The Beauty of Decaying

Taken Nov. 16
Ivette Tovar

                   Imagine that your hiking through the mountains and stumble upon an animal, smelling its decomposed odor that it leaves behind. The many pieces scattered around like an unsolved puzzle. Of course your first reaction is to poke at its nonliving body hoping theirs no life in it and when the fun is over leave like you never encountered it at all. I came across an animal carcass but out of curiosity, I slightly nudged a soft stick into the remaining animal as slowly as I could, trying not to cause any more damage. I couldn't tell what kind of animal it was but then I viewed it closer and noticed the head was shaped like a snowball with black specks of dirt inscribed into the patched white discolored skeleton. I flipped it on its side, the teeth that looked like a smokers with its yellow stained teeth that were once precious pearls. The jaw stretched out with four enlarged teeth and smaller teeth engulfed in the back that seemed alien like. The once place holder for its beloved eyes know a burrow of emptiness. As I skimmed its carcass I thought where is the rest of the body?  How did the body look before? How does a body decompose?

               I dug around to look for possible answers to my question. According to Darren Naish he's fascinated with animal decomposing that he even does his own techniques on animals he finds on the road or even his front porch. He uses many methods to getting a body out of its flesh. One is soaking the carcass in water for a long period of time which allows the bone to soften and fall off leaving a clean bone as the end result. Another is boiling the bone but its very disguising considering its done in the kitchen (and stink up the house). Last is microwaving the corpse creating heat temperature and causes the skin, flesh and other tissue to completely fall off. Naish has had many experiments done by himself and told some by collaborators. 

Darren Naish
" How to rot down bodies: the Tet zoo body farm"

         It may sound disgusting and disturbing but its the circle of life. Its happens everyday from it being on the road, in the desert, our backyard or even in your own house decaying away. But here's another question who are the doers? Well their are many anthropoids that help with the process of decomposition. Ants are outstanding at decaying away the flesh and cleansing it to the skeleton.Isopods ( woodlice) do an outstanding job at eating away the flesh of a carcass. The ants and isopods have to be in a colony for the job to come out with good results, Also dermestid beetles which some museums have in a large number to specifically decay the carcass. As a body is left these anthropoids come jolting in to eat off its nutritious flesh leaving behind the ridged boney white skeleton. The video shows the life of a bunny being eaten away from various kind of animals( watch closely and you can see them moving the body).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrSHku6-LFo     
   
        I have seen an animal left dead on the road but never stayed after to watch the real beauty begin. Its weird and fascinating to know that right know their are not only animals but people buried underneath the rich soil. Being alarmingly welcomed as the richness of the flesh gets exposed to the minerals of the dirt. Knowing that that's the start and end of the a new of life. Leaving the ends results with fragmented skeleton that beholds beauty. Thank you for decomposing the righteousness and showing its inner beauty.                                                            Word Cited

          Naish, Darren. "How to rot down dead bodies: the Tet zoo body farm". ScienceBlog LLC@ 2006-2014. N.P.n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2014

        

The Great Migration

I have been looking at the ground and trees but this time something in my head told me to watch the sky. I found a comfortable spot on the cold, hard cement and laid one arm over the other. Surprisingly a flock of geese appeared out of the blue and actually caught my attention. I have seen flocks before ( which I would glance at for like a second and look away) but this time it was different. I always told myself that I love nature but doing this project had made me actually love nature for real. You don't just say you love something without having a reason too. And I thought why is this flock of birds so fascinating and intriguing to look at? Why am I wasting my time to look at some birds fly away in a group to the same place they always go to? And I told myself what the heck am I saying, these birds are living, breathing creature, breed to keep us company with their wobble orange feet, and long black necks with splattered grey paint on their weird shaped feature. I have always despised bird ( from bad childhood experience) but later found them as descent and warm hearten animals. These flock of geese are headed somewhere far away from here, Nevada, to a place that I have no clue of. Where are they going, how do they reach this place? I had a lot of questions that needed answering pronto before my head explodes from all these thought running through my head. Nature is loved when you question the species throughout this vast land we call Nevada. When you actually take a minute of your time to watch something important instead of sending a text to friends or tweet about a hot guy that smiled at you. Many young adults take advantage of nature by being ignorant and missing the beauty of it. I know because I used to be like that ( well about the texts and stuff of course) and actually enjoy being outside, alone with nature to keep me company. These flock of geese are in a place where no one is seen on their phones , playing video games, or partying, their up in the sky. They're away from the chaos and looking to that place that lies ahead of them, and nothing else. I wish I was one of those lucky geese, flying through the open air that hits my robust wings as I head into that mysterious place.

" Quiet Day"
Taken by John Briggs

    There has been studies on how birds use natural magnetism for navigation and there are two theories  ( How birds and Other Animals Navigate their environment with the Use of Earth's Magnetic Field) one is that birds are able to sense the magnetic field because of a magnetic receptor in their beaks, and the other theory is that birds have special chemicals in their eyes that allow them to actually see the magnetic field. Researchers believe that on a birds beak there is a magnetite receptor there that is made up of iron- based magnetic crystals which is shown on this diagram that shows the ground as the strongest pole. The beak is similar to a compass according to an experiment done by Max Plank Institute in Germany where they found that when they  re -magnetized iron particles in the beak of migratory birds, the beak acts like a type of compass or navigational device,which allows the bird to choose which direction to go.

"How birds and Other Animals Navigate their Environment with
the Use of Earth's Magnetic Field"

Dominik Heyer and other German researcher did a study on the brains of a garden warbler and their migratory habits. They found a link between the neurons of the eye and regions of the brain involved in migration. In the experiment Heyers and his colleagues injected a dye into the birds brain called, cluster N,  which is the region of the brain associated with migration. This got the birds into " migratory mood" ,they then injected another dye but into the eyes to show the path of neurons. The dye followed the path and it ended up in the thalamus ( pit stop for visual information in the brain). The data showed that birds could sense magnetic field. Researchers believe birds see North as dark spots and gradients of light as the other directions. These theories have been questioned and for quite some time we ( I mean me of course) got my questions answered. Birds get to choose where they want to go and if some others choose to follow. This information lead me to some new questions like what type of birds see the dark pigment that navigates them? I hope to find out more about the navigational devise lodged into the brains of birds but until then hope you found my love for nature worth flying for.

Works Cited

             Sam B. and Helena, " How birds and Other Animals Navigate their Environment with the Use of Earth's Magnetic Field". Creative common Attribution. N.p. n.e. October 3. 2014.