As most of you know, The Blogmocacy Rec Room gets kind of dark around this time of year, so this afternoon Coldwarrior and I installed a light ceiling fan to eliminate hot spots and save on electricity.
Your Town, This Planet (Strutts News Services) –
No, we’re not talking about punk or rap music here. Rock Snot is real. Be afraid.
From CSM: “In the late 1980s, a freshwater alga began mysteriously blooming in the rivers of Vancouver, British Columbia, covering once-pristine riverbeds with a thick, woolly mat. Dubbed “rock snot” for its yellowish color and globular form…”
From AP via MSNBC: “It looks like a clump of soiled sheep’s wool, a cottony green or white mass that’s turning up on rocks and river bottoms, snarling waterways.”
From SNS: “Janessa Vapors, a nineteenth-grader at the Institute for Apocalyptic Studies at the University of Social Engineering, Placerville, California states, ‘Global Warming is not the problem, but Rock Snot is a real threat. We’ve got to find a way to harvest it and process it into food. Theoretically, if everyone on this planet ate a pound of it a day, the equivalent of 10,337 cars would be taken off the road; I’ve run the numbers. We’ve got to start now to solve this crisis, but we need more government funding.'”
If you want to keep Rock Snot from proliferating, quit messing with it and eat it. I don’t know about you, but I’m already packing to leave before it gets me, just in case, and I suggest you do the same, but only after tonight’s Overnight Open Thread.
I know that it’s a few weeks past Earth Day, but better late than never I guess. I’m one of those people who believes that in a few hundred years there will be 20 billion of us living neck-deep in our own refuse, so this is pretty encouraging: High school student wins big at Intel science fair with bugs
A 16-year-old high school student from Taiwan has won a major prize at this year’s Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) for her groundbreaking study of microbes that can break down Styrofoam.Tseng, a student at National Taichung Girl’s Senior High School in central Taiwan, won the top prize in the microbiology category of the Intel ISEF, which is billed as the world’s largest pre-college science competition.
Tseng’s presentation was her research on bacteria found in the digestive ducts of live mealworm beetles that break down polystyrene (EPS) foam, more commonly known as Styrofoam.
The disposal of Styrofoam has long been a challenge worldwide because it is known to be non-biodegradable.
Way to go kid!
For the Jewish people, today is Tu B’Shvat; the new year for the trees and a time to appreciate our gorgeous world, and the Source of all life.
If you are interested, here is a link to a general description of what Tu B’Shvat is, and another two which explore the holiday more deeply. (Aish HaTorah / Chabad)
If not, consider this thread your Soap Box (Open Thread).
The Diary of Daedalus
website design was Built By All of Us
