No, not a mouse. But the lizards are timid too. They do not want to engage and they leave very quickly. These one is fairly large, a foot long, so she posed for a photograph. Let’s crop it.
The next one is going for camouflage and is really quite brilliant at it. I like the tiny blue dots.
I also catch sight of small things scurrying out of my path hiking. Also lizards, 3 or 4 cm long, and very fast.
Today I go back to the first clinic I worked at here. I am feeling mildly timid myself. Stage fright? I can’t sing a song that I know, because I don’t choose the patients. They show up.
I took these photographs on the Palisade loop trial, in July. The lizards like it.
Today I will interview people in clinic, but yesterday I hiked alone. Well, no, not really alone. I spot movement and freeze. A silent interview of this rabbit, with the help of my zoom camera. There was a very young bunny further on, about 6 inches long, who hid behind a bush a year from me. I did not want to scare her, so did not get a photograph.
Lizards and crows, too. Chipmunks and a squirrel who was noisy until she realizes that I have spotted her in the small tree, barely taller than me.
I climbed the Serpent’s Trail which is an old road. It goes up and up but is never terribly steep. At the top, I can see the haze: smoke from forest fires in the Pacific Northwest and Canada is coming down. When I got home I closed up the house to keep the air cleaner. It is smokey today with lots of small particulates, not good. We will see more asthma, allergies, eye problems, emphysema and the smoke makes people headachey and irritable. I hope it doesn’t sit in the Grand Valley for a long time.
Meanwhile, the bunnies and the crows and the lizards and the squirrels, can’t go inside, can they?
Dolly the Dinosaur shows evidence of a respiratory infection: aka a “cold”. And a chronic cold. She died at age 15, about half way through her lifespan. I suspect a little guesswork there. Do old dinosaurs turn grey?
There are dinosaur bone changes in Dolly from chronic infection. The scientist posted photographs on the internet and other bone experts said, that is infection. That is evidence of respiratory infection. “A lot of the times when any disease or trauma is found in a dinosaur skeleton, it’s often in limb bones where you expect it to happen,” Dr Poropat said. “Seeing it where the air sacs penetrate the vertebrae in a sauropod is quite unusual.” Also, she didn’t die of volcanic ash: “Inhalation of volcanic ash can cause a disease similar to mesothelioma.” Who knew? I haven’t kept up on my dinosaur medicine. The pattern of lesions also didn’t fit with lung cancer. Instead, Dr Woodruff and his colleagues think bacterial or fungal infections such as chlamydiosis and aspergillosis are prime suspects. These respiratory infections are common in birds today. “We don’t know for sure if the infection was bad enough to ultimately do Dolly in.”
Dolly, with her long neck, had neck arthritis from a chronic cold. She thought it was allergies.
Coronoviruses are colds. We are have a pandemic of a really really nasty killer cold and a cold that is doing long term damage in way too many people. That seems hugely ironic to me. I thought it would be influenza. After flu nearly killed me in 2003 I read about it and have enormous respect for it. And influenza is endemic and is always circling the world, in the colder regions.
My ideas about allergies and asthma are changing. We define asthma by whether people respond to albuterol. I do not respond to albuterol so I do not have asthma. However, I respond to other adrenaline like molecules: coffee caffeine and terbutaline. So do I have an asthma like illness? My allergy testing in 2014 was resoundingly negative. I tested for celiac in 2020, because I just did not feel well. Negative. I have not retested yet, but even if that antibody testing is negative, it was gluten that flared up diverticulitis in me. The thing is, there could be other antibodies. Loads of them. We all make different ones.
I am thinking about tubulin. Tubulin powers our muscles and cilia and flagella. It is mitochondrial. We inherit mitochondria from the mother only: it is in the egg but not the sperm. Mitochondria is matrolineal. My son and daughter both have my mitochondria. I have a photograph of my maternal grandmother’s mother. Her expression is amazingly like my daughter’s expression when she is thinking. My daughter has my poor spelling skills, my attitude towards work, and her father’s muscular endurance. During college, her father’s goal was five sports a day. In high school my daughter said that she “just didn’t feel good” when the pool was closed. She was used to swimming 3-5 miles a day and lifting weights. Her father can get on a bicycle and ride at the speed of talking all day. He also has pioneered “jog golfing” in his area. When the golf course is empty in the winter, he plays golf and jogs from one hole to the next with his bag. Yes, he is nuts, I agree. I am jealous of that endurance.
The inheritance of antibodies would be from both parents, because they are made by the white blood cells. Do parents and children make the same antibodies or are they entirely different? I do not know that. I took an immunology course when I worked at NIH in the 1980s. I also had some immunology in medical school, but not nearly to the level that I am interested in now. I think I am hunting for a really good immunology course. And maybe more information about dinosaur medicine.
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
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