A blog about food, history, data visualization, and more
Schematic of a longline operation from U.S. patent application 2009/0038205 A1 by Eric Matthew Stroud. (view on Google Patents) For a shark, a supremely evolved hunter that roams the vastness of the open ocean, hundreds of fish dangling in the water might look like an easy meal. But they might actually be the shark’s last […]
(Updated, 11/25/16: fixed broken links) Bees are amazing creatures, with their complex societies and unparalleled ability to pollinate plants*, so I like to learn about them when I can. One such opportunity recently was at a panel discussion about bees at Sonoma State University’s Insectpalooza. Sitting on the panel were three experts on European and […]
(Updated 11/27/16: fixed broken links, changed photo) During the long summer days, the hills to the east of San Francisco Bay (Alameda and Contra Costa County) are wonderful places to walk — not too hot and with remarkable views to the east, west, and north (until the fog rolls in, and then it’s grey in […]
These line drawings aren’t some kind of code or ancient writing, they represent spider webs that have been in my backyard in recent days. The circle represents the web and the radiating lines represent the support structures. At the center of the circle is a dot that represents the 1-cm diameter spider (probably a cross […]
On December 21, 1968, three NASA astronauts in a small space capsule were propelled out of Earth’s atmosphere by a 363 foot tall, 3350 ton Saturn V rocket. It was the Apollo 8 mission, and it was ambitious: the astronauts would be the first humans to orbit the moon while also performing numerous tests of […]
A few weeks before the Olympics started in Beijing, Northern China was hit by a enormous swarm of locusts that affected over 5,000 square miles of farmland and pasture. In response, the Chinese government deployed over thirty thousand workers and 200 tons of pesticide. This made me to wonder if instead of blasting the locusts […]
If there weren’t already enough reasons to avoid eating grasshoppers and other insects, a story on the San Francisco Chronicle presents another: lead poisoning. California residents from the Mexican state of Oaxaca have been found to have high levels of lead in their blood, and one of the likely exposure pathways is consumption of grasshoppers […]
A few months ago, I purchased two red onions from the farmers market but was unable to use them before they started to send out bright green shoots. Just for kicks, I planted them in the garden. They grew vigorously, eventually sending up several-foot tall scapes and later some flower buds. A few weeks after […]
Update, January 2013: Huell Howser, a true California treasure who was known for his aw-shucks manner, his genuine interest in the people he met, and wide-ranging explorations of this huge state, died in early January. In his last years, he donated all of his programs to Chapman University in Orange County, where they will be […]
For the latest issue of Edible San Francisco — “The Fish Issue” — I contributed some interesting and revealing statistics about seafood in general and abalone in particular. For example, about one-third of the wild fish harvest is used to make animal and fish feed (the source of this figure is at the bottom of […]