The Origins of Life
In “What’s Next” I promised a dedicated post on the beginnings of life. Well, here it is, and it’s gonna be a long one so buckle up and grab an adult beverage to sustain...
Category: Energy
Life’s a Beach
There has been an increasing amount of discussion lately about the loss of sand on the beaches due to powerful storm waves. Much of this focus has been on Southern California, but the same...
What’s in a Name?
This one will of necessity be short — duty calls. I recently published a post regarding the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The subject continues to prompt countless articles that run the full gamut:...
Flash Floods, Slot Canyons, and Kinetic Energy
The recent episodes of flooding in Nepal and the Grand Canyon are horrific, to say the least. My heart goes out to those affected at both locations. Each of the floods were the result...
El Niño Southern Oscillation
I’m probably going to get most of this wrong, but since even the guys driving the Cray supercomputers don’t really understand the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and what makes it tick, I guess...
Nature Abhors a Vacuum
I pulled into the post office a couple days ago and there it was — yet another square-backed vehicle with a dirty rear window. The driver was just getting out (she was from California...
Primary v. Secondary Industry
There is a lot being said these days about bringing back our nation’s lost glory. This causes me indigestion on multiple levels. Fortunately, two of them are easy to reconcile: I cannot agree with...
Chernobyl and Evolutionary Change
It was early in the 1960s and my family had recently relocated from Nebraska to the Los Angeles Basin. Those were scary times! The Soviets were threatening to install nuclear missiles in Cuba, and...
The Phantom Tollbooth
It was 1981, and we were continuing our exploration for copper, zinc, gold, silver, and cobalt in a massive sulfide deposit in Southwestern Oregon, just north of the California border. It was a vigorous...
Desalination (and political suicide?)
Another short one. I tried to abandon poli-sci over fifty years ago, but here I am… old and staring down toward the end of the tunnel, and sucked back into the swamp. I saw...
