Teens in Spokane, WA have begun making picnic table pyramids, to the delight and rage of all. The group calls themselves The Spokane Serial Stackers and has a Facebook page.
http://m.spokesman.com/stories/2012/aug/10/crews-find-note-top-table-pyramid/
This is one of the scariest graphs I’ve seen in a long time. This plot, from the CDC, shows probable and confirmed cases of pertussis, whooping cough, in the state of Washington from 2011 through June 2012. it’s curious that Washington state has seen such a large jump; the incidence of pertussis overall in that state is nine times higher than the national average. Why would this be? Well, it so happens that the antivax movement is quite strong in Washington state, and it also so happens that parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children in higher numbers there than the rest of the nation.
Vaccines save lives, Washington State!
The flight deck of the Endeavor. Yesterday, the shuttle Discovery was attached to a jumbo jet and flown to the Smithsonian in DC. Thousands of people lined the Potomac to see it, talking all proud pig about the United States’ science and technology. Don’t they realize that it is going to a museum and that we have no capabilities for manned space flight anymore? Oh, the irony….
I am embarrassed.
Snowy owls have been spotted in Oregon! They are almost a meter tall, and their diet is 90% lemmings, plus voles and other small mammals. They live in the Arctic the rest of the year, but are known to fly south in large numbers every few winters; it’s called an irruption.This year, the numbers are super high, and it is kind of a mystery. One even showed up in Hawaii and they shot it at the airport! It was the first snowy owl there…ever, and they shot it at the airport.
Read more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/science/earth/spike-in-snowy-owl-sightings-stirs-speculation-among-bird-watchers.html?ref=science
and here: http://www.owlinstitute.org/
