More on soil

Right now I'm working on a manuscript about links between diet, reproduction, lifespan, and life-history strategy in crickets. This involves reading some somewhat dense mechanistic papers that hypothesize about various genetic underpinnings that may influence links among these things. Tedious work.

So naturally, I'm simultaneously thinking about other things. Last Friday, I went to a grad student's presentation about her work to study connections between soil fertility and Orthopteran abundance in a region known as the "peanut basin" in Senegal. Her research project is part of a larger research program spearheaded by an awesome colleague of mine, which is aiming to determine environmental factors that trigger locust swarms, so as to reduce or prevent swarming. For both of us, there are interesting things to be learned from thinking about grasshoppers vs. crickets.

Anyway, the soil fertility aspect of things is also fascinating. Some of the growing fields under study have been in use for agriculture for a very, very long time. The soil texture is quite sandy, and what this means is that a lot of the ideas one might have about crop production based on general assumptions about soil may be wrong. For example, adding in fertilizer to the system won't have nearly as large an impact as building up soil organic matter - fertilizer will basically just wash out of sandy soil when it rains. Then, building up soil organic matter is challenging because of a whole host of demands, including how intensely crop materials are used for non-feed purposes, and I imagine pressure associated with land ownership. Agriculture in this region is also completely dependent on rainfall.

To me, this highlights some of the limits to trying to generalize ideas about sustainable agricultural production. It's no wonder people specialize on just soils. There's a lot to think about, in that realm alone, let alone trying to study connections between soil, plants, and insects.

Coffeeshop bike rides

Technical question: can I issue a negative point (-1) if a coffeeshop appears to have ceramic mugs, I ask for one, and then my latte is delivered in a paper cup?

Slight backstory: my former neighbor is a huge coffee aficionado. While the coffeeshop options in the Greater Phoenix Suburb-o-Politan area have greatly expanded since my early explorations back in 2003, the quality of the options still varies. My neighbor had recommended a place just to the east of campus, adjacent to a formerly local brewpub that sold out several years ago, as one of only two places she'll visit. (the other place is in Phoenix and is good, but the atmosphere got weird and S can't go there because of pesticides). So I worked up the motivation/coordination to visit this spot.

Meanwhile, scrottie has been going over to the first reasonably good coffeeshop that appeared in Tempe (by my standards), which is located on the west side of campus, in our neighborhood.

But at this point, both places have committed the paper cup crime. The neighborhood joint has done this more than once. In Arizona, mediocrity reigns supreme.

...none of this is as bad as that one flourishingly bad coffeeshop in downtown Phoenix, at least.

Still. I guess I'd better just carry my own cup absolutely everywhere, all the time, if I intend to consume beverages made by other people.