Louis Ingenthron @LouisIngenthron@social.cleverlibre.org

@jann Huh.

Once again the news and social media are full of stuff about an upcoming #SuperMoon .

🌕 The #Moon's orbit around the Earth is elliptical. Sometimes it's a bit closer and thus looks a tad bigger, but the difference is barely noticeable. It's not even remotely close to "super".

The Moon is always pretty, there's no need to wait for fabricated "events" to look up and enjoy it!

#astronomy #astrodon #scicomm

📷 Marcoaliaslama (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.

https://www.comicsands.com/alice-cooper-vampyre-cosmetics-transphobia-2664558410.html?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=infeed&utm_campaign=linkprogram

Modern product name suffixes are weird! A PM decoder ring to help:

"Prime": really hoping the convenience means distracts you from the subsistence wages

"Plus"/"+": oh god, we're tired and we've been at this branding offsite for 3 days; make it stop!

"Pro": not advised for use in professional settings

"a"/"ti": last year's product, fixed

"X": too late for Prime, too early for Plus

[other roman neumerals]: not for the US market

"Studio": costs as much as a studio

http://smbc-comics.com/comic/sonnet-2

I feel like we aren’t talking nearly enough about DeSantis (FL), Abbott (TX) and Kemp (GA) using or threatening to use state laws that allow for the removal of local elected officials for significant misconduct to replace Democrats with their Republican cronies on the flimsiest of pretexts, and without any due process. DeSantis already replaced 2 prosecutors, it’s how TX took over the Houston schools, and Kemp is threatening Fani Willis.

In 1995, 14 wolves were released in Yellowstone National Park.

No one expected the miracle that the wolves would bring.

It started with the wolves hunting the deer, this led to a rapid decrease in the deer population. The wolves' presence also made the deer avoid parts in the park where they were and easy prey.

Thanks to the deer's absence, those parts started to regenerate. Forests of aspen and willow trees started to flourish.

That's when things really started to happen. With trees and bushes came more berries and bugs. As soon as that happened, various bird species started moving in.

With the increasing tree population, also another species was attracted. The beaver, previously extinct in the region, moved back. And the dams they built provided habitats for otters, muskrats and reptiles.

The wolves also killed coyotes, which meant more hawks, red foxes, badgers and weasels in the park. Even the population of bald eagles and ravens rose.

But here's where it gets really interesting. The wolves changed the behavior of the rivers. With more balance between predator and prey came the possibility for other species to thrive. There was less erosion because of increased vegetation. And the river banks were stabilized, the channels narrowed, more pools formed, and the rivers stayed more fixed in their courses.

So the wolves did not only transform the great ecosystem of Yellowstone, they also changed the park's physical geography.

#nature #ecology #wolves #yellowstone #parks

I know folks are skeptical that the college board could send marketing data to 3rd parties without knowing about it, but as someone who has dealt with these marketing scripts (they still euphemistically call them “pixels” but they are giant ass JavaScript libraries), I can tell you that companies sell to marketing teams by guaranteeing “zero configuration” which means “we’ll find & send ourselves all the PII we can find on your page”. https://mastodon.social/@kennwhite/110950673710829057

I’m late to the party but congratulations to the Indian Space Agency for being the fourth country to land on the moon.

The trip cost $75 million which is cheaper than a bunch of Hollywood movies about going to space including Gravity & Interstellar.

The space race is back.

https://www.independent.co.uk/space/chandrayaan-3-budget-india-interstellar-b2399203.html

#FIFA suspends the president of the football federation of #Spain for kissing Women's World Cup player Jenni Hermoso.
https://www.fifa.com/legal/media-releases/the-fifa-disciplinary-committee-provisionally-suspends-luis-rubiales

Shared with me by a sympathetic friend.