Sorry, I cannot help myself. The NYT has enraged me today.
Read this drivel:
A Day Without Guns...
Now here is a question to ask. Did the crime go up or down after Florida enacted their "craven legislation" enabling citizens to own, carry, and use guns? Of course NYT does not report that. Because crime went down, probably. They certainly DID NOT INCRESE, which would suggest that right-to-carry should proliferate, since it is a liberty and has no demonstrable negative effect on the community at large.
This article, from the libertarian think-tank Cato Institute, indicates that crime went down in Florida. This article says it was unchanged:
Schoolboy’s logic should tell you that banning guns will simply reduce the number of guns in law-abiding peoples’ hands, but will not substantially effect the number of guns in criminals’ hands, since, by definition, criminals BREAK THE LAW. When the average man is unarmed, this is an invitation for an armed criminal to take advantage of him. Police departments are not obligated to protect you. The Supreme Court has ruled this in Castle Rock, CO v. Gonzales, Jessica, et al.
Here is a list of cases where lower courts have ruled similarly:
Bowers v. DeVito, U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, 686 F.2d 616 (1882)
Cal. Govt. Code Sections 821,845,846
Calogrides v. City of Mobile, 475 So. 2d 560 (S.Ct. Ala. 1985)
Chapman v. City of Philadelphia, 434 A.2d 753 (Sup. Ct. Penn. 1981)
Davidson v. City of Westminster, 32 C.3d 197,185 P.2d 894 (S.Ct. Cal. 1982)
Hartzler v. City of San Jose, App., 120 Cal. Rptr 5 (1975)
Keane v. City of Chicago, 98 Ill App 2d 460 (1968)
Keane v. Chicago, 48 Ill. App. 567 (1977)
Lynch v. N.C. Dept. of Justice, 376 S.E. 2nd 247 (N.C. App. 1989)
Marshall v. Winston, 389 S.E. 2nd 902 (Va. 1990)
Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306 (D.C. App. 1983)
Morris v. Musser, 478 A.2d 937 (1984)
Reiff v. City of Philadelphia, 477F. Supp. 1262 (E.D.Pa. 1979)
Riss v. City of New York, 293 N.Y. 2d 897 (1968)
Sapp v. Tallahassee, 348 So.2d 363 (Fla. App. 1977)
Silver v. Minneapolis 170 N.W.2d 206 (Minn, 1969)
Simpson's Food Fair v. Evansvill, 272 N.E.2d 871 (Ind. App.)
Stone v. State 106 Cal.App.3d 924, 165 Cal. Rep 339 (1980)
Warren v. District of Columbia, D.C. App., 444 A.2d 1 (1981)
Weutrich v. Delia, 155 N.J. Super. 324, 326, 382 A.2d 929, 930 (1978)
Currently only two states, Illinois and Wisconsin have no right-to-carry law. Many sates, like New York and California restrict their right-to-carry law to the point it is in reality non-existent.
Right-to-carry laws have been adopted over the last 20 years. If they were SO BAD, one would think the evidence would be all around us. We wouldn’t need PhDs to tell us. The fact is that they have done good or done nothing, and its high time that right-t0-carry comes to Illinois and Wisconsin.
30 January 2007
29 January 2007
The Superbowl
Though I often think that Indiana and Illinois should feel like brother-states, given our histories, this weekend Hoosiers are going down.
Football is the best sport. Everybody who disagrees is simply wrong. Why are they wrong?
Here is a short litany of reasons:
1) Football is sporting. It is not just raw force or stamina (like running or boxing). It involves finesse and thinking.
2) Football is a true team sport. People claim the "activity called soccer," Hockey, and Basketball, rugby are team sports, when in fact, they are really a collection of individuals all doing the same boring thing (striking or grabbing an object). Baseball and Football actually involve teammates who have different tasks and abilities to coordinate their activities to achieve a collective goal. This makes them more humane and interesting.
3) Football is tough, masculine, and non-sissy. This cannot be said for soccer, tennis, etc.
4) Football is objective and fair. Some sports, like hockey and soccer have such low scores that the winner of the game is almost arbitrary. A good deal of luck goes into the scoring events in these sports, particularly soccer. In fact, these sports also have high frequencies of ties. In soccer this is resolved with the idiotic shootout, which is basically an exercise in arbitrariness. Hockey is fairer in that it has sudden death.
5) Football is steeped in traditions. Traditions that other sports don’t have. Marching bands do not march for Soccer or Volleyball. Homecoming does not happen for baseball or cross-country. Though I generally condemn cheerleading, at least it is a genuine tradition.
6) Football involved a constellation of abilities. Intelligence, speed, strength, throwing ability, catching ability, tackling ability, stamina, ability to endure extreme weather, etc. No sport compares in the diversity of abilities.
7) Football is played rain or shine in cold and heat.
I am thinking of more, but I need to go to class now.
Football is the best sport. Everybody who disagrees is simply wrong. Why are they wrong?
Here is a short litany of reasons:
1) Football is sporting. It is not just raw force or stamina (like running or boxing). It involves finesse and thinking.
2) Football is a true team sport. People claim the "activity called soccer," Hockey, and Basketball, rugby are team sports, when in fact, they are really a collection of individuals all doing the same boring thing (striking or grabbing an object). Baseball and Football actually involve teammates who have different tasks and abilities to coordinate their activities to achieve a collective goal. This makes them more humane and interesting.
3) Football is tough, masculine, and non-sissy. This cannot be said for soccer, tennis, etc.
4) Football is objective and fair. Some sports, like hockey and soccer have such low scores that the winner of the game is almost arbitrary. A good deal of luck goes into the scoring events in these sports, particularly soccer. In fact, these sports also have high frequencies of ties. In soccer this is resolved with the idiotic shootout, which is basically an exercise in arbitrariness. Hockey is fairer in that it has sudden death.
5) Football is steeped in traditions. Traditions that other sports don’t have. Marching bands do not march for Soccer or Volleyball. Homecoming does not happen for baseball or cross-country. Though I generally condemn cheerleading, at least it is a genuine tradition.
6) Football involved a constellation of abilities. Intelligence, speed, strength, throwing ability, catching ability, tackling ability, stamina, ability to endure extreme weather, etc. No sport compares in the diversity of abilities.
7) Football is played rain or shine in cold and heat.
I am thinking of more, but I need to go to class now.
21 January 2007
Humorous Quotations from my friends
#1: Dirty Joke
Setting: at my friend’s art show:
Quote: “Anthony, I have this great joke for you, but I can’t tell you in mixed company, better wait for Church on Sunday!”
#2: Precious Moments
Setting: Parish Library
“What’s a Precious Moments figurine?”
“A sickeningly saccharine porcelain doll. It’s as cute as Hello Kitty, but without the edginess.”
#3: Thwarting Nature
Setting: Near the door of the catechism classroom
“Contraception is wrong because it thwarts nature.”
“Well that must be wrong, holding your bowels is thwarting nature!
#4: Heresies
Setting: Parish Library
“The strange mixture of communism, radical Islam, lefebvrivism, misogyny, and epicureanism that you adhere to does not make you and authority on Church doctrine!”
#5: Fetishes
Setting: Parish library
“So you are also afflicted by the incurable mantilla fetish?”
#6: Church attendance
Setting: In the narthex after Mass
“Boy! Church attendance was low today.”
“Yea, everybody went to St Mary of the Air Conditioning.”
#7: Parents and children
Setting: after mass
“Now comes the part of the day when the children go to the bar for drinks and their parents have a pizza party.”
#8: The Spirit
Setting: Parish cafe
“So, what kind of Catholic are you? Conservative, liberal, traditionalist?
“I am a sprit of Nicea II Catholic!"
#9: Ecumenism
Setting: Parish library
“So you think you have a better idea of how to convert the Muslims?”
“Yes, all we have to do is send a bottle of Chartreuse to every mosque in America. We'll have them with their backs to the floor proclaiming the infinite wisdom of Holy Mother Church!
#10: Drinking
Setting: Parish library
“You know what they say, where there’s four Catholics, there’s a fifth!”
#11: Piety
Setting: Parish library, after discovering a volume of Encouters with the Eucharistic Heart of [random pious epithet] the Blessed [random pious epithet] Jesus by Sister Mary [pious epithet] Goodnun.
"If one more book written by a very pious nun about piety that pious church ladies buy for their pious children who piously ignore it is left in the library, we are going to have a little bonfire of the vanities."
Setting: at my friend’s art show:
Quote: “Anthony, I have this great joke for you, but I can’t tell you in mixed company, better wait for Church on Sunday!”
#2: Precious Moments
Setting: Parish Library
“What’s a Precious Moments figurine?”
“A sickeningly saccharine porcelain doll. It’s as cute as Hello Kitty, but without the edginess.”
#3: Thwarting Nature
Setting: Near the door of the catechism classroom
“Contraception is wrong because it thwarts nature.”
“Well that must be wrong, holding your bowels is thwarting nature!
#4: Heresies
Setting: Parish Library
“The strange mixture of communism, radical Islam, lefebvrivism, misogyny, and epicureanism that you adhere to does not make you and authority on Church doctrine!”
#5: Fetishes
Setting: Parish library
“So you are also afflicted by the incurable mantilla fetish?”
#6: Church attendance
Setting: In the narthex after Mass
“Boy! Church attendance was low today.”
“Yea, everybody went to St Mary of the Air Conditioning.”
#7: Parents and children
Setting: after mass
“Now comes the part of the day when the children go to the bar for drinks and their parents have a pizza party.”
#8: The Spirit
Setting: Parish cafe
“So, what kind of Catholic are you? Conservative, liberal, traditionalist?
“I am a sprit of Nicea II Catholic!"
#9: Ecumenism
Setting: Parish library
“So you think you have a better idea of how to convert the Muslims?”
“Yes, all we have to do is send a bottle of Chartreuse to every mosque in America. We'll have them with their backs to the floor proclaiming the infinite wisdom of Holy Mother Church!
#10: Drinking
Setting: Parish library
“You know what they say, where there’s four Catholics, there’s a fifth!”
#11: Piety
Setting: Parish library, after discovering a volume of Encouters with the Eucharistic Heart of [random pious epithet] the Blessed [random pious epithet] Jesus by Sister Mary [pious epithet] Goodnun.
"If one more book written by a very pious nun about piety that pious church ladies buy for their pious children who piously ignore it is left in the library, we are going to have a little bonfire of the vanities."
17 January 2007
Christian Manhood
I am delaying Natures Oddities Part 7: Army Ants to talk about my brother and Christian manhood. My brother is very amusing at times, and some of his behavior today is particularly relevant to things I have been thinking about lately.
I have been reading about Christian manhood and pondering male-female relations in the world, particularly within my little sphere of traditionalist Catholics. My brother epitomizes what one protestant writer indicates is the natural (and perhaps ideal) state of manhood—basically an overgrown boy. This author laments the all-to-common tendency of Christian men to become “nice guys” and he urges them to cultivate a sense of adventure and masculinity. This sounds entirely reasonable. Jesus was not a “nice” guy. Neither was John the Baptist, which is perhaps the model male saint (the Blessed Mother, of course, being the model female saint). St. Joseph, another male model, was a much nicer than John the Baptist, but he was still a tough, humble, and courageous man. He was hardly afflicted by the effete niceness foisted upon men and boys today.
My problem lies with the author’s methods for remedying the problem. He advocated a return to raw adventure. His list included climbing the Rocky Mountains, stalking Bull Moose, and other he-man stuff. Not that anything is wrong with these activities, there isn’t, but artificial adventure seeking does not make a man, no matter how many grizzlies he slays with a bowie knife. Protestants go wrong with this stuff all the time. It is like they are grasping for the answer, but cannot reach it because their legs [intellectual tradition] are too short.
My brother very much enjoys paintballing. He recently purchased a high-performance paintball gun and some pretty impressive accessories. An easy access ammo container bandoleer. A vacuum-sealed sophisticated scope. High-tech gloves and kneepads used by Navy Seals and a camouflage shirt. I noticed him dressing up in his gear and looking at himself in he mirror. When he saw me watching, he said, “I like trying on my stuff.” I replied, “clearly!” He then said, “Check this out.” He proceeded to take his rubber Batman mask and put it on, and then he placed his paintball mask over it. He looked ridiculous because he had batman ears, but his face was covered with a green paintball mask. He said he wanted to wear this outfit this weekend. He said it would be perfect for “team @sshole,” which consists of him and his best friend, known far and wide as highly obnoxious paintballers. Perhaps this would be his disguise. My point is that my brother seems to be a fully actualized man according to the protestant author’s account. He is adventuresome. He is manly. He is even Romantic. He proudly displayed where he had scrawled “Dark Night” on his T-shirt. He thought this would please his girlfriend. But that fact of the matter is this: it’s just plain silly to think this is how to cultivate manhood.
A man does not have to go kill grizzly bears with a bow and arrow, take up paintballing, or sail in the Contiki to be a man. The real, visceral responsibilities of a true man should be more than adequate. Providing for a wife and children. Ensuring their safety. Educating and disciplining his children. Loving his wife and family. Very few men accomplish all of these tasks. A great deal of suffering may accompany any of these duties. There are so many problems that conspire to doom a man who dares to live in this traditional way. His health may fail. His wife or children may be seduced by the influence of society and take him for granted, sapping him of his motivation. Other men will belittle him for not being able to hit the links every weekend, and women will deprecate him for being a dinosaur. Corporations, which are always looking to maximize profits for shareholder, even at the expense of the community, may relocate, merge, or implode, leaving him without a job. Yes, there is much to lose in this world if you live dangerously and be a real man even if you don’t act like a member of the Magnificent Seven.
Come to think of it. That movie proves my point exactly. Look what transpires between Bernardo O’Reilly, aptly played by manly-man Charles Bronson, and thee Mexican boys:
“Can we go with you, Bernardo?”
“No.”
“You like us, don’t you?”
“I guess so.”
“You’re one of us, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m one of us all right.”
“Take us with you! Please?!”
“No!”
“We’re ashamed to live here. Our fathers are cowards.”
(Here O’Reilly grabs one boy and gives him a richly deserved spank)
“Don’t ever say that again about your fathers. They are not cowards! You think I am brave because I carry a gun. Your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility. For you, your brothers, your sisters and your mothers. This responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. Nobody says they have to do it. They do it because they love you and they want to. I have never had this kind of courage. Running a farm. Working like a mule, with no guarantee what will become of it - this is bravery. That’s why l never even started anything like that.”
I have been reading about Christian manhood and pondering male-female relations in the world, particularly within my little sphere of traditionalist Catholics. My brother epitomizes what one protestant writer indicates is the natural (and perhaps ideal) state of manhood—basically an overgrown boy. This author laments the all-to-common tendency of Christian men to become “nice guys” and he urges them to cultivate a sense of adventure and masculinity. This sounds entirely reasonable. Jesus was not a “nice” guy. Neither was John the Baptist, which is perhaps the model male saint (the Blessed Mother, of course, being the model female saint). St. Joseph, another male model, was a much nicer than John the Baptist, but he was still a tough, humble, and courageous man. He was hardly afflicted by the effete niceness foisted upon men and boys today.
My problem lies with the author’s methods for remedying the problem. He advocated a return to raw adventure. His list included climbing the Rocky Mountains, stalking Bull Moose, and other he-man stuff. Not that anything is wrong with these activities, there isn’t, but artificial adventure seeking does not make a man, no matter how many grizzlies he slays with a bowie knife. Protestants go wrong with this stuff all the time. It is like they are grasping for the answer, but cannot reach it because their legs [intellectual tradition] are too short.
My brother very much enjoys paintballing. He recently purchased a high-performance paintball gun and some pretty impressive accessories. An easy access ammo container bandoleer. A vacuum-sealed sophisticated scope. High-tech gloves and kneepads used by Navy Seals and a camouflage shirt. I noticed him dressing up in his gear and looking at himself in he mirror. When he saw me watching, he said, “I like trying on my stuff.” I replied, “clearly!” He then said, “Check this out.” He proceeded to take his rubber Batman mask and put it on, and then he placed his paintball mask over it. He looked ridiculous because he had batman ears, but his face was covered with a green paintball mask. He said he wanted to wear this outfit this weekend. He said it would be perfect for “team @sshole,” which consists of him and his best friend, known far and wide as highly obnoxious paintballers. Perhaps this would be his disguise. My point is that my brother seems to be a fully actualized man according to the protestant author’s account. He is adventuresome. He is manly. He is even Romantic. He proudly displayed where he had scrawled “Dark Night” on his T-shirt. He thought this would please his girlfriend. But that fact of the matter is this: it’s just plain silly to think this is how to cultivate manhood.
A man does not have to go kill grizzly bears with a bow and arrow, take up paintballing, or sail in the Contiki to be a man. The real, visceral responsibilities of a true man should be more than adequate. Providing for a wife and children. Ensuring their safety. Educating and disciplining his children. Loving his wife and family. Very few men accomplish all of these tasks. A great deal of suffering may accompany any of these duties. There are so many problems that conspire to doom a man who dares to live in this traditional way. His health may fail. His wife or children may be seduced by the influence of society and take him for granted, sapping him of his motivation. Other men will belittle him for not being able to hit the links every weekend, and women will deprecate him for being a dinosaur. Corporations, which are always looking to maximize profits for shareholder, even at the expense of the community, may relocate, merge, or implode, leaving him without a job. Yes, there is much to lose in this world if you live dangerously and be a real man even if you don’t act like a member of the Magnificent Seven.
Come to think of it. That movie proves my point exactly. Look what transpires between Bernardo O’Reilly, aptly played by manly-man Charles Bronson, and thee Mexican boys:
“Can we go with you, Bernardo?”
“No.”
“You like us, don’t you?”
“I guess so.”
“You’re one of us, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m one of us all right.”
“Take us with you! Please?!”
“No!”
“We’re ashamed to live here. Our fathers are cowards.”
(Here O’Reilly grabs one boy and gives him a richly deserved spank)
“Don’t ever say that again about your fathers. They are not cowards! You think I am brave because I carry a gun. Your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility. For you, your brothers, your sisters and your mothers. This responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. Nobody says they have to do it. They do it because they love you and they want to. I have never had this kind of courage. Running a farm. Working like a mule, with no guarantee what will become of it - this is bravery. That’s why l never even started anything like that.”
11 January 2007
Nature’s Oddities Part 6: Giant Asian Hornet
Vespa mandarinia, also know as the Yak Killer Hornet (which gives you an idea of its sting), is perhaps the most ferocious and excellent killing machine nature has brought to bear. My friends know that I am quite fond of violent and predatory arthropods, particularly giant Amazonian centipedes, camel spiders, and scorpions. I am telling you, none stand a chance against the mandarinia.
30-40 Japanese are killed every year by these hornets, which is close to the annual homicide rate of Japan. Japanese children are warned of their dangers in much the same way American children are warned of “stranger danger.” The world expert on mandarinia, Dr. Masoto Ono, compared their sting to a 15-inch flaming hot nail. But most fearsome of all are their awesome (and that is a word I do not through around lightly) mandibles.
These mandibles are used to crush helpless victims with wanton abandonment. It is not unheard of for a single mandarinia to ruthlessly slaughter an entire hive (usually around 30,000 individuals) of European honeybees, Apis mellifera, which are fairly soldierly critters themselves. Can you imagine one human solider (Rambo, perhaps) subduing an entire army of other soldiers armed only with his fists and teeth? That is the daily life of the mandarinia!
I have seen footage of a honeybee hive being raided by just two mandarinia. All individuals (around 10,000) were killed before the rest of the mandarinia sisters (hives are around one hundred individuals) could arrive. But when they did arrive, they feasted upon the tender larvae and pupae of the honeybees until they became gorged and intoxicated and flew like drunks back to their own hive.
The most remarkable ability of the mandarinia is its adept use of all of its body. It possesses finesse unmatched by any predator I have seen. It makes cougars and even mongooses look clumsy by comparison. It easily dispatches 5-10 attacking honeybees (in a single second) with gentle movements from its legs and swiftly crushes their bodies’ whole between its mandibles. It flies gently left and right with noticeable confidence, and hardly ever has to use its sting. Mandarinia can subdue with ease critters several times their size, including birds and small mammals. The mandarinia is so powerful they seldom are caught in spider webs, but when they do get caught, the spider will probably be defeated. The mandarinia's exoskeleton is armored with chitionous plates so thick many spider fangs cannot penetrate.
I am positive that no scorpion, camel spider, or centipede could stand a chance against a single mandarinia (well, maybe the centipede has a chance). They are too slow and sluggish and simply do not have the firepower. Even insectivorous birds fly with fear when the mandarinia comes out. Often they cannot outrun them however, mandarinia can fly at 25 MPH.
A single mandarinia is formidable, now imagine 20-100 of them fighting in remarkable coordination like a well-trained platoon of soldiers, and you will understand why they deserve a place in the cannon of oddities. The pheromone signaling mechanism used by mandarinia is incredibly sensitive and complex, and is the focus of many Japanese entomologist’s careers. Most of them are trying to figure out ways to trick the mandarinia and keep them out of places where people eat, since mandarinia love sweet drinks, which are popular in Japanese outdoor cafes.
There is only one animal (other than homo sapiens) capable of subduing the mandarinia--the Japanese honeybee, Apis cerana japonica, which is almost identical to the European honeybee. When a mandarinia scout locates the entrance to a honeybee hive, it dances around the entrance secreting a pheromone trail that will summon her sisters. As the pheromone wafts through the air, a few minutes will pass before her battle sisters will arrive, and in the meantime the mandarinia explores the entrance often slaughtering a few hundred bees along the way.
European honeybees immediately attack the mandarinia once she is detected and attack in groups of 1-10, which the mandarinia dispatches as easily as I dispatch M&Ms, and the attack is completely ineffectual. The Japanese honeybee is wiser. It waits for the mandarinia to enter the hive (which is much warmer), and once the mandarinia is completely inside they form a compact ball around the mandarinia. The honeybees do not bother stinging or biting, since it would be useless against the mandarinia. Once the ball of hundreds of honeybees is formed they begin to rapidly pulse their flight muscles and raise their body temperatures to around 117 F. Meanwhile the mandarinia is slaughtering the bees near it at a rate of perhaps five bees every second, so other honeybees need to constantly join the ball for their fallen sisters. Eventually the mandarinia expires from heat exhaustion. Apparently the only weakness of the mandarinia is low heat tolerance (its maximum survivable temperature for more than a few seconds is only 113 F). So after a few minutes and several hundred honeybees, the mandarinia is defeated. Often the mandarinia's sisters start arriving, but turn away from the nest since they cannot find their sister. So, though cooperation and self-sacrifice the honeybees are able to save their colony. This behavior I find remarkable in itself, and I will pick a social insect in next oddities series.
Unlike most people, I feel empathy for insects. In the video about mandarinia I remember quite vividly a close-up of a honeybee that was buried in the ball. Its head had been severed from its thorax and its jaws and antenna were twitching in agony, and at that moment the narrator said in a low voice, “a though heroic sacrifice the honeybees sisters were able to save their hive, but it came with a price.”
In Japan mandarinia are thought to possess magical powers and their bodies are often crushed and added to energy drinks. In rural, backwoods Japan locals make fried hornets and sometimes eat them raw in a sort of hornet sashimi.
30-40 Japanese are killed every year by these hornets, which is close to the annual homicide rate of Japan. Japanese children are warned of their dangers in much the same way American children are warned of “stranger danger.” The world expert on mandarinia, Dr. Masoto Ono, compared their sting to a 15-inch flaming hot nail. But most fearsome of all are their awesome (and that is a word I do not through around lightly) mandibles.
These mandibles are used to crush helpless victims with wanton abandonment. It is not unheard of for a single mandarinia to ruthlessly slaughter an entire hive (usually around 30,000 individuals) of European honeybees, Apis mellifera, which are fairly soldierly critters themselves. Can you imagine one human solider (Rambo, perhaps) subduing an entire army of other soldiers armed only with his fists and teeth? That is the daily life of the mandarinia!
I have seen footage of a honeybee hive being raided by just two mandarinia. All individuals (around 10,000) were killed before the rest of the mandarinia sisters (hives are around one hundred individuals) could arrive. But when they did arrive, they feasted upon the tender larvae and pupae of the honeybees until they became gorged and intoxicated and flew like drunks back to their own hive.
The most remarkable ability of the mandarinia is its adept use of all of its body. It possesses finesse unmatched by any predator I have seen. It makes cougars and even mongooses look clumsy by comparison. It easily dispatches 5-10 attacking honeybees (in a single second) with gentle movements from its legs and swiftly crushes their bodies’ whole between its mandibles. It flies gently left and right with noticeable confidence, and hardly ever has to use its sting. Mandarinia can subdue with ease critters several times their size, including birds and small mammals. The mandarinia is so powerful they seldom are caught in spider webs, but when they do get caught, the spider will probably be defeated. The mandarinia's exoskeleton is armored with chitionous plates so thick many spider fangs cannot penetrate.
I am positive that no scorpion, camel spider, or centipede could stand a chance against a single mandarinia (well, maybe the centipede has a chance). They are too slow and sluggish and simply do not have the firepower. Even insectivorous birds fly with fear when the mandarinia comes out. Often they cannot outrun them however, mandarinia can fly at 25 MPH.
A single mandarinia is formidable, now imagine 20-100 of them fighting in remarkable coordination like a well-trained platoon of soldiers, and you will understand why they deserve a place in the cannon of oddities. The pheromone signaling mechanism used by mandarinia is incredibly sensitive and complex, and is the focus of many Japanese entomologist’s careers. Most of them are trying to figure out ways to trick the mandarinia and keep them out of places where people eat, since mandarinia love sweet drinks, which are popular in Japanese outdoor cafes.
There is only one animal (other than homo sapiens) capable of subduing the mandarinia--the Japanese honeybee, Apis cerana japonica, which is almost identical to the European honeybee. When a mandarinia scout locates the entrance to a honeybee hive, it dances around the entrance secreting a pheromone trail that will summon her sisters. As the pheromone wafts through the air, a few minutes will pass before her battle sisters will arrive, and in the meantime the mandarinia explores the entrance often slaughtering a few hundred bees along the way.
European honeybees immediately attack the mandarinia once she is detected and attack in groups of 1-10, which the mandarinia dispatches as easily as I dispatch M&Ms, and the attack is completely ineffectual. The Japanese honeybee is wiser. It waits for the mandarinia to enter the hive (which is much warmer), and once the mandarinia is completely inside they form a compact ball around the mandarinia. The honeybees do not bother stinging or biting, since it would be useless against the mandarinia. Once the ball of hundreds of honeybees is formed they begin to rapidly pulse their flight muscles and raise their body temperatures to around 117 F. Meanwhile the mandarinia is slaughtering the bees near it at a rate of perhaps five bees every second, so other honeybees need to constantly join the ball for their fallen sisters. Eventually the mandarinia expires from heat exhaustion. Apparently the only weakness of the mandarinia is low heat tolerance (its maximum survivable temperature for more than a few seconds is only 113 F). So after a few minutes and several hundred honeybees, the mandarinia is defeated. Often the mandarinia's sisters start arriving, but turn away from the nest since they cannot find their sister. So, though cooperation and self-sacrifice the honeybees are able to save their colony. This behavior I find remarkable in itself, and I will pick a social insect in next oddities series.
Unlike most people, I feel empathy for insects. In the video about mandarinia I remember quite vividly a close-up of a honeybee that was buried in the ball. Its head had been severed from its thorax and its jaws and antenna were twitching in agony, and at that moment the narrator said in a low voice, “a though heroic sacrifice the honeybees sisters were able to save their hive, but it came with a price.”
In Japan mandarinia are thought to possess magical powers and their bodies are often crushed and added to energy drinks. In rural, backwoods Japan locals make fried hornets and sometimes eat them raw in a sort of hornet sashimi.
10 January 2007
Natures Oddities Part 5: The Platypus
I initially resisted canonizing the Platypus into my nature’s oddities list for two reasons: 1) many people know of the animal 2) it lacks a single outstanding odd feature (like super mucus, super senses, or ability to live in extreme situations).
The platypus instead represents a tremendous assortment of little oddities. It is perhaps the true variety oddball, so strange that the first scientists who examined its pelt thought it was trick by a mischievous “Asian taxidermist.”
The platypus is one of the few mammals that lay eggs. Yes, it does not carry its young in a womb, however it does nurse its young with milk, but even more oddly, it does not have teats. Rather, it secretes milk (along with copius immune boosting chemicals since baby platapi have rudimentary immume function) through patches of its skin. It is one of the few mammals with venom, and the only mammal that delivers its venom in a way other than a bite. The male has a venomous spur on its hind legs, which can incapacitate an adult human due to excruciating pain. The venom is unlike any other venom in the animal world, using defensin-like proteins, which are normally reserved for innate immune functions like killing bacteria.
They have a beak, but growl like a typically-jawed mammal. They have no teeth as adults. Instead they have keratinized (the material fingernails are made of) tufts. They have a reptilian gait, unlike all other mammals. And they swim only with their front legs, and use their rear legs as rudders, another feature shared by no other mammal. They are the only mammals that locate their prey using electroreception. They can detect the electric fields generated by nervous and muscle activity in their prey (shrimps, worms, small crayfish, and other mud-dwelling critters). They have an extremely low body temperature for a mammal 90 F (most mammals are around 100 F). They have ten sex chromosomes, a trait no other animal shares. Most animals have two. They store fat in their tails like Tasmanian devils.
They have few enemies, mostly birds of prey, alligators, and some large lizards. They males are deadbeats, and the mothers roost their (clutches of 4-5 usually) eggs in a simple burrow made just above water. They are semi-aquatic and semi-nocturnal; they cannot make up their mind on anything. They have tremendous energy needs and need to consume around 25% of their body weight daily to survive. Therefore, they spend around 12 hours a day sifting thought the mud with their electroreceptor-laden beaks.
What an odd animal indeed. No wonder the Aussies put her on their 20 cent coin!
The platypus instead represents a tremendous assortment of little oddities. It is perhaps the true variety oddball, so strange that the first scientists who examined its pelt thought it was trick by a mischievous “Asian taxidermist.”
The platypus is one of the few mammals that lay eggs. Yes, it does not carry its young in a womb, however it does nurse its young with milk, but even more oddly, it does not have teats. Rather, it secretes milk (along with copius immune boosting chemicals since baby platapi have rudimentary immume function) through patches of its skin. It is one of the few mammals with venom, and the only mammal that delivers its venom in a way other than a bite. The male has a venomous spur on its hind legs, which can incapacitate an adult human due to excruciating pain. The venom is unlike any other venom in the animal world, using defensin-like proteins, which are normally reserved for innate immune functions like killing bacteria.
They have a beak, but growl like a typically-jawed mammal. They have no teeth as adults. Instead they have keratinized (the material fingernails are made of) tufts. They have a reptilian gait, unlike all other mammals. And they swim only with their front legs, and use their rear legs as rudders, another feature shared by no other mammal. They are the only mammals that locate their prey using electroreception. They can detect the electric fields generated by nervous and muscle activity in their prey (shrimps, worms, small crayfish, and other mud-dwelling critters). They have an extremely low body temperature for a mammal 90 F (most mammals are around 100 F). They have ten sex chromosomes, a trait no other animal shares. Most animals have two. They store fat in their tails like Tasmanian devils.
They have few enemies, mostly birds of prey, alligators, and some large lizards. They males are deadbeats, and the mothers roost their (clutches of 4-5 usually) eggs in a simple burrow made just above water. They are semi-aquatic and semi-nocturnal; they cannot make up their mind on anything. They have tremendous energy needs and need to consume around 25% of their body weight daily to survive. Therefore, they spend around 12 hours a day sifting thought the mud with their electroreceptor-laden beaks.
What an odd animal indeed. No wonder the Aussies put her on their 20 cent coin!
06 January 2007
Nature’s Oddities Part 4: the Star-Nosed Mole
Even uglier than the hagfish, the blind star-nosed mole, Condylura cristata spends most of its time tunneling in damp soil looking for food. The star-nosed mole features oversized and extremely powerful forelimbs highly adapted for digging. I has very smooth and dense fur, which makes it a great swimmer and capable of swimming in freezing cold waters (something no other mole accomplishes). It has litters of 4-5, and is a decent parent by mammalian standards.
By far its most remarkable feature is the “star.” This highly modified nose has 22 fleshy, highly vascularized, appendages literally packed with Eimer's organ’s, which are tiny specialized sensory-motor receptors unique to moles. Over 25,000 of these receptors are distributed over the surface of the appendages. This is a remarkable concentration. To make a comparison, I will use the human hand. The density of motor-receptors on the human hand is so low that to match the star’s density, every receptor site on both hands would have to be relocated on to a single patch of skin the size of a fingernail. Yes, the mole’s ability to feel with its star is that much more acute than our ability to feel with our hands.
Even better, the mole utilizes a special neuronal pathway for communicating sensory data from its receptors to its brain that no other animal utilizes for sensory-receptors. It is a very direct and short pathway, which greatly conserves the amount of nervous tissue necessary to get the job done, and it is quite similar to the pathway used by the human eye. This allows the mole to make decisions about what it feels so fast that they approach the limit of neuron’s speed.
As the mole travels through the soil it wiggles its 22 appendages constantly, gathering more sensory data than we can imagine from its star. This constant vigilance, combined with the mole’s rapid decision making ability, allows the mole to be the fastest eater on earth (120 milliseconds to identify and consume individual food items). Not even certain species of fish, with entirely reflexive (no cognitive processing) bite movements, can compare. When the mole encounters a morsel it decides is edible, it rapidly ingests the often-tiny bit of food with its precise, tweezer-like teeth. This remarkably rapid decision-making and ability to grasp tiny bits of food allow the star-nosed mole to utilize food sources most animals its size cannot. See, it’s a principal of biological thermodynamics that larger prey is a more efficient source of food. It takes far less energy, per pound of meat obtained, to subdue a cow that it takes to subdue several hundred rabbits. Each rabbit needs to be chased down and killed. The same principle exists on a smaller scale. Often shrews, rats, and mice overlook critters like nematodes and small worms and invertebrates because tracking, grasping, and ingesting them will consume more energy than the prey’s body will yield through digestion. The star nosed-mole, though, is a master of small prey. It is so efficient and detecting them (with is super sensor nose) and subduing them (with its tweezer teeth) that no other small mammal compares. This has led to enormous success for the star-nose, and its range extends from the swamps of South Carolina all the way to northern Canada.
The star-nose spends almost its entire life several meters below the soil (but always around one meter above the waterline), so it has few natural predators. Sometimes owls, snakes, hawks, and weasel-like mammals prey upon the star nose, but it’s mostly loss of habitat that harms them. Unlike the lamprey and hagfish, which mock (or downright exploit) man’s meddling in the world, the star-nose stands to lose from it.
By far its most remarkable feature is the “star.” This highly modified nose has 22 fleshy, highly vascularized, appendages literally packed with Eimer's organ’s, which are tiny specialized sensory-motor receptors unique to moles. Over 25,000 of these receptors are distributed over the surface of the appendages. This is a remarkable concentration. To make a comparison, I will use the human hand. The density of motor-receptors on the human hand is so low that to match the star’s density, every receptor site on both hands would have to be relocated on to a single patch of skin the size of a fingernail. Yes, the mole’s ability to feel with its star is that much more acute than our ability to feel with our hands.
Even better, the mole utilizes a special neuronal pathway for communicating sensory data from its receptors to its brain that no other animal utilizes for sensory-receptors. It is a very direct and short pathway, which greatly conserves the amount of nervous tissue necessary to get the job done, and it is quite similar to the pathway used by the human eye. This allows the mole to make decisions about what it feels so fast that they approach the limit of neuron’s speed.
As the mole travels through the soil it wiggles its 22 appendages constantly, gathering more sensory data than we can imagine from its star. This constant vigilance, combined with the mole’s rapid decision making ability, allows the mole to be the fastest eater on earth (120 milliseconds to identify and consume individual food items). Not even certain species of fish, with entirely reflexive (no cognitive processing) bite movements, can compare. When the mole encounters a morsel it decides is edible, it rapidly ingests the often-tiny bit of food with its precise, tweezer-like teeth. This remarkably rapid decision-making and ability to grasp tiny bits of food allow the star-nosed mole to utilize food sources most animals its size cannot. See, it’s a principal of biological thermodynamics that larger prey is a more efficient source of food. It takes far less energy, per pound of meat obtained, to subdue a cow that it takes to subdue several hundred rabbits. Each rabbit needs to be chased down and killed. The same principle exists on a smaller scale. Often shrews, rats, and mice overlook critters like nematodes and small worms and invertebrates because tracking, grasping, and ingesting them will consume more energy than the prey’s body will yield through digestion. The star nosed-mole, though, is a master of small prey. It is so efficient and detecting them (with is super sensor nose) and subduing them (with its tweezer teeth) that no other small mammal compares. This has led to enormous success for the star-nose, and its range extends from the swamps of South Carolina all the way to northern Canada.
The star-nose spends almost its entire life several meters below the soil (but always around one meter above the waterline), so it has few natural predators. Sometimes owls, snakes, hawks, and weasel-like mammals prey upon the star nose, but it’s mostly loss of habitat that harms them. Unlike the lamprey and hagfish, which mock (or downright exploit) man’s meddling in the world, the star-nose stands to lose from it.
04 January 2007
Explanation for my negligence
I will be posting a Nature's Oddities article on the Star-Nosed mole soon. I will also be posting some other thoughs, but lately I have been bombarded with so many thoughtful people that I cannot sort through all the wonderful things I want to write about.
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