Number 5. SF Gate dot com. Invasive 20-pound rodents continue to spread in the Bay Area
If you thought things were spinning out of control before, meet the nutria. This cleverly-named lovable critter (which sounds like a sugar substitute for your coffee) grows to 30 inches long, weighs 20 lbs, eats his or her body weight everyday and is a carrier of tuberculosis, septicemia and tapeworms.
What a delightful addition to that gentle, burbling stream in your California back yard.
The nutria invasion is on, in the San Francisco Bay area. A nutria is easily confused with a beaver or muskrat, except that it’s bigger and has large orange teeth. I am not making this up.
Nutria eat about anything that grows in the ground; they bore holes in levees; they swim like beaver; and the females can drop 3 dozen offspring EVERY YEAR.
Since the first nutria were detected in the Bay Area in California in 2017, a little over 5,000 have been trapped or killed. Given the dearth of natural predators, I asked my BFF ChatGPT to calculate how many nutria potentially live in that Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta area today:
By 2024, assuming one female nutria was spotted in 2017 and reproduces 36 babies annually, with half of the offspring being female and reproducing starting the following year, the potential nutria population in California could be around 94 million.
Less the 5,042 that have been removed. That leaves potentially 93,994,958 to raid the crops and destroy the wetlands. That should do it.
In 1830, trappers in the American West collected beaver pelts and virtually wiped out the population. Fortunately for the critters, beaver hats went out of style as silk gained popularity. I wonder if we can create a market for a wide-brimmed 20X cowboy hat made from nutria? However, that would probably require obtaining permission to do the trapping.
Given the political environment in the People’s Republic of, that may be a tough sell.
The Princess Bride: Don’t forget the dread pirate Wesley’s warning that in the fire swamp live “rodents of unusual size.” That used to be comedy.
Number 4. CBS News. Water supplier American Water Works says systems hacked
Ho-hum. Another headline, another end-of-life-as-we-know-it cyber hacking event.
This time it is American Water Works, reportedly the largest supplier of drinking water in the U.S. Headquartered in New Jersey, they supply water to 14 states, mostly in the east and southeast, but also including California and Hawaii.
American Water Works officials are confident their systems are not in jeopardy, and that the water they supply remains clean and abundant. We know they feel this way because they shut off their internet portal to avoid further damage and released a statement saying the provider is "currently unable to predict the full impact" of the hack.
Right. Sounds like there is nothing to fear. Drink up!
Number 3. Interesting Engineering dot com. Artificial plant generates electricity to power devices
At the other end of the technology happiness scale, researchers at Binghamton University have been studying how plants turn sunlight and carbon dioxide into oxygen and electricity.
Admittedly, the electricity a houseplant releases is less than miniscule, but there IS a measurable amount generated by natural biological processes among plants. You may have heard about this in 7th grade science class. I am surprised and a little disappointed you don’t remember it.
A pair of scientists have been able to duplicate the process of photosynthesis in the laboratory using solar cells, bacteria and artificial leaves. From this contraption, they can produce about 46 microwatts, whatever that means, but it appears to give hope that they can get to a level where a small lithium battery can be charged. The inputs to this process are already in your living room (CO2 and light — even artificial light works), and the man-made bio-juice can be routed to the battery.
The output of the process is the ability to charge your cell phone.
Now THAT would actually be fairly cool. Especially if I didn’t have to water the plant, or talk to it.
Number 2. Jalopnik dot com. 28-Car Wreck At Talladega makes history
When Brad Keselowski’s car pushed Austin Cedric’s Mustang very slightly on the back stretch at Talledega Sunday, it was just enough to turn Cedric’s car sideways. That would not have been unusual — Nascar routinely sees a dozen cars torn up in each race, but this time, Cedric was leading the pack and Keselowski was right behind him.
When the Mustang turned sideways on the straightaway with every car in the race tightly packed in behind him, there was no place for the followers to go. Nearly every car in the race collided with one another and spun around at something around 200 mph. The smoke from protesting tires was impressive.
Many were able to regain control and finish the race.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr crossed the finish line ahead of Keselowski by six thousandths of a second.
That spectacular wreck made great video footage.
Number 1. Gateway Hispanic dot com. Mayor of Mexican City Beheaded Six Days After Taking Office
I know: that headline is a little raw for the ANR, but just think how bad it was for the new mayor.
When Alejandro Arcos took office as mayor of Chilpancingo in the state of Guerrero, southern Mexico, he immediately began publicly condemning the execution of a close political associate and friend. The friend, one Francisco Tapia, had been shot point-blank at the town hall.
Arcos was a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). That does not sound like it would be a calm voice urging peace and quiet in Chilpancingo, but I’m not really up on Guerrero state politics, having never heard of the place before I saw this article.
Apparently, however, some local constituents were listening to the new mayor’s proclamations, and took umbrage at his accusation that the murder of Francisco had been undeserved.
Their response was particularly pointed. Alejandro Arcos’s dead body was found inside a car parked in the middle of a street last Sunday morning. The body was minus the head, which was found sitting on the roof of the car, staring thoughtfully (or perhaps thoughtLESSly) down the street. Perhaps it was considering whether the speech condemning the assassination of Francisco could have been worded with a little less passion.
Arcos had held his new office for exactly 6 days. Probably not long enough for his widow, if any, to qualify for the pension.
For those of you running for mayor of your local town — and you know who you are! — take note! Politics is a noble aspiration, which some take much more seriously than you might have thought.
Thanks for joining The Alligator News Roundup for Friday, October 11, 2024. Go in search of feral nutria in your local swampland, but watch out for the orange teeth. And when you go to the polling place next month, consider how much your preferred mayoral candidate might be putting on the line.
I am writing this about the time of Hurricane Milton’s landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Our prayers go up for our neighbors whose lives and property are in the way of the storm.
Keep the faith! See you next time!
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