Moray Mystery

Rick at MBSL&S has a very interesting post about the mysterious deaths of dozens of moray eels in the Antilles. As much as I would rather he didn't have to write about such an event, he does a great job of relaying the real-world issues and science at hand. Go check it out - it's a good, yet unfortunate, read.

Batten down the hatches

(Apparently I linked to an image that gets updated, so this post makes less sense now...)

This could get a little choppy...

Friday Dial Stopper - Talk Like a Pirate Day Edition

What would "Talk Like a Pirate Day" be without a little Captain Jack?

200 years too late?

What type of Pirate am I? You tell me...

What kind of pirate am I? You decide!
You can also view a breakdown of results or put one of these on your own page!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

(a bottle of rum raised to Kate/Dorid for this)

Tenacious

I found this little snake in my backyard this afternoon. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but at only about 8 inches long, it must have been literally 1,000s of times smaller than me. Did it care? Did it quickly slither away upon being discovered? Uh, no. Gotta respect that.

Fits two people? Really?

I meant to post this photo weeks ago, after our D.C. vacation, but had forgotten about it until now.

Here's Jack peering into the bathysphere on display at the National Geographic Society:

Does Sarah Palin know the difference between icing and offsides?

Granted, Jack has only been playing hockey for a year now. Still, Linda is technically a "hockey mom", so this is entirely appropriate (and funny)

Just what I always wanted...

I'm looking for someone to help me bankroll a purchase. I figure if we each go in for half, we can figure out how to split the usage throughout the year - perhaps switch off every three months? Serious inquiries only please.

LHC Rap

This actually helped me understand the Large Hadron Collider a little bit better!

I thought pirates did everything...

I'm not entirely sure about the validity of the title, but I'm thinking this children's book should be added to our home library.

Friday Dial Stopper

Inspired by my previous post...with a twist...

"...set an open course for the virgin sea"

2008 - 2009 ANNOUNCEMENT SEA is now accepting applications for the 2008-2009 academic year. Sea Education Association now offers three unique opportunities for undergraduates to spend a semester studying the oceans in the world-renown oceanographic community of Woods Hole, MA and aboard one of our modern sailing research vessels during an oceanic passage in the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. SEA Semester: Ocean Exploration - This long-standing, innovative program offers students of all majors a multidisciplinary approach to studying the world's oceans from scientific, maritime cultural, and modern seafaring perspectives. Celestial navigation, meteorology, seamanship, oceanographic sampling techniques and research, and maritime history, literature and policy comprise the core curriculum. SEA Semester: Documenting Change in the Caribbean - Humanities, Environmental Studies, Geography and Social Sciences students are prepared for an extraordinary project-based academic experience. Few regions have seen such enormous changes in the last five centuries as the islands in the Caribbean Sea. Today, there is a dynamic mix of cultures and biota in the islands that bears little resemblance to the world encountered by Christopher Columbus. Students explore how we can document these changes using maps and charts, historical documents, commercial records, harbor pilots, species surveys, and the literature of Caribbean people from both the Colonial and post-Colonial periods. SEA Semester: Oceans & Climate - For advanced science students. This program focuses on the importance of the equatorial Pacific to the global carbon cycle, and culminates in a trans-equatorial research cruise from either Mexico to Tahiti or Tahiti to Hawaii. SEA faculty and visiting researchers from across the country engage students in oceanography, ocean policy and the operation a sailing research vessel. www.sea.edu

Too soon to worry? part 2

Not only is Rick still incommunicado, but now Kevin Z. has gone strangely quiet...Should we start organizing a search party yet?

Too soon to worry?

It's been a week since Rick posted anything over at MBSL&S. I'm starting to fear the worst...

Spin it 'round and 'round

Had to steal this post from Dale over at Meming of Life. The hypocrisy revealed here is dumbfounding.

Friday Dial Stopper

Not sure why this song popped into my head today, but it did, so here you go...

Hulkamania?

So, I'm eating breakfast at the hotel in D.C. last week and I see on CNN (or MSNBC or Fox or *insert cable news channel*) that there was going to be an "evangelical rally" on the Mall that day. Turns out The Call was in town. Great.

So, the kids and I take the metro down to the Mall and sure enough we're bombarded by pamphleteers as we leave the metro stop. I managed to fend off the hoard without taking a single "You're going to burn in hell" flyer/newspaper/brochure. As we move away from the crowd I see a monstrosity of a stage set up by the Capitol - it looked like a Def Leppard concert (no offense to Def Leppard) - and we hear someone on stage yelling and carrying on about something. Honestly, I have no idea what the guy was saying, but the tone and rhythm sent chills down my spine - it's hard to explain, but it was some combination of anger, insanity, and overacting (I hate to suggest this, but check out the video on the right side of the Call's website I linked to above to hear what I mean). I suppose, unsurprisingly, evangelical is the best word to describe it. The guy could have been reading directly from Isaac Newton's Principia and it would have sounded just as scary-insane.

Actually, now that I think about it, the whole thing reminded me of something like this

So, what did the kids and I do? Walked straight across the Mall to the Museum of Natural History, of course, and took part in, among many other things, the Mammal Family Reunion.

Run away! Run Away!

Lincoln Memorial

D.C. Vacation

The whole fam damily is headed to D.C. for a few days of vacation before the school year starts up again. Here's a short list of things we'll hopefully be getting to:

National Aquarium in Baltimore

National Zoo

Smithsonian Natural History Museum

various monuments (Emma really wants to see the one with "Abraham Lincoln sitting down")

The White House (as opposed to say, a beach volleyball match in Beijing)

I'm open to other suggestions if you've got them (remember, we'll be dealing with a 4- and 7-year old). Em heard from a friend who heard from a friend that the Spy Museum was fun - anyone have first-hand experience and care to corroborate this?