Book List

Here are some books that I want to read again. I like these a lot.

• Catcher in the Rye. Maybe. I don't really remember the story that well. I just remember that it was a much more interesting read than The House on Mango Street, which I was required to read for school. I want to re-read it to see if I still like it.
• East of Eden. Man, this story is epic. Literally. I read this everyday on the bus on my way to work when I worked at the mill. I still think about timshel when I hear the Ten Commandments.
• Malcolm Gladwell's books. I think I like his books almost as much as I like Atul Gawande's books. The most interesting one is Outliers, I think. I actually thought Blink was a little bit boring. The Tipping Point was way good, though.
• Last of the Breed. This was my favorite book when I was a teenager. I don't think I realized it was my favorite book until a couple of years ago. I think I read it three, maybe four times. That book made me want to name my first son Mack. And any mention of scalping reminds me of the package wrapped in bark...

Red sky at night...

I love informational artwork. I got this image from this website.

(Just so you know, I did start writing this before midnight. So this counts for Saturday's post.)

Flower Clock

I'm reading a book now called A Sideways Look at Time by Jay Griffiths. She writes about lots of different things, but one of the more interesting things I think is how she explains how closely nature and time are tied. She loves clocks that measure time by the happenings of nature. One such clock is called the Flower Clock or the Garden Clock. We all know that certain flowers bloom only at certain parts of the day. Well, the Flower Clock is made up of a bunch of different types of these flowers, where each type of flower blooms at a different time of the day. This way you know what time it is by seeing which flowers are blooming!

A poem by Andrew Marvell describes this type of clock:

How well the skillful gardener drew
Of flow'rs and herbs this dial new;
Where from above the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run;
And, as it works, th' industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flow'rs!

I would love to be able to see one of these gardens in person.

Clever Jewelry

I think the idea of this is really cool, but I don't think it would so cool to wear in public. The site is called Made With Molecules. Check it out.

Here's a sample:

Why are "pounds" abbreviated "lbs"?

This is a question that I have had for years. I have always heard that it was Latin, but I decided to check it out. I found this answer, which is pretty interesting. I will *ahem* abbreviate his answer here.

Lb is short for libra, which is short for libra pondo, which is Latin for "pound weight." You may recognize that the zodiac symbol for Libra is a scale, which is a reference to weighing and measuring things.

The British currency of pounds uses an abbreviation of libra pondo, too. Have you ever realized that the symbol for British pounds (£) is actually just an ornate "L"? That's because it is short for libra pondo. The connection between weight and currency is this: back in the day, one pound of silver was worth one pound.

But I didn't stop there. I was hooked. I kept looking up abbreviations that I didn't understand. Why, for instance, was "number" abbreviated "no." even though there isn't an "o" in the word? It turns out that it's from the Latin word nomerei.

Then I wondered why we abbreviate "pages" as "pp." instead of "pgs." or something else that made sense. It turns out that it's just a style convention. I don't think there is any real reason. The article on abbreviations on Wikipedia is kind of interesting. Did you know that P. is the official abbreviation for "pope" and PP. is abbreviated for "popes"? I had know idea that the pope had his own abbreviation.

The Uncanny Precision of the Collective Uninformed

You've probably heard the phrase "never underestimate stupid people in large groups." This is actually proven to be true. You can try this experiment yourself. This is what you do:

1. Get a jar of jelly beans or else something small in a large bowl or bottle
2. Gather a large group of different kinds of people at varying degrees of math skills
3. Have everyone guess how many jelly beans are in the jar
4. Take the average of all the guesses, and, invariably, the average is closer to the correct amount than any one person

Pretty amazing, isn't it? The group as a whole is more accurate than any individual person. I heard of an experiment at a county fair where the group had to guess the weight on an ox. A scientist took the average of the people's guesses and found that they were only 1 pound off. How amazing is that!?

Try it out yourself and you will see that this is true. I guess it just proves my slogan for my college experience: cooperate and graduate.

Slavemaker Ants

Did you know that there are some species of ants that make other ant colonies their slaves? It's quite fascinating, actually. The Slavemaker ants require another colony to do the work for them in order to live. Scientists have done studies that show that if the Slavemaker ants have to fend for themselves, they will die of starvation, even if there is food made available for them. The Slavemaker ants take over a colony and make the workers of the hostage colony do everything for them, like gather food, feed the larvae and queen, and defend the colony from attack. They will even force the hostage ants to carry the Slavemaker ants around.

There are a few ways that the Slavemaker ants actually take over the colony. The most common method is for the Slavemaker ants to raid a colony and steal its eggs. The eggs are brought back to the Slavemaker colony and those eggs are raised to become the next generation of slaves.

Another method is for the existing Slavemaker queen to give birth to a new queen. That new queen follows her soldiers to the colony they are invading. In the heat of the battle, the new queen sneaks in and finds the host colony's queen. The new queen kills the host queen and then eats it. When the new queen eats the host queen, she gives off the host queen's pheromones and tricks the host workers into thinking that she is the old queen. The new queen had previously mated with males from the old colony, so she gives birth to new Slavemaker ants, which overrun the colony and the host ants don't have a chance.

There has been documentation from scientists of ants in slavery actually uprising against their oppressors. The ants in bondage go around killing the pupae of the Slavemaker ants while leaving their own pupae untouched. You can read more about ant slavery uprisings here. It's super interesting.

Who knew that ants could be so complex? It's pretty amazing. You can read some more about Slavemaker ants at this website. I love finding out information like this. It makes biology so interesting.