Jenny

Exactly. Especially when he/she can't spell. - Ha3rvey (on hiatus)

Thank you Mark and Gunny. :) - Jenny

It's a brand new tent, BDE! LOL - Jenny

You can do it! - Zulema ❧ spicy cocoa tart

Indeed :) - Eivind

:) - Jenny

"Sunny skies, highs in the upper 80s and dry, gusty winds are moving today into Las Vegas. Low relative humidity levels, strong winds and dry plant life will create hazardous fire conditions, leading the National Weather Service to issue a Red Flag Warning for most of southern Nevada and northwest Arizona. The warning is in effect from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Winds are expected to be south to southwest 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 45 mph, forecasters said" - Jenny

I'm packing my tent this time, so at least I'll have some protection. - Jenny

"The Nevada Assembly voted to approve a bill that bans motorists from cell phone use and texting while driving. Lawmakers in Carson City approved the bill yesterday in a 24 - 17 vote without any debate. Hands - free cell phone devices that permit motorists to keep both hands on the wheel are still allowed within the bill's guidelines." - Jenny

John: I stopped using my cell phone as much on the road as I had been. - Andy

Lazy? - That's So CAJ!

Ahh. True enough, kiddo. - Jenny

Sure. Extra vitamins and minerals, right? :) - Tamara J. B.

Chris was just trying to get me prepped for our upcoming trip to Italy. :P We can safely stop talking about wangs now. - Jenny

"What is Laramie? This winter, creative writing graduate students at the University of Wyoming teamed with Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas author Rebecca Solnit and cartographers Ben Pease and Shizue Seigel to answer that question. The series of maps and essays that resulted provide a nuanced portrait of place -- one that pairs missile silos with beetle kill, ghosts with cottonwoods, the wild West with its longstanding Asian influences. Beneath that, says the project's lead professor Alyson Hagy, lies a deepened sense of community that developed through an ever-widening net of collaboration, which drew in locals, artists, and other university departments and public institutions. Any community could undertake such an effort to endlessly re-imagine itself, Hagy adds: When people see Laramie: A Gem City Atlas -- on display at the UW Art Museum through June 18 -- "their first response is, 'I would map this,' or 'I would map that.' "" - Jenny

:) - Eivind

I'm glad you approve, Eivind. :P - Jenny

I do ;) - Eivind

"RICHMOND, Vt.—  A dozen conservation, organic agriculture, anti-pesticide and other groups formally notified the Obama administration that they will take legal action in 30 days if federal agencies do not act to immediately close caves and take other emergency steps on federal lands to protect bats from a new wildlife epidemic known as white-nose syndrome. The Center for Biological Diversity, which spearheaded the legal effort, also unveiled a new national campaign today to bring greater public awareness to the plight of bats dying from the fast-moving, lethal fungal infection." - Jenny

"Since its discovery in February 2006 in upstate New York, the fungus causing white-nose syndrome has spread to at least 19 states and four Canadian provinces and has killed more than a million bats. “White-nose syndrome is a runaway train that's devastating bat populations across the Northeast and rapidly spreading west,” said Mollie Matteson, a conservation advocate for the Center. “It’s barreling down the tracks wiping out bats, and while we don’t know how to stop it yet, we should at least use the brakes we’ve got — and fast. Those brakes are cave and mine closures.” The Center and its allies sent today’s notice to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The notice called on the secretaries to respond immediately to a federal petition filed in January 2010 by the Center requesting several actions to slow the potential spread, by people, of the bat disease. Specifically, the groups seek emergency restrictions on human access into caves and mines on federal lands; rules against activities that spread the disease and harm endangered bats; and the designation of all caves on federal lands as “significant” under a national cave-protection law." - Jenny

"Food and farming groups joined the suit because of concern that the precipitous decline of bats will lead to greater numbers of insects, some of which are major crop pests. Pesticide use may rise in response to fewer bats, and organic farmers in particular will lose a vital, nontoxic tool for keeping pests in check. Scientists believe bats may contribute between $3.7 billion and $53 billion in pest-control services each year to American agriculture. Although the disease is likely transmitted from bat to bat, there is compelling evidence that it's also transmitted from one bat colony to another by people. The fungus that causes white-nose syndrome has been found extensively in Europe, but bats there are unaffected and appear to have evolved with the fungus. The sudden appearance and deadly spread of white-nose syndrome in North America offers compelling evidence that the disease was unwittingly brought here from Europe on the gear or clothing of a caver. “The West’s millions of acres of public, federal land offer our best chance to preserve a reservoir of uninfected bats — if not indefinitely, then at least for a few crucial years while scientists work to find a cure,” Matteson said. “Keeping people from moving the fungus into the West is a biological and moral imperative, and the time to act is now.”" - Jenny

D'awwwwww! (Not the reaction you were looking for but U SO COOT!) - That's So CAJ!

LOL, hair brushing is for the weak! - Jenny

"Fans of the baseball Cardinals might have thought the bird Larry Ammann observed in January was dressed for a home game and an away game at the same time. The cardinal was half red, and half gray. Normally male cardinals are a bright, flashy red. Their fancy feathers may help them stand out and attract the more modestly dressed females. Females are usually a mixture of gray, light-brown and red. But the cardinal Ammann saw was male-colored on the left, but female-colored on the right. The bird also sported a crest on its head usually reserved for males." - Jenny

Thanks, Spidra! So fascinating. - rowlikeagirl

"The fly was at the bus station when he saw a man in a sailor suit clutch his stomach. Then he leant forward in his plastic seat and vomited onto the scuffed linoleum floor. “Son of a bitch,” the man muttered, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I just paid $6 for that!” There was a bathroom next to the snack bar, and as the man rose unsteadily to his feet and stumbled in its direction, the people flanking him abandoned their seats, leaving a wide berth for what looked to be an excellent meal. The fly liked a hot lunch and was just tucking in when a second fly, this one a female, flew down from the ceiling and landed on a narrow peninsula beside him. “What have we got here?” she asked. “Chinese,” the male said. The female picked half-heartedly at a snow pea. “Ten will get you 20 it’s from the Shanghai Garden,” she told him. “I had their pork lo mein once and was in the rest room for two days.” “Well, I don’t mind it,” the male said, and he moved from a beef chunk to a sliver of ginger. “If you don’t like ethnic, there are some potato chips in here too. And a grilled cheese sandwich.” What kind of cheese?” the female asked. “If it’s American, you can have it.” “Suit yourself,” the male said. “By law, they shouldn’t even be calling it cheese, that’s how tasteless and full of chemicals it is.” The female glanced into a slick of digestive juices and saw her face multiplied a hundredfold, scowling back at her. “Anyway, when it comes to regurgitated food, you really need to consider the source — the class of person or dog or whatever. Take the lieutenant governor and his family, for example, whom I happen to know quite intimately.”" - Jenny

:-D - John (bird whisperer)

"The U.S. military has always excelled at training soldiers, but they've had a tougher time helping them adjust to peace. The author joins 11 combat veterans in Nepal as they test the most promising new postwar therapy: adventure." - Jenny

"Before the deployment, his father made him promise that he wouldn't give up on life if he came home broken. So he learned to navigate a darkened world, ran in the Chicago Marathon and finished a half Ironman triathlon. He married a specialist in blindness rehabilitation and trained for the Paralympic cycling team. Baskis knew many wounded who'd become mired in desolation and anger. That wasn't him. He pushed and suffered and didn't quit. But now, as he gulped thin air and tripped and stumbled over rocks, the frustration swelled, and he wondered whether the final 2,000-foot ascent might break him. "I'm not going to make it if it's like this all day," he said. "I don't know if I have enough in the tank."" - Jenny

"Beneath Baskis, several more climbers whose bodies had been battered by war were scattered on rope teams along the rock slabs. They'd had legs taken by explosions and crashes, brains rattled by bombs, and spirits hammered by loss and fear and the disorienting journey home from the battlefield. Those moments, the worst of their lives, had brought them here: working up the side of 20,075-foot Lobuche in Nepal's Himalayas, hours before dawn. For some it was their first trip to a foreign country not at war. They climbed alongside their expedition teammates—ten mountaineers who had scaled Everest in 2001, including Erik Weihenmayer, still the only blind person to summit that peak. Weihenmayer and his friends, many of whom had since become professional mountain guides, wanted to commemorate the climb. Leading ten injured veterans up Lobuche, in Everest's shadow, seemed an appropriate parallel. "An expedition has the ability to renew you, to renew your soul," Weihenmayer had told the veterans several days earlier in Kathmandu. "I've been on dozens and dozens of expeditions, and I've died and been reborn on every one." The two groups had far more in common than each had first imagined. U" - Jenny

City by the bay. :) And Rochelle. <3 And a cute babby with a cat. :D - Jenny

The baby and the kat "her kids" magical - Simply Caroline

Listening to Pink Martini, eating cherry Greek yogurt, and indulging in wanderlust during breaks from working this evening. Tonight's destination? The city by the bay. <3 - Jenny

It's a date. :) - Jenny

Yes. A thousand times yes! <3 <3 <3 - Jenny

This is my favorite Radiohead song and Weezer kills it. \m/ - Jenny

:-) - John (bird whisperer)

:) - Jenny

:) - Eivind

:) - Jenny

This was supposed to be posted to Lovefest, too! Gah! I love you all, but want to kick myself in the ass. - Jenny

I have never used lovefest - Mike Nencetti

I <3 Lovefest! - Jenny

hahaha - Rodfather

"She should have eaten her Wheaties." That would actually make a fine subtitle for my autobiography. - Jenny

Furrys FTW! - sofarsoShawn

Yes, thank you, Shawn. ;) - Jenny

Venezuelan Beaver Cheese - Spidra Webster

Spidra, I don't know what that is, but it can't possibly be worse than bacon cheese from a tube. I think. - Jenny

...pride myself on being able to get along with and befriend people on both sides of the fence. #SaturdayFF - Jenny

Closest I got to working with wolves was collecting wolf scat in Alberta. I did see wolves while I was working up there, which was a total win. I've spent some time with some ambassador wolves before (had my teeth licked by them, even), which was pretty awesome. I'm not obsessed with working with wolves like I once was, but I still l love 'em. - Jenny

:-) - John (bird whisperer)

"If Alexandra Cousteau could impart just one piece of wisdom, it would be this: Get to know your water source. Like her grandfather, Jacques, the legendary explorer whose 1956 film “The Silent World,” is still the most influential underwater documentary ever made, 35-year-old Cousteau is educating millions of viewers worldwide. But just 55 years after her grandfather filmed the pristine reefs of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, his granddaughter is forced to report an urgent reality: watersheds everywhere are becoming fractured and polluted, almost beyond repair.  After founding the D.C.-based non-profit Blue Legacy in 2008 and being named a National Geographic “Emerging Explorer” the same year, in 2009 D.C.-based Cousteau embarked on Expedition Blue Planet, a 14,500-mile journey across North America to investigate global water issues in her own backyard. I recently met the soft-spoken Cousteau, who is having a baby girl in July, in Costa Rica. She told me how it feels to be part of an exploratory dynasty, what she’s learned since her grandfather taught her how to dive at age seven, and why you’ll want to pay attention to her latest mission: reconnecting people to the water in their own backyards." - Jenny

the Colorado River is the most amazing river i was ever in !.. it has so many twists and turns and seems to go on forever! I would love to see some Used Shipping Containers as Homes along side some areas of the Colorado river instead of those trailer homes.http://containerhouse.info - David Lee

"From California to Arizona, Colorado to Maine, states across the country are legalizing the sale of medical marijuana. Recent warnings from U.S. attorneys, however, are making local governments rethink their plans. Seth Bock stands in what's supposed to be one of Rhode Island's first medical marijuana stores. His group was going to install grow lights and a ventilation system this week, but not anymore. "We can't really invest any money into the carpentry and the building process until we know that this will go on," he says. But that could take a while. Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has put the program on hold indefinitely. The reason: a letter he received from the U.S. Attorneys' Office that said Rhode Island's so-called compassion centers could face federal raids, fines or criminal prosecution if they open. "The U.S. attorney was very direct," governor's spokesman Michael Trainor says. "The governor believes that if we proceed on the present course, he'd be putting the compassion centers and people associated with compassion centers at great risk."" - Jenny

"What the policy is, exactly, depends on how you interpret what's called "the Ogden memo." "In 2009, the Department of Justice indicated that it would be a low priority to prosecute anyone who was complying with state medical marijuana laws," Jay Rorty of the American Civil Liberties Union explains. He says the 2009 memo from then-Deputy Attorney General David Ogden made advocates think the federal government wouldn't interfere with state medical marijuana stores. U.S. Attorney Michael Ormsby from Washington state disagrees with that interpretation. "I think the ACLU takes that statement out of context," he says. According to him, the memo means the federal government won't go after patients who are growing their own marijuana — but retail stores were never part of that exception. "We're talking, in some instances, about thousands of dollars a week being generated by these enterprises," he says. It's a problem familiar to Colorado's Attorney General John Suthers. He says Colorado's more than 800 dispensaries are probably not what the federal government had in mind when it issued the Ogden memo. "We've had just a plethora of retail dispensaries develop. We've got grow operations; we're now at 125,000 patients," he says. "And it's a joke." That's why he asked his U.S. attorney for advice. Suthers guesses that the letters from other U.S. attorneys are an attempt to prevent more states from becoming like Colorado." - Jenny

"How each state interprets those letters is different. Some are going ahead with their programs despite the warnings. Others are in the same limbo as Rhode Island, where patients are getting frustrated. "I don't know about you, but I feel mad. Do you?" Ellen Lenox Smith is a familiar face at the podium in the Rhode Island State House. She testifies in favor of dispensaries at every opportunity, with her wheelchair and service dog nearby. She says marijuana helps lessen the pain of her two incurable diseases. She grows her own plants, for now. "I have to wonder, as I progress with my two conditions, where am I going to be headed? What happens when I can no longer grow? Where am I supposed to turn?" she says. For now, the answer to Lenox Smith's question is unclear, as states weigh the new risks of opening dispensaries. Local governments are looking to a lawsuit filed by the governor of Arizona to clarify the federal government's stance on state marijuana programs. Meanwhile, the sale of the drug continues to follow a pattern of fits and starts across the country." - Jenny

"Scientists say they've found solid evidence of a giant mass of hot rock under the seafloor in the region. But it's not a plume running straight from the core to the surface—and it's hundreds of miles west of the nearest Hawaiian island. Until now, the researchers say, good seismic data on the region has been scarce, so it was tough to question the traditional explanation: that a stream of hot rock directly from around Earth's core formed the 3,100-mile-long (5,000-kilometer-long) chain of islands and undersea mountains in the Pacific Ocean. As Earth's crust slid over the plume, as if on a conveyor belt, the erupting seafloor built mounts, mountains, and islands out of layers of cooled lava over tens of millions of years—or so the conventional wisdom goes." - Jenny

"But after analyzing 20 years' worth of earthquake data, geophysicists say they've found an 800-mile-wide (1,300-kilometer-wide) region of hot rock in the Hawaiian region—but nothing beneath the Big Island of Hawaii. The island, the youngest in the chain, is traditionally thought to be above the purported plume. Although the new evidence flies in the face of the giant-plume theory, "we can't rule out a narrow plume below the island, but the main source comes from a different place. It can't be linked directly below," said geophysicist Robert van der Hilst of MIT, co-author of the new study, led by his colleague Qin Cao and appearing online today in the journal Science." - Jenny

"A technique called seismic tomography uses the sounds of earthquakes rippling through the planet and bouncing around to detect such plumes, or hot spots. But this kind of data has been limited for Hawaii. "It's been very difficult to image the mantle below Hawaii, simply because it's so far away from [large] seismic-sensor networks," van der Hilst said. Data suggesting a plume directly below the island is very limited and based on relatively narrow sampling by seismic waves, he said. By contrast, Van der Hilst said, the new study analyzed two decades' worth of seismic data and extracted subtle but clear signals. Those signals point to the giant anomaly, about 410 miles (660 kilometers) down: a relatively disklike segment of rock between 540 and 720 degrees Fahrenheit (300 and 400 degrees Celsius) hotter than its surroundings and between 370 miles (600 kilometers) and 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) west of the Big Island. The team suspects the plume is pooling at the boundary between the upper and lower mantle, then snaking its way to the crust below the archipelago before rising to feed Hawaii's volcanic islands." - Jenny

I just ate some edamame :) - Tamara J. B.

It is :) - Eivind

:) - Eivind

My oldest son is the rock star in the back on the tuba. LOL - Jenny

PUNK ROCK TUBA PLAYERS UNITE! - kendrak

Wonderful and so much better music selection than hearing the standard school band music for the 100th time. But it could use a tuba solo! - Steve C, Team Marina

I agree. :) - Jenny

Oh hells yes. - Jenny

:) - Eivind

"A debate that erupted 5 months ago over whether a bacterium incorporates arsenic into its DNA is about to start simmering again. Today online in Science eight research groups voice their concerns about a paper that appeared 2 December 2010 online in Science and will be published in next week's issue of the journal. The original article presented an exception to one of the fundamental rules of life on Earth. To survive, microbes, plants, and animals all require six essential elements: oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus. But NASA astrobiology fellow Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues isolated a bacterium that, when grown with high arsenic concentrations and no added phosphorus, appears to replace some phosphorus with the chemically similar arsenic in key biomolecules, including DNA." - Jenny

"A startling discovery in and of itself, the finding became even more controversial because a NASA press announcement in December implied a connection to the search for extraterrestrial life. Yet many scientists were sharply critical of the paper, including several who blogged about their concerns in posts that drew hundreds of comments that offered additional attacks on the work. When journalists tried to follow up, Wolfe-Simon, then at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, and her colleagues initially declined to respond, fueling speculations about the soundness of the research. The group eventually posted a response. And in a subsequent interview, Wolfe-Simon said she and her co-authors welcomed the debate but, "We wanted to be able to have that discourse in the scientific community, as a record." That discourse has now begun with the so-called Technical Comments published today online by Science, along with a response by Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues. The exchange does not put forth new data on the matter, but centers on the original experiments in which Wolfe-Simon isolated bacteria from arsenic-laden Mono Lake, California, and then tried to grow them in cultures with large amounts of arsenic and no phosphorus, which is typically required for growth. One strain called GFAJ-1 still managed to multiply, despite the dearth of phosphorus, the original paper reported." - Jenny

"The issue of whether arsenic-containing molecules would be stable in a cell is the subject of three of the Technical Comments. In the cytoplasm, arsenate would be reduced to arsenite, which would not be able to substitute for phosphate, Barbara Schoepp-Cothenet, from the Bioénergétique et Ingénierie des Protéines in Marseilles, France, and colleagues, claim in one comment. Moreover, phosphates are incorporated into DNA early in a multistep process, and an arsenic substitute would be unlikely to survive that process intact, notes Benner. In a response accompanying the Technical Comments, Wolfe-Simon and her co-authors point to work by others that suggests that these arsenic compounds would last longer when part of large biomolecules. Her group has proposed that the bacterium might sequester the arsenic compounds to protect them from breaking down. "In the comments, there were lots of good points that were raised," says Wolfe-Simon's co-author Samuel Webb, a biogeochemist at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource in Menlo Park, California. "With anything this intriguing or controversial, there will always be multiple sides." In a note published along with the comments and the response, Bruce Alberts, Science's Editor-in-Chief, acknowledges that the debate over the bacterium is far from over, writing: "We recognize that some issues remain unresolved. However, the discussion published online today is only a step in a much longer process."" - Jenny