back among the living

[Guest guest]

In case you thought I had disappeared forever I finally got over my

worst ever cold then re injured my Achilles tendon and then had a flare

up of Arthritis and strange inflammation in my big toes so have been

mostly off line for three weeks. seem to be back on my feet and in shoes

again too. We got a big tax return as our medical costs last year were

almost half our income so seem to have mostly caught up with the bills

and I should be around for a while.

Having a big active toddler in the House is making it more difficult to

have my crystals out and easily accessible. My daughter has actually had

a nightmare where she woke up screaming, Where is your orpiment?

I don't know if any of you read Olivia Judsons articles in the New York

Times she is an Evolutionary Biologist who makes a lot of the more

obscure science really understandable she writes every Wednesday about

the influence of science and biology on modern life. She is the author

of “Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to

the Evolutionary Biology of Sex.” Her article today was about grasses

and included quite a bit about how grasses " grasses fill their leaves

with silica. That is, they are factories for tiny opals...

 

Above ground, grasslands create wide open spaces where large animals can

run fast and go about in big herds. Hence, the spread of grasses

triggered the evolution of big, herding mammals with long legs and

hooves — horses and antelopes, for example. Moreover, all those opals

are hard to eat: they wear down teeth. So the rise of grasses was also

met with the evolution of “hypsodonty” — long teeth.

 

(Just as grasslands sculpted the evolution of certain mammals, so too

mammals sculpted the evolution of grasslands. Many mammals eat young

trees — and thus prevent trees from invading a grassy area. Elephants

can — and sometimes do — uproot big trees. The high opal-content of

grasses is, in part, an evolved response to being eaten.) " .

anyway I find that fascinating the article is here

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/evolution-by-the-grassroots/#mor\

e-40537

 

Peggy Jentoft