Going all the way back to mid-February, WorldPress Review carried an interesting story about the US Military’s recruitment schemes, both historical and contemporary.
And did you hear about the starquake? Oh. You did.
Well, did you hear that women are “less likely to get quality heart attack care,” or that cancer-stricken rats live longer if they’re curious, or that a new law in China will require power grid operators to purchase as much renewable energy as possible?
Tackling the very large subject area of Things That Do Not Make Sense, NewScientist picked 13 and wrote up an article on them; the result is quite interesting. Curiously, the list is heavily weighted in favor of spacebourne phenomena like dark matter and the Kuiper cliff.
In a turn of events that does not bode well for the success of Yucca Mountain (you know–the whole radioactive waste storage thing), the Energy Department made a series of dubious choices in preparing to get all its ducks in a row, certification-wise. Like, e.g., used instruments without bothering to calibrate them; and certified instruments prior to their calibration (and before being received).
In other, arguably more positive environmental news, Grist Magazine has a Q&A with author/activist/scientist oil-spill expert Riki Ott (whose book is Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, which ought to be read by all).
And researchers in Ohio make the claim that man-made wetlands do just as well as natural ones in filtering and cleaning water. I’m slightly dubious of the claim, but I’d be a lot more dubious if one of the researchers (William Mitsch) weren’t the author of a wetlands textbook (he is), what textbook I’ve in fact used for a wetlands class in the past.
For those of you with an itch to learn about Daylight Saving Time, the California Energy Commission has a fairly comprehensive backgrounder.