National Geographic Dream Team In Kerala

/ Crist Inman / 2 Comments

News came today from the film production company mentioned a while back.  Editing is complete.  The travelers are still friends.  And more.

But the main point was: this Sunday night (India time) we finally get to watch the episode that features Kerala’s backwaters and our houseboats.  Thank you for the notification, Vivek!

To the right is a luggage tag.  Not a non sequitur: we were working on these while the film crew mentioned above was with us.  Our tags had been, quite frankly, boring.  We thought the crew deserved a reminder of where they had been with us.  So our friends at Thought Factory Design came up with a simple reminder.

I hope Vivek, his production crew, and those four dashing stars of the show are all still carrying around trunks, duffel bags, suit cases and carry-ons with these little reminders of their friends in Kerala…

That reminds me.  Before the end of 2011 you will be able to see some of the handiwork of Thought Factory Design if you happen to be traveling in Kerala.  Continue reading →

Granite Ghost

/ Milo Inman / 2 Comments

Bradinopyga geminata (male)

I’m still a student of Indian dragonflies (of the world, for that matter), but one species that has captivated me since I read about it is the Granite Ghost – Bradinopyga geminata. Typically an urban dweller, the species has adapted itself to city life – breeding in water tanks, feeder ponds, and all other pools of water that can be found in a metropolis. The species is so well suited to concrete jungles not only because of its extreme agility and keen hunting senses, but because of its remarkable ability to remain unseen. Continue reading →

Song Is Good

/ Organikos / 1 Comment

Click the photo to the left for a short essay about someone you almost certainly never heard of.

And never likely will again.  It is worth the 20-30  minutes of reading time.

If he is an unsung hero, then song seems an appropriate response.  You will recognize, hopefully, someone you know when you read about Raymond.  Probably good to let them hear the song sooner, rather than later.

Continue reading →

The Colorful Point

/ Amie Inman / Leave a comment

Despite the innumerable benefits of living abroad and the rich experience of new foods, cultures and lifestyles, the thrill of a gift box from family cannot be described.  As time passes the requests have changed, but the comfort foods of Girl Scout cookies and organic macaroni and cheese still count for something to the teenager in our family.

The snap shot above shows the range of contents in a recent box. Continue reading →

Portland’s Food & the Local Ideal

/ Martin Smith / 1 Comment

Having posted an item or two in the past about food, I am newly inspired to indulge my interest; inspired by a recent visit to Portland, Oregon. It was my first time to this city, a city that seemed to care more about its food than any other city I’d been to. (A bold statement I qualify with the varied ways in which a people can “care” about its food.)

Good food is a social backbone of many a metropolis.
They cultivate their gardens of superstar restaurants, or food trucks, whatever the case may be. The big and advanced cities have their bevies of bloggers and critics, evaluating the experience that comes with each bite. Each person I’ve met in each town I’ve been to, no doubt, cares to a certain extent about their food, but only in Portland did I feel the caring resemble something like the way a person cares about family. Like a pet-owner, plant-keeper, or passionate professional, the people of Portland appeared to feel invested in their food as an essential way of being good not only to themselves, but to some “other.” Continue reading →

Using Small Mammal Remains for Environmental Archaeology

/ Seth Inman / Leave a comment

Credit: Bresson Thomas

Archaeological remains of small mammals generally weighing under 1kg, or micromammals, are important as environmental indicators, partly because they tend to specialize in certain habitats and are sensitive to change. Many factors affect their ranges of distribution, including predators, food requirements, competition, fire, shifts in precipitation patterns, and shelter availability. Micromammals such as voles and mice also tend to live in dense populations and have evolved rapidly through high fecundity. Due to these diverse and interrelated factors, the interpretation of micromammal remains—bones and middens, mostly—requires a deep understanding of the rodents’ relationship with its environment. In other words, ecological information is imperative to accurate assessment of archaeological data on micromammals.

But sometimes micromammal remains have answered modern ecological questions. For example, packrat middens in arid North America offer relatively high temporal, spatial, and taxonomic resolution (i.e., small intervals with which to measure time, space, or species range), and contain what is possibly the “richest archive of dated, identified, and well-preserved plant and animal remains in the world” (Pearson & Betancourt 2002, p500). Continue reading →

God’s Cow

/ James Zainaldin / 1 Comment

Today I saw something very odd: dozens of ladybugs crawling along the top of a recycling bin. Some were the dark red that we normally associate with ladybugs, while others were a pale orange verging on yellow. Strange looking half-formed ladybugs, seemingly crouched in tight balls, adhered themselves along the surface as well. In the midst of it all swarmed long, fat black bugs with orange spotting along their backs. What was going on here? And what was this panoply of ladybug life occurring on a recycling bin in the middle of a college campus?

Two ladybug pupae

When I afterwards looked up ladybugs, I found that I had actually witnessed something pretty cool: the full life cycle of Coccinellidae, known as the ‘ladybug’ in America but the ‘ladybird’ elsewhere in the world. It’s also known as ‘God’s cow,’ the ‘ladyclock,’ or the ‘lady fly.’ There are over five thousand species worldwide, but the name ‘ladybug’ is perhaps most readily synonymous with the image of a small, round red bug with black spots.

The ladybug, as I had seen, has four distinct phases in its life cycle. The life of the ladybug begins in an egg; small clutches hatch after three or four days at which point the larval form of the bug emerges. It may molt three to four times over a period of about twelve days before pupation (i.e., the beetle creates a pupa). Continue reading →

“Taste”: Naturally Selected

/ Amie Inman / 2 Comments

The arts in all their glory are no more remote from the evolved features of the human mind and personality than an oak is remote from the soil and subterranean waters that nurture and sustain it. The evolution of Homo sapiens in the past million years is not just a history of how we came to have acute color vision, a taste for sweets, and an upright gait.  It is also a story of how we became a species obsessed with creating artistic experiences with which to amuse, shock, titillate, and enrapture ourselves, from children’s games to the quartets of Beethoven, from firelit caves to the continuous worldwide glow of television screens.

—Denis Dutton

The late philosophy professor, editor, writer (and occasional provocateur) Denis Dutton spent a great deal of his professional life closing the gap between art and science. Continue reading →

Rubytailed Hawklet

/ Milo Inman / Leave a comment

Another stark contrast between male and female specimens, Epithemis mariae is a small species of dragonfly found in and out of the Western Ghats. The female pictured above was sighted in the organic garden of Cardamom County, and the male pictured below  Continue reading →

Another Friedman Keeper

/ Crist Inman / 1 Comment

This quote may not be clear without the context, so read the full story here.  But following my previous mention of its author I was pleased to see that he is still writing from India, and I am most interested in this snippet because it captures a general point beyond the specific innovation he describes in the full article.

That conversation is the sound of history changing.

And not just for India. We’re at the start of a nonlinear move in innovation thanks to the hyperconnecting of the world — through social media, mobile/wireless devices and cloud computing — which is putting cheap innovation devices into the hands of so many more people, enabling them to collaborate on invention in so many new ways.

Continue reading →

Onward To Osa

/ Matthias Jost / 2 Comments

The transfer from Manuel Antonio to San Jose was a short one. During the one evening in San Jose, I visited a huge shopping center, called Multiplaza. I lost my rain jacket somewhere in Costa Rica, so I needed a replacement. This shopping center could be anywhere in the world, it looks and feels like its counterparts in the US, Switzerland or even Russia. All the global and expensive brands are there, they even had an Audi and a Swatch shop.

Early next morning I took a bus to the airport, where I boarded a 12 seat Cessna to fly to the Osa Peninsula. It was a nice flight in that small aircraft, and for once I could observe the pilots doing their job.  Continue reading →

When Rhinos Fly…

/ Amie Inman / 7 Comments

It’s a staggering realization that something that tips a scale upwards of 2 tons, can run up to 40 mph and appears as powerful as ordnance is considered vulnerable in any way.  Yet the confirmation that the Black Rhinoceros is officially extinct in West Africa says just that.

Continue reading →

Occupy National Parks, Boycott Coca Cola

/ Crist Inman / 1 Comment

Did you read this?  If so, how many times did you say out loud, as I did no less than 14 times: really, Coca Cola?  Here is one example, among many, of a disturbing perspective:

A spokeswoman for Coca-Cola Refreshments USA, Susan Stribling, said … “Banning anything is never the right answer,” she said. “If you do that, you don’t necessarily address the problem.” She also characterized the bottle ban as limiting personal choice. “You’re not allowing people to decide what they want to eat and drink and consume,” she said.

Is this really about something as sacred as liberty?  No.  One of the greatest ideas of all time (the one about certain unalienable rights) is being invoked for purely commercial interests, and that is disturbing enough.  Continue reading →

In Conservation, Mystery

/ Organikos / 1 Comment

Click on the image to the right to get the full story of a conservation whodunnit.  After linking to Felicity Barringer’s investigative story on the scuttling of a trash reduction plan for one of the world’s most iconic national parks (really, Coca Cola?), some other conservation-focused articles seem worthy of attention.

The New Yorker has a deliciously quirky approach to covering environmental issues, and this one is representative.  It delivers on multiple fronts, reading like a detective story while also informing about one of those before it’s too late topics.

Continue reading →

Pied Paddy Skimmer

/ Milo Inman / 4 Comments

The Paddy Skimmer is one of the smaller species of dragonfly that can be seen in the Western Ghats. Measuring about an inch long, their flight range is very limited, although apparently their breeding capabilities are unhindered, as they are without a doubt one of the most numerous species to be seen in fields, both wild and cultivated. The teneral (young) male has a black and gold body, green and red eyes, and would be difficult to distinguish from the female if it weren’t for the differences in their wings – the male’s (both in youth and maturity) are about half black, with the other half equally divided between a white strip and a transparent tip. The female’s wings are more complicatedly patterned, although mainly transparent. Continue reading →