A couple of days ago while working in my front yard, I noticed insects flying around down near ankle height. Taking it as an excuse to stop working I paused and watched. Soon enough one landed. I was able to identify it as a ‘golden dung fly’ (Scathophaga stercoraria), a species with which I am familiar. […]
Science
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Our Man and the Father of the Nuclear Navy
Tonight — very late tonight — on PBS, you can watch the premiere of a film about Admiral Hyman G. Rickover — you know, the fella who built the first nuclear submarine, first nuclear aircraft carrier and first commercial nuclear power plant. Why? Because you’ll learn about a complex, brilliant, controversial person considered instrumental in ending […]
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SECOND UPDATE:Trinity Will Get More Water; Suit Filed
SECOND UPDATE: On Monday, Aug. 25, around 5 p.m., the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority filed for a temporary restraining order in Fresno Superior Court to stop the increased flows. Dan Nelson, executive director of the water authority, said Tuesday that the issue is much the same as last year when his agency and the Westlands […]
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Our Owl Problem in Nat’l Geo
Once again, our owl problem is in the news. National Geographic Daily News has a story today about the experiment to give northern spotted owls a chance at keeping a talon-hold on their habitat by killing barred owls. And, once again, the tale stars Green Diamond wildlife biologist Lowell Diller and his spaniel, Riley. Diller, it must be […]
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Returned Artifacts Come With Poisonous Problems
The Hoopa Tribal museum is host to hundreds of cultural artifacts, but many among those returned to the tribe after a law passed in the 1990s made it easier for Native American communities to get their property back are dangerous to handle. During the 19th and 20th centuries, archaeologists, collectors and museums doused Native American […]
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Wrecked Ship Was Eureka-Bound
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has located the sunken wreckage of the City of Chester, a passenger steamer that’s lain underwater near the Golden Gate Bridge for 126 years. “The 202-foot long steamship City of Chester had just left San Francisco and was headed up the California coast to Eureka with 90 passengers on […]
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Northwest Forest Plan’s 20th
Twenty years after the Northwest Forest Plan’s birth, lawyer/writer Daniel Jack Chasan looks at whether the plan has done all it was cracked up to do. Did it save Northern Spotted owls? Did it protect the logging industry from utter devastation? Chasan concludes, in part one of his story at Crosscut.com, that “[n]either the owl nor the […]
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Ridding Toxic Killers
On Tuesday, California passed a regulation restricting retail sales of certain rat poisons, such as d-Con. Soon, only licensed, certified or county permitted application professionals will be able to use them. The restrictions don’t go into effect until July 1. But by Friday morning, at least one local retailer already was sweeping those products from its shelves. […]
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Earthquake and Record Rainfall, Sunday Had it All
Humboldt County got a good jolt Sunday night when an earthquake struck off the coast, west of Ferndale, but the chances of a large aftershock striking the area are diminishing by the minute. Folks throughout northern California reported feeling the 6.8 quake that hit about 10:18 p.m. some 48 miles off the coast. Most reported […]
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Google Glass Hits Humboldt
Hey readers: What’s the best thing that Google Glass technology could do for Humboldt? The scariest? The technology is not available to consumers yet — and no release date has been announced — but if you’re dying to wrap a pair of these Geordi-cum-Robocop techno-specs, they’re going on ebay for around $1,999.
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Peat Miner Must Pay
A complaint filed over a long-time allegedly illegal peat-moss mining operation in Bridgeville has resulted in two Humboldt County residents — peat moss miner Daniel Wojcik and landowner Robert Wotherspoon — entering felony and misdemeanor pleas yesterday for violations of the Surface Mining and Recovery Act and Lake and Streambed Alteration permitting process and of […]
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Redwood Fatties (And Climate Change)
An ongoing, multi-year study of climate change effects on redwoods in old-growth forests has yielded results some layfolks might find surprising. Among them: Coast redwoods and giant sequoias are busting out with the big girth. “Coast redwoods in a few Northern California old-growth forests produced more wood since the 1970s than ever before in their […]