Plants Communicate

Yup. They sure do, according to a researcher at UC Davis.

Plants engage in self-recognition and can communicate danger to their “clones” or genetically identical cuttings planted nearby, says professor Richard Karban of the Department of Entomology, University of California, Davis, in groundbreaking research published in the current edition of Ecology Letters.

Karban and fellow scientist Kaori Shiojiri of the Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Japan, found that sagebrush responded to cues of self and non-self without physical contact.

I once read a book called “the Secret Life of Plants,” that argued that plants had complex abilities that were way beyond human understanding. But it was written about 30 years ago. I recommend it to anyone interested in plant communication and other weird fringe science stuff.

Volcanic Eruption Produces Lightning

From LiveScience:

When Alaska’s Mount Redoubt volcano began rumbling back to life in January, a team of researchers scrambled to set up a system called a Lightning Mapping Array that would be able to peer through the dust and gas of any eruption that occurred to the lightning storm happening within. Lightning is known to flash in the tumultuous clouds belched out during volcanic eruptions.

The lightning produced when Redoubt finally erupted on March 22 was “prolific,” said physicist Paul Krehbiel of New Mexico Tech. Check out the image.

IADC (Induced After Death Communication)

IADC (Induced After Death Communication)

Poem: In a Dark Time

In a Dark Time
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood–
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
What’s madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,
That place among the rocks–is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,

And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is–
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

By Theodore Roethke

Meredith Kercher in Music Video

As Amanda Knox stands trial in Italy for the murder of British student, Meredith Kercher, a video she appeared in just weeks before her slaying is making its way around the internet. There are monsters out there in the world walking around in human skin. Sad.

Poem- Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock

The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches tigers
In red weather.

By Wallace Stevens

UN on Witchhunting

A speaker at the UN is urging action to combat the problem of witch hunting in primitive, uncivilized, absurdly superstitious parts of the world – which still brings to mind a prominent Alaska politician who pals around with witch hunters.

Professor Phillip Alston, Special Rapporteur of the United Nations from the Human Rights Council on Extra-judicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, discussed how the belief in witchcraft, and the perceived ‘evil nature’ of those practicing, it is preserved in a number of countries around the world.

According to Alston, there are a number of reports of women being murdered simply due to a suspicion of their practicing witchcraft.

Several documents state that “witches” are being arbitrarily sentenced to death in the Central African Republic, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania and other countries. In Tanzania, the number of murdered “witches” is as high as one thousand per year.

“This could appear as a very esoteric problem, but over the course of my work I found that this is a common problem,” Alston pointed out.

He insisted that the issue is not receiving proper attention and that each of the “executions” should be investigated for what it is – murder.

The Ramones – I Wanna be Sedated

National Doughnut Day!

Just when you think all is bleak, they go and announce National Doughnut Day. Now, that’s a holiday we can all get behind. More on the festive day here.

“Donuts are just … just … the best things around,” said John Kunz, 32, as he picked out a dozen at what for many is the mecca of all Bay Area doughnuts, Johnny’s Donuts in Lafayette. He was buying the gut bombs for a safety meeting at his KW Construction job – “they keep everyone quiet so they listen” – and as shop owner Julie Nguav carefully loaded in maple, chocolate and glazed old-fashioneds, Kunz licked his lips.

MMM. Doughnuts.

Pet Peeve #249: Stupid Marriage Proposal Stunts

We’ve all seen them, or read about them, or perhaps been subjected to them: lame ass marriage proposal stunts. The question in my bitchy brain every single time is this: why the fuck would one turn a solemn occasion like that of proposing to spend the rest of one’s life committed to someone into a demonstration of jackassitude? And once you’ve done such a questionable thing, why the fuck would your intended ever agree to go along with it? Recently there was a news story about a guy who decided to propose marriage in front of a group of friends at McDonalds. The kickoff would be when his beloved found the ring that he placed at the bottom of her drink. Imagine his lame-brained surprise when she didn’t find the ring. Why? She swallowed it. Bet he never saw that one coming.

Probably the most heartwarming of these stories, however, is this one depicted in an infamous youtube video in which the guy takes his girl out on the basketball court at half-time in front of a million people to propose and she says no. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to watch her walk away and leave the schmuck at mid-court ring still held aloft. In fact if this sort of thing happened more often, ladies, guys might stop this hamming around.