Category: Nature (Page 19 of 20)

Temperature Swings and Spring Garden in Pictures

April 30, 2009 / Katie L. Carroll

In some areas of Connecticut the temperature was in the low 90s on Tuesday. In those same areas last night the temperature got down to the low 30s. For all of you math geniuses that’s a 60-degree swing in less than 48 hours. Welcome to New England!

My hometown is on the water, so it tends to be a bit more temperate. But still, weather in Connecticut is kind of ridiculous sometimes. Despite the cool temperature last night, today is holding firmly in the 60s with a mix of sun and clouds. In other words, spring has finally taken root.

That means my daffodils are blooming,

my bleeding hearts are gaining steam,

and my pea plants are growing, growing, growing (which is just in time because the other day I used up the last of the frozen peas from last year’s crop).

Now I’m off to enjoy the nice weather (while it lasts!).

The Scale of the Universe Makes Me Feel Small

February 28, 2009 / Katie L. Carroll

My post on the Higgs boson or God particle discussed things that are really small, so here’s some thoughts that take you to somewhere really big. These big thoughts made me feel really small and certainly gave me a totally new perspective.

A couple of years ago, I was in NYC for a writing conference. My husband came with me and we went down a day early to check out the city. We decided to visit the American Museum of Natural History. Neither of us had been there since we were kids. Actually, it was a lot more fun to go as adults. We could look at whatever we wanted (and skip anything we didn’t feel like looking at), we didn’t have to fill out any kind of worksheets or anything, and no chaperones.

There was one particular exhibit that really blew my mind, one I still think about today. The Scales of the Universe looks pretty flashy with the giant model planets that hang from the ceiling and the enormous Hayden Sphere, but the meat-and-bones of the exhibit is based on a simple power of ten scale.

The exhibits walkway starts by showing you the very small (yup, I’m talking about those good old microparticles), and each step takes you to something a little larger, and in comparison you get a little smaller, and smaller, and smaller, and smaller…And as you meander around the walkway, you learn how insignificant your life really is.

The coolest things is how the exhibit uses reference points that are easy to understand. That’s where the models and the Hayden Sphere (which in relative size to the model planets represents the sun) come into play. One step might show you a tiny speck and explain that if the Hayden Sphere were (I’m totally making up this comparison; the museum website shows you real ones) say your head, this speck might be how big a single skin cell is.

That’s how the exhibit does just what it says: it uses the large spheres and smaller models to scale the universe and its parts into a size that is comprehendible. Well, sort of. By the end of the walkway our own universe is so small in comparison to the object to which it’s being compared that you’re not even a speck within a speck within a speck…Whoa! Totally mind (well you know!).

I try to remember this scale when nine months after sending out my baby, my heart and soul on paper (a.k.a. my manuscript), I receive a brief note from an editor saying that she like my manuscript but it wasn’t right for her list. It’s all about keeping things in perspective…at least that’s what I keep telling myself!

Discovering (the) God (Particle) Could Open Up a Black Hole

February 11, 2009 / Katie L. Carroll

I love when I come across a little bit of information that totally blows my mind. My brother recently made my privy to the God particle (also known as the Higgs boson). This is a tough concept to wrap your head around, but here’s my not-so-scientific explanation of what the God particle is—or rather what it’s hypothesized to be.

First there was the atom, which was thought to be indivisible. Then it was discovered that the atom was actually made of subatomic particles called protons, neutrons, and electrons. So much for that whole indivisible theory! So these subatomic particles must be indivisible. Wrong! While scientists think the electron cannot be divided (and therefore classify it as an elementary particle), protons and neutrons are actually made of other elementary particles.

Okay, so the God particle is supposedly the most fundamental of the all the elementary particles. Scientists think that finding this God particle will help to unravel all the mysteries of the universe. They hope to discover the source of matter, i.e. how things were created.

Scientists have built the Large Hadron Collider in order to try to observe the God particle. The only problem with this device is that there is a very minute chance that it could open up a black hole or cause the Earth to implode. I guess that’s the risk you take when you start smashing very volatile particles together.

The operations of this project actually started last year (and, no, the Earth wasn’t sucked into a black hole!), but a malfunction has since shut down further experiments. It’s scheduled to begin again in the fall of 2009.

In the meantime, I’ll try to get as much blogging in as I can because it would be a real bummer to be sucked into a black hole before I got all my super-important observations out to the public.

Viewer Discretion Advised

February 5, 2009 / Katie L. Carroll

I always chuckle when that “Viewer Discretion is Advised” warning airs at the beginning of a TV show. I can’t help but think Duh! Shouldn’t viewers always use discretion when watching a TV program? And can anyone really indiscriminately watch TV anyway?

Maybe if people used discretion (defined as “the power or right to decide or act according to one’s own judgement”) in all aspects of their lives, the world would be a better place. And if someone fails to use discretion, then maybe that right should be taken away from him and we should let someone else use discretion on his behalf.

Some of my favorite programs have these warnings (Family Guy and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), but some programs that should include this warning don’t. I’m not sure if this episode of How It’s Made had a viewer warning, but this clip definitely should. It was very unsettling. It made me laugh, which immediately made me feel bad, and then it kind of made me want to cry! You’ll just have to watch it to see what I mean.

Hot Bodies In Winter

January 7, 2009 / Katie L. Carroll

Warmth and winter (although a nice alliterative pair) don’t normally go together. Winter is a slow and quiet death that no one notices until everything within reach is frozen. I’m not a winter person. I was born in July, and I don’t think I ever got over that first experience with the sultry summer.

I’m not one of those hot-bodied people. (Well, I like to think I have a hot body, just not in the temperature sense…except that time when I starting having hot flashes, but that was just because of this medication I was taking…I’m too young for those other kind of hot flashes!) You know those hot-bodied people I’m talking about. They wear shorts in 50-degree weather and short sleeves all year long, and you’ll hardly ever see them in a sweater—never mind a coat.

Like I said, I’m not a hot-body, and most people know it. I get sweaters for Christmas every year, there’s blankets draped all over the backs of my couches, and I have a nice collection of insulated socks. I really don’t mind playing soccer outside in the 90-degree weather, but you won’t see me outside much at all during the winter. I did take up snowboarding, but that really only gets me out a few times a year (and I’m always wearing my waterproof jacket, my puffy snowboarding pants, those awful snowboarding boots, a hat, gloves, goggles…you probably wouldn’t even recognize me under all that equipment!).

As I look out the window now, the sleet/freezing rain/regular rain has left the world encapsulated in ice. A pretty image, but one that makes me want to curl up on my couch—with one or two of my handy blankets and maybe a cup of tea—to read a book until the world thaws out again.

Yet winter is not all coldness and death; there’s still life out there somewhere. The other morning, I was driving down I-95 on my way to work and spotted a grazing dear. She was a good ways off the road and her body almost totally blended in with the naked trees, but she was alive and well. The next morning I saw a flock of mallards waddling across a front lawn. The pond behind the house was frozen, but the mallards were still around. Then, just as I was pulling into the work parking lot, a flutter of blue caught my eye. It was a blue jay, out and about on a cold morning.

Don’t think you’ll catch me mimicking those animals, though. It has to be much, much, much, much, much warmer before I’ll go outside with nothing but my skin on!