Feb 16 2025 - Let the Blizzard Begin

 

There's a tiny moment between 5:45 and 7:00 where there isn't a forecast.  Starting at 7:00am it is snow, snow, heavy snow. Well, actually, the forecast says "blizzard".  Look at the radar - so many colours of blue, then there's green and red. Red is for ice.   So it is blizzard until 1:00pm today when it becomes snow again.  It moves to light snow, then snow, then scattered flurries, then blowing snow. We're starting to move into Monday morning with a mix of sun and clouds - rise and shine it is 7:00am and your holiday weekend has been a long weekend forced to stay-at-home - a "Snoliday."   And what is a blizzard?  Three components are necessary - "high winds at least 40 km/h, visibility less than 400 meters and lasting for 4 hours.  That's the Canadian definition. And if we get a ground blizzard?   "Another type of winter storm is called a ground blizzard. This is when gusty winds—often 50 to 60 miles an hour—lift up snow that's already on the ground. Both types of blizzards can cause whiteouts, a condition in which so much snow is blowing so fast that it's hard to see anything." The worst blizzards in history were in Iran in 1872 and in Afghanistan in 2008.  Iran's was the deadliest blizzard in recorded history and dropped as much as 26 feet of snow, completely covering 200 villages. The Storm of the Century was in 1993 in the U.S. Toronto's great snow storm of 1999 is not covered in Wikipedia.  It is remembered for bringing out the military to clear the streets.

A watercolour abstract today. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Mar 22 2024 - What makes you stop and read the story

 

I was searching for a follow-up to time crystals soI see dozens of headlines. Some start with "the truth about" and others say "see what s/he looks like now" and others warn of "Putin..." doing something that will start a war.  This one repeated itself everywhere.  It is one of those headlines that  works.  We want to know what the story could be about -  a father and son...calling the police...about the son's homework.   Isn't that a tantalizing headline!  What could make a person "repeatedly" call 911 over homework? Is the son a shooter and about to attack a local school?  Is the son disturbed and about to do self-harm?  Has the son discovered something that can harm the world?  Is it a tragedy or a triumph? But no.  It is one of those filler stories. What a disappointment. It is a man calling the school 19 times in less than an hour saying his son was getting too much homework, and then calling the police and then 911. "According to a police report sent to TODAY.com by the Oxford Police Department in Ohio, on Feb. 29, Adam Sizemore “repeatedly” called Kramer Elementary School in Oxford “because his son gets homework which takes away from the time he has with him after school.” It must have been a slow news day - it is in headlines in news feeds all over the U.S. -  U.S. News & World Report, Reddit, Yahoo News, Kansas City Star, etc, etc.  Lesson learned.  There are worse things.  There are fake stories that gullible news outlets have picked up and published.  For example the headline :  Planet Nibiru is headed straight for Earth.  And that was followed by Hillary Clinton believes in the "Nibiru apocalypse" or that "Pope Frances endorsed President Trump" - these are all stories from 2016.    So I guess this is a minor moment in over-reporting, best left behind.   Isn't this a pleasant image.  It is a testament to good instruction - I am taking a watercolour class and we get simple exercises each week.  Everything looks great.  Who would guess I can't draw!

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Jan 3 2024 - First Chapter, First Page, First Line

 

New Year, New Month, New Day, New Beginning.  It makes me think of first chapter, first page, first line of a novel.  Are there first chapter first pages that are famous?  Besides "It was a dark and stormy night."  What about the most famous opening lines of novels?  Can a few lines be so compelling.  Let's look at some from the Penguin UK list: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." - from Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 1915.  "124 was spiteful. Full of Baby's venom." - from Beloved by Toni Morrison 1987 "'The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation." - from The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992)   "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." - from Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949) "Mother died today. Or maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure." - from The Outsider by Albert Camus (1942)   What do you think? I say "Yes, a compelling set of of first sentences." Here's the site if you want to read the summaries.  HERE.

Here's another version of the Petrea - with the watercolour software Wsaterlogue Pro and paint platters using photoshop paint splatter brushes by French Kiss.   So cheerful on a Dull January morning. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Jan 1 2024 - New Year's Traditions - Scotland Wins!

 

Sydney wins out every year for the best New Year's fireworks display.  Without any doubt the picture is so stunning that it likely makes the front page of most newspapers and news outlets. How will we welcome in the new year? And for those younger, how did we welcome in the new year?  There's a tradition of doing something at 12:00 to 12:01 and then another one of eating the day away.   There are very curious traditions around the world that bring in the new year:  taking a suitcase around the block, hanging onions on the door, filling pockets with coins, wearing polka dots, and leaping off chairs at midnight.   One tradition in Scotland, where New Year’s Eve is known as Hogmanay, is “first footing”—literally the first foot to enter someone’s home after midnight. To ensure good luck, the first visitor should traditionally be a tall, dark-haired male bringing pieces of coal, shortbread, salt, a black bun and whiskey.   Could we come up with something like this?  I just have to think it isn't likely that we would call anything black buns - the only thing like that for us is burnt toast.  The Scotch bun he described is a dense, rich fruit cake. It is wrapped in shortcrust pastry, so think extra-rich.   Over the 19th century as sugar became cheaper it became richer and darker - Robert Louis Stevenson described it as ‘a dense, black substance, inimical to life’. You can check out the recipe HERE. Below it are articles on Clapshot and Clootie Dumpling. Both got my attention for their names. What could they be?  Clootie dumpling is a Scottish colloquialism and gets its name from the cloth it is boiled in, cloot being Scots for cloth.  It is a Christmas pudding variation and similar to "Smiddy Dumpling".  Ha ha!   And Clapshot?  Not another communicable disease but one of Scotland's vegetable dishes. It is a mixture of turnips (which they call Swedes or peeps) and potatoes (which they call tatties), usually cooked separately, then mashed together with butter. The Scottish tradition is for it to accompany haggis, lamb chops or lamb stew.  The article says there are few Scottish vegetable dishes, so appreciate this one.

I was testing out watercolour programs yesterday and this was one of the images I worked with.  I found one program that worked with just two overlaid images was 1 GB in size and my computer didn't want to save it.  I thank my computer for this rejection.  Who could guess!  Our 2024 New Year's Greeting is a picture of the tropical climbing vine Petrea volubility, Queen's Wreath.  It was blooming in Brian's bench in the Toronto community greenhouse in the spring.  It was quite the surprise - let's hope we have more like this in 2024! Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Sep 18 2023 - Cilantro Love it or Hate it - there's science

 

Love it or Hate it!  Today's topic is Cilantro.  There must be people who love it as you can buy fresh Cilantro in the herb section of the grocery store.  But it isn't a love/hate story.  It is a genetic one.  Between 3 and 21% of people say it has a soapy taste.  Others are even less complimentary.  Livescience.com says that genetics plays a major role in this experience.  A survey of thousands found that there is a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) associated with cilantro aversion.  It is found in a cluster of genes that code for olfactory receptors, and is known as OR26A.  As well as tasting like soap, people say it is metallic and bitter.   How long have people been complaining about cilantro?  Since the 1500s.   Back then, they said it smelled like bedbugs.  That's not a nice picture and it is a relief we don't have the situation today to make the comparison. There are other polarizing foods - they include mushrooms, olives, blue cheese, mayonnaise and avocado.  But they don'ts seem to be associated with genetics.  Often, they are about food aversions and phobias caused by early childhood experiences. And in the end?   "... and as proof positive that this isn't about being mature, sophisticated, or your palate developing, Julia Child had the gene. It's very, very well documented. She actually would say, “I would pick it out if I saw it and throw it on the floor.” Here's an artichoke in flower - yes there is artichoke phobia.

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July 4 2023 - Born and Died Same Day

 

How many people are born and die on the same day - their birthday?  These are known as birthday perishers.   Statistically it can be expected that one in every 366 people - around .27% do so.  Another site says that 13.8% of people have died on their birthday between 1969-2008 - that's in the U.S.` Many notable people have died on their birthday.  Here's the list HERE.  Included are Ingrid Bergman and Mike Douglas.  And this interesting note from the website:  " William Shakespeare often appears on lists such as this, but as his birthdate is unrecorded (what is commonly given as his birthdate was extrapolated from the date of his baptism), he cannot be given a definite place on this list. Jewish tradition records that both Moses (tractate Sotah 12b) and King David(Bechor Shor, Shabbat 30b, based on Midrash) died on their birthday according to the Hebrew calendar (7 Adar and 5 Sivan, respectively). Similarly, according to Islamic tradition Prophet Muhammad died on his birthday in the lunar Islamic calendar, 12 Rabi' al-awwal. The eldest to decease on their birth date, so far, is Astrid Zachrison. She was born on 15 May 1895 and died 15 May 2008, aged 113 years. The youngest is Taruni Sachdev born on 14 May 1998 and died on 14 May 2012, aged 14. Also included is Sir James Milne Wilson who achieved the even rarer feat of having died on his Birthday the 29 February during a leap year. The probability of this occurring is even slimmer, at one in 1461, or 0.068%." Another strange aspect of birthdays?  The Birthday Effect.  This is where an individual's likelihood of death appears to increase on or close to their birthday.   I guess it is the 4th of July that made me think off this topic. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Feb 2 2023 - Ground Hog Day Again

 

How did ground dogs get their name?  I don't think they eat dog food. They are marmots and closely related to squirrels.  They are closely related to Prairie Dogs.  They are both in the Marmotini tribe. The Groundhog that we celebrate today is a Marmota monad, or a woodchuck.  Groundhog Day was a "calling card" script - a showpiece to get a producers interest for Danny Rubin. When it passed to Harold Ramis who was to direct it, he took it over and rewrote it, a few times, it looks like.  Who did they want to play Phil?  Kevin Kline was Rubin's choice and Tom Hanks was Ramis' choice.  Michael Keaton rejected it - he did not "understand" the film.  Bill Murray's brother played Buster Green - the presider over the Groundhog Day festivities.  The production company trapped a while groundhog in the woods, named it Scooter, and it became the famous groundhog. Even Bill Murray tried to rework the script, in an attempt by Ramis to appease Murray, who was so difficult to deal with that Ramis and Murray didn't speak again until before Ramis' death in 2014.   Mention the movie and don't you hear "I Got You Babe" immediately? Danny Rubin had chosen the song from the beginning.   Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney became a tourist destination with tens of thousands of visitors rather than hundreds.   Of course, the time loop remains the wonderful mystery at the movie's core.  "In an early draft, Rubin had Phil estimate he had been there for 70 or 80 years. Later in life, once Ramis had married a Buddhist woman and adopted some of that philosophy, he started to quote a Buddhist doctrine that says it takes 10,000 years for a soul to evolve to the next level. In the end, there is no definitive answer." Isn't that such a satisfyingly answer, and perfect for the real Bill Murray.  He's made headlines repeatedly over the years.  Last year, the film he was on was suspended over his behaviour issues.  Chevy Chase gossiped on Stern's show in 2008 about Murray's behaviour.  "Charlie's Angels" director McG claimed Murray head butted him once.  Richard Dreyfuss had negative words hurled to him. Inexcusable and unacceptable language was used on Lucy Liu.  I guess there's more.   Would that be 70 years of bad behaviour with no change? It might be 10,000 years before Bill Murray evolves to a next level.  And in the end, we won't be here by then.   If Bill Murray sees his shadow today 6 more years of Covid. Why wasn't Bill Murray cast as Thor? Because nobody likes an electricity bill.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Aug 31 2022 - Walking on Mercury

 

I remember mercury balls rolling around in one of the science classes.  It isn't clear then that we realized how toxic it is.  Or maybe our science teacher was using a pure Hg.  I got to thinking about how heavy it is. The element's atomic mass is 200.59 grams per mole and its specific gravity is 13.5 times that of water. It is the only metal to remain liquid at room temperature. What colour is it when it is put in water?  It is red.  If Mercury were not toxic and we could go swimming - we would float on it.  It is incredibly dense.  A 2 litre jug of mercury weighs more than 50 pounds.  Professional experimenter CodyDon has done quite a few activities with mercury.  One of his videos is his attempt to stand on liquid mercury.  It is HERE.  Another of his experiments is floating a 50 kg anvil on mercury.  Liquid mercury is denser than an anvil so the anvil floats.  Tungsten is denser than the steel anvil and would sink in liquid mercury.   And what about toxic vapours?  Cody's lab has the question posted 3 years ago.   Question: Does cody have poisoning from all the mercury he handles?   Answer: Last blood test says my levels are below average. And another answer has this information:  The mad hatter in Alice in Wonderland is actually a victim of mercury poisoning, because they used to brush mercury into the felt of top hats to make them shiny. They also probably followed none of the sensible precautions Cody does to avoid being poisoned. And another answer: Cody deals with elemental (pure Hg) mercury, a relatively unharmful substance. The mercury you may be thinking of is called organic mercury (ex. dimethyl mercury), and this is the possibly lethal and therefor very toxic mercury. Simply put, this stuff=bad news if handled in the way cody handles his elemental mercury.

This looks like a science experiment of some sort with all these splash splashes.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

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Aug 9 2022 - What is a day - what about 25 or 23 hours?

 

If it were to take more than 24 hours for the earth to rotate on its axis?  Actually the Earth is spinning faster, and we had the shortest day ever on June 29 2022. What are the impacts of longer or shorter? Think centrifugal force, and a lot would happen.  "If it was faster then one full rotation would take less than 24 hrs., thus making days & nights shorter.  Our weight would be less, because as the Earth would rotate faster, it would exert more centrifugal force on us. The resultant force of the Earth's gravity and the centrifugal force would be less as gravity would remain constant but centrifugal force would increase. There would also be a temperature change as each hemisphere (Eastern and Western) would get less time to warm up from the Sun's rays. If it was slower then one full rotation would take more than 24 hrs., thus making days & nights longer. Our weight would be more, because as the Earth would rotate slower, it would exert less centrifugal force on us. The resultant force of the Earth's gravity and the centrifugal force would be more as gravity would remain constant but centrifugal force would decrease. There would also be a temperature change as each hemisphere (Eastern and Western) would get more time to warm up from the Sun's rays." And if the rotation took 12 hours? "The water would rise by 100 metres if the day became 12 hours - due to the centrifugal force of the Earth.  So Indonesia and most of South America would be wiped out.  Africa would be two disconnected islands.  Mount Kilimanjara would poke out of the tip of new high oceans.  Hurricanes would increase because water levels near the equator would com along with huge amounts of humidity and create a band of fog around the equator. " The rotation of the earth has been increasing  for a while.  Scientist Leonid Zotov thinks it has to do with the Chandler Wobble that has mysteriously disappeared so could have helped the Earth rotate faster.   A leap second adjustment was made in 2012 and it "wreaked havoc" on sites like Redditt and Yelp who reported crashes due to the time adjustment.  Scientist Judah Levine says that if the planet continues to spin too fast, then by the end of the decade clockmasters may need to delete a full second. For example, they might have the clocks skip from 23:59:58 on Dec. 31, 2029 to 00:00:00 on Jan. 1, 2030.   There's a new Y2K scenario.  I think of August as a purple month - it must be that a lot of purple flowers bloom in August.  Time to check that theory out.  What colours are the other months?

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June 18 2022 - Weighing In

 

Body weight.   This is something women think about more than men.  I expect we think about total weight, proportions and dimensions.  But I hadn't thought about how much the various body systems and parts weigh in relation to the total. Below is a chart of the percentages of total body weight for the various sections of the body. Being in percentages, choose 200 pounds for a male  to double the percentage number, and  choose 100 pounds for a woman for the numbers to be equivalent.    And what about this view of a body.  Based on a 180 pound male, here are some numbers for body systems and organs.   1. Blood, water, and lymph system: 100 pounds Equivalent of: filled 10-gallon aquarium 2. Bones: 21 pounds Equivalent of: Road bike 3. Brain: 2.5 pounds Equivalent of: Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 4. Heart: 0.25 pounds Equivalent of: Burger King Double Whopper 5. Other Muscles (Everything from your stomach to your biceps): 52 pounds Equivalent of: A small boxing heavy bag 6. Carotid-Artery Walls (in the Neck): 20 milligrams Equivalent of: Half of a staple 7. Kidneys: Half pound Equivalent of: A small chili at Wendy's 8. Liver: 3.25 pounds Equivalent of: Four 12-ounce cans of Budweiser 9. Lungs: 1.8 pounds Equivalent of: A basketball and a football 10. Pancreas: 0.2 pound Equivalent of: 28 sugar packets 11. Prostate: 18 to 20 grams, or just barely an ounce Equivalent of: About three cherry tomatoes 12. Skin: 12 pounds Equivalent of: The clothes you're wearing, plus heavy boots and an overcoat 13. Spinal Cord (Nerves, Not Bone): 1 ounce Equivalent of: A short phone cord 14. Testicles: Less than 2 ounces Equivalent of: Two squash balls    I know the human body is mostly water - up to 60%.  All parts have of water - the brain and heart are 73% water, lungs about 83%, and so on.  A water molecule is capable of performing so many functions in the human body. On to a lovely June Day where Grimsby celebrates 100 years as a town.

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June 17 2022 - Syndemic not Pandemic

 

I wondered how the pandemic might end.  So I went looking for the words ending with "demic".   I thought the variations on "demic" might describe the probable scenarios.  For example, an interpandemic?  These occur between outbreaks of a pandemic.  An interepidemic?  Occurring  between epidemics.  Could we end with a hyperendemic?  A disease which is constantly and persistently present in a population at a high rate of incidence and/or prevalence and which equally affects all age groups of that population. Where I landed, though, is this term:  Syndemic.  The Lancet has a number of articles outlining COVID-19 not a pandemic but a syndemic,  also known as synergistic epidemic. This doesn't go so well towards a happy sort of conclusion.  "A syndemic is a situation in which two or more interrelated biological factors work together to make a disease or health crisis worse.  The term syndemic was created by medical anthropologist Merrill Singer in the early 1990s." "Syndemics are stitched together by three rules: two or more diseases cluster together in time or space; these diseases interact in meaningful ways, whether social, psychological, or biological; and harmful social conditions drive these interactions." “COVID-19 is an acute-on-chronic health emergency,”  said Richard Horton, the Lancet’s editor-in-chief. He described the coronavirus pandemic combined with high global rates of obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases as a “syndemic ... Addressing COVID-19 means addressing hypertension, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases, and cancer."  That article is HERE.   An historical perspective on Syndemic theory, methods and data is HERE.   What it describes is how the pandemic moves through a number of the "fault lines" that "drive the greater occurrence of COVID-19". We witness this in the anti-vaxx movement  in the U.S. and Canada:  "where those who believed they were protected from infection—by their race, class, health, or politics—rejected masks, social distancing guidelines, or vaccines (Adolph et al., 2021). In these ways, COVID-19 has become syndemic in different high- and low-income settings." So I had started off my morning by wondering if there were little waves and bigger waves.  Such an optimistic view as now I find out there are intersecting waves which are more complicated. That does start to explain how difficult this experience is for the individual, society, and countries. I consider this a very pretty picture today.  This is Randolph's front garden in May photographed with multiple exposures in-camera.  Isn't this so dreamy. Pretty Money Plant (Lunaria) flowers with all those shades of spring green.

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