The Economist Food Price Index is at 280.6, up 11.3 percent on the month and a frankly astonishing 66.2 percent over the last year. Elasticity in this case is a measure of people going hungry, I think.
Monsoon Time
identi.ca
Troopin’ on over with the cool kids to identi.ca – kinda like Twitter, but with open source cool.
Happy Roswell Day
Happy 61st anniversary of nothing terribly interesting happening down in the deserts of southeastern New Mexico, and let me take this opportunity to reprise one of my all time greatest hits: Roswell Myths Crash Into Reality:
In conventional historical research or journalistic exposé, says Brandeis University anthropologist Benson Saler, successive investigations fill in details and amplify previous work.
“Key elements in the early stories are not usually contradicted in later stories, but more details are filled in as each story emerges,” Saler and Brandeis colleague Charles Ziegler wrote in a new Roswell book co-authored with New Mexico scientist Charles Moore. “The Roswell story does not display this pattern.”
RIP Karl Pflock
$300 oil
If you think oil’s going to hit $300 a barrel, there’s apparently money to be made. And someone thinks that is a real possibility:
Nymex statistics show that investors for the first time placed a small bet this week that West Texas Intermediate oil futures would hit $300 a barrel – more than double yesterday’s price of about $142.50 a barrel – by December.
Seismic Web Traffic
The folks at the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre have a paper in the June 17 EOS (sorry, couldn’t find it on line) about their use of web traffic spikes to quickly locate and learn about earthquakes. Swarms of web users quickly turn to the web after a quake, they write, and the location information gleaned from their IP addresses can help give seismologists a rough idea of an earthquake’s location more quickly than their seismic instruments.
Also, importantly, maps of places in the area of the quake from which they aren’t receiving hits is important, suggesting places that have lost Internet connectivity.
Organic Acreage
The Economist questions organic farming:
But as global food prices soar, hurting the poor in particular, environmentalists may find organic farming trickier to promote. Organic farming produces far less than conventional intensive methods, and so more land must be farmed for the same yield.
Water By Boat
This hardly seems sustainable (“tankers” in this case contain water):
Every day for the next six months two tankers will leave the port of Elefsina near Athens, bound for Cyprus.
After four years with no substantial winter rainfall, Cypriot water reserves are at their lowest since 1908.
h/t Adam in the comments
Diesel Decline Continues
The decline in the price of diesel has continued for the fifth consecutive week, according to EIA.
Quote of the Day
“Reality is a sandwich I did not order.”