tingilinde

bird migrations

Maps showing the connections of where they travel.

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Most of those losses have been in migratory species, which may breed in the United States or Canada in the summer before heading elsewhere for the winter. Many spend more time living on Caribbean beaches or in Costa Rican forests than they do in American backyards. “They’re really visitors to North America,” said Viviana Ruiz-Gutierrez, co-director of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Protecting these birds will require working across international borders and safeguarding all of their habitats, many of which are under threat. If migrating birds lose their winter refuges, the consequences will ripple across the hemisphere

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The NY Times piece mentions the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

 

 

 

when human ancestors nearly went extinct

When the pre-human population dropped to about 1,000 individuals 900,000 years ago.

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To make their discovery, the researchers needed to invent new tools. Advances in genome sequencing have improved scientists’ understanding of population sizes for the period after modern humans emerged, but the researchers developed a methodology that enabled them to fill in details about earlier human ancestors. Serena Tucci, an anthropologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, says that such work was sorely needed. “We still know very little about the population dynamics of early human ancestors for several reasons, including methodological limitations and difficulties in obtaining ancient DNA data from old Homo specimens,” she says.

The researchers’ method allowed them to reconstruct ancient population dynamics on the basis of genetic data from present-day humans. By constructing a complex family tree of genes, the team was able to examine the finer branches of the tree with greater precision, identifying significant evolutionary events.

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this story is a lot of bull

Someone who takes his favorite steer out for rides in the car.

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Let this be a warning to those of you who long to hit the open road with a 2,200-pound steer riding shotgun: Observe all traffic laws, especially when passing through Norfolk, Neb.

Lee Meyer, 63, a retired machinist, learned that lesson on Wednesday.

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has it broken yet?

The Guardian on the state of the climate.

a tip of the hat to Sukie

getting along

 

a tip of the hat to Frank

 

the mystery of a footbridge in minnesota

A dive into why a footbridge exists when people agrees it isn't needed.

More interesting than it seems on the surface.

a tip of the hat to John

 

 

air conditioning efficiency

It currently takes a lot of energy to cool air.  Greg points to a good summary of progress that could occur in the next five to ten year.  It's needed as the necessity for AC is going to explode over the next few decades.

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This past July was the hottest recorded month in human history. Heat waves smashed temperature records worldwide and even brought summer temperatures to Chile and Argentina during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter. It’s more than just a matter of sweaty discomfort. Severe heat is the deadliest of all weather events; in the U.S. alone, it kills more people each year than floods, tornadoes and hurricanes combined. As climate change worsens, access to artificially cooled spaces is rapidly becoming a health necessity—and an issue of basic human rights.

Yet standard air-conditioning systems have ensnared us in a negative feedback loop: the hotter it is, the more people crank the AC—and the more energy is used (and greenhouse gases are emitted) as a result. “We’re in a vicious cycle,” says Nicole Miranda, an engineer researching sustainable cooling at the University of Oxford. And “it’s not only a vicious cycle, but it’s an accelerating one.” Cooling is the fastest-growing single source of energy use in buildings, according to 2018 data from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Following a business-as-usual scenario, the IEA projects that worldwide annual energy demand from cooling will more than triple by 2050. That’s an increase of more than 4,000 terawatt-hours, which is about how much energy the entire U.S. uses in a year.

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simone

Finding the right priorities and how much is a little girl worth?

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But what took place on the competition floor made history in a way no one could have expected. On the first event of the games, which were held in July 2021, the athlete, who has an unparalleled ability to flip and twist, suddenly could no longer find herself in the air. Simone had “the twisties” — a complete loss of ability to perceive her body in space. The condition is known to lead to devastating injuries, as it nearly did for her that day. When she returned to the competition floor, it was to put on her warm-ups, give her team a pep talk and withdraw from competition.

I’ve witnessed many incredible moments in athletics, but as I watched from home that day, I knew I was watching a victory that redefined the others: Simone’s decision to value her own safety, on her own terms, above the voracious demands of an abusive and toxic athletic system. It was a moment so many of us had fought for, for so long.

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assisting darwin-award contestants

Hard to imagine someone would ride one of these.

 

 

a kurt vonnegut quote

 

When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of "getting to know you" questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What's your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don't play any sports. I do theater, I'm in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That's amazing! And I said, "Oh no, but I'm not any good at ANY of them."
And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: "I don't think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you've got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them."

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn't been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could "Win" at them.