Ecosystem Services #2

I have been doing some more reading about ecosystem services, thanks to Mr./Ms. Economics of Biodiversity. This kind soul was the first to comment on my fledgling blog, regarding my post on Ecosystem Services vs Biodiversity.

I do agree with EoB's point that biodiversity underpins ecosystems services. After all, it is the biology that is providing the services. The additional reading I have done has reinforced my feeling that getting people to take action on conservation can best be done through a discussion of ecosystem services. It is not a matter of which is more important than the other, it is a matter of which appeals to a broader audience and can therefore pull the other along on its coat tails.

Click here for the best (at least the easiest to understand) summary I found on ecosystem services. I especially like the story about New York City avoiding a $6 - 8 billion bill for upgrading its artificial water filtration system, by investing $660 million to stem development in its natural water filtration system, the Catskills watershed. If you have never been to the Catskills, here is what it looks like. This is from a 2007 family camping trip to North-South Lake.

Killer Frog (aka Khorat Big-mouthed Frog)

In a story reminiscent of the "Killer Rabbit" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, scientists in Thailand have discovered a new species of frog with a hearty appetite. This frog has some nasty fangs, powerful jaws, and a diet that includes birds. Males also use their fangs to fight other males.

This is one of the newly discovered species highlighted by the World Wildlife Fund in a new report on the Greater Mekong. Click here for more details.

Check out those fangs!

Photo copyright David S. McLeod/WWF Greater Mekong

That's a Gross Fly (Phorid Fly)

I am fascinated by insects, especially when they do gross things. The phorid fly is definitely in the gross category.

But first a little background on the fire ant, specifically the Red Imported Fire Ant. This ant is native to South America. Back in the 30's it hitched a ride on some cargo ships from Brazil and wound up in Mobile, AL. You've probably seen horror movies where fire ants crawl all over people and sting them to death. They are definitely a pest to be eradicated.

Fortunately, intrepid entomologists have discovered that fire ants have a natural enemy in the phorid fly, specifically the genus Pseudacteon. Here's what happens:

Poor Mr. Fire Ant is attacked by Mrs. Phorid Fly, who injects her eggs into the ant. Unfortunately for the fire ants, they do recognize the flies as enemies. Anthropomorphically speaking, this ant seems to know what's in store for him.

When the fly egg hatches, the larva burrows into the ant's head. It slowly munches away at the brain, causing the ant to wander aimlessly. When it is time for the larva to pupate, it releases an enzyme that causes the ant's head to fall off. Thump.

Safe in its excursion module, the pupa does its metamorphosis thing. Then, Junior pops out of the ant's head, and flies off to start the whole circle of life again.

Ecosystem Services vs Biodiversity

I was just reading in Nature Conservancy magazine about the idea of "ecosystem services". The basic idea (or my oversimplification of it) is that a good way to sell people on the idea of conservation is to relate it to human needs - in other words, we should protect the ecosystem because it provides us with the services that we need.

The "opposite" of ecosystems services would be "biodiversity", or the idea that having a diversity of biology is a good thing, not necessarily just the biology that helps humans.

Apparently this is a debate of sorts in the conservation world. I can see both sides. But I think that the majority of people in the world, especially in developing countries, would more easily buy into conservation efforts if they felt they were improving their own life, and not just the life of a spotted owl.

Here is a good overview of the concept of ecosystem services. It contains a link to an article in Current Biology with a lot more details.

Wissahickon Valley Park

This weekend my wife and I took a hike in Wissahickon Valley Park in Philadelphia. Despite having driven past the park entrance many times, I had never been inside. As soon as you walk out of earshot of busy Lincoln Drive, you would think you were in the Pocono Mountains.

Since we didn't have a trail map, we stayed on Forbidden Drive, which is the main path through the park. Forbidden Drive used to be called the Wissahickon Turnpike, but they changed the name when those new-fangled horseless carriages were forbidden to drive on it. Here is a photo of the Blue Stone Bridge, which replaced the old Red Bridge in 1896. The little building to the right is the toll house. It is hard to imagine a time when this road was so busy with carriages that they would charge a toll to ride on it!

If you look in the window of the toll house, you can watch the elves baking Toll House Cookies. Or you can read the archaeological display, which includes a photo of a coin marked "Taylor's Hotel, Wissahickon, PA", which they believe was a bridge token.

To see a postcard of the bridge from the good old days, click here. Then click on the postcard to zoom in.

Here is an even more curious photo from our hike. I have no idea what those rectangular brown things are on this bush. They look like some type of shelf fungus, but I could not find them in any fungus books at the book store. Maybe they are part of the bush itself. In any case, it is odd that they are so rectangular. Well, that is a mystery for another day.

Roaring Run Iron Furnace

I was on a business trip near Roanoke, VA last week, and I had some free time to take a hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Here is a photo of Roaring Run Furnace in Jefferson National Forest.

It's pretty wild to come across something like this just sitting out in the middle of the woods. But that's where furnaces needed to be in the good olde days, because they would cut down acres of trees for the charcoal to run the furnaces. Click here for a great and sad description of this process.

If you are more the archaeological type and want all the somnolent details, try this site. And if you love old maps like I do, check out this one on the Library of Congress website. I can't imagine that too many members of Congress need old maps of iron furnaces, but I guess they have to be ready just in case. If you love all old iron furnaces, go here.

Roaring Run Furnace is on the Roaring Run Trail, which runs along Roaring Run Creek to Roaring Run Falls. It is all very beautiful, as you can see by the smile on my face.

Pinelands Adventure #1 - Brooksbrae Brick Company

I am fortunate to live on the edge of the NJ Pinelands, which, depending on who you ask, is the largest expanse of open land between either Boston and Richmond, or northern Maine and the Everglades. It covers 22% of the state of NJ, which is welcome relief in the most densely populated state in the nation.

Last fall my wife and I went on a hike sponsored by the Pinelands Preservation Alliance. Led by local archaeologist Scott Wieczorek, we explored the ruins of an early 20th century brick factory. Here is my favorite picture. In the upper right you can see a family picnicking on top of what used to be the drying tunnels.

To see more photos, check out this site. For a description of the site by Mr. Wieczorek himself, click here.

The NJ Pinelands had a pretty colorful history before it became a National Reserve. To learn more, check out Ghost Towns and Other Quirky Places in the New Jersey Pine Barrens by Barbara Solem-Stull. It includes directions, maps and lots of info on many interesting sites in the Pinelands.

Everyone Loves Dinosaurs (Haddonfield Dinosaur Discovery Site)

Yesterday I went on an expedition to the site of the first dinosaur dig in the United States. Fortunately it wasn't very difficult, because what was forbidding terrain in the Cretaceous Period is now a residential development.

I took a few pictures, but here is my favorite. It's not exactly scientifically accurate (especially the elephant), but if it inspires a child to become a paleontologist it has done its job.

If you would like to learn more about this very cool site and see some more photos, click here.

My Meniscus Hurts

The science debate for today was the meaning of "meniscus". I said it was the concave shape at the top of a container of liquid. Ross said it could be either concave or convex depending on some kind of pressure. Rich said his meniscus was in his knee.

Luckily Kiefer had his iPhone and was able to settle the debate on the spot.

It turns out Ross and Rich were both right. "Meniscus" is from the Greek word for "crescent". Several crescent-shaped things are called menisci.

A meniscus (in a container of liquid) can be either concave or convex depending on some pretty complicated things. The menisci in your knees are crescent-shaped pieces of cartilage. There are also menisci in your shoulders, wrists and jaw.

Meniscus is also a word used in optics. A lens with a concave surface on one side and a convex surface on the other side is called a meniscus lens.

What seemed like a pretty simple question wasn't at all. Next time we'll debate something easier like health care reform.

Fun With Illuminating Gas

One of the books that got me interested in science as a child was the Boys' Home Book of Science & Construction, by Alfred P. Morgan. It was published in 1921, and a note on the front page shows it was a Christmas gift from Aunt Helen to my grandfather in 1928. This was an old book when I was reading it 35 years ago. Today, a better word for it would be "quaint".

Even the cover of this book is amusing. Did boys in 1921 always put on a tie before playing with their homemade telegraph sets, or only when they were having their picture drawn?


As I was thumbing through this book today, I realized I was holding in my hands the original Dangerous Book for Boys. Below is a great example. It explains how you can fill soap bubbles with "illuminating gas", and then blow them up "with a flash and a report". My grandfather's house actually had gas jets like the one in the drawing, although by the time I saw them as a child the house had been electrified and the gas jets shut off.



And not to worry, you country folk with "no illuminating gas in your house", the next page gives you the recipe for homemade hydrogen gas. This book was written 16 years before the Hindenburg disaster, so they have an excuse for encouraging boys to play with hydrogen bubbles.

All About Uranium

I just finished an excellent book called Uranium, by Tom Zoellner. That's right, a whole book just about uranium!

I am always interested in how people, places and things are inter-related. One place that provides more than its share of connections is St. Joachimsthal, a silver mining town in Bohemia. A popular product of St. Joachimsthal in the 16th century was large silver coins that were used throughout Europe. These were commonly called "Joachimsthalers", which was shortened to "thaler", and is the basis of our English word "dollar".

Uranium ore was first discovered in the silver mines here in the late 15th century. The miners named this unusual material pechblende. "Pech" is German for "pitch", or tar, which is what the ore looked like. "Pech" can also mean "bad luck". A clever double entendre, since the tarry material slowed down the miners' extraction of silver. (Blende is a general term for a mineral with a dull luster.)

Almost 300 years passed before anyone bothered to study the mining waste more closely. But in 1789, German pharmacist Martin Klaproth isolated a new element from the pitchblende that he named uranium. Still, not much use was found for pitchblende other than as a pigment for glass.

Another century passed before Marie and Pierre Curie used pitchblende, from this same mine in St. Joachimsthal, to isolate another new element that would make them famous, radium.

St. Joachimsthal soon became a popular spa destination, with visitors believing the radiation to be good for their health. One of the visitors to this spa was a young J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was intrigued by the geology of the mines. Oppenheimer would later harness uranium's power as scientific director of the Manhattan Project.

But the uranium used to make the first atomic bombs did not come from St. Joachimsthal. By then, that part of Bohemia (in Czechoslovakia) had been annexed by Hitler. Fortunately, the Americans were quicker than the Nazis in solving the engineering challenges involved in building the bomb. And fortunately, an alternative source of uranium had since been found in the Belgian Congo.

Although Hitler was not successful in exploiting the uranium from St. Joachimsthal, Stalin was. The Soviet Union took control of Czechoslovakia after World War II, and St. Joachimsthal supplied the uranium that helped escalate the Cold War.

Welcome to KindOfCurious.com

Welcome to the inaugural post on KindOfCurious.com. If you get kind of curious when you see something new in the world around us, then you are at the right place.

You may be curious about the photo in the heading above. This wall and its wonderful graffiti can be found across the street from Cooper River Park in Cherry Hill, NJ. Omar Bradley was a 5-star General in the US Army. Other quotes from Bradley show that he was definitely a thinking man's general. Also interesting is that this wall is about a mile and a half from the Cherry Hill Mall, which was the first indoor mall built on the East coast. So this is not just any protest against sprawl, it is a protest in one of the places that invented sprawl.

Here is a link to more about this wall and the person who built it, Malcolm Wells. At the bottom of that site is a link to Mr. Wells' website. He is an architect specializing in underground buildings and other eco-friendly designs.