News from Science

I don't often report from the world of natural science, but it did not escape our attention that there was recently a very festive occasion down on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

The location was Assateague Island National Seashore, not far from the ocean resorts and all that commotion, and Papa Turtle is passing out fake cigars because about 100 baby loggerhead sea turtles recently hatched there and then went on out to sea. 

Unlike humans, who hang around until they're 37, these babies hit the road, or, rather, the surf, right away. 

Marine biologists, and several who aren't in the armed forces at all, have been trying to get sea turtles to make their nests up this way for several years.  

This is big news! The first confirmed hatch of loggerhead turtles north of Virginia! Loggerheads are endangered species, so any time they reproduce, it's all for the good.

Bill Hulslander, chief of resource management for the National Seashore, says these births highlight "the increasing importance of undeveloped beaches along Assateague Island to sea turtles and other federally threatened and endangered species."

And really, who could dispute that? It's always beneficial when nature thrives.  The loggerhead sea turtle (Latin name: caretta caretta) is about 35 inches long when fully grown, although they occasionally have been spotted up to 110 inches. And the average ones weigh about 300 pounds, but those big huggers tilt the scale at over half a ton.  

But they get their name for having big heads.  Uh huh.

Now, you might have heard the term "at loggerheads with" to mean "having an argument with."  Well, that idiomatic expression has nothing to do with sea turtles. 

We borrowed that word from the British. They call a blockhead a "loggerhead," as we see in Shakespeare's "Love's Labours Lost," which dates back to 1588.

"Ah you whoreson logger-head, you were borne to doe me shame."

I knew an old guy once who actually called young hooligans, the kids who were "up to no good," "whoresons, rakehells, and ne'er-do-wells." This dude also carried a horse chestnut in his pocket at all times to draw the rheumatism out of his body.

Over here in America, we devised a large block of wood timber that was roped to a horse's leg - a sort of early Denver Boot - to keep the horse from running away.  And we called that a loggerhead, and visions of the horse trying to drag it around came to mind when we argued with people who were behaving like a horse's Assateague.

See how it all fits together?