Burra Maluca

My father-in-law once got called out to investigate why a brand new magnetic, er, something-or-other wasn't working.

He drove for four hours, walked into the room it was installed in, took one look, declared that it works better if you plug it in, plugged it in, and drove another four hours to get home.

I dread to think what that hourly rate was if you only included the minute he actually spent doing something useful.

I'm reminded of the story where Henry Ford once balked at paying $10,000 to General Electric for work done troubleshooting a generator, and asked for an itemized bill. The engineer who performed the work, Charles Steinmetz, sent this: "Making chalk mark on generator, $1. Knowing where to make mark, $9,999."

Also, travelling time, costs, being willing to blow your pipe, etc...

The dragons were gone most of the night but somehow they managed to get up bright and early the next morning to start drawing what they'd seen.

Rosa had taken herself off to her art station and was busy mixing shades of blue to make a background, and not letting anyone else near her lest it disturb her artistic muse. Iggy had managed to extract some supplies from her before she'd shut herself off and had taken over the bed, supervised closely by Roxa, who had sourced a steel rule for him and wanted to make sure he used it properly, and Índigo, who was keen to prove that she was NOT waving as she'd been zooming along at the speed of light.

Iggy very carefully marked out where he thought he wanted the lines to go with the help of a pencil, lined them up carefully and spaced them out with the help of the steel rule so they looked nice and even just like the way he'd seen them up in space, and then when he thought it looked just right, he went over the lines with the same blue marker pen that I'd used on one of Índigo's wing tips.

This was the result...



He glanced nervously up at Roxa, who stared at the picture for a minute.

"Um, it looks like a sine-wave to me..." Roxa suggested. "Are you sure you weren't waving, Índigo?"

"I was NOT waving!" Índigo insisted.

"I think it might look the same if you were flapping your wings, like you do when you fly.." suggested Iggy

"We were in space. You don't have to flap your wings to fly when you are in space. And anyway, Shiva threw me so I didn't need any extra wing-power."

"Maybe you flapped them anyway, out of habit?"

"I DID NOT FLAP MY WINGS!"

Poor Índigo was getting a bit annoyed, and indignant, by now.

"I held them out, like this." Ìndigo demonstrated "And then zoomed along at the speed of light when Shiva threw me."

Ìndigo spread out her wings and stretched out her neck and zoomed around the bed as fast as her little legs could carry her. She's surprisingly long when she does that. I guess dragons are rather serpentine creatures in their way...

Iggy watched her carefully until he got dizzy. He had to admit that her wings did not flap. And now there was no sign of the waviness that he'd seen so clearly up in space.

He couldn't figure it out, so he pushed his picture towards me and asked for my opinion on what was happening.



"Well, let's have a think. Índigo, are you sure you were flying in a straight line?"

"Absolutely sure! Shiva threw me like the best quarterback there ever was. I was flying as straight as an arrow. And faster than a speeding bullet."

Roxa stared at the picture and thought very hard when she heard about arrows and bullets, but she wasn't quite sure where her thoughts were trying to lead her.

"And where were you, Iggy, relative to Ìndigo?"

"I went back quite a way, and set myself up at a right angle to where she was going to pass. I wanted to concentrate on just one short section so I could see it as it really was, without letting my head turn."

"That's a very good, scientific sort of approach." I agreed. "And where was Rosa?"

"Oh she was much closer. She wanted to see Ìndigo zooming up towards her and then zooming off into the distance. I think it will look all distorted like that though and I wanted to see it properly."

I thought for a moment.

"Do you know the story about the blind men and the elephant?" I asked him.

"What elephant?"

"The elephant the blind men went to see."

"How can they see an elephant if they're blind?"

"Hang on. Let me go and find a video of it...  Ah - here it is! I think we should watch it."



Iggy listened carefully to the story. He understood its meaning, but he didn't quite agree with it.

"But mum, none of them were actually wrong. They just weren't completely right. They didn't have the whole picture."

"So what should they have done, to get a more complete picture?" I asked him.

Iggy thought for a moment.

"I think they needed to communicate more. Share their findings instead of arguing about who was right. Because all of them had an insight to contribute, and together they could build a much better picture of what the elephant really was."

"So what do you think we should do next?"

The dragons on my bed glanced over to where Rosa was busy sprinkling white paint over her blue background to make stars.



"I think Rosa might have a better picture. If she ever finishes. She's still perfecting the background and hasn't even started on drawing the light wave yet."

"Maybe she won't even see it as a wave." I suggested. "She's likely to have a completely different perspective..."

And so Iggy went off to read up about orthogonal and perspective viewpoints while Índigo went over to tell Vermelha all about her adventures and Roxa snuck into Austin's room to see how the feathers on his arrows were attached, and to peer down the barrel of his air rifle and to do a bit of research on how to throw a football.

And I will be back to let you all know how Rosa gets on, and to show you her painting. When she finishes it.  She may be some time...

THIS is the way to use GMO technology, not for messing about with our food supply!



From this article - Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time

One of the cruellest and most devastating diseases – Huntington's – has been successfully treated for the first time, say doctors.
The disease runs through families, relentlessly kills brain cells and resembles a combination of dementia, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease.
An emotional research team became tearful as they described how data shows the disease was slowed by 75% in patients.

The dragons were busy planning an adventure and squabbling about who was going to take part in it. I thought I ought to check in to see what they were were up to.

"Iggy, what is everybody doing?"

"I want to do an experiment and we're figuring out the logistics!"

"Dare I ask what the experiment is about?"

"Well when went up to space to visit Draco and play ball with Shiva for celestial day in the smaugust challenge, I noticed that Vermelha and Índigo seemed to be waving at me when they zoomed past at the speed of light. But when I asked them about it, they said they weren't waving, just zooming. And I know that light waves, but I wasn't sure how it did it. So I thought it would be fun to take a close look. So we're planning a trip up to visit Draco again and Shiva is going to meet us up there and we're trying to decide who should come."

"And have you decided?"

"Well I need to go because it's my experiment. And we need someone for Shiva to throw and turn into a photon of light. And I'm not very good at drawing so Rosa offered to come. And then Rubeus says it's a bit far for Rosa so he wants to come and supervise."

"I think keeping it fairly simple is a good idea. Do Vermelha and Índigo both want to go?"

"I think they'd both like to, but strictly speaking I think we only need one of them..."

"How are you going to keep track of the waving?"

"Dunno..."

"How about I put a dab of ink on one of their wing tips?"

"That might work!"

"Hey you two!" I called to Vermelha and Índigo. "Which of you wants to have a mark put on their wing tips so we can see if you wave when you get turned into a beam of light?"


"Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" squealed Índigo, spotting the blue marker pen I'd just picked up. "Blue is my colour!"

So I carefully marked the tip of one her wings and Vermelha agreed to let Índigo be the one to take part in the experiment.

I guess they'll be setting off tonight. I'll let you all know what they find out!

This guy uses a metal kitty-litter scoop...

I did laundry by hand for years and years, though I upgraded to a machine a couple of years ago.

Washing in cold water is depressing, unless it's a very hot day. Your hands get cold, and eventually numb. Warm water is much better psychologically and I suspect also for loosening the dirt and grime. On a sunny day it might be possible to rig up a hose-pipe with a spray nozzle that you can switch off, leave it lying in the sun, then you might have enough warm water from it to fill the laundry tub without having to actively heat water. It doesn't have to be very hot - just enough to make the experience pleasant rather than something you come to dread.

I found it was essential to have the tub set up at an appropriate height so that I never had to bend. If I got the height of both the bench and the tub right, it would be an awesome workout to strengthen my arms and back without ever straining anything or making me ache.

Also, soaking is your friend as is loosens the dirt without any extra effort. Put the stuff in a tub with soapy water (can be cold...) and leave it for an hour or more while you do something else. Then change the water and you'll find that most of the dirt goes straight out in that first lot of dirty water.

Here's a photo of my old set-up...



I used two builders' trugs, one with holes cut in the bottom for drainage so I could put wet clothes in there to let them drain after scrubbing them, then they could be put back into the other tub for rinsing.

I never wrung the wet clothes out, but I had a covered area I could hang them to drip dry and then if necessary during cold weather I could bring them indoors to finish drying.

In a vague attempt to steer the discussion back to where I originally intended...



And here's some info on the four main types of plant pigments, taken from the wikipedia page on plant pigments...

Chlorophyll is the primary pigment in plants; it is a chlorin that absorbs blue and red wavelengths of light while reflecting a majority of green. It is the presence and relative abundance of chlorophyll that gives plants their green color. All land plants and green algae possess two forms of this pigment: chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b. Kelps, diatoms, and other photosynthetic heterokonts contain chlorophyll c instead of b, while red algae possess only chlorophyll a. All chlorophylls serve as the primary means plants use to intercept light in order to fuel photosynthesis.

Carotenoids are red, orange, or yellow tetraterpenoids. During the process of photosynthesis, they have functions in light-harvesting (as accessory pigments), in photoprotection (energy dissipation via non-photochemical quenching as well as singlet oxygen scavenging for prevention of photooxidative damage), and also serve as protein structural elements. In higher plants, they also serve as precursors to the plant hormone abscisic acid.

Betalains are red or yellow pigments. Like anthocyanins they are water-soluble, but unlike anthocyanins they are synthesized from tyrosine. This class of pigments is found only in the Caryophyllales (including cactus and amaranth), and never co-occur in plants with anthocyanins. Betalains are responsible for the deep red color of beets.

Anthocyanins (literally "flower blue") are water-soluble flavonoid pigments that appear red to blue, according to pH. They occur in all tissues of higher plants, providing color in leaves, plant stem, roots, flowers, and fruits, though not always in sufficient quantities to be noticeable. Anthocyanins are most visible in the petals of flowers of many species.[5]

Hahaha - I'd intended this thread to be for plant pigments and their nutritional and medicinal benefits but there's no way we're not going to digress to all sorts of other areas...

Here's a video about structural colour, as used in birds and fish, and how it might inspire us to use those ideas to create new materials.

I'm becoming fascinated with the pigments found in plants. And especially what they do for the plant and what they might also be able to do for us.

I thought I'd start a thread where we can share lots of info about them.



And here's a useful diagram summarising the main types and where you might find them... (from springer.com)



And this is a lovely introductory video about colours in nature and how plant pigments work...