Extra Virgin Olive Oil #1

I’ve just finished listening to “Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of OliveOil” by Tom Mueller. Mueller lives in Italy and writes for The New Yorker, among others. His book is an exhaustive tome on the history, virtues, and adulteration of olive oil.

I’ve been interested in this topic for about three years. Ever since I first met Michael Sideris of Vordonia Athenolia Extra Virgin Olive Oil. His stories of adulteration and outright mislabeling piqued my interest but my attempts to dig deeper didn’t get me very far.

Mueller’s book took me everywhere I wanted to go – and beyond. He explains that true extra virgin olive oil is actually olive juice — not the bland, processed stuff we pay a premium for at the grocery store. That makes even more sense when you take a store brand and compare it to an artisinal extra virgin.

I’m especially intrigued by the claim that true extra virgin olive oil is a good anti-inflammatory. For those of us who are allergic to aspirin, this is an important attribute of any food. It’s definitely one I’ll be exploring.

Come back and see what I learn. Or, leave a comment of your own!

Tech Time: Peterson Field Guide App

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There’s a Peterson Field Guide to Backyard Birds app from Wildtonesthat’s compatible with the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and the iPad. There are over 180 birds – far more types than we get in our yard – so chances are excellent you’ll be able to identify the feathered creatures passing their time in your “habitat.”

It includes arrows to the key field marks.

There’s an illustrated index by family.

I think this is the way I’m finally going to get through that Peterson Field Guide sitting on my bookshelf. I’ll keep you posted. Let’s hear from you, too, about the birds you find with your copy of this splendid app.

Rebecca Skloot – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

I’m so excited! I just read the New York Times review of Rebecca Skloot’s book and it is outstanding! The reviewer, Dwight Garner, calls it “a thorny and provocative book…” AND he says “I was holding one of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I’ve read in a very long time.” AND – one more, please – “It signals the arrival of a raw but quite real talent.” I met Rebecca at a conference almost ten years ago. Since then I’ve been in her group at a subsequent conference and been fortunate to have her in my corner when I’ve needed writing-related recommendations or advice. She is unfailingly gracious and a delight to know. This book has been a long time in the making – and well worth the effort! CHEERS to Rebecca Skloot!

INTERVIEW: David Williams – Stories in Stone

Hey!  Here’s my interview with David Williams, author of Stories in Stone.  It’s a fantastic book – full of interesting stories about the stone used in the cities of the US.  For the techno-geek, there are plenty of details about the technology used to acquire and transport the stone.  In keeping with my interests in technology and its history, David was good enough to do a virtual interview.  Read on for the Q&A!  And post any comments you have.  We’d love to hear what you have to say.

Q What do you consider the most remarkable innovations to be for ‘harvesting’ the stone?
  A One of my goals in the book was to try and answer this question.  To do so, I went to quarries and stone yards across the U.S. and in Italy.  The answer is simple: the advent of industrial diamonds has changed the face of quarrying.  In the past, steel, often as a braided wire, would be used to cut stone.  Steel has several negatives.  It is not as hard as granite so slicing rock required a sand-slurry to enhance cutting.  Additionally, whether harder or not, steel cables could get very hot while cutting, which required the use of lots of water and often very long cables. These long cables gave time for the steel to cool down before it had to cut again.  

Steel is still used but now most cutting and polishing tools are impregnated with tiny diamonds, which can cut faster and with less heat build up, though water is still required to keep things cool.  The new tools are much safer, too, because there is no longer the chance of steel cable, which could be thousands of feet long, breaking and uncontrollably whipping around a quarry yard.Q – What about for transporting the stone?

 AVery, very large wheeled-machines, such as trucks and front-end loaders revolutionized quarrying.  As I discussed in several chapters, in the old days, quarrymen historically moved stone with a derrick and pulley system.  Derricks required several men to work them and could be dangerous; if the cable broke a multi-ton block would drop and crush anything in its way.  Prior to derricks much of the transport involved moving blocks with ropes and logs, a process that lead to two, massive marble columns almost killing Michelangelo.  Now, men (I use this pronoun because there are hardly any woman in the quarry industry) load and move all stone with wheeled vehicles.Q Are any of the techniques for acquiring the stone you describe still in use today?

 A The plug-and-feather process has been in use for several thousand years.  This involves drilling a row of holes in the rock and driving in wedges to split the rock along the row.  If you look at many stone buildings, particularly older ones, you may encounter these holes, which are six to eight inches deep and always extend down from the edge of a rock.  Oddly, even though the Egyptians used the plug-and-feather process, it wasn’t introduced into the United States until 1803, when a Mr. Tarbox used it in Salem, Massachusetts.  He features prominently in my chapter on the Quincy granite.Q Have these techniques been modified to keep up with advances in technology?

 A The main modifications again are in the machinery.  When Mr. Tarbox made his holes, he used a hand tool, more akin to punching a hole than to drilling.  After making the hole, he would drop in two shims (the feathers), bent at the top so they wouldn’t drop into the hole, and then place his wedge, or plug, and start pounding the plug in with a hammer.
Now, holes are drilled out with hydraulic drills. People still use the hammer for pounding in the plugs though some in the trade have introduced a hydraulic expander to force the stone apart.  In the words of one older quarry owner, “We were a lot tougher back then.”Q Where does most of the stone in use today come from?

 A  I don’t know the statistics on who produces the most stone but stone can come from anywhere in the world.  The U.S. still generates great amounts of granite and limestone but much less slate and marble than in the past.  And, of course, China and India are producing stone.

Q How is this stone acquired? 

 AI am not up to date on China and India but have talked to people who have seen quarrying operations there and much of it is done by hand with people pounding lots of steel.  For more developed areas, most stone is cut with diamond saws.Q How is this stone transported?

 A Train, truck, and boat.  It took  100 boatloads of stone shipped from Italy to provide the travertine at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.  Transportation has long been a key part of the process.  The first commercial railroad in the United States, in Quincy, Mass., developed to move stone for the Bunker Hill Monument.  In most places, people started with local stone because that was the easiest to transport but now with modern means, any stone from any where can end up at a work site. It is nice for geologists and architects though perhaps not so great for the planet.

Q Is there any exciting innovation coming up on the technology/transportation horizon?
 A Not that I know of though when I was visiting a stone yard in Minnesota I did see a machine that used a jet of water to cut stone.  The water shot out at over 900-mph at pressures of up 60,000 pounds per square inch and could cut a 4-inch thick slab of stone.  That was pretty cool though water jets are more for precision work than large scale cutting.  And in regard to transport, moving stone is simply a matter of battling gravity and trucks are great at moving dead weight.  

 

Stories in Stone Blog Tour!

I recently read an excellent book – Stories in Stone: Travels Through Urban Geology by David B. Williams.  In his book, Williams takes an in-depth, historical look at stone and stone-faced buildings in cities around the US.  Given that I’ve been searching out fossils in stone buildings with my kids for years, this book was of immediate interest to me!

Williams does a fine job of tying history, architecture, and technology together to create an engaging narrative for each location he covers.  He doesn’t simply write about the stone and it’s properties, he includes what it took to acquire – harvest – that stone and get it to the building site.

Check out David’s blog and join him on his blog tour– schedule to follow.  When he gets to me on the 28^th, we’ll be discussing the technology and transportation involved in acquiring and transporting the stone.  I’m looking forward to it!

Meanwhile you can catch him discussing other aspects of his book at the following sites on the following dates.  (Info taken from David’s site with a bit of modification.)

Tues Aug 18: Clastic Detritus, Brian Romans posted a review of Stories in Stone on August 17, followed by a Q&A on the 18^th.

Wed Aug 19: A Daily Dose of Architecture. John Hill sent David links to a variety of buildings that use stone and asked for his commentary.

Fri Aug 21: The Tangled Nest.  David will write a post on Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s site to tie together their interest in being urban naturalists, a topic she writes about in her wonderful new book, The Crow Planet.

Mon Aug 24: Laelaps.  Geology Q&A and Book Review.

Wed Aug 26: Hear David’s interview with Michael Bradbury, the driving force behind the web site Real Science. During a 45-minute-long interview they chat about deep time, granite countertops and radiation, and whether science influences the use of building stone.

Fri Aug 28: Here!  To answer some questions about technology and transportation of stone!

Mon Aug 31: Across the Atlantic (virtually) to Michael Welland’s, Through the Sandglass. A fellow author, Michael has written the well-received Sand: The Never Ending Story.

Wed Sep 2: Biking and stone on Tom Furtwangler’s colorful and ever enjoyable bikejuju.

Enjoy the tour!

What Does It Mean To Be Lucky?

I’ve never been a believer in luck – good, bad, or otherwise – so it came as a surprise to me when a woman who had just played a card game with my then three-year-old asked if he was a lucky child. I didn’t have an answer so she went on to explain he’d lost the first game and instead of being upset had asked if they could play again. This, she told me, was an indication he had reason to believe he’d win the next game. I’ve been thinking about that off and on for about fifteen years now and I still don’t believe in luck – good, bad, or otherwise – but I do believe in serendipity. I’ve been content to leave it at that.

At least I was until Flight 1549 landed safely on the Hudson and people began writing about luck. Why weren’t they weren’t writing about surviving. With that on my mind I read “The Unthinkable,” a book that explores the ways people react in a life-threatening emergency and what you can do to better your chances of survival. Next was a book called, “The Survivor’s Club” and from there it was just a skip to “The Luck Factor.”

Dr. Richard Wiseman, author of “The Luck Factor,” has been studying luck for years as the result being misdirected in a library as a child. When he wound up in the magic section, he thumbed though some books that piqued his curiosity and as a result of studying magic, years later he had chance to come upon a woman who knew she’d make out alright as the volunteer in one of his tricks because she was a “lucky” person. He determined to study luck to see if it really did exist. Was it a matter of self-perception? Was it a matter of psychic ability? What made someone lucky?

Wiseman’s wonderful book spells it all out in detail. He’s discovered there is no luck in the true random, lottery-winning sense but there is a sort of luck that can result from skills we all possess. Essentially it comes down to what I call being alive on the planet. If you’re aware of your surroundings, enjoying the people you come across, engaging with other people – not because you’re hoping to network with them in some self-serving way – you’re going to interact with more people than someone going through life with a cloud over his head or a book clutched in his hand. If you’re interested in people as people – and not for what benefit they can afford you – you’re going to know a lot of people you keep in touch with. Each of these networks – forgive the use of that term – opens opportunities for encounters and referrals to the one person who can help you out. In other words, luck is a direct result of the number of interactions you have in any given week and the number of relationships you maintain over time.

So. If you pick a lottery number, it doesn’t matter whether you’re lucky or not. That’s a random thing and your luck is as good as the next guy’s. If you get on a plane and the plane goes down, it doesn’t matter whether you’re lucky or not. That’s a random thing and your luck is as good as the next guy’s insofar as whether the landing goes well or not. From there it’s a matter of your survival skills. But that’s another post…

Originally posted February 14, 2009 on The Witches of Agnesi

Is the Mystery of the Disappearing Honey Bees Really a Mystery?

A Spring Without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply, by Michael Schacker, presents a compelling case for immediate action on behalf of the honey bee. This thoroughly-documented narrative details the stresses on hives today and includes an in-depth discussion of the practical ways bees can be saved without hindering crop production.

I’d heard about disappearing hives and wondered what could cause bees to fly off and never return. It struck me as highly unusual bee behavior – but I’m no bee expert. Turns out it is unheard of. And not only that, but predators like wax moths and hive beetles, who usually jump at the chance to move in to an abandoned hive, have been observed to hold back for weeks.

Clearly, something is wrong.

I’d read about the disappearing bees in France and the debate there over pesticides but since it never made the news in a big way here I assumed it was not anything that concerned the US. Then I read reports about possible confusion of the bees due to cell phone towers or maybe even their orientation to the sun. In short, I read about everything but a possible chemical component. Until this book.

Appalled at what Schacker has written and I’ve gone on to verify, I feel compelled to share this information.

It is clear the bees, who don’t have a robust immune system to begin with, are being pushed to their limit. Varroa destructor mites in the hive leave them susceptible to disease. Hives trucked around the country, following the crops like miniature migrant workers, leave them stressed. The substitution of lower-cost, syrup-based winter feeds leave the honey bees introduce chemicals to their food supply. Residue from a new type of pesticide, Imidacloprid, in the pollen and areas around the pollinating crops also impacts the honey bee.

I have no interest in bashing chemical companies, but the fact remains that IMD had been put into production via Section 18 Pesticide Emergency Exemptions with the EPA. This allows the manufacturer to get the product to market before the mandated testing has been performed. In theory this has valid applications, I’m sure. In practice, this means we have an unproven toxin being applied to our food supply. In the case of Imidacloprid – a neurotoxin derivative of DDT – almond, blueberry, and a host of other crops dependent upon pollination by bees are being sprayed or planted with painted seeds without benefit of thorough study of IMD’s effect.

One could claim the use of such exemptions helps get beneficial products to market and allows the US to enjoy a variety of foods at a reasonable price. Even with this positive view of exemptions, prudence dictates testing for harmful effects to animals and people. But we also know that the testing required for any new chemical or medicine has hoops to jump through that make very little sense. However, in the case of IMD, where bees have literally abandoned over 30% of the their hives in conjunction with pollination of IMD crops, something between no hoops and too many is definitely in order. Quickly.

To satisfy beekeeper concerns after the fact, IMD has been tested. The problem is, the testing has been done at lethal levels. These tests show that bees will avoid anything approaching this concentration. But they’re not encountering this level in the fields. They’re ingesting a number of sub-lethal amounts as they pollinate crops, sip from water pooled in the area of the crops, rest in areas covered with IMD. The net effect to the bee is a growing chemical load. One that is too much for them to carry.

Whether IMD would be as disastrous to the bees if it were the only stressor is a moot point. The fact is that in combination or not, it appears to be the last straw. Bees who ingest bits of IMD over the course of their foraging trip become “drunk” and disoriented. They lose the ability to find their way back to the hive. They don’t die at the entrance to the hive as bees do when they’ve been poisoned by pesticides. The IMD is not killing them outright but it is confusing them to the point where they cannot navigate their way home – and so die.

In France, the evidence and outcry by the beekeepers has been enough to ban IMD. Within a couple of years of the ban, the hives were back to their former numbers. That has been compelling enough to the French that IMD has been banned. Here in the areas where the bee die-offs have occurred (all IMD areas), bees feasting on the pollen of untreated crops have not been affected. With all the advances in organic farming and the premium paid for organic goods, it is worth our time to look into banning IMD, insisting on thorough testing of toxins with a neurological mechanism, and broader implementation of organic farming methods.

Using pesticides on crop pests results in the need for ever-stronger pesticides as the pests develop resistance to the formerly lethal dose. Quitting this escalation now, while we still have bees to save, makes a lot more sense than continuing doggedly on our way, insisting that something cannot be the problem because it isn’t a problem in the lab at a lethal level when we can observe and verify that the newly-introduced variable is the IMD. And even if we’re wrong. Even if what we think is solid evidence pointing to IMD is not actually evidence of the true cause and something else is harming the bees, what is the harm in putting a three-year moratorium on IMD and seeing if Colony Collapse Disorder becomes a thing of the past? It’s not as if we are looking at data from one beekeeper. Or one crop. Or even from one country!

Bottom line, our crops need pollinators and the bees need our help. Now. Check out the steps you can take to give them a hand.

References/Sources:

Schacker, Michael. A Spring without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply. Connecticut/The Lyons Press (2008).

A Spring without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply

Plan Bee
USDA National Organic Program
The Rodale Institute
Bayer CropScience

Originally posted September 17, 2009 on The Witches of Agnesi

UniGalactic

Have you checked out UniGalactic yet?

The premier issue of this space travel-related brainchild of Konstantin Zuyev will be published on May 29 and include work by yours truly.

The magazine promises to deliver the latest in space travel, tourism, and exploration news and research to its subscribers via the web and in print. It will also be available on Kindle.

You can follow Zuyev’s tweets on Twitter at UniGalactic. In fact, he’s already got over 350 followers!

Visit the website when you get a chance and check it out. You can also go to Amazon.comto pre-order a copy.

Is Luck Really All About Luck?

I’ve been reading a very interesting book about luck.   Yes.  Luck.  The Luck Factor is written by Dr. Richard Wiseman, a man who, by luck, was misdirected in the library as a kid.  When he found himself in the magic section, he glanced through some books and as a result followed a winding path to a career that includes research into the nature of luck.

So what did he find?

That lucky people are not actually luckier in instances where pure random chance is involved – like a lottery.  But they are luckier when it comes to serendipitous events in their lives.  This makes sense, actually, because the bottom line so far in the book is that it’s a matter of how many encounters you have.  Yes.  Encounters.

If you’re a person who goes through the day with your head in the clouds or in such a funk that you don’t even notice the weather, you’re not going to be interacting with many other people or noticing much of anything going on around you.  If you’re a person who is actively engaged in your life and even enjoying interacting with people – not for what you can get from them later but because you actually have an interest in other people – you’re likely to be on good terms with a lot of people.

So what?  So luck has to do with being in the right place at the right time.  All other things being equal, a person who interacts with 40 people a week is going to have a higher chance of a lucky encounter than a person who interacts with 40 people a month.

Think about it.

iPod-as-Portable?

When I picture something portable, I picture something I can easily carry. Maybe even something I can clip to my belt or dangle from a lanyard around my neck. I think that’s why I have trouble with the concept of iPod-as-portable. How portable can it be if it requires an add-on for every function and doesn’t even come with a stuff bag?

I’ve only owned my iPod for about six weeks and it’s already got enough associated writerly gear to require pockets a là Hank Ketchum’s Dennis the Menace. There’s the scratch-resistant plastic case that protects the iPod as it swims around in my backpack; the adapter for transferring photos from my camera; the gadget that tunes my iPod to a radio frequency; and my favorite, the attachment that turns it into a dictation machine. (All I need to do is speak into these things that look like mini-speakers – but they’re not – and what I say is recorded in stereo!) Of course, I can’t actually listen to what I’ve just dictated. I can only look at the screen and see time scrolling by unless I’ve got the radio-gadget and a radio with me. Or the earbuds. According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s website, these must be set to just above a whisper if they’re not to produce permanent hearing damage. You’re better off with noise-canceling headphones. I’m up for them but even Dennis couldn’t cram those puppies into his pocket!

Ultimately it doesn’t matter that I spend my time worrying about dust getting into the connectors on the accessories because I fell in love with my iPod the minute I discovered podcasts. Free, dedicated-subject, radio shows. Just go to the iTunes store and subscribe. My absolute favorite is the PopSci Podcast from the Moon. Every week contributing troubadour Jonathan Coulton, a lonely man in an office somewhere on the moon, “brings you the stories behind the stories that are right in front of you provided you are reading the magazine.”

How could I not tune in?

Check these out while you’re at the iTunes store:
PopSci Podcasts
This Week in Science Podcast
Science Talk: The Podcast of Scientific American
Podlit: The Podcast of Creative Nonfiction
Strathmore Podcast

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association website:
(http://www.asha.org/turndownthevolume/mp3players.htm)