Friday coffee break

• The Six Biggest Mysteries of our Solar System (New Scientist)


• Scientists Rank Global Cooling Hacks (wired.com)


• The Energy Scale (image)

Friday poll results

What level of attention do you give to other URMA magazines?

• There's more than one URMA mag that I consistently read thoroughly: 2 votes (9%)


• There's at least one URMA mag that I consistently read thoroughly: no votes (0%)


• There's more than one URMA mag that I usually read at least one or two articles per issue in: 2 votes (9%)


• There's at least one URMA mag that usually I read one or two articles per issue in: 1 vote (4%)


• I flip through most of the URMA mags, and read the things that seem most interesting: sometimes several articles, sometimes none: 13 votes (59%)


• I flip through most of the URMA mags, but I don't really have time to read much in them: 3 votes (13%)


• I don't really receive any other URMA mags: 1 vote (4%)

Words You Shouldn't Use

Journalistic cliches that should be brought to ‘closure’ ‘at the end of the day’ because we have ‘issues’ with them

New URMA issue on my desk

Volume 1, Number 1, of Explore, from Boise State University. Congrats to the Explore folks.

New URMA issue on my desk

The winter 2009 issue of (ahem) Endeavors, UNC-Chapel Hill.

New URMA issue on my desk

Fall 2008 issue of Paradigm, from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

One of the great musical mysteries of all time

In the Jungle: how American music legends made millions off the work of a Zulu tribesman who died a pauper.

Finalist, reporting, American Society of Magazine Editors' Best American Magazine Writing, 2001. (Rian Malan, Rolling Stone)

Tuesday coffee break: black holes

Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, author of Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries, tells the entertaining story of what it's like to be sucked into a black hole. (via BoingBoing)

The Noah's Ark of service animals

Dogs and miniature horses for the blind, monkeys for quadriplegia and agoraphobia, parrots for psychosis, goats for muscular dystrophy, and cats, ferrets, pigs, ducks, and reptiles for anxiety. There's a great feature about service animals and the myriad legal challenges that go along with them called Creature Comforts in the New York Times.

Sounds like a good screenplay...

Larry and Diana Moyer set out in November from Beaver Dam, Wis., in their oversized RV to spend some warm days in St. Petersburg, Fla. Since they travel with their pets, Jack (Diana's "service" kangaroo) and Edward (an elderly goat that uses a cart for mobility because of front-leg paralysis), their route south was circuitous because of some states' restrictions on "exotic" pets. The RV broke down three times. In Florida, Larry had a stroke and was hospitalized for two days. Then, a fuse box short-circuited, and the RV burned up, torching their money and ID. Diana was hospitalized for smoke inhalation. With Red Cross help, they found a motel that accepted goats (but not kangaroos, so Jack went overnight to a wildlife facility). At press time, according to a Tampa Tribune report, the couple had bought a junk car and were headed home, with Jack curled up in Diana's lap. [Tampa Tribune, 11-18-08 via newsoftheweird.com]