November 25, 2014
Yes, I have to post the "stay off the ice" post early this year. There have been several instances over recent weeks of folks wandering onto the ice and needing to be rescued (the most recent, here). This is not yet ice season. That hardish water you see on the surface is like that one person you…
November 20, 2014
Shawn otto Shawn is the screenwriter and coproducer of the Oscar-nominated film House of Sand and Fog starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly. He has also written for several of film and TV's top studios. A few years back he started Science Debate 08, an effort to get a real debate over…
November 18, 2014
Of course they do. To the extent that genes make you anything in particular, though the role of genetics in human behavior is pretty limited.
You've probably heard about the newly reported research in which a genetic link was found to homosexuality in a study of gay brothers. Kelly Servick has a…
November 18, 2014
Please don't shoot the swans. My new post at 10,000 birds is here.
November 17, 2014
The term "Polar Vortex" was thrown around a lot last year, in reference to the persistent mass of very cold air that enveloped much of southern Canada and the US. As you will remember, Rush Limbaugh accused climate scientists and librul meteorologists of making up the polar vortex to scare…
November 17, 2014
I just got this press release for the Texas Freedom Nettwork, passing the good news on to you:
PUBLISHERS REMOVE CLIMATE CHANGE DENIALISM FROM TEXAS TEXTBOOKS; PUT EDUCATION AHEAD OF POLITICS
Texas State Board of Education must still vote on adopting the revised textbooks
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE…
November 14, 2014
Check out this new paper in the RNCSE, by John Abraham, John Fasullo, and Me.
November 14, 2014
A new study just out in Science suggests that we will have an increase in lightning strikes of about 12 percent for every degree C of global warming. That could add up. From the abstract:
Lightning plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and in the initiation of wildfires, but the impact…
November 14, 2014
The data for October has just been added to the NOAA GISS instrument record, which runs from 1880 to the present.
October was the warmest on record, just beating out 2005.
Overall, it is looking increasingly likely that 2014 will tie or beat the record for warmest year in the instrumental record…
November 12, 2014
Have you heard the comet singing? From the Rosetta Blog this press release:
Rosetta’s Plasma Consortium (RPC) has uncovered a mysterious ‘song’ that Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is singing into space. RPC principal investigator Karl-Heinz Glaßmeier, head of Space Physics and Space Sensorics at…
November 12, 2014
Just so you know, Philae is a lander planning to land on a comet at this moment being landed on by an Earthling Spacecraft, and it is also an island in the Nile.
Before the Rosetta space craft got close, we had no idea what the comet looked like. Now we do. And it looks like Philae!
Coincidence…
November 12, 2014
Have a look at this new video from Peter Sinclair:
Peter has an interview with Jeff Goodell, contributing editor of Rolling Stone, which you will want to see. They talk about the political aspect of sea level rise in Florida.
More about sea level rise here.
November 11, 2014
h/t: Julia
November 11, 2014
RMU Announces Solar Plant Completion
Rochelle Municipal Utilities, in Rochelle, Illinois, has. started operation of a large Photovoltaic Solar Plant providing power to their water treatment facility. This is a great example of a project that should be done in more places.
In the Spring of 2014…
November 9, 2014
I noted earlier that the Democratic losses in the House were less than expected given what usually happens during the midterms. It is harder to make such a statement with the Senate because of the lower numbers, with fewer than a tenth of the total number of elections at stake when compared to the…
November 9, 2014
Yes, I know, that headline sounds wrong. But I worded it carefully and I assure you it is far more correct than many other headlines we are seeing, about the "historic loss in Congress" with the 2014 election.
The truth is, the party in the White House tends to lose house seats with every…
November 8, 2014
See here to see why you might want to install the Mate flavor of Ubuntu 14.10.
Then, install it and consider doing these things. Get your system up to date. Yes, yes, you just installed it but that install image was old(ish). Update and upgrade now:
First, you probably want to open the Software…
November 8, 2014
With Ubuntu's release a few weeks ago of Ubuntu 14.10, Mate has now become an official flavor of Ubuntu.
There are two pieces of bad news that relate to this that we'll get out of the way. First Ubuntu's default distribution, which uses the Unity Desktop by default, broke a key Linux feature. If…
November 5, 2014
The Potter Metaphor
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the first in a series of books that are metaphorical of the central theme of politics and society in the Western world. Voldemort represents purity of race and racism, the good Witches and Wizards of Hogwarts represent the struggle of…
November 3, 2014
Sad news today: Tom Magliozzi, one of Cambridge Massachusetts greatest gifts to public radio (and Cambridge has given a LOT of gifts to public radio) died today. Car talk was, verily, one of the best things ever.
I have one Car Talk story and this is as good a time as any to tell it. It might be…
November 3, 2014
It's all here in this song!
October 29, 2014
Fred Upton is the incumbent Republican Congressional Representative for southwest Michigan’s 6th district. Upton is considered to be one of Michigan’s most powerful Republicans. He is the Chair of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which is an important position in relation to climate change. He…
October 28, 2014
This was technically difficult owing to internet conditions but interviewer Vijay Kishore Vaidyanathan did a great job with what he had. In particular he did a great job editing out the constant explosions in the background!
https://soundcloud.com/mobile-journalism-4/talk-with-prof-greg-laden
October 27, 2014
A City of Death and Misery
Everything I’m about to tell you in this story is true.1 You might not want to read this story while you are alone or while sitting in the dark.2
Kimberley South Africa is said to be the most haunted city in the world, and it certainly is a city with a remarkable and dark…
October 27, 2014
Jim Moore and I were both students in the PhD Program in Anthropology at Harvard a few years ago. He graduated about the time I entered the program. To give a rough historical touchstone, I remember the day he needed to get his thesis off to the Registrar, and there was a delay because it was…
October 25, 2014
Of the seven Americans who have contracted Ebola, five overseas and two in Texas, all seven have survived. Comments from President Obama, focusing on how we have to be guided by the science:
"Here’s the bottom line. Patients can beat this disease. And we can beat this disease. But we have to stay…
October 24, 2014
NEW: Very first look at Ubuntu Linux 15.04 Vivid Vervet Beta Mate Flavor
See: Ubuntu Unleashed
Here is a list of things to do after you have installed Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn.
There is some discussion of whether or not you should upgraded to 14.10 here, but the short version is, for most people…
October 23, 2014
Arctic Sea Ice extent continues to be a problem. This year, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, ARctic Sea ice reached its lowest extent this year on September 17th, which is about the sixth lowest extent on record, following a multi-year trend of decline. There is variation from…
October 22, 2014
Some time in the 1970s.
I keep hearing about this 17 year long pause in global warming. So I went and looked. I did a regression analysis of the last 17 full years of surface temperatures from the GISS database. There is an upward trend in warming during this period and it is statistically…
