Twenty years ago Saturday, Betsy Huntington died. She accompanied me from Boston to New Mexico, where we made a home,and where I still live. She was the first person I knew to use the word “querencia”, and she is the single biggest influence on who I am today. I am not sure how much I …
Month: November 2006
Packrat Middens
Earlier this week, the New York Times had an article on the use of packrat middens as sources of proxy data for climatic reconstruction. These middens have been an important source of data in the western US for decades, but I can’t remember seeing another piece on this in the popular press. From the article: …
White Rats
Patrick Burns tells us the story of how British Victorian terriermen and ratcatchers paved the way for advances in modern medicine.
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Or…?
I know a number of accomplished naturalists and science-types browse this blog—at least two of them write this blog! So I am putting to you all a Challenge of Identification From The Natural World (…or not). Actually, one of my daughters is putting you up to it: She found this interesting item in a pile …
More Neanderthal News
As I mentioned in a post last week, news accounts have been hinting that more reports on Neanderthal DNA research were due out shortly. Nicholas Wade of the New York Times breaks one of these today, with a progress report on the Neanderthal genome mapping project that I posted on in July. From the article: …
Asteroid and Comet Strikes
The NY Times has a great piece on an ongoing project that is reviewing the world’s shorelines for “chevron” deposits. The article decsribes some found in Madagascar like this: “On close inspection, the chevron deposits contain deep ocean microfossils that are fused with a medley of metals typically formed by cosmic impacts. And all of …
The Matter of Borat
As I am a known Kazakh- o- phile, everyone wants to know what I think of the Borat phenomenon (and I have also been asked if they do indeed drink horse urine: NO). I am no fan of gross- out movies and am obviously a big fan of free speech so I thought I would …
Latrine Practices and Health Risks
I really enjoyed this article from the LA Times that discusses research from the archaeological site of Qumran in Israel, thought by many to be the home of the religious community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. Apparently contemporary writings describe elaborate cleansing rituals involved with using their latrines and these have been confirmed through …
Update
Reader Rasmus Boegh has identified the source of the eagle photo in this post of May 24. “The animal on the photo is, without any doubts, a Red Fox. Furthermore, it is actually part of a series that was shot in Finland by Pekka Komi. This photo could give the mistaken impression that the Golden …
Contra “Peak Oil”
MSN also carries a Reuters release of a study from Cambridge Energy Research Associates attacking the simplistic application of the peak oil concept. From the release: “Cambridge Energy Research Associates said in a report that the world has some 3.74 trillion barrels of oil left — enough to last 122 years at current consumption rates …