I don't like the word sinistral as it comes from the same old word as sinister, and has negative meanings. But is used for left-handed people, of which I am one.
Friday 20 April 2012
Direction of coiling (torsion) in snails
Just recently I've been getting a load of emails from students in the US using my snail page, I'm sure there are loads better pages around, so I don't know why they like mine. Perhaps it's the mating pics. Anyway I decided to clear something up, and that is how to tell the difference between dextral and sinistral coiling. So I drew a diagram showing the difference as my written explanation wasn't very good. And here it is.
Friday 6 April 2012
Long absence
Sorry to anyone who has been following the drivel I write here. I've just been so busy since Christmas that I haven't written anything here, but lots has been happening.
Santa brought me an iPad - lovely.
I discovered just why everyone is raving about Steig Larson's - don't know about the spelling there - Millenium Trilogy, and I've read the lot and seen one film. They are definitely not the kind of books I normally read, but I found them riveting, and read them one after another. They are so good that I imagine I will read them again sometime.
I also found out that it is poss. to download books from the local library on to the ipad - got the Millenium Trilogy that way. Here in the UK they do not let you do this on to the Kindle, which is a shame as the Kindle is lighter and easier on the eye than a backlit screen. Also the great boon of the Kindle is the battery life - the ipad cannot come anywhere near to competing with this.
However the ipad has apps galore. I downloaded a really useful one recently called Slideshark. It is great for giving talks when you need to show slides or short videos. You can use it with Powerpoint presentations too. So I didn't need to lug the vintage laptop along when I did a talk recently.
The bumblebees around here have been having a hard time with the weather. We had an amazingly warm March, with temperatures over 20, then a foot of snow overnight and below zero. So one afternoon it was over 20 and that very night we had a blizzard and woke up to frozen ponds and dead tomatoes in the greenhouse. Luckily for the bumblebee queens that have survived - and there are many - the good weather made the fruit trees bloom early, so there is a lot of nectar and pollen around.
Also read a hilarious book by Dawn French called A Little bit Marvellous. It is a very light book, and can be read in one sitting, but it is a really great way to pass what would otherwise be a few dull hours. There are 2 very different teenagers in the book, and she has got them down to a T. I am so glad I don't have to go through those agonies again. When I look back on those years I was so influenced by fashion and fads, and what my peers thought of me. I did and wore things that I really didn't like, but just went along with the herd. I wish I'd had the strength of character to stick to what I liked. Oh well, I suppose this is one of the few benefits of growing old.
Santa brought me an iPad - lovely.
I discovered just why everyone is raving about Steig Larson's - don't know about the spelling there - Millenium Trilogy, and I've read the lot and seen one film. They are definitely not the kind of books I normally read, but I found them riveting, and read them one after another. They are so good that I imagine I will read them again sometime.
I also found out that it is poss. to download books from the local library on to the ipad - got the Millenium Trilogy that way. Here in the UK they do not let you do this on to the Kindle, which is a shame as the Kindle is lighter and easier on the eye than a backlit screen. Also the great boon of the Kindle is the battery life - the ipad cannot come anywhere near to competing with this.
However the ipad has apps galore. I downloaded a really useful one recently called Slideshark. It is great for giving talks when you need to show slides or short videos. You can use it with Powerpoint presentations too. So I didn't need to lug the vintage laptop along when I did a talk recently.
The bumblebees around here have been having a hard time with the weather. We had an amazingly warm March, with temperatures over 20, then a foot of snow overnight and below zero. So one afternoon it was over 20 and that very night we had a blizzard and woke up to frozen ponds and dead tomatoes in the greenhouse. Luckily for the bumblebee queens that have survived - and there are many - the good weather made the fruit trees bloom early, so there is a lot of nectar and pollen around.
Also read a hilarious book by Dawn French called A Little bit Marvellous. It is a very light book, and can be read in one sitting, but it is a really great way to pass what would otherwise be a few dull hours. There are 2 very different teenagers in the book, and she has got them down to a T. I am so glad I don't have to go through those agonies again. When I look back on those years I was so influenced by fashion and fads, and what my peers thought of me. I did and wore things that I really didn't like, but just went along with the herd. I wish I'd had the strength of character to stick to what I liked. Oh well, I suppose this is one of the few benefits of growing old.
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