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Have a Happy Thought:  One of the early dreams for the internet was that all of human knowledge would be available for everyone. While we haven’t quite reached that, there are still some corners of the internet, and dedicated people, that are doing their part to make this happen. You all know about Wikipedia, which has become one of the more reliable parts of the internet to start research on something (read the article, then follow the sources). I’ve also recently learned about the Survivor Library , which, while it is a little bit “prepper” in origins, is an amazing “compendium of the Technological and Industrial Knowledge of the 1800 through early 1900s with a few books from even earlier periods.” Want to learn about beekeeping; or how to make (or repair) a good shoe by hand; or re-read the Encyclopedia Britannica Great Books Of The Western World; or even refresh yourself on the rules of Whist – this is a great place to go. Some of you may remember me talking ...

Have a Happy Thought:  Things that fly are (usually) really good at avoiding crashing into other things in the air. Sometimes, though, they are not. A few examples, to brighten your day. 1. In the middle of the Great Smog of London (1952, after which we actually get the word smog), the visibility was so low that a pigeon actually flew into a man in the street . Neither saw it coming. 2. David Attenborough is very impressed with the ability of bats to use sonar to avoid things in their path – be it other bats, obstacles, cave walls, or people. Except for the bat that smacked right into Sir David’s face! 3. If you’ve ever driven from Auckland to the Coromandel, or Tauranga, or really anywhere on the East coast, you’ve probably driven past the Bugger Cafe. And if you’ve stopped in, you’ve probably seen this photo, of a couple of humans taking a “Titanic” photo of their love story, being rudely interrupted by a gull. Alternatively, it is the story of a gull just ...

Have a Happy Thought:  People, given the opportunity, LOVE science. More specifically, exploration. In this case, specifically, exploring the deep ocean. Researchers from the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales have set up a livestream from their Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) that is currently exploring a deep (3000 m)-sea canyon off the Argentinian coast. This went absolutely viral, both within and without Argentina – there have been at times literally tens of thousands of people watching this livestream. (To see the livestream, which as at writing is still going, go to the Schmit Ocean youtube page and look for the “Live now” section.) One of the real highlights of this was when the person operating the ROV found this very peculiarly shaped seastar (aka starfish). The operator did an honest-to-goodness double-take-then-zoom-in with the camera (or see it in full context ).   Image: a seastar with a symmetrical, rounded shape between two of its “legs”. ...

Have a Happy Thought:  Those of us older than a decade or so have gone through multiple formats of “saving” information. From physical documents, to reels of tape (be kind, rewind!), CDs and DVDs, flash drives (aka thumb drives aka USB drives aka aka aka), and, of course, “the cloud”. Now, I present to you the newest* method of recording information... a starling. Image: from gardenbirdwatching.com Basically, a guy who is “in to music and science” decided to test out his theory of converting an image into a soundwave, and then teaching that soundwave to a starling. His FIRST ATTEMPT was successful! And while this is fairly slow at an optimistic 2Mbps (a USB can transfer from betweeen 1 2Mbps to 12,000Mbps ), the fact that this theory has passed the first test is quite amazing. You can watch the ~30-minute video explaining the starling-storage system here, including a great explainer as to why starlings are so good at making so many noises: https://www.youtube.com/wat...