Humans are sometimes ridiculously anthropocentric. An example would be the test for whether a chemical is safe.1 The focus, obviously, is on hazards to humans. Is it safe for humans? Not safe for the environment. Not safe for, say, honeybees. Tests focus on whether a chemical causes cancer or disorders in people. Not disruption…
One of the most infuriating aspects of the Trump Administration’s roll-back of federal regulatory powers is the implied assumption that those laws and regulations exist for no reason. That’s dangerous nonsense. Those laws were passed in response to real, serious risks. The major revisions to the Food and Drug Administration laws and regulations in the…
WC has written before about the two mysteries confronting astrophysics: dark matter and dark energy. It turns out that visible matter – the stuff we can detect with existing astronomy equipment – accounts for only about 5% of the apparent mass of the universe. The other, missing mass is a mix of dark matter –…
Long-time readers of this blog know that WC and Mr. WC volunteer for citizen science projects. One of those projects is the Western Asio Flammeus Landscape Study (WAfLS). Asio Flammeus is the Short-eared Owl. Short-eared Owls are an open-country, ground-nesting species found in marshes, grasslands, shrublands, and tundra across North America and around the world. They…
WC isn’t a journalist and doesn’t pretend to be one. But in an effort to maintain some slight credibility, from time to time he does follow up on earlier blog posts and offer paragraphs on idea that didn’t work out as full posts but may have some interest to readers. Alleged human being Martin Shkreli…
Have you ever played Jenga™? Players take turns removing wooden blocks at a time from a tower constructed of 54 blocks. Each block removed is then placed on top of the tower, creating a progressively taller and more unstable structure. You win by being the last person to remove a block without collapsing the tower. You…
WC didn’t think that his opinion of Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke could sink lower. Wrong. On December 28, 2017, Zinke, through Ass’t Secretary Scott Cameron, issued a fatwah that all Department of the Inerior Grants for more than $50,000 – every meaningful grant – will be screened by a bureaucrat named Steve Howke…
