Don’t forget that it’s time to pay your dues! For most (but not all) club members, dues are due on the 1st day of January. Check online and make sure you’re paid up.

And enjoy your Christmas Eve with your friends and family…there will be no Geek Net on Monday, Dec. 24th.

The contest calendar is pretty quiet this week, and the only notable news in the world of ham radio is that you’ll be able to hear Christmas carols from Antarctica (propagation permitting) at 17:00 Dallas time tomorrow.

UPDATE: Please see this post for more information about Winter Field Day, and sign up using the link from the right-hand portion of the page, or this link.

UPDATE: More information about Jeanne Socrates, VE0JS, is available from her QRZ page.

In the world of science:

Feathers might be even older than paleontologists thought, and Pteroaurs, the famous flying reptiles of prehistoric times, might have had them.

Unfortunately, it looks like monarch butterflies are in a pretty steep decline. Plan to plant some milkweed this spring!

A new study in a major journal shows that an empty backpack is just as helpful as a parachute when you jump out of a plane. Of course, the real purpose of the study was to show how bad study design can lead to screwball conclusions…but there are a lot of bad study designs out there.

It looks like wolves don’t just eat deer and moose. They go fishing, too! One thing is certain: it’s tough to be a fish.

It’s a rabbit? It’s a houseplant? No! It’s superpothos, and it’s here to clean your air.

And finally, not all alarming news is urgent. Saturn’s rings are being destroyed by a phenomenon known as “ring drain,” but we’ve got 100 million years left to enjoy them.