Crab Invasion

150,000,000 crabs swarm slowly onto Christmas Island. When their eggs hatch simultaneously, there could be as many as 75,000,000,000,000 of them. They walk slowly, but… man…

Ya gotta wonder if they have enough sentience to know, even close to ballpark, how many of them there actually are. My hope is that they don’t.

Christmas Island Red Crabs - Amazing videos are here

News Flash: Pollution Affects Animals

In another not-so-shocking proof that pollution can really mess up a species, scientists have shown DNA damage and mutation in mice can be caused by polluted air. This is one of those experiments that just didn’t need to happen, much as it may be nice to confirm the point from time to time.

See the scoop here.

Oil Boil Over

The latest in “the oil’s REALLY running out and there’s nothing we can really do about it since we’re jackasses and let it get this bad and now emerging economies are tipping the balance towards destruction” news here.

Review of Stupid to the Last Drop

Extra! Extra! The oil business is full of greedy, morally vacuous weasels who are going to destroy us all. What? You already knew? Well then, how about an account of all of the back room deals, willful and criminal ignorance of environmental consequences and the insane lengths to which people are willing to go in order not to give up the hydrocarbon dream. If that sounds like something that tickles your fancy, I highly recommend reading William Marsden’s Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (and Doesn’t Seem to Care). The book begins by relating the tale of Manley L. Natland and his grand scheme to extract the oil from Canada’s Oil Sands using a series of 9 Kiloton nuclear bombs detonated underground, and the hits just keep rolling from there. Marsden takes you on a journey of discovery that will haunt your dreams and fundamentally change your relationship with your car. Like a cow traveling through an abattoir, you’re stunned at the beginning, propelled through a labyrinth of atrocities only to arrive at the end and realize you’re completely screwed.

Asteroid Ingredients

Know your enemy!

If an asteroid was on course to hit Earth, one of the best things to know, apparently, would be its composition. The strategy for dealing with it can change depending on what it’s made of. My guess is that it comes down to just how solid and strong it is, and thus how severe the measures taken have to be.

There’s an asteroid that’s a current candidate for Earth smashing, called Apophis. A roughly 0.00002% chance for a hit. In that unlikely event of a coming collision, we actually know what this one’s made of, based on meteorites similar to it that have already hit Earth. All to say, probably a false alarm. Then again, someone won the lottery today, and they had worse odds.

Read some more about it here.