Science crime scenes 7: Crimes ancient, modern, and weird

In the previous installment of this series, I noted:

I'm going to skip the usual archeology stories about atrocities from the past and modern day smuggling, looting, and vandalism. That's not because I don't have any; I have quite a lot of them from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Curiosity's first destination edition) on Daily Kos that I'll post in another edition.

It's time to post those stories, along with a couple more from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Neil Armstrong R.I.P. edition).

This week's theme involves investigations of ancient sites that today would be considered crime scenes, although they might not have been considered as such back then, followed by the typical crimes against science in the form of smuggling, looting, and vandalism, along with efforts at prevention and restitution. Follow over the jump to read these sordid tales.

Sustainability education news from campuses on the campaign trail

Sometimes when I'm preparing a linkspam, a distinct theme emerges connecting many of the week's articles. That's what inspired me to compose U.S.-China EcoPartnerships: The CoDominion plans for sustainability, one of my most read entries, as well as Universities studying and promoting civility in politics, among others. This week's articles from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Annular Eclipse edition) on Daily Kos just happened to have such a theme--sustainability education projects that get noticed by federal, state, and local government and end up recognized as worthy of financial support or, better yet, actually influence policy. Here are those articles, taken from universities in Kentucky, Nebraska, Oregon, and Wisconsin.*

ThomasNet: College Kids Strut their Green Stuff, Are Awarded $1M in EPA Grants
Author: Michael Lewis
May 16th, 2012

It may not be true that every generation is smarter than the one that came before.

But I think it is. Why? One big reason is that every succeeding generation has access to more knowledge, more technology and more resources than the one before it.

Especially in this age, when the world changes so fast every minute. So one thing I’m always fascinated by is what future environmental leaders are doing while they’re still learning in our schools and universities. There are many bright kids working on making the world more environmentally friendly and trying to come up with innovative solutions to problems many of us don’t even think about.

A good example of this was the recent Environmental Protection Agency’s 8th Annual National Sustainable Design Expo on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The universities mentioned are Embree-Riddle University (Florida and Arizona), Appalachian State University (North Carolina), Oregon State University, Vanderbilt University (Tennessee), and University of Oklahoma. I found the article through OSU, so they get the credit.

More over the jump.

Bachmann on $2 gas and Kunstler on maniac politicians

Here's a clip that's been making the rounds lately.

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann says, if elected, gas prices will fall under $2 a gallon.

CNN Money has more: Bachmann: I'll bring back $2 gas

President Michele Bachmann has a promise: $2 gas.

"Under President Bachmann you will see gasoline come down below $2 a gallon again," Bachmann told a crowd Tuesday in South Carolina. "That will happen."

Sure, politicians promise all kinds of things on the campaign trail. But Bachmann, a leading contender for the 2012 Republican nomination, is wading into truly tricky territory.

After hearing the above, I was reminded of one of James Howard Kunstler's favorite memes, which I first heard in "The End of Suburbia." Here it is from a speech to the second Vermont Republic.

There will be a great battle to preserve the supposed entitlements to suburbia and it will be an epochal act of futility, a huge waste of effort and resources that might have been much better spent in finding new ways to carry on an American civilization.
...
In the service of defending suburbia, the American public may turn to political maniacs, who will promise to make the country just like it was in 1997, before we started having all these problems.

The Fog City Journal quoted a more elegant version of that second paragraph.

Americans will elect maniacs who promise to allow them to keep their McMansions and their commutes and that’s going to produce a lot of political friction, probably a lot of violence, probably a threat to our democratic institutions.

$2/gallon gasoline would go a long way to keeping suburbia viable, I'll grant Bachmann that. Even so, it's just not realistic. The last time we had gas that cheap was during the first half of 2009, during the worst part (so far) of the Great Recession. Maybe Bachmann is promising a recession on her watch. She could certainly keep that promise, which prevents her claim from being complete fiction.