Baidarka is the name sometimes used for an Aleutian style sea kayak. A prominent feature of a baidarka is its forked bow (bifurcated bow). Very lightweight and maneuverable, it was made out of seal skin sewed only by Aleut women, over a frame made strictly of driftwood (since no trees grow in the Aleutian Islands), bone and sinew. It was treated as a living being by Aleut men (it was taboo for women to handle them).George Dyson, son of astrophysicist Freeman Dyson, is often credited with the revival of the baidarka, through his company Dyson, Baidarka & Company, though Dyson's Baidarkas are made from modern materials such as aluminium for the frame and coated polyester fabric for the skin.. Dyson and his boats were the subject of Kenneth Brower's book The Starship and the Canoe, a book I just finished reading and the obvious reason for this post. Brower's story chronicles Freeman, who is trying to build an inexpensive spaceship to travel the cosmos, and George, who is living in a tree in British Columbia, building a kayak to travel the coast. Awful title, wonderful book.MP3: The Doobie Brothers - It Keeps You Runnin'
The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball
The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball, or US19720810, is an Earth-grazing meteoroid which passed within 35.4 miles of the surface of the Earth at 20:29 UTC on August 10, 1972. It entered the Earth's atmosphere in daylight over Utah (2:30 pm local time) and passed northwards leaving the atmosphere over Alberta, Canada.Watch a pretty amazing home movie of the meteoroid that someone shot at GRTE right here. (The video is a little less dramatic than Woody Harrelson watching Yellowstone erupt in 2012.)MP3: Bob Dylan - Shooting Star
Grand Prismatic Spring
The Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park is the largest hot spring in the United States, and the third largest in the world. It is approximately 70 feet in diameter and over 121 feet deep. The spring discharges an estimated 560 US gallons of 160 °F (70 °C) water per minute.The vivid colors in Grand Prismatic are the result of pigmented bacteria in the microbial mats that grow around the edges of the mineral-rich water. The bacteria produce colors ranging from green to red; the amount of color in the microbial mats depends on the ratio of chlorophyll to carotenoids and on the temperature of the water that favors one bacterium over another. In the summer, the mats tend to be orange and red, whereas in the winter the mats are usually dark green. The center of the pool is sterile due to extreme heat.