A few things

 I am somewhat behind on writing up blogs, partially because I can't keep up with myself and partially because I want to get a good overview of my new home, Roswell, New Mexico and the Chihuahuan desert, before focusing on the sections that I'm exploring on monthly hikes. Also, I'm finding photography to be so intensive in my explorations of biology that I'm branched into a deeper study of photography. Following, I plan to refresh my knowledge of electronics and, specifically microcontrollers and data loggers. So I've rebuilt my prototyping set.

Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art 

On my last hike, July 13, 2026, I noticed that the Anderson Museum has reopened following the devastating floods of last year and I stepped in briefly. I will certainly have to revisit next month. This museum features works both in the private collection of  founder Donald Anderson and his own works, plus exhibition of members of Roswell's artist in resident program.

Hopefully the Roswell Museum will also be reopened by next month's hike. There are a few places that I was not able to spend enough time at in July.

My lifelong learning is active. I go out to meet the world on its own terms, but I do read (or, rather, I listen. My dyslexia leads me to prefer screen readers). I'm currently reading some works that I.can gladly recommend to readers of this blog.

I'm a sociologist and it's rare enough to find readable literature that accurately delves into the work of the sociologist. Anthropology, History, and American Indians: Essays in Honor of William Curtis Sturtevant, edited by William L. Merrill and Ives Goddard is a readable and fascinating window into the work of the anthropologist. It is volume number 44 of the Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology 

I'm also reading through the mathematics textbooks of Frank Lynwood Wren:

Basic Mathematical Concepts

Basic Algebraic Concepts

Trigonometry for Secondary Schools

These are my votes for most approachable math textbooks. They're written for primary and secondary teachers of mathematics, not mathematicians and they're readable, understandable, and surprisingly deep with a lot of interesting sidelights 

I've seen people complain that Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum is convoluted and confusing. I don't understand that. It may get academic about the Knights Templar but that's part of the charm. I would recommend it to anyone that wants a thriller that also deserves to be considered a classic.

I've recently introduced myself to Haruki Murakami through his The Elephant Vanishes. It's a collection of short stories somewhere between slice of life and magical realism and I haven't failed to be charmed yet. I'm about half way through 

Having moved to Roswell, I felt obliged to reread Dr. Gregory Reece's UFO Religion and enjoyed it so I continued with Weird Science, which I haven't read before. I'll probably reread Creatures of the Night when I finish. One reviewer opined that Dr. Reece should have left out the personal adventures, and adventures they are. Dr. Reece is an Indiana Jones of sociology (actually, his field is Religious Studies). The said reviewer certainly has a right to state his opinion.....but what's wrong with him?

Peggy and Lane Larson's, The Deserts of the Southwest, A Sierra Club Naturalist's Guide, is better than a reference work. It's readable, fascinating, and charming  I moved to the Chihuahuan desert and became a desert rat so I figured I should read up on the area.

Desert storm 

We're going through monsoon season, Although "monsoon" brings images of horrific storms and floods, the actuality is the Pacific version of Atlantic tropical storms. Ours are not as extreme as the ones in Asia but they're driven by pretty much the same forces. The North American monsoons are milder than their Indian counterparts primarily because the Mexican Plateau is not as high or as large as the Tibetan Plateau. So we get thunderstorms to cool things down between July and September (when they really need cooling down!), an occasional tornado, high winds, and dust storms.

Irrigation ditch 

Farmers are irrigating crops now. This irrigation ditch is just about the prettiest stream I've seen in the area. It's fed by artesian wells and can be turned on and off 

Monster sand spurs

Desert plants are producing seeds. Many of them travel by sticking to passing animals. They'll also puncture flesh. Sand spurs, grass seeds, and goatheads make their ways into shoes.

Goatheads.  New Mexico's professional hockey team is called the Goatheads. "What a strange name for a sports team!" I thought......until somebody explained that the vegetable caltrops that had punctured me multiple times were called "goatheads", because the seeds were sorta, kinda shaped like goat heads (sorta). How appropriate.

Cumulonimbus clouds

Desert skies are spectacular. They're one of the best things about the desert. Visibility is normally very high, You can see weather systems coming from way off. 

Juneteenth fireworks 

It's hard to see my phone's screen because of the glare so I didn't know my selfie camera was on. Still one of my favorite shots of myself.

The moon

My phone's zoom does surprisingly well!

Homeostasis

 My hikes, especially the grueling ones, double as medical monitoring. I regularly tell my doctor that I've just completed my stress test....An endurance hike, if I can survive that, my heart must be in pretty good shape!

In my experience, if my general health is good, incidental and focal illnesses are not as intense and resolve quicker.

Living things maintain homeostasis  We are assemblages of tiny bags of chemicals. Try throwing a bunch of chemicals in a bag and see how long the reactions last. Living thing evolved to maintain the chemical reactions we call life for a lifetime.

So, I put cold and warm tap water, and water from our tea kettle into plastic cups and dropped in Efferdent effervescent tablets. And I videoed the process. Guess the temperature sequence!

The cup on the left has the hot water and the one on the right has the cool water. The rate of the reaction is determined by the temperature. The last thing a living creature needs is to be dependent on temperature 

I wanted to know how well my body maintained its internal temperature so I taped a temperature and humidity sensor (Cloudcom A1 by ACInfinity) to my chest (the upper right circle below). The transmitter is in the lower left circle just above the bottom circle around my smartphone.

The data logger communicates with my phone via Bluetooth. Then I put on a t-shirt and my floppy hat and went on a 2,8 mile hike in the 103° F Chihuahuan desert.

The ACInfinity app collected the data and I imported it to my spreadsheet and charted it 

 As shown in the legend, the blue dots trace my body temperature (a little affected by the air temperature since the side of the sensor not against me was against tape, a t-shirt, and the outside world) and the red dots trace the humidity inside my T-shirt (mostly determined by my sweat.)

Two things in particular affected my body temperature: the cooling evaporation of my sweat and the blood which was being shunted to my skin to get rid of its heat (Despite America's song about the "Horse With No Name", I didn't turn brown....I turned red). There's a little temperature fluctuation in the chart but it's on the order of four degrees around 95°.  Looking at the histogram provided by the ACInfinity app, .....

my body temperature was between 93.9° and 97.2°. The mean was around 96° which is pretty close to my regular body temperature. (Yep. I'm cool.....at least my body temp. is. Average normal value for humans is 97.9° but that value varies considerably between 97 to 99° with older people being a little cooler and axial (armpit) temperatures being about a degree below oral temperatures.

Those low temperatures happened when I got back to my air conditioned house.

The humidity readings followed my sweating, which dropped pretty quickly when I started back and stepped into the shade of a pecan orchard  Notice that,  that jogged my temperature a bit but it stabilized quickly.

All in all, my body does pretty well maintaining an even body temperature.

Blood pressure is a different matter. My homeostasis in the area of blood pressure has been rather faulty most of my adult life. Both of my parents' families had a tendency towards hypertension. But there are drugs for that. 

One way you can explore bioIogical processes is in your own body. Home diagnostic equipment like blood pressure cuffs, thermometers, and even stethoscopes are not expensive. I tracked my temperature, blood pressure and pulse through a day and came up with these results 

Only that top blood pressure reading (systolic and diastolic) is in a clinically significant range and for my history it's still pretty good. 

I take most of my antihypertensive drugs soon after awakening, which explains why my blood pressure quickly dropped after the first reading  Otherwise, my pulse and temperature behave during the day. The mildly effortful task of cleaning out the refrigerator didn't even appreciably change the readings 

If you're curious about the "systolic" and "diastolic",  check your blood pressure sometime, at home or at one of those department store kiosks. The cuff will inflate around your arm (or some of the home units use a finger) and then start to deflate. At a point, you will feel your pulse..... that's your systolic pressure where your heart's strongest stroke is fighting the cuff. Then at another point the pulse will almost disappear because the cuff's pressure no longer blocks your circulation..... that's your diastolic. It's the pressure behind your heart's weaker stroke. If you have access to a stethoscope, you can hear this double stroke.

Medical diagnostics are a rich source of information for students of biology. They measure homeostasis. The "normal range" is the values your body tries to maintain. The temperature range of 97° to 99° F. Is the optimal range for the chemical reactions that keep you alive. 

What I call "endurance hikes" are exercises I do to push myself a little outside those limits to see if my body can effectively bring me back to optimal conditions 

Some of the processes of over-exertion simulate the more dangerous process of starvation. You have the resources to recover quickly but you don't access them quickly enough to maintain balance. I've made several endurance hikes while writing these blog. You can search for "endurance hike" using the blog's search box in the upper left 

In starvation, you first draw on the glycogen stores in your muscles and liver. You can do that for about a day. Longer, and you start burning up protein stores in muscles  Generally, you want to conserve  your muscle tissues while delivering enough glucose past your blood-brain barrier to fuel your brain. That's when you start drawing on fat deposits which deliver ketones which can easily cross over into your brain. 

On a long hard hike, it's not hard to catch the ammonia scent of proteins being burnt or the musty or fruity smell of ketones.

For extreme exertion, the primary factors you need to monitor are blood glucose (trail mixes that gives fast release sugars and slow release fats and proteins are actually good sources), hydration, and electrolytes (sodium, chloride, potassium, and calcium are the most important) Clarity of mind, muscle tone, and your own smell are good indicators but you should have planned stops to replenish and concentrate on how you feel 

Unfortunately, there are two ways that homeostasis can go wrong. It's easy enough to overdrive it if you're not paying attention and push yourself outside your limits. Or your homeostatic machine can be defective.

An example....I know several people with diabetes 

Glucose is the fuel that living things oxidize to get energy. They can't directly burn the sugar, of course, so there are involved chains if chemical reactions that gradually break the simple sugar down and store the energy produced in compounds like ATP that can release the stored energy as needed. But the toxic level of glucose in the blood is fairly low so glucose levels must be kept fairly tightly between toxic and starvation levels.

Human bodies maintain blood glucose levels using two negative feedback loops. Three systems sense glucose levels. The primary organ in the loop is the pancreas. It has alpha cells that sense when blood glucose is too low and release glucagon which signals the body to break down glycogen stored in muscle and liver tissue to release glucose. There are a couple other mechanisms to control glucose levels. The brain itself can detect glucose in the blood and modify the hunger response. Also the gut can produce a hormone, insulin that tells the pancreas to produce insulin. 

The pancreas also has beta cells that sense high levels of glucose and cause other cells in the pancreas (called "the Isles of Langerhans") to secrete a polypeptide, insulin, which triggers the reactions that polymerizes glucose to form fats in adipose tissues and glycogen in liver and muscle cells.

There are two forms of diabetes (at least). In one, type 1 diabetes, the body's immune response attacks the pancreas and kills the cells that produce insulin. Without insulin, there is no quick response to too much glucose in the blood. In the other, the cells that store glucose develop a tolerance to Insulin and doesn't react to take glucose out of the blood. That's type 2 diabetes. (There's also a third form of diabetes associated with pregnancy, gestational diabetes. There may be other, rarer forms).

Homeostasis, control of blood glucose levels doesn't work in people with diabetes, so they have to use artificial means. One friend has a pump that responds to an attached glucose sensor to deliver  synthetic insulin by injection. The older way to deal with type 1 diabetes was to frequently measure blood glucose from finger sticks to adjust dietary intake of carbohydrates.

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Another example of homeostasis gone wrong is fever. It's part of the general inflammatory response. If you turn your ankle or have some other joint problem or if a wound gets infected, you might notice that the area becomes warner to the touch. Microscopic pathogens also have "normal" temperature range and your body will try to make them hotter than is good for them. Unfortunately, the response over does it and let's your internal temperature get too high. That's when the behavioral side of homeostasis comes into effect and you start taking medicine and wiping your forehead with cool cloths to get your temperature down.

Homeostasis has to work at all levels for life to happen.

For instance, for the chemical processes that make up life, the human body needs to maintain a pH range between 7.35 and 7.45. There are several buffer systems in the blood to achieve that but the primary one is the bicarbonate-carbonic acid system. The carbon dioxide formed as a waste product of metabolism in the body is carried to the lungs dissolved in blood to be removed into the air. Carbon dioxide dissolved in water is carbonic acid. Along with the sodium ions, sodium bicarbonate is also present. It just so happens that the carbonic acid (an acid that can neutralize bases) and sodium bicarbonate (a base that can neutralize acids) form a chemical system that maintains it's environment between a pH of 7.35 and 7.45.

You can actually throw this buffer system off by breathing fast and hard (hyperventilating) and loading the blood stream with too much carbon dioxide. That causes respiratory acidosis, a condition that can cause severe side effects 

On the cellular level, there are proteins in cell walls that can move glucose into and out of cells but you need to have a certain amount in the cell to fuel the cell. Once the sugar is in, you don't want it to escape, so the first thing a cell does when processing sugar is to attach a phosphate group so that it can't leave 

On the organism level, both hormones and autonomic nerves play a part in homeostasis and not just with negative feedback loops. Positive feedback is also used 

One of the "feel good" hormones, oxytocin, plays a big part in childbirth. When the child's head presses up against the mother's cervix, it stimulates the production of oxytocin by the brain which, in turn, causes uterine contractions. That causes more pressure on the cervix until the baby is born and the process is shut down.

The process of blood clotting in a wound is also a positive feedback loop with the clotting factors increasing until bleeding stops.

Feedback loops operate to maintain balance on the ecosystem and even the global levels.

Predator-prey populations are classic. If there are too many predators, they eat too many prey. Then there's not enough food and some of the predators die until balance is restored. If there are too few predators, the prey overpopulate and reduce their food resources, which reduces the prey population and valance us restored.

Two major studies are the Isle Royale wolf-moose study

Wolves and Moose on Isle Royale

And the Yellowstone River wolf reintroduction study.

History of Wolves in Yellowstone

Do plants demonstrate homeostasis? Certainly.

An interesting demonstration tracks the state of stomata (leaf pores) in plant leaves.

Plants take in one of their primary nutrients, carbon dioxide, through these pores. They use carbon dioxide to build sugar via photosynthesis. Then they use the sugar the same way we do, as fuel. The process also needs water, which most plants take up through their roots. But evaporation of water through stomata produces a negative pressure that draws water up into the plant.

Stomata open and close to take up or conserve gases (carbon dioxide or waste oxygen) or water vapor (and keep in mind the cycle in which plants "breathe" in carbon dioxide and ",breathe" out oxygen while animals breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide...... it's important).

You can observe stomata by taking a cast of a leaf using clear nail polish  You need the nail polish, clear tape, and a microscope slide.

Lightly paint a strip of polish over the leaf. There is usually more stomata on the underside of leaves. Give if 15 minutes to dry. I used Sally Hansen's Diamond and waited 30 minutes once. The cast came out perfectly. Stick a piece of clear tape over the polish. When you peel the tape off, the polish will come with it. Stick the tape to the microscope slide. 

Keep in mind that you aren't looking at the leaf. You're examining an impression of the leaf surface. The reason for looking at the cast is that you can't see through the leaf with a light microscope 

Here are my subjects.

Right; pistachio (Pistacia vera, probably)

Left: ash (my guess velvet ash: Fraxinus velutina)

Pistachio leaf

Here's a cast I took during the hot part of the day

And one I took at 9:00 PM.

Notice that the pores seem to be more open at night. They are. The plant is trying to conserve water and carbon dioxide during the hot hours of the day, but it has to get rid of oxygen and extra water so it waits until night to do that.

Top level responses like behavior play a part in homeostasis. Abraham Maslow organized needs by order of urgency. We barely consider higher level needs if lower level needs aren't met. If you're hungry, you don't worry too much about social status  Here's his pyramid.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

From Wikipedia. Author: Factory Joe. (6/29/2009)

And not all of our behavior is choice. Part of our neuronal machine is the autonomic nervous system. It's "autonomic" because it's automatic. It takes care of things like breathing, sweating, digestion....things you don't want to tell your body to do everytime.

There are two parts to the autonomic system: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic system 

If you're surprised by something, whether it's dangerous or not, your body goes on alert by triggering the sympathetic system  It speeds up you're heart and lungs to get oxygen and fuel to your cells. It also slows down your digestion (this is no time for stomach issues!) and dilates your pupils to get more light to your eyes. It also stimulates your adrenal glands to release epinephrine which tells your metabolism to go into catabolic overdrive so that cells will break down stores of glucose for quick energy.

It's called "fight or flight response" because it's what it makes you want to do.

There's an opposite reaction governed by the parasympathetic system when things are nice and calm and you can conserve energy. Digestion ramps up to set up stores of fuel. Most other functions slow down and you get to "rest and digest" ( that's what the parasympathetic response is often called. Sometimes it's called "tend and befriend"). When things are going well, you might get a dose of oxytocin, the "feel good" hormone.

When the sympathetic system goes on the fritz, it might result in a reaction called Generalized Anxiety Reaction. If you see someone in the middle of one, don't tell them to calm down, they can't. And it is often described as the feeling that you're going to die. Usually they don't (I've been there, by the way. I can vouch for it ) Just stay with them. Make sure they're in a safe space. Offer them cool water. Be supportive and remind them to breathe deeply and slowly. Ask them what they need 

An attack usually doesn't require hospitalization but if it lasts more than a few minutes, it might be something else so don't panic and call an emergency number.

There is another reaction called "homeostatic emotion". If you've ever been so hungry, thirsty, or oxygen deprived that urgently have to do something about it you've experienced it 

Every morning, your body ramps up for business. You may have notice when you were sick or injured that inflammations get worse later in the day. That's because the body dumps cortisols into the bloodstream early to get inflammations out of the way at the start of the day. Also, the reason you don't soil your bed in your sleep is that, when the parasympathetic nervous system puts you in rest mode, it clamps off exits from the body. Those open up when the day starts.

The sympathetic reaction perhaps should be called "fight, flight, or get busy". Exercise routines tell the body when to fire up the sympathetic system. When I was in college, I exercised religiously but I soon learned that if I exerted myself during an epidemic, I would catch whatever was going around.

I have an overactive immune system. As a consequence, I rarely ever have an infection and when I do, it lasts a few hours or maybe a day, but if it triggers an inflammation, I was in for it. Bronchitis, gastroenteritis, and iritis have been the babes of my existence all my life. As I've aged, joint problems have joined the trio 

But as I've aged, I've also learned ways to navigate my inflammatory problems. For instance, knowing that exertion reduces my body defenses, I use that to modulate them.

Homeostasis is a constant thread in biology from biochemistry to planetary ecology. It will appear over and over 

But if you don't become interested in biology as a long time study, you should learn how to balance your internal environment.

I haven't come close to completely covering the topic. I've just recounted my adventures. If you really want to learn about homeostasis, here are my sources:

Kahn Academy. They have whole sections on biology and if you just want to study homeostasis, they have a search bar that you can type "homeostasis" into. Lectures, articles, hands-on experiments, tests, they're all there 

CK12 Biology for High School. Multiple contributors

CK12 Biology for High School

Many healthcare providers have patient portals that allow patients to look at their own records. I use those a lot. 

And I look up normal ranges of medical tests in my copy of the Merck Manual. They're also on various websites.

 

Photography -2

 Professor Levoy goes very in depth into camera optics here:

Digital Photography

and I have posted explorations in optics in the Observing and Recording LabBook:

Observing and Recording

I will skip all that and start exploring the particular camera apps that I use.

My Moto g Power shipped with the standard Motorola Camera (version 10.0.47.40). At face, it's a point-and-shoot (everything is automatic mode) camera, unless.....unless you choose the Pro mode, in which case you suddenly have all the adjustments.....aperture, ISO, mid focus, white balance and contrast. In other words, Pro mode is manual mode for the Moto Camera 

The mode select bar is at the bottom just above the shutter release. There are a very satisfying number of modes to choose from.

One of its big strengths is an easy to get to slow motion video mode. It uses the primary camera only and there are not many controls available, but there doesn't really need to be.

You can select 1x or 2x. And it gives you a bar that lets you decide what section of the video will be slow. Here's that fan again.

It's simple and easy.

The birds here have learned a lot of tricks for dealing with the high winds. Here's a sparrow demonstrating some aerobatics. I heightened the contrast and darkened the scene to bring out it's image.

The video mode provides more control (but not slow motion) and has some unexpected tricks. For instance, it's an easy way to stop motion since you can use your editor to excise a still frame out of a video. Like this lightning strike.

 

You can select the flash and the microphone for sound. Moto Camera has FHD (Full High Definition), and unlike slow motion, you can use any of the three cameras.

Full High Definition is basically video with 1080 pixel resolution. The FHD icon allows you to switch from 30 frames per second to 60 frames per second, which can give a little crispness to a video  In the following video of Juneteenth fireworks, I begin with regular video. Around 14, I zoom to about 6x, then around 33, I switch from 30 fps to 60 fps.

The last item on the Mode bar (just above the shutter release) is "More". If you poke that, you'll see some special effect modes including two for video: Time Lapse and Dual Capture.

Time lapse is the opposite of slow motion. It speeds up the action. If you want to take a video of a flower opening, you can put the camera on a tripod, focus on the bud, and set the camera for Time Lapse.

In Time Lapse mode, there is a button to the right of the camera selector (above the shutter release, that opens a slider that will let you change the speed of the action.

Dual Capture will make a video with both the front and back cameras at the same time.

The Photo mode in the Moto Camera is basically the automatic mode discussed in Photography - 1, and, honestly, it does a great job of automatically adjusting exposure, field of view, and such which is why just about all the photographs in this blog have been taken in Photo mode.

It allows you to select which camera is used, whether to use the flash, photo aspect ratio, a time delay for the shutter, and a filter for the resulting photograph. In the settings, you can also include a time, date, location, camera, or Motorola logo stamp to include in the lower margin of the photograph.

The Portrait mode is completely automatic (you can select the flash) except that you can open a slider to adjust the depth of focus. In the following series, note that the yucca blossoms are clear at different distances from the camera 

On the Moto Camera, the manual mode is called Pro. Opening the Pro mode gives you a bar over the shutter release that lets you adjust the manual focus, white balance (tone temperature,), aperture, ISO, and contrast, and it also shows a histogram.

The histogram is a guide for tones in the photograph. The horizontal axis is brightness of pixels. The vertical axis is the number of pixels at a specific tone level. A dark photograph will show a histogram with most of the values to the left.

A light photograph will show tones clustering to the right.

 Night vision mode uses an algorithm to take a quick sequence of photographs of the same scene with the same exposure. Then it aligns them and cleans up the results. I was quite surprised at how well it  does in low light surroundings. It's not infrared. It does require some light to make images.

Also, contrast is important. Too much light in one area of a photograph will blot out details in another. I wanted to emphasize the soap tree yuccas against the dusk in the bottom photo. The top photo was a darker scene, so more ground details are visible 

With the Panorama mode, you can stand in one place, turn slowly, and obtain a photograph of 360° of a scene. If you want to include less than 360°, you can interrupt the scan by pressing the shutter release button.

Bitter Lakes National Wildlife Reserve 

The Chihuahuan desert 360°

The Scan mode allows you to capture a document image as a pdf. It automatically senses the borders and provides appropriate exposure and focus. It's sorta extra for me since I have two dedicated scanner apps on my phone 

The Photo Booth Mode provides a burst of a series of selfies. It also provides some options for modifying the portraits such as slimming, altering the size of the eyes subtly, changing the tone, etc 

These cameras are fun to play with and, frankly, that's the best way to learn how to use them  Of the six camera apps on my phone, the one that came with the phone, the Moto Camera, is the most convenient. It can be set up to take photos from the lock screen, with a tap anywhere on the screen, or when the camera detects a smile or your palm in the front camera. You can also set the phone up so that the camera opens when you twist your wrist holding the camera.

Likely, the resident camera on your phone will be similar. It may offer some special trucks so be sure to explore it.

,  

Roswell: Highway 285 to Berrendo Road - Education and sports

 

Berrendo Elementary School

I walk by this school two or three days a week. It's the elementary school for the Berrendo district. There is also a middle school east of Main Street and North of East Pine Lodge Road that I haven't seen. 

According to the Roswell City website, Roswell has four high schools, four middle schools and twelve elementary schools. The high schools have options for traditional classes, college bound curricula, or advanced placement. I'll be visiting some of these schools in my explorations (actually, I've already been by Goddard High School to check out their rockets). There are also three Christian schools.

In higher education, there are the New Mexico Military Institute and the Eastern New Mexico University. There is also the Roswell Job Corps Center.

As bad as people talk about New Mexico schools, I have noticed that students and faculty members in these schools seem to enjoy being there. The Roswell schools have more fine art programs than any other schools in the state.

There are far too many sports programs in Roswell,  either in schools and out, sponsored by the community and independent. I will be talking about some as I explore the town. For instance I've already seen two golf courses and more than one big sports complexes.

This is the desert. The nearest sizable towns (Ruidoso and Carlsbad) are 75 miles away. People need something to do. And people are out doing things here. I I never get to ignore car or foot traffic when I walk.

Photography - 1

 Although point-and-shoot photography, provided by my smartphones, have served me well in the past, occasionally, I need to have more control and my study of biology has brought that forward, especially here in the desert where the intense light adds an extra factor and need for adjusting exposure.

So I decided to take Professor Marc Levoy's online digital photography course (Digital Photography). And I'm learning quite a lot.

Exposure, the amount of light reaching the photographic element affecting the brightness of the image, is a subtle balance of shutter speed, lens aperture, and ISO which is a measure of the sensors sensitivity to the light.

The trick is that each control involves a different trade off.

For instance, the longer the shutter remains open, the more motion you will catch and the more the subject will blur, which is an effect that you might want occasionally, but not usually.

These two scenes show what progressive shutter speeds will do to brightness.

If you expand the photos above, you can see that the dog is more blurred in the brighter (top) photo.

You can really see the trade off of motion blur and brightness in the photographs of the ceiling fan below  Only the shutter speeds were changed between photos.

Aperture width controls brightness but it also controls depth of field, the area a distance away from the lens where subjects are sharp. Only my Photon camera allows the virtual aperture to be changed and the differences aren't great, so that might be why the other apps don't provide the option.

Top right f/1 clockwise by steps to f/16. Expand each photo and you can see a difference in the sharpness of leaf veins 

ISO is the last element of exposure. It was originally a measure developed by the International Organization for Standards to describe how "fast" a photographic film was, that is, how sensitive it was to light. Since sensitivity was related to the graininess of the photographic emulsion used, it also was associated with the graininess of the image produced. That translated well into digital photography 

For a CCD, (photographic sensor) each pixel can be amplified to increase its sensitivity to light. That amplification also introduces noise. Enlarge the following photographs and note the "graininess" of the images.

An ISO of 100 is the image as it is produced by the sensor without any amplification. ProShot will adjust ISO from 100 to 19200 and those values are shown in steps above. The top left image has an ISO of 100 and the sequence gets brighter to the lower right. But enlarge the lower right image to see how grainy it looks, so there's a trade off. And you might want that graininess. I sorta like it 

Autofocus (automatic mode) adjusts everything for you and usually does a good job except for some special effects. You can even adjust depth of field in automatic mode on some cameras (like ProShot and Photon) by tapping on the part of a scene you want to have the focus.

Bracketing is a useful tool for planning a picture. It gives you a number of successive shots of the same scene with progressive exposures. The following shows three exposures differing by 2.2 stops.

So, before I go on to my second photography blog, let me tell you what Professor Levoy says about choosing a camera 

If you have the money, get an SLR (or DSLR) or MIL, not a point-and-shoot. 

Don't worry about megapixels, most cameras have too many.

Don't worry about brand or body 

Worry about lenses. Variable zooms are nice but consider the quality.

Avoid large focal ranges because they tend to be "soft".

Maximum aperture (lower f-stops) is good 

Some accessories you might want: 

50 mm f/1.8 "prime" (fixed focal length) lens for low light work

A good, light tripod isn't too expensive, and you might want a table tripod 

An external flash can be used to advantage. You can control where the light goes....and the shadows 

Video capability.

Now, that said:

Bryan Peterson's Understanding Photography Fieldguide is subtitled How to shoot great photographs with any camera, and for fieldwork I take it as gospel. For professional work, spend the money. 

Roswell: Highway 285 to Berrendo Road - Arts and culture

 People in other parts of the country do not generally consider Roswell a high culture city and it's certainly not a beacon of culture, but being a college town, it shouldn't be too surprising that there is art and culture here. In fact, the city makes it a point to provide cultural activities for residents' enjoyment, and they tend to be popular 

There isn't a lot of high art in North Roswell but there are some attractive pieces like this sculpture....

at the Silva Law Firm.

There are eight museums in Roswell displaying things from aliens to less mysterious space science to modern art. I will be checking those out as I continue exploring the town (A couple of them are closed for repair after last years disastrous floods )

There are also some interesting statues and other monuments in other parts of town.

I also look forward to visiting the visitor center and public library in the center of town 

There have been quite a few stellar individuals who have lived and worked in or near Roswell 

Wikipedia lists 21 prominent people who lived a significant amount of time in Roswell (in alphabetical order). They are:

Robert O. Anderson (1917-2007) American businessman, art collector, and philanthropist. Born in Chicago and died in Roswell. The Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art is named after him. He is the founder of the Atlantic Richfield Company. In his time he was the largest landowner in the U.S. with over 2000 square miles of property in Texas and New Mexico 

Bobby Baldock (1936 - ) United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appels for the tenth circuit. He was born in Oklahoma 

Tom Brookshier (1932-3010) American football player, coach, and sportscaster. Born in Roswell, he died in Pennsylvania. His football career ended with the Philadelphia Eagles with a knee injury. He went on to be a popular sportscaster.

John Chissum (1824-1884) rancher and cattle barron. He owned the Jingle Bob Ranch about five miles west of Roswell.

Louise Holland Coe (1894-1985) first woman elected to New Mexico Senate and first woman to run for the Congress in the U.S. Born in Texas and died in Roswell.

Max Coll (1932- ) 15 term New Mexico Representative.

Ray Crawford (1915-1996) American fighter and test pilot, race car driver and businessman. 

John Denver (1943-1997)  born Henry John Deutschendorf Jr., although he is definitely remembered as a Coloradoan (who wrote one of the two official state songs: Rocky Mountain High) who lived in Aspen, he was born in Roswell and is remembered fondly.

Pat Garrett (1850-1908) Among other things, the sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico who was famous for killing Billy the Kid.

Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945) Although he was born in Massachusetts, he did most of his work inventing liquid fuel rockets around Roswell, New Mexico. His rocket designs led to those that carried people into space and to the moon.

Susan Graham (1960 -) operatic mezzo-soprano. She was born in Roswell, but didn't stay here long. She has encouraged the popularity of French and contemporary American songs 

J. J. Hagerman (1838-1909) industrialist and operated mines, railroads, and corporate farms. He moved to the Roswell area in 1892, buying the Chissum Jingle Bob Ranch. He donated part of the land currently occupied by the New Mexico Military Institute. He was born near Port Hope in upper Canada but moved to the western United States due to contracted tuberculosis. But he lived in Europe for the last years of his life and died in Milan, Italy.

James F. Hinkle (1862-1951) Roswell mayor, New Mexico State senator, and New Mexico governor.

Nancy Lopez (1957- ) LPGA tour golfer. Won 48 LPGA tour events, including three major championships. She was born in California but went to Goddard High School in Roswell.

Jody McCrea (1934-2009) Actor. Born in Los Angeles but died in Roswell. He retired from films in 1972 and became a rancher in Roswell.

Gerina Piller (1985- ) LPGA professional golfer. Born in Roswell, she attended college and currently lives in Texas.

Priscilla Presley (1945- ) Business woman and actress. Wife of Elvis Presley. Born in New York, Her father, Paul Beaulieu, was stationed at Roswell Air Force Base during her childhood. During that time she attended Valley View Elementary School.

Clinton Puckett (1926-2002) 6th Sargent Major of the Marine Corps. He serves in World War II, the Vietnam War, and Korea and received the Navy Cross for extreme heroism in Korea. He was born in Waurika, Oklahoma, grew up in Roswell and died in Washington, D.C. His Wikipedia article has a copy of his decoration describing the event for which he was awarded.....movie material.

Clinton Puckett Navy Cross citation

James Riseley (1898-1992) a decorated officer of the United States Marine Corps, he was born in New York and lived the last part of his life in Roswell.

Jason Lawrence Geiger (1974- ) also known professionally as Austin St. John is an actor, popularly the first Red Power Ranger, Jason Kee Scott.

I hate being so brief with these people. They're real people with fascinating lives (like everyone), but this is a blog with some space restrictions (I can study or I can write blogs). Each has their own Wikipedia article and I recommend that you check out the historical people of your area. Also check out local memorials and their back stories. If you move around much, you're going to see statues of boll weevils, and apples, and peaches......and what is Lady Liberty doing in Alabama?!

Cells and extending perception: some tools of biology - 2

 Both field work and laboratory exercises involve imaging, especially if there's a blog involved. Fortunately, modern smartphones provide several camera options.

My smartphone is a Motorola Moto g Power with three cameras. There are two back cameras (the ones on the side opposite the screen), and one front camera (the one used for selfies).

My field kit (fits nicely into my backpack)

Life happens across all scales of a biome and imaging has to keep up with the scale 

The molecules that make up the basis of life are just regular compounds like salt (sodium chloride) and water extending up to huge molecules like proteins and genetic molecules. They exist at the nanometer scale. A nanometer is a thousandth of a micrometer, which is a thousandth of a millimeter, which is a thousandth of a meter. It's smaller than the wavelength of visible light, so we can't use a light microscope to see it. 

Electron wavelengths are on the order of 20 nanometers down to (under acceleration) picometers (a picometer is a thousandth of a nanometer). We can use electrons in electron microscopes to see molecules.

Pleolipoviral virion (HRPV-6)

Tatiana A. Demina, Hanna M. Oksanen

From Electron Microscope, Wikipedia article 

But electron microscopes are expensive and absolutely not portable so any image at the nanoscale here will be from public domain images.

I catch up at the micrometer scale. 

My smartphone, a Motorola Moto g Power, has three built in cameras. For most of my past photography, point-and-shoot did pretty much what I wanted but biology is requiring a little more ... finesse. So I'm taking a course in photography, a series of lectures by Marc Levoy, professor emeritus of computer science at Stanford University. (Digital Photography )  Early on he recommends avoiding phone cameras but for reasons of expense and portability, I ain't gonna. 

Actually, I am very impressed with the advances in phone cameras from my last to my current phone. 

There are many (!) camera apps available to optimize the cameras in smartphones. They work some different from professional cameras. To approximate the same control over images, they have to use some advanced algorithms to simulate them.

In addition to the camera app that came with the phone, a fairly no frills point-and-shoot digital camera with options in the settings menu, I selected three other general purpose apps and two for managing exterior cameras like camcorders and a bore scope.

Why collect camera apps? Because they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Don't feel limited by my selection, but the ones I use are:

OpenCamera. By Mark Harman. A fairly unassuming camera, with a lot under the hood including a choice of metadata to a display as stamps on the photographs.

Proton, by Hinnka. This is a strong simulation of a professional DSLR down to dial selectors. Both it and the next offer extensive control of exposure, color, special effects, and style with in-camera editing of images 

ProShot, by Rise Up Games, is also an excellent simulation of a pro DSLR camera  I used ProShot for most of the photo micrographs in the first part of this blog (this is part 2).

Microscopy and photomicroscopy operate in the micrometer range, perfectly doable for visible light. Most small organisms, bacteria, protozoa, many medical parasites, molds and yeasts, fall into that range.

The micrometer is such a common unit in biology that it's often just shortened to "micron" and the nanometer is sometimes called a "millimicron" (less so than in the past).

Single cells are usually colorless which makes them hard to see with visible light so stains and other tricks (polarized light, fluorescence, dark field microscopy, etc ) are used to make them visible. Stains are dyes that attach to or dissolve in or react with certain parts of cells. For instance, lipid soluble dyes will preferentially color the lipid membranes of cells while water soluble dyes will go to the watery interiors. The indicators commonly used in analytical chemistry may dye different parts of cells that have different chemical properties differently. For instance, a pH indicator will dye acid and base elements different colors 

Even food colors will bring out the nuclei in cells.

Cheek epithelium cells

I have two clip-on microscopes as featured in the last part of this blog. The more powerful one will resolve cells but isn't quite strong enough to clearly view structures within the cells smaller than a nucleus or large vacuole.

The less powerful microscope is more portable and easier to use in the field but is fine for tiny details like grains of sand, small crystals, tiny flowers, small insects and other invertebrates.

The camera apps have functions that can sharpen microscopic images and enhance contrast.

Macrophotography involves close up photographs of detail, and usually operates in the millimeter range. Most smartphones today have at least a standard back camera and a camera with a macro lens. Some have wide field cameras. Mine doesn't but I do have a clip-on wide field kens 

On one of my treks into town, I noticed a mossy looking (actually not a moss but a succulent) plant covered spot of the ground. Interested in the tiny white flecks, I switched to my micro camera, got close and took this photograph.

Rattlesnake weed (Euphorbia albomarginata)

These tiny, exquisite blossoms were barely a millimeter across.

The first exposure I had to the idea of "bellyflowers" was from a documentary long ago by the Moody Institute of Science about researchers in Death Valley. In the desert (like where I now live), it's often a good survival trait to be small and close to the ground, so many desert flowers are produced by ground covers and are tiny 

"Standard" photography is also important in biology because the centimeter to decameter range is where we live. I saw this fellow on a trip back from town one day and he stayed long enough for me to get a picture.

Osprey

 The advantage of "regular" photography is that I almost always have my smartphone with me but I only have my photographic paraphernalia if I plan to have it.

I'm also impressed by the stabilization offered by current phone cameras. The trick of waiting until the shutter button has been poked and the camera motion has settled down is good, but my newest phone has OIS, "optical image stabilization". If I twitch in one direction when I press the shitter release, the camera senses it and twitches the camera kens in the opposite direction, canceling the blur 

Telephotography carries my photography into the range from here to as far as my eyes can see. Capturing images of skittish or dangerous animals from afar or surveying ecosystems is valuable in ecology and conservation 

Jupiter

Grackle in the tree top

Clip-on telephoto lenses are not expensive and are of fairly good quality. Mine is a Pusokei 22x telephoto lens .

The bird came out great.....Jupiter, not so much. Telephoto can only go so far in capturing astronomical images. For that, you need a telescope and that is outside my range for this blog. Biology, in general, though, goes on to the stars in it's search for answers to the questions of where life on Earth came from and if there might be other life in other parts of the universe and what it might be like. That is the purview of exobiology.

I was excited when I noticed that my last phone had "night vision". I figured "infrared camera" but was a little disappointed when I found that it wasn't. On the other hand, I've started fooling around with it on my new camera and am changing my mind.

Night vision has to have some light to work. I tried it in our pitch black garage and couldn't see anything, but given half a chance, it can use what light is available to produce some pretty awesome images 

It's a software adaptation of digital cameras. They take several quick photographs, superimpose them, and then clean up blurry edges. 

As macular degeneration has pretty much destroyed my night vision, I have found that I can use my phone's night vision to navigate dark dates.

It seems that most phone cameras are now equipped with night vision.

The banner for this blog was hand stitched but modern digital cameras have a feature called "panorama". You stand in one spot and rotate and your camera will nicely stitch the whole scene together for you.

Bitter Lakes National Wildlife Refuge

The Chihuahuan desert 

The other side of the smartphone camera is the video. Most phone cameras are also video cameras and, what's more, they have video editors 

I went out on a stormy night to capture about 2 minutes of distant lightning. The result was too long to insert into a Blogger blog so I trimmed it down some to get this.

Now, it's difficult to catch action precisely in a photograph. You can use apps like motion detectors to trigger a camera. Some cameras even come with motion detectors, but there is an easier way ....just make a video and extract what you want.

When reviewing the video above, I spotted a strike that I wanted a photograph of so I cut the following out and cleaned it up some.

This is the extracted scene but I felt like the blue made details a little harder to see so I shifted it a little more to the red to get this.

The most common admonition I've seen in courses on photography is "take lots of pictures". Much of photography is feeling. Volume gives you a chance to learn the features of your camera and a feeling for composition and, generally, what works 

I don't have Professor Levoy's objection to smartphone cameras so, whether you have a film or digital camera or a smartphone, go out and take lots of pictures!