Turn of The Damn Lights

We've written in the past about the night sky. Getting outdoors at night is especially important to really experiencing nature. There's really nothing like gazing at the milky way on a crisp Fall night.

We would do night hikes up to Gray Knob in any weather just to experience the nocturnal feel of the woods. With a full moon, we'd get out in the winter time above treeline, or get out on skis to experience the different world of a moon lit night. I've been lucky, living in places with minimal "light pollution" impacts from human development.

There's a big new hotel being built near where I live, and despite the planned opening of Spring of 2010, they already have the place lit up like it's daytime. We drove by it last night and were amazed at the degree of star killing light pollution. I then turned my head east to see a wall of light from the exurban sprawl and DC beyond that. Where were the stars?

The case is the same driving home from work, where I pass the Charles Town races to the west, whose light likely destroys anyone's ability to see any celestial objects except the moon.

Verlyn Klinkenborg has a piece in this months National Geographic that laments this loss, while reminding us that it's not only the stars we lose, it's an awful lot of energy as well.

More green RVs

Blogged about green RVS several months back. Here's an update.

“When people talk about conservation, they get so bogged down with recycling and living lightly they forget what they are trying to save," said Brian Brawdy, a 47-year-old former police investigator turned wilderness expert. “I want people to get out there and camp, hike, rock climb."

Damn right.

Fat Burn Drug

BBC is reporting on a new drug that tricks the body into burning fat (in mice right now).

The drug worked by shifting the metabolism to a fat-burning mode that normally takes over only when energy levels are low.

At higher doses, the drug completely prevented weight gain. It also improved the rodents' blood sugar tolerance and insulin sensitivity, which are important for warding off diabetes.

Apparently it's a derivation of red wine. Combine it with some good hikes and that might do the trick.

Tomorrow

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Unison

85 year old Mayo on his bike

Yesterday we held our annual Unison Heritage Day in our tiny village of Unison. About 250 people showed up to revel in a beautiful indian summer day, including neighbors, friends, and lots of Civil War reenactors.

More on Observation

Keeping a nature journal is a good way to learn about your place and keep track of the many natural changes over the seasons. When did those white throated sparrows come through Unison last Fall? With your nature journal, you'll know when. The Murie Center published a book several years back called Field Guide to Journal Writing in Nature , by Matt Daly, that is a good primer.

It's also a good way to record those trips to places you're not used to. We recently had the chance to see the original journal the great field biologist George Schaller kept when he went in 1956 to what is now Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It was fascinating stuff.

Want to learn more on this? Check out this blog that focuses on nature journaling. The blogger, Pam Johnson Brickell also offers workshops to help you.

Value of Observation

Turns out that Thoreau's helping us with climate change.

Their conclusions are clear. On average, common species are flowering seven days earlier than they did in Thoreau’s day, Richard B. Primack, a conservation biologist at Boston University, and Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, then his graduate student, reported this year in the journal Ecology. Working with Charles C. Davis, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard and two of his graduate students, they determined that 27 percent of the species documented by Thoreau have vanished from Concord and 36 percent are present in such small numbers that they probably will not survive for long. Those findings appear in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.