Saturday, August 27, 2005

The Coolest Thing I've Learned Lately. Last night I watched the Discovery Channel, as I do most nights. I'm sure zillions of other people have seen this same show, called Miracle Planet. Possibly no one else found this particular point as amazing as I did. There's a nuclear waste storage facility in the "American SouthWest," surrounded by salt flats. (They didn't say, but I assume it's in Nevada.) A scientist there leads a team that dug down into the ground -- way down miles into the ground -- and pulled out some salt. They took the salt back to the lab. It had "tiny bubbles" of seawater trapped in it, apparently from a really long time ago. (It's been awhile since Nevada was under water!) They drilled a tiny hole to drain the water onto a slide to look at it under a microscope. "Oh lookee there! Cute, little, motionless, microbe-shaped... thingies!" Microbial corpses? That salt is a darn good preservative, you know. So these curious scientists put the ancient seawater into a little beaker with a drop of (sterile) nutrient solution. What happened? The microbes woke up, and started doing the only thing they know how to do: microbial math! "We just divide and multiply, all day long." Please, if that wasn't clear, just ignore the humor and think about it for a minute. The scientists say that the microbes were trapped in that salt for millions of years, in a state suspended animation (never mind the simultaneous states of utter boredom and disbelief at their very bad luck). Yet they were still fully viable, just waiting for something to eat. Totally fascinating. [Truer Words - A Journal] Not only is this interesting for what scientists can learn about prehistoric Earth, it also suggests that there may still be viable life on Mars--it's just a matter of drilling down deep enough and adding water. 1:57:18 PM    comment () Paper lambastes Utah sheriff for rave raid. A LOCAL PAPER LAMBASTES THE SHERIFF for that outrageous "rave raid" Good for The Daily Herald. As more news comes out, it turns out that the "missing" permit -- the excuse the sheriff gave for "watching" the concert -- wasn't needed at all. The sheriff was wrong. This is a good, and much needed, editorial. But one thing gives me chills: Although victims of the raid have described scenes of brutality, ninja masks, full-auto weapons, roughly confiscated video cameras, arbitrary arrests, and foul-mouthed orders accompanied by physical violence, almost none of the media are questioning why a SWAT raid was called, instead of less theatrical and dangerous police procedures. They question whether the sheriff was right or wrong to bust the party. But they don't question why uber-violent methods are being used -- against a crowd of partying kids, fergodssake! Almost none of the mainstream media mavens are saying, "Wait a minute. The really big question isn't whether the party should have been busted or not. It's why police are conducting their daily business as if they were killer commandos and the rest of us their enemies." Have we really become so inured to Hollywood-style, war-style mass-violence? Do we really accept that all cops should be Rambo and all law enforcement actions (or should I say aktions) treated like a Delta Force raid on an enemy camp? If the concert promoters had failed to get a needed permit would the helicopter, black face masks, and machine guns have then been okay????? Ask the right questions here, people!!! [Wolfesblog] There are also three eyewitness accounts on another site. 1:36:34 PM    comment () Cops on steroids/"Dear Palestinian Bomber". JUST GIVING WELL-DESERVED WIDER CIRCULATION to two newsbits found by Nuclear Druid and posted on the the dark walls of the TCF Refugee Shelter: Dopers in Uniform. Cops on steroids. And Congress is more worried about baseball players taking chemicals that induce hyper-aggression??? "Dear Palestinian Bomber." Seems somebody's been monkeywrenching another marketing database. Hm. And the insulting error came from "a list purchased from a third-party vendor." But how can that be? We all know that data is Sacred, Holy, and as Inerrant as the Word of God. [Wolfesblog] The difference is that baseball players, however rich, are still just peasants. Cops are the new samurai; they're above the law, and the government wants them to be hyper-aggressive. 1:29:53 PM    comment ()

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