I know we say this every year, but the ones blazing out there as I type are particularly large and powerful. All weekend, it really did look (and smell) like a giant atomic bomb had gone off. The air throughout LA county was unsafe to breathe. Two firefighters died yesterday, while battling the blazes. I live and work in LA, nowhere near the flames and not at risk. All best wishes go out to BB friends who are in the danger zone. Be safe.
Below: Anthony Citrano's photo coverage of the Station Fire. There are several fires active right now, but this is the big one threatening Pasadena/Altadena/etc., including the NASA JPL facility. JPL's statement about the fire emergency is here, looks like they're pretty safe now. Citrano's Flickr set is here, with a number of truly stunning and scary shots (CC).
After the jump: WHOAH, BB reader Danimation shot another *incredible* time-lapse of the giant smoke clouds, you really have to see this one. Click ahead to view. Feel free to post other resources of interest in the comments.
Antti Lipponen of the Finnish Meteorological Institute created this troubling but unsurprising chart of almost 140 years of temperature anomalies by country. The data used was from the NASA GISS, Land Ocean Temperature Index. You can probably guess what will happen.
In ten years, scientists hope to have mapped the entire ocean floor in high resolution. This week, the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project announced that they’ve completed 20 percent of the map. A full mapping to “modern standards” is useful for conservation and also to support scientific understanding of ocean systems, weather, tsunami wave propagation, […]
Twenty-five experts have issued a warning about the potentially cataclysmic consequences of the rapidly shrinking insect population, reports The Guardian. In a two-part article for Biological Conservation, the scientists wrote: “The current [insect] extinction crisis is deeply worrisome. Yet, what we know is only the tip of the iceberg.We know enough to act immediately. Solutions […]
The average US household replaces their mattress about every seven years. So if it’s been more than that, or even a lot more than that, it might be time to invest in a new slumber HQ. And most sleep experts will tell you the right mattress really should be looked at as an investment. Because […]
If there’s any knock on most smartwatches, up to and including the industry-leading Apple Watch, it’s probably that the bands aren’t…well, they aren’t usually the greatest. While Apple is certainly making strides in the watchband game, most models are just as black, boring and nondescript as you’d expect from a tech company. And where many […]
For all their obvious similarities, language learning apps will often each take unique approaches to teaching a foreign tongue. Or, in the case of many services, a whole bunch of foreign tongues. While some providers give you access to training across overwhelming menus of more than 150 different languages, the people behind the Busuu Language […]
