Author: David Bradley

Flash diffuser

I just made the least flash flash diffuser imaginable. I cut a hole in an old, plastic ostrich-burger box we have used to store Xmas tree baubles in for the last seventeen years and fitted it to the camera with a redundant ring flash adapter. I switched away from ringflash earlier this year as it’s simply not good enough for decent entomological macro shots.

Mimulus #PondLife
Viper’s Bugloss
Periwinkle
Red Valerian
Poppy
Cornflower
Ceanothus fruit
Yarrow flower buds


Anyway, been testing the ad hoc diffuser with some random macro shots of flowers in the garden – Mimulus (#PondLife), cornflower, wet poppy, red valerian, periwinkle, viper’s bugloss, yarrow buds, ceanothus fruit, and fading yellow wildflower…

It seems to work quite well…considering

The diffuser attached to the macro lens
Provenance

The search for life on Mars

Later in the summer of 2020, NASA will launch its latest Mars rover, Perseverance. To coincide with that important scientific occasion, Elizabeth Howell, PhD and Nicholas Booth have told the greatest scientific detective story of all time in The Search for Life on Mars. Their approach and style are unique, they break many a convention of the scientific history books to make this truly accessible read with none of the bluff and bluster of so many so-called popular-science books and all of the guts and glory of a gripping wouldbe bestseller.

The world next door, otherwise known as the Red Planet, has intrigued humanity for centuries. From ancient astronomical observations to the science fiction of the modern era HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds to Andy Weir’s The Martian and to the amazing photography of the robotic rovers Curiosity and Opportunity.

For the first time in forty years, the missions heading to Mars – from the USA and China – will look for signs of ancient life. This is the latest chapter in the story of the Red Planet where fact is stranger than fiction, myths and false starts abound while red herrings and bizarre coincidences astound. Here are the triumphs and the heartbreaking failures.

This is the definitive story of how life’s extraterrestrial discovery has eluded us to date and how it will be found somewhere and sometime this century. The Search for Life on Mars is based on more than a hundred interviews with experts at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and elsewhere, who share their insights and stories.

The Search for Life on Mars: The Greatest Scientific Detective Story of All Time by Elizabeth Howell, PhD and Nicholas Booth, Arcade Publishing; On sale: 23rd June 2020 | ISBN: 9781950691395 US edition here | UK edition here

If you came looking for my cover version of Life on Mars, the Bowie song, you can find it here.

Lepidopteral diversity

A few more moth species from the actinic lure showing the great diversity of shapes and forms and markings

Dark Arches Apamea monoglypha (Hufnagel, 1766)
Buff-tip Phalera bucephala (Linnaeus, 1758)
Thistle Ermine Myelois circumvoluta (Fourcroy, 1785)
The Shark Cucullia umbratica (Linnaeus, 1758)

 

Small Dusty Wave Idaea seriata (Schrank, 1802)

Was Covid-19 lockdown the right thing to do?

What do Sciencebase readers make of the view that there will far more long-term excess deaths and misery caused by the global lockdowns than there would have been had we let this coronavirus run free? This question is about estimating the serious long-term effects rather than giving those covidiots who fancy a trip to the beach or Barnard Castle an excuse to run wild and party. It is being discussed widely by many lockdown skeptics, including very well-respected scientists such as Mark Changizi.

Obviously allowing the virus to run free would have meant overwhelming our healthcare services and there’d have been many more acute tragedies around the world. But, in the long-term the economic and social damage will ultimately lead to greater levels of suffering on a much wider scale. Ultimately, there will be many more excess deaths some argue*. This will be partly due to delayed diagnosis and treatments that will be available to everyone “after” Covid-19. It will also be partly due to mental health problems that emerge leading to an increased suicide rate caused by the loss of employment, companies collapsing, and the general negative effects of the “new normal”.

*News in today suggests that the death rate in France is the lowest it’s been for several years even when compared to a bad flu year.

Personally, I believe lockdown is the right thing to do for the sake of the more vulnerable and to avoid that overwhelming of the healthcare systems. We can try to face the issues that emerge post-Covid as they arise.

With misery and lockdown comes creativity

We’ve had a not-too-bad time of it, so far, to be fair, physically if not so much mentally. Other than not being able to get to a beach or legitimately visit a nature reserve, and putting holiday plans on hold, and cancelling all C5 the Band gigs for the summer and not being able to rehearse with those lovely people nor the lovely people of the TyrannoChorus, and not being able to take that nature holiday nor go camping, and having to work under the stress of a full house again having been almost empty-nesters for several months, and Mrs Sciencebase not being able to do either of her part-time work activities, the dog getting old and a bit lame, and not being able to visit family and friends, and…well, woe is me…but woe is millions of others who are suffering far worse, it’s been fine really.

I still wake far too early after tormented nights of viral existential anxiety, which does seem to have displaced the more mundane “worrying about death” kind of anxiety, but the getting up early at this time of year is critical for a moth-er, anyway. So there are pros.

So, I plough on through my usual writing deadlines, all of which are still ever-present (thankfully), but in between I seem to have taken on a village role of sharing interesting and entertaining online stuff, un-Events, you might call them. I morphed my Fen Edge Events group to do that at the start of lockdown and it’s still going strong; came up with several ideas for alternatives to local events that can no longer happen in the real world.

In among that I seem to have piled in with what I think is some creative activities, although others may disagree: Saturday Night No-Fever dancing in the living room with masks and nitrile glove, PondWatch, LawnWatch, RockWatch, and LogWatch. There was the dancing cookathon of Rock-around-the-Wok with DJ Bethan Fettermean, a virtual open mic session and a VEDay75 musical montage, several spoof phone calls, messages from Trunt and de Pfecking Johnson, our so-called Leader, and a wiretap acquisition of a call between some bloke called Dom and his Mam in the North East. I’ve done a spoof radio show based on my BFF’s More Music Breakfast on ClassicFM. I’ve written and recorded several new songs and instrumentals around the viral anxiety theme, although none of them are as depressing as that sounds.

There are also the endless moth, bird, and wildlife photos too.

Feels like a creative time and I’ve certainly seen a lot of creativity out there now that some many people are in lockdown, with the exception it seems, of that gadgy called Dom. But, to be honest, other than the travel restrictions, we’re lucky, not a lot has really changed, part of the advantage of having worked for myself from home for so long, I suppose.

Anyway, to you stay well. Stay home.

The biodiversity of Lepidoptera #MothsMatter

People often talk of liking butterflies but disliking moths. Butterflies are to all intents and purposes scientifically speaking, a sub-group within the moths. Arguments about flying at night, about clubbed antennae, and regarding wing posture are moot.

There are both moths and butterflies that are diurnal and others that are nocturnal. Indeed, there is sexual dimorphism in some species, e.g. Emperor moth, which looks “like a butterfly” and the males fly during the day and the females at night.

There are examples of clubbed antennae in moths and hooked antennae in butterflies (Skippers for example, which are borderline between moth and butterfly in the broadest descriptions).

There are countless moths that lie flat and many that fold their wings like butterflies purportedly do but there are butterflies that lie flat too.

The distinction is fundamentally one of linguistics in that English has Latin and Anglo-Saxon roots and so often has duel words for everyday things (mushrooms & toadstools, frogs & toads, tortoises and turtles), whereas in non-dualling languages on the continent from whence the Romans and the Saxons came, there’s no such distinction.

Anyway, words are words, these are beautiful living creatures worth our respect and given that there are 1800 different species of Lepidoptera (scaly-winged insects) in the British Isles, there’s a lot of diversity.

Common Swift
Pseudoswammerdamia combinella
Spruce Carpet

Marbled Minor agg. One of three species indistinguishable unless dissected
Foxglove Pug

Angle Shades
Small Emerald

Dominic caalls hyem

Working undercover with a northern lass called Leanne, I’ve managed to acquire the wiretap tape of a conversation between a bloke called Dom and his Mam in the North East…

Ring, ring

Dom’s Mam: Hellooo…0191 24242424

Dom: Hello Mother it’s me Dom. How are you, I mean, Y’areet Mam, hope you’re not feverish or coughing or anything

Dom’s Mam: Eeh, hello our Dominic, pet, lovely to hear your voice, I know you’re busy with all that eugenies stuff, so I won’t keep you

Dom: Narrh, it’s alreet, I rang you, didn’t I? Anyway, you’re birthday’s coming up…shall we bring the bairn up to see you?

Dom’s Mam: Eeeh, that’d be lovely pet, but what aboot the lockdown rules and that covfefe virus, like though?

Dom: Aah, divvent worry about that, I’ve got it covered

Dom’s Mam: What do ye mean covered?

Dom: Well, we think Mary’s got Covid like already so she’ll have herd immunity by now, which is like what cows get when they meet a badger, like, so we’ll use that as an excuse to bring the bairn up so you can look after him while we isolate

Dom’s Mam: But, isn’t that breaking them rules, like, it says on the government’s webshite that you should stay hyem if somebody’s ill with it in yer hoos.

Dom: Aye, it’s nay worries though, I wrote the rules, I can break them

Dom’s Mam: Eeh, we never brought you up to be like that our Dominic

Dom: Narrh, it’s fine Mam, we’re coming up anyway, I’ve got me ABBA CD and the bluebells are out at Barnard Castle, it’ll be geet lush, we’ve wrapped yer pressie already…spoiler alert, haha.

Dom’s Mam: Well, if you really think it’s safe to travel 250 miles with all of you possibly ill and risk getting delayed or having an accident and having to stop at all them horrible services and bring the bairn even though yer Dad and me are old, like, and vulnerable, it’d be lovely to see you…divvent worry aboot a present for’uz though, just seeing you all will be present enough

Dom: See you at the weekend, tara Mam and Happy Birthday…

Dom’s Mam: Aye, okay, see you then, don’t waste any more minutes now, pet, tara, love you.