Category Archives: General Science

General Science, Humor, Weird

First A Purple Cow

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…and now this:

Dr Mike Edwards, an English teacher at Meoncross School in Stubbington, Hants, first spotted the squirrel outside his classroom window.

He said: ‘I was sitting in my classroom and looked out the window and saw it sitting on the fence. I had to do a double take.

‘Since then it’s been a bit of a regular at the school – everyone’s seen it.

‘We thought it might have been paint or something but then when you look at it up close, it’s an all-over coat, not in patches like you’d expect if it had been near some paint.

‘Its fur actually looks purple all the way through. It’s an absolute mystery.’

But I can tell you any how, I’d rather see than be one.

General, General Science, Science And Society

Due For Disaster

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This article is about the potential for a great quake in San Francisco, but the problem is actually much more widespread. LA is vulnerable as well, though not, as popular imagination has it, from the San Andreas fault, which is quite a distance away. Of much more concern (particularly to me, as a property owner in the South Bay) is the Newport-Inglewood fault, which comes within a few miles of my house. That’s the fault that ruptured in the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, and a seven on it would be much worse than an eight on the San Andreas, because it runs right through the LA metro area.

The Northwest is also in danger–there could be a magnitude nine in the Seattle area at almost any time. Of course, the greatest danger is in those areas that get quakes so rarely that they’re in no way prepared for them, such as the east coast. There’s still a lot of unreinforced masonry there that will come tumbling down in the event of a significant temblor, and they’re not unheard of.

Of course, in Florida, I live in one of the most seismically inactive places in the country. I can put all kinds of things on top of other things here that I’d never consider doing in California. Instead, we have to watch the weather for hurricanes half the year.

General Science, Science And Society

The Last Of The Neanderthals

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Here’s an interesting piece on the latest research, at National Geographic:

“Most Neanderthals and modern humans probably lived most of their lives without seeing each other,” he said, carefully choosing his words. “The way I imagine it is that occasionally in these border areas, some of these guys would see each other at a distance…but I think the most likely thing is that they excluded each other from the landscape. Not just avoided, but excluded. We know from recent research on hunter-gatherers that they are much less peaceful than generally believed.”

“Sometimes I just turn out the lights in here and think what it must have been like for them.”

Nasty, brutish, short.

And many people have no idea how close we are to returning to those days, should things take a wrong turn.