Some excitement at the zoo

I took my daughter to the Los Angeles Zoo on Monday for the member preview for the new gorilla exhibit that has been under construction for several years.

Once I showed my member card at the entrance, we were given stickers allowing us to enter the gorilla exhibit (the exhibit will open to the general public on Thursday). The new exhibit, with large clear (plastic?) viewing panels and a large area resembling the Western Lowland Gorilla's natural habitat in Africa, follows the wonderful chimpanzee and orangutan exhibits which have opened at the zoo in recent years and mark a huge improvement over the old concrete hills separated from the public by a moat.

Even though they were limiting access to the exhibit and we had to wait in a line for about ten minutes, there were probably about one hundred overly-excited people inside the exhibit area, and it was a bit too crowded for my daughter and me.

Apparently on the day we visited, there was a male on one side of the exhibit, and on the other side separated from the male was a family. It was hard to see much of the family- we just saw one gorilla sitting on the far wall of the exhibit area. But when we went back to watch the male again, we saw as the male was sitting, eating fruit on the ground and then suddenly charged the viewing panel, beating his chest, and then threw himself against the panel. He then went back to where he was sitting and sat down as if nothing had happened. Of course the crowd got pretty excited, and it was a little bit scary for my daughter and me, since you don't think about the transparent panel in the moment you see the gorilla charging you.

I started thinking about a news story I read at least a year ago about a gorilla that escaped from its exhibit area during the zoo's operating hours (I can't remember where the zoo was located, but it was in the United States). They interviewed a woman who laid her body over her child and tried to curl up into a ball, but was attacked by the gorilla and suffered some minor injuries. She said that she remembered watching a documentary where they gave instructions on what to do if one encountered a gorilla in the wild, and tried to follow those directions, and that she witnessed first-hand the true physical power of a gorilla.

Update (2007/11/10): I did a little research, and discovered that the incident happened in March 2005 at the Dallas Zoo. A 13-year-old 350-pound Western lowland gorilla jumped over twelve-foot habitat walls and roamed for an hour, attacking three people, before police officers shot and killed the animal. The city paid a $10,000 fine for the incident.

I don't want to think about the media fallout if something like this happened in Los Angeles with a brand-new gorilla attraction, which is the zoo's big new marketing push. Then again, the latest star of the zoo, Reggie the Alligator, did manage to escape his enclosure in August, though not when the zoo was open to the public.

Driving to Griffith Observatory

After reading in the local newspaper Los Feliz Ledger a few days ago that roads to the Griffith Observatory and the parking lot would open on November 3, our family drove up to the observatory today around 11 AM for a visit.

There were three or four checkpoints on the way up, and access to the observatory was via West Observatory Road only (through the tunnel). There were quite a few cars parked along the road for the last one hundred yards or so, but the parking lot still had quite a few spaces left.

During my only other visit to the observatory since the re-opening, visitors were forced to enter the building from the underground level, passing in front of the new gift shop and Wolfgang Puck-run restaurant. We did go in through that entrance, but we did see people coming in from the old front entrance later.

The observatory seemed fully staffed, in anticipation of big crowds, but the crowds weren't there during the first couple of hours, though the 199-space parking lot was full by the time we left. From the rooftop, we saw a handful of hikers coming up the trail, so it seems that not everyone decided to drive their cars to get to the observatory today.

Also, visiting today with two small children, it really struck me that the observatory is more of a specialized science museum, and you really need to know a little bit about astronomy to get something out of your visit. I don't know if the observatory staff will disagree, but in my opinion, there wasn't much there to hold the interest of your average preschooler.

A few details from Saturday's Los Angeles Times story:

Before the observatory's five-year renovation and expansion project, caretakers counted more than 1.8 million visitors a year.

The change in policy comes after a 60% drop in attendance since the observatory reopened Nov. 2, 2006.

[snip]

The [parking] ban worked all too well. Instead of nearly 2 million visitors over the last 12 months, only 650,000 people made the trek up the side of Mt. Hollywood.

[snip]

The operator said he would have been happy to continue the shuttle on weekends.

"During the week, it was very obvious parking would be sufficient," said Maurice Vanegas, head of Sun Valley-based Transit Systems. "Overall, we did make money, but not as much as we had hoped."

And finally:

Limited weekend bus service will begin Nov. 24, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a traditionally busy weekend.

The bus will originate at the Metro Red Line station on Vermont Avenue and make several stops, [observatory deputy director Mark] Pine said.

Daylight Saving Time is bad for you

This year, Daylight Saving Time will start one week later than usual, in November instead of before Halloween. Did you notice it didn't get quite so dark this year when it was time for trick or treaters?

I have written in the past about how Daylight Saving Time interferes with our internal connection with the earth and nature, and now there is scientific evidence to support it.

I heard on National Public Radio's Day to Day program this morning a conversation about a new study showing that our internal clocks are thrown into whack during the entire period of Daylight Saving Time.

The story is also on US News and World Report's website. Some highlights from the German study, in the October 24 edition of Current Biology:

In the study, Roenneberg's group collected data on the sleep patterns of 55,000 people in Central Europe. The researchers found that sleep time on days off work when daylight savings time took effect followed the seasonal progression of dawn under standard time, but not under daylight savings time.

In a another study, Roenneberg's group looked at the timing of sleep and activity for eight weeks during the change to daylight savings time in 50 people, taking into account each person's natural clock preferences, or "chronotypes," which range from morning larks to night owls.

For both morning larks and night owls, their timing for sleep and peak activity easily adjusted when daylight savings time ended in the fall. However, it never adjusted to the return to daylight savings time in spring. This was especially true for night owls -- those who stay up late and sleep late.

"If we didn't change to daylight savings time, people would adjust to dawn during the summer and again to dawn in the autumn," Roenneberg. "But this natural adjustment is interrupted by daylight savings time," he said.

People's circadian rhythm -- the body's internal clock -- follows the sun and changes depending on where you live. It actually changes in four-minute intervals, exactly the time it takes for the sun to cross one line of longitude, Roenneberg explained.

"The circadian clock does not change to the social change," Roenneberg said. "During the winter, there is a beautiful tracking of dawn in human sleep behavior, which is completely and immediately interrupted when daylight savings time is introduced in March," he said. It returns to normal this year when standard time returns on Nov. 4, he added.

Daylight savings time may be one cause of what Roenneberg called our lack of seasonality. By seasonality, he means that our internal clock is in tune with the natural change in light throughout the year. "This could have long-term effects," he said.