Owls in our back yard

This audio might not work, but if it does, it's 3-minutes or so of the owls in our back yard early this morning.

Chapter from the Oklahoma book

This link is to a publication in the online journal ROUGAROU of a chapter from an Oklahoma book I've been working on for a number of years. The fall issue of ROUGAROU can be found at http://english.louisiana.edu/rougarou/currentIssue/index.html

Parasites reported from bluegill sunfish, 1973-1977.

Answer to the trivia question.

The last Miller Lite at Barry's

Barry's Bar and Grill, a Lincoln, NE, fixture, is closing for good (assuming no buyer comes along and resurrects it with the classic name). The link is to a couple of commemorative pictures. Thanks to all you parasitologists who have made this particular booth a fountain of excellent ideas!

Exit comments re teaching in the introductory program

This item is a set of comments passed along to my administration regarding educational and human resource management issues in the introductory Biological Sciences program.

Handouts to accompany the Metaparasitology seminar, Nov. 17, 2011

This link is to a pdf file of the handouts accompanying the November 17, 2011, Parasitology Seminar entitled "Metaparasitology."

Metaparasitology seminar (audio)

This link is to the audio portion (*.WMA) of the Metaparasitology seminar given during UNL BIOS915 Parasitology Seminar on November 17, 2011.

Metaparasitology seminar (pdf)

The pdf version of Metaparasitology, given during UNL Parasitology seminar on November 17, 2011.

Retrospective seminar - the pdf version of *.ppt show

This link is to the pdf version of the PowerPoint slides that accompany the audio.

Retrospective seminar - audio

This audio version is a substitute one, recorded after the actual seminar simply because I forgot to push the record button at the time the talk was originally delivered. But the narrative is pretty much the same.

Prologue from DINKLE'S LIFE-A SPIRITUAL BIOGRAPHY

A former grad student, the one and only recipient of this long buried (like the ghosts in the story!!) manuscript, has demanded that the book go up on line, now that the e-book business is so hot. So here is the prologue. Obviously, raccoons, one in particular, play a pivotal role in this tale of spirits unleashed by someone's curiosity. The whole thing should be up on Smashwords by October, I hope. - JJ

Excerpt from writing project

Virtually all scientists also agree that there is a fixed amount of water on Earth, and whatever water now exists on the planet simply moves around in its three main forms—liquid, solid, gas—according to a variety of mechanisms. The human body is about 70% water, so quite a bit of water is tied up in human bodies, in fact, about 600,000,000,000 pounds of it, which rounds out to about 72,517,985,612 gallons. Lake Superior is the largest body of fresh water in the United States; its volume is about 12,100 km3, envisioned as a cube 14.3 miles in all dimensions, which equals 31,794,757,632 cubic feet, or 165,332,739,686 gallons, or about two and a half times as much as is currently tied up in living human bodies. Lake Baikal, in southern Siberia, is the largest body of fresh water in the world, with about 23,000 km3, which equals 816,247,000,000,000 cubic feet, or 6,105,530,000,000,000 gallons, or 555,048,000,000,000 people, which scientists estimate is between 5,000 and 6,000 times the carrying capacity of Planet Earth. Obviously there is plenty of fresh water on Earth for the human population. Getting it from Lake Superior or Lake Baikal to where it is needed is quite a different matter.

We use water for many reasons, most or all of which are at least indirectly associated with the building of human tissues: agriculture, manufacturing, generation of electricity, medicine, etc. Agriculture, however, is the big user of water, which means that we are spending lots of water, indeed some estimates are up to 70% of available freshwater, to grow food. Thus we are consuming most of the planet’s available water simply to store water, in the form of cytoplasm, in ourselves. For example, it takes approximately 1000 tons of water (~240,000 gallons) to produce a ton of rice, about 450 tons of water (~107,900 gallons) to produce a ton of corn, and 1360 tons of water (~326,098 gallons) to produce a ton of soybeans. Water requirements for wheat are a little more difficult to calculate, mainly because wheat is grown quite differently than corn or rice, but a rough estimate is over 2000 tons of water (~526,000 gallons) per ton of wheat. Don’t bet the farm that these figures are anything other than approximations; I had to do quite a bit of conversion (gallons or bushels to pounds, etc.), but they are based on a wealth of readily available information. Some figures were given in metric tons (=1.1 US tons), so the weight estimates may be off a little bit if my sources did not indicate whether the unit was metric or US standard. For sources, see Internet sites listed in the References chapter, or simply do your own Google™ search, calculator and notepad in hand.

In 2009, world corn production was estimated at 817,110,509 million Mt (metric tons), rice at 678,688,289 Mt, wheat at 681,915,838 Mt, and soybeans at 210,900,000 Mt (again, see figures in agricultural information web sites in the References). Thus Homo sapiens used 1.96 x 1020 gallons of water, or about 32,000 times the volume of Lake Baikal, to produce the 2009 world corn crop. Given that Lake Baikal has enough water to make about 5,500 times the human carrying capacity for Planet Earth, these figures mean that in 2009, our species used water equivalent to 176,000,000 times the human carrying capacity for Earth, just to grow corn. Similar calculations for rice, wheat, and soybeans produce equally startling results. And, of course, we have not even considered all the other crop plants currently used by H. sapiens, including those with edible roots and leaves.

The Final Lecture

This pdf file contains PowerPoint images from the last regularly scheduled lecture of my University of Nebraska career. The course is BIOS 103 (Organismic Biology), a majors' course with 248 students. The first page of this file is a survey that was passed out on the Wednesday before that lecture, asking for their preferences of topics. The vote was decidedly in favor of the topic presented: how students have changed over the past 44 years. - JJ

The Final Lecture

This *WMA file contains audio of the last scheduled lecture of my career at UNL. The course is BIOS 103 (Organismic Biology), 248 students, which I'll post some comments on later.

Shell quiz #2

This link is to pictures of shells being used by the Organismic Biology class (BIOS 103) this semester at UNL. This pdf file is the second one assembled from pictures taken in class on 040111. We have most of them identified, but if you want to try your hand, feel free. Post generic names by page number and file name.

Shell quiz #1

This link is to pictures of shells being used by the Organismic Biology class (BIOS 103) this semester at UNL. This pdf file is the first one assembled. There is a second one, also available via a link from this blog. We have most of them identified, but if you want to try your hand, feel free. Post generic names by page number and file name.

Bugbears

I'm cleaning out the lab, after 44 years, of all things that might be important for whatever reason. This link leads to the text from a crumbling piece of paper. The typed quote was originally posted (= taped to a chemical shelf) in 1967 by a grad student. F. M. Cornford is worth a search on Google.

Studying, character, success, and value (Part II - Character)

Recently a former BIOS 101 student, still in school at UNL, asked me to comment on the intertwining of studying and character. Given who the student was, I sort of assumed this was a writing assignment, perhaps based on experiences not only in my class, but also in some other class being taken currently. Then she followed with a similar assignment: to deal with success and value. I fired back a paragraph, but it was obviously not enough, so I decided to take the assignment seriously. Here is the second installment (Part II: Character).

Studying, Character, Success, and Value (Part I: Studying)

Recently a former BIOS 101 student, still in school at UNL, asked me to comment on the intertwining of studying and character. Given who the student was, I sort of assumed this was a writing assignment, perhaps based on experiences not only in my class, but also in some other class being taken currently. I fired back a paragraph, but it was obviously not enough, so I decided to take the assignment seriously. Here is the first installment (Part I: Studying).

BIOS 101 - Final Report

Attached is my final report, not only for BIOS 101 during the fall semester, 2010, but also for all time (that was my last ever time in that course, after 44 years). Feel free to pass it around. - JJ