Good Morning Lowcountry

Inverts

Reader Chip Biernbaum, professor emeritus of biology at the College of Charleston, has sent GMLc some information about his specialty — invertebrates, or "inverts," as he calls them.

Since these wiggly critters are down the food chain from us vertebrates, the world (other than the world of biology) pays little attention to them. We think that needs to change.

Biernbaum calls these "Oh! Gee Whiz!" facts. That pretty much sums up our reaction to them.

We quote his document:

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-- The animal that appears to have the most-powerful toxin, volume-for-volume, is the sea wasp, a medusa jellyfish found along the coast of Australia. Many people have died, sometimes within 3 minutes, from contacting their tentacles.

-- There are some open-ocean jellyfish that are 8 feet in diameter, with tentacles a couple of hundred feet long.

--The clown fish lives in the tentacles of sea anemones. If threatened by a larger fish, the clown fish can swim deep into the tentacles for protection. The anemone benefits from this relationship because the clown fish keeps it clean and chases off animals that might harm the anemone.

-- The length of a typical human tapeworm is about 30 feet. The longest tapeworm is a species found in the intestine of the sperm whale; it is about 100 feet long.

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OK, that's enough of that. We'll revisit the spineless ones later.

Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé

Alliance Francaise of Charleston, that group of Francophiles who speak the lingua franca much better than anyone else we know on this side of the pond, has this to say about Beaujolais Nouveau, the wine that launches a thousand parties at this time of year:

"The Beaujolais Nouveau is a fun wine which never pretended to be a connoisseur wine."

Ah... much like Vintage GMLc. Except for a few weeks of hitchhiking through the Bordeaux region of France where we were told that the year's vintage there was going to be magnifique!, GMLc has learned very little about wine.

Beaujolais Nouveau, made of course in the Beaujolais region of France, is the most popular new wine, or vin de primeur, as oenophiles say, released after short fermentation and originally meant to be drunk within a year. The parties that accompany its release have become an annual harvest celebration.

"It is well to remember that there are five reasons for drinking," goes an old saying, " the arrival of a friend, one's present or future thirst, the excellence of the wine, or any other reason."

Beaujolais Nouveau Night is Thursday.

This will be the second annual festival organized by Alliance Francaise of Charleston. It covers Pawleys Island, Mount Pleasant, Charleston, Johns Island, Hilton Head and Savannah, Ga. Participating restaurants are: Chez Fish, Johns Island ... Claude & Uli's Bistro, Hilton Head ... Coco's Café, Mount Pleasant ... Cru Café, Charleston ... Fat Hen, Johns Island ... La Fourchette, Charleston ... Lana, Charleston ... Louis's at Pawleys, Pawleys Island ... and North Beach Grill, Tybee Island, Ga.

The festival poster is by Charleston artist and Belgium native Fred Jamar. For more information, call 276-5797 or visit afusa.org/af/charleston.

Happy Birthday

Also Thursday night, the YWCA of Greater Charleston will celebrate its 100th year with a screening of a new documentary, "Honoring Our Legacy, Celebrating Our Future."

It's free at 7 p.m. at 10 Storehouse Row, 2120 Noisette Blvd., in the old Navy Yard. The YWCA of Greater Charleston has been serving local women and children since 1907. Its motto: Eliminating Racism, Empowering Women. See ywca-charleston.org.

GMLc

Call 937-5564. Write gmlc@postandcourier.com. Find the blog at gmlc.typepad.com.