries and the pungent whiff of Thames-side hops.

It’s obvious booze is an educational resource we ignore at our peril; but to consolidate, consider what’s going on in that murky ochre, as it sits in my hall, infusing the carpets and curtains with its fruity ambience.   I hope it’s this:

 

C12H22O11  + H2O   ->   C6H12O6 +    C6H12O6

Sucrose        Water        Glucose           Fructose

 

followed by this:

C6H12O6 ->   2C2H5OH    +    2CO2

(Glucose/Fructose)           Alcohol (Ethanol)          Carbon Dioxide

Yeast: Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Wikicommons)

The contents of the bottle are yellow because the blackberries haven’t actually appeared yet, so for now I’m using Chardonnay grape concentrate out of a can.  And as that contains fructose from the grapes plus added glucose syrup, and I’m adding sucrose on top of that, both reactions should have kicked off immediately – the whole thing enabled by one of my favourite eukaryotic micro-organisms – Saccharomyces cerevisiae: a wine yeast.

There’s nothing to do now until it ferments out, but I managed to kill 20 minutes using the chemistry and bubble rate data to figure out how things are ticking along.  I reckon I’ll produce 511g of alcohol and 488g  (273 litres) of CO2, which at the current bubble rate means the fermentation will take 6 days  (workings in the end-notes for those interested and assuming I’ve remembered my O-level chem.).

We covered production of ethanol from fermentation at school, but I don’t remember doing any distillation (which is illegal without a license in the UK).  Certainly nothing to compare with the alcohol education afforded 1960s American youth courtesy of the fabulous Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments (excerpts below), which covers fermentation with yeast plus the distillation/synthesis of ethanol, methanol, and a bunch of other fun compounds from the ethanol ‘Family Tree’:

I love the helpful precautionary note on chloroform:’THEN SNIFF CAREFULLY’.  A complete home schooling if ever there was one:

That’s all really. I’ll update with a report on the finished product, assuming the wrong types of bug and oxygen don’t intervene and vinegarate the show.

One last item though.  Yeast is of course also used in baking; the carbon dioxide from fermentation causes dough to rise.  So here’s a particularly rigorous explanation of the process from Alton Browne.   It’s over my head, but I’m sure the trained biochemists out there will relate. (Quality isn’t up to much either – sorry about that.)

 

 

References

The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments. Robert Brent, Golden Press New York, 1960. (Anne Marie Helmenstine has a page linking to a pdf of the book at about.com)

Drink Aware http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/

Notes

Guessing there’s about 300g of glucose in the concentrate, and I know I’ve added 450g sucrose to 5.5 litres of water. As 1 Mole sucrose (242g) yields 2 Moles glucose/fructose (360g), 450g sucrose will make 669g glucose/fructose. With the 300g in the syrup that rounds up to about 1000g total C6H12O6. 1 Mole of C6H12O6 (180g) makes 2 Moles ethanol (92g) plus 2 Moles carbon dioxide (88), so 1000g should make 511g of alcohol and 488g carbon dioxide. That’s roughly half a kilo of alcohol in 5.5kg water, or, ignoring the density difference, about 10% by volume . These kits supposedly deliver 12%, so the 300g estimate was probably low. The volume of gas produced can be calculated given 1 Mole CO2 (44g) has a volume of 22.4 litres at STP (24.6 at current 25deg C room temp), so our 488g equates to 273 litres of gas having to bubble through the airlock. It’s bubbling at about 1 per second with an estimated bubble volume of half a cm3 ; so I figure at that rate it will take 6 days to ferment out. All of which seems to hang together with what it says on the tin.

Naturally Inspired – The Glass Sculpture of Steffen Dam

Like re-animated sea creatures from the Darwin Wing of the Natural History Museum, these animals look strangely alive, bubbling in their specimen bottles.

Steffen Dam's glass sculptures are inspired by nature. (Photo: Tim Jones. Items displayed by Joanna Bird Pottery at Collect 2011, Saatchi Gallery, London)

Steffen Dam’s glass sculptures are inspired by nature. (Photo: Tim Jones. Items displayed by Joanna Bird Pottery at Collect 2011, Saatchi Gallery, London)

In fact, this is the work of Danish glass sculptor Steffen Dam, one of the more nature-inspired craftsmen who grabbed my attention yesterday at Collect 2011– the Crafts Council-organised exhibition hosted by London’s Saatchi Gallery.

I say inspired, as Dam doesn’t claim his works are perfect scientific reproductions.  But they’re technically and aesthetically fascinating all the same, and piqued my interest for a closer look.

Steffen Dam was represented at the exhibition by Joanna Bird.

Waddle you make of this? Mallard has 16 chicks.

Mallard with 16 ducklings (Photo: © Tim Jones)
Mallard with 16 ducklings (Photo: © Tim Jones)

The Royal Society for the Protection of birds (RSPB) says: “the normal clutch size for mallard is 12 eggs, laid at one to two day intervals.”

Mallard ducklings (Photo: © Tim Jones)
Mallard ducklings (Photo: © Tim Jones)

Which makes the mother of this 16 strong brood paddling past our appartment yesterday something of a dynamic duck.

I’ve heard the record is 21 – so she still has a way to go.  Impressive stuff all the same!