“… in Sitka, Alaska, on October 18, 1867, the great land of Alaska was transferred from Russia to the United States.
The Russian Double Eagle was lowered for the last time, and the Stars and Stripes made their first appearance over Alaskan soil in a ceremony formalizing the transfer of the territory of Alaska from Tsarist Russia to the United States of America at the incredible purchase price of approximately two cents per acre.”
I suggest celebrating with a . . .
Or, get a tattoo . . .
I heard it this weekend and it is kind of stuck in my heart.
Mary Black is the artist.
While traveling through the Amazon to study reptile and amphibian diversity with the Herpetology Division at the University of Michigan, photographer Mark Cowan happened upon a strange sight: a caiman whose head was nearly covered in butterflies. The phenomenon itself isn’t particularly unusual, salt is critical to the survival of many creatures like butterflies and bees who sometimes drink tears from reptiles in regions where the mineral is scarce (we’ve seen the same thing happen with turtles). What made this sight so unusual was seeing the butterflies organize themselves into three different species groups atop the caiman’s head.
Uh, also, that side eye!
The story is by Christopher Jobson at Colossal and the photographs are by Mark Cowan .
A new source of helium has been found . . . and it is Tuesday, so tattoo.
This story is reposted from ZME Science
“Scientists have warned for years that a helium shortage crisis is looming. While this is technically true, we just bought some time in delaying the inevitable after geophysicists discovered a new helium reserve in Tanzania, Africa.
Most of us are familiar with helium balloons, but the gas is far more valuable than a cheap party trick. About 20 percent of all the processed helium in the world is used by the medical sector which depends on it to cool superconducting magnets for MRI machines. Liquid helium is also used to cool just about every important physics experiment, and is hence indispensable to scientific efforts.
Technically, helium is a renewable resource constantly being replenished by radioactive materials like uranium which eventually decay into lighter elements. But helium is in short supply accounting for only 5 parts per million in our atmosphere. Moreover, being lighter than air it leaches out into space. Coupled with extensive use, this means we’re using more helium than the planet is generating — yet another classic example of unsustainability.
According to a 2010 study, all of the known helium reserves should run out in the next 25 years. Bye, bye helium balloons — unless you’re prepared to pay hundreds of dollars for one.
We just bought some time, though. Speaking at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference, researchers from Durham and Oxford University claimed they have identified a massive helium reserve in the East African Rift Valley, a highly active volcanic area in Tanzania.
“We sampled helium gas (and nitrogen) just bubbling out of the ground in the Tanzanian East African Rift valley. By combining our understanding of helium geochemistry with seismic images of gas trapping structures, independent experts have calculated a probable resource of 54 billion cubic feet (BCf) in just one part of the rift valley.” Chris Ballentine, a researcher on the project said. “This is enough to fill over 1.2 million medical MRI scanners. To put this discovery into perspective, global consumption of helium is about 8 BCf per year and the United States Federal Helium Reserve, which is the world’s largest supplier, has a current reserve of just 24.2 BCf. Total known reserves in the USA are around 153 BCf. This is a game changer for the future security of society’s helium needs and similar finds in the future may not be far away.”
If the findings are confirmed, then the helium stockpile from Tanzania is at least 50 times bigger than the previous record holder, a one-billion-cubic-feet reserve near Amarillo, Texas.
Other such stockpiles might be found elsewhere in the world, where volcanic activity is strong. This is how the researchers, who partnered with a specialized Norwegian company called Helium One, discovered the reserve in the first place.
“We show that volcanoes in the Rift play an important role in the formation of viable helium reserves. Volcanic activity likely provides the heat necessary to release the helium accumulated in ancient crustal rocks. However, if gas traps are located too close to a given volcano, they run the risk of helium being heavily diluted by volcanic gases such as carbon dioxide, just as we see in thermal springs from the region. We are now working to identify the ‘goldilocks-zone’ between the ancient crust and the modern volcanoes where the balance between helium release and volcanic dilution is ‘just right’,” said Diveena Danabalan, lead author of the research.”
Saturday was a beautiful day at the Apple Butter Festival and Oxtoberfest.
I found this in the NYT and thought it was interesting and I thought some of the results were surprising. For example, having raised a forensic pathologist and knowing many of his associates, I would have predicted a larger percentage in the red category. I worked for a number of years with family docs and I would have predicted a larger percentage in the blue category.
Does it mean anything? Probably not, but it was interesting to me nonetheless.
This is not quite the owl and the pussycat. Here is the original by Edward Lear.
I thought this video about the Hubble space telescope was pretty cool.
via WordlessTech
Firearms, fibers, any news or behaviors that make me say, "hmm, let me take another look at this."
I still miss my man, but my aim is getting better.
Gunsmoke and Knitting 