Climate Change and Seafood

National Geographic is reporting on the findings of a University of Rhode Island study of the ecosystem in Narragansett Bay based on data gathered over the past 50 years. The composition of the Bay's ecosystem has changed in a number of ways. Bottom fish population have declined dramatically and appear to have been replaced by invertebrates such as lobster, squid and scallops.

Squid, Lobster Numbers Rise as Fish Fall Due to Warming

...Scientists from the University of Rhode Island (URI) say rising sea temperatures linked to global warming is the primary cause of shifts in the abundance and types of species living in the bay and adjacent Rhode Island Sound...

"These major changes in marine ecosystems are being recognized to be reasonably common, and the shift from groundfish to invertebrates such as crabs, prawns, and scallops has been seen in quite a few places," he said...

A founder of URI's Graduate School of Oceanography began the trawling surveys of the bay in 1959.

Several generations of researchers and students have kept up the work since then, and the survey now represents what may be the world's longest-running record of its kind.

"Many of the things you hear about the effects of warming are sometimes anecdotal, because people don't have the records of what was there before," study author Collie said. "We have the record..."

Of the animals that still live at the bottom of the bay, a much higher proportion is made up of invertebrates, which Collie believes moved in to fill the void left by fish...

The survey shows that sea-surface temperature in the area of the trawls has increased by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) since 1959...

Still, Collie thinks the new research isn't signaling a death knell for ocean systems.

"The productivity of the ecosystem will continue," he said.

"The worst-case scenario is the whole functioning of the system is collapsing. We haven't seen that yet, but we're looking."

I enjoy shellfish more than fish and lobster is my favorite food bar none. Still, such wholesale shifts in ecosystems should certainly be seen as red flags. The changes are bound to have effects outside of the immediate areas in which they occur; there are very few truly isolated ecosystems and most of those have relatively low diversity and occur in extreme environments.

I have no problem with an increased supply, and theoretically the subsequent fall in the price, of squid and lobster. This isn't the way to go about creating that increase, though.

Tobacco Tax Hike in Massachusetts: Ouch, But...

I don't have many bad habits. In fact, I think I have only one really bad one. I don't drink, I don't gamble, I don't cheat on my partner, I eat a relatively healthy diet. Arguably, my one bad habit is one of the worst, though, for my health. I'm a smoker. There, I've said it. I am a member of one of the most reviled groups in America. I'm a smoking non-theist social liberal. It might be wise to invest heavily in Kevlar now that the word is out.

Let me add two more adjectives to this description. First, I am a conscientious smoker. I make it a point to avoid inflicting my bad habit on bystanders. If I'm walking with a group of people, for example, I'll position myself so that my smoke blows away from them. If I'm waiting at a bus stop or otherwise near others I'll move far enough away in a direction so that I don't pass second-hand smoke toward them. Second, I am a poor smoker. I'm a graduate student. The two previous statements are redundant.

I knew that Massachusetts was about to hike the taxes on cigarettes but I hadn't realized it was going into effect yesterday. In the early morning I stopped off at the Mobil station at Main and Park — one of perhaps five places in town that carry my brand — and bought a pack for the same price I've been paying every day for the year since I've been living here, $5.96. That was already expensive; apparently I smoke really, really good cigarettes. On the way home from the lab just after 6:00 PM, I decided to save myself the early morning stop. Traffic is bad in the morning and it can be hard to turn out of the parking lot in the direction I want to go, so I figured I'd save myself one small hassle since this morning will be a busy one. The clerks at the Mobil station know what I want without my asking for it since all I ever buy there are cigarettes. They all know my brand and so the guy at the counter retrieved a pack for me without my asking. Then he rang it up.

The price had jumped to $7.32! My pain was made audible with a heartfelt "ouch." It isn't often that the price of anything I buy goes up by 23% in less than 24 hours.

Massachusetts is doing this to generate tax revenue. It's part of a larger package to boost the budget, and according to the Worcester Telegram and Gazette the hike will generate $680,000 per day for the state. Whether or not one agrees with this sort of approach for purely political reasons, it's worthwhile to ask whether the measure will do what lawmakers expect it to do.

Massachusetts is a small state, geographically speaking. I live nearly dead-center on the map but I'm less than an hour's drive from both the Connecticut and New Hampshire borders. No matter where in the state people are, they're not far from a neighboring state. With the new tax hike, all of those states will have lower prices per pack than does Massachusetts. An average pack here now costs $6.41; that same pack costs $4.19 in New Hampshire, $5.50 in Vermont and $5.63 in Connecticut. More smokers will simply cross a state line to purchase their tobacco to avoid the substantial increase in price than did before. I have no idea whether lawmakers took this into account when they decided that the increase was a good idea, but some of the effect of this increase is bound to be a windfall for neighboring states, not for Massachusetts.

Those who don't feel like crossing a border and plan ahead might also be expected to start using, or to increase their current use, of online sources. Just like the high cost of prescription drugs helps to feed a black market online, so will the increase in the cost of tobacco. A quick search yield a number of online discounters yields tens of thousands of hits on sites with names like Mailordercigarettes.biz, Ourcigarettes.net and Cheap-cig.com. Is it legal? I don't know, and I'm not endorsing buying cigarettes online. The point is that it's possible and if there are laws against utilizing such websites they would be extremely difficult to enforce. Stepping up any current enforcement would require more tax dollars to pay for the effort, defeating the whole purpose of the tax hike in the first place. Prohibition didn't stop people from drinking; hiking prices won't stop them from smoking. It will simply provide an impetus for more people than ever to circumvent laws and become more creative about it.

A year from now, we'll hear about statistics that show the the amount of tobacco being purchased in Massachusetts has decreased. The emphasis will be placed largely on the "decreased," but in reality a lot of it should be placed on the "in Massachusetts" bit. In the end, more money will simply flow out of the state and the tax increase won't generate the revenues or prompt as many people to quit the habit as the state government thinks it will.

In purely practical terms, if the aim of this tax hike is to generate revenues then it was a bad idea. You'd have to increase taxes on something that can't be easily purchased elsewhere for that to work. A gasoline, income or sales tax increase would have been far more useful. If the aim is to get people to quit smoking it won't be very effective, either, for the reasons I've noted above. In that regard, it will impact mainly those who aren't old enough to drive out of state or to hold a credit card in their own name — mostly underage smokers. That's a fine thing, but Massachusetts already enjoys a low proportion of teen smokers. Overall, that impact will be negligible.

When all is said and done, this particular tax hike isn't going to accomplish much of anything at all.

While the tobacco tax was pushed by Tobacco Free Mass and other anti-smoking groups, the Legislature did not direct any of the new cigarette tax revenue to programs to help people quit smoking...

— Source

...Joe said lately he had taken to buying loose tobacco and rolling his own cigarettes because the manufactured ones had already become so expensive.

"I'm looking for anything to make it cheaper, even if I have to grow my own," he said...

Chantelle Flagg, an employee at Mike's Mini-Mart, a convenience store a few miles from the New Hampshire border in Winchendon, said customers have been stocking up on butts recently in anticipation of the tax hike. Others say they'll cross the border for cheaper deals.

"I've had a lot of customers tell me they're going to New Hampshire," Ms. Flagg said.

— Source

Creepy Old Codger to Tell Humanity What Their Lives Mean in Australia

The Catholic church is throwing itself a shindig in Australia called "World Youth Day" which, in keeping with the typical logic of True Believers is a six-day event. That ought to make it "World Youth Week," but if old men in dresses who know everything tell you that a week is a day then you'd better believe it or fry in The Bad Place, buddy.

It's a big deal to the Vatican types, signified by their dispatch of Cardinal Schönborn, that particularly creepy Archbishop of Vienna, to the event to "moderate" debate on the meaning of life. From Catholic News Agency:

Cardinal Schönborn to moderate debate on creation and evolution at WYD

Sydney, Jun 30, 2008 / 06:18 pm (CNA).- The organizers of World Youth Day 2008, which will be held July 15-20 in Sydney, are preparing a debate on creation and evolution which will be moderated by Cardinal Cristoph Schönborn of Vienna.

WYD Coordinator and Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney said, "This is a time for the youth of the world to come together and discuss the critical challenges and issues facing society today." Other issues to be discussed include the correct meaning of sexuality, the millennium objectives, the true role and identity of women, among others.

There will be total of 450 events during WYD, with more than 100 ecclesial movements present to provide young people information on vocations to different ministries within the Church.

Gee, I wonder how that will go?

EVER since 1996, when Pope John Paul II said that evolution (a term he did not define) was 'more than just a hypothesis,' defenders of neo-Darwinian dogma have often invoked the supposed acceptance -- or at least acquiescence -- of the Roman Catholic Church when they defend their theory as somehow compatible with Christian faith. "But this is not true. The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things. Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense -- an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection -- is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.

— Schönborn in The New York Times, July 7, 2005

I'm sure he'll have an open mind and encourage all points of view on the matter. He is, after all, a scientist. OK, he doesn't have a degree in anything other than philosophy or theology and he's never set foot in a laboratory and probably wouldn't know a Jukes-Cantor Model from a plasmid, but he says that he's a scientist, and you'd better believe him or you're going to The Bad Place, buddy.

...I see no difficulty in joining belief in the Creator with the theory of evolution, but under the prerequisite that the borders of scientific theory are maintained. In the citations given above, it is unequivocally the case that such have been violated. When science adheres to its own method, it cannot come into conflict with faith. But perhaps one finds it difficult to stay within one's territory, for we are, after all, not simply scientists but also human beings, with feelings, who struggle with faith, human beings, who seek the meaning of life...

— Schönborn's First Catechetical Lecture for 2005-2006, October 2, 2005

We? Who is this "we"? If Schönborn is a scientist then I must be the Archbishop of Vienna.

This isn't just about science, though. The Vatican is going to steer conversation (read: reveal to the True Believers) the "correct meaning of sexuality" and "the true role and identity of women," too. See, people who actually have sexual relationships and women can't determine these things for themselves. No, it takes an old celibate man to tell us what sexuality and femininity mean. And if you don't believe him, you're going to The Bad Place, buddy. It's not like we get to create the meaning of our own lives. There's an official position on all of this stuff endorsed by an even creepier, even older man who — before I forget to mention it — has superpowers that make him infallible in his opinion on what your gender and sex life mean. The Archbishop of Vienna is just the messenger. He hasn't achieved Perfect Creepiness yet, though he's likely well on his way. One of these days the Archbishop will be greeted in Rome with a puff of white smoke.

While such a little cloud of particulate matter while never usher me into St. Peter's, I'll venture a couple of opinions of my own that I'm sure won't be given expression under Uncle Creepy's tutelage in Sydney. Keep in mind that I'm one of those "neo-Darwinian dogmatists" who insists on testable hypotheses and empirical evidence and other crazy things that don't fit well with religious doctrine as a whole. I won't even bother with the evolutionary piece; "scientist" Schönborn has already told us what he thinks about the scientific method. One might as well ask their plumber to perform heart bypass surgery as put an iota of credence into his ideas on the matter.

I had no idea that women had a "true role and identity." I've always figured they were simply people free to make their own choices and create their own meaning in their own lives. If I'd known that they were all superheroes with secret identities I might have done things a little differently in my relationships, I suppose. I just hope that LL doesn't decide to turn her fearsome heat-vision upon me when she returns from overseas. As far as I'm concerned, though, the "true role and identity" of women isn't any different from "the true role and identity" of men. While the Holy Creeps would prefer them to be baby factories or celibate nuns, they don't have to be. Perhaps a more honest phrasing here would have been "what we want the role and identity of women to be."

The correct meaning of sexuality is whatever we make it as individuals, too. Barring affliction by psychological disorders that blow its importance out of proportion (phobia leading to celibacy, for example, or it's apparently close cousin pedophilia), sexuality is one small aspect of the totality of a human life that has no more intrinsic meaning to it than do our preferences in food or garb. It isn't that important in the larger scheme of things. How it is expressed is a matter to be decided by one or more consenting individuals. It only becomes an issue when either people or the sky-pixies they invent try to peel back the curtains and stick their noses in our bedrooms which, for someone like Schönborn, is practically a full-time job.

I guess I'm going to The Bad Place, buddy. I'm about as concerned over the possibility as I am about the latest NASCAR results.

Gel of the Day: ...and Then a Miracle Happens

If you're the kind of person who reads this blog then you have probably seen the cartoon with two physicists standing in front of a chalkboard. In the middle of a bunch of equations are the words "and then a miracle occurs" and one of the physicist is saying "I think you should be more explicit in step 2."

Today I had a similar thing happen with one of my gels:


The first two are DNA from taxa that didn't come out last time I tried. The last group of four is a positive control. I used stock DNA and the same primers for all. Now, here's the really weird part: lanes 4 and 8 shouldn't have a product in them at all. No bands should be there. They're the products of a cytochrome oxidase I primer that I discovered today should not work. The primer I was given is for the wrong beetle family; the one I'm studying is too divergent. I was just investigating the problem this morning, in fact, right after I put these samples in the thermocycler. I wound up designing two new Tenebrionidae-specific COI primers and sending an email off to two of my committee members telling them that I'd done so.

So, of course, the primers that have never worked before, and shouldn't have worked this time, are the only ones that produced bands in the first two taxa... but NOT in the positive control. The only band I got in that one is for the small subunit. I should have one for the large subunit as well. It worked last time using the same dilution and primers.

I would just like to say "Argh." Really, what else can I say?

Now, it may be that I used the wrong primers. I've been very out of sorts after not getting enough sleep last night and I could have screwed up. Still, the way I load my tubes, I should have gotten the same result in the positive control (#001) if that were the case. But I didn't.

Tomorrow, I'll clean the PCR products and get them ready for sequencing using the old COI primers. My bet is that I'll get back nothing. And then I'll just start all over again. Maybe someone tampered with the annealing temperature on the thermocycler or something.

I dunno.

I need a drink.

LL is OK

I got a text message from LL a litle while ago. She's awake (captain obvious strikes again!) and the surgery appears to have gone well. I guess I can relax a bit now.

Haven't Heard About LL Yet

It's coming up on 3:30 PM in Lebanon as I write this. LL's surgery would have begun about 4½ hours ago assuming that it wasn't delayed for some reason. It shouldn't have taken very long if there were no complications.

When I last spoke with LL on Saturday, she promised me that one of her relatives would get word to me that she was doing alright if she wasn't able to do so herself soon after the procedure had been completed. I haven't yet heard anything, though, so I'm worried. It's probably nothing, but I can't help but fret about it. She's thousands of miles away in a country that isn't about to win any awards for its stability and I haven't a clue as to what's going on with her.

Normally, I'd be getting ready to head out the door by now. As it is, though, I haven't yet been able to get myself motivated. I keep checking Skype, my email and my cell phone for word from Lebanon. I know that stressing over it helps nothing but I can't help myself.

I wish somebody from over there would get word to me. This could turn out to be an insufferably long day otherwise.

Worcester Church Closures Create New Marketing Opportunities

Yesterday marked the end of the road for five of Worcester's Catholic churches, closing due to dwindling attendance. While I can't say that I'm sad about the churches themselves closing down, I also feel sympathetic toward the people who've invested in them emotionally for many years. At the same time that I see such things as an encouraging indicator of the diminishing influence of religion, I take no pleasure at all in the pain that it causes to remaining believers. All of us become attached to any number of things that have an importance in our lives and even those of us who eschew faith in favor of reason often do so for reasons not borne of rationality. That's just human nature, a thing we all share in no matter our theology or lack thereof.

Tears mark churches' end
ASCENSION, HOLY NAME, NOTRE DAME HAVE LAST MASSES
By Kelly Glista

The only signal that Notre Dame des Canadiens Church was holding its final service was a paper sign taped outside the door explaining that, starting July 1, services would be held at 35 Hamilton St.

Inside the church, sun illuminated the stained-glass windows and the organist played hymns while parishioners took their seats — as if it were any other Sunday. About 70 people attended the church's final service, marking the 138 years Notre Dame has served the Catholic community in Worcester. Two homilies were given, one in English and one in French, to honor the church's roots. Shortly after 12:30 p.m., the final hymn rang through the Romanesque building...

A little later and less than a mile away, Ascension Church on Vernon Street had its final Mass, as well...

At 3 p.m. services began at the third and final church to close its doors yesterday. Cars filled the parking lot and lined the streets around Holy Name of Jesus Church on Illinois Street...

The service ended about 4:30 p.m. as parishioners standing around the altar solemnly processed out. Rev. Mazzone paused to extinguish the single candle in the church's eternal flame, which is meant to symbolize God's eternal love in the church...

All three churches were closed by the Catholic Diocese of Worcester in an effort to reorganize the diminishing Catholic community in the city. According to the announcement letter from Bishop Robert J. McManus, 32 percent of registered Catholic households in the city provide regular offertory support to their churches. Before this reorganization effort, the city had 29 churches that collectively could seat more than 14,000 people.

All of the churches are officially closed as of tomorrow, along with St. Casimir Church on Providence Street and St. Margaret Mary Church on Alvarado Avenue...

I particularly wonder what will happen to the Notre Dame des Canadiens building on Franklin Street. Turtle Boy practically sits on its lot (you can see part of the church in this photo by Claudia Snell), so perhaps that could be incorporated somehow into whatever comes next. Perhaps the city council will consider building a Turtle Boy theme park on the site where Notre Dame now sits; it could be a great opportunity to better market Worcester. Maybe a water park would fill the bill. Then we could finally have a new slogan along the lines of Worcester: Grab a turtle and slide down our chute. I can see it all now.

Maybe that's not such a great idea.

Since first noticing the close proximity of a statue of a young boy doing unspeakable things to a sea turtle to the church I've wondered what parishioners thought of the statue as they emerged from services. It's probably a unique arrangement in all of America, perhaps all the world. It just won't be the same without Notre Dame des Canadiens nearby, I'm sure.

Macho Bio

Everybody knows that scientists are nerdy little dudes in long white coats, right?

Wrong.

Florida biologist saves drowning bear

The 375lb beast had been roaming a residential area at Alligator Point, near Tallahassee, when wildlife officers decided to trap it and move it away from houses.

They shot the bear with a tranquiliser dart, spooking the animal, which raced toward the water. With the tranquilising dart taking longer than expected to have an affect on the animal, it managed to swim at least 25 yards before becoming drowsy.

That was when Adam Warwick, a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, decided the bear may need rescuing and dived in...

Mr Warwick kept one arm underneath the bear gripped the scruff of the bear's neck with the other to keep its head above water as he dragged the animal back to shore...

Well that's pretty macho, but if I ever saw a 375 lb. Tenebrionid beetle, I wouldn't wait for someone to shoot it with a tranquilizer gun. I'd wrestle it to the ground while it was fully conscious.

As long as someone had pumped some tranquilizers into me first.

LL Having Surgery: I May Not Sleep Tonight

I haven't mentioned it until now, but LL is back in Lebanon for the next few weeks. She's having elective surgery and is staying with her mother in Junieh to recuperate. I'll leave it to her to mention what she's having done, and she's already talked a bit on Girl-Geek Academic about the difference in the cost of medical care between the US and Lebanon. That may have a lot to do with Lebanon's economy being in far worse shambles than that of the US and its having an unimaginably high unemployment rate by American standards. The fact remains, however, that a procedure that costs about $5000 over there would have run in excess of $14,000 if she'd had it done here and because it's an elective (although preventative) surgery her insurance won't cover it. By having it done in Lebanon her family can come up with enough money to help her pay for it.

In any case, she goes under the knife at 4:00 AM East Coast US time (Lebanon is seven hours ahead). We didn't connect on Skype today so I haven't even had the chance to talk to her. It's a laparoscopic procedure that two of her cousins have already had performed by the same doctor. If it were almost anybody else having it done I probably wouldn't be quite as obsessed with it, but as it is I haven't been able to concentrate on anything today and am not likely to get much sleep tonight. I'll probably be in this state until I hear from her that everything went alright.

That should happen sometime late tomorrow, I would imagine (and hope).

Because she's having this surgery and recuperating in Junieh, she won't be here for the first anniversary of our move to Worcester on Friday. Time flies. She'll get back just in time for our anniversary on 7/25. That'll mark the start of our 13^th year together.

Two Worthless Pieces of Garbage Who Make Me Embarrassed to Be an American

Until a few minutes ago, I didn't know who Kirstie Hartle of Rome, NY and Dean Johnson of Lanett, AL were. Thanks to an update on Dispatches from the Culture Wars, I do know now.

I know that Kirstie Hartle and Dean Johnson are a couple of great, stinking floaters in the gene pool that were left here because somehow Mother Nature forgot to flush.

People like this embarrass me as an American. People like this make me want to vomit blood and bile until the sensation they produce deep down in my guts goes away.

I can't even write anything more about it. As much of a coherent response as I can muster to these two subhuman scumbags has been left as a comment on Ed Brayton's update.

I have to get outside for awhile now. The stink that Hartle and Johnson's words have left in this room are too much for me to bear. I can only imagine how foul would be their physical presence.