For a while, I was under the impression that all spiciness, or burning sensation in food flavoring, would come from capsaicin, the compound that causes it in chili peppers. Then I realized that Sichuan peppers are a quite different kind of heat. Wasabi (horseradish) is different yet again.
How many hot-flavored compounds are there? At least five!
Kalsec: "The Elements of Heat"
My nephew borrowed a book from the library today, the art looked a bit inconsistent and barely matched the text. I was suspicious, then I saw a chicken with FIVE toes. Dammit the slop is everywhere.
I saw an ad for a brand called 'gals' and my brain parsed it as 'Giant African Land Snails'.
I put up a micro photography exhibition at a community market last weekend. Didn't get much traction from the crowd (except from children who like bugs). But there was something very rewarding about putting a bunch of cheap prints up on a table.
I had a few good conversations about photography from this. I think forcing everything to social media really set back photography as an art and community building tool.
The Malaysian Government is looking into adopting Regenerative Agriculture for food security purposes. Looks like the high price of inputs is the inflection point. Even some palm oil companies are beginning to make the shift and experimenting. But the main challenge is supplying the expertise to do it. Implementation is going to be a challenge.
The politicians are idiots as usual, but the adults in the room are doing their jobs.
#RegenerativeAgriculture
I've been thinking about how pollinators fuel a whole ecosystem of predators. They're pretty to look at and all, but the sheer volume of bees that move around flowering patches mean that there is a constant stable food source to sustain insectivore predator populations. That's the principle behind companion planting, but I'm not sure if there has been any ecological studies mapping out these interactions. (Maybe there is and I haven't dug deep enough into the literature)
The journey of a thousand miles starts with remembering where you put your passport.
I was teaching a workshop on Integrated Pest Management to some farmers. The problem with IPM is that when it works you don't see any problems. A lot of conventional agriculture focuses on solving infestation problems instead of addressing the root causes and preventing the problem from occuring.
Whatever happened to the Industrial Revolution 4.0 ? Has it been moved off to the buzzword dumpster?
Would it be possible to make ice in the tropics using using just human power? How big would a team pumping and pressurising the refrigerator fluids be?
"What were your little dreams?" I whispered to my chicken sandwich.
The Earl of Cranbrook (most of his publications were as Lord Medway) has passed away. He founded the Ulu Gombak Field Studies Center in Malaysia, trained many of my mentors and funded many of my friends in their studies. His contributions to tropical ecology were invaluable, and he was always a friendly and down to earth guy.
A lot of older relatives come to my mother, who is a retired nurse, for medical advice. I'm technically the only Doctor in the family but they never ask me anything. I studied forensic entomology and decomposers. My advice is only good when you are already dead.
More people should backlight insects. They are so thin that light interacts with them differently than larger animals.
I could ID the butterfly, but for now I just want to focus on taking nice pictures.
I find it quite difficult to photograph Honeybees. They are relatively fast feeders so they don't stick around on a flower for too long, and they just don't have anything special to highlight. I suppose I could play around with the lighting next time.
Here's one sharing the same flower as a small carpenter bee.
A striking blue Cuckoo Bee on a yellow cosmos flower. It's great when nature arranges all the colours for you and you just have to snap the photo.
Bee eyes are so nice when they are in focus.
This https://theflamingorevolution.com/ website is a great example of a simple website to organise protests and communicate an issue. It's good to make organising accessible beyond social media.
I now know about the Albanian Flamingo Revolution.
Insects wouldn't be able to play woodwind instruments since their mouths are not connected to their ventilation systems.
This is true for crustaceans and arachnids as well.
The Southeast Asian tendency to reach for the cassava when the world in is crisis.
I was also practicing my renewable packaging, using Macaranga leaf wrapping and Citronella leaf lashings.
#tootSEA
