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Maggie - LISA's little sister

LISA had a booth at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in Seattle, handing out some very popular laser pointers - far superior to the competing Beyond Einstein mission concept team swag... In an idle moment, we built a GigaHertz gravitational radiation detector (ok, we didn't mode lock or heterodyne, but the aligment was damn good). Fortunately Scott from MIT was there to record it for posterity The noise at the facility was mostly in the milliHertz through kiloHertz bands and would not affect GigaHertz performance, we seriously expect new physics at these frequencies. It is not know…

Imminence of the Eschaton XII - Google is Synoptic

It is official, Google is a partner in the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope "Google's mission is to take the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. The data from LSST will be an important part of the world's information, and by being involved in the project we hope to make it easier for that data to become accessible and useful."... "The LSST will be the world's most powerful survey telescope, with vast data management challenges. LSST engineers and scientists have been collaborating with Google on a number of these exciting opportunities. Even though the Universe…

Hubble Planet Transits

The SWEEPS survey of distant stars in the galactic bulge has finally announced their findings. They found 16 transiting "hot Jupiters" with the Advanced Camera for Surveys synoptic imaging of a field towards the center of the Milky Way. Five of the planets are ultra short period (day or less) and likely to be Very Hot. Possibly ablating, and puffy. This is a puzzle in some ways. Number of planets found is consistent with that expected from local population, so going further out (10-20,000 light years in this field) we keep seeing that sub-population of hot massive planets. So planets are…

selection bias and the benefits of hovering

new study shows students with involved parents do better but they get lower grades on average. Huh? Well, it makes sense. Basically, involved parents go to helicopter mode when the students are struggling, over-reaching or just need a nudge. So there are three classes of students: those which do well, independent of parent involvement those which do better than they would, because the parents are involved and, those which do badly and don't get parental assistance these are not exclusive or exhaustive National Survey of Student Engagement Another interesting point is the report that students…

Blogroll amnesty

A few months ago, I made a new page for a more complete blogroll. Now, that my class is over and I have a break from traveling around leading workshops, I'm ready to add some links. Other bloggers; Bora, Mike the Mad, PZ, Janet, DM, and Abel; use a nice technique called "blogroll amnesty" where they offer other writers a chance to be on their blogroll. I like that. So, to paraphrase Mike: If you link to me and you're not a creep, let me know and I'll return the favor (instructions below). For those you who've written to me and asked me to add you to the list, here's your chance. Add a…

In search of the perfect egg salad sandwich

I am on a quest for the perfect egg salad sandwich I could make it, with the better half's oatmeal honey whole wheat bread, a little bit of mayo and way too much onion or there's this bakery near Pasadena, whose name I forget, which makes a near perfect nutty whole grain bread... or, sigh, Gayle's! but, that is not my quest: it is to find the perfect grab'n'go egg salad sandwich real mayo, but no so much it is runny, eggs and onion gentle use of herbs and spices, maybe and the bread must be good, firm and hold the salad lettuce in moderation may be tolerated oh, and one that is reliably…

Autumn Glory: The Face of Biodiversity

The filmographer, Paul Frederick, writes; It's full fall color here in the North Eastern US. This year has been one of the best for fall foliage. My mentor who taught me so much about TV production back in the early 90's passed away recently. I hadn't seen him in a few years but still think of his lessons nearly everyday. Many of these locations we shot together nearly 20 years ago. I will always remember him and I offer this video up as my way of saying thanks to an old friend. [3:16] Autumn Glory from Paul Frederick. If playback stutters, click the HD IS ON (right side) to HD IS OFF. For…

Steinacleit Stone Circle

tags: Steinacleit stone circle, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, Image of the Day Steinacleit stone circle, near Shader (Siader) on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland. Construction of this circle probably began about 2000 BC. Image: Dave Rintoul, Summer 2008 [larger view]. This mysterious site lies on a gentle slope not far from the A857 road, at the south end of Loch an Duin, Shader, Lewis, northwest of Stornoway. Archaeologists are divided over whether this monument is the remains of a chambered cairn or a domestic settlement. There is a circular structure of some 16 meters in diameter situated on…

West 86th Street Subway Art 26

tags: West 86th street subway art, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC West 86th Street Subway tile mosaic art #26 as seen at NYC's West 86th Street stop at Broadway for the downtown 1 train. (This piece was completed in 1989 and mounted on 19 January 2005). Artist: Nitza Tufino. Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view]. I have photographed tile artworks from several NYC subway stations now, so far, all are westside Manhattan subway lines, including Chambers Street (A & C trains), Houston Street (1 train), Pennsylvania "Penn" station (1, 2 & 3 trains) [subway art…

West 86th Street Subway Art 23

tags: West 86th street subway art, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC West 86th Street Subway tile mosaic art #23 as seen at NYC's West 86th Street stop at Broadway for the downtown 1 train. (This piece was completed in 1989 and was mounted on 2 July 2006). Artist: Nitza Tufino. Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view]. I have photographed tile artworks from several NYC subway stations now, so far, all are westside Manhattan subway lines, including Chambers Street (A & C trains), Houston Street (1 train), Pennsylvania "Penn" station (1, 2 & 3 trains) [subway art…

West 86th Street Subway Art 11

tags: West 86th street subway art, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC West 86th Street Subway tile mosaic art #11 as seen at NYC's West 86th Street stop at Broadway for the uptown 1 train. (This piece was completed in 1989 and was mounted on 2 July 2006). Artist: Nitza Tufino. Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view]. I have photographed tile artworks from several NYC subway stations now, so far, all are westside Manhattan subway lines, including Chambers Street (A & C trains), Houston Street (1 train), Pennsylvania "Penn" station (1, 2 & 3 trains) [subway art…

West 86th Street Subway Art 12

tags: West 86th street subway art, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC West 86th Street Subway tile mosaic art #12 as seen at NYC's West 86th Street stop at Broadway for the uptown 1 train. (This piece was completed in 1989). This piece was also visited by a vandal. Artist: Nitza Tufino. Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view]. I have photographed tile artworks from several NYC subway stations now, so far, all are westside Manhattan subway lines, including Chambers Street (A & C trains), Houston Street (1 train), Pennsylvania "Penn" station (1, 2 & 3 trains) [subway…

West 86th Street Subway Art 7

tags: West 86th street subway art, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC West 86th Street Subway tile mosaic art #7 as seen at NYC's West 86th Street stop at Broadway for the uptown 1 train. (This piece was completed in 1989 and was mounted on 2 July 2006). Artist: Nitza Tufino. Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view]. I have photographed tile artworks from several NYC subway stations now, so far, all are westside Manhattan subway lines, including Chambers Street (A & C trains), Houston Street (1 train), Pennsylvania "Penn" station (1, 2 & 3 trains) [subway art…

West 86th Street Subway Art 4

tags: West 86th street subway art, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC West 86th Street Subway tile mosaic art #4 as seen at NYC's West 86th Street stop at Broadway for the uptown 1 train. (This piece was completed in 1989 and was mounted on 2 July 2006). Artist: Nitza Tufino. Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view]. I have photographed tile artworks from several NYC subway stations now, so far, all are westside Manhattan subway lines, including Chambers Street (A & C trains), Houston Street (1 train), Pennsylvania "Penn" station (1, 2 & 3 trains) [subway art…

West 86th Street Subway Art 5

tags: West 86th street subway art, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC West 86th Street Subway tile mosaic art #5 as seen at NYC's West 86th Street stop at Broadway for the uptown 1 train. (This piece was completed in 1989 and was mounted on 2 July 2006). Artist: Nitza Tufino. Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view]. I have photographed tile artworks from several NYC subway stations now, so far, all are westside Manhattan subway lines, including Chambers Street (A & C trains), Houston Street (1 train), Pennsylvania "Penn" station (1, 2 & 3 trains) [subway art…

The Mystery of the Huge Water Bills

tags: Waterbill Mystery, humor, behavior, streaming video Jennifer and Jim kept getting huge water bills. They knew beyond a doubt that the bills weren't representative of actual usage, and no matter how they tried to conserve, the high bills continued. Although they could see nothing wrong, they had everything checked for leaks or problems: first the water meter, then outdoor pipes, indoor pipes, underground pipes, faucets, toilets, washer, ice maker machine, etc. One day, Jim was sick and stayed home in bed, but kept hearing water running downstairs. He finally tore himself from his sick…

Harvest Pelicans

tags: birds, American White Pelican, Pelecanus erythrorhynchos, ornithology, Image of the Day A long-time reader, Jerry, sent some images for me to feature as the "image of the day". This is the third image in a series of five. American White Pelican, Pelecanus erythrorhynchos. Image: Jerry Kram. [larger size]. The photographer, Jerry Kram, writes; Ah the pelican, whose beak can hold more than its bellican. A few years ago, there was a major dispersal of pelicans from their largest nesting area in North America, the Chase Lake NWF. It caused some concern at the time because a lot of…

Smuggled Butterflies Intercepted in Serbian Mail

Customs authorities in Belgrade, Serbia intercepted a package containing 98 rare butterflies that originated in the Solomon Islands. The endangered butterflies are estimated to be worth more than $13,000 on the black market, and are protected under an international convention on endangered species and require special licences for import and export. Serbia's environmental protection agency said the butterflies were being imported with forged documents. It is believed they were destined for illegal sale in Serbia and could have fetched as much as $13,000. They had originated from the Solomon…

Friday Ark is now Available

tags: blog carnivals, Friday Ark Yes, indeed, my friends, it is Friday once again, and as usual, my pal, The Modulator, has amassed a pile of links to ANIMAL IMAGES for you to enjoy in the 180th edition of the Friday Ark. Did you know that this blog carnival began as a way to create a less contentious atomsphere on the internet, which had developed due to political sparring all week long, week after week? Anyway, in an effort to take a break from the fighting and to create a more congenial atmosphere, the political pundits began a campaign where they lowered their verbal armaments one day…

Soaring Without Wings

tags: Manhattan skyline, photography, NYCLife, NYC A view of eastern Manhattan from a condo on the thirtieth floor on the Upper West Side (ISO, no zoom, no flash). While I was here, I watched a peregrine falcon, Falco peregrinus, repeatedly bomb-dive Pale Male, the famous red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis, as he soared past the buildings over the southern end of Central Park. Unfortunately, my camera was unable to capture this drama as it unfolded. Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [wallpaper size]. This would have been a much better picture if I could magically make the radiator and window seam…

Kalmar Campus Break Room View

This is the view from the staff break room in the humanities building at the Kalmar campus of the Linnaeus University. To the lower left is the university building. I haven't been here much during the 14 months since I began my stint as some-time lecturer at Linnaeus. Most of my teaching has been at the other campus in Växjö. A few things surprise me about this break room. For instance, I am not used to having colleagues showing up and joining me for tea and a chat. It's nice! Also I haven't seen a training tower for sea captains anywhere else – top right in the picture. And perhaps most…

New Migration Period Hoard

A few weeks ago my friend Tobias Bondesson and his fellow amateur detectorists Iohannes M. Sundberg and Tommy Olesen found a 3.5 kg silver and gold hoard from the 5th century AD near Roskilde in Denmark. They reported their find to the town museum, the hoard was lifted by experts and excavations are ongoing. This closed find, consisting of ~1500 pieces of metal and the pot in which they were buried, is of immense value to archaeology and numismatics thanks to the snapshot of coeval objects it gives us. This not just bullion: many of the objects are typologically distinct. I'd love to help…

State of the Blog

The dust has settled after Sb's migration in late May from Moveable Type to Wordpress. I'm glad we switched, but we lost a lot of traffic in the process. Mainly it seems to be due to changing URLs (the web address of each blog entry) that threw the search engines off and lost us RSS subscribers. In Q3 2011 Aard had 780 daily readers on average and a Google rank of 7. In Q3 2012 it's looking to be more like 540 daily readers, and the Google rank is 6. Dear Reader, to keep things lively here, I'd be grateful for your help. In the following weeks, if you read something you like here, please hit…

13th Century Shipwreck Found Near Gothenburg

According to a fresh press release from the County Museum of Bohuslän in Uddevalla, western Sweden, the museum's maritime archaeologists are studying a well-preserved shipwreck whose construction date lies in the AD 1210s or 1220s. The shipwreck is in shallow water in the Jore fjord and was identified on aerial photographs by the local firm HydroGIS Ltd, whose staff reported it to the museum. HydroGIS also provided the photographs shown here. Dendroanatomical measurements have not only proven the wreck to be the oldest known to date along the Bohuslän coast, but have also shown that the…

Synthesiser Mind-Meld

Apples in Stereo mastermind Robert Schneider demonstrates his latest technical combo: a vintage 80s synthesizer hooked up to a recently released EEG game controller, which allows him to change the pitch of the synth's output with his thoughts. I particularly like the non-glitzy surroundings. The guy is sitting in shorts and t-shirt on a beat-up couch, unshaven and with his hair poking out in all directions, looking like a stoner and showing off his bizarre invention. It's very far from the Kraftwerk esthetic, yet some of the tech is decades later than Kraftwerk's. Check out the latest Apples…

Easter Egg Hunt and Club-House Ruin

On Easter Saturday, many Swedish kids receive candy-filled cardboard eggs. Mine have to jump through a lot of hoops to get theirs. Often I have made paper trails around the house, "Under yellow table", "Inside broom closet", "In Dad's rubber boot". Then increasingly (as Junior grew) I have obfuscated the clues by swapping à for all vowels, writing them backwards or writing them in English. Sometimes I've prepared GPS-based outdoor egg hunts. And that's what Juniorette faced this year, without any help from her older brother who was with his mom. She found the egg soon enough, once she had…

Betting on sea ice?

Looking back over the past sea ice record, I see that a min year is very rarely followed by another record. But some people are getting so carried away by this years ice, they might not realise that. So does anyone want to put an interesting amount of money, at (say) even odds, on there being a record minimum in the arctic next year? I get the no-record side. And we use the record as presented by cryosphere today. Any (credible, non-anonymous) takers? [Only £20 on offer so far, plus an indeterminate amount of beer; roll up, roll up -W Plus another £10 from PH by email] [This was the first…

Boat Carriers

Yesterday my dad had his boat lifted out of the water like he does every autumn to keep the ice from damaging it. I hadn't seen the lift they used before: it's a remote-controlled motorised thing, fast and nifty. Note the yellow control box. This reminded me of a fairly common motif in Bronze Age rock art, the boat carrier. Boats are extremely common, and sometimes you'll find a guy lifting the boat, crew and all. I think this is probably a depiction of the Sea God. But it may also be a human lifting a wooden ship model. We have a few bronze figurines that look like they may have adorned…

Lack of lack of ocean warming

RP Sr has been pushing his favourite climate change metric - ocean temperatures - and hyping one paper - Lyman et al, that appeared to show a cooling in that metric. It seemed to me rather imprudent to do this based on one untested paper; now unexpected support comes from Lyman et al themselves who have discovered biases in their data. So... RPs argument collapses. This is rather reminiscent of the "lets use the MSU" crowd, who touted its suerior reliability over the sfc record, before discovering - oops - that their favourite Spencer+Christy version was wrong. Also rather amusingly, RP used…

Another "Pray for Rain" Declaration

This one from South Dakota's governor, Michael Rounds. He issued an executive proclamation declaring July 24-30 as a week to pray for rain. A press release accompanying the proclamation said, "We are a strong people and all can provide help in many ways, whether actually fighting the fires, providing assistance to the crews, or joining together in the power of prayer." Well okay, but the ones fighting the fires are the ones actually doing something. I'm reminded of Doug Stanhope's bit about Bush's "national day of prayer" following 9/11: "You think you're doing something? You're not. You…

Gotta Love Agape Press

This prompted quite a chuckle from me. An Agape Press article about a court ruling that a Christian prison ministry could not receive tax dollars without violating the establishment clause began with this: Evidently it matters not that a well-known and highly successful prison ministry believes one of its premier programs is constitutional and well within the guidelines of the First Amendment, or that statistics bear out the effectiveness of the program. You have to love the incredulous tone. Of course it matters not that the ministry thinks its program is constitutional; what matters is…

Individualism = Racism?

Via both Radley Balko and Volokh, take a look at this astonishing definition of "cultural racism" from the Seattle Public Schools: Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as "other", different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying…

Dembski Changing Seminaries

William Dembski is changing jobs. For a year, he's been teaching in Louisville (while commuting from Waco) at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; now he's going to be closer to home with a position at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth: Dembski will become research professor of philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Southwestern announced the appointment Wednesday. The Southern Baptist Convention operates both seminaries. What is a "research professor", especially at an academic institution that does no research? Well, it's…

Judge Jones Received Threats

Via Red State Rabble, the York Daily Record reports that Judge Jones received enough threatening emails after his ruling in the Dover trial that the US Marshall Service took copies of them all and guarded the Judge and his family: In the days after U.S. Judge John E. Jones III issued his decision in Dover's intelligent design case, outraged people sent threatening e-mails to his office. Jones won't discuss details of the e-mails, or where they might have come from, but he said they concerned the U.S. Marshals Service. So, in the week before Christmas, marshals kept watch over Jones and his…

Cranky Poll: When Did MTV Lose It?

Today is the 25th anniversary of the launch of MTV, back in 1981, with "Video Killed the Radio Star." Blogdom is, appropriately enough, full of people offering tributes and soliciting fond recollections of the days when they played music videos on MTV. See, for example, posts by Abel and Scalzi. Just to be contrarian, here's a space for a different sort of reminscence: When, in your opinion, did MTV pass the point of no return on the path that led to the current nearly-music-free channel? My personal feeling is that while it became irretrievable with the launch of "The Real World," the…

People, if you want to argue with stoats, first read enough to be a weasel. Parrots needn’t apply

The latest denialosphere nonsense is proving quite entertaining - not for the subject matter itself, for without exception no-one in the debate has troubled to read the gumpf - but for the mudslinging in the comment thread. If you want to see Bad William you can go over there. Vinny, I think that pays you off, yes? Wackos from the Dark Side: you can have the debate here if you want, but only if you're prepared to talk sensibly. As a teensy test of your interest in being sane, I'm making a special rule just for the comment thread: anyone unable to spell my name, or get my title right, or do…

081/366: Pre-Dawn

For a brief, glorious moment the time change meant that I didn't need a flashlight for my weekday morning walks with Emmy. Sadly, the inexorable motion of the Earth in its orbit means that we are once again into the zone where the sun isn't above the horizon when we take our morning stroll: Niskayuna High School a bit before sunup. That's the high school a few blocks from here. It's not on our usual route, but I detoured over there in hopes of getting a decent sunrise photo, as that's the clearest view we have of the eastern horizon, and there was about the right amount of cloud cover for…

The Pre-School Social Event of the Season

The Pip's birthday was yesterday, but we're having his birthday party today, because that's when the indoor playground was available. He had two requests for his birthday: that we have a party at Tumbling Tykes, and that one friend in particular be invited. So, well, we're having his party at Tumbling Tykes, and his buddy D. will be there. along with 9-10 other friends from day care. This post is mostly an excuse to post this graphic of the invitation, because I'm proud of my rudimentary design skillz: The Pip's having a birthday party. And also to say that this is about all you're getting…

On Toys in Science

The big social media blow-up of the weekend was, at least on the science-y side of things, the whole "boys with toys" thing, stemming from this NPR interview, which prompted the #GirlsWithToys hashtag in response. I'm not sorry to have missed most of the original arguments while doing stuff with the kids, but the hashtag has some good stuff. The really unfortunate thing about this is that the point the guy was trying to make in the interview was a good one: there's an essentially playful component to science, even at the professional level. I took a stab at making this same point over at…

My Quantum Alarm Clock

One of the things I struggle with a bit when it comes to writing about cool modern physics is how much to play up the weirdness. On the one hand, people just can't get enough of "spooky action at a distance," but on the other hand, talking too much about that sort of thing makes quantum physics seem like a completely bizarre theory with no applications. Which is unfortunate, because quantum physics is essential for all manner of everyday technology. For example, as I try to explain in a new post at Forbes, quantum physics is essential to the cheap alarm clock that wakes me up in the morning.…

Eureka on the Roundtable Today Tomorrow

"Hey," you say, "It's been, like, a week and a half since you did a post flogging Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist. What gives?" Well, I've been kind of busy, and also the media world sort of goes into suspended animation over the stretch between Christmas and New Year's. However, there's publicity stuff in the works. Specifically, the interview I recorded with Joe Donahue for The Roundtable on WAMC will probably air today. I'm not sure exactly when-- the show runs from 9am to noon, but I would bet on some time between 10:20 and 11:45, because I'm teaching a class then. Anyway, it's…

Throwback Thursday: The Truth About Solar Storms (Synopsis)

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” -Alexander Graham Bell The Sun, contrary to what you might normally think about it, isn't a constant, uniform source of radiation. It has an active surface, replete with temperature variations, sunspots, and occasionally a large flare or mass ejection. Image credit: NASA / GSFC / SDO. But on very rare occasion, a flare like this makes it way through space and just happens to make its way towards Earth, where this hot, fast-moving ionized plasma collides with us. While the aurorae it…

Ask Ethan #34: Using up the Universe’s fuel (Synopsis)

“If the human condition were the periodic table, maybe love would be hydrogen at No. 1.” -David Mitchell It's the end of the week, so once again it's time for Ask Ethan. You've sent in your questions and suggestions, and have I got a doozy of a question for this week about the simplest element in the Universe: hydrogen. Image credit: WISE mission, NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA, via http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/gallery/pia13443.html. From the Big Bang to the present day, and far into the future, just how much of the Universe's hydrogen has been (or will be) turned into…

All about Cosmic Inflation (Synopsis)

“I don’t think at this point we have any way of knowing where the laws of physics came from. We could hope that when we really understand the laws of physics that they will describe how the Universe came into existence.” -Alan Guth So, since Monday's big story -- about the BICEP2 collaboration announcing the discovery of the signature of gravitational waves on the cosmic microwave background -- I realized that there are simply too many misconceptions and misunderstandings out there about cosmic inflation, the Big Bang, and how the whole story comes together. Image credit: Bock et al. (2006,…

Messier Monday: A Spiral Sliver Headed Our Way, M98 (Synopsis)

“[L]ife is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.” -Virginia Woolf One of the only members of the Virgo Cluster… that isn’t located in Virgo! When it comes to wonders of the night sky, you might think that if you've seen one galaxy, you've seen them all. But much like our own Milky Way, each one has its own history, its own present, and its own future. To each of its hundred billion stars and all their planets, it's the most important galaxy in the Universe. Image credit: © 2006 — 2012 by Siegfried Kohlert, via http://www.…

Top 5 facts about Imaginary Math (Synopsis)

“There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.” -Friedrich Nietzsche You know that the square root of -1 is “i”, an imaginary number. But did you know any of these? For classical (Newtonian) mechanics, as well as electromagnetism, it's sufficient to use real mathematics to describe it fully, if not always ideal. But to take care of Einstein's relativity (and spacetime in particular), as well as quantum mechanics, you need to go beyond the real numbers and into the complex plane, which includes imaginary numbers as well! Image credit:…

Top Global Warming Skeptic Explains Global Warming

This is serious. A highly regarded and widely recognized planetery physicist put together the most dangerous scientific ingredients that exist: skepticism of the established science, a comprehensive list of hypotheses that stood in opposition to that established science, a huge amount of data, a healthy amount of funding including a good chunk from energy companies that mainly sell fossil carbon based fuels, and a hand selected research team of others who were also skeptics. In the end, he came up with an explanation for what people call Global Warming. Personally, I believe him. I think…

Florida Beaches Invaded By Portuguese Men-of-War

Warm waters around Florida have resulted in a growth of the population of Portuguese Man-of-War, or should that be Portuguese Men-of-War, an organism commonly confused with jellyfish (because they look just like jellyfish). The PMOWs have a sting, roughly equivalent in pain level to a bee sting, and best treated at such. Do not urinate on your PMOW sting (save your urine for an actual jellyfish sting). There are reports of many PMOWs washing up, with numerous swimmers suffering stings. The stinging tentacles, even after they fall off, are a hazard, and barefoot beachcombers can…

1984, the novel

1984 “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can’t escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching... A startling and haunting vision of the world, 1984 is so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one…

The Birdman of Lauderdale

The Birdman of Lauderdale is a collection of essays by birdman Clay Christensen. Clay writes the popular "Birdman of Lauderdale" column for the Saint Paul Park Bugle, and leads birdwatching field trips in the Twin Cities area. This is a collection of updated and edited essays from that publication, most about bird watching, or the birds themselves. Is it OK to hate cowbirds? What is it like to witness the takeoff of a mob of cranes? How do birdwatchers find birds anyway? What is bird banding all about? These and other burning questions are addressed in engagingly written snippets. I…