Can speed bumps actually slow traffic?
I mean will the busy flow of uncontrollable cars actually slow itself down based on a tiny obstruction in the roadway repeated over and over again>? Why does no one ever ask that question and why does the other one get poised repeatedly?
Cumbria’s Eden Valley to see reintroduction of beavers
Beavers are to be reintroduced to Cumbria’s Eden Valley to see if they can thrive in upland environments.
The animals, which were hunted to extinction in the UK in the 16th Century, will be introduced to the Lake District for the first time in a trial. Efforts to return the species to other parts of the UK, including Yorkshire and Somerset, are also under way.
The government-approved trial will look at how beavers restore small farmland streams and can aid flood prevention.
Oooh ooh, call on me! I know this one!
It is hoped the beavers will deliver benefits such as carbon storage, flood mitigation and an increase in other wildlife.
Conservationists support the return of beavers to Britain’s rivers for the benefits they can provide in preventing flooding, by damming streams and slowing the flow of water, as well as boosting water quality.
I don’t know. Do you think the repeated observations of science and gravity will apply in another region? Do you think speed bumps will slow traffic? That’s a real head scratcher. I guess we’ll find out.
The funny thing is that just last night I was reading about the great flood of 1862, and thinking about the timing of this massive event. Obviously all those humans mining for all that gold had some effect. But given the fact that the entire beaver population was wiped out about 20 years earlier and their decaying dams would just about be completely gone – one has to wonder.
The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest ever recorded in Oregon, Nevada and California’s history. The flooding occurred from December of 1861 until January of 1862, drowning the state in water and leaving much of the Northern Valley unlivable until the summer months of 1862.
The flood created a lake down the center of the state that was 300 miles long and 20 miles wide. It’s estimated that thousands of people were killed in Northern California during the event.
Entire cities were under water and many people were killed.
The foothills of the Sierra Nevada were seeing tremendous flooding activity during this time. The American River near Auburn rose 35 feet and some of the small mining towns were completely submerged. On the Stanislaus River near Knight’s Ferry, two major bridges washed down the river and anything within 40 miles was completely destroyed.
The year before had extra heavy snow so the melt didn’t help matters. But don’t you think all those missing speed bumps might have had something to do with the calamity?
John Carr wrote about his riverboat trip up the river during the peak of the flood:
“I was a passenger on the old steamer Gem, from Sacramento to Red Bluff. The only way the pilot could tell where the channel of the river was, was by the cottonwood trees on each side of the river. The boat had to stop several times and take men out of the tops of trees and off the roofs of houses. In our trip up the river we met property of every description floating down—dead horses and cattle, sheep, hogs, houses, haystacks, household furniture, and everything imaginable was on its way for the ocean. Arriving at Red Bluff, there was water everywhere as far as the eye could reach, and what few bridges there had been in the country were all swept away.”
It’s a terrifying story of our history that I knew nothing about before. When Stanford was inaugurated governor of California he had to row his way to the capital.
I bet a lot of those beaver hats got floated away too, Ironic, huh?
