It takes a volcano or a nuclear explosion to bring down a forest of trees, but a thunderstorm or snowfall will uproot trees in your neighborhood. Hurricane Sandy toppled over 8,000 trees in New York City, and thousands of others elsewhere. But many stayed put, so what causes one tree to fall and another to survive? Author Mary Knudson asked plant physiologist Kevin T. Smith, arborist William E. de Vos, and other experts.
The answer from Smith is not very comforting: “The first thing to know is that all trees have the potential to fail at some level of force from wind, snow, ice, either singly or in combination,” he says. One main reason, all three experts agree, is the phenomenon known as “windthrow” which uproots a tree. “The tree trunk acts as a lever and so the force applied to the roots and trunk increases with height,” says Foster. “Taller trees are more susceptible to windthrow.”
“The roots of trees can extend 1-2.5 times the radius of the branches and many urban areas do not allow this extensive development,” answers de Vos . “The problem lies mostly with trees that have been developed around and had roots cut, crushed or torn in the process. There may be ensuing decay.”
There are other factors, such as the tree species, the sogginess of the ground, and more, which you can read about at Scientific American. Link -via Boing Boing
Scientists have a sense of humor like everyone else -and sometimes they use it to for names that will used for ever. However, there are cases where there's a perfectly logical explanation for a name, but the result is still a junior high school joke. Take SEX, for example.
For the record, SEX is a compound used primarily in ore mining; because it is attracted to metal of various types (copper, nickel, lead, gold, etc), SEX is added to slurries to extract bits of ore from water. Technically speaking, one could say that SEX is a tool used by gold diggers.
Oh yeah, it stands for sodium ethyl xanthate. That's just one of ten minerals with funny names, explained at Geeks Are Sexy. Link
Tim Jahnigen was impressed by a documentary about children in Darfur who played soccer with pieces of trash because the soccer balls that were donated lasted only about 24 hours on the harsh terrain. He was inspired to come up with a ball that would never go flat, specifically designed for Third World children. He found a material called PopFoam that fills the bill.
Figuring out how to shape PopFoam into a sphere, though, might cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and Mr. Jahnigen’s money was tied up in his other business.
Then he happened to be having breakfast with Sting, a friend from his days in the music business. Mr. Jahnigen told him how soccer helped the children in Darfur cope with their troubles and his efforts to find an indestructible ball. Sting urged Mr. Jahnigen to drop everything and make the ball. Mr. Jahnigen said that developing the ball might cost as much as $300,000. Sting said he would pay for it.
“Even on the harshest of terrain and in the worst of conditions, the ball could survive and the kids could still play,” Sting said in a public service announcement he made with Mr. Jahnigen. “I said, wow, yeah, let’s make it.”
Creating a prototype, it turned out, cost about one-tenth as much as expected and took about a year. Sting called it the One World Futbol, a homage to a song he sang with the Police, “One World (Not Three).”
The balls are expected to last for about 30 years, and for each ball sold at about $40, another is given away to children who cannot afford them. Link to story. Link to website. -via reddit
June O'Brien had a toaster possessed by a demon. This video is of an appearance O'Brien made on The Today Show in May 1984. There's really nothing else I can add to this except you have to watch the whole thing. -via Arbroath
Oxford American Dictionaries has selected its annual "Word of the Year," and that word is GIF. You are already familiar with GIF as in Graphics Interchange Format, or this images that change and move. the Word of the Year is for GIF as a verb!
“The GIF, a compressed file format for images that can be used to create simple, looping animations, turned 25 this year, but like so many other relics of the 80s, it has never been trendier,” notes Katherine Martin, Head of the US Dictionaries Program at Oxford University Press USA. “GIF celebrated a lexical milestone in 2012, gaining traction as a verb, not just a noun. The GIF has evolved from a medium for pop-cultural memes into a tool with serious applications including research and journalism, and its lexical identity is transforming to keep pace.”
Indeed, GIFING has had an amazing year in 2012. In January the New York Public Library launched stereogranimator allowing visitors to create GIFs of 40,000+ digitized stereographs from its collection and share them. Then in March Tumblr hit 20 billion blog posts. July saw the 20th anniversary of the first GIF posted on the World Wide Web, a photograph of the band “Les Horribles Cernettes”. In August GIFing was perfect medium for sharing scenes from the Summer Olympics in London, especially this coverage of the vault from The Atlantic. Most recently many media outlets were live-GIFing the 2012 presidential debates.
And how is it pronounced? The computer programmers who created the format used a soft g like the peanut butter brand Jif, but a hard g is considered correct as well because so many people say it that way. Find out more about the usage of GIF and see the other words that were considered for Word of the Year at the Oford Dictionaries blog. Link
P.S. The Oxford Dictionaries UK Word of the Year is ‘omnishambles.’ Link
The book Esther the Cold War Kitty is legendary. Written at the height of the Cold War, it was intended as propaganda for children in the West. Some historians suggest that the book was written by Soviet agents intending that the West would publish it and then suffer public embarrassment. Other historians dismiss this latter view as nonsense. For reasons that have not yet been made public, the book was never published. The true identity of the author has never been revealed.
We have obtained a copy -- one of the three copies known to be in existence -- of the book. As a public service, in this issue of the Annals of Improbable Research, we present three of its chapters: “Esther the Cold War Kitty,” “Esther and the Gear Factory,” and “Esther and the Oil Field.”
First, though, here is a perhaps relevant document produced by the CIA. It was made public under the Freedom of Information Act (the legwork in unearthing it was done by Jeffrey Richelson, a senior fellow at the National Security Archive in Washington). Shortly after its release in 2001, a report about it in The Guardian explained that:
[A] memo dated 1967 on “Views of Trained Cats” looks into the possibility of surgically inserting microphones and transmitters into cats and using them as walking bugs. The operation was codenamed “Acoustic Kitty” and was a resounding failure.
Having wired their first trained cat for sound, they released it near a park with strict orders to eavesdrop on two men on a bench, but the poor animal was run over by a taxi before it had taken more than a few steps towards its target.
The CIA researchers came to the conclusion that they could train cats to move short distances, but that “the environmental and security factors in using this technique in a real foreign situation force us to conclude that for our (intelligence) purposes, it would not be practical.”
A section of the document is reproduced below.
Questions abound. Was the Acoustic Kitty project related to the Esther the Cold War Kitty book? Or was it in some way a reply to, or reaction against it? Was either project entirely the work of western operatives, or was one or both in some way an attempt by the Soviet Union to gull its rival into doing something that might look foolish to the American public? Perhaps we will never have definitive answers to any of these wonderings. Nonetheless, both Esther the Cold War Kitty and the Acoustic Kitty project are fascinating research objects for historians and students of international relations.
(Thanks to investigator Charles Bergquist for bringing the Acoustic Kitty project to our attention.)
Esther the Cold War Kitty
The cat’s out of the bag -- almost literally -- now that the U.S. and Russia have declassified some of their cold-war spy reports. But until now, nobody has reported on the littlest, the warmest, the cuddliest, the most technologically surprising secret of them all. It is time for the world to know about Esther, the Cold War kitty.
Esther was the West’s secret weapon. With her Minox subminiature camera, she kept an eye on the skulkings and plottings of the Soviet leadership. Josef Stalin, his successor Khrushchev, and the entire leadership of the KGB spy organization loved Esther. They treated her as an honored and pampered guest. They never suspected that the lovable, furry kitty-cat was a subminiature techno spy.
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
Without question, the most misunderstood political campaign song in history is Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." Used in countless political rallies over the past 25 years, Springsteen's classic rock song is considered by many to be the ultimate "All-American" song. Many fist-pumping, beer-drinking fans at baseball games all over America have sung along with the tune's catchy chorus, not realizing the true meaning of Springsteen's popular tune.
All-American tune? Quite the contrary, Springsteen's song is an angry diatribe against America's treatment of Vietnam veterans. It also deals with the effects the war had on America, and would seem to be, at least partially, about a friend (or friends) of Springsteen's who had been killed serving in the war (although the lyric in question may be hypothetical; see the third verse below).
Born down in a dead man's town The first kick I took was when I hit the ground You end up like a dog that's been beat too much Till you spend half your life just covering up * Got in a little hometown jam So they put a rifle in my hand Sent me off to a foreign land To go and kill the yellow man * I had a brother at Khe Sahn Fighting off the Viet Cong They're still there, he's all gone
He had a woman he loved in Saigon I got a picture of him in her arms
"Born in the U.S.A." was initially written in 1981. It was recorded in 1982 in New York. It was to be the first song on the title track of Bruce's Born in the U.S.A. album. The album (and the song, the first written for the album) were both smash hits. The album went multi-platinum, selling 18 million copies. The song became an instant classic, is huge popularity attributed, in part, to the fact that the song is hymn to the greatness of America.
If you enjoyed trying the mental_floss quiz Who's on the Left? then you'll want to try out ten more famous pairs. You know the names, you know the faces, but are you sure you know which one is which? I didn't -I only got four correct! I still don't know who Ed and Larry are. No doubt, you will do better. Link
During the buildup to the Gulf War, I sent radio station t-shirts and hats to U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia, and they were kind enough to send back pictures of themselves wearing them. I should have sent underwear! This picture has been passed around with no information, but I believe that the guy in the middle is Joseph Wade of Charleston, South Carolina. Link -via I Am Bored
Paige and Dexter demonstrate how chemical bonds form. That's what you do when your human is a chemist! Now, that's a good dog -both of them. -via Boing Boing
If you enjoyed trying out the Four Men in Hats puzzle, here's another one for you. Again, the inmates must solve the puzzle or they will be executed.
On one such occasion, three cells were needed, so three of the cleverest inmates - Albert, Barry, and Carl - were put in a room and given a challenge. A guard showed them 5 party hats - 3 white, 2 black. The guard then removed the hats from view, walked behind each prisoner and placed a party hat on his head. Each inmate could see the two other inmates' hats, but not his own; nor could he see the two extra hats that were not placed on heads.
The guard said, "If anyone can tell me with absolute certainty the color of his own hat, you may all go free. However, under no circumstances may you communicate the color of anyone else's hat."
He first asked Albert. Albert is a very honest and intelligent (ie perfectly rational) person, but he was dumbfounded. "I don't know", he said, "there's no way of knowing."
He then asked Barry. Barry was equally intelligent and rational, but he also could not say.
The guard said, "I regret that I have to execute you three, but seeing as Carl is blind, he's not going to know. You have failed."
But ...Carl knew what color hat he wore! How could that be? The answer is posted at The Weekly Riddle. Link -via a comment at Geeks Are Sexy
Pancake was the kitten featured in the post I Am A Cat. Here you see him with his buddy, Sugar Tree the Doberman. Here's Pancake's story from the YouTube page:
Pancake is a very special kitten that was abandoned at the tender age of three weeks in a hot parking lot in Phoenix. He was lucky to be found and rescued by some good people before succumbing to heat exhaustion. I fostered Pancake, bringing him to my home a week later. He instantly developed a close and loving bond with my two year old Doberman Pinscher, Sugar Tree. The two become fast friends and inseparable. Growing very attached to Pancake and not wanting to separate them, I adopted him and he became a permanent member of the family.
You're not the only one who feels this way about Mondays. Get your mind off the couch! This short is from the creative minds at The Magnificent Itch. -via the Presurfer
You don't see the world like this every day! This is a one of those photographs that takes some planning and a really special photographer. And it's just one of 22 images in a gallery at Unreality that covers the unique perspectives of skydivers, mountain bikers, skiers, surfers, hang gliders, and more. Who knows? They might make you want to try one of these activities! Link
Firefighters were battling a 30 hectare brush fire in Kew, near Port Macquarie, Australia on Tuesday. A Rural Fire Service helicopter sucked up water from a pond, flew over the fire, and dumped the water on the blaze. But the pond, at a wastewater treatment plant, was the wrong one to draw water from - it was full of "secondary treatment" water, also known as sewage.
An RFS spokeswoman said 12 firefighters had been directly exposed to the "secondary treatment" water, while a further seven were in the general area.
"All 29 firefighters on the fireground and their equipment were immediately withdrawn and decontaminated by Fire and Rescue NSW," the spokeswoman said. "As a precaution, each firefighter has since been provided with further medical follow-up. At this time, no firefighters have complained of any ill-effects. They will continue to be monitored by the Rural Fire Service."
The fire was fully under control by Thursday. Link -via Arbroath
