Doing the "Bertillon"

Police officers in the early 1900s study the Bertillon method, an idea whose time has gone. Before fingerprints, cops checked size of feet, fingers and heads to identify criminals.

(Library of Congress, Library of Congress / February 27, 2011)

Remember when . . . ?

Here's a corner of the battlefield, as 13 year old Bobby Fischer, (R), of Brooklyn, New York, fought out a chess battle with 21 opponents, (20 of them adults), simultaneously in the lobby of the YMCA in Jersey City. Bobby won 19 of the games, lost one and drew one. Play took five hours. Proceeds from the event would help Bobby go to the U. S. National Open Chess Tournament in Oklahoma City, July 16-28, 1956.

Tinkering with Geoengineering: more consideration as scientists seek answers to climate change

Geoengineering is in the news again. USA Today ran an article that summarized some of the latest proposed geoengineering concepts. Each appears to have its pros and cons - like the side effects of any medication - but with scientists continuing to document the impact of CO2 emissions and the overall climate change effect it produces, geoengineering is getting more and more attention as a concept that must be seriously considered now rather than later.

RTSea Blog ran two posts on the subject in 2009, and the concerns over the side effects of geoengineering expressed then by scientists still exist today.

• Geoengineering: big ideas to change the planet
• Geoengineering: changing the earth's climate for better or worse?

Says Scott Barrett, environmental economist, "We're moving into a different kind of world. Better we turn to asking if 'geoengineering' could work, than waiting until it becomes a necessity."

Geoengineering is the process where global steps are taken to counter the effects of global warming, as opposed to addressing the source of the problem - like treating a disease symptomatically. It has been said that geoengineering is not the "silver bullet" solution but may have to be considered along with other measures aimed at the root of our global warming problem, that of excessive CO2 emissions (which, ironically, is a geoengineering process unto itself).

Many of the proposals seem petty grandiose or something right out of a science fiction novel but, in most cases, the technology is there; it will need international cooperation to ramp it up to a global scale. Here are a few of the latest proposed techniques listed by USA Today:

•Ocean fertilization. Dumping iron filings into the ocean to spur phytoplankton blooms is the saltwater version of forestation. The increased mass of the plankton's cells would swell with carbon pulled from the air. On the downside, it may kill fish, belch out other greenhouse gases such as methane, and hasn't worked very well in small trials. [Also mentioned in my prior posts.]

•Forestation. Intense planting of trees and reclaiming deserts with hardier plants is one of the ideas endorsed at the recent Cancun, Mexico, climate meeting, where representatives of 192 nations made some progress on an international climate agreement. More fantastic versions, endorsed by Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson, would rely on genetic engineering to produce trees that act as natural carbon scrubbers, their trunks swollen with carbon pulled from the air.

•Cloud engineering. Painting rooftops white, genetically engineering crops to have shinier surfaces, and floating blocks of white Styrofoam in the oceans are all proposals to mimic the effects of clouds, whose white surfaces reflect sunlight. Pumping sea salt into the sky from thousands of "spray ships" could increase clouds themselves. Cost-effectiveness aside, such cloud-seeding might end up dumping rain on the ocean or already soggy regions, instead of where it's needed.

•Pinatubo a-go-go. As mentioned above, sulfur aerosols could be fired into the sky by cannons, released by balloons or dropped from planes. [Also mentioned in my prior posts]

•Space mirrors. Hundreds of thousands of thin reflective yard-long disks fired into a gravitational balance point between the sun and Earth could dim sunlight. Cost aside, rocket failures or collisions might lead to a tremendous orbital debris cloud circling the Earth. And a recent Geophysical Research Letters space tourism report suggests the rocket fuel burned to launch the needed number of shades would dump enough black soot — which absorbs sunlight and heats the atmosphere — to increase average global temperatures about 1.4 degrees.

Just as CO2 emissions and rising overall world temperatures disrupt currents, winds and other weather patterns, thereby producing more storms, droughts, and even cold spells in some parts of the world; counteracting global warming through geoengineering can do the same. In fact, it can have political or national security implications: what if one nation has the means to manipulate geoengineering so that it could produce droughts or alter storm tracks in another part of the world? Now there's something that seems right out of a DC/Marvel comic book.

While "most of the technologies are not yet proven and are at the theoretical or research phase," according to an August Congressional Research Service report, geoengineering is slowly gaining acceptance as a viable approach worth pursuing. "I think it is settled that some climate engineering research will go forward," says Science magazine reporter Eli Kintisch. "We haven't seen it enter the national debate yet. Hard to know what will happen when it does. That may be the biggest question."

Read the article in USA Today.

FLW's Favorite

When Frank Lloyd Wright completed the Ennis house in 1924, he immediately considered it his favorite. The last and largest of the four concrete-block houses that Wright built in the Los Angeles area remains arguably the best residential example of Mayan Revival architecture in the country. When The Times' Home section convened a panel of historians, architects and preservationists in 2008 to vote on the region's best houses of all time, the Ennis house ranked ahead of the Modernist Eames house, the John Lautner spaceship-on-a-hill known as Chemosphere and the Arts & Crafts beauty the Gamble house.

"The story of Tonto with Silver and the Lone Ranger"

At first glance it appears to be a casting choice with the potential to derail Johnny Depp's otherwise stellar movie career. Depp, known for his edgy roles and wacky on-screen personas, has been cast to play Tonto, the Native American sidekick to the Lone Ranger, in a forthcoming Hollywood version of the 1950s TV show.

Depp's Tonto, however, will be rather different from the original ally who stuck by his cowboy friend through thick and thin. Instead, his character looks set to be at the heart of the film and have the dominant role in its narrative.

Director Gore Verbinski is taking inspiration for the central relationship not from the dusty reels of the TV show, but from literary classic Don Quixote. In the new version, the Lone Ranger turns out to be a misguided fool and Tonto the voice of sanity, akin to Quixote's companion, Sancho Panza.

"The only version of The Lone Ranger I'm interested in doing is Don Quixote told from Sancho Panza's point of view," Verbinski told the Los Angeles Times's "Hero Complex" film blog last week. Suddenly it becomes a lot easier to see why Depp would take the role. "I was honest early on with Johnny that Tonto is the part. We're not going to do it [straight]; everyone knows that story. I don't want to tell that story," the director said.

To be "Built in the USA"

The Boeing Company has received a contract from the U.S. Air Force to build the next-generation aerial refueling tanker aircraft that will replace 179 of the service’s 400 KC-135 tankers.

The contract calls for Boeing to design, develop, manufacture and deliver 18 initial combat-ready tankers by 2017.

The 800-Pound Gorilla: population growth will make the world unrecognizable says scientist

The 800-pound gorilla in the room is getting restless again. I've used that metaphor in the past to describe the growing human population that is driving so much of our consume-not conserve behavior. At the recent annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the issue of population growth, and what toll that will take on our natural resources, was raised again by Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund.

The United Nations has predicted that the global population will reach 7 billion this year. It is also predicted to reach 9 billion by 2050. What we will have to do to feed us all in 40 years is nothing short of staggering. According to Clay, "We will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000."

Most of the population growth will take place in developing countries, particularly Africa and South Asia. Not only will the shear number of people have a detrimental effect on our natural resources, but so will a disproportionately higher rate of consumption.

As populations increase, there is also an increase or improvement in the economic status of a portion of that population (globally, incomes are expected to triple, while developing nations will see a five-fold increase). An improvement in lifestyle also means an increase in food consumption.

Urging scientists and governments to begin making changes in food production now, Clay told the Associated Foreign Press (AFP), "More people, more money, more consumption, but the same planet."

Meat consumption is expected to increase, but the solution is more complex than just raising more cattle or chickens. It takes seven pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat. And to produce that additional seven pounds of grain it takes more land, water, fertilizers, herbicides, and so on. Multiply that by the millions of pounds of meat that will be needed by 2050, and you can begin to see the scope of the problem.

Clay warned that if current trends continue, "By 2050 we will not have a planet left that is recognizable."

Family planning will begin to become more and more of a reality. Hopefully, society will see the importance of controlling the population without resorting to draconian steps like the punitive steps in China's second-child policy. If the people realize and react to the growing impact of population growth on the environment and food prices before governments do, then perhaps there lies our best chance at keeping the 800-pound gorilla at bay.

"Cheek to Cheek"

The forever young octogenarian Barbara Cook and the eternally boyish Michael Feinstein made this live recording during their engagement at the deluxe nightspot Feinstein's at Lowes Regency last season.

At Oran Z’s Pan African Black Facts & Wax Museum

This is one of the first things I was able to focus my eyes on when I visited the museum, which looks like a garage crammed with someone’s collection. You’re bombarded with so much stuff: wax figures of Frederick Douglass and Barack Obama, toys and knickknacks, slave artifacts and sports memorabilia. Pieces are in disarray too, like wax figures on their backsides somehow being worked on. The Thurgood Marshall figure was sitting behind a judge’s bench and dressed in a robe. Nearby, in the witness stand, was a figure of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Movieland Wax Museum, which went out of business, had originally built this set for the TV show “Perry Mason,” and it looks like it’s straight out of the 1950s. Oran Z himself, who arranged the installations with such care and devotion to his heroes, will take you on the tours. He’s a very passionate man and wants to educate everyone on his understanding of African American history. I haven’t been on a tour any shorter than three hours.

— Artist Kristen Morgin, as told to Jori Finkel

Exhibitions at the Getty Center and the Pomona College Museum of Art put the focus on photography and China

"Three Coolies" photographed by Lai Afong.

(Afong, Lai, The Getty Research Institute / February 22, 2011)

"The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage"

Douglas Waller has written a splendid biography of the larger-than-life man who ran the legendary forerunner of the CIA.

An "apple" is worth $300 billion

Apple Inc. has pulled off a string of runaway hits — like the iPhone and the iPad — that have revolutionized every industry they touched. It has become the world's second-most-valuable company, worth more than $300 billion.

But when shareholders meet Wednesday at the company's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters, the buzz will not be about Apple's next sleek new gadget or soaring profits. Much of the talk will be about Chief Executive Steve Jobs and what Apple would do without him.

The secretive Apple has been reluctant to talk publicly about Jobs' battle with a rare form of pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant. But the uncertainty shrouding his latest leave of absence has unsettled investors and rankled corporate governance experts, who say the company's fortunes are inextricably linked to Jobs.

Heart of Green Awards: celebrities who actually made a difference are recognized

The environmental website, The Daily Green, is preparing for a reader's vote to select the "Greenest Celebrities of the Year." The nominated candidates for the website's Heart of Green Award are Kevin Costner, Michelle Obama, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Jay Leno (there's room for your favorite write-in candidate, too).

Now to some diehard conservationists, this might seem like pretty inconsequential fluff; just a hey-atta-boy for some celebrity who wants to look like a moral, upstanding treehugger. But there's a lot more to it than that. Sure, there are some tag-along celebrities who just want to be perceived as environmentally noble, but not the folks listed here. These are people who put in the time and effort, know what they are talking about, and are prepared to either leverage their celebrity status or financial resources to get things accomplished.

Here are the green bios listed in The Daily Green for Kevin Costner, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Sigourney Weaver. All three have been involved in ocean and other conservation issues. I'd be hard pressed to make a choice between these three, let alone all six of the nominees.

Kevin Costner While many celebs spoke out against the Gulf oil spill, Kevin Costner took direct action through an innovative, science-based startup he co-founded, Ocean Therapy Solutions. Costner had spent the last 15 years supporting research on centrifuge systems to more safely and effectively remove oil from water. Tests have been promising, and BP ordered 32 of the devices for the Gulf. Costner also testified before Congress, not just as a concerned actor, but as an expert in marine cleanups.

Leonardo DiCaprio
Long one of the most committed environmentalists in Hollywood, superstar actor Leonardo DiCaprio made waves in 2010, the Year of the Tiger, by teaming up with the World Wildlife Fund on the Save Tigers Now campaign. Working on financial, political and educational fronts, the project hopes to double the number of tigers in the wild, to 6,400, by 2022, the next time the iconic animal comes around the Chinese zodiac.

Sigourney Weaver
A lifetime lover of the sea, actress Sigourney Weaver has become a spokesperson for marine conservation and for NRDC, particularly on the little-known yet critically important issue of ocean acidification. Weaver has also followed up her role in the smash hit Avatar by joining James Cameron in the fight for justice for the Earth's indigenous peoples, and to protect the last remaining untouched forests. The Planet Earth series Weaver narrates brings critical environmental issues into an unprecedented number of homes.

Anyone who is committed to preserving this planet has a role to play, whether a scientist, a politician, a celebrity, or just an everyday Joe. We preserve our natural resources by doing the best we can with our own personal resources - and in so doing, we all make a difference. We all become stars in our own right.

Read about all of the nominees and vote for your favorite at The Daily Green.

"Whatever"

South Carolina Wetlands: preservation efforts bring back the long lost whooping crane

Amidst so many important issues and threats against the planet's natural resources, every now and again one finds a success story. Here's one that shows that it's not too late if people, governments, and corporations recognize the importance of the ecology that surrounds them and work together.

Coastal wetlands are home and haven for a variety of plants and animals. Wetlands are a unique ecosystem, often a bridge between freshwater and marine environments. But they have been receding due to commercial development and pollution.

In the southeastern United States, South Carolina has many rivers that work their way to the coast, feeding an expansive network of wetlands. However, to meet the needs of a growing population, residential and commercial development has severely impacted these wetlands, particularly over the past 50 years. The wetlands serve as a nesting habitat for several species of birds and one bird in particular, the whooping crane, had long ago left an area known as the ACE Basin.

The ACE Basin is a wetland where three rivers - the Ashepoo, Combahee, and the South Edisto - empty out to sea south of the city of Charleston. Due to the combined efforts of local landowners, government officials, and other conservation-minded citizens, over a 250,000 wetland acres have now been preserved.

With that, the five-foot tall majestic whooping crane has returned, with two mating pairs regularly wintering in the ACE Basin. The whooping crane had been considered gone from South Carolina wetlands since before the Civil War, so to see it return now is clear evidence that the efforts of the South Carolinians is working.

Congratulations to the people of South Carolina who understand the importance of wetlands to the overall health of their state's ecology.The return of the whooping crane is something to crow - or whoop - about.

Read about the South Carolina wetlands in The Post and Courier.

Paid Volunteers: combining donations with field work to support conservation research

Supporting conservation can take many forms. You can simply contribute what you can afford to the organization of your choice. Or it can be in the form of actions in your personal life: paper or cloth shopping bags over plastic, replacing standard light bulbs with fluorescent, etc. Or it can be through volunteering at a local zoo, aquarium, or animal rescue center.

Another way that is being promoted more and more by various conservation and research organizations is paid volunteering in the field. There are many organizations involved in research which benefit from the assistance of paid volunteers performing important data collecting and other duties under the supervision of trained scientists and researchers. The organization gains both financial support and additional needed manpower, while the volunteer gets a taste firsthand of what is involved in the actual research that produces the data upon which conservation policy and regulatory decisions are made.

Conservation research groups like the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, Save Our Seas Foundation, and others have welcomed the assistance from volunteers in varying degrees on projects ranging from turtle tagging to tagged shark observations to animal rescue. Being a paid volunteer can cost as much as a tropical dive vacation and travel to and from the site is typically not included. The volunteer will find that he or she is usually trading in some resort luxuries for hard work, but the satisfaction of being directly involved in a project that could have an impact on the future of a species more than makes up for it.

So where do you find the organizations who have such programs available? Well, you can search on your own or there has been enough interest in paid volunteering that companies have sprung up who specialize in offering a menu of projects to choose from. One such company is U.K.-based Ecovolunteer.org.

Ecovolunteer.org, in essence, is a travel agency dedicated to conservation activities, from studying minke whales in Canada, to tracking jaguars in Brazil, to helping villagers in Thailand understand the importance of preserving their sea turtles, mangrove marshlands, and coral reefs.

Times are hard economically for research groups and conservation non-profits, and it won't be getting much easier any time soon. The same could be said for all of us as individuals. So if you are fortunate enough to be in a position to afford a little vacation time in a faraway place and have a keen interest in seeing the conservation movement flourish, paid volunteering might just be a great way to roll up your sleeves and put your money where your mouth is.

"Bare Facts"

Naked volunteers pose for the American photographer Spencer Tunick on the Swiss glacier Aletsch, the largest in the Alps, as part of an environmental campaign about global warming, August 18, 2007. The campaign, organized by Greenpeace, was aimed at drawing attention to melting Alpine glaciers.

Fabrice Coffrini/AFP - Getty Images

"249 days without a government"

Belgians have been marking a near world record of 249 days without a government, due to political deadlock following June elections last year that failed to produce a clear winner.

Despite the ongoing political crisis, residents used Thursday to hold a "chips revolution", honouring a favourite national dish, with various events going on around the country.

"Of course it is serious that we have no federal government," Kris Peeters, the Flemish minister-president of Flanders, said.

"But on the other hand, I appreciate very much the humour of certain actions."

In Ghent, a Dutch-speaking region, organisers say 249 people stripped naked to mark the days of the crisis, while a group of people calling for a unity government are using the occasion to press their cause.

"Creepy crawler: The hunter, who insists it is not a hoax, posted the image on the Wildgames Innovations website"

The hunter said he was lying in wait in the pitch black when a ghoulish spectre filled his sights.

Its eyes glowing in the light of his torch, it leapt from the undergrowth and flashed a look at the camera before vanishing back into the bushes.

The hunter, who has chosen to remain anonymous, was so frightened he said he broke the camera but retrieved the image from its undamaged memory chip.

The picture was taken on a reserve in Berwick near Morgan City, Louisiana.

Internet users agree the whole thing is merely a hoax - and one comment posted claimed the figure had been stolen from a video game he had seen two years ago.

"Classic Hollywood"

Every cinéaste has a list of films and performers they wish would have won Academy Awards, or even been nominated. But tastes were often different during the Golden Age of Hollywood, and what was considered superb back then might seem dated and creaky these days. Whereas, numerous films that were overlooked for awards in their day have since been embraced by critics, historians and film buffs.

So, on the eve of the 83rd Annual Academy Awards, Classic Hollywood tries to make up for past mistakes — or at least reward deserving films — with some retro film awards -- call them the Classics. Above, Charlie Chaplin in "City Lights."

CLASSIC LOCATION

The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel opened in 1927, financed by such Hollywood luminaries as MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer and superstar couple Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. As soon as the hotel threw open its doors, it was the place to be seen in town. On May 16, 1929, the first Academy Awards ceremony was held in the hotel's fashionable Blossom Room. The winners had been announced to the press three months earlier. It was the only time the awards were held there.

Gulf Oil Legacy: not gone by 2012 according to scientist

In early February, the U.S. appointed head of the oil compensation fund, set up at the conclusion of the BP Gulf oil spill, declared that the Gulf of Mexico would be almost back to normal by 2012. Administrator Kenneth Feinberg said this was based on research he had commissioned.

Dr. Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia has a simple retort: he's wrong. Dead wrong.

Having traveled over 2,600 square miles using submersibles and taking over 250 seafloor core samples over five expeditions from prior to the April 20 spill to just this past December, what Joye has seen tells her that the oil is still there in great abundance and that the impact will be present for many years to come.

Making a presentation at a science conference in Washington D.C., Joye showed slides and video of dead sealife and oil residue that has not been consumed by the microbes that have been touted as the great Pac Man-like oil gobblers that would clean up the Gulf.

"There's some sort of a bottleneck we have yet to identify for why this stuff doesn't seem to be degrading," Joye told the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference in Washington.

"I've been to the bottom. I've seen what it looks like with my own eyes. It's not going to be fine by 2012," Joye told The Associated Press. "You see what the bottom looks like, you have a different opinion."

Much of Joye's work and that of several colleagues has been slow to surface to the attention of decision-makers and scientific journals because of a greater interest in reports of oil disappearing in the Gulf. Joye and her colleagues are the party spoilers.

But the hard truth is that, while it may be true that a considerable amount of the oil that flowed from the Deepwater Horizon disaster may be gone, there was such an enormous amount of oil in total, what remained would have a horrendous impact on the Gulf for many years to come.

Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), sides with Joye in her assessment and disagrees with Feinberg.

Lubchenco said, "Even though the oil degraded relatively rapidly and is now mostly but not all gone, damage done to a variety of species may not become obvious for years to come."

Joye sighted in her report not only residual oil and various dead sealife like crabs and brittle stars, but a soot-like residue from oil burning and also methane. Methane gas was released during the course of the spill which, according to a study just published in Nature Geoscience by Joye and three of her colleagues, equaled another 1.5 million to 3 million barrels of oil.

While there are several Gulf restoration projects beginning - some government-mandated, others part of out-of-court settlements - it would be prudent to turn to hard realists like Dr. Samantha Joye who can deliver the facts while governments and oil companies seek to sweep this all under an oceanic rug.

Read more from AO via U.K.'s DailyMail.com.
University of Georgia/Associated Press photos.

Anacapa Island, Channel Islands National Park

One of the most beautiful and interesting places you're likely to visit,Anacapa is a very small but dramatically jagged island located about 12 miles off the coast, just north of Los Angeles, California. It takes about an hour to get there by boat and there were huge ocean swells during our boat ride out, making it feel like a rollercoaster ride. once on the island, there is not really anything to do but enjoy the views, wildlife, and watch the ocean waves smack against the rocks below.


(excerpts and photos from the randomSPACE blog -- click on the heading above to visit the randomSPACE blog)

"El Alisal"

Today, if you wanted to rub shoulders with prominent thinkers, writers and entertainers, you'd probably try to wangle an invitation to one of Arianna Huffington's salons at her Brentwood mansion.

In the early 1900s, however, you'd head to the home of Charles Fletcher Lummis in what is now Highland Park.

Lummis, a prolific writer, champion of the Southwest and, for a while, Los Angeles' head librarian, played host to some of the biggest movers and shakers of his time, including humorist Will Rogers, naturalist John Muir, attorney Clarence Darrow and composer John Philip Sousa.

In 1895 Lummis bought a three-acre plot of land for himself, his wife, Eve, and their two small children in the Arroyo Seco that would become his home and the site of his "noises."

He called the house El Alisal, Spanish for "place of the sycamore" in honor of the some 30 sycamore trees on the property. He built the concrete and rock home, which boasted a circular 30-foot tower, almost solely by himself, lugging boulders from the arroyo for the exterior walls.

Does your bread have quinoa, amaranth, spelt and Kamut ?

Ancient grains may sound like something you'd find in a museum or at an archaeological site.

But these days, they're turning up in the bread aisle. At markets from Whole Foods to Vons, shoppers can choose from a growing number of breads made with so-called ancient grains, including quinoa, amaranth, spelt and Kamut (a patented variety of wheat).

Claims about the breads abound: They're said to be packed with whole grains, protein, omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants, and they're supposedly safe for people with wheat allergies or gluten intolerance, also known as celiac disease. But although the ancient grains are undoubtedly healthful and tasty, not all of the claims hold up.

Speaking of "Believing in Freedom"

Emanuel Leutze's 1851 painting "George Washington Crossing the Delaware" before the Battle of Trenton.

(The Bettmann Archive / February 20, 2011)

Florida's Shark Congregation: sharks swarm in the shallows prior to northern migration

Each year, around this time, blacktip and spinner sharks congregate off the southeast coast of Florida as a prelude to a northerly migration. And this year was no exception. Sharks numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands, were observed off Palm Beach, getting within 100 yards of shore.

In this area, you have a white sandy bottom that is shallow and extends quite a ways out to sea. Against this bright backdrop, the sharks, with their darker coloration on the tops of their bodies, stand out quite clearly, as seen by this helicopter video taken for Florida's Sun-Sentinel.



The sharks will move as far north as Chesapeake Bay, feeding on migrating schools of baitfish like mullet. Scientists who study animal migrations are always curious as to what might be the motivating factor for a particular migration. Is it due to a change in climate or water temperature? Or to find suitable mating grounds? Or is it following a particular food source. That appears to be the case with these sharks off of Florida - simply gravitating where the hunting is good.

Blacktip (Carcharhinus limbatus) and spinner sharks (Carcharhinus brevipinna) are not considered particularly dangerous sharks. However, in Florida they have been implicated in as many as one-third of Florida's total number of attacks. But with these attacks, poor visibility and mistaken identity are the root causes.

"These are not really aggressive species," said Brent Winner of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "But if the water is murky and you see hundreds of sharks, you probably should stay out of the water. Even though they don't eat people, the chance of being bitten is there."

First, you need a hungry shark, one who is on the hunt. This is a critical first step as these sharks do not bite just for the fun of it. Then you add in reduced visibility in the shallows as that white sand I mentioned earlier gets stirred up in the surf. The shark is looking for a small fish, and the flash of white from a human hand or foot - particularly if aided with gold or silver jewelry which can look like sunlight dancing on fish scales - can cause the shark to make a quick dash and grab. Of course, as soon as it realizes its prey does not taste like a fish, it quickly moves on its way. But the result is there's now a new statistic for the shark-human interaction record books.

When I see footage of these shark migrations, it don't view it with any sense of alarm, regardless of how the media portrays it. It's good to see these congregations and the only fear should not be directed at the sharks but at any unscrupulous fisherman who views it as an easy catch.

Read about the migration in the SunSentinel.com.

Ocean Rainfall & Acidification: scientists study the process at sea

Acidification is one of the great challenges facing our oceans. It is the process whereby the ocean water's pH level, it's level of acidity, increases to a point that impacts various marine species, particularly those who build shells. Acidification disrupts the calcium carbonate building process for various types of shellfish, shells, and corals.

What is driving acidification is airborne pollutants from the burning of fossil fuels. CO2 enters the atmosphere and then, transported by winds, is deposited at sea. Scientists are trying to learn more about this transportation process - in essence, the A-to-B process, from your car's tailpipe or energy factory to the ocean.

Scientists from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science are pouring over the results of a two-year study wherein they observed the process of rainfall at sea to determine how much pollution is entering the ocean by this method. Rainfall is considered one of the primary means of transporting airborne pollutants to sea. But to what degree? How much returns to earth; how much remains airborne; and where is it falling?

Rainfall collectors on land can provide one sort of perspective, but we've all seen how weather patterns can change when they move from land to sea or vice versa. So, the scientists set up collectors at sea off the coast of Bermuda and the nearby Sargasso Sea. They wanted to measure a compound commonly found in the atmosphere: Beryllium-7. Comparing those measurements with Beryllium levels in the atmosphere, the scientists could make estimates as to the amount of rainfall in remote ocean areas. They hope that their methods can be utilized on a global level.

"Over vast areas of the oceans the only rainfall data available are those made by using conventional rain collectors placed on islands," said Joseph Prospero, professor of marine and atmospheric chemistry at the UM Rosenstiel School. "However, rainfall on the island is not necessarily representative of that which falls in the surrounding ocean.

The effects of acidification have been documented and that has lead to it being named one of the major threats to the oceans and all that live within. But to better understand how to deal with it, scientists continue to analyze and understand the process. It is often through that work from which solutions are derived.

Read more in Science Daily.

a "perfect storm" of angst

Readers take note. If you're already convinced that vaccines cause autism, that vaccine-preventable infectious diseases no longer threaten children's lives here and abroad, and that certain modern, anti-vaccine gurus are motivated by nothing but tender concern for your family's health, Seth Mnookin's "The Panic Virus" is not the book for you.

If, on the other hand, you want to learn how a "perfect storm" of angst, deception and reckless media fanfare led to years of backlash against childhood vaccines, step right up. It's apt that "The Panic Virus" opens with the quote: "A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on." The person who said this, 19th century preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon, did not hesitate to rail against the "truthiness" of our age. Nor does Mnookin, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair whose books include "Hard News," about the New York Times and its scandals.

"the first black woman to headline on Broadway"

From the 1920s through the early '40s, Ethel Waters was probably the most famous black woman in America: a bestselling recording artist, a popular nightclub performer, the star of five Broadway shows and several Hollywood movies. After a grim period of little work as she aged and gained weight, Waters triumphed again as an African American matriarch in the 1949 film "Pinky" and in the lyrical 1950 stage adaptation of Carson McCullers' novel "The Member of the Wedding."

By the time Waters died in 1977, however, she was better known to most Americans as an elderly, large, devoutly religious woman who frequently appeared at Billy Graham's fundamentalist Crusades. People had largely forgotten the glamorous crossover artist who belied stereotypes, the first black woman to headline on Broadway at the Palace — the mecca for all vaudeville performers, the star of a groundbreaking Broadway drama ("Mamba's Daughters" in 1939) that empathetically depicted three generations of African American women. One of Waters' biggest hits, the sultry, heartbreaking "Stormy Weather," is remembered instead as Lena Horne's signature song.

Donald Bogle's comprehensive biography "Heat Wave" aims to restore Waters' stature as a pioneering African American entertainer and to elucidate the complex personality of a woman whose life was as turbulent as her career. Author of the groundbreaking "Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Film," Bogle is well-qualified to provide the cultural and social context necessary to fully understand both Waters' accomplishments and her shortcomings.

"$300 million Concerto"

Developer Sonny Astani has begun marketing his $300 million Concerto at 9th and Figueroa project in downtown Los Angeles.

The project includes a trio of contemporary structures, including two 30-story glass towers and a mid-rise loft building. Despite the sagging economy and an over-abundance of condominiums crowding the L.A. market, Astani’s project on a 100,000-square-foot parcel near LA Live and Staples Center in downtown’s South Park neighborhood is slated to begin delivery of 77 lofts in the mid-rise building in June, followed by the 271-unit first tower in the fall.

"Welcome to Beverly Hills! You have arrived"

Even on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, one of the world's most expensive stretches of commercial real estate, the nation's economic woes have claimed a longtime employee.

Because of budget problems, the city's visitors bureau has laid off its official ambassador, who has welcomed hundreds of tourists and visitors on Rodeo Drive for the last 11 years.

Gregg Donovan, 51, the top-hat-wearing former hotel concierge, got his walking papers last month. No longer will he stroll Rodeo Drive, welcoming tourists to such high-end stores as Gianni Versace, Jimmy Choo and Battaglia. No longer will he address visitors with his signature greeting: "Welcome to Beverly Hills! You have arrived."

"he lived his dream"

Jerry West and his family just gathered on stage as he pulled the gold rope that unveiled the statue of him here at Star Plaza at Staples Center, as purple and gold streamers exploded from a nearby cannon.

The statue depicts him mid-stride, dribbling down the court, ball in his left hand, wearing his No. 44 gold Lakers jersey with those short shorts, raggy white socks, low-top sneakers and his face in a kind of half-grin, as if he sees an open path to the basket.

"To think of a little boy who had an opportunity to live his dream, and maybe to exceed it, that is very special," West said, holding back tears.

-- Baxter Holmes

Jose Espinoza

Born in 1971 in Mexico City, from an early age he showed qualities for drawing, studying a degree in Architecture at the IPN, standing out brightly with the means of graphic expression as watercolor, gouache, and others, after almost two decades of life professional and self-taught experience with other media such as oil, pastel and acrylic, like many other architects return this passion for painting as a late vocation overflowing with an irrepresible need for visual expression using mainly online gallery to display his artwork .

The interpretive Artwork up the gallery, called IDENTITIES is fundamental iconic and figurative, about the cultural symbols that make up the author's environment. The medium chosen for this series helps to contextualize it is the genuine amate bark paper , from the Nahuatl "amatl tree-leaf" hand made in its various shades, and made from the same ancestral technique 3000 years ago for the realization of pre-Columbian codices, using mainly acrylic or mixed media with gold leaf, taking special care to enhance the feature-rich bark texture. Another element representative and also places it within contemporary art is its chromaticism.

Initially called the "yoke of the architect" take the hyper-realism, (a fundamental part of architectural expression), and having the intention to stay in, but the momentum quickly running out to undermine his chances for the richness and intensity of pictorial expression as chromatic wide and varied. Being in expectation of the broad and intense ability of each subject and work.

"Southern California's all-time coolest athletes"

(Clockwise) Johnny Weissmuller, Sandy Koufax, Magic Johnson, Billie Jean King, and "Gorgeous" George Wagner are on top of Chris Dufresne's list of Southern California's all-time coolest athletes.

(Associated Press; Al Messerschmidt / Getty Images; Nick Ut / Associated Press; Harry Harris / Associated Press; Associated Press)

This gorilla thinks he's a man

The "Great Mind Challenge"

"Jeopardy!" has a new champion, and its name is Watson.

During the Wednesday finale of the three-day "Jeopardy!" challenge that pitted all-stars Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter against an IBM supercomputer, the machine beat the men. Watson finished with $77,147, Jennings with $24,000 and Rutter with $21,600.

The win is a publicity coup for IBM, which created Watson as part of its Great Mind Challenge series. The company hopes to sell Watson's question-answering technology for use in hospitals and on call-center help desks. The last time IBM created a man-versus-machine challenge of this scale, it built Deep Blue, the chess-playing computer that beat world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.

The lands being slowly washed away

"Sun Come Up" — In the opening moments, an interviewer asks a group from the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea, "Will your island sink first or will everyone die of hunger?" The lands in question are being slowly washed away due to sea-level rises that many associate with climate change. The traveling group of young people from the islands has no negotiating experience and nothing to bargain with anyway, yet must make the arduous journey to persuade locals in neighboring Bougainville — still recovering from a civil war — to surrender land for the relocation of thousands.

ALL-STAR ULTIMATUM

Instead of All-Stars, NBA fans were almost treated to All-Silence.

The NBA was about to go live on television in 1964 for one of the first times, a major opportunity for a struggling league, when the game's top talent threatened to back out of the All-Star game a few hours before tip-off.

Long before the labor lockout in 1998-99 and before whatever awaits the NBA this summer in a new labor negotiation, in 1964 a group of players became pioneers of a sort, banding together to fight for a pension, among other things.

The howling blizzard outside the Boston Garden was an appropriate metaphor for what was happening inside on that January night.

Angry team owners fumed in a hallway inside the arena as their star players, including Jerry West, Elgin Baylor and Oscar Robertson, barricaded themselves in a locker room and announced they would not play unless they were guaranteed benefits originally forwarded to the commissioner's office the previous summer.

The players wanted a pension. They wanted athletic trainers on every team. They wanted improved playing conditions — no more Sunday afternoon games after a Saturday night game.

The players had tried to tell Commissioner Walter Kennedy that they were serious at a meeting several months earlier.

"We brought in our reps," said former Boston Celtics All-Star Tom Heinsohn, "and they kept us in the lobby and never brought us upstairs."

The owners were definitely listening now.

Heinsohn was the president of the players' association, a position for which he had plenty of practice. He studied labor relations as a student at Holy Cross. He worked on pension plans in an insurance business during NBA off-seasons. His father had been a union official.

He was the one handing the All-Stars a sheet to sign as they arrived at the arena.

"We had a fairly good consensus as they dribbled in," Heinsohn said. "We relayed what we wanted to do and they all signed the paper that they would support this thing.

"We went down and talked to the commissioner at about 5 o'clock and told him that because they hadn't met with us, we were not going to play unless they met our demands. They had a board of governors meeting that day and nobody talked to us."

The game was a couple of hours from tipoff. The line of irritated owners grew quickly outside the locker room.

The NBA was nothing like it is today. It was a nine-team league that did not have a large national following. The minimum player salary was $7,500 — a star such as Heinsohn never made more than $28,500 — and most players had a second career to make a living. (Today, the average NBA salary is $5.8 million.)

The All-Star game was being televised for the first time in 1964 — a big deal to the league and the owners, who were not pleased to hear about the budding revolt.

"At times, certain owners would try to get their players out of the locker room and browbeat them," Heinsohn said.

Red Auerbach, the Boston Celtics' general manager and coach, angrily told Heinsohn that he was "the biggest heel in sports."

Lakers owner Bob Short approached the locker room in a fury.

"He said to an Irish cop that guarded the door, 'Tell Elgin Baylor if he doesn't get out there, he's through,' " Heinsohn said.

Baylor's response: Sorry, Bob.

Lakers star Jerry West, then 25 and in his fourth season, stood his ground with Baylor.

"I was young and just trying to feel my way along and build a career for myself," West said. "[Short] said to us very threateningly, 'If you don't play in this game, you're probably never going to play again.' I then said, 'I'm never going to play a game.' I am pretty defiant."

West's mood was steeped in his belief that players were not getting what they deserved.

"The players were controlled by the owners," West said. "All of us felt like we were slaves in the sense we had no rights. No one made anything then. You had to work in the summer. It was the stone ages of basketball."

The minutes moved rapidly inside the locker room. Tipoff time was approaching. A chance at major TV exposure was evaporating quickly.

Finally, Kennedy made a decision. The commissioner met the demands of the players, who were overjoyed.

"He formally recognized the players' association and agreed to the pension plan and all the other things," Heinsohn said.

The game was delayed about 15 minutes. The Eastern Conference defeated the West, 111-107, but all the players were winners that night.

In the photo above, West All-Stars Bob Pettit and Jerry West look for a steal as the East's Oscar Robertson, bottom, falls to the court during the NBA All-Star game at Boston Garden. The East won, 111-107. (Associated Press / January 15, 1964)

The "Nano Hummingbird"

A pocket-size drone dubbed the Nano Hummingbird for the way it flaps its tiny robotic wings has been developed for the Pentagon by a Monrovia company as a mini-spy plane capable of maneuvering on the battlefield and in urban areas.

The battery-powered drone was built by AeroVironment Inc. for the Pentagon's research arm as part of a series of experiments in nanotechnology. The little flying machine is built to look like a bird for potential use in spy missions.

The results of a five-year effort to develop the drone are being announced Thursday by the company and the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Equipped with a camera, the drone can fly at speeds of up to 11 miles per hour, AeroVironment said. It can hover and fly sideways, backward and forward, as well as go clockwise and counterclockwise, by remote control for about eight minutes.

Make your own interpretation about this piece of "pop art"

Source: unknown

"underground cities over 2,500 years old"

Kapadokya, Turkey is home to hundreds of linked rooms that, together, form an ancient system of underground cities over 2,500 years old. Areas are separated by narrow corridors lit once lit by oil lamps as well as other architectural devices for maximizing the defensibility of the spaces. Settlement initially started on the surface, then slowly moved underground over time.

California's Shark Fin Prohibition: AB 376 introduced to protect sharks

The momentum continues to build in opposition to shark finning with the introduction of Assembly Bill 376 in California. This piece of legislation is similar to the legislation passed in Hawaii, banning the possession, sale, distribution, and use of shark fins. This fills the gap left in the federal laws that prohibit shark finning within U.S. waters, but allow sale and distribution.

AB 376 was introduced by Assemblymen Paul Fong and Jared Huffman. I had the opportunity to come to know Assemblyman Huffman when my documentary, Island of the Great White Shark, played in the state capitol in 2010. At the time, Huffman and Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher were keenly interested in shark conservation. I'm glad to see the interest did not wane since then.

I have included a link to Pete Thomas' excellent post on the subject of AB 376. Of particular interest to me were two of the responses to his post. Both brought up the issue of Asian culture and seafood, which I discussed in a recent post. One comment, apparently from an Asian reader, brought up the cultural issue by questioning the right of non-Asians to tell Asians what to do regarding shark consumption - a perfect example of the cultural defensiveness that can crop up regarding this issue.

The other comment appeared to dismiss the Asian argument to use shark fins based on the fact that shark fin soup was a once delicacy reserved for royalty, but no longer. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that the demand for shark fin soup and other shark products has never been greater because what was once a luxury item for royalty is now consumed by Asia's growing middle-class. Shark fin soup can readily be found in cans or in the freezer section of many Asian markets, not just royal palaces.

As AB 376 moves forward, whatever resistance it experiences will be fronted by economic arguments but the independence or defiance of a culture steeped in a broad use of all types of seafood will, for some, be bubbling just below the surface.

Read Pete Thomas' post in Outdoors, action and adventure.

“I’m perpetually lonely"

Lady Gaga told Vanity Fair contributing editor Lisa Robinson that she tries to avoid having sex because she is afraid of depleting her creative energy—“I have this weird thing that if I sleep with someone they’re going to take my creativity from me through my vagina.”

She also says that she doesn’t trust anybody and doesn’t know if she ever will. Gaga tells Robinson, “I’m perpetually lonely. I’m lonely when I’m in relationships. It’s my condition as an artist.” Regarding men, she says, “I’m drawn to bad romances. And my song [“Bad Romance”] is about whether I go after those [sort of relationships] or if they find me. I’m quite celibate now; I don’t really get time to meet anyone.”

"the most over-the-top get-up on the carpet"

After a string of more sartorially subdued award shows, the Grammys are usually a welcome relief, with plenty of flash and sometimes shocking outfit choices. But this year, the artists who walked the red carpet left the sequin pasties and overly themed outfits at home, favoring relatively tame metallic gowns, dresses with angular cutouts and animal prints.

Nicki Minaj, wearing the most over-the-top get-up on the carpet, was clad head to toe in a leopard print. (And, yes, it was literally head to toe, as the platinum hair close to her head was painted with leopard spots and a cotton candy-esque tower of more blond hair spouted up like the Bride of Frankenstein's signature do.) The look was created for her by Givenchy Haute Couture, right down to the leopard-print leggings and booties.