Fire and Knowledge

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As it snows here in Denver I’m thankful we don’t get anything like this:

Here’s a video of how they plow it:

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This is a great commercial:

Every nuclide with a half-life of less than 80 million years is missing from our region of the solar system, and every nuclide with a half-life of greater than 80 million years is present. Every single one. These data are an unbiased atomic sampling of our corner of the known universe. And the results are crystal-clear. There is a reason that the short-lived nuclides are no longer around, and the reason is obvious: The solar system is much older than 80 million years. In the billions of years since its formation, the short-lived nuclides have simply decayed themselves out of existence.

–Kenneth R. Miller, Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (orig. 1999; Harper Perennial, 2002), p. 72

Today about a billion billion insects are alive at any given time around the world. At nearest order of magnitude, this amounts to a trillion kilograms of living matter, somewhat more than the weight of humanity. Their species, most of which lack a scientific name, number into the millions. The human race is a newcomer dwelling among the six-legged masses, less than two million years old, with a tenuous grip on the planet. Insects can thrive without us, but we and most other land organisms would perish without them.

–Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life (1992, Harvard University Press), p. 210-211

An earthquake is such fun when it is over. It is so exhilarating to reflect that you are not, as you well might be, lying dead under a heap of ruins.

–George Orwell, Burmese Days (1934), p. 182

Rheobatrachus silus [is] an Australian frog that swallows its fertilized eggs, broods tadpoles in its stomach, and gives birth to young frogs through its mouth.

–Stephen Jay Gould, “Here Goes Nothing” in Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History (1991), p. 294