Since the ceremony was on a sail boat, a member of our party mentioned the night before that he’s had bad reactions to Dramamine, the motion-sickness medication, and brought up ginger as an alternative. I’ve never heard of ginger’s purported effects on alleviating nausea, upset stomach or other motion-sickness symptoms and I’m cautious of word-of-mouth only claims. However, I was careful to keep my skepticism to myself since I did not want to ruin anyone’s chances of taking comfort in the placebo effect. If the placebo effect can keep them from vomiting at a wedding, then the more power to them.

I make it a point to research these claims unless the person making them reassures me that they’re not merely parroting the information. Ever played the telephone game? It works kind of like that, so I want reassurance from the person telling me the information or from my own research. Fortunately, it did not take long to find this review paper from the British Journal of Anaesthesia: Efficacy of ginger for nausea and vomiting: a systematic review of randomized clinical trials (PDF).

The review paper covers several kinds of conditions that induce nausea and vomiting, but only one of these papers investigated sea-sickness. In the words, the conclusion is not strong because there hasn’t been a lot of research in it, but the overall verdict supports ginger as a herbal remedy for high seas. I say it’s a good enough conclusion for now, and it’s better than spending the wedding vomiting off the side of the boat.

Here are more experiments converting some noisy, grainy photos to black and white to give them a much more appealing texture. It doesn’t get rid of the noise, but makes certain kind of noise less apparent (chroma noise) and it gives it a somewhat film-like quality. The black and white conversion isn’t going to work with all photos, but I’m glad that technique now part of my toolkit.

I also applied some split toning just for kicks in this photo: a subtle blue hue for the highlights and a slight red one for the shadows. It’s from the international portion of Stanford’s Cardinal Classic dance competition. FYI, international is a style of ballroom dancing, and speaks nothing to the nationalities of any of these dancers.

This photo of Anya Garnis and Pasha Kovalev just cracks me up, but I’ve never been able to come up with a suitable caption for it, with the concerned way she’s staring at his chest and his mouth ready to devour her.

This is my favorite photo from the 2008 Winter Showcase at Spotlight Dance & Fitness, and I think it looks a lot better replacing the difficult studio lighting with just black and white. This is the part of their Lindy/Charleston routine where the leader does something inappropriate that follower doesn’t take too kindly to.

Yes, all that is ISO 3200, and I like them a lot better as black and white. I could post the original colors ones, but I’m just too lazy right now. My best friend’s wedding was on Sunday and as much as I had fun I’m glad that it’s over with, and I am still recovering from it. Actually, it’s somewhat significant that I post these photos since since my best friend and his now wife used to foster kittens for the SPCA, and these adorable little ones were part of a batch that they were caring for.

I’ll post more photos in the coming days, including ones where I desaturated (but did not convert completely to black and white) for a similar effect.

Unknown Lep

Butterflies (and other lepidopterans) have never been my strong suite. If you can identify this lep, you’ll earn a nice congratulatory comment.

This was from the California Academy of Sciences earlier this year. Notice the curled proboscis (kind of a long sucking mouth-part), so it probably uses it to reach deep inside recessed nectaries in flowers to feed.

Several years ago I was with botanist on a plant collection trip at the UC Davis McLaughlin Reserve. She spotted and identified a tiny yellow blur that streaked passed us on the drive. We were probably traveling at about 20 mph.

On Sunday, I hiking on Mt. Tamalpais at about 2 mph when I spotted this yellow beauty off the trail. I immediately recognized it as a member of the boom-rape family (Orobanchaceae), and I asked my friend Neovenator to take this picture of it. I forgot to ask  him to take more photos at different angles, but this one was adequate enough for me to key it out with the California Jepson Manual. I believe it’s clustered boom-rape (Orobanche fasciculata), and it is parasitic. There are no leaves or other chlorophyll-stuffed goodness for photosynthesis. Just above-surface flowers and below-surface roots tapping into some poor botanical soul. I also forgot to take note of the plants around it, so I can’t tell you which plant it might be leeching off of.

I was giddy about this find. The last time I saw any kind of boom-rape was five years ago in my Sierra Nevada flora class. My teacher identified this as California broom-rape (Orobanche californica):

In case you didn’t notice, I haven’t updated in four months. I blame it on a combination of school, apartment robbery, transition to a new job and a very long commute. Once I move in a few months to be a lot closer to my job, I will free up a lot of time and hopefully I’ll direct some of that to this blog.

Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin (and Abraham Lincoln). Blogs, museums and science writers have been celebrating the father of natural selection all week.

I myself will be attending the Darwin Day Celebration (PDF) on Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. at the Varsity Theatre in Davis, CA. It is a free public lecture from UC Davis professors Maureen Stanton and Jonathan Eisen, and cake will be served.

There is already a lot on the Internet on Darwin’s birthday and evolution, so there is not too much point for me to try to list them here. I will highlight Evolution Weekend, which organizes churches and various religious organizations to celebrate science and faith. In mist of attacks on science education by creationists and intelligent design proponents, it is too easy to forget that there are many people who do not subscribe to the myth that their faith and evolutionary theory are somehow incompatible. I say this as a secular humanists who does not object to religion in general.

I’m going to rest now.

It seems that one cliché in photography is the golden leaf on a wooden surface. At least, I’ve seen enough of them that it appears to be cliché, and my good writing teachers have taught me to avoid them.

As you can see above, I’m shaming my teachers. This is from Old Town when I was on a photo outing with Carrie about a month ago. It’s the only place in Sacramento where you’ll find modern day mailboxes encased in wooden decor as to not clash with the mid-19th century buildings and the SUVs parked in front of them.

In my defense, the shadow caught my eye first. I felt that it created a nice and mysterious contrast by running across the leaf. My further defense is that the photo on the right is actually the first one I took of the leaf; it’s not nearly as interesting with the wooden lines running so vertical. I took the second photo above but canted and tighter framed, which is much more striking. Regardless, I think the real seller is the shadow and the ambiguous feeling it suggests.

“A lobster doesn’t get to think about the laws of nature, and so I’ve often thought to myself that it’s a blessing that we live in a certain window of intelligence. If we were infinitely smart—God-like—we’ll have such powerful brains we can see every implication of everything, so math wouldn’t be fun for a being that’s too smart. And of course for the lobster that’s not smart enough, math is no fun for them, either. It’s in this intermediate window where math and science become something to rejoice in.”
—Steve Strogatz, mathematician

I’m finally listening to the most recent episode of Radio Lab, “Yellow Fluff and Other Curious Encounters,” and I just fell in love with Steve Strogatz’s quote. I had to pause, rewind, and play the podcast over a dozen times before I was able to write it down, word-for-word. It embodies some of the reasons why I love science, and why I’m capable of being fascinated by it. Enjoy.

I want to avoid doing much wildlife photography on this blog—I love wildlife photography but there’s already a lot of that on the Internet. What about the other sciences? How do I visually approach physics and chemistry with a lens? How do I take photos that is creatively interesting and can demonstrate, say, Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium or the Coriolis effect?

There are some photographers with highly specialized and spiffy work, such as Ted Kinsman, but their equipment is well beyond my means. I’ll have to sit long and hard about the direction for this site.