Author Archives: Norm Benson

Trees ain’t thermometers

I used to work on Mountain Home State Forest in the southern Sierra. MHSF has about 3000 specimen-sized sequoia within its boundaries. Dendrochronolgists often visited to see the stumps from logging in the mid to late 1800s. These were often over 2000 years old when they had been cut. The Dendrochronolgists were interested in theContinue reading “Trees ain’t thermometers”

Mark Bittman asks, “What Do You Think About Genetically Engineered Food?”

Mark Bittman is asking, “What Do You Think About Genetically Engineered Food?” Specifically, he wants you to answer four questions for a non-scientific poll: 1. Does it bother you that there are genetically engineered ingredients in most of the foods sold in American supermarkets? 2. Do you want the products that contain genetically engineered ingredientsContinue reading “Mark Bittman asks, “What Do You Think About Genetically Engineered Food?””

A warmer and wetter world

I found a link the other day to a government website with global mean precipitation data from 1900 to 2000. Of course, I can’t find the link now (please comment if you have the link, but first see the note at the end of the post). Anyway, I put the numbers into an Excel spreadsheetContinue reading “A warmer and wetter world”

Plants moving to lower and warmer elevations in a warming world

A news release out of the University of California at Davis says, “study shows plants moved downhill, not up, in warming world.” In a paper published last month in the journal Science, a UC Davis researcher and his co-authors challenge a widely held assumption that plants will move uphill in response to warmer temperatures. ItContinue reading “Plants moving to lower and warmer elevations in a warming world”

Weekend Postcard: Carquinez Strait

This weekend’s postcard is from Benicia, California’s third capital (1853-1854). This Super Bowl Sunday is warm and sunny in California. The rest of the country may be seeing snow, ice, and winter. It’s 75F as I post this. Last Sunday poured rain. This Sunday pours sunshine. Ah, California. The picture was taken from the northContinue reading “Weekend Postcard: Carquinez Strait”

Run for your lives! It’s lunchtime at Dr. Strangefood’s

One evening, during the drearily sodden summer of 1816, Lord Byron and his friends read Fantasmagoriana, (a French translation of a German book of ghost stories—they were intellectuals after all) in his Villa Diodati in Switzerland (they were rich intellectuals). Afterward, Byron suggested they all write a horror story. Everyone did except Mary, the wifeContinue reading “Run for your lives! It’s lunchtime at Dr. Strangefood’s”