Good morning.

In Whitewater, we’ll have a mostly cloudy day with a high of forty-four. Sunrise today is 7:16 AM and sunset will be 6:03 PM. The moon is in a waning gibbous phase with 92% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1879, Thomas Edison invents the incandescent bulb. The New York Times later reported on Edison’s achievement, after a visit to Edison’s laboratory:

There was no lack of enthusiasm or of confidence about Mr. Edison as he greeted the Times reporter who entered his laboratory at Menlo Park, N. J., yesterday. The inventor, a short, thick-set man, with grimy hands, led the way through his workshop, and willingly explained the distinctive features of what he and many others look upon as an apparatus which will soon cause gas-light to be a thing of the past.

The lamp which Mr. Edison regards as a crowning triumph is a model of simplicity and economy.

In the lamp the light is emitted by a horseshoe of carbonized paper about two and a half inches long and the width of a thread. This horseshoe is in a glass globe, from which the air has been as thoroughly exhausted as science is able to do. So good a vacuum is produced that it is estimated that at the utmost no more than a one-millionth part of the air remains. The operation of pumping lasts one hour and a quarter.

At the ends of the carbon horseshoe are two platinum clamps, from which platinum wires run outwardly through a small glass tube contained within a larger one leading out of the glass globe. The small tube contains air. Within it the platinum wires are met by two copper wires connecting with the conductors of the electricity. The air is left in the small tube, because otherwise the copper wires would be fused by the electric current. The carbonized paper is capable of being made incandescent by a current of electricity, and while it allows the current to pass over it, its resistance to the heat is strong enough to prevent it from fusing.

On this day in Wisconsin history, a dedication:

1897 – Yerkes Observatory Dedicated
On this date the Yerkes Observatory was dedicated. Founded by astronomer George Hale and located in Williams Bay, the Yerkes Observatory houses the world’s largest refracting optical telescope, with a lens of diameter 102 cm/40 inches. It was built through the largess of the tycoon Charles Tyson Yerkes, who rebuilt important parts of the Chicago transportation system after the fire. Situated in a 77-acre park on the shore of Lake Geneva, this observatory was the center for world astronomy in the early 20th century and invited a number of astronomers from around the world, including Japan, for scientific exchange. [Source: Yerkes Observatory Virtual Museum]

Scientific American‘s daily trivia question asks about tourism. (Clicking on the question leads to its answer.)

Who was the first paying space tourist?

Good morning.

We’ll have a high of fifty-six today, with a twenty-percent chance of afternoon showers.

We are far from the Atlantic Ocean, and so among the many immediate concerns of Wisconsinites, the lionfish, fortunately, is not one:

The clear waters around Bermuda are as picturesque as you can imagine, and the brilliantly colored fish swimming around are like something from a crayon box. But a serious problem lurks behind the beautiful facade: the lionfish.

Lionfish are not native to the Atlantic Ocean. The venomous, fast reproducing fish are aggressive eaters and will consume anything and everything, gorging so much they are actually getting liver disease. With no known predators — except human beings — they can wipe out 90% of a reef.

“The lionfish invasion is probably the worst environmental disaster the Atlantic will ever face,” said Graham Maddocks, president and founder of Ocean Support Foundation, which works with the government and research agencies to help reduce the lionfish population in Bermuda.

While the problem is only beginning to escalate, many in the marine preservation field are already concerned for the marine life that surrounds the lionfish.

How did this happen, that a non-native species got there?

Ask Florida.

Florida pet owners are blamed for their release into unfamiliar waters. Believe it or not, DNA evidence traces all lionfish in the Atlantic back to only six to eight female lionfish.

In Wisconsin’s experience, Frederick Douglass speaks to a Beaver Dam audience on 10.20.1856:

1856 – Frederick Douglass Speaks in Beaver Dam
On this date Frederick Douglass arrived in Beaver Dam and spoke about the brutality and immorality of slavery. His speech was also intended to generate support for the abolitionist movement in Dodge Co. and Wisconsin. A former runaway slave and leading orator and author of the abolitionist movement, Douglass is regarded as one of the most influential Americans of the 19th century. [Source: Wisconsin Local History Network]

Good morning.

We’ll have a Saturday of probable (60%), late afternoon showers and a high of fifty-one.

On October 19, 1781, an American and French victory over Britain truly and without overstatement changes world history profoundly:

Hopelessly trapped at Yorktown, Virginia, British General Lord Cornwallis surrenders 8,000 British soldiers and seamen to a larger Franco-American force, effectively bringing an end to the American Revolution.

Lord Cornwallis was one of the most capable British generals of the American Revolution. In 1776, he drove General George Washington’s Patriots forces out of New Jersey, and in 1780 he won a stunning victory over General Horatio Gates’ Patriot army at Camden, South Carolina. Cornwallis’ subsequent invasion of North Carolina was less successful, however, and in April 1781 he led his weary and battered troops toward the Virginia coast, where he could maintain seaborne lines of communication with the large British army of General Henry Clinton in New York City. After conducting a series of raids against towns and plantations in Virginia, Cornwallis settled in the tidewater town of Yorktown in August. The British immediately began fortifying the town and the adjacent promontory of Gloucester Point across the York River.

General George Washington instructed the Marquis de Lafayette, who was in Virginia with an American army of around 5,000 men, to block Cornwallis’ escape from Yorktown by land. In the meantime, Washington’s 2,500 troops in New York were joined by a French army of 4,000 men under the Count de Rochambeau. Washington and Rochambeau made plans to attack Cornwallis with the assistance of a large French fleet under the Count de Grasse, and on August 21 they crossed the Hudson River to march south to Yorktown. Covering 200 miles in 15 days, the allied force reached the head of Chesapeake Bay in early September.

Meanwhile, a British fleet under Admiral Thomas Graves failed to break French naval superiority at the Battle of Virginia Capes on September 5, denying Cornwallis his expected reinforcements. Beginning September 14, de Grasse transported Washington and Rochambeau’s men down the Chesapeake to Virginia, where they joined Lafayette and completed the encirclement of Yorktown on September 28. De Grasse landed another 3,000 French troops carried by his fleet. During the first two weeks of October, the 14,000 Franco-American troops gradually overcame the fortified British positions with the aid of de Grasse’s warships. A large British fleet carrying 7,000 men set out to rescue Cornwallis, but it was too late.

On October 19, General Cornwallis surrendered 7,087 officers and men, 900 seamen, 144 cannons, 15 galleys, a frigate, and 30 transport ships. Pleading illness, he did not attend the surrender ceremony, but his second-in-command, General Charles O’Hara, carried Cornwallis’ sword to the American and French commanders. As the British and Hessian troops marched out to surrender, the British bands played the song “The World Turned Upside Down.”

Although the war persisted on the high seas and in other theaters, the Patriot victory at Yorktown effectively ended fighting in the American colonies. Peace negotiations began in 1782, and on September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed, formally recognizing the United States as a free and independent nation after eight years of war.

A genuinely good, hard-in-coming day.

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of forty-nine.

If you happen to enjoy a polite, turn-taking conversation today, you’ll not be alone. A marmoset may be having a similar experience. Asif Ghazanfar, a neurobiologist at Princeton University, finds that other than humans, marmosets are the only known species to take turns that way:

Marmosets are very friendly with one another and very talkative, including when they’re out of sight of each other. Given these cooperative traits, which marmosets share with humans, Ghazanfar and his colleagues wondered if the monkeys also engage in vocal turn-taking (as humans also do) to enhance their cooperation.

To find out, the researchers placed dyads (pairs) of adult common marmoset monkeys (Callithrix jacchus) at opposite corners of a room, which had a visually opaque but acoustically transparent curtain splitting the room in half, diagonally. Over the course of the experiment, they paired the 10 non-related monkeys in various combinations — five cagemate pairs and 22 non-cagemate pairs.

The team recorded 1,415 “phee” calls in 54 sessions. These calls, Ghazanfar explained, are very loud, high-pitched, long-distance vocalizations that marmosets use when separated from other group members.

Ghazanfar and his colleagues discovered that the dyads wouldn’t call out at the same time. Instead, the monkeys would take turns — about five seconds after one monkey called out, the other would respond. Not once did the dyads ever interrupt one another.

This vocal turn-taking is especially remarkable considering that some sessions lasted 30 to 40 minutes. Ghazanfar also noted that the phee calls between the dyads didn’t always alternate one-to-one. “If I am talking to someone, I could make a couple of statements before I get a response,” Ghazanfar said. “It was similar with the marmosets: They do take turns, but not every single call that one marmoset produces gets a response.”

On this day in 1967 Update: 1867!, America takes possession of Alaska:

…the U.S. formally takes possession of Alaska after purchasing the territory from Russia for $7.2 million, or less than two cents an acre. The Alaska purchase comprised 586,412 square miles, about twice the size of Texas, and was championed by William Henry Seward, the enthusiastically expansionist secretary of state under President Andrew Johnson.

Scientific American‘s daily trivia question asks about offspring, lots of them. (Clicking on the question leads to its answer.)

What is the most fertile organism?