February 28, 2012
A report detailing an audit of a course called "Climate Change: An Earth Sciences Perspective" (ERTH 2402), taught at Carleton University, has been compiled by a team of concerned individuals and was released a few minutes ago. From the report:
The course... provides an unbalanced and, in many…
February 28, 2012
The EPA made what is called an "endangerment finding" a while back which asserts that it is appropriate to regulate the release of greenhouse gasses. This was challenged in court by science deinialists and energy interests via "the state of Virginia, the industry front-group Coalition for…
February 28, 2012
The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund continues to receive donations and offers of help from various stakeholders. We are actively working with several organizations in order to make CSLDF a one-stop resource for scientists looking for legal resources and we are currently pursuing several…
February 27, 2012
The issue of diversity is being discussed, from several different angles, among the Freethoughtblogs community and others. This is a list of posts you might want to have a look at.
This is especially important in relation to maintaining or enhancing diversity when you are engaged in some sort of…
February 27, 2012
I know many of you enjoy discussing resonance. Check this out:
February 27, 2012
Have you ever read Natural Theology by William Paley? One could say that in it he makes the famous "Watchmaker" analogy. But really, the entire book is little other than the watchmaker analogy. If you were to compare the boringess-interestingness factor of Paley's book with a similar number of…
February 27, 2012
Neil deGrasse Tyson has a new book out: Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier. It is (as one might guess) about space exploration, and assembles earlier speeches and writings with some new stuff. This is an interesting time to be talking about the space program, as NASA seems to be…
February 26, 2012
Budget Travel is running one of those ill-fated Internet Polls to help make a list of the top 15 places to go for kids before they are 15. Sort of like bucket list but instead of dying you turn 15. One small problem is that the Creation Museum of Kentucky has been intruding in the top ten, even…
February 26, 2012
Watch the whole thing:
Brilliant. Click here for the background on this nice video.
February 25, 2012
In September, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and soon after Jews living in ghettos in Poland's cities were identified, sequestered, rounded up, shipped off to work camps or concentration camps, and exterminated as part of what we know of today as the Holocaust. Several Jews managed to avoid being…
February 24, 2012
Before our Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation devices can tell us where we are, the satellites that make up the GPS need to know exactly where they are. For that, they rely on a network of sites that serve as "you are here" signs planted throughout the world. The catch is, the sites don't…
February 24, 2012
A clay cylinder covered in Akkadian cuneiform script, damaged and broken, the Cyrus Cylinder is a powerful symbol of religious tolerance and multi-culturalism. In this enthralling talk Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, traces 2600 years of Middle Eastern history through this single…
February 23, 2012
From the Christian Science Monitor:
You may have an opinion on climate change, evolution education, stem-cell research, and science funding. But do you have the facts to back up your opinion? This quiz will test your basic scientific literacy.
Go take the quiz and report back!
February 23, 2012
A compendium of selected posts written about the Ituri Forest, the Efe Pygmies, and other folks and other things in the region:
In the matter of insects:
No Place to Sit Down
The reason the Efe won't normally kill an insect ...
"Excuse me, there's some food in my bugs!"
Day of the locust. Yum!
"We…
February 23, 2012
As you know, there is much discussion about whether or not a "strategy memo" leaked from the Heartland Institute is a fake. We are told by a trustworthy source that this policy memo was leaked to him, and that he then tricked the Heartland Institute to supply him with additional documents, which he…
February 23, 2012
TED Fellow Lucianne Walkowicz asks: How often do you see the true beauty of the night sky? At TEDxPhoenix, she shows how light pollution is ruining the extraordinary -- and often ignored -- experience of seeing directly into space.
February 23, 2012
... Well, everything is in space, but I mean outer space!
Observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have come up with a new class of planet, a waterworld enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. It's smaller than Uranus but larger than Earth.
Zachory Berta of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for…
February 22, 2012
You know about the Heartland Strategy memo. It is one of several documents produced and used internally by the Heartland Institute, a minor Libertarian "Think" Tank, demonstrating some rather unsavory activities, which are now under preliminary investigation by the US Congress. The memo contains…
February 22, 2012
The Heartland Institute, a smallish Libertarian "Think" Tank recently made famous by the leak of a rather embarrassing set of incriminating documents, is now slated for investigation by the Congress of the United States.
The chair and ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, Raul…
February 22, 2012
From Science Insider, there is a possible explanation for the recently observed "faster than light" neutrinos. The Neutrinos were clocked at faster-than-light speeds on their way form CRN in Switzerland to a detectors site in Italy. I had originally proposed that the neutrinos were merely very…
February 22, 2012
PASADENA, Calif. -- Astronomers using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have, for the first time, discovered buckyballs in a solid form in space. Prior to this discovery, the microscopic carbon spheres had been found only in gas form in the cosmos.
Formally named buckministerfullerene,…
February 21, 2012
A bill in Oklahoma that would, if enacted, encourage teachers to present the "scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses" of "controversial" topics such as "biological evolution" and "global warming" is back from the dead. Entitled the "Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act," House Bill…
February 21, 2012
Featuring my brother-in-law, Damion:
(The Town Hall is also mentioned.)
February 21, 2012
The best available evidence now suggests that the most damning of the "Heartland Documents" -- the strategy memo which explicitly states that Heartland's strategy is to interfere with good science education in order to advance their political agenda -- is legitimate. The legitimacy of the document…
February 20, 2012
Because the situation is alarming.
There is still a great deal of uncertainty about where the melted-down fuel at Fukushima I's reactors is resting. TEPCO and various NPA's have insisted all along that they know where it is, and everything is under control. The most recent information from TEPCO…
February 20, 2012
While I recover from several days of intense activities that have made it hard to blog much, and as I prepare some good stuff for you, we can amuse ourselves with the following animations from the usual source of not-so-amusing events:
Three killed, one survivor in Washington avalanche
British…
