Cool Living Stuff

is that a liger?

When I see images like this I wish I could draw better. As for today’s subtitle, if you don’t know what it means, here’s a good and silly explanation

One of the things I promised myself when I returned to writing is to keep it fun. I am going to write about stuff that is interesting to me. However, sometimes, I just want it to be lighter. The range of stuff that lives is so cool to me. Heck, one of my favorite past times is people-watching. Just appreciating the extremes of how people behave can be a blast. It is just important to not set your expectations too high. Amongst the Newsletter I enjoy, one of my favorites is CAFÉ ANNE. She is a professional journalist with an eye for the most interesting people. She happens to live in one of the very best fishbowls for people watching I might imagine as she resides in NYC. It is always good for a mixture of laughter, humanity, and the oddities of everyday life.

Creature #1 — Humans

What do I mean by people watching? I remember riding on the light-rail one day. Onto the train came a man who had some struggles. He curled up in his chair putting his feet up. The next thing I knew, off came the boot and then the sock. A rather imposing knife was next. What was going on? I must confess, I put down my Kindle to join in the festivities. The light rail is a pretty smooth ride but probably not the ideal setting for minor surgery.

The man proceeded to use the rather imposing knife to do some cleanup and minor maintenance on his feet. Wow! One of my favorite movies is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder at the helm. This, in a nutshell, is what people-watching is all about. The range of human behavior is quite wide. It is also true that there are so many people amongst us that are struggling and could use a hand.

Share a people-watching story if you dare!

#2 — Animals We Ate to Death

While pictures and paintings abound, we managed to eat the wooly mammoth, the dodo, the passenger pigeon, and several other creatures to extinction through the years. Lots of fish are no longer with us. A friend of mine, Mike S, is one of our recent additions to our tennis circle. He cannot go very long without speaking of his passion for fishing. He shares WONDERFUL photos of his fishing adventures and one picture of the sunset is better than the next. One of the fish of the Great Lakes that no longer exists is the blue walleye. The rather newish practice of catch and release I suppose would be the brightest example of what fish watching (ala people-watching) can be like.

He had a recent adventure at a trophy lake in Ontario, Canada. I think the fishing is SO GOOD there he might stop reading my Newsletter if I revealed his secrets. He estimated that their party of four probably caught about one hundred fifty fish per day and put NEARLY ALL of them back. He advised upon questioning that the fish never spend one minute out of the water as he considers that a VERY IMPORTANT part of conscientious fish-watching. There are strict limits on what you can take. They are allowed to keep a limited number of fish in a tight range between 16” and 18”. They catch their limit (he says 17 1/2” fish) and prepare and eat them, the rest they just catch and release and document them in their brag book of photographs. One of the people in his party caught a 50” and 46” muskie. Amazing. Here’s one of Mike’s latest photos, I hope he doesn’t mind. I think catch and release is a tribute to what we can accomplish by using our front brain and not just the lizard brain at the back of our heads. I imagine if there are enough people like Mike S, some of these fish actually have found themselves on a lot of lines over the years. I hope that the rest of the fishermen they encounter take it as seriously as he does and they embrace the joy. I can see the value in the sunset alone.

I will reveal the location only if Mike S doesn’t mind.

In one of my future posts, I am going to talk about mass extinctions. The way I see it is when they happen, things get pretty bad. The ones we’ve been able to study always leave a little bit of life and then with a new set of conditions (colder, warmer, smokier) give this Earth another whirl at what works best. The next roll of the dice with different conditions leads to an entirely new set of interesting evolutionary outcomes. I think a pretty simple way to embrace how special this planet is and how fortunate we are to have it is to realize that life of all sorts seems to have emerged at least six different times! In each case, the mix of what makes it through the worst of times, and what emerges in the new conditions seems to be almost a roll of the dice.

The definition of mass extinction is mostly mathematical. What is interesting is we are amidst a slow and steady one now. This one could be hastened by a bad break like an asteroid or maybe some natural disaster like a big volcano. However, so far the numbers that describe our current decline are unique as we have an unusual new thing to consider. One species (us) is a pretty big part of the story for the first time. Time will tell whether this is just the exaggeration of alarmists or a trend that we cannot reverse.

I wonder what will happen if we really are causing the next mass extinction? Our propensity to write everything down probably means that whatever ends up at the top of the food chain after the next mass extinction will eventually read all about us. Maybe they will find Mike S photos and wonder whether more people like him could have made a difference. While the dinosaurs just caught a bad break, the post-game analysis of the smartest creature in the history of the planet just making the place uninhabitable for itself because it just couldn’t resist 24 oz. tomahawk steaks will be a fun exercise. My steady readers know I strongly believe that almost all progress / change is VERY RECENT. Best estimates are that worldwide fish populations have declined about 50% since 1970. There does not seem to be a solution for the tendency of humans to exploit “free stuff” ala the tragedy of the commons. The world’s oceans will be treated as free protein until it is not economically viable. If life did indeed emerge from the sea, that might not be the best plan.

#3 — Cool Animals we Made!

Now, this is an example of the rest of the story. I love dogs. Having a big brain can lead to some unexpected outcomes. My dog, Denny has been a wonderful companion for a very long time. One of my sons, B, makes light-hearted comments about Denny’s ability to survive in the wild. I take a different tack. The mightiest of creatures on our earth all live a tenuous existence based only on the proclivities of a rather cruel creature called humans. Dogs chose a novel approach. They have endeared themselves to humans and developed a special relationship. Endearing yourself to the top of the food chain is a good strategy. The pet industry in America (mostly dogs and cats) is a $100B+ business and over $250B worldwide. That is about the size of the whole US Telehealth business!

Denny prefers crushed ice in his bowl. That cool bowl makes him eat a little slower. Sometimes we are advised we eat too quickly for good digestion. I wonder if humans would tolerate if someone served their popcorn this way. As cool as dogs are, the lack of an opposed thumb is a big limitation. This beats living outside and trying to dig up some grubs though.

The elephants are seriously endangered. The intellect of the given human does not improve the survival of the animal despite knowing that elephants and their brain development are markedly similar to ours. The ivory of the tusk is used to make piano keys and chess sets. The word that comes to mind for me is audacity. Rhinoceros horns seem to have become the preferred treatment to improve hard-ons in Asia. What is wrong with people? Whales, of course, nearly were removed from the earth. Many species are extinct. At one time, people were using whale oil to lubricate clocks when we stopped using the oil for a lamp. Humans can be a strange and cruel lot. The killing of your kind is another proclivity that is rare amongst animals but a fair number of primates engage in killing their species. Heck, we even print statistics about it and fret about how we might stop it?

Dogs and cats, on the other hand, get beds and sleep indoors and many have a preferred spot on the couch. I think this is the most ingenious of evolutionary adaptations. It all started when we started actively breeding the qualities we wanted. Now there is a dog for everyone it seems. My Cocker Spaniel is awesome. He patiently waits to enjoy what I eat including cucumbers, carrots, and brussels sprouts. Yes, my dog eats brussels sprouts and prefers them roasted.

I happened upon this video and it captures the desire of the dog to be wedded to his family. This captures dog life pretty well.

Tell me about your pet life observations in the comments. No judgment.

#4 — Animals We Can’t Kill (So Far)

So here is a short list of creatures that seem to have made it through all of the five known mass extinctions. In that way, they are some of the most interesting creatures in the world. It seems that for survival under varied conditions, a shell is a good plan!

• horseshoe crab

• clam

• snail

• nautilus

fossils exist for a nautilus that can at least take us back 500 million years. I wonder if Noah bothered to grab a few nautilus shells? I’m not sure if these are males or females.

I am sure you will come to appreciate the same pattern I did. Maybe it is time to buy some body armor. It seems of the animals that haven’t changed much (in more than half a billion years) we are left with clams, horseshoe crabs, and snails mostly. In my book, these are not the most interesting of animals but they sure are good to eat. I guess that means that even these guys have met their match. Humans are experts at harvesting the free stuff (on the land and in the oceans) to extinction. While they may have survived five mass extinctions, all-you-can-eat seafood on Friday nights may be beyond their adaptation.

#5 — Animals 2.0

A while back during my first run of publishing, I did a four-part story about CRISPR. Here’s Part 1 if you are interested. I learned a lot from those posts! Now that we seem to have unlocked life and can even edit it selectively, it is hard to imagine stopping this. Basically, this is the brave new world of purpose-built animals. In my case, I wrote about birthing a pig with a compatible human-like heart that we could then transplant into a person who needed a new heart. I think such a story would’ve made my Dad’s head hurt. I think whether this means new breakthroughs in healing or maybe even designer animals, this phase of human evolution is going to require a seatbelt. We’ve been cloning animals for a while and remarkable selective breeding of all sorts of things like seedless oranges and seedless watermelons. These are merely nature’s errors (mutations) and we’ve figured out how to propagate them! I hope that within my lifetime, we can figure out seedless grapefruits and lemons. That would save me a lot of time and trouble!

#6 — Animals 3.0

So what the heck are animals 3.0? I can proudly propose that I made this up all by myself! Right now we are stuck with “meat substitutes”. While stuff like soy, tofu, and now plant-based “meats” continue to multiply, animals 3.0 is all about making the very thing we want (meat) without the trouble of birthing the animal, raising it, transporting it, slaughtering it, sectioning it and finally getting it to the store. The economics of this are just crazy! From my time at a firm in the Twin Cities concentrating in our food and beverage business lines, I learned the great lengths to scale this business we have taken.

There is NOTHING about these businesses that resemble the farm of deepest memories. I will never forget the extent of effort to “use the whole animal” in order to keep prices in check and margins sufficient. I recall an “expert” explaining to me that nothing is left behind in the process without exploring an alternate use beyond just meat cuts. I believe the more fantastic, or unlikely, or perhaps ridiculous a story, the more likely we are to remember it (or not forget it). The most curious was the recovery of gallstones in cattle for grading and resale in the Asian alternate medicine market. Come on man! This just seems nasty!

It is estimated that a cow at slaughter is around 1320 pounds and we manage to yield about 475 pounds of meat or about 35%. Fear not, none of the remainder fails to find an alternate use. I think there is some humor in knowing that the remainder is referred to as offal but fortunately is pronounced awful. Each pound of meat we manage to yield needs about 1800 gallons of water to get to the finish line. 855,000 gallons of water is what that works out to. An average American (we are pretty profligate although the folks out West have become quite frugal) uses 82 gallons a day or 29,930 gallons a year. So raising one cow requires as much water as 29 people need in a year. Americans slaughter about 2.9 million head of cattle per year. So just beef production in the United States consumes enough water for the active lifestyle of about 85 million Americans.

I hope that wasn’t too much math. I decided to look up another fact

Tonight I am going to focus on the sci-fi solution that modern science proposes to deal with these resource challenges. Finally, let's talk animals 3.0. Laboratory-raised meat which starts with real meat and is genetically replicated is in progress now. Before we get rolling take a look at this website. These guys can use some marketing guidance as I think people will be uneasy to start. Cows in a floating bubble do not make me feel so good.

I did a post recently about bad predictions. I suppose it is possible and perhaps likely that laboratory-raised “meat” is not likely to become a real thing. Who knows though? This website about the actual production and humanizing of the experience by interleaving real people is probably a little better than the first website above. Singapore is the first country in the world to authorize and pursue lab-grown meat. While some Silicon Valley billionaires are funding these sorts of things and have sampled the results, the next step is offering these sorts of things commercially.

While the very first efforts were WILDLY expensive, the price continues to drop rapidly and now is under $10 per pound. I think it is safe to say if we have people extracting gallstones for resale we are nearing the end in a “more efficient” processing of conventional meat. It seems to me that perhaps animal 3.0 will indeed become a more realistic reality sooner than we think. It is hard to imagine that the beef industry can get any more “efficient”. I never underestimate the human propensity to rationalize. One of the silliest discussions I encountered when surveying this topic was the straight-faced discussions about whether if the ORIGINAL COW whose cells were cultured for the laboratory-raised meat was done in a kosher or halal fashion, is it reasonable then to label all of the subsequently generated meats to also earn the honorable kosher and halal label? I am sure the lobbying in Congress has already begun!

So how does it make you feel that the most valued of the animals (at least the subset that read my Newsletter) are just newcomers? Learning and then writing about this kind of stuff is fun for me. Thanks to each of you for taking the time to read it.

For those of you who embrace that we have dominion over all the creatures of the earth, this might not be persuasive. For those of you that think otherwise, here is a video that cannot help but make you feel great.

For those of you that shade toward plants instead of animals, here’s a wild video just for you. Seems to me if you eat this plant, that makes you an omnivore.

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The Poll & Music

It is time for some music. See you next time. There are a bunch of buttons at the end of each post. I would love it if you shared my writing with others. The diversity of opinion and feedback I now get is helping steer my writing. Even as I have steadily added readers, I still am getting 70% of you opening my stories. That feels pretty good. Not sure what this song has to do with the title but the band name lent me some poetic license. After you listen, you will understand, “It’s my blog, and I’ll do what I want”. If any of you get the subtitle of today’s post, we share the same humor instincts.

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What’s Next

My next post is titled “The Trifecta”. If you are like me, if another person tries a lecture on climate change, I can check out a bit. I love the expression, we are always fighting the last war. I figure we’ve been charging up the atmosphere for about 200-250 years. It seems we’ve probably been doing some other suspect stuff more recently and just don’t talk about it as much. The trifecta is about two other things we are doing that might make the road ahead a little tricky EVEN IF WE ACTUALLY DEAL WITH CO2.