Hedwig Pöllöläinen
grrlscientist
Posts by this author
January 15, 2007
The guy sitting next to me at my watering hole is having pancakes for dinner tonight, so I had to use this as a segue into sharing the most absurdly funny picture that I've seen on the internet (yes, I know it's been out there for years, but I've never had the opportunity to use it, until now).…
January 15, 2007
A mushroom that was showing a bit of its gills.
Image: David Harmon.
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, dear readers, that I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the images and the creatures and places in them. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format…
January 15, 2007
Red-Winged Blackbird, Agelaius phoeniceus,
This is the bird named George, who lived in Central Park,
and was made famous by the book, Club George
by Bob Levy.
Image: Bob Levy.
People Hurting Birds
What appears to be the last male golden eagle, Aquila chrysaetos (pictured), in northern Italy was…
January 15, 2007
Every year when MLK's birthday rolled around, I would read his "I have a dream" speech, along with others of his collected works. Now that it is a national holiday and now that YouTube is here, I can watch the speech on the holiday commemorating his birthday. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is as…
January 15, 2007
Ken Ham's Creationism Museum has attracted so much media attention and packed so many preview sessions that Ham is convinced that nearly half a million people a year will come to Kentucky to see his Biblically correct version of history.
The $27 million project, which also includes a planetarium…
January 14, 2007
A small wasp washing its face.
The photo was taken on the path that runs behind the photographer's house.
Image: miz_geek.
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, dear readers, that I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the images and the creatures and places in them. If you have a high-…
January 13, 2007
Image: NOAA
Between the effects of El Niño and global warming, 2006 was the warmest year on record since records were first kept in 1895. According to the preliminary data, 2006 averaged 55 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 2.2 degrees F (1.2 degrees Celsius) above the 20th Century average and 0.07…
January 13, 2007
An oak leaf in the photographer's backyard in Connecticut in October 2006.
It had rained that morning, so the leaves were all shiny and their colors were just outstanding.
The photographer says, "I had never thought of oaks as having great fall color, but it turns out I was wrong."
Image:…
January 12, 2007
The bird flu has had some good effects: In an effort to avoid bird flu, the EU has permanently stopped the importation of wild birds, including psittacines. They now will allow only captive-bred birds from approved countries to be imported and sold in the EU. This move will serve to protect many…
January 12, 2007
I absolutely loved this book, Brazzaville Beach, by William Boyd (New York: Perennial, 1990). Even though the book was published 16 years ago, I cannot understand how I could have missed it. But thanks to my friend, Coturnix, who sent the book to me, I had the priviledge to finally read it, so I…
January 12, 2007
A study carried out at the University of Tromso, Norway, found that blue-eyed men prefer women with blue eyes, whereas brown-eyed men and women with either eye color showed no such preference for eye color in their prospective romantic partners.
This could be tied in to the evolutionary laws of…
January 12, 2007
One of the Arizona desert tortoises, Gopherus agassizii that the photographer is a care taker of. It is probably Aphrodite.
Image: Mark Newton.
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, dear readers, that I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the images and the creatures and places in them…
January 12, 2007
American bison, Bos bison.
Bison have made a comeback after nearly going extinct more than 100 years ago. However, existing bison were preserved by ranchers, who frequently hybridized them with their cattle.
"They purposely crossed bison with domestic cattle to make a better beef animal," which…
January 12, 2007
In a Federal Way school district near Seattle, a parent objected to the showing of Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, in his daughter's classroom. Perhaps not surprisingly, this same parent opposes sex education in the classroom;
"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's…
January 12, 2007
Rafflesia arnoldii flower.
Image: source.
The relatives of the largest and smelliest flower in the world, Rafflesia, have finally been found. This family, the Euphorbiaceae -- known for some of the smallest flowers in the world, too -- includes the poinsettia, Irish bells, the rubber tree, and…
January 11, 2007
Liberal media, my ass! If you believe that the majority of the mainstream media (MSM) is a bastion of "liberal" reporting, then you need to open your mind and read Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush by Eric Boehlert (New York: Free Press, 2006). In this book, the author examines the press…
January 11, 2007
A southern alligator lizard, Elgaria multicarinata.
It was sunning itself on railroad ballast near Hood River, Oregon, spring of 2006. Specifically, on the Hood River Railroad, along Hood River, just east of the town of Hood River.
Image: Conrad Frost, Fisheries Biologist.
I am receiving so…
January 11, 2007
Quiz question: What's the difference between pirates and emperors?
January 10, 2007
According to a new national study using data collected by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, there are somewhere between 444,000 and 842,000 homeless people in America. It found that nearly 25% were chronically homeless, and it found that many of the chronically homeless people had…
January 10, 2007
So I have been back in my apartment for approximately 48 hours and already I have experienced the joys of having a nonfunctioning shower/bathtub because the hot water faucet cannot be manipulated into the "on" position even using a pair of pliars, and today, I found a leak in my ceiling that…
January 10, 2007
Have you ever wondered what is the inactivation temperature of the avian influenza virus? How far a flea can jump? How long a royal albatross incubates its egg? How many stomata are on the leaf of a geranium? How many ommatidia are in the compound eye of a dragonfly? If these and other questions…
January 10, 2007
In the shadow of Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn recently drifted in giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly…
January 10, 2007
After my own experience with feces on my airplane seat cushion on US Airways, I was hardly surprised to learn that a scorpion had made its way onto a plane .. except this was a United flight rather than US Airways. Anyway, this scorpion stung a man twice, once on his leg and then on his shin.
A…
January 9, 2007
There is a new study in Sweden that was just published showing a relationship between sleep disturbances, mainly nightmares, and suicide attempts.
Most (89 percent) patients reported having at least one type of sleep problem, with difficulty falling asleep as the most common problem (73 percent…
January 9, 2007
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time:
And all out yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage…
January 9, 2007
From the archives ...
New York City (AP) - After an unsuccessful year-long search for funds to support two years of research and living expenses, a scientist and freelance writer has offered to fund her research by selling access to her internationally televised death by electrocution and by…
January 9, 2007
Moonlit Beach.
Orphaned Image. Please contact me for proper creditation.
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, dear readers, that I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the images and the creatures and places in them. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG…
January 9, 2007
tags: birds, book review, conservation, Hawai'i
Conservation is all about saving endangered species, right? Well, not always. In this book, Seeking the Sacred Raven: Politics and Extinction on a Hawai'ian Island by Mark Jerome Walters (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006), the author tells the…
January 8, 2007
A large flock of dead grackles, sparrows and pigeons scared the poop out of Texas officials, causing the shutdown of a 10 block area in downtown Austin, Texas this morning. People dressed in Hazmat suits cleared up the birds, whose bodies will be tested to identify the cause of their untimely…
January 8, 2007
According to a recent news story, two NASA space probes that visited Mars in 1976 and 1977 might have discovered life there, but then killed it, according to a hypothesis presented by Dirk Schulze-Makuch at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Seattle, Washington. This is based…