Those Georgians and Creationism!

MoonHowler

Huffingtonpost.com

A new Public Policy Polling (PPP) poll finds that a majority of Georgians believe in creationism over evolution.

Entitled “Georgia Miscellany,” the Thursday item surveyed a pool of 520 voters on 32 questions. On the issue of creationism vs. evolution, 53 percent believe more in the former, compared to 29 percent choosing the latter, and 18 percent voting not sure.

When that question was transferred over to party lines, Republicans had a staggering split — 70 percent for creationism, 17 percent for evolution and 13 percent not sure. Democrats split along closer lines — 43 percent for creationism, 33 percent for evolution and 24 percent not sure. Independents held an even narrower divide — 46 percent for creationism, 40 percent for evolution and 14 percent not sure.

Back in June 2012, a Gallup poll recorded some national growth among Americans believing in creationism. Among a sample of 1,012 adults, 46 percent said that they were believers, marking a two percent jump over the past three decades.

UFB! Surely this many people don’t still think that Darwin is a bad word? I can’t believe that many people in Georgia missed science class. I went to school in Georgia a few years and I am pretty sure we studied the origins of the earth and man from a scientific point of view.

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It’s Shark Week!!!

MoonHowler

shark1

It’s the  week all of the shark lovers eagerly await.  It’s the week all the elasmobranchologists strut their stuff.  Kids love it and so do adults.  The Discovery Channel is where you will find the tales of these prehistoric monsters.

Check out the Discovery Channel and the Washington Post to see what shark delights are in store for us this week.  We can all give it up and just admit we love watching them.

shark swimming

 

The summer solstice June 21, 2013

MoonHowler

 

solstice_map_june2013_600

earthsky.org:

Why celebrate the solstice?  Cultures universally have had markers, holidays, and alignments – all related to the solstice.

It has been universal among humans to treasure this time of warmth and light.

For us in the modern world, the solstice is a time to recall the reverence and understanding that early people had for the sky.  Some 5,000 years ago, people placed huge stones in a circle on a broad plain in what’s now England and aligned them with the June solstice sunrise.

We may never comprehend the full significance of Stonehenge.  But we do know that knowledge of this sort wasn’t isolated to just one part of the world.  Around the same time Stonehenge was being constructed in England, two great pyramids and then the Sphinx were built on Egyptian sands.  If you stood at the Sphinx on the summer solstice and gazed toward the two pyramids, you’d see the sun set exactly between them.

Did you do anything special?  Did today seem longer than any other day?  Mine started off way too early.  I am fortunate I can make up for lost  sleep.

Time to get ready for the super moon this weekend.

Most “super” supermoon of 2013 on June 22-23

MoonHowler

Is everyone ready for the superest super moon this weekend?  Why is this the supermoon weekend?  The full moon is the nearest it gets to the earth in a year.

super moon 1

From earthsky.org:

…[A]stronomers call this sort of close full moon a perigee full moon.  The word perigee describes the moon’s closest point to Earth for a given month.  Two years ago, when the closest and largest full moon fell on March 19, 2011, many used the term supermoon, which we’d never heard before.  Last year, we heard this term again to describe the year’s closest full moon on May 6, 2012.  Now the term supermoon is being used a lot.  Last month’s full moon – May 24-25, 2013 – was also a supermoon.  But the June full moon is even more super!  In other words, the time of full moon falls even closer to the time of perigee, the moon’s closest point to Earth.  The crest of the moon’s full phase in June 2013, and perigee, fall within an hour of each other

Coming to a sky near you this weekend.  Hopefully skies will be clear..

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Treasures from the Sky

MoonHowler

A small town in Siberia collects the many small rocks that fell from the sky after the meteor explosion in Siberia last week. Scientists worry that the collectors are damaging scientific evidence. The towns people are just glad to have something to help out. It looks like hard times are not a stranger to this area of the world.

The children are just like children everywhere. The cold doesn’t seem to bother them but I am still cold after watching the video.

Bones: Richard III found under parking lot in Leicester

MoonHowler

richard iii skull

The remains of English Monarch Richard III have been found under a parking lot in Leicester (pronounced Lester), England.

According to Yahoonews.com:

Archaeologists announced today (Feb. 4) that bones excavated from underneath a parking lot in Leicester “beyond reasonable doubt,” belong to the medieval king. Archaeologists announced the discovery of the skeleton in September. They suspected then they might have Richard III on their hands because the skeleton showed signs of the spinal disorder scoliosis, which Richard III likely had, and because battle wounds on the bones matched accounts of Richard III’s death in the War of the Roses.

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Deadly Meningitis Outbreak, a Question of Oversight: The war on people?

MoonHowler

The deadly outbreak of meningitis that has left 30 ill and 5 dead has been traced  to spinal steroid injections, given as an epidural.  This announcement put my family on red alert because my husband has gotten spinal injections in the past, given in epidural form, as an outpatient.

What is the most shocking here is the description of what went wrong.  According to the New York Times:

The outbreak, with 5 people dead and 30 ill in six states, is thought to have been caused by a steroid drug contaminated by a fungus. The steroid solution was not made by a major drug company, but was concocted by a pharmacy in Framingham, Mass., called the New England Compounding Center. Compounding pharmacies make their own drug products, which are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

On Monday, federal inspectors at the New England center found a sealed vial of the steroid afloat with so much foreign matter that it could be seen with the naked eye, Food and Drug Administration officials said Thursday. Under the microscope, the particles were a fungus.

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Rover Curiosity: The best new thing in the world!

MoonHowler

“Touchdown confirmed,” said engineer Allen Chen. “We’re safe on Mars.”

“The wheels of Curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human footprints on Mars,” said NASA chief Charles Bolden.

The Rover might very well unearth secrets that man has wanted to know for centuries.  Here is our chance to discover that we are not alone.

Talk about unbridaled enthusiasm!  Go Team Curiosity.

From The Sun Chronicle:

Over the next several days, Curiosity is expected to send back the first color pictures. After several weeks of health checkups, the six-wheel rover could take its first short drive and flex its robotic arm.Read More

Ex-CIA Agent Says Roswell UFO Was Not Of This Earth

MoonHowler

The Roswell incident turned 65 this week.   The above video is from 1989 and is excellent, but it is lengthy.  So is Roswell for real or just another bunch of nut jobs with conspiracy theories?

The Huffington Post:

Happy anniversary, Roswell, N.M. It was 65 years ago today that the Roswell Daily Record blasted an infamous headline claiming local military officials had captured a flying saucer on a nearby ranch. And now, a former CIA agent says it really happened.

“It was not a damn weather balloon — it was what it was billed when people first reported it,” said Chase Brandon, a 35-year CIA veteran. “It was a craft that clearly did not come from this planet, it crashed and I don’t doubt for a second that the use of the word ‘remains’ and ‘cadavers’ was exactly what people were talking about.”

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Higgs Boson: The God Particle?

MoonHowler

 
Scientists have stopped short of declaring a new discover but those at CERN feel they are closer to finding the “stuff” that makes matter have mass.  For most of us, this abstraction remains just that, an abstraction. Will this near discovery of this sub-atomic particle change anything?  Who knows.

From the Washington Post:

Dubbed the Higgs boson — or the “God particle,” to the chagrin of scientists — the particle is thought to create a sort of force field that permeates the universe, imbuing everything that we can see and touch with the fundamental property known as mass.

Scientists also recoil from the expression “God Particle” which has been theorized about for nearly a half century.  Perhaps there will be a better, more descriptive term.  Maybe that discovery should come first.

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Aftershock! 3.1 Magnitude: the Old Dominion is still shaking

MoonHowler

 

There was another after shock late last night, around 11:21.  This time the quake registered 3.1 on the Richter Scale.  Are we turning in to California?  We have summer in March and earthquakes.  The world is turning upside down.  I am waiting for hordes of grasshoppers and for it to rain frogs.

Have you looked at buying earthquake insurance?  I have.  It isn’t what I had imagined.  I expected if an earthquake hit my house, the damage would be covered and the deductible would be what it is for any other disaster, frogs, hail, wind, etc.  Such is not the case.  There is a huge deductible, usually in the thousands.  It also isn’t cheap.  I guess if your house falls down on you then its worth it but then you have to think of the probability.  If this aftershock stuff keeps up though, I might have to change my mind.  I had said no. 

Does anyone have any information or experience with  earthquake insurance?  Do you think that it is worth it?   The Haiti earthquake wasn’t in a predictable area either was it?

Freeze Warning Tonight

MoonHowler

From the Washington Post:

Just 48 hours ago it was in the low 80s, but in another 30 hours, temperatures may dip near or even below freezing in the metro region. The National Weather Service has issued a freeze watch late Monday night into early Tuesday morning everywhere in the greater Washington, D.C. metro region except for Calvert and St. Mary’s county – due to the moderating Bay waters.

Temperatures are likely to dip to about 31-34 inside the beltway and and east of town, but 27-32 west and north of the beltway.

Impatiens are greatly at risk.  The pansies that have survived the winter will be fine.  Daffodils will be ok, if there are any left.  I am not so sure about the tulips and hyacinths.

We are really in uncharted territory this spring.  I have blue bells in front of my front porch.   The latest last freeze was April 29, 1874.

Will fruit trees be damaged?  How about the non-fruit producing flowering trees?

The Bluebell Festival will be held on Sunday, April 15, 2012 at Merrimac Farm Wildlife Management Area in Prince William County, Virginia.   I hope there are still bluebells left.

Oooops…look what I just found!  Why it’s Charlie Grymes giving us the inside story on Merrimac Farm and whats planned for the festival this year.

Bluebell Festival at Merrimac Farm from Elizabeth Lockard on Vimeo.

 

 

Don’t eat the ‘shrooms

MoonHowler
Death Cap Mushrooms

With all the rain  in the past month, mushrooms have popped up all over, tempting people to do the unthinkable.  Their mothers much not have warned them about touching toad stools.  Several people have picked the fungus and stir fried it up, only to get deathly ill.  At least 2 area men have avoided a liver transplant.  According to the Washington Post:

Physicians offer the cautionary tale of Frank Constantinopla, 49, who after a Sept. 12 rainstorm looked in wonder at his backyard in Springfield, Va. “Oh, there’re so many mushrooms,” Constantinopla recalls thinking. “They look so lovely; I’m so lucky.”

Constantinopla plucked a handful and stir-fried them with noodles.

“They tasted good.”

Problems set in within hours and continued for days. Constantinopla and his wife grew weak, their stomachs ached, they vomited. Two days later, Constantinopla went to a local emergency room and was transferred to Georgetown University Hospital for a possible liver transplant

Doctors broke the news: Those lovely mushrooms were Amanita phalloides, a toadstool commonly known as the Death Cap.

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