Glen Canyon

New York Times: Drought Unearths a Buried Treasure.

This makes me cautiously optimistic that Lake Powell will indeed be drained and Glen Canyon allowed to return to its natural state. The dam is built into sandstone, so it will not hold forever – I wrote about this before (the link also has some photos from our first trip to teh US); see also here and here. Whenever I read about Glen Canyon, it was said that it would take decades or even centuries for the Canyon to turn back into what it was like once, but this article shows that some of the beauty of Glen Canyon returns already while the water sinks.

Link via Garret and MetaFilter.

Do surface areas have feet?

A little pet-peeve of mine that deals with some figures given in th article but has nothing to do at all with Glen Canyon: What the heck is an acre-foot of water supposed to be? My guess is that it’s the amount of water that you get if you pour it one foot high over an acre of land. Now can anyone convert this into gallons for me? How much does an acre-foot of water weigh in pounds? (Or a gallon, for that matter?) I wonder if the average American without a background in water management can tell without looking up some conversion factors…

Convert to the metric system already! It’s so much easier: a cubic metre of water is just that, a cube of water that measures one metre on every side. It’s equal to 1000 litres of water (because 1 litre is equal to one cubic decimetre, and 10 x 10 x 10 = 1000), and because it’s water, 1 litre equals 1 kilogram. Thus, 1 cubic metre of water equals 1000 kg or a (metric) ton. My fifth-graders can calculate that, it’s that easy!

US Election

I’m not going to comment on the election results in the US because others do that much better than I. I’m shocked that Bush seems have to won, I think it’s bad enough that the race was this close at all, but I have to admit that my view of the political opinion in the US might be slightly biased because most Americans I know hate Bush with a passion.

Anyway, I just wanted to link to this photo that Garret posted to show how he feels. Garret, I hope you made sure that there was no traffic in both directions for miles and miles before you posed for that shot!

Mathematik und Physik und Chemie

Eine interessante und informative Seite über die Funktionsweise von Flaschentauchern gibt es hier: Prof. Blumes Tipp des Monats: Wie funktioniert eigentlich ein Flaschentaucher?. Auch wenn das eher ein physikalisches Thema ist, die Seite gehört zu Chemieunterricht.de, Prof. Blumes Bildundsserver für Chemie. Auch (oder vielleicht gerade weil) das nicht mein Fach ist, finde ich die Site sehr nützlich und gut gemacht.

Der Schockwellenreiter hatte gestern einen Link zu einer Site über magische Quadrate und Würfel. Notiz an mich: bei Gelegenheit lesen, oder wenigstens bei Bedarf in meinem Weblog danach suchen, den Link wiederfinden und dann nutzen.