January 27, 2010

**Bryce wrote this and I feel this almost as amazing as spending actual time with him! I hope you enjoy it cause I know I do! Thoughts of a genius here...** cambria

Sixteen ways to appear cultivated/educated/literate
without pulling all-nighters...

I taught various aspects of Biology at the University of Waterloo for almost 30 years. So I had plenty of time to discover that most of my students were far worse at English than they were at Biology, and I put a rather disproportionate amount of time and energy into teaching them the rudiments of what was in most cases their mother tongue.
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When I got them to write an essay in my third or fourth year classes, they always complained that they had never had to do this before. I responded that this had been a bad thing, because if they wanted to make a positive impression in their future jobs they would need to speak and write clearly.

What I am about to impart to you now are some of the fruits of my struggles with undergraduate illiteracy. If you can deal correctly with the things I am about to discuss, your superiors will note this with approbation.

First, the spoken word. The substitution of the ŒF word‚ for virtually all other adjectives and verbs definitely conveys a certain impression (see ŒTrailer Park Boys‚). But most people betray themselves rather more subtly, and the great thing is that this problem can be overcome with relative ease.

(1) If you pronounce the word Œnuclear‚ as Œnucular‚ you are putting yourself in the same category as Dubya Bush, and not many of us would want to do that, would we?

(2) ŒHow are you?‚ ŒGood‚ is a common but incorrect reply. What should you say? ŒWell, thank you.‚ Remember the old saying about the Pilgrim Fathers who Œcame to North America to do good, and stayed to do well‚. Good is an adjective (a word that describes a noun) ŒA good man‚. Well is an adverb (a word that qualifies a verb). ŒHe did well‚. Of course, well has another meaning, as in ŒWell, he was a good man, but he done (did) her wrong‚.

(3) The frequent confusion of Œlie‚ and Œlying‚ with Œlay‚ and Œlaying‚ is unfortunate, since they mean different things. ŒShe was laying on the bed‚ implies egg production, though to say ŒShe lay on the bed‚ (past tense) is just fine, and no form of reproduction is necessarily implied (though the possibilities are clearly endless). The rules here are a little convoluted, and have to be learned by rote, since the structure of the language is not internally consistent or logical. Irregular verbs (lie, be, come, go) are sent to try us. Interestingly, languages other than English also have irregular (inconsistent) verbs, so the mental quirk/gene involved in their invention and adoption must be widespread.

(4) The Œfewer‚ - Œless‚ problem. Here‚s an easy rule: fewer refers to number, less refers to quantity.
ŒThere are fewer (not less) wasps around this year.‚  Most people get the less right for quantity, as in ŒI have less money than I would like‚. But they tend to use Œless‚ where Œfewer‚ would be correct ŒThere are less (fewer) students at the school this year‚.   

(5) A good rule is to expunge the word Œlike‚ from your vocabulary. If you can avoid it altogether, despite its being a useful word in some contexts, then it won‚t creep unnoticed into inappropriate places. It‚s, like, a real giveaway. If you like ice cream and want to say so, you can replace the word with a stronger one, such as Œlove‚, Œmust have‚, Œcrave‚, or Œscream for‚.

But most of the gaffes are committed in writing (which is where I encountered them). Some of the words involved are Œhomophones‚: that is, two words which sound the same while being spelled differently.

(6) So if you write ŒThe Principle of my school was a real scumbag‚ you are revealing, not just that you didn‚t like the guy, but that you don‚t know the difference between the wordsprinciple and principal. Of course, in England, where I grew up, we avoided this issue by calling him the Headmaster, as in ŒThe Headmaster of my school was a real (insert desired noun)‚.

(7) If you write ŒShe poured over [studied] the documents for hours‚ you are displaying an unfamiliarity with the word Œpored‚.

(8) The number of people who confuse Œtheir‚ and Œthere‚ is legion (but surely I don‚t have to give examples ...). And there‚s another problem associated with the word Œthere‚. It is frequently added to the beginning of a sentence, where it is completely unnecessary. ŒThere were seventy different species of mushroom found in the woods‚. What‚s wrong with the unadorned ŒSeventy species of mushroom were found in the woods‚?

(9) and (10) Other bad beginnings are: ŒBased on‚ and ŒDue to‚.   This is because those two phrases need something in front of them, explaining what is Œbased on‚, and what is Œdue to‚.
ŒOur conclusions were based on a series of experiments‚ is fine.
ŒThe school was closed due to an outbreak of Œflu‚. is OK. (The closure was occasioned by the Œflu).
I personally try to avoid both of these phrases because it is far too easy to misapply them.
Why not ŒHis results were derived from...‚ and ŒThe school was closed because of an outbreak...‚

(11) Here‚s one I read in the paper this morning. ŒAt age 12, the horse she was riding spooked...‚
What that sentence actually says is that the horse was 12. What it was just as clearly meant to say was that the rider was 12. This error is so common as to persuade me that many people never read over what they write in order to check whether they said what they wanted to say, or something else altogether...It‚s called proof-reading, and it‚s perfectly obvious that even the best newspapers don‚t do it any more.

(12) ŒYou and I‚ or ŒYou and me‚. Which is correct? The answer is that both can be correct, in the right place. ŒYou and I‚ belongs at the beginning of a sentence. ŒYou and me‚ belongs further in or at the end. The key is to think about whether ŒI‚ or Œme‚ is appropriate.
Œ[You and] I will go to the movies‚.
ŒIt would be better for [you and] me to go‚

(13) The number of signs that advertise something as happening Œtonite‚ (tonight) is alarming, as is the number touting Œlite‚ (light) beer.  This raises a different issue - whether phonetic spelling is a good thing.  That`s for another time.

(14) The misuse of the apostrophe is epidemic - far more so than SARS or West Nile will ever be. It‚s is the most abused word in the language. Since it means Œit is‚ or Œit has‚, it is absolutely inappropriate when used in the sentence ŒThe CBC is celebrating it‚s 50th Anniversary.‚ Not that the CBC would ever advertise itself thus (I tell myself).
It‚s my belief that we have lost this one, and that the best thing would be to do away with the apostrophe altogether, leaving the context to make the meaning clear. George Bernard Shaw, who held opinions on many subjects, tended not to use apostrophes in his writings, and I have to say that when I read his plays I have little trouble understanding his meaning. I was not lead astray (sorry, I mean led).

(15) If only people knew where to put the word only. The following three sentences mean very different things.
I only saw her this morning (I didn‚t talk to her).
I saw only her this morning. (I didn‚t see anyone else this morning).
I saw her only this morning. (I saw her very recently).
Think about it. It is clear that where that word goes is crucial, because the entire sense of the sentence rests upon it.

(16) You have to reach a certain level of linguistic skill before you will use the word Œdisinterested‚ in any context, but you should know that it means Œimpartial or unbiased‚ and that it can never be construed to mean Œuninterested.‚, though it is often used as if that was what it meant. This sin is widespread, and causes concern/distress/depression in the ranks of language lovers..

And that's the end of one heavy blog - and not even one picture to lighten it up!

January 27, 2010

Check out the first picture. Is it chewing gum? Is it seagull poop?  No, it's Aspicilia. This is a lichen that likes to grow on damp bricks,  which our courtyard provides in abundance during the winter.  Every Fall, I watch the colonies spread slowly and multiply,  until the courtyard is sometimes home to hundreds of them.

We know that many lichens like to grow on trees, while others prefer rocks.  But here we have one that seems to have adapted happily to suburban living, and doesn't even mind being walked on occasionally.  The second picture is a close-up of a colony,  showing the little nubs of fungal tissue containing algal cells. 

January 19, 2010

Most of Canada, and even most of the eastern USA, is covered with snow this January. Here in Sidney we do get snow every year, but it comes and goes fairly quickly (sometimes melting by lunchtime).  This tends to give the flowers a chance to  brighten up our lives, even in midwinter.   So on Jan 18th I went out and took a few pictures in Laurie's garden. The most conspicuous flower is the Hamamelis or witch hazel, whose vivid yellow, ribbon-like petals stand out brilliantly.  Note that the Viburnum next to it is also opening. Nearby, down on the ground, the pure white of the snowdrops stands out, too. Further up the slope, a pink Rhododendron has been opening since November. These are among the many reasons why Mycologue & Co settled here in 1994.   

January 18, 2010

I was happy to receive an order for several copies of The Fifth Kingdom from
MacDonald Campus of McGill University. But this meant that once I had packed the books I had to brave the weather and go to the Post Office in Sidney to mail them. Of course, Chelsea had to go with me, since cookies at the Post Office are among the highlights of her day. And once we'd left the Post Office, she insisted on a walk along the waterfront. Most days that wouldn't be a problem, but this day the rain was blowing horizontally at us, and the whitecaps were rolling in. This did not deter 15-year-old Chelsea in the least, as she shed rivulets of rain and headed very slowly for the pier, with me in tow. I was wearing a rain jacket and Wellington boots, but just ordinary trousers. Chelsea proceeded in a dignified manner along the promenade and out the long and exposed fishing pier, with no one else in sight, while I was soon dripping everywhere, as the rain ran down into my boots. Of course, she wanted to be dried off when we got home. Needless to say, I have no pictures of this episode, but it is indelibly engraved on my memory...
What we do for our dogs...

January 8, 2010

At this time of year it rains here, on and off - perhaps more on than off.
There's no point in taking a picture on a rainy day
unless you are a really superb photographer (I'm not).
But I have found one way of expressing the situation -
when all the rain comes together in our stream, then
turns into the little waterfall that
cascades down our 13-metre cliff onto the beach.
This gives you some impression of what's going on all around.
But it isn't cold... about 6-10 degrees Celsius,
and it doesn't often freeze at night.
However, we miss the sun.

December 30, 2009 II

I am, and have been for many years, infested with earworms.
Unlike ringworms and tapeworms, these are not organisms
making a living off my exterior or interior, but are actually ohrwurms:
the Germans coined the word for a tune or musical phrase that
gets into your mind and causes itself to be repeated ad nauseam.
Being a confirmed whistler, I even find myself whistling these beasts.
Well, actually, there's nothing wrong with them per se, but when they become embedded in the grey matter their endless repetition can be a nuisance to the afflicted and, in my case, to those around him. My most persistent and recurrent ohrwurm (hard to say, isn't it, especially if you attempt a proper German accent) is the final phrases from the Symphonie Singuliere
composed in 1845 by a not-very-well-known composer, Franz Berwald (it was his best composition).

That is frequently supplanted by other bits of music,
some of which return more often than others,
and often enough by something I've just heard
(horror of horrors, it can even be an advertising jingle)
However, most themes are classical,
since that's what I listen to the most,
and sometimes I have to think to come up with the name of the piece
or at least who composed it.  The brain definitely plays tricks on us.

I'd be interested to know if anyone who reads this blog has the same 'problem',
and if they have figured out a way to get rid of it.
If so, please let me know...
though I have a funny feeling I'm stuck with them.
Perhaps I'll compile a list, with the relative persistence
or frequency of occurrence of each...
Bryce

December 30, 2009

Going back to considering the Melampsora rust fungus in the leaves of my poplar trees (Nov 28).
My rough calculations suggested that the tree had about 100,000 leaves.
I estimated that on average, each leaf had about 100 small areas of encysted teliospores
(though some have over 1,000, often contiguous and covering fairly large areas of leaf).
Now I have looked at sections through some of those small areas,
and suggest that each of them contains about 500 (resting) telial cells. Now for some real guesswork.  I think that about 25% of the teleial cells may be eaten
by invertebrates during the winter, though they are heavily impregnated with a melanic substance,  and may not be at all palatable. Each teliospore should give rise to a basidium, producing and discharging 4 basidiospores. So we can put together the following sequence.
100,000 (leaves) x 100 (telial areas) x 500 (telial cells) x 0.75 (some eaten) x 4 (basidiospores per cell) = 15,000,000,000 or 15 billion basidiospores.  My calculations should not be off by more than one order of magnitude, so the number of basidiospores floating in the air next spring will be enough  to ensure that the new leaves are well and truly infected.  That's how the fungi work...

December 28, 2009

I scan the ocean every morning when I get up.  It's never exactly the same twice,
and even varies enormously during the course of the day. If I am lucky, I get to see something like this log, with no fewer than 7 cormorants riding on it as the tide sweeps along. Although they were a long way out, there was no need for binoculars, because one of them was hanging his wings out to dry - no other local bird does that. It's interesting that we actually have more water birds in winter than in summer.

AND LOOK, ANOTHER LOG AND 3 MORE FRIENDS! 

December 19, 2009

Mycologue's office is being renovated, which means torn apart, insulated, dry-walled, painted and carpeted. But my main concern was my computer, which had to be discombobulated during the process. It has more cables coming out of it than you can shake a stick at, as the picture shows. While the carpet was being laid, I was apparently unable to concentrate on anything... However, as this blog proves, I eventually managed to reconnect everything, and all is well again. The main difference is that I am now working in relatively civilized conditions, rather than something that looked like a hurricane had just passed through. I wonder if it will have any positive effect on my productivity? Perhaps I will be able to find things a little more easily, but only, as Laurie points out to me every day, if I "edit" my hordes of hoarded papers.

November 30, 2009

...sorry all, i seem to have forgotten to post these last two entries until now! -c

Today as every day, I scan the ocean for signs of life, not once but many times,

since the panoply changes every few minutes -

perhaps that makes it a palimpsest.

A bunch of ducks float slowly into view,

riding the incoming or outgoing side

(which moves sideways here as well as up and down).

I will say more about the ducks when I see that the full range

of expected species has arrived.

Today's highlight was not ducks, however,

but our full family of five river otters, frolicking offshore.

They live under a huge log on our beach,

and their appearances are sporadic and unpredictable,

and they aren't always together.

I suspect they are at least partly nocturnal,

but I saw them in the late afternoon,

and I wasn't sure whether they were hunting

for dinner or just out to play.

My new superzoom Canon helped me to get a usable picture of them.

Not too long ago one of them climbed the 50 stairs

from the beach to our lawn,

but scampered down again when

the twins spotted him, squealed with delight

and could not be restrained from charging out look at him.

The second picture shows him just leaving...

November 29, 2009

We have just mailed the twins' letters to Santa Claus.
Although Canada doesn't seem to have entered the wireless age yet,
we can apparently communicate with Santa by snail mail.
You may be aware that our mail codes are a mixture of numbers and letters. Ours is V8L 1M8
Well, it is a nice coincidence that Santa's mail code at the North Pole id HOH OHO
Letters are delivered free, and we are guaranteed a reply.
I am attaching a photo of their letters. You can see that Skylar has more meticulous penmanship.
But the nice thing is that both their lists are so reasonable.
In fact Grandma has already gone out and found exactly what was requested.
(We have also bought them a Wii with 2 controllers and Nunchuks,
but that' a surprise).

December 3-5, 2009

My 76th birthday was celebrated over a three-day period,
because the grandchildren were not available on the 3rd.
So on the day I had my H1N1 shot, opened cards and E-mails from friends,
put on my new fleece from Laurie to walk Chelsea in the newly cold air,
went rowing and saw three seals playing, listened to various grandchildren choirs
sing Happy Birthday over the phone, and had a fine dinner at a new local restaurant
with Laurie and Kelly.
On the 4th we bought the Christmas tree and the kids arrived to decorate it
On the 5th, the climax of the festivities finally arrived with the ice cream cake,
which was an enormous hit with everyone, their joy heightened by
my bumbling attempts to blow out the vast number of candles,
which almost set my beard on fire.

December 2, 2009

As the sun, now skulking way south, sinks in the afternoon, it highlights the native snowberry bushes that seem to have taken over all around the edge of our seaside lawn. The clusters of creamy white berries are almost like tree ornaments as they glow in the light. This year's crop is perhaps the best we've ever seen, as the two pictures should show. Symphoricarpos albus is the scientific name of the plant, and it belongs to the honeysuckle family (Caprifoliaceae).  As the winter progresses, somebody eats the berries - we aren't sure who, but it's almost certainly the many small birds that live here year round dark-eyed juncos, house finches, sparrows, robins... So a Christmas ornament becomes a New Year food bank. Nice thought.

Birthday blog tomorrow
Love
Bryce

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRYCE!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!

November 28, 2009

I noticed that all the leaves had finally fallen from the huge poplars at the corner of our property.
As Chelsea moved very slowly through them (the vet told me she's the dog equivalent of 90+)
I picked up a random sample and tried to estimate the biomass of Melampsora (a rust fungus) in the dead leaves.
Of course, I'm not being properly scientific about it.  To begin with I'm guessing that the trees had 100,000 leaves (at least)

Every leaf I picked up had at least a few black spots of the telial stage of the rust, and most had more than 100,
while some had about 1000 (see photograph).  My guess is that the average leaf has about 5% fungal biomass (some much less, some much more). I weighed ten randomly chosen leaves, and was pleased when they weighed in at 10 grams, or 1 gram each, which simplifies the arithmetic tremendously.  So - 100,000 grams = 100 kg of leaves 5% of that is 5Kg, or 11 pounds of fungal biomass.

It would take another more difficult process to work out how many basidiospores are likely to be released in Spring, but I know it would be astronomical, so I'll leave that for another day. 

November 27, 2009

Now for a land-based blog. I have taken responsibility for any alien plants
that invade the Park next to our house.
One of these is the leather-leafed Daphne, which grows in many places
along the hedgerow between the Park and the road.
(I have already extirpated the broom and ivy).
The Daphne looks a bit like a Rhododendron, with nice shiny leaves,
but it is very nasty, preventing native plants from growing near to it, and extremely vigorous,
and I am always surprised when I see how many people let it grow in their gardens,
assuming it is a garden plant.
I spent an hour cutting Daphne off at ground level with my loppers. 
Another 6 clumps, and I will have banished it from the Park, at least for now.

November 26, 2009

Most of the snail mail we get is totally useless
- essentially junk mail, trying to sell us something or
bills to pay.  So it was a real pleasure to open a letter from Japan this morning
and find an order for Nag Raj's big red masterpiece on Coelomycetes (over 1,000 pages). 
Of course I have the world supply in my basement, and am sure I'll never run out. 
But another one was dispatched across the Pacific Ocean today.
The postage was scary - over $60, even by surface.

Now we're thinking about fungi, let me turn to the local macromycota.
When I left for Virginia on 2nd November, the park next door was full of mushrooms:
literally tens of thousands of little Mycena all through the grass,
with a number of partial fairy rings of Marasmius oreades (the fairy ring mushroom)
scattered around, and occasional groups of meadow mushrooms
(Agaricus campestris), which we would eat if there weren't so many dogs
peeing and so on all over the place...At that time our lawn was devoid of fungi.

When I came back on 14th, things had changed, after several days of heavy rain.
In the park, no mushrooms were to be seen anywhere (I quartered the acreage looking for them).
But our back lawn, overlooking the ocean, was crowded with them. 
Many were of Armillaria, a genus that is often involved in killing trees.
Not all species are pathogens, and I'm hoping this is one of the harmless ones
- don't want to lose those lovely Douglas Firs along the edge of the cliff
which frame our view so beautifully. There were also some boletes, species of Suillus,
as well as the gilled Tricholoma and Cortinarius: all three genera are ectomycorrhizal symbionts
of those same trees.

It seems paradoxical that there should be such a reversal, but as usual there must be a reason for it.
The only one I can suggest off the top is that our soil under the lawn (imported by us)
is very sandy, and took much longer to become saturated than the clay in the park.
It is quite apparent that mushrooms do not like soil saturated with water.
I remember one of the years (probably 20 years ago) that I taught a field course in Algonquin Park, Ontario.
I drove up a day or so early, so I could walk a few of the trails and renew acquaintance with the fungi.
Well, it had been pouring for several days, some of the trails were flooded by the rivers,
and those I could access had very few fungi.  Fortunately, things gradually improved over the next two weeks,
but the students may have been happy they didn't have as many mushrooms to identify as in previous years.

Dedicated as usual to my young mentor!

November 22, 2009

After high tides, many logs are washed off our beaches, at least temporarily. Harlequin ducks, in my opinion the most beautiful ducks in the world, overwinter here, and like to sit on things often just large stones along the water's edge. But the floating logs, drifting slowly along on the tide, were apparently irresistible, and one of them carried three males and one female, all busily grooming themselves after the storm. The attached photo, taken from our back door, does not do their gorgeous plumage justice, since it was a very overcast day, so I have tacked another one on to show what they really look like close up (this picture by Mike Yip).

Cheers!

November 25, 2009

Our first Rhododendrons have weirdly decided to start flowering, even before we have picked this year's apples. I wanted to grow a Cox's Orange Pippin, a favourite apple from my youth in England. But the nursery suggested that Cox's doesn't do very well here, and sold me a Fiesta instead. They said it would taste rather similar, and they were right. It is having a bumper crop this year, as the photograph shows, and I pick up enough windfalls every day to keep us munching happily. Of course, good crops seem to happen only every other year, so we must enjoy this one while we can. The apples taste wonderful, but they don't keep well. Sorry I can't share them with you and your family!

November 24, 2009

This was a grey day, and I used some of it to start packing up all the books in my office and lab downstairs, because I am going to have the outer wall insulated to R-24 (when we did the energy audit, we found that the wall had no insulation at all - zero), and gyproc-ed, as part of a campaign to use less energy to heat the house this winter. I believe there are about a tonne of books in there, but most of them will fit in the spare bedroom while the job is done. Later in the afternoon, I decided to go rowing, and found that I had to push and pull the boat into the water over a large barrier of bull kelp that had drifted inshore with the high tide. It looked like the revenge of the sea monsters, as the photograph shows.

Cheers!