Solar eclispse 2017 went direectly over our house in Wyoming. It was stunning. Solar eclipse 2024 will go directly over our tree farm in Arkansas. What are the chances?
Last full one in RI was like 1984, I think. I was in kindergarten. They told me not to look at it so of course I did. Still not blind.
"[T]he way I feel right now, as though the universe were too frighteningly queer to be understood by minds like ours. It's not a popular view, one is supposed to flourish Occam's razor and reduce hypotheses about a complex world to human proportions. Certainly I try. Mostly I come out feeling that whatever else the universe may be, its so-called simplicity is a trick. . . . I know we have learned a lot, but the scope is too vast for us. Every now and then if we look behind us, everything has changed. It isn't precisely that nature tricks us. We trick ourselves with our own ingenuity. I don't believe in simplicity." Loren Eisley, late chair of anthropology, University of Pennsylvania. All The Strange Hours: The Excavation of a Life, Charles Scribner's Sons (1975) at 90-91.
If I understand her correctly, she’s saying that there is a tendency to regard the universe as simple, as reducible to human understanding. From what I have read, this is not a tendency amongst people who study the universe. What she may be describing is the Dunning-Kruger effect, whereby, the less you know, the more you think you know. But as your knowledge of the universe increases, you realize how complex it is, and how limited your knowledge of it is. That’s not to say that simplicity does not have its place in science. “Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.” ― Albert Einstein
Good points. Except (and irrelevantly) "she" is a "he." And speaking as a paleontologist and anthropologist back in the 1930. FWIW
It doesn't look like the visual quality is there (yet), but it's either an interesting idea or a solution in search of a problem: https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/09/sol-reader/
I guess this fits in the Science Thread: It may come as a surprise today, but in 1958, the potential for CO₂-driven climate disruption was part of the public school curriculum. https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-decade-of-sock-hops-poodle-skirts-and-climate-change-awareness/
Oncology and Neurology researchers are starting to work together, taking a closer look at protein biology. Proteins are the workers in the cell. They regulate all the complex chemistry that goes on to produce life. Cancer and Dementia Have Factors in Common, so Why Study Them Separately?
By pumping water out of the ground and moving it elsewhere, humans have shifted such a large mass of water that the Earth tilted nearly 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) east between 1993 and 2010 alone. https://news.agu.org/press-release/weve-pumped-so-much-groundwater-that-weve-nudged-the-earths-spin
Well, no wonder I've been stumbling around for the last thirty years- the world has tilted beneath my feet.
More about the changing conditions on Earth. The length of a day was not always 24 hours. Mid-Proterozoic day length stalled by tidal resonance
Oh, that's brilliant. From now on whenever I procrastinate or have a day when I haven't got the oomph to do what needs to be done, I'm going to say, "I am stalled by tidal resonance."
I want to know how someone got their complaints about not having enough hours in the day to be heard! I bet the clock makers union is doing something to block the complaints.
For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, today marks the beginning of summer, when we’re at our greatest tilt toward the sun. Happy Summer Solstice everyone!
The human population has doubled in the last 50 years - from 4 to 8 billion. In the same time, monitored populations of vertebrates (mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish) have seen a devastating 69% drop on average. WTF? 69% average decline in wildlife populations since 1970, says new WWF report
Darwin even noted booming human population in his time. Reading On the Origin of Species right now is a very sobering experience.
Here's a conundrum: An ancient Nevada lake bed beckons as a vast source of the coveted element [lithium] needed to produce cleaner electric energy and fight global warming. But NASA says the same site — flat as a tabletop and undisturbed like none other in the Western Hemisphere — is indispensable for calibrating the razor-sharp measurements of hundreds of satellites orbiting overhead. https://apnews.com/article/nasa-lithium-mining-nevada-climate-change-018e9f36f82bcddff574deb1a0a2c6f2
Interesting article. Thanks for sharing. It seems that "environmentalists, tribal leaders and others have fought for years against lithium mining ventures in Nevada", but it took NASA's request to close this area to mining. Seems the only ones in favour are the mining companies and one congressman.
I believe I once saw a brothel on the edge of that dry lake bed. I drove U.S. 95 once from Reno to Las Vegas.
Chimpanzee Caged for 28 Years 'in Awe' After Seeing Open Sky for First Time Save the Chimps, a privately funded sanctuary in Fort Pierce on Florida’s east coast, released a video showing Vanilla “awestruck as she beholds the open sky for the first time at her new island home,” the group said. According to the organization, Vanilla was a survivor of a now-closed research lab in New York where chimpanzees were kept in small cages.
First malaria in the US in 20 years - Locally acquired mosquito-borne malaria has not occurred in the United States since 2003. Malaria has been reported in Florida and Texas. The CDC has issued a Health Alert. Locally Acquired Malaria Cases Identified in the United States
