"Egypt uncovers ancient tombs at Luxor"

I encountered the story and the photo on the same day - couldn't resist juxtaposing them.

Envisioning a "jellyfish apocalypse"

Jellyfish have been referred to as the "cockroaches of the sea," with reference to both species' ability to survive under the harshest conditions.  An article in the newest edition of The Atlantic reviews a new book about jellyfish:

Their delicacy notwithstanding, in recent decades jellyfish species have come to be thought of as the durable and opportunistic inheritors of our imperiled seas. Jellyfish blooms—the intermittent, and now widely reported, flourishing of vast swarms—are held by many to augur the depletion of marine biomes; they are seen as a signal that the oceans have been overwarmed, overfished, acidified, and befouled... The vision—hat tipped to science fiction—is of the planet’s oceans transformed into something like an aspic terrine. In waters thickened by the gummy mucus of living and dead jellyfish, other sea life will be smothered. Because jellyfish recall the capsules of single-celled protozoa, this eventuality invites portrayal as a devolution of the marine world—a reversion to the “primordial soup.”..

Perhaps the most complex issue Berwald takes on is jellyfish blackouts. Sweden, Scotland, the Philippines, Tokyo, California, and Israel have all suffered intermittent electrical outages caused by jellyfish sucked into the intake pipes and cooling systems of coal-fired and nuclear power stations... In Spineless, Berwald travels to Spain’s Murcia region and takes us to the Mar Menor lagoon, which had become so jellified in 2002 that “you couldn’t drive a boat through the water.” Here barrel and fried-egg jellyfish are pernicious—so much so that they’re removed from the sea by the bargeload and dumped into ditches near the airport.

More at that link. Then today I found a report of jellyfish menacing Chinese aircraft carriers:

In 2006, the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was incapacitated while visiting Brisbane, Australia due to blubber jellyfish swarms. Reportedly, cooling pipes for the ship’s nuclear reactor were clogged with the foot-wide jellies, necessitating an evacuation of the carrier...

Ironically, the jellyfish problem is partially of China’s own doing. As many as one hundred million sharks are killed each year, much of it in the form of bycatch in an attempt to catch other forms of seafood but also for shark’s fin soup, a delicacy in China. Although demand for the soup has declined in recent years, the shark population is still way down. Sharks are a major predator of jellyfish and scientists believe their absence is a major reason why jellyfish populations have exploded.

Related: Your children will eat jellyfish for dinner.

Photo credit: GettyLucia /Terui

This is how complicated modern farming can be - updated

From an excellent longread in the September issue of Harper's:

The combine continued along, following the contours of the planting lines automatically recorded months earlier by G.P.S. As we moved, our progress was charted on the touchscreen in varying colors to show where each row or part of a row was above or below the target for bushels-per-acre for this field. All of that data is recorded and stored to plan for next year, helping farmers decide how to adjust the density of their seed populations, where to apply fertilizer, how much to water, where to add inputs, and where to save money...


So to make your best profit on soybeans, you need a sunny day (but not too sunny) with a dry breeze (but not too dry), and you need that day to fall exactly when the plant has received the precise number of hours — yes, hours — of sunlight from the moment you planted it months earlier. To make hitting such a tight window even remotely possible, seed companies, like Rick’s supplier, DuPont Pioneer, have hybridized soybeans for nearly a century — and genetically modified them in recent decades — according to bands of latitude called maturity groups. They number these photoregions from 0 in the northern growing zones of Canada to 7 in the light-drenched flatlands of Florida. But Nebraska is almost exactly divided between groups 2 and 3, the line bisecting the state into north and south. Most farmers here, especially in central regions like York County, plant both varieties to spread out their risk, but some daring farmers like Rick will formulate a guess as to what the weather holds for the growing season and plant more of one group, hoping for higher yields and higher returns.

In 2014, after several years of drought, Rick bet on another dry year — and planted incredibly short-season beans. While most of his neighbors were planting 3.5s, Rick planted 2.4s. And he was dead-on, right up until the rains started...

In my mother's childhood, her dad planted seeds, harvested a crop and saved some of the seeds for the following year.  (No longer.  Most people know that seed-saving now can be punishable in a court of law.)  But what grandpa planted in Minnesota was probably the same seed that someone in Wisconsin or Illinois would plant.  What I learned from this article is how hyperspecialized the hybrids are now according to latitude of the field.  I found this map at a University of Missouri ag school website:

Although temperature affects soybean growth and development, soybean plants are also quite sensitive to photoperiod. The lengths of the light (photoperiod) and dark periods within a 24 hour day change each day. These changing photoperiods regulate the timing of flowering and other stages of soybean plant development. Soybean is classified as a short day plant because flower initiation is stimulated when photoperiod is shorter than a critical value. Critical values differ among varieties and are determined by a variety’s genes.

Photoperiod lengths differ among latitudes on any specific day. After the first day of spring and until the first day of fall, photoperiods are larger as latitude increases (further north). Because of soybean’s sensitivity to photoperiod, soybean varieties are assigned to one of 13 maturity groups. These maturity groups are adapted to relatively narrow bands of latitude. In North America, MG OOO is adapted to southern Canada; whereas, MG 10 (X) is adapted to Mexico and the Caribbean Islands.

(More at their link).   Now note - those are not microclimate zones like most people are familiar with for household gardens.  Those bands don't vary according to rainfall and max hot/cold - those are just daylight duration bands.  Other adjustments need to be made for local weather and climate.

It didn't surprise me to see an article in The Guardian this week entitled "Why are America's farmers killing themselves in record numbers?"

Last year, a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that people working in agriculture – including farmers, farm laborers, ranchers, fishers, and lumber harvesters – take their lives at a rate higher than any other occupation. The data suggested that the suicide rate for agricultural workers in 17 states was nearly five times higher compared with that in the general population.

After the study was released, Newsweek reported that the suicide death rate for farmers was more than double that of military veterans. This, however, could be an underestimate, as the data collected skipped several major agricultural states, including Iowa. Rosmann and other experts add that the farmer suicide rate might be higher, because an unknown number of farmers disguise their suicides as farm accidents.

The US farmer suicide crisis echoes a much larger farmer suicide crisis happening globally: an Australian farmer dies by suicide every four days; in the UK, one farmer a week takes his or her own life; in France, one farmer dies by suicide every two days; in India, more than 270,000 farmers have died by suicide since 1995...

Since 2013, net farm income for US farmers has declined 50%. Median farm income for 2017 is projected to be negative $1,325. And without parity in place (essentially a minimum price floor for farm products), most commodity prices remain below the cost of production.

In an email, Rosmann wrote, “The rate of self-imposed [farmer] death rises and falls in accordance with their economic well-being … Suicide is currently rising because of our current farm recession.”

More at the link.  Neither political party has effectively addressed the farm recession in this country.  National politicians tend to equate American economic prosperity with a rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

I've often wondered what modern GPS-equipped tractors and combines cost to purchase or lease.  Perhaps some reader will know.

Enough for now.  Got to move on.

Addendum:  A report today about how high winds combined with hybrid crops can result in "ear drop" -

But the corn had snapped from its stalks and fallen to the dirt days earlier, the result of what agriculture experts called a perfect storm: A series of weather conditions over the growing season that had been good, and then bad, for certain hybrid seed varieties, producing big-kerneled ears but weakening their grip to the stalks...

In Makovicka's most damaged field, he counted 70 bushels of corn per acre — grain he couldn't salvage, couldn't sell at the elevator. Rees has heard of northeast Nebraska farms that lost 100 bushels per acre, or nearly $50,000 of missed income on each quarter-section...

The problems will extend beyond harvest. Many growers will be forced to pay for more herbicide, when the corn they couldn't harvest this year sprouts among their soybeans next year. Some farmers who graze their cows in harvested fields are realizing, after it's too late, that their animals are gorging on more corn than their bodies can handle.

“I'd never had a problem and I've been doing it for 30 years,” said Steve Wenz, who farms near Firth. “I put them out on a Tuesday morning and, Thursday morning, I had three dead ones.”..

During pollination, high heat weakened the shanks — the tie between the corn and the stalks — and cool August temperatures resulted in bigger ears. “They produced really heavy kernels, really deep kernels. There was quite a bit of weight.”

October rains contributed to stalk rot, followed by the damaging winds... Certain seed varieties proved more vulnerable than others, and the loss varied from farm to farm, even from field to field.

In some cases, attempts were made to harvest the fallen ears by hand:

Photoediting before Photoshop

Intricate squiggles and numbers are scrawled all over the prints, showing Inirio’s complex formulas for printing them. A few seconds of dodging here, some burning-in there. Will six seconds be enough to bring out some definition in the building behind Dean? Perhaps, depending on the temperature of the chemicals.

As a youngster I developed some of my own film and studied (but never implemented) advanced darkroom techniques.  I began to wonder if I would ever see the phrase "dodge and burn" used again.

More information at The Literate Lens.  Image cropped for size from the one at Gizmodo, via Neatorama.

Pantone's "color of the year" is "ultra-violet"

The color wasn't chosen because it's regal, though it resembles a majestic shade. It was chosen to evoke a counterculture flair, a grab for originality, ingenuity and visionary thinking...

The purple choice, a la Prince and the glam rock of David Bowie — both of whom died in 2016 — speaks to rebellion, finding new ways to interpret our lives and surroundings...

That's just fine with me.

Heirloom apples

Mountain Rose apples are a red-fleshed apple variety and a member of the Rosacea family, species Malus domestica. This apple gets its name from the fact that it is grown near Mount Hood in Oregon, and because it has brilliant rosy red flesh... The Mountain Rose apple is yellow to green, covered extensively with a red to pink blush, and speckled with faint white lenticels. The skin is quite delicate and can bruise easily. Their real claim to fame is the bright pink to red flesh that remains vivid even when cooked. The flesh is crisp and has a balanced acidic yet mildly sweet flavor with nuances of strawberry, citrus, and cotton candy. 

Here's what the applesauce look like.

Photo via the Pics subreddit.

Who thought this was a good idea?

As reported by Arizona Family:

[Walmart] has pulled a t-shirt bearing the message “Rope. Tree. Journalist. SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED” from its website after the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) sent a message to Walmart alerting them to the shirt’s controversial content.

The shirt was also sold in the online store of a company called Teespring, who was acting as the third-party seller for Walmart’s online listing of the product. Teespring has since removed the shirt from its website...

A shirt with the words “Black women are trash” prompted outrage in May of 2017 when links to buy the shirts on Teespring’s site appeared on social media and went viral...

...a shirt emblazoned with “Eat Sleep Rape Repeat” was not just being sold on Teespring’s site, it was marked as a “best selling tank/shirt.”

Addendum:

A journalist who reported on the "Panama Papers" tax evasion scheme has been assassinated.

Clever Christmas decoration

Via the Funny subreddit.  Context.

Captain Hook was a graduate of Eton

In J. M. Barrie's original play, Captain Hook's final words are "Floreat Etona", Eton's motto.

I heard this on a recent podcast of No Such Thing As A Fish.   You learn something every day.

Things you wouldn't know...

All the mountains on Saturn’s moon Titan are named after peaks in The Lord of the Rings.

J.R.R. Tolkien and Adolf Hitler both fought at the battle of the Somme.

Splenda was an insecticide that became a sweetener when an assistant misheard an order to “test” it as “taste” it.

 The symbol of the Alzheimer’s Society of Canada is the forget-me-not.

A decapitated planarian flatworm grows a new brain complete with all its old memories.

95% of all avocados on sale today are descended from one tree grown by a Milwaukee postman in 1926.

There are whales alive today that were born before Moby-Dick was written in 1851.

The 1784 “Kettle War” between the Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire involved only a single shot. It hit a kettle.

North Americans account for less than a sixteenth of the world’s people, but more than a third of their weight. (error - see reader Kyle's comment)

After just four moves in a game of chess, there are 318,979,564,000 possibilities for the layout of the board.

10,000 horses were killed at the battle of Waterloo. 

Selections from the first book written by the elves at QI/NSTAAF.  They have now authored The Book of the Year.

Pied Tamarin

Photograph by Tim Flach from his monograph Endangered, which was published in October by Abrams.  Via Harper's December 2017 issue.

The movies of 2017

A mashup created from the trailers of 231 movies, sorted by genre (citations for the video and the audio clips here).  Now I want to go back to see SleepySkunk's mashup of trailers for previous years.

Via Neatorama.

The most recent (December 2017) issue of The Atlantic features a cover story about Andrew Anglin, founder of The Daily Stormer.  It's a long read and a frankly disturbing one.  It's a real eye-opener for anyone who doubts the intensity of hatred in modern America.  I'll place an excerpt below the fold...

An "alternating tread" stairway - updated

When I first saw this photo, my reaction was that a designer or architect was being unnecessary clever.  But after studying it, I realized it is an eminently practical solution to a problem.

The problem being an extremely steep rise/run ratio for the location of the stairs.  The distance from the front step to the hallway behind is short, the vertical distance to be traversed high.  The choices would be extremely tall steps, extremely narrow steps, or perhaps a ladder/spiral staircase/other design.

I found more information at Fine Homebuilding, which discusses the practical aspects of stairway dimensions and also includes this interesting one:

Related: newel post.

Addendum:  An interesting and authoritative comment from reader Lars -

"I built one of these as the replacement staircase to my basement. my 1829 house was moved to a new foundation in 1915. the basement stair location under the main level staircase approaches the foundation wall. the previous case used a landing and a 90 deg turn. this could only be negotiated without ducking ones head if you were under 5 foot tall. the alt tread case with comfortable wide treads uses half the normal needed run. this allows me to walk upright for the entire flight and get feet on basement floor with a 3+ foot distance from the foundation wall.

3 caveats. one must be able to lead with both feet. NEVER attempt to turn around mid flight. use of these stairs is much easier with handrails on both sides. I made mine as a utility purposed design with a center a center stringer that you must straddle. this rail has allowed me to move/slide large heavy objects up and down the staircase- both a refrigerator and a freezer - with use of a rope block & tackle. once you are familiar with the stair, it is actually easier to hand carry large boxes down that obstruct your vision. you never need to step past the tread you are standing on to get your other foot onto the next tread. leg motion is a straight drop. never stumble over the nosing."

Divertimento #140

Another "gifdump."  Everyone will find something they like.

And then she eats the truck...

How to bag a 9-foot anaconda.

Awesome magic by Teller.

Volleyball flying save.

Volleyball kill good for three points.

Removing old rope from a sea turtle.

Life stages of the Hercules beetle.

How to replace a manhole cover.

Bus driver mugging for a selfie.

Marriage proposal.

Black-light flashlight helps you find scorpions.

Goalkeeper celebrates too soon.

How to peel a tangerine.

On-demand water for a dog.

Supporting a screwdriver on a column of air.

The sign says "Touch at your own risk."

Stepping on an invisible box.

Poledancer routine.

"the magnetic tipped top attaches to the perimeter of the paperclip- but since the top has much more mass, the paperclip is put into curious motion due to Newton's 3rd law and the top's rotational inertia."

Halloween "stick figure" costume.

Halloween candy thief.

A Lamborghini is not very high.

Dog tries to stop children from fighting.

Dogs play with a balloon.

They are called Malayan Leaf Frogs for a reason.

Girl plays "Crocodile Dentist."  Doesn't enjoy it...

Earthquake filmed from a boat.

Opening a beer using her new bionic arm.

Koi want to be fed.

Snake traverses a wire with surprising ease.

How to scare your friends.

Baby's first glasses.

The images (cropped for size) embedded in today's gifdump are from a gallery of "Humble Heather" posted at BibliOdyssey.