A-X Challenge: Y. Yodel?

Due to an accident and injury, the last two days of this Challenge were postponed.

Music is language. Not necessarily in word, but in tone, mode, and forms. Yodeling, and its various forms, probably originated not in music but as a form of communicating information by sound. Later it was incorporated into ethnic songs and music.

Most are familiar with the yodel of the commercial for menthol cough drops in the Alps, or in older country and western singers, such as Jimmie Rogers. But few are aware that the 'yodel' is only one expression of a wider form and expression of voice.

According to Wikipedia, yodeling is a "form of singing which involves repeated changes of pitch during a single note. The singer quickly switches between the low-pitch chest register (or "chest voice") and the high-pitch head register or falsetto." The most familiar to American listeners is the yodel from the Alps, where the yodel was used by herders to call their livestock or to locate their location to others. Yodeling and whistles were also used by some indigenous African hunters to communicate location of game and themselves. In almost all cases, this form of communication became embedded in their traditional music, especially during rituals.

Other forms of yodeling are found in many ethnic folk music: Persian, Bulgarian, Arabic, Flamenco, Georgian, and African. The differences can be profound or subtle. In contrast to the wide variation in scale and tone of yodel of the Alps, another form is common in the former Persian countries. Any person that has listened to the morning or evening Islamic call to prayer never forgets the eerie yet entrancing trills that float on the air.

"In Persian classical music, singers frequently use tahrir ("tremolo" in English), a yodeling technique that oscillates on neighbor tones. It is similar to the Swiss yodel, and is used as an ornament or trill in phrases which have long syllables, and usually falls at the end of a phrase. Tahrir is also prevalent in Azerbaijani, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Turkish, Armenian, Afghan, and Central Asian musical traditions, and to a lesser extent in Pakistani and some Indian music."- Wikipedia

Voices using micro-intervals and polyphony can still be heard in ethnic and folk music of some European countries. Microtonal music can refer to all music which contains intervals smaller than the conventional contemporary Western semitone. Think of mini-yodeling.

My personal favorite is flamenco, which is rooted in the Andalusian gypsies and ancient Moorish influence. The cante flamenco, or 'flamenco song', often uses micro-intervals and polyphony to express passion. 'Cante jondo' is considered the purist form, the heart and soul, of flamenco voice; it is the 'deep song', expressing death, anguish, despair, or religious sentiments. Cante jondo is often accompanied by flamenco guitar, but also sung to the percussion of hand claps and stamping feet or a cappella (without instrumental accompaniment). 

Flamenco singer Camaron De La Isla championed the traditional style of cante jondo, as did others that followed him (such as Enrique Morente, who passed away in 2010). You can hear a podcast examining Camaron's career and flamenco voice by following this link (Camaron De La Isla: The Voice Of Flamenco).

Variations of a yodel my be heard in other traditional music.  Mugham is a style of music and voice of the Azerbaijani people in the Caucus mountains and nearby. This, too, has roots in old Persian music style.

"The full throated yodeling technique of the Kavkaz Azerbaijani ashikh lends an extraordinary power to the elegant and folksy melodies they employ while accompanying themselves on the saz, a long neck lute. When these two great and ancient musical traditions met and mixed, they gave birth to an extraordinary style of music that is evolving. To best appreciate mugham, it should be understood as a modern development of an ancient practice, which is the use of sound to induce a transformation of consciousness. Today this might be called trance music, but it would not be a good translation, because the word ’trance’ is associated with the hypnotic trance, whereas mugham offers an enhancement of consciousness, not a loss of consciousness of any degree.

Melodies used to attain ’trance’ states are relatively simple and repetitive, and versions of this can be found throughout the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia among the more nomadic tribes. In the cities, the more ’classical’ styles of music evolved, such as dastgah and mugham. In this sense, mugham is modern. It is as evolved in its form as the great classics of European music are in their form." - Visions of Azerbaijani

Another example of voice that incorporates a type of yodeling is the folk music of Bulgaria, exemplified by the wonderful Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir. They use diaphonic singing and distinctive timbre, as well as modal scales and dissonant harmonies, usually unaccompanied by instruments. Their voices are melodic and captivating. If you listen to the song embedded below, you can detect the micro-intervals of voice that, again, is a type of yodeling.

So now you know that yodeling is not relegated to the Alps or American country singers. You might even be enchanted by the various forms in other world music like I am.

A-Z Challenge. Xēros and xerosere.

The letter 'x' is rather lonely. Compared to other letters of the alphabet, not many words begin with this letter.

My first association with any 'x' is the female chromosome. But that's an abstract association: the shape of the female chromosome is 'X'. I suppose that might be a legitimate blog post for today's letter, but let us venture into a word that does begin with 'x': xēros. Then we will slide right into another word that descends from xēros: xerosere.

The etymology of 'xero' is from the Greek xēros, which means 'dry'. In combination with a noun or vowel , xero- indicates dryness. Now, if we add the suffix sere, we have 'xerosere'.

Sere is derived from the modern word 'series', which means a group or a number of related or similar things or events arranged or occurring in temporal, spatial, or other order or succession or sequence. The two words were combined as xerosere in the late 1920's to refer to the series of changes occurring in the ecological succession on dry soil, including bare rock.

A primary component of a xerosere is limited water availability. Deserts, rocky places, and lava beds are examples of the type of ecological succession that typifies a xerosere.

Xerosere

This begins on exposed parent rocks or dry sand. The pioneer plants in the primary succession are lichens and mosses which help in forming soil by accelerating erosion. In time, herbaceous vegetation such as grasses, etc., grow on the soils deposited on rocks and enhance weathering. As these plants die, they add nutrients and organic matter to the forming soil deposited on and around the rocky areas.

Mixed shrubs then establish the area, which attracts birds and mammals. These animals help in the succession by dispersing and depositing seed. Intermediate plants develop and form a transition community. Eventually a climax community (also called a 'biome') establishes itself where populations of plants or animals remain stable and exist in balance with each other and their environment.

The following is an example of forest xerosere on barren rock.

1. Bare rock is first colonized by lichens and bacteria.
2. Small amount of soil formed by the lichens is colonized by mosses, which do not have roots and require little soil, and ferns.
3. As the seedless plants live and die, the soil continues to develop to the point that grasses can successfully grow and a grassland community forms.
4. Over time, the soil level increases to the point that shrubs can grow in the grassland.
5. The grassland is replaced by a shrub community.
6. The shrub community may be gradually be replaced by a forest.

A desert xerosere is quite different than that in an environment with greater water availability. For those that live in the deserts, I invite you to look around you and ponder how such a progression of a stable ecosystem might proceed from bare rock or sand. Consider the time involved in these changes, and then consider your own role in this progression.

A-Z Challenge. Wonder and Wisdom

"Wisdom begins with wonder." - Socrates

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." - Socrates

"Socrates liked to tease his interlocutors by saying that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing. There is a deep insight in this, for the one thing that is more dangerous than true ignorance is the illusion of knowledge and understanding. Such illusion abounds, and one of the first tasks of philosophy – as wonderfully demonstrated by Socrates in Plato's "Meno" – is to explore our claims to know things about ourselves and the world, and to expose them if they are false or muddled. It does so by beginning with the questions we ask, to ensure that we understand what we are asking; and even when answers remain elusive, we at least grasp what it is that we do not know. This in itself is a huge gain. One of the most valuable things philosophy has given me is an appreciation of this fact." - Anonymous quote

To wonder is to keep alive and fresh the child's curiosity. For, indeed, there lies the beginnings of wonder and wisdom. And the beauty of life.

A-Z Challenge. V is for.... Volk?

Americans have their common generic name, 'Smith'. Germans have their common name, 'Volk'. I can always recognize upon introduction a person that speaks German when they pronounce the word as 'Folk', which is the correct German pronunciation.

The etymology of the word, 'volk' is interesting because it has several derivations. The noun 'volk' is the generic German and Dutch word for 'people' in the ethnic sense. The Old English noun 'folc' was derived from the an early German term, and was used in reference to 'common people'. Hence, the modern English word 'folk' has the same meaning and pronunciation of the German 'volk'.

The German 'volk' is now used often in compound words, specifically determining 'of the common people'. The most well-known example is the popular little car Volkswagon, literally translated as 'the people's car'. Another example is the 'Volkswalk' (a common event of public walking groups).

Of course, it also is a common surname. In fact, it is my family name and I wear it proudly. And there are other Volk's in the American science community, such as a a chemist at UTHSC in Houston, TX, a biologist at SUNY-ESF (Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY), and an anesthesiologist in Oregon (whom I met while I lay on a gurney waiting for anesthesia).

I know of three scientists in my own extended family: My father (biochemistry), Sherry (retired biology teacher), and myself (biologist). Considering the large number of siblings in past Volk generations from which I descend from (10-12 siblings recorded in several generations), there may be other distantly-related 'Volk' scientists out there we are not aware of. Maybe we are the 'common people' scientists.

Then again, 'volk' is also Slovenian for 'wolf'. That could explain many things. ;) Perhaps wolves and people have a long shared history together.

Hats off to all you 'Volk's out there!

Da bo vôlk sit in koza cela!

Wolves could be people's best friend. Volk's in kind.
"Wolves had a pre-existing capacity to learn from social partners — and that humans capitalized on that capacity more than 18,000 years ago."

A-Z Challenge. U-FOs?

Roughly 96 miles from where I live is a small remote community called Marfa (Texas). Although the town is mostly known for its density of artists (long history), it's also known for UFOs. The phenomena are called the Marfa Lights.

These lights are observed near US67 on Mitchell Flat east of Marfa. There is even a viewing 'platform' on the side of the highway. A mixture of rural legend (a sibling of 'urban' legend) and perplexed scientists, the lights are an attraction like a magnet for passersby and visitors to the Trans-Pecos area.

Paranormalists have attributed the Marfa Lights to everything from space aliens, to secret federal aerial projects, and to wandering ghosts of Spanish conquistadors. Scientific candidate explanations range from vehicle lights, mirages, glowing gases, electrical charges from surface rock, etc.

Whatever the reality behind these lights, think of a West Texas version of fireflies.

People love their legends. :)

Marfa Lights on Wikipedia.

A-Z Challenge. T is for Toponyms

Edward Abbey once wrote about the human propensity to ascribe everything with a name:

“Unless we can name things, they remain for us only half-real. A man’s name can become more important than his person. A plant, an animal, a thing without a name is no thing – nothing. No wonder we humans like to think that in the beginning was – the Word. What word? Any word at all, anything rather than the silence and terror of the nameless.”

Having shared that viewpoint all my life, I often make up names for things already named. Sometimes things remain nameless. Even people. 

I live in a place where many things clash, including names. It is the desert. 

This area of the southern Big Bend country encompasses a state and national park, a wildlife refuge, small scattered human communities, and a river. All collectively called many names, such as “The Big Empty”. Or “God’s Country”, “Paradise”, “Devil’s Playground”. I recall perusing topo maps before my first trip down there, smirking at some of the names given to landmarks: Dealer’s Gap, Mule Ears, Dog Canyon, Elephant Mountain, and more. Some quite entertaining, some named after a long-dead person, others with religious names, many with assigned descriptive names, such as ‘The Window’.

But when you are there, you sometimes invent your own personal name for a landmark. I christened a peak in Black Gap as “Randy’s Monolith” because my friend Randy was enthralled with its presence. I’m sure it probably has an accepted toponym decreed by someone long ago and propagated over time without dissent, eventually being recorded on a map and copied over and over again.

But if you are truly in the desert, and a part of it, you don’t remember or care about names. You can make up any name you want for anything there. Or see and know landmarks without a name. 

I've always been interested in how people perceive places and how people create meaning through places. I try to listen to the voices, the versions and the scenes. I don't restrict meaning to organized tours, glossy brochures and pamphlets, but try to really find and listen to the many voices of a landscape. Even the quiet voice of the physical environment, for it is not really silent.

Learning how we ascribe symbols to places, events and other people, or names in general, reveals much about ourselves and those that came before us.  We are products of language, thus, language imparts power. Place names, or toponyms, provide valuable insight into the historical geography of a particular region.  These names attached to the physical landscape inform us of its past and present culture, including ethnic settlement patterns.  The other association with toponyms is the dominant voices in the past and the present, and those voices that have been silenced.

Place names can be quite revealing. The Native Americans sometimes gave many names to non-living things, including each other. Not uncommonly, one individual could have many names. Never were they names that Europeans use. No Native American chose to be Robert or Ester without a strong European influence, or even Anglo-American coercion. Even after death, many natives were buried the Anglo way and assigned Anglo names that were inscribed on their headstones. I witnessed this in several cemeteries, such as in Fort Sill (Oklahoma) where Geronimo was buried.

Here is no different. With reluctance I have referenced this region in south Texas as ‘Big Bend Country’. I also call it 'Occupied New Mexico'. But inside my head and heart, it is the desert and canyons, with special locations called 'Home'.

•  For those interested in toponyms, I highly recommend reading this book by Mark Monmonier: From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow:How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame.
• Witch's Tit is a mountain in the Big Bend area. And it really does have the shape of a..... breast. 

A-Z Challenge. S. Statement for Today

Today is Earth Day. It should be every day.
It is also 'S' day. So here is my Statement for today.

I pledge allegiance to the Earth, and to the Universe in which it rotates; one planet, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all life. May all life sing on all Days of this Earth.

A-Z Challenge: Quoting a Quark.

"Quack, quack!", said the Quark. He thought he was a duck.

The neighboring Loon looked over and said, "Oh, hum. How elementary. And what is the matter now?"

"I'm not sure. I can't see where my children are! They are always together. Even if they can't be seen," replied the Quark.

"I see," nodded the Loon.

"No you don't. You can't see them!," exclaimed the Quark. "They tend to group themselves in these 'hadrons', as they call themselves. And they seem to elude me all the time."

Loon ruffled his feathers. "Sure; there is probably a very strong force between them. What are your children's names?"

Quark thought for a moment, trying to remember. "I think their names are Up, Down, Strange, Charm, Bottom, and Top. That is, if I remember correctly."

With a shake of his neck, Loon muttered in his beak, "You've got to be kidding me. And they call this 'fysics?'"

In 1963, when I assigned the name ‘quark’ to the fundamental constituents of the nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been ‘kwork’. Then, in one of my occasional perusals of ‘Finnegans Wake,’ by James Joyce, I came across the word ‘quark’ in the phrase ‘Three quarks for Muster Mark.’ Since ‘quark’ (meaning, for one thing, the cry of a gull) was clearly intended to rhyme with ‘Mark,’ as well as ‘bark’ and other such words, I had to find an excuse to pronounce it as ‘kwork.’ But the book represents the dreams of a publican named Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker. Words in the text are typically drawn from several sources at once, like the ‘portmanteau words’ in ‘Through the Looking Glass.’

From time to time, phrases occur in the book that are partially determined by calls for drinks at the bar. I argued, therefore, that perhaps one of the multiple sources of the cry ‘Three quarks for Muster Mark’ might be the pronunciation for ‘Three quarts for Mister Mark,’ in which case the pronunciation ‘kwork’ would not be totally unjustified. In any case, the number three fitted perfectly the way quarks occur in nature.

—Murray Gell-Mann, in his book The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex.

Murray Gell-Mann, born in 1929, is an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics (or, that 'f' word, fysics) for his work on the theory of elementary particles. Including quarks.

A-Z Challenge: P. I smell Petrichor.

Here in the desert some of us can smell rain even before it falls to the ground around our feet. Yet when the precious blood of life hits the ground, the scents released are intoxicating. A musty odor, an earthy smell mixes and invades your nostrils waking primitive instincts and emotions in our lizard brains. Possibly the oldest scent on this earth, next to the salt-laden smell of the seas, it speaks of hunger, rebirth, enlightenment, and longing. More than anywhere else, it is a call to life in the deserts where water is so scarce. After the initial experience, all newcomers and old-time dwellers dream of the smell of the desert: rain.

The scent of rain on the desert floor after a long period of dryness is a pleasure. It's even sensuous. In fact, it has a scientific name, 'petrichor', coined by two Australian researchers back in 1964. The origins of the term are rooted in Greek and its mythology: petros means stone and ichor, the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods.

The odor is said to be a concoction of a variety of compounds. One source is plant chemicals that are trapped in the earth, or in plant leaf and bark cuticles. Rain water releases them into the air. Some plants exude oils during dry periods, which are then absorbed by clay-based soils and rocks. Water from rain will often signal plants to release oils from their cuticles, and droplets displace oils that are trapped on soil surfaces.

Many silicious and clay (argillaceous) materials are known to have odors that are released when wet. During a rainstorm and especially after a drought, compounds which accumulate over time in dry rocks and soil are mixed and released into the atmosphere. Falling water disturbs and displaces odoriferous molecules on surfaces, particularly on dry ones, and then carries them into the air.

In wet areas, a metabolic by-product of soil-dwelling bacteria (Actinobacteria) is secreted when they produce spores during dry conditions. These compounds attach to soil particles. The force of rain landing on the ground sends these spores and the odiferous compounds up into the air. The result is a distinctive scent, called 'geosmin'. The smell of geosmin is often the strongest during the first rain after a dry spell because the largest supply of spores has collected in the soil.

Another contribution to the scent of rain may be ozone, especially if there is lightning. A lightning bolt’s electrical charge will split oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere. These molecules often recombine into nitric oxide (NO), which then interacts with other chemicals in the atmosphere to produce ozone. And this can be blown on the wind for miles.

But why are we so attracted to that smell of rain? Why is it like a siren that calls us and makes us smile? Anthropologist Diana Young of the University of Queensland, Australia, explored the connection between color and the smell of rain. While studying the culture of Western Australia’s Pitjantjatjara people, she observed that they associate the smell of rain with the color green. This suggests that there is a deep-seated link between a season’s first rain and the expectation of growth and associated game animals. Both are critical as a food source. She calls this 'cultural synesthesia', the blending of different sensory experiences on a society-wide scale due to evolutionary history.

For us in the desert and other arid-environments, the smell is also associated with a rebirth and awakening of life.

I can smell the drenched desert floor. It’s not the old heavy odor of wet wood, soggy black mud and swollen green grass of the north country. Nor is it the overwhelmingly sharp salty fish and frothy seaweed smell of the ocean coast. Instead it is an acrid aroma of hidden and dead ancient sea creatures whose shells remain to tell stories, a spicy phenolic scent released from plants that awaken only in the presence of moisture. A strong musky odor from eons of baked, blown and accumulated dust, sand, gravel and rocks encapsulates all these other smells into an undulating mixture that wafts into nasal cavities of warm and cold-blooded creatures. If you open your mouth, you can even taste it.

From those sensory channels, these odors are translated into mixed signals and stories in the brain. It is a discourse that knows no words, only ticklings deep inside that elicit subconscious memories and innate responses. - Excerpt from an essay by Elzi Volk (me), My Desert Smells Like Rain

A-Z Challenge. Ohm.

In case new readers haven't caught on yet, I have an odd and inexplicable curiosity of names. (My favorite subject is toponyms, but that's for the letter 'T'.) This interest even surfaces in my science writing where I often address scientific names and common names of, well, just about everything in science. Yet, I am also known for totally disregarding official names, including my own. I'll let the couch-psychologists toy with that.

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes (literally, desert dust) and listening to a quail thumping outside my window while waiting for my coffee to brew, the roulette in my mind landed on a rather insignificant word for today's letter 'O': ohm.

What's in an 'ohm'?

Some might recall from physics (the 'F' word, 'fysics') class learning about the relationship between the potential difference applied across a conductor and the resultant electric current; aka Ohm's Law.

Those with an engineering slant will immediately gravitate to that Pièce de résistance of electricity, the ohm. It is an SI (International System of Units) unit of resistance: the proportionality of current and voltage in a resistor. The definition of ohm as a unit has undergone several revisions since the 1860's, but it also has been assigned a symbol: Ω. That's easier to remember.

Probably few know that Georg Ohm, the German mathematician and physicist, received most of his education in chemistry, mathematics, physics and philosophy from his self-taught father, who was a locksmith by trade. His brother, Martin, also became a well-known mathematician. Despite the lack of exceptional institutional education, both siblings surmounted that resistance with family motivation. Seems to be the 'Ohm way.'

But there are more 'ohm's to be had. A large impact crater on the far side of the Moon (cue Pink Floyd) is known as the 'Ohm lunar crater'. The name of that crater was assigned by the the International Astronomical Union, and, of course, in tribute to our friend Georg Ohm.

The Ohm River lies in the region of Hesse, Germany, and is a tributary of the greater Lahn River. Suitably, the town of Homberg/Ohm in the valley of the Ohm was famous for its beer in the 13th century.

Now let's go across the ocean to the U.S. The small town in Ohm, California, was named (1900) after the Ohm Ranch. Thomas Ohm, a German native, established the ranch in 1868 and raised grain. I wonder if his crop was hops.

South of the border, a Mexican of German descent, Germán Ohm, was a popular featherweight boxer. His boxing career was short, spanning the age 18 to his retirement at 22. Most of his fights of recognition took place in the late 1950's. Seems that his fists carried the Ohm legacy of resistance.

Sweeping across the globe now to India, and overlapping centuries across time, 'ohm' is also an alternative spelling for 'om'. The sound is a mantra of Hindu origin, but also a sacred sound in Buddhism, Dharma and Jainism. The syllable represents many meanings depending on the source.

Anyone that grew up in the 1960's (me, for instance) will recognize its association with the Flower Child and Peace Anti-war Movements. One explanation probably describes it in both earlier and latter contexts: ""OM" is the reflection of the absolute reality, it is said to be "Adi Anadi", without beginning or the end and embracing all that exists." Or, as I like to put it, "No matter where you go, there you are."

And with that, let's slowly form the syllable 'Om' in our throats and mouths, slowly humming it out with no resistance, and embrace the day.

"Ohm....................."

A-Z Challenge. N. What are 'Names.'

What is a name? What is 'in' a name? It's a Human thing :)

Lizard walked ungracefully into the café front room carrying a carafe of coffee, “Hey, my back legs get tired of holding up all my weight all day in here. But will ya look at these thigh muscles! The chicks are going to really like me.”

“You’re just lazy, Lizard. I see your brothers and sisters running around on their hind legs all the time,” Burro chimed in and quickly changed the subject. “So, I heard one of Juanita’s javelina babies got run over last night by one of those big metal things you humans hide in all the time. She and her family tried to cross River Road again in pitch dark. I keep telling her not to do that.”

Coyote briefly looked up from his bowl on the table and muttered, “Yup. Victoria and Hector were cleaning it up early this morning when I trotted by.”

She shook her head while pouring herself another cup of hot coffee. “What?” asked Lizard looking at She. 

“I’m still trying to get used to a pair of vultures named ‘Victoria’ and ‘Hector’.” 

Coyote put his front paws on the table, uttering a sound that could have been mistaken for a sarcastic laugh. “We only use names for you Humans. We really don’t have names; we have smells.” Lizard and Burro nodded. 

“You mean, each one of you has your own smell? And you name each other by smell?”

Burro chimed in with a bray, “I smell good!”

“No, you don’t, Burro. You stink!” Coyote uttered that sound again, more like a snicker, and proceeded to explain. “We don’t name smells. We just…..smell. And our smells change.”

Lizard nodded, swirling his long blue tail in between his front foot pads. “That’s right. We all smell, and you all smell. Your smell changes, too. I can tell when you are mad by smelling you."

“Right. You Humans stink, too. Now would you please fill my bowl? I’d like more cream this time.” Coyote pushed his bowl towards She.

“Only if you don’t splatter it all over the table while slurping it.” She picked up the brightly colored bowl with 'Coyote’s' painted on it in brown and filled it part way with water, adding a dash of cream.

- Excerpt from Green Lizard Cafe. Episode 1. Morning Cafe Chat.

Written by Myself. Her. She. It. Human. Call me whatever you like. :)

A-Z Challenge: M is Message and Meme.

What is a meme? What is a message? What is a gene? What is the basic denominator of life?

If you consider on a broad scale, information is what is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement or sequence of things. That covers all scales, from a phone call, to nanoparticles and electrons, to sound, to firing neurons, to light traveling the universe. Any thing conveyed from one point to another, the 'message', is a transfer of information.

A unit containing information can be thought of as a message. For example, the well-known and greatest significance for the gene is its information transfer in living material. The content of this message carries instructions; it is what determines the structure and function of life. The exchange between a hormone and an organic tissue is an active and dynamic process of information transfer. 

The same can be said of any interaction at any scale and reduced to the laws of physics: for every action there is a reaction. The degree and direction of both action and reaction are dependent upon the information that is exchanged between the two points. Our attempts to understand that information is analogous to decoding the 'message'.

To add another related word to the 'M' box for the day, the information transfer in human social life contains messages that we may or may not be aware of, and which propagates through the social hierarchy like a gene. It is called the 'meme'. A meme is an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.

In the 1980's, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins likened our social information transfer to genes in that our ideas can replicate, mutate, and evolve. It was Dawkins that coined the use of the term, 'meme'. Just like in physical and biological systems, information is actively communicated in a network, transmitted and received, coded and decoded. Messages that we receive are processed in our brains and then transmitted into the same or another network where it exponentially mutates, evolves and replicates. 

Dawkins wrote:

“Memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. They compete with one another for limited resources: brain time or bandwidth. They compete most of all for attention." (The Selfish Gene)

Messages, memes.....They all transmit, replicate, and evolve information. “All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities.” (R. Dawkins)

It's a meme life out there.

A-Z Challenge. K is for Karma

Karma is the mad hatter of a hater's world. – Amy Wynne Whatley

Now as a man is like this or like that,
according as he acts and according as he behaves, so will he be;
a man of good acts will become good, a man of bad acts, bad;
he becomes pure by pure deeds, bad by bad deeds;

And here they say that a person consists of desires,
and as is his desire, so is his will;
and as is his will, so is his deed;
and whatever deed he does,
that he will reap.
—Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 7th Century BC 

A-Z Clallenge. J is for Jaguarundi.

A mysterious small and elusive wild cat

A small wild cat, not much larger than the average house cat, the jaguarundi eludes us humans in many ways. Unbeknownst to this wild creature, our species can't seem to decide who and what it really is. So we have created many names for the animal, changing its label depending on place and time. All the while, the jaguarundi smiles and eludes us. 

This member of the feline family is one of the smallest and oddest looking. The size of a large house cat, it has the face of a miniature cougar (aka puma, panther, mountain lion) topped with little rounded nice-kitty ears. Its slender long body (22-31") and tail (14-24") is supported by short legs (stands at ~11" at the shoulder). Indeed, the mammal resembles an odd hybridized version of a house cat and dwarfed cougar whose ear and leg development was arrested within a  week after birth. In fact, the species has many times been mistaken for a large weasel. One wonders what circumstances selected for such odd paired combinations. Unless the other cats are the odd ones. 

The jaguarundi is a New World cat, native to forested and brushy regions, especially those near water, from South America to the southwestern United States. Rare north of Mexico, it is considered endangered in Texas, although sightings have been documented in SW Texas, Alabama and part of Florida. It is also known as the 'otter-cat' because of its otter-like appearance and swimming ability. In fact, early German zoologists mistook the animal for a cousin of the weasel, referring to it as the 'weasel cat'.

The name jaguarundi is interesting for several reasons. Many people recognize the root name, jaguar, which is one of the largest New World members of the feline family. This cat once roamed from the  U.S.-Mexican border southward to Patagonia, Argentina. It is now almost extinct in the northern part of its original range and survives in reduced numbers in remote areas of Central and South America. Similar to the jaguarundi, the largest known population exists in the Amazon rainforest.

The names jaguarundi and jaguar have similar origins. Not surprisingly, because the two species inhabit the same region in South America. Before the arrival of the Portuguese to Brazil in the mid-1500's, the two principal indigenous groups were the Tupí and the Guaraní. The former mainly lived along the coast of Brazil and in the Amazon rainforest. The Guaraní lived further inland, inhabiting what is now Paraguay, southern Brazil, and parts of Uraguay, Bolivia and Argentina. The Tupi-Guaraní language is the most widely distributed traditional language of South America and is a hybrid of the older Guaraní and Old Tupí. In fact, it is the official language of Paraguay.

A fusion of the languages of the Spanish-speaking conquerors of South and Central America and of the indigenous peoples has given rise to an interesting evolutionary tree of name etymology. Many names of flora and fauna are often attributed to Spanish origin. However, the earlier conquerors merely adopted and adapted native names to their own language to try and make sense of them, and probably because they were easier to pronounce. For example,  words like jaguar, tapioca, jacaranda, anhinga, carioca, and capoeira are of Tupí–Guaraní origin. An exploration of plant name origins will commonly end up with root words of the Tupí and/or Guarní language.

The first known use of the name jaguar was 1604. It probably originated with the Portuguese and was derived from from Old Tupí, jawára. Similarly, jaguarundi is American Spanish, first used in 1885, and derived from from Old Guarani yaguarund-i and akin to the Tupi jawarund or Old Tupi, yawaum'di. The jaguarundi is commonly known in Spanish as leoncillo, gato colorado, gato moro, león brenero, onza, and yaguarundí. It is also called gato-mourisco, eirá, gato-preto, and maracajá-preto in Portuguese.

The jaguarundi wears coats of several colors, and several scientific names. With two color morphs, light (black and brownish gray) and light (reddish brown), they were thought to be two different species. Local villagers often refer to these cats based on their color: “jaguarundi” for the darker coat and “eyra” for the reddish coat. (The Tupi name was eirara or irara; 'eyra' is an American Spanish and Portuguese name.) Thus early taxonomists separated them, assigning Felis eyra (1814) or Herpailurus eyra (1858) to the reddish morphs. However, these are the same species and both color morphs may be found in the same litter.

Likewise, the taxonomical nomenclature assigned to this wildcat have gone through several renditions, some concurrently. Various authorities have placed the jaguarundi in their own genus (Herpailurus) or with the other cats (Felis). A French naturalist, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844), assigned the small cat the genus and species names Puma yagouaroundi in 1803. A follower of Lamarckian evolutionary theory, Saint-Hilaire's assignment was based on comparative anatomy, paleontology, and embryology.

Use of Felis yagouaroundi has been attributed to two different authorities. However, the earliest attribution was given to Bernard Germain de Lacépède (1756-1825), a French naturalist, in 1809. Attributes to assigning the jauguarundi to the genus Herpailurus vary from Lacépède (again, 1809) to Nikolai Severtzov (1827-1885), a Russian explorer and naturalist (attributed to year 1858). Which of these men originally used this genus name might be lost to historical confusion, but this genus was still in use in 1919. Why Lacépède would use two genus names concurrently is beyond me.

Sometimes things come full circle, even if it takes a few centuries. Depending on the source of reference and information, anyone searching for the scientific name of the jaguarundi will  see all three genus names in use today. Interestingly, modern nomenclature again placed in the genus Puma by Johnson et al. (in 2006) and Eizirik et al. (in 2008). Recent genetic studies (mitochondrial DNA analysis) suggests that the puma (aka the cougar/mountain lion) and the jaguarundi are more closely related to each other and other felines in the genus Puma than the domestic cat, which shared the genus Felis. Additional research shows that the jaguarundi is closely related to the much larger and heavier cougar as evident by its similar genetic structure and chromosome count.

For those interested in the paleobiology of the New World felines, according to the 2006 genomic study of Felidae an ancestor(s) of today's leopard, lynx, puma, and Felis lineages migrated across the Bering land bridge into the Americas approximately 8-8.5 million years ago. It is proposed that those lineages subsequently diverged in that order. This and other recent studies have indicated that the cougar and jaguarundi are next most closely related to the modern cheetah of Africa and western Asia, but that relationship is still debated. It has been suggested that ancestors of the cheetah diverged from the Puma lineage in the Americas and migrated back to Asia and Africa, while other research suggests the cheetah diverged in the Old World itself. Consequently, feline migration to the Americas remains unclear.

So, what's in a Name? Well, that is the subject for another post. As readers can infer, names can be very complex and more confusing than not. Regardless, the jaguarundi, or the leoncillo - the little lion- remains elusive in name and reality. Perhaps that is best for it's survival.

A-Z Challenge. I is for Intuition.

"A healthy woman is much like a wolf - strong life force, life-giving, territorially aware, intuitive and loyal. Yet separation from her wildish nature causes a woman to become meager, anxious, and fearful.

With the wild nature as ally and teacher, we see not through two eyes only, but through the many eyes of intuition. With intuition we are like the starry night, we gaze at the world through a thousand eyes. The wild nature carries the medicine for all things.

She carries stories, dreams, words and songs. She carries everything a woman needs to be and know. She is the essence of the female soul...

Where can you find her? She walks in the deserts, cities, woods, oceans, and in the mountain of solitude. She lives in women everywhere; in castles with queens, in the boardrooms, in the penthouse, and on the night bus to Brownsville.

Whether you are possessed of a simple heart or the ambitious, whether you are trying to make it to the top or just make it through tomorrow, the wild nature belongs to you.

She lives in a faraway place that breaks through to our world. She lives in the past and is summoned by us. She is in the present. She is in the future and walks backward in time to find us now.

Without us, Wild Woman dies. Without Wild Woman, we die. Para Vida, for true life, both must live."

- Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves.

And we cannot be tamed or domesticated. It would destroy us.

A-Z Challenge: H is for Heart.

How many times have you asked yourself, "Why am I doing this?", "What am I doing?", "Am I on the right path?"

We've all been there at one time or another. Perhaps several times. For many decades I have always asked myself this: 'Does this path I am on, or about to embark on, have heart?' 

What does that mean?  Our heart is the organ that pumps our life's blood to all of our internal tissues. When it stops pumping, the body dies. Metaphorically, heart is also our inner-most truth-sayer; it tells us the truth. It is the source of our compassion, love, determination, our weaknesses and strength. It is being 'whole' instead of being lost in strewn bits and pieces. It is also the source of our 'knowing', despite our awareness or lack of. When we lose 'heart', we lose our direction, motivation, commitment, our strength, and our happiness. We lose ourselves and we are not whole.

The heart knows the way home; it knows the truth. It knows when we are off-course. It also knows when we are betrayed; by others or by ourselves. A path with no heart can suck all our self-esteem and self-worth from us. Or it can instill false hopes. Losing heart will leave us empty, angry, and unbalanced, leaving us blundering blind on a heartless path.

Embarking on a path may be full of uncertainties. But if we have heart, and we know that our direction is true; if we accept that we may have to change course along the way, and if we learn from all the obstacles along our path, then that path has heart. And as we journey forward, we become stronger and whole; and more happy.

"You must always keep in mind that a path is only a path. Each path is only one of a million paths. If you feel that you must now follow it, you need not stay with it under any circumstances. Any path is only a path. There is no affront to yourself or others in dropping a path if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on a path or to leave it must be free of fear and ambition. 

I caution you: look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself and yourself alone this one question. Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same. They lead nowhere. They are paths going through the brush or into the brush or under the brush of the Universe. The only question is: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then it is a good path. If it doesn’t, then it is of no use." - from The Teachings of Don Juan, by Carlos Castaneda

I look forward to my new Path with Heart. I hope you all do the same.

A-Z Challenge: G is for 'Government'.

To attack the 'government' per se and blame it for all our ills is like sticking a Band-aid on a giant festering abscess.  - Yours Truly

A-Z Clallenge. F is for Forgiving.

"Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future."
 - Lewis B. Smedes

This includes forgiving yourself.

A-Z Challenge: E. Environmentalist

“But they are harder to find now, those spirits. I look out across the moonlit Lake District ranges, and it’s as clear as the night air that what used to come in regular waves, pounding like the sea, comes now only in flashes, out of the corner of my eyes, like a lighthouse in a storm. Perhaps it’s the way the world has changed. There are more cars on the roads now, more satellites in the sky. The footpaths up the fells are like stone motorways, there are turbines on the moors, and the farmers are being edged out by south-country refugees like me, trying to escape but bringing with us the things we flee from. The new world is online and loving it, the virtual happily edging out the actual. The darkness is shut out and the night grows lighter and nobody is there to see it.” - Paul Kingsnorth, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist

I’m not sure when I realized I was an ‘environmentalist.’ I always scorned being classified or grouped into labels, such as a feminist, liberal/democrat/conservative/republican. To me they were just names of boxes which we crawl in or are shoved into with labels on the covers. Once labeled, all personal thought and individual ideas are ignored. You don’t own yourself anymore.

I realized decades ago that my attachment; actually, my very sense of identity and place, with the non-human environment was an inherent part of me that can’t be ignored or pretended. I am a product of my environment. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Even as a scientist, a biologist, I am constantly reminded of the world around me and how it affects me. I wither and fade in cities. In the forests, the desert, near lakes and rivers, surrounded by a variety of flora and fauna, I am a child and wizened adult, a creative and loving force.

An environmentalist to me is to listen and care for the surrounding environment. To speak for them in a language humans can understand. To learn their stories and nourish their growth. To respect their inherent values and places in our complicated web of life. And to find a way to re-establish connections between people and their wild partners on this planet. Before we destroy it all, and in this way, destroy ourselves. I want to give back what it gives to me: life.

Yet it seems that 'environmentalism' has evolved into something else. Like those labeled boxes we are hide in, even the environmentalists are trading that early set of values for trendy and compromising chips, like playing at an environmental casino. It’s all about trading species in one place for another million hours of air conditioning in an overpopulated desert city. Or the sacrificial lamb in the name of ‘conservation’. Conservation of what? And for whom? This is not the ‘environmentalist’ that I am today, nor was before.

I’ve been called a ‘tree hugger’. So be it. Sometimes I’d rather hug a tree than many of my own species.

“We are environmentalists now in order to promote something called “sustainability.” What does this curious, plastic word mean? It does not mean defending the nonhuman world from the ever-expanding empire of Homo sapiens sapiens, though some of its adherents like to pretend it does, even to themselves. It means sustaining human civilization at the comfort level that the world’s rich people—us—feel is their right, without destroying the “natural capital” or the “resource base” that is needed to do so.” - Paul Kingsnorth

A-Z Callenge: D is for Dervish (dancing dust)

Circling

Dervish wind

Dust in your eyes

and nose.

Pushing sideways

uplifting.

Calm

Duplicity wind.

Swirling around us

everywhere.

Dance your dance

Dervish wind.