Master Naturalist, Ancestral Technologist, and Guerilla Engineer

[KWolf12]

How did you find PF?

I was chasing links down rabbit holes with the goal of setting up the most self-regulating aquarium for my itinerant frog, pet leeches, and the herds of copopods and freshwater shrimps. I ran into this forum, and it looks nifty.

Hello, Folks.

My degree is in biology, but after that, I've been constantly educating myself about everything that interests me. Most of those interests are related entirely to the non-human components of the world; fungi, plants, protists, animals, nutrient cycling and soil-building. I'm active in a group that works to re-wild our local city park, and I forage for wild foods there. An associated hobby is to recreate the technology of ancestral humans by making things such as fire-drills and coracles, learning how to make leather and strong rope, and so on.

My understanding of physics is fairly basic: thankfully, my one college physics class was in-depth enough to open doors to all the other knowledge that interests me most. How an oak hollowed out by mushrooms stands a better chance of standing tall for a long time because it's become a hollow cylinder; how to balance compression and tension in one of the random things I build; how my new bullfrog's tongue uses elastic energy-storage to shoot out at prey at a speed greater than what could be accomplished by muscle-action alone. FUN stuff!

I'm short on money, but long on time; and I'd recommend that state of being to anyone who can hit the right balance of it, because it let's me pursue new curiosities all the time. What makes a brain happier than pursuing the questions of genuine curiosity?

This is Nim, a day-old turtle who was part of a research project on increasing the reproduction success of turtles in Wisconsin. Nim stopped by my place for a day for a photo shoot. Nim liked chasing copopods, but wasn't quite coordinated to catch one.

 

[berkeman]

Welcome to the PF, Kwolf!

It sounds like you and @BillTre have a lot in common. Perhaps Bill can suggest which forum would be the best to start a new thread to discuss your questions and projects.

(Cute little turtle, BTW)

 

[BillTre]

Nice turtle.
Turtles were among my first pets.

 

[KWolf12]

Thanks for the welcome, berkeman! Hello, BillTre!

That would be cool, to hear about threads I might fit in with. It's my intention to wander around looking at conversations and figuring out the format for a while, before starting anything of my own.

I think the only question I've been trying understand without success lately is sorting out the physics of UV light, because some species of mushrooms glow under blacklight, and I'm not satisfied by any of the half-explanations I've found about what I'm actually seeing, and how that relates to what animals who can see in that spectrum are actually seeing when they look at those same mushrooms.

 

[Vanadium 50]

When I read the title, I thought "Ancestral Technologist? Does that mean if I don't like my ancestors I can get a new set? Sweet!"

 

[KWolf12]

Sure thing, Vanadium 50, why not?

In my case, it takes going back four hundred years to get past the first ancestor I know was engaged in stealing other people's land and shooting anyone who objected. I doubt that guy sprang out of innocence, so screw his parents, too. Ultimately, I just go on backwards in time in search of the skills that might have belonged to non-colonialist, non-imperialist ancestors, living in villages of less than 100 people. What would they have been like?

Then I figure they probably went on intertribal raids and close to 50% of the men were killed in primitive warfare. Yeah, I think I can handle that ancestry; we broke out into explosive bouts of murder every so often, but we stayed in our own tribal networks, dag-nabbit!