Dust! Anybody? No?

Remember the sketch in Little Britain where Marjorie Dawes is asking the "fatties" whether certain foods are High In Fat or Low In Fat? "What about dust? High in fat, low in fat? Dust. Anybody? No? Dust. Anybody? No?" and so it went on.

Well, would you believe that according to Tim Flannery in The Weathermakers dust is very important? Who would have thought it? There I was thinking that it was just something that fat people ate to lose weight.

According to Tim, "dust is important stuff, because tiny particles can scatter and absorb light, thereby lowering temperature [doesn't seem to work in my house]. These particles also carry nutrients [presumably why people can eat it if they want to lose weight] into the ocean and to distant lands, assisting the growth of plants and plankton, and thereby increasing the absorption of CO2. Around half of the global dust in the air today originates in arid Africa, and the impact of the drying is so great that the planet's atmospheric dust loading has increased by a third [whatever that means]."

Apparently climatologists think this will have an impact on something but so far they don't know on what, or to what extent. But they're working on figuring it out which is good to know.

So there you go. You can now look at your household dust in a totally new light, knowing that it is important, lowers temperature, helps plants grow and in some way may or may not contribute to something to do with climate change or some such thing.

Incidentally, in South-east Queensland, where I live, the summers get so humid that the dust gets damp and sticks to things in a really disgusting manner. More like scum really.

(In case you were wondering, dust is low in fat.)

Evolution in Action

Last week some colleagues and I were chatting about 1976. I can't actually remember it being, as I was, just a wee bairn (that's "baby" for all you Aussies and southerners) at the time but ten years later I suffered a bout of eczema and was told by my doctor and my mam that I'd also suffered it in 1976 and interestingly both years were extremely hot (as hot as it gets in Newcastle anyway). This then led my mother to reminisce about the hose-pipe ban (yes, we get them in England too) which led me to conclude that the summer of 1976 must have been hot and dry.

Meanwhile, my Australian colleagues were recollecting an entirely different situation in which 1976 was extremely wet, the wettest year any of them could remember. The contrast was interesting.

The following day I read in The Weather Makers (The history and future impact of climate change) by Tim Flannery, a well known and controversial Australian scientist, that 1976 was a particularly harsh El Nino year and that it was a pivotal year in the history of recent climate change. The following year brought drought to many areas, including the Galapagos Islands. Here scientists witnessed something quite astonishing. As they watched in despair the majority of the region's 1300 native finches, famously used by Darwin as an example of evolution, died leaving a population of only 180. These birds survived because they had the largest beaks and were able to crack open tougher nuts. Of the survivors, only 30 were female. Imagine the kerfuffle when the rains returned and the mating season began. 150 males trying to mate with 30 females. That's a ratio of 5 to 1. It's not going to work really, is it? Not surprisingly, the majority of the males didn't get a look in and those that were successful in mating with the females were, once again, those with the largest beaks, enabling them to viciously fight for the honour of reproducing.

These two events resulted in a measurable increase in the average size of the Galapagos finch's beak! Thanks to Darwin's research biologists were able to compare the new average with 200 years worth of beak measurements and concluded that they may have witnessed the evolution of a new species.

I find it amazing that evolution can happen over such a short period of time. It's beautiful, yet also a little scary. If that's what one hot summer can do to a species, what does the future of climate change hold for the rest of us?

The Weather Makers is a fascinating read and I'm bound to end up blogging a few more interesting snippets of info from it so watch out. (I'll try not to get on my soap box though. I seek merely to inform!).

Interestingly, whilst looking for links for this blog I came across an article on BBC news warning that the recent UK winter drought could have "serious consequences" and that south-east England is the driest since 1976 (Concerns over UK winter drought). Hope you get some rain soon.

Everybody Needs Good Neighbours (whom they can borrow a Chinese cup of bruising from)

I thought I'd better pop by and say a quick "hello" just in case anyone actually reads this blog and is wondering where I have got to and what I have been up to.

Well, not that much really.

But I'll give it a go anyway otherwise this would end up being a really short and boring post. (Some of you might say "better than a long and boring post, Buckle" but I shall pretend I didn't hear you).

Toby's friend from university, Scott and his wife, Lucie have been staying with us for the last three weeks whilst they set about moving to the Sunshine Coast. Yes, that's right! Finally, someone has taken notice of our ravings about how wonderful life is here and have made the move to join us. Like me, Scott and Lucie (hereinafter collectively referred to as The Bradleys because that's much quicker to type) came straight from six or so years in London. Scott probably had a better idea of what to expect having already lived in Cairns and Brisbane and possibly other places around Queensland, but Lucie, being Czech, has only really experienced Europe and, like me when I first arrived, is experiencing certain cultural differences. Particularly, she discovered early on (as did I) that mayonnaise is not actually mayonnaise here but is in fact salad cream masquerading as the more superior, creamy, delicate on the tongue mayo that we become used to in Europe. If you want real mayo make sure you go for S&W. So far it is the only thing I have tasted here that remotely resembles mayonnaise.

The Bradleys actually move out of our place today so it'll be strange to get home to an empty house. It's okay though as they're only going around the corner so no doubt we'll see them again tomorrow. It'll be just like on Neighbours. Which is actually quite a scary thought.

A few weeks ago (Jan 25th) we had Australia Day which is where you don't have to go to work so long as you spend the day being Australian. Obviously this consisted of going to the beach for a body surf, listening to the Triple J Hottest 100 on the radio, having friends around for a BBQ, eating too much meat and drinking lots of beer.

Since then Toby's office at Noosa have released the new strategic plan for the shire, the culmination of years of hard work and lots of playing with maps by Toby. We had a little celebration for that and in the same weekend friends of our's, Adam and Bec, had an engagement party (congratulations) and invited us all around to celebrate in the beautiful, large, airy and spacious, gorgeously decorated, (room for expansion) house (with double garage, lawn and huge wooden deck!) they have just finished building. (Not jealous. No really, I'm not.)

I've been keeping up with my windsurfing and have discovered the joys of southerlies in Pumicestone Passage. Rather than bore the non-sailors amongst you with descriptions of my attempts to tack and talk of the maximum wind speed I have managed not to fall off the board in, I thought I'd just show you a photograph of the passage. But I couldn't really find a nice one, so instead I have uploaded a picture I took last year of a view of the Glasshouse Mountains from Happy Valley in Caloundra.

Glass House Mountains (and Pumicestone Passage if you look hard enough) From Happy Valley

See the water? Well, see the next stretch of water beyond that and beyond the sand bank with trees on it (which is actually the tip of Bribie Island)? Yeh, well that's Pumicestone Passage (and if you can actually see it you have the best eye sight in the world). Sorry, it was the best I can do but I think you'll all agree it's a jolly nice picture anyway. To see a bigger version click on the link and go to Flickr.

My shoulder is playing up again. Toby and I have discovered a thing called Trigger Points, thanks to advice and a good book recommendation from my friend and massage therapist, Nirvana. (Such a suitable name for a massage therapist, don't you think?) Toby has now purchased a theracane. It's a weird looking contraption, the general idea being that you use it to apply pressure to trigger points. Trigger points are small knots of muscle, "exquisitely painful"(??) on application of pressure, which refer pain to other parts of the body. I haven't quite got the hang of the theracane yet but Toby is having hours of fun and can be found theracaning various points in his back and neck most evenings. I think he might be addicted to it. Personally, my back and shoulder muscles are so bloody tight it's like one huge trigger point. No chance of finding a small grain-of-rice-sized knot in amongst that mess, I can tell you.

No, I prefer to pay Nirvana to do it. Much more relaxing. Last night she performed "cupping" on me. It sounds rude but really it isn't, although the resulting effect is somewhat like vacuum cleaner shaped lovebites all over one's back. And when I say vacuum cleaner shaped, I mean imagine the perfectly rounded shape of the sucking end, not the shape of the actual vacuum cleaner. Check out this link for a bizarre pictorial example of cupping in action. It certainly wasn't an unpleasant experience and despite standing in the cool air (all oiled up and feeling cold) for 45 minutes afterwards, waiting for a bus that never turned up and tensing my newly manipulated muscles every time the wind blew, I do feel remarkably better and more energised today than I have all week.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to revive my 'puter so I can do all my blogging from home and perhaps even provide you with some other treats, such as edited movies. Wow! Won't that be fun? Unfortunately that's a little way off as there is a fair amount of work to do to sort out the study and determine the most economical way to get 'putered up.

Anyway that's the latest, although not necessarily the greatest, from me. Apologies if this is a bit dull. I can attribute this to lack of sleep caused by horrible aching sensation in the shoulder. Am just about to fall asleep at my desk now. Bye zzzzzzzzzzz.....