A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
In 2027, the Artemis III mission will practice docking the Orion spacecraft with two lunar landers in low Earth orbit. On future Artemis missions, landers will bring astronauts to the lunar surface. While Artemis III will not land on the Moon, it will test the complex capabilities we need to return humanity there — this time to stay.
NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, and Andre Douglas will join European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano on this historic mission.
Another step toward one of the most complex spaceflight missions in history, NASA provided updates on Artemis III and announced crew members for the test flight. Planned to launch in 2027, the mission will practice docking the Orion spacecraft with two lunar landers in low Earth orbit.
On future missions, including Artemis IV in 2028, landers will bring astronauts to the lunar surface. While Artemis III will not land on the Moon, it will test the complex capabilities we need to return humanity there — this time to stay.
Crew assignments are as follows:
• NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, commander
• ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, pilot
• NASA astronaut Andre Douglas, mission specialist
• NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, mission specialist
• NASA astronaut Bob Hines, backup crew member
Both of those look good, as expected for successfull PR, but it's not all smooth flying. Artemis III depends on launches by SpaceX and Blue Origin and both are having their issues, as PBS NewHour explained in How a Blue Origin rocket explosion could impact NASA's moon mission.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded on the launchpad during a test in Cape Canaveral on Thursday. The company, owned by Jeff Bezos, said no one was injured and all personnel were accounted for. But the rocket has a crucial role in NASA’s Artemis program to return American astronauts to the surface of the moon. Amna Nawaz discussed its significance with science correspondent Miles O’Brien.
Early this January, I wrote, "Starship is running behind schedule and holding up a lunar landing, so I'm rooting for Blue Origin to either win the contract or inspire SpaceX to get its act together in time." Looks like Blue Origin has to get its act together, too.
Smartphones and a marked change to our digital media environment are part of the reason for the demographic shift changing our world, including how low birth rates are shrinking the workforce. Chief data reporter John Burn-Murdoch presents his lastest findings on this challenge faced by most nations[.]
There's a lot to chew on here. I've been writing a lot about government policy and economics, but I don't think I've mentioned non-medical technologies in the context of falling birth and fertility rates before. That's certainly a "scifi is now" topic. I also haven't discussed lack of independent housing as a factor in demography, although I've certainly blogged about housing and real estate during the past 15+ years. I think I'll be adding those perspectives to my writing in the future.
By the way, I consider "Pennsylvania economist Jesús Fernandez-Villaverde call[ing] fertility decline the question of our time, with most other problems flowing downstream of it" to be the result of a perspective I criticized in Meditations on sustainability, part 1.
[E]conomy is dependent on society, which is in turn dependent on the environment. Without an environment, there is no society. Without a society, there is no economy. Those relationships put sustainability into perspective. They also show that the emphasis on economy above all is exactly backwards. No wonder we're in trouble.
That written, I'm not surprised the Financial Times would feature it. As I quoted from Yes, Prime Minister, "The Financial Times is read by people who own the country," in this case the U.K., so they would think it salient. As one of the commenters pointed out, "This video is for rich people. Everyone who's is struggling knows why we don't have kids." From my ecological perspective, resource use, if not outright depletion, and waste production, as exemplified by fossilfuels and climatechange are the primary problems and everything flows downhill from them. As a biologist, I think limited resources primarily define carrying capacity, the maximum sustainable size of a population, and we should be examining those, especially their connections to the issues the economists identify.
The world is having fewer children and the pace of decline is happening much faster than expected. The reasons are complex and varied, from a lack of affordable housing to a lack of suitable partners. But could smartphones and modern tech be part of the problem? DW speaks to AI researcher Connor Leahy about how digital life may be reshaping relationships.
I was wondering if someone would bring up dating apps, the obvious technological solution to people finding partners, and Connor Leahy pointed out that their incentive is to keep people on the app, not find a permanent partner. Now I'm wondering if government matchmaking services are in our future. I suspect that would not be an unadulterated good and other causes would have to be addressed for them to be effective.
For what it's worth, the commenters to the video were hostile to the question, but I think that's because DW News didn't present the data supporting the inference, not that it helped the Financial Times video that much. Their commenters weren't as mean, but they were certainly skeptical. I'm not one of them; I think the researchers are onto something, at least as a contributing factor for the last 20 years.
The U.S. fertility rate is at an all-time low, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers say this is part of a larger downward trend. Since 2007, the number of Americans having babies has dropped 23%, well below the replacement level, meaning not enough are being born to replace those who die. William Brangham discussed more with Brian Mann of NPR.
PBS NewsHour broadcast this segment and then uploaded it one month before the study on smartphones and birthrates came out, so it didn't include its findings. In that light, the decline in teen pregnancy might be less a result of good policy and more the effects of smartphones. That doesn't make it any less of an accomplishment, just an accidental one.
Reading this would be enough to make me drink if my diabetes hadn't made me lose interest in drinking, so it's time to celebrate with Michigan Public saying .
Inspired by Tracy Samilton's recent trip to Cuba, Tammy Coxen whipped up this stellar mojito - which we might claim is one of the tastiest in Michigan. Samilton explored the Michigan-Cuba connection during her time in Havana, so Coxen used white rum from the Ann Arbor Distilling Company to bring some Michigan flavor to this drink perfect for warmer weather. Cheers!
That's a wrap for today's double celebration. Stay tuned for the Sunday entertainment feature. I have an awards show my readers can vote in for free, as long as they are interested in horror and horror-adjacent science fictionmovies and television.
America’s war on books is more than a war on words. THE LIBRARIANS, a new feature documentary from Academy Award® nominee and Peabody Award winner Kim A. Snyder.
In Texas, the Krause List targets 850 books focused on race and LGBTQIA+ stories – triggering sweeping book bans across the U.S. at an unprecedented rate. As tensions escalate, librarians connect the dots from heated school and library board meetings nationwide to lay bare the underpinnings of extremism fueling the censorship efforts. Despite facing harassment, threats, and laws aimed at criminalizing their work – the librarians’ rallying cry for freedom to read is a chilling cautionary tale.
That's powerful and an example of why I pay attention to awards shows; they bring films and shows to my attention that are worth watching for the subject matter.
A down-on-his luck farmer develops a unique bond with a wounded white stork as he nurses the bird back to health.
This is a film I can recommend to my environmental science students, as it's about both wildlife and farming, two topics in that class. Welcome to blogging as professional development.
Between the two, I think The Tale of Silyan is the favorite. First, it has a second Emmy nomination for Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program, which I'll examine over the jump, while The Librarians has only one. Second, it earned a nomination for Best Documentary at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards in addition to Best Cinematography. The Librarians also earned a nomination at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards for Best Political Documentary, but not Best Documentary. Third, The Tale of Silyan earned nominations at the Film Independent Spirit Awards and PGA Awards and wins at the Cinema Eye Honors Awards and Golden Trailer Awards. Yes, the trailer I embedded is a winner in its own right for Best Documentary Subject. Meanwhile, The Librarians earned nominations at the Satellite Awards and Cinema Eye Honors Awards. When the two films earned nominations at the same awards shows, The Tale of Silyan won awards and more and better nominations. Gold Derby hasn't created a predictions page for the Creative Arts Emmy Awards yet, but I don't have to wait until they do; I can tell which nominee is more likely to win, especially since this is a juried award. The experts will prefer the craft and storytelling of The Tale of Silyan over the subject matter of The Librarians.
Follow over the jump for The Tale of Silyan's other nomination.
It's getting hot in here… can we survive it?
...
I pushed my body to the edge in a climate & sports research lab to discover what extreme heat really does to us. Why humidity, not just temperature, can make heat deadly, and how climate change and city design are making dangerous heat more common.
I guessed...that the dark secret was the heat...[My] guess was dead on. That's no surprise, as I blogged about Phoenix being the hottest city in the U.S. in 2021 and mentioned its record heat in 2023twice. What is surprising is that heat waves don't count as federal natural disasters covered by FEMA. The commenters found the reason dismaying: "You don't get disaster declarations for mortality. You only do it for economics." Ecurewitz responded "That’s the most American statement ever." RandomAngle9 commented "The fact that heat doesn't 'qualify' as a disaster because it doesn't destroy buildings, only people, says everything about how we value human life in policy."
This part is something I can show to my environmental science students. The other part is the physiology of disposing of excess heat. That would be useful to Human Structure and Function students. Unfortunately, I don't plan on teaching that class ever again. So much for blogging as professional development, just personal development. Just the same, I hope my readers find it as interesting as I did.
That's a wrap for today's brief educational entry I can share in August. Stay tuned for another post I can share next month tomorrow.
66 million years ago a giant space rock crashed into our planet and killed the dinosaurs. In the span of just four decades, we’ve gone from not knowing there was a space rock at all to knowing exactly where that planet-killer came from.
I've been following this story for as long as I've been a geologist, but I still learned new things from this video, or at least was reminded of things I'd forgotten, like Luis Alvarez having earned a Nobel Prize in Physics. I will say I was skeptical at first, but by the time I earned my M.S., I was convinced.
A giant asteroid impact ended the age of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. How did this mass extinction play out, moment by moment? In this video we meet a geologist who has explored the asteroid crater and learn what the rocks tell us about the last days of the dinosaurs. It was pretty bad!
Not only did Dr. Joe Hanson and Sean Gulick describe the details of what we now know about the Chicxulub impact and its effects, Joe concluded with a "so what" message. Unlike the dinosaurs, we have a choice.
That's a wrap for June's blogging. Stay tuned for Canada Day to begin July.
In 1952, a terrifying creature was spotted in Flatwoods, West Virginia — a 10-foot-tall creature with glowing eyes, a spade-shaped head, and cloaked in a metal skirt. Was it an alien, a Cold War experiment, or mass hysteria?
Dr. Z doesn't make up her mind to resolve her question, although she certainly leans heavily on cultural context influencing how people interpret what they see.
Universal Pictures is proud to release a new original event film created and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars SAG winner and Oscar® nominee Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer, A Quiet Place), Emmy and Golden Globe winner Josh O’Connor (Challengers, The Crown), Oscar® winner Colin Firth (The King’s Speech, Kingsman franchise), Eve Hewson (Bad Sisters, The Perfect Couple) and two-time Oscar® nominee Colman Domingo (Sing Sing, Rustin).
Based on a story by Spielberg, the screenplay is by David Koepp, whose previous work with Spielberg includes the scripts for Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Combined, those films earned more than $3 billion worldwide. Koepp also wrote the script for this 2025’s Jurassic World Rebirth.
Disclosure Day is produced by five-time Academy Award® nominee Kristie Macosko Krieger (The Fabelmans, West Side Story) and by Spielberg for Amblin Entertainment. The executive producers are Adam Somner and Chris Brigham.
Steven Spielberg is one of the industry’s most successful and influential filmmakers. The top-grossing director of all time, Spielberg has helmed such blockbusters as Jaws, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones franchise and Jurassic Park.
Among his myriad honors, he is a three-time Academy Award® winner, including Oscars® for Best Director and Best Picture for Schindler’s List, which received a total of seven Oscars®, and for Best Director for Saving Private Ryan. His most recent film, The Fabelmans, was released by Universal in 2022 and received seven Academy Award® nominations, including for Directing, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Picture.
While I fully expect to see Disclosure Day earn nominations at the Critics Choice Super Awards next month and the Saturn Awards in January, if they stick to this year's schedule, I also expect it to lose to Project Hail Mary in most of its categories, especially Best Science Fiction Film or equivalent. Its best bets are best actress for Emily Blunt followed by supporting actor for Colman Domingo. That written, will it influence how people see UFOs/UAPs? Yes, but not as much as previous Spielberg movies on the subject.
Is anyone out there? On this episode of the National Day Spotlight (https://nationaldaycalendar.com/), Marlo Anderson (https://marloanderson.com/) and co-host Alice Anderson are diving into the unexplained mysteries of the cosmos for World UFO Day (https://nationaldaycalendar.com/celeb...) . They’ll explore why humanity keeps looking to the skies for answers and celebrate the fun of cosmic curiosity. Tune in for an episode that is truly otherworldly!
That's a wrap for this week's series of holiday entries. I have a musical post planned for tomorrow followed by a particularly doomy preview of the drum corps season, which begins Friday. Stay tuned.
Ever felt like a place seems real yet oddly unsettling? Welcome to The Backrooms, a digital folklore phenomenon that blurs the lines between reality and fiction, exploring the eerie and uncanny through playful, yet terrifying, community-driven digital storytelling.
I watched this video when it came out almost exactly two years ago, so I had heard that the concept would be made into a movie then. The movie was released two weeks ago, and was a huge hit. Watch as ABC News reports Horror film 'Backrooms' makes box office history.
Independent horror film "Backrooms" is a box-office stunner, taking in $82 million dollars in domestic ticket sales in its opening weekend.
What ABC News didn't mention was that Backrooms and Obsession knocked The Mandalorian and Grogu out of first place. Remember that Disney owns both ABC and Lucasfilm, which makes Star Wars. It's not just news value that drives the story, including what isn't reported. That wasn't CNN's problem, as their video on the subject described How YouTubers are beating Disney at its own game.
Youtubers-turned-directors are beating media giants like Disney at the box office. CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter breaks down how these directors have the edge, as the panel debates.
CNN, owned by Warner Brothers-Discovery — for now — has no such problem pointing out Backrooms and Obsession beat The Mandalorian and Grogu at the box office.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for WorldOceansDay, which I haven't celebrated since 2024. Oops.
I decided I had enough in me to continue my series on the nominees at the News & Doc Emmy Awards today, so I'm going right after the category with the most nominated documentary.
Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary
Antidote FRONTLINE FEATURES | PBS [Passion Pictures | Bellingcat | Impact Partners | Channel 4 | M4 Studios] Life After Independent Lens
Multitude Films | PBS [ITVS | Straw House Production] Lost in the Jungle Little Monster Films [National Geographic] 2000 Meters to Andriivka FRONTLINE FEATURES | PBS [Associated Press] Thoughts & Prayers HBO Documentary Films [Tony Tina]
2000 Meters to Andriivka leads all documentaries with six nominations, including Best Documentary. Life After follows with four, also including Best Documentary. Antidote, Lost in the Jungle, and Thoughts & Prayers tie at two to round out the category. I think this is the first category where every nominee has at least one other nomination — such quality! Not even Best Documentary can claim that distinction for its nominees. This will mean 2000 Meters to Andriivka winning, which I expect, will mean that much more.
From the Oscar®-winning team behind 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL, 2000 METERS TO ANDRIIVKA documents the toll of the Russia-Ukraine war from a personal and devastating vantage point.
Following his historic account of the civilian toll in Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov turns his lens towards Ukrainian soldiers — who they are, where they came from, and the impossible decisions they face in the trenches as they fight for every inch of their land.
Amid a failing counteroffensive in 2023, Chernov and his AP colleague Alex Babenko follow a Ukrainian brigade battling through approximately one mile of a heavily fortified forest on their mission to liberate the Russian-occupied village of Andriivka. Weaving together original footage, intensive Ukrainian Army bodycam video and powerful moments of reflection, 2000 METERS TO ANDRIIVKA reveals with haunting intimacy, the farther the soldiers advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realize that, for them, this war may never end.
That's every bit as gripping as I thought it would be.
LIFE AFTER is a gripping investigative documentary that exposes the tangled web of moral dilemmas and profit motives surrounding assisted dying. Disabled filmmaker Reid Davenport uncovers shocking abuses of power while amplifying the voices of the disability community fighting for justice and dignity in an unfolding matter of life and death.
I still expect 2000 Meters to Andriivka will win, but I would not be surprised if this upsets it. If so, it might upset 2000 Meters to Andriivka in every category in which it's nominated, because it's competing against my pick to win in all four. Otherwise, it will likely come home empty-handed, because I expect 2000 Meters to Andriivka to sweep.
What is the cost of speaking truth to power? In Putin’s Russia, it could mean your life. An immersive and chilling documentary, Antidote follows in real time a whistleblower, Vladimir Kara-Murza, from inside Russia's poison program as he attempts to escape. He is a prominent political activist who is poisoned twice and now stands trial for treason. Also profiled is his wife Evgenia and Christo Grozev, the journalist exposing Putin's murder machine. He too is under threat and is forced to flee.
Antidote's other nomination is for Outstanding Graphic Design: Documentary, and it shows in the trailer.
After a deadly plane crash strands four young siblings deep within the Colombian rainforest, a dramatic rescue mission unfolds, uniting Indigenous trackers and the military in a race against time. For the first time ever, LOST IN THE JUNGLE offers the exclusive account of this incredible true story directly from the children themselves and the rescuers who scoured the Amazon rainforest for a grueling 40 days and nights to find them. From National Geographic Documentary Films and Academy Award®-winning filmmakers Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, along with Emmy® Award-winning director Juan Camilo Cruz, LOST IN THE JUNGLE is a gripping tale of survival, courage and hope.
Lost in the Jungle's second nomination is for Outstanding Sound: Documentary and I can hear it in the trailer.
I'm not going to recycle all the other categories in which these documentaries earned nominations; my readers can go through the posts below and read my opinions, which haven't changed. In the meantime, stay tuned for the nominees for Best Documentary whose trailers I haven't yet embedded tomorrow.
Previous posts about the 57th News & Doc Emmy Awards
A federal holiday since 1971, the roots of Memorial Day go back over a century prior, to the end of the Civil War.
After the burial of many Union and Confederate soldiers, "decoration day" rituals began to spring up, which included placing fresh flowers on soldiers' graves.
One of the earliest known celebrations took place in Charleston, South Carolina on May 1, 1865, when the city's freed Black residents organized a proper burial for hundreds of Union soldiers who had died in a Confederate prison, followed by a parade to honor their memory.
In the spring of 1868, General John Logan officially designated May 30th "for the purpose of strewing flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in the defense of their country," and Memorial Day as we know it today was established.
The U.S. would probably still have a holiday to commemorate the country's war dead as a result of the Civil War if the freed men and women of Charleston hadn't done it first, but they definitely deserve credit for leading the way for the rest of us.
From the World War II Memorial to the Garden of Remembrance at Benaroya Hall, taps echoes across Seattle in honor of those who gave their lives in service. We honor their courage, devotion and sacrifice this Memorial Day.
Two things struck me. First, as my readers could probably tell, this video is from 2020. Media made during the pandemic has a very distinctive look. Second, the trumpeters are holding the first valve down. That's because they're playing C trumpets and "Taps" is usually played in Bb. Only a brass player and bugler like me would notice and understand why.
How did English become the most spoken language on the planet, and why are there so many varieties of English?
Dr. B underplayed the role of British colonialism in her explanation, concentrating instead on American economic and cultural power helping to dethrone French as the language of diplomacy. Still, it works.
Storied uploaded the above on April 20, 2023, the same week as English Language Day. I'm also returning to 2023 for National Day Calendar's Talk Like Shakespeare Day | April 23.
William Shakespeare (April 1564-April 23, 1616) is the author of some of the world’s most celebrated plays and poems. In 2016, we honored the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death. What better way to celebrate his life and art than to speak like the poet and playwright.
It was about time I embedded National Day Calendar's video for today.
Since today is a Throwback Thursday, I'm making this entry a retrospective. Follow over the jump for the most active posts on Instagram about holidays during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
Outstanding Nature Documentary
Katavi: Africa's Fallen Paradise
Nature
PBS [THE WNET GROUP | TERRA MATER STUDIOS | SHIBUMI FILMS | ARTE | WDR] The Last Rhinos: A New Hope
Sixty-Six Media Inc. [ABC News Studios | Lincoln Square Productions | National Geographic] Secrets of the Penguins
Talesmith [National Geographic] Shark Whisperer
Netflix [Netflix | Boardwalk Pictures | Underdog Films] Willow: Diary of a Mountain Lion
Nature
PBS [RHYTHM PRODUCTIONS, LLC | THE WNET GROUP
Secrets of the Penguins leads with three nominations for Outstanding Sound: Documentary and Outstanding Cinematography: Documentary in addition to Best Nature Documentary, followed by The Last Rhinos: A New Hope with two nominations, the other for Outstanding Music Composition: Documentary, then the Nature episodes "Katavi: Africa's Fallen Paradise" and "Willow: Diary of a Mountain Lion," and Shark Whisperer with just this one. I'm sharing the trailers in this order, beginning with Secrets of the Penguins | Official Trailer | National Geographic.
On the twentieth anniversary of National Geographic’s Academy-Award Winning “March of The Penguins”, SECRETS OF THE PENGUINS changes everything we ever believed to be true. From the Emperor Penguins’ revelatory bonds of friendship to the gritty resolve of Gentoos and Rockhoppers, and the astonishing ingenuity of the migrant penguins that reached deserts and far beyond, their incredible traditions and societies echo ours in ways we never dreamt possible – until now. For over two years, BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning wildlife cinematographer Bertie Gregory collaborates with world leading scientists, using cutting-edge camera technology and unique access to capture three world-first episodes that resonate with our lives like never before. The three-part series is executive produced by National Geographic Explorer-at-Large and Academy Award®-winning filmmaker James Cameron.
This is in the same overall series as Secrets of the Whales, Secrets of the Elephants, and Secrets of the Octopus, all of which earned nominations at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. That, and its award-winning producer and director, bode well for its award chances at these Emmy Awards.
There are just two northern white rhinos left in the world: Najin and Fatu, a mother and daughter pair. They can’t continue the species alone, but a world-first attempt was made to bring a new northern white rhino calf into the world using frozen samples, in vitro fertilization (IVF), and a surrogate southern white rhino.
That surrogate was called Curra, and the successful world-first attempt at this kind of cross-species IVF was achieved by BioRescue, an initiative developing advanced reproduction technologies for saving critically endangered mammals. Jan Stejskal was one of the people who had just landed in Kenya to check on the status of her pregnancy when they received a worrying call: Curra was sick, and it was happening fast.
They’d never get to check if she was pregnant, as she died within an hour of falling ill. The team would later learn that this was the devastating outcome of a chain of unfortunate events. First, there was the shift in El Niño, which caused very heavy rains. Then, those rains washed away the top layer of soil in Kenya, resurrecting mummies that had been stored in the ground for centuries. Inside those carcasses was Clostridia bacteria that can live for 500 years, and that bacteria releases an extremely powerful toxin that can kill a rhino in just 60 minutes.
It was a devastating loss for the BioRescue team and even more so for the guardians who had cared for Curra and the other rhinos on the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. There came, however, just one small glimmer of hope.
During an autopsy, the team found a 66-day fetus. It was a male northern white rhino, the last seen since the death of Sudan in 2018. There was nothing that could be done to save Curra or the developing fetus inside her, but it was proof that this kind of IVF was possible – something that had never been proven before.
This story of loss and hope is explored in the new National Geographic film, The Last Rhinos: A New Hope, which premieres Aug. 24 at 8/7c and streams next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
No wonder this earned an EMA Award nomination. I hope it gets nominated at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards next year.
Southern Tanzania. The powerful local tribes of hippo, lion and crocodile struggle for survival while defending their turf from intruders. Only the oldest crocodile matriarch remembers 90 years ago when a similar event occurred…
This allegorical tale offers a fascinating insight into how an animal society can be affected by a changing climate, and how this situation requires new strategies and changed behaviors from everyone to battle despair and to create hope for the future of their lineage…
Yes, this is a Nature episode, but PBS didn't make this trailer, so it looks and sounds distinct. On the other hand, PBS did make the next one, so it's definitely my idea of a Nature promo, Nature | Willow: Diary of a Mountain Lion - Preview from New Mexico PBS.
A unique, non-invasive, mountain lion study uses a giant network of trail cameras scattered throughout Montana's Sapphire Mountains over a decade to piece together the life story of a female mountain lion. This film weaves clips of mountain lions and their complex interactions with each other and the rest of the forest world into a story about life and death that contains never-before-captured events and behaviors at every turn.
From the Academy Award®-winning director of My Octopus Teacher comes Shark Whisperer, a provocative and visually arresting documentary that dives into the murky waters of modern conservation, where science, activism, and spectacle collide.
At its center is marine conservationist and social media lightning rod Ocean Ramsey, whose viral videos of swimming freely with sharks have sparked global fascination—and fierce debate. Driven by a desire to leave the cage and decode shark language up close, Ocean strives to connect with these predators on an unprecedented level— hoping to challenge the negative perception of sharks. To her supporters, she’s a fearless advocate giving a voice to misunderstood predators. To her critics, her mission blurs the line between saving the planet and seeking the spotlight.
Through intimate character study and breathtaking underwater cinematography, the film explores the tensions between advocacy and ethics, media influence and ecological integrity. With insight from marine biologists, indigenous knowledge holders, and fellow conservationists—both supportive and dissenting—it paints a nuanced portrait of a polarizing figure and the broader questions she provokes.
This is not just a story about sharks. It’s a story about how we choose to tell stories—about nature, ourselves, and what we’re willing to risk to be heard.
I think the video description is a fair depiction of the subject matter, so I'm not as conflicted about its nomination as I was about Encounters. I was pleased and relieved Science Fair won instead. While I'm rooting for Secrets of the Penguins and The Last Rhinos: A New Hope, in that order, I wouldn't be nearly as perturbed as I would have been if Encounters had won Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary two years ago if Shark Whisperers wins Outstanding Nature Documentary. Fortunately, the metric I use, views of the trailer, favors Secrets of the Penguins over Shark Whisperer; the latter has 454,462 views, while the former has 5,449,091 views. The penguins have the people!
Follow over the jump for the rest of the nominations for Secrets of the Penguins and The Last Rhinos: A New Hope plus more of the most read entries about the Emmy Awards from the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
Tucked into the legislation that ended the longest government shutdown in U.S. history was a provision to change the definition of hemp. It was a small tweak involving minute measurements, but one that could have a huge impact on the booming market for hemp products. Jeffrey Brown reports from Kentucky.
That's a bummer, both for the users and the farmers. I'm going to offer some rare faint praise for Rand Paul, which is that I generally don't agree with his principles, but at least he has some, and this time I actually approve of how he's applying them. May he and others succeed in loosening the regulations on hemp.
Supporters of legal marijuana in Wisconsin have announced a new effort at the state Capitol.
The racial disparity in enforcement is enough to make me support this bill, although I agree that making medical marijuana legal would be a good first step that might actually pass. Some of the commenters mentioned that the bar and tavern owners opposed legalization. Considering that Wisconsin is the drunkest state in the union and seems proud of it, I'm not surprised.
PENNSYLVANIA (WJAC) — Is this the year that Pennsylvania lawmakers legalize the recreational use of marijuana?
Governor Shapiro continues to push for it, but it is still not certain if the legislature will approve it.
State Representative Scott Conklin recently spoke about the fact that all but one of Pennsylvania’s neighboring states have already legalized marijuana. So, will it happen here?
Others in the legislature are not supportive of the idea, for various reasons, including one of the most heard about --- marijuana's possible link to harder drugs.
Raising revenue is one of the most cited reasons by Governor Shapiro and other backers to legalize.
Envisioned as a new cash crop in Pennsylvania, farmers paying a fee, growers’ licenses, tax on sales, all bringing in money, with the Department of Agriculture providing oversight.
I think Pennsylvania is a better bet than Wisconsin, but it's not a sure thing.
That's a wrap for today's sort-of holiday. Stay tuned for a Tuneful Tuesday post featuring the Marsh Family tomorrow, followed by the next episode of my series on the News & Doc Emmy Awards with the nominees for Outstanding Nature Documentary on Wayback Wednesday, which falls on Earth Day.
Instead of exploring fiction for today's Sunday entertainment feature, I'm celebrating the best of nonfiction in television by beginning my examination of this year's 47th News & Documentary Emmy® Awards Nominees with the nominees for Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary, as I did last year.
Sally leads this field with three nominations as the preview image shows, Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary, Outstanding Direction: Documentary, and Outstanding Art Direction / Set Decoration / Scenic Design: Documentary. The rest of the nominees for this category have only this one nomination. On this basis, I'm considering Sally to be the favorite for this award. Time to watch the trailers to see if they confirm my impression, staring with SALLY | Official Trailer | National Geographic Documentary Films.
Sally Ride became the first American woman to blast off into space, but beneath her unflappable composure, she carried a secret. Revealing the romance and sacrifices of their 27 years together, Sally’s life partner, Tam O’Shaughnessy, tells the full story of this complicated and iconic astronaut for the first time. From National Geographic Documentary Films, SALLY is directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Cristina Costantini.
That was inspiring. I'm looking forward to announcing any Emmy Awards it wins in June, Pride Month.
If the ice sheet covering Greenland melts, global sea levels would rise 21 feet, profoundly impacting our planet. How, why, and when could this happen? Scientists have recently found lost sediment from a forgotten secret sub-ice Cold War base in the Arctic that holds clues about a time when the Greenland Ice Sheet had receded. THE MEMORY OF DARKNESS, LIGHT, AND ICE is a 60-minute documentary film about the discovery of this precious sediment core, which holds the key to crucial science around the melting Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) and the future of sea level rise across the globe.
Watching this trailer reminds me that I showed Chasing Ice to my students last week and this is week is Earth Week, making this a good movie to recommend to my students. Welcome to blogging as professional development. It also makes me think that it's the strongest competitor to Sally. Last year, I thought that the "Hunt for the Oldest DNA" episode of NOVA on PBS had the strongest science of all the nominees, but didn't have the best chance of winning. Surprise, it won! That could happen here.
The second nominated episode of NOVA is "Operation Space Station: High-Risk Build." Watch its official promotional video from NOVA PBS Official, How Astronauts Avoided Disaster Building the International Space Station | NOVA | PBS. The field for this category wouldn't be complete without a NOVA episode, and this year's slate has two. Good showing for NOVA!
A dangerous spacewalk, a toxic leak, and a breathtaking view of Earth.
Astronauts faced a life-threatening challenge during construction of the International Space Station.
Sitting in sunlight to evaporate the ammonia serves as a good example of one of Commoner's Laws, "Nature knows best." Environmental content in space!
Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster examines CEO Stockton Rush’s quest to become the next billionaire innovator and the doomed underwater endeavor that called into question the price of ambition in the depths of the ocean.
The Titan submersible’s ill-fated journey to the ruins of the Titanic dominated headlines in June 2023, yet the shocking decisions that led to the disaster have never been revealed like this before.
This could just as easily have been nominated for business documentary as for science and technology. It's also Sally's chief competition for its journalistic value and public interest; the trailers for both have more than two million views, with Sally slightly ahead. In contrast, the trailers for the rest of the nominees have several thousand views at most. I still think Sally is the favorite, but now I have a better grasp of its chances.
Follow over the jump for Sally's other two nominations and some of the most read entries about the Emmy Awards last year.
Why does America have a toxic sea… and how did it get there?
The Salton Sea was once one of California’s most vibrant tourist hotspots, a beach teeming with visitors and wildlife. Today it’s a shrinking, toxic lake at the center of a water crisis impacting 40 million people across the Southwest. What happened?
Shane Campbell-Staton visits the Imperial Valley to examine how a desert transformed into America’s vegetable garden, but at serious environmental and social costs. He meets Alex Jack, a third-generation farmer pioneering water-saving techniques to sustain his family’s farm, and Luis Olmedo, a community advocate fighting for the health and rights of migrant workers who harvest the valley’s crops.
The story of the Salton Sea reveals the harsh realities of scarce water, toxic pollution, and a system that doesn’t protect everyone equally. As new water regulations for the Colorado River loom in 2026, this pivotal moment demands a fresh approach to who controls this precious resource, and how it can be allocated more fairly.
I'm old enough to remember when the Salton Sea was the aquatic playground shown in the video and I find it sad that it is now too polluted to still be that. It's now become a place that fits what I wrote in John Oliver examines the UK elections: "One ofmy favorite sayings that I tell my students is 'no one, or in this case, no place, is completely useless; it can always be used as a bad example.'" It also serves as an example of three of Commoner's Laws, "Everything must go somewhere (There is no away)" for agricultural runoff, "There is no free lunch" for growing winter vegetables, and "Everything is connected to everything else" for water use. "Nature knows best?" We should be so lucky.
Follow over the jump for most read posts featuring clips from Human Footprint during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
Is the Supreme Court considering a radical reinterpretation of the 14th amendment?
President Donald Trump has been on a crusade to end birthright citizenship for years. Challenging the long-held legal consensus that anyone born in the United States is granted citizenship, he signed an executive order stripping that right away from the children of undocumented parents and temporary visa holders.
The executive order after returning to the White House set in motion a series of lawsuits challenging Trump’s ability to make sweeping changes to birthright citizenship. And now it’s headed to the Supreme Court in a case called Trump v. Barbara.
The 14th Amendment was passed to guarantee citizenship to freed enslaved people and their children, but was later clarified to apply to anybody born on US soil with a few very specific exceptions. For well over 100 years, birthright citizenship has been enshrined in the Constitution with that understanding.
In Trump v. Barbara, the Trump administration claims that the law applies to those who are not just born in the United States but also “owe allegiance” to it — except…the words “owe allegiance” don’t appear anywhere in the 14th Amendment.
The plaintiffs are representing a group of people affected by Trump’s executive order, and their argument is simple: Leave birthright citizenship alone.
As Vox points out, this is an old debate, one that goes back to the adoption of the 14th Amendment and it always turns out the same way; people born here, other than children of diplomats, residents of American Samoa, and formerly Native Americans — I don't know if we've ever had children of enemy aliens occupying American soil other than Japanese in the Philippines, and I don't know if the Filipinos were American citizens back then — are citizens.
That's what Vox expects will happen again, at least this time.
On his first day back in office, President Trump signed an executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, a cornerstone of immigration policy enshrined in the 14th Amendment and affirmed by the Supreme Court more than 100 years ago. But now the justices are reexamining the policy. Ali Rogin discussed the legal debate with Amy Howe and Amanda Frost.
PBS NewsHour featured five Justices who expressed skepticism of the government's argument, Gorsuch, Cavanaugh, Barrett, Roberts and Jackson, enough to overturn Donald "Hoover Harding Cleveland" Trump's executive order. Add in Kagen and Sotomayor, and that's seven votes. Alito might go along with Hoover Harding Cleveland, but I don't know about Thomas; he could go either way, not that it will matter. Hoover Harding Cleveland will lose and birthright citizenship will win.
Some Supreme Cout justices -- including key conservatives -- seem skeptical about the Trump administration's argument for ending birthright citizenship. And in a presidential first, Trump attended the beginning of the proceedings. Afterwards he posted that the U.S. was "stupid" for allowing birthright citizenship. Hayes Brown, Basil Smikle, Ron Insana and Melissa Murray.
That was worth including for the Mean Girls reference alone.
I'm looking forward to the decision later this year. In the meantime, stay tuned for another retrospective about holidays tomorrow.
Happy Wayback Wednesday! Yesterday, I told my readers to "Stay tuned to see if I post the first retrospective of the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News..." I just don't have time to do that today. Instead, I'm looking at another kind of wayback by sharing PBS Eons asking What Killed All These Pterosaurs?
At the Solnhofen formation in Germany, over 500 fossils of 15 pterosaur species have been found. But it might be hiding a dark secret, one that’s been massively distorting our view of who was living and dying there, and why they left so much evidence behind.
I couldn't resist this video, not only because it exemplifies looking way back, but also because it mentioned Rancho La Brea and it promotes a book on topic for the original theme of this blog: The Book: The Ultimate Guide to Rebuilding Civilization: survival & rebuilding strategies revealed. Perfect!
In Irish folklore, Cú Chulainn was one of the greatest warriors ever to live. From his first battle against a vicious hound at the age of 6 to his last against an entire army just two decades later, Cú Chulainn lived a legendary, but short life. Some might call him a tragic hero, but is it tragic to get everything you ever wanted?
No, Dr. Moiya McTier, it's not really tragic. Cursed and blessed at the same time, maybe, but not any more tragic than the story of El Cid, which the ending reminds me of.
The Blood Of Cu Chulainn Official Music Video by Jeff Danna and Mychael Danna...
The Blood of Cu Chulainn has become known as the Theme to The Boondock Saints films, but was first released on Jeff Danna and Mychael Danna's 1998 album, A Celtic Romance: Legend of Liadain and Curithir.
I couldn't resist the music, animals, and landscapes, although as a biologist and geologist, I could tell that many of the latter are not Irish. No matter, they're pretty and fit the music.
Get ready to celebrate ST. PATRICK’S Day with the most viral green cocktails!
These drinks are festive, fun, creamy, and refreshing — perfect for your St. Patrick’s Day party. Whether you’re hosting friends or celebrating at home, these cocktails will bring the luck of the Irish straight to your glass!
He's not Tipsy Bartender, but he said "And there you have it" to make up for it.
That's a wrap for today's holiday. Stay tuned for an educational post I can share next month.
There’s an 18% chance that global warming exceeds four degrees by 2100 and that’s not a small risk when the stakes are civilization-ending.
In this episode of Weathered, host Maiya May talks with civilization collapse researcher Luke Kemp and strategic climate risk expert Laurie Laybourn about why high-end warming scenarios are often dismissed as “doomerism,” even though worst-case planning is standard in most fields. We break down how uncertainty in climate sensitivity and political derailment could push warming higher than expected and how climate shocks can trigger cascading failures across food systems, financial markets, and geopolitics. Understanding the climate endgame isn’t pessimism. It’s risk management.
Before I address the science, I'm making a meta comment about what I've seen on PBS YouTube channels and PBS and NPR websites since the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was defunded; public media has become more opposed, even antagnostic, to Donald "Hoover Harding Cleveland" Trump's policies since. If the authors of Project 2025 thought public media was biting the hand that fed them, they might be surprised at how much their hands are being bitten now that they're not feeding public media!
The Arctic was ice free and warm enough to host permanent forest cover across much of its extent. Iceland had a humid and subtropical climate...Dense, humid rainforests covered much of France, Switzerland, and northern Germany, while southern and central Spain were arid and contained open environments.
That's a very different world from today.
Speaking of today's world, the L.A.fires serve as an example where climate change is already causing disasters, which the current administration denies. Looking forward to the future, a possible collapse of the AMOC would be catastrophic and magnified by our economic system. Yikes!
