Browsing: Nature

A Brief History On May 7, 2018, while the latest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Infinity War, is breaking box office records, we stop to ask about the main premise of the film, the arch villain Thanos and his plan to reduce life in the Universe by half in order to prevent an overpopulation catastrophe. Our question is, “Has anyone tried this plan in real life?”  In 1968, Paul and Anne Ehrlich published a book titled, The Population Bomb, a dire warning about the catastrophic consequences of overpopulation of people on Earth.  So far, those predictions have not…

A Brief History On May 1, 2018, we celebrate another Save the Rhino Day by telling you a little about the “Holiday” and a little about Rhinoceroses. (If people asked me, can you speak rhinoceros, I’d say, “Of courserous, can’t you?” from the song, “If I Could Talk to the Animals” an Academy Award winning tune from the 1967 movie, Dr. Dolittle,  music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse.) Digging Deeper Of the 5 species of Rhinoceros alive today, 3 are listed as critically endangered. The Northern sub-species of the White Rhino of Africa may already be extinct in the wild,…

A Brief History On April 27, 2011, a mind boggling 216 tornadoes ravaged the United States, from the Midwest to the South to the Northeast, all part of a larger weather phenomenon called the 2011 Super Outbreak that resulted in 306 tornadoes from April 25th to April 28th, 2011. Sadly, 348 people across the US died in the Outbreak, 324 of them from tornado activity and an additional 24 due to related thunderstorm, flash flood and lightning events. Digging Deeper The human carnage was the worst tornado related death toll since 1925, when a stunning 747 Americans were killed on…

A Brief History On April 2, 1911, the Australian Bureau of Statistics conducted their first ever national census. Most countries conduct some sort of periodic census, and we here in the United States do so every 10 years, a critical process that results in how many representatives to Congress each state gets (and electoral votes) and how Federal funds are distributed. In 2018, the Trump Administration announced the 2020 Census questionnaire would include a question asking if the respondent was a citizen or not, a volatile and contentious issue being debated at this time. Digging Deeper That first Australian census…

A Brief History On March 9, 1982, Krononauts (or Chrononauts) held a meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, for any and all time travelers to meet for the purpose of discussing and demonstrating methods of time travel. To our knowledge, no actual working time machines were displayed, but such an event gives us pause to consider, If time travel was possible, what event or time period would we most like to go back in time to observe? Today we will list some events we would most like to see happen first hand, but at a safe distance! Some of the events we…