“We have no idea what’s going to happen [in the weather] beyond three days out.”

“There’s not an evaluation of accuracy in hiring meteorologists. Presentation takes precedence over accuracy.” (…)

No meteorologist or television station kept records of what they predicted, nor compared their predictions to actual results over a long term. No meteorologist posts their accuracy statistics on their résumé. No station managers use accuracy statistics in the hiring or evaluation of their meteorologists.

{ NYT/freakonomics | Continue reading }

Scientists measure how powerful volcanic eruptions are using the VEI. The VEI stands for Volcanic Explosivity Index. It records how much volcanic matierial is thrown out, how high the eruption goes, and how long it lasts. The scale goes from 0 to 8. A score of 1 is 10 times more powerful than a score of 0.

{ Wikipedia | more }

Spring’s bloom may not smell so sweet anymore, as pollutants from power plants and automobiles destroy flowers’ aromas, a new study suggests.

The finding could help explain why some pollinators, particularly bees, are declining in certain parts of the world.

Researchers at the University of Virginia created a mathematical model of how the scents of flowers travel with the wind. The scent molecules produced by the flowers readily bond with pollutants such as ozone, which destroys the aromas they produce.

So instead of wafting for long distances with the wind, the flowery scents are chemically altered. Essentially, the flowers no longer smell like flowers.

{ LiveScience | Continue reading }

photo { Emmet Malmstrom }

As thousands of people pour into emergency rooms and millions line up to be vaccinated, Brazil’s public health officials and recently even its military are fighting to control vector-borne diseases. Mosquitoes are carrying illnesses like dengue and yellow fever into Brazil’s largest cities, including Rio and Brasília, and the tropical disease, chikungunya, previously unheard of in Italy, was reported there last year. The two recent outbreaks in Brazil have caused a total of more than 80 deaths, 57,000 new infections, and widespread panic. As a result of global warming, mosquitoes, ticks, rodents and other vectors are expanding their geographic range and altering long-established patterns of disease. Climate changes worldwide are also causing serious problems with food and water supplies, increasing mental health concerns, and exacerbating air pollution, which elevates chronic disease risk.

Global temperature increases of 0.9°F (0.5°C) over the past century have led to an estimated 150,000 deaths and the loss of 5.5 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) annually, with the rates expected to double over the next several decades. The World Health Organization (WHO) has documented 39 new or re-emerging diseases since the 1960’s, many linked to global warming — an explosion of illnesses that has not been seen since the Industrial Revolution when masses of people moved to cities, increasing the spread of disease. (…)

As global climate change produces more extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and flooding, spikes in the prevalence of other weather sensitive diseases can be expected. Furthermore, deforestation, a major contributor to global warming, has brought animals and ticks in contact with humans, resulting in the emergence of a new infectious illness, Lyme’s Disease, first reported in 1975. Global warming is projected to expand the range of ticks that carry this disease.

The earth’s water supply has also been profoundly affected by global warming, endangering the health of people and the planet. Water is essential to all aspects of life, yet 99% of water on Earth is unsafe or unavailable to drink. As a result of global warming, water will become even more scarce and contaminated as climate patterns change, extreme weather events occur, and glaciers melt. The 20th century has witnessed the greatest increase in temperature of any century in the past thousand years, bringing with it a change in precipitation patterns and a rise in sea levels. Global sea levels rose at an average rate of 0.07 inches per year from 1961-2003 (rising at an even greater rate of 0.12 inches per year on average from 1993-2003) reducing fresh water availability and elevating water temperatures that threaten already scarce water supplies. (…)

Changes to the earth’s water supply have threatened populations around the globe with new diseases and sanitation concerns. 1.1 billion people worldwide lack safe drinking water and 2.6 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation infrastructure. In the United States alone, more than 750,000 cases of diseases associated with unsafe drinking water occurred between 1980 and 1996.

{ Huffington Post | Continue reading }

The Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that the “lifespans of trees, like those of all organisms, are limited.” But while this is certainly true–no tree is immortal–it’s also deceptive. Trees may have life spans, but they don’t have fixed life spans, as animals do. It is reasonably certain that no human, no matter how coddled, would survive past some definite point–say, 120 years. But this cannot confidently be said of trees.

The most striking illustration of this is the bristlecone pine, Pinus aristata. A 1948 field guide noted that bristlecones reached maturity in 200-250 years, with “extreme ages of 300-375 years.” Yet only 10 years later a researcher discovered a stand of bristlecones whose average age exceeded 4,000 years and in one case 4,600 years.

Other examples are less dramatic but still instructive. Red maples live 80-250 years, American chestnuts 100-300, white oaks 300-600, bald cypress 600-1,200.

{ The Straight Dope | Continue reading }

photo { Javier Tles }

{ A New York City subway car being added to an artificial reef off the coast of Delaware. The reef’s success has led to crowding for marine life and fishermen. “They’re basically luxury condominiums for fish,” said Jeff Tinsman, the artificial reef program manager. Other states, seeing Delaware’s successes, have started competing for the subway cars, which New York City provides free. | NY Times | Continue reading | more photos }

Hundreds of years ago, a small group of Polynesians rowed their wooden outrigger canoes across vast stretches of open sea, navigating by the evening stars and the day’s ocean swells. When and why these people left their native land remains a mystery. But what is clear is that they made a small, uninhabited island with rolling hills and a lush carpet of palm trees their new home, eventually naming their 63 square miles of paradise Rapa Nui—now popularly known as Easter Island.

On this outpost nearly 2,300 miles west of South America and 1,100 miles from the nearest island, the newcomers chiseled away at volcanic stone, carving Moai, monolithic statues built to honor their ancestors, and moved the mammoth blocks of stone to different ceremonial structures around the island. (…) Although these events are generally accepted by scientists, the date of the Polynesians’ arrival on the island and why their civilization ultimately collapsed is still being debated.

{ Smithsonian Magazine | Continue reading }

Moai are monolithic human figures carved from rock on the Polynesian island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), mostly between 1250 and 1500 CE. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku (a volcanic crater formed of consolidated volcanic ash, or tuff, and located on the lower slopes of Terevaka in the Rapa Nui National Park on Easter Island), but hundreds were transported from there and set on Ahu (platforms) which were mostly at the island’s perimeter.

It is not known exactly how the moai were moved across the island but the process almost certainly required human energy, ropes, and possibly wooden sledges and/or rollers; as well as leveled tracks across the island (the Easter Island roads). Oral histories and science currently support the theory that the main method was that the moai were “walked” by a rocking process.

Almost all Moai have overly large heads three fifths the size of their body. They are the ‘living faces’ and representations of chiefly, deified ancestors. Sitting on their Ahus with their backs to the sea, these statues were still gazing across their clan lands when Europeans first visited the island, but most were then cast down during conflict between different clans on the island.

All but 53 of the 887 moai known to date were carved from tuff (a compressed volcanic ash) from Rano Raraku, where 394 moai and incomplete moai are still visible today.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

The authorities on Easter Island have detained a Finnish tourist on suspicion of trying to steal an earlobe of one of the world-famous moai stone statues.

Police on the Pacific island, which is an overseas territory of Chile, said a woman had seen him rip off the earlobe, which then fell and broke into pieces. Marko Kulju could face seven years in prison and a fine if convicted under laws protecting national monuments.

{ BBC | Continue reading }

illustration { House Industries }

{ Tonatiuh Ambrosetti }

Kern County Sheriff’s deputies rescued four teenagers who had been stranded for days in the Mojave Desert after they fled from a rave party that was busted on Saturday.

The group of teens were found Monday after deputies said they broke into a travel trailer and took Gatorade, soda and water.

{ KERO 23 | Continue reading }

related { Unknown forces cause large groups of people to dance hysterically until dropping from exhaustion in multiple incidents in Europe from the 13th to 17th centuries. }

photo { Klaus Thymann | S Magazine, 3 }

{ The next major earthquake on the Hayward Fault - inevitable anytime now, seismologists and quake loss experts say - will be the Bay Area’s own Hurricane Katrina. They pointed out that in New Orleans, 60 to 70 percent of total economic losses from the hurricane were uninsured, and in the Bay Area more than 95 percent of all homes and 85 percent of all commercial buildings have no insurance against earthquake damage. }

{ the effect in this iceberg would have been created from dirt, animal excrement and fragments of dead bodies | Times | photo }