Environment
clock | October 28, 2009
Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date. As we have surpassed 440 entries, all of them, as well as the "submit" buttons and codes and the bookmarklet, are under the fold. You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays):
10 days of science: Astronomical art: Representing Planet Earth
2020 Science: Hooked on science - ten things that inspired me to become a scientist
A Blog Around The Clock: On Being a…
laelaps | October 27, 2009
An American mastodon, Mammut americanum, from F.A. Lucas' Animals Before Man in North America.
Throughout high school and college I was taught the same thing about the history of science. Young earth creationists had a stranglehold on explanations for life's origins until the fateful year of 1859 when Charles Darwin convinced all but the most ardent fundamentalists that evolution by means of natural selection was a reality. It is a neat and tidy story, a tale in which one book changes the world forever, and it is completely wrong.
As I started to dig deeper into the history of science I…
illconsidered | October 26, 2009 Logging the Onset of the Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H.E.Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News October 25, 2009 Chuckle, Copenhagen, Indian Dance, India & China, South Asia, Obama & Jintao, MEF, WFC, IDoCA, Superfreeks Bottom Line, Cosmic Rays, Cosmic Rays & Trees, Plans, Searchinger et al., 4 Degrees, Planetary Boundaries Melting Arctic, Antarctica Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Temperatures…
clock | October 24, 2009
Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date. As we have surpassed 420 entries, all of them, as well as the "submit" buttons and codes and the bookmarklet, are under the fold. You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays):
10 days of science: Astronomical art: Representing Planet Earth
2020 Science: Hooked on science - ten things that inspired me to become a scientist
A Blog Around The Clock: On Being a…
tlambert | October 23, 2009Well, they are shown next to each other in Dave Weigel's story Climate Change Skeptics Embrace 'Freakonomics' Sequel, but that's not the answer I'm thinking of. Weigel writes:
The final chapter deals with global warming, characterizing the beliefs of pessimistic environmentalists as "religious fervor," and arguing that the climate change solutions proposed by Al Gore and many Democrats are ineffective and unworkable. It repeats claims that environmental journalists have debated or debunked for years. As a result, the authors are getting some early support from climate change skeptics who feel…
hrynyshyn | October 23, 2009Another depressing poll result from one of the more reputable sources:
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Sept. 30-Oct. 4 among 1,500 adults reached on cell phones [excellent!] and landlines, finds that 57% think there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades. In April 2008, 71% said there was solid evidence of rising global temperatures.
Why the drop?
According to the experts that appear in the Guardian's story, it's the economy and corporate propaganda:
Michael…
clock | October 19, 2009Follow me on Twitter to get these, and more, in something closer to Real Time (all my tweets are also imported into FriendFeed where they are much more easy to search and comment on, as well as into my Facebook wall where they are seen by quite a different set of people):
Open Access Week: a researcher's perspective
On an Impulse: SFN Neuroblogging
Research Brief: Library savings from full flip to open access via article processing fees: about two-thirds savings
Reexamining Ardipithecus ramidus in Light of Human Origins
Looking at the genitals of naked mole rats
100th Open Access Mandate…
illconsidered | October 19, 2009 Sipping from the internet firehose...
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H.E.Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News October 18, 2009 Chuckle, Post Bangkok, Copenhagen, Caitlin, BAD, Superfreakonomics, MEF, Maldives Cabinet Meeting Bottom Line, NA Weather, Carbon Tariffs, Montreal Protocol, CSLF, Four Degrees Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Antarctica Food Crisis, World Food Day, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Temperatures, Glaciers, Sea Levels, Satellites…
clock | October 18, 2009
Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date. As we have surpassed 420 entries, all of them, as well as the "submit" buttons and codes and the bookmarklet, are under the fold. You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays):
10 days of science: Astronomical art: Representing Planet Earth
2020 Science: Hooked on science - ten things that inspired me to become a scientist
A Blog Around The Clock: On Being a…
tlambert | October 16, 2009I reviewed Freakonomics when it first came out and really liked it. So I was looking forward to the sequel Superfreakonomics. Unfortunately, Levitt and Dubner decided to write about global warming and have made a dreadful hash of it. The result is so wrong that it has even Joe Romm and William Connolley in agreement.
So what went wrong? One possibility is that Freakonomics was superficially plausible but also rubbish, and it was only when they wrote about an area where I was knowledgeable that I noticed. But I don't think this is the correct explanation. I've read the journal papers on…
sciencewoman | October 16, 2009This week on SciWo's Storytime, we're reading about Lakes and Ponds in a book by Cassie Mayer, from the same series as an earlier episode about oceans. While the text of this series of books is simple, I'm finding that they are a great way to engage Minnow in a conversation about the topic. Listen to how excited she gets about lakes and boats...
I wanted to take Minnow to a local lake for "No Child Left Inside Day" earlier this Earth Science Week, but instead we played with the neighborhood kids and dug in the dirt, which was pretty fun too. In any case, Minnow and I have a long tradition of…
clock | October 15, 2009
Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date. As we have surpassed 420 entries, all of them, as well as the "submit" buttons and codes and the bookmarklet, are under the fold. You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays):
10 days of science: Astronomical art: Representing Planet Earth
2020 Science: Hooked on science - ten things that inspired me to become a scientist
A Blog Around The Clock: On Being a…
hrynyshyn | October 15, 2009Some group of bloggers has decided that today, Oct. 15, 2009, is "Blog Action Day." And this year's theme is climate change. Excellent, Smithers.
My instincts are to ignore such declarations. It's always an International Year of This or National X Awareness Month, or World Y Day. Community newspapers take advantage of free copy and extra revenue by organizing special advertising supplements around them. I've always thought that they interfere with genuine news values by wasting space and resources on what are more or less abritrary pet-project campaigns.
But I've been planning on writing a…
clock | October 14, 2009
Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date. As we have surpassed 420 entries, all of them, as well as the "submit" buttons and codes and the bookmarklet, are under the fold. You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays):
10 days of science: Astronomical art: Representing Planet Earth
2020 Science: Hooked on science - ten things that inspired me to become a scientist
A Blog Around The Clock: On Being a…
illconsidered | October 12, 2009 Sipping from the internet firehose...
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H.E.Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
(sorry to be late this week!)
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News October 11, 2009 Chuckle, Bangkok, Tripati et al., 4 Degrees, World Bank, Cosmic Rays , Bottom Line, Planetary Boundaries, GDCA Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, _Famine_, Food Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, GHGs, Temperatures, Feedbacks, Aerosols, Paleoclimate ENSO,…
grrlscientist | October 12, 2009tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Zebra Finch, Poephila guttata.
Image: orphaned [larger view].
Birds in Science
Low-quality females prefer low-quality males, at least in the avian world. This is according to research published in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B, testing female zebra finches' taste in males. As adults, the low-quality females showed a preference for the songs of males of the same quality, and for the male birds themselves. Evolutionary biologists previously thought that females would always opt for the best male available.
A…
clock | October 10, 2009
Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date. As we have surpassed 420 entries, all of them, as well as the "submit" buttons and codes and the bookmarklet, are under the fold. You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays):
10 days of science: Astronomical art: Representing Planet Earth
2020 Science: Hooked on science - ten things that inspired me to become a scientist
A Blog Around The Clock: On Being a…
drorzel | October 10, 2009
Green Energy Should Trump Politics: Daniel Lyons | Newsweek Daniel Lyons | Techtonic Shifts | Newsweek.com
"[L]ook at what [scientists] are up against: a noisy babble of morons and Luddites, the "Drill, baby, drill" crowd, the birthers, and tea-party kooks who have done their best to derail health-care reform and will do the same to any kind of energy policy. [OSTP Director John] Holdren has an undergraduate degree from MIT and a Ph.D. from Stanford; he has won countless awards for his work on nuclear proliferation, climate change, alternative energy, and population growth. But now he must…
sciencewoman | October 8, 2009 After tropical forests are cleared for agriculture and then abandoned, secondary forests regrow on the site. But how do plant species composition, biomass and soil organic matter differ through this succession of primary forest, pasture, and secondary forest? Employing tools of biogeochemistry, ecosystem ecology, and land-use/land-cover change to examine those and related questions, Erika Marin-Spiotta earned a Ph.D. in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California at Berkeley, a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and…
illconsidered | October 5, 2009 Sipping from the internet firehose...
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News October 4, 2009 Chuckle, Bangkok, Hadley 4 Degrees, Oxford 4 Degrees, Beds Are Burning, Global Climate Summit, UNCCD, MEF Bottom Line, Climate Week, Solar Cycle, Planetary Boundaries Melting Arctic, Antarctica Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Hurricanes, C & N Cycles, Aerosols, Paleoclimate, ENSO, Glaciers, Sea Levels,…