Old Weather Forum

Hello Dean!!! Great to hear from you. Glad to hear that the Carousel Museum is still benefitting from your care too

I went looking for inspirational/good feeling articles for Thanksgiving this year and it didn't take long (about 39 seconds) to locate one. So here, from the magic of the internet, fresh from the wonderous world wide web...free meals in the Bath.

https://www.pressherald.com/2020/11/23/ ... -pandemic/

This year, Brigance plans to cook 25 turkeys, which were donated by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7738, based in Phippsburg.
Brigance said preparing the meals, along with five gallons of gravy, is a three-day process, but he’s happy to do it.
“You can do a lot with a pizza oven besides just cook pizzas,” he said.
Frederick Libby Jr., Commander of Veterans of VFW Post 7738, said the post donated turkeys plus $300 for vegetables because he can’t bear to see anyone go hungry, especially on Thanksgiving.
“These are tight times and people need to be able to eat,” said Libby. “The VFW is about taking care of the people in the community. Any military member will tell you we never stop serving the community.”

Happy thanksgiving to everyone

USS Frederick Thanksgiving Service 1918



USS HANCOCK (CV-19) Catholic mass on the hangar deck, on Thanksgiving Day, 23 November 1944.



Thanksgiving Day Services
Caption: Coast guardsmen receive communion on board a cutter in European Waters on Thanksgiving Day, 1944.

The Coast Guard's Polar Star icebreaker is heading for the Arctic instead of the Antarctic this winter because of the pandemic.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-ne ... subscriber

Neat!
(and worrisome)

Happy Birthday, Caro!!

Thank you, Randi and Janet.

ggordon wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 8:41 pm The Coast Guard's Polar Star icebreaker is heading for the Arctic instead of the Antarctic this winter because of the pandemic.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-ne ... subscriber

The Polar Star will be accompanied by one other ship..."The Healy, commissioned in 1999, is a “medium” icebreaker that breaks ice up to 10 feet thick and typically ventures into the Arctic in the summer and fall."
Ooo - I wonder who that 'Healy' person might be? Someone famous that we know?

Happy Summer/winter to all. Delete as applicable.

Happy Birthday, Caro!!!

Some good news from the thin ice

Ice that floats on far-north oceans has been dwindling the last few years. Scientists have described the shrinking of this solar reflector — once bigger than Russia and now taking up less space than Australia — as a breakdown of the world’s refrigerator.

But a group of researchers have found a sliver of good news in the disappearing sea ice off Alaska’s west coast — the ocean floor around Bering Strait still seems to be capturing billions of bits of carbon that might otherwise lead to an even warmer planet.

“This could be a region of resilience,” said Steffi O’Daly, a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. She sailed in and around Bering Strait — the narrow passage between Alaska and Russia — a few years ago. Aboard a research ship, she sampled small patches of sea water deep beneath the surface.

More good news, and even better than bits of carbon!

Some chemicals in food can inhibit a COVID-19 enzyme

Chemical compound in some foods like green tea, muscadine grapes and dark chocolate can block an important enzyme that the SARS-CoV-2 virus uses to replicate itself. Researchers looked at how a number of plant compounds already known to have anti-inflammatory properties interact with an important viral enzyme known as the main protease. Computer simulations and lab experiments found that the compounds could bind to different parts of the protease and inhibit its function. The compounds in green tea and muscadine grapes appeared to be particularly effective.

However, dark chocolate is my go-to cure.

Frontiers in Plant Science, Nov. 30, 2020

"Computer simulations and lab experiments" are encouraging, but they don't prove that it will work in people.
However, I am sure that some of us would be willing to make a contribution to science beyond transcribing...

(I have been eating plenty of chocolate and haven't gotten sick. Of course I have also been following a fairly strict quarantine.)

It's good when the dark chocolate intake can be counted as medicinal!

Once in a while something we like ought to be good for us! I have been drinking tea- of all colors, eating grapes- though I am not sure they are the right kind; but dark chocolate takes care of the mental, emotional side of a pandemic as well. Thanks.

Keeping happy and relaxed all helps your immune system work at full strength. As does exercise regularly. So walk to the kitchen to get your tea, and then back again to get your grapes, then back again to get your dark chocolate.
I sent the link to my school friends, they were very taken by it.