Learning the lessons of life and point to point movement instead of jumping for pleasure.

Learning the lessons of life and point to point movement instead of jumping for pleasure.

The weather pattern has changed at least by three (3) months and the migratory birds that come in early April (Indian oriole) are still here. 

The rainfall was just enough to make plants survive, if one does not water them for three days, they are gone for good.

In good old days nobody water plants in Kandy and rest assured there is some inter-monsoonal rain at least once in 10 days to make sure nobody needs an exercise to water plants.

Palm trees especially the arecanut are disappearing fast and what remains is used for pandols. They need moist soil throughout the year for survival.

The rain came at an odd time disturbing the peace of tiny squirrels who came out ill prepared from their nest (because of the rain) and many lost their life to cats waiting for a meal.

They started jumping before actually walking across the tree trunks.

Having lost a large number as prey to cats now the remaining have learned basic lesson of survival.

Follow the trace (I think they leave a tiny bit of urine on tree trunks-urine is a universal marker in the animal world) on tree trunk or branches left by their elders or siblings, amble across instead of jumping and find their ways.

As I have noted earlier there is no undergrowth if a jumping effort fails or trees are far apart for their free movement.

My observation after watching the demise of the tiny ones tells me only way they can survive in my neighbourhood is by using the power lines that stretch from house to house (not telephone lines) and not trees.

They have realized point to point contact is the safest way instated of living in tree tops.

My house they have ample space and providing space for them have cut down on the rat population too.

They are intelligent and fast learners but few young one had to be sacrificed to learn the harsh realities of urban life.

If you love nature please do not have cat at home.

They are vultures, even though we feed them regularly and very lazy too and the rats know it well and come out only when they are asleep.
They are docile and sleep at least 16 hours a day and too lazy to catch rats.
They are good at stealing too from neighbours especially and have learned all the bad habits from humans.

Physics, Ash Plantains (Banana) and Global Warming

Physics, Ash Plantains (Banana) and Global Warming.

I am writing this on a backdrop of a 20 year vilifying investigation of a Polish American doctor's plight to fight American mechanics and silence him.

I am not gone Bananas but some American Scientists and Regulatory Bodies have gone bananas!

They are going to study billion pieces of temperature data to see their accuracy.

They are getting a physicist to study a biological fact (climate issue).

Time and temperature are two dimensional elements and the time is a unidirectional concept and temperature is a perceived or measured concept.

Both are not adequate to study biological effects at random.

What we need is bio-indicators.
For one good bio-indicator of quality of water is tadpoles and frogs.

The Universe is billion bullion years old and earth is of billion years.

Then take a  sample from the last 50 years of supposed to be inaccurate data of temperature and CO2 and making policy decision, especially political but not scientific is ridiculous.

They are spending millions of American money on it and come up at the end of it, with inconclusive evidence for and against a given argument or a premise.

They could have spend it for a tree panting exercise globally and reap benefit in no time and provide at lease some fire wood for the poor.

I always ask a question philosophically of course, when I am at my tether to bring down an argument to a conclusion, if nothing is coming out of it.

Is the money and time well spent?

Problem with this question is, it generates a plethora of publications for and against and at the end of it the answer is again not conclusive.

This is how science works for us today.

This is what I call the uncertainty principle and statistics jargon works around it.

In this world most of the terrestrial animals work best at around 30 to 35 C and yeast die at 38 C.

The range is very narrow and what we need to ask is what is the effect of given temperature and  rainfall on a particular species of plant (we do not need to study animals and all animals live ultimately on plant product called glucose which is a biochemical product and not purely chemical or physical).

When evidence is staring at you, Americans would like to dispute it saying there is no scientific evidence yet to explain.

In my life I have eaten lot of ash plantain cooked of course but very rarely ripe ones.

They do not ripe even if you keep it for a long time.

That is why we use it as a vegetable to cook and a good one too.

Few plausible reasons are that it's skin is very thick and do not produce enough carbide.

Second is the temperature.

Third is its maturation while attached to the plant.

This week I was walking along a Gahala Junction and saw a vegetable vendor selling ash plantain.

It was very peaceful without students.

He was happy to sell, because nobody was buying them.

They were ripe.

He was greedy wanted to sell me everything.

I told him give me the ripe ones, I am going to eat them not cook.

Bottom line, even in Kandy they are ripening.

Why?

One reason alone.

Scorching temperature.

If any American scientist wants any more evidence s/he can come and visit me and my back garden and the rooftop.

I can show him or her over 20 biological specimens and water plants affected by high ambient temperature which I have stopped measuring now.

He should only buy a return ticket and he and his family can come here for eternity on the money wrongly spent on scientific investigation to prove or disprove a political point.

In this case he should be prepared for the mosquitoes whom having a whale of a time because of the warm weather and take few home to show his friends as a proof that he really visited Sri-Lanka and not got this information by Googling for fun.