The sculpture of Kate Clark

Clark puts human faces on the bodies of animals to create some of the most haunting sculptures I’ve ever seen. These are powerful and terrifying and the memory of seeing even these photos is likely to instill existential dread in me whenever it’s recalled. But all this fear on my part is probably just a subconscious recognition that we humans are animals, often wild, and yet seldom betray these qualities with our faces.

Untitled (Black Bear)

Fish mega-shoals could be world's biggest animal group

The article quotes the project’s leader commenting on the power of new visualization techniques that allowed the researchers to see hundreds of millions of fish forming vast mega-shoals off the coast of Massachusetts:

If we see what’s in the ocean we’ll be more mindful of conserving it.

The bees are back in town

Colony collapse disorder (CCD) once made headlines; now it’s the bee glut. While the cause of the former remains a mystery, the latter is largely economic:

The price of almonds dropped by 30% between August and December last year, as people had less money in their pockets. That has caused growers to cut costs, and therefore hire fewer hives. There is also a drought in the region, and many farmers are unlikely to receive enough water to go ahead with the harvest. Meanwhile, the recent high prices for pollination contracts made it look worthwhile fattening bees up with supplements over the winter. That may help explain why there have been fewer colony collapses.

The rise and fall of the managed honeybee, then, owes as much to the economics of supply and demand as it does to the forces of nature. And if the nutrition and disease theory is correct, next year’s lower contract prices may see beekeepers cutting back on supplemental feeding, and a resurgence of CCD.

Build a Solar Power Generator for Under $300

One of these “will run radios, fans, and small wattage lights all night, or give you about 5 hours of continuous use at 115 volt AC, or about an hour boiling water.” That’s great, but I’m more interested in this design’s ability to scale-up with the addition of larger components; I’m guessing the price grows exponentially as you increase capacity.

(Originally posted to rain.org.)

Trees, cabs and crime in San Francisco (part deux)

Urban tree locations come courtesy of Friends of the Urban Forest, one day’s worth of taxi cab locations from Yellow Cab (via Cabspotting), and a week’s worth of reported crime incidents from Crime Reports.

Originally uploaded by shawnbot