plumbum or better living through geochemistry

Mental Floss has a thorough and circumspect long-format profile on scientist Clair Cameron Patterson that’s a fascinating bit of triangulation among the applied sciences, scholastics and environmental policy that is a fascinating biographic study in its own right and especially timely in this contemporary political environment when science is under assault—as are policies and regulations that promote public health and safety. To summarise (but it’s worth one’s while to read the article in its entirety) Patterson joined the Manhattan Project early on at the facilities at Oak Ridge Tennessee and figured out how to use mass spectrometers to separate out uranium isotopes and create enriched batches of the critical mass to sustain a nuclear explosion. After the war, Patterson took a teaching job and like so many scientists were eager for the chance for purely academic pursuits after having in the spirit of project leader J Robert Oppenheimer’s quote from the Bhagavad Gita “now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” and was given an errant mission from a colleague to accurately measure the age of the Earth for the first time.
Having advanced from three thousand years old, to over ten thousand, several hundred thousand to millions and even billions, the scientific community had a ball-park figure and the consensus was generally not beyond three billion years old at this time. From his days as a nuclear researcher, Patterson knew that uranium had a given half-life at which point it would break-down into lead, and postulated that by sampling the ratio of lead to uranium inside very old rocks, he might be able to derive a more accurate means of dating the planet. His mass-spectrometry technique might be able to tease out these numbers but wherever he looked—even under laboratory conditions—there just seemed to be far too much lead, and instead of concluding that the world was many magnitudes older than experiments suggested, Patterson investigated further. Parallel to Patterson’s life and career, the automotive and petroleum industry had been advancing a-pace and sort of like that proverbial old woman that swallowed a fly, to alleviate the need for cranking a car to start it, then to reduce the infernal smells of fuel additives, then to eliminate noxious noise from engine knocking, chemist finally settled on what seemed to be the ideal solution of adding lead to petroleum. This meant that especially in urbanised areas, lead pollution and poisoning (the body’s biology misapprehends lead for calcium with highly toxic consequences) were impossible to get away from. Going to great efforts after conducting environmental sampling from remote and pristine areas to disabuse the public from the idea (propagated by the automotive and oil industries) that these levels of lead in the air and in the blood-stream and household products (paint, food cans, shoe heels, plumbing—the Romans knew better, etc) was acceptable or within healthy tolerances, Patterson created the world’s first ultra-clean room, free from outside pollutants, not only calculating the age of the Earth to four billion five-hundred million years but also directly launching a campaign against lead contamination that went on for decades and has been championed by many others. Patterson’s research, though it was a tough battle against the industry who had government in their back pockets, eventually saw the gradual removal of lead from products and a marked improvement in public health as a result. Stories like these seem to make our backsliding all the worse.

taxia or great chain of being

While it may seem a bit early in the year for annual superlatives, the state university of Syracuse, New York’s International Institute of Species Exploration of the campus’ College of Environmental Science and Forestry releases its list of top ten candidates of the most unexpected, unique finds of the animal and plant kingdoms to roughly coincide with the 23 May (1707) birthday of Carl Linnaeus, the founder of the discipline of taxonomy.
Inscribed to this year’s rolls include a sort of wild spicy tomato that appears to bleed when cut from Australia that’s propagated by bush fires, a spider whose camouflage resembles the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter matriculation ceremonies and a new species of Xenoturbella, a primitive marine worm that either resembles the missing half of an orphaned purple sock or fried churro pastry, depending who you ask. At a time when biodiversity is in grave peril and we have no idea about the natural innovation and wonders that we are losing without even the most superficial acquaintance, the institute wants to showcase the bizarre as a reminder that less than an estimated twenty percent of all species on Earth have yet been discovered and described and fewer still with any detail.

as the crow flies or bird’s eye view

Via the always captivating Everlasting Blört, we are introduced to the video and photo-hosting and –sharing platform that is dedicated to the genre of the rather peerless perspective of aerial drones, Dronestagram. For instance, here is an establishing shot (without the need for zooming in from a great distance) of the German memorial hall of fame Walhalla near Regensburg taken from a heretofore impossible angel.

geomancy or behind the beltway

Ostensibly more clearly delineated than London (though a collection of guardian City Dragons were erected in the 1960s on the edges of the generally agreed upon limits of the city corporation), the diamond-shaped cordon of two-score boundary stones that cleaves out the US capital from neighbouring Maryland and Virginia—though highly visible as the fimbriation on a map, the rectilinear character of it looking out of place with most territories being bounded by natural obstacles—has also a physical manifestation that’s been neglected and is easily overlooked. What could be considered the oldest federal monuments have due zoning changes and land-use now find themselves surrounded by parking lots, on residential lawns, in wooded areas or destroyed altogether. It seems to me there’s maybe some kind of secret magic—either for keeping evil in or out—that ought to be reverenced by at least preserving the old markers.

colour space or stummy beige

Sending dispatches from the cutting edge of science and technology, explorers Lewis and Quark report on a neural network’s attempt at giving bespoke names to particular hues and shades. Via Waxy, the artificial intelligence apprentice seems to prefer harvest colours and with suggestions like snowbank, dorkwood, opaque couché, ghastly pink and hurky white, the exercise makes me think back to another like-minded neural network’s try at concocting recipes.

beltway and backdrop

The artist behind that projection on the façade of one his hotels calling Dear Leader out for flouting the perception (and reality) of conflicts of interest and violations of the emoluments clause, Robin Bell, has now expanded his repertoire with more guerrilla displays on the US Department of Justice and FBI buildings in Washington, DC. Several members of Dear Leader’s cabal were confronted and scolded that their positions (like the War on Drugs) have dire consequences for the rest of the country and beyond.

après nous, le déluge

Though the breach did not result in any loss of the seeds stored within and scientists are working to make the structure more secure, the fact that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault built in 2008 and designed to weather an eternity of assault is already showing signs that it’s not able to withstand catastrophic, run-away climate change is a depressing prospect. The integrity and diversity of seed banks has already been demonstrated as vital to rehabilitating civilisation and there are multiple repositories all over the world, and while it is frightening enough to find this ark prone to flooding due to melting permafrost, it’s an even more arresting thought that there will be no place where these food crops might be grown because of radical changes in temperatures and long-term weather patterns.