The · Affected · Provincial’s · Almanack

Our friend Jodi sports the latest.

"A new generation of dirigibles is being considered by governments and private companies as the price of fuel rises and concern for the environment grows. (...) The new dirigibles benefit from new materials and means of propulsion, as well as entrepreneurs who are taking another look at the behemoths of the air."

NYT

Around here, Beltane is known as Moth Day, the day when we take our saturniid cocoons out of cold storage and into the cage so they may eclose over the next month. Let the eclosion parties of May begin!

~W

A happy and healthy new year to all of you, my friends. May you all have your fill at the wells of joy, light and love.

With warmest wishes,
W

Saturday afternoon found me at the Morris Arboretum, just outside of Philadelphia. The place was all but deserted, but I came for one reason: The Dorrance H. Hamilton Fernery. Built in 1899, it is the only remaining freestanding Victorian fernery in North America. The unique glass roof eventually fell into serious disrepair and was replaced in the 1950's with a conventional sloping roof, but in 1994 the fernery roof was finally restored to its original curvilinear glory. Its gracious form is set into the sloping hillside like a green gem in a belly dancer's navel. With the dramatic sunset light raking across the hill, I was compelled to peer into the glass canopy, whose condensation-obscured view tantalizingly hinted at the lush vegetation within.

( Come inside... )

~W

Now, this isn't some clinical plant factory--someone loves this little world, one might even say the Off family have lived in it for four generations (one often encounters their small children playing in the plants, the lucky little devils). It has naturalized from stone floor to glass ceiling: waterfalls and ponds of fish, stands of wild ferns and mosses growing in neglected corners, and various thriving species which have found themselves here by accident, have staked claims in any available nook and are now permanent naturalized residents. The greenhouses are so choked with vegetation in areas, that even a small person like me had a hard time getting through. At one point, an older gentleman and I startled one another in this jungle. "Livingston, I presume?" It's an absolutely enchanting place, an accidental ecosystem.
( My quarry, safe at home... )
After two hours of loitering and swooning, I claimed my quarry of three paphiopedilum and a large nepenthes (the Offs recently purchased a collection of incredible vanda from a gentleman who recently died, and I've inherited his nepenthes). Before leaving, I had a friendly chat with a couple members of the Off family. During the conversation, they mentioned that some tropical tree frogs had apparently hitched a ride on a couple of the orchids. Over the years, their numbers in the greenhouses have grown to the point that at night, the noise is so loud that at one point the Offs were afraid the neighbors would complain. To the best of their knowledge, none have (and I can't imagine what sort of thick churl would complain about having a glass house full of plants and frogs as a neighbor). I hope to visit the greenhouse at night on a warm evening, and hear the music of this little oasis for myself. Such are the rewards of floral flaneurie.

~W

More about them here.

Upon first glance, they seem quite the thing. I appreciate the general sentiment and the groovy space age design, but isn't this gilding the lily? I mean, won't a mass of plants near a fan or breezy window be more elegant, attractive, effective and less wasteful? And why must everything--even living things--be a kind of machine? Seems a very twentieth-century way of looking at things, which is how we got into this mess in the first place. Instead, we should be figuring out how to make our machines into specimens. Besides, I prefer to have my plants out in the open, where I can enjoy them while they purify my air. No need to apologize for their decorative aspects--why impoverish ourselves so needlessly?

~W

Order now--Ewoks are standing by.

~W

Seemed like an ideal surprise gift for my wife when I was in Evolution this morning. I know she needed a coin purse.

( That's nothing--Momus got a raccoon penis bone! )

Go here to find out more.

Not bad, considering I had such a rocky start this year.

Other posts about the bog here, here, and here.

I just adore her hand-blown biomorphic pods; they look like magnified drops of pond water that contain entire universes (You all know how I love a good microcosm). What a lively, eclectic counterpoint they would provide to my more traditional terrariums. They would be perfect for the den, actually.

I'm certain they are quite beyond my price range, but I'd like to know, nevertheless.

"Theory is gray, but the golden tree of life is green" --Geothe

Below is a fascinating--and for me, exciting--article in the NYT Review of Books. Now, before you anti-humanist "can't do" cynics start sharpening your pins: we all know such pronouncements are always a bit gee-whiz and starry-eyed. Yet, striving for such elusive visions can, on occasion, get us to better--and in this case, greener--places, especially if we are able to correct our heading as we approach said visions, so that we might find a safe harbor. Dyson cheerfully admits his record as a prophet is mixed, but "it is better to be wrong than to be vague."

Our Biotech Future
By Freeman Dyson
1.

It has become part of the accepted wisdom to say that the twentieth century was the century of physics and the twenty-first century will be the century of biology. Two facts about the coming century are agreed on by almost everyone. Biology is now bigger than physics, as measured by the size of budgets, by the size of the workforce, or by the output of major discoveries; and biology is likely to remain the biggest part of science through the twenty-first century. Biology is also more important than physics, as measured by its economic consequences, by its ethical implications, or by its effects on human welfare.

These facts raise an interesting question. Will the domestication of high technology, which we have seen marching from triumph to triumph with the advent of personal computers and GPS receivers and digital cameras, soon be extended from physical technology to biotechnology? I believe that the answer to this question is yes. Here I am bold enough to make a definite prediction. I predict that the domestication of biotechnology will dominate our lives during the next fifty years at least as much as the domestication of computers has dominated our lives during the previous fifty years.

I see a close analogy between John von Neumann's blinkered vision of computers as large centralized facilities and the public perception of genetic engineering today as an activity of large pharmaceutical and agribusiness corporations such as Monsanto. The public distrusts Monsanto because Monsanto likes to put genes for poisonous pesticides into food crops, just as we distrusted von Neumann because he liked to use his computer for designing hydrogen bombs secretly at midnight. It is likely that genetic engineering will remain unpopular and controversial so long as it remains a centralized activity in the hands of large corporations.

I see a bright future for the biotechnology industry when it follows the path of the computer industry, the path that von Neumann failed to foresee, becoming small and domesticated rather than big and centralized. The first step in this direction was already taken recently, when genetically modified tropical fish with new and brilliant colors appeared in pet stores. For biotechnology to become domesticated, the next step is to become user-friendly. I recently spent a happy day at the Philadelphia Flower Show, the biggest indoor flower show in the world, where flower breeders from all over the world show off the results of their efforts. I have also visited the Reptile Show in San Diego, an equally impressive show displaying the work of another set of breeders. Philadelphia excels in orchids and roses, San Diego excels in lizards and snakes. The main problem for a grandparent visiting the reptile show with a grandchild is to get the grandchild out of the building without actually buying a snake.

Every orchid or rose or lizard or snake is the work of a dedicated and skilled breeder. There are thousands of people, amateurs and professionals, who devote their lives to this business. Now imagine what will happen when the tools of genetic engineering become accessible to these people. There will be do-it-yourself kits for gardeners who will use genetic engineering to breed new varieties of roses and orchids. Also kits for lovers of pigeons and parrots and lizards and snakes to breed new varieties of pets. Breeders of dogs and cats will have their kits too. [And I will be among them! I know that the list of carnivorous plant cultivars is is now growing in leaps and bounds, with a dizzying variety of form and colors in its wake. I plan on conducting my own plant breeding in the years to come.--W]

Domesticated biotechnology, once it gets into the hands of housewives and children, will give us an explosion of diversity of new living creatures, rather than the monoculture crops that the big corporations prefer. New lineages will proliferate to replace those that monoculture farming and deforestation have destroyed. [It can also help to heal the ecological damage to sensitive regions by reintroducing once-extinct species, or perhaps even new ones that fill the same niche. Will it matter if the new species is not derived from Natural Selection? Ask your grandchildren.--W] Designing genomes will be a personal thing, a new art form as creative as painting or sculpture.

Few of the new creations will be masterpieces, but a great many will bring joy to their creators and variety to our fauna and flora. The final step in the domestication of biotechnology will be biotech games, designed like computer games for children down to kindergarten age but played with real eggs and seeds rather than with images on a screen. Playing such games, kids will acquire an intimate feeling for the organisms that they are growing. The winner could be the kid whose seed grows the prickliest cactus, or the kid whose egg hatches the cutest dinosaur. These games will be messy and possibly dangerous. Rules and regulations will be needed to make sure that our kids do not endanger themselves and others. The dangers of biotechnology are real and serious.
( Read more... )

I refer the reader to page 138 of my book, a chapter entitled, "The Age of Frondescence". There you may find similar musings as posited by Dyson above--including a space walnut akin to the famed Dyson Tree.

See you in the (affected, provincial) future!

~W