Your Dog May Be Wilder Than You Think
This article is about the sleeping patterns of dogs compared to wolves. I am a Sparcheologist and not a dog scientist, but this research doesn’t match my experience. The author does get some things right.
Category: Science (Page 1 of 2)
CNN: The North Pole is moving.
The needle on a compass rotates to line up with the magnetic poles of the Earth. Those poles move, and faster than you’d think. In the past few decades, the poles have been moving about 30 miles per year. On the scale of the entire Earth, that may not seem like much, but closer to the poles, it can be critical.
Sparky and I had an interesting conversation when he was in the snack pit. He has some strange ideas.
While working out, my brother and I were chatting about goals for 2025. These aren’t New Year’s resolutions that are vague and optimistic, but actionable tasks that are specific, measurable and recorded. It’s the difference between “start working out” and “go to the gym twice per week”
Nature: Best Science Images of 2024
Take a minute to check out those images, they are quite splendid. Well, a couple weren’t great, but the rest are amazing.
Sparky and I are relaxing with coffee, and he wanted me to post this photo of an ermine chimneying up a crack. Sparky told me that if he didn’t have to be my spirit animal, he’d quite like to be a dog weasel.
It was a bit harsh to remind him that I got him a weazel ball, and he is afraid of it. A weazel ball is a little scary looking. He doesn’t like how the weazel ball lurches around when it’s turned on.
Sparky was getting defensive. He shouldn’t start the day in a grumpy mood, so I reassured him. I said that when I met him at the orphanage, I thought he was a dog weasel. That was two years and 5 pounds ago, but he is still pretty weaselly.
That perked him up, and he thought we should try the weazel ball again. This year, Sparky has gained experience with RC cars, so buzzing, lurching motion may not be as unsettling.
The 20th Century was the Century of Physics. In 1905, Einstein published his “Special Theory of Relativity”, and up to about World War 2, modern physics was established. Very little of modern physics corresponds with what we experience in daily life, but it’s been experimentally verified and is used in current technology.
Physicists like Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Max Planck, and others debated the new theories, and tried to make some sense of the universe.
Science Alert: Owning a cat could make you a schizophrenic
Having a cat as a pet could potentially double a person’s risk of schizophrenia-related disorders, according to a recent study.
Full disclosure: I am biased against cats. I am convinced that having a cat isn’t nearly as good as having Sparky. Except for barn cats. If I had a real barn, I’d have barn cats.
Even with my bias, if a person wants a cat, don’t worry about this study. The risk of schizophrenia is seven in a thousand. A fourteen in a thousand chance is very low, and other risk factors are more pertinent.
Habitually smoking a mess of pot increases the risk about as much.
February 6th, 2018, Elon Musk demonstrated that launching objects into orbit had become a mundane commercial activity. To make it interesting, the object he put in orbit was a Tesla Roadster that has since traveled over a million miles and made four laps around the sun. Where is the Roadster now?
Oh, I’m not missing anything. Sparky and I talk all the time. For example, the photo above, Sparky is saying, “Are we going for a walk, or what? We aren’t going to prom, just put some pants on and let’s go.”