CURIOSITIES IN SCIENTIFIC NAMING

(Image of Phialella zappai from here)

The jellyfish Phialella zappai was named by Ferdinando Boero as part of his plan to get to meet Frank Zappa. "There is nothing I'd like better than having a jellyfish named after me," Zappa replied. And so they met. (The long story, well worth a read, here.)

Binomial nomenclature is not supposed to be humorous. Yet a few odd scientific names slip by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Entomologists seem bugged by congenital punning. At least one marine biologist favored magic. This list of favorites is from Deep Type Flow.

• Agra vation (a beetle)

• Colon rectum (another beetle)

• Ba humbugi (a snail)

• Aha ha ( a wasp)

• Lalapa lusa (a wasp)

• Leonardo davinci (a moth)

• Abra cadabra (a clam, now, alas, in the genus Theora)

• Gelae baen, Gelae belae, Gelae donut, Gelae fish, and Gelae rol (all types of fungus beetles)

• Villa manillae, Pieza kake and Reissa roni  (bee flies)

• La cerveza (a moth)

• Ytu brutus (a beetle) 

Curioustaxonomy lists several palindromes, including:

• Orizabus subaziro (a scarab beetle)

 Plus an extinct pterosaur named for an extinct author:

• Arthurdactylus conandoylensis

Plus an extinct fish named for the famed British documentarian who gave it its 15-plus minutes of fame:

• Materpiscis attenboroughi

(Model of Materpiscis attenboroughi at Museum Victoria 2008)

Curioustaxonomy has a lot more puns and plays on words:

• La cucaracha (a moth)

• Phthiria relativitae (a bombyliid fly)

• Pieza rhea (a fly)

• Vini vidivici (a recently extinct parrot)

In the section on unused names: 

• An anthropologist, noting that the group including African apes is named Panini, suggested in jest that the subset of those which have language should be called Linguini

Strange and poignant, the irukandji jellyfish named for American tourist Robert King, whose death from its sting highlighted the heretofore invisible danger of a species no bigger than your fingernail:

• Malo kingi

(Photo of Malo kingi by Lisa-ann Gershwin)

Plus a short poem celebrating taxonomy's longevity:

A Discovery
by Vladimir Nabokov, 1943

Dark pictures, thrones, the stones that pilgrims kiss
Poems that take a thousand years to die
But ape the immortality of this
Red label on a little butterfly.  

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ANTARCTICA UNDERWATER

Huge forests of nasty-tasting kelps, plus soft corals, sponges, tunicates, and really really cold water.

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Woodworking Wednesdays Link Party

Welcome to Grover Woodworks first weekly Link Party.  I hope that you will share your projects with us.
I know I really enjoy seeing what everyone is doing.

The Party is open until Sunday 4/4/2010 at 11:59pm.

From Grover Woodworks

Here is a Coffee Table that I made out of 2x4s.



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Here are the Rules:
1. Select any project that you created using any type of woodworking.  If you cut, beat, sanded or just did something with wood consider that woodworking.
2. Add a link of you post to the party – This is a link to the actual post not the main page of your blog.
3. Give a description of your project so everyone knows what you are featuring.
4. Grab the button above and add a link to this party so that your readers can join in on the fun.

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My Family

Over the weekend we celebrated my Papa’s 80th Birthday!!!!

I love family parties!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While we were all together, we celebrated my husband’s and brother’s birthday and my sister’s engagement!  It was so nice to see everyone.  Getting together with my family is one of my FAVORITE things to do in the whole world.

I am the oldest of 11 children. 

That’s right, 11!

Here is a picture of all of us  form this summer.

 

I always get lot of questions after I tell someone that.  They usually ask me these questions in this order, lol….

“Do you have any twins?”   No.

“Are all the kids from the same marriage?”  Yes.

“Are you Catholic?”  Yes.

“Were you homeschooled?”  Yes.

“Are you going to homeschool?”  Yes.

“How old are you?” 25

“How old is your youngest sibling?” He just turned 3.  (that’s who’s birthday we celebrated)

“How old are your kids?”  Grace 4, Michael almost 3 and Matthew 1.  And yes, my mom and I were pregnant together.

Here is a picture….I know she will just die when she sees this. (She gets my posts via email) lol  Look, we even dress the same!  hee hee!  I just noticed that now.  We both love to wear pink, black stretch pants and slippers!! lol!  Michael’s uncle is only 2 months older than him and Grace is older that her uncle!  Isn’t that sooo funny!!!

 

“Where did you all sleep?”  Why do they ask me that?  Where do they think we slept.  Yes, we each had our own bed!!!!  But we did share rooms most of the time.

“Are you going to have a big family?”  We are just trying to do God’s will. We are open to life.  

Those are some of the questions that I get and it is so funny because everyone really does ask me those questions in that order!!!

Anyway, here are some pictures from the party at my mom’s house.

We LOVE food and our parties are known for always having way too much of it.

This is a homemade chocolate cheesecake ball that my Grandma made, yum!

Yummmmm, butter!

To fit everyone together, they set up tables in their basement.  The adults are closer to the window and the kid”s table is the table with all the “cars” stuff (for my brother’s birthday).

They always have to so cute and fun!

The always make the cutest little name tags for everyone.

Here is everyone minus my brother who was in Florida for college baseball and me because I was taking the photo.

Front right: Michael, Front left: his Uncle Johnathon (hehe)  They are so cute!

Here is my sister playing with Grace.  My kids absolutely LOVE going to grandma’s house.  They ask, “Are we going to the grandma’s house with the kids?” lol!

This is my Grandma and Papa (dad’ parents) looking through the picture book that we gave my Papa for his 80th birthday.  My sister-in-law,  Ann Marie made it and did a wonderful job.  They loved it!

She is not camera shy, lol! 

I love that baby soooo much!  

Here is my sister Elisabeth getting gifts for her engagement.

I took some pictures of their house it show you.  If you think that I am good and garage saling, you should see her house.

Here is the family room.  They need a LOT of seating! 

Living Room

Study

 

Here is my parent’s room.

Master bath

Their closet (my mom is so organized)

  

Here is my sister’s room (This is were we sleep when visiting) Isn’t it so cute???

That is my sister Rachelle in their craft corner.

There room is over their 3 car garage and it didn’t have a closet, so they made this.

Here is their downstairs hall bath.  (they just re-did this room) 

  

These are just a couple of their rooms!  There house is really neat and the decor is always changing.  Click here to see their fall décor and here to see their Christmas decor.

I hope that you enjoyed these pictures of my family and my parent’s house.

Bonnie :)

Please visit my online Shaklee site.

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Women In Woodworking

Everywhere I turn I see nothing but men involved in the art/craft of woodworking.  This hobby/craft/profession seems to be a male dominated one.  I’m not sure I totally understand it especially after introducing my wife to a miter saw during one of our recent projects a Shutter Mirror.  For all you men out there if your wife even remotely expresses an interest in woodworking I HIGHLY, is that emphatic enough, recommend you taking her out to the shop and letting her try her hands at any of your hand or power tools.  When I showed my wife how to use a miter saw to cross cut some boards for the project I have not seen a bigger grin and sense of excitement.  I was amazed at how much she enjoyed using it.  In her words “It cuts like butta".  In talking with my wife one thing I want to really try and do is introduce women to the art/craft of woodworking.  I know there are women woodworkers out there I am going to highlight three that I have found in the blog world later in the post.  I just feel led to do something to not only help my wife become more comfortable with woodworking but all women.  This is where you ladies come in. 

I really need some ideas of what you might be interested in.  It can be anything.  Now you will have to forgive me but being a man and married man at that I have come to realize that sometimes men and women don’t speak the same language.  My wife and I are working on our translation book.  So in an effort to make sure I make things clear my wife has agreed to help me edit my postings to make them less Grover and more universal.  All this meaning if you have no experience with woodworking I want to make sure I can clearly express my thoughts. 
Please make sure to comment on some of the ideas, concepts, projects you would like to see get help with or even contribute to. 
Three Women Woodworkers – These are just Three of the Women I have found so far that have amazed me.
Kari Hultman @ The Village Carpenter
Kari primarily works with Hand tools and has an amazing video on YouTube on hand cutting dovetails.  I know I am going to use her technique to start teaching myself how to cut dovetails.  Kari has been a contributor in many of the Woodworking Magazines. 
Julie @ Follow Your Heart Woodworking
I have been watching Julie’s blog postings on building a Buffet Hutch.  She is a furniture maker and has a site dedicated to that as well.  The hutch she is building is going to be outstanding.  It doesn’t hurt that she builds furniture that is country/primitive which is what I really enjoy.
Carole Rothman @ Scroll Saw Bowls
Carole has written at least one book on making Scroll Saw Bowls.  Her bowls are truly works of art.  I have played with a scroll saw a few times and started to get pretty good at it but I can’t wait to give one of her patterns a try. 
These are three amazing woodworkers.  I highly recommend you take a look at their sites.  I can’t say enough about their abilities as woodworkers. 



Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Women,Woodworking,Women in woodworking,village carpenter,Kari Hultman,Julie Rose,Carole Rothman,Scroll Saw Bowls

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5 Drawer Dresser Makeover/Refurbish | Painted and Knobbed

I finally got back to the dresser I was restoring and refinishing.  I am a little spastic when it comes to projects.  I like to have too many going on at once.  In an effort to reduce the number of projects outstanding and make my wife happy by providing the furniture she has been asking for I am focusing on a few quick wins.  The Dresser being the first. 

I spent some time on and off today in the shop and was able to get the dresser in some color.  It is called Java Brown it’s an interior latex from Lowe’s. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here you can see the Java Brown color and the 3 Drawers that I have completed sanding and painting.  I have some final sanding that will need to be done after the final coat is put on, I will use 220 grit sand paper this is eliminate any orange peel that I get from using my sprayer. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My wife found some knobs at Hobby Lobby that she liked so I took a couple of minutes to put them on to see what she thought.  She likes them.  I don’t know if she is 100% on them.  One thing I should note here is, originally this dresser actually used two hole drawer pulls.  The other holes had been filled by the previous owner.  It’s hard to tell from the pictures but the current ones look slightly off since they are pushed so far to the outer edges.  They should actually be about an inch or two in if you are going to use single pulls.  She is  thinking she might have me drill out the holes and move to a wider drawer pull. 

Once I have the other two drawers sanded and painted we will move it to its new home in one of the guest bedrooms. 

 

 

 

ALERT ALERT FURNITURE REPAIR TIP ALERT ALERT

Okay here we go.  If you have an older piece of furniture or even a newer piece of furniture with drawers that ride on wooden rails then over time you will find that they become harder to open.  One thing that you can do to ease the friction of the wood to wood contact is to apply some petroleum jelly to both the bottom of the drawer and to the rails inside the piece.  I have also heard that you can use a bar of soap and accomplish the same thing.  I have not tried the bar of soap so I can not attest to it effectiveness.  I might have to give it a try on this dresser and compare the two methods.

If you would like to know which works better, comment at the bottom and I will take on this very scientific project and report my findings. 

Coming up……

I am excited that I am bringing this project to a close.  Once this project is complete I will be working on Four Custom made Ink Pens for a Wedding, as well as finishing up the Jelly Cupboard build.  I have decided to use two different colors of Milk Paint.  The exterior of the cupboard will be Sea Green and the interior is going to be Light Cream.  It should be interesting.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Dresser,makeover,refinish,Tips

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