So you’ve never heard of the radio show “On the Media?” I seldom miss it and this week you might not want to miss it because it’s all about Facebook. Do you know about the country Facebookistan? Do you know what it can mean to corporations when you like their products? Hear the story about a woman who received a friend quest from someone who raped her a decade earlier (it helped her). What will be the legacy of Facebook? How long will it be around?

It’s an interesting collection of segments. Listen to it here.

Google Earth now has some great seafloor mapping which led some people to believe that the Lost City of Atlantis was located. P-shaw:

Some have speculated that these are the plow marks of seafloor farming by aliens. If there really are little green men hiding somewhere, the ocean’s not a bad place to do it. Mars, Venus, the moon, and even some asteroids are mapped at far higher resolution than our own oceans (the global map of Mars is about 250 times as accurate as the global map of our own ocean).

One theory that’s gained more traction is that these marks might be the ruins of the lost city of Atlantis. If that were the case, some of the city blocks would have to be over eight miles long – that’s about fifty times the size of a city block in New York City (if you zoom in and use the measurement tool in Google Earth, you can do this comparison yourself).

More here from the Google’s Blog.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has released new high-detail images of the planet we love to call home:

“This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012,” said the space center in a released statement.

Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board and is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS which took the photos above.

Bad Lip Reading strikes again.

Go here for additional photos:

In all, more than one hundred towering tipuana trees line the road like a living colonnade, forming what some have called a ‘green tunnel’ over three city blocks. The quiet, shady street has long been a favorite among locals, but recently it garnered some broader acclaim.

From the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources:

 
White-nose Syndrome (WNS) / Metro Park in Summit County
Facts provided by the ODNR, Division of Wildlife
and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

 
·  Wildlife officials have confirmed the second case of White-nose Syndrome (WNS) in a cave on a Metro Park in Summit County. 
 
·  WNS was first detected in New York State in 2006 and has killed over 5 million cave-hibernating bats in the eastern North America. Since its initial discovery, WNS has been confirmed in 16 states and four Canadian provinces; it is suspected to occur in three additional states as well.  WNS was first confirmed in Ohio on the Wayne National Forest in Lawrence County in 2011.
 
·   WNS is associated with a newly identified white fungus called Geomyces destructans (Gd). The disease is named “white-nose syndrome” because this fungus often grows into white tufts on the muzzles of infected bats.  Biologists believe the main method of transfer of WNS is bat-to-bat transmission; however it is also likely that humans can transport Gd spores from contaminated sites to new sites on clothing, footwear, and gear. WNS does not affect human health, in part because Gd requires cooler temperatures to survive than the human body temperature. 
 

·  Biologists conduct external weekly surveillance for WNS at this crevice-type cave and others within the Metro Park throughout the fall and winter.  During visits in December and January, biologists noticed bats flying inside and near the entrance of the cave.  Within the caves in the Metro Park, biologists have documented over tens of thousands of bats hibernating to include little brown bats, big brown bats, northern long-eared bats, and tri-colored bats.  In addition, it is possible that Indiana bats, a state and federally endangered species hibernate within the caves.  Indiana bats have been captured during the fall swarming near the cave entrances, but the endangered bat has never been encountered during spring surveys when the bats emerge from hibernation. During the mid-January weekly survey, a little brown bat was found dead outside the cave and collected for testing.  Samples collected were evaluated by Dr. Kevin Keel at the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study in Athens, Georgia.  Histopathology confirmed observations and the presence of WNS. 
 
·  Metro Parks serving Summit County, ODNR Division of Wildlife, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have taken pro-active steps in anticipation of WNS spreading within the state.  County, state and federal agencies will continue to monitor Ohio’s bat population, conduct disease surveillance for WNS, and implement management strategies to reduce the spread of WNS, where applicable.
 
·             The scope of bat mortality associated with the WNS epizootic is unprecedented in recent history.  The fast rate of WNS spread across eastern North America, the high rate of mortality, and the previously unknown fungal pathogen (Gd), have made this a challenging disease event.  Scientists are actively evaluating the bat species that are most at risk, surveying caves for the presence of the susceptible bats and the disease, and developing strategies for disease management.
 
·  Bats play an important role in the ecosystem, serving as a top predator for night-flying insects including mosquitoes, beetles, moths, and other human, agricultural and forest pests.  Recent studies indicate that bats provide over $3.7 billion in pest control services to American farmers annually.
 
·  People can help slow the spread of WNS and reduce disturbance to bats by staying out of caves and mines.  Utilize the same precautions when dealing with any wild animal, avoid touching wildlife and do not pick up sick or dead bats. Ohioans who observe more than six dead bats or large numbers of bats flying outside in the winter (less than 40°F), especially near a cave or mine where bats hibernate, should report those observations to the ODNR Division of Wildlife at wildinfo@dnr.state.oh.us, or 1-800-WILDLIFE (945-3543).
 
·  For more information about WNS and Ohio bats, please visit http://bit.ly/WhiteNoseSyndrome , www.wildohio.com, and www.fws.gov/whitenosesyndrome.
 
·  Photos can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwshq/collections/72157626455036388/

Small theatres have a tough future ahead, one that will cause many of them to close up:

The movie industry has decided to completely switch from traditional 35-millimeter film prints to digital files in the next year, causing problems for small, locally owned and often historic theaters that can’t afford to buy new digital projectors.

Digital projectors cost at least $65,000, and that’s a lot of popcorn sales. Some communities have organized fund-raising drives to help “save the theatre” but for a community of this size, that’s a lot of fund raising.

I don’t hear much about Sarah Palin these days, but I followed a link to her Facebook page wher she was poo-pooing global warming because it was 20 below, which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise in an Alaskan winter. She included a photo of her nephew clearing snow while wearing a t-shirt and shorts. At 20 below? Is he a little addled? And then there’s this:

Even the Arctic had a notably warm year, with the 2011 temperature a record 2.2 degrees Celsius (4 degrees Fahrenheit) above the mean for 1951–80. Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost U.S. city, spent a record-breaking 86 consecutive days at or above freezing, far more than the previous record of 68 days set in 2009.

A variety of canola is the first genetically modified plant to escape into the wild and flourish. It’s growing wild in North Dakota ditches. This could lead to problems:

Less than 1 percent of the studied plants were resistant to multiple herbicides, suggesting they have changed genetically in the wild. Seed industry representatives say such modifications are not a problem because crops and weeds have exchanged genes for millennia. But farmers and scientists worry that weeds that can resist several herbicides would increase the use of more toxic herbicides.

I’ve seen this tide in action. Amazing. I’ve read about a giant whirlpool in the bay. Frightening.