The US Geological
Survey has put a
streamflow
map for the contiguous 48 US states on the Web. It's a quick
visual indicator of recent rainfall, and includes links to a drought
severity map and a page showing where it's raining now.
The US Geological
Survey has put a
streamflow
map for the contiguous 48 US states on the Web. It's a quick
visual indicator of recent rainfall, and includes links to a drought
severity map and a page showing where it's raining now.
If these FBI
documents are real,
Timothy
Leary became an FBI informant after he was imprisoned in 1974.
As usual with things released under the Freedom of Information
Act, there are puzzling deletions--why did the government feel the
need to conceal the name of Leary's lawyer?
If this
weren't so prosaic, it would be thoroughly morbid: a
live Webcam showing a view of
Dealey Plaza
from the sixth floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository.
We're not
Martians after all: the human
body clock,
like that of other animals, turns out to be set at just over 24
hours, not 25.
Scientists
are starting to understand how Morpho butterflies get
that
amazing shade of blue. Fascinating in its own right, it may also
have applications in everything from camouflage to catching
counterfeiters--but so far, humans aren't as good at it as the
butterflies.
Since the
US Congress wants to hang the Ten Commandments on the wall of
every public school in America to stop, Jon Carroll
interprets
them for schoolchildren.
An article on
children and psychiatric drugs,
including antidepressants and stimulants, includes some
disconcerting numbers: three-quarters of the pediatricians and
family practitioners in North Carolina have prescribed antidepressants
to children and adolescents, but only 8 percent are trained in
managing childhood depression, and only 16 percent are comfortable
treating depressed children. "I'm not trained in this, I'm not
comfortable--here, have a prescription."
Half a million
people are already using their home or office computers to
search for
extra-terrestrial intelligence, making SETI@HOME the world's
largest supercomputer. We have, of course, no idea what the
chances are of finding evidence of extra-terrestrial life in the
Arecibo data, but why not donate the cycles you used to use
to display flying toasters?
The Pacific
island nation of Kiribati has
lost
two islands to global warming. Tebua Tarawa and
Abanuea are now entirely under the ocean; neither was inhabited,
but the populated islands in the region are being affected
by floods and salt poisoning, and the situation is expected
to worsen, and are also at risk of being submerged.
The intensity
of wildfires in the California shrublands doesn't depend on
earlier fire suppression--the key variable is
urbanization.
Thus, the chaparral has to be managed differently from forests.
To go with a
book on Lichens of North America, a new Web site presents
more than I realized I wanted to
know about lichens, including their uses as food for humans
and other animals, and some gorgeous photos, showing a lot more
variety than I'd expected: when lichens grow in green branches,
the casual eye doesn't recognize them as lichens.
The very
small, far-right British National Party is getting
most
of its funding from overseas.
If you're
applying for a job, the people you give as references may be
afraid to say much, even if they liked you. But many employers are
doing
detailed
background checks, everything from credit checks to drug testing
to calling colleges to find out if you have that degree
you claim.
You do, however, have the legal right to refuse a handwriting
analysis test without that refusal being held against you.
Paul Martin,
of the University of Arizona, wants to restore a modified
Pleistocene fauna to parts of North America. There are no living
ground sloths, and lions would be unpopular--it's hard enough
convincing people that wolves might be reasonable neighbors--but
elephants are possible and even appealing.
Physicists
at U.C. Berkeley have discovered, or maybe created,
two
new superheavy elements. They created element 118 by throwing
krypton ions at lead; element 116 then came free, as a decay
product. Both elements are in the
"island of stability" for transuranics, but "stability" is a relative
term; each decays within less than a millisecond.
Why health professionals become quacks lists both psychological and practical reasons. The
Quackwatch Web site also has
a variety of material on how to spot quacks and why they're
dangerous.
Computer programs,
bees, and baseball catchers can all make good decisions
quickly
and with limited information.
Unintended consequences:
a simulation study
suggests that saving forests in North America and Europe could increase
deforestation in the tropics, by making timber more valuable.
NASA has
released a detailed
topographic map of Mars.
The accompanying press release
discusses the range of elevations and notes that we now have a
map of Mars more detailed than what we have for some parts of Earth.
Copyright 1999 Vicki Rosenzweig. Comments welcome at vr@interport.net. In particular, if you find a broken link or problems with the HTML, please let me know.
If you like this, you might also like my home page.