• • • an aural noise • • •
• some of the things I read while eating breakfast in antisocial isolation •
What Do You See in This Spiral of Color and Light?
A researcher says her award-winning image of a swirling school of fish is also a metaphor for the oceans’ health.
A spiral formation of jack fish in Heron Island’s harbor was the winner of BMC Ecology and Evolution’s inaugural photo competition. Embiggenable. Explore at home.
A SWIRL OF SUNLIGHT-DAPPLED JACK fish, spinning as a single entity, symbolizes peril and promise, according to the scientist who captured the award-winning image one summer morning. The photo is also a nod to the researcher’s perseverance.
For the past eight years, coral reef ecologist Kristen Brown, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, has done fieldwork off Heron Island. It’s a tiny, sandy, low-lying speck sitting atop a coral reef, nearly 50 miles off the coast of Queensland, Australia. Earlier this year, Brown and colleagues spent several weeks at the site investigating how the local corals respond to ocean acidification, an increasing threat to reefs around the world.
In between measuring growth rates and the density of symbiotic algae of their test subjects, Brown and other researchers snorkeled in the 72-acre island’s small harbor. Day after day, Brown says, they ran into the same large school of jack fish. The fish, which grow to about two feet in length, are common in the region and, on their own, not particularly eye-catching. But Brown was enchanted with their movement, and became a bit of a paparazzi, obsessing over the perfect shot.
“I was mesmerized. I think my snorkeling buddies got frustrated,” she says with a laugh. “I was always saying, ‘Wait, wait, I can’t get the right shot!’ People would swim through, sharks would swim through, something was always in the way.”
Heron Island sits at the southern end of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Embiggenable.
…
PODCAST: Magical Summer Memories, Vol. 1
Join us for a daily celebration of the world’s most wondrous, unexpected, even strange places.
ALL SUMMER WE’VE BEEN ASKING you to send us your summer travel stories. This episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast is the first of a series of listener-powered episodes about this magical season. …
After His Comments on Obesity, the Internet Came for This CEO. His Response Is a Lesson in Emotional Intelligence
The recent Sweetgreen incident provides a great case study in how emotional intelligence works in the real world.
Jonathan Neman
Jonathan Neman, CEO of salad chain Sweetgreen, recently apologized for comments he posted on LinkedIn last week, when he suggested addressing obesity and unhealthy lifestyles are the best way to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
“My goal was to start a conversation around the systemic healthcare issues in the country,” writes Neman. “Words matter and the words I chose were insensitive and oversimplified a very complex issue that is impacted by larger socioeconomic factors.”
Critics claimed Neman’s original comments minimized the effect vaccinations and other safety measures had on fighting the pandemic, while also discriminating against the obese and overweight.
“78% of hospitalizations due to COVID are Obese and Overweight people,” wrote Neman, in his original post. “Is there an underlying problem that perhaps we have not given enough attention to?”
Neman’s post initially received significant support, including hundreds of “likes” on LinkedIn. However, after a growing number of critical comments, Neman deleted the original post.
According to reports, Neman apologized to staff via email and a company townhall. He then followed those actions with a new post on LinkedIn.
Viewed through the lens of emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and manage emotions to reach a goal, Neman certainly missed the mark in his original post.
But he also did some things right–and provided a great case study in how emotional intelligence works in the real world. …
Pregnant Texan Registers as Corporation So Government Can’t Regulate Her
Local pregnant woman Marta Hidalgo has now registered as a corporation to retain full bodily autonomy after one of the country’s most restrictive abortion bills went into effect in the state of Texas, sources confirmed.
“I am now known as Fallopian Rubes, Incorporated,” declared Hidalgo. “This so-called ‘heartbeat bill’ is a slippery slope of epic proportions, so I had to find a legal loophole like a true American. I know it’s been said over and over by countless people, but I’ll be damned if I let the government tell me what to do with my body. To be honest, I don’t even want to get an abortion. It is way too important for me to spawn offspring that will counteract the insane levels of ignorance that prevail in the Lone Star State. Instead of a gender reveal, I will be announcing whether my fetus will be an LLC or a sole proprietorship.”
Many Texans obviously support the new law. Tanner Wolcotton, a hot tub sales representative from Plano, sees the bill as a win for everyone.
“Despite the CDC being a bitch about it, white boy summer has been great, and I believe every bro for years to come should be able to enjoy it as much as I have,” asserted Wolcotton. “This law is a great way to make sure that is possible. That is why I’m not a fan of Marta finding a way around this. I didn’t even know women were allowed to register as corporations. The next step is to outlaw that as well.”
Although Hidalgo is already facing backlash for her strategy, she remarked that she has big plans for Fallopian Rubes, Incorporated. …
Virginia Removes Robert E. Lee Statue From State Capital #WhatDoYouThink? https://t.co/vVrfjGkRvg pic.twitter.com/JjZZUuXXp7
— The Onion (@TheOnion) September 9, 2021
The Professional Rat-Catchers That Made Pet Rats A Thing
Finding rodents in your home wouldn’t generally be a cause of celebration, but for those whose livelihoods depended on it in Victorian England, the more, the merrier.
Thriving in the Victorian era, rats were a public health and safety hazard, scouring gardens, food pantries, and destroying people’s ankles as they walked the streets. Having a high fertility rate, their spawn continued to carry out the chaos. Wild rodents became nearly unstoppable menaces to everyday civilians. But how would this be stopped? Jobs were scarce, and rats were a-plenty. Rats needed to be caught, and people needed to make money. Enter the lucrative career of the rat-catcher.
Much of the population in need of money at the time relied on these types of odd jobs for employment. Some went as far as breeding more rats, setting them free, then loitering around until the next customer came knocking. It was believed that the goal was to catch at least 13 rats a day, averaging a little under 5,000 rats a year, giving one access to special privileges by nearby municipalities (and, yeah, more money).
One gifted professional of the rodent-snatching field was Jack Black. Beginning his career as a child, he chose the path as a way out of alternative work, like chimney cleaning and coal mining, both jobs heavy in child labor in Victorian England. As he got older, he had no fear in plucking rats off the streets with his bare hands and mouth, often scooping several of them at once to trap them in his famous personality-defining accessory: a dome-shaped rat cage. He even chronicled a rat gnawing deep into his finger, teeth sunk into his flesh, giving him a “bone-chilling” feeling, later removing them with tweezers. Case and point- not a job for someone with a weak stomach. Or, you know, anyone not looking to die from a rat-related illness. …
New Study Finds Average American Stands No Chance Against What’s Coming https://t.co/EuIT2BzMMj pic.twitter.com/nIKQgNafen
— The Onion (@TheOnion) September 10, 2021
Upside-down rhino research wins Ig Nobel Prize
No-one had done the basic investigation to determine how this would affect the animal.
An experiment that hung rhinoceroses upside down to see what effect it had on the animals has been awarded one of this year’s Ig Nobel prizes.
Other recipients included teams that studied the bacteria in chewing gum stuck to pavements, and how to control cockroaches on submarines.
The spoof prizes are not as famous as the “real” Nobels – not quite.
The ceremony couldn’t take place at its usual home of Harvard University in the US because of Covid restrictions.
All the fun occurred online instead.
The science humour magazine, Annals of Improbable Research, says its Ig Nobel awards should first make you laugh but then make you think.
And the rhino study, which this year wins the award for transportation research, does exactly this. What could seem more daft than hanging 12 rhinos upside down for 10 minutes? …
Video Goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
The Establishment covers President Biden’s new federal offensive to slow COVID, Trump testing the 2024 waters with a pro-Confederacy agenda, and the 20th anniversary of 9/11 with President of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten.
Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out The News is Now Streaming, only on Paramount+.
Seth takes a closer look at the Biden administration ousting several Trump holdovers from military academy boards, while Trump claims Confederate General Robert E. Lee would have won the war in Afghanistan.
THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.
みり1歳になりました！Miri is 1 year old!
（正確な生まれた日がわからなかったので、9月10日をみりのお誕生日にしました。I don’t know exactly when Miri was born. But it’s definitely September. So I decided on her birthday on September 10!)
FINALLY . . .
It’s all fun and games until a starving beaver starts gnawing down your shade trees
One good-sized tree has been felled by a beaver, while another is not far from sharing the same fate. Up until this week, there had been no evidence of any beaver activity around the home. Teddy the English cocker spaniel performs an up-close inspection of the beaver damage after one tree was chewed down just 30 feet from the bedroom Teddy calls “home.” Probably not a bever. Embiggenable. Explore at home.
OVER MY LIFETIME, I HAVE BEEN thwarted, taunted and otherwise outwitted by an astounding array of animals, both wild and domestic. I’ve made no secret of those assorted … um … misunderstandings, and have shared many of the stories in this space. Today (eventually) my tales of woe will take a turn of the buck-toothed kind.
But first, a rehash of some history.
Squirrels and I? We don’t see eye to eye. Well, there was that one time, when a red squirrel climbed up into my tree during deer hunting season (in retrospect, I’m sure he saw things from a totally different viewpoint), and perched over a foot above my head, demanding that I leave my tree stand immediately.
I didn’t. Instead, I bared my teeth at him, He skittered away, scared to death. I win! (Or not: I haven’t seen a deer since).
Deer? They always outsmart me. See also: Previous paragraph. And this: I’ve never, ever, ever filled my deer tag. Period. (Whitetails are the critters I was referring to when I said I’d frequently been outwitted. But if you’ve read a few of my columns, you already knew that).
I’ve also been occasionally taunted by massive moose who only show up when I don’t have a camera handy, or when I don’t have a moose permit, or when I do have a moose permit, but the opening day of moose season is a couple days later.
Don’t get me started on dogs. I love all of my pooches, past and present, but, well … some of ’em eat $20 bills, and some of ’em refuse to find me birds, and some of ’em just lie on my bed at night and fart. …
Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Likely, if I find nothing more barely uninteresting at all to do.
Ed., etc. I didn’t have time to do this today.
