Sky-high career goals: Today So Far

• My days in journalism may be coming to a close, eventually, now that my dream job is becoming more and more likely. And we can thank Sen. Maria Cantwell for that.
• Our Northwest harvest is not looking so cherry these days ... literally.
• Apparently, male hummingbirds are kind of jerks. Some female hummingbirds are adapting. Science!

This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for September 16, 2022.

My days in journalism may be coming to a close, eventually, now that my dream job is becoming more and more likely. And we can thank Sen. Maria Cantwell for that.

Cantwell and a handful of other senators have introduced the ORBITS Act, which aims to develop technologies and methods to address space junk. There's a growing number expired satellites, leftover launch equipment, and old pieces of machinery floating around the Earth right now — about 900,000 pieces, according to Cantwell. They pose a risk to spacecraft making trips up there, or to satellites monitoring weather, communications, etc. Or, they pose a threat to folks on the ground, should they eventually fall and fail to completely burn up. That's why senators want to develop ways to clean up our sky-high mess.

By now, I am sure you can see exactly where I am going with this. Clearly, these senators are making my dream job possible — cleaning up space junk as represented in the Korean sci-fi cinematic sensation "Space Sweepers." You knew that's where I was going, right? This proposed bill aims to develop technologies to address space junk, which obviously means future me could jet around the planet, collecting debris like a space-age Fred Sanford! I can see it now ... blasting off while singing "whomp whomp wanna" alongside my cunning crew and android best friend.

And yes, I know I'm mixing my pop culture metaphors. It's called a mashup and I stand by it.

Of course, that future may be a ways off. The ORBITS Act has to make its way through DC, for starters. Then, technology has to be developed ... I guess I shouldn't be planning my space career just yet. Looks like you're all stuck with me. Read more about Cantwell's bill here.

Our Northwest harvest is not looking so cherry these days ... literally. Folks may still be complaining about our hot summer temps (an annual Northwest tradition), but you might forget that we had an unusually long and cold spring. There was snow falling on cherry crops in April, a time when we expect them to be blooming in order to start cherry making. This means that a lot of cherries didn't show up this year, and Washington's 2022 harvest is about 80,000 tons short. The Northwest is a major producer of cherries and it's unclear right now how this will affect prices. Read more here.

When Nina and I moved this summer, we were stoked that the new place came with a small backyard, something we haven't really ever had. We were further pleased that this small yard came with a hummingbird feeder, ready to go. Nina got into making nectar — no dyes in our feeder. And it worked!

What we witnessed next was a flying, zipping ballet of savage horror! Turns out, hummingbirds are kind of violent jerks who beat up on each other a lot. All those TikTok videos lied to us!

Why do I bring this up? Get ready for some fascinating, curious, science out of our own University of Washington. This is apparently pretty normal behavior for these birds, at least it is for the males with their brightly colored plumage. Female colors aren't as bright and showy. They generally want to go unnoticed. But as KUOW's Natalie Newcomb reports, some female hummingbirds have started to evolve to take on male colors. Jay Falk is a UW postdoctoral researcher and was involved with a study that monitored this recent color change.

“That coloration is a signal to say to other hummingbirds, 'You better watch out. I'm a bully. If you attack me, I'm going to fight back,'" Falk said.

This is some homegrown science, but the hummingbirds that Falk and other researchers were looking at were white-necked jacobins which generally lived south of the Northwest. But ya never know ... our Northwest hummingbirds may learn a thing or two and maybe local females could start looking quite radiant. Read more here.

Also, speaking of TikTok, did you know that KUOW is now on TikTok? For a taste, check out Bill Radke freaking out about the opening of the West Seattle Bridge and pretending to drive with a dish plate.

AS SEEN ON KUOW

The towering smokestack at Portland General Electric’s shuttered coal-fired power plant near Boardman has fallen, heralding the end of the era of coal-fired power generation in Oregon, Sept. 15, 2022. Imported electricity generated from coal still flows through transmission wires across the Pacific Northwest, but that looks to be winding down soon, too. Read more here. (OPB)

DID YOU KNOW?

We often assume that everything that falls through Earth's atmosphere burns up before it can strike the ground. But that's not always the case. There is such a thing as meteorites after all. As folks in Eastern Washington found out, space junk can show up randomly.

In March 2021, gear from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fell across Grant County. The machinery was supposed to break away and just stay up there to become the space junk lawmakers are so concerned about. Instead, the machinery lit up the night sky in a fiery fall to the surface. Space junk hunters soon descended on the area. They found multiple propellent tanks scattered across farm fields within range of the Columbia River. It is suspected that engine equipment, valves, and other parts could have made it to the ground as well, left half buried in a field somewhere. Meteorite hunters on the scene collected data from this fall, among others, to develop a future warning system for falling space junk. Read more here.

ALSO ON OUR MINDS

Ukraine's president says a new mass grave is found near a recaptured city

Ukrainian authorities found a mass burial site near a recaptured northeastern city previously occupied by Russian forces, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced.

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