h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I will be post the video up, later on

we won t tell

synopsis...continuing from more or less where I left off, days in passing from surgery, F 14 Apr 2017, to M 17 Apr 2017 I wasn't able to roll over on my side unassisted, since, mobility has been returning strongly, though I'm still not able to lie down in bed or get up from bed except by using the log-roll method, couldn't do that the first five days.

Operation had two purposes, removal of urachus, vestige of the umbilical cord connecting navel and bladder, on account of excruciatingly painful chronic and relapsing infectious disease problems, removal of a bladder stone which didn't allow more than an hour or two of sitting or standing activity before it would do its impression of the ping-pong ball in the snorkel, usually requiring days of excruciatingly painful recovery time.

Operation was a success on both points and some of the girls are already making comparisons of my abdominal scar with their own c-section scars.

(Mine is bigger.)

Other topics of passing interest from the above thread, traffic issues, I left the Salton Sea for my nephew's place, 1:45 am F 14 Apr 2014, drove the hundred miles to his place found him ready and waiting, he took over driving, left at 4:15 from Menifee to Loma Linda, made it in in time for the 5:30 am checkin.


As to what kind of fire-power I carry on a wild flower hunt, usually a 14 guage for the rabbits.

They're everywhere, seemingly almost as intent on totally denuding the wilderness as free range chickens.


The particular wildflower I'm interested in is a cactus flower 3 inches in diameter, white petaled with a yellow center, with 9"/22cm to 18"/45cm spineless petioles, making them suitable for cut flower arrangements, which is often problematical for cactus blossoms, despite them having some of the most colorful, ornate and sizeable blossoms in creation.

As soon as I hear you complaining about aches and pains, I'll know you're back on your feet.

I continue to look for signs of life in plants I had given up for dead. Three hardy mums have shown signs of new growth for the first time today. That leaves four still apparently still dead.

I have a small section in the garden where nothing is grown, where several years ago a chysanthemum grew unbidden, flowered and dropped seed, where I'm still awaiting the return of its progeny given suitable weather.

Unknown whether its native or introduced.

My native blue heliotrope http://www.enature.com/fieldguides/detail.asp?recNum=WF1740 is doing well this season, producing flowerheads reminescent of statise.

http://www.vanlier.co.nz/shop/Search+by+Flower+Type/Statice%3Fcat=00306.html

I'll be increasing the planted area of the heliotrope next season, backing it up with the somewhat taller desert marigolds.

been dealing with nextdoors pets, I just don't know where she gets her love of rats from

Rats are very social and clean creatures. They just haven't received very many positive reviews throughout the ages. I blame their agent. And 2legs, of course

Overall, rats have common sense. They know when to leave a doomed ship. They won't eat spoiled or tainted food. They take good care of their young, and have good social organizations.

They must have pretty good logic, or scientists wouldn't be so keen on testing their performance in mazes or operant conditioning experiments.

Granted, various plagues spread across Europe because of infected fleas that were brought in by rats. It's hard to see this as voluntary on the part of the rats. They would likely have preferred to be free of fleas.

I love that pet rat breeds are called "fancy rats".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WayenNqD24c

"Waiter, I wish to complain."

"How so?"

"There's not enough rat in my food."

Or

"Waiter, I wish to complain."

"How so?"

"There's a rat on my plate."

"Please be quiet sir, we do not have enough to go round."

http://youtu.be/Bv5P_PWqazQ

" ... various plagues spread across Europe because of infected fleas that were brought in by rats ..." [paulh]

This could be a myth. Old but not necessarily true. The plagues mentioned in books of old couldn't possible travel so fast. Maybe the plagues were "only" influenzas?

Speaking of plagues...


When European ships arrived in the "New" World they brought Old World plagues that wiped out tens of millions of indigenous peoples.

Did you ever wonder why the Europeans didn't bring back New World plagues to Europe? Why not? What differences between people in Europe and those in the Americas meant that there were no plagues in the Americas to bring back to Europe?

http://youtu.be/JEYh5WACqEk

Hint: Think of Ankh Morpork.

Good video.

Except for domesticated dogs, the Siberian tribes which crossed the Bering Straits over the land bridge didn't bring their domesticated animals with them.

http://www.canidae.com/blog/2014/05/what-happened-to-the-native-dogs-of-north-america/

Other animals were domesticated in various parts of the new World. Hamsters, forminstance

http://www.omlet.us/guide/guinea_pigs/guinea_pigs/history/

Then there are domesticated birds. I don't know why prairie chickens couldn't have been domesticated, but they weren't. Turkeys were another story.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/1123/Were-native-Americans-raising-turkeys-long-before-the-first-Thanksgiving

...actually the black death originated as a central Asian desert rodent disease, spread by local rodents to camel caravans and all their kith and kine, arriving simultaneously in Cathay and the Mediterranean world with equally devastating results, highly Mendelian genetics, 3/4 population loss in the 'f-zero' generation, 25 % in the 'f-1' generation, children of the survivors of the first outbreak, a generation later.

This was among the reasons the far east powers for centuries after exercised such utterly stringent quarantines against western incursors.

The introduction of the old world zoo of newly emergent diseases into the Azores, the America's and Polynesia produced a 90% mortality rate, the main killer of the age of the conquistadores being apparently a hemorrhagic fever the old worlders were generally immune to.

An important special case, the opening of California.

Undertaken under Father Juniperro Serra during the Spanish Enlightenment, the Spanish authorities determined not to repeat the horrors of the age of the conquistadores, they were so assiduously careful on moral character of prospective colonists and public health issues that they successfully staved off the pandemics a whole lifetime, until the annexation of California by the USA and the California gold rush, whereupon the mortality rate was the characteristic 90% of the native population found elsewhere in the Americas and Polynesia.

Mind you, under first the Spanish and subsequently the Mexican colonial quarantines, California was well nigh as difficult to visit as Japan and China during the same period...

morning all, just posted the videio of the missus and her sister up on youtube, will be supplying the link later

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrp2UgbYJn4

doctor rat

re 5215:

We may not have received plagues from the new world, but maybe we got syphilis? The exact origin of this disease is not known for sure, but the primary hypothesis - that syphilis was brought to Europe by returning crews from Christopher Columbus's journey to America - is best supported by the available evidence.

That's what I've been told anyway