Monthly Archives: December 2022

Random Thoughts

Random Thoughts 12-13-2022

Leave a comment

Elderly people are not disposable, they are the people who helped build this world you are enjoying now. Many of those we call elderly once built the cars we drive, and designed the buildings we live in. Some may have just cleaned the buildings we worked in or served coffee to our parents and grandparents before or after work. Heck, a good portion of the elderly is in the U.S. federal government and they even cast aside the elderly at times.

Seems like the focus is always on the children or the younger working-aged group of citizens when it comes to congress and our government. But then why should a senator who makes a 6 figure salary and has a guaranteed retirement from our federal government worry about social security or the welfare of the elderly citizens that still can vote and contribute to society through the experience they have and the wisdom they have gained.

My opinion is that if they want to cut the budget look to their own salaries and retirement packages, their perks for being in office, and the wasteful spending in the defense budget instead of trying to cut social security or veterans benefits. Cut out some of that pork barrel spending in bills passed, and do straightforward bills without all the little perks for their states that do nothing but gain them possible votes.

Don’t even get me started on how tired I am and probably most people are with the partisan bull that does nothing but keeps congress from getting anything meaningful or worthwhile done. Or how money from lobbyists keeps what the people want from being passed due to money coming before constituents to some people in congress.

No government is perfect, there is always some sort of corruption and/or under-the-table deal going on. Just wish those in congress would remember they are elected to represent all of the citizens not just the base of the party they are in or the lobbyists that paid them the most money. The Meaning of We the people of the United States in the constitution is that the government is for the people and by the people, not just one party, group, social group, or individual.

One of the problems is that being a senator or representative is seen as a career instead of a civic duty by many of them in office. They lost their way and serve money and party over the people who voted for them. Wonder if they would be different if they made minimum wage and couldn’t receive any money from lobbyists and if they had term limits similar to a president. Who knows, it is what it is and unless we get more politicians that do it for the people and not just for the party and money it will remain as it is.

More than likely Social security and other social programs that were created to help the less fortunate will be constantly underfunded and at threat of being sunsetted until there is some sort of change in congress. Sad those that worked all their lives and helped build America and funded the federal government will be considered as a burden on the government. Human lives should always be more important than party politics or satisfying the political base that got someone elected.

Well, that is the opinion of this near-retirement-aged man, agree or disagree it is what it is. I wish everyone Happy Holidays and pray we all can find peace and happiness in life.

Ray Barbier

Random Thoughts

Random Thoughts 12-12-2022

1 Comment

In my lifetime I learned that there are so many people allowed to separate themselves from each other. We use labels to differentiate ourselves from one another, what religion we believe, what color we may be, our political party, nationality, and sex or sexual preference. We all get too wrapped up in what makes us all different from one another and that keeps us from seeing what we all have in common. We all are human beings and I think almost every single one of us wants to live a happy and productive life.

Most of us do not seek out conflict nor find pleasure in the suffering of others and most would rather co-exist with everyone else in harmony. There is always a small percentage that thrives in a negative atmosphere and revels in the suffering of others. We can not avoid those types of people, all we can do is deal with them when they become a threat to others and when they are not a threat to others we need to find a way to not allow them to ruin our day.

I remember how my grandparents were towards other people, they never judged people by what they were labeled, but by how they treated others around them. They taught me to do the same, see a person for how they act, and treat others. That is who that other person is, not their political party, color, and so on. I think some people just want everyone else to be just like them, and if they are not that’s when the trouble starts.

Lately I myself have been dealing with the “you’re old and I’m young” labeling and the discrimination that comes with it. It baffles me, I never looked at elderly people as anything but people. Age does not diminish a person’s worth nor their ability to contribute to society. If anything, being older gives them a sort of wisdom, and insight into things that the younger generation has yet had time to gain.

I am not yet to that elderly age, but I am getting closer every day, and boy the perception of time sure speeds up as I get older. Well anyways, what I was getting at is that we need to ignore all the labels we put on people and focus more on how people treat one another and realize that we all have something to contribute to this world we live in. And that we all need to help one another through this life since it can be a real challenge sometimes.

Be good to one another, find forgiveness for yourself and others.

Ray Barbier

The Conversation

Scientists discover five new species of black corals living thousands of feet below the ocean surface near the Great Barrier Reef

Leave a comment

Researchers discovered five new species of black corals, including this Hexapathes bikofskii growing out of a nautilus shell more than 2,500 feet (760 meters) below the surface. Jeremy Horowitz, CC BY-NC

Jeremy Horowitz, Smithsonian Institution

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

Using a remote-controlled submarine, my colleagues and I discovered five new species of black corals living as deep as 2,500 feet (760 meters) below the surface in the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea off the coast of Australia.

Black corals can be found growing both in shallow waters and down to depths of over 26,000 feet (8,000 meters), and some individual corals can live for over 4,000 years. Many of these corals are branched and look like feathers, fans or bushes, while others are straight like a whip. Unlike their colorful, shallow-water cousins that rely on the sun and photosynthesis for energy, black corals are filter feeders and eat tiny zooplankton that are abundant in deep waters. https://www.youtube.com/embed/MYncyEIDr10?wmode=transparent&start=0 The team of researchers collected 60 specimens of black corals over 31 dives using a remotely operated submarine.

In 2019 and 2020, I and a team of Australian scientists used the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s remotely operated vehicle – a submarine named SuBastian – to explore the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea. Our goal was to collect samples of coral species living in waters from 130 feet to 6,000 feet (40 meters to 1,800 meters) deep. In the past, corals from the deep parts of this region were collected using dredging and trawling methods that would often destroy the corals.

Our two expeditions were the first to send a robot down to these particular deep-water ecosystems, allowing our team to actually see and safely collect deep sea corals in their natural habitats. Over the course of 31 dives, my colleagues and I collected 60 black coral specimens. We would carefully remove the corals from the sandy floor or coral wall using the rover’s robotic claws, place the corals in a pressurized, temperature-controlled storage box and then bring them up to the surface. We would then examine the physical features of the corals and sequence their DNA.

Among the many interesting specimens were five new species – including one we found growing on the shell of a nautilus more than 2,500 feet (760 meters) below the ocean’s surface.

A robotic arm grabbing a thin coral off of a rock.
Researchers used the robotic arm of their rover to collect over 100 samples of rare corals and brought them up to the surface for further study. Jeremy Horowitz, CC BY-ND

Why it matters

Similarly to shallow-water corals that build colorful reefs full of fish, black corals act as important habitats where fish and invertebrates feed and hide from predators in what is otherwise a mostly barren sea floor. For example, a single black coral colony researchers collected in 2005 off the coast of California was home to 2,554 individual invertebrates.

Recent research has begun to paint a picture of a deep sea that contains far more species than biologists previously thought. Considering there are only 300 known species of black corals in the world, finding five new species in one general location was very surprising and exciting for our team. Many black corals are threatened by illegal harvesting for jewelry. In order to pursue smart conservation of these fascinating and hard-to-reach habitats, it is important for researchers to know what species live at these depths and the geographic ranges of individual species.

A large, white, tree-like coral underwater.
Black corals don’t form large reefs like shallow corals, but individuals can get quite large – like this Antipathes dendrochristos found off the coast of California – and act as habitat for thousands of other organisms. Mark Amend/NOAA via Wikimedia Commons

What still isn’t known

Every time scientists explore the deep sea, they discover new species. Simply exploring more is the best thing researchers can do to fill in knowledge gaps about what species live there and how they are distributed.

Because so few specimens of deep-sea black corals have been collected, and so many undiscovered species are likely still out there, there is also a lot to learn about the evolutionary tree of corals. The more species that biologists discover, the better we will be able to understand their evolutionary history – including how they have survived at least four mass extinction events.

What’s next

The next step for my colleagues and me is to continue to explore the ocean’s seafloor. Researchers have yet to collect DNA from most of the known species of black corals. In future expeditions, my colleagues and I plan to return to other deep reefs in the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea to continue to learn more about and better protect these habitats.

Jeremy Horowitz, Post-doctoral Fellow in Invertebrate Zoology, Smithsonian Institution

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

creative commons, Random Thoughts

Random Thoughts 12-7-2022

Leave a comment

I am no expert at anything, I am just an average everyday guy who loves to think, write and be somewhat opinionated at times. I observe life and try to learn from it when I can as well. The last few years have been quite trying for me and others due to the pandemic, conspiracy theories, and the conspiracist behind them. The politically charged atmosphere is caused by the polarization of parties and followers as well.

The loss of relatives and friends during the last few years also have taken a toll on us that suffered such, trying to find some sort of normalcy in this chaotic time we live in is a chore, to say the least. Change is gonna happen and there is little we can do to stop progress and change, all we can do is try to nudge it toward a better outcome for all. All the violence and death from violence, we have seen in the last few years is a sign of fear and hate getting a hold of people.

Fear has its place, but it is not supposed to be the driving force in our lives, anger and hate really are unnecessary things that usually stem out of fear and past actions that caused pain. This is where forgiveness comes into play, to forgive is to let go of the pain caused by others more so than you granting the person who caused the pain a sort of pardon for their actions. Forgiving someone rarely ever makes a difference to the person who did the bad thing, but it does do wonders for the one doing the forgiving.

Fear, on the other hand, is usually created from one’s lack of knowledge, a bad experience that was bad enough to cause fear of it repeating, or an experience one wants to avoid due to some possible negative outcome and the desire to never have change/ desire of staying in what they see as a comfort zone. Fear can be a good thing in the sense it can keep you from doing something that could cause you or others harm, but if you let it fear can cause you to become stagnant and then you wind up missing out on the good things you could experience in life.

Being judgemental usually is a self-defense mechanism in most people, judge others before they can judge you kind of thing. Another fear-based reaction to the world and people around you. Also, it can be a mechanism used to control others, keep them feeling less important and less capable so they can not be a threat to you or your cause, etc. The problem with being judged is that if you do not buy into the judgment and don’t let it control or influence you then it is nothing but wasted words and time. Sometimes being judged by others can actually backfire on those doing the judgment, it can inspire some to go above and beyond to prove the accusers wrong.

Some political leaders love to use fear, anger, hate, and judgmentalism to their advantage, it can sway the masses and keep them divided so they are less aware of what may be going on and less capable of doing something about it if they chose to do so. Some examples are The big red scare in the 1950s, and the communists are coming, the communists are coming mentality. They created a common foe for the populace to rally against, something to hate so they were occupied and controlled by fear.

Sure communism was something to worry about to a degree during that time, but to be honest, there was very little they could have really done to the government. Sometimes I think it was more the big money/corporations that propagated the fear since they had the most to lose financially if communism were to blossom here in the USA. The concept of communism looks okay on paper but as we have seen in communist countries it doesn’t always work out the way it appears it will in the real world.

Fear is something we need to learn to control within ourselves and hate is something we should never embrace, hate tends to divide people and cause nothing but pain and turmoil. Anger on the other hand, though not a good thing to embrace, has its place as long as it’s short-lived and doesn’t result in violence. Anger is an emotion that comes out when you have pain be it emotional or physical and you need that anger to protect yourself for that moment. If you hold onto anger too long then it becomes hate.

If it were a perfect world, we would never feel anger or fear and we would never see hate. We would only love one another and be one big happy family, always helping one another through life. Unfortunately, it is not a perfect world, so we have to work hard at keeping fear and anger to a short-lived experience and hopefully as minimally experienced emotion. We also have to work hard at not being judgemental and or being negatively affected by being judged by others. We also need to be Compassionate, show unconditional love, and be understanding/tolerant toward one another.

Ray Barbier