From the Science Desk: Virus Snuffing Out Sea Stars Identified

"Identifying what virus is to blame is particularly difficult because a drop of seawater contains about 10 million viruses."

That's what scientists had to sort through in order to find the virus that's responsible for sea star wasting syndrome, the awful infection that's been causing sea stars (that's starfish) to lose limbs and in extreme cases, simply dissolve, along the West Coast of the North America for a few years.

But now that we've identified the culprit, how do we stop it? Or do we stop it? Many of the sea stars the virus affects are alpha predators within their specific ecosystem. That is, they're in the highest reaches of the food chain and help keep the population of prey animals under control.

Yet some say the virus may be nature's way of culling a population of sea stars that's become too large for sustainability, so we let it work itself out.

Read the PBS/News Hour story: "Scientists solve mystery of West Coast starfish plague"

Or be a lazy sod and watch this video:

Squash

We may snicker when a teen in Hot Topic goth gear waxes philosophic on the beauty of decay, but reader, that teen is on to something.

In popular depictions, the crackle of autumn leaves and the twilight passage of migrating birds hog the cozy glow of October. But it's the slowing pulse of nature getting comfortable in her sleep that moves the pens of poets. Clouds nudge closer for warmth and the scurrying feet of insects send Morse code to the soil: Good night and thank you for everything you've done. Now rest.

Shh.

Lean in close to carnival mouth of the jack-o'-lantern. His turnip breath exhales a whisper: None of us were meant to last.

halloween pumpkins 2014 from Thomas Vespermann on Vimeo.

If you'd like to see another slightly creepy time lapse video from Thomas Vespermann, check out "Vintage Flower Dolls."

September Heaved a Sigh

The following sentence is the abstract from an article on MSN.com:

"Wildlife numbers have plunged by more than half in just 40 years as Earth's human population has nearly doubled, a survey revealed Tuesday."

Are you able to read that sentence and not feel the bottom drop out of your stomach? If so, we envy you.

This is the part where we would link to the MSN piece, but in digging around, we found the survey was done by the London Zoo, so here's the BBC piece on the findings, if for no other reason than the BBC is ostensibly closer to the source.

Is there hope? There is no hope. There is hope. Is there hope? Mm. We've already pulled all the petals off the daisy. Time to pick another one.

Let's take a breath and recalibrate our brains with a bold idea from evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson, who recently told Smithsonian Magazine that "people haven’t been thinking big enough -- even conservationists."

What then, does Mr. Wilson propose? Half of the world should be returned to wildlife. Oh you sweet, 85-year-old dreamer of golden dreams. If only, Mr. Wilson. It's a wonderful thought.

Read the interview here.

Now, here's your reward:

photo © Brian W. Schaller / License: CC BY-NA-SA 3.0

This frog lives in the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont. She gives zero fucks about your social media presence.

bewbs!

Historians and cultural critics agree: This thing we, usually incorrectly, call the internet is built on a shameful pile of subjects that will one day signify and symbolize all that was wrong with Western Civilization.

So with that out of the way, let us be clear, breasts are terrific. There is no shame in boobs. All mammals have them and most humans wouldn't be alive without them.

To show how deep humanity's obsession appreciation for boobs goes, regard this Wikipedia article on hills around the world that happen to look like breasts, at least from certain angles. Yep. In what is now the primary fact-checking resource in most nations, resides an article about hills that look like boobs.

The "Breasts of Aphrodite" at Mykonos, Greece
photo by Ross Berteig

Take that, Pliny the Elder!

["I already hate this job." -- New summer intern Alice]

Solstice Time Is Here

The Earth has tilted just so, throwing the northern hemisphere into winter. And on December 21, that tilt will reach it's furthest point before leaning back for a long, slow journey toward spring.

Since it's unlikely that anyone at The Typing Monkey's Seattle office will be awake and/or sober when the true solstice occurs at 9:11 a.m. on the 21st, we are here now to acknowledge the event.

Cultures around the globe have various ways of celebrating the shortest day of winter, raging and kicking against the dark, eating and drinking as if they might not survive the cold, because for centuries, surviving the winter wasn't guaranteed.

You know what? Let's just look at this supernatural winter scene by Jason Bennett:

Check out more of Mr. Bennett's work via his generous online portfolio. And if that's not enough, here's a (probably late 19th century) illustration of Father Christmas riding a Yule goat. Oh yeah!

Dip Your Bowl Into the Cosmic Cauldron

We don't know a whole lot about the blog The Ghost of the Weed Garden, and we like it that way.

The person or people behind it go by an owlish tag that looks like this: {{{{o\/o}}}}

As you might imagine, that anonymity delights us.

On the site are music mixes  you can stream or download, scanned artwork from the covers of horror, fantasy and science fiction paperbacks, as well as covers from cryptic, sometimes self-published looking books on magick, philosophy and other occult oddities.

Honestly, it's the sort of stuff that would have made a much younger Typing Monkey freak out and think about church.

The most recent music mix posted on Weed Garden is titled "Cosmic Cauldron." And as the site itself says, it's packed top to bottom with "Psychedelic, Acid Folk, Kosmische, Electronic, Occult, [and] Haunted VHS."

We spun it today and it fit the sunny autumn afternoon just right. As the evening brought chilling fog, "Cosmic Cauldron" swirled with creepy acid folk, devilish weirdness and a few good dabs of resin-smeared psych.

Have fun.

The Sasquatch Phonetic Alphabet

Last week, you may have heard about the Greek-tragedy level death of two women, friends who got lost hiking in Roque Bluffs State Park in Maine. They were rescued, and got back into the minivan belonging to one of the two women, and promptly drove off a boat launch, into Englishman's Bay.

It was a foggy, rainy night, and they were probably quite shaken by the previous event. The story fascinates -- was death simply there to collect them, no matter what? The strange, sad details are reported in the Portland Press Herald.

We didn't come here to talk about that, but had to mention it on the off chance you missed it. For some reason, the story really sticks with us.

***

In far lighter news, linguist and writer Karen Stollznow wrote a piece for Scientific American's blog, about the language of the Sasquatch. That's right: The alleged language spoken by the crypto-zoological simian said to roam the remote mountain forests of North America.

Stollznow, being a scientist, demands extraordinary proof for the extraordinary claim. It's a gentle beat down, if such a thing can be, but still a surgically precise beat down.

The article led us to the vast sea of YouTube clips that contain portions, or the entirety, of the "Sierra Sounds recordings." Which, you may have guessed, are field recordings of the Sasquatch language in use, by a Sasquatch.

Read Stollznow's baloney-detecting exercise, 'cause it's fun. Fall down a well of Bigfoot videos on  YouTube at your own peril.

Oh Honey, We're Ridiculous

As the solstice approaches and each day we eagerly rise and pad down to the TMI corporate p-patch to see if the artichoke is still alive, we try to encourage all Typing Monkey staffers to take a moment and let the amazing wonder of the natural world grab hold.

That's not difficult, since most of them are drunk and/or high most of the time, but if that makes them more suggestible to the precise beauty of those pale-green spiders that climb nimbly over the stones in the fake river-bed, so be it.

After all, it doesn't matter that you've risen later than intended and are watching fast-talking dames on Turner Classic Movies via the break room television while you eat leftovers for breakfast. What matters is that you saw a hummingbird pause by the window and be-damned if the emerald beauty didn't seem like he stopped to look back at you.

With all that in mind, take a look at this list from Wikipedia of the crop plants that bees pollinate. (Bats get a few nods too in the non-bee items.)

Bees of the honey, bumble, solitary, and stingless variety all come into play, and if we could, we'd high-five them or send them a thank-you note because we eat most of the items on that list.

Oh, and the word for what those bees are doing? Entomophily.

[Image courtesy of PD Photo]

The Elder Moss, Pink Slugs and Cannibal Snails

A University of Alberta biologist has grown fresh moss from a 400-year-old specimen found after Arctic ice melted away. We repeat: Moss, buried under polar ice for centuries, was ground up and placed in fresh soil. Seven out of 24 samples grew green and new moss.

Yes, the polar ice is melting and that’s horrible. We are not here to diminish the wailing of the klaxons that herald the end of humanity’s “dominion” over this planet.

Having recently read H.P. Lovecraft’s excellent novella At the Mountains of Madness, and then this article from the Edmonton Journal about Catherine La Farge’s resuscitation of dormant moss, the immediate, and we feel, appropriate, question is: What else is under the ice caps?

We don’t doubt the tenacity of moss. Cockroaches and rats have nothing on moss, lichens and fungus, in terms of survival skill. No animal will ever best a plant in that department, until the skies rain ammonia. Then we’re all done for.

But if moss can creep out from beneath the thaw, it’s only a matter of time before somebody accidentally wakes up a shoggoth.

La Farge herself says: “’Now we have to think there may be populations of land plants that survived that freezing. It makes you wonder what’s under the big ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctic and alpine glaciers.’”

She goes on to call glacial ice an “`Unrecognized genetic reservoir ... We really have not examined all the biological systems that exist in the world; we don’t know it all.’"

While we’re on the topic of slimy things that lurk in dark, little-explored corners of the globe, we direct your attention to New South Wales, Australia.

From the misty heights of Mount Kaputar, a rainforest peak and National Park amidst New South Wales’ generally dry landscape, comes news of new species of invertebrates once only rumored to exist.

One of the confirmed new creatures is a retina-frying pink slug that feeds on moss and mold while the world sleeps. It’s a pretty thing with the kind of coloring we’d expect to come from Laffy Taffy.

The other big discovery at Kaputar is a snail that feeds on other snails, particularly snails that follow a strict vegetarian diet. And if bumper stickers have taught us anything, it’s that vegetarians taste better. Good work, cannibal snail.

[Incantations of ancient thank-yous to Edmonton Journal, The Age, and Pahko]

Yeah, But Have You Listened to Bach on Acid?

The Typing Monkey recently peered through the magic keyhole of On An Overgrown Path, a blog that holds a flickering candle into the odd corners of the world of classical music. Cancel your meetings and forward the phones, 'cause you're going to be doing some reading.

Overgrown Path's (sole?) contributor goes by the hand Pliable, and whoever that is, he or she is about to go away for a while and put the blog on hold. No matter. That will give you time to catch up.

To get you started, here are a few links to stories from Overgrown Path that will keep your attention:

From "JSB on LSD" -- "'Let me advise you, if you ever use mescaline or LSD in therapy, to try the effect of [Johann Sebastian Bach's] B-minor suite.'" That's an excerpt from a letter Aldous Huxley wrote to psychiatrist Humphry Osmond. The B-minor suite will always trump Pink Floyd.

And do make sure to read the one-two punch about Edward Elgar, who has a gossamer connection to early LSD experiments, and a clear connection to the Order of the Golden Dawn. Who knew?

There's much more to On An Overgrown Path -- listening and reading recommendations galore -- so have fun.

A Bedside Grimoire

As you've no doubt read, heard or seen by now, a historian of early Christianity at the Harvard Divinity School has gone public with the story of an aged piece of papyrus with Coptic script referencing Jesus and his wife.

It's an interesting item, a good story and, if legitimate, something that might force many Christian churches to rethink some of the tenets they've been following for about 1,500 years.

However we're going to use that tale of a lost text as a launching point to talk about another lost text recently resurfaced, The Long Lost Friend. It's a new translation of John George Hohman's Der lange verborgene Freund ('The Long-Hidden Friend') -- a book of practical magic originally published in 1820.

Hohman was an immigrant and published his book in America, with translations making the rounds quickly, as many in and out of the frontier took quickly to the book's German folk medicine and Native American herbal remedies, as well as the easily recited/copied incantations to keep witchcraft and evil at bay.

Friend is practical magic, don't forget. It's not some spell book with oogy verses in dead languages that will bring monsters forth from the bowels of Hell. The spells all apply directly to the things that any reasonable person in the still-wild United States would want to protect.

Friend was so popular for a time that both the medical establishment and clergy in the United States worked hard to discredit Hohman and his text. A major reason for their disdain was not just the medicinal recipies and magic that cut into their respective businesses, the doctors and preachers were defending themselves, as Hohman often derides both in the book.

Read Stefany Anne Golberg's review of Daniel Harms' translation of The Long Lost Friend. Her take casts Hohman's work as America's first (and finest?) self-help book. She might be right.

No Take Aways

It's Beltane sweethearts. Let's listen to Bow Wow Wow and practice whistling with a blade of grass.


[Courtesy of HOLLYwoodgoesFRANKIE]

The Great Frognosticator

Imbolc arrives a little later than usual this year. February 4 will mark the arrival of pagan spring in the Northern hemisphere. As regular Typing Monkey readers know, the United States pays obtuse respect to Imbolc via Groundhog Day every Feb 2.

In the spirit of perfectly delightful ways to stave off late winter angst, the citizens of Snohomish, WA have come up with a bit of pre-emptive Imbolc-inspired fun in the form of GroundFrog Day. The 7th annual celebration happened on Jan 28 and we're quite put out that we missed the occasion, a mistake we do not intend to repeat next year.

The mascot of GroundFrog Day is a bullfrog named Snohomish Slew. He's a handsome devil and this year the grand amphibian claims warm weather is ahead. Our fingers are crossed Mr. Slew.

[Photo: Dean Rutz/Seattle Times]

Midsummer

Those of us in the Northern hemisphere enjoyed the summer solstice, aka Midsummer, today at 17:16 UTC, when the Earth leaned in and gave the Sun a little smooch. A cynic would point out here, that the days only grow shorter from now unitl December.

We will not dwell on such things today. Instead let's take a look at this .jpg of John William Waterhouse's wonderfully textured oil painting "Magic Circle" ...

Waterhouse frequently turned to mythology, folklore and literature for inspiration. Here's a Wikipedia gallery of some of his work.

Fancy Lightly Turns

Spring has sprung sweethearts. At least it has if you observe Celtic, Druidic or general pagan rites -- Wicca counts too.

The day known to the modern world as Groundhog Day used to be Imbolc, Candlemas and various other holy days that acknowledged this date, or hereabouts, as the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.

In other words, it's time to think of all things spring. We're rooting for The Green Man. Jack Frost can suck it.

Fire-bearers circle figures of The Green Man fighting Jack Frost. Imbolc celebration in Marsden, West Yorkshre, February 2007.
Photo: Steven Earnshaw

Read more about it here.

Bonus woo-woo: Feb 3 is Lunar New Year (bye tiger, hello rabbit) and a new moon.

From the Fortean News Desk: In the Dead of Night

Sometime before midnight on Dec 31, 2010, thousands of dead blackbirds fell from the sky above Beebe, Arkansas. As of Jan 3, 2011 workers were still collecting bodies to send for testing. Though preliminary tests show no signs of poisoning, and it appears the birds suffered some sort of physical trauma, it's easy to let the mind wander into conspiracy territory.

Especially because early in the week, some 125 miles north of the site of the blackbird deaths, thousands of dead drum fish washed ashore for a 20-mile stretch along the banks of the Arkansas River. Surely Charles Fort would have loved these news stories.

These people probably have a theory too.

From the Science & Technology Desk

The first item is mainly for the amazing picture from National Geographic, an x-ray image of a bolt of lightning. You can read about how it was done and some speculation on what it means, but shouldn't you have clicked by now in order to see an x-ray image of lightning?

Second comes a report with editorial (new journalism is nearly the only journalism now) from Slate. The article heralds a piece of audio hardware that allegedly makes those compressed, tinny MP3 files you downloaded sound all analog warm.

The USB-DAC could be the gold-coated CD of the 2000-teens or it could be the next stereo component you actually need.

Go science!

Dark and Then Some

The wee hours of Dec 21, 2010 will mark the first time since 1638 that a total lunar eclipse will coincide with the winter soltice. That's right, the night before the longest night of the year will be darker than expected as the full moon is blotted from the sky in most of the northern hemisphere.

Here's a handy chart from NASA's Space.com Website that displays which parts of the globe will experience the total eclipse. (Sorry Eastern Africa, Middle East and India.)

What does it all mean? Probably nothing, except that those of us in the Northern section of the Western hemisphere must endure two nights that are, as Nebraskan moms say, darker than a well-digger's ass. However, any unexplained phenomena experienced during the solstice eclipse should be reported immediately to typingmonkey@live.com.

And please let's remember: The winter solstice marks the mid-point of winter, not the start.

We'll be right back after these messages.

"It's Springtime"

[courtesy of NantoVision1]

The weather is changing at TMI headquarters, which always makes us think of that wonderful song and animation. And that inevitably leads to thoughts of the equally stirring "Madrigal Alphabet" which might make you feel a little sad for reasons you can't quite determine, but still you love it.

Cruel and Bewitching

Put down the taco son, there’s another holiday going on in the Northern Hemisphere today that has nothing to do with war or binge drinking. Today is Beltane, otherwise known as the start of summer for those who follow the pagan calendar.

The weather may not be very summer-like where ever you are. At The Typing Monkey’s global headquarters it’s positively autumnal … except for all the green. We’re halfway there. So to celebrate please play the following as often as you like:

The Slits
"Typical Girls"

[courtesy Nemova]

And if the word "Beltane" stirs some distant recognition in your brains, perhaps this is why.