The poetry & music of life chronicled by a journalist who learned to walk twice
Reblogged from latimes  8,318 notes
Posted 2, April, 2013

latimes:

The crisis facing California sea lions

State officials have declared an “unusual mortality event” for California sea lions, after an unusually high number of pups barely clinging to life have recently washed ashore.

For a sense of the sheer number of pups who have reportedly been found washed up:

In Los Angeles County, nearly 400 pups have been stranded since the beginning of the year. Last year, 36 were reported during that stretch.

As of March 24, officials said, 214 sea lions were reported stranded in San Diego County, 189 in Orange County, 108 in Santa Barbara County and 42 in Ventura County.

Read more from reporter Rick Rojas here.

Photos: Allen J. Schaben, Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

Reblogged from latimes  38 notes
Posted 1, April, 2013
latimes: Shakespeare: Profiteer and tax dodger? British researchers are now claiming that the most famous of all playwrights, William Shakespeare, was repeatedly fined for illegally hoarding grain so that he could hike up the prices during food shortages and even threatened jail for avoiding taxes. From the report from researchers at Aberystwyth University in Wales: “By combining both illegal and legal activities, Shakespeare was able to retire in 1613 as the largest property owner in his hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon. His profits — minus a few fines for illegal hoarding and tax evasion — meant he had a working life of just 24 years.” Read more over at Money & Co.

latimes:

Shakespeare: Profiteer and tax dodger?

British researchers are now claiming that the most famous of all playwrights, William Shakespeare, was repeatedly fined for illegally hoarding grain so that he could hike up the prices during food shortages and even threatened jail for avoiding taxes.

From the report from researchers at Aberystwyth University in Wales:

“By combining both illegal and legal activities, Shakespeare was able to retire in 1613 as the largest property owner in his hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon. His profits — minus a few fines for illegal hoarding and tax evasion — meant he had a working life of just 24 years.”

Read more over at Money & Co.

Reblogged from latimes  120 notes
Posted 29, March, 2013
latimes: Do robot ants dream of electric crumbs? Want to get inside of the brains of ants? Researchers looking to understand how ants solve problems, instead of sitting down for a focus group with the ants, have called upon 10 sugar-cube-sized robots. The study, which culminated in a study published Thursday, is an attempt to comprehend how ants coordinate their behavior, with the long-term goal of curbing the spread of the invasive Argentine ant, which is disrupting ecosystems worldwide.And what’s the importance of a single ant among a gigantic swarm? The behavior of individual foragers can have drastic consequences for the entire group. A series of wrong turns by one or several workers can transform an otherwise successful picnic raid into a catastrophe: Wayward ants can accidentally lock their supply network into a closed loop, causing the group to march in a fruitless spiral until they drop from exhaustion. As for the conclusions of the study, well, you’ll have to check out the full write-up from Science Now.

latimes:

Do robot ants dream of electric crumbs?

Want to get inside of the brains of ants? Researchers looking to understand how ants solve problems, instead of sitting down for a focus group with the ants, have called upon 10 sugar-cube-sized robots.

The study, which culminated in a study published Thursday, is an attempt to comprehend how ants coordinate their behavior, with the long-term goal of curbing the spread of the invasive Argentine ant, which is disrupting ecosystems worldwide.

And what’s the importance of a single ant among a gigantic swarm?

The behavior of individual foragers can have drastic consequences for the entire group. A series of wrong turns by one or several workers can transform an otherwise successful picnic raid into a catastrophe: Wayward ants can accidentally lock their supply network into a closed loop, causing the group to march in a fruitless spiral until they drop from exhaustion.

As for the conclusions of the study, well, you’ll have to check out the full write-up from Science Now.

Reblogged from beingblog  116 notes
Posted 29, March, 2013
beingblog: “He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” ~Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera Photo by Michelle Robinson / Flickr, cc by-nc-nd 2.0 Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

beingblog:

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”

~Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Photo by Michelle Robinson / Flickr, cc by-nc-nd 2.0

Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera