And Don't Slip

Andrew Sullivan has an ongoing discussion of infinity going, and I grudginly am bookmarking because I "should" try to understand this stuff.
(In fact, I have a Neflix envelope on my desk containing the Nova segment on fractals. But only because I think they're pretty.)

My favorite comment so far:

One of the keys to math is not looking down.

Last Week It Was RNA

and cancer. This week it's microbes and bacterial disease. I'm thinking the whole genome thingie is  changing the earth on which I stand. 

Haiti was swept by cholera after last year’s earthquake. Cholera had not been seen in Haiti for more than a century. Why the sudden epidemic?
The scientists quickly sequenced the genome of the bacteria in Haiti and compared them with known cholera strains from around the world. It turned out that the Haitian strain was different from cholera bacteria in Latin America and Africa, but was identical to those in South Asia.
So the researchers concluded that the earthquake was indirectly responsible for the epidemic. Many relief workers who came to Haiti lived in South Asia, where cholera was endemic. “One or more of these individuals likely brought cholera to Haiti,” Dr. Waldor said.

Can Burning Man Survive

its transition to non-profit status?
What's that you say, you thought it was just some spontaneous hippyesque happening that just grew, like Alice eating the mushroom, every year out in the desert, then quietly slunk away in a haze of...well a purple haze for suure, duude.
Yes, that's what they wanted you to think.

Some images.