After a dominating week launched the Humboldt Crabs baseball team into first place, the crustaceans welcomed the Bay Area Force into town for two non-conference games before a pivotal series with the Solano Mudcats. In game one, the Crabs, who are down a few starters, got creative again attacking the Force with an array of […]
Life + Outdoors
Posted inField Notes
Saturnian Drone: Dragonfly at Titan
As we saw last week, Titan’s surface is a tapestry of abundant carbon-rich chemistry, a delicious target for curious Earthlings to explore. The challenges are immense, including temperatures that make Minnesotan winters look positively tropical, a 90-minute-long communication gap with Earth, sand-like dunes ready to bog down wheeled vehicles and surface sunlight one thousandth the […]
Posted inGet Out
Old Town’s Festivities for the 250th
Old Town was full of July 4 revelers during Eureka Main Street’s holiday street fair on Saturday. Folks wound through vendor booths, information tables and food stalls, and tapped toes and danced to the music on spread out stages. The gazebo served as a backdrop to dancers and bagpipers alike as performances peppered the afternoon. […]
Posted inGet Out
Crabs Climb Back with Seven Wins
When we last left our beloved Crabbies, they were in last place, reeling from a huge series loss to the Potters to open their league schedule, and squeaking by an inferior Stockton Pearls team thanks to a walk-off grand slam from Colton Boardman to break even for the week. They had a daunting schedule with […]
Posted inField Notes
Saturnian Drone: Dragonfly at Titan (Part 1)
“[On early Earth] you need to have gone from simple to complex chemistry before jumping to biology, but we don’t know all the steps. Titan allows us to uncover some of them.”— Zibi Turtle, Dragonfly principal investigator “A bizarre Earth” is how one investigator describes icy Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, and the target of NASA’s most […]
Posted inGet Out
Tough Losses and Shining Wins
After starting the season 12-0, the Humboldt Crabs took to the road last week to start off league play with a series against the Lincoln Potters. The Potters entered the series undefeated as well, and would prove to be the first real test of the summer for our Crabbies. In game one, after weeks of […]
Posted inGet Out
Crabs Stay the Course Against A’s, Potters
The Crabs rolled into week three of summer with their undefeated record intact. On Tuesday night, they welcomed the Fresno A’s to Arcata Ballpark for the first of a quick two-game midweek set and the hometown team would pick up right where they left off, with some help from the A’s. In the second, Kawana […]
Posted inField Notes
Midsummer Puzzle Time Q’s
TrianglesHow many triangles can you find in this figure? The Old ‘Rope around the Equator” PuzzleYou tie a rope tightly around the Earth’s equator then add three feet to its length and raise it evenly as high as possible. Can a cat now get under the rope? TimepiecesA sundial has no moving parts. What timepiece […]
Posted inHumboldt Nature
Drawn to Water Troughs? Read This
A day after I roto-tilled the garden we had a warm spring rain, after which I saw many long, thin worms on the loose soil. Each was waving its body in the air in a circular motion. What surprised me was not the worms’ behavior, but the number of them — this small garden plot contained […]
Posted inGet Out
Crabs Walk Off Eagles, Then Sweep Storm
After handily sweeping through week 1, the Humboldt Crabs opened the second week of the season Wednesday night, challenged and pushed to the brink by a somewhat unlikely opponent. The Humboldt Eagles, a team made up of local high school and junior college players showed up to Arcata ballpark, and they meant business. The Eagles […]
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Crabs Sweep into the Season
The Humboldt Crabs opened their 83rd season with a bang Friday night, May 29, with a 13-0 win over the Novato Knicks. The win in front of 1,000-plus fans marked the beginning of a new era for the Crabs. Jeff Giacomini has taken the helm as the ninth head coach in Crabs history. Giacomini has […]
Posted inField Notes
Sex: Nature’s Greatest Hack
Although I wrote about this topic quite recently (“Why Two Sexes?” Feb. 15, 2024), I’m revisiting it due to increasing interest — and confusion — around gender politics. While one’s gender can be as fluid as our culture is diverse, biological sex isn’t. Eukaryotes like us are born male or female, depending on the size […]