FIELDNOTE_0426_NALUWAN_MOLLY
Today it was time for me to hold a workshop with everyone.
Today it was time for me to hold a workshop with everyone.
Today's visit started with all of us students going down to the canal that runs parallel to Naluwan to collect shells.
I arrived earlier than the other students and had some time to interact with Ivan and his family before the others arrived.
Also this week we spent time with the elderly in the community. Me and Charles had a conversation with a man in a wheelchair that Charles also talked to last time.
I'm interested in better understanding the ongoing geological processes that shape St. Louis and the Mississippi Valley region. So far, I've been looking into the history of seismicity in the region, focusing on the fascinating but little known history of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 -- the most devastating earthquakes to have hit the US east of the Rockies. I've also been exploring how St. Louis and surrounding areas are dealing with the possibility of another earthquake occurring in the future. According to one article I read, one of the biggest uncertainties is what would happen to the heavily engineered Mississippi River in the case of another major tremblor. The shaking could break the levees, flooding wide areas along the river and creating cascading effects. The flow of the river might also reverse completely, as occurred during the New Madrid earthquakes.
On these possibilities and the lack of scientific consensus surrounding intraplate seismicity in this zone, see this article in The Atlantic.
On current efforts to create earthquake hazard maps in St. Louis, see this overview on the US Geological Survey site.
For a deeper dive into the history of the New Madrid earthquakes, see this book by historian of science Conevery Bolton Valencius.
"'In the globalized world of the 21st Century,'... simply stopping disease at national borders is not adequate"
"Early advocates of such [biodefense] efforts...argued that adequate preparation for a biological attack would require a massive infusion of resources into both biomedical research and public health response capacity"
"Security experts and some life scientists worry that existing biosafety protocols focused on material controls in laboratories will not be sufficient as techniques of genetic manipulation become more powerful and routine, and as expertise in molecular biology becomes increasingly widespread."
"In all of them, we find that health experts, policy advocates, and politicians have competing visions about how to characterize the problem of biosecurity and about what constitutes the most appropriate response. Thus, the question is not just whether certain events (or potential events) have been characterized as "biosecurity" threats that require attention; we also need to ask what kind of biosecurity problem they are seen to pose, what techniques are used to assess them, and how certain kinds of responses to them are justified"
Art at Naluwan created by the former chief of the tribe.
(The gouverment refused to accept this as art.)