-
Scientific illiteracy and he-said she-said reporting
By Chris Clarke on 2011 10 20 at 1:48:36 pm | 0 comments | Shorter URL: http://coyot.es/x9DeThis is a really frustrating bit of recursive scientific illiteracy.
The issue was kicked off by a post which you can find at “friedcranes.org” though due to the cumbersome layout of this page by the time you read this you may have to search a
… (continues) -
This is what happens when it rains in the desert
By Chris Clarke on 2011 09 24 at 10:19:26 pm | 0 comments | Shorter URL: http://coyot.es/x6veYa got yer desert trees, most of ‘em legumes, like this ironwood here.
There’s very little usable nitrogen in the soil in the desert. Plants need nitrogen for crucial metabolic processes, chief among them making amino acids and proteins. Without
… (continues) -
Up to the elbows
By Chris Clarke on 2011 05 10 at 12:50:16 am | 3 comments | Shorter URL: http://coyot.es/x9JdMy friend Susan posted a photo on Facebook this week of herself planting a tree in her Minnesota town, part of a campaign to plant a thousand of them. It’s a sweet photo. She squats at the base of the tree, one begloved hand on the ground as if to
… (continues) -
Uncertain Future for Joshua Trees Projected with Climate Change
By Chris Clarke on 2011 03 24 at 2:33:53 pm | 2 comments | Shorter URL: http://coyot.es/x66c
This image, from April 2004, shows mortality of some adult Joshua trees resulting from years of hot-dry climate. During the prior year, this area received only 17 percent of its average precipitation and was 4 degrees F warmer than
… (continues) -
Solar Gold: The Ivanpah Spirit Run (video)
By Chris Clarke on 2010 10 20 at 9:34:39 am | 2 comments | Shorter URL: http://coyot.es/x5UbFilmmaker Robert Lundahl joined us at the Ivanpah Spirit Run last weekend. This is the result. Edited among images and interviews with Spirit Run participants are snippets of a longer interview with Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center
… (continues) -
Some real science on desert energy development
By Chris Clarke on 2010 08 28 at 12:10:20 pm | 1 comment | Shorter URL: http://coyot.es/x9tbVia Basin and Range Watch’s Laura Cunningham, the Independent Science Advisors draft report to the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan for the State of California. Laura says:
… (continues)You can’t get better scientists, and they recommend good things,
-
Carbon sequestration by desert landscapes
By Chris Clarke on 2010 08 19 at 8:09:31 pm | 11 comments | Shorter URL: http://coyot.es/x1nb…is what this post was supposed to be about, except that I wrote it in a browser window without a backup copy, because I am an idiot, and ExpressionEngine failed to save it properly. I need to reconstruct the entire post, which took a couple hours,
… (continues) -
“How to Become a Yucca Moth”: An interview with researcher Jeremy Yoder
By Chris Clarke on 2010 07 22 at 11:38:52 am | 2 comments | Shorter URL: http://coyot.es/x02As persistent readers of this blog will know I’ve been working for some time on a book on Joshua trees, and one of the more interesting facets of the Joshua tree’s lifestyle is the tree’s reproductive partnership with two species of moths,
… (continues) -
Pleuraphis rigida: knitting the desert together
By Chris Clarke on 2010 07 12 at 10:42:25 am | 4 comments | Shorter URL: http://coyot.es/x7X
Left: Big galleta fills a wash in the Southern California portion of the Sonoran Desert. [A preview of a piece I wrote for El Paisano, the newsletter of the Desert Protective Council.]
In April, Desert Protective Council staff and several
… (continues) -
Advertorial: Poisonous and Destructive
By Chris Clarke on 2010 07 07 at 11:44:17 pm | 5 comments | Shorter URL: http://coyot.es/x6RCommenter Devonian wraps things up in the ScienceBlogs/Pepsi thread on Metafilter:
… (continues)One of the most poisonous and destructive forms of paid-for content is advertorial: adverts disguised as editorial. It is something that is constantly - and I mean
-
ScienceBlogs Diaspora RSS feed
By Chris Clarke on 2010 07 07 at 4:00:30 pm | 10 comments[This post has been rewritten to make sense of all the updates.]
Carl Zimmer has started a list of sites where ScienceBloggers who have left due to the ethics violations of their host have landed.
One of the benefits of having all those fine
… (continues) -
I don’t see how this could possibly end badly
By Chris Clarke on 2010 07 06 at 1:27:37 pm | 9 commentsScienceBlogs has launched a new food science blog with content written by PepsiCo.
I’d find the utter and complete violation of any semblance of journalistic and publishing ethics utterly laughable, except for one thing: dozens of good people have
… (continues) -
The more things change
By Chris Clarke on 2010 06 09 at 10:21:37 am | 6 comments | Shorter URL: http://coyot.es/x3x
Francis B. Sumner (1874-1945) — shown above lounging in the Mojave Desert in a 1914 photo by Joseph Grinnell — was a professor of biology at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. He served as vice president of the American Academy for the
… (continues) -
Scope yourself out please
By Chris Clarke on 2010 03 31 at 2:08:46 pm | 4 commentsI wasn’t actually going to say anything about this here, because — believe it or not — I do have a “Too Much Information” threshold. I went through the procedure and got a clean bill of health and I was going to leave it at that for the next ten
… (continues) -
Son of Naming the Joshua Tree
By Chris Clarke on 2010 03 16 at 6:16:01 pm | 3 commentsHey, remember that post I put up a few weeks back about how the story of how the Joshua tree was named is most likely folklore? The one where I said:
… (continues)But in more than a decade of looking, I have seen not a single reference to the phrase “Joshua
-
Carnivaled
By Chris Clarke on 2010 02 01 at 11:38:01 pm | 0 commentsMy post Why Joshua trees are shaped the way they are has been included in the Scientia Pro Publica (Science for The People) Carnival #20, this iteration of said carnival being hosted over at Kind of Curious. The carnival includes posts on topics
… (continues) -
Science!
By Chris Clarke on 2010 01 13 at 5:24:10 pm | 5 comments
After enough time spent paying attention to a tree species, you tend to come up with a bit of data even if you’re not really trying to.
This Joshua tree is at Keys View in Joshua Tree National Park, right around the southern limits of the
… (continues) -
This is different from Obama putting your grandmother on an ice floe.
By Chris Clarke on 2009 09 02 at 10:02:34 pm | 2 commentsI told Grrlscientist that I’d have a post up today encouraging you all to go vote for her so that she can get a free trip to Antarctica. This isn’t the post I’d hoped to write about that, but it’s been a hell of a day. So let me just say this: If
… (continues) -
Hi-tech explained
By Chris Clarke on 2009 07 17 at 11:03:15 am | 8 commentsRichard Feynman explains the physics underlying the most important technological advance in human history.
-
Shifting Terrain
By Chris Clarke on 2009 07 16 at 11:32:17 am | 1 commentVia Kimberly, 650 million years of geology in one minute.
Buyables
-
Natalie on “10 random things I remember”
February 06 2012 - 9:57:12 -
Jim on “10 random things I remember”
February 03 2012 - 11:58:09 -
Wild_Bill on “On "exploding saltpeter": a correction”
February 03 2012 - 7:05:12 -
Wild_Bill on “10 random things I remember”
February 03 2012 - 6:59:45 -
Sherwood Harrington on “10 random things I remember”
February 03 2012 - 5:05:41 -
Sherwood Harrington on “10 random things I remember”
February 03 2012 - 4:08:51 -
KathyF on “10 random things I remember”
February 03 2012 - 3:52:34 -
Vern on “Rejected Susan G. Komen Promotional Copy”
February 03 2012 - 3:08:16 -
Steve Gyetko on “Rejected Susan G. Komen Promotional Copy”
February 03 2012 - 9:55:10 -
Ken Erickson on “About Chris”
February 02 2012 - 3:21:06
Flickr
Archives
Socialism
