Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Aparagus


I love it when the fruit and veg picking season returns. We went to Garsons Farm at the week-end as they are just starting the new season with the Asparagus available to pick. We went slightly mad and bought 2.5kg of the things, but they were yummy. The only downside is you do get Asparagus pee. It took us a while to work it out, and we did wonder if we'd gone down with some wierd illness, but no.

I found this online:

"Asparagus pee" has long been the subject of scientific debate. The problem is that if you ask people if their wee has an unpleasant, sulphurous smell after they've eaten asparagus, half say it does and half say it does not.

Scientists used to believe that people digested asparagus differently and divided them into "excretors" and "non-excretors". We now know that it is not whether or not individuals excrete chemicals that makes the urine smell, but whether an individual can smell these chemicals. Scientists still argue whether or not all of us produce the chemicals that make the asparagus pee odour. Most people certainly produce them, but many can't smell them as they lack the necessary sensory cells in their noses.

The most pungent compounds in asparagus pee are sulphur-containing molecules. How these are formed in the body is also a bit of a mystery. Only one sulphur-containing compound, asparagusic acid, is unique to asparagus. So it must be the way the body deals with this molecule that creates the odorous chemicals in urine. The concentration is greatest in young plants - which fits with the observation that asparagus pee is most pronounced when you eat young, white asparagus.

So if your wee smells after you have eaten asparagus it is because your body deals with asparagusic acid in such a way that it produces smelly chemicals, and you have the ability to smell these."

So there you go. All I know is the bathroom at Casa de Stancombe was definitely fragrant over the past few days. Not unpleasant just odd.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Sunspots and the quiet sun

The surface of the sun with a sunspot and solar flares


Astronomers are currently observing very few sunspots and the spotless day streak has grown to 24 days straight. The current solar sunspot observation minimum is part of a pattern going back 400 years, and for the most part is to be expected. I say for the most part because it seems many forecasts and scientific analogs pointed towards 2008 being the solar minimum with an increase in sunspot activity arising in 2009. The problem is the sunspot number continues to decrease in April 2009.
The sun with lots of sunspots

What is a sunspot? Has this ever happened before? What implications are possible if sunspot numbers don’t increase anytime soon? A sunspot is a planet-sized region on the Sun's surface that is marked by intense magnetic activity, which inhibits convection and forms areas of reduced surface temperature (therefore making them “dark spots” on the sun). Sunspots are sources of solar flares, coronal mass ejections and intense UV radiation. Sunspot minimums come along every 11 years or so, and when plotting sunspot counts, we see peaks of solar activity are always followed by valleys of minimum solar activity.



Therefore, it is expected for the Sun to undergo minimum solar activity on a regular basis. 2008 was considered a very deep solar minimum where no sunspots were observed on 266 days out of the year (73%). Only one year during the last 100 years observed a lower sunspot activity, 1913 (85%). As of April 19th, there have been no sunspots observed on 96 out of the 109 days (88%) so far this year. However, sunspot activity has been lower on several occasions during the last 400 years.
So what implications would an extended solar minimum period mean for Earth? Although there is a better chance than not that sunspot activity increases in the next few months and follows the cycle, if for any reason it doesn’t, we should examine past examples of similar cases to see what this would mean for Earth.



According to NASA research, there is a cause-and-effect relationship between sunspot activity and measured changes in global temperatures on Earth. As evidence shows us that the “Maunder Minimum” and “Dalton Minimum” were times where Earth experienced anomalously cold temperatures. The years surrounding the “Maunder Minimum” are now commonly called the “Little Ice Age”. “Dalton’s Minimum” combined with the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 set the stage for the “Year Without a Summer” in 1816, as it is commonly referred.
Earth’s surface temperature saw a drop in 2008, which I think is no coincidence given the deep solar minimum. IF, we were to see a “Maunder Minimum” type of sunspot activity occur over the next few decades, the world’s economy and agriculture would suffer tremendously. Many scientists who believe in global warming speculate that this deep solar minimum we are currently experiencing will keep global temperatures from rising over the next few years until sunspot activity increases towards the next predicted maximum in 2012 or 2013. Climate change is a much heated debate in the scientific community; however the one mechanism that both sides agree upon which influences earth’s surface temperature is sunspot activity.


To the naked eye this is what a sunspot looks like.

As mentioned previously, it should be a matter of time before the solar cycle corrects itself and solar activity increases towards the next maximum. Nonetheless, extended solar minimums have been observed in recent history and if it were to occur, would have tremendous impacts on the world’s economy and agriculture. This might go some way to explaining the incredible amounts of snow we had earlier this year and the period of calm weather that we are currently experiencing. I also wonder how much effect the sunspots have on global warming, but that’s for another day.




At the top of this post are photos of the sun with lots of sunspot activity. This is a photo taken on April 19th showing nothing happening at all.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Easter 2009


I think celebration times of the year such as Christmas and Easter are so much better when you have small children around. They haven’t been corrupted by the cynicism of adults or the commercialisation of the event (both things linked I feel). So they enjoy the dressing up, the singing and the receiving of the presents. This year she did very well for Easter Eggs from both sets of grandparents and us so we had to figure out a way to give them to her without just giving them to her. And as we were back at my parents they joined in with the games and really made the whole thing more special.


When I was young a tradition was that the church bells would ring and spray out little chocolate eggs which my sister and I would then go out and collect from around the garden. So we did that this year and Meg thought it was the best game ever. She and Granny went around collecting the eggs in the frosty morning. Then in the afternoon we went and hid lots of small model chicks around the garden and got Meg to run around and find them. For every five she collected she got one of the big Easter Eggs we had got her. As she hadn’t seen the big eggs before this she thought this game was even better than the morning!


Now the only thing is to make sure that she doesn’t OD on chocolate with the amount she has. Or that I get too fat from helping her eat the eggs!


Sunday, April 12, 2009

Visit to Shipham


With it being Easter and with a long week-end break we went back to Waycroft to spend a bit of time with my parents. With Easter being late this year we were blessed with wonderful weather, almost good enough for the shorts that I didn’t bring with me! Having completed all of the building work on the house my parents are now much more chilled and I think this holiday was among the best we have had as a family there. Mum and dad were keen to spend plenty of time with us, and to take Meg off our hands, which really gave Theresa and I a break. With life being so hectic we rarely get much time to sit down and chill out, read books or just have a general chat. So being able to sit outside in relative warmth and with wonderful fresh air was so welcome I cannot find words to describe. The air is so fresh and clean there as well that we went to bed tired from just breathing it in, which is something we don’t get in London.


Theresa and I have just booked a small holiday in the Summer and we are going to leave Meg with my parents for the time we’re away. We’ve decided that we deserve a few days of just us being a couple. Especially after some of the trials and tribulations this year. While I will miss Meg a lot I really can’t wait as well. And this week-end was kind of a trial run for my parents, us and Meg and I think everyone passed with flying colours.

Meg had a great time too. The house is so big and open that even she starts to flag after a full day of running around it. And the garden has become her personal race track. She and the dog seem to have reached an understanding and generally don’t harass each other as much. And most important of all she was so pleased to see her grandparents and seemed quite happy to be left their in their care all of the time.


We went to see my aunt and uncle, who we hadn’t caught up with for a few months now which was lovely as well. Meg tried skipping for the first time and we all had a lovely meal and chat. It’s sometimes a bit awkward trying to keep up conversation, but this time it was lovely. And we heard all about my cousins wedding next year which will be the society event of the Summer I suspect, but does sound wonderful.




Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Mayfair walk



Another week-end and another very enjoyable family London walk. The weather is being particularly kind at the moment and there are few nicer places to be than London on a beautiful day. (Well, actually, I can think of some places, but given the resources at hand it’s pretty good.) We have been gradually working our way round London over the last few years, trying to explore under the skin of our capital city. It has been inhabited for something like 6000 years in various forms so literally everywhere you go you are stepping in the footprints of history. That is a wonderful feeling and quite head spinning if you really think about it too much. Simple things such as street names often have very old and historical reasons why they’re called that. Or the basic trace of a road may not have changed for several hundred years, just the buildings on it.

This weekend we went around one of the wealthiest areas of town called Mayfair. It is home to some of the richest estates in the country and many of the embassies. It borders onto St James Palace (where we went a couple of weeks ago) and the Royal Parks such as Hyde Park. It is home to many of the big designer labels and has the most expensive shopping street in London within its boundaries (Bond Street).


It was a fascinating walk although maybe not the most diverse we have done. The whole area just reeked of money and everything was very private – big walls, big doors, big shutters. All the streets were tidy and the flowerbeds and houses very neatly kept. It did feel a bit soulless in a way because everything was so ordered. But you can imagine that the residents here would be very busy people running things or wealthy enough that the house in Mayfair is probably just a convenient pad to stop in while visiting town.


One of the highlights was going to the National Gallery which we’d never visited, and included seeing the largest collection of Constable paintings I have ever come across. I’m more into Impressionist art, but it is impressive looking at a painting done several hundred years ago and worth several million £. And like many of the galleries and museums in London the building itself was almost as impressive as the work contained within it.