We can do without toilets, we can bring our own water, but we have to have Internet.
Mount Stromlo Observatory director Penny Sackett, on the priorities for restoring infrastructure following the wildfire that swept across the observatory in January 2003. From Dennis Normille’s account in the May 5 Science.
David Appell’s back. Yay. (His first two posts are about climate, so that’s where I’m putting him in the blogroll. I’ll amend as needed.)
I’m a huge Malcolm Gladwell fan. But for some reason, I hadn’t read Blink, his latest book. I bought a copy a while ago, and both Nora and Lissa have read and enjoyed it. (Lissa got me hooked on Gladwell in the first place.)
I briefly picked it up right after I bought it and read a couple of pages, then put it down. Not sure why. Just a gut reaction.
For those not familiar with Blink, it’s about, to quote Gladwell, “rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye.” He argues that our quick instincts can often be as accurate as reasoned thought, decisions made after lengthy deliberation and the gathering of gobs of information.
To a committed rationalist like me, a gatherer of data and deliberator, the idea that our gut can be just as good sounds like a load of crap. I guess that’s why I put it down the first time. Just trusting my gut.
Steve B, in the comments, points to an AP story about a new study in Science Friday by Fu et al. on what they say is evidence that the jet stream is creeping poleward. They only hint at the implications in the paper, noting that “the poleward shift of the jet streams and the associated subtropical dry zone, if it continues, could have important societal implications.” Umm, yeah, speaking as someone living on the margins of an area that would likely get drier, I would say that would be an understatement. But it’s a very short time series (1979-2005), so caution is in order.
Mom sends along this note in response to my post last week about my favorite bird of paradise from our house in California:
I didn’t know that you remembered it so fondly. Did you know that that plant was Grandpa’s gift to me on the Mother’s Day just after you were born–the grandson who carried his name.
Sweet.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was incredibly pleased with the questions we got today for the drought chat over at the ABQJournal web site. My favorite bit:
Amanda:
Are we able to predict when there will be a serious problem with NM’s water supply?John Fleck:
The short answer is “no.”The longer answer depends on two separate problems.
The first is the uncertainty associated with supply. Climate scientists cannot yet predict when droughts will happen, or how many years they will last. What they can say with certainty is that droughts that last a decade or more have happened repeatedly in the past, and there’s no reason to think they won’t happen in the future.
The second part of the problem is our steadily increasing water demand as population grows. That’s also hard to predict, but the trend there is clear. There are more and more us, and we’re using more water.
The message from archaeologists is that, in the past, societies that didn’t pay attention to the first part – climate’s ups and downs – had serious problems if they grew substantially during the wet parts of our inevitable climate cycles and didn’t pay attention to the fact that, sooner or later, it’s going to get dry again.
I’m the guinea pig for an on-line chat experiment at the office. My chosen topic is drought science, of course. Join us tomorrow (Thurs. 5/25) at 1:00 p.m. MDT, or send in your questions early.
My employer kindly pays for a subscription to New Scientist, which has become my favorite curl-up reading, not least because the Brits seem to have mastered the amusement offered by their native tongue. My favorite bit is the last couple of pages, including the hilarious Feedback and The Last Word.
The latter is a feature in which readers pose questions and then readers write in and answer them. This seems, from a journalist’s perspective, an ideal approach, having one’s readers do all one’s work for one. No doubt a subtle touch is required to pick and choose among both questions and answers, but the results are a delight.
Now they’ve packaged the whole kit (or at least a big lot of the last ten years’ worth) in a book: Does Anything Eat Wasps? Why do people have eyebrows?
A favorite photo of the old Route 66 bridge, over the Rio Puerco (the river of pigs) west of Albuquerque. It’s closed to traffic, but has been preserved as a bizarro tourist attraction. You can walk out on it and see that there’s no water in the Rio Puerco. There’s almost never any water in the Rio Puerco, unless you hit it the day of the occasional storm.
It’s a desert.
In honor of Drew Niles’ 8th-inning home run this afternoon, I’ve added Marlins Minors to my Planet. (Hat tip Miguel.)
