Evolution for Kids

A colleague, Daniel Loxton (editor of Junior Skeptic) is the author of a new book "Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be" from Kids Can Press and released today. It's good; I've already seen it. (Loxton worked with editor Val Wyatt — work with Val and presto chango, you're instantly transported to a higher writing plane.)

Loxton also illustrated the book (he is an artist, after all) with help from cartoonist and 3D-modeler Jim W. W. Smith.

What's particularly striking is how the book is organized. Loxton uses a question/answer technique kids will understand (as well as the big kids in your life who have trouble accepting that they too are animals and like all life, evolve.) So for all the people in your life who need a better handle on a central tenet of biology, buy the book.

Irresistible....

One of my favourite blogs! And wow, the opinion piece is from 1980 -- this is not long after the energy crunch of the 1970s. I'd like to think of commuter cyclists then as early "adapters" -- which in some ways is still the case.

Speaking of adaptation, the coming months will focus on species that failed to adapt to change fast enough (either because of a swiftly changing climate or human interference.)

Any How to School But Car

"Why Can't She Walk to School," a piece published yesterday in the Sunday New York Times, has elicited a fair amount of opinion lobbing. Commuting to work by bicycle in the summer is a fairly relaxed experience, compared to how busy the roads get when school begins in September. You have to wonder at one of the illogical motives for driving kids to school — too much traffic. Hmmmm. So YOUR car doesn't count?

The other illogical reason is abduction fears and the NY Times article points out the vast difference in numbers between how many kids get abducted annually in the U.S. and how many die in vehicular crashes: "About 115 children are kidnapped by strangers each year, according to federal statistics; 250,000 are injured in auto accidents." We can control random abductions but not car crashes?

One way to get around this is to bike to school, you can supervise your kids AND reduce traffic making it safe for everyone. Yet communities in the U.S. have seen an increase in bike bans in school districts. (A Saratoga, NY student and his mom challenged a bike ban on the first day of school.) It's like the residents on a busy street who say no to a bus because....the street already has too much traffic. Hmmmm. Compare this attitude with a district in Amsterdam that wants to encourage even MORE people to bicycle.

Crosstown Cycling

Anyone who rides a bicycle as a primary form of transportation has a day where they pick up way too many groceries, library books, whatever, than they can handle on their bike. Lindsey Kettel and Cory Minkhorst, two McMaster engineering students, understand this problem and invented a collapsible bike trailer — so collapsible it stows on your bike rack when it's not in use. Called the Crosstown, the trailer made the semi-finals for the James Dyson Award, an international design competition. The lucky winner(s) receives £10,000 cash for a design that solves a problem. The winner will be announced September 7.

Bixi Crosses Borders

Montréal's bike-sharing system, Bixi, is going to Boston, Mass., London, England, and there is talk of of the bicycles (made by Devinci, a Quebec company) finding a home in Manhattan. It was foresight on the Montréal's part to just dive in and do it when Stationement Montréal (the parking authority) told city officials they could create a bike-sharing system that would ultimately pay for itself. I interviewed Alain Ayotte, Stationement Montréal executive vice-president last January for an article I wrote for Reader's Digest. Here's what he said about how Bixi got off the ground:

"We [Stationement Montreal] already had the technology — we had a technology co-platform for the pay-and-go parking system that we had developed and worked with for the past six years. It was easy for us to develop the bicycle sharing system based on that platform. So we went to the city of Montréal and said, 'You want a public bike sharing program, we can provide you with one. And it will be cost neutral, it will be funded by membership and corporate sponsorship, so there’s no charge.' The city did not spend one penny."

More importantly, the parking authority (isn't that ironic?) had created a turn-key operation, which made it easy for other cities to buy into Bixi. Why re-invent the wheel? My favourite part of the interview was what Ayotte said at the end of the conversation. He expressed a real passion for the concept:

"I’d like to see a Canadian system like the train in the 19^th century: a public bike system across the country. A user from Vancouver can use a bike in Edmonton, Montreal, wherever — you’re a member of a national system. That would be great."

More cycling in the Arctic..

Solstice in the Arctic...and I got to go for a bike ride on the Dalton Highway, alongside the Alaskan Pipeline. Cool. Ha ha. Get it?