Monthly Archives: February 2010

Wallpaper history

By Rita

Like many words in the English language, technology and popular usage have given alternate meanings to common words. For example, wallpaper used to be used simply as a noun–paper to cover a wall. In the most modern usage it can refer to the digital background of a computer screen. Wallpaper can also be a verb, as in to spread over a large surface or area.

Nature wallpaper is popular both as a wall covering and for computer desktops. People have for many years decorated their private environments to personalize their space, and to create a “homey” feel, whether that is the walls of your room, or the screen you look at hours a day. I thought it might be of interest to get a little history of wallpaper, in the old use of the term.

Wallpaper actually began in ancient China. The Chinese first invented paper and they are the first to glue rice paper onto their walls in about 200 B.C.

As the evolution of paper occurred, so did the evolution of wallpaper. The materials use to make paper changed and the use of wallpaper spread throughout the Middle East and into Europe. Early wallpapers had to be painted by artists and were more expensive than the common household could afford. With the advent of the printing press, multi-color printing machines, and ready-to-use wallpaper paste, wallpaper became less expensive and available to more households.

Plunket Fleeson began printing wallpaper in Philadelphia in 1739. Most of the early designs were a copy of the European fashions but by 1800, by using hand carved blocks, scenic prints were introduced.

It was in the roaring ‘20s that wallpaper really took the spotlight. This time became known as the Golden Age of Wallpaper—400 million rolls were sold. Wallpaper fell into disfavor during the “Modernism” era. The blandness of homes and the sterile work environment have led to the rediscovery of patterned walls and nature wallpaper.

Now instead of wallpaper we should think in terms of wall coverings. Technology has given us a host of products that are washable, long lasting, pre-pasted, works of art that are beautiful, interesting and very affordable.

IPCC

In 2007 the IPCC released its latest Assessment Report on the effects of global warming. This report helped make the scientific understanding of climate change more widely accessible to the public, and led to the IPCC being honored with the Nobel Peace Prize that year.

So, what is the IPCC and who makes it up?

The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is a coalition of 194 countries from around the world. Membership is open to all countries of the United Nations (UN) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). So, the Panel comprises governmental delegations from all the member countries.

The Panel meets approximately once a year at this level. Those meetings are attended by hundreds of officials and experts from relevant ministries, agencies, and research organizations to make major decisions regarding the work of the IPCC, such as the election of officials, outlining the structure and mandate for the Working Groups and Task Forces, and other similar procedural matters.

Presently, the IPCC is organized into three Working Groups: Working Group I deals with “The Physical Science;” Working Group II with “Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability;” and Working Group III with “Mitigation of Climate Change.” So, they basically examine the physical evidence, the potential and likely impacts, and ways to help reduce the impacts of climate change respectively.

The contributors to the Working Groups are thousands of volunteer scientists from all over the world who work as authors, contributors, and reviewers. None of the scientists are paid by the IPCC for their efforts. Lead author teams are created so that their composition reflects a range of views, expertise, and geographical representation. This helps to ensure that the reports from the IPCC represent a balanced, consensus view of scientists working in the field today.

Every IPCC report must be endorsed by the Panel during a Working Group or Plenary session. Full “approval” by the Panel means that the report has been subjected to line-by-line discussion and agreement, and is the procedure used for the Summary for Policymakers sections. “Adoption” of reports means that the Panel endorses the content of the report after having reviewed it section by section, and “acceptance” shows that the Panel agrees that the report demonstrates a comprehensive, objective, and balance view of the subject.

With thousands of scientists reviewing the work to this level of detail, the reports produced represent some of the most comprehensively peer-reviewed publications ever produced. That means that the conclusions of the reports should be the most conservative views to date on the subject of climate change. In future posts we will explore the evidence for, and what some of the expected effects of climate change will be.

Public opinion and a geologic perspective on the effects of climate change

Fossil ‘discovery’ rewrites history

Originally published in the Hays Daily News 21 February 2010

By MIKE CORN
mcorn@dailynews.net

For nearly 40 years, it’s been tucked away in a storage room at the University of Kansas, little more than a bag of bones that at the time it was collected struck even the most experienced as unusual.

The late Marion Bonner was right: The discovery in 1971 by his son Chuck then 21, was indeed unusual.

On Thursday, scientists announced that it was deserving of its own genus, proving to be something of a missing link between the oceans of 100 million years ago and today.

The announcement was made Thursday in Science Magazine.

The fossil, representing a massive filter-feeder much like the blue whale of today, was named Bonnerichthys, in honor of the Bonner family — responsible for outstanding fossil discoveries in the chalk bluffs of northwest Kansas.

Several of those discoveries are on display at Sternberg Museum of Natural History, as well as other museums.

The Bonnerichthys discovery came not from a recent collection, but from one that Chuck Bonner discovered in 1971 in Logan County while on a fossil-collecting expedition with his family.

“That was pretty nice,” Bonner said Friday. “Pretty nice to have a genus named after us.”

Several individual species have been named for Marion Bonner, who collected fossils alongside George Sternberg, founder of the Sternberg Museum.

While it was discovered by Chuck Bonner, the excavation work fell to his father.

“Dad knew when he was digging on it, it was something different,” Bonner said.

“I tell you what, I wasn’t too excited that day. Actually, I was more excited about Dana finding a turtle up above me.”

While the Bonner discovery — once it was cleaned up — was responsible for the naming of a new genus, there’s another and more complete specimen being prepared.

That discovery, coming from land owned by Mahlon and Carolyn Tuttle, has been donated to Sternberg and will provide even richer detail about the fish.

The Gove County specimen was discovered by Kenshu Shimada, an FHSU alumnus now at DePaul University in Chicago, and excavated by Mike Everhart, adjunct curator of paleontology at Sternberg.

Everhart has been thrilled with the credit given to the Bonner family, as well as the fossil that was collected in Gove County.

The trouble with plankton feeders is they are too much like sharks, in that they have little skeletal structure to fossilize. Much of it is cartilage and tissue.

Bones in the skull, for example, were connected by cartilage.

That made it big, but difficult to find, 100 million years later.

“It is the biggest bony fish feeding in the Cretaceous sea,” Everhart said. Generally, the Kansas variety, which makes up the largest percentage, would have been about 30 feet long.

The discovery, that it was a huge fish that fed on plankton, “filled in the blanks.”

Early on, the fish had been classed as a swordfish, but neither sword nor skull had been found.
Everhart said they have now determined that the fish lived from 170 million to 85 million years ago, dying out at the same time the dinosaurs.

“At the end of the Cretaceous, for some reason, the plankton died off,” Everhart said. That spelled doom for the filter feeders as well.

The chain of events have thrilled Everhart and Bonner.

“It’s very exciting to me,” Everhart said of the discovery and its publication in Science Magazine. “It’s not everyday you get a chance to be published in Science. It’s a pretty prestigious publication.”

Determining the fish was a filter feeder was just as significant.

“It was just an ‘aha’ moment,” he said. “We figured out what was going on.”

“He would have been swelling with pride,” Bonner said of his father.

What is paleontology

What questions fall within the purview of “Paleontology”?

Quite a wide variety, it turns out, because paleontology is the study of prehistoric life – the exploration of the entire history of life. Since 99.9% of all species that existed are now extinct, that is a lot of biodiversity. The science is multifaceted and diverse because the topic is equally diverse.

Because of the connections with geologic time and rock formations as the context of fossils, most paleontology classes are offered through geology programs at universities. I LIKE teaching introductory courses in geology because I find that people frequently end up taking geology in college as a last resort. Students generally are required to take a science class with a laboratory and they too frequently review their options without much enthusiasm. They took biology in high school and did not like it then, so want to stay away from that now. Chemistry and physics sound like a lot of math, so that leaves geology, they reason.

Fossil collecting in western Kansas. A partial mosasaur skeleton is visable in the middle foreground.

Fossil collecting in western Kansas. A partial mosasaur skeleton is visible in the middle foreground.

On the first day of geology class I like to point out that the study of the Earth and its history involves biology, chemistry, and physics, so we will cover them all. There is usually a little moan from the class at this, and I enjoy my moment of sadism. Paleontology in particular incorporates biology and geology to a very high degree, because to study fossils you have to fully understand the animals as well as the history that you can read from the rock record.

So could we come up with a classification, not of fossils, but of paleontologists?

Since the topic is so multifaceted the science falls naturally into several key areas. For example, individual paleontologists tend to be more oriented toward either geology or biology. The first group might be more interested in the animals themselves: how did they live; how did they move and capture prey; how did they relate to other organisms in their environment.

The second group might be more interested in what the animals can tell them about the Earth’s history: what do the fossils tell us about the movement of plates over the Earth’s surface through time; when did different animals live in geologic time so we can estimate the age of rocks; that sort of thing.

Of course, this is an over simplification.

Paleontologists can also be classified by which group of organisms they work with. Is it plants (maybe fossil forests made of ferns), or invertebrates animals — marine or terrestrial – ranging from the largest squid ever known to fossil spiders, or maybe vertebrate animals.

A lot of the people I know are paleontologists, and they tend to be people with diverse interests, often ending up doing a bit of all of it. For example, many years ago I worked on a fossil locality in southwestern Kansas that included plant, invertebrate, and vertebrate fossils. Having all the groups of organisms was critical to interpreting a much fuller picture of the ancient environment there than any one of the groups alone could have provided.

As a paleontologists I must be a “jack of all trades,” and that is one of the things I love most about it.

Other interesting facts can be found here at Boneblogger. Enjoy.

Geocaching

Do you enjoy hiking and exploring the outdoors, seeing new places, and having fun? Maybe you want to try geocaching.

Geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing) has fast become a popular pastime for outdoor adventurers, especially those who use a handheld GPS. Basically, geocaching is a grown-up version of hide and seek. Someone places a “surprise” package, or cache, and provides its latitude and longitude coordinates to others who then try and find it again.

This activity is enjoyed by people from all walks of life, young and old, and is great fun. There is a hint of the exotic to the hobby, making you feel like Indiana Jones seeking out lost and hidden treasure.

The cache is usually stored in a water-tight container to protect it from the elements, and often contains a log for visitors to sign. Sometimes there are trinkets to be found too. Caching etiquette dictates that you are welcome to take one of the trinkets, but you must leave something in return.

Maybe the cache hider will leave a disposable camera for example, and request that visitors take a picture of themselves and return the camera to the box. This way there is a fun record of who all has braved the elements and sleuthed out the cache’s location.

You can find the locations of geocaches near you, or near where you want to explore, through web sites like geocaching.com. A basic membership there is free and gives you access to the locations of geocaches and allows you to share your adventures with others.

If you really get into this hobby, maybe you would like to create a geocache for others to find. There are guidelines that should be followed as the goal is to have a safe and fun experience while protecting the environment around the cache. First, be sure you have the permission of the landowner or manager. If people are going to be visiting the area looking for your geocache, they don’t want to be chased off by a surprised and angry landowner.

You need to hide your cache were it is unlikely to be found by a casual visitor, and in such a way that getting to it will not harm the local resources. You should leave a log and a writing utensil, preferably a soft lead pencil if the area will get below freezing. Also, leave a note for the hunters, explaining why the location is important to you, and explaining the basic idea of the game for someone who does stumble upon the site accidentally. Obviously, do not leave food or anything dangerous or illegal.

A good handheld GPS is critical for this activity as it is based upon recovering the coordinates of the geocache. You can find information about GPS units, basics of their features, and recommendations on models to purchase here at boneblogger.

Check back here often because we will be posting more about this fun outdoor activity. Have fun, and be safe everyone.

Boneblogger: Science and the outdoors

Exploring the natural world