Not dead, just restin'

Hello, friends and strangers. It was recently brought to my attention that I haven't been doomsday prophesying very much at all this year. Rest assured I haven't stopped reading about horrible things; I've just stopped writing about them. Things are busy, you know. I got promoted at work, my car got covered in tar, and to get it off I had to coat the entire thing with peanut butter and then rinse it off (which took even longer than you might expect), I've joined a bunch of "sports" leagues, as well as a wine tasting club, and now I'm thinking about moving, or maybe even buying a place. But those are all excuses and distractions from the real meat of this post, which is supposed to be a bunch of links to articles that recently caught my attention.

As I'm sure the world is clamoring for more of my overreactions to things that I read, I won't make any further ado.

1. The bees are still dying in droves. It might be due to pesticides. You should worry because we need the bees to pollinate our food!

Annual bee losses of 5 percent to 10 percent once were the norm for beekeepers. But after colony collapse disorder surfaced around 2005, the losses approached one-third of all bees, despite beekeepers’ best efforts to ensure their health.Nor is the impact limited to beekeepers. The Agriculture Department says a quarter of the American diet, from apples to cherries to watermelons to onions, depends on pollination by honeybees. Fewer bees means smaller harvests and higher food prices.

Related: Beekeepers are suing the EPA over insecticides.

A year after groups formally petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), four beekeepers and five environmental and consumer groups filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court against the agency for its failure to protect pollinators from dangerous pesticides.  The coalition, represented by attorneys for the Center for Food Safety (CFS), seeks suspension of the registrations of insecticides that have repeatedly been identified as highly toxic to honey bees, clear causes of major bee kills and significant contributors to the devastating ongoing mortality of bees known as colony collapse disorder (CCD).  The suit challenges EPA’s ongoing handling of the pesticides as well as the agency’s practice of “conditional registration” and labeling deficiencies.

2. Speaking of modern farming ruining everything, toxic algae bloomed like crazy all over Lake Erie in 2011 because the lake was overloaded with phosphorous and other nutrients from fertilizer and other agricultural runoff. Apparently, we can expect similar events in the future if farming practices aren't changed.

In 2011, Lake Erie experienced the largest algae bloom in its recorded history. At its peak in October, the mat of green scum on the lake’s surface was nearly four inches thick and covered an area of almost 2,000 square miles. That’s three times larger than any other bloom in the lake, ever. Plus it was toxic. Now research shows that such an event may become increasingly common.

3. A vial containing a virus that can cause hemorrhagic fever has gone missing from a research facility in Galveston. Let me repeat that: a vial containing a virus that can cause hemorrhagic fever has gone missing from a research facility in Galveston. Oh hey, where'd I put that hemorrhagic fever? I hope it's not at the bottom of my purse with my car keys.

4. Oh man, did you know that Visine, if swallowed, acts as a neurotoxin?

Used as directed, [eyedrops] may indeed give you that clear-eyed look but that’s mostly due to the constriction of blood vessels in the eye. Internally they also induce vasoconstriction (as Toxnet calls it).  The resulting symptoms...include rapid heart beat, nausea, blurred vision, drowsiness, convulsions. The Toxnet entry, based partly on cases of children who  swallowed a bottle of eyedrops or nosedrops left carelessly on a table or counter,  notes that “drowsiness and mild coma” often alternate with periods of thrashing and hyperactivity.

Remind me to keep eyedrops out of the reach of anyone who might be mad at me.

5. "Just because shit is depressing or horrible, doesn’t mean you can’t laugh about it with blood in your mouth." Natalie Dee is awesome.

6. Cow pee spreads antibiotic resistance through the soil. Chew on that. Or don't.

7. Venice flooded like crazy late last year. Is this a portent for the world to come? Survey (of me only) says yes.

8. No more letting Timmy chew on the dirt! Seems like lead is getting into kids' blood, from the soil.

While homeowners have learned over the years how to better manage old, peeling lead paint, the lead that was in gasoline was deposited on the ground and is still scattered throughout soils in many postindustrial U.S. cities. Kids still play in that dirt, and little kids may even eat it on occasion.

In a February paper published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, McElmurry and a team of economists and urban health specialists argue that the seasonal fluctuation of children's blood lead levels seen in industrial cities like Detroit indicate that kids are exposed to lead from contaminated soil that turns into airborne dust in the summertime.

Boston was mentioned in the article, so I'm especially alarmed at this one. I'm glad I don't have a kid...I'd be terrified about him or her breathing the air during summer!

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It's Friday, yay.

Well, I think i know what my next bedtime reading will be...

I think I'm a little too excited to read the latest Global Risks report from the World Economic Forum.

***

P.S. Isn't this neat?:

Click to enlarge.

Year-end ruminations

Oh--hello, blog. I'm feeling a bit melancholy as 2011 wraps up*, and I'm not in much of a blogging mood. Nevertheless, I thought I should do something to mark the end of what was quite a momentous year for me...and the planet. So I thought: How about an old-school Jessicool year in review, but with a new-school doomsday twist? Sounds fun, let's try it out.

January, 2011

In my life: Hot off of a month-long vacation at my childhood home, armed with half of a literature review for my dissertation (!), I decided to get off my fat ass and move a little more. So I did a bunch of hiking, where by "hiking" I mean "walking up mild-to-moderate inclines on dusty hills within or very close to the Los Angeles city limits." The views were mostly smoggy, but it was good to get out.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: On just the second of the year, there was a giant earthquake in Chile. This was followed almost immediately by awful flooding in Australia. Oh yeah - and then there was that rash of mass animal deaths. Apocalypse-believers doubtlessly went crazy.

February, 2011

In my life: February, 2011 saw me cultivating my love for a new (to me) game called Dominion, learned over break from my brother-in-law. This cultivation mostly took the form of me teaching the game to everyone I know and making them play with me whenever possible. I know it looks suspiciously like Magic (see right), but don't let that fool you: It is a sweet game that's not nerdy at all.**

**Lies. Totally nerdy. But also totally sweet.

In less awesome but quite related news, on the way to one of my many February Dominion nights I walked out to my car to discover a GIANT DENT in the rear bumper. Woe is me, it appears somebody ran into my car--hard--and drove away. My crime-scene sleuthing revealed it was a blue vehicle (based on the blue paint found on my bumper), and that it must have been a truck (based on the height of the dent), but that information never lead to the apprehension of the dent maker (surprising, I know). I thought I might get the dent fixed, but my insurance informed me I had a $1000 collision deductible...so I settled for driving a sloppy jalopy.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: I would be remiss if I did not mention that this here blog was begun in February, 2011, to the delight of doomsday prophesiers everywhere. Also to the delight of said prophesiers (but certainly not most other people), there was a giant earthquake in New Zealand, which caused many deaths. And let's not forget that Borders declared bankruptcy in February 2011, a move that proved the beginning of the end for what was, in my opinion, the best of the big-box bookstores.

March, 2011

In my life: In March, 2011, I drove up to the Bay Area to celebrate the 30th birthday of one of my oldest and closest friends. We had a grand old evening celebrating Jessie's entrée into her 30's, an evening so grand that it may or may not have ended up with me waking up on the floor in the middle of the night...and not Jessie's floor, either. But I can neither confirm nor deny that story.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: A simply enormous earthquake hit Japan in March 2011, followed closely by an equally enormous tsunami. Then, to add insult to widespread injury, a Japanese nuclear power plant damaged in the quake was found to be leaking radiation all over the place...radiation even got into the food! Bad, bad news all around.

April, 2011

In my life: April was an exciting month for my whole family, because my sister pushed a baby out her lady hole. It was like, one day I'm just a generic person, and then BAM, next day I'm an aunt! And Lo, was my new nephew ever cute. I met him on FaceTime when he was just hours old!

In we're-all-gonna-die news: April, 2011 saw a "tornado outbreak" in the US, with a record-smashing 753 tornadoes observed, mostly in the southeastern states. 369 people were killed, and thousands more injured. The media debated whether the slew of tornadoes could be linked to global warming. I decided to just go ahead and believe they can be.

May, 2011

In my life: In May, 2011 I got to meet my nephew! He was so excited to see me that he fell asleep right on his face (see below). In May I also went to a conference where I gave five presentations, including one based on my dissertation research (the first public discussion of my results!), but really, meeting my nephew was by far the highlight of the month.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: How could I not mention that in May 2011, the official math-and-bible-proved Judgment Day failed to happen? Or rather, that it might have happened, but if so, it was "invisible"? May was not a good month for the believers in Harold Camping's apocalypse, let's just say that.

June, 2011

In my life: June, 2011 was a month of big changes for me. I "graduated" (read: marched in graduation ceremonies but received no diploma), and I moved clear across the country. My dad and spent a lovely week driving my car back east, and then I spent my last week of no-full-time-job-freedom playing with my nephew and just in general being a layabout. It was glorious...I read a lot of books.

Oh yeah: Also in June, my dad's car guy popped out the dent in my car's bumper--for just $150! I was thrilled. Still am.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: June 2011 saw E. Coli attacking Germany and other European countries, via bean sprouts. Over here in America, "natural" disaster reigned supreme, with disastrous flooding along the Missouri river and humongous forest fires in New Mexico and Arizona.

July, 2011

In my life: July 2011 was once again a month of upheavals for me, as I officially moved (back) to Boston and started my first full-time job since 2005. But in way funner news, after moving back to Beantown I reconnected with my good friend Christine, her husband, and her new and adorable baby, and I spent many a July weekend at their house. During this time, Christine and I jointly discovered a love of jam-making, and we did quite a bit of it, preserving the summer's bounty--much of which we picked ourselves!

I'll just mention in passing (because I really don't want to get into it) that also in July, I discovered that the person I was subletting a room from (for two months only, thank goodness) was batshit crazy, a discovery that meant I spent a lot of time in places that were not my apartment...like the mall, where, lucky for me (but not my wallet), Border's had a several month-long going out of business sale. I purchased more than 20 books at Borders before summer's end. Sadly I did not read the books at quite such a rate, but what can you do.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: July wasn't a good month for the world, all considered. The month started with flooding along the Yellowstone river, and a concurrent and likely related oil spill in said river in Montana (Oh, Exxon, you did it again!). Meanwhile, Texas and other central/southeastern states experienced an extreme drought (29% of the country was affected!). The drought eventually dried up entire lakes in TX, killed 20+ people in the central and southern states, and decimated poultry farms, among many other deleterious effects. Part of the extremeness of the drought was due to the July heat wave that spread from the midwest to the east coast, a heat wave I can personally confirm was no fun at all. Meanwhile, in wet weather news, the first tropical storm of the 2011 season (Arlene) hit Mexico and killed 11 people, Chile got inundated with snow to the tune of four month's worth in four days, and China experienced insane amounts of rain. All in all, I think July proved that the planet's weather is as crazy as my summer 'landlord'!

August, 2011

In my life: The rash of extreme weather collided with my life in late August, 2011, when I buckled down and bravely weathered hurricane Irene, which mostly meant spending the day inside and occasionally peeking outside to determine if anything exciting was happening (it was not).

In August Christine and I also continued our canning frenzy, picking upwards of 50 pounds of tomatoes in one day, and spending the next 8 hours peeling, chopping, stewing, and canning said tomatoes. The best thing we made was ketchup, which was so delicious that I ate all of mine almost immediately. Thankfully, Christine went and made more on her own, and she's been generous enough to share the summer bounty with me, a bit at a time, over the past few months. My taste buds thank her profusely.

In we're-all-gonna-die news: Setting aside the devastation wrecked by Hurricane Irene, August was mostly notable for its demonstration of American stupidity. Amid much hullabaloo (whyy); Kim Kardashian got married in an umpteen-billion dollar wedding ceremony (slight exaggeration); the United States government dicked around so long on the debt ceiling thing that our credit rating got downgraded; bona-fide bonehead Rick Perry announced he thinks he's fit to lead the country (upside: this happened); Jersey Shore season 4 aired on TV and the first episode got a record-breaking 8.8 million viewers (among whom I am included, shamefully)...Gosh. Need I go on?

September, 2011

In my life: I finally moved into an apartment of my own in September, and although I had to live for over a week with pretty much no furniture and very little light, it was glorious to be out of the summer hellhole. Equally momentous, a few days after moving in to my abode I traveled to Chicago (where I somehow got stuck with an enormous rental car that I almost ran into so many things, but that's a story for a different day), to celebrate the marriage of my college friend Bill. The wedding was beautiful, I don't believe I made too much of an ass of myself dancing, and I would have declared the weekend a smashing success if I hadn't maybe-broken my finger in a pre-wedding softball game (slight exaggeration, but the damn thing still hurts).

In we're-all-gonna-die news: September 2011 was the month of the Lysteria-laced cantaloupes, as I have reported previously. By the end of the month, thirteen people were dead and 72 were sick from the bug, and those numbers continued to rise over the course of October.

October, 2011

In my life: In October of 2011, I turned 30 and did not even come close to having the breakdown I thought I would. All in all it was a really nice birthday...and month: I finished the fourth chapter of my dissertation!

In we're-all-gonna-die news: While October saw me celebrating 30 years of life on the planet, it also saw the planet's population hit 7 billion (give or take). The media (and my brain) went crazy thinking about the implications of 7 billion people and counting...and I don't want to spoil the surprise, but they're not good. Oh, and then there was that freak snowstorm in the Northeast that basically cancelled Halloween. There were trees down everywhere...I almost got trapped at some friends' house. Good thing they had a saw we could use to dismember the tree blocking the driveway. Bad thing they didn't have a generator, as they lost power for quite a length of time.

November, 2011

In my life: Two exciting things happened in November, the first of which is that I finally got a couch for my apartment! I'd ordered the couch--my first grown-up non-Craigslist piece of living room furniture--at the beginning of September, but it didn't arrive for months and months (during which time I used lawn chairs as my living room furniture). I was beyond thrilled when the couch showed up; it's comfy, the exact color I wanted, AND it fit in my house (though just barely). Man, I wish I were sitting on it right now (dreamy sigh).

The other (arguably more exciting) thing that happened in November was that my good friend Tiffani got married. I'm going to go ahead and take credit for her happiness, because it was me, after all, who goaded her into joining OkCupid, where she met the man of her dreams on pretty much her first day on the site. Eight months later (or something ridiculous like that), they were married. I was really happy to be there to help them celebrate!

In we're-all-gonna-die news: Gosh, am I only on November? I am getting tired of searching for terrible news from 2011. You can go here for a wrap up of extreme weather in November, 2011, which included a lot of heatwaves and floods (did you see that crap in Italy?) and even a snowstorm in Iran. Oh...and then there was this.

December, 2011

In my life: December just finished, and nothing seems particularly momentous about the month except that my nephew learned how to crawl (aka, make extra trouble for mommy). Oh, and I finally paid off my credit card debt. No more absurd interest rates for me! Hooray!

In we're-all-gonna-die news: December was much more momentous for the world than it was for me: there were forest fires in Patagonia, a deadly tropical storm in the Philippines, a "scary" volcanic eruption in Ecuador, flash floods in Indonesia, a devastating cyclone in India, a big volcanic eruption in Alaska, an earthquake in New Zealand...I think I'll stop now, I'm depressing myself.

Want more doom? This is worth checking out.

Aaaand...that's all, folks. Well, that's all the news that's fit to print, anyway. I've omitted several significant news stories from my life because they concern areas I do not, as a rule, blog about, and I've doubtlessly left out many terrible global news stories. In fact, I'm sure I've left out many pertinent news items, given the non-systematic, non-comprehensive, and just generally shoddy "research" I did for this post. But let's be honest, isn't this entry long enough? It's time to quit.

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BONUS! More about me:

The year in numbers (Idea stolen from K)

Professionally:

Conferences attended: 4
Papers presented: 5
Papers presented at a single conference: 4 (plus a pre-conference workshop)
Papers published: 1

Dissertation proposals finished: 1
Dissertations finished: 0
Dissertation pages written by end of October, 2011: 310
Dissertation pages written in November & December, 2011: 0

Jobs applied for: 1
Jobs offered: 1
Jobs taken: 1

Personally:

States visited: 16 (California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Massachusetts, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Connecticut (for a knitting convention, no joke), Maine, Illinois)
Car ferries ridden on: 1
National parks visited: 5 (Petrified forest, Arches, Channel Islands, Badlands, Acadia)
National Monuments visited: 1 (Mt Rushmore)
Round trip flights: 5
Road trips to destinations 6 or more hours away: 7
Foreign countries visited: 1 (Canada, twice, once by plane and once by car)

Weddings attended: 2
Engagements of close friends announced: 3
Babies born to close friends & family: 3

Microwaves ruined by marshmallows: 1
Beers brewed: 1
Jams made: 5 (blueberry, raspberry, cherry, plum (aka "cardamom explosion"), cranberry pomegranate)
Pounds of tomatoes picked: ~50
Shoes ruined picking tomatoes: 2
Jars of homemade ketchup made: Not enough
Hurricanes weathered: 1 (Irene)
Trebuchets built: 1

Books read or listened to: 44, 34 fiction and 10 nonfiction (Favorite of all: this one.)
Books read on paper: 10
Books read on Kindle: 18
Books listened to: 16

Knitted items finished: 10 (by far the best)
Knitted items started but not finished: 2
Finished knitted items made for babies: 7
Finished knitted items made for me: 2

Computers ruined by spilled water: 1
Computers purchased with proceeds from insurance policy on computer ruined by spilled water: 1

Times "your mom" came out of my mouth: WAY TOO MANY

Posts made to this here blog: 78

And with that, I shall cease writing. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

*My god, it took me forever to finish this. Finding all those disasters to chronicle was hard work!

Hurricanes and earthquakes and no dissertating at all...oh my!

So much doom and gloom lately in these here parts! First the east coast got rocked by an earthquake (aside: I love this article about the quake from the eminent Insurance Journal, perhaps for the article's title alone), and then Boston got hit by a hurricane (or almost a hurricane, anyway). I sadly did not feel the earthquake, and while I was properly terrified of Irene before the storm hit, I found the actual experience of the hurricane (or whatever it was) quite anticlimactic (as did many people, I suspect, as Irene's intensity forecast was just a bit off). We didn't even lose power! Though when I emerged from hiding at the end of the day on Sunday, I was treated to one heck of a mess on the street:

Check out this half-a-tree (rhymes with half-a-bee), perched precariously on the power lines (or telephone lines? How to tell the difference?):

Crazypants!

Though the storm caused less damage than expected, it was still pretty bad, and many experts believe there could be many more of these giant storms in the future, what with climate change and all. Next time one comes along I will make sure to not park under a tree.

That tiny branch almost hit my car!

I might also tune into the weather channel for the duration of the next storm. Sounds fun.

***

Even more doomful than the earthquake and the hurricane, however, is the fact that I have done almost no dissertating for the past two weeks. This is bad bad news, people. The damn thing is never going to get done!

Though I suppose things could be worse.

***

Mr. Diss is not pleased. He says, "GET TO WORK!"