First scientific pub

My first scientific publication went out this morning in the comments section of Nature. I think you need a subscription to download it but here's a link to the article,

Climate change: High risk of permafrost thaw

Arctic tundra just north of the continental divide in the Brooks range

There has been a much bigger response than I expected (I mean, I think this stuff is cool and important but I didn't realize how interested the science journalism community would be).

Here's a link to the Institute of Arctic Biology's "in the news" site with some articles about the article!

The take home nuggets from the article are:

1. The amount of organic matter stored in permafrost-region soils is huge-around 1700 gigatonnes. This is twice as much carbon as is in the atmosphere, four times what humans have emitted since the industrial revolution, and (this is the one that gets me) more carbon than exists in all living things (pile up all the blue whales, redwoods, termites, and bacteria and they won't equal the northern soil pool).

2. This carbon is there because of chilly soils. Any spruce needles, dead roots, or squirrel bodies that fall into the soil are refrigerated (or frozen completely) which slows decomposition.

3. As the climate warms a portion of this soil carbon will be released as carbon dioxide and methane (two of the major greenhouse gases). Because this release will come from remote and distributed landscapes it will be particularly difficult to contain. We estimate that carbon from the permafrost region will have more than twice the impact on global climate than carbon released by deforestation over the next century. However, emissions from fossil fuels are predicted to remain the biggest driver of climate change. Permafrost carbon simply amplifies the impact of greenhouse gases we emit. The estimates we generated indicate that this extra carbon could increase the impact of human emissions by 20-30%.

Thermokarst feature where permafrost has collapsed near the Toolik Field Station. This thaw slump formed in three months this summer.

Old Ben Franklin is right in this case, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." 

Doorknob

I don’t know if you know this, but toddlers aren’t bothered by toot smells. It’s not that they don’t know they’re there. At dinner tonight I asked for some Gorgonzola. “I want some,” Ingrid asked nicely. I broke off a piece with my fork and Ingrid popped the musty chunk into her mouth. She started to giggle and said, “It kinda smells like a little toot.” So, if they can smell it, why doesn’t it bother them?

Think about how picky infants and toddlers can be about tastes, and taste is mostly smell, but when pappa rips a fruity one, or mamma hisses out a wet-cardboard walrus burp Ingrid just goes on playing. It really is the best of all possible worlds for her. She gets to laugh at the sound, experience the smell but not be bothered by it, and laugh at those who seem to be suffering from the haze. 

So is disgust at flatulence a learned response? That seems pretty radical, I mean it's a flavor that seems natural to dislike, but on the other hand it's a scent that we have been around for a long time (evolutionarily speaking). Could go either way, but I bet that we learn to wrinkle our noses when the guy in the elevator squeaks one out on the first floor. I bet the disgust wouldn't have occurred to us if we hadn't seen other people responding so negatively to every fart, toot, and flattle. 

Free your minds. Breath it all in. Oh yeah. . . doorknob.

I've gotten frostbite twice in the last week. A tiny circle on my neck last Monday and a tiny circle on my nose today.

The damage

The feeling of frostbite is terrible. It's stealthy like a sunburn in that you don't sense it until the damage is already advanced. Between -10 and -20 is the danger range. Any colder than that and I completely cover up. Any warmer and things get cold but don't freeze.

I'll be riding along and feel an uncomfortable sting on a patch of exposed skin. After several minutes of ignoring the discomfort there is a moment where the zing pinches and bites deeper into the tissue. Flesh freezes with astounding speed. It's like a gerbil bite. You know how they will nibble your finger playfully, pressing their teeth gently on your skin first,  and then BAM, the teeth clamp shut and the sharp square incisors sink into your skin. That's what it's like, a bunch of tiny gerbils that all bite at the same time.

This morning it was -30 and I knew the gerbils would have their teeth bared so I covered up. On my ride in to work I didn't have any troubles with my skin but my front shifter did freeze up and I had to mash up the hill to campus in the biggest chainring. I had some business on lower campus (had to drop off the newly finished two person pedal-powered generator). I dropped off the gear, chatted with Frank about his almost ripe baby and walked back outside. The ride from lower campus to my office only takes three minutes.

"I don't need my balaclava it's only three minutes and it has warmed up to -15." I stepped onto the bike, my face warm and moist from my involuntary sprint up the hill. Moist skin is to frostbite what a dude with a chihuahua and a GoPro camera on a surfboard is to Jaws. Bad news for my chihuahua. Even well below zero, water wont crystalize into ice until it finds a nucleation particle--an ice seed. Moisture on skin, especially perspiration with all its tasty compounds provides plenty of seeds.

In front of the museum the gerbils sunk their teeth. "Ouch!" I chirped and grabbed my nose. Even through my thick mountaineering mitten I could feel the stiffness. I pulled my hand out of the mitten and sure enough, the tip of my nose and the tops of my nostrils were stiff like the corner of a plastic milk jug. Hand to my face I hammered to the top of the hill (still in my darn highest gear) and ran into the office. Not sure if my nose had just felt stiff or if it was really frozen I grabbed my little frostbite prevention mirror (after my first frostbite incident Rachel brought in a mirror to the office so I could make sure my headgear was giving proper coverage before heading out). The skin initially looked fine but as the minutes went by, the nose turned pink and puffy. I do wonder why, even though the whole top of the nose was solid when I touched it, I only got a blister at the very tip.

On the subject of frostbite mirrors and frostbite viewing in general, I've only seen my own still-frozen frostbite once. Last spring, when I walked in the door after riding up the hill Rachel screamed,
"Your nose your nose your nose! Quick, fix it!" I jumped into the bathroom and caught just a glimpse of the fast shrinking pure white spot on my nose.

Last night we saw a homeless-looking man standing next to his bike outside of Fred Meyers. He had a dirty down coat, jeans, and tennis shoes. It was -27. He was wearing plastic grocery bags as a second layer of socks--one from Fred Meyers and one Walmart. I have a place to go, money to buy protective clothing, and a frostbite mirror, because I have connections and resources. He doesn't and now his tissues are vulnerable to ice crystals. None of his friends are on LinkedIn. The thought of our system leaving his tissues exposed to the deadly air made me want to break down and cry. Ingrid and I went to get him a deli burrito but he was gone when we got back. For him it wasn't just his nose and neck that the wind could rip up but his thighs, toes, and fingers. I wanted to give him all my clothes. One December, when I was a missionary in northern France, my sister Maren sent me a pair of soft leather gloves. I gave them to a man on the street who said he'd give them back in the spring for me to keep till the next fall. My sister is incredibly giving-fiercely tender.

As we did our shopping I found myself singing Bob Dylan's "Only a Hobo" as a sort of prayer. The link is to a Slovenian music site (there weren't any versions on Youtube).

Always to scale

It's amazing that, from a newborn to an NBA forward, each person's fingers fit in his or her own nose. Earlier today Ingrid said, "I have a booger daddy." I looked at the tiny orifice and thought,

"Man, I'm never going to be able to pick that out. Not even my pinky could fit in there."

While I shuffled through the drawer looking for something small enough to scoop the mucous, Ingrid took matters into her own, perfectly sized hands.

Boosegumps

We saw little Harry for the first time today (Ingrid has been calling him/her that for a month now). We get weekly updates from babycenter.com telling us the size of the fetus likened to different fruits and small food items. After the nurse took some measurements she told us that the little she/he was 14 weeks old instead of the 13 we'd been thinking. This means Harry got promoted from a medium shrimp to a lemon (what a difference a week can make).

  Good thing they labeled the first ultrasound image. Until I saw the "BABY" label I thought we might have finally located Ingrid's lost dolly.

 After hearing about Harry's early graduation Rachel looked confused, "But wait, my husband wasn't around 15 weeks ago, how can that be?"
"Yes, how can that be Rachel?"
"The weeks are a developmental estimate rather than a guess at the exact conception."The nurse assured us.

When we first saw the creature it flinched and sprung from one side of the womb to the other (like he/she was startled by someone turning the lights on suddenly). The live images seemed interactive and it was weird to realize that he/she didn't know we were watching and couldn't watch back.  Harry's movements were confident and coordinated as she/he rolled, twisted, and even yawned.

At one point Harry did look right at us (the picture on the left). Rachel squealed and said,
"Wooh! That gave me the willies! It looks kind of like a horse."
"Did the little horse give you boosegumps Mommy?" Ingrid asked considerately.

The last cutting board

"Oh No!" she screamed from the kitchen. I jumped up from the couch and saw Rachel facing the counter by the microwave, hands to her face, something dark red on the counter next to her. After ruling out finger severage, my second thought was that the bottle of carbonated cherry juice we'd set outside the front door in the snow to cool had exploded. Once I was at the counter I saw that it was the skin of the red onion I'd just cut for our salad.

"This was the last cutting board that was onion and garlic free!"
"I'm really sorry honey, I'll wash it off right now."

"Once a wooden board is contaminated it's permanently ruined."
"I knew we had a system but I figured this one was safe because you were cutting potatoes on it."
"No, the non-groove side of the smaller wooden cutting board is the fruit and bread board!"
"I am really sorry honey. . ."
"I just hated as a kid when the banana bread or watermelon tasted like onion because my Mom would cut it on a contaminated board. She said you couldn't taste it but I always could."
"Let me see if I can get the taste out."
"I'll just have to get a new expensive one at Alaska Bowl Company."
"Don't be mad Rachel, I know you've wanted a board from there for a while but don't get back at me by spending money frivolously."
"Holy Cow!" Ingrid piped up from the table. Rachel and I cracked up at Ingrid's new phrase and walked over to the table (onion crisis temporarily forgotten).
"Who did you hear say that?"
"Grandma Susan."

"Oh no!" Rachel's grabbed her head a second time. "You have to put a plate under that bottle of dressing, it has already made eight spots on the table!" I quickly snatched up the oily bottle of homemade vinaigrette while Rachel grabbed a plate.
 "Bummer." Ingrid said with sage disappointment in her voice. We were laughing too hard to ask her where she learned that one. For the record, the red onion and the salad dressing were my only contributions to tonight's dinner.


After dinner we walked to the mailbox to send some of Ingrid's water colors. Ingrid stuffed her dolly, a flamingo, a stuffed king crab, and that weird dog with bunny ears into her backpack for the walk.
 

Thanks to the Blacks for the bird and dog. Thanks to the Lights for the crab.

Ben's Banana and Bean Bowel Buster Bars (brownie variant)

If you want super flavorful, nutritious, fibrous, and delicious energy bars try out this recipe we've been working on:

Some ripe bananas

Some beans (black, navy, white, whatever)

Flax seed

Quinoa

Rolled oats

Several generous dollups of honey

Some peanut butter

Nuts (walnuts and almonds are my favorite)

Dried fruit chunks (blueberries, cranberries, cherries, whatever)

Hot peppers (we use Grandpa Hansen's chili tapines for this, put in more than you think you need!)

Dark chocolate chunks

Applesauce (if mixture is too dry)

Cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla etc.

A splash of lemon juice/lemon zest

Start with mashed bananas and beans. I usually use three bananas and one can of black or navy beans (a half pound of dry beans boiled on the stove works good too). This will make a good full pan of bars. If you've got one of those fancy stick blenders (we do, in fact we may have two of them) you can use that to mix the banana and beans. Otherwise it works fine to mash it with a big spoon. Don't worry about crushing all the beans, they will get worked in as you go along.

Now that you have a clumpy mixture add whatever you want in whatever portions you want. If the mixture gets too wet add more dry oats or quinoa. If it gets too dry, add applesauce or honey. My only caution is that, if the zester you're using has "Dr. Scholl's" marked on it, it might not be a zester at all but a bunion rasp (that happened to us once when we were house sitting at Margaret's place--luckily there was a little catcher pouch on the back that kept most of the foot crumbs and dead skin out of that batch of bars).

Spread the thick chunky mess in a greased pan or on a greased cookie sheet. Put in the oven at 325F and cook for 30-50 minutes (depending on how hard you want your bars). Dryer bars will keep longer, though even very moist bars will keep for several weeks in the fridge.

If you are feeling lazy, there is a brownie variant. It's the same process except you start with a dry brownie mix and add the bananas, beans, blueberries etc. to it.

The brownie variant is more cake-like and holds together better. The straight banana and bean mix is denser and more crumbly.

Here's a batch of brownie variant that we made yesterday. Notice the tiny green halibut sneaking up on them. They were that good.

Pomegranate, Popcorn, Pomegranate, repeat. . .

"There's a blizzard outside!" I burst through the door covered in corn snow.

"Like a frog"? Ingrid looked concerned.

"Oh! Not a lizard Ingrid, a blizzard. The snow is blowing around all over Fairbanks." It had been -10F on Wednesday but had warmed up to 20 above with the low pressure.

After brushing off we had a standing dinner of tiny pieces. We started with a course of pomegranate. It was Ingrid's first.

"What is that? I don't want that."

"OK, I'll have it."

"I want that." She's not very hard to convince. "It tastes like candy." I love how pomegranate is a food and also an activity. It's like someone crossed a tangerine with a Rubik's cube.

To balance out the sweet Rachel baked up a bag of buttered popcorn (an old family recipe, butter and popcorn). Here's what was left after three minutes:

We finished with a second course of pomegranate and got ready for bed. The bottom half of Ingrid's clothes came off in one heap. She said it looked like a little person named Jailey.

Ingrid put a crown on my head and then tried to get it off. Each time she would reach up I would nuzzle her chin and she'd fall to the floor laughing. Wouldn't it be great if we replaced all the tasers with ticklers. It would be a more effective defense tactic, tickling is much more debilitating anyway.

Every night we go through the same bedtime routine. Ingrid reads us a story then Rachel reads Ingrid the same story. We pray--always holding hands at Ingrid's insistance, then Rachel carries Ingrid into her room and I chase them both like a tiger. Rachel then "talks about the day" in the big comfy chair (Rachel says she hates that but I love to listen to them). Finally Ingrid goes to bed. So it was last night in our little Alaskan home.