Astro Bob: Pants on! A promising aurora forecast for Sept. 27-29

Astro Bob: Pants on! A promising aurora forecast for Sept. 27-29 - Duluth News Tribune

Astro Bob: Pants on! A promising aurora forecast for Sept. 27-29 - Duluth News Tribune
Anything can be a sport, even stuffing an animal down your pants - The A.V. Club
Epoque Evolution's Everyday Pants are perfect for working from home - Fast Company

Astro Bob: Pants on! A promising aurora forecast for Sept. 27-29 - Duluth News Tribune

Posted: 27 Sep 2020 01:00 PM PDT

There's a good possibility we'll see the northern lights the next couple nights due to an increase in the strength of the solar wind from two recent coronal holes. A minor G1 storm is expected to kick up between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. Central Time Monday morning, Sept. 28. While that's not exactly a friendly time to get up at least the bright moon won't spoil the view — it sets between 3 and 3:30.

A more intense and widespread G2 or moderate storm is forecast to arrive Monday night, Sept. 28 and linger until dawn Tuesday. G1 conditions are expected to start off the evening with activity intensifying to G2 from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Central Daylight Time. Auroras typically begin with a low, greenish arc in the northern sky pieced by occasional faint rays. G2 conditions bring multiple arcs along with brighter, taller and more lively rays visible as far south as Colorado, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

This is what a typical moderate (G2) aurora looks like — modest rays and one or more green-hued arcs low in the northern sky. An Iridium satellite made a cameo appearance during the time exposure. (Bob King for the Duluth News Tribune)

We haven't had a G2 storm at mid-northern latitudes since August 2019, so I'm pretty excited about this one. That's why I used "pants on" in the title, a description borrowed from the Alberta Aurora Chasers. When someone posts those words on their Facebook page it's time to drop everything, put on your pants and hurry outside to see the aurora.

The bad boy coronal hole that blasted a stream of subatomic particles in Earth's direction on Sept. 26 is outlined in red. Normally, the sun's magnetic field prevents gases from leaving the sun, but coronal holes are cooler regions in the its corona where material can escape directly into space. (Ultraviolet light image by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory)

A wind of electrons and protons — basically stripped apart hydrogen atoms which compose 91 percent of the sun's mass — stream away from the star into interplanetary space. Enhancements in that wind like a massive increase in the number of particles and uptick in their speed can affect Earth's magnetic field.

Instead of just blowing by like a gentle breeze they can link into the field and be guided along magnetic lines of force into the upper atmosphere at high speed. There the solar particles strike and excite atoms and molecules of oxygen and nitrogen. As the atoms settle back to their previous "relaxed" state, they release tiny bursts of green and red light that together make the aurora.

Two recent "holes" in the sun's outer atmosphere, known as the corona, have unleashed torrents of high-speed particles our way. The first arrives tonight, and the second tomorrow night. There's just one fly in the ointment. The moon. It's just a few days from full, bright enough nearly erase a G1 storm. I think we'll still see the G2 storm despite moonlight, but it will be compromised.

Your best strategy is to watch during the peak but also to get up before dawn for another go-round after moonset. The moon will set Monday morning between 3-3:30 a.m., leaving a 2-hour viewing "window," and around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning with a 1-hour window.

I hate to toss in another caveat, but remember that all auroral forecasts are subject to change. Sometime the aurora arrives earlier or later than expected or fails to show up altogether. I'll update with more information (and a new forecast if any) tonight and again on Monday. You can also check SpaceWeatherLive for updates. Keep your fingers crossed!

Anything can be a sport, even stuffing an animal down your pants - The A.V. Club

Posted: 26 Sep 2020 10:00 PM PDT

Illustration for article titled Anything can be a sport, even stuffing an animal down your pants — Photo: Nadja Schilling / EyeEm (Getty Images)

Wiki WormholeWe explore some of Wikipedia's oddities in our 5,664,405-week series, Wiki Wormhole.

We explore some of Wikipedia's oddities in our 6,150,520-week series, Wiki Wormhole.

This week's entry: Ferret-Legging

What it's about: An ill-advised, inhumane, and just plain idiotic sport that has somehow persisted for centuries. Also known as "put 'em down," or the overly explanatory "ferret-down-trousers," ferret-legging is an endurance test to see who can stand having a ferret down their pants the longest.

Biggest controversy: No one's entirely sure where ferret-legging came from. Wikipedia says the sport became popular among Yorkshire coal miners in the 1970s, but it seems to have existed for centuries before that. It likely has humble roots, as there was a time when only wealthy Britons were allowed to keep animals for hunting, so poachers had to conceal their hunting companions. (Ferrets were long used to hunt rabbits, although nowadays they're mostly just kept as pets.) Based on the dates mentioned here, the sports seems to have been a fad in the '70s and '80s, had a resurgence in the '00s, and has largely died away, although ferret racing (in which the animals race through a length of pipe) seems to have replaced ferret-legging in the public's imagination.

Strangest fact: Crocodile Dundee is a fan. Australian actor Paul Hogan went on The Tonight Show in 1996, ostensibly to promote a remake of Flipper, but instead spent the interview talking about ferret-legging, which he claimed was, "a new Australian Olympics event." (The animals are illegal to keep as pets in much of the country.)

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Thing we were happiest to learn: The animals don't seem to mind. The Manitoba Ferret Association—an animal shelter that has held ferret-legging contests as fundraisers to help homeless ferrets—points out that the animals like enclosed spaces, although pants probably aren't what evolution had in mind. More open to dispute is how dangerous the animals are to humans. On one side, there's the Ferret Rescue League, who monitor ferret-legging contests to make sure no animals are harmed. The League claims that no contestant has ever been bitten on their watch, although a few scratches are to be expected; some contest organizers have characterized ferrets as "harmless fun-loving creatures."

On the other side are those who see the essence of the sport as being able to "have your tool bitten and not care." Wearing underwear is forbidden in ferret-legging, so the animals have easier access to both pant legs, not to mention the additional challenge for the competitor.

Writing for Outside magazine, Don Katz described ferrets as "having claws like hypodermic needles and teeth like number 16 carpet tacks." Series ferret-legging competitor Reg Mellor (see next entry) gives the Quint-like description that, on a bad day they can be "cannibals, things that live only to kill, that'll eat your eyes out to get at your brain." As of press time, we're not aware of any incidents of ferret brain-eating, but then, as far as we know, no one's held a competition to see who can keep a ferret under their hat the longest.

Thing we were unhappiest to learn: The sport manages to be both dangerous and boring. In 1972, when ferret-legging was in its infancy, the world record was 40 seconds. Within five years, the record was five hours and 10 minutes (and record-holder Edward Simpkins added a second ferret for the last 70 minutes). However, watching someone with a ferret in their pants was not riveting entertainment for the full five hours—even Simpkins played darts for some of that span.

In 1981, retired miner Reg Mellor set a new record at 5:26. His trick was making sure the ferrets were well-fed before competition began. He often hunted with ferrets, and often kept them in his pants to keep them out of the rain, so it's likely the animals had already developed some level of comfort. But again, comfortable ferrets do not make for thrilling competition, so in 1986, when Mellor tried to break his own record and hit the six-hour mark, the assembled crowd of 2,500 got bored and left. By hour five, workman began dismantling the stage Mellor had arranged for the event. "Disillusioned and broken-hearted," Mellor's dreams of both setting a new record and starting an annual competition were shattered.

Best link to elsewhere on Wikipedia: Reg Mellor referred to his attempted six-hour record attempt as the "four-minute mile" of ferret-legging. The four-minute mile was an unreachable aspiration for distance runners everywhere until Roger Bannister broke the barrier in 1954. Running a four-minute mile requires the runner to maintain an average pace of 15 miles per hour for that duration. (By comparison, 8 mph is considered a brisk jog, and while Usain Bolt has reached 28 mph, that's only for very short distances.) Sixty-six years of improved equipment and training later, hundreds of athletes have repeated Bannister's feat, and it's now considered a standard for competitive middle-distance runners. But metaphorically, it's used in all variety of sport as a metaphor for a very high bar to clear. (That's also a sports metaphor!)

Further Down the Wormhole: Former ferret-legging world record holder Edward Simpkins hailed from the Isle Of Wight, an island of less than 150 square miles in the English Channel just off the British mainland. King Charles I was imprisoned there before being executed; Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had a vacation home there. Other famous residents included Dickens, Keats, Tennyson, Robyn Hitchcock, Jeremy Irons, Anthony Minghella, David Niven, and naval captain Jeremiah Coghlan, who was legendary for his daring heroics during the Napoleonic Wars. Few figures in history have had as much written about them as Napoleon Bonaparte, but less has been written about his younger sister, Pauline Bonaparte, a fascinating figure in her own right. We'll look at her colorful, scandalous life next week.

Epoque Evolution's Everyday Pants are perfect for working from home - Fast Company

Posted: 23 Sep 2020 03:00 PM PDT

I've had these pants for six months and have received compliments every single time I've worn them (even if it's just around the neighborhood). But it's not so much about what others think of them as it is about how I feel in them.

The Everyday Pant is made of a wool-recycled poly blend, which I initially worried would be itchy. It's not. The fabric feels structured and has just enough stretch. It holds its shape, holds my shape, and maintains its integrity through many washes—yes, machine washable Italian wool.

Thanks to the stretchy, anti-wrinkling features of the fabric, I can work cross-legged at home all day and meet a friend in the park in the evening without looking like a WFH slob. Somehow, lint and pet hair don't stick to these pants (I can't say the same about my Lulu leggings).

I've worn these pants in the brisk spring month of April, the heat of July, and now the cooling temperatures of late September, and they haven't changed one bit even with lots of wear. I couldn't figure out why there didn't seem to be a season that these pants couldn't hang in. It turns out, this Italian wool blend has temperature-regulating qualities.

The slit in the front of the pants may be an initial turnoff for some, but I like that it's unique and it gives me the opportunity to show off my shoes. You can make these pants dressy, funky, chic, casual—it just depends on how you style them.

My favorite pairing is with The One Crop Top (also from Époque Évolution), topped with a slouchy vintage boyfriend blazer if I need to look professional. I've also paired the pants with a simple white tee and my favorite white sneakers (The Lace Up, from Rothy's) for a casual everyday look.

Époque Évolution was founded on the idea that you only need a few rotating pieces to have a great wardrobe. The results are trendy high-quality items that are better for the environment. The Everyday Pant and The One Crop Top are available and in stock on Époque Évolution's website now.

Looking for more recommendations? Check out our other handpicked suggestions.

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