Un Pez sin Agua

Sinagua“I feel like a fish without water.” The small type under “sin agua” says “Francisco, 5 años, descridiendo el asma.” It’s a billboard at the corner of 7th and Brannan streets in San Francisco. Kate says she’s seen English versions of it. It struck me just because of my (nearly lifelong) problems with asthma; and also because of the fact the disease seems to have become so prevalent among city kids now; the why of that still seems largely unknown, but one has to think it has got be due to basic environmental causes.

A Totally Whack New World

Opportunity012504The second Mars rover, Opportunity, plunged and bounced and rolled safely to rest last night/this morning. The NASA scientists running the Martian campout are agog at images of the landing site (“it’s a bizarre, alien landscape,” quoth one).

In other news, engineers think the other rover, Spirit, marooned in a less bizarre, less alien landscape, might not be totally brain dead.

[Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell]