February 5-9, 2018 Jessa starts off the week by writing about a Canadian researcher on an Arctic icebreaker who tracks radioactive material released after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. The atmospheric release took eight days to reach Cullen’s home in Victoria, British Columbia, and most of it ended up in the North Pacific. Ultimately it […]
Miscellaneous
Inspired by true events Me: Alexa. Good morning. Alexa: Good morning! On this day in 1961, NASA sent a chimpanzee named Ham into space, flying 155 miles up in the Mercury capsule. But these scientists weren’t just aping around. This mission was designed to tell them about – Me: Alexa stop. Alexa, did […]
Daniel Pauley, a fisheries scientist, coined the term “shifting baselines” in 1995 to describe how depleted fish populations came to be considered “normal” by generations that had never experienced the teeming abundance their grandparents had known. The concept is now a fundamental one in conservation. As ecosystems change and as human memory dims, former states […]
When the official photographer’s helicopter hovered above the Arctic Ocean for the bank note photo shoot, the Canadian Coast Guard ship Amundsen carried Jay Cullen’s oceanographic research equipment prominently on its deck. The icebreaker was to feature on the red Canadian fifty-dollar bill, and Cullen saw his chance at immortality. Unfortunately, when the mint released […]
January 29 – February 2, 2018 Craig begins the week: he believes tarot cards? well, he believes chaos theory, he believes systems can organize themselves when smaller parts interact, he’s risking serious woo here, but sure, why not? Rose’s dog is well-behaved, trustworthy, doesn’t even bark. Rose’s dog was not always this way. Once Rose’s […]
I was snooping around an old uranium mill the other day in southern Utah, taking advantage of an unusually warm January day in the desert to explore washes, ridges, and places where I could hunt for artifacts. You’ll find here glass bottles, metal tags, and pieces of machinery. It was a field mill, looked like […]
I used to take opioids for pain. Every day. Numerous times a day. I didn’t abuse the drugs; I was prescribed them for legitimate reasons and I used them as directed. Still, a human body becomes reliant on narcotic drugs like this, and over time it takes more for the same effects. It’s simple physiology. […]
When I first published this post, we had just brought home our adopted pupper Moro. Now, we’ve had her for over two years, and when people come over they compliment how well trained she is. (Sometimes people think she’s a service dog, because we make her carry our groceries in a little backpack, because we […]
