Scouting: Making fire without matches

I recently went camping with the cub scouts and one of their requirements was to start fire without matches.  I had to brush up on my knowledge to make sure I could even start a fire without matches.   Flint and steel in my opinion is the easiest way to get a spark and thus a fire if matches or a lighter are not a possibility.   Modern "flint" that is an alloy is actually a little better than real flint and is found anywhere that sells camping gear.

Artificial flint

The spark is the easy part; getting the spark to turn into a fire is the hard part.  That is where the "tinder" becomes important.  There are three tinder's that I wanted to show the boys that can easily go into your survival pack.  You can always make a tinder nest out of pine straw, leaves, dry grass, etc., but carrying these can things much easier.

1.  Cotton Balls
2.  Steel Wool
3.  Char Cloth

Cotton Balls

I think this cotton balls are probably the easiest to find and use. Just fluff the cotton ball up real good and throw a spark on it.  To make it even easier, rub petroleum jelly on the cotton ball.  A small tube of the petroleum jelly is easy to carry in a backpack, but if you don't have it a cotton ball all by itself will do just fine.

Fluff the cotton ball (on the right)

Get a spark on the cotton

Steel Wool

Steel Wool is amazing stuff because once a spark catches hold of it, the entire thing of steel wool will turn into one big ball of hot metal.  Steel wool comes in different types from course to fine.   Use super fine steel wool for the easiest path to a fire.  Small fibers of steel wool will break off and give you a splinter so be careful.  However, the advantage is even if your steel wool gets wet just ring it out and it can still be used as a fire starter.

Use super fine steel wool when possible

Get a spark on the steel wool

Blow gently to really make the wool get hot

Char Cloth

This is one my dad showed me when I was a kid.  I had to look up how to make it again.   If you have an old cotton t-shirt just cut it up into squares.  Throw the squares of cloth into a metal tin.  An old Altoids candy tin or similar container works well.  I used a small evaporated milk can.  A soup can or any metal can would work.  Remember to remove the paper label.  If you have a tin with a lid place a small hole in the lid.  If you have a soup can then place aluminum foil as tight as possible over the top and poke a small hole on the top of the aluminum foil.  Now just place the can on heat.   A bed of coals from a fire works the best, but other hear sources will work fine.  I made some of the grill.  I had to place the can directly on the burner shield instead of the grill grate so I could get it hot enough.   After 10 minutes or so a billowing column of smoke will start to come out of the hole.  When the smoke stops coming out the container then you are done.  You will be left with charcloth, a slow burning fuel.  It is now a blackened material that can easily catch a spark.  Throw a spark on the cloth and then you can lightly blow on the cloth to make the spark spread and eventually get your fire going.

Closed metal tin with a lid (add a hole to the lid)

Charcloth

Gently blow to make the cloth get hotter

Once you get one of these tinder types lit with a spark, the rest is just building up bigger and bigger twigs until you get fire.  So next time you you forget your lighter, don't worry.  If you can make a spark, then you can make fire.

Spark onto steel wool = FIRE

Astrophotography: Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2

There are those vivid memories of childhood that are just as clear as they happened yesterday.    I have one of those memories from growing up that I think it part of the reason I love space.  I was a kid and my dad took me out on a night adventure.  We had a creek that ran through the farm and once a year these large sucker fish would would swim upstream to spawn.  We would put on waders, walk up the creek with our flashlight and go fish gigging.   That was fun, but that one spring as we finished gigging and came out into the open field a large comet was visible in the sky.  I remember it being spectacular.  The tail took up almost half the sky.   Halley's comet had come when I was in second grade and I don't really remember it.   So this was my first experience with seeing a comet.  I don't even remember which comet it was, but it was stunning.   I had never seen something so beautiful in the night sky before.

Years passed and just recently I was so ready to see comet ISON when it got all its hype as the "comet of the century."  Yet that one basically disintegrated as it made it trip around the sun in 2013.  So then out of the blue, I was seeing amateur astronomers taking pictures of Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2 last year.  The comet gets is name from Terry Lovejoy who is the guy that found the comet.   By the way, he has discovered five comets so far that are all named after him.

I had to try my luck at getting a picture.  This comet was not going to be like the oneI saw as a kid and take up much of the night sky.  However, with a telescope some very nice pictures were taken.  I never got a spectacular picture, but I was happy I did get something.  It is the first comet I had ever tracked in the night sky with my telescope and so far the only one I have taken a picture of.   Comets are a little tricky since the the they are moving differently than other deep sky objects.  The basic process is still the same.  I take multiple exposures of the comet as I track it and then stack all those pictures together to get one final photo.  I processed the data two ways.  In the first processing the comet itself is the focus and the stars are blurred.  Each frame the comet had moved so much that the stars are in different locations and so while the comet is stacked together the stars are not which is why the stars form streaks in the picture.  .  The second processing took into account the comet location and star location in each frame and stacked them together in the same locations.  The software that does this did a really nice job, but it was still time consuming since i had to manually mark the comet's nucleus in each frame to give the software a frame of reference.

Processing taking into account just the comet location

Processing taking into account comet and star location 

Comet Lovejo C/2014 Q2 ended up giveing a very nice tail.  My pictures only show a hint of what is really there.  Take a look at some of the professionals to really see the beauty of this comet when it was visiting.  It gave off a green/blue light as the sun heated it up.  There were at least 21 organic molecules coming off the comet in gas form including sugar and ethanol!

Hopefully another comet will come visit us in the near future, but this one won't be back for 8000 years!  No one on Earth will see this one again for quite some time.

Making it Personal: Show your support for GMOs

As as I was looking into the petition to take GMO ingredients out of Girl Scout cookies I had a revelation.  Actually it wasn't even a revelation, but more of a confirmation.  A confirmation that GMO supporters are not as strong in the grassroots initiatives like the anti-GMO supporters.  The girl scouts petition was a perfect example.   A girl scout put her voice against GMOs on the site change.org and received over 47,000 signatures to date.  It was enough of a voice to get her an audience with the Girl Scouts.  The Girl Scouts organization still listened to science and kept GMO ingredients in their cookies, but I can guarantee that petition pushed someone that was on the fence to think GMOs are dangerous.  Decisions based on a emotions happen to all of us at some point.  A good story can capture our hearts whether it is based on a true story or not.

The biotech industry pushes out facts and brochures in an attempt to educate the public.  Scientists talk about their research to their friends and neighbors.  The education effort must not stop, but in my opinion this is not enough.  The anti-GMO movement in many cases is using false information, but it doesn't matter if that story grabs someone by the heartstrings.  It is a personal story and people are emotional beings.  A story captivates much more than bars and graphs for many people.  The pro-GMO movement is not making it emotional, at least on the same scale as its opponents.  That emotional grassroots movement is what we need.  

I went to change.org and searched GMO.    Here is a nice excerpt of what is shown:

I know that lots of people already have their mind made up.  There is a group that will not be swayed and many of them will support these types of petitions.  Yet, don't be naive to think these types of tools on the internet don't also persuade people that are on the fence.   These petitions are from people that feel so strongly about there view that they try to persuade other's to share the same viewpoint.   Where are the same stories from a from a pro-GMO view?  They almost non-existent.

I know we have science on our side.  The safety record of GMOs is impeccable and the benefits are well documented, but almost everyone in Europe vehemently opposes GMOs.  Even in the US there is some opposition. We have to make this emotional and take the battle to the front lines on a personal level.  The science by itself is not enough.  Just use Europe as a case study.  People need to connect to the science emotionally.

I made a change.org petition to support GMOs.  Show your support.  Show other's that feeding the world and making better tools for the farmer's is not just a job for us.  It is a personal mission.   We want to make a difference in the world.  I please with you to go to this link, sign you name and show your support for GMOs.  Even write a comment and share your story.  We can change the culture even if it is one person at a time.  We have to try.

Click to sign: Support the science based benefits and proven safety of GMO crops to feed a growing population

Girls Scouts: I love those GMO cookies

I work at Bayer CropScience and as you might expect we talk about GMOs and public acceptance quite a lot.  I get a lot of ideas from interactions I have with the friends, family and even strangers when the topic of GMOs come up, but my colleagues at work feed me a lot of ideas too.  It was just the other day that we were talking about GMOs at work when someone brought up the girl scouts.

I love scouting.  It is a wonderful program designed to teach kids valuable skills and develop them into leaders.  I have two boys that actively participate in cub scouts and I have enjoyed being a den leader as well as going through the ranks of boy scouts when I was a kid.  However I have not had much experience with girl scouts.  I have a daughter, but she is still too little to be involved.  That does not keep me from buying the infamous girl scout cookies when they come knocking on the door.

http://www.abcsmartcookies.com/thin-mints

So what do GMOs and the Girl Scouts have in common?  Well, my respect for the organization grew even more when I started fact checking the connection myself.  The truth is those girl scout cookies that I love so much are made with GMO ingredients and the Girl Scouts have not changed that stance even with pressure to do so.

The cookies use GMO ingredients but there has been plenty of pressure to switch to all non-GMO ingredients.  A petition was started in 2013 by a girl scout to get the Girl Scout organization to stop using GMO ingredients.  The Facebook page is still going strong and the petition has over 47,000 signatures.

I was hunting for the reason why the girl scouts are being petitioned to remove GMO ingredients and found the letter describing the anti-GMO position.

This letter sums up the information war that sadly anti-GMO groups are winning and the misconceptions that the industry is having a hard time changing.  Let's look at this letter in depth.

1.  "If Girl Scouts continues to make cookies with GMO ingredients, our soil will continue to be saturated with pesticides"

GMOs in many cases help decrease the use of pesticides.  Quoted right from the publication Science, "Overall pesticide use on U.S. farms dropped 0.6% a year from 1980 to 2007."   Bt corn is a prime example of a product whereby insect eat the plant and die so less pesticides need to be applied.

http://www.sciencemag.org/site/special/pesticides/infographic.xhtml

2.  "Our Farmer’s will continue to pay higher prices for seeds and purchase larger quantities of pesticides."

It is easy to say farmer's pay a higher cost for GMO seed, becuse at face value that is correct.  However farmers are more than willing to pay a higher cost for GMO seed because the yields and thus the profits are higher.  I really encourage you to read this article:  https://gmoanswers.com/ask/what-difference-cost-production-gmo-vs-non-gmo 

 I can summarize just a small part of this issue from that link.  

A farmer in Maryland has grown GM and Non-GM corn and soy and run the numbers.

GMO seed does indeed cost more.  There are research costs associated with new technology.  A lot of scientists put in hard work and time to bring a better solution to the farmers.   However look at the gains.  Income per acre is much higher because the GM solution provides higher yield.    Delve into the article for even more comparisons and perspective.   Even more important, talk to farmers about GMOs and see what they use and think.  Get their perspective and you may be surprised that most farmers want new biotech solutions if it means higher yields.

3.  "Our bees will continue to die off."

There is no dispute that bees are dying off.  The issue is complicated because there is not just one thing killing the bees.  Instead there are many factors and they are all coming together.  Climate change and the parasitic varroa mite are all part of the issue.   Certain pesticides if not applied properly can kill bees.  And now hot off the press is more research that was just published in Science that shows a virus called the deformed wing virus may be part of the problem too.  We know the varroa mite can pick up viruses from the bees blood and transmit it to other bees.  If the varroa mite and deformed wing virus are in the same hive the results are dead bees and estimates are that the two have joined to kill millions of bees.  Bee death is a challenge we must solve, but no where in this discussion is anything about GMOs killing bees.  In fact GMOs may be a tool to help protect bees from insecticide use.  If less insecticides are used due to GM technology there is less risk that insecticides are used improperly and will kill bees. 

Take a read on the new science:  http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/bee-decline-two-diseases-are-combining-destroy-global-honey-bees-1547415




4.  "In eating the cookies we will continue to gamble with our health."

I have shown and talked about GMO safety in many previous blog entries.  Take a look back at the science.   This info graphic sums up safety quite well.  GM food is safe and we have the science to prove it!

http://www.foodinsight.org/biotechnology-gmo-food-safe-who-infographic

5. "Please research GMOs thoroughly and understand no long-term studies have been done."

Yes, please really research GMOs including the "1783" studies that have looked at safety.  Research the benefits including higher yields and less pesticide use.  Research projects like Golden Rice (GMO rice with increased vitamin A) and the humanitarian efforts that GMO crops can provide the world.   Talk to farmers and get their perspective.  Talk to scientists doing this work over dinner and see that they are trying to make a difference.  There is no corporate conspiracies.  We love science, we love agriculture and we want to provide farmers with a tool to help feed people.

In the end the Girl Scouts did do their research and listened to the science instead of the fear.   Their stance is listed on the Girl Scout website.  So when the Girl Scouts come to my house next time I might just have to buy a few extra boxes.

http://www.girlscouts.org/en/cookies/all-about-cookies/FAQs.html