National Hat Day January 15, 2012

January 15 is National Hat Day! Wear a hat to make a statement, show your personal style, draw attention, because you love hats, or just to keep your ears warm.



Some suggestions on how to celebrate National Hat Day.

Note: I love hats! I will probably buy one tomorrow, in honor of National Hat Day.

In the absence of much information about National Hat Day, please enjoy these quotes about hats!

The fashionable female hat is nothing, after all, but a caprice. Let those who pay for it--fifty dollars, more or less--grumble about the cost. We, as spectators, shall be satisfied if it prove an ornament.
~Harper's Weekly, 1857

I myself have 12 hats, and each one represents a different personality. Why just be yourself?
~Margaret Atwood

There's just something special about a woman in a hat.
~Betmar Philosophy

With the right hat, nothing else matters.
~LaPaloma Hats

Breathes a woman with soul so dead that never to herself hath said, "I need another hat to adorn my head."
~Unknown

A hat is a shameless flatterer, calling attention to an escaping curl, a tawny braid, a sprinkling of freckles over a pert nose, directing the eye to what is most unique about a face. Its curves emphasize a shining pair of eyes, a lofty forehead; its deep brim accentuates the pale tint of a cheek, creates an aura of prettiness, suggests a mystery that awakens curiosity in the onlooker.
~Jeanine Larmoth

The Percontation Point a.k.a. The Irony Mark, the Ironicon ؟

A punctuation mark of late medieval time, a punctus percontativus mark was used to close a rhetorical question. It never became popular in print, because it would have required additional typesetting, which would have been more expensive.

The percontation point has staying power all the same. It has evolved, holding different meanings since it's inception to the present. It was used to denote irony, then encompassed irony and sarcasm. It has now become the "ironicon" it's meaning now covers irony, sarcasm, and rhetorical questions, also "snark".

I have been unable to find the alt key code for the percontation point, so this is an image of what it looks like:


If your computer can read it, then you know it is possible to use the ironicon in everyday communication. What do you think of the percontation point؟ (I copied and pasted this one.)

Note: I like the percontation point. I am going to use it whenever I can.

Something else I learned: An interrobang (question/exclamation) also exists.

Over Use of Antibiotics on Farm Animals IS Cause for Concern!

The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is taking steps to "protect" certain types of antibiotics. Earlier  this month, the FDA moved to prohibit use of antibiotics known as cephalosporins which are used to treat a number of infections in humans, including pneumonia. The use of cephalosporins on farm animals (cattle, pigs, chickens, turkeys) will likey contribute to the creation of cephalosporin-resistant strains of certain bacterial pathogens.



Rules Tighten on Use of Antibiotics on Farms

Antimicrobials are regularly used in industrial farming to treat and preemptively treat  infections. There is growing concern that this practice is leading to antibiotic resistant microbes. Infections such as Escherichia coli (E. coli), have become more difficult to treat when they infect people.

Note: Antimicrobials are also used to promote growth in farm animals.

Something else I learned: I was right about this. Glad the FDA finally sees it too!

World's Smallest Vertebrate Discovered - Tiny Little Frog!

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
~Mark Twain

Discovered in Papua New Guinea, a new species is the smallest vertabrate ever found. It is a tiny frog, 7.7 mm long (less than 1/3"). The scientific name of the small frog is Paedophryne amauensis, but surely they will come up with something cuter eventually. I think a good name would be "porange" (rhymes with orange).

The creature lives in the leaf debris on the floors of wet forests. They make noise early in the morning and late in the evening. They sound similar to crickets. Paedophryne amauensis are born as frogs and do not have a tadpole stage. They can leap 30x their length.



The frogs, tiny or not,are a significant discovery. They indicate, one hopes, that extinction of tropical amphibians is not as dire as recent news might indicate. This is an entirely new species of frog.

Note: Extreme size, whether small or large, allows scientists to study the constraints that come with size.

Something else I learned: An ichthyologist studies the fish branch of zoology.

Doomsday Clock Now At 5 Minutes to Midnight

Everything has changed, save the way we think.
~Albert Einstein

Announced by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists director in DC today, it is now 5 minutes to midnight on the Doomsday Clock.  The Doomsday clock symbolizes how close the world is to catastrophe, at least as predicted by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Established in 1945, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists keeps the world apprised of the threat of destruction of the earth.

In 1947, the group began using the Doomsday Clock to indicate the the current perils of living on the planet. Midnight signifies, obviously, the end, apocalypse, armageddon, lights out. They weigh the time the clock is set to based on nuclear threat, climate change, and biosecurity.



Today (January 10, 2012) the decision was made to move the clock setting one minute closer to midnight. They cite inadequate progress on nuclear weapon reduction, and climate change as the reason for moving the clock forward. The Fukushima nuclear facility disaster also influenced the decision. The main problem, the group says is that global leaders are not taking these threats seriously, and proceed with business as usual.

There is a yearly debate amongst the group as to whether or not the time should be changed. There are 18 Nobel Laureates that are a part of the debate. The group hopes that the decision to move the minute hand closer to midnight will spur world leaders into action. They would like to see a reduction in nuclear weapons, safe energy sources, and heightened attention to climate change. (I would too!)

A timeline of the Doomsday Clock since it's inception in 1947.

Note: The clock has had time added to it in the past so there is a chance of improvement.

Something else I learned: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was originally developed by scientists that helped to develop the first atomic bomb.

Thylacine, the (Now Extinct) Tasmanian Tiger: Thylacinus cynocephalus

When the comparatively small island of Tasmania becomes more densely populated, and its primitive forests are intersected with roads from the eastern to the western coast, the numbers of this singular animal will speedily diminish, extermination will have its full sway, and it will then, like the Wolf in England and Scotland, be recorded as an animal of the past.
~John Gould

The last thylacine died in captivity on September 7, 1936.

The thylacine, more commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger were hunted to extinction by Australian farmers who (wrongly) feared that the animal would kill their sheep. A recent study (Aug 2011) published in the Journal of Zoology suggests that, though the jaws of the thylacine were quite large, they were not strong enough to kill sheep.

The thylacine resembled large, long dog. It was striped and had a big head.  Thylacinus cynocephalus, means pouched dog with a wolfs head. At maturity it measured about 6' long (nose to end of tail) and was about 2' tall. It has short brown fur and a series of blak/dark brown stripes that covered the tail and about half way up the back. Despite the stripes, and the canine like jaw, thylacines were marsupials.

Footage of the last known thylacine in captivity in Hobart Zoo (from 1933):


The Thylacine Museum, an online educational guide to the thylacine has excellent and detailed information about the thylacine and it's demise..

Note: There are still reported sightings of thylacines.

How to Write A Sonnet

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
~William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

Composing a sonnet:

• First, select the subject of your sonnet.
• A sonnet is presented in 2 sections
• Express the thought or theme in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each (quatrain) with a scheme that rhymes on alternating lines
• Come to a conclusion in 2 rhyming lines (couplet)

Note: I actually think I have relearned this. I'm sure I learned how to write a sonnet at some point when I was in school.