Birthday hike in Yosemite, & random vocab quiz! =)

Happy Birthday to me!

Therefore, Bear & I hiked in Yosemite Valley today.

Other years we bike.

I ADORE biking in Yosemite Valley--it's the perfect scale for it.

However, bikes are still dusty from last year, so we hoofed it.

Here's a hint of how glorious the dogwood is right now:

It's a VERY good year for this tree-o-white-blossoms,

so if it's an option, I strongly recommend you get here ASAP.

We hiked up the west side of Mirror Lake Loop,

where we saw forest delights:

There are deciduous forests, and there are delicious forests.

This is a delicious forest. 

 Wild ginger. Check out that GORGEOUS glossy sheen. Phew!

More stunning dogwood flowers.

It's like passing by a supermodel on the trail;

can you REALLY ignore it?!? 

No.

Cool forest fungi

 Hubba, hubba.

Having crossed the river to the east side of Tenaya Creek,

we alit upon the source of the pungent trail decor...

 Might I say, though, nice buns!

On our way out,

we stopped to look at a fungus-laden tree Bear likes.

We were forced to park in this dreary spot

(panning from right to left).

*sigh*

Thank you, Yosemite & National Park Service.

You ROCKED it, hard.

Okay: QUIZ TIME!!

This week my eyes have landed on an outdoor object,

and every time, a word pops into my head:

ootheca

Discuss.

Please tell me what you think this means,

without looking it up,

and if you have ZERO clue,

please fling the wildest guess you can fabricate.

I heart correct guesses* (& bow to your brain),

but those who bravely chuck forth

creative BS guesses

have a special place in my heart.

=)

You know who you are.

xoxoxobb

*spot on "guesses" WILL be posted, but not right away,
so other folks can take a stab at it, unencumbered by the facts. =)

You say tomato... (QUIZ answer)

...I say mitochondria!

photo by Louisa Howard, via Wikipedia's extensive mitochondrion entry

Am I right?

Dead ringer.

=)

And that makes Olivia, of Beasts in a Populous City fame,

the WINNER!!! Woo-hoo!!! Nice work, chica!

ALL of your guesses were most delightful

and imaginative and made my day. THANKS!!

So, if you don't know, mitochondria are cellular organelles in eukaryotes,

and are frequently called the power house of the cell.

It's where most ATP molecules in your body are made,

and ATP is your body's ultimate energy currency.

And the reason dark meat is dark,

is because they are muscles the animal uses a lot,

so they need more energy (mitochondria) there.

Example:

Turkeys walk and scratch the ground a lot,

but fly seldom and briefly,

so their legs are dark meat,

& the flight muscles (breast meat) are white.

The wiki entry on re: mitochondrion is extensive, if you want more.

So, do you ever see things in certain ways

because of what you do for a living or as a hobby?

If you recall, do tell.

xobb

New quiz, old quiz, poisons, sunflower explosion, & chemical mystery

 

1. NEW QUIZ

This morning's relentless mantra:
Malacothamnus, malacothamnus, malacothamnus, malacothamnus...

Apparently, drinking coffee in a relaxed fashion, listening to birdies cheerfully greet the sun, is not enough. I must have a look-this-up-or-I-will-annoy-you-to-death vocabulary alarm in my brain.

So, that's the new quiz: what is malacothamnus (without looking it up)?

Per usual, creative I-have-no-idea guesses are appreciated, as well as studly-spot-on-I-totally-know-this answers. =)

I looked it up, and now I understand why my brain sent me this, given what I saw yesterday...

2. OLD QUIZ

Courtesy of Merriam-Webster

toxophilite: a person fond of or expert at archery

— toxophilite adjective
— tox·oph·i·ly noun

Origin of TOXOPHILITE
Greek toxon bow, arrow + philos dear, loving
First Known Use: 1794

Hence:

The file name for this shot is in German, but includes "Tibetexpedition_Volksfest_Bogunschu" So, I'm thinking it's a folk festival including (or all about??) Tibetan folks, and it's an archery (Bogunschu) competition or demonstration.

In other words, that place was likely rich in toxophilites, in both senses of the word. =)

There are lots of things I love about this photograph, but one is comparing where he is looking vs. where his arrow is pointed; he is accounting for gravity. So cool.

Maybe during my new archery adventures, I'll start to get a feel for that sort of adjustment.

And I want one of those things for my thumb--I'm guessing it helps hold the string until you are ready to let loose.

I discovered this word because I actually wondered if there were some cool archery-specific terms. It just seemed like there had to be. And, apparently, there are. =)

VOCABULARY QUIZ WINNERS -- WOO HOO!

Correct Answers

 
The answer that made me, biology-chick, swoon (and laugh), was from Snail:
"Something to do with archery? Amirite? I'm trotting this out because the archerfish here are in the genus Toxotes and that's close enough for me. (The common mangrove species is Toxotes jaculatrix. I have no opinion about that name.)"

And from CP: delightfully, pointedly vague =) :
"Does it have something to do with a person who launches pointy things with a bent stick and some string (more or less)?"

Delightful Guesses

Mainly mongoose: "This one's new to me. My guess: a toxophilite is a person who's irresistably drawn to things that are harmful (e.g. snake enthusiasts)."

Jodi: "Someone who willingly imbibes poisons, but really, only a little at a time. 'I'll have an Amanita Lite, please-- I'm on a diet.' "

=) See why I LOVE my blog readers? =)

And I agree, toxophilite sounds like someone who dearly loves poisons.

Speaking of...

3. POISONS

The new book I'm currently reading
made our friends nervous when they saw I was reading it,
'cause they love my husband.

The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum.

It's not what you think. =)

The subtitle explains it: Murder and the
Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York.

Photo from Amazon.com.

btw, I bought it, so this is not a paid-by-freebie-book review.

In fact, it's not a review at all.

It's a super interesting mix of evil doers, chemical and biological/medical invention to try and foil them, and the interplay of historical happenstance.

And there are practical, take-home lessons, like "Never, ever drink wood alcohol."

4. SUNFLOWER EXPLOSION

5. CHEMICAL MYSTERY

I steamed a batch of just-picked green beans last night.
Left the lid on the pot overnight.
And this is what I found this morning.

Why is it this amazing shade of orange??

If you know, feel free to share.
I bet my mom (chemist) knows...

xoxobb

Vocab quiz: toxophilite

Without looking it up, what does this mean?

If you know, please share your lovely neuronal paths with us.

If you don't know, you have the enviable opportunity to totally guess what it is, based on whatever-you-like.

=)

Like before Christmas day, all these exciting packages with hidden, unknown goodies.

What could it be?!?


And please guess soon. =)

I am SO in love with the photo that I'll post with the answer, I will not be able to wait long.


HINT: I am a toxophilite in one sense of the word, but would love to work toward becoming a toxophilite in the other sense. Kinda doubt I'll get there, but it'd be fun to try.


xobb

P.S. Learned this word today, hoping that there'd be some new word for me to learn re: this subject. And, oh-so-happily, there is. I LOVE the English language.

medulla oblongata -- animated!!!

  

Okay, how much do I love the internet?? This is FREE.

The red area is the medulla oblongata.

Images are generated by Life Science Databases(LSDB).

[CC-BY-SA-2.1-jp (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/jp/deed.en)],

via Wikimedia Commons

Per the Wiki:
"The medulla oblongata is the lower half of the brainstem.

The medulla contains the cardiac, respiratory, vomiting and vasomotor centers and deals with autonomic, involuntary functions, such as breathing, heart rate and blood pressure."

"The medulla transmits signals between the spinal cord and the higher parts of the brain" (Encyclopedia Brittanica)

So, the next time you are, shall we say,
"rejecting" your last meal,
you feel like a helpless, base,
sweaty mammal-creature,

it's because you are.

The medulla oblongata made you do it.

You are one in a long line of helpless vertebrates
trying not to die
from some horrible thing you ate
in the simplest, most direct of ways.

get
it
out

The m.o. is involved in basic physical sensations,
movement, complex issues like
"am I still standing upright?"
"...breathing?"
"...heart beating?"

Doesn't get a lot more basic than that.


In other words,
as my husband says upon occasion,
imitating a cave man,

urh!

This is actually above the level of discourse possible
with an m.o. Well above.

So, perhaps you could think of your time
in the involuntary throws of chemical rejection
as bonding with your ancestors
from tens of thousands of years ago.

Probably a lot longer than that.

And be grateful that today we better understand what can make us sick (say, for example, a mass produced fast food burger made from 1400 different cows?) than our caveman ancestors could (tho' they had precious little access to mass-produced food), so are better equipped to avoid such things.

Whether we do it, or not. =)

In celebration, I think I'm gonna to eat some yogurt
with fresh fruit and toasted walnuts.
And another 10,000 cherries.

Photo by Peggy Greb for the United States Department of Agriculture

Agricultural Research Service

mmm...

Summer fruit good.

urh!


xoxo

biobabbler

P.S. DING DING DING DING!!! Congratulations to Laura K and Emma for smarty pants answers to this vocabulary quiz, and to Cindy for cracking me up (I bet she knew, too, just was overcome by her desire to amuse, thank heaven =) ). I highly recommend visiting the vocab quiz comments to see their answers. =)

random bio vocab quiz

  

The above photo is apropos of nothing (it's big, so feel free to click). I just like it. =)
Well, and it's kindof how I feel right now, having woken up at 3 a.m.
WIDE awake and a little off.... =)

This phrase has been in my head (though thankfully, lightly) for several days.
Time to make it a quiz, then define and explore it.

medulla oblongata

Please submit your without-looking-it-up guesses, including fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants wild proposals, via comments, and they will be posted. The most accurate submittals will a) be lauded, b) be posted LATER, so folks can have a chance to be as slick as thou.

'der ya go. datsit.

bb

vocab quiz!

  
Yup, woke up with a 2 word phrase in my head, and I'd like YOU, without looking it up, to guess what it is. If you know, I will post your answer, but I may delay it to allow other folks time to take a stab at it (now, that's a rather brutal cliche, eh?).

Foeniculum vulgare.

That cracks me up. I looked it up and I spelled it right, despite the fact that I had no idea what it was.

Well, a SUPER VAGUE idea, but knowing it's an extremely broad category is not the same as knowing what it is.

Good luck and please don't be shy. Frequently the wild-hare-I-have-no-clue inventive guesses are my favorites.

=)

bb

P.S. As usual, this vocab moment is brought to me, randomly, by my brain, and I'm still so sleepy (JUST got up) I've typed this entire post through sleep-blurred eyes. Coffee's not even done, yet! But, now that I've looked it up, perhaps my brain will keep that mote of information. xo

tessellation titillation

 
First of all, thanks to Cindy, Melissa, Anonymous and Lynda for participating. AWESOME and some super funny guesses. =) Lynda was right on. Ding! Ding! Ding!!

 (photo taken by Frank Mikley on 2006-07-23)

Wikipedia has a very thorough treatment of tessellation. Quoth the Wiki:

"A tessellation or tiling of the plane is a collection of plane figures that fills the plane with no overlaps and no gaps. One may also speak of tessellations of parts of the plane or of other surfaces. Generalizations to higher dimensions are also possible. Tessellations frequently appeared in the art of M. C. Escher...

In Latin, tessella is a small cubical piece of clay, stone or glass used to make mosaics.[1] The word "tessella" means "small square"...."

The context in which I learned this term was GIS, specifically turning a map of elevation points or lines into a 3-D, continuous surface. The computer does this work so then you have a cool surface to look at as landscape vs. a bunch of unconnected dots of varying height. Much easier to relate to. And more flexible re: data analysis.

Then, wiki went all Nature-y and talked about tessellation in nature. Like honeycombs (continuous surface comprised of hexagons) and: "Basaltic lava flows often display columnar jointing as a result of contraction forces causing cracks as the lava cools. The extensive crack networks that develop often produce hexagonal columns of lava."

One place where such features exist is Devil's Post Pile National Monument (DEPO, in NPS slang), which is not all that far from Yosemite and is part of the NPS Sierra Nevada network of parks (Yosemite, Devil's Post Pile, Sequoia and Kings Canyon).

AND I happened to do some stuff for the network once so ventured to DEPO to get a pic or two, including the above, the example of tessellation in nature which immediately sprung to mind after reading about such phenomena.

Check out the photo at the Devil's Post Pile web site, then imagine (if you've not done it) hiking to the top of that assemblage of columnar basalt and look down at your feet: the above is what you see.

TOO cool. And there's trees growing out of it and everything--freaky! And definitely something you must touch. Smoooooooth.

=)

Anyhow, thanks for coming along with me on this adventure in tessellation.

AWESOME guesses by all, and I know I certainly enjoyed it and learned lots. Here's to following (up on) your dreams!

xoxo

biobabbler

Today's random vocabulary quiz...

 
I woke up with the word "tessellated" repeating over and over in my head this morning. By which I mean, while lying in bed, then standing and shuffling downstairs, here's a moment in my brain: "tessellated tessellated tessellated tessellated tessellated tessellated tessellated tessellated tessellated."

Oh, the fun I have.

=)

I must say, though, it does seem like my brain is trying to rescue my education by shoving these words back at me vs. just straight up deleting them 'cause they're dusty. So, I appreciate that.

Actually, the word "thessellated" was in my head, but during my trip downstairs to sleepily start my day my brain woke up enough to think, "No, I think it's tessellated, whatever it is, not thessellated."


So, what does tessellated mean?


Here's how the quiz works:

1. You DON'T look it up,

2. You guess either by knowing or completely making something up (and comment, pretty please),

3. THEN you may satisfy your curiosity and look it up later (but please don't include THAT answer in your guess) or wait for my answer post, which will be in a few days (to allow folks time to participate).


Your reward is flexing your brain, and being proud of your bravery re: vocab guessing. OR showing off if you know or kinda know. =)


I looked it up and tho' I learned it in a non-biological context, it turns out I have a photograph that shows tessellation in nature, so I'm already psyched about my vocab answer post.

=) Thank you in advance for playing!

biobabbler

vocab answers...

 
Per Merriam-Webster:
propitiate: "to gain or regain the favor or goodwill of : appease"

fistula: "an abnormal passage that leads from an abscess or hollow organ or part to the body surface or from one hollow organ or part to another and that may be surgically created to permit passage of fluids or secretions

Origin of FISTULA
Middle English, from Latin, pipe, fistula
First Known Use: 14th century"

I like that fistula is for the Latin word for pipe, as it seems that is it's function, whether it occurs naturally, or is created during surgery ("for thereaputic reasons" per Wikipedia).

Okay, JUST so you know that I occasionally experience pain for this blog, I just clicked on (with great trepidation) "images" on the Google search page for fistula. I do NOT recommend this, considering one of the first types of fistulas listed in articles, frequently, is anal fistulas. Full color images.

oog.

ANYhow, I cannot recall any context wherein I learned fistula and, apparently inaccurately?, associate it with developmental physiology.

OH, I know why it makes me think of developmental phys: blastula (which kinda rhymes). THAT is a very basic thing in developmental biology.

Public domain image courtesy of Pidalka44. Thanks!

Wikipedia on blastula:
"The blastula (from Greek βλαστός (blastos), meaning "sprout") is a hollow sphere of cells formed during an early stage of embryonic development in animals. The blastula is created when the zygote undergoes the cell division process known as cleavage.[1] The blastula follows the morula and precedes the gastrula in the developmental sequence."

Alrighty.

Pretty much all of you intrepid guessers were either spot on or totally on the right track, so BULLY for ALL of you (Bub, Victoria, and Lynda).

=)

Thank you for participating, and certainly, as new on-the-edge-of-the-dust-bin words pop up in my mind, I will share them with you.

And perhaps together we can encourage those data managers in my (our?) head(s) to file those words BACK in the old brain case vs. chucking them (and my/our college education $$) out into the street.

After all, that'd be the low carbon footprint thing to do.

Refuse (verb) refuse (noun).

Reuse!

biobabbler

random vocab quiz from the depths of biobabbler's psyche

 
For those of you who've followed this blog somewhat closely, you may recall that occasionally biobabbler's brain flings words up from the recesses, requesting a definition, with the implied threat of "tell us what this is or it's going in the trash."

Today, mine came to me about 2 seconds after getting out of bed this morning, shuffling in my slippers, in the process of feeding the cats, squinting and trying not to run into walls.

The vocab-crew in my brain was very much awake. Today was a two-fer (don't know if I've ever had a two-fer before).

So I've decided to make this an occasional quiz, frequency and content dictated by the filing crew (data managers) in my brain.

WITHOUT looking it up, can any of you offer up definitions for these words?

1. propitiate (not bio word)

2. fistula (definitely bio word)

And please, even wild guesses are more welcome than thinly disguised re-wordings of Merriam-Webster. Take a stab at it! =)

biobabbler