Articles by Katharine Wroth

PS: We’re all going to die

The latest science news, nicely coinciding with the belching of Mount St. Helens: some time, not sure when, an extra-giganto-huge volcano is going to erupt and kill a buncha people. Might be in Yellowstone, which is 40,000 years overdue for a super explosion and has inspired a BBC docudrama (check out the still of a pick-up truck fleeing the scene). Or might be somewhere else around the world. Might be tomorrow. Or might be thousands of years from now. But whenever it happens, it's going to be ugly. And, scientists say, there ain't nothin' we can do about it.

Is it any wonder people (and when I say "people," I mean me) bury their heads? The planet is scary, the experts who talk about it are scary, and we are helpless.

OK, well, got to get back to writing silly headlines.

Hook, line, and stinker?

Not long ago, PETA launched a "Fish Empathy" project. Which I'll do my very best to treat seriously here ... just for the halibut.

Citing research that shows fish communicate, feel pain, store memories, and even tend gardens, PETA is trying to convince anglers to quit. In January, after former President Carter chatted on the Tonight Show about hooking himself in the face, PETA wrote him a note: now you know how a fish feels. More recently, the organization asked Maine's Bates College to disband its fishing club; bewildered club president Chester Clem, an environmental policy major, replied, "The club is just a bunch of guys who enjoy fishing." It also petitioned my new favorite governor Dave Heineman of Nebraska to make the channel catfish, a state icon, off-limits to anglers. He declined.

The website for this campaign does include some sobering reminders about mercury contamination and the like, but it's so mixed in with the screeching and the pandering to the Christian right that it gets lost.

I'm sorry the fish are in pain. Really, I am! But somehow it's hard to get worked up about this when there are, well, bigger fish to fry.

Calling Mr. Bean

Although the U.S. and Europe are meandering down the same road to fuel efficiency, they're driving in different lanes. Hybrids, which have caught on among a certain set on this side of the Atlantic, are just now hitting Europe. On the other hand, thrifty Europeans have embraced diesel -- in the form of the teeny-tiny, 60-mpg "smart car" -- and are sending some this way. Of course, knowing American proclivities, they've made an SUV version called -- and I audibly groan here -- "formore."

In other green car news, the mayor of Fort Wayne, Ind., is converting the city's trucks to biodiesel and buying hybrid cars. Hmm ... will they be red or blue?

This bears repeating

Warning: there is no merit, journalistic or otherwise, to this post. But recently, while looking through my nephew's Ask magazine -- a cool science rag for kids -- I learned a little something. It seems new research shows that pandas pee on trees while doing handstands. (And hey, if the BBC's reporting it, it must be news.)

In this gloomy world, when all talk is of climate change and other catastrophes, let us simply take a moment to savor that.