Smart is the New Cool

I'm not going to try to compete with inauguration coverage today, so I just thought I'd point out some interesting stories ...

Like the NYT story about the inauguration and how it may help female scientists.

Or about Michelle Obama's dress (I loved that the family was color-coordinated on election day. Now they seem to have done the opposite, each person with their own bold color, to the same great effect).

How Barack Obama is stimulating the national economy with all the sales of t-shirts, piggy banks, basketball jerseys, yo-yos, thongs, cuff links, and other merchandise bearing his name or likeness.

A inauguration attendee with a shrub-covered bike helmet.

Fireflies Burning Out?

With mounting evidence that fireflies are disappearing, researchers in New England started a citizen science project.

Boston's Museum of Science teamed up with Tufts University and Fitchburg State College to ask regular people to spend 10 minutes one night each week of the summer tracking the number of fireflies they see in their yards.

Researchers surmise that pesticides and outdoor lighting, among other things, may be affecting lightning bugs' habitat.

It looks like citizens from all over the country have signed on, though it doesn't appear that anyone from Memphis is registered to participate.

The museum has a very cute virtual habitat feature to teach its aspiring data collectors about flash color, pattern, and location. For instance, the male will flash while patrolling an area while the female will flash from a perch. Who knew?

Here's a story in USAToday about the anecdotal evidence that supports the diminishing numbers of fireflies theory.

warmer waters ... in Siberia

The NYT has a cute and disturbing story about a Siberian family that has been recording temperatures in the world's largest body of fresh water for the past 60 YEARS.

Every week or so for, again, the past 60 years, members of the family have crossed Lake Baikal and recorded water temperature, clarity, and plant and animal species. And, no surprise, things are changing.

From the story:

"Although it is known that warming is more intense at high latitudes, as in the Baikal area, and that water is warming in other major lakes, including Lake Tahoe in Nevada and Lake Tanganyika in central Africa, many scientists had thought that Lake Baikal’s enormous volume and unusual water circulation patterns would buffer the effects of global warming.

Instead, the researchers report, surface waters in Lake Baikal are warming quickly, on average by about 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit every decade. At a depth of about 75 feet, the increase is about 0.2 degrees per decade, they say, enough to jeopardize species 'unable to adapt evolutionarily or behaviorally.'"

The lake apparently has a number of species that are not found anywhere else, such as giant shrimp and freshwater seal, and with the warmer temperatures, "its highly unusual food web is reorganizing."

I don't know what is more interesting/amazing: the science (yikes) or how long this family kept their project going, even during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union.