Biological prospecting in your own backyard

(The breast feathers from this dickcissel may be effective in treating ED.)

Picture this scene for a moment from 500 years ago, somewhere in Ethiopia or Arabia.  A man picks some ripe fruit from a plant we now call the coffee tree.  Inside the reddish fruit are two seeds embedded in a gelatinous material with the consistency of an 8-year old's snot in January, although it is somewhat sweet.  He removes the seeds, somehow dissolves the snotty material that coats each seed, dries the seeds, roasts them over a fire, grinds them up, pours hot water over them, and drinks the beverage so created.  Are you kidding me?  Although used originally only in religious ceremonies, coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world today, with over 100 million people dependent on coffee for their livelihoods. 

Or picture this from about 2,000 years ago.  Some Native Americans, and the early Greeks as well, happened to suck on the leaf of a willow tree at the time they had a headache or a fever and found that their symptoms improved.  Later, the bark was soaked in water and the solution used as a medicinal.  It turns out that willows contain a chemical we now call aspirin.  Aspirin, which is produced commercially these days, is probably the oldest and most widely used medicine by humans.  What are the odds?

Now, I don't know what the trial and error process was for these early discoverers of coffee and aspirin, or for maple syrup, bee honey, silkworm silk for clothing, tobacco for smoking, or any of thousands of other such examples.  The facts are clear: humans have been exploring and investigating the fauna and flora in their environment for a very long time, resulting in many useful products that we take for granted today.  This continues today in a highly technological milieu in an endeavor called "bioprospecting", which I will explore in a future post.  But to the ancients, there was a logic to many of these discoveries.  For example, willows are found in low lying wet or damp areas, which is also where the fever or "ague" was prevalent.  It made sense to them that there would be a treatment for the ailment that was found in the same area.  We will employ that same logic below.

Given that I spend a lot of time in my woods, and I know the plants and animals pretty well, why can't DrTom discover a really useful food or health remedy on his own.  Those early humans didn't even attend The Ohio State University.  I have some ideas that might work.

1.  Collect 8-10 earwigs, mash them up with a mortar and pestle from your kitchen, and add a teaspoon of cheap whiskey (for heaven's sake, don't use a single-malt scotch).  Strain out the body parts of the insects, gently warm the remaining solution, and pour it carefully into an infected ear.  It could relieve ear aches. (See the idea here: earwigs to cure ear aches.)

2.  Gather up 6-8 red fruits from a flowering dogwood tree.  Mash them in your mortar and pestle (but washed after the earwig procedure), blend in some fresh deer pellets, and add a splash of warm water.  This slurry can be used to spread on your family pet's coat and it might repel ticks and fleas.  (The dogwood is the active ingredient, but dogs love the smell of deer poop, so they will allow you to apply this liberally.)  I would keep the dog off your bed for about a week after application.

3.  For men over 60.  Capture a live dickcissel (the meadow bird of the midwestern U.S.) and collect several breast feathers.  (Can you guess where I am going with this?)  Soak the feathers in cheap vodka for about a day.  Strain out the feathers, add a shot of dry vermouth and a dash of Angostura bitters, and shake gently.  Imbibe slowly during Happy Hour.  Should work for ED.  If you maintain an erection for more than eight hours, rejoice!, and then consult a physician.

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head.  If you can think of more, please write them in a comment to this post.  The right idea could make us millions.  But I want only "green" suggestions.  Notice I did not think the dickcissel liver would work, only breast feathers, which are renewable.  For those of you reading this who are economists or political scientists, if you remove the bird's liver, it dies.  Think broadly, dig deeply, and tread lightly.  Happy prospecting!

The value of wood and the role of women in reforestation

(Kenyan women being checked for their wood-collecting permits near Kijabe.)

The striking thing about visiting an arid part of the globe is the lack of trees and the struggle of those people to find wood for cooking and heating. I have observed this first-hand in the Dominican Republic, Madagascar, and East Africa. Those of us who live in locations where there are abundant forests are incredibly fortunate, even though we seldom rely on wood for household uses. (My wife and I actually heat our home with wood, so I appreciate the value of this resource. However, if I don’t gather enough wood for the winter, we have the luxury of turning on the electric heat.)

The problem is really a “mass balance” problem. Wood is produced (i.e., trees grow) at a rate dependent on the species of tree, and the temperature and moisture of its environment. Opposing that growth rate is the rate at which wood is collected and used. The rate at which wood is used is greater than the rate at which new wood can grow in many places, especially in arid lands with a dense human population. Hardly a branch hits the ground that is not picked up by women who endure this arduous task. Benet women in eastern Uganda spend up to 10 hours per day, three days per week, gathering wood. That amounts to a full-time job, which is in addition to all the other tasks these women need to accomplish during the week. Can you just picture the soccer moms of the U.S. spending time in this manner? (Actually, the Benet left some mature trees, almost all Prunus africana, from the original forest when they cleared the land for agriculture. They do not use these trees for fuel.  Prunus africana, the African plum tree, has been used for thousands of years to treat various ailments, including problems of the prostate.)

Gathering wood in some places is downright dangerous. One Benet elder told us that he lost two wives during his youth while they were gathering wood for the home—one was killed by a neighboring tribe when she wandered into their territory. And, of course, there are large mammals and the scorching sun that can do harm as well.

So the answer is simple, but execution is nearly impossible. Grow more trees. But when Joe plants trees for the future, Sam cuts them down to use this year. In fact, Joe knows this will happen, so he doesn’t even bother to plant the trees in the first place. Or, no one can really afford the space for trees that will take years to grow large enough to use, given that trees shade areas that are needed to grow food for tomorrow. You can see a version of “tragedy of the commons” at work here. And so, the women continue to walk 30 hours per week to gather wood from some communal area miles away from home.

There are some successful attempts to turn this pitiful situation around. My colleague, Louise Buck, started a tree-planting program in Kenya about 20 years ago. The successful project was called the Agroforestry Extension Project (AEP), which mobilized women's groups and their members to develop small-scale nursery enterprises to propagate native and naturalized trees and to plant and to sell them. Over 1 million trees/year were planted in and around farms in western Kenya for over a decade, and the tradition continues. My friend, David Kuria, has mobilized a small cadre of volunteers (KENVO) near Mt. Kenya who maintains nurseries for native species of trees, and then plants them in concentric zones around a nearby national park. The idea is that those trees can be used eventually by local people, thereby reducing pressure on forests in the national park. At present, women can collect dead wood in the park after being issued a wood-collecting permit. Even this tree planting at the perimeter of the park, however, will not help women who live miles from this reforestation zone.

But the fact is that it is possible to produce wood where there was little before. It takes agreement within the local community that growing trees in a communal woodland is a worthwhile goal, some protection of young trees until they reach harvestable size, and a little money. The Benet women were waiting on a small grant ($100) to buy the seedlings to begin planting when my ecoagriculture group visited them, an amount about equal to what I spend on scotch in a given month. A little money can do a lot (microcredit?), if you can get it to the women. Women are the movers and shakers in most of these cultures. Women see the value of the plan immediately, and they are willing to do the work if given the resources to succeed.  In these societies, it seems it is always the women who actually make plans work.

One of the advantages of traveling around the world is the appreciation you gain for commodities we Americans take for granted. After living in Costa Rica, for example, I have never looked at a cup of coffee or a banana in the same way again, because I learned how much sweat-equity was used to produce those items. Similarly, I have always loved the trees in my forest and the firewood they produce to heat my home, but after some time in East Africa, my respect for that resource ratcheted up another notch. People only need a little help from the outside, and they can nurture a culture of trees that can provide an essential resource for their livelihood, reduce carbon dioxide, and contribute to conservation of biodiversity. It might just be that what is good for some locally is good for all globally.

Why I am such a Facebook slut

(I'll invite anyone to be my FB friend.)

I have been a Facebook slut from the beginning.  I will invite anyone to be my friend, and I will accept anyone else's invitation to do the same.  But is this lack of selection standards the behavior I should employ?  If not, then I am somewhat confused about who to ask to be, or allow to be, my friends in the social networking world.  I'm a liberal and an atheist and an avid environmentalist, but there are lots of FB members who are conservatives and religious and who think that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy. There are those who want to play silly games with farm animals and send flowers around and ask for help with the Mafia, and I'm not into any of that.

There are young women with very provocative profile photos, and older women who are not so provocative, and balding men with white beards who look all-knowing.  There are CEOs and television personalities and publishers and lots of students.  I just spent the last 40 years of my life with students; do I need to continue?  After all, the only thing students want from me is another letter of recommendation.  There are people who only lurk, and there are those who want to sell me their herbal medicine or belly-dancing attire or 3-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac.  Others are trying to sell me that Obama is a Marxist, or a Muslim, or a Mouseketeer.  (I learned that literary technique in 9th grade English class.  Notice the three "Ms".  But I couldn't think of a third one, so I used Mouseketeer.)

Should I avoid members who are not like me, and surround myself with like-minded thinkers?  Or, should I embrace the differences and pursue those "others" so I have the chance to influence their thinking?  You know, keep your liberals close and your conservatives closer.  But to be perfectly honest, I am trying to make lots of friends, some of whom will become regular readers here. 

So I guess I don't really care what my FB friends' beliefs or politics are as long as I think they might be attracted to DrTom's blog.  Here is the strategy I am using currently to befriend FB members.  I invite the following categories of people to be friends:

1.  Anyone who is baby boomer age.  Check profile photos for elderly-looking men and women, and those who think they are hiding out as a 52-year old.  I figure this demographic could relate to my perspectives better than, say, a 25-year old who thinks that "Vietnamese" is just the word on a marquee for any non-Chinese Asian restaurant.

2.  Anyone who looks like they enjoy the out-of-doors, nature, hiking, gardening, etc.  Check profile photos for dirty hands, tears in clothing, Columbia Sportswear jackets, people on horseback, those with a dog, snow-capped mountain in background.

3.  Older, white men in the publishing or media business.  I need a break and these guys have the power to make the big decisions in these industries, and to make contact with other media moguls, and they probably know lots of other older, white guys.

4.  Jewish people.  One of my blogs was about preparing for my first Rosh Hashanah at age 62.  That should endear that demographic to my site.

5.  People who look like they like to read stuff.  This is a tough one, but they probably wear glasses, have wrinkles in their forehead, and they just plain look intelligent.

6.  Anyone holding a cigar in their profile.

7.  Really sexy young girls.   Because they attract more of all of the above to my FB page, and a certain percentage of these attractants might visit DrTom's blog.

Given that FB has a 5,000-friend limit, I need to be somewhat selective about who I invite.  For example, I could fill my quota just with "really sexy young girls" if I wanted.  There are so many of those.  (Hey, what's up with that anyway?  Do these girls wearing very little and posing so provocatively think they will be discovered by MGM, or that they will win an appearance in a music video or a reality show?  Or, are they just looking to hook up with the "older, white guy" category?)  Man, there is a lot going on in the FB world, and I don't grasp the half of it.  I just want a little of their time, and a click or two.  I need to buy a Whopper at Burger King's for my wife.

The color-blind naturalist

(If you see a number in this circle, then you are not one of us.)

I am willing to come out of the closet and tell the world that I don't see things the same way most people do.  Along with 7% of American males and 0.4% of American females, I am color-blind.  The genetic basis of this condition and the myriad of details surrounding the types of color-blindness are too esoteric for this post, and their description would bore most of you to drink (even more than you currently do).

Color-blind people are apparently interesting and curious to normal-sighted people.  Holding up some item at hand, the perennial question is always: "What does this look like to you?"  Come on.  Think hard about that question for a minute.  You are asking someone who does not see objects as you do what the world looks like.  The color-blind person could only describe the world as he sees it, not the way you see it, so no matter what the answer is, it will be of no value to you at all.  It is a ridiculous question, but non-color blind people ALWAYS ask it.  Do you do it just so you can laugh behind our backs?  To make yourself feel superior? I'm really sick of the ignorance of the colored-sighted persons.  It is high time that color-blindees stand up and complain about the bigotry and ignorance that exists in the U.S. toward those of us who happen to have been born with a weird density or arrangement of cones in the retina of our eyes.  This "defect" is not our fault, and being grilled relentlessly by our children, and now grandchildren, who try to teach us the colors by holding up those stupid Crayola crayons is not helping.  What the hell is mauve, anyway?

And besides, how do we know that an object that you say is "red" is really that color?  That is just the way YOU see it.  I see it differently.  Maybe I am correct, and the majority of people are incorrect.  Is it correct to call it red because more than 50% of humans say that is what it is?  Or, to get even more complicated.  Because I have been told all my life that the color of the shirt you are holding up is called "red", I may have learned to call it that, even though I see something very different from what you see.

To publicize the plight of color-blind persons, I propose we initiate a Special Olympics of sorts.  The main event, which would actually constitute an extreme sport for color-blindees, involves a railroad crossing in an actual rural setting. The exciting spectator part of this is that the umpires wait until a train is coming at full speed.  The umps hold up a green flag when it is safe to cross and a red flag when it is not safe.  If the contestant gets it wrong, they lose, big time. 

Actually, this railroad crossing event simulates what real life is like for us all the time.  Years ago, my brothers (who are both also color-blind) and I went grouse hunting in southern Ohio.  As we crossed an intersection in a small town, cars screeched to a halt from two directions and started blasting their horns.  We pulled the car over to see what the heck was wrong.  After studying the situation for a few minutes, we realized that the traffic light had the green light on top and the red light on the bottom.  Go figure.  It was Ohio.  Our M.O. had always been to drive through any intersection when the bottom light was on and stop when the top light was lit.  This had worked for years.  The color never mattered to us.  Whoops!  It matters in southern Ohio.  Was this some kind of trick to kill off color-blind innocents like us?  (By the way, in Romania and Turkey, color-blind people are not given a driver's license.)

I went through life bearing this burden from primary school until I was 40 thinking I simply saw objects slightly differently from other people.  Then, when we were on sabbatic in Costa Rica in the mid-80s, I was taking a hike with my son Matt along a trail in the Monteverde cloud forest.  At one point in the walk he said: "Dad, look at those red flowers on that plant."  I said: "What red flowers?"  And he patiently pointed out to me that there were dozens of red flowers all over a patch of some herbaceous plants about two feet tall immediately next to the trail.  I realized then that not only did I see colors differently from normal people, but that I was not seeing some objects at all.  Only two weeks ago, my wife was exclaiming about the red apples all over our tree about 50 feet from where we were standing.  I could not see a single apple unless I stood right next to the damn thing.  I have been quasi-depressed about this startling revelation ever since that day in Monteverde.

In 1968, I thought I might turn this handicap to my advantage.  I had received my draft notice to report to Uncle Sam.  You know, that uncle who has 300 million nieces and nephews.  The Vietnam War was at its peak, and the military took every body they could find.  I heard a rumor that they even picked up a road-kill deer at one point, because the body was still warm.  They probably figured the deer could at least serve as a company clerk.  So I thought I might fail my physical if I was color-blind and, thereby, not have to go into this dangerous situation.  I took my physical in Columbus, Ohio and, immediately after the eye exam, I asked the technician if I was color-blind.  His response: "Yep. Next."  I spent the next three years in the U.S. Army.

So I am a nature lover, and I have been all of my life.  But think how much more beautiful it would seem to me and to color-blind people everywhere if we actually saw the world in all its incredible, colorful reality.  Brilliant flowers and ripe fruits and autumn leaves on trees that we hear everyone exclaiming about.  And rainbows.  And blushing girls.  And birds.  And Christmas lights.  And even traffic lights.  Damn those deficient cones!