The opaque, pearly white mineral is delicate flakes spiraling into a crystalline rose. The clear base is an unusual sea-green glossy enough to provoke visions of candy glass.
>
> Sniff
You sniff the calcite deeply. Despite being the same mineral that builds the matte part of seashells & a polymorph of the aragonite that creates the pearlescent bits, it smells exactly nothing like the ocean.
Or roses.
Or anything.
>
> Lick
You slobber all over the calcite and fluorite. Just like with previous encounters with the minerals, they taste like nothing with a hint of nothing and the faintest lingering aftertaste of nothing.
But they also don’t hurt you, so no harm no foul.
>
> Take
After getting distracted by shiny dinosaurs for several hours, you remember you had a gorgeous rock in hand.
You wrap it carefully, cooing affectionately as you protect it from all harm. You stash it safely, and revitalized, go forth to battle injustice.
I’m reading a lot of well-intentioned articles that make it clear how many scicomm peeps have no idea disaster risk reduction is a deep field with a lot of research into effective communication.
ProTip: Using fear & shame as motivation backfires when applied to public health.
I can’t write this article (or even thread!) right now as I’m under medical orders to drop my stress levels (ahahahahasob), but...
If you’re writing well-intentioned pieces trying to influence pandemic behaviour, please take some cues from disaster sociology research. It exists!
Fundamental premise:
Vanishingly few people make active choices they believe will endanger themselves or the people they love.
If they’re making “bad” choices, it’s a fundamentally different risk perception. Until you understand how & why, your argument will miss its audience.
Even if you don’t pay much attention to ground-based astronomy, you know this telescope from pop culture & movies. It’s somewhere special. nature.com/articles/d4158…
This article from just before the closing announcement is fantastic for the context of why Arecibo is so unique: space.com/arecibo-observ…
I just...
I know we’ve got a lot going on, especially with the mass casualty event scheduled shortly after US Thanksgiving.
But take some time to read the Arecibo tributes as they come out. They won’t be cheerful. But they’ll be heartfelt.
But technically landslide are fluid-like, not fluids.
Why?
Because they’re a mixed mess of materials that act differently when moving than when still. You can’t just sample a tree trunk, some peat, and water to figure out the rheologic properties (how it flows).