The Ingenious Mr Hooke - Micrographia

Many of the greatest discoveries in science have been brought about by the creation of an ability to see what was previously unseen.  The most exciting of these inventions was the microscope because it could be used by almost anyone.  

It brought into focus a worlds of such amazing complexity and beauty in the most commonplace things and changed for ever our admiration for the intricacies of Nature.  It first made people gaze in wonder at the very small as well as the very large.  One person deserves the credit for launching this voyage of discovery into this microworld and for illustrating it with skill and precision.

Robert Hooke began his scientific career while still a student at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1653, where he met and worked for Robert Boyle.  Over the next several years, amongst his many interests, he was active in developing powerful new compound microscopes, and used his beautifully crafted instrument to create a remarkable atlas of the microsopic world.  

It was published in 1665 for the Royal Society under the title Micrographia and contained a series of sixty studies, fifty-eight microscopic and two telescopic picture of the moon and stars.  The majority of Hooke's microscopic studies were of living things, a louse, a fly's compound eye, sponges, herbs, a bee's sting, fish scales, snail's teeth, insects, stinging nettles, and spiders.  I can fully understand the amazement in looking at these things under a microscope as I have previously completed a unit in Environmental Biology, and I have looked at many of these things myself.

These pictures inspired scientists to embark upon serious systematic study of the detailed structure and function of insects and other small-scale intricacies of nature.  The extraordinary fine tuning of the system of legs and arms that was revealed in these pictures of the tiny creatures such as the flea led many to believe this must have been designed ready-made for functions that it now performs.  This claim would ultimately be superseded by Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin.  Darwin acknowledged the debt he owed to this early collection of evidence.  Without it, there would have been no problem for the mechanism of natural selection to solve.

To my upmost delight, we can view this extraordinary interactive 'fold out' book of this remarkable mans illustrations online and I would love to share this with you.  It is well worth a look.  

Ingenious indeed.

http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/flash/hooke/hooke.html   

Source http://www.history-of-the-microscope.org/robert-hooke-microscope-history-micrographia.php 

Heavens Below - The Beauty of the Natural Wonders of Caves

Whoever said the underworld was a bad, scary place?! These formerly hidden natural wonders are finally revealing their beauty to those who always thought heaven was someplace above.

Lets get basic.  A cave is a cavity in rocks large enough for a person to enter.  

Most underground caves are formed by the action of water.  As rainwater seeps downward limestone rock is dissolved, while water flowing along joints and fractures widens them.  Other caves take shape when molten rock solidifies, or are formed from spaces between blocks of fallen rock.

Caverns deep below ground attract explorers and, once they are declared safe, visitors.  They may feature narrow tunnels that open into vast chambers, subterranean rivers and lakes, glittering crystals, and fantastic rock forms.  They are places of wonder and often of spectacular beauty. Many large limestone caves are still growing.

There are so many unbelievably amazing caves systems all over the world, some not even yet discovered, a few of the better known ones are:

Carlsbad Caverns, a world heritage site in New Mexico there are 300 known caves, of which 113 "rooms" comprise a national park.  Formed as acidic rainwater dissolved the Permian limestone, the caves include some of North America's largest.

Sea Cave, carved over centuries by waves and tides, create flowing shapes.

Sarawak Chamber in Malaysia is the worlds largest known single underground chamber, this cave is about 2,300 feet long and 1,300 feet wide, and about 230 feet high.

Maze Cave, also known as Optimistic Cave is a system in Ukraine that has up to 143 miles (230km) of mapped passages that form a dense network on several levels.  

My favourites - probably because they are the only one's that are nearby and can be visited regularly are The Margaret River region here in Western Australia.  They offer visitors some of the most unique and stunning cave experiences in Australia.  Along the spine of the Leeuwin Naturaliste Ridge and beneath soaring karri forest lie more than 150 caves. These caves belong to a series of complex and fragile karst systems which are landscapes formed by the rapid drainage of water underground. Karst systems are characterised most often by caves, dolines (large holes), blind valleys, sinking streams and springs. The main road that travels along the Leeuwin Naturaliste Ridge is aptly named Caves Road.

http://vimeo.com/63611049 This is an amazing video on the Devil's Eye Cave (Cave Diving in Florida), really worth a watch.

Here are some pictures from my last visit to the Margaret River Cave systems and I think you will agree that they are indeed stunning to look at, but so much better in 'real life'.  

Margaret Thatcher 1925 - 2013

Right now, Live from St Paul's Cathedral in London, is the ceremonial funeral service for Baroness Margret Thatcher.

Margaret Hilda Roberts, Baroness Thatcher was born 13th October 1925.
Her years of power as Britain's first woman Prime Minister reshaped the social and economic landscape of the country.  The Iron Lady was famed for her firmness and determination.  'You turn if you want,' she once said: 'the lady's not for turning.'

"She was born into a family of a self-made and prosperous grocer in Lincolnshire.  Her father, Alfred Roberts, was active in local politics.  A bright child, Margaret was educated at Grantham Girl's School, before going on to Oxford University to study chemistry.  Not something I think many people are aware of.  While at University she became President of the University Conservative Association, only the third woman to hold the position.

From 1947 Margaret was employed as a research chemist.  She also continued her political activities and in 1950 and 1951 stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative candidate for Dartford in Kent, although she increased the local Tory vote by 50 per cent.  Early pictures show her hallmark blonde coiffure, feminine features and winning smile.  An authoritative speaker, her unforgettable delivery was once described as a 'honey-sweet voice of solicitous purity'.

Through her involvement in the Conservative Party, Margaret met Denis Thatcher, a wealthy businessman whom she married in 1951.  Dennis supported Margaret while she studied to become a barrister, which she did while pregnant with twins.  In 1953 Margaret qualified, specialising in taxation, and stood for a number of constituencies before winning the seat for Finchley in North London in April 1958.

After serving as a junior minister in Harold Macmillan's government, Margaret became a member of Edward Heath's cabinet in 1970.  During the Conservative government of 1970 - 74 Margaret was secretary of State for Education and Science.  Between 1974 and 1979 Margaret was shadow spokesman on the environment and financial affairs and it was during this time that she criticised Edward Heath for being insufficiently Conservative.  When she challenged him for the part leadership in 1974 neither her nor she expected her to win the first ballot but, having done so, she was soon party leader.  For the rest of her period in opposition she united her party in opposing government spending, and argued the case for curbing trade union power and for reducing immigration.

The 1979 election followed the 'winter of discontent' during which the Labour government had struggled with the unions.  The Conservatives won the election with a large majority and Margaret became Prime Minister.  Her philosophy from the start was that Britain was over-governed and over-taxed.  She aimed to make industry and public services more efficient by cutting subsidies, to privatise government-owned industries, to reduce trade union power, to fight inflation and to encourage home ownership.

She achieved her goal of reducing inflation but at a heavy cost: unemployment nearly tripled in her first two terms in power.  In 1981 there was the worst recession in Britain since the 1930s and rioting in deprived inner-city areas.  Opinion polls showed her to be the most unpopular Prime Minister since 1945.  However, the surprise invasion of the British-owned Falkland Islands by the Argentinians in 1982 gave Margaret an opportunity to tackle an external challenge decisively and turn public opinion in her favour.  Media acclaim for her leadership of the Falklands War helped her to another term in office.

Margaret's second term as Prime Minister was crowned by her triumphant negotiation of a 2 billion pound annual rebate from the European Union in 1984.  The rebate made up the shortfall between what Britain paid into the EU and what it received from it in subsidies.  The UK has continued to benefit from the agreement ever since.  However, there were corresponding low points, including a long, bitter and highly divisive strike by miners during 1984-85, which the government eventually broke through the preventative measures it had taken against coal shortages.  The arts and education in Britain saw cuts in funding and in protest Oxford University twice refused to award Margaret the customary honorary degree given to Prime Ministers.  This slight from her former university prompted Margaret to donate her personal papers to Churchill College, Cambridge, where they are stored with Sir Winston Churchill's.

Having survived an assassination attempt by the IRA in 1984, Margaret went on to win a third consecutive term of office and become the longest-serving post-war Prime Minister.  The large majority gained in the election was attributed by some commentators to the increased number of property owners that she had created through her policy of allowing tenants municipal housing to buy their houses.  Thatcherism was now an accepted political phenomenon, which its stress on policies that embodied Margaret's widely quoted belief that 'there is no such thing as society.  There are only individual men and woman and there families'.

Margaret was an outspoken critic of Communism and a loyal supporter of American foreign policy under the Reagan administration.  However, she respected the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, saying he was a man she 'could do business with'.  With President Ronal Reagan she had a genuine personal friendship.  He admired her intelligence and resilience and she was charmed by his humour and easy manners.  She asserted a strong commitment to NATO by the UK and upheld the importance of Britain's independent nuclear deterrent.  The ironic label by which she was known in the Soviet press - the Iron Lady - delighted her and became permanently coupled with her name.

In 1989, several events were set in train that led to her eventual downfall.  They included the introduction of the deeply unpopular poll tax to fund local government, quarrels with senior colleagues and a downturn in the economy.  In 1990 Margaret's leadership of the Conservative Party was formally challenged while she was out of the country.  her failure to win an outright victory in the first ballot of the leadership election took her by surprise.  She quickly recognised that defeat was likely and resigned.

In her retirement Margaret has remained active, establishing the Thatcher Foundation to promote free enterprise and democracy throughout the world.  In 1992 she was made a life peer and chose the title Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven.  Since a series of minor strokes in 2002, her health was frail.  Her tribute at the funeral of Ronal Reagan in June 2004, a year after the death of her husband, was one of the most moving parts of the service. Although ill health meant that she had to record her address, , she insisted on attending in person. 

Many consider that Margaret Thatcher transformed Britain greatly for the better and re-established it as an economic force; others believe she damaged Britain's manufacturing base and created a divided society.  She showed by example that it was possible for a woman to rise to the highest office in British politics and stay there - a feat she accomplished with a level of assertiveness rarely equalled by her male predecessors."
(Women who changed the world. Smith-Davies 2006)


Margaret Thatcher was a woman of passion and conviction.  She would make her fellow colleagues go weak at the knees at her - quite simply her end message was about the freedom of the individual.

RIP Margaret Thatcher 

The Value of Nature by Paul Dixon

I just received a copy of The Australian Greens Magazine as I have recently become a member, and I was reading through it and in this issue, Paul Dixon shares his very personal story of economic structures failing him, and his return to nature as a result.

I would like to share this with you, and as I usually do not like to write a blog that quotes a story word for word (exceptions of The Story of a Carbon Atom), I wanted to share this particular one as I felt it was quite a powerful read.


"In October 2012 I published a small collection of environmental poetry which represented a distillation of more than 35 years experience in nature.  It had been written more than a year earlier at a time when I became homeless and unwell from my overall predicament.  Even though I had continued working as a lawyer from the swag, the only thing I had to leave to my children of any real value was a connection to nature hopefully to be described forever in writing.

Some personal financial arrangements and my socio-economic background meant I had nowhere else to turn.  With certain lessons in mind I had taken from nature over the years and which I wished to pass on to my children, the book penned hastily in the light of my campfires in local State forests and National Parks where I was sleeping.  It did however confirm just how distant my heart and mind had become from my own people.

I was soon forced into bankruptcy and a disgraceful ending to my eight or so years of work without a holiday for clients from a lower socio-economic background on behalf of Legal Aid NSW.  The NSW Law Society allowed me to continue practicing as a lawyer, however by that stage my relatively public demise and reconnection with nature on a more substantial level through the book made practicing as a lawyer unpalatable.  The book was released for sale more or less unedited and I now act occasionally for disabled or mentally ill persons and make a meagre living selling my landscape photos.

Retreating to nature was a bit of history repeating itself for me.  I grew up often needing nature as a place to hide, to become unseen and a part of it served my small interest as a little and frightened child.  I was allowed more dignity in nature from very early on and was extremely grateful for it, and I wanted to know everything about nature.  I studied science at university and approached indigenous peoples and artists, and I found being an Anglo Saxon Australian (educated or not) was not the best place to come from in understanding our place in nature.  I was always more interested in spending my time exploring local bushland than going overseas or drinking sessions.  It was therefore sad but not difficult for me to eventually be forced to work as a lawyer during the day and sleep in the bush at night as ridiculous as that may sound.

I place much weight on going deep into nature continually throughout my life, and my not carrying the burden my siblings now do and that which many others do because of their socio-economic childhood. As a criminal and mental health lawyer I got to know the fine details of people's lives many of which I shared, but I was their lawyer not an inmate, fellow patient or support person.  I could see why they became drug or alcohol dependent and develop mental health difficulties.  The repeated theme for me was they had no haven to retreat to when they were often exposed to depravity as children and adults, nothing.

The book is therefore an expression of an individual who has relied upon nature as a sanctuary as a matter of necessity, and the observations I have made as part of that process.  Essentially I have seen many undesirable traits in people with extremely serious consequences such as death, and many desirable traits in nature which get very little airtime.  I just wanted my children to know these things, and not have a watchmaker's view of nature but an open one based on them being part of it and after all from it.

I think it is obvious I was under a great deal of stress when I wrote the book, in that some of the poems are not as well composed as others although the messages are still there.  But I also know that when I read some now I was clearly in nature when I wrote them.  It is clear to me the poems are from nature not me, I was just the reporter when I wrote them and I am so glad that if I never go on to leave anything else to my children which is a distinct possibility, I did this for them.  I will never regard nature as being there for me or others, but that does not equate to nature not having significant and possible life changing meaning to me or others which I wish my children and now others to contemplate through my poems".


Paul Dixon now lives in rural NWS with his two young children and is glad to be living a quieter life alongside forests once again.  He studied science and Law at the University of Newcastle. Paul's book, Of Nature and Latent Art is available as an e-book on Amazon for $2.99 or he can be contacted directly at pauldixon@comcen.com.au

From Europe with Love

I have just been given rather a few old vinyl records from a dear friend of mine who no longer needed, nor wanted them.  I knew that many of them were quite old, way before my time and that there was many I was not familiar with.  Of course, I could not say no and hurt my friend as she thought she was doing me a favour – and indeed, she was.  I have just acquired a very old vintage original HMV record player and much in need of vinyl’s to play – so I was happy to take them off her and give them a good home, regardless of the style of music.

I got home and had a look through them and as I suspected, many of them I did not know.  My friend is from Germany; she is an elderly lady whom I have a deep respect for.  She has lived through the war and always has many stories to share, I still cannot seem to call her by her first name, it is always “Mrs.… “   as you would do with say a schoolmistress.  Many are classics from the 50’s and 60's, some classical pieces and some are from Europe.  It was the songs from Europe that most interested me, as I myself am English and some of my favourite places in the world are in Europe, mainly France and Italy. 

There is a special ‘flavour’ about continental songs, just like the food and wines from that continent to which most Australians aspire for at least one holiday of a lifetime.  Like their surroundings, the songs of Europe are distinguished by something vaguely exotic.

In melodies and words they match up with the widespread idea of sophisticated French and Italian men and women – debonair and hotly romantic.  Whether the image is true or false, of course, doesn’t really matter when you’re listening to the popular music from these countries; for whatever reason, the love songs of France and Italy have a special place in our affections.

Volare, an early vintage, La Novia, Romantica, Al Di La and so on.

These songs have become just as much a part of our lives as the songs in our own language.  Why have they proved popular?  Perhaps because they all speak an international language, that of a good melody and the timeless poetry of love.

"Et maintenant……….Ecoutez bien……c’est magnifique……la musique d’Europe……..con amore!!"

Expanding Cities

Humanity is becoming a predominantly urban species.  Cities occupy just 2 per cent of Earth's land surface, but they now house over half the world's population.  Perhaps most alarming of all, they use three-quaters of resources we take from Earth.

The growth of the world's largest cities in particular has been pretty staggering.  The first megacity - with a population of ten million people - was New York, which reached that figure around 1940.  

New York Skyline evolution 

Today there are twenty-two megacities, half of them in Asia, including three in India and two in China. The largest, Tokyo in Japan, has over thirty-five million inhabitants.  Most urban growth from migration.  China, which has ninety cities with populations of more than a million people, has a 'floating population' of more than 100 million people who have moved to cities in recent years.  Its cities expect to welcome another 400 million people from the countryside within the next thirty years.  Perth, WA is set to double its population by 2050.

Cities have become economic powerhouses, providing jobs in manufacturing, transport and wholesaling, as well as service including universities, hospitals, government services, banking, media and culture.  But, despite their attractions, cities can be centres of squalor too.  More than a quarter of all urban inhabitants live in unplanned, overcrowded and often illegal squatter settlements, with no running water.  Cities can also become victims of their size.  Congestion, worsening air pollution, and crime can cause megacities to stop growing, as people and businesses flee to the suburbs surrounding new cities.

The result of this out-migration has been a new geographical phenomenon as the 'polycentric megacity zone' - an urban landscape composed of a number of different centres.  These new zones include Yangtze delta region around Shanghai, southeast England around London, and the Japanese urban corridor between Tokyo and Osaka.

The good news on human population growth is that for the first time since the mid 1900s, the rate of increase in human population is actually decreasing in areas.  The Earth peaked in the late 1980s and has started to generally decrease since then, this is a milestone in human population growth and encouraging.  The role of education has been paramount to the population problem.  As people (particularly women), become more educated, the population growth rate tends to decrease.  As the rate of literacy increases, population growth is reduced.  

Given the variety of cultures, values, and norms in the world today, it appears that our greatest hope for population control is, in fact, education.

Of interest:

http://megacities.nl/?tag=hall

http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/?p=1590

Megacity on the map - source viewsoftheworld.net