hurricane-2011: April 2010

A News Sonnet A Day for April 2010: Index

Cover for Deviations: Covenant, Second Edition

Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.) Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant, Appetite, and Destiny in even more formats!

Participant, Operation E-Book Drop. (Logo credit: K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

A News Sonnet A Day for April 2010: 30

I've set myself a goal for National Poetry Month this year: Compose a sonnet based on a science-themed news story each day.

Today's installment closes out the month and takes its cue from "Asteroid ice hints at rocky start to life on Earth" by Zeeya Merali at Nature and "Water Discovered on an Asteroid -- A First" by Brian Handwerk at National Geographic.

Reflections on 24-Themis

Our water is believed to come from space.
Some theorize that comets were employed
To give the molten Earth a bright blue face.
Now frost's been found upon an asteroid

Once thought too dry to carry surface ice.
Perhaps its vapors rose from deep below
And then condensed. Our guesses must suffice.
This rock has carbon molecules to show --

The elements for life to go ahead.
No asteroid had shown such signs before.
The data reaching Earth in infra-red
Are challenging assumptions at their core

And given us more questions to be solved
Of how our Solar System has evolved.

(I wanted to complete this series on a positive note, given the heartbreak of the Gulf oil slick -- Discovery News satellite photos and graphs of the spill here.)

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too

Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.) Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant, Appetite, and Destiny in even more formats!

Participant, Operation E-Book Drop. (Logo credit: K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

A News Sonnet A Day for April 2010: 29

I've set myself a goal for National Poetry Month this year: Compose a sonnet based on a science-themed news story each day.

Today's installment takes its cue from "Pentagon: Boost Training With Computer-Troop Mind Meld" by Katie Drummond at Wired.

Rules of Virtual Engagement

Our troops enact hard choices on the spot,
Immersed in unrelenting stress of war.
But now a game adaptive to their thoughts
Could bolster their cognition at its core.

From physical response and EEG,
A simulated war zone would react
On scales of culture, trust, hostility.
And soldiers, often short of crucial facts,

Would strive to make their intuition sound.
Their basal ganglia would give the clues
To how they make snap judgments on the ground,
Midst multi-sensory, intensive cues.

A constant learning curve could be designed
To optimize the tactics of the mind.

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too

Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.) Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant, Appetite, and Destiny in even more formats!

Participant, Operation E-Book Drop. (Logo credit: K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

A News Sonnet A Day for April 2010: 28

I've set myself a goal for National Poetry Month this year: Compose a sonnet based on a science-themed news story each day.

Today's installment takes its cue from "Merely Seeing Disease Symptoms May Promote Aggressive Immune Response" from Catherine Allen-West at the Association for Psychological Science.

Shutter Bug

A picture may be worth a thousand words,
But show a slide that indicates disease
And soon improved immunity occurs.
When viewers saw a pox, a cough, a sneeze,

Their sampled blood then evidenced a boost
In quantities of interleukin-6
As some bacteria were introduced.
Put different images into the mix,

Even the pointed barrel of a gun,
And cells are less adapted to protect.
The cost of an immune response is one
That can debilitate. In this respect,

The body's disposition makes it bold
When pulling strength to fight the common cold.

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too

Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.) Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant, Appetite, and Destiny in even more formats!

Participant, Operation E-Book Drop. (Logo credit: K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

A News Sonnet A Day for April 2010: 27

I've set myself a goal for National Poetry Month this year: Compose a sonnet based on a science-themed news story each day.

Today's installment takes its cue from "Scientists Get Bird's-Eye View of How Cuckoos Fool Their Hosts" at Science Daily.

Pattern Masters

A war is on in southern Zambia,
Fought not with bullets but with clever eggs,
Between the Cuckoo Finch and Prinia.
A study of their evolution pegs

Their struggles back some twenty million years,
When Finch first laid its oval, forged design
In nest of Prinia. That egg appears
To match the host's. When hatched, the Finch chicks dine

And outcompete the Prinia's own brood.
Such egg design grows more and more complex.
As Prinia's detection has improved,
It finds the counterfeits and then rejects.

This constant race of bird technology
Evolves an unmatched egg diversity.

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too

Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.) Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant, Appetite, and Destiny in even more formats!

Participant, Operation E-Book Drop. (Logo credit: K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Evening Walk

Large view

Mary and I began our post office walk on the verge of dusk, with an almost-full moon rising. First, we needed to stop at CVS to pick up some items, and were met at the front entrance by dozens of Fir Tussock Moth caterpillars and their cocoons.

Large view

Orgyia detrita, Family Erebidae. Also called a Live Oak Tussock Moth. Ranges along the Atlantic coast from Long Island to Florida and west to Texas. Says Bugguide, "The hairs of the caterpillar may cause irritation to sensitive skin if you handle them, though they are not among the stinging caterpillars."

I first photographed a cocoon three years ago, here. According to the University of Florida, this is the time of year when females lay their eggs on the cocoons. The female covers her eggs with abdominal hairs.

Fir Tussock Moth Caterpillar with Cocoons

I have photos of adult male Live Oak Tussock Moths here.

Meanwhile, a group of anoles stood guard around the side of the building.

Large view

I believe this is a female, given the light stripe down the back. Two lines of anoles had gathered, each pair located several feet down from one another. It seemed to us the females had lined up against the wall, while the larger males stayed on the lip of the vegetation island, closer to the alley.

Our walk took us to the post office, to Subway for dinner, to Winn-Dixie for groceries, and back home, for a total of about two miles. Our stop at CVS meant we walked on the far side of our county road, which still fronts on as-yet-undeveloped land. There we spotted a well-camouflaged male common bobwhite. I took my first few shots without flash and without tripod.

Then with flash.

Colinus virginianus, Family Phasianidae. Ranges through central and eastern U.S. to Guatemala and Cuba.

We took a long-cut through the grounds of a local church, where we spotted night-blooming lilies rising from otherwise trimmed grass.

When I got home I learned that my poem "Total Lunar Eclipse" is now live at Astropoetica. You can read it here.

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too

Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.) Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant, Appetite, and Destiny in even more formats!

Participant, Operation E-Book Drop. (Logo credit: K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

hurricane-2011

A News Sonnet A Day for April 2010: Index

A News Sonnet A Day for April 2010: 30

A News Sonnet A Day for April 2010: 29

A News Sonnet A Day for April 2010: 28

A News Sonnet A Day for April 2010: 27

Evening Walk

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