Number what?

Washington Monthly digs into the omnipresent US News & World Report College Rankings, turning them inside-out and upside-down and everything. WM re-orders the list based on things like national service, research grants & student aid, and so forth. Unsurprisingly, US News & WR’s list is flip-flopped a bit, with some top-ranked schools sinking to the bottom (w/, for instance, national universities, only 2 of US News & WR’s top 10 make it to Washington Monthly’s top 10) and some underdogs rising to the top (like the previously unranked South Carolina State University).

Sure, a list can only tell you so much. But they are fun, lists are.

A Travelogue of Addiction

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A Chicago Tribune correspondent embarks on a mission to trace the oil from a service station back to its sources; the results are quite remarkable–enlightening and frightening and such–and are conveyed through a written article and an online video documentary (which, before you go, “aw, shucks,” has pretty remarkable production values).

(Also, the documentary uses some well-placed Philip Glass music from Koyaanisqatsi, which is a plus.)

(via Grist)

Who doesn’t love a long-beaked echidna?

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I sure do, I know that much. The IHT has an interesting article (and accompanying slide-show, which you can catch in the upper right-hand corner of the article page) on a scientific expedition in Indonesia which uncovered newly discovered species in an isolated chunk of jungle. The phrase “lost world” gets tossed around, but, you know.

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A snippet:

The December 2005 expedition to Papua Province on the western side of New Guinea island was organized by the U.S.-based environmental organization Conservation International and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.

“There was not a single trail, no sign of civilization, no sign of even local communities ever having been there,” said Beehler, adding that two headmen from the Kwerba and Papasena tribes, the customary landowners of the Foja Mountains, accompanied the expedition.

The scientists said they had discovered 20 frog species, including a tiny microhylid frog less than 14 millimeters, or a little more than a half-inch, long, four new butterfly species, and at least five new types of palms.

Their findings, however, will have to be published and then reviewed by peers before the new species are officially classified, a process that could take six months to several years.

One of the most remarkable discoveries was the Golden-mantled Tree Kangaroo, an arboreal jungle-dweller previously thought to have been hunted to near extinction, and a new honeyeater bird, which has a bright orange face-patch with a pendant wattle under each eye, Beehler said. The scientists also took the first known photographs of Berlepsch’s Six-Wired Bird of Paradise, described by hunters in New Guinea in the 19th century.

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Panoramas tend to impress me

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It’s true, real life affords much more maneuverability, and sensory input and everything. But, still.

(Panoramas from Z360)

A photo that screams ‘buy me’

The evocativeness of dust-jacket photos is why publishers put them on the cover. They’re selling tools, part of the book’s packaging, like the packaging on a bar of soap. Yet in the work of some photographers, the author’s photo can aspire to the level of high art.

A curious little article on the pros & cons of dust-jacket author photographs.

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It’s a selling point, something to get the customer to pick up the book. Something to give a curious reader insight into the mind of the author, via the face?

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Some publishers apparently bank on the photo; others could care less—Chronicle Books, for instance—and tend to use, e.g., passport photos and such. Or no photos at all. That’s cool.

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Sometimes you just don’t want the photo, the author’s actual appearance conflicting too much with expectation. Or something.

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Good fun, all around.

(Article originally spotted in the Chicago Tribune, but up & vanished, rediscovered over at the Southern Illinoisan)

Or does it just seem like it?

Scientists claim, “deja vu recreated in laboratory”.

(Which, incidentally, deja vu is also the subject and/or title of a movie coming out roundabout Thanksgiving, which looks interesting though not necessarily good.)

(BBC News, via Warren Ellis)

((Sorry.))

Or does it just seem like it?

Scientists claim, “deja vu recreated in laboratory”.

(Which, incidentally, deja vu is also the subject and/or title of a movie coming out roundabout Thanksgiving, which looks interesting though not necessarily good.)

(BBC News, via Warren Ellis)

Hawk, frog back from extinction

Hopefully they’ll get along okay.

(Don’t worry–they will; they live in different countries.)

In Colombia, a frog (the somewhat lackadaisically-named ‘painted frog’, Atelopus ebenoides marinkellei) is rediscovered, having last been seen in 1995.  And in England, a hawk, troubled in the past, is doing better: the marsh harrier.

Like GoogleMaps for Time

…but requiring just a little more mucking about.  Still, SIMILE’s Timeline is a potentially awesome tool.  Particularly if it’s user-friendlified a bit.  Right now it’s a bit like GoogleMaps, if GoogleMaps required you to draw all your own maps, plot distances, pinpoint natural landmarks, etc.

Anguished over loss of oatmeal, one of 3 Bears strikes back

…a woman came home to find a young bear eating oatmeal in her kitchen.

The bear apparently entered through an open sliding glass door, broke a ceramic food container and started eating, West Vancouver police Sgt. Paul Skelton said.

Three officers who went to the home Thursday couldn’t get the bear to budge, so they let it finish its meal.

“The bear didn’t appear to be aggressive and wasn’t destroying the house, so they just let it do what it was doing,” Skelton said. The bear finally left.

(via Chicago Tribune)