The answer is right here, suckers.<!--more-->

The first housefly of the season has just flown through my house. I hate flies but I can't bring myself to kill them so I have opened the front windows -- they normally fly in through the open back door and exit out the windows. Those that stay in I catch in a cup and throw out the window.

Fortunately Wellington is not a particularly fly-ridden city, unlike Auckland.

For some years a few years back, my daughter had two pet frogs in a terrarium, Buster and Cammy, that she raised from tadpoles. Frogs eat flies but they have to be live ones that fly about. This meant catching flies in a cup to feed to the frogs, so I got quite good at the cup trick.

Where do flies go in winter? Who knows, but Buster and Cammy still needed to be fed, which meant buying pottles of 50 or 100 maggots from the pet shop. You poke a ballpoint pen through the top of the pottle to make a hole big enough for the hatched fly to emerge, which the frogs then eat.

Another one for Sirius Knott today, this time concerining the geological column. As ever, and I cannot stress this enough, criticism or corrections are welcomed - if you know more about this than I do and spot an error (or several!), please let me know.

The geologic column (or geologic record) is the sum total of the layers of rock that make up the Earth's crust ('strata'), the fossils they contain and any other materials found within them. The column itself is a cross-section of strata, displaying different layers of rocks with different compositions and appearances. The column can tell us an enormous amount about the Earth's history - its composition over time and in different locations, the tectonic forces that shape it, and the life forms that existed in the distant past.

We read in the papers, over and over, that the shroud was carbon dated (aka carbon 14, radiocarbon) and it showed that it was medieval. Sometimes a reporter will add that some people question the results. But what we should be reading is that the carbon dating is invalid or at the very least there is reasonable doubt about the results.

Earlier this week on their web site, Scientific American posted the article, "Evolving Creationism in the Classroom"  complete with links to earlier articles and a state by state map of the "creationism controversy".  The article, in my estimation, didn't have anything new to say other than to note Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's comments concerning creationism and evolution in schools. Even thought this particular article didn't substantively advance the discussion, it is still a hot topic as evidenced by the 87 on line responses in two days.

Who says science cannot be beautiful?

"The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 kilometer (17 mile) long particle accelerator straddling the border of Switzerland and France, is nearly set to begin its first particle beam tests."

I've always gone for fish-oil capsules myself---specifically, wild-salmon oil---but now here's some evidence, reported for WebMD by Miranda Hitti:

Flaxseed oil pills, taken at the right dose, may equal fish oil pills in terms of their net effect from certain heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. That's according to a new study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Flaxseed and other plant-based foods including walnuts, almonds, canola oil, and soybeans are rich in an omega-3 fatty acid called ALA. But flaxseed lacks the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA, which have shown cardiovascular benefits in past studies. EPA and DHA are found in fatty fish such as salmon and mackerel, fish oil supplements, and some fortified foods.

I am going to post my two next chapters on this website yet tonight, as expected, but first I want to tell you all that I posted a slideshow presentation on my other blog. This is a picture representation of the SkyPath Crusade, which tells the story about how British knights from Earth traveled through space in 1100 AD to save the Roman inhabitants of Mars from an alien invasion. It's a lot of fun! check it out at by clicking here or go to skypathcrusade.wordpress.com

One thing that strikes me as odd, as perplexing and disturbing, is that despite how we parents of autistic children want and expect tolerance everywhere -- school, restaurants, airplanes, churches, anywhere -- how quickly we turn when our child or our child's class has a difficult experience with another special needs child.

I use the word "we" obviously as a generality, not a blanket statement because this doesn't apply to everyone, but "we," the parents of autistic children, are our own community. Within that community, we share our stories of school problems, insurance issues, health dilemmas. We seek support and information, and we commiserate, truly commiserate, with others within our community. But, apparently that stops when another special needs child bites our kid...pushes him on the playground...disrupts his studies one day in class...says something mean, and so on.

I am so sick of this one particular stupid commercial. It is the lovely high fructose corn syrup one; I would ask how they can get away with lieing but the problem is that they aren't really, they are just leaving out facts, and telling half truths. High fructose corn syrup may have the same calories as sugar, but it has more fat calories, and those calories are more fattening. All you have to do is attend a simple first year level science class to learn that they way they make the high fructose corn syrup causes it to be more fattening. I'm not going to continue ranting about that right now because I have to go check on my exploding Amish Friendship Bread!!