Plants are amazing

In 2004, while working for the Forest Service, I collected a handful of lupine seeds from the scrubland of Eastern Oregon. I intended to plant them, but what happened instead is that they sat in a plastic bag for nine years.

They survived through five moves. They never left the baggie, but they spent years sitting in hot garages and on porches exposed to the elements.

I rediscovered them last fall and thought, what the heck, and tossed them in a pot on the patio. Two actually sprouted, one survived the winter and is now flowering.

Way to go plant kingdom, you are resilient.

Observation Bias

http://wondermark.com/926/

Some advice for animals shelters from Border Wars Blog

Christopher at the Border Wars blog has a series up about, among other things, the attitude of animal shelters and rescues that breeders are bad and are somehow to blame when shelters choose to  kill healthy, adoptable animals. You should go read the whole thing. Here's a choice quote:

"What matters is that Shelters realize a few things:

(1) You are professionals, act like it.  This means running your shelter like a business not an internment camp.  Enough with the prison photos and run down facilities that look and smell bad, have some pride in your presentation. Clean your own house before you condemn others.

(2) The public is not your enemy, they are your customer.  They are not at fault for your failures. You can not condemn them, resent them, and then sell your animals to them.

(3) Breeders are not your enemy and they are not at fault for your failures, they are a competitor and you need to rise to the challenge not wallow in pity that someone else loves animals and wants to pair good pets with good people and is currently doing a lot better job of it than you are.  Up your own game instead of talking smack.

(4) Stop socially and politically exploiting animals as a fund raising strategy that dwells on the physical abuse and/or neglect they suffered in the past to invoke shame and disgust in the public.  This moral pedestal you’re trying to create with this strategy is not elevating the dogs because you’re the ones standing on it to look down on everyone else.  Stop appealing to pity and outrage,  you’ll put more dogs in more homes if you appeal to the higher emotions and reason like love, companionship, and pride.

(5) If you can foster hope and compassion for animals, have some for humans too."

Pregnancy Calender: Week 23-27

Week 23
How big is your baby?
About 1 1/2 lbs and over a foot long from head to foot. So, like, a newborn Labrador puppy.
Babies can survive outside the womb at this point (barely, and only if you live in a first-world country and have access to good health care and are close to a hospital with a neonatal intensive care unit. Even then, survival rates are about 50%). Personally, I'm a 3 hour drive from the nearest NICU.

This is a pretty recent development; NICU's didn't really exist until the 1960's.

Many scientists are of the opinion that this is the youngest we could possibly get a baby to survive on its own outside the womb. Any younger and the lungs (among other things) simply won't function.

Week 24
How big is my baby?
About the same as a week ago.
Your baby may be able to dream. This is the earliest age that rapid eye movements have been detected.

Week 26
Ditto.
You could start feeling Braxton Hicks contractions at any time. I've seen these described as your body "practicing" for labor. Yet, like the fact that the enzyme relaxin is release waaaay earlier than needed, and your breasts start producing colostrum waaaay earlier than needed (as in, a week after conception), this is probably just yet another stupid and useless side effect of hormones or something. Not all women even get any BHC's, and there's no evidence that there is any advantage during labor.

You could also start leaking colostrum at any point. Being a mammal is FUN!

Week 27 (end of second trimester)
Ho hum, more of the same.
Preterm survivability at this point is greatly increased (and abnormalities greatly decreased).

If you're like me, you can still go whole hours at a time where you forget you're pregnant. But those times are getting shorter and further between.

Relative Risk and the Animals in our Lives

I have a pet that's kind of dangerous to be around. He's injured several people, including myself. He bit my fathers face on one occasion, and on another fractured a bone in his wrist. He's caused me multiple bruises and has bitten me on the arms a few times, more than once drawing blood. He is not safe for children to be around without close supervision. I would never allow him off leash outside an enclosure.

Who is this pet, and why do I keep him around? If he were a pit bull, (or really any dog over 10 lbs) people would be asking me why I didn't have him put to sleep. And yet no one has ever asked why he's still alive.

The fact is, despite the risks, I find a lot of value in keeping this particular pet. I'm not alone; his breed is very popular, with millions just like him in North America. And, every year, animals of his breed kill people. Yet most people like him on sight. Children beg to pet him and feed him treats. And I will gladly let them pet him and feed him treats; I just take a few precautions first. Because with very little effort, the risk of children interacting with him is very small.

You've probably already guess what pet I'm talking about. Funny, though, that we have such different expectations of the different animals in our lives. A single, non-injurious nip from a "scary looking" dog is enough to send some people into hysterics, yet millions of horse-owners take being bitten, kicked, stepped on, thrown, and crushed against walls as par for the course of being around equines.

I have more to talk about on the subject of relative risk and how people are so terrible at judging it, but this is all I got for right now.