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sb admin | May 19, 2008Nathan Dove, an underground coal miner, was electrocuted on Friday night at Massey Energy's Aracoma/Alma mine in Melville, Logan County, WV. Mr. Dove was 24 years old.Â
This is the same mine which was given a safety award by MSHA about a month ago (see "Safety Awards Gone Bad" ) and in January 2006, was the place of death for Mr. Don Bragg, 33 and Mr. Ellery Hatfield, 46. No information about the incident which killed Mr. Dove is provided yet on Massey's, MSHA's or the State's webpages.
In my post, "Safety Awards Gone Bad", I reminded readers that just one year ago, MSHA issued a…
cmcclain | May 19, 2008By now you probably realize that Peter, Kevin, and I are more than ready to burn our terrestrial dwellings down in favor of living among sea creatures in some oceanic utopia. Peter and I have discussed several options for this.
To our list of potential inhabitable salty structures comes a new venture from Peter Thiel. Thiel is founder of PayPal, a Google Engineer, and a former programmer for Sun Microsystems. With $500,000 of his money, The Seasteading Institute has been launched dedicated to "creating experimental ocean communities with diverse social, political, and legal systems." As…
esiegel | May 19, 2008No, really, I can hang with the big boys!
Although this is usually something we hear from people who are seemingly out of their league, due to diminutive stature, here on Earth:
(Muggsy Bogues is awesome.) Apparently, there are stars out there that have the same Napoleon Complex. According to this Press Release, a star only 1% as bright as the Sun just released a burst of energy as powerful as 1000 solar flares!
Now, that link is only too happy to provide you with an artist's rendition of what happened:
But let's compare this with real stuff, instead. Our Sun has a magnetic field that's…
awild | May 18, 2008Apparently either Jo-anne or I share a name with, or similar to, someone on the U.S. government's secret terrorist watch list. I can't say which of us it is; no one at the airport is authorized to tell us that. All I know is we were prevented from checking in at the Tucson airport on Thursday without additional identification.
We can no longer check-in online or use the electronic kiosks until we go through a months-long process to try to clear whichever one of our names causes the problem. During which time we're advised not to travel. This latter bit is unfortunate, since both of us…
cmcclain | May 18, 2008On a seamount near Macquarie Ridge lies a city several kilometers down. No mermaids, merman, or Snorkels reside here. Rather millions of brittlestars, living arm tip to arm tip, extend there tiny arms toward the surface to capture food. Much like a large city arises near a river, sheltered harbor, or gambling, Brittlestar City thrives because the Antarctic Circumpolar Current passes over the seamount at a brisk 2 knots. This makes it prime habitat for organisms who make a living filtering particles out the water. You can see more photos and video here.
gregladen | May 17, 2008Every now and then there is a moment ... I see something, hear something, learn something ... that makes me want to jump to my feet (if I'm not already standing) and shout "To the blog mobile!"
Well, I don't actually have a blog mobile. So when that happens, I just run into the basement.
What sent me to the basement this time was a news story on the local Fox station. Now, I have to tell you, I don't watch this station. I was actually watching Ask This Old House (my favorite show on TV) and when that was over, I was flipping over to the station that sometimes has the weather radar to…
gregladen | May 17, 2008Next Week's Four Stone Hearth will be hosted at Remote Central. Please have a look here to find out about submitting stuff.
This is the most diverse of all of the blog carnival that I know. So you probably have something. So send it in, OK?????
gregladen | May 17, 2008... or at least, according to the Discovery Institutes's own Michael Medved.
The idea of a distinctive, unifying, risk-taking American DNA might also help to explain our most persistent and painful racial divide - between the progeny of every immigrant nationality that chose to come here [the source of the distinctive american DNA signal], and the one significant group that exercised no choice in making their journey to the U.S. Nothing in the horrific ordeal of African slaves, seized from their homes against their will, reflected a genetic predisposition to risk-taking, or any sort of self…
cortex | May 17, 2008Haven't we done enough to the poor tomato? We've turned the voluptuous fruit into a pale imitation of itself: the average supermarket tomato, turned red with ethylene, tastes like, well, nothing. And now we have to genetically modify it for the sake of ketchup?
At a research farm in California, scientists for H.J. Heinz Co. are also cautiously eyeing their young tomato plants. Their goal, however, is a little more specific.
Heinz is trying to breed a sweeter tomato in order to cut down on the costly corn syrup now used in its ketchup. It's one response to the soaring price of corn, caused in…
petnoyer | May 17, 2008Dolphins swim through water by moving their flipper in an up and down motion. Sharks propel themselves forward moving from side to side. Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps uses both these techniques to help break records. More and more swimmers are turning to these animals for inspiration, both in style and material. Read more at Discovery News.
From the Independent UK: Sharkskin swimsuits lead hi-tech bid for Olympic gold.
Scientists at the Natural History Museum in London acted as paid consultants to Speedo, the British swimwear company, as part of a four-year project to make a body suit…
kevin z | May 16, 2008The Cotton Factory has a new T-Shirt design!
It's teh awesome! On sale now for a ten spot.
gregladen | May 16, 2008The Carnival of Cinema: Episode 74 - The Creature from the Blog Lagoon ... is now up at Good News Film Reviews
cortex | May 16, 2008How would science ever progress without anomalies? Theories are useful things, but they are most useful when they're wrong, when their Newtonian predictions are off, as in the case of the Pioneer space probes, by a hundred-millionths of an inch per second for every second of spaceflight. Robert Lee Hotz has the fascinating story:
Beyond the edge of the solar system, something has gradually dragged two of America's oldest space probes -- Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 -- a quarter-million miles off course. Astrophysicists have struggled 15 years in vain to identify the infinitesimal force at play.…
petnoyer | May 16, 2008
There's a whole series of these animations from RG studios posted at YouTube, including Polar Bears hang gliding, playing golf, and on vacation in Easter Island. We would like to think they can rest easy now that they're listed as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), but environmental groups are claiming that loopholes in the ESA would still leave them unprotected against their biggest threat; global warming caused by man-made pollution.
pharyngula | May 15, 2008Good news for fairness, justice and equality: California has made gay marriage legal. It's a small triumph for civil rights.
Now to celebrate, I don't expect you all to run out and marry a same-sex partner — I think my wife would object, and I'm really not in the market — but wouldn't you know it? The media is responding to this news with…stupid internet polls! How else can they possibly trivialize an important court decision, after all?
The LA Times is asking, "Did the California Supreme Court make the correct decision today?" (as if, perhaps, enough internet geeks squawk they will change…
sciencetolife | May 15, 2008There may soon be a new (more eco-friendly) option in funeral services: dissolving bodies in lye and flushing the residue down the drain.
Lye is an alkaline chemical also known as sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and the process of using it to dissolve certain substances is called alkaline hydrolysis.
Alkaline hydrolysis has actually been around for years and is used in a variety of processes including the disposal of other biological and biohazardous waste. By avoiding the emissions generated during cremation, alkaline hydrolysis may be a more eco-friendly option.
Although the process is legal…
gregladen | May 15, 2008Welcome to I and the Bird #75! is HERE.
Also, check out the Young Birder's Guide Giveaway at I and the Bird. (The Young Birder's Guide is a new book).
sciencewoman | May 15, 2008 What would possess someone to take two days off of work, drive or fly to the competition city, read thirty or more posters, interview fourteen science students, and then lock themselves in a room until the winners are determined, all for no pay other than food? As the judging day winds down (I'm writing this on the plane on the way home), I find myself recollecting some of the answers I heard from other judges.
Some of the judges are former ISEF finalists, like myself, while others have children or grandchildren who are current or former science fair competitors*. Some judges are mentors of…
petnoyer | May 15, 2008It feels strange to rejoice the listing of polar bears to the Endangered Species Act, because its nothing to be happy about, really. They are now officially in danger of extinction. I would be more ecstatic if they were being removed from the list, actually. But ESA is a powerful legislative weapon to address the root causes of extinction.
No, I'm not talking about ice retreat due to climate change, I'm talking about exogenous chemical pollution accumulating in the Arctic that causes female polar bears to grow a penis. The condition is known as imposex.
Imposex also occurs in mud snails…