dnalounge update
DNA update: RAVE Act passes. "Yay."
Tunalemetry
Computer-Equipped Fish Part of Effort to Aid Tuna BAHIA DE ACHOTINES, Panama (Reuters) - Scientist Kurt Schaefer slices a small hole in the side of a wriggling yellowfin tuna and inserts a tiny 64 megabyte computer. Quickly he sews the slit back up, allowing just enough space for a thin fiber optic wand to protrude from the fish's side, before transferring the animal to a large seawater tank. [...]One of the key uses of the computers is their ability to detect changes in the tuna's body temperature. "We know the tuna changes temperature when it is feeding. We want to know if it does so too when spawning. With that information we would be able know about the tuna's behavior in the open sea, estimating its reproduction rate and its position in the ocean," explains Scholey, an Irish-born biologist from Seattle who has studied tuna fish in Japan.
At a cost of $1,500 each, the computers in the tunas can record up to five years of information about a tuna's life. [...]
SUVs aren't the only ones who get to rock it offroad-style
So I'm bicycling down Mission Street, past a big construction site, and right after that, the lane goes away, cones everywhere, and of course, cars, all trying to change lanes at once and meaning me harm (as is their way.) So I'm rolling along, doing my best to stay alive, when suddenly I notice that the road ahead looks a little... off.
By "ahead" I mean "three feet ahead" and by "off" I mean "liquid."
I cross the boundary, and my wheels are immediately six to eight inches deep in wet cement. "Shiiiit!" I think, as I bounce on through, feeling the pedals getting harder and harder to push. It's a good thing I was already going pretty fast, or I'd still be there. I think the pond was ten or fifteen feet across, so I had a few seconds of panic to allow rzr_grl's offroad adventure to replay in my mind. As I bounced up over the lip on the far side of the pit, I tossed a glance over my shoulder and yelled "sorry!", only to see a couple of construction guys screaming at me and waving their arms. I pedaled faster in case they decided to pursue, wondering if my gears were going to solidify before I could escape.
At least there weren't a couple of guys crossing the street carrying a plate glass window. That would have been even more of a slapstick cliché than this was!