Leonardo Live (A da Vinci Quiz)

March 1, 2012

The story behind the Grand Theater in Ellsworth, Maine, is that in May 1933, in the middle of the Depression, a mentally troubled dishwasher overheard two businessmen talking about what to do about some dilapidated buildings in town. The dishwasher decided to light the buildings on fire. The ensuing conflagration destroyed most of downtown Ellsworth.

Five years later the reviving city invested in a new movie theater on Main Street. The Grand opened with a showing of Holiday, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Over the next 40 years, like a thousand other old downtown theaters across America, the Grand slowly declined. At one point the owners even installed a boxing ring and started holding weekly bouts in order to bring in more money.

The theater was rescued by a nonprofit in 1975. Today, after a few more ups and downs, the Grand hosts events 330 days a year, from concerts to plays to Metropolitan Opera simulcasts. The other night, Leonardo da Vinci showed up.

We settled into our seats in the old theater to watch Leonardo Live, an entertainingly produced, high-definition tour of the acclaimed da Vinci exhibition that opened at the National Gallery in London last November. The same film may be showing right now at a theater near you. Go see it. You'll learn more about not only da Vinci's work and life but also about the details of staging a big art show.

As I've mentioned before, if The Naturalist's Notebook had its own Mount Rushmore, da Vinci—a genius in both art and science—would be carved into it. Here's a photo quiz to test (or add to) your Leonardo knowledge (answers at the bottom):

1) Why might have da Vinci have painted the woman above holding an ermine?

a) The ermine was a symbol of Lorenzo de Medici, who was Leonardo's patron for seven years.
b) The ermine was a symbol of purity; da Vinci himself wrote that an ermine would rather die than let its coat get dirty.
c) The ermine was a symbol of science that da Vinci snuck into the painting; he wrote in his diary that "the mind of a stoat [another name for an ermine] exceeds in capability all but the most practical of princes."

2) When was da Vinci born?

a) July 4, 1584
b) October 2, 1602
c) April 15, 1452

The building in the background of these questions is the National Gallery in London, which hosted the da Vinci exhibition.

3) (above) What is an alternate title of the Mona Lisa

(I'm repeating the questions in the photos, some of which are hard to read; the multiple-choice answers seem easy to read)?

The full name of the exhibition in London was Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan.

4) (above) Leonardo worked as an apprentice to which Italian artist?

The architectural drawings of da Vinci are famous, but when the National Gallery was built in the 1830s it was ridiculed for having mishmash of disproportionate architectural elements. The building was only one room deep because a workhouse was loca… — The architectural drawings of da Vinci are famous, but when the National Gallery was built in the 1830s it was ridiculed for having mishmash of disproportionate architectural elements. The building was only one room deep because a workhouse was located behind it. Writer William Makepeace Thackaray ridiculed the gallery—which has since been expanded—as "a little gin shop of a building."

5) (above) Why are Leonardo's notebooks very difficult to read?

The National Gallery sits on London's Trafalgar Square.

6) (above) How did Leonardo study anatomy?

The da Vinci exhibition is considered the most complete show of Leonardo's works ever staged.

7) (above) Leonardo's famous drawing of the proportions of man is called what?

Da Vinci had a reputation for not finishing works, but the incomplete sections of some of his pieces seems to add strength and emphasis to the finished sections.

8) (above) Leonardo is believed to have been...

Leonardo and Michelangelo—who was a generation younger—were rivals of a sort; Leonardo once said that the musculature drawn by Michelangelo on a man's back made the back look like a bag of walnuts.

9) What country did Leonardo move to [later in life]?

This little Leonardo hung out at the Notebook last summer before someone purchased him.

10) Because he had so many talents and such a curiosity about the world, da Vinci is considered the model of the: a) Renaissance Man b) Inquisition Questioner c) Basso Profundo

Here Comes The Lorax Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, would have turned 108 years old on March 2. His birthday coincides with the release of The Lorax, a big-screen version of his famous environmental fable. Here's a sneak peek at the trailer:

Answers to the Last Puzzlers (da Vinci answers are farther down):

1) The unscrambled words:

a) pitapoopmush = hippopotamus
b) noidratia = radiation
c) rusiv = virus
d) pyhonot = typhoon

a) It is TRUE that DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid.
b) It is TRUE that human DNA contains about 25,000 genes.
c) It it NOT TRUE that one gene contains about 25,000 types of DNA.
d) It is TRUE that plants and animals both have DNA.

Answers to the da Vinci quiz:

1) b
2) c
3) c
4) c
5) a
6) b
7) b
8) b
9) a
10) a

I've often noticed Wooster sniff freshly fallen snow more frantically than she does bare ground. Why is that? What's going on inside that canine snout?

What Do Dogs Smell?

February 28, 2012

Don't let this weird you out, but at least 75 trillion bacteria and other microbes live in you and on you.

You may not want to know that 90 percent of the cells in your body are non-human—bacteria, viruses, yeasts, fungi, mites and other micro-critters—but those tiny passengers keep you alive. One top scientist has called your gut "a zoo of bacteria," with more than 40,000 species, many of which help you digest food. There are even specialized mites that live at the base of your eyelashes and do you a favor by eating what esoteric-science expert Sir Pilthington-Smyth, in his marvelously entertaining book A Beastly Menagerie, calls "the flotsam and jetsam on your skin."

Indeed, your entire skin is a feeding ground for microscopic creatures. And, because some bacteria produce gas when breaking down old skin cells, your dog can smell what those bacteria have been doing.

Pamelia and I have been doing research on animal senses. When you walk into The Naturalist's Notebook this year, you will be expected to use all five...I mean all six...no, it might be all 23 of your human senses. (Guess you're going to have to visit, eh?) Our bloodhound-like noses have led us to fascinating facts about bacteria, eyeballs, tongues, brains, nerve cells and, of course, dogs, the ultimate smelling machines.

Dogs have 44 times as many scent-receptor cells as people do. When Wooster, our Wheaten terrier, steps outside, her nose is bombarded with as many smells as your brain has thoughts in a day. Like other dogs, she ignores many of them. She cares most about smells that she associates with good things (food, affection, play) or bad things (horses, skateboarders, tall men who wear hats).

Tracking dogs pick up extraordinarily minute evidence when following a human's trail. We homo sapiens constantly shed dog-sniffable skin cells—genetically unique to each of us, and with odor-belching bacteria on board as they flutter through the air and eventually settle on the ground. Not only do our shoes leave aromatic clues, but our every footstep also crushes plant cells and causes the cells to give off a scent that clearly distinguishes our trail from the land around it. The list of smelly evidence we leave on the landscape can make a person quite self-conscious when stomping through the woods.

I've been puzzled by Wooster's frantic sniffing of the snow. She seems to pick up even more intriguing scents after a few inches have fallen, which makes no sense, given that the ground and its odors are covered up. It turns out that at least a couple of factors are at work. One is that by eliminating a lot of smells the snow allows the dog to focus more on certain ones, like the aroma of that fresh squirrel track. Another is that if the snow is airy and powdery, smells do make their way up through it. Avalanche rescue dogs routinely find people buried under five to six feet of snow. In one case in Austria a dog located a skier who was down 24 feet.

I know, I know, you're still thinking about those 75 trillion microbes that are crawling over every inch of your body. Perhaps I shouldn't mention that the eyelash mites are arthropods, part of the same phylum of animals as spiders, cockroaches, centipedes, barnacles, crabs and lobsters. But at least they're small. As the aforementioned Pilkington-Smythe notes, eyelash mites "are in fact only about a third of a millimeter long, which is probably for the best as nothing spoils a pretty face quite like a visible infestation of large armored invertebrates."

Speaking of Pretty Faces...

You may or may not have watched the red-carpet, fashion-fixated prelude to the Academy Awards broadcast on Sunday night. It brought to mind a delightful section in Bill Bryson's book At Home in which he traced the evolution of humans' often bizarre obsession with looking beautiful, from Stone Age clothing through the invention of buttons to the two-and-a-half-foot-tall wigs worn by European women in the 1700s. He wrote that in the late 1700s people in England started festooning themselves with artificial moles, called mouches. And I quote:

"[Mouches] took on shapes, likes stars or crescent moons, which were worn on the face, neck and shoulders. One lady is recorded as sporting a coach and six horses galloping across her cheeks. At the peak of the fashion, people wore a superabundance of mouches until they must have looked rather as if they were covered in flies. Patches were worn by men and women, and were said to reflect one's political leanings by whether they were worn on the right cheek (Whigs) or left cheek (Tories). Similarly, a heart on the right cheek signaled that the wearer was married, and on the left cheek that he or she was engaged...In the 1780s, just to show that creative ridiculousness really knew no bounds, it became briefly fashionable to wear fake eyebrows made of mouse skin."

Upcoming Earth Day Movie

Not sure if the stars of this film will end up on the Hollywood red carpet before next year's Academy Awards, but DisneyNature is releasing Chimpanzee on Earth Day, starring a chimp named Oscar. The footage looks amazing and the very idea that a male chimp would help raise an orphaned baby chimp is startling. If you go to a theater during the opening week of the film (April 20-16), Disney will donate part of your ticket money to the Jane Goodall Institute, another of our favorite organizations. Here's the trailer:

Quote of the Week

From Natalie Wolchover of Life's Little Mysteries in an article on bird vision: "If you swapped your eyes for an eagle's, you could see an ant crawling on the ground from the roof of a 10-story building."

The two eagles after their failed attack.

And That Ant Saw Two Eagles Landing...

Two juvenile bald eagles (no white feathers on their heads yet) just flew in and riled up the 180 or so mallard and black ducks that were floating near our shore. If this was hunting practice, it didn't go well; the ducks flew off unscathed, and some crows then chased the eagles.

Crowboarding

Ah, yes, back to crows. Some of you may have missed seeing this video link in the blog's "comments" section, sent in by Regina, one of the Notebook's New York correspondents. Click on it to see a crow engaged in a new winter sport.

Neanderthals In the News Scientists keep learning more and more about the many human species that preceded homo sapiens. Most went extinct, including the Neanderthals. The widespread belief has been that modern humans helped exterminate Neanderthals (though perhaps there was some interbreeding). Here's the latest:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17179608

Answers to Last Puzzlers

1) The unscrambled words:

a) direans = sardine
b) bronca = carbon
c) suclumu = cumulus
d) maqunut = quantum

2) Bryology is the study of mosses.

Today's Puzzlers

1) Unscramble these words from nature, science and art:

a) pitapoopmush
b) noidratia
c) rusiv
d) pyhonot

2) Fifty-nine years ago next month James Watson and Francis Crick (using the X-ray crystallography data of Rosalind Franklin, who got almost no credit) discovered the double-helix structure of DNA. Which of these statements is NOT true:

a) DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid
b) Human DNA contains about 25,000 genes
c) One gene contains about 25,000 types of DNA
d) Plants and animals both have DNA

Part of a DNA installation at the Notebook two years ago. The DNA of humans and bonobos (the two types of primates whose skeletons are shown here) are about 99 percent identical.

The Mailbag

February 25, 2012

Time to catch up on some Notebook correspondence and stories:

The Stranded Dolphins

Our friends at Allied Whale sent us an update on the mass strandings of dolphins on Cape Cod, which we wrote about several weeks ago. The good news is that it seems to have abated. The strange news is that an unprecedented number of dolphins have been beaching themselves over the last couple of months from New England to South America. Scientists are puzzled. Is the warm winter to blame? Disease? A shift in the location of the smaller fish on which dolphins feed?

Allied Whale passed along an email from Katie Moore of the International Fund for Animal Welfare's Marine Mammal Rescue group, which in conjunction with volunteers tried to help the dolphins stranded on Cape Cod. Here are a few portions:

"We have not had live animals strand since 14 Feb. and have not had any new dead animal reports since 16 Feb. Based on our revised definition of a mass stranding, unless we receive calls about new animals today, the event will be considered closed. "So, here is where the tally stands:

Total number of common dolphins: 179
Live: 71
Dead: 108
- Of the 71 dolphins found alive by staff and volunteers:
- 53 successfully released
- 3 released and re-stranded
- 11 died
- 4 humanely euthanized
"Necropsies have been completed on 9 of the animals for which time of death was known. Several animals remain in the freezer pending necropsy.
"AEP [Auditory Evoked Potential] testing [a means of for determining the hearing abilities of cetaceans such as dolphins] was attempted on 8 animals, but due to a broken component in the bioamp, we regrettably have no good data from these.
"Satellite tags were deployed on 11 animals, one of which re-stranded. Four are still transmitting.
"Ultrasounds were conducted on many of the live animals as well.
"We are currently trying to wade through piles of data files, digital photos, etc. to complete animals files and eventually being data entry into both our internal and the National Database. We may seek additional support from other networks who are willing to help in working up the remaining frozen carcasses and also in data entry.
"We cannot adequately express our gratitude for all of your support during this event. Your kind words and willingness to help made a big difference for us. Many thanks to those who we did call upon to work along side us in the field: New England Aquarium, Riverhead Foundation, Whale Center of New England, Virginia Aquarium Stranding Program, and Marine Mammals of Maine. Your hard work was invaluable."

From Pamelia's brother Scott On the Subject Of Corvids (Crows and Ravens)

He was responding to our recent post on Bernd Heinrich's raven talk at Bowdoin College:

"I recall watching a show about crows, not ravens. The program was a review of research done revealing the amazing intelligence of the birds. I was particularly impressed when one wild crow went through a three-step process to get to a food treat. The show also detailed a long-term experiment in which it seemed a family of crows was somehow able to pass on information to the next generation regarding which human beings were to be feared and which ones could be trusted. At first, the older generation was approached by 'good' and 'bad' humans, and accepted both. After some element of trust was established, the 'bad' humans gave the birds reason to fear them, the 'good' ones did not. The next generation, which had not been exposed to either set of humans and had not received cues from the first generation, somehow knew which humans could be trusted!

Here's a raven visitor Pamelia photographed as we drove through Yellowstone two years ago.

"The takeaway I have from this and other scientific information regarding 'animal intelligence' is that we humans are probably not as far ahead, if we are ahead at all, of the many other beings who share our planet. We tend to only view intelligence from our own perspective (does that tell you something about humans?) and we are not always able to understand this intelligence as it might apply outside our own view of the world and our own values. The result is that we often do not recognize intelligence in other beings, and sometimes not even in other humans who don’t share our values.

"So, the next take away on the issue of intelligence is a series of questions. For, example, is one ant smart? Probably not in our sense of the word. Is an ant colony smart? Again, probably not in our sense of the word. But maybe they have an institutional or collective intelligence that we don’t recognize? Ants are one of the most successful colonizers of the world! Again, maybe this is a form of intelligence we humans need to be more cognitive of? Of course, ants may not be as intelligent as we think—they do go to war, and they kill each other. Oh, I think I just let my values cloud my view of intelligence! Hmmm?"

Neil deGrasse Tyson on the Future of Space ExplorationForeign Affairs magazine sent me a link to a piece by a well-known astrophysicist we've written about (http://naturalistsnote.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/pluto-revisited/), Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York.

In the article, Tyson warns that political partisanship is clouding space exploration and argues that even in tough economic times the U.S. needs to fund that exploration. He speculates that China's advancing space ambitions could produce another "Sputnik moment," spurring the the United States into action. Here's his article: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137277/neil-degrasse-tyson/the-case-for-space

New Star in the Galaxy Emily Wickersham is the smart, talented, wonderful daughter of our friends John and Amy. This week John sent a link to a video of Emily signing autographs for fans as she arrived at the premiere of her new movie, Gone. To see a short interview with her about the film, click on the video below.

What does that have to do with science, nature, art and The Naturalist's Notebook? Well, first, actors are artists and film is a powerful and creative expression of ideas. Second, John's email (and this blog) led me to hypothesize that humans must be the only animals that brag about their friends' offspring. Third, Gone sounds like a dramatic thriller, raising these questions about homo sapiens and scary flicks: Are we the only species that likes to scare itself as a form of entertainment? And if so, why? What makes us (or some of us, anyway) pay money to get frightened out of our wits?

I'll leave that question to you psychologists. In the meantime, Pamelia and I plan to go see Gone and enjoy the more pleasant thrill of seeing someone we know on the big screen.

Answers to the Last Puzzlers

1) The unscrambled words:

a) owliwl = willow
b) dusqi = squid
c) nooze = ozone
d) luntpolio = pollution

2) Casimir Funk, the Polish biochemist born 128 years ago this week, was famous for his 1912 discovery of the existence of vitamins, which humans knew nothing about before then. For most of human history, people had no concept of nutrition as we know it today.

Today's Puzzlers

1) You guys seem to like unscrambing words, so here's another batch:

a) direasn
b) bronca
c) suclumu
d) maqunut

2) On this date in 1934, Elizabeth Gertrude Britton died at age 76. She was an American botanist who made huge contributions to the field of bryology. What is bryology?

) the study of worms
b) the study of mosses
c) the study of elms
d) the study of grasses

Elizabeth Gertrude Britton

We listened to a flock of eiders calling somewhere out in the soft light of the bay.

Moody Maine Morning

February 22, 2012

The Maine coast takes on a different look each day. The Sun shifts, the fog comes and goes, the gloomy clouds crack open and reveal what Pamelia's mom used to call "just enough blue sky to make a Dutchman's breeches." Warmer air is moving in—two days ago we saw our first robin and the first vivid green of a sprouting fern. Yesterday we learned that because of the mild winter, Maine syrup makers are tapping their trees two weeks earlier than usual (http://www.wabi.tv/news/27855/maple-syrup-season-hits-maine-early). New England's syrup-collecting season has been moving earlier and earlier (though not typically this early) for more than a decade, according to experts I spoke to a while back at the University of Vermont's Proctor Maple Research Center. By the time Maine's traditional Maple Sunday rolls around in late March, I hope there's still some snow to scoop up and drizzle with syrup, creating the candy known around here as sugar on snow.

These are the flowers known as Dutchman's breeches—named back in the day when people dried trousers on clothes lines, not in machines.

Answers to the Last Puzzlers

1) Here are the unscrambled words from nature, science and art:

a) hewrs = shrew
b) knimpuch = chipmunk
c) gnipune = penguin
d) crepestivep = perspective

2) The dragonfly is believed to have gotten its name from a Romanian folktale about a horse that the devil turned into a giant fly known as the Devil’s Fly. The Romanian word for devil is drac, which also means dragon, and the second meaning eventually was applied to the insect.

Today's Puzzler

1) More words to unscramble:

a) owliwl
b) dusqi
c) nooze
d) luntpolio

2) Casimir Funk, a Polish biochemist, was born 128 years ago this week. What was his most famous contribution to the world of science?

a) In 1918 he invented the first television.
b) In 1912 he discovered the existence of vitamins, which humans knew nothing about before then.
c) In 1901 he published the first scientific treatise proving that the Moon was not made of cheese.
d) In 1922, during the flapper era, he discovered the chemical imbalance in certain odd-behaving domesticated fowl that gave rise to the term "funky chicken."

The renowned—and good-humored—biologist and author showed us this photo of himself trying to sneak up on ravens, who often follow and feed with wolves. The sheepish naturalist in wolf's clothing didn't fool the highly intelligent birds he was trying… — The renowned—and good-humored—biologist and author showed us this photo of himself trying to sneak up on ravens, who often follow and feed with wolves. The sheepish naturalist in wolf's clothing didn't fool the highly intelligent birds he was trying to study; they took one look at him and flew off in fear.

Who Was That Masked Naturalist?

February 20, 2012

Bowdoin College and McKay's Public House in Bar Harbor are three hours apart by car.

This week they were linked by science and nature, by Darwin and ravens, by two gifted biologists, by intelligent audiences and, in my case, by a couple of good burgers. I'm not much of a carnivore, but on these two winter nights, I was somehow drawn to the combination of meaty ideas and grilled beef. (Thumbs up, I might add, to the smoked gouda atop my burger at the Tavern at Brunswick Station, a short walk from the Bowdoin auditorium.)

Some people who haven't been up here in Maine at this time of year seem to harbor the misconception that not much goes on between November and April in the state that calls itself Vacationland. Summer folks have departed, seasonal businesses have closed, black bears have gone into hibernation and so, they assume, have organizers of the many recreational, cultural and intellectual events that fill the July and August calendar. I wish those non-Mainers could have hopped into the back seat for the short drive to McKay's with Pamelia and me to hear the lecture on evolution by Karen James, a visiting staff scientist (and Darwin expert) at the Mount Desert Island Biological Lab. Or joined us for the longer trip to Bowdoin to hear—and meet—Bernd Heinrich, the esteemed scientist, naturalist and author, discussing the behavior of ravens, on which he is probably the world's foremost expert.

The Science Cafe lecture upstairs at McKay's drew such a crowd that we had to squeeze in almost behind Karen James's video screen. There's a packed room to the left.

Karen's talk was one in a series of "Science Cafe" events organized by the MDI Biological Lab, a globally-linked research center that enriches our area with a variety of science programs. The combination of the MDIBL, the world-famous Jackson Laboratory (which focuses on genetics), Acadia National Park (site of biological and environmental research) and the College of the Atlantic (which is particularly strong in marine studies) make this lovely island of 10,000 people a scientific powerhouse.

A series of factual observations by Darwin led him to his theory of natural selection, a term he used to contrast it with artificial selection, the process by which humans, through methods of breeding and hybridization, had significantly altered and… — A series of factual observations by Darwin led him to his theory of natural selection, a term he used to contrast it with artificial selection, the process by which humans, through methods of breeding and hybridization, had significantly altered and domesticated cattle, sheep, dogs, corn and other living things. Darwin did not coin the phrase survival of the fittest, by the way, nor did he promote eugenics, racism or any of the other offensive concepts to which some anti-evolution propogandists have tried to link him.

It may seem odd, in the 21st century, that a scientist in a country that deems itself the most advanced in the world would need to entitle a lecture, as Karen did, "Why Evolution Is True." Unfortunately, even though evolution is taught in U.S. public schools and explained scientifically at respected institutions such as the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History, and even though 150 years of painstaking research by millions of biologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, geologists, geneticists and other experts in all corners of the planet has found overwhelming physical proof that natural selection has been at work for billions of years—"The world is literally teeming with evidence of evolution," as Karen put it in her lecture—and even though the decoding of genes over the last decade has provided what Karen calls "an astonishing verification" of evolution and the biological connection among all living species, a lot of Americans simply don't believe in it. (Then again, according to a 2006 study reported in the journal Science, nearly half of Americans couldn't give even a basic description of what DNA is.)

Karen handled the whole subject with reason, humor and intellectual passion. In dealing with a topic that so often generates heat, she instead filled the evening with light—that is, illumination. And that's why taking a couple of hours to go to a science or nature talk is so worthwhile. You leave feeling energized, with a deeper understanding of the world around you. If you're in the Bar Harbor area, I should add, you might want to drop by McKay's for the next Science Cafe, on March 21, a talk by Kyuson Yun of the Jackson Laboratory on the lastest in cancer stem-cell research.

A Night With Bernd Heinrich

First impressions linger. I'll always remember walking through the fragrant, pine-filled Bowdoin campus in the dark, trying not to slip on the icy walkway as I searched for the lecture hall. I'd never before visited the alma mater of such luminaries as writers Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne, President Franklin Pierce, adventurer Robert Peary (whose discovery of the North Pole led the college to choose white as its school color and call its sports teams the Polar Bears), former Maine Senator George Mitchell and marathon great Joan Benoit. I felt excited but also somewhat guilty. Because our aging dog, Wooster, was having hind leg problems after being cooped up in the car for too long, Pamelia—who was as eager as I to see Bowdoin and hear Bernd Heinrich's talk—had volunteered to stay back in the hotel room with her. An act of love.

Here's Bernd, minus the wolf costume, filling us in on the habits, intelligence and individual personalities of corvus corax, the common raven.

I won't give you Bernd's whole bio here. You'll be reading more about him on the blog (and at The Naturalist's Notebook) later this year. Suffice it to say that besides being a world-class scientist, author and ultramarathoner (and an awfully good artist who does the illustrations for his books), he is, as one of his friends puts it, "smart as a whip, with a sly sense of humor, self-effacing, confident, fun and optimistic...one of the most authentically himself sort of animals one could meet." Bernd, a professor emeritus at the University of Vermont, spends countless hours conducting field research in the woods near his cabin in rural western Maine. His writings are detailed and rich. If you read his books Ravens in Winter and Mind of the Raven—and you should—you'll feel as though you've spent many days with him in those woods, sometimes dragging animal carcasses through hip-deep snow to a spot where ravens might feed on them, other times hiding in a homemade blind to sit for hours and wait for a sighting.

But since I'm talking more about ravens than about Bernd in this blog post, let me do what Bernd did: Turn on the slide projector and let you see some of what he has observed.

Is it a raven or a crow? That's a raven on the right. Among other differences, ravens are much larger and have a patch of shaggy throat feathers. The illustration below shows the difference in tail shape.

Among their vast range of vocalizations—at least 33 CATEGORIES of sounds, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology—ravens make joyful, gurgling noises that help explain why Bernd calls these corvids one of the cheeriest birds in the world.

Here's an older shot of Bernd releasing a tagged raven at his cabin in western Maine.

The mouths of young ravens are pinkish; they later turn black, but, inexplicably, the timing of that transformation can depend on the circumstances and the number of other juveniles with whom they are reared. Ravens can live for 50 years, and they m… — The mouths of young ravens are pinkish; they later turn black, but, inexplicably, the timing of that transformation can depend on the circumstances and the number of other juveniles with whom they are reared. Ravens can live for 50 years, and they mate for life.

Bernd added one hen's egg (the large one) to a nest of raven eggs; the raven didn't notice the difference. Ravens sometimes eat other birds' eggs. Once, a mother raven regurgitated a whole, unbroken robin's egg to feed to its fledglings. Bernd, ever… — Bernd added one hen's egg (the large one) to a nest of raven eggs; the raven didn't notice the difference. Ravens sometimes eat other birds' eggs. Once, a mother raven regurgitated a whole, unbroken robin's egg to feed to its fledglings. Bernd, ever curious, removed the robin's egg from the nest and tried to hatch it, without luck.

In one experiment, the ravens figured out how to lift a string to which food was attached; this bird held the excess string under its foot as it pulled up the food. Bernd has joked about his violating the rule in biology of never trying to study ani… — In one experiment, the ravens figured out how to lift a string to which food was attached; this bird held the excess string under its foot as it pulled up the food. Bernd has joked about his violating the rule in biology of never trying to study animals that are smarter than you are.

Ravens love to play. The one on the right is rolling around like a dog or cat. Bernd says they do crazy things like that. Each individual is different, he says, and much of the time he's not quite sure what they're doing or why they're doing it.

Ravens can't tear through animals' hides to get at the meat, so sometimes they have to peel the whole skin off. These are inside-out squirrel skins left behind by ravens.

Can't end on that gory note, so here is a raven snow angel that Bernd came across.

These photos only hint at the fascinating world of ravens that Bernd described to us. If you're lucky enough to be able to study one of these remarkable birds in the wild, remember that it will surely be studying you at the same time. As Bernd put it, "Ravens are pretty good at figuring everyone out."

The Tick-Proof Shirt?

Because Bowdoin is just a few minutes from Freeport, we stopped briefly at L.L. Bean on the way home and bought a few pieces of clothing. Later, to my surprise (I'm not a very attentive clothing shopper) I found a tag on one of my new shirts that informed me that the garment had been treated with something called Insect Shield. According to the tag, Insect Shield "repels mosquitoes, ticks, ants, flies, chiggers and midges (no-see-ums)" and "the active ingredient is a man-made version of a natural insect repellent found in certain types of chrysanthemum plants."

That active ingredient turns out to be permethrin, an insecticide that is widely used in agriculture. It's not without controversy—it's a neurotoxin that can kill bees along with other insects. Having had two bouts with Lyme Disease over the last 15 years, I'm happy to be able to fend off deer ticks, though I'm not sure whether I actually feel good about wearing a pesticide shirt. Have any of you tried one? Do they work?

Answers to the Last Puzzlers

1) Here are the unscrambled words from nature, science and art:

a) whoads = shadow
b) yenger = energy
c) verna = raven
d) ponteale = antelope

2) The U.S. Secretary of the Interior (who oversees the National Park System) is Ken Salazar. Of the other possible answers I gave you, Gale Ann Norton was Interior Secretary under George W. Bush, Arne Duncan is the current Education Secretary and Kathleen Sebelius is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Today's Puzzlers

1) More words to unscramble. Again, these come from the worlds of nature, science and art:

a) hewrs
b) knimpuch
c) gnipune
d) crepestivep

A dragonfly I photographed at our house a couple of summers ago.

2) How did the dragonfly get its name?

a) From a Chinese legend in which an insect kills a dragon that is attacking a town.
b) From a Polynesian dance in which performers wore costumes with large wings.
c) From a Romanian folktale about a horse that the devil turned into a giant fly known as the Devil's Fly. The Romanian word for devil is drac, which also means dragon, and the second meaning eventually was applied to the insect.

I took this shot inside the London Olympic velodrome on a visit last fall.

Biking on Siberian Pine

February 14, 2012

Olympic bike riders owe a debt of gratitude to the spotted nutcracker.

That up-to-15-inch-long corvid cousin of the crow, raven and blue jay pecks open the cones on Siberian pines, scattering the seeds and propagating the trees whose wood makes the world's fastest cycling tracks.

You'll see the product of the nutcracker's work at this summer's London Olympics, where cyclists in the striking new velodrome will race laps on a 250-meter banked-turn oval made of thin strips of Siberian pine. When I toured the velodrome last fall with other members of the world press, London Olympic officials told us that 54 kilometers (33.5 miles) of pine strips and 350,000 nails went into the track, which was built by the world's foremost expert at such things, former Australian cyclist Ron Webb. The turns are banked so steeply—42 degrees—that an average person would seemingly have trouble pedaling around them fast enough to keep from falling. But during the Games, with 6,000 fans screaming (the Brits have a great track-cycling team, which will duel the Aussies for gold in a majority of events) the velodrome will be rockin' and riders will be flyin'. The London track is expected to be the fastest Olympic cycling layout ever built.

The velodrome is perhaps the most beautiful venue built for the London Olympics. It has unfortunately been nicknamed the Pringle because its swooping roof has the same shape as one of those manufactured chips (or "crisps," as the British call them). As part of the Olympic effort to be environmentally responsible, the roof was designed to minimize material use and optimize the heating and cooling of the building. The walls of the velodrome are sided with western red cedar—sustainably sourced, of course.

I'd love to see a spotted nutcracker someday, but in the meantime I'm looking forward to returning to London this summer to cover the Olympics and see how the Siberian pine holds up.

Live Streaming Video of a Hibernating Bear

The video link below comes from the Wildlife Research Foundation, which is connected to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. It was sent to us by Ted, one of our correspondents here in the Pine Tree State. The camera is hidden in the den of Lugnut, a black bear that lives in northern Maine with her two cubs. Not a lot of action at the moment, but it's still interesting to peek inside. http://www.wildliferesearchfoundation.org

Giving Back to Nature

Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue came out today and (as I previously mentioned on Facebook), the magazine is using the opportunity to raise money for The Nature Conservancy. After all, we can't photograph models on the beach without protecting oceans and beaches. Here's a link: http://www.foliomag.com/2012/sports-illustrated-swimsuit-partners-gilt-benefit-nature-conservancy

Cats-and-Birds Follow Up

A few days ago a friend posted this cartoon, which was too good not to share:

Out in the Snow

We received only a few inches the other day, just enough to decorate the coast and give us the chance to study animal tracks.

Mouse? Vole? We weren't sure what made this little snow tunnel.

Happy 448th Birthday, Galileo

By night the Glass Of Galileo ... observes Imagin'd Land and Regions in the Moon. —John Milton, Paradise Lost

Answers to Last Puzzler

1) The unscrambled words:

a) rnew = wren
b) quimsoot = mosquito
c) vigytar = gravity

2) The photo above showed the Mataiva Atoll in the South Pacific as seen from the International Space Station. Atolls form over the course of tens of millions of years when a ring of coral reef grows around an island and then the island sinks, creating a lagoon.

We tend to take it for granted, but the International Space Station, built by the U.S., Japan, Russia, Europe and Canada, has been circling the Earth more than 15 times a day for more than a decade. It orbits at an altitude of only about 200 to 250 miles, so if you're in the right place at the right time you can see it with the naked eye. The right time tends to be before dawn or at dusk, when the sky is getting dark and the Sun is reflecting off the Space Station, making it look brighter in the sky than Jupiter or Mars. Below is a map of the station's path and a link to more information about when and where to look for it: http://www.pbs.org/spacestation/seedo/locator.htm

The orbital path of the International Space Station.

Today's Puzzlers

1) Here are a few more words from nature, science and art to unscramble:

a) whoads
b) yenger
c) verna
d) ponteale

2) The U.S. Secretary of the Interior oversees, among other entities, the National Park Service and the U.S. Geological Survey. Who is the current Interior Secretary?

a) Gale Ann Norton
b) Ken Salazar
c) Arne Duncan
d) Kathleen Sebelius

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