Help is not on the way

News blues…

MSNBC: Rep. Andy Kim: “1 Out Of Every 1,250 Americans In This Country Has Died Because of COVID" (5:45 mins) 

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With 4 percent of the world’s population, the US has 19 percent of the world’s Covid deaths. Since Thanksgiving, there has been 346,061 new infections and 2,704 deaths. This clip includes an information update with Dr Fauci. 

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An informative overview of Covid – potentially brewing over 5 decades  (11:30 mins)

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South Africa requires Covid certificates for cross-border truck traffic.  (2:20 mins)

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The last several weeks workers with the local village’s Umngeni Municipality have engaged in “popcorn” strikes, spontaneous events that block municipal office entrances. The original focus was a request for an increase in salary. Today, more action:

Protest action at Umngeni Municipality remains unresolved. A Court Interdiction was issued on 2020-11-27 to 6 respondents regarding the protests. The applicant in that court interdict is Ms Thembeka Cibane the Municipal Manager who wanted the Court to force all 6 applicants to instruct those who are protesting to stop their actions.
As a result of the court interdict, there was a public meeting at Mpopomeni Hall to discuss the way forward.
After that meeting, a decision was taken to intensify the protests by blocking all roads leading to Howick. The targeted roads includes R617, Tweedie Rd and all others access roads. Information received also indicates that today’s protest will be joined by people from Zuzokuhle and Mathandubisi areas. Roads blockade are expected to start in the early hours of Monday morning 2020-11-30.

I hope protesters wear masks….

Healthy planet, anyone?

...Scientists are finding that parasites are puppet masters, shaping ecosystems by changing the behaviour of their host species. Research in California  showed parasites were involved in 78% of links in the food chain. Rough estimates suggest there could be 80 million parasites, but only 10% have been identified….
Colin Carlson is a biologist at Georgetown University in the US who has just published a paper in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B arguing for a global parasite project to record parasitic life on Earth. He says we know next to nothing about them. “When we think about plants and herbivores and carnivores, there are parasites operating on every part of that food web – they’re this kind of dark matter. There are these unaccounted for links and forces in the network that we often can’t quantify.”
Carlson believes conservationists underestimate public support and interest in parasites. “People assume that because they’re gross, there’s not going to be any interest,” he says. “And I think, actually, it’s quite the opposite … People like the idea that there’s this entire hidden world within animals that we know nothing about. People love frontiers, right? They love the deep ocean and deep space and there is a frontier inside every animal on Earth.”
The global parasite project could lead to half the world’s parasites being described in the next decade, researchers say. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Cycads  typically grow very slowly and live very long, with some specimens known to be as much as 1,000 years old. Cycads are sometimes mistaken for palms or ferns because of a superficial resemblance, but they are not closely related to either group.
I’ve a special place in my heart for cycads. When I was a child, one had grown, ignored for years, in a bird aviary near my bungalow. Then, an irate cycad-knowledgeable person strongly urged my mother to remove the aviary and “protect that bloody cycad. Don’t you know it could be a thousand years old?”

A couple of youthful cycads try to live long and happy lives in this garden. Alas, caterpillars make that tough.
Last year, I noticed swarms of yellow and black caterpillars on the youthful cycads. Yesterday, I noticed relatives of those swarms had returned. Quick online research indicated these would soon develop into Cycad Moths, a blue-grey butterfly.
Despite their attractive coloring, birds avoid these critters as the diet of cycad makes the caterpillars distasteful.
I scooped dozens of these caterpillars from cycad fronds and tossed them into the pond. The Massacre of the Innocents, each of us victims of do-what-ya-gotta-do.
As a mark of respect, I watched the caterpillars drown and sunk. Sunlight illuminated their bodies on the pond bottom. 

I tell myself they’ll to enrich the ecosystem as compost….