Category: Iotd

What an amazing photo!

How extraordinary to see both lava and snow close together, lava inside the volcano and snow on the slopes outside. Truly, the natural world is completely amazing.

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Image of the day – 182

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click images to enlarge

This photo really is extraordinary. Take a guess at what might be going on here first. Then I’ll tell you all about it.

Needless to say, I did not take this photo. It was in Nature Briefing, anyone can sign up free of charge for science news and photos from the prestigious scientific journal, Nature. The signup link is in the upper, right of the Nature home page.

The image was made by the photographer Francisco Negroni and shows Villarrica, described as the most dangerous volcano in Chile. (You can buy a much more detailed version of this image online.)

Two heavy, dark clouds have formed over the volcanic caldera, illuminated by the lava. The heat of the lava below has evaporated the central part of both these clouds, forming them into perfect rings. The sky was already dark enough for stars to be visible. How extraordinary to see both lava and snow close together, lava inside the volcano and snow on the slopes outside. Truly, the natural world is completely amazing.

Think about that last point, lava is literally red hot, around a thousand degrees C, snow is made of water ice, it can’t exist above 0 C at atmospheric pressure. The volcanic rock between the lava and the ice provides sufficient thermal insulation to allow these incompatible materials to survive inside and outside the volcanic cone at the same time!

People of faith may say that God made it that way, people of science will provide a physical explanation. Many people, perhaps even most, might argue these two views are incompatible. But that’s not necessarily the case; there are many people who are both good Christians (or Muslims, Jews, Buddhists or Hindus) and also good scientists. Very often faith communities have enabled and supported great advances in science and technology, enabling us to understand and explain all sorts of phenomena in mechanistic ways that sometimes seem not to require any kind of faith at all. It’s a conundrum that philosophers sometimes explore and discuss.

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Shifting plates

Helping a charity with lights

At Vale Road in Stratton on the northern edge of the Cotswold town of Cirencester, residents (and one in particular) put a lot of effort each year into decorating their homes and gardens with all sorts of coloured and illuminated decorations. And they invite the people who come to look to make a contribution to Macmillan Cancer Support.

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Image of the day – 181

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click images to enlarge

People love Christmas lights and decorations, and people hate illness particularly if there’s no cure. So can Christmas lights help people with incurable illness? Yes they can! But…how?

Well, one way is to use the Christmas decorations to raise money for charity, and that’s what one street in Cirencester has been doing every year for some time now.

There’s more inside – a model village!

At Vale Road in Stratton on the northern edge of the Cotswold town of Cirencester, residents (and one in particular) put a lot of effort each year into decorating their homes and gardens with all sorts of coloured and illuminated decorations. And they invite the people who come to look to make a contribution to Macmillan Cancer Support. This charity provides care, help, nursing and support for cancer patients and their families right at the time when they need help most. They will help families care for a mum, a dad, or a grandparent at home.

The heart of the action

If you live in Cirencester or the local area, why not drive out to Vale Road and park in a nearby street like Vaisey Road, Tinglesfield or Park View? (But please don’t block any driveways or park near junctions.) Then walk the short distance to Vale Road. You can pay for a tour of the best of the lights, delight your children (or grandchildren), and help support a great cause all at the same time. What could be better than that?

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If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

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Fallen tree
Season’s Greetings 2025

Cotinus in autumn

Petal doubling makes flowers more showy, but often at the cost of the ‘doubled’ flowers being less interesting to pollinating insects. The additional petals may be modified stamens so less pollen is produced. Compare a wild rose to a garden rose and you’ll see what I mean.

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Image of the day – 180

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click images to enlarge

These autumn leaves are on a purple Cotinus coggygria bush, common name ‘smokebush’. Like many trees and shrubs at this time of year, Cotinus leaves change colour in autumn before falling to the ground. The shrub will produce fresh, new leaves in the spring. But look more closely and you may see something else.

The leaves in the image have developed interveinal patches of necrotic tissue, making the plant even more striking in autumn. I had never noticed this condition before moving to Cirencester, but there’s a Cotinus in the grounds of the Stratton House Hotel and Spa that does this annually. The shrub seems healthy in the spring and summer. For a week or two at the end of October this patterned necrosis makes the autumn leaves look even more spectacular.

Irregularities of this kind are common in both animate and inanimate natural systems and not infrequently appear as deliberate ‘enhancements’. Here are one or two notable examples:

  • Leaf variegation – Gardeners and plant breeders select and propagate from stable variegations. Normally plants with variegation grow more slowly because the efficiency of photosynthesis is compromised.
  • Petal doubling – This make flowers more showy, but often at the cost of the ‘doubled’ flowers being less interesting to pollinating insects. The additional petals may be modified stamens so less pollen is produced. Compare a wild rose to a garden rose and you’ll see what I mean. How often do you see bees working garden roses?
  • Variations in animal characteristics – amongst cats and dogs (and also budgerigars, canaries, parrots and chickens you’ll see size and shape changes as well as behavioural, colour and pattern modifications. Compare a Jack Russell with a retriever or a blue budgie with a green one and you’ll find plenty of differences to ponder.
  • Frost hardiness in plants. Frost sensitive species cannot survive winter in temperate or arctic conditions, so hardiness is a prized feature of many garden plants, and plant breeders pay attention to things like this. A Dahlia or Chrysanthemum that can flower for an extra week or two in the autumn may be worth a higher price, for example.
  • Fruit colour and flavour components. These days strawberries are much larger than when I was child, and they are often red inside, not just on the outer surface.

Many variations of this kind are deliberately selected for by plant and animal breeders.

Certain other changes have been caused deliberately, even in humans. Lower lip enlargement, neck ringing to generate extended neck length, foot binding, and forms of male and female circumcision have been required for a variety of religious and cultural reasons. Hair styling, removal, or transplantation, piercing of ears, noses and other body parts are common, and don’t forget tattooing. And in plants; pruning, clipping, or bonsai are widely employed.

In the world of rock and stone, coloured and uncoloured crystals may be prized as jewels and fetch fantastic prices. I wrote about an example of this, a geode I spotted in an ordinary, traditional, Cotswold dry stone wall.

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Crystalline inclusions in Cotswold stone
A rose in the rain
Is church unbalanced?
A glorious colour contrast
Sculpted tree

Cirencester Abbey

The abbey’s construction was a huge project continuing throughout the 12th century. To fund the ambitious project, Henry I and his successors, Henry II and Richard I, granted the abbey revenues and privileges, such as exemption from tolls, access to commerce, and timber and stone for construction.

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Image of the day – 179

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click images to enlarge

In medieval times there was an Augustinian Abbey in Cirencester. Like so many abbeys and monasteries in the United Kingdom it was dissolved during the reign of King Henry VIII and afterwards demolished. The outline of the walls is marked in the Abbey Grounds with small, square paving slabs, and a few of the column bases are visible too, but that is all that remains above ground where the Abbey once stood. There are some additional carved stones and other items in the Corinium Museum.

The photo shows a Lego model of the Abbey, currently on display in the Parish Church. You can see a Lego tree in the garden within the cloisters, and part of the nave of the Abbey church. The model is complete with its tower although this doesn’t appear in the main photo, but it’s there in the image below.

Construction and history

The Abbey and tower

Some of the political and practical history of the founding and later dissolution of the abbey are well described in blog articles published by the Corinium Museum. These articles, and the Wikipedia article are well worth reading. They are linked below.

Long before the Abbey was built the land where it later stood was part of the Roman City of Corinium Dobunnorum; the River Churn (in those times named Kern, Kerin or Corin) had been divided into two, one part outside the city walls as a defensive feature, the other part within the city as a source of water for drinking, washing, for industry, building and so forth. The Saxons, moving West into the still Romano-British part of what is now South-West England, took control of the area, but had no use for a derelict Roman city. However, there was a Roman church building in the area where the abbey would later be founded, and a Saxon church was built over the Roman church.

Early in the 12th century, King Henry I founded St Mary’s Abbey, building the chancel on the site of the Roman and Saxon churches. About 1130, Abbot Serlo arrived with a community of canons to set up residence .

The abbey’s construction was a massive project continuing throughout the 12th century. To fund the ambitious undertaking, Henry I and his successors, Henry II and Richard I, granted the abbey revenues and privileges, such as exemption from tolls, access to commerce, and timber and stone for construction. Henry II allowed the abbey the revenues and control of the town (or ‘vill’) of Cirencester around 1155, initiating centuries of friction with the local townspeople. The abbey church was consecrated in 1176 in the presence of King Henry II and several bishops, but building work on the cloisters, refectory, dormitories, and the abbot’s house continued for many more years.

The result of all this effort was the most wealthy and influential Augustinian abbey in the Kingdom. The abbey flourished through its ownership of very large estates in the Cotswolds and an important role in the very profitable medieval wool trade.

Dissolution

The townspeople repeatedly asked the Crown to grant them a borough charter, but this was consistently and strongly opposed by the abbots. In the end, Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries ended with the destruction of the abbey and the confiscation of much of its wealth and property. A Royal Commisioner, Robert Southwell arrived in the town on 19th December 1539 to receive the surrender from the last abbot, John Blake. There was no resistance, and the abbot and monks received pensions, but the buildings were torn down and everything of value was sold off.

Religion or faith?

As with so many JHM articles, as I write I am deeply struck by the huge gulf between religion (usually a very worldly affair as in the history of Cirencester Abbey) and faith (with its basis not so much in what we think as in who we are and how we live.) The distinction is essential if we are to live full lives, discovering who Jesus is and why he matters so much.

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Image of the day – 66
Season’s Greetings 2025
Dark sky, bright light
Inside out

Tree shading

Put an upturned bucket over a patch of grass in your garden. Lift the bucket every day and take a look, then re-cover the patch… How long does it take for the grass to die?

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Image of the day – 178

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click to enlarge

Trees provide shade, most welcome on a hot day, and they provide shelter when it rains (though this may be unwise during thunderstorms).

But notice the absence of grass beneath these conifers. Shade and shelter are exactly what other plants don’t need; they depend on plenty of light and water to enable them to grow. Light is essential as it provides the energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and water is essential as the raw material for this process. The oxygen is released into the atmosphere, while the hydrogen is bonded with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make energy-storing sugars for use at night and to build cellulose, the main support molecule that gives stems, branches and tree trunks their strength.

The lack of light and water under tree canopies creates a kind of local desert. You can see this clearly in the photo from the presence and absence of grass. So how do the trees survive? That’s a great question! Their roots spread out widely and deep, far enough to reach moist soil and deep ground water. In persistent rain, water drips from the drenched leaves above. And root, trunk and branch all contain stores of water so a tree can cope with a long, dry summer far better than the grass can.

Light

Here’s an experiment anyone can do. Put an upturned bucket over a patch of grass in your garden. Lift the bucket every day and take a look, then re-cover the patch. See how long it takes for the grass to turn yellow. How long does it take for the grass to die?

For plants, light is essential. There are some animals that live in dark caves or underground, with no light. Earthworms are a good example, but like all animals they get their food by consuming plants and other animals. But for most creatures, including us humans, light is essential nonetheless. Whether we are plant eaters (like cows and sheep) or meat eaters (like lions and wolves) or omnivores eating either or both (like humans and rats) we still need light to see in order to find and identify the things we must eat to stay alive.

Water

For plants, water is part of their ‘food’, it’s needed to make sugars. For animals water is of no value as food, but it’s essential to prevent dangerous dehydration. All animals know when they’re thirsty and they’ll find water and drink to keep themselves alive. Think of a man lost in a desert, the cartoons have him croaking out, ‘Water.. Water..’ Imagine someone unable to find water, they’d die of thirst long, long before they died of hunger. Most of us would be in danger after a few days without drinking, but we could live for several weeks with nothing to eat. And of course, if you are a fish too little water would mean you couldn’t breathe, and if you were a land animal too much would mean you would drown.

Spiritual (not religious)

The idea of essentials has been carried over into spiritual ideas too. Light and water (and food) are so clearly necessary for life that they make good analogies and illustrations. What did Jesus mean when he said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’? Or when he explained to the Samaritan woman at the well that he would provide water that never runs out, or when he told his followers, ‘I am the bread of life’ or ‘I am the light of the world’?

He was simply saying, I am essential, you can’t live without me. I’m necessary for life. Just as in the physical world, how would it feel to live in the dark, without water and without sustenance? How long would you last? How long would I last?

Many people today feel sure there is no spiritual aspect to life at all, it’s just about living your life in the here and now and then dying from accident, illness, or just old age. Others think there’s much more to life than that. At the very least there are moral and philosophical truths to consider. We should care for one another, help one another, and cooperate in helpful and kind ways.

Food for thought. Let me know below how you think about the essentials of life. Do you have any thoughts to share on this?

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Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

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Image of the day – 20
Churn flooding
Image of the day – 38