Put down that water bottle

 

The United Nations, while discussing the horrific Russian invasion of Ukraine, is also tackling the global problem of too much plastic.

UN body weighs a global treaty to fight plastic pollution

They aren't to the finish line yet. 

"The U.N. Environment Assembly, meeting Feb. 28 to March 2 in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, is expected to propose an international framework to address the growing problem of plastic waste in the world’s oceans, rivers and landscape.

“For the first time in history, we are seeing unprecedented global momentum to tackle the plague of plastic pollution,” said U.N. Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen."

I hope they can at least get a good start. 

 

How expensive was this floor tile?

 

What we call London now used to be called "Londinium" (sounds like a radioactive element) back during the times when Romans lived there.  And archaeological digs that take place when they're building something new in London commonly find evidence of Roman habitation.

In this case, they found a lot more floor.  The floor of a fine Roman home, it appears.

Digging in the Shadows of London’s Shard, Archaeologists Discovered a ‘Once-in-a-Lifetime Find’: a Shockingly Intact Roman Mosaic

"The mosaics are believed to date from A.D. 175–225, and likely formed part of a luxurious dining room floor, in keeping with earlier discoveries in the area, which was known as Londinium, or Roman London, according to a press release issued by the company."

The article also says that the tile resembles patterns found in Germany, potentially indicating that tile masters were imported to London.  And that had to be expensive.

Public service on ocean acidification

 

Just found these, and providing them in order as a public service.

The origin and impacts of ocean acidification, Part 1 (text and video)

The origin and impacts of ocean acidification, Part 2 (text and video)

The origin and impacts of ocean acidification, Part 3 (text and video)

I think the guy knows what he's talking about.

Hannah G. rocks the black-and-white

 

Hannah G., aka Hannah Godwin, is adorably gorgeous and cutaceously sexy.  She is also, sadly, engaged to Dylan, and they appear to be making a run at a successful Bachelor In Paradise relationship (which is uncommon), progressing eventually to marriage, but they are taking their time getting there.  They recently moved into a new home, which indicates some domestic stability.

But never mind that.  Let's concentrate on Hannah, who recently posted the picture below to her Instagram account.  After you take a look at it, if you are sexually attracted to beautiful young women, you won't have trouble concentrating.  You may, however, have trouble thinking about anything else.

See

what 

I 

mean?

Joan Parker was the "Dodge Fever" girl

 

Just in case it ever comes up in a trivia contest.   (But trivia is not the same as it used to be before the Internet and Google.)

VIDEOS: CATCH DODGE FEVER WITH DODGE “FEVER GIRL”, JOAN PARKER

But speaking of trivia, I can't seem to find anything she did after that -- but a couple of articles confirm that she was in the Batman movie based on the TV show that starred Adam West and Burt Ward (obviously the first of several Batman movies). 

Misinformation kills

 

From the Washington Post:

Opinion: How many people died believing vaccine misinformation?

"Misinformation about vaccines has a direct correlation with whether people get immunized. The survey showed that among those who did not believe any of the false statements, 80 percent said they were already vaccinated. In the group that thought multiple false statements were true, 60 percent were hesitant to get the shot.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 5 eligible Americans have yet to get their first vaccine dose. Millions of people remain unvaccinated. They were 14 times more likely than the vaccinated to die of covid, as of December, the latest month for which data is available. How many of the 551,168 covid deaths in the United States since Jan. 1, 2021, could have been averted with vaccines? 

Too many."

Sobering.  And fueling my anger against those who deliberately spread doubt about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccinations.

Mount Etna will not be ignored

 

While other eruptions start and stop around the world, Sicily's Mount Etna just keeps putting on great shows.  Here's a nice video from the Daily Mail (which was better than some of the others I found), showing the eruption of February 21, 2022.  Watch for some lava bomb action about a minute into the video. 

Two ways to join the "Mile-High Club"

 

Want to join the Mile-High Club?  (If you don't know, that means engaging in sexual relations on an airplane in flight.)

Well, I found two ways that can make this happen, though in one case it would require a simulation.  

For the flight, that is, not the sex.

Way 1:  Mile-High Club on the ground

Basically, a former Airbus engineer is planning to convert a retired Airbus 380 (the big Airbus plane) into a luxury hotel.  He's planning to keep the plane parked at an airport.  So you and your paramour could go to the airport, check in for your "flight", board the plane, "takeoff", do other things that simulate the in-flight experience, and then join the club of airplane-fuselage-interior-intercourse.  All that's missing is the altitude and the turbulence (unless you really get the plane rockin').  The next day, disembark, ride home, and reminisce about your flight. 

Airbus A380 to be converted into a luxury hotel

Way 2:  A short rental flight to accomplish the deed

So, it appears that an intrepid businessperson has come up with the idea for short flights providing time for in-flights.  I'm not sure if there will be time for peanuts and soda, but if you want to get up, get busy, and then come in for a landing on the runway, this may be your first-class ticket.

The Mile High Club, Complete With Membership Cards
Love Cloud, an airplane charter business, offers private flights that help couples take their relationships (and relations) to new heights.

Flights last 45 minutes.  Don't waste time.

And enjoy your flight. 

Next weather satellite is on the docket

 

The next geostationary weather satellite, GOES-T, is set to launch on March 1, 2022.   And it's state-of-the-art.

Bright Ideas — NOAA Weather Satellite To Capture 16 Spectral Bands

"A new weather observation satellite set to launch on March 1 will give forecasters an even richer view of the Earth’s weather patterns than ever before. The GOES-T satellite will debut with brand a new Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) capable of imaging in 16 different spectral bands, according to a report by Phys.org. The satellite is also host to a new lightning camera that can better recorded lightning activity and therefore enable improved storm tracking. Once in orbit, the GOES-T will be renamed GOES-18, a replacement for GOES-17, and begin providing observations of the western parts of the continental United States as well as Alaska and Hawaii starting in May 2023."

 GOES-T  (which looks a lot like GOES-R and GOES-S)

ABI

Lighthouse of the Week, February 20-26, 2022: Point Betsie, Michigan, USA

 

As I said last week with the wintry lighthouses, one of them was going to be the featured Lighthouse of the Week this week.  And so it is.  

The lighthouse I picked was the Point Betsie lighthouse, located on Michigan's sand dune coast.  There are dunes both south and north, up to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  It's not open now, but when it is, there's an apartment in the keeper's house you can stay in.  It's also a popular spot for weddings. 

You can learn all about it at the web site for the lighthouse.  There's also a great animation on the homepage.

As for the information;  well, there's a lot of it.  I will lightly excerpt from the Lighthouse Directory;  the whole thing is on this page.

    "1858. Active; focal plane 52 ft (16 m); white flash every 10 s. 37 ft (11 m) round cylindrical brick tower with lantern and gallery, attached to a 2-story brick keeper's house (1895). Lighthouse painted white, lantern black; the house is white with a red roof. The original 4th order Fresnel lens is on display at Sleeping Bear Point Maritime Museum near Glen Arbor."

    "The lantern, formerly white with a red roof, was repainted in the original black. The restoration of the station has included the fog signal building and boathouse."

    "In 2021 the state budget included $5.2 million for restoration work at the light station. Located at the end of Point Betsie Road, off MI 22 about 5 miles (8 km) north of Frankfort..."

So, if you're ever on the Lake Michigan dunes in Michigan, you might want to drop by Point Betsie.

Here's what it looks like, from various heights, angles, and seasons. (And the Fresnel lens on display.)

A nice round number

 

Five blog posts ago I hit the 6,000 post mark.

I guess I've been perseverant.

Or just persistent, hopefully not pernicious.   

(Nobody gets to call me promiscuous.)

Valenti Vitel's Valentine's view

 

I'm not sure if this fantastic shot of fantastic Valenti Vitel (real name:  Valentina Grishko) was taken on or near Valentine's Day, but it was posted recently.

And she's wearing red.  That's enough for me.

Lake Michigan is getting saltier

 

Mainly due to road de-icing salts, Lake Michigan is slowly getting saltier.  It's not a problem yet, but it could become one.

Tributary chloride loading into Lake Michigan

"Our findings highlight the complexity in managing the Lake Michigan basin for chloride pollution. While large watersheds are the largest contributor of chloride to the lake, their concentrations are far below EPA toxicity thresholds (230 mg L−1) and their riverine habitat is more protected than smaller urban watersheds where winter concentrations routinely surpass 230 mg L−1. This creates a conflict between management priorities of protecting lake vs. tributary habitat. In addition, success of management actions in watersheds with high contribution of chloride-laden groundwater may not immediately be apparent due to decadal time lags between groundwater fluxes responding to surface changes (Green et al. 2021). Our chloride inventory of Lake Michigan tributaries suggests that the chloride concentration in the lake is in disequilibrium with chloride loading from its basin, and will continue to slowly rise in the coming decades. The rise from ~ 15 to ~ 24 mg L−1 may be ecologically significant, as research has shown negative impacts to biotic communities well below water quality guidelines (Arnott et al. 2020). Lake Ontario currently has a chloride concentration ~ 23–24 mg L−1, and could be used as a reference for future conditions in Lake Michigan."

Bret Stephens absolutely nails Mitch McConnell

 

The New York Times opinion columnists Gail Collins and Bret Stephens have an opinion piece each week entitled "The Conversation".  In this week's convo, Bret absolutely nailed Mitch McConnell's political perversity.

Mitch McConnell Is Part of the Cowardly Lion Wing of the G.O.P.

"Bret: A lot of our readers detest McConnell because he’s a highly skilled partisan. But that’s his job. My problem with him is that, unlike Cheney or Kinzinger, he’s totally unprincipled. If you blame Donald Trump for trying to overturn the election through illegal means, which McConnell did, then you have to vote to convict him of high crimes and misdemeanors, which he didn’t. If you think that a president from the opposing party shouldn’t have the right to nominate a Supreme Court justice during an election year (which is constitutionally preposterous), then you shouldn’t assert the right to do so when it comes to an election-year nominee from your own party.

McConnell is part of the Cowardly Lion wing of the G.O.P. that sometimes pretends to be appalled by the Trumpsters but always pulls its punches when it counts. He’s why the Republican Party keeps getting worse. Come to think of it, no jelly beans for him."

"Totally unprincipled". Could there be a better summary?

Lighthouse of the Week, February 13-19, 2022: Wintry Lighthouses

 

Taking a break from the common feature of a single lighthouse, here are three lighthouses in wintry settings.  One of them will be the featured lighthouse next week -- can you guess which one?

Holmsund Lighthouse, Sweden

Marblehead Lighthouse, Ohio, USA

Point Betsie Lighthouse, Michigan, USA

Highway 41 on the Keweenaw Peninsula

 

On this stretch of the home stretch of the Highway 41 end-to-end Streetview trek, when it reaches L'Anse, the trek will be on the Keweenaw Peninsula, which is the last area of land that the highway travels on.  But there are still some good things to see.

This area is called Alberta, and the road goes over a dam making a small reservoir.

   

There's a creek crossing here somewhere.

  

Farmer's Market, entering the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community.

Fork in the road, right to L'Anse, left to Houghton. We'll look at two sights in L'Anse.

Middle Falls. Zoom in for a good look.

L'Anse waterfront on L'Anse Bay.

Are we done yet?  NO, we still have to visit Houghton!

More moonlets

 

It was quite a discovery when the little moon Dactyl was found orbiting around asteroid Ida, the first time an asteroid was found to have a moon (but everybody figured that this wasn't going to be unusual).  Now we know it isn't -- but the first four-body system, one main asteroid and three asteropuppies, has apparently been observed.

The main body is named Elektra, so I think that the companions should be called Elektikes.

The First Quadruple Asteroid: Astronomers Spot a Space Rock With 3 Moons

Black diamond, not a ski slope

 

The strange 500+ carat black diamond named the "Enigma" was recently put on sale -- and sold for about $4.3 million dollars. 

Definitely a collector's item.  

The huge black diamond just sold for $4.3 million.  No one knows where it came from. (National Geographic)

"As diamonds crystallize in the immense pressures deep within Earth, they occasionally encapsulate minerals from the planet's mantle, such as deep red garnet or green olivine. But these minerals are absent in carbonados. Instead, geologists have found an exotic array of metals, such as the titanium nitride mineral osbornite, which is most commonly found in meteorites."

The article also note that this kind of diamond, called "carbonado", is harder than regular diamonds and they are used in industrial drillbits.

But this one won't be.

Recognize this place?

 

One of my favorite horror movies is a strange John Carpenter fusion of science and devilry called Prince of Darkness.  I may briefly discuss some of the cast in a subsequent post.   But I had a chance to watch it again recently, and I wondered about the church where most of the action took place.

First, I found this:

Then and Now Movie Locations:  Prince of Darkness

This site has pictures of what the church looked like when the movie was filmed, and what it looks like now.  Naturally, I used Streetview to get a recent street level look at it.  The church is now a center for the arts.

Hopefully now we'll see the one we don't see coming

 

Good news, to a point, that NASA has improved their sky searching capabilities so that now the full sky can be scanned.  So that makes it less likely that an asteroidal planet-cruncher could sneak up on us and massively influence human civilization;  but it also makes it more possible that an approaching space destroyer could be spotted before it gets here, leaving us with much angst before the end of the world.

Not that catastrophic outcomes are likely, mind you -- but now we (collectively, humans) have a better chance of seeing bad news coming.

NASA Asteroid Tracking System Now Capable of Full Sky Search

"Now comprised of four telescopes, [Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System] ATLAS has expanded its reach to the southern hemisphere from the two existing northern-hemisphere telescopes on Haleakalā and Mauna Loa in Hawai’i to include two additional observatories in South Africa and Chile." 

One of the ATLAS telescopes:

 

 

(I haven't mentioned the DART mission;  I'm very curious to see if that one works.  We don't have to wait too long to find out;  the collision and hopeful redirection will happen in late September - early October of this year.)

Just keep it in mind

 

Speaking of ice, this research paper (which came out in 2020) is about sea ice:

Multidecadal Arctic sea ice thickness and volume derived from ice age

"Of the factors affecting the sea ice volume trends, changes in sea ice thickness contribute more than changes in sea ice area, with a contribution of at least 80 % from changes in sea ice thickness from November to May and nearly 50 % in August and September, while less than 30 % is from changes in sea ice area in all months."

Less ice, more ice

 

A study came out last week that indicated many of the world's glaciers (but not all) have less ice than previously estimated. The "not all" category included the Himalayan mountain glaciers, which had more;  South American glaciers had less.  That's not great news, because more people in South America directly depend on glaciers for water supplies than people in the Himalaya glacier watersheds.

Here's the Washington Post article about the study:

Mountain glaciers may have less ice than estimated, straining freshwater supply

Glaciers could be tapped dry sooner than expected as climate change melts ice fields faster

"The scientists concluded global glacial ice content was lower than previously thought, but it varied by region. In the tropical Andes mountains, the researchers found nearly a quarter less glacial ice, translating to nearly a quarter less freshwater. Extreme heat waves in the region, like the one last month, make these smaller stores of ice dwindle faster and leave even less for future generations."

And for the people living where water supplies depend on glaciers, this could be somewhat of a scary and uncertain future.

Lighthouse of the Week, February 6-12, 2022: Baixo do Pinda, Mozambique

 

I tried something unlikely to be successful -- I checked to see if Africa's Lake Victoria had a lighthouse anywhere on its shoreline.  It doesn't (but it appears that there's a safari lodge with something that looks like a lighthouse).  Then it occurred to me that Mozambique has a lot of coastline, and before it was a country, it was a colony.  So it turns out that Mozambique does have lighthouses, and this is one that pops up on the maps.

As I usually do, I'll consult the Lighthouse Directory for the basic information:

"1923. Active; focal plane 64 m (210 ft); two white flashes every 10 s. 31 m (102 ft) round masonry tower with lantern and gallery, rising through the center of a 1-story hexagonal keeper's house. Lighthouse painted with black and white horizontal bands; lantern painted red. ... The lighthouse was reported out of service in 1983, but it was restored and reactivated in 1994. Located on a headland at the southern entrance to Memba Bay, about 25 km (15 mi) east southeast of Memba"

There aren't a lot of pictures of Baixo do Pinda;  here are three that I found.

 

Sampling travails and successes on Mars

 

The Mars Perseverance rover has been drilling rocks as it continues on its Mars exploration mission, and it encountered a bit of a problem when some pebbles got stuck in the drilling apparatus.  But they did some clever maneuvering to shake the pebbles out, and got back to successful drilling.  All in a sol's work, as they say on the Red Planet.

Below, a couple of articles about these most recent challenges.

Mars rover Perseverance collects new sample after clearing pebble clog

Surprise! NASA's Perseverance collects sample of ancient Martian rock that has 'drill and abrasion marks' and resembles a shocked face, after finally clearing pebbles clogging its machinery

Drill me again!

Highway 41 Streetview trek makes a visit to Canyon Falls

 

The Streetview trek is far enough north in the Upper Peninsula that there is terrain that allows for the existence of waterfalls (and it should be noted, northern Wisconsin also has some features like this, too).  In this installment of the near-to-the-end Highway 41 end-to-end Streetview trek, the trek will cruise up to Canyon Falls, and provide some pretty sights.

This place on the map is called "Three Lakes"; two of them are visible here (do the full pan); George Lake and Ruth Lake (the one seen in the view). Highway 41 just went by Beaufort Lake, which I believe is the third lake.



Crossing Tioga Creek by the Tioga Creek Roadside Park.



If you can sense the curve here, the mostly west direction of the highway is ending here, as the highway turns back toward the north.



As mentioned in the introduction, here's a pretty good spot; Canyon Falls Roadside Park, which deserves more than one look. Canyon Falls is formed by the Sturgeon River. I'll also note that there is some wild country to the west; check out the Bears Den Overlook in the Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness. Now, the falls.

View from the highway, which isn't bad at all.



Canyon Falls.



Canyon Falls in winter -- a great panorama.



A slightly less turbulent section.



If the Highway Streetview trek was an actual trip, that would have been a nice break.

How many more miles remain? Basically, not many more.

Is it really the Endeavour?

 

It's possible, and apparently likely, that the last remnants of Captain James Cook's ship Endeavour (which has also gone by many other names) has been located -- just about where they thought it was.

Captain James Cook's ship HMS Endeavour is FOUND at the bottom of the ocean more than 250 years after it reached Australia - here's why experts are SURE they've solved the enduring mystery

Now, apparently this wasn't supposed to be public knowledge until it was officially confirmed, so there are those who are urging caution before the full archaeological case it made. But hey, they knew it was probably there, right?  Because the Brits sank it there, off Newport Harbor, Rhode Island, during the Revolutionary War. 

"Dr, Kathy Abbass from the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project claimed the report is 'premature' and that the [Australian] Maritime Museum is 'in breach of the contract' after the results were shared with the public.

'What we see on the shipwreck site under study is consistent with what might be expected of the Endeavour, but there has been no indisputable data found to prove the site is that iconic vessel, and there are many unanswered questions that could overturn such an identification,' she told the ABC.

A 'legitimate report' will be shared by the RIMAP on its website once the studies are complete."

This is what the Endeavour looked like before it was sunk.  (This is a modern replica, of course.)

Ever heard of GLEAM-X?

 

GLEAM-X is not a new toothpaste.  GLEAM-X is something very unusual;  as the astronomers describe it, "an ultra-slow magnetar".   Right.

Here's the paper about it (really scientific stuff here):

A radio transient with unusually slow periodic emission

Space.com provides a more digestible description:

Astronomers detect powerful cosmic object unlike anything they've seen before

"An analysis of the object showed that it was incredibly bright but smaller than Earth's sun. GLEAM's radio emissions were also highly-polarized (that is, their light waves only vibrate on a single plane), suggesting they were generated by an extremely powerful magnetic field, according to the study authors.

These characteristics match a type of theoretical object known as an "ultra-long period magnetar," which is essentially a highly magnetized neutron star that rotates incredibly slowly. While predicted to exist, this rare class of object has never been observed in space before, the researchers said.

"Nobody expected to directly detect one like this because we didn't expect them to be so bright," Hurley-Walker said. "Somehow it's converting magnetic energy to radio waves much more effectively than anything we've seen before."

So, a really slow magnetar.  Remember the moment you found out it might have been observed.

(OK, maybe it's not that exciting -- but it is pretty cool.)

Lighthouse of the Week, January 30 - February 5, 2022: Andenes Fyr, Norway

 

The first thing that's noteworthy about the Andenes Fyr  (lighthouse) in Norway is where it is -- way north and way west.  It's actually not part of "mainland" Norway, but it's on/in the Vesterålen Islands.  That's the reason that this map location is zoomed so far out -- so you can figure out where it is.  If I zoomed in on it, you wouldn't have a chance.

The next things to note are that a) it's red, and b) it's tall.   Very good.  Let's get some more information from the Lighthouse Directory.

"1859. Active; focal plane 40 m (131 ft); continuous white light with a more intense flash every 30 s. 40 m (131 ft) round cast iron, brick-lined tower with lantern and gallery. The original 2nd order Fresnel lens remains in use. Entire lighthouse painted red. The 2-story keeper's house, generator house, and farm buildings have been sold as private residences. ... The lighthouse is managed by the nearby Andøy Museum, which offers guided tours during the summer season. As a result this is the best known and most visited lighthouse of Norway's Arctic region. Since construction started in 1856 the 150th anniversary of the lighthouse was celebrated in 2006."

So, now let's see some picture of this far north, very tall, and very red lighthouse.

by Juha Kinnunen