Billye Bob
Bio
Writing is a distraction for me. It takes me to places unknown that fulfill my need for intellectual stimulus, emotional release, and a soothing of the breaks and bruises of the day.
Stories (25/0)
I Pray It Is Tame
I hope you find joy from the harvest you planted and forgiveness from the one you didn’t. When your soil dries, I dream you’ll make time to water the lilies most days and learn to release the ones who couldn’t survive their newfound independence.
By Billye Bobabout a year ago in Poets
A Poet’s Story
“Poetry is about language being as complex and as beautiful as it possibly can be, all at once,” says Alice Fulton, English. “It isn’t to convey facts or information. It conveys something that is beyond words—you can’t ever unpack everything in a good poem because the language is inherently slippery and purposefully layered.”
By Billye Bobabout a year ago in Poets
Reduced Krill Supplies Cause Fewer Humpback Whale Pregnancies
Data from Antarctica show that humpback whales become pregnant more frequently after years of abundant krill than after years of scarcity. The study, which was published in the journal Global Change Biology on January 15, is based on eight years of data on humpback whale pregnancies (2013 to 2020) in waters along the Western Antarctic Peninsula, where krill fishing is concentrated, as per ScienceDaily.
By Billye Bobabout a year ago in Earth
Whirlwind Iceland: The wow-factor peninsula that’s easy to see in just a few days
It was about halfway along the narrow mountain road that I knew we had made the right decision. Suddenly, the grassy terrain to our left dropped off dramatically. The sky yawned open. Below appeared an expanse of farmland, churning sea and a craggy volcanic range, from which a silvery waterfall tumbled. There were sheep and horses but, aside from ours, not a single car facing the whole, epic panorama, lying gold-tinged in the late afternoon light. With scenery like this, coming to the Snaefellsnes Peninsula was clearly A Good Idea.
By Billye Bobabout a year ago in Earth
Massive health-record review links viral illnesses to brain disease
An analysis of about 450,000 electronic health records has found a link between infections from influenza and other common viruses and an elevated risk of having a neurodegenerative condition such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease later in life. But researchers caution that the data show only a possible connection, and that it’s still unclear how or whether the infections trigger disease onset.
By Billye Bobabout a year ago in Earth
How games can make behavioural science better
When US cognitive scientist Joshua Hartshorne was investigating how people around the world learn English, he needed to get tens of thousands of people to take a language test. He designed ‘Which English?’, a grammar game that presented a series of tough word problems and then guessed where in the world the player learnt the language. Participants shared their results — whether accurate or not — on social media, creating a snowball effect for recruitment. The findings, based on data from almost 670,000 people, revealed that there is a ‘critical period’ for second-language learning that extends into adolescence1.
By Billye Bobabout a year ago in Gamers
ChatGPT listed as author on research papers: many scientists disapprove
The artificial-intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT that has taken the world by storm has made its formal debut in the scientific literature — racking up at least four authorship credits on published papers and preprints.
By Billye Bobabout a year ago in Motivation
Why the Hubble telescope is still in the game — even as JWST wows
Once the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) began operations last year, the comparisons began. Astronomers and others online posted side-by-side images of the same celestial objects captured by JWST and the Hubble Space Telescope, pointing out how much crisper and more detailed those from JWST can be. But don’t count Hubble out yet. The telescope, from NASA and the European Space Agency, is still making big discoveries, after going strong for nearly 33 years.
By Billye Bobabout a year ago in Earth
What’s happened to China’s first Mars rover?
Is something amiss with Zhurong, China’s first Mars rover? The vehicle was supposed to come out of its months-long hibernation last month, but the Chinese space agency has been tight-lipped about its status, leading some researchers to speculate that it might not have survived the harsh Martian winter and dust storms.
By Billye Bobabout a year ago in Earth
