This story is just really disturbing. A UC Davis prof has asked his students to vote on what a pregnant classmate’s grade should be. See the full story at Dr. Isis’ blog.
In summary, the prof (who is chair of his department!) sent out an e-mail to students asking them to vote on the way he should grade their classmate, who is likely to miss some quizzes due to childbirth. Apparently, the vet school is very strict about no make-up assignments. However, it is inconceivable that this situation has not arisen in the past. Has no student missed assignments because of childbirth or an accident before? Shouldn’t there be a policy for this?
Regardless of whether the prof was poorly-prepared for this eventuality or not, it seems completely unethical to allow students to vote on another’s grade.
More unethical is his singling out of this one individual for attention due to her medical state. In effect, this professor is shaming the student to the class. While he did not specifically name the student, it either is or will become obvious who she is by the end of the semester.
While my own teaching experience has certainly not been decades-long, like this professor’s, I would never single out one student for criticism by her peers in this way. I’m sure more details will emerge, but at the moment this seems completely unethical, and unacceptable.
Update: Apparently, this incident is now being investigated by the UC Davis administration.
The north-west tip of O’ahu is Ka’ena Point. This, the tip of the Wai’anae Mountains, is the one part of the island that’s not reachable by (paved) roads. There used to be both a dirt road and a railroad out here (the railroad for sugarcane transport). Now, the railroad has been removed and the road is extremely non-maintained.
You can actually drive along the non-maintained part of the road for a ways, from either side- fishermen do it. But with a rental car, you probably don’t want to risk it. This car, which apparently broke down at some point, has been out near the end of the road for a few years- every time we go back it’s just a bit more degraded. Last year, for example, the seats were still in decent shape.
Guess someone stripped it, then abandoned it...
A few miles toward the point from either side, the remaining road is fenced off. The reason is that this is one of the last non-developed coastal sites on O’ahu, because of its remoteness. It’s home to several species of threatened plant, and also serves as nesting ground for native seabirds: Laysan albatrosses and Wedge-tailed shearwaters, as well as a pupping spot for endangered Hawaiian Monk seals. The fence is intended to keep predators from slaughtering these ground-nesting birds.
A few dozen nest here each winter.
I think Laysan albatrosses are one of the more sophisticated-looking birds: isn’t that contrast between white head, slaty body, and subtly shaded eye mask cool?
Photo: Jlfutari at wikipedia.com
Back in the day, I did an internship with the Fish & Wildlife Service on Kaua’i. One of the things I got to do was help band Laysan albatrosses. These are the smallest albatross species, but still have a wingspan that’s up to two meters in length. More importantly for banding, those beaks are razor-sharp; we learned how to get around them pretty quickly! Despite their size, they don’t weigh much, and I strongly remember thinking that they smelled like feather pillows (unlike the Red-footed boobies, who would regurgitate half-digested fish onto you when approached- gross).
At any rate, Ka’ena Point is one of the last places on the main Hawaiian Islands where these beauties nest, at the end of the Wai’anaes.
Albatrosses nest on the ground; shearwaters dig burrows.
The day we went out, it was both hot (“Ka’ena” means “the hot”) and the surf was up. We didn’t see any Monk seals, but that just meant that we could go cool our heels in the tidepools.
All in all, this is a good hike on a winter day- there’s pretty much no shade, so it’s nice when it’s a bit cloudy. It can also be pretty breezy out at the point. While it’s generally quite dry, we’d just had rain and there were a lot of mud puddles on the road. It was pretty easy to get around them, though. Take water and a snack, and be prepared to just sit at the point for a while and watch the waves and the albatrosses coming in to land.
Need a special gift for that bunny lover in your life?
I’ll be the first to admit that, with a pet rabbit, I talk about poop a bit more often than normal people do. (Though much less than people with babies do…) I’ve even used rabbit poop as fertilizer (works really well, but can contain grass seeds that will sprout).
However, I’d’ve never thought of this: Silver-plated rabbit poop made into earrings.
Oh, you read that correctly.
These are available fromAlora Designs. (I guess they’ve been sold! But I bet you could request another pair…)
Today, I’m revisiting my recent blog post on the “Flockalypse” to try to shed some light on what scientists mean when they say that large numbers of birds being killed “happens all the time.” I’ve seen this phrase in the news a lot lately, and I want to point out that it does not mean that scientists think that these types of deaths are “okay.”
Instead of taking “happens all the time” as a dismissal of the importance of mass bird die-offs, let’s look at as recognizing that many, many birds are killed every day from causes that are directly related to human activity. How many? Well, that’s hard to estimate, for a couple of reasons. One big reason is that many of these deaths occur at night, and night-roaming scavengers quickly dispose of the evidence.
Other sources (oil spills, fishing by-catch, etc) – did not estimate
While recent large mortality events have been in the news, the point I want to make is that a constant level of bird deaths occurs constantly due to human-related factors. These are large numbers. One in six bird species worldwide is threatened with extinction, because of the factors listed above plus things like habitat loss, invasive species, and climate change.
The endangered Florida Scrub-Jay (byVvAndromedavV, wikipedia.org)
Looking at this list, you should be able to see a number of ways that we can work to prevent at least some of these deaths. Things like making windows and other structures more visible to birds, keeping cats indoors, and minimizing use of pesticides are all crucial to the survival of many species. (For more info on some of these efforts, see the American Bird Conservancy’s site.)
So, can public attention to the recent dramatic bird deaths be used to spark wider awareness of what we can do to prevent the constant slow preventable deaths of birds? Hopefully, it can- and many science communicators are trying to get the word out. Human population growth and natural resource use, habitat loss and invasive species, along with global climate change, are ever-increasing threats to the survival of many species. We should try to prevent this constant rate of attrition whenever we can.
Just mauka (mountainward) of urban Honolulu is a ~19.6 mile system of trails in the Ko`olau Mountains: the Honolulu Mauka Trail System. This system includes the Judd Trail, which I talked about in a previous post. While the Judd Trail is in Nu’uanu Valley, most of this trail system is on the south side of the crest of the Ko’olau range. It’s probably the best-maintained trail system on Oahu, and one of my favorite places to hike.
The map above is centered on the area where the trail system is: the area marked “Honolulu Watershed Forest Reserve” is in the back of Manoa Valley (there are trails all along the ridge lines on all three sides), the central area marked “Makiki-Lower Punchbowl-Tantalus” contains several trails, and then Nu’uanu Valley (which Hwy 61 runs through) has a few trails on the east side. Downtown Honolulu is in the lower left, and Waikiki is just off the map to the lower right.
One of the hikes I’ve done a few times is the Pu’u ‘Ohi’a Trail, which goes to the top of one of the high points in this part of the range, called Pu’u ‘Ohi’a (‘Ohi’a Tree Hill), or more popularly, Tantalus. The summit is about 2,000 feet; the trailhead starts at about 1400 (?) feet. It’s a bit of a climb. Part of the trail goes through bamboo forest, which is a bit eerie- the bamboo (which is invasive) blocks out a lot of light.
Escaped cockatoos live in upper Manoa Valley.
We actually went a bit onto the Manoa Cliffs Trail, which as you might guess from the name, goes along the cliffside above Manoa Valley. I have to say that Manoa is the prettiest valley on Oahu. Others may disagree, of course 🙂
After our quick view of Manoa Valley, we took the Kalawahine Trail, which hugs the western side of Pu’u ‘Ohi’a. The narrow valley on this side is Pauoa Valley. From this side, you get a great view of Nu’uanu valley to the north, and can see across the Ko’olau Mountains to Kailua.
Upper Nu'uanu Valley, with Kailua off in the distance.
Further south along the Kalawahine Trail, you get a great view of downtown Honolulu and Pearl Harbor off to the west, along with the Wai’anae Range (which you can’t see in this photo).
Downtown Honolulu.
The Kalawahine Trail is really botanically interesting: there are actually quite a few native species here. Part of the forest here is fenced (to exclude mainly pigs) and is intended to be a native tree snail preserve. Tree snails were very diverse in Hawaii before human settlement; now habitat loss, collecting, and an invasive predatory snail have made most of the species extinct. A few species are hanging on in remote mountain refuges. Native forest birds are often sighted here, but we didn’t see any this time. There are also quite a few native plants, including a stand of hibiscus trees that were blooming.
This is also a great trail to look at ferns: there are quite a few different species here (both native and introduced). This was a fun place to botanize when I was in college.
For scale, this boulder is about a meter in height.
The Honolulu Mauka trail system has some pretty diverse terrain, vegetation, and views. It’s also pretty accessible from either downtown or Waikiki. You can access it either by car (though parking is limited & the area is sometimes prone to break-ins) or by bus. It’s definitely one of the unique things about living in Honolulu…
According to Yan, one of the more stressful events that occurred when we started dating was the time I asked him to bunny-sit for Noe for a week. Apparently, petsitting for a new datee can be seen as a rather stressful test of responsibility (definitely not intended!) Add to that that the first thing Noe did, when let out to explore his apartment, was to jump onto his couch and pee on it to mark her territory…
Anyway, Noe eventually decided that she liked Yan, especially when he began to bribe her with yummy treats like leftover guava juice.
Of course prunes are her favorite, but guava is apparently acceptable. Here she is, licking her chops.
Oh, and the pee incident only happened once. Which I’m sure helped Noe win Yan over 🙂
In the news recently has been the discovery of thousands of dead Red-winged blackbirds (with a few other species) in Arkansas and Louisiana.
Red-winged blackbird. Photo by Cephas, wikipedia.org.
Red-winged blackbirds congregate in massive communal roosts during the non-breeding season, in flocks that can number literally up to hundreds of thousands (other species do this too: robins, crows, ravens, vultures…) During the breeding season, the males stake out territories, generally in marshes, and “protect” the nests of a number of females within their territory. Notice I don’t say the females are their “mates”- in fact, what are known as “extra-pair copulations” are common in this species, and neither males nor females are monogamous.
Blackbird flock. Photo by Edibobb, wikipedia.org.
Back to the news- the most likely explanation is that the Arkansas birds died when a sleeping flock was startled by fireworks going off overhead, freaked out, and started flying into one another and other objects at high speed (however, tests are still being done for possible toxins- these birds will eat crops, and occasionally people will put out poison for them). The Louisiana birds apparently collided with power lines.
…Of course, some are into this sort of thing:
Bird collisions happen all the time– this event is definitely not unique (and, as the linked post points out, this event is tiny on the scale of bird mass deaths from human-influenced causes.)
The title of my post comes from a common English nursery rhyme, “Sing a Song of Sixpence.” I won’t get into the possible underlying meanings of the rhyme, but here it is:
Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;
Wasn’t that a dainty dish,
To set before the king?
The king was in his counting house,
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes;
When down came a blackbird
And pecked off her nose.
The blackbirds “baked” into the pie would be Eurasian blackbirds, not Red-winged blackbirds.
Eurasian blackbird. Photo by Snowmanradio, wikipedia.org.
In the 16th Century, it was apparently a big deal to create pies that, when cut open, contained birds that would fly out and away. Hopefully they would then angrily poop on the diners’ heads before flying to freedom, but I sadly can find no evidence for that outcome…
Another trail accessed via the Pali Highway is the Judd Trail, also known as “Jackass Ginger,” for a waterfall along Nuuanu Stream, which you walk along part of the way.
View of Nuuanu Stream
It’s a pretty small waterfall, but a popular swimming spot. I have no idea how it got its name.
There is ginger in the area, though...
The Judd Trail is a loop, which takes you above Nuuanu stream and into the forest. Most of Hawaii’s native forests were effectively eaten to the ground by feral goats and cattle after Western contact, and were replanted with non-native species once people realized that massive erosion problems and reduction of stream flows were a result. The Judd Trail runs through non-native forest, including dramatic plantings of Norfolk Island pines. It’s also named after one of the early foresters in Hawaii, Charles Judd.
I’ve heard descriptions of this trail as running through “Hawaii’s beautiful native forest”- this is ridiculous. I’m pretty sure I didn’t see a single native species along the route- maybe a fern or two.
On our recent trip to Hawaii, we got to do a lot of hiking. Nothing too serious, but we did try to do at least short hikes each day. We were fairly successful when it wasn’t raining.
One of our first hikes was on Oahu, on the Old Pali Highway. This route leads along a decommissioned road that run between Honolulu and the Windward side of Oahu.
Google terrain map showing the Pali Hwy. The "gap" in the mountain range is actually a ~1000-foot cliff.
Oahu was formed by two volcanoes, which have now eroded to form the western Wai’anae and eastern Ko’olau mountains. Millions of years ago, about half of the Ko’olau volcano slid off in a massive landslide, creating a 100-mile long debris field under the ocean to the northeast, and leaving a long, tall series of cliffs on the remaining above-water part of the volcano. This cliff (the Pali) limits travel between the coastal Windward side of the island and the plateau between the Wa’anae and Ko’olau ranges.
Steep part of the Pali from the Windward coast (from NOAA).
The Old Pali Highway takes advantage of a slight gap in the range, where there is only about a 1000-foot vertical cliff between the two sides, rather than the ~2400-foot cliff that’s found elsewhere. However, this road was always wet, steep, narrow, and dangerous to travel. It was eventually replaced by the (new) Pali Highway, which is larger and uses two tunnels and a set of ramps to make the current highway less steep. Hikers can take the Old Pali highway from its high point at the Pali Overlook down to where it connects with a state trail to a waterfall.
Stream valley, not visible from road.
When walking on the Old Pali Highway, you can really get a sense for how much more sketchy this connection between the two sides of the island was at the time. Water constantly seeps onto the road from the porous basalt, and ferns and other plants abound. The hike gives you views into some pretty gorgeous valleys that aren’t visible form the new road.
Waterfalls were running because of all the recent rain.
We hiked this as a loop from the top down, then back up. We did go a bit onto the waterfall trail, but it was starting to get dark (and we were hearing wild pigs), so we went back up.
View of Kailua & Olomana (double peak in foreground).
There are some interesting birds on this trail, but not much that’s native: it lies within the range of avian malaria-carrying mosquitoes that have decimated most native forest bird species in Hawaii. Within the mosquito zone, there are pretty much no more native forest birds. Scientists are quite concerned about the effect of global warming on Hawaiian forest birds: mosquitoes are limited to lower elevations because of cold mountain air. As the climate warms, their zone of infiltration expands up into the former mountain refuges of the birds, who have no immunity to avian malaria.
Feral chickens, descended from Polynesian Jungle fowl, at the Pali Overlook.
This is an easy-to-get-to hike that’s not too strenuous, very scenic, and has some history. The footing is mostly good (though slippery in spots), and parts of it are a bit steep. Nuuanu Valley, which the Pali Highway runs through from Honolulu, has some pretty significant historic sites, and the Pali Overlook itself was the site of a dramatic and bloody battle when Kamehameha was trying to conquer Oahu- Oahuans’ first encounter with cannon, people being pushed to their deaths over the cliff with spears, and other details. It’s interesting (though disturbing) to contemplate that event here.
Yay, vacation! I’ll begin at the end, and the funky souvenirs we got. They’re not Hawaii-themed: it’s hard to buy into the tourist-industrial complex for a place once you’ve really lived there.
Item one we’re calling Sushiman: a solar-powered nodding plastic ikura (salmon roe) sushi. And yes, this toy really does work!
Welcome!
Apparently, this also comes in shrimp, egg, and salmon versions. We thought ikura was the best. Oh, as an added bonus, it has fairly interesting Japanese-English warning label translation on the package:
In order not course the danger of asphyxial, Please do no to put the spare parts into the mouth.
In order not course the danger of swallowing, forbidden to give the toy playing by the Children who are not enough 3 years old.
In order not course the danger of asphyxial, please do not cover the plastic bag on the head or face.
In order to avoid accident, please safekeeping the toy that make sure the children who are not enough 3 years old not reach the toy.
Please do not shake and haul the toy.
Please do not use the sun energy battery tough and don’t throw it away.
Fun for the whole family!
Item two outdoes Sushiman by at least two orders of magnitude, because of its sheer geekery. It’s a Hallmark ornament depicting Kirk & Spock’s dramatic battle of kal-if-fee in “Amok Time” (also known as the episode where Spock goes into heat). What makes this ornament awesome is that it plays the theme music from the scene.
Pic from hallamark.com.
Hallmark’s website has a video with the music (it would have totally have racheted up the excitement of the video to do a few zooming in and out shots). Seriously, this is a really cool toy, and Yan & I are going to have to have a discussion of who gets to keep it in their office.
As far as I know, these things are on sale at Hallmark stores everywhere: we got this one at 40% off. Seriously, you might want to consider looking for one of these. I have to say, it’s on par with the Tauntaun sleeping bag in terms of sheer geekery- though if it was animated, it might eclipse that… I’m sure it smells better, too 🙂
