Why the bad guys are always bad shots…. [Greg Laden's Blog]
.... because they always shoot first! And it turns out that reaction is faster than action, so the Marshall can shoot the Varmint Bad Guy, and the Sar Wars Storm Troopers didn't have a chance.
[Niels] Bohr was seemingly unhappy with the Tinseltown explanation that the good guy, who never shoots first, always wins. Legend has it that he procured two toy pistols and enlisted the aid of fellow physicist George Gamow. In a series of duels, Bohr never drew first but won every time. The physicist suggested that the brain responded to danger faster than it carried out a deliberate intention.
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Six Million Americans With No Income But Food Stamps [Casaubon's Book]
I somehow missed this Times article in January that documents the rising number of Americans living on nothing but Food Stamps. If you missed it too, you have to read it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/us/03foodstamps.html
This is the American equivalent of living on per day.
Sharon
Man on the Street Votes for 90% More News Anchor Beheadings [Casaubon's Book]
Ok, maybe not. But just in case you were wondering why Americans watch the news constantly and know nothing, here's a pretty good example. Coming up next - how to write a completely generic blog post, by yours truly 
.
Snow Envy [Casaubon's Book]
So for those of you getting ready for Snowpocalypse, as the mid-Atlantic faces, gasp - a whole foot of snow, I have to tell you something. I'm jealous. I mean really, really jealous. I want your snow.
A general pattern of winter storms in my area (upstate NY) is that they come down from Canada and across the Great Lakes. We are at the very eastern edge of the snow belt in New York, and we don't usually get the giant lake-effect snows that Buffalo and other areas get, but we can generally expect to spend the winter with a solid several feet on the ground. But not this year.
Somehow, all the snow has been coming up from the south and across the Northeast. With the exception of one wimpy 6 inch snowfall in December, we've had almost nothing - an inch here, two inches there, but basically, jack. This is bad for a couple of reasons. First of all, I like snow. I live in a cold climate and I like to cross country ski, I like to sled and I like to be out in the snow. We haven't built a single snowman this year, and my kids have only been sledding a couple of dozen times. What's the point of winter without snow?
Second, we've had extremely cold temperatures and drying winds - snow is a wonderful insulator, holding ground temps and low growing plants at right around freezing, even when outside temperatures drop to -10 or -20 or occasionally -30F around here. No snow means my garden perennials bear the entire burden of the cold, and I will probably lose some of the tenderer plants.
Finally, my landscape is a hell of a lot prettier with snow on it. I love the way the fields and forests look here, but around March, when things melt off, we have a period of mud, grey and beige before it finally greens up. A couple of weeks of this is a bit disheartening but probably inevitable. Two or three months of bare grey ground sucks. We've got enough snow at the moment to cover things up after the big, wet meltoff a couple of weeks ago, but hey.
So today, while you folks in the mid-Atlantic are drinking your bottled water and eating your stored food and looking fearfully at the accumulation indexes, I'm jealous as heck. It would be the perfect day for a blizzard here - the boys are all sick to various degrees and Eric is home with a lingering sinus infection. We have nowhere to go and wouldn't pester people with our diseases if we did. As long as I get to be shut up in the house with my sick family, I want my snow, cocoa by the fire and the Currier and Ives view.
So you as the entire East-Center of the country shuts down, you can consider a move out of wintery Virginia or Maryland to sunny, snowless upstate New York, the new Florida (just give AGW a little time). And console yourself with the fact that you've made me jealous.
Sharon
Fossil Feather Colors Really ARE Written In Stone [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)]
tags: evolutionary biology, paleontology, taphonomy, plumage color, feathers, color, melanin, eumelanin, phaeomelanin, dinosaurs, theropod, paravian, avialae, fossils, Anchiornis huxleyi, ornithology, birds, bpr3.org/?p=52,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper
New research reveals that recently-described 155-million-year-old Anchiornis huxleyi,
a woodpecker-like dinosaur the size of a modern-day domesticated chicken,
had black-and-white spangled wings and a rusty red crown.
Image: Michael DiGiorgio, Yale University [larger view]
Fig. 4. Reconstruction of the plumage color of the Jurassic troodontid Anchiornis huxleyi. The tail is unknown specimen BMNHC PH828, and reconstructed based on the complete specimen previously described. Color plate by Michael A. Digiorgio.
Ever since dinosaurs were discovered, scientists, artists and children everywhere have speculated about what they really looked like. Fossilized bones, skin impressions and recently, feathers, provide a general mental image of these animals' appearances, but these materials also leave important questions unanswered, basic questions such as what color were dinosaurs?
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Oops, We Just Found the 1.2 Million Jobs You Were Missing… [Casaubon's Book]
Every news media I looked at it is trumpeting good news - while unemployment increased in January, we're thrilled that it was only be 20,000 jobs. Because of this, the unemployment rate fell to 9.7% amid, as we learn on CNN "hope the economy will add jobs soon."
What's buried in the middle of the report is the real news - that revisions in employment estimates show that we lost 1.2 million jobs more than the previously estimated 7.2 million. This was higher than predictions, which expected an additional million lost jobs. That means that one in every seven jobs lost since December '07 went uncounted.
This is also a useful reminder that the current fall in unemployment numbers is probably understated - generally speaking the pattern has been to revise jobless numbers upwards, and this only confirms how huge an understatement we've been seeing. We can expect, has has been the relentless trend, to see the jobs numbers revised downwards for January, erasing most of these gains. For proof, let's just look at December:
The payroll number for December was revised to a net loss of 150,000 jobs. The government had previously indicated that 85,000 jobs were lost in December.
Ok, so that's nearly doubled. Almost double the January figures, and they are still better than December's, but not nearly as impressive sounding.
The relentless Pollyanna story of the economy's recovery is simply not matched by fact - overwhelmingly politicians, economists and business people alike have wanted so badly to see a recovery that they have created one. The funding of trillions into banks and bailouts has given a market lift with little significance for real people - and to quote the Muppet Beaker on his insane growth formula, the results are "Madly Memporary."
Consider also where the jobs are coming from. Of the jobs that were gained in January, 9,000 were derived from the US Census. More than a million more census jobs will be created over the course of the next year, but all of these jobs are temporary - unless there is a substantial change in the economy over the course of the year, most of those people will go back to unemployment. Also note that the government was hiring - but temporary census workers. 8,000 government permanent employees, the kind with retirement benefits, were dumped in the meantime. Of the remaining jobs created, 44,000 of them were temp jobs. Economists find this encouraging, because many businesses use temps to hire permanently. But many businesses also hire temps to avoid creating highly paid, benefits receiving positions.
There's a lot of material out there on how this slight boom in temping is a good sign - the claim is that temp growth is a significant indicator of economic recovery for historic reasons. But, of course, the role of staffing and temp agencies as a sign of economic growth goes back only two recessions into the 1990s - before that, temporary agencies simply didn't have the same roles or range of roles in business. So these historic indicators are of limited value - they show what happens in a very mild recession, with a stable recovery and an economy that allows companies to cautiously add jobs, and then make them permanent - and maybe that's what will happen here. But I think it is important to remember that many of the indicators (including the birth/death jobs model that erased 1.2 million jobs) aren't that accurate in a long term, deep recession. Those temp jobs could be good news - or they could be evidence that when we do hire, people ,are getting crappy jobs, low paid, no benefits jobs, to replace good ones - and jobs that won't last, that will cast them back on depleted unemployment funds again.
As I write this, the Dow is back down below 10,000 again. Will this last? Who knows? But as long as the Pollyanna story keeps going, I have no doubt that someone will tell us that this is proof that the magic recovery is just around the corner.
Updated to add: Actually, I think The Onion has found a leading economic indicator that might actually work:
Sharon
Seven habits of highly successful toads [Not Exactly Rocket Science]
Toads are an evolutionary success story. In a relatively short span of time, they diversified into around 500 species and spread to every continent except Antarctica. Now, Ines van Bocxlaer from Vrije University has uncovered the secrets of their success. By comparing the most home-bound toads with the most invasive ones, she has outlined seven qualities that enabled these amphibians to conquer the world. In a common ancestor, these seven traits came together to create an eighth - a pioneer's skill are colonising new habitats.
Some, like the harlequin toads, are restricted to such narrow tracts of land that they are vulnerable to extinction. Others, like the infamous cane toads, are highly invasive and notoriously resistant to extinction despite the best efforts of Australians and their sporting equipment. This diversity of lifestyles allowed Bocxlaer to search for characteristics shared by the most pioneering of toad species.
She compared over 228 species, representing just under half of all the known toads, and constructed a family tree that charts their relationships. She showed, as others before have suggested, that the family's fortunes kicked off in South America, around 35-40 million years ago. This was the start of their global invasion.
Seven qualities make for wide-ranging toads. For a start, the adults don't have the typical amphibian dependency on constant water or humidity. They have skins that can cope with the drier side of life, giving them a chance to seek out new habitats away from the safety net of moist environments. Secondly, they tend to have fat deposits near their groin, which act as a back-up energy source when food is scarce. Thirdly, they tend to be larger (meaning at least 5 centimetres in length), which also helps to conserve water. Larger animals have larger bladders so they retain more water, and they lose less of it because they have small surface areas for their size.
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25 Plants You Should Consider Growing [Casaubon's Book]
Note: This is a rerun from ye olde blogge. As the book deadline approaches, expect to see some of my previous opi making appearances here. Since I've got more than 1000 of them, it shouldn't be too boring, I hope. I hope this one will help some of you in garden planning this year.
There are a million gardening books out there to tell you how to grow perfect tomatoes and lettuces. And that's important, especially after the blight disaster last year - in my house, salsa is a food group. But the reality is that for those of us attempting to produce a large portion of our calories, tomatoes and lettuce are not sufficient - we need to get either the most calories or the best possible nutrition out of our kitchen gardens and landscaping. So I've compiled a list of plants that I think are an important addition to many home gardens - both annual and perennial.
1. Buckwheat. Buckwheat is the perfect multipurpose plant. Many of you have probably used it as a green manure, taking advantage of its remarkable capacity to shade out weeds and produce lots of green material to enrich the soil. But it is also one of the easiest grains to grow in the garden - simply let it mature and harvest the seed, and the leaves makes a delicious and highly nutritious salad and cooking green. Although it won't be quite as good at soil building if you do it this way, buckwheat can be used as a triple-purpose crop - plant a few beds with it, harvest the greens steadily (but lightly) for salad (it is particularly good during the heat of summer since it has a lightly nutty taste not too far off lettuce and will grow in hot weather), cook some of the mature greens, harvest seed, cut the plants back to about an inch leaving the plant material on the ground. The buckwheat will then grow back up again, and you can harvest young salad greens and cut it back again for green manure.
2. Sweet potatoes. Think this is a southern crop? Not for me. I grow "Porto Rico" sweet potatoes in upstate New York. Garden writer Laura Simon grows them on cool, windy Nantucket. I've met people who grow them in Ontario and North Dakota. Sweet potatoes have quite a range if started indoors, and more northerners should grow them. They are enormously nutritious, store extremely well (some of my sweets last more than a year), and unutterably delicious. They do need light, sandy soil and good drainage, so I grow them mostly in raised beds with heavily amended soil - my own heavy wet clay won't do.
3. Blueberries. If there was ever an ornamental edible, this is it. A prettier shrub than privet or most common privacy hedge plants, it produces berries and turns as flaming red as any burning bush in the autumn. I have no idea why more people don't landscape with blueberries. Add to that the fact that blueberries have more antioxidants than most other foods and unlike other good for you crops, will be eaten by the bucketfull by kids. They do need acidic soil, but there are blueberries for all climates. Definitely worth replacing your shrubs with blueberries if you can.
4. Amaranth - I've grown amaranth before, but my first year growing "Golden Giant" and "Orange" was fascinating. In two 5′x4′ beds I harvested 11.2 and 13.9 lbs of amaranth seed respectively. The plants are stunningly beautiful - 9′ tall, bright honey gold or deep orange, with green variegated leaves. The leaves are also a good vegetable cooked with garlic and sauteed, or cooked southern style. Amaranth is an easy grain crop to harvest and make use of, is delicious, can be popped like popcorn, and makes wonderful cereal. Despite its adaptation to the Southwest (where it routinely yields extremely well with minimal water), it tolerated my wet, humid climate just fine. My chickens love it too.
5. Chick peas. Unlike most beans, which must be planted after the last frost, chick peas are highly nutritious and extremely frost tolerant. Plant breeder Carol Deppe has had them overwinter in the pacific northwest, and they can be planted as early as April here, or as late as July and still mature a crop. Unlike peas and favas that don't like hot weather, and most dry beans that don't like cold, chick peas seem happy no matter what. If you've only ever eaten store chick peas, you'll be fascinated to experience home grown ones - it is, in many ways, as big a revelation as homegrown tomatoes.
6. Beets. I know, I know, there' s no vegetable anyone hates as much as the beet. Poor beets - they are so maligned. We should all be eating more beets - especially pregnant women, women in their childbearing years who may become pregnant, and those at risk of heart disease and stomach and colon cancer. Beets are rich in folate and good for you in a host of other ways. Beets store well, yield heavily, provide highly nutritious greens for salad and cooking and are the sweetest food in nature. If you hate beets, give them another try - consider roasting beets with salt and pepper, or steaming them and pureeing them with apples and ginger. Laurie Colwin used to swear that her recipe for beets with angel hair pasta could convert anyone into a beet lover, whereas a recipe for beets with tahini has converted many of my friends. Really, try them again! My big discovery last year was the Intermediate Yellow Mangel, which produces 20 lb beets that are sweet, tender and delicious. They were developed as a livestock feed, but we fought the goats for them .
7. Flax. You can grow this one in your flower beds, mixed in with your marigolds. Flax is usually a glorious blue - the kind of blue all flower gardeners covet. But the real reason to grow it is the seeds. Flaxseed oils are almost half omega-three fatty acids. A recent article claimed that we have no choice but to turn to GMO crops to provide essential omega threes without stripping the ocean - ignoring the fact that we can and should be growing flax everywhere, and enjoying flaxseed in our baked goods and our meals. Flax has particular value in nothern intensive gardening, which tends to be low in fats. If you grow more than you need, flaxseed is an excellent chicken feed - my poultry adore it.
8. Popcorn. If I could grow only one kind of corn, it would be popcorn. Popcorn is particularly suited to home scale gardening. There are many dwarf varieties, and many that yield well. And popcorn can be ground for flour (it is a bit of work, though, since popcorn is very hard), or popped for food. My kids like popcorn as breakfast cereal, or, of course, as a snack. Popcorn yields quite well for me in raised beds, and is always a treat at my house. It has all the merits of a whole grain, but is "accessible" to people not accustomed to eating brown rice or whole wheat - a great way to transition to a whole foods diet.
9. Kidney beans. While kidneys have lower protein levels than soy beans, they are very close to soy in total protein, and have the advantage of yielding more per acre. There are a number of pole variety kidney beans that are suitable to "three sisters" polyculture as well, so you can grow the two together. If I could grow only one dry bean (I usually grow 10 or more) it would probably be a kidney variety.
10. Rhubarb. Why rhubarb? Because once established, it will tolerate almost any growing conditions, including part shade (most vegetables won't), wet soil, and you jumping up and down on it and trying to get it out. Rhubarb is tireless. It is also delicious - it does require a fair bit of sweetener (stevia, applejuice or pureed cooked beets will do if you are avoiding sugar). We like it cooked to tart-sweet for a few minutes with just a little almond extract. But its great value is that it provides fresh, nutritious, "fruity" tasting food as early as April here, right when you are desperate for something, anything but dandilions and lettuce, and goes on as late as July, happily producing spear after spear of calcium rich, tasty food. I'm in the process of converting the north side of my house to a vast rhubarb plantation (ok, not that vast), because we can never get enough of it here.
11. Turnips. Let's say you live in an apartment, and want greens all winter, but don't have even a south facing windowsill available. What can you do? Well, you can buy a bag of turnips from your farmer's market. Eat some of them raw, enjoying the delicious sweet crispness of them. Shredded, they are a wonderful salad vegetable. Cook some, and mash them or roast them crisp. And take a few of the smaller turnips, and put them in a pot with some dirt on it, and stick them in a corner - east or west facing is best, but even north will work. And miraculously, using only its stored energy, the pots will go on producing delicious, nutritious turnip greens even in insufficient light. It is magic. If you do have a south facing windowsill, save it for the herbs, and put your potted turnips in the others.
12. Maximillian sunflowers. These are the perennials. They are ornamental, tall and stunning in the back of a border. They will tolerate any soil you can offer them, as long as they get full sun. They also produce oil seeds and edible roots, prevent erosion and can tolerate steep slopes, minimal water and complete and utter neglect. Don't forget to eat them!
13. Hopi Orange Winter Squash. We all have our favorite winter squash, and perhaps you know one that I'll like even better. But this variety has the advantage of keeping up to 18 months without softening, delicious flavor that improves in storage, and high nutritional value. I have to put in a plug for Banana Squashes as well - they just produce a ton of food value to the space you allot them. 25lb monsters are not unusual - and they store well and tolerate you hacking off chunks for a while without noticeable decline in quality.
14. Annual Alfalfa. Most alfalfa is grown for forage, and it has to be grown on comparatively good, limed soil. But alfalfa is good people food too, and even a garden bed's worth can be enormously valuable. First, of course, it is a nitrogen fixer. While you can grow perennial varieties, the annual fixes more available nitrogen, faster. It can be cut back several times as green manure during the course of a season, or you can harvest it for hay to feed your bunnies or chickens. Don't forget to dehydrate some for tea - alfalfa is a nutritional powerhouse. And if you permit it to go to seed, the seeds make delicious sprouts and have the virtue of lasting for years. I've found that the annual version will make seed at the end of the season for harvest.
15. Potatoes. A few years ago I did an experiment - I threw a bit of compost on top of a section of my gravel driveway (and by "a bit" I do mean a little bit - not a garden bed's worth but a light coating), added a sprinking of bone meal, dropped some pieces of potatoes on the ground, and covered them with mulch hay. Periodically I added a bit more and replaced the sign that said "please don't drive on my potatoes" and in September, I harvested a reasonably good yield, given the conditions (about 30lbs from a 4′x4′ square). I did it just to confirm what people have always known - potatoes grow in places on rocky, poor soil (or no soil) that no other staple crop can handle. Don't get me wrong - potatoes will be happier in better conditions, but potatoes can tolerate all sorts of bad situations, and come back strong. And potatoes respond better to hand cultivation than any other grain - until the 1960s hand grown, manured potatoes routinely outyielded green revolution varlieties of grains grown with chemical fertilizers. If there's hope to feed the world, it probably lies in potatoes.
16. Sumac. No, not the poison stuff, but yes, I mean the weedy tree that grows along the roadsides here. That weedy tree, you may not realize, has many virtues. Besides its flaming fall color and value for wildlife habitat and food, sumac makes a lovely beverage. If you harvest the red fruits in July or August and soak them, you'll get a lemony tasting beverage, as high in vitamin C as lemonjuice. Since sumac grows essentially over the entire US area that won't support lemons, this is enormously valuable. You can can freeze or can sumac lemonade for seasoning and drinking all year round. Poison sumac has white or greenish white berries, so they are easy to tell apart. Sumac's other value is as a restorative to damaged soil - densely planted sumac returns bare sand to fertility fairly quickly, as a University of Tennesee study shows.
17. Parsnips. If you don't live in the northeast, or do biointensive gardening, you probably don't eat parsnips. Me, I'm a New Englander, and the sweet, fragrant flavor of parsnips is a childhood joy. But even I hadn't ever had a real parsnip - one left in the garden after the ground freezes for its starches to convert to sugars. Parsnips are one of the most delicious things in nature, nutritionally dense, and just about the only food you can harvest in upstate New York in February (you do have to mulch them deeply if you don't want them frozen in the ground.
18. Potato onions. Onion seed doesn't last very long - and that's a worrisome thing. The truth is that if we can't get seed easily, and we can't grow out plants for seed easily because of some personal or environmental crisis, we might find ourselves without onions, and what a tragedy that would be. Who can cook without onions? No, we need to have onions. Which is why the perennial potato onions, that simply stay in the ground and are pulled and replanted are so enormously valuable - good tasting, put them where you want them, pull up what you need and ignore the rest. They'll give you scallions before you could get them any other way, and will provide a decent supply of small, but storable and delicious onions.
19. King Stropharia Mushrooms (aka winecaps) - Mushrooms have complex nutritional values, and offer soil improving benefits. The King Stropharia has the advantage of growing well in wood chip mulch in your garden, having few poisonous cognates (ie, you are unlikely to kill yourself harvesting it, tastes great, and is a natural nematodacidal. They give you something meaty and tasty from your garden and can actually improve total yields in a given space. If you fear fungi, this is an easy one to start with.
20. Filberts/Hazelnuts - The best small space nuts, it has an astounding range and and various varities tolerate quite a number of soils. The nuts are delicious, it is fairly easy to grow and the yields are generally high. In cold climates, oil rich plants can be hard to come by - this is a useful exception Oh, and if you have chocolate, you can make that basic food staple, nutella .
21. Elderberries. Got a wet spot? What doesn't care if it has wet feet, has incredible vitamin C value, delicious and nutritious flowers, makes a champagne like wine and a red-like wine, grows like a weed, is ornamental and will feed the birds anything you don't want? Yup, the remarkable elder. What's not to love?
22. Sunflowers - Our local dairy farmers sometimes alternate cow corn with sunflowers as a winter feed. There is truly no more beautiful edible crop in the world than a field full of glowing sunflowers in late summer. They would be valuable enough if they didn't produce delicious food, high in vitamin E and a host of trace minerals, food for the birds, and stalks that when dry burn extremely well and hot in your woodstove.
23. Rice. In India, nearly half of all rice comes from the gardens of those who farm less than 5 acres - often from home plots of much less than that. This is true over much of Asia - the staple food of their population is often grown in what we'd consider garden sized plots - and the aggregate feeds a population. While the far northermost growers may struggle with this, rice is one of the few staple grains totally amenable to home scale cultivation, and if you can grow rice, you might want to consider it. It is a nearly univeral staple - studies have found that rice allergy essentially does not exist. While growing and harvesting rice on a home scale is some work (some cultures call it "the tyrant with a soul"), rice is worth the time and energy for many of us.
24. Jerusalem artichokes - I know, duh. Sweet and tasty, crisp and nutty, perennials who will take over your house if you let them - what's not to love? Those who worry that the bad guys are coming to take their food can plant these in their flower beds without fear that most people will recognize them as anything other than something pretty. When first harvested, the carbohydrates are in the form of inulin so that most diabetics can eat pretty freely of these.
25. Kale/Collards. They don't mind heat - 100 degree days don't phase them once they are mature. They grow all summer, north or south. They don't mind cold - some strains will overwinter uncovered here in icy upstate NY, while almost all will overwinter covered. They are nutritionally dense, great cooked, or raw in the baby stage. In the cold, their starches turn to sugar. Stir fry them with oyster sauce, steam them and toss them in vinagrette, cook them with bacon dressing - it doesn't really matter, they are universally good.
Sharon
How KVERT got its groove back (temporarily) [Eruptions]
Shiveluch in Kamchatka in an undated photo.
Just a quick note, but I got this email overnight regarding the status of KVERT, the Kamchatka-Kuril Island volcano monitoring body in Russia.
Scientists of KVERT Project return to the full KVERT operations (the
information ensuring of air services for the results of daily analysis
and evaluation of activity of Kamchatka and Northern Kuriles
volcanoes) and will discharge these obligations for 01 February - 30
April 2010.
So, after losing their funding, it has some back until the end of April (based on how I read this). Russian politics as usual? A window to get real funding in place? Who knows, but at least for the time being, KVERT is up and running again.
{Hat tip to Eruptions reader Tsunami for also bringing this to my attention.}
Friday Flotsam: Yellowstone slows down, Pakistan eruption clues, NASA images and "Volcano Hell" [Eruptions]
News!
Pakistan is home to the world's tallest mud volcano in the region of Balochistan - and its somewhat near the reports of an "eruption" earlier this week.
- Guess what? Since Wednesday evening, seismicity at Yellowstone has dropped precipitously. The last batch of earthquakes on February 3rd were also back to deeper levels - 8-9 km depth - compared to the potential shallowing earlier in the week. I'm sure the caldera will keep us on our toes, but as of now, it seems to have settled down a bit.
- Over in Pakistan, there is mounting evidence that the recent "volcanic" eruption reported as, in fact, a mud volcano similar to the one reported in Azerbijian yesterday. There can be explosions associated with mud volcanoes as trapped natural gases escape and (potentially) ignite. There is a long history of mud volcanoes in Pakistan, especially in the region where this eruption was reported.
- In case you missed it, frequent Eruptions commenter and part of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Catania, Dr. Boris Behncke, was on the Discovery Channel show Solving History. He was talking about Mt. Etna in a part of an episode looking for Atlantis (?) - the segment is called "Volcano Hell" (nice touch, eh?) Sadly, they aren't streaming the part with Dr. Behncke in it (so Boris, has Etna been "wreaking havoc on Europe" as Olly says?) Now, if only someone would give me a call to be on TV... {hat tip to Doug for point this out.}
- The NASA Earth Observatory has a few good images to send us into the weekend. First captures the swirling ash clouds from the revived Soufriere Hills on Montserrat. The second shows the beautiful snow-covered symmetrical cone of Karymsky filling the old caldera that surrounds the new edifice on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
- Finally, lost in all the Yellowstone, Pakistan and Japanese volcano news, the latest USGS/Smithsonian Weekly Volcano Report was issued. One of the interesting things it points out is that after all the activity in January of Nyamuragira, its neighbor Nyiragongo is now showing signs of an impending eruption.