More Books!
14 September 2002, 3:16 PM
I told ya I was going to go to Half-Price book's sale this weekend and
get science-related books. I splurged! Except for my batch of books a week
or so ago, I haven't bought this many books at one time in years. I got:
The Search for the Giant Squid: The Biology and Mythology of the World's
Most
Elusive Sea Creature
Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps,
and the 10th Dimension
Mapping the Deep: The Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science
BioMimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions
Tyrannosaurus Sue: The Extraordinary Saga of the Largest, Most Fought Over
T. Rex Ever Found
Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love and a couple of others:
and one really appropriate for Fusion Reaction:
The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls and the Search for Home The rest of the day? I'm cleaning my apartment a bit, and tomorrow I plan
to doing some indoor gardening. This evening I'm going to dinner at a
friend and co-worker's house. The rest of it is going to find me curled up
in a chair, with some air-popped popcorn and a book. Of course.
Children of the Ice Age: How a Global Catastrophe Allowed Humans to
Evolve
by Steven M. Stanley
by Richard Ellis
by Michio Kaku
by Robert Kunzig
Janine M Benyus
by Esther M. Sternberg, M.D.
by Steve Fiffer
by Dava Sobel
Baby Boomers
by Paul C. Light
by Pico Iyer
Continental Haze
14 September 2002, 12:10 PM
*cough*wheeze*cough* I just learned a new term today - continental haze. That's what they call
this thing that's been hanging over most of Texas for a couple of days
now. Since Thursday I'd been wondering what the heck this fog-like stuff was
here in Central Texas. The humidity seemed low, so it couldn't have
actually been fog, but it looked just like fog, obscuring the view of far
off hills and making everything look sort of shrouded. the sun seemed to
shine so weakly through it, and usually we have brilliant sun and bright
blue skies here. I found out last night that it was industrial pollution drifting in from
the upper Midwest. Yech. And this morning I found out the term for it -
continental haze. An
article from the Associated press explains it well. Essentially it's a
stagnant cloud of factory pollution from elsewhere that gets concentrated
and eventually begins to drift over large distances, due to atmospheric
conditions. It can pick up more industrial emissions and other types of
pollution (vehicle exhaust for example) as it drifts. Apparently this is a
world-wide phenomenon. I found lots of studies of the optical qualities of
continental haze while I was googling the term this morning.
For a scientific explanation see:
The
Properties and Climate of Atmospheric Haze This is pretty nasty for folks like me, who already have respiratory
trouble due to allergies. The irritants in the pollution just compound
problems we already have. Those with asthma and other problems really have
a hard time when there's this kind of level of pollution in the air. For
me, I usually wake up with a stuffed head. My nose is stuffed and my head
aches from my clogged sinuses. It makes me irritable. The drainage down
the back of my sinus and into my esophagus eventually irritates my throat,
making my throat sore, and my stomach sick from all the yicky mucous.
Because of that I don't feel like eating and I get lethargic. Sometimes I
get a chest congestion, and end up with a side-splitting, painful cough.
IN the end you just feel terrible. Headache, stomachache, sore throat,
lethargy, cough - it's like having a bad case of the flu. And it's all
because of the AIR we're breathing. I think I'm going to stay inside today.
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