Archives for April 2014

Family Fun & Biblical Plagues

April 17, 2014 by Bill McCormick

It’s nice to know that people pay attention. This year I received quite few emails over the last couple of weeks regarding my happy post about Biblical plagues. They all wanted to see it again so they could share it with family and friends. While we do have a search engine on the right hand side of the page I get the fact that some people think that’s a nuisance. And then there’s that whole forwarding links thing and the fact that not everyone is internet savvy and re-posting just makes things simpler for folks. And, as any woman who dated me in the 80’s can attest, I’m all about the easy. Anyway, all that aside, back on March 26 of last year I wrote about a scientific publication that enumerated the legendary plagues of Egypt. And, as it toddled on, put them all in a real world perspective. While I’ll be the first to acknowledge that the Bible is more allegory than fact that doesn’t bother me. The stories were intended to make points not act as historical treatises. Still, the stories come from somewhere. Yes some came from other religions, like Noah and the gang, and others came from various traditions that became codified as law, such as Leviticus. But some, such as Kings (think the Godfather series if you haven’t read it), are lightly embellished recitations of facts.

Where does Exodus fall in that pantheon? Closer to fact than you might have thought.

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It’s Lenten season and devout Christians surrender pleasures to remind them of their religion’s humble origins. Devout Christians and Jews recently celebrated Passover, the holiday that celebrates (if that’s the right word) the fact that God “passed over” the homes of the faithful during the legendary 10 plagues of Egypt. So the faithful lived. Then they escaped from Egypt. Then they lived in the desert for 40 years and needed food to fall from heaven so they wouldn’t die. That part doesn’t sound like fun. Deserts just aren’t that interesting. Lots of sand, a couple of crazy Bedouins and more sand. The thing is that most people do when they read Exodus’ account of the plagues and so on is assume they’re allegories. There’s a lot of good reasons for that. They sound like they were conceived by some really stoned desert dwellers. Then again 40 years in the desert might melt a few brain cells. Back on February 11, 2011, I wrote about a modern version of the plagues. Back then I noted I still wasn’t circumcised.

For the record, I’m still not.

In Exodus there were 10 plagues rendered by God upon the peoples of the earth. Well, to be more specific, plagues 1, 2 & 3 were for everyone. Plagues 4, 5, 6, 7 & 9 were for everyone but the Children of Israel (hmm, now might be a good time to get circumcised) and the 10th plague would kill the first born child of every family except for those who marked their door with lamb’s blood. The 8th plague, locusts, is kind of unclear on who was meant to be its target. For our purposes here today let’s just assume that the 8th plague is for everyone and deal with the theology later.

In Exodus 7:14-25, the first plague is enumerated; BLOOD. More specifically, blood that fouls waters and kills all the fish and causes birds to drop from the sky. Well, I’m pretty sure we can check that one off as millions of fish and thousands of birds have been dying, en mass, the world over.

In other words we have proof that some of the biblical weirdness can happen. It has happened in our times.

But what about the 10 plagues? Could they have happened?

Richard Gray, who writes for Telegraph UK, says they not only could, they did.

Researchers believe they have found evidence of real natural disasters on which the ten plagues of Egypt, which led to Moses freeing the Israelites from slavery in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, were based.

But rather than explaining them as the wrathful act of a vengeful God, the scientists claim the plagues can be attributed to a chain of natural phenomena triggered by changes in the climate and environmental disasters that happened hundreds of miles away.

They have compiled compelling evidence that offers new explanations for the Biblical plagues, which will be outlined in a new series to be broadcast on the National Geographical Channel on Easter Sunday.

Archaeologists now widely believe the plagues occurred at an ancient city of Pi-Rameses on the Nile Delta, which was the capital of Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Rameses the Second, who ruled between 1279BC and 1213BC.

The city appears to have been abandoned around 3,000 years ago and scientists claim the plagues could offer an explanation.

Climatologists studying the ancient climate at the time have discovered a dramatic shift in the climate in the area occurred towards the end of Rameses the Second’s reign.

By studying stalagmites in Egyptian caves they have been able to rebuild a record of the weather patterns using traces of radioactive elements contained within the rock.

They found that Rameses reign coincided with a warm, wet climate, but then the climate switched to a dry period.

Professor Augusto Magini, a paleoclimatologist at Heidelberg University’s institute for environmental physics, said: “Pharaoh Rameses II reigned during a very favourable climatic period.

“There was plenty of rain and his country flourished. However, this wet period only lasted a few decades. After Rameses’ reign, the climate curve goes sharply downwards.

“There is a dry period which would certainly have had serious consequences.”

The scientists believe this switch in the climate was the trigger for the first of the plagues.

The rising temperatures could have caused the river Nile to dry up, turning the fast flowing river that was Egypt’s lifeline into a slow moving and muddy watercourse.

These conditions would have been perfect for the arrival of the first plague, which in the Bible is described as the Nile turning to blood.

Dr Stephan Pflugmacher, a biologist at the Leibniz Institute for Water Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin, believes this description could have been the result of a toxic fresh water algae.

He said the bacterium, known as Burgundy Blood algae or Oscillatoria rubescens, is known to have existed 3,000 years ago and still causes similar effects today.

He said: “It multiplies massively in slow-moving warm waters with high levels of nutrition. And as it dies, it stains the water red.”

The scientists also claim the arrival of this algae set in motion the events that led to the second, third and forth plagues – frogs, lice and flies.

Frogs development from tadpoles into fully formed adults is governed by hormones that can speed up their development in times of stress.

The arrival of the toxic algae would have triggered such a transformation and forced the frogs to leave the water where they lived.

But as the frogs died, it would have meant that mosquitoes, flies and other insects would have flourished without the predators to keep their numbers under control.

This, according to the scientists, could have led in turn to the fifth and sixth plagues – diseased livestock and boils

Professor Werner Kloas, a biologist at the Leibniz Institute, said: “We know insects often carry diseases like malaria, so the next step in the chain reaction is the outbreak of epidemics, causing the human population to fall ill.”

Another major natural disaster more than 400 miles away is now also thought to be responsible for triggering the seventh, eighth and ninth plagues that bring hail, locusts and darkness to Egypt.

One of the biggest volcanic eruptions in human history occurred when Thera, a volcano that was part of the Mediterranean islands of Santorini, just north of Crete, exploded around 3,500 year ago, spewing billions of tons of volcanic ash into the atmosphere.

Nadine von Blohm, from the Institute for Atmospheric Physics in Germany, has been conducting experiments on how hailstorms form and believes that the volcanic ash could have clashed with thunderstorms above Egypt to produce dramatic hail storms.

Dr Siro Trevisanato, a Canadian biologist who has written a book about the plagues, said the locusts could also be explained by the volcanic fall out from the ash.

He said: “The ash fall out caused weather anomalies, which translates into higher precipitations, higher humidity. And that’s exactly what fosters the presence of the locusts.”

The volcanic ash could also have blocked out the sunlight causing the stories of a plague of darkness.

Scientists have found pumice, stone made from cooled volcanic lava, during excavations of Egyptian ruins despite there not being any volcanoes in Egypt.

Analysis of the rock shows that it came from the Santorini volcano, providing physical evidence that the ash fallout from the eruption at Santorini reached Egyptian shores.

The cause of the final plague, the death of the first borns of Egypt, has been suggested as being caused by a fungus that may have poisoned the grain supplies, of which male first born would have had first pickings and so been first to fall victim.

But Dr Robert Miller, associate professor of the Old Testament, from the Catholic University of America, said: “I’m reluctant to come up with natural causes for all of the plagues.

The problem with the naturalistic explanations, is that they lose the whole point.

“And the whole point was that you didn’t come out of Egypt by natural causes, you came out by the hand of God.”

Dr. Robert Miller misses the beauty of the concept of God. It’s not that He creates crap out of nothing, it’s that He can alter what exists to do what He wants. Aside from the whole create the firmament thing, every miracle in the Bible can be recreated. Does that mean they are proof that God doesn’t exist?

Oh wait, science has figured out how nothing becomes something.

Guess what, it could simply reaffirm what I just said. That is what faith means. It doesn’t mean hating anyone or fearing anyone or hiding from anyone. It just means that you can live with the idea that you’re not the most developed being in the universe.

God knows I’m not.

Moby – Natural Blues from Sendero Indie Blog on Vimeo.

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A Quick Vacation Stop

April 14, 2014 by

Fly me to the moon, let me dance amongst the stars .... — Fly me to the moon, let me dance amongst the stars ….

I’ve wasted a lot of cyberspace debunking the whole concept of Bigfoot. It would seem that common sense and a basic knowledge of biology would preclude any notions in that direction. It would seem that way but it’s not. Simply put there is not enough vacant land in the areas where the Bigfeet allegedly live to hide a population large enough to be self sustaining. That is not true for the Yeti, which is rumored to live in Tibet and the surrounding areas. Scientists have even found DNA that could explain the sightings there. This is not true for Bigfoot. The problem that us rational folks have in debunking the concept is that there are o hard and fast numbers on what it would take to make a viable population. How many beings do you need to create a self sustaining group? While scientists have long known that the number is larger than two they never really got around to figuring out just how much more than two were needed.

Sarah Fecht, over at Popular Mechanics, says that scientists now have come up with a number. The reason is that they were trying to figure out how many people would be needed to colonize a new world without falling into inbreeding in a generation. The rules for these numbers apply to pretty much all living things so, if you do decide to hunt for a Bigfoot, we now have a good idea of how much land will be needed at the get go.

Back in 2002, John Moore, an anthropologist at the University of Florida, calculated that a starship could leave Earth with 150 passengers on a 2000-year pilgrimage to another solar system, and upon arrival, the descendants of the original crew could colonize a new world there—as long as everyone was careful not to inbreed along the way.

It was a valiant attempt to solve a thorny question about the future of humans in space. The nearest star systems—such as our nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, which is 4.2 light-years from home—are so far that reaching them would require a generational starship. Entire generations of people would be born, live, and die before the ship reached its destination. This brings up the question of how many people you need to send on a hypothetical interstellar mission to sustain sufficient genetic diversity. And a new study sets the bar much higher than Moore’s 150 people.

According to Portland State University anthropologist Cameron Smith, any such starship would have to carry a minimum of 10,000 people to secure the success of the endeavor. And a starting population of 40,000 would be even better, in case a large percentage of the population died during during the journey.

At the moment, NASA isn’t ready to send human explorers to Mars, let alone out of the solar system. But some private organizations, including the federally funded 100 Year Starship project, plan to make manned interstellar travel possible within the next century, hoping that a huge increase in propulsion speed could reduce the travel time between stars to just a few hundred years. Icarus Interstellar, one of the groups involved in 100 Year Starship, asked Smith to make this calculation of how many passengers would be needed to keep that population healthy. The results are published in the April–May issue of Acta Astronomica.

“I did this study to materially help in putting together the millions of puzzle pieces that will be required to allow humanity to spread out from our earthly cradle,” he says.

William Gardner-O’Kearney, who studied archaeology at Portland State, helped Smith build the MATLAB simulations to calculate how many different scenarios would play out during interstellar travel. He ran some additional simulations specially for PopMech to show us why the success of an interstellar mission depends crucially on the starting population size.

Gardner-O’Kearny calculated each population’s possible trajectory over 300 years, or 30 generations. Because there are a lot of random variables to consider, he calculated the trajectory of each population 10 times, then averaged the results. (With one exception: The starting population of 40,000 is so large that it takes 18 hours to complete each simulation, so he calculated that trajectory only once.)

Genetic diversity keeps groups healthy, and larger populations tend to have more diversity. In small or isolated groups, including Ashkenazi Jews and the Amish, marriage between relatives has reduced genetic diversity and made otherwise rare diseases such as Tay Sachs and cystic fibrosis common among those populations. Graph A shows that Moore’s suggestion of 150 people is not nearly high enough to maintain genetic variation. Over many generations, inbreeding leads to the loss of more than 80 percent of the original diversity found within the hypothetical gene.

A population of 500 people would not be sufficient either, Smith says. “Five hundred people picked at random today from the human population would not probably represent all of human genetic diversity . . . If you’re going to seed a planet for its entire future, you want to have as much genetic diversity as possible, because that diversity is your insurance policy for adaptation to new conditions.”

A starting population of 40,000 people maintains 100 percent of its variation, while the 10,000-person scenario stays relatively stable too. So, Smith concludes that a number between 10,000 and 40,000 is a pretty safe bet when it comes to preserving genetic variation.

The second threat to interstellar voyagers is catastrophes—plague, war, collisions, and mechanical failures—that could wipe out large portions of the population at any time.

The population of 40,000 can take quite a hit but still manage to stay within the range of a healthy population size, and the 10,000-person starship survives pretty well too.

To check out the smaller populations, we need to zoom in:

The population of 2000 gets halved over time, which is not good. And though the smaller populations (150 and 500) look as if they survived better, that’s partially because those populations had to have looser birth restrictions: Whereas in the simulations, the larger populations were allowed to have only one child per couple, the smaller populations allowed a couple to have two or three children to ensure the survival of the community. In the end, the growth cancelled out the disastrous effects. And if we take a look at the original 10 simulations for the 150-person starship (see graph below), we can see that three of the populations were totally wiped out. For 500 people, only one population got wiped out, and the risk of a wipeout gets smaller as population size goes up. The takeaway is that for both factors (genetic diversity and catastrophe survival), bigger populations are better.

Luckily, tens of thousands of pioneers wouldn’t have to be housed all in one starship. Spreading people out among multiple ships also spreads out the risk. Modular ships could dock together for trade and social gatherings, but travel separately so that disaster for one wouldn’t spell disaster for all, says Smith.

When 10,000 people are housed in one starship, there’s a potential for a giant catastrophe to wipe out almost everyone onboard. But when 10,000 people are spread out over five ships of 2000 apiece, the damage is limited.

To make interstellar travel a reality, scientists and engineers will have to overcome huge obstacles. They’ll need to find ways to increase propulsion speed, prevent the negative health effects that arise from living in space, and devise self-sustaining systems that provide food, water, and air. At least the new calculations provide some sort of starting point.

“With 10,000,” Smith says, “you can set off with good amount of human genetic diversity, survive even a bad disease sweep, and arrive in numbers, perhaps, and diversity sufficient to make a good go at Humanity 2.0.”

Things aren’t all that bleak. The math needed to power a ship at light speed or, possibly, beyond has already been done. The technology needed to build a portable biosphere already exists and growing food in non-native environments has been a reality ever since the development of hydroponics.

It would be a massive undertaking, but it could be done.

And almost all of it could be done now.

And one side note to all of this; all of the technology needed to make this happen will also help urban planners build self sustaining food centers in beleaguered neighborhoods and countries. Just in case you wondered what science is good for.

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The Amazing Race to the Bottom – Desperation of The Internet

April 8, 2014 by

By Chayse Love

Do you remember all the hot topics of this week? How about last week? How about last month? If you don’t , thats ok. You’re not alone. Thanks to smart phones, Rss feeds and an overflow of so-called ‘information’, most human beings have become little more than informational coffee filters. Straining news feeds and videos through their brains at a rate that makes it next to impossible for any of it to be absorbed. Unless it’s such a hot button issue that it’s on repeat and the hashtag on twitter is top trending for longer than 6 hours. The internet , once a shining point at the top of the mountain of human evolution, a place where all things merged and the ability to expand the human experience was presented, has now been reduced to a corporately run cesspit of useless information, disinformation and desperation.

I can speak on this mainly from the inside out. I have watched the web change over the years. From its glory days in the early 2000’s. To what it has become now. When social media first reared its head with sites such as Reddit and Myspace it truly was a place for swapping ideas and discovering new talent. To its current status of over exposed celebrities, picture competitions and reducing actual events to nothing more than a hashtag. If you have been witnessing this as I have, I feel your pain. Nothing is more cringe worthy than watching credible news organizations lower themselves to the standards of actually showing Twitter and Facebook comments of random people on their programs, just to look hip.

“@Iwashmycatdaily: I think fracking is good for the economy. Libs don’t think straight,” says a once respected reporter. Why do I care what some faceless stranger thinks about hydro-fracking?

To make matters worse now our reporters and celebrities (who at one time had a veil of mystery around them that made them seem chic) are now sharing pics of themselves to also seem cool. Pics I have no interest in seeing. Like what they ate for lunch, their kids first painting or worse them posing for selfies in the shower. The fact that an icon like Madonna would waste even a second posing for selfies for her Instagram makes my stomach turn. Never mind that she is so desperate for attention she actually glued fake under arm hair to herself to go viral. And viral it went.

Which brings us to the next rung down the ladder of internet desperation which is , “social media updates” becoming news. Now when Chris Brown tells Julie Brown to “F- Off” on Twitter, our news and blog outlets run with that as a story. They even post the Tweet post deletion as though there is any merit to it being news. How is this news? How is Madonna’s hairy under arm news? It’s not. As you continue to climb down this ladder you will encounter internet celebrities of days past. In my past I interviewed and featured online talent that was flourishing pre Google’s massive online take over. Cut to 4 years later and those same names and faces that used to garner thousands if not millions of views per video are struggling to stay relevant. The RSS Feed keeps flowing and only those willing to humiliate, scandalize, Sell Out or Troll their way to the top can survive. Otherwise you have only joined a race to the bottom. If everyone has a YouTube channel, who is watching? If everyone has a Twitter account, are we all just following each other to boost our own numbers?

If everyone has a podcast, who is listening?

In 2004 the internet was a place for people looking for exposure to find people looking for someone in their field. In 2014 the internet is so over saturated with inflated egos and minimal talent. That you would be hard press not to find an aspiring model, singer, photographer, or actor at every turn. Anyone with a smartphone can make an account, fake a following with $20.00 and debit card, and Photoshop their way to infamy. Some blogger will call it news and some so-called reporter will pick it up. All they have to do is jump on a viral trend, Snapchat a sext image, or seduce a celebrity into an online flirtation & screen cap it for their Facebook friends. Yes, I’m talking to you James Franco!

So where is this leading us all? I’m not sure.

Probably nowhere good. But what’s done is done. The Levees have been broken and now we must let nature take its course. However there is one way to avoid all of this insane racing to the bottom.

It’s called unplugging and I do it all the time.

Chayse Love : Facebook/Chasemebaby

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Nothing to Sneeze At

April 4, 2014 by

This is the time of year that pharmacies rack up tall coin selling people allergy medication. It is also the time of year where, once again, social media sites will be festooned with bad information. Some of it just useless, some of it freaking harmful. Allergies aren’t “all in your head” as some claim. No amount of positive thought will make them go away. Allergies, left untreated, can actually kill people. Or did you think that all those people who work with the public just collect epi-pens for fun? Also, lactose intolerance is not an allergy. You can’t fix it with Benadryl. It is caused by your body not being able to break down the enzymes and sugars in milk. If you can’t avoid dairy products there are medicines that can help, but none of them are related to allergies. I am lucky, my only allergy is to THC. Since I never liked pot that much to begin with I have not suffered unduly. Well, except for the weekend I once spent with a reggae band. I thought I would die.

Not all allergies are obvious either. Smashing Lists, which is exactly what it sounds like, has a list of the 10 oddest allergies.

10. Allergic to Vibrations
People with sensitive skin are the most commonly become the victim of this allergy in which an episode of urticaria induce in the body parts by the vibrations of machinery like cars and lawnmowers. Just like other allergies, it is caused by the wrong perception of immune system to harmless object and immune system responds in defense to the object as it may cause any damage to the body. Welt, rashes, hives and other skin reactions immediately appear almost within five minutes and remain for hours or days as urticaria comes from histamine. The allergy can be treated by antihistamine or by calamine lotion.

9. Allergic to Sunlight
It is found that there are a number of allergies that happens due to sun but the allergy I am talking about is a special type of allergy which is known as solar urticaria. This allergy is uncommon unlike other forms of it that are caused by sun and only a few people are reported by far that suffered from solar urticaria. The ultraviolet rays from sun induces hives or urticaria on the skin of the effected, and in some cases even the visible light was found to be the reason of allergy in both covered and uncovered areas of body.

8. Allergic to Deodorants
It is really very irritating to sit beside a person who is stinking and sweating but many people are bound to stink as they are allergic to deodorants. It seems weird but it is true that people actually suffer from this kind of sensitivity which actually happens due to one or more ingredients that a deodorant contains. In this allergy, the suffering person experience pain, redness, burning, cracking of the skin, rash, painful pustules, and it’s horrible to know that in severe cases it can root puss-oozing cuts. It can be prevented by using the deodorants which do not contain that particular element which causes the reaction.

7. Allergic to Underwear
This is a really troublesome allergy because it originates from wearing the underwear but the allergy is even worse as the people bear pain, itching and blisters in the particular area. More often these people cannot even touch the affected area which makes it a night mare for them to put on an underwear. The allergy is common in both men and women and the good thing is that they can get rid of it by simply avoiding the specific fabric which is responsible for it, in most cases polyester, cotton, latex etc. The situation could turn severe; in that case the patient should consult a dermatologist.

6. Allergic to Kissing
It may sound humorous that a person is allergic to kissing and you must have already exclaimed “poor guy” in your head by now but it actually happens to some unlucky individuals. When the person experiences it, he suffers from hives, rashes, prickly eyes, blisters on eyelids, puffy lips, and respiration problems. It cannot cause a severe danger but passionate kisses can do that. Someone’s lips tongue or skin is not responsible for the reaction but it actually happens due to a particular food and medicinal reaction.

5. Allergic to Modern Living
Usage of electricity, mobile phone, cars and other automatic machines is all about modern living of the twenty first century but it is peculiar to know a person who is allergic to modern technology. Debbie Bird is one of those individuals who are reported to have this kind of allergy. She is allergic to electromagnetic field and hence computers, mobile phones, microwave ovens and cars that create electromagnetic field cause painful skin rash, and swelling of eyelid as big as three times of it real size when exposes closely to electromagnetic field. The reason behind this kind of allergy is unknown and the officials say that the electro-sensitivity is not known as medical condition.

4. Allergic to Apples Eaten Near a Birch Tree
This is another bizarre allergy that is caused by a food yet not food itself but by eating an apple near birch tree. Grace Morley is the person who was identified as the patient suffering from this weird sensitivity in which she is not allergic to apple or a birch tree but a condition to eat an apple near it. This fact about the reaction is very worrisome since the affected person will go into shock and could die within minutes in the response of this sensitivity and Grace Morley has suffered several shocks due to the unique suffering.

3. Allergic to Exercises
Exercise is necessary for good health but there are some cases in which many people are found allergic to exercise, yes, it is not a joke, that’s true. This particular type of distress is known as Exercise-induced anaphylaxis (EIA) which is caused by exercise or by food that is taken before exercise. This is a life threatening allergy which happens only when the patient takes the offended food or medication that is not suitable for his health before exercise and works out immediately after it. The fatigue symptoms include heat, itching, redness of the skin, large hives, crumple and faintness. Prevention is better than cure and works in this allergic reaction as well.

2. Allergic to Sex
This is one of the most bizarre allergies that exist in the world in which some women are found allergic to their male partner not because of them but because of their seminal fluid, the liquid that carries sperm. The disorder is known as “human seminal plasma hypersensitivity” and in severe cases the disorder can even cause death. The allergists have found remedy for the problem which requires effort and care from male partner and a treatment is also given to affected women in which sample of semen is applied to women’s vagina every twenty minutes to desensitize women’s immune system from it.

1. Allergic to Water
The allergy that caused by water is known as aquagenic urticaria, the disorder is very rare and only one out of every 23 million people may suffer from it. The allergic is very bothersome as the patient bears itchy red lumps and sore for almost two hours and has to confine to his home only. The ions in the non distilled water are responsible for the reaction and the patient has to remain careful about water and uses distilled water only. Ashleigh Morris who is a victim of this disorder cannot take showers or swim in water and it is also reported that even the sweating causes painful rashes in her body.

You want to laugh and then you read BLISTERING EYELIDS and the humor dies quickly.

Dr. Tim Mainardi, an all around nice guy who’s kind to kittens I am told, clears up 5 common myths about allergies.

Spring is finally rolling around the corner, and for most of us, that’s a big relief. For many others, however, this revival of life also means the return of sneezing, coughing, wheezing, itching and other vexing symptoms of spring allergies, commonly known as hay fever. To help you better prepare for the allergy season and better enjoy a tear-free spring, here are five things you might not have known about spring allergies.

1. Flowers are beautiful, abundant and probably not the cause of your allergies.
Most springtime allergies are caused by tree pollen, not flowers. The most allergenic trees — such as oak, birch, and maple — have small, or in the case of pine trees, no flowers. Trees that expend energy making beautiful flowers, rather than lots of pollen, know they will attract insects like bees to help them move the allergy-causing pollen from tree to tree.

Conversely, the allergenic trees need to produce a lot more pollen to better the chance that wind will blow their pollen to the next tree, to aid their process of reproduction. You can tell when a tree is pollinating by looking for catkins hanging off the branches.

2. You can develop spring allergies at any age, even if you didn’t have them as a child.
If your mild, cold-like symptoms continue unabated and are unaccompanied by a fever, it might not be a cold at all. Although many people first develop allergies during pre-adolescence, it is nevertheless quite common for people to develop their first spring time allergies post high school or even into their 30s and 40s. Sometimes a change in environment can cause allergies if you have recently moved from the city to the country or vice a versa.

3. Spring allergies actually start in the winter.
Although we commonly think of plants restarting their life cycle and pollinating around springtime — and bringing with them the much dreaded allergy symptoms — this process can actually start much earlier. This is because the trigger for plants to start pollinating is not only warming temperatures, but also the increasing length of sunlight during the day. Even as parts of the country still reel from below normal temperatures, the spring allergy season is already well under way. At the end of February, for example, cedar and juniper pollen will have already appeared in the Northeast, while the Mid-Atlantic will begin to see alder and elm pollen. In Texas, highly allergenic trees such as oak and ash have already begun to pollinate by end of February, as have the poplar cottonwoods of California.

4. If you’re allergic to one tree, you’re not necessarily allergic to them all.
While there is always some cross-reactivity between tree pollens, being allergic to one does not mean you’re allergic to them all. Trees pollinate in a more or less predictable pattern and knowing which ones you’re not sensitive to can help decrease the amount of medication you use. The best way to find out which pollens triggers your allergies is to see an allergist and get tested.

5. Eating local honey does not cure allergies.
While honey is healthy, delicious and supports local farmers, it is a misnomer that eating local honey will prevent allergies to local pollens. Bees eat the pollen — which contain the same amount of nutrients as a bean — so not much pollen actually gets into the honey. The concentration of pollen spores present in the honey is low and nowhere near the amount that allergists will give the patient during immunotherapy or allergy shots. Immunotherapy allergy treatment will gradually “vaccinate” the body against allergens by introducing small and regulated amounts of the offensive pollen allergen. This procedure is effective to build up the bodies tolerance an immunity to pollen, unlike the consumption of honey.

Blooming plants does not need to mean blooming allergies. The more you know about your spring allergies, the better you can guard against it’s irritating symptoms. See your allergist to learn more about how to have a beautiful spring that is free of sneezing, itching, and wheezing.

You should also know that dog and cat allergies are caused by the oils on their skin and not their fur. That doesn’t mean that getting pet fur in your nose isn’t irritating, but shaving your pet won’t stop your sneezing.

Tori Amos – Caught a Lite Sneeze from JEFFRO-BURNZ on Vimeo.

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