Thursday, February 24, 2011

Roots of Sci-fi #1

Dust Plume over Mediterranean Sea


Those of you that have read Dune by Frank Herbert are familiar with the concept of a desert planet and the differences in society and technology that it would bring about.  Interestingly Mr. Herbert's interest in the desert setting of Dune and its challenges came from research he started back in 1957 for an article about a United States Department of Agriculture experiment using poverty grasses to stabilize damaging mobile sand dunes, which could "swallow whole cities, lakes, rivers, and highways."

The photo above is from NASA's Earth Observatory from Feb 23rd.  That sand and dust cloud is over 500 km long. Just sayin...

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