Coffee and Provocation

Using Vultures to Find Gas Leaks
The stink they put into natural gas is designed to attract turkey vultures to leaking pipes -- a kind of early warning system.

Insect Work Seen From Outer Space
200 million conical termite mounds in northeastern Brazil, each 2 to 4 meters high and about 9 meters wide, are visible on Google Earth and some may be as old as the pyramids. Previously hidden in the forests, the mounds became visible in recent years when folks began clearing vegetation for grazing land.

The Affordable Orchid
Orchids weren't sold at the grocery or hardware store when we were kids.  Where do affordable orchids come from, and what's their history?

Dolly Parton Needs a Monument 
She's more than a great singer, good person, and a class act: she's also donated more than 100 MILLION books to kids.

Wildlife Good News
The Pink Pigeon and the Northern Bald Ibis are coming back from the brink (though still in very, very low numbers), while Mountain gorillas, a subspecies of giraffe, and two types of whale are being moved to a lower conservation category thanks to modest population improvements.

Free Comics
The Digital Comic Museum offers free access to thousands of pre-1959 comic books.

Jazz Bagpipes
You did not know you needed this.

Hillary Says We Need Order at the Border
In Europe and in the US in order to prevent the rise of fascism.

Quite a Lot of the New World Is East of Florida
Go look at a globe. Virtually all of South American is east of Florida.

Electric FedEx?
FedEx is getting 1,000 more electric delivery vans, a trend also going strong at UPS and DHL.

Before Henry Hudson
Pick any sport in New York City and see what it looked like more than 400 years ago.  Times Square was a red maple swamp.

Boar Wars in England
Eurasian boar and feral pig breed at astounding rates, are incredibly destructive, and may be the future of hunting from Europe to American, and even to Japan. Wild boar in the Forest of Dean in England have risen from about 100 in 2008 to 1,635 this year.

The Extraordinary Decline of Global Poverty
In 1981, the year Ronald Reagan came into office, over 44 percent of the world lived in extreme poverty (i.e., less than $1.90 per person per day). Last year, that number was 9.6 percent. That's a decline of 78 percent.