Category: Nature & The Environment
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August 2010 has been a torrid month in Houston- it is winding down to become the hottest August on record. The high temperatures and humidity have made the days unusually uncomfortable with heat advisories being issued nearly daily. Two days ago the Houston Chronicle ran a mildly amusing editorial named The ugliest August. It described synapses melting in fearsome…
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(Trailer of Gasland) There's a large industrial park close to my home, filled with large buildings and tasteful landscaping. All were empty last year; all are filled this year. They have been leased by companies seeking to drill for natural gas in the remnants of countryside and rolling hills, now crowded out by McMansion subdevelopments…
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If this investigating professor is to be believed, it started several weeks before the Deepwater Horizon rig, positioned several miles offshore, drilling in 5000 ft deep ocean, was due to be capped and moved to another location for drilling. Based on his interviews with people who were involved in the rig's operation "There was an…
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This post is a cut & paste transfer from Facebook where I have been recording the unusual but surprisingly beautiful progress of a cactus plant. Readers who are on my FB list of "friends" may have already seen it. Click on the images for an enlarged view. I have had several cactus plants for years – indoors and…
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Could it be that mullahs and other fundamentalist religious leaders know more about meteorology and geology than we suspect? Earlier this year Pat Robertson blamed the Haitian temblor on voodoo and a pact with the devil. An Iranian mullah recently blamed scantily dressed women for earthquakes. A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously…
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The following came to me from a friend in an e-mail. I am copying it here with minor edits. I have never seen a root bridge in India, having never been to the far northeast corner of the country. I did see several interesting bridges in Japan but can't recall seeing a living / growing one. (Please click on the thumbnail photos) …
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Through the cloud of volcanic ash spewed by the Icelandic volcano Eyjafyallajokull, that is. As thousands of flights were canceled over the weekend, desperate travelers sought any possible way out of airport lounge purgatory, driving across countries and paying unprecedented prices for one-way taxi or bus rides. The flights resume, after a few test flights…
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AP report compares two recent earthquakes and their after effects – in Haiti and in Chile.
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In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, two right wing media commentators have been heard spouting their usual reactionary drivel. Televangelist Pat Robertson blamed the people of Haiti for bringing about their own misfortune by making a pact with the devil and Rush Limbaugh used the occasion to cast aspersions on President Obama, who he said would exploit the disaster to…
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While recently discussing the precise mechanism of evolution,after viewing "What Darwin Never Knew" on Nova on PBS, there was much argument over whether the 'random' nature of mutation is truly random or conforms loosely to a framework of rules. Evolution in organisms, as we commonly understand, is where random mutations occur, of which the traits…
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SuperFreakonomics and Geoengineering: The Benefits of Procrastination: The Economics of Geo-engineering: Although procrastination is often a sign of immaturity, in the context of climate change it may not be. In the typical debate over geo-engineering, proponents argue that it is “the” solution to global warming, while the critics worry about all the things that could…
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Actually, this is all about the automobile. Normally, given the same circumstances – on an interstate feeder road near a hurricane levee between Houston and Galveston, a car veers off into 3 feet of water and no one is hurt, the news would have only made it to the police blotter or perhaps garnered a few lines in the local news…
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Superstition ridden medieval Europe condemned cats as witchs' agents and slaughtered them. Nature's pay back for that brutal and dastardly act came in the form of the Black Plague when the rat population proliferated in the absence of a natural feline pest control. A similar but less deadly fate may be in store for Egypt whose president Hosni Mubarak, in a heartless, mindless and misguided moment of inspiration, ordered all pigs killed in order…
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