RealClimate has an article up discussing potential tipping points in our climate which, among other things, elaborates further on Jim Hansen’s ‘ten years left’ comment:

The ‘10 year’ horizon is the point by which serious efforts will need to have started to move the trajectory of concentrations away from business-as-usual towards the alternative scenario if the ultimate warming is to stay below ‘dangerous levels’. Is it realistic timescale? That is very difficult to judge. Wrapped up in the ‘10 year’ horizon are considerations of continued emission growth, climate sensitivity, assumptions about future volcanic eruptions and solar activity etc. What is clear is that uncontrolled emissions will very soon put us in range of temperatures that have been unseen since the Eemian/Stage 5e period (about 120,000 years ago) when temperatures may have been a degree or so warmer than now but where sea level was 4 to 6m higher…

Scientific American has a blog post which tackles one of the common global warmign skeptic srguments, namely that the present warming could be a natural uptick. It examines all the different sources of evidence for global warming and explains why the current warming is almost certainly man-made and not a natural uptick. Well worth a read, simply to give you an idea of the depth of evidence. It’s also part of a series of articles dealing with common themes of global warming skepticism, so it’s worth reading the other articles in the series too.

Seymour Hersh has an article in the New Yorker outlining the US military’s unease at the current war planning being focused on Iran by the White House.

Several current and former officials I spoke to expressed doubt that President Bush would settle for a negotiated resolution of the nuclear crisis. A former high-level Pentagon civilian official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the government, said that Bush remains confident in his military decisions. The President and others in the Administration often invoke Winston Churchill, both privately and in public, as an example of a politician who, in his own time, was punished in the polls but was rewarded by history for rejecting appeasement. In one speech, Bush said, Churchill “seemed like a Texan to me. He wasn’t afraid of public-opinion polls. . . . He charged ahead, and the world is better for it.”

That’s all we need. The village idiot who thinks he’s Churchill.

The Bush administration tried to prevent Jim Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, talking to the press about climate change but the plan backfired. Here he gives his expert opinion on the global warming debate in the New York Review of Books, including this alarming warning:

As explained above, we have at most ten years — not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions. Our previous decade of inaction has made the task more difficult, since emissions in the developing world are accelerating. To achieve the alternative scenario will require prompt gains in energy efficiencies so that the supply of conventional fossil fuels can be sustained until advanced technologies can be developed. If instead we follow an energy-intensive path of squeezing liquid fuels from tar sands, shale oil, and heavy oil, and do so without capturing and sequestering CO2 emissions, climate disasters will become unavoidable.

An article in Scientific American details the latest research on how supervolcanoes form and erupt, and how their eruptions can have long term effects on the atmosphere.

The oxygen 17 excess and other chemical patterns that we found in sulfate from the Yellowstone and Long Valley ash samples thus implied that significant amounts of stratospheric ozone were used up in reactions with gas from the supereruptions in those regions. Other researchers studying the acid layers in Antarctica have demonstrated that those events, too, probably eroded stratospheric ozone. It begins to look as if supervolcano emissions eat holes in the ozone layer for an even longer period than they take to cool the climate.

This loss of protective ozone would be expected to result in an increased amount of dangerous ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth’s surface and thus in a rise in genetic damage caused by rays. The magnitude and length of the potential ozone destruction are still being debated. Space observations have revealed a 3 to 8 percent depletion of the ozone layer following the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. But what would happen after an event 100 times larger? Simple arithmetic does not solve the problem, because the details of atmospheric oxidation reactions are extremely complex and not fully understood.

A surgeon answers the question ’What’s it like to cut in to somebody?‘:

Nowadays, routine surgery, such as breast biopsies or other elective surgery, it doesn’t even raise my pulse anymore. But I never forget that, society has granted me and relatively few others the privilege to cut into living human bodies legally in order to try to cure them of disease. I like to think that I’ve earned that right through my skill, but it could just as easily have gone the other way.

Freedom is when your government illegally eavesdrops on your phone calls and keeps records of who you called, when and for how long.

Freedom is when your government illegally tracks your international financial dealings and those of foreigners.

Freedom is when your government fingerprints and iris-scans all visitors to your country.

Freedom is when your government illegally demands personal information on people flying through your country’s air space.

Freedom is when your government scans the internet and your emails for personal information to add to its databases so it can keep tabs on everything you do.

Democracy is when your government steals your election.

Is this the sort of freedom & democracy the U.S. wants to spread to the world?

A couple of months back, I got a phone call from Becs asking if I wanted to do the Kathmandu adventure race which we did last year. I agreed, thought no more of it and continued with my half-marathon training. After completing that, I pretty much sat on my arse for a few weeks. My legs took quite a beating during the run so I wanted to take things easy, and once the World Cup started my sleep patterns went out the window anyway and training suffered.

Still, I was determined to do the race, as was Becs, so we rocked up to the Royal National Park at 7am on Sunday as ready as we’d ever be. The format was pretty similar to last year apart from the fact that we’d be bussed to the start after registration, and would only be given our course maps once on the bus. This left us very little time to mark up the maps with our chosen route, but given the terrain, and the admonition to stay on the tracks and not go cross-country, there was really only one route to take.

We were in the second wave starting at 9:30, so when we got the command 200 people headed off on the run segment, starting from Heathcote. Another 200 had left at 9:00 to avoid overcrowding on the course, and once we’d reaced the second checkpoint the crowding wasn’t too bad. Neither myself nor Becs were overly keen on the run section and took it relatively easy, especially since the still freezing air was aggravating Becs’s asthma. The run to CP4 & 5 was rocky and involved a lot of climbing and descending which hammered my legs. There was only one way to go and we ended up behind a line of people travelling at around our pace, so there was no point in attempting a pass.

We finished the run section in 1hr 20mins and went straight to the canoes, this year’s surprise discipline. The canoes were Canadian style, so it was a quick paddle to CP7 and back to the boathouse at Audley Weir. We both had paddles, so thankfully Becs had to do some work unlike last year when we had to row a section and I did all the work! No sandbagging this time! Once out of the boats we had to climb the same bloody set of steps as last year up to CP8 and the bike transition. We walked the steps, same as last year, as it was still early in the race and my heart rate was already up around 170.

Got to the top and onto the bikes which was going to be our best leg. This section of the course overlapped a lot with last year’s, so it was faily easy to navigate and we’d no problem finding CPs 8, 9 and 10. My mountain biking in Canberra paid off in spades as there was a long, rocky downhill between CP 9 & 10 which I flew down, passing quite a few other riders who were a bit more tentative. All was going well until we were heading towards CP11. We had a bunch of people following us down some singletrack when we got to a slow, twisty, rocky section. I made it through and kept going only to hear a shout from behind as Becs had crashed. I went back and discovered that while she’d gone over the handlebars at a slow speed, she’d landed on her kneecap on a rock and was in quite a bit of pain. She was adamant that she was continuing, so we took off again a bit more slowly.

The next couple of checkpoints were OK, though Becs found it increasingly hard to put significant power through the pedals, so riding uphill was an issue, and running anywhere was out of the question. Thankfully we’d got the running out of the way early, though there were still two short sections which we had to walk instead of jog.

Once we’d made it to CP16 there was another surprise in store for us. We were given a map of an old folks’ home and had to run around looking for answers to clues, and also shovelling some dirt as the hard-labour part of a landscaping project. Once we had all the boxes ticked, we had our cards examined and, if satisfactory, we got our CP17 marked and were back on the bikes.

By this stage we’d been going for four hours and Becs’s knee was swelling up and getting more painful. Thankfully we’d only a few bike CPs to go, none of which involved riding uphill. There’s a rule in AR which states that both team members must remain within 100m of each other at all times, so we made full use of that by getting Becs to stop once we got close to the CP and having me go and punch our card. We checked off CPs 19 – 23 in quick succession, then we’d a high speed descent of Audley Hill back to the registration area for our final leg – kayaking.

Heading out on the kayaks was made particularly hard since we were leaving from beside the finish area, and quite a few of the better teams were already sitting there enjoying their post-race hot food. The smells were particularly enticing after surviving the previous 4.5 hours on gels and water! Max Adventure had acquired solid, plastic kaaks for this year which were a marked improvment on last year’s inflatable ones. With me weighing a good 20kg+ more than Becs, sitting me in the back of the inflatable ones saw them bend in the middle and become a pain in the arse to paddle. This year it was much better and we’d no problem flying down the river to our last two CPs, 24 & 25. Once we’d got 25, it was a straight race back up the river to get in under the five hour mark. We made it with 40 seconds to spare, crossing the line in 4:59:20 which we were pretty happy with.

We munched our way through the post-race food, hung around for the presentations and congratulated Amanda & Matt who’d won the mixed teams division. We also managed to pick up a spot-prize! Woo hoo! The official results were posted on the Max Adventure web site on Tuesday and we managed to come 13th in the mixed category which we’re delighted about. Becs reckons that if she hadn’t crashed we could have got as high as 8th too. All in all it was a pretty good day, particularly as it didn’t rain at all – a first for our AR team. We’ll have to examine the calendar now and decide when our next race is going to be!

I’ve been engrossed in the World Cup over the last two weeks, deciding that, since Ireland didn’t qualify and I’m in the process of applying for residency, I’d support Australia. I went out and bought myself an official jersey and got used to staying up late, or rising early, to watch games live from Germany.

As Australia have progressed through the tournament the general public has been getting more and more involved, which is a good sign in a country in which cricket, rugby union, rugby league and Aussie rules dominate the sporting landscape. We played Japan off the pitch, contained Brazil quite well, and managed a well-deserved draw against Croatia to see us through to the knockout stages.

That game was last night against Italy. Well, 1am this morning here! It was a disaster. Went to bed early, got up at 12:30am and settled in front of the TV. We started well, playing good football and dealing with the Italian threats in an efficient manner. Luca Toni had a couple of snapped shots on goal, but he wasn’t given the time or the space to get organised and Schwarzer was able to save. At half-time it was 0-0 and things were looking good. The ref was playing well, allowing the game to flow and restricting his use of the whistle to when it was really warranted.

A few minutes into the second half, he made his first mistake, sending Materazzi off when he should probably only have received a yellow. Italy immediately switched into defensive mode and looked to a few counter-attacks to seal the game, but nothing came of it. We were constantly pressuring them, but with Kewell injured on the bench, we lacked the necessary incisiveness to slot one home. 3 minutes of injury time were indicated and it looked like we were heading for extra time and probably then to penalties.

Then, it was all over. Grasso brushed off a challenge from Bresciano outside our penalty area, then Lucas Neill tackled him inside the box, playing the ball and not touching Grasso at all. However, he ended up prostrate in front of him, whereupon Grasso prompty tripped over him and the ref blew for a penalty with 20 seconds remaining. Totti fired past Schwarzer and the dream was over. What a shit way to exit the World Cup!

No-one would have minded if Neill had screwed up, but the guy was far and away our best player of the tournament and he was spot on with this challenge too. It should never have been a penalty. With the score level, and only 20 seconds to play, the referee should be absolutely certain that a penalty is warranted, and there’s no way he could have been last night.

Out of the four games played in this tournament, Australia have been the recipient of some shocking refereeing decisions. Japan were awarded their only goal after their defender took out Schwarzer, preventing him from making the save, a fact later acknowledged when the referee apologised for his error. Croatia got away with two deliberate handballs in the penalty area, and one of their players received THREE yellow cards! Even the least controversial game against Brazil saw the fouls stacked 25-9 in their favour although it didn’t appear to be a physical game at all. Then to top it off we get last night!

Sure, it all sounds like sour grapes and there’s certainly an element of disappointment tinging my analysis, but I’ve watched enough games of football in my time to be able to distinguish clear screw-ups from grey areas and there were definitely more of the former than the latter. Still, for a team who were labelled as “easy beats”, we did pretty well, and certainly far better than most, including the average Australian, expected. For that, the team can be proud.

An animated GIF of a time-lapse photo series, taken by one of the Mars Rovers, showing Earth rising in the sky as seen from Mars. That little dot rising on the right hand side encompasses everyone you’ve ever met, or will meet, every place you’ve been or will visit and your entire existence, past, present and future. Insignificant in the grand scheme of things, isn’t it?

Very interesting.

Picture a psychiatrist at her desk reviewing a case file. The report describes a young, teenaged male who, with several others his age, killed nearly a hundred victims. The case is astounding—not only because of the intensity and magnitude of the violence, but because nothing remotely like it has ever happened in the community before. Not even a single murder. As the psychiatrist turns the pages and reads on, the pieces of the puzzle start to come together. A few years before, the young killers had witnessed the massacre of their families and been orphaned. Afterwards, although still very young, they were relocated to another community with few adults to raise them; importantly, it was absent of older, mentoring males.

Read the full article for a surprise.

Just ordered my new MacBook Pro.

:-)

After an abortive return to running the week before last, I finally got going again this week. The weather was crap all last week; rain stopped play as it were, or at least provided a convenient excuse for sitting on the couch eating all those Ferrero Rocher that Jacqui brought home! Couple that with distorted sleeping patterns brought on by World Cup fever and you have a recipe for lethargy.

however, I’ve an adventure race in two weeks so i figured I should really get going again. Went for a short run on Tuesday evening and another on last night, 3.1 and 4.2kms repsectively. Took it nice and easy, just to get back into the flow of things. Today’s a day off, then I’ll try and maintain a two days on, one day off ratio.

R: 7.3km

Parasite Rex, by Carl Zimmer, looks at the role parasites play in the game of life. Starting with the history of parasitology, and moving through the prevalence and treatment of different parasite-related diseases, Zimmer opened my eyes to how much of the world is dependent on parasites.

Along the way I learned lots of interesting stuff, such as the fact that chimpanzees self-medicate. I knew they use tools and hunt in packs, but never realised that not only do they eat unusual foods to help fight infections, but that they seem to be able to determine what it is that is causing a particular set of symptoms and eat the appropriate leaves or bark which contains the chemicals to fight off the parasites.

Zimmer also discusses issues such as introducing parasites to control pest species, using the example of the parasitic wasp which keeps the population of cassava mealybugs in check. When the bugs, natives of South America, made it to Africa, they devastated the cassava crop until the relevant wasp was introduced.

One of the most interesting ideas is that the presence of parasites is an entirely natural occurence throughout the spectrum of life, and can actually be a good thing, citing the example of Crohn’s disease which originally started as a disease exclusive to rich, New York Jews back in the 1930s. It turned out that rich New Yorkers had been amongst the first to be cleared of tapeworms as public health systems took effect, and that deliberately re-infecting sufferer’s of Crohn’s disease with tapeworms from animals (which therefore wouldn’t themselves cause a disease) cured them of Crohn’s in 80+% of cases.

This is definitely a book which will give you a whole different perspective on the world.

Ali Khamenie, the Supreme Jurisprudence of Iran, gave a speech yesterday in Iran. The U.S. Governement’s Open Source Centre has provided an english translation of the Persian, and Juan Cole has placed a section on his site, in which Khamenei addressed the issue of Iran trying to acquire nuclear weapons:

"Their other issue is [their assertion] that Iran seeks [a] nuclear bomb. It is an irrelevant and wrong statement, it is a sheer lie. We do not need a nuclear bomb. We do not have any objectives or aspirations for which we will need to use a nuclear bomb. We consider using nuclear weapons against Islamic rules. We have announced this openly. We think imposing the costs of building and maintaining nuclear weapons on our nation is unnecessary. Building such weapons and their maintenance are costly. By no means we deem it right to impose these costs on the people. We do not need those weapons. Unlike the Americans who want to rule the world with force, we do not claim to control the world and therefore do not need a nuclear bomb. Our nuclear bomb and our explosive powers are our faith, our youth and our people who have been present on the most difficult scenes with utmost power and faith and will continue to do so. (Chants of slogan, God is great).

I just finished Richard Dawkins’s The Ancestor’s Tale a few weeks ago and have to recommend it. Subtitled ‘A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life’, it examines the history of life, travelling backwards in time, from humankind’s position on the tip of one branch of the tree of life towards the trunk.

As we travel along our branch, other branches join up with us at places Dawkins calls rendezvouses. Since each branch represents another species, or collection of species on the tree of life, each rendezvous indicates the point at which our ancestors diverged from the ancestors of those species joining us, i.e. our last common ancestor, or ‘concestor’, with those species.

In a similar style to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, as we meet each concestor, Dawkins tells a tale about our fellow travellers and it is these tales which make up the story. He also gives us an approximate date for each rendezvous based on today’s best knowledge, and makes an attempt to imagine what that concestor might look like, though as we get further back in time he freely admits that discussion of dates and appearance is mere guesswork.

Each tale illustrates a particular aspect of science relevant to the study of evolution, such as how species are classified and grouped within the tree of life, the various methods of dating fossils, how hox genes control the layout of body of body parts and much more. By the time we’ve met Concestor 40 Dawkins has given us a good appreciation of the current state of evolutionary biology, as well as an insight into the science behind things like DNA, mitochindria and all the little processes which go on inside our body to keep us alive.

It’s a long read, and while very interesting, it’s certainly not a page turner. If you’re at all interested in biology, evolution or just plain science, it’s well worth a read.

Rolling Stone presents an article titled Was The 2004 Election Stolen? which looks at the discrepancies in the US Presidential election. There are a number of discrepancies in any process as large as an election in a nation of almost 300 million people, but when almost all of those discrepancies favour one candidate over the other, there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark. In one instance “Kerry should have received sixty-seven percent of the vote in this precinct. Yet the certified tally gave him only thirty-eight percent.”,1),
(

What’s more, Freeman found, the greatest disparities between exit polls and the official vote count came in Republican strongholds. In precincts where Bush received at least eighty percent of the vote, the exit polls were off by an average of ten percent. By contrast, in precincts where Kerry dominated by eighty percent or more, the exit polls were accurate to within three tenths of one percent — a pattern that suggests Republican election officials stuffed the ballot box in Bush country.(39)

‘’When you look at the numbers, there is a tremendous amount of data that supports the supposition of election fraud,’’ concludes Freeman. ‘’The discrepancies are higher in battleground states, higher where there were Republican governors, higher in states with greater proportions of African-American communities and higher in states where there were the most Election Day complaints. All these are strong indicators of fraud — and yet this supposition has been utterly ignored by the press and, oddly, by the Democratic Party.’‘

Sure, the article is written by Robert F. Kennedy, so there’ll be accusations of partisan bias, but all his sources are listed at the bottom of the article and there’s just too much evidence for it all to be easily explained away.

Knowing what we now know about the insecurity of the Diebold election machines and the fact that the company refuses to allow independent analysis of the machines’s software, it’s easy to see how the result could be suspect. When the owner of the company, who’s a major Republican donor, comes out with a quote like the following it’s even more suspect. [link]

David Bear, a spokesman for Diebold Election Systems, said the potential risk existed because the company’s technicians had intentionally built the machines in such a way that election officials would be able to update their systems in years ahead.

“For there to be a problem here, you’re basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software,” he said. “I don’t believe these evil elections people exist.”

This idiot doesn’t believe corrupt election officials exist?? What planet is he living on?

It’s a long article, but definitely worth a read.

How fucked up is this? Brad and Angelina had their sprog in Namibia and were able to get the Namibian government to refuse certain journalists entry to the country, provide armed security around where they were staying and enforce a no-fly zone over the area! Tossers!

[ link ]

The Boston Review has a long article by Helena Cobban titled Hamas’s Next Steps in which she interviews the new Palestinian Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister on what their plans are now that they are in power.

Coggan touches on the reluctance of Fateh to accept Hamas’s victory, the difficulties in ruling the West Bank given Israeli travel restrictions, and the refusal to recognise Israel:

Dr. Mahmoud Ramahi, Hamas’s chief whip in the PLC, made a similar statement when I interviewed him a few days earlier in the PLC’s main seat in Ramallah:

“We have said clearly that Israel is a state that exists and is recognized by many countries in the world. But the side that needs recognition is Palestine! And the Israelis should recognize our right to have our state in all the land occupied in 1967. After that it should be easy to reach agreement. They ask us to recognize Israel without telling us what borders they’re talking about! First let us discuss borders, and then we will discuss recognition.”,1),
(

Haniyeh made clear in our short interview that his government would be putting domestic rather than international affairs at the top of its agenda. “We are confident we can succeed in this new challenge of organizing the Palestinian house,” he said. “Our people want internal security now.”

She also touches on Hamas’s relationship with the Arab League, and how the League will be encouraging Hamas to adopt their line on conditional recognition of Israel, their plans to buildup economic ties independent of Israel and their views on the rights of women.

What are the prospects for Palestinian women, Christians, and secular Muslims if Hamas extends its power? Hamas is different from al Qaeda and the Taliban in many important ways—just as Palestinian society is very different from those of the rugged, underdeveloped areas of Afghanistan and Waziristan that spawned and incubated the two other movements. To understand this, it helps to meet a woman like Jamila Shanty, a longtime professor at the Gaza Islamic University and one of six Hamas women elected to the PLC in January.

Shanty clearly relishes her new role in the parliament, where, she told me, she hoped to sit on the political and legal-affairs committees. She said she was inspired mainly by the Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. “Sheikh Yassin always paid such a lot of attention to women’s affairs.” she said. “He made sure the mosques all provided enough space for the women to pray in, and that they offered lectures and other activities for women. He told us that the work we do in our homes is important because it has real political value. But he also strongly encouraged women to become engaged in causes outside the home. Whenever he visited a mosque he would make sure to have a meeting with the women there, and he would urge all the women to finish their education and contribute what they could to society. He was an example not just to Palestinians but all Muslims.”

It’s a very interesting read, especially since the usual crap you read in other newspapers just parrots the “Hamas are terrorists” line without providing any background or making any effort to educate readers about the ins and outs of Palestinian politics. While there’s no doubt that Hamas does have a military wing known for attacks on Israel, it’s also a fact that the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, no slouches themselves on the suicide-bombings front, was an integral part of Fateh, the party which held power in Palestine for twelve years prior to Hamas’s victory. Foreign aid still flowed in to Palestine while they were in charge, so why is there suddenly all this talk of cutting off the flow now that Hamas are in their place, especially since Hamas decided to unilaterally enforce a ceasefire in 2005, which they have stuck to? It would seem that now is the good time to engage with the official representatives of the Palestinian people, who, let’s not forget, were democratically elected, not to shun them.

After a week off, I got back out for a run last night. Straight away it was immediately obvious that I should have done a lot more stretching after the race… ok, I should have done some stretching. I had planned to cruise around for 5km, but decided to call it a day at just under 4km. No need to rush back in to these things.

R: 3.7km

It seems that back in 2003, Iran sent a document to the U.S. in which they proposed to recognise Israel and stop funding anti-Israel organisations such as Hamas, and even Hezbollah.

The March 2002 Beirut declaration represented the Arab League’s first official acceptance of the land-for-peace principle as well as a comprehensive peace with Israel in return for Israel’s withdrawal to the territory it had controlled before the 1967 war. Iran’s proposed concession on the issue would have aligned its policy with that of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, among others with whom the United States enjoyed intimate relations.

Another concession in the document was a “stop of any material support to Palestinian opposition groups (Hamas, Jihad, etc.) from Iranian territory” along with “pressure on these organizations to stop violent actions against civilians within borders of 1967.”,1),
(

Even more surprising, given the extremely close relationship between Iran and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah Shi’ite organization, the proposal offered to take “action on Hezbollah to become a mere political organization within Lebanon.”

The Americans rejected it out of hand, and even went so far as to complain to the Swiss ambassador that he would even consider forwarding the proposal to them. Something to bear in mind while listening to all the sabre-rattling about Iran now.

[ link ]

Just checked the offical results from the half marathon and I’m down (Bib# 371) as doing a 1:51:59, so I cracked the 1:52 mark after all.

My legs are slowly getting back to normal after the race. My quads are still a bit sore, as are my calves, but the rest is OK. I’m going to head over to Rozelle at the weekend to visit the Running Science store. It’s a shoe shop staffed by podiatrists and physios where a free video & treadmill analysis is provided. They’ll then analyse the way I run and recommend the correct shoe for me. I don’t have any issues with my current shoes, but hey, why turn down free video analysis, and it’s a good preventive measure as I start running more.

I want to start running around 40km per week consistently, and then maybe have another go at a half marathon in September. If I stick with the plan, which is usually a big if where I’m concerned (consistency isn’t my strong point), I think a sub-1:40 could be on the cards. That call will probably be a bit ambitious once the race gets closer and I get more of an idea of just what is involved, but I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it.

Walter Tschinkel of the Department of Biological Science at Florida University has published a paper on the nest architecture of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius. Not particularly interesting you say, but I like the way he took casts of the nests: by pouring orthodontic plaster into the nest entrance, allowing it to harden, and then excavating the result.

Check out this 12-metre cast!