Cop Car's Beat

The story of my life

The above image was stolen from Bluebird of Bitterness. Thanks, BoB. (I hope she forgives me for my theft.)

NASA celebrates Roddenberry

Nine days ago, NASA celebrated what would have been Gene Roddenberry's 100th birthday. The following is stolen from the NASA posting. As I told Hunky Husband, one can certainly tell that the photo is from the 1970s by the leisure suits and bell bottoms.

Gene Roddenberry would have been 100 years old on Aug. 19, 2021, and we at NASA celebrate his legacy. As creator of the legendary Star Trek saga, Roddenberry's vision continues to resonate.

In the documentary “NASA on the Edge of Forever: Science in Space,” host NASA astronaut Victor Glover stated, “Science and Star Trek go hand-in-hand.” The film explores how for the past 55 years, Star Trek has influenced scientists, engineers, and even astronauts to reach beyond. While the International Space Station doesn’t speed through the galaxy like the Starship Enterprise, much of the research conducted aboard the orbiting facility is making the fiction of Star Trek come a little closer to reality. 

In this image, the then Dryden Flight Research Center (now Armstrong) hosted the Star Trek crew in 1976 for the rollout of space shuttle Enterprise. In front, from left: NASA Administrator James Fletcher, and the show's stars DeForest Kelley, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Leonard Nimoy, show creator Gene Roddenberry, and Walter Koenig.

#Roddenberry100

Image Credit: NASA

Last Updated: Aug 19, 2021

Editor: Yvette Smith

 

 

Update on Common Milkweed plants

It has been 18 days since my last report on the results of having planted three milkweed plants to entice monarch butterflies to lay their eggs thereon. While watering the newish trees in the back yard, this morning, I noticed three monarch caterpillars - plus - a couple of ladybugs of some ilk. With the photo, below, I settle for showing three caterpillars.

The photo, below, shows one of the ladybugs. Go, ladybugs, go. Eat those aphids!

 

Tools

The video, above, was stolen from Bluebird of Bitterness (BoB) while she wasn't looking. I could make a cheeky comment, "What else could they do with toolboxes that are empty?" and comment that their wrenches are nice and shiny and unnicked - as if no one had used them - at least not as I would have as prybars or hammers. Those guys've got rhythm! Thanks BoB.

Speaking of tools, our little town, once again, has an Ace Hardware (photo, below). The current heat wave has me so distracted that, although Hunky Husband kept asking me, "How many days?" leading up to its opening last Friday, I missed the actual opening - and haven't, yet, made my way up there. When HH first realized what was moving into the space that is only 1/2 mile from us, he started teasing me that he would henceforth always know where I was were I to disappear. A bit later in the year, when it cools down and the sun comes up a bit later, I shall be able to hit the hardware store during my morning walks! (Not shown in the photo, but off to the left, is their outdoor supplies department - mulch, etc.)

Truth to tell, the real reason I was so distracted that I missed the hardware store opening, was that I pretty much destroyed our zero-turn-radius mower. I don't recall why it was, but I had decided not to raise the deck of the mower while mowing "the deep back" next to our woods, a week ago. (I seem to recall thinking that HH had told me that he never did - in fact that he always mowed "the deep back" with the deck lower than for "the good grass" - AND - several of the swaths that I was mowing extended from "the good grass" into "the deep back".)

At any rate, at one point, forgetting that the deck was lower than normal, I got into mowing in the roughest part of the yard - the area on a rather steep slope that used to host our compost pile and a bunch of trees (photo, below). Carefully guiding the mower astraddle one of the short stumps left from trees removed in that area, I was jarred by the thunk when the blade bit into the stump. OMG. By hook and by crook, I was able to nurse the poor machine up into our driveway where I shut down the smoking engine to let it cool down in a non-flammable area.

After HH and I got through laughing about my idiocy, he agreed with me that the simplest thing to do (since I still had some of "the good grass" to mow) was for me to call up Jim's Tire and Auto. [I ask you: How could I not love a guy who can laugh over such things with me?!] I asked Jim's to send me out a new machine (same model as the old, which I had given HH just 18 months ago) and pick up the poor broken, old thing. Jess delivered the new machine Friday morning and I finished mowing "the good grass" which is why I wasn't thinking about the hardware store opening.

HH received a phone call from Jim's, yesterday - they are holding a check for me at the office. That's all HH could tell me about the call; so, I don't know whether the check is for the previous (old old) mower that they had picked up when they delivered the then-new old mower 18 months ago or for the one they picked up Friday. (Each was to have been fixed up and sold, on consignment.) When Jess had been here, Friday, I had casually mentioned to him that we had never heard anything about the old old mower once they had it. I believe the check may be for that mower. It's a bit soon for them to have been able to replace the deck and blades and, maybe, the spindle on the new old mower and get it sold, already.

BTW: Hunky Husband has, a couple of times, told me that he "...would be proud to escort...." me to the hardware store when I am ready to inspect it. I'm hoping that the new store will have good employees. I've frequented Hupp Hardware, up in Wichita, for many years because they have great stock and great people; but, being able to have equivalent service so near our home would be so much more convenient in my declining years. Slowly, I've been changing over my medical and merchant services to Derby, as such services have become available over the past several years. For instance: Within the past two weeks, a Schlotzsky's has opened up just two miles north of us.

ADDITION of 3 hours later: I am now $819 richer. The people at Jim's said that they had to cut a new check when Jess asked about our old old mower. The expiration date on the original check had passed. Neither HH nor I knew that it was waiting there for us until the call yesterday.

Since all of my errands had gone so well this morning, I did (no surprise to HH) stop by the new hardware store. Neither was it a surprise to him when, my having handed him a bag with candy in it - for him, I answered his, "Is that all you got?!" with, "The rest is in my car trunk." I told the cashier that I would have my monthly Social Security check sent to the hardware store so that I could just drop in to play. My big purchase was a Craftsman battery-powered leaf blower to replace the corded leaf blower that is about 25 years old. I'm tired of dragging around and untangling 100 feet of heavy electrical cord.

_______________

NOTE: Except for whatever business I, personally, throw their way, none of the commercial businesses linked in this posting knows that I exist nor do they pay me or endorse me. OTOH, excepting the new hardware store that I've yet to check out, each of the businesses linked is worthy of recommendation by me.

Housekeeping note

Today, I have taken the time to go through the links that appear in the right hand sideline under "4 FUN & ENLIGHTENMENT" to assess their current policies on cookies and their selling of data. Because some of the websites have become so aggressive in gathering data and selling it, or at least are now more open about it, those websites have been removed from the listing. I'll wager that it won't become a big kink in your day!

Cop Car

“Opportunity dances with those on the dance floor.” — Anonymous

More from News for Nerds -

Here comes the next 3D printer:

Physicists Detect Strongest Evidence Yet of Matter Generated By Collisions of Light (sciencealert.com)99

Posted by BeauHD on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @03:00AM from the highly-compelling-stuff dept.

omfglearntoplay shares a report from ScienceAlert: According to theory, if you smash two photons together hard enough, you can generate matter: an electron-positron pair, the conversion of light to mass as per Einstein's theory of special relativity. It's called the Breit-Wheeler process, first laid out by Gregory Breit and John A. Wheeler in 1934, and we have very good reason to believe it would work. But direct observation of the pure phenomenon involving just two photons has remained elusive, mainly because the photons need to be extremely energetic (i.e. gamma rays) and we don't have the technology yet to build a gamma-ray laser. Now, physicists at Brookhaven National Laboratory say they've found a way around this stumbling block using the facility's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) -- resulting in a direct observation of the Breit-Wheeler process in action. The research has been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

 

 

World's Strongest Glass That's As Hard As Diamond Discovered (independent.co.uk)152

Posted by BeauHD on Monday August 09, 2021 @10:20PM from the lost-and-found dept.

Hmmmmmm shares a report from The Independent: Scientists in China have developed the hardest and strongest glassy material known so far that can scratch diamond crystals with ease. The researchers, including those from Yanshan University in China, noted that the new material -- tentatively named AM-III -- has "outstanding" mechanical and electronic properties, and could find applications in solar cells due to its "ultra-high" strength and wear resistance. Analysis of the material, published in the journal National Science Review, revealed that its hardness reached 113 gigapascals (GPa) while natural diamond stone usually scores 50 to 70 on the same test.

According to the scientists, AM-III has tunable energy absorption properties comparable to semiconductors commonly used in solar cells such as hydrogenated amorphous silicon films. While in diamond crystals, the organized internal structure of its atoms and molecules contribute to their immense strength and hardness, in AM-III the researchers found that a combination of order and disorder of its molecules give rise to its strange properties. Using fullerenes, which are materials made of hollow football-like arrangements of carbon atoms, the researchers produced different types of glassy materials with varying molecular organization among which AM-III had the highest order of atoms and molecules. Increasing the order further, the scientists observed, could potentially kill the semiconductivity and other properties that required the atoms and molecules to be chaotic.

Caterpillars - or not

Saturday, July 24

Black Swallowtail Caterpillar

Hunky Husband saw a black swallowtail butterfly flitting about the volunteer dill weeds growing at the front corner of our garage a few days ago. In a completely different (planted) dill weed patch under the kitchen bay window, I found a black swallowtail caterpillar this morning. It's the only one I've seen, so far this year.

Tuesday, August 10

Monarch Caterpillar

I've previously mentioned (and shown photos of) the milkweed plants that I planted in my mini meadow, this year, to help the Monarch butterflies that lay their eggs on those plants. I mentioned that, the only caterpillar that I had seen on those plants was not a Monarch.

Yesterday, I saw a Monarch butterfly that flitted about and alit on one of our ninebark bushes, but found no caterpillars on the milkweed plants.

Today, I finally saw a tiny (5/16" long) caterpillar that was a Monarch. By the time I had finished re-positioning my watering hose at another of the new trees in the far back yard and gone into the house to retrieve my camera, the little thing was nowhere to be seen. I never did see it again, so cannot post a photo. Instead, I will post a photo of some of the multitude of "little yellow eggs" that graced the plants, below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, wait - one of the "little yellow eggs" moved. Far from being eggs, online research reveals that those little yellow specs are aphids. (Our native aphids are green.) The linked site propounds, "What are oleander aphids? They are bright yellow, sap-sucking insects that can be found in warm regions throughout the world. These aphids probably originated in the Mediterranean, which is also the native country of oleander plants." Rats!

P.S. I found no identifiable Monarch eggs.

The Aging Brain

This past June, we were treated to a visit from Elder Brother of Boulder, Colorado, for the first time in nearly one year - understandable for those of us who have heard about the novel corona virus pandemic that has been plaguing our world. As he and I are wont to do, not as much as were our mother and I but still enough, he brought "stuff" to me. In this case, "stuff" included the DVDs and the Course Guidebook to a course put out by The Great Courses in Chantilly, Virginia, "The Aging Brain" put out in 2016.

EB had thought that Hunky Husband and I would find the course interesting, considering HH's developing dementia. The course author (and narrator on the DVDs which I have not viewed) is Thad A Polk, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. HH read the Course Guidebook before passing it on to me with the comment that he liked it. Me? Well, not so much. That's a personal bias, of course.

If I thought that "The Joy of Sweat" was a slim volume of a book, "The Aging Brain: Course Guidebook" is even more slender, topping out at 117 pages that include 12 pages of Bibliography. That is to be expected of a book that is merely the outline of the lectures that populate the course. The reason I didn't find the book more intriguing is that, as I expect to be true of anyone who spends time on the internet, I've been exposed to so much of the contained information - whether I understood it or not. I shall try to present some of the ideas presented by Professor Polk that caught my attention.

• Page 43:  "Communication between Different Brain Areas"

        "...studies have shown that the prefrontal cortex excites and inhibits other parts of the brain depending on task demands--at least in young adults"

        "...older participants had a selective deficit in neural inhibition. Although their prefrontal cortex could turn on relevant parts of the brain when necessary, it didn't do a good job in turning irrelevant brain areas off."

        "....This experiment [by a Dr. Gazzaley and his collaborators] suggested that the ability to inhibit neural processing might be a crucial component of successful memory."

• Pages 46-48: "How our Emotions and Mood Change as We Age"

        These paragraphs cited several studies (longitudinal and cohort) that show "that life satisfaction peaked at age 65."

A hypothesis was put forward that the increase in life satisfaction might be produced by increasing cognitive impairment as one aged; however, it seems that "The sharpest older people are typically the most positive. The positivity seen in older adults seems to be a strategic choice, not a pathological impairment."

"Probably the most successful explanation for this is called socioemotional selectivity theory, which was developed by Laura Carstensen at Stanford University. One way of summarizing this theory is to say that older people realize that life is too short to focus on the negative."

 

• Pages 59-60: "We remember information that we test ourselves on."

 

"One particularly powerful demonstration was conducted by Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke at Washington University in St. Louis. They asked 120 undergraduates to study and try to remember as much as they could about an article that you might read in an encyclopedia."

"One group of students studied the article in four different sessions for a total of 20 minutes. Another group of students only studied it for five minutes but were then immediately tested three times. Specifically, they were given a blank piece of paper and were asked to write down as they could remember." After the first test, the students were given another sheet of paper on which to write what they could recall - twice, without being given any feedback on the accuracy of any earlier test.

"Both groups were also asked to guess how well they would remember the article a week later."

"The next week, everyone came back and tried to recall as much information from the article as they could."

The results showed that the students who had been tested remembered more than 60% of the original ideas while the other group remembered 40%. Personally, either statistic seems really high, to me.

 

• Pages 62-67: "Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease"

 

"Dementia refers to a loss in mental abilities that is severe enough to interfere substantially with the normal activities of life"

"Dementia is usually progressive."

"People with dementia may also have trouble with language and may find it difficult to follow directions or put thoughts into words. They may become restless, agitated or disoriented and start behaving inappropriately, or even aggressively."

"Warning signs include symptoms like repeatedly asking for the same information, finding it difficult to complete mental tasks that used to be easy, or forgetting what season it is. Other early symptoms could include getting lost in a very familiar environment...."

"...silent strokes produce infarcts--that is, localized brain damage. And if someone experiences a series of multiple infarcts, the accumulation of brain damage can lead to dementia...called multi-infarct dementia."

"By far the most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer's disease...accounts for 50-75 percent of cases of late-life dementia."

"The disease progresses at different rates in different people, but no treatments have yet been found that can slow or halt the disease. It usually has a late onset...after age 65. When it's diagnosed before age 65, it's referred to as early-onset Alzheimers...."

_________________________________________________________

Notes to Bogie and Dudette:

HH read "Humble Pi" that had been passed along to us by Dudette & WichiDude a few weeks ago, and passed it along to me with a notation, "Good Book". Today, as I was on the last few pages of the book, HH came into my den to see what I was reading. It was as if he had never seen the book before. He doesn't recall anything about it or having read it. (Hey! He can read it with enjoyment, again!) While I was writing these notes, HH walked in and, of course, the same was true for "The Aging Brain". He will be reading it, again - and watching the DVD(s) if he can find it/them.

For the past few days, HH has come into my den while I've been sitting at my computer. Each time he has asked why I am shaking my head. I can only assume that what he is seeing is my head movement due to essential tremors - which several years ago, he teased me about when observing me from across the room at Red Cross meetings. He doesn't remember that I have them or anything about them. (I had essential tremors before I retired from Cessna in 2004!)

No sweat!

For many decades I've heard others (or myself) reply to a statement that infers one has been caused to worry or to expend effort, "No sweat!" From Idioms Online comes, "Saying no sweat is a slang expression that is similar to no problem. It means, figuratively, “helping you was not hard work for me and it did not cause me to sweat.” This idiom is very informal." However, to some people, no sweat, has another meaning - that we are unable to sweat.

Although I have no genetic inability to sweat caused by absence of sweat glands, I am one of many who are unable to produce enough sweat to provide sufficient cooling under high heat conditions - first noticed when I passed out from heat at age 12 following a hurried bicycle ride of only 1/2-mile to purchase some supplies for my mother who was preparing a picnic lunch for our family. I came to, hearing people praying over my prone body. This insufficiency of my cooling system caused me to pay attention to an NPR interview with the author of a new book: Sarah Everts, author of "The Joy of Sweat". During that interview, Ms Everts said, "...instead of thinking of sweat as gross, think of it as an "evolutionary marvel." She even calls it a human superpower and a highly efficient one at that. "We effectively dispatch water to our skin and, as it evaporates, it whisks heat away from our bodies." I purchased the book from Barnes & Noble as Hunky Husband and I left his last appointment with his audiologist.

As is evident from the image in the above photo, the book is slim - a mere 285 pages. However, I abruptly and unexpectedly came to the end of it this afternoon, discovering that 44 of those pages are notes and 17 comprise entries of the Index. That caught me (pleasantly) unawares. I include some of the more interesting or intriguing statements from the book, below.

• Page 27: "Certainly sweat glands can be trained to be more active--that's acclimation--but everybody has a different baseline."
• Page 49: "...clinical armpit sniffing is not performed willy-nilly: She [professional sniffer] follows a scientific protocol developed for professional armpit sniffers worldwide that is described in the Standard Guide for Sensory Evaluation of Axillary Deodorancy."
• Page 53: "The strongest evidence that there are no two armpit odors exactly alike, Preti [the late George Preti, research chemist] said, comes courtesy of canines. Dogs can often identify individuals with just one sniff of something they've worn. (The exception is identical twins living together and eating the same diet.)"
• Page 59: "Some researchers are convinced there's a way to diagnose diseases such as ovarian cancer because dogs can pick out patients from an otherwise healthy lineup." [My understanding is that some canines are trained/in training to detect COVID-19.]
• Page 62: "What's fascinating about anxiety odor is that it can sometimes beget fear even when we're not conscious of it."
• Page 70: "...who cares if you both share a love of, say, taxidermy or Murakami novels? You'll eventually smell the body odor of your lover, and it's probably going to be a make-or-break moment. Smell dating skips to the chase (or, more accurately, it entirely skips the chase) and uses body odor as the first elimination round for mate selection--or date selection, at any rate." [Sometime in a recent post or comment thereto, I mentioned that Hunky Husband is the opposite of me. He has always perspired freely. Fortunately, the fragrance of his sweaty body is not offensive or unpleasant. After reading this book, I can remember our first "date". Probably his pleasant body odor had a lot to do with my saying, "yes", to a second...and third....]
• Page 74: "From birth, we rely on our sense of smell to learn the body odor of individuals we love or need the most. A newborn baby, though helpless and immobile, will skootch preferentially toward its own birth-mother's odor...."

"Newborn noggins inspire many to inhale deeply. 'Family-friendly crack cocaine,' is how a friend of mine once described the smell of a baby's head."

"Sniffing the odor of our loved ones--whether consciously or unconsciously--continues throughout our lives. Siblings and married couples are able to correctly identify the smell of people with whom they cohabitate. Even adult siblings, who haven't seen (or smelled) each other for more than 2 years can still correctly recognize their brother or sister's unique odor print, the signature mixture of chemicals floating off their bodies."

• Page 209: "For most individuals, body-wide eccrine [active in thermoregulation] develop in utero between week 20 and week 30."

From the Mayo Clinic website article on Sweat glands comes the graphic, below.