March is my favorite month in Fairbanks. It is breathtakingly beautiful. The sun is bright, temperatures are generally mild, and the snow conditions are superb. Also, we still get great auroras at night. And the days rocket past 12 hours of possible sunlight, so you can ski into the evening – with sunglasses. It is awesome.
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Bad Bulb Monkey
How many Ph.D.s does it take to change a light bulb?
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The Ebola Song
Turn on any news program these days and you’ll probably be exposed to high levels of irrational fear and paranoia of the Ebola virus. Never mind that the number of cases in North America is minuscule, or that you have a higher chance of being struck by lightning. Yes, it is an ongoing tragedy in several countries in West Africa (see image below), and the global medical community needs to continue efforts to stamp it out. But throughout North America the news industry should stick to a simple and effective message:
“Ebola is still a very low-risk proposition. If you want to do something effective about your health, get a flu shot.”
Heat Transfusion
A few weeks ago, our good friend Andy Johnson emailed to ask whether we’d like to get a bunch of fresh New Mexico chiles. It sounded great, so last week when we met at the American Ornithologists’ Union meeting in Estes Park, Colorado, we transferred 40 lbs. in a large gunny sack from the trunk of Andy’s car onto my shoulder, and I marched off happily in the dark to put them in my room. All during the meeting my room smelled fantastic. I rotated them every day to keep them as fresh as I could, then packed them into a recycled box I found behind the dining hall and checked them as baggage for my return flight from Denver.
Mystery at Bird Tree (a Tail Tale)
This morning under Bird Tree I found the remains of a grisly incident: the tail of a northern flying squirrel. There were no other clues. No tufts of fur, no blood—nothing in fact to indicate whether the whole animal met its demise or whether it only lost an appendage. Who did it? And is the victim still alive?
A northern flying squirrel tail. The evidence of the case.