I really enjoyed this roundup, especially the loggerhead sea turtle and flamingo updates. The Boa Vista nesting numbers are incredible <3.
Fun fact: female loggerhead sea turtles can return to nest in the same general area where they hatched decades earlier. Scientists think they do this partly through geomagnetic imprinting: as hatchlings, they learn the magnetic signature of their natal coastline and later use Earth’s magnetic field like an internal map to navigate back across the ocean (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/turtles-use-the-earths-magnetic-field-as-a-global-gps). Is this so cool?
Also, flamingos get their pink color from pigments in the algae and tiny crustaceans they eat, which makes the Venetian Lagoon story even more fun to picture.
Two comments. What is China doing with the radioactive waste from their nuclear reactors? Is expanding nuclear energy really a good thing when we have no long term solution to the tons of radioactive waste piling up around the world? Second, what are the long term risks of all of the satellites currently in orbit and the plans to drastically increase their number? Thanks.
I'm not particularly worried about the problem of nuclear waste. It's small and easy to contain relative to other energy sources, and we might be able to use it as a resource in the future (and if not, we can bury the really nasty stuff underground). I'm more worried about the risks of satellite collisions; there seems to be a genuine "tragedy of the commons" in orbit that will require better coordination in the future.
In general, my story curation is guided by David Deutsch's view that solving existing problems always creates new problems, and "progress" is when those new problems are better than the old problems. So I contend that nuclear waste is a better problem than energy scarcity and air pollution, and the problem of satellite coordination is better than the litany of problems that satellites solve.
Lots of great info showing the pessimists are still wrong. Thanks!
I really enjoyed this roundup, especially the loggerhead sea turtle and flamingo updates. The Boa Vista nesting numbers are incredible <3.
Fun fact: female loggerhead sea turtles can return to nest in the same general area where they hatched decades earlier. Scientists think they do this partly through geomagnetic imprinting: as hatchlings, they learn the magnetic signature of their natal coastline and later use Earth’s magnetic field like an internal map to navigate back across the ocean (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/turtles-use-the-earths-magnetic-field-as-a-global-gps). Is this so cool?
Also, flamingos get their pink color from pigments in the algae and tiny crustaceans they eat, which makes the Venetian Lagoon story even more fun to picture.
Two comments. What is China doing with the radioactive waste from their nuclear reactors? Is expanding nuclear energy really a good thing when we have no long term solution to the tons of radioactive waste piling up around the world? Second, what are the long term risks of all of the satellites currently in orbit and the plans to drastically increase their number? Thanks.
I'm not particularly worried about the problem of nuclear waste. It's small and easy to contain relative to other energy sources, and we might be able to use it as a resource in the future (and if not, we can bury the really nasty stuff underground). I'm more worried about the risks of satellite collisions; there seems to be a genuine "tragedy of the commons" in orbit that will require better coordination in the future.
In general, my story curation is guided by David Deutsch's view that solving existing problems always creates new problems, and "progress" is when those new problems are better than the old problems. So I contend that nuclear waste is a better problem than energy scarcity and air pollution, and the problem of satellite coordination is better than the litany of problems that satellites solve.