The temperature in caves (which are typically a few hundred feet deep) is close to the temperature of land, averaged over many years. In the northeast, caves are 50-55F, while in the southwest they are typically in the 60s and 70s. The part that Alexander was in is a very deep part of the cave; it's not a matter of "open air to the surface" that the temperature is that warm. It's simply how the cave is in southeastern New Mexico, where it gets frickin' hot in the summer, but never very cold in the winter.

From where he was, it's not possible that the cave served as a waveguide for the RF. And as best as I know, there's no metal in that part of the caves- electrical lines or metal handrails, as there are in the tourist parts of the cave- that would allow the transfer of RF energy.

Years ago, I went back to academia after a few years in industry. At the time, we had a post-doc working on vaccines; a salesperson from one of the big vendors had walked in, and I was shooting the breeze with them when the post-doc left the room. I noticed she had left a brand-new container of an exotic toxin that she just received from Sigma on her desk- right next to her coffee.

"Do they do this in industry?" I asked the vendor. Seriously- if it had been a "working" environment instead of academic, that would have been a firing. Instead, that's just how it goes in academia.

That would also depend upon the time of the year that the study was done; I am not familiar with the one that you cite, but presumably it was done at some point where maintenance was required. Many of these windpower facilities are in areas that geographically "funnel" the wind; these areas also happen to overlap with the routes for migratory birds. Kills may peak at certain times of the year.

Moreover, ground-based sampling in windpower sites is not straightforward; scavengers can pick up carcasses within minutes or hours. Given the magnitude of some of these sites, it's difficult to base mortality studies on carcass counts alone. Moreover, sites associated with increased bird mortality would accumulate higher numbers of scavengers, making accurate counts even more difficult. Admittedly, it's been a number of years since I did research in the field, but it was pretty much a joke- some guy would wheel around on an ATV over several acres and look for dead birds once every day or so. Too much territory, too much grass and rock, too many coyotes and feral dogs. There's no way anyone could expect a realistic count. The majority of the migratory flights were at night; we were using radar to track them. If a bird is killed in the middle of the night, the coyotes would take off with it and it would never be counted because nobody would see it at night.

Fortunately, open-ocean sites don't have the geographic effects that terrestrial sites do, which should- in theory- reduce the number of bird kills.

Also note that, yes- domestic cats do impact songbird populations, as do structures and windows. But there's this pesky little Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 that prevents the killing of migratory birds- hence the concern about incidental "take" from windpower sites. This includes concern about larger species such as geese, hawks, and eagles that are affected less by feral and domestic cats. So- greater potential for impact by windpower, less from cats.

I used to work as an explosives chemist- including once at one of the favorite facilities for Mythbusters- so maybe I can make a constructive comment or two.

Ammonium nitrate (AN) is used for stumping fields for a lot of reasons. First off, it's cheap. ANFO is just about as cheap as you can get in terms of "bang for your buck." When you're dropping iron bombs, cost isn't so much of a concern- even moreso with torpedos- so more expensive stuff is used for these applications.

Secondly, it's highly insensitive; ANFO either needs to be sensitized with other compounds (aluminum flake, for example), or a large booster has to be used in the firing train for it to be reliably detonated. Even then, most of the large shots I've been involved with used two independent firing trains, making a fizzle much less likely.

Thirdly, ANFO for stumping fields uses readily available components- a sack of AN (which, I note, can still be purchased locally- for now- with no special paperwork), and any one of a number of hydrocarbons like diesel. However, ANFO has a particular property that makes it amenable to stumping, which is that it provides less brisance- more "heave," and less "shatter." If you're moving rock, it's undesirable to move just a few hundred pounds that have been reduced to powder; normally you want to move a few thousand pounds that have been reduced to cobbles. It's the difference between being punched in the shoulder, and being shoved; given the same amount of energy, the effects will be dramatically different.

AN *can* be combined with other fuels to provide much greater brisance- anhydrous hydrazine comes to mind, but that's dangerous stuff even by the high standards held for explosives. Moreover, it's toxic and hard to store.

As an aside, it is disappointing to see Mythbusters using the "big shot in an open field" technique. They have a bigger budget, and should have gone somewhere that specializes in that sort of thing, like they have in the past. This obviously wasn't the right venue for a quarter ton ANFO shot. Noise abatement is a big part of dealing with energetic materials, and whomever they had on the job to make that assessment screwed up pretty badly.

Well, so is tellurium. Individuals exposed to tellurium even at very low concentrations develop "tellurium breath," a foul garlic-like odor. As an undergrad in chemistry in college, I was informed only half-jokingly by a professor that was an occupational hazard that had restricted our knowledge of the element.

However, from a production standpoint its scarcity is troubling; Wikipedia states its presence is lower in the crust than that of platinum, making it the rarest stable element by concentration. 500 tons of copper ore- apparently a decent source of the stuff- leads to the production of about one pound of tellurium. Perhaps that's one reason why First Solar settled here in copper country- Arizona.

I can't seem to find how much Te is used to dope Cd to produce CdTe; even if it's not a lot (part-per-million concentrations), they will run into problems quickly, so I'd be interested in finding out how they plan on working around that.

Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about toxicity, so long as the stuff is confined within panels. It's insoluble (can't seem to find at what level- surely some minute amount dissolves in water), but it seems to be safe enough once confined within panels. Presumably the designers worry enough about hail damage that the panels are reasonably well-constructed to prevent release of material.

My 1995 Saturn SL1 gets 40 MPG (overall- probably 43-44 on the highway) in the winter (less in the summer when I need to run the a/c, of course). That's a full-size sedan that seats 5, and can fit almost two bodies in the trunk.

The first engine and clutch (on a manual- my first manual transmission) lasted 231,400 miles, and the first time it stranded me for anything other than a dead battery was at that point. Drop in a used engine, and it's back on the road- getting 40 MPG while meeting the county's stringent air quality laws by nearly half.

What the heck, Detroit? What did you do to our cars? (I know- gave them decent acceleration and class, but- dangit, I like my Saturn. Even if everybody else laughs at me, it's saved me a lot of money and hassles over the years.)

This is not exactly a new concept, although the implementation is quite different. Cattle screw worm (which was a serious economic pest) has been eliminated from North and South America from an aggressive irradiation program in which larvae are reared in large numbers, and then irradiated with cobalt-60. Insert your own "huge, radioactive flies" joke here, but the net upshot is that the irradiated flies mated with irradiated flies and failed to produce fertile offspring for whatever reason. Fewer fertile offspring is a good thing when it comes to population control of undesirable cattle parasites.

Similar programs with Mediterranean fruit flies have been used to control or eradicate populations, but there were some issues a few years back with making sure they really were sterilized by the procedure.

So, it's nothing *that* new, and variations on the technique have proven useful in the past. Now instead of green, glow-in-the-dark flies, we'll just have mutant, GMO'd mosquitoes. Life goes on- hopefully without dengue. Maybe someday without malaria.