Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Cooking up the Liquor, for your Vehicle that is.

Fossil Fuels are on the ropes. Don't get me wrong they are here to stay, but their reign is now on the decline. Why? Fossil Fuels are a finite resource, and we have extracted most of what comes out easily... particularly with oil. Alternatives are beginning to come into the fore-front, vying for future supremacy as the fuel of choice. Bio-diesel and Bio-ethanol are two fuels, renewable and potentially viable. Bio-diesel was what the first diesel engines ran on. If I remember correctly, the first diesel engine ran on peanut oil... break out the JIF.

Bio-ethanol has already been successfully adopted by Brazil. There sugarcane is refined into Bio-ethanol, a far more efficient process than that which makes corn into Bio-ethanol. However the future for ethanol is a bit hazy. There are more efficient ways to create electricity, and electric vehicle production is on the rise.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Yo momma is my momma

Mitochondrial Eve, the Woman from whom we are all descended. Some 200,00 or so years ago in East Africa it is believed the First Homo-Sapiens Mama lived. All of us and our differences stem from minor adaptations to environments that different peoples experienced as they moved out of East Africa and into the rest of the World.

Amphioxus

This little guy is the first Organism to have a Vertebrae according to the Fossil Record. All Modern day animals with a backbone can trace their evolutionary history back to the Amohioxus. Hmmm, looks a lot like tadpole to me.

Darwin's Dilemma (Burgess Shale)

Darwin's Origin of Species was predicated on the belief that all modern day species had evolved from one ancestor, in a gradual and methodical event taking hundreds of millions of years. However then and now, questions have been raised about whether Darwin's theory is totally accurate. The Cambrian Explosion found within the Burgess shale is used by Intelligent Design supporters as evidence that Darwin's theory is not complete and always true. During the Cambrian Explosion, a myriad of different animals suddenly appeared seemingly from no where. The debate continues.

Chillin' in Hitchiti

Had to hold the smile too long, but trust me the love is there
Everybody loves Hitchiti, there are trees, rivers and streams and even some cool Ginger plants. We learned that Hitchiti is called an Experimental Forest because of the species introduced into it and the intentional burning of large swaths of shrubbery to study growth. Just so you know, I love me some trees.