Altitude and temperature

Being both a mountain dweller and a skier, I’ve always thought that the rule for temperature change in relation to altitude was 3° Fahrenheit per 1,000 feet (or 6°C per 1,000 meters), but I wasn’t too sure and decided to dig a little deeper into a subject that’s becoming more important as we get into full global warming. 

Here’s what I’ve found, starting with what causes that change. Temperatures drop as we gain elevation simply simply because atmospheric pressure decreases and the air expands and cools. Now, let’s talk numbers for what’s called the Standard Lapse Rate.

In Fahrenheit, temperature drops approximately 3.5°F per 1,000 feet of elevation gain (or roughly 5°F per 1,000 meters). In Celsius, temperature drops approximately 6.5°C per 1,000 meters of elevation gain (or roughly 2°C per 1,000 feet). For example, if we climb a mountain 2,000 feet higher up, we can generally expect the temperature to be around 7°F cooler at the top than at the base.) Of course, while 3.5°F per 1,000 feet is the standard average, real-world conditions frequently break this rule. 

Let’s start with humidity and moisture. If the air is dry, it cools faster as it rises, at a rate that’s about 5.4°F per 1,000 feet (9.8°C per 1,000 meters). If, on the other hand, the air cools to its dew point and moisture condenses into clouds or fog, latent heat is released into the surrounding air. This slows the cooling rate down to roughly 3.0°F per 1,000 feet (5°C per 1,000 meters). 

Then we’ve got the temperature inversions, in which if temperature always decreases with height, during an inversion, the opposite happens as warmer air sits over a pool of cold air. This is very common in mountain valleys (Salt Lake City) during winter or clear, windless nights, where cold heavy air sinks into the valley floor while Park City’s higher elevation stays significantly warmer. 

Finally the terrain topography and wind also influence the system. Dark rock faces and exposed alpine terrain can heat up significantly under direct sunlight, creating warm microclimates high up that defy the surrounding free-air lapse rate. Conversely, strong alpine winds can pull down cold air masses (these are called katabatic winds) or enhance wind chill, making it feel far colder than the ambient lapse rate suggests. 

Now you know all the details about the whole altitude and temperature relationship!

DNA and Afterlife

We recently discussed the afterlife on this blog and I overlooked the important relationship that exists between DNA and eternal life, as an alternative to the concept of surviving one’s own mortality. 

This thought first hit me 37 years ago, at the death of my father. I realized then that we all lived forever through the DNA we pass on to our offspring. This idea of "forever life" through the genes we pass to our children is a biological perspective on immortality, rooted in the principles of genetics and evolution.

While it's true that our genes persist in our descendants, this is different from most traditional concepts of an afterlife, which typically involve some form of conscious existence beyond physical death. I will admit that through that process I cease to exist as a conscious individual, and that doesn’t get any better as my genes mix and dilute over generations, meaning that my future descendants will only carry minute fragments of my DNA. 

For those whose kids were adopted, or childless artists and others, this non-biological form of persistence still works perfectly as we "live on" through our ideas, influence, and cultural contributions. 

Sure, there are also all the religions and spiritual beliefs that offer an afterlife involving a form of reincarnation or some eternal consciousness—something beyond mere genetic transmission, but that doesn’t work too well for me as I am woefully unable to remember any previous lives of mine, yet alone events that occurred to me 50 or 60 years ago! 

In conclusion, for me, in a strictly biological sense, parts of my DNA will persist in future generations, even though I realize it will be under the form of diminishing returns and won’t be the same as my living forever in a conscious or spiritual sense, a concept that I must admit, tires me when I begin to imagine it, so the gene story will be plenty for me...

A strange looking magpie!

The Eurasian magpie (Pica pica) is a species from the corvids family (Corvidae). Magpies can be found over almost all of Europe and north-western parts of Africa. For a long time, the Eurasian Magpie and the American Black-billed Magpie were considered the same species (Pica pica). 

However, in 2000, based on their vocalizations and behavior, significant genetic divergence were found between the two, the American Ornithologists' Union officially recognized the Black-billed Magpie as a separate species (Pica hudsonia), which is the one abundantly found in Park City. While they look very similar with their black and white plumage and long tails, subtle differences exist. 

Some sources note differences in the gloss of their feathers and the amount of white on their plumage. Black-billed Magpies can also reach a slightly larger size, mainly due to a longer tail. Their calls are also distinctly different. Further, there are differences in their social behaviors and nesting habits as Black-billed Magpies sometimes nest in loose colonies, unlike the more spread-out nesting of Eurasian Magpies.

So that pretty long explanation serves as introducing the unusual encounter we had a few days ago, when we stumbled upon a white magpie, next to a normal one. My first reaction was to say “It must be a case of albinism!” 

But after checking it, I had to conclude it was a more common case of leucism instead (partial loss of pigmentation, leading to white or patchy feathers but normal-colored eyes, not pink). Albinism in birds is far less frequent (roughly 1 in every 10,000 to 30,000 birds in the wild) while leucism is a bit less rare as it appears in 1 for every 1,000 to 10,000 birds). 

According to what I’ve read, leucistic birds have normal eye color (not pink) and may have mixed white and normal feathers. Will we ever see that unique bird again? I’d love to, but I doubt it!

Does cosmic energy exit?

Personally, I believe that there is a some kind of force or energy in the universe or the cosmos. I have no facts or proofs to support my belief, but the intense, tumultuous and continued activity in the universe is enough for me to see that there’s energy going on, and plenty of it. Sure, to prove this, or anything for that matter, science relies on evidence that can be observed, measured, and tested repeatedly.

There certainly are scientific phenomena that no one fully understand yet, which has led others than myself to believe they might be evidence of a cosmic force. Things like Dark Matter and Dark Energy, these mysterious substances making up most of the universe's mass and energy. 

While we can't directly observe them, their gravitational effects are quite real and their mystery has led some to proposed theories about forces beyond science’s current understanding of physics. In addition, the nature of the universe has to be fine-tuned for life to exist. 

For instance, if the strength of the electromagnetic force were to change, stars wouldn't be able to survive and their ability to fine-tune has led some to believe in a special force. Finally, the nature of consciousness is still a scientific mystery. How does physical matter give rise to subjective experience? Some scientists believe that consciousness could be a fundamental property of the universe, suggesting a deeper reality. 

Just like for religious issues, scientists hold their own view on these points. Their understanding of the universe is constantly expanding, yet what they don't know today might be explained by future scientific discoveries. They also prefer naturally based explanations and would only bring a cosmic force as a last resort when all other explanations have been exhausted. 

This means that the existence of a cosmic force or energy can’t be proved or disproved it at this point by scientists. However, as we continues to explore the universe's mysteries and discover new insights, we will continue to gain a better understanding of these questions in the future...

Cosmic fuel for you and me...

We can all use some magic or secret fuel to take us to go farther, reach higher, do things more efficiently and feel more secure about ourselves. 

The question of course is, where can we find such a potent fuel? If it can’t be found in foods, drinks or drugs that we can access fairly easily, so where can it be? 

For the past three years, I’ve been bringing myself closer and closer to this magic source of energy that stimulates my life. It was in fact more an accident than a determined quest. No, it’s not edible or drinkable and it’s not drug, pharmaceutical or illegal.

Mystical or unexplored scientifically? Probably. Yet, when you know how to tap into it, it’s free, abundant, and just requires steady work and solid concentration. 

t’s not an exaggeration to say that it has changed my life and make it more pleasurable and exciting if I’m will to put forth the effort it requires. The hard part is to explain how I actually got there. 

When I will, I’ll let you and the world know...

The dawning of the battery era!

I remember the first batteries I saw when I was a kid. The first ones were a 4.5 volt battery that my family used to power a small portable lamp, and later our family transistor radio. I remembered as a kid linking the two brass blades with my tongue to feel the miracle of electrical current! 

I also had seen car batteries when an open hood exposed them, but that was about it. Never did I envisioned that I would see a day when watches, radios, telephones, hearing-aids, drills, chain-saws, lawn-mowers or automobiles would all become ubiquitous battery-powered objects. 

This extra source of electric power made of electro-chemical cells have evolved over the years as their use expended into a growing number of applications. From disposable to rechargeable versions, chemical and engineering development have played a huge role in increased performance, size and capacity. 

It all began with the lead-acid batteries still mostly used in vehicles, to today’s lithium-ion batteries used for all kind of portable electronics, tools, phones, computers, drones and now automobiles. Yet, over the last decade that same surge in lithium-ion battery production has led to an 85% decline in prices, making electric vehicles and energy storage commercially viable for the first time in history. 

At this rate, batteries hold the key to transitioning humanity away from fossil fuel dependence as they’re set to play a greater role in the coming decade. Energy storage, in way we don’t yet see or imagine is poised to grow exponentially in the next decades, and this will affect chemical companies, battery cell makers, car companies, solar companies and utility companies. We’ve indeed come a long way from the lone 4.5 volt battery of my youth!

Covid’s astonishing tactics

Ever since the pandemic arrived on the scene, I couldn’t help but think, that it was Nature’s way of saying: “There are too many goddamned humans on this planet, time to do some mass-scaled thinning out!” 

Of course, humanity responded to the threatening virus with its formidable array of technology medicine and drugs. Yet, it seems to me that the virus, just like a school of fish or flock of birds, has an intelligence of its own and appears determined to leave no stone unturned or no subject left behind. 

As an example, Vermont the most vaccinated State of the Union is now undergoing a major attack by the virus. Can someone explain it to me? This kind of collective behavior is both fascinating and baffling. Is there a separate or overriding group intelligence that tell every single element (fish, bird or virus) what to do? 

Why does this happen? How is it choreographed? Is it a form of telepathy? All these questions beg for a response that we don’t seem to have, but I suspect there’s some truth in my observations. What do you think?

What are humans made of?

Do we have a mind and then a body or is it one single entity, as a fusion of the two? Not so long ago, I was discussing soul vs. mind and came to the conclusion that they were one and the same. 

Today, if I consider body and mind, I pose the question, are they separate or are they one and the same? Meditation makes believe that it’s the later. When I meditate, I feel that mind and body meld and that they become inseparable. I’m not the only one to think that way. 

Psychologists believe that we should only be concerned with "observable actions", namely stimulus and response. They also believe that thought processes such as the mind cannot be studied scientifically and objectively and should therefore be ignored as independent elements. 

The idea is also shared by biologists who argue that the mind does not exist because there is no physical structure behind it. For them the brain is in fact the mind with all its structures, cells and neural connections. 

There’s a name for that view of the human body, and its Monism (as opposed to Dualism that affirms the separation of mind and body). Monism affirms that ultimately mind and brain are the same thing. 

This makes me feel good that I’m not the only one thinking that way.

Ski lift riding odds...

There never seems to be a dull moment when riding a lift...

This past Wednesday, as I was skiing with my spouse, we rode twice the same lift with the same person on two different occasions! Did you understand what you just read?

Let me detail the story one lift ride at a time. We first picked up a single on the Iron Mountain high-speed quad chair. Let's call him the “Brit”, then two rides later another single joined us on that same chair that we'll call the “pilot”.

When we were totally frozen and decided to go home, we rode the triple Shortcut chair and who was our neighbor, but the “Brit”, who explained to us that after a four-year job stint in the USA, he was about to return to England.

Then, from the base of the Canyons, we rode what is called a cabriolet, a people mover that shuttles skiers from there to the parking lot, and who was next to us? The “pilot” who worked for Fedex and will soon move to Europe too and be based at the one of the company's European hubs, in Paris.

Now, you tell me, what could be the odds of this ever happening on the 41 lifts that count Park City Mountain?

Is polling still working?

I don't know about you, but I ignore all the pesky calls that flood my phones, especially during electoral campaign time.

Many of them are from pollsters and even though I value good polls, I simply don't want to be tied up for minutes on the phone at dinner time!

This, of course, leads me to believe that if a large number of voters are like me, where do pollsters get the information they seek?

Whatever they are able to gather and how they have to go about it make me even more skeptical...

After the 2016 Trump debacle, I have decided to ignore the polls, but my intuition tells me that there will be a big surprise spurred by Donald Trump himself, but not necessarily in the direction, he'd wish to see.

We'll discover it this evening...

What makes leaves change color?

Foliage season has officially begun in Park City. Not so long ago, as I was talking to my siblings, back in France, they both asserted that an early freeze was really what triggered the change in colors.

I knew that wasn't totally true and didn't argue until I had time to do some research of my own. While several factors create fall colors (temperature, precipitation, soil moisture), the key agent is light or lack thereof.

As the days grow shorter, less light causes a tight wall to form between the twig and the leaf stalk; as it gets denser the leaf can no longer access nutrients and water and the sugar it contains can't leave it either.

As an immediate result, the green chlorophyll pigment dies. When this happens, two other pigments show their bright faces: Carotene (yellow) and anthocyanin (red); both already exist inside the leaf but are masked by the chlorophyll.

The brown color in oaks is an exception and the result of tannin. In fact, it's the sugar trapped inside the leaves that is largely responsible for those vivid colors. So the next question, of course, is what creates the best fall colors? It seems that a wet growing season followed by a dry autumn filled with sunny days and cool as well as frostless nights produces the most vibrant palette of fall colors.

Unlike many folks believe, freezing temperatures and a hard frost may kill the entire process and lead to poor fall colors. Same thing with drought conditions during late summer and early fall, like we've experienced this year in Park City, that can “shutdown” trees prematurely as they prepare for winter, causing leaves to fall early without reaching their full-color potential.

Now that you know the whole story, make sure to go out and enjoy the show!

The lesson from Theranos

I just finished reading “Bad Blood”, the mind-boggling saga of Theranos, a biotechnology start-up, infamous now for its fallacious claims to have devised a super simple, non-invasive blood test.

The company was founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Holmes when she was just 19. She and her partner managed to raise more than $700 million from investors, and reach a $10 billion peak valuation in 2013.

Both its investors and the media hyped Theranos as being a technological breakthrough, just like a new Apple. That was until October 2015, when John Carreyrou, a Wall Street Journal reporter and author of the book, exposed the scam, causing the company to quickly disintegrate until it closed its doors on 31 August of this year.

The takeaway from that unbelievable story is that Ms. Holmes was a dangerous charismatic leader that knew how to play people, employees, investors and the media, just like Prophet Mohamed, Donald Trump or Joseph Smith (the founder of Mormonism) had done before her.

These people aren't just extremely effective and dangerous, they tend to resurface frequently under different labels and their mere existence should be a warning to all of us to always think critically and never take what these manipulators or their supporters assert at face value.

Now go back to work, do your homework when tempted by an investment opportunity and always stay on your guard!

LDS, DNA and reality

Like most holy books, the Book of Mormon is a pretty creative fable, at least from my perspective.

Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism and the originator of the books of scripture behind the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), tells his flock about certain groups of people.

The Book of Mormon gives an account of ancient prophets who lived in the Americas, covering eventes that occurred from about 600 B.C. to 400 A.D. According to the book, some Jews came to America to avoid persecution in Jerusalem. They were divided into two enemy groups, the Nephites and the Lamanites.

In 428 A.D., the Nephites were defeated by the Lamanites who were no other than today's American Indians. Even though Joseph Smith revelations happened in 1830, there's generally no support among mainstream historians and archaeologists for the historical truth of the Book of Mormon that was written as a result of these revelations.

Worst yet, with the advent of the human genome, it's been found that Native Americans have very distinctive DNA markers, and some of them are most similar, among old world populations, to the DNA of people originating from central Asia, not the Middle East.

This conclusion supports the evidence that the ancestors of the American Indians came across the Bering Sea from Asia, with no traces of Middle Eastern ancestry. Of course, Mormon leaders are pushing back at that truth and are putting their own spin to preserve the credibility of their faith...

Ready for the eclipse?

For months now, we've been told repeatedly that on Aug. 21, 2017, America will fall under the path of a total solar eclipse. It will darken our skies all the way from Oregon to South Carolina, along a stretch of land about 70 miles wide.

Park City will be slightly south of that path, but we'll see a sun darkened over about 93 percent of its whole area. At home, the “partial show” will begin at about 10:10 AM, peak at 11:30 and will phase out just before 1:00 pm.

If I were crazy enough, I'd drive up three and a half hour to Idaho Falls or south of Jackson Hole, but I'm too lazy and a big chunk of darkness is pretty close to the whole enchilada. Besides, there will be another one in 2045, so I might quietly wait to see the sun blacked-out for one very last three-hours period in my lifetime!

Will my (high) cholesterol kill me?

My doc thinks I'm borderline with my cholesterol level and has been pestering me for years to take statins. Quite intuitively, I've stubbornly resisted his advice and the more I read or see information about these elements, the more I get set against them. I don't know if you're aware of it, but cholesterol is a natural product found in the body and made by the liver.

It's vital to cell function and is the parent molecule for such major hormones as estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. It is essential to the immune system and the brain. Next, there's no proven link between dietary cholesterol and coronary heart disease.

The biggest hoax in scientific studies is the so-called “Seven Countries Study” from 1953, by Dr. Ancel Keys, in which statistics that did not quite agree with the result he wanted were removed. He had started with 22 countries but only kept the 7 that supported his views, discounting the rest. Incredibly, the whole cholesterol scam is based on his paper.

The Framington Study shows in fact that those who actually lived the longest had the highest cholesterol. Finally the biggest poison of all isn't the cholesterol, but the statin drugs that are supposed to lower it. Research has shown no difference in death rates between patients who take statins and those who don’t. In fact, statin medication is behind a host of negative side effects, such as loss of memory, loss of libido, muscle pain, fatigue and many more that I won't list on this blog...

So, with all this, next time I see him, I'll tell both my doctor and big pharma: “Take your statin and shove it!”

From trans-gender to trans-creature?

Thanks to Bruce Jenner's copious testimonies and interviews, I've learned a lot about becoming a transgender and adopting the sex that make the most sense to anyone.

While I still can't fully understand the entire process and have absolutely no desire to change my sex at this stage of my life, I'm just wondering, what's next, and after thinking about it for two minutes, I realized that becoming a “trans-creature” might very well have a realistic place in our near future.

Let me explain; we could begin with being “trans-mammal”, but honestly, who wants to become a cow or a simple chimp? I'd rather be something else, so the change might have to be a tiny bit more drastic; suppose that deep-inside I longed to fly just like a bird and own a residence on some tree branch or into some cavity up a forbidding cliff, I might want to move away from my human status to that of say, a peregrine falcon.

I don't know if I would need to check my human brain on the tarmac and settle for a much smaller, bird-sized set. In this instance, I probably would need to give up my Facebook account, not a big price to pay.

But, come to think of it, managing my Facebook page shouldn't require more than the brain power of a finch... I just hope that my next of kin would be accepting of my urge of changing specie and that it's not against any law on the book in Utah or in the United States. If it is, no big deal, I'm ready to fight for it!

The results are in!

Do you remember on my special Christmas present? The DNA analysis from “23andMe”? Well, I've since done the test and received the results.

The first batch did not interest that much as it was mainly focused on my future health risks, something I'm not looking forward to anyway, and since it failed to tell me when I will die, I remained rather dismissive about it.

The second batch of results involved my ancestral grouping and showed both my maternal and paternal lineages.

Starting with my mom's line, it confirmed that her group is one that dominates in Europe, reaching peak concentrations along the Atlantic coast. It's also common in many parts of the Near East and Caucasus Mountains, where it can half of the population. That group is about 40,000 years old and because it's so common in Europe, it also is shared by members of continent's royal houses. For instance, famous people like Marie Antoinette and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh must be related to me. Learning this made me extremely happy!

My dad's line is also extremely common in Europe, but somewhat younger at 17,000 years of age (see, I wasn't quite born yesterday), and spread after the end of the Ice Age. Various branches of that group trace the many migrations that have shaped Europe, from the arrival of farmers between about 10,000 and 7,000 years ago to the movements of ethnic groups such as the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Interesting, but nothing breathtaking like learning that I originated from some smart monkey, prehistorical horse or even a lowly insect.

Today, I feel a lot better about myself and am totally clear as to where my roots come from!

Great positive news!

Between some Olympic exploits and NASA’s rover Curiosity touching down on Mars early today, there has been a flurry of positive news for a change. Curiosity's picture-perfect descent and landing is actually a big scientific deal and according to NASA, it holds the seeds of what's likely to be one of the most ambitious planetary program ever.

I was delighted the entire mission did succeed as it did, because if it had failed, Romney would have been all over Obama, blaming him for cutting too much into NASA's budget. That it something I'd guarantee would have happened!

Possessed women in Morzine, France

Between 1857 and 1870, in Morzine, France, a couple of miles away from my Alpine hometown, dozens of women fell victims of seizures, hallucinations, and mass hysteria. All claimed they were possessed by the devil. In these days, Morzine was totally isolated community from modernity and abjectly poor. My parents have told me at length about that story and even in the 1960s, continued to be terrorized by these stories of witchcraft, which did not fail to affect my young imagination.

It's only this summer that I took the time to read a number of books on this subject that a young lady from my hometown valley was gracious enough to pass along to me. Having spent a quarter of a century next to Morzine in a culture deeply influenced by the Catholic religion and widespread beliefs in witchcraft, until the middle of last century, I can appreciate all the trauma caused by these extraordinary events and I'm even surprised that this crisis could be solved by imposing modern scientific reasoning over popular superstition at a time when the science of psychology was still in its infancy.

I am also pleased to see how France – that had recently become a secular country – was, over 150 years ago, much more advanced than some of our American states are today in sorting out irrational faith-based beliefs and scientific knowledge. I came to the conclusion that some significant Morzine public servants had shown exceptional courage, both in terms of their intellectual independence and physical resistance in standing up against continued attacks and irrational pressures.

Second-guessing the Japanese

Over the past days, a large number of so-called nuclear experts have professed their views on how the Japanese should have handled the difficult crisis they're faced with, in addition to dealing with the aftermath of an extremely severe earthquake and devastating tsunami. There is not a day that goes by that I read about, watch or listen to some advice from folks that seem to know better than anyone what the Japanese ought to do.

This seems to me a little bit too much and I think that these self-proclaimed experts should first volunteer their seemingly free advice to the Japanese authorities before speaking from all side of their mouths about events that they probably don't fully grasp given their fleeting nature and their utter complexity. I for one, trust the Japanese people to know what they're doing and to act in the best interest of their people, their country and their culture.