𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗

Vince Musi did fantastic work in what were (for reasons not of his making, or of the archaeologists) very difficult circumstances.

Thanks for the article, which I hadn't seen.

I can imagine that the constant calls from global media and the encroachment of tourism were a pain in the neck (thanks for being patient!). But part of me also says, "Well, this is what happens when you find something of global importance!" :)

Thanks for the article, which I hadn't seen.

I can imagine that the constant calls from global media and the encroachment of tourism were a pain in the neck (thanks for being patient!). But part of me also says, "Well, this is what happens when you find something of global importance!" :)

The West has been in a 32-year drought. But it may be worse than that A drought has a beginning and an end. What's happening in the West doesn't seem to have an end, so what is it?

'After 30 years, is the West's drought still a drought?' - Arizona Republic's long piece on aridification and its consequences for Arizona, featuring the LTRR's Dr. Margaret Evans and her research on rising temperatures and changing forest dynamics www.azcentral.com/story/news/l...

Trump promises to refill the Great Salt Lake as Utah leaders poo-pooh conservation Lawmakers want to spend $1 billion on pipelines and desalination rather than asking Utahns to use less water.

This sardonic piece from Axios about the Utah legislature's flailing efforts to avoid making hard choices adds more to the picture.

Could a 550-Mile Pipeline From the Ocean Save the Great Salt Lake? Scientists Say Probably Not New research suggests the electricity costs would exceed $300 million per year and carbon dioxide emissions could approach one million metric tons annually

The idea was floated, but seems to be dead (see article).

Not dead: a scheme in which Utah pays for desalination plants on the California coast that CA can use to give water to the southern part of the state, in return for which CA gives up some of its Colorado R. water rights to Utah.

Hoo boy. Sorry to hear that. Writing the piece, I was wholly focused on the archaeological work and its implications, and was excited to share a bit of that with National Geographic readers. It never occurred to me that I could play a role in bringing people there.

Can We Refill the Great Salt Lake? The Great Salt Lake has dropped 22 feet since the 1980s. Water leasing reform and cloud seeding innovation may help restore it.

Interesting, if oddly written, summary of the nascent efforts to refill Utah's Great Salt Lake before Salt Lake City gets overwhelmed by the toxic dust on its floor.

A bit? There were already busloads of tourists coming by when I was first there :) Although, to be fair, they were mostly in the early morning--I think they were stopping in GT along the way from Gaziantep to somewhere else (Nemrut Dağ?).

Sorry!

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

Just noticed that 1493 by @charlescmann.bsky.social is only $1.99 as an ebook right now. Highly recommended as a way to get a sense of the breadth of the Colombian Exchange.

bookshop.org/p/books/1493...

Why AI Is 'Not Particularly Good' at Curing Disease (Plus: The Next GLP-1 Boom and Why America Hates Big Pharma) A wide-ranging interview with Dave Ricks, the CEO of Eli Lilly, which makes the GLP-1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound and recently became the first trillion-dollar pharma company in history

Striking @dkthomp.bsky.social interview w/ Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks covering the widespread effects of GLP-1 drugs, AI as a bad cancer-cure finder, why people hate Big Pharma, and more.

Gotta say, I often wonder if these drugs will end up having way more long-term impact on our lives than AI.

The counterargument would be that a lot of both Defoe and Twain are brilliantly written but slapdash. I just read "Roughing It." It was hilarious and amazing--but it also would've benefited from Twain going over the first draft and asking himself hard questions about its structure.

State of the Species - Orion Magazine Does success spell doom for Homo sapiens?

I re-read this essay by @charlescmann.bsky.social in February and July every year. It holds. Waiting to see if homo sapiens can turn the biological corner away from self extinction. So far, not looking good.

@orionmagazine.bsky.social
#limitstogrowth
#successfullspecies

Tweet from Michael Tracy shows Epstein in a glamourous black overcoat with a fur neck above a crisp white short, open at the beck and wrists, in the parquet-floor foyer of some urban apartment. Behind him is an open door that frames a chandelier.

The Epstein truthers have entered the building.

I get what he's saying, and generally agree, but I also know there are these weird force-of-nature people who write super-well super-quickly. No tenth drafts for them!

Excerpt from speech: "I used to have students who bragged to me about how fast they wrote their papers. I would tell them that the great German novelist Thomas Mann said that a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. The best writers write much more slowly than everyone else, and the better they are, the slower they write. James Joyce wrote Ulysses, the greatest novel of the 20th century, at the rate of about a hundred words a day—half the length of the selection I read you earlier from Heart of Darkness—for seven years. T. S. Eliot, one of the greatest poets our country has ever produced, wrote about 150 pages of poetry over the course of his entire 25-year career. That’s half a page a month. So it is with any other form of thought. You do your best thinking by slowing down and concentrating."

Via @nxthompson.bsky.social , comforting thoughts for those of us who have, err, just taken a %$#^&! long time to finish a writing project.

(Source: a speech by critic William Deresiewicz in 2009, theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and...)

James Webb Space Telescope images showing two views of what looks like a giant glowing brain in space.

Well good morning giant rapturous brain in the sky!
Here a dying star is blowing its mass into space, shedding its hydrogen skin, in clouds of gas expanding beyond that expiring mortal coil perhaps to begin anew, forming and fertilizing generations of new young stars in a rapture of stellar
(1/n)
🧪

How Buildings Learn is indeed a fantastic book. My wife uses it to teach her architecture and engineering students abd it regularly blows their minds.

COVID’s origins: what we do and don’t know Researchers summarize key insights from the world’s first comprehensive investigation into how a pandemic started.

Nature has issued a summary written by 23 of the 27 original members of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO). Look for some looong perspectives on pandemic origins in June in my Garrison Lecture for @aahmhistmed.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/d41... #histmed

Tech legend Stewart Brand on Musk, Bezos and his extraordinary life: ‘We don’t need to passively accept our fate’ He was at the heart of 1960s counterculture, then paved the way for the libertarian mindset of Silicon Valley. At 87, Brand is still keen to ensure the world is maintained properly – not just today, b...

Fine profile of Stewart Brand, going over his whole remarkable life but occasioned by his terrific new book, "Maintenance: Of Everything (Part 1)."

“'It’s harder to imagine how something might go well than go badly,' he says. But 'that’s how you negotiate your way into a future you were glad of.'"

DOJ Removed Record of Multiple FBI Interviews with Underage Trump Accuser, Epstein Data Shows The FBI spoke at least four times with a woman who credibly accused Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor, Epstein files show. That document is no longer accessible on the DOJ website.

You can get annoyed at them, though, for waiting until the 16th paragraph to to note that NPR and Roger Sollenberger broke the story.
Sollenberger: sollenbergerrc.substack.com/p/doj-remove...
NPR: www.npr.org/2026/02/24/n...

Top of NYTimes website story is "Epstein Files are Missing Key Records About Women Who Made Claim About Trump." Below is, "Lawrence Summers Will Resign from Harvard after Epstein Revelations."

The front page of the New York Times 30 seconds ago. Lead story: "Epstein Files Are Missing Records About Woman Who Made Claim Against Trump"

The NYT took 18 hours from the NPR report to confirm and (a bit) extend the story. I don't see that as bad. I see that as them attempting to be responsible.

Near-empty produce shelves in my local supermarket.

Snow-induced supply-chain snags in the NE show up in my grocery store. I saw a friend, who said, "Welcome to the USSR!"

A snowy landscape under a brilliant blue sky. The sun is bright on a thick carpet of white.

View from the window of our eating area at breakfast this morning. I love winter.

Kiliii’s photography is spectacular, isn’t it?

I was with Kiliii when he took this photograph of Leaf and Lisa on the Klamath. The image captures, as Kiliii does so well, their humor and joy, the tight bond between them, the suddenly freed river, the regrowing vegetation. Everything capping the successful 30-year campaign to take down the dams.

Kiliii Yüyan puts Indigenous ‘Guardians of Life’ and their planetary stewardship in focus National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yüyan returns to the Mongabay Newscast to share his experience creating his new book, Guardians of Life: Indigenous Knowledge, Indigenous Science, and Restoring...

Almost three years ago I interviewed @kiliiiyuyan.bsky.social about a project he was working on documenting the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of nine Indigenous communities worldwide. He returns to the podcast to talk about the experience, and the knowledge he's gleaned. Listen here:

Whoops--Means was nominated last summer. What the Trump people did this week was launch a campaign to push her through the Senate confirmation process, which has been stalled because Means espouses views that are vigorously resisted by a lot of US farmers.

Surgeon General Pick Deepens Rift Between Trump Admin and Farmers RFK ally expected to sail through upcoming Senate vote

As these guys point out, the Trump people's food/ag policy is totally incoherent. In a single week, they've promoted glyphosate production, proposed removing pesticides from environmental review in the Farm Bill--and nominated anti-GMO/anti-pesticide activist Casey Means to be Surgeon General.