Life without the Moon

This article presents and interesting theory on how life on Earth may not have evolved were it not for our moon. It describes the ways that the moon affects the planet, and many of these ways are thought to have helped in the development of life on this planet. It's an interesting idea that supports the Rare Earth Theory. It's hard to know what exactly was required for life to begin on this planet, but this certainly presents and interesting idea that the Moon was a significant player in creating the right conditions.

Orders of Magnitude

Numbers at various orders of magnitude are tossed around in statistics all the time. Trillions of dollars of national debt, nanometers to describe the tiniest achievements in technology, and everything in between. Running the Numbers - An American Self-Portrait gives a way of visualizing some statistics. You hear a statistic like "2 million plastic beverage bottles used every 5 minutes in the US," but this website has the work of Chris Jordan, whose art work displays exactly how many bottles that is. He uses these large scale art projects as an attempt to increase awareness of issues ranging from consumption and environmental concerns (like the plastic bottles), to health and body image concerns (see the pictures on smoking and breast implants). I think that these are very enlightening images, because we are surrounded by so many numbers and statistics that I know I can lose sight of the actual gravity of the situation.

Since politics and policy are everywhere right now with the presidential primaries, here's another website that puts some perspective on our national debt: Million/Billion/Trillion