thedrifter
06-18-07, 06:42 AM
AT RANDOM: MAGAZINES
A noble, if odd, calling: Saving whale droppings
By James Warren
Tribune staff reporter
June 18, 2007
When Don "Mr. Wizard" Herbert died last week, his success in popularizing science was justly noted, especially for a generation of Americans tuning in television in the 1950s and 1960s.
Knock on wood those many millions, myself included, weren't simultaneously reading, "The Worst Jobs in Science," as found in July's Popular Science.
Its annual bottom-10 compendium begins with whale-feces researcher Rosalind Rolland of the New England Aquarium in Boston, who spends much of her time navigating Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy in search of endangered North Atlantic right whales. Well, to be honest, she's actually looking for their poo. A pioneer in whale-feces research, she realized that feces would allow her to test for pregnancy, measure hormones and biotoxins and examine critical genetic elements.
It's said that "other whale researchers have adopted Rolland's methods." Of course, they could pursue other lines of work detailed by the magazine:
Forensic entomologist.
This is all about Neal Haskell, a one-time Indiana farmer who now teaches at St. Joseph's College because he helps solve murders by studying maggots, meaning he picks through decaying corpses, and thus helps to determine the timing of death, obviously key in any murder case. He's said to be one of about 20 similar insect investigators.
Gravity research subject.
NASA obviously needs to fully understand the impact of lack of gravity, and to combat symptoms such as atrophied muscles and bone degeneration. To that end it employs people to spend 21 straight days in bed, along the way forcing them to shower using hand-held hoses and relieving themselves in bedpans. And they're strapped to "a gravity-simulating centrifuge and slung around for an hour, creating 1 G near their hearts and 2.5 Gs at their feet."
For your diligence, the government gives you $6,000.
Microsoft security grunt.
The company's Security Response Center deals with an apparently unceasing number of tedious problems, with products having multiple versions in various language and each needing its own repairs (Explorer is said to have 300 different configurations). "Plus, to most hackers, crippling Microsoft is the geek equivalent of taking down the Death Star, so the assault is relentless."
Elephant vasectomist.
An elephant's testicle is, ah, very big and tough and explains why veterinarian Mark Stetter, who works at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Florida, invented a four-foot-long fiber-optic laparoscope tied to a video monitor. He needs it to sterilize randy elephant, especially in African wildlife parks, where the animals have been breeding way too quickly. It's not an easy process and involves sedating the pachyderms with darts shot from helicopters and then using a crane to pull the sleeping beasts upright.
Quickly: If you thought we knew all about the Abu Ghraib prison mess, New Yorker's Seymour Hersh suggests not, with no details of abuse and the assertion that then-Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld was not honest about what he knew and when. On a distinctly lighter side, there's a nice essay on the legend of French singer Edith Piaf. ... The Tribune has warned readers about the summer's coming air travel mess and, now, June 18 U.S. News & World Report chimes in with a consumer survival guide, which goes beyond avoiding the five worst airports (Detroit, O'Hare, Charlotte, N.C., New York's Kennedy and Newark, N.J.). It offers some suggestions for using travel Web sites to find an edge in tracking down bargains, including Kayak.com and Farecast.com. ... July Esquire is excellent with a novella from Stephen King; a valiant Tom Junod attempt to offer a few insights on Angelina Jolie we've not read before; and a droll shot at competitor Vanity Fair with a page of mock covers of "Other Magazines Bono is Guest Editing This Month," including Disney Adventures, Us Weekly, Cosmopolitan and Delta's in-flight Sky (replete with "The Ten Most Egregious Sweatshops in Vietnam ... and the Ten Best Raincoats They Make."). ... June Harper's prepares for the exit from the political stage of President Bush with a variety of essays on how to "repair eight years of sabotage, bungling, and neglect," including James Banford's on the intelligence sphere.
He argues that the administration made a critical intelligence errors in treating terrorism "not as a crime, to be solved by intelligence, and law enforcement agencies, but as an existential military threat, to be confronted with tanks and Marines."
Ellie
A noble, if odd, calling: Saving whale droppings
By James Warren
Tribune staff reporter
June 18, 2007
When Don "Mr. Wizard" Herbert died last week, his success in popularizing science was justly noted, especially for a generation of Americans tuning in television in the 1950s and 1960s.
Knock on wood those many millions, myself included, weren't simultaneously reading, "The Worst Jobs in Science," as found in July's Popular Science.
Its annual bottom-10 compendium begins with whale-feces researcher Rosalind Rolland of the New England Aquarium in Boston, who spends much of her time navigating Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy in search of endangered North Atlantic right whales. Well, to be honest, she's actually looking for their poo. A pioneer in whale-feces research, she realized that feces would allow her to test for pregnancy, measure hormones and biotoxins and examine critical genetic elements.
It's said that "other whale researchers have adopted Rolland's methods." Of course, they could pursue other lines of work detailed by the magazine:
Forensic entomologist.
This is all about Neal Haskell, a one-time Indiana farmer who now teaches at St. Joseph's College because he helps solve murders by studying maggots, meaning he picks through decaying corpses, and thus helps to determine the timing of death, obviously key in any murder case. He's said to be one of about 20 similar insect investigators.
Gravity research subject.
NASA obviously needs to fully understand the impact of lack of gravity, and to combat symptoms such as atrophied muscles and bone degeneration. To that end it employs people to spend 21 straight days in bed, along the way forcing them to shower using hand-held hoses and relieving themselves in bedpans. And they're strapped to "a gravity-simulating centrifuge and slung around for an hour, creating 1 G near their hearts and 2.5 Gs at their feet."
For your diligence, the government gives you $6,000.
Microsoft security grunt.
The company's Security Response Center deals with an apparently unceasing number of tedious problems, with products having multiple versions in various language and each needing its own repairs (Explorer is said to have 300 different configurations). "Plus, to most hackers, crippling Microsoft is the geek equivalent of taking down the Death Star, so the assault is relentless."
Elephant vasectomist.
An elephant's testicle is, ah, very big and tough and explains why veterinarian Mark Stetter, who works at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Florida, invented a four-foot-long fiber-optic laparoscope tied to a video monitor. He needs it to sterilize randy elephant, especially in African wildlife parks, where the animals have been breeding way too quickly. It's not an easy process and involves sedating the pachyderms with darts shot from helicopters and then using a crane to pull the sleeping beasts upright.
Quickly: If you thought we knew all about the Abu Ghraib prison mess, New Yorker's Seymour Hersh suggests not, with no details of abuse and the assertion that then-Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld was not honest about what he knew and when. On a distinctly lighter side, there's a nice essay on the legend of French singer Edith Piaf. ... The Tribune has warned readers about the summer's coming air travel mess and, now, June 18 U.S. News & World Report chimes in with a consumer survival guide, which goes beyond avoiding the five worst airports (Detroit, O'Hare, Charlotte, N.C., New York's Kennedy and Newark, N.J.). It offers some suggestions for using travel Web sites to find an edge in tracking down bargains, including Kayak.com and Farecast.com. ... July Esquire is excellent with a novella from Stephen King; a valiant Tom Junod attempt to offer a few insights on Angelina Jolie we've not read before; and a droll shot at competitor Vanity Fair with a page of mock covers of "Other Magazines Bono is Guest Editing This Month," including Disney Adventures, Us Weekly, Cosmopolitan and Delta's in-flight Sky (replete with "The Ten Most Egregious Sweatshops in Vietnam ... and the Ten Best Raincoats They Make."). ... June Harper's prepares for the exit from the political stage of President Bush with a variety of essays on how to "repair eight years of sabotage, bungling, and neglect," including James Banford's on the intelligence sphere.
He argues that the administration made a critical intelligence errors in treating terrorism "not as a crime, to be solved by intelligence, and law enforcement agencies, but as an existential military threat, to be confronted with tanks and Marines."
Ellie