Time to regroup and visit my regular landscapes where fall has made such a sudden entrance.

My first foray into nature this week was inspired by having my body and my mind fed by two beloved friends: a mushroom soup to die for, last month, and a book recommendation last week, added to the mile-high pile of books to read: Long Litt Woon’s The Way through the Woods – on Mushrooms and Mourning.

It is a widow’s description of working through her bereavement after the sudden and untimely death of her husband by becoming an authority on mushrooms; I cannot wait to read the book which received rave reviews – the anthropologist is said to be able to explore both the world of mushrooms (a somewhat random subject matter that helped focus attention) and the emotional travels through recovering from grief with passions and humor in equal parts.

Perfect timing, too, given that mushrooms are sprouting everywhere right now, with the dampness acting as catalyst to their emergence. All the photographs (some with iPhone, some with camera) were taken in the woods in an approximate one mile radius from my house within the last 8 days. Jealous yet?

And time for some amusement as well! It arrived when I went on a hunt for the appropriate music. The first thing that came up when typing in music for mushrooms was an article titled Science says this playlist is a must listen when tripping on mushrooms. Rest assured, that is not the activity I had in mind.

“Science” turns out to be one researcher who specializes in psilocybin experimentation and therapy. Psychologist Bill Richards, Ph.D., a researcher at Roland Griffiths’s lab at Johns Hopkins University and an expert in the field of hallucinogens claims to have the perfect playlist for those using (magic) mushrooms outside of mushroom soup or other culinary apparitions.

And I quote:

“…the order of songs is vital in crafting the right atmosphere, specifically during the “onset, peak, and post-peak phases”. The onset music should “supportive, unfolding, forward-moving”, like H.R. Reynolds’ arrangement of “O Magnum Mysterium”and Edward Elgar’s “Nimrod”. But once the peak sets in, things need to slow down a bit.

“At a trip’s peak, music becomes a mirror of transcendental forms of consciousness that may not even be registered in unitive awareness, but is present if needed—like a net below a trapeze artist,” Richards says. This cocktail includes multiple inclusions from classical luminaries like Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, along with a few dashes from other composers from a variety of cultures.

As the trip’s effects begin to wear off, the playlist can enter a more free-form state, tagging in tracks that are more familiar and sources of positivity and inspiration to the consumer. Interestingly enough, it’s also at this very end that lyrics really make their first appearance, and there’s good reason for their absence.”

Brahms as a net below a trapeze tripper? Beethoven, the security blanket? Bach, catcher of the fall? Okayyyyy….. And where are the Russian composers, their cuisine so dependent on all things fungal? No slavic mycelium dreams?

Well, let’s listen to Russian folk music instead which, if you’re tripping, might make you trip over your own feet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZcmI8FXW38

Let’s hope the scientific research on magic mushrooms is not an echo of the musical recommendations. It is certainly sprouting in the most unexpected places – just like mushrooms – lately in Jamaica, where a Canadian start-up is trying to study everything from the genetics of magic mushrooms to how best to extract their psychedelic compounds. These goals have both scientific and financial value. And there is sure competition around: Johns Hopkins just received a multi-million dollar donation to fund psychedelic research. Part of the research is devoted to figure out if psilocybin works as a treatment for a panoply of disorders and conditions: anorexia, opioid addiction, Alzheimer’s, chronic Lyme disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, and alcohol addiction.

I will, however, not be a participant in studies at the new Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research……I like my brain the way it is. A champion of champignons, at times morose like a morel, inclined to trifle with truffles, a brain as mucilaginous as a mushroom cap!

Busy bees – or was that bumbly bees? This photographer was both, busy and bumbling, as well as forced to be extremely patient. I was sitting in front of the foxgloves in my garden, waiting for the bumble bees to emerge from the blossoms. By the time I had focussed the camera, they were, of course, long gone. Most of the time, anyways.

I had more luck in another beautiful garden where a huge variety of plants attracted a variety of bees, so many of them that I could practically shoot a picture wherever I had the camera pointed.

The phrase “busy as a bee” can be found as far back as in 13th century Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. They should add “smart as a bee” when you look at recent scientific experiments that reveal how these insects are able to perform complex cognitive tasks like, for example, discriminating between different art styles.

Have bees rewarded with sugar water when landing to feed on one of four different paintings by an Australian aborigine artist or put off by some bitter solution when landing on any one of four Monet reproductions and voila: if you now show them new paintings of each of these masters, they immediately pick the Australian art – and all it takes is one afternoon to have them figure it out. Now why did I have to take years of art education in high school?????

Not that it did much good. At least I didn’t end up like this: Dancing, covered in bees, with meditating comrades drifting off into La la land….

Here is something less funny but more interesting: a short clip on bumble bee life and social structure. And with this I wish you a busy Tuesday filled with sweetness in one form or another.

And no, it’s NOT ging to be Rimsky- Korsakov today, fooled you. Instead do enjoy this:

And a bonus minute of Schubert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=21&v=1Pm6kBXkqT4

Good. You didn’t think for a moment that I would write about Kentucky Derby decisions, disqualifications and all. Of course I won’t. Don’t know the rules of that sport, or any sport for that matter.

Instead I am praising science, once again, which has produced some fascinating new insights into the domestication of horses, a feat that revolutionized transport and warfare. You can read about the details here but here are the highlights:

Create an interdisciplinary team of 120(!) geneticists, evolutionary biologists and archeologists and let them figure out how 5500 years ago the horse became servant to (wo)man. Have them generate DNA data from 278 equine subfossils with ages mostly spanning the last six millennia.

Find out this way that in addition to the known two lines, domestic and Przewalski’s horses, there were two more, found on the Iberian Peninsula and in Siberia, now extinct.

Of special interest for these scientists was the fact that selective breeding shaping the look and functions of the horse started about 3000 years ago, most likely in Persia. Making them slimmer and stronger increased the mobility and speed of horses. Europeans picked up on this, and within a few hundred years they influenced the horse genome in more ways than through the previous 4000 years of domestication.

There is still uncertainty where the very first human horse interaction took place, despite all we know about horses. The traditional presumption that it happened in the steppes of Kasachstan was undermined by this current study. The most likely places under discussion are now Anatolia, the Pontic-Caspian steppes in Eurasia or the Middle East. Take your pick.

DNA analysis was also able to establish the recent impact of humans by means of diversity management, selection and hybridization of horses. What they found was not all good:

Most strikingly, we found that while past horse breeders maintained diverse genetic resources for millennia after they first domesticated the horse, this diversity dropped by ∼16% within the last 200 years. This illustrates the massive impact of modern breeding and demonstrates that the history of domestic animals cannot be fully understood without harnessing ancient DNA data. Importantly, recent breeding strategies have also limited the efficacy of negative selection and led to the accumulation of deleterious variants within the genome of horses. This illustrates the genomic cost of modern breeding. Future work should focus on testing how much recent progress in veterinary medicine and the improving animal welfare have contributed to limit the fitness impact of deleterious variants.

And while we are on the topic of DNA analysis, here is something to ponder about what the results of genetic testing in humans can or do tell us: misconceptions abound.

And if instead of experimental science you want some clinical psychology on this Wednesday morning, read this about psychics and the (hurt) feelings of horses.

You tell me if it makes horse sense.

Photographs today are of horse sculptures made by Steve Tilden and some of my pastiches using more of his work in the style of different painters.

Music from two very different sources:

Last week CBS news published an alarming article predicting that by 2048 salt water fish might be extinct. Just the kind of news you glance at and decide an already bleak view of the future has become even more dire on a sunny Monday morning.

Independent of our own delight in seafood, millions of people in the developing world depend on fish as protein source and for their livelihoods. Never mind what’s at issue for the larger food chain depending on healthy oceans.

Here’s the problem: it is a story that has perennially surfaced in the news since 2006 when the study it relies on was first published. Never mind that the scientific authors fundamentally revised their findings in 2009 because the study was relying on seriously flawed data and statistics.

You might argue that the criticism comes from the seafood industry and their own data are equally sketchy, driven by the desire to maintain the economic gains from fishing. But it is not an isolated case.

Three years ago there was much discussion of reports by the MacArthur Foundation and the World Economic Forum that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the sea if we continue dumping plastic in the oceans at the present rate, measured by weight. Note that this claim rests on our ability to accurately measure the plastic and count the fish. Are we able to do that?

Their report certainly didn’t. It relied on plastic estimates derived solely from San Francisco Bay and assumed that was representative for the rest of the globe. The report never stated figures for the expected tonnage of fish in 2050, and cited no research into fish populations. When reporters went back and asked about this issue they were referred to a 2008 study which was refuted by its own author in 2015. (For details go here.)

The problem with these types of misinformation rests with the fact that it gives power to those who want to deny that our oceans are in trouble. Or, more egregiously, want to claim that science can’t be trusted in general. Generally solid reports like this one are then thrown out together with the unreliable ones, in the interest of delaying action and preserving current income.

The WWF report lists the main reasons for decline of fish stocks in our oceans. Overfishing and by-catch are due to illegal fishing and insane subsidies for the fishing industries. As a result we have degraded eco systems and decreased food security. Action is required to create areas protected from fishing and to stop the industrial subsidies that are incentives for expanding fishing fleets.

I leave it to you to judge if clips like this, earnestness notwithstanding, help the cause…..

There is, however, also good news, as reported in the Seattle Times this March (somehow the link is broken, but here is the upshot:)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is investigating whether new fishing restrictions are needed to help prevent the extinction of endangered southern resident killer whales that frequent Puget Sound. That process is intended to result in fishing that lessens the impact on prey targeted by the whales. Possibilities include restrictions in time and places when fishermen and whales most intersect, or season closures. And not only in the ocean: NOAA is also evaluating fishing in Puget Sound and southeast Alaska to reduce impacts on orcas. The agency already, through the Pacific Salmon Treaty, worked to cut back harvest rates on salmon in Canadian fisheries.

Photographs today are from Puget Sound where I had thrilling views of whales some years back.

Music is a mesmerizing piece by Adams Becoming Ocean that somehow manages to communicate the urgency of required action. Music starts in at 7:35 or thereabouts.

https://site-323590.bcvp0rtal.com/detail/videos/by-composer/video/6008570918001/john-luther-adams-become-ocean?autoStart=true