Molecularist

"What will the future hold for our smellscape? Will globalization completely deodorize our world, making everything smell of soap? Perhaps, but perhaps biology, with all its living smells, will be re-introduced into our lives. As we better understand how our bodies are made up of marvelously diverse communities of bacteria and human cells living in evolutionary harmony, and as synthetic biology pushes to replace many of our industrial processes with living systems, perhaps the definitions of "good" and "bad", "natural" and "synthetic" will begin to change too. Artwork that can provoke us to think about and reconsider how we've constructed our world, what we think of as "normal," can be tremendously powerful, can offer potential for radical change–"We must provoke one another to think differently. If we get to the moment of provocation, then there is hope.""

"Oceanographers have quantified trends in one of these "plastic soups" for the first time, and they've come to a surprising conclusion: The amount of plastic has remained steady for 2 decades despite a steep rise in industrial plastic production." Heh. SEA mention. I remember collecting plastic. Just didn't realize we were among the first cruises to do so (I was on the RV Westward in the North Atlantic in the summer of '86).

Ginkgo mention. And Holly as the main pic!

"Despite billions of years of churning and melting beneath the tectonic plates, a pocket of deep mantle rock that formed just as Earth was first solidifying may have survived intact."

In a mood to be awed by the age, size, and power of nature.

"But NGC 4696 has sprouted something never seen on another galaxy: a huge swirl of dust that stretches for tens of thousands of light-years and whips back around like a question mark. … And views in x-ray light (not shown) reveal super-powerful jets of matter squirting from the galaxy's central black hole at nearly the speed of light. Together, these features show that NGC 4696 is a galaxy like no other."

Such size and power. This is what magic truly is.

"Approximately 260 million years ago, a volcanic province known as the Emeishan Traps burst forth in what is now Southwest China. In the geologic blink of an eye—half a million years—500,000 cubic kilometers of lava poured into the ocean and threw billions of tons of toxic sulfur dioxide into the air. More than half of the marine species on Earth disappeared."

And we're bitching about climate change due to pollution from the last 150 years (0.00015 M years)? What hubris.

"Great Danes stretch more than a meter from paw to shoulder and can easily weigh more than 90 kilograms. A Chihuahua fits snugly inside a purse. Domestic dog breeds are more varied in body size and shape—not to mention coat color and fur length—than any other land-based mammal. Yet, according to a new study, a mere two to six regions in doggy DNA account for most of this diversity."

Nothing new here, for folks like us who have been pushing mobile apps (way back in 2001 for me). But bears repeating for all the novices who think mobile apps are something new that Apple invented. The reality is you can't change the economics, no matter what distortion field you live in. Money in mobile apps is a balance between cost of development, distribution channels, and volume volume volume. [Did I just write something about mobile?]

"Colorado teenager learns the hard way never to leave a day-old peanut butter sandwich in his car"

I know this all too well.

"“I get it every year; I’m like a culture medium for the stuff,’’ said Maypole, a Newton resident. “It grows in parks, in yards, along streets. It’s sort of like trying to avoid air.’’"

A subject I return to frequently, now that I'm back in the US and living in a rural area. I'm careful, but would like to create a poison-ivy-free zone – through competition with other vines, the usual clearing (not herbicides, though), and, if I could, micro-organisms.

"It is a dispute made in kitsch culture heaven: a mime versus an Elvis impersonator."

"Nearly three years after a Massachusetts Institute of Technology fraternity prank caused an explosion that severely injured two environmental cleanup volunteers, a six-figure settlement has been reached, the plaintiffs’ lawyer said yesterday."

"A flight attendant accused of cursing out a passenger on an airplane public-address system and using an emergency slide to hop off looked happy and relieved afterward, a passenger said Tuesday."

"One theory is that the Western diet has made people more susceptible to developing allergies and other illnesses. A study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences compared the gut bacteria from 15 children in Florence, Italy, with gut bacteria in 14 children in a rural African village in Burkina Faso. They found that the variety of flora in these two groups was substantially different."

"Keep the family cat indoors: that is the message from MassWildlife to residents in cities and towns around Boston after a recent spike in reports of fisher sightings."

This one is more in line with my thoughts.

Blah blah blah.

"Why does human conversation come so easily? A new study chalks it up to a sort of "mind meld" between participants. Researchers have found that the brains of speakers and listeners become synchronized as they converse and that this "neural coupling" is key to effective communication."