MetaFilter posts tagged with dust

The Kopp-Etchells Effect

krautland — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:42:22 -0800

Stunning pictures by Michael Yon show what happens when helicopters land in dust storms: The Kopp-Etchells Effect is thought to be the result of static electricity created by friction as materials of dissimilar material strike against each other, in this case titanium/nickel blades moving through the air and dust, but a precise definition is as of now not known. Von reports most pilots were unable to provide him with a satisfying explanation for why this occurred but within the comments at the end of the article some speculate this could be related to Triboelectric effect or the nature of the sand crystals in the dust.

Life on Mars

togdon — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:20:21 -0800

Amazing photos of the currently raging Sydney dust storm.

Life imitating art

numberstation — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:00:44 -0800

Life imitating art Disclaimer: noted it was Iraq depicted in Monkey Dust and not Afghanistan but you get the idea.

At A Deadly pace

The Whelk — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:10:41 -0800

The Invasion From Outer Space: Steven Millhauser gives The New Yorker a short, unsettling sci-fi story.

Library of Dust

oneirodynia — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:39:33 -0800

Library of Dust depicts individual copper canisters, each containing the cremated remains of patient from a state-run psychiatric hospital. The patients died at the hospital between 1883 (the year the facility opened, when it was called the Oregon State Insane Asylum) and the 1970’s; their bodies have remained unclaimed by their families.

Black Sunday: I think my mother thought it was the end of the world, really.

jessamyn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 17:56:53 -0800

"The storm carried twice as much dirt as was dug out of the earth to create the Panama Canal. The canal took seven years to dig; the storm lasted a single afternoon. More than 300,000 tons of Great Plains topsoil was airborne on that day."
Black Sunday. April 14, 1935. Timeline, Oral Histories (Kansas, Nebraska), Dust Bowl Movie (part I, part II), Black Sunday photos (1, 2, 3, 4). [previous dust on mefi: iraq, texas, africa, china]

Russian Book Jackets, 1917-1942

Alvy Ampersand — Wed, 16 May 2007 11:26:44 -0800

Russian Book Jackets, 1917-1942, courtesy of the NYPLDG. [Via Growabrain]

African dust storms feed the Amazon

ernie — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 20:39:07 -0800

African dust storms [pic] have been suspected of causing fish-killing red tide in the Caribbean, but also of mitigating the effect of hurricanes. Now analysis of images from NASA's MODIS satellite have revealed the Bodélé, a region of the Sahara not far from Lake Chad, as the source of more than half the material that fertilises the Amazon rainforest.

n0pr0n0uns.h3r3

jfuller — Sun, 26 Jan 2003 15:53:32 -0800

China is drying up and blowing to California. Right now, tonight. Sorry, no 2008 Beijing Olympics, east Asia n'exist plus. Here's satellite pix of some of the 20 Chinese megastorms that have already occurred this baby century from NASA and NOAA and NASA again and a Google search returning zillions of other links, for fellow regressives who wouldn't ordinarily hang out at CommonDreams.org. (initial link from robotwisdom)