Houston
milhayser | September 15, 2017Hurricane Harvey visited a near-biblical deluge upon Houston, dropping over 40 inches of rain on parts of the city. The situation resulted from warmer ocean waters, more moisture in the atmosphere, and Houston's geography along with its preparedness for the disaster. Greg Laden shows hotter sea surface temperatures in the Tropics and the Gulf of Mexico allowed Harvey to gain extra strength as it formed and re-formed on its way to the United States. In another post, Greg asks if Houston's infrastructure could have been better-prepared for this type of rainfall, suggesting that "Houston is…
dr. dolittle | August 29, 2017
By U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Got bugs? Get a bat. As many species of bats are insectivores, they help keep insect populations in check. Hurricane Harvey has been devastating to people, animals and property. So it probably comes as no surprise that there are many volunteers dedicating their time to saving animals displaced by Hurricane Harvey as well. From squirrels, cats and dogs to...you guessed it...bats. It turns out that bats are not very…
oracknows | April 8, 2016Nearly two weeks ago, a story that I had been blogging about almost nonstop for a week reached its conclusion when Robert De Niro decided to pull the antivaccine movie Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe from the Tribeca Film Festival, of which he was one of the co-founders. Before that, he had revealed that it was he who had bypassed the festival's regular selection procedures and asked that the film be shown. All of this happened after an uproar over a film so full of antivaccine quackery, conspiracy theories about William W. Thompson (a.k.a. the "CDC whistleblower" in antivaccine circles…
cmonforton | January 14, 2016There are many things I am thankful for about my job. One of them is being able to use the bathroom whenever (and as often) as I need. I thought about this situation when I’ve heard poultry workers mention the restrictions they face. I've also read about the problem for bus drivers and other public transit workers. The Washington Post, for example, has been following the issue involving drivers for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). In a story from 2011, WashPost's Dana Hedgpeth wrote:
“Some operators say they have had to relieve themselves in a cup or bag at the back…
cmonforton | April 17, 2014Going to a job and getting paid appropriately for your time is how it is supposed to work. Doing your job and getting ripped off by not getting paid is wrong and illegal. The economic consequences of wage theft for the victims and their families are profound: the threat and reality of losing utilities, food and housing. One of the single biggest risk factors for ill health is poverty. That makes wage theft a public health problem.
But catching and punishing employer-thieves is difficult. The federal and state enforcement agencies are under resourced and the laws weak. It’s also one thing to…
cmonforton | October 3, 2013It's been four months since Captain Bill Dowling responded with his fire station 68 crew to a multi-alarm blaze at the Southwest Inn in Houston. About 150 firefighters arrived on the scene to battle the rapidly-moving fire which started in a restaurant attached to the hotel. Disaster struck, and the May 31, 2013 incident stands as the Houston Fire Department's worst loss of life in its history.
Capt. Dowling and other firefighters from his unit were inside the building when its tile roof collapsed. Firefighters Robert Bebee, 41, Robert Garner, 29, Matthew Renaud, 35, and Anne Sullivan, 24…
lborkowski | November 15, 2012My fellow blogger Celeste Monforton has been working for the past several months with the Houston worker center Fe y Justicia to respond to outrageous employer behavior that exposed construction workers to asbestos and raised questions about how the city selects contractors. Earlier this week, Jeremy Rogalski and his investigative team colleagues at KHOU 11 News released a news story documenting what occurred.
Last summer, a heat wave and drought in Texas dried out the soil so much that underground voids put pressure on Houston's aging water pipes. Six hundred water mains broke, creating an…
lborkowski | July 9, 2012by Kim Krisberg
Last month, more than 70 ironworkers walked off an ExxonMobil construction site near Houston, Texas. The workers, known as rodbusters in the industry, weren't members of a union or backed by powerful organizers; they decided amongst themselves to unite in protest of unsafe working conditions in a state that has the highest construction worker fatality rate in the country.
The workers reported multiple problems with the ExxonMobil subcontractor who hired them, including not being paid on time, not having enough water on site and no access to medical care in the event of an…
terrasig | September 9, 2009Update: Visitors arriving by search engine may care to read our followup post on 20 November following M.D. Anderson's filing of legal action in this case.
The premier US cancer hospital and research center in Houston released a statement today distancing themselves from a Dallas company claiming an endorsement of their water product by The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center:
Recently, you may have heard or read about a company that sells Evolv, a "nutraceutical beverage," which is being promoted in part based upon testing done at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer…
awild | May 21, 2008Scott Solomon, who researches fungus-growing ants, has a brief piece in Slate Magazine on the Paratrechina Crazy Ants invading Houston.
I'm not convinced that this ant is anything different from Paratrechina fulva, a common South American species and the oldest name in that species complex. People have been calling the Houston invader "P. cf. pubens", but the taxonomy of the genus is so poor that it's difficult to say anything with confidence. Do you folks who've looked at specimens (that's you, James) have any thoughts about the identity of this ant?