June 28, 2016
Two related, but contrasting, items on Brexit.
The climate change connection to Brexit is unclear and mostly negative. It is simply true that we benefit from international unity when addressing a global problem, and the EU is a powerful forward looking entity that could address climate change more…
June 27, 2016
Television and movie producers currently have a good deal in Great Britain, not in small part due to stability in various markets and some funding. For example, Game of Thrones, an HBO production, is filmed in Norther Ireland with funding from the European Regional Development fund.
Both the…
June 27, 2016
Governments, and the people, should be filing law suits against the energy industry for causing the imminent collapse of civilization as we know it. But instead, the opposite is happening.
From Reuters:
TransCanada formally seeks NAFTA damages in Keystone XL rejection
TransCanada Corp is formally…
June 25, 2016
No, not that one. This one:
SpotMini is a new smaller version of the Spot robot, weighing 55 lbs dripping wet (65 lbs if you include its arm.) SpotMini is all-electric (no hydraulics) and runs for about 90 minutes on a charge, depending on what it is doing. SpotMini is one of the quietest robots…
June 25, 2016
On Friday, June 24, President Obama designated the Stonewall National Monument - the first national monument dedicated to telling the story of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community's struggle for equal rights.
Listen for the Ken Burns tribute near the end.
June 24, 2016
Yes, Finding Dory is right about this.
Having multiple hearts isn't as odd as it might seem. Although one might be advised to keep one's brain and one's heart, as well as one or two other organs, separate when making important decisions, a heart and a brain are metaphorical of each other in this…
June 23, 2016
This is one of four related posts:
Should You Install Ubuntu Linux?
Installing Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
How to use Ubuntu Unity
Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Some Linux/Ubuntu related books:
Ubuntu Unleashed 2016 Edition: Covering 15.10 and 16.04 (11th Edition)
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Desktop:…
June 23, 2016
This is one of four related posts:
Should You Install Ubuntu Linux?
Installing Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
How to use Ubuntu Unity
Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Some Linux/Ubuntu related books:
Ubuntu Unleashed 2016 Edition: Covering 15.10 and 16.04 (11th Edition)
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Desktop:…
June 23, 2016
This is one of four related posts:
Should You Install Ubuntu Linux?
Installing Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
How to use Ubuntu Unity
Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Some Linux/Ubuntu related books:
Ubuntu Unleashed 2016 Edition: Covering 15.10 and 16.04 (11th Edition)
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Desktop:…
June 23, 2016
This is one of four related posts:
Should You Install Ubuntu Linux?
Installing Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
How to use Ubuntu Unity
Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Some Linux/Ubuntu related books:
Ubuntu Unleashed 2016 Edition: Covering 15.10 and 16.04 (11th Edition)
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Desktop:…
June 22, 2016
Some sort of Hops Flowers Substance is a common dietary supplement used by post-menopausal women. A recent study looks at one molecule extracted from hops to see if it could help reduce the chance of getting breast cancer.
The paper is in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, and is called…
June 22, 2016
Certain things that come across one’s desktop, on the internet, are hard to turn away from. Train wrecks, for example. For me, this list includes commentary about grammatical errors and proper language use.
I find this sort of discussion interesting because I’m an anthropologist, and probably also…
June 21, 2016
This is bad news and good news, but mostly good news. No matter what you think of nuclear energy (and I'm one of those people who give it a stern look and remain suspicious), it does tend to produce electricity with the addition of much less fossil carbon into the atmosphere than, say, burning…
June 21, 2016
My local grocery store just came up with some Vidalia onions. They are the best onions, and I'm cooking with them every day so I can eat them all before any go bad.
When you cook onions to the point where they brown, they become sweet tasting and great smelling. That is the Maillard reaction.…
June 20, 2016
Which Android Tablet Is Best?
You will have to decide which tablet is best for you based on your specific needs, and no general review is going to give you that information in a useful way. But, among the many tablets there is a handful that rise to the top and should be looked at either to…
June 20, 2016
The Birdman of Lauderdale is a collection of essays by birdman Clay Christensen.
Clay writes the popular "Birdman of Lauderdale" column for the Saint Paul Park Bugle, and leads birdwatching field trips in the Twin Cities area.
This is a collection of updated and edited essays from that…
June 18, 2016
Roughly speaking, we are toast if the Earth's surface temperatures reach something like 3 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.
We have already reached about 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial, and we will go higher even if we stop adding more greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, because it takes…
June 18, 2016
The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy is a great new book by climate scientist Michael Mann and cartoonist Tom Toles.
This book serves many purposes. It includes an overview of the basic science of climate change and…
June 17, 2016
This is great news if you are a mouse!
Here's the summary of the paper:
NAD+ repletion improves mitochondrial and stem cell function and enhances life span in mice, by
Hongbo Zhang, Dongryeol Ryu, Yibo Wu, Karim Gariani, Xu Wang, Peiling Luan, Davide D’Amico, Eduardo R. Ropelle, Matthias P. Lutolf…
June 16, 2016
Weather is climate here and now, and climate is weather over the long term. Climate is the large scale process of movement of air and water, and changes in the properties of air and water, on and near the surface of the Earth, the atmosphere, oceans, and ice fields respond to the imbalance of heat…
June 13, 2016
Thinker, writer, and independent scholar Shawn Otto has written an important book called “The War on Science: Who’s Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It” (Milkweed Editions, publisher)
Read this book now, and act on what you learn from it, for the sake of your own future and the…
June 11, 2016
Since 1968, about 17 candidates ran in Democratic primary races and earned enough votes (above about 20% all told) to count as having been contenders.
Of those, one was murdered, one was shot but lived, one was eliminated from competition by GOP dirty tricks, and one left the race because of…
June 10, 2016
Shawn Otto's The War on Science: Who's Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It is a very important and excellent book, just released.
I have a review of it, but after going to the book launch the other day, decided to rewrite some bits. But I'm currently more nomadic than usual and this…
June 8, 2016
And, how did my model do?
There was a lot of talk about California, and a lot of back and forth, but in the end I stuck with my original model to predict the outcome of that race. See the table above for the results, but the bottom line is that I predicted that Clinton would get 57 percent of the…
June 7, 2016
Based on the best available estimates, which could be better but the satellite broke, the Arctic Sea Ice is melting this year at an unprecedented rate.
It is almost like the Earth is warming up or something.
June 7, 2016
Check out our detailed interview with the famous and amazing Ethan Siegel.
We talk about the history of understanding the universe, why you should believe in Dark Matter even though it is obviously fake, why exploring uranus can lead to the discovery of amazing things, and more.
June 7, 2016
The human release of greenhouse gasses has ultimately caused changes in weather patterns so that major storm systems in the Northern Hemisphere get wetter and move along more slowly, causing significant rainfall events to occur at a much higher rate than previously. This has become a nearly…
June 7, 2016
This is an excellent moment to revel in the complexity of life, and argument, and to appreciate the value of the honest conversation.
A candidate is the presumed nominee when she or he obtains the required number of pledged delegates to be at 50% plus a fraction in the total pledged delegate count…
June 6, 2016
Monday, June 6, 9:00 PM CT
Nope. For the second time in a row, what might have been a named Eastern Pacific tropical storm will probably never amount to more than a depression and a big wet spot in Mexico.
Monday, June 6, 2:00 PM CT
The first named tropical storm in the Eastern Pacific would be…
June 6, 2016
My house goes on the market for sale on Thursday. If you are looking for a place in the norther suburbs of Minneapolis, or know someone who is, I'll put you in touch with our excellent agents.
I'll post links to the info here when it is available.
