Santa Cruz Wharf

Debris from the partial collapse (CBS/YouTube)

The Santa Cruz Wharf experienced a partial collapse after being buffeted by large waves on December 23rd. Repairs had been planned since 2014 but were stymied by environmentalists to protect seagulls (who are not endangered): [bold added]

Strict permitting requirements and lengthy litigation by environmental activists have stalled efforts to fortify the pier that could have helped it withstand the storm, current and former city officials say.

At the center of the delays: seagulls.

It was for the benefit of the western gull, commonly known as the seagull, that the city of Santa Cruz delayed the most critical part of the repair work, installing new timber piles — the columns that hold up the wharf — until September, because gulls and another bird, the pigeon guillemot, make their nests in the wharf’s wooden beams.

The protections for the birds are imposed by the state Coastal Commission, from which the city must obtain a permit before it can do repairs. Most major construction — including replacing the piles — must take place between September and March to avoid the nesting season.

“Our work window is a very narrow six months over the winter time when we tend to have storms and big waves,” said Tony Elliott, director of Parks and Recreation, which oversees the wharf. “The wharf is a 110-year-old structure, and it requires a lot of work. … It takes more than six months out of the year to maintain it effectively.”

Neither the western gull nor the pigeon guillemot are endangered species, yet the Coastal Commission says federal and state laws protect their nesting areas.

One can see thousands of seagulls in San Francisco and down the Peninsula in Foster City. They swoop into the stands at the end of Giants games, looking for scraps. They are ubiquitous, far from endangered, and, frankly, hazardous to human and animal health. Somehow I think the seagulls will adapt if they couldn't nest at the Santa Cruz Wharf over several summers.

The blame for the wharf collapse rests squarely on the shoulders of the California Coastal Commission, which refused to modify its protection of the nesting areas of a species called by many as flying rats.

Maybe We Shouldn't Try to Block the Asteroid

I find this disquieting: the Amphibious Robot Turtle (ART). [bold added]

The robot features morphing limbs that can adapt their shape, stiffness, and behavior to the environment. The limbs use variable stiffness materials and artificial muscles to transform their shape when transitioning from one environment to another.

In its legged state, ART can traverse land with a variety of four-legged terrestrial gaits. Upon reaching a body of water, ART can then morph its legs into flippers, enabling it to swim with lift- and drag-based aquatic gaits.

“You can almost think of [adaptive morphogenesis] as a form of evolution on demand,” wrote Karl Ziemelis, chief physical sciences editor for Nature.

I saw the Transformer movies, and I know how this ends.

The rat brain with the human part glowing.

I'm actually more worried about this: Scientists Grow Human Cells in Rat Brains

Neuroscientists at Stanford University transplanted tiny blobs of neural tissue known as organoids into the brains of newborn rats. The human cells grew and made functional connections within the rat brain, generating hybrid neural circuits, the researchers said in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

...Such research could probe the molecular underpinnings of hard-to-study psychiatric conditions such as autism and schizophrenia, neuroscientists said.

That promise will need to be weighed against ethical concerns about animal welfare and how to classify animals with chimeric brains, or brains that have both human and animal cells, some researchers and ethicists said.

Don't worry about human-rat creatures growing in labs. Scientists would never let anything harmful escape. You're not a science denier, are you?

Happy Year of the Rat

Below is a short video about the Chinese zodiac. It's produced by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and doesn't require knowledge of the Chinese language to understand it.



Time:

The film reinterprets the legend of how the zodiac was created by the Jade Emperor, the ruler of heaven. He announced a race among all birds and beasts with the first 12 to be chosen for the 12 signs of the zodiac. In the legend, the rat arrived at the finish line first, thereby becoming the first animal in the zodiac. Then the order in which the other animals arrived became their order in the zodiac system.

The passing on of traditional culture is depicted in the film through a relay race in whcih the participants are 12 young people. They wear animal masks, which combine traditional patterns with modern elements. ...

They run through the entire country, from the traditional lanes of Beijing with their rows of courtyard houses to highways passing through towering mountains, deserts, deep seas, the Great Wall, and even the sky...The modes include parkour, skateboarding, an off-road vehicle, the high-speed train and a rocket ship...

The rat is the last one to get the baton, which turns out to be a traditional red scroll. When the scroll unfurls, the message is revealed: "Continuing to write our own legend."

We don't keep many of the old ways alive, but I did give out red envelopes.

It's no mystery why that tradition stays popular.

Coals to Newcastle

Thanks, but I'll pass: Rat-infested pop-up bar to open in San Francisco [bold added]

(Chronicle photo)

The pop-up is a ticketed event at $49.99 per person. Included in the purchase is a 60-minute live interactive show focused on the “the weird, twisted dark side” of San Francisco’s history, according to a press release. After the show, patrons will have 30 minutes to spend touching and picking up the rats before heading to an upstairs cash bar that will serve drinks like the Ama-RAT-O Sour, which is a riff on an amaretto sour, and non-alcoholic drinks.

Comments:
1) There are markets in everything.
2) Novelty might make it successful....for one time and one place.
3) Assuming the Health Dept okays "clean" rats, how would it know if a "dirty" rat sneaks in?

Natural Enemies

A couple of nearby apartment buildings have messy trash enclosures, and the rats are multiplying. (It's likely that was the birthplace of the rat that took a liking to our car's wiring.)

Last night I saw a big gray cat sauntering down the middle of the street, its head as if on a swivel looking for prey. Three blocks from the house I saw the black specimen (right), which gazed balefully until I went away.

I've never much cared for cats, but I'm glad to see them in our neighborhood, the enemy of my enemy and all that. Happy hunting!

A Bad Start

Throughout my trip I will be staying at my parents' place (they moved to assisted living in October) in the McCully-Moiliili district.

On the first night their car wouldn't start. The engine cranked--so the problem wasn't the starter--but didn't engage. After a few tries I quit. Maybe I'd flooded the engine. I will try again in the morning.

Exposed colored wires meant the
shielding was gnawed through

The morning effort to start the car was unsuccessful. Before I called a tow truck, I checked to see if the issue was something simple, like a loose wire or a clogged fuel filter.

The first order of business was to remove the engine cover on the Nissan. That meant finding Dad's hoped-for socket-wrench set in the storage shed, which only took an hour.

Removing the cover revealed that the problem was beyond my capabilities. The engine was covered with rat droppings, and a maze of wires had been chewed through. Nissan's engine cover was a good idea gone wrong. The cozy gap provided a nesting space for rats, especially since the car isn't used for weeks. I cleaned off the poop with a mild Clorox solution and called triple-A.

The dealer called to say that a complete wire-harness replacement would cost $1,700 (there was damage I couldn't see under the car); the repair would take a week because parts had to be shipped from the Mainland.

Auwe!