When karma comes around

Evolution: Nature just won't cooperate

Recognizable modern human footprint fossils have been found in Crete dating to almost two million years before current evolution theory holds they evolved:

Footprint find on Crete may push back date humans began to walk upright
HUMAN-like footprints have been found on an ancient sea shore. They shouldn’t be there. They’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This story was also carried by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, so lest anyone think this is a thinly-disguised creationist fake news report, well, no. And don't you just love that final headline: "They’re in the wrong place at the wrong time." How dare nature show up when it's not welcome!

Anyway, here is the summary. A Polish palaeontologist, Gerard Gierlinski, was on vacay on Crete in 2002 when he found the footprints. He has taken more than a decade to analyse his find. Human footprints are absolutely distinctive in the hominid family, in fact among all animalia. Here is why:

Photo (h) shows the bottom of a modern human foot. Photo (i) is of one of the footprints in Crete.

The prints have been dated to 5.7 million years old

... using foraminifera (analysis of marine microfossils) as well as their position beneath a distinctive sedimentary rock layer created when the Mediterranean Sea dried up about 5.6 million years ago.

But evolution theory holds that no footprints like that should have been left anywhere until only four million years ago.

Humans have parallel toes with no claws. As the other photos show, bears have parallel toes, but definitely have claws. Non-human primates such as monkey and apes have no claws, but their feet do not have parallel toes nor is the big toe enlarged as on humans. In fact, primates' feet resemble their hands a great deal.

Furthermore, only humans have balls of their feet. Only human have a significantly arched foot. Primates have neither.

So how did modern footprints wind up on Crete 1.7 million years "early?" No one knows now but I assume that focused research will be forthcoming on site.

My daughter and I joked about writing a mad scientist book whose subject invents a time machine that he uses to leave anachronisms throughout history. Such as a Swiss ring watch in a sealed Ming Dynasty tomb. Or these footprints.

"Ah, they found the Crete footprints! Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!"

Harvey's second guessing well under way

Question asked by Philly.com:

Curiously, though, while the headline still appears on the paper's index, the article itself has been disappeared. Clicking on it takes you only to a photo essay page.

But anyway, question answered by Houston's mayor:

I might snarkily observe that when Philadelphia faces a hurricane like this, let's see what their city's leadership decides to do.

As my correspondent David K. wrote,

During the evacuation for Hurricane Rita over 100 people died while stuck in bumper to bumper traffic in heat over 100 degrees. It took my family 27 hours to make what is normally a 3 1/2 hour trip. To the best of my knowledge less than 10 people have lost their lives during Harvey. Had an evacuation order been given over 3 million people would have been on the road.

One of the major decision points is knowing where to evacuate and in what order and when. It would be nice to know a week out, but they don't. They are lucky to have even a somewhat reliable idea 12-15 hours out. There are more than 4 million people in the greater Houston area. An orderly evacuation of even a decent percentage of them would take how long? Perhaps as long as days, and a disorderly evacuation would be worse than none at all.

And a mayor also has to consider that he would be exposing his police and responder crews to even more severe hazard than they accept on patrol absent an evac order.

Where would you rather be when a Cat 4 sweeps over you - in your own house where you have stockpiled food, clothing, water and other necessities, or on the open road, stuck in traffic, with 130-mph winds and nothing more at hand than what you could cram in the car?

Neither is a walk in the park, but here is the answer for me:

 

These are stunning

Absolutely worth the time: 10+ Of The Best Shots Of The 2017 Solar Eclipse

NASA's best eclipse footage

Best of yesterday.

What did you do during the eclipse, daddy?

I stood by while my daughter, Elizabeth, took photos today with her Lumix camera. She set the camera to "fireworks" and covered the lens with a cut-to-fit solar lens, securing it with scotch tape. That's all there was to it! These were taken from our front yard.

I am including also one photo of Elizabeth because I am a proud papa. She left home a half hour after the eclipse with bags and baggage to move 35 miles away to begin her new career as a chemical engineer Aug. 22 at Ramboll Environ!

We got a little more than 2-1/2 minutes of totality and a fantastic view of the corona! Simply stunning! I was surprised by a couple of things. First, even in totality it did not get dark, just pretty dim. The horizon skyline was still significantly lit. I would not have needed headlights to drive. Second, when it was over, it was over very fast. Lighting went from dim to daytime almost like snapping your fingers. As I write the sun is still only a sliver as the moon moves away, but looking out my window it seems like full daytime.

Here are Elizabeth's pix:

 

 

The totality and its surprises

The totality has come and gone here in Greenbrier. We got a little more than 2-1/2 minutes of totality, though, and a fantastic view of the corona! Simply stunning!

I was surprised by a couple of things.

First, even in totality it did not get dark, just pretty dim. The horizon skyline was still significantly lit. I would not have needed headlights to drive. Second, when it was over, it was over very fast. Lighting went from dim to daytime almost like snapping your fingers. As I write the sun is still only a sliver as the moon moves away, but looking out my window it seems like full daytime.

Our daughter took some excellent photos of both the occlusion and the corona. I hope to have them soon! The photo of the corona below is from Google images, but it's a lot like the corona we saw.

August 21, the heart of darkness and thousands of dollars

In the waning days of June my wife and I moved from one county south of Nashville to one county north. We now live in Robertson County, near the town of Greenbrier.

And this makes us perfectly placed for the total eclipse of the sun, which takes place Aug 21.

But this year’s eclipse will be the first total solar eclipse visible from coast to coast since 1918. Tens of millions of Americans are projected to make their way into the narrow path of the moon’s shadow — a seventy-mile wide swath of complete darkness stretching from Oregon to South Carolina — to watch the sun disappear completely for nearly three minutes over one section of the country after another.

Let's zoom in. Here is the national path of the eclipse.

Here is the northern part of Tennessee, from the National Weather Service site, which has an interactive map. Here, of course, the blue line is the center of the 70-mile-wide path of totality.

Let's go in closer.

If you click on the images you'll get a clearer, larger view. The city of Springfield is toward the upper left. Look at about 4.30 from there and you'll see Greenbrier. We bought a new-construction home close to Greenbrier and so will be smack dab in the totality.

Professional photographer Bill Hobbs, a friend of mine, posted on his FB page that he was hoping to go to Casper, Wyoming, to document the eclipse. He said that AirBnB lists homes or rent at his destination for as much as $5,000 per night. And they'll get it, too.

So I wonder how much we could get for our house? My wife and I briefly talked about it, but only very briefly. Back in 1999 when the turn of the Millennium loomed, you may recall that everyone feared that the "Millennium Bug" would crash the country's entire computer infrastructure with potentially disastrous results at the stroke of midnight on New year's Eve because computer systems were never designed to handle years starting with 2.

I worked for a small IT company for two years before I got my first pastoral appointment in 1997. So real was the fear of Y2K coming that the CEO of the IT company called me in the waning days of December to offer me a baby-sitting job in the offices of one of their client companies. I would be paid $5,000 to monitor the company's computer systems from 9 p.m. Dec. 31 until 3 a.m. Jan 1.

Six hours work for $5K, or $833 per hour. I declined. I suppose they could have found my price to abandon my family for that New Year's Eve, but $5K was not it.

So I do not see listing my house on AirBnB for the eclipse, either.

Ins't nature wonderful?

Well, yes. Because just when you think you've seen it all, Momma comes up with something new: 'Firehose' of lava flows from Kilauea volcano into sea.

Researchers from the USGS’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory captured dramatic footage showing a ‘firehose’ of lava flowing from the Kilauea Volcano and into the sea.

The video also captures littoral explosions as the super hot lava makes contact with the cold sea water at the Kamokuna lava tube.

Here are two vids. Just amazing to watch!

We are burning

The raging wildfires is the eastern part of my state of Tennessee have only recently made the national news, but they have been going on for some time.

Reports this morning say that authorities suspect arson for at least half of the 60 identified fires so far and two men have been arrested and charged.

Two step brothers barely made it out of their cabin alive.



Update: Gatlinburg, Tenn., is a renowned tourist town nestled against the mountains, drawing millions of visitors and conventioneers per year.

Formerly isolated, the entire region around the town has become similarly built up. More than 14,000 people have been evacuated from Gatlinburg's outlying regions. Authorities say that downtown is "good for now." But, “It’s the apocalypse on both sides.”

Bigfoot photobombs nature cam

In Michigan a camera set up above an eagle's nest recorded this:



Story here, but there is no little amount of skepticism being thrown, even among Bigfoot believers. Such as how convenient it was for the creature to pause and look around at exactly the right place in the frame.

And here'a another Bigfoot video, just because.

Hurricane Matthew is bad and might get doubly worse

In "something you don't see every day" department (link):

Here is Matthew's present track prediction:

 The NOAA link is here (may be a live-update link).

And here is Nicole's track prediction:

Fortunately, Nicole is not moving much. The NOAA site says, "If a storm is expected to dissipate within 5 days, its track will be shorter." So hopefully it will. But what will happen if the two hurricanes collide? Maybe no one knows, but it won't be good.

Practically right over my head

A year from now there will be a total solar eclipse right across North America. And the path of darkness passes practically directly above my home in Tennessee.

I have been under an eclipse once before, but it was pretty much at the edge and so there was not very much darkening of the day.

And now a break for something beautiful

Courtesy American Digest:

If I ever worried that I’d run out of weird and wonderful new life to blog about, that fear has long been laid to rest. Take, for instance, this stunning jellyfish, discovered just four days ago by NOAA’s ship Okeanos Explorer and its ROV Deep Discoverer on the Enigma Seamount near the Mariana Trench 2.3 miles beneath the surface (3,700 meters). I recommend enlarging.

It almost looks photoshopped. But it’s real.

Scientists believe this animal belongs to the genus Crossota, a group of jellies that does not have a sessile polyp stage; all phases of their lives are ocean drifters. They also believe this animal is an ambush predator – note the posture it had assumed in the first half of the video: its bell motionless with its tentacles outstretched like the struts of a spider’s web, waiting for something to bumble into them. The red canals, they suggest, appear to connect the bright yellow objects, which may be gonads.

Okeanos Explorer and Deep Discoverer will be probing the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands over the next nine or so weeks, looking for new hydrothermal vents; mud volcanoes; deep-sea coral, sponges and fish; seamounts; subduction zones; and, of course, parts of the famous trench, the world’s deepest.

Read more.

One tree with a billion leaves

This is one dadgum big tree:

In the night sky

This light appeared in the night sky directly over my house last evening. First, the full shot, then a crop:

It was very high in the sky and moving linearly. But perhaps it's not quite as inexplicable as the black ring that appeared over England:


Video HT: American Digest.

Okay, it's been more than a day since I posted this. I have no idea what the black ring was over England. But the light in my night sky was a jet plane with unusual lights - not an airliner, but smaller like a large biz jet. Only when it flew directly over me did the sound of the engines reach my ears, unmistakably jets. The exterior lights were still unusual, though.

Lake Michigan Laughs at Southeast

As if to say, "You don't know what cold really is!"

NOAA's GOES-East satellite captured this image of a storm over the southeastern U.S. on Feb. 11, 2014 at 1:15 p.m. EST (1815 UTC).