Category Archives: Birds

Janisse Ray in Moultrie, 26 Jan 2010

Janisse Ray spoke and read from her books in Moultrie last night. The place was packed with a wide variety of people:

Packed, many ages

Here’s her opening poem: Continue reading →

Abnormal Chicken Feed

Jeremy Hsu writes that “Organic Feed Shown to Affect Genes in Chickens”:
Two generations of chickens were fed either organically cultivated feed or normal feed.
Um, organic feed is normal feed. It’s that other stuff that’s abnormal. And so are chickens raised on it:
Scientists then sampled RNA, the partner molecule for DNA during gene expression, from the small intestines of five organically fed chickens and five conventionally fed chickens. The results showed significant differences in gene expression among 49 genes.

The top ingredient in chicken feed is corn. The abnormal variety of which mostly comes from seed patented by Forbes’ Company of the Year: Monsanto.

Hm, what about humans raised chickens raised on abnormal feed? What do those 49 chicken genes do, anyway?

…the Dutch researchers note that seven of the 49 genes were involved in helping the chickens synthesize cholesterol, when just 30 genes are involved in the overall cholesterol biosynthesis.
Well, that can’t be important, can it?

VDT: Quarterman Road project completed

The Valdosta Daily Times caught me working on being tactful.

Matt Flumerfelt’s writeup actually conflates two different county commission meetings, but gets the gist right:

The fate of the tree canopies lining the rural road were thought to hang in the balance. Several residents spoke in favor of the paving, citing dangerous conditions along the road during periods of stormy weather.

John and Gretchen Quarterman, whose ancestors lent their name to the country lane, led the fight to preserve the road in its original pristine dirt-road condition.

A longleaf pine on Quarterman Road. The forest along Quarterman Road is “a scrap of the longleaf fire forest that used to grow from southern Virginia to eastern Texas,” said John Quarterman following the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “This forest has been here since the last ice age.”

Quarterman Road, pre-paving, was the kind of dirt road down which Huckleberry Finn might be envisioned skipping barefoot with a fishing rod projecting over one shoulder.

It was the kind of road near which Thoreau might have planted a cabin.

“Many people don’t know that a longleaf pine forest has more species diversity than anything outside a tropical rain forest,” Quarterman said. “In our woods, we have five species of blueberries, …

Oh, the beaver will be mad. I forgot to mention the beaver.

The rest of the story is on the VDT web pages. More pictures of the event in the previous blog entry.

For pictures of what lives in the forest, see longleaf burning gopher tortoises, snakes, frogs, bees and butterflies, spiders and scorpion, and raccoon, and beautyberry, pokeberry, passion flower, pond lily, ginger lily, Treat’s rain lily (native only to south Georgia, north Florida, and a bit of Alabama), thistle, sycamore, palmetto, mushrooms, lantana, magnolia, grapes, yellow jessamine, dogwood, and native wild azaleas.

The VDT has a good picture of Gretchen cutting the ribbon.

But it’s not over just because one road project is completed:

“More people around the county seem to be paying attention these days. Commissioners tell us that already another road in the county has had its canopy saved during paving, and the commission has promised residents of Coppage Road that if their road is paved, their canopy will be saved. Commissioners even seem to like the idea of recognizing canopy roads as a feature of quality of life for residents of the county and for visitors.”

We have a forest. The county just has roads.

Now let’s go see what they’re doing to the rest of our roads. And schools, and waste management, and biofuels, and industry…. If you’d like to help, please contact the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.