Video: the ULTIMATE science presentation @ a conference: Chicken chicken chicken

S

Seriously? I don't want to watch it again, yet, 'cause my abs are SO SORE

from laughing, & the tears rolling down my face just dried.

This man is my new #1 hero.

I bet $1000 he paid for NO drinks, that night.

Phew!

HIGHLY recommend to all you professor types, out there,

to help students learn about effective science communication.

NOTE: there is an important follow up question at the end that you don't want to miss.

=) xoxoxobb

Happy New Lenses!

=)

Bear bought me a 70-300 mm lens AND 

a macro lens (don't even know which #s to tell you to make that meaningful)

so I expect LOTS of super fun new shots in this new year.

What I learned from the above gotta-try-it-now-tho-its-getting-dark photo

snow news is good news =)

Just about a foot of the fluffy stuff.

We'll take it!

=)

bb

Phriday photo quiz answer

 

This generated many guesses re: what those white things were. Thank you for all for your guesses--makes it WAY more fun for me. =) Cindy's was the closest guess--pretty much spot on.

Happily, the answer is something that is NOT an affliction

A little lesson on feathers, from peteducation.com:

"A blood feather starts out with a waxy keratin sheath that protects it while it grows. When the feather is mature, the blood supply will recede and the waxy sheath will be removed by the bird."

This is the sound of biobabbler learning.

So, apparently they are simply waxy keratin sheaths.

They are NOT quills (or calamus, apparently, same thing as quill), as I'd been calling them--the quill is the smooth, unpigmented part of the feather that attaches the feather to the feather follicle, NOT the part that is shed once the feather has emerged.

So, now we know. =)

Doncha feel extra smart, now?

xoxo

biobabbler

wake up call, a la owl

At around 5 a.m. today, when I was being harassed by my cat who was bored (i.e. I was unwillingly and grumpily awake in the dark) I was then happily awake to hear a great horned owl call VERY near my (closed) window. It was the classic "who cooks for you" call. So, once I kicked the cat out of the room, I got to go back to sleep to the lovely call of a friendly neighbor. =) It does happen around here, but not that often, and this was v. close. SO COOL!

Of course, it's really probably yet ANOTHER potential predator of my chickens, but they're in their respective coops when it's dark, so I don't sweat them (yet).

And if you wanna wake up your cats,  surf the web (cornell is always great, but this time I went to www.owlpages.com) and find owl calls and play them. That will get their attention. =)

Speaking of chickens, here's Fanny (her name is a story for another time), our Rhode Island Red, ably pointing out what I discovered when I removed a chunk of flagstone (to actually use) from our yard, to discover tunnels and a very tidy grainery of sorts. The little grass seeds were stacked SO neatly, it was amazing. I felt very bad I was clearly messing up someone's winter storage plans, but it was early enough in the season, I figured they'd have time to implement a plan B.

Until next time...biobabbler