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One Step Beyond : Where Are They ?

The Falling Rocks at Chico

March 12, 1922—rocks that had been falling "from the clouds," for three weeks, at Chico, a town in an "earthquake region" in California (New York Times, March 12, 1922). Large, smooth rocks that "seemed to come straight from the clouds."

In the San Francisco Chronicle, in issues dating from the 12th to the 18th of March—clippings sent to me by Mr. Maynard Shipley, writer and lecturer upon scientific subjects, if there be such subjects—the accounts are of stones that, for four months, had been falling intermittently from the sky, almost always upon the roofs of two adjoining warehouses, in Chico, but, upon one occasion, falling three blocks away: "a downpour of oval-shaped stones"; "a heavy shower of warm rocks." San Francisco Call, March 16—"warm rocks." It is said that crowds gathered, and that upon the 17th of March a "deluge" of rocks fell upon a crowd, injuring one person. The police "combed" all surroundings: the only explanation that they could think of was that somebody was firing stones from a catapult. One person was suspected by them, but, upon the 14th of March, a rock fell when he was known not to he in the neighborhood.

The Vanishing of Charles Elton

In 1917 a man named Charles Elton approached a government cabinet member in Woodrow Wilson's cabinet. That was the year Wilson declared war on Germany (WWI).
Elton, under strict controlled conditions, (Set up and supervised by the government not Elton), dropped a pellet into a bottle of water (the water had just been tested to verify it was water) then the new solution was feed into a brand new engine that had never had gasoline in it. The engine started and ran until the mixture was completely consumed.
Mr. Elton was asked to wait outside but a few minutes later he had disappeared.

 

 

The Plight of the Bumble Bee : Why are They Disappearing ?

"Flight of the Bumble Bee #2" by Ed Kinnally

 

A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist is trying to learn what is causing the decline in bumble bee populations and also is searching for a species that can serve as the next generation of greenhouse pollinators.

Bumble bees, like honey bees, are important pollinators of and are used to pollinate greenhouse crops like peppers and tomatoes. But colonies of Bombus occidentalis used for greenhouse pollination began to suffer from disease problems in the late 1990s and companies stopped rearing them. Populations of other bumble bee species are also believed to be in decline.

Entomologist James Strange is searching for solutions at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Pollinating Insects-Biology, Management and Systematics Research Unit in Logan, Utah. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency, and this research supports the USDA priority of improving agricultural sustainability.

Many greenhouse growers now use commercially produced Bombus impatiens, a generalist pollinator native to the Midwest and Eastern and Canada. But scientists are concerned about using a bee outside its native range, and some western states restrict the import and use of non-native bees. If B. impatiens were to escape and form wild colonies in the western United States, they could compete with for food and resources and expose native to pathogens they are ill equipped to combat.

Strange has been studying a pretty, orange-striped generalist named Bombus huntii, native to the western half of the country, that could be used in greenhouses in the western United States. He is determining how to best rear B. huntii in a laboratory setting, a vital step in commercializing it.

To understand the decline of B. occidentalis, Strange and his colleagues also have been tracking its habitat range and . Evidence gathered so far shows that the range and populations of B. occidentalis have declined, that it is not as genetically diverse as it used to be, and that it has higher pathogen prevalence than other bee species with stable populations. The results were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers also have assembled a large database with information on more than 80,000 Bombus specimens representing 10 species throughout the country, including B. occidentalis. With Geographic Information System (GIS) modeling technology, they were able to construct historic and current range maps of several bumble bee species. The mapping process is described in the Uludag Bee Journal.

More information: Read more about this research in the August 2011 issue of Agricultural Research magazine. http://www.ars.usd … bees0811.htm

Provided by United States Department of Agriculture

   

 

"Harry James, premier trumpet virtuoso, Jazz superstar and Big Band leader performs his arrangement of the Rimsky-Korsokov classic, FLIGHT OF THE BUMBLEBEE, in this clip from the hit MGM musical, BEST FOOT FORWARD. The popular bandleader and trumpet star was prominently featured with his band in this film along with Lucille Ball, June Allyson, Nancy Walker and Tommy Dix. Harry James was probably the most famous trumpeter of the twentieth century due to his many hit records, feature films and big band tours across the United States,"

 

 

Village of the Dead : The Anjikuni Mystery

Over 30 men, women and children vanished without a trace from an Inuit fishing village in the first half of the 20th Century.

"Labelle methodically pulled back the caribou skin flaps and checked all of the shacks hoping to find telltale signs of a mass exodus, but, much to his chagrin, he discovered that all of the huts were stocked with the kinds of foodstuff and weapons that would never have been abandoned by their owners. In one shelter he found a pot of stewed caribou that had grown moldy and a child’s half-mended sealskin coat that lay discarded on a bunk with a bone needle still embedded in it as if someone had deserted their effort in mid-stitch."

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