“Chill Out and Scribble Awhile”

Amid Outside magazine’s monthly regulars: a gear carnival, a death-defying mountain assault, a top-30 list of adventure tours, here’s an amusing story about trees doing modern art.
I guess if Thai elephants have recorded a CD and sea lions sell frameable artwork, it only made sense to get another biological kingdom involved. A performance artist [...]

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Blue Whale Volunteers for Online Scrutiny

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society has set a life-size blue whale loose online, where it placidly swims past the browsers of millions of viewers. The picture starts at the whale’s eye, which pretty much fills your screen. Bubbles drift past, and a soothing underwatery sound wafts from the speakers.
Nitpicking viewers, the Scribbler among them, [...]

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Take the First Annual Scribble Readers’ Poll!

Maybe the occasional Scribble Reader has wondered just who in the heck this Scribbler is. But let me tell you, that ain’t nothin’ compared to how much I wonder who the heck you guys are.
But that’s the beauty of Web 2.0, ain’t it? No more agonizing over the wording of your letter to the editor [...]

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Nuthatch Scrutinizes Chickadee Calls

 
The cute, fluffy bird world hit the science big time two years ago when Chris Templeton of University of Washington deciphered the information contained in chickadee calls. He found that the birds’ alarm calls went beyond a simple “Watch out.” They also gave a heads-up about what kind of dangerous predator was around.
This week, Templeton [...]

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World Wide Web To Open Deep-Sea Branch

In the deep water just outside of Monterey Bay, California, construction is under way on an undersea observatory that will herald a new era in ocean science.
The MARS observatory (no relation to the planet, it’s just a cute acronym) will get continuous power from land and offer live, 2-way data communications through a broadband data [...]

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Connecticuters Swallow Tree Octopus

Yesterday, several polite young German women packed the Scribbler into a sleek metal can and catapulted him across the Atlantic holding little more than a croissant and some very good chocolate. While he recovers from the shock, head over to Inkling for a story about the endangered Pacific tree octopus. An excerpt:
According to [...]

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Robot Salamander Clambers onto Land

Lest you worry that the Scribbler has gone all-climate, all-the-time, here’s video of a robotic salamander that walks and swims.
The research was published last week in Science. It’s a tour de force involving translating a theoretical model of a salamander’s neural system into a physical model that’s eerily reminiscent of the real thing.
This work [...]

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Climate Cage Match Set for Wednesday

A follow-up on that last climate post (thanks to all who read and commented):
Tune in to ABC Wednesday afternoon for a televised debate about climate change. The lineup pits climate scientists Richard Somerville, Brenda Ekwurzel, and RealClimate’s Gavin Schmidt against skeptics Michael Crichton, Richard Lindzen, and Philip Stott. (Lindzen and Stott are respected scientists [...]

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Cosmic Red Herrings Heat Climate Debate

Ripples of excitement and indignation are spreading across the Internet following the releases of a deliberately provocative TV show and well-timed book. Both chalk up climate change to natural causes such as cosmic rays. Science aside, the ripples show us something about the public’s level of scientific involvement.
The book, by Nigel Calder and Henrik Svensmark, [...]

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Twenty Thousand Words on England (abridged)

***Warning to science-y readers: this is a science-free post***
**Except for the large slide rule and the paleoceanographer**
*And the parakeets*
Last week, the Scribbler E.U. Tour took England by storm. To save you busy people some time, my 20,000 word write-up has been condensed using the well known words-pictures relationship. These were the highlights:
Seeing the [...]

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