Thursday, March 10, 2011

A Non-Human Engineering Structure Visible from Orbit

Human beings are far from the only Engineers on the planet. Far north of Edmonton, Alberta (and nearly the same longitude) with its West Edmonton Mall (North America's largest), and well north of Ft. McMurray where the oil sands lie, the mighty beaver, who only works at night, builds magnificent dams, indeed, the world's largest.

Over 800 meters long, about the length of 8 football fields placed end to end, it can be seen from space.




Here's something beavers don't have to worry about. They'd probably say the Standard Model wiithout supersymmetry is "close enough for all practical purposes", being the expert engineers that they are
Beavers can grow quite large in the wild.

2 comments:

PlatoHagel said...

Hi Steven,

As long as one doesn't get Beaver Fever while swimming then the Beavers can do what they want.....just be careful about taking a gulp of the water.:)

giardiasis

Best,

Steven Colyer said...

Beaver Fever?! Good lord, we didn't have enough to worry about! :-)

Hey check out The New York Times interactive photos that I linked to under The Political Fallout after the Radioactive Fallout (it's linked under the AFLAC duck). A friend from Bell Labs sent that. Ai chi wawa no matter how bad you think Japan was hit it just keeps getting worse.

Not that Wall Street minds. The short sellers and day traders are having a blast. Here's hoping THEY get Beaver Fever. Naw, just kidding. Duck fever maybe. :-)