Sunday, April 18, 2010

Gaia's Zits -- or Of Lice and Men

Suppose we live on a sentient being?





Entertaining gateway page to information about headlice

Fascinating piece on how volcanoes have shaped human history





Lovelock's initial hypothesis 

James Lovelock defined Gaia as:


See more at Wikipedia




  2. Thank you, Rusty.

    Sometimes, though, the cure is worse than the original illness. I understand that Twitterers in Britain have been tweeting that it was cash they wanted from Iceland, not sulphurous clouds.

  3. The disruption caused by the ash cloud brings to mind the much more devastating effects of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa (in Indonesia). Average global temperatures fell as much as 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit and didn't completely return to normal until 1888. The sky was darkened for years.

    Which makes me think of the still more cataclysmic disaster in the backstory of S. M. Stirling's PESHAWAR LANCERS. In the late 19th century of that alternate history, a comet or small asteroid passed close enough to Earth to cause a global darkening that plunged the world into a winter lasting several years. By the time the climate returned to normal, large areas of the planet had been nearly depopulated, the few survivors reverting to savagery, while those who lived in or escaped to more temperate regions suffered major technological setbacks. The novel takes place a little over 100 years after these events. It's my favorite of Stirling's books.

    Back to volcanoes, I can imagine a series of eruptions on a Krakatoa scale having a catastrophic, long-term effect on the climate; however, it seems unlikely that any number or severity of volcanic events could affect the Earth's rotation.

  4. I've been searching about head lice, suddenly I arrived to this post. Very true. Thanks to this post I now have an idea on how to deal with dominant people. I enjoyed reading, though I have nothing to deal with this.