Watch Out, De Beers

Wired has the scoop on the latest advances in artificial diamonds. Given the current situation in Africa, I found this little bit interesting:

Clever marketing may bring buyers around to manufactured diamonds. After all, there’s no chance that they are so-called blood diamonds – stones sold by African rebels to fund wars and revolutions. And they aren’t under the thumb of an international cartel accused of buying off foreign governments, despoiling the environment, flouting antimonopoly laws, and exploiting mine workers.

As the article points out, the new diamond age may indeed be at hand, and it will have implications far beyond cheaper engagement rings.

Yellowstone Heating Up

As a resident of Jackson Hole, this makes me a little nervous. (Scroll down the window in “Activity Update”.)

They closed part of Norris Geyser Basin last month, because of increased activity and temperatures.

The Yellowstone Caldera blows once every 600,000 years or so. It’s been 630,000 since the last one. I don’t know what the standard deviation is, so we might be overdue, or it could be good for tens of thousands of years more, but when it does, it will be the largest natural disaster in human history, dwarfing events like Mt. St. Helens, Krakatoa, Pinatubo by orders of magnitude.

It may not kill that many people directly (perhaps just a few hundred thousand), because the region is sparsely populated, relative to the rest of the country, but it would probably wipe out Gardiner and Boseman, Montana, and perhaps some towns in eastern Idaho. It will be, literally, a sound heard round the world. The ash would probably wipe out crops in the US for at least a year or so, and it could even kick off a new glacial advance if it cuts off the sunlight for a few years.

It would certainly be a distraction from the War on Terror. Also a good reason to make a little more effort in establishing extraterrestrial homes. We may be able to deflect killer asteroids, but it will be a long time, if ever, before we have the technology to circumvent an event like that.

Anyway, have a nice day.
[Update at 8:52 PM PDT]

Glenn points out a similar (though more local) threat that’s probably even more imminent.

Hubble Hubbub

Jeff Faust has a comprehensive report on the current thinking about the fate of the Hubble Space Telescope, which is reaching the end of its life. The issues are whether or not to extend its life, and if not, how best to decommission it. The Columbia loss has complicated the issue considerably, because Shuttle missions, particularly Shuttle missions that don’t go to the ISS (where it can be inspected prior to entry, and support the crew temporarily in the event of a problem) are viewed differently now than they were on January 31.

One idea. We have a few years to deal with the problem (unless the gyros fail), so why not put up a prize for a private mission to do a life extension and instrument changeout? If nobody wins by some set date, then the government’s out no money, and they can launch a fallback Shuttle mission to decommission.

But if somebody wins, then science and the nation win.

Big.

Inverse Correlation?

Here’s a story that says that Bergman and Bogart, who had such great screen chemistry in Casablanca, didn’t get along that well off screen.

Compare and contrast to B-Lo (or Bennifer or whatever cutesy name you want to use for the about-to-be-ex-couple) who supposedly had great off-screen chemistry, but who just made one of the biggest cinematic turkeys (in more ways than one) of all time.

If nothing else, it shows how good Bogart and Bergman were as actors.

Justice

Apparently, Bush isn’t going to kowtow to the terrorist apologists at CAIR, or CAIR’s lackeys in the Senate. According to Reuters, he’s going to make Daniel Pipes a recess appointment.

I hope it’s true–if so, it will be the first bit of backbone he’s shown on this issue in a while.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!