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Informer editor ANDREW PERZO answers readers' questions, provides useful information and points out items of interest.

Illicit wildlife trade a $10 billion-a-year industry

Posted November 20, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Filed Under Interesting | Leave a Comment

Charles Bergman at Smithsonian magazine writes about illegal wildlife trafficking:

Wildlife trafficking is thought to be the third most valuable illicit commerce in the world, after drugs and weapons, worth an estimated $10 billion a year, according to the U.S. State Department. Birds are the most common contraband; the State Department estimates that two million to five million wild birds, from hummingbirds to parrots to harpy eagles, are traded illegally worldwide every year. Millions of turtles, crocodiles, snakes and other reptiles are also trafficked, as well as mammals and insects.

Litter court not used in Calcasieu Parish anymore

Posted November 20, 2009 at 12:04 am
Filed Under Local, Q&A | Leave a Comment

The parish has a litter court that they hold regularly, and I do not know where they hold the court — what day, what time, what justice of the peace presides. Could you research that?

Parish officials no longer use the litter court and instead refer those ticketed for littering — depending on their offender status — to either the District Attorney’s Office or state district court, said Jason Barnes, coordinator of the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury’s anti-litter initiative.

People who are ticketed for first-time littering are cited as being in violation of the parish’s anti-litter ordinance, a civil offense, he said. They must go to the District Attorney’s Office, where they will be instructed on how to pay their fine, which amounts to $40, Barnes said.

Those who are cited as repeat offenders are charged with violating state law and must appear in 14th Judicial District Court, he said. Under R.S. 30:2531-R.S. 30:2531.3, litterers can be fined $50-$5,000, be ordered to do community service, lose their driving privileges for a year and be jailed for up to 30 days.

According to state law, litter includes “disposable packages, containers, sand, gravel, rubbish, cans, bottles, refuse, garbage, trash, debris, dead animals, furniture or appliances, automotive parts including but not limited to tires and engines, trailers, boats and boating accessories, tools and equipment, and building materials, roofing nails, or other discarded materials of any kind and description.”

To report littering, call 493-LITR.

Note: From the Nov. 18, 2009, edition of the American Press.

‘Now we have real-life sound visualization — with fire’ and Dave Brubeck

Posted November 19, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Filed Under Ooh, Science | Leave a Comment

An experiment that uses fire to visualize sound:

Video comes via Make.

Atlantis docks with space station

Posted November 19, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Filed Under Ooh | Leave a Comment

Fast-forward footage of space shuttle Atlantis’ pre-docking maneuvers.

Video comes via Universe Today.

Interested in what science has to say about superpowers?

Posted November 19, 2009 at 3:20 am
Filed Under Interesting, Science | Leave a Comment

Tim Dean at Cosmos has written a lengthy article that briefly traces the growth of superheroes’ popularity and examines the plausibility of their powers.

Also, physics professor James Kakalios, who served as a consultant on the film “Watchmen,” has made available an excerpt from his book, “The Physics of Superheroes.” (Via Mental Floss)

Below, Kakalios discusses some scenes from past Superman stories:

Boeing: Laser weapon shoots down aerial targets

Posted November 19, 2009 at 2:43 am
Filed Under Interesting | Leave a Comment

From Popular Science:

Boeing has just announced it successfully tracked and shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle with a laser weapon. Actually, it shot down five UAVs at various ranges with the trailer-mounted Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments (MATRIX).

Developed at the request of the Air Force Research Laboratory, MATRIX integrates with standard test-range radar, focusing a single energy beam on moving aerial vehicles and blasting them out of the sky. It’s the future of aerial seek and destroy, defending against always-orbiting unmanned craft.

Many TV meteorologists harbor doubts about global warming

Posted November 19, 2009 at 2:38 am
Filed Under Interesting, Science | Leave a Comment

Houston Chronicle SciGuy blogger Eric Berger reports on a Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society survey that found “a significant disconnect between TV meteorologists and climate scientists on the issue of global warming.”

He writes:

So what, you might ask, if TV guys don’t buy into the IPCC findings? After all, they’re not experts in climate scientists and many don’t have a deep expertise in the field.

And yet many Americans, those who ignore NOVA on PBS or never stray to the Discovery Channel, get the majority of their science news from TV meteorologists. So it does matter what they think, and what they might say during banter with a newscaster.

There were several striking findings in the survey of 121 meteorologists, most notably that just 24 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: “Most of the warming since 1950 is very likely human-induced.”

Montana paper looks at how Baucus reform plan would affect five families

Posted November 19, 2009 at 2:32 am
Filed Under Government, Interesting, Shop talk | Leave a Comment

Trudy Lieberman of the Columbia Journalism Review lauds the work of Montana reporter Mike Dennison, who “interviewed five families to see what (health care) reform would mean for them under the proposal crafted by their very own senator, Max Baucus.”

In search of a nom de plume

Posted November 19, 2009 at 2:24 am
Filed Under Interesting | Leave a Comment

Mike Smith at The Morning News searches for a pen name, “something simple, nothing dippy, and preferably one that avoids implying a lawyer who savors puns.”

He writes:

I’m not looking for an aesthetically minded costume change, just a little distinction from other Mike Smiths, especially the evil Mike Smiths. After I began writing I was asked twice if I was the Mike Smith who writes things like “They hate you because you’re white.” It’s embarrassing to be confused with that Mike Smith. My ordinary name should be a blessing, a digital disguise, and a foil to curious Googling, but the more it plagues me, the more I feel a change is in order, something deeper and more meaningful.

‘Steamboat Willie’ debuted 81 years ago this week

Posted November 19, 2009 at 2:16 am
Filed Under History, Interesting | Leave a Comment

Mickey Mouse appeared 81 years ago this week in “Steamboat Willie” — a cartoon in which he uses various farm animals as musical instruments and assaults a parrot with a half-peeled potato.

Video comes via Neatorama.

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