Stuff we linked to on Twitter last week

Blogs in motion

• Chris’s friend and fellow paleomagnetist Andy Biggin has just started blogging at http://www.geomagnetism.org/
• A diary of scientific drilling into New Zealand’s Alpine Fault, by GNS’ Rupert Sutherland
  http://rupertsnztectonics.blogspot.com/2011/01/drilling-into-new-zealands-alpine-fault.html

Volcanoes

• This is awesome: the Pink Terraces, thought destroyed by Tarawera eruption in 1886, found in Lake Rotomahana
  http://juliansrockandiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/final.html
• Photos that make you go, ‘wow’: @WanderingGaia‘s local Guatemalan volcano Fuego erupting one night last week. It’s getting daily more active.
  http://yfrog.com/gzl1ehj
• Fascinating video of Mount Shinmoedake erupting recently. Shinmoedake is part of the Kirishima complex, and Erik Klemetti has been keeping us up to date with the goings on there.
  (via @callanbentley)
  

Earthquakes

• The M8.8 earthquake in Chile last February did not fill a seismic gap on subduction zone, meaning that the risk of another large quake remains high.
  http://news.discovery.com/earth/earthquake-chile-risk-110131.html

Fossils

• Spooky: Chris saw the Tully Monster at Field Museum and wondered what Brian Switek would make of it. Then he sees his latest post…
  http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/tullys-mystery-monster/

Planets

• Here’s a good write-up of the Kepler results, with commendable caution over use of ‘Earth-like’. Chris thinks that we should put aside our obsession with ‘Earth-like’ and focus on the diversity Kepler is revealing: boundless planets, in more configurations that we can imagine.
  http://news.discovery.com/space/exoplanet-life-impossible-or-100-percent-what.html
  (via @ProfAbelMendez)
• The ‘Apollo renaissance’: new science from re-examining old lunar samples/data (Nature Geoscience – free, registration required)
  http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v4/n2/full/ngeo1085.html
• Claims of evidence for recent Martian Plate Tectonics are seriously over-reaching: evidence for local tectonics (which is interesting) does not equal plate tectonics.
  http://www.livescience.com/space/mars-plate-tectonics-recent-past-110103.html

(Paleo)climate

• Hey, Chicago? The Arctic just called. It wants its snow back. Arctic sea ice extent hits a record low for January.
  http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2011/020211.html
• Here’s a video of the storm that buried Chicago moving across the Midwest and on to the East Coast of the US from @NASA_EO
  
• A 1,200yr tree-ring record from Mexico will help to test and clarify the links between droughts and the rise and fall of Mesoamerican civilisations
  http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2011/2011-06.shtml
• BBC: UK climate-proofing plans unveiled: More evidence how wealth insulates from climate risk:
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12302555
  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/science/earth/03clim.html
  (via @revkin)

Water and Weather

• A new paper claims that a European weather model predicted July downpours in Pakistan & could have predicted the floods. However, it turns out that the Pakistani Met office has their own models and were not unaware of the potential for flooding: any information bottleneck was at the local, not the international, level.
  http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/agu-pfl013111.php
  http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/18/what_pakistan_did_right
  (via @realhannahbloch, @TheAGU)
• Tropical Cyclone Yasi made a direct hit on Queensland as a category 5 storm. Fortunately, the region was well-prepared and the cyclone didn’t hit the wettest parts of the state. Still, check out the damage from the cyclone and read why the flooding wasn’t as bad as feared.
  http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/cyclone-yasi/gallery.htm
  http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/02/dry-soils-mean-queensland-coas.html
• 10 American Cities With the Worst Drinking Water [Does anybody know why Pensacola’s water is so bad?]
  http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/ten-american-cities-with-worst-drinking-water/19816730/
  (via @AOL, @loticwater)
• Yikes! Halliburton and others illegally pumped diesel into the ground during fracking –
  http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110201/ts_yblog_thelookout/halliburton-and-others-illegally-pumped-diesel-into-the-ground-during-fracking

Environmental

• The problem with hoping technology will solve energy/climate woes: as devices get more energy efficient we buy/use them more.
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2011/01/as_many_commentators_have_poin.html
• In his state of the Union speech, President Obama focussed more on economic, rather than environmental, arguments for pursuing clean energy. A couple of interesting posts that explore why: is environmental protection simply becoming more integrated with economic development? Or is is the President just making the best of a hostile Congress?
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-cohen/the-transition-from-envir_b_816198.html
  http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=9322
• Sadly we’ll prob be having same conversation after next spill: the oil industry’s ‘Culture of Complacency’
  http://deepseanews.com/2011/02/the-oil-industrys-culture-of-complacency/
  (via @Dr_Bik)
• Razor blades and the limits of complexity. Or: how our civilisation has run away from us.
  http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2011/01/razor-blades-and-limits-of-complexity.html
  (via @Geoblogfeed)
• Landscapes of extraction some pretty pictures of some ugly industrial processes
  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=landscapes-of-extraction-and-heavy-industry
• Unbelievable! Residents of award-winning, transit-oriented development say no to transit.
  http://sustainablecitiescollective.com/kaidbenfield/20212/residents-award-winning-transit-oriented-development-say-no-transit
  (via @dbiello, @sustaincities)

General Geology

• Yum. The latest Accretionary Wedge is a delectable smorgasbord of geo-related foods.
  http://blogs.agu.org/mountainbeltway/2011/01/31/aw30-the-bake-sale/
• Possibly the oddest tectonic analogy ever: Pacific plate=Elvis, slab pull=Elvis fans, & ridge push=Batman!?
  http://joidesresolution.org/node/1763
• No breakthrough to Antarctica’s Lake Vostok: end of drilling season reached with hole about 20m short of target.
  http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2011/02/no_breakthrough_to_antarcticas.html
• Dry lake beds on Mars. IAG Planetary Geomorphology image: Mmmm patterned ground!
  http://www.psi.edu/pgwg/images/Feb11Image.html
  (via @KeelePhysGeog)

Interesting Miscellaney

• MUST READ this powerful piece on GOP’s Redefining Rape by @dhunterauthor
  http://entequilaesverdad.blogspot.com/2011/01/gop-priorities-redefining-rape.html
• Mind. Blown. Vikings may have navigated on cloudy days by observing light polarisation. That said: Vikings loved to travel, had great beards, & liked their alcohol. Add some mad science skills and don’t you get a marauding band of Ur-Geologists?
  http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/vikings-polarized-skylight/
• And they say internets don’t teach you stuff. Iron-deficiency not something you get just for being a lady
  http://professorkateclancy.blogspot.com/2011/01/iron-deficiency-is-not-something-you.html
  (by @KateClancy)
• Nabokov was right – so was Stephen Jay Gould wrong about genius? by @biophemera
  http://scienceblogs.com/bioephemera/2011/01/nabokov_was_right_-_so_was_gou.php
  (via @David_Dobbs, @stevesilberman,)
• Lies, Damned lies, and seminars: Said: I’ll just speak briefly. Means: I’ll yammer on for AT LEAST an hour.
  http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2011_01_28/caredit.a1100009
  (via @scicurious)
• Great post by Athene Donald on the unwritten rules that hold us back – in academia, the blogosphere, and elsewhere.
  http://occamstypewriter.org/athenedonald/2011/01/31/unwritten-rules/
  (via @David_Dobbs)
• One woman’s story of how and why she’s leaving science: Much to chew on. )
  http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2011_02_04/caredit.a1100011
  (via @DoctorZen, @NerdyChristie)
• The gender gap on Wikipedia. Only 13% of contributors are women!! Hardly the "sum of all human knowledge"
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html
  (via @edyong209, @danicar)
• An amazing profile of African-American woman who has worked for the government for 65 years and, at 85, still plans to complete her Ph.D.
  http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/d38f1914e7384db685257825008181da!OpenDocument
  (via @cbdawson)
• From @nparmalee: “Let’s reflect on the irony: College admissions tests require kids learn SAT vocab. Admissions officers perplexed when:”
  http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/3C7ub2/lehighadmissions1.blogspot.com/2011/02/essay-isnt-easy.html
• “Is greatness in chemistry a transitory thing?” wonders @kjhaxton. Anne wonders whether there are fields where this not true. http://www.possibilitiesendless.com/?p=533
• 10 Tips for Responding to Reviewer & Editor Comments
  http://www.clinchem.org/cgi/reprint/clinchem.2011.162388v1
  (via @Clin_Chem_AACC, @biochembelle)