Worth four minutes of your time.
Amazing Green Apartment: 344 sf, 24 rms
Thanks to Jeannie Stroupe for spotting this story about an ingenious architect who found a way to get more—a lot more—from less.
I've been very busy with Sports Illustrated work this week, but we have some fun Naturalist's Notebook news to catch you up on soon. Would you believe that we now have one of New England's widest selections of nature and natural-history books? Details to come...
Nice Notebook Review
I'm happy to report that a new edition of James Kaiser's superb Acadia: The Complete Guide just came out, and The Naturalist's Notebook is included! In case you can't read the text from the photo above, it says:
"This charming store/museum is a nature lover's dream come true. Inside you'll find books, photos, specimens, art displays, and ecologically friendly products spread across two floors."
Given that we just opened last summer, we're excited to have made our first guidebook—and a really good one at that.
A guide to get if you're planning to visit Acadia.
And yes, Seal Harbor is as pretty as the top photo suggests.
Oil and Sea Turtles Don't Mix
Perhaps you saw today's New York Times story on the toll the Gulf oil spill is taking on the world's most endangered sea turtle, a species called the Kemp's ridley. The only breeding ground for the Kemp's ridley, of which only about 1,000 nesting females survive, is in the Gulf. Most of the 156 sea-turtle deaths federal wildlife officials have recorded in the Gulf since the oil-spill have been Kemp's ridleys.
I had never heard of the Kemp's ridley until about six weeks ago. Pamelia and I were choosing endangered-species stuffed-animal toys to sell at The Naturalist's Notebook. The Kemp's ridley caught my eye. I was curious about the odd name: Kemp turns out to be Richard M. Kemp, a fisherman in Florida who found the first specimen for scientific study. No one is clear where "ridley" comes from or what it means, though it is also used in the name of a closely related species, the Olive ridley.
The more I read, the more I felt we had to display Kemp's ridleys and their story at the Notebook. Kemp's ridleys are the smallest of sea turtles (only two feet long) and they can range from Mexico as far north as Nova Scotia—meaning some of them must swim past our shop in Seal Harbor, Maine. Until mankind came along, they were remarkable survivors. They've been around since at least the age of the dinosaurs, which lasted from roughly 230 million years ago to 65 million years ago. They survived the catastrophic event that wiped the dinosaurs out (possibly a giant meteor strike) as well as subsequent ice ages.
But, though we rarely acknowledge it, humans can be more destructive to wildlife than any other force on Earth. Over the years we have collected and eaten Kemp's ridley sea turtle eggs (at least that's now illegal), built on their nesting beaches, snagged them in our shrimp-trawling nets and drift nets and fishing lines, polluted their waters and run into them with our recreational boats. Sea turtles of many types, presumably including Kemp's ridleys, have choked to death on pieces of balloons and other human trash.
The full environmental damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon accident won't be known for decades, but it will be a tragedy if the only Kemp's ridley sea turtles around in a few years are aquarium specimens and the plush-toy models for sale at The Naturalist's Notebook.
Quote to Ponder...
"When I hear of the destruction of a species I feel just as if all the works of some great writer had perished." —Theodore Roosevelt
Good Way to Start the Day
Our dog, Wooster, may be able to drive (see April 2 post on dog evolution and the driving gene) but we can't get her to eat breakfast cereal.
DNA, DMC and UFO?
Not to shill for my own magazine, but this week's Sports Illustrated has a superb article by David Epstein on the genetic component of athletic performance (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1169440/index.htm). I wish even non-sports fans would read it because—beyond offering a fascinating look at the search for so-called sports genes—it's a thought-provoking take on human history and the absurdity of classifying people by the color of their skin. You will be seeing a lot more of David's work; he is one of the most talented young journalists I've worked with in three decades at SI, and his aptitude for both scientific writing and investigative reporting will distinguish him in the years ahead.
If nothing else, by reading her story you'll find out why we have larger butts and less body hair than apes. Generally speaking.
Pamelia's own DNA-analysis results came back this week. As previously noted, we're both taking part in a global study of genetics and human migration that we will highlight this summer at The Naturalist's Notebook. I can't leak the results before the Notebook opens, but I will give you this much of a teaser: Her distant ancestors migrated through what are now Somalia, Iraq, Iran and Chechnya. I hope she isn't put on a terror watch list. Seriously, though, it's mind-expanding to trace your lineage back not 100 or 200 years but 50,000 years.
More Wacky World Signs...
In a follow-up to yesterday's item, thanks to Margaret and Harriet for passing on their photo of this sign they saw in Florence last week. Whether you rock to the Aerosmith original or the Run-DMC remake, you probably ain't walkin' this way.
And finally... ...can you see a silvery object hovering in the sky in this photo?
Pamelia came up with a few low-tide treasures, if no alien ones.
This afternoon a neighbor called to tell us to go outside our house and look up at the strange silver thing—a weather balloon? a UFO?—that was floating but not moving. “You probably think we're crazy," she said. Actually, it was such a gorgeous day that only staying inside was crazy. We scanned the skies with binoculars and saw nothing except this incredibly beautiful seascape. And by looking down rather than up, Pamelia found a great mussel shell.