This is a butterfish:



NOAA describes it unflatteringly as a "small, bony foodfish." Butterfish live along the Atlantic coast of North America from Florida to Newfoundland, and they've been fished commercially for some time, with predictable results:

Royally Screwed

Getting screwed - in the sense of being at the receiving end of a whole bunch of badness - has its origins in carpentry.  It's nothing to do with thumbscrews.  It has everything to do with keeping a thing under pressure - or releasing it.  Things can get literally screwed up or screwed down.

If you are trying to clamp something with screws you are screwing something down.  If you have a screw loose then your efforts will result in a screw-up.  A screw-up in a steam locomotive shop may result in a most public screw-up somewhere along the line.

ASAN and the IACC


On Monday, I went through an ASAN petition to the CDC that appears to have been intentionally hyperbolic and meant to get supporters foaming at the mouth. Since I posted the piece, I've continued to look into the ICD-9-CM, IACC's take on wandering, and when it was first mentioned at the IACC, of which Ari Ne'eman is a committee member.

This morning, Wendy Fournier commented at the article on Science 2.0, providing information that placed when Ari Ne'eman would have been first informed of the CDC's interest in wandering:

For days now, scientists and science blogs tell us not to worry about Japan’s nuclear reactors. Nothing can happen; no radiation will be released, all is fine. We are treated to false experts even, to one-sided rants of somebody who studied risk management in corporations, published originally on a business friendly website.

This is a very short note, just to help me get a feel for how this editor works.

What's so spooky about action at a distance?

Entanglement of separated electrons seems no more odd to me than a parameterized hyperboloid of two sheets  .  Change the parameter and the curvature and other properties change identically in the two sheets. 

What is a BLEVE?

A BLEVE is a Boiling-Liquid Expanding-Vapor Explosion.

It is fairly common knowledge that removing the radiator cap of a vehicle with a hot engine will cause the ejection of boiling water.

What do the Ansei-Nankai and Ansei-Tokai earthquakes of 1854 have in common with the 1944-1946 Tononkai and Nankai earthquakes in Japan?   They each suffered massive aftershocks shortly thereafter.    The Ansei-Nankai and Ansei-Tokai earthquakes were 8.4 magnitude and only 31 hours apart.  Worse, the aftershocks were nearly as bad.

And the same scenario could apply this time, says UC Davis seismologist John Rundle, and Tokyo is at the most risk.  Friday's magnitude 9.0 temblor has been followed by hundreds of

Japan's Nuclear Emergency - The Straight Goods - Update


The latest reports coming from Japan indicate that the current nuclear emergency is not as great as some people had feared it might be.

Despite some media reports: there have been no reactor explosions.  Period.

Radiation levels are falling, according to the most recent news release by the Japanese government.

Researchers say they have ruled  the cosmic bubble theory, an alternate theory on the nature of dark energy, after recalculating the expansion rate of the universe to unprecedented accuracy.

The universe appears to be expanding at an increasing rate and some believe that is because the universe is filled with a dark energy that works in the opposite way of gravity. One alternative to that hypothesis is that an enormous bubble of relatively empty space eight billion light-years across surrounds our galactic neighborhood. If we lived near the center of this void, observations of galaxies being pushed away from each other at accelerating speeds would be an illusion.

Polar bears’ noses are phenomenal. They smell a seal’s fart through a light year of snow and ice or something like that. Polar bears are cute, strong, beautiful, pure awesomeness all the way. Come on: they sleep on snow then swim a few rounds in ice water to cool off! I adore them, I love ‘em, I really do.

Now they disappear. Also the number of lions is drastically plummeting, due to poaching and other factors. What to do about it?