Environment
sciencepunk | March 31, 2009
What is a charity? Ostensibly, it's an organisation dedicated to the public benefit, one that does not seek to make profits, and that does not have political goals. So how the heck does something like the Catholic Church qualify as a charity?
In England and Wales, all charitable organisations with an income of more than £5,000 must be registered with the Charities Commission, which acts as a supervisory power. The core rule is that all charities must exist "for the public benefit". There exists a list of 13 purposes that a charity can subscribe to, including advancements of animal…
illconsidered | March 30, 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 Sipping from the internet firehose... March 29, 2009 Chuckle Top Stories:Red River, Earth Hour, Recession, MEFEC, Changing Borders Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica, Particulates, Mt. Redoubt, Chameides, Late Comments Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Satellites Impacts, Forests, Corals, Climate Refugees,…
pharyngula | March 29, 2009You have to watch this loon making his case for how harmless global warming is in testimony with Lord Christopher Monckton (thanks, England…really, we have enough wacky ideologues without you sending yours over here). Monckton dismisses the problem of CO2 by claiming that CO2 levels were much higher in the pre-Cambrian, and that the stuff is just "plant food".
It's plant food ... So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? ... So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people…
tfk | March 27, 2009Craig offers to amend ESS 4:
Earth in Space and Time. The student knows how Earth-based and space-based astronomical observations reveal differing theories about the structure, scale, composition, origin, and history of the universe.
to read:
4) Earth in Space and Time. The student knows how Earth-based and space-based astronomical observations reveal information about the structure, scale, composition, origin, and history of the universe.
This was the recommendation of the ESS writing committee.
Motion fails, 7-8. Agosto breaks with the good guys.
Dunbar offers an amendment to 8(A), which…
gregladen | March 26, 2009When I heard the news that day ... Oh boy. I had received an email from a man whom I knew only as the father of a (now former) student. We had met once, a few years ago when his son graduated, and he gave me a very nice bottle of wine, which I shared with a select group of wine experts only last Christmas. The wine had aged well and was outstanding.
He gave me the wine as a gift for having "done so much for his son" while he, the son, was an undergraduate student. It was true. I had done a lot for the young man. I had many long conversations with him about lofty sciency concepts, and…
khannula | March 25, 2009Geologists are quirky and interesting. We study this planet we live on (and others), we get to think about volcanoes or earthquakes or landslides or floods, we can tell you a gazillion ways that the earth could kill you (and then say that they'll all happen tomorrow... on the geologic time scale). We know how water flows through rock. We know how oil flows through rock, too, and what's likely to happen if we keep burning oil and coal and natural gas. And our employment prospects look good (though again, remember we think on the geologic time scale, and mega-recessions are too short for us to…
gregladen | March 25, 2009Over 50 scientific societies representing hundreds of thousands of American scientists today publicly urged the Texas Board of Education to support accurate science education....
From the National Center for Science Education
Over 50 scientific societies representing hundreds of thousands of American scientists today publicly urged the Texas Board of Education to support accurate science education. The board--dominated by creationists--has been embroiled in a debate over changes to the Texas science standards that could compromise the teaching of evolution.
"Evolution is the foundation of…
razib | March 25, 2009There's a critique up of Michael Lewis' entertaining if somewhat less than illuminating (compared to the piece in The New Yorker) profile of the Icelandic financial meltdown. No surprise that Lewis spun here and there to extract more entertainment out of the straight story, but I have to take objection to a few points:
5. "Icelanders are among the most inbred human beings on earth -- geneticists often use them for research."
Now this is insulting. Icelanders' DNA shows their roots to be a healthy mix between Nordic Y chromosomes and X chromosomes from the British Isles. The reason genetic-…
sb admin | March 24, 2009Twenty years ago today, the Exxon Valdez ran aground in the Prince William Sound and spilled nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil. Hundreds of miles of Alaskaâs coastline were coated in oil, a quarter of a million seabirds died, and one estimate puts local fisheriesâ losses at nearly $300 million, reports TIMEâs Bryan Walsh.
In 1991, Exxon reached a civil settlement with the federal and Alaska government and agreed to pay $900 million for restoration of the affected area; $180 million of that has gone to research. At the same time, Exxon funded its own research efforts. Iâm sure few of our…
edyong | March 23, 2009Sixty-five million years ago, life on Earth was sorely tested. One or more catastrophic events including a massive asteroid strike and increased volcanic activity, created wildfires on a global scale and dust clouds that cut the planet's surface off from the sun's vital light. The majority of animal species went extinct including, most famously, the dinosaurs. The fate of the planet's plants is less familiar, but 60% of those also perished. What separated the survivors from the deceased? How did some species cross this so-called "K/T boundary"?
Jeffrey Fawcett form the Flanders Institute for…
illconsidered | March 23, 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 Information overload is pattern recognition March 22, 2009 Top Stories: Earth Hour, Maldives, US Polls, Copenhagen Melting Arctic, Polar Bear, Arctic Geopolitics, Grumbine, Late Comments Food Crisis, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures, Sea Levels, Satellites Impacts, Forests, Wacky Weather, Wildfires, Floods & Droughts, World…
clock | March 20, 2009There are 19 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Phase Shifting Capacity of the Circadian Pacemaker Determined by the SCN Neuronal Network Organization:
In mammals, a major circadian pacemaker that drives daily rhythms is located in the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN…
j7uy5 | March 20, 2009When I was at work today, I saw a headline that irritated me. I decided
I would blog about it when I got home. But now the headline has
been changed. I will still blog about it, though.
The original headline was: Report: Alternative energy quest endangering
birds. Now, it is worded differently:
href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/ENERGY_BIRDS?SITE=TXWIC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT">Report:
Birds endangered by energy development
By DINA CAPPIELLO - 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As the Obama administration pursues more homegrown
energy sources, a new government…
sb admin | March 16, 2009Updated 3/17 and 3/19 (see below)
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's newsroom heard the announcement this morning: The Heart Corporation, which owns the paper, will cease printing after tomorrow's edition.
The official word is that the P-I won't be going away, but transitioning to an online-only format with the goal of being "the leading news and information portal of the region." That's a quote from Hearst CEO Frank Bennack Jr. in an article that must have been wrenching for P-I reporters Dan Richman and Andrea James to write.
The portal "will feature breaking news, columns from prominent…
grrlscientist | March 16, 2009tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Wren (known as the "Winter Wren" in the United States), Troglodytes troglodytes, photographed near the Bridge of Orchy, Scotland.
Image: Dave Rintoul, Summer 2008. [larger view].
Birds in Science and Technology
What happens when the demand for suitable nesting sites exceeds the availability? The law of demand and supply also applies in nature, and the consequences of enhanced competition for limited nesting sites can have far-reaching effects. Which individuals will prevail? And what happens to the unsuccessful…
tqa | March 16, 2009
A couple of weeks ago, Interior Secretary Ken "Cowboy Hat" Salazar went ahead with a decision to remove endangered species protections from grey wolves in several western states. The decision in question was first proposed by the Bush Administration, and was extremely controversial. Needless to say, there are quite a few people who are unhappy with Salazar's decision to approve the delisting.
To be honest, I'm not thrilled with it myself. I looked at the issue last year, and there certainly seemed to be some very good reasons to think that the delisting is not a good idea. Salazar's…
sheril | March 16, 2009
In our forthcoming book, Unscientific America, Chris and I mention those national surveys where regularly, a large percentage of U.S. citizens fail to correctly answer basic science questions that they supposedly learned in school.
Last Friday, the latest results were released from the most recent quiz by the California Academy of Sciences and Harris Interactive. (See how you do answering test questions here).
From Science Daily:
Despite its importance to economic growth, environmental protection, and global health and energy issues, scientific literacy is currently low among American…
illconsidered | March 16, 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 March 15, 2009 Top Stories:Copenhagen, Nanoballs, Spin Battery, Particulates, Polls, Planetary Skin Melting Arctic, Arctic Geopolitics, Antarctica, Methane, CC Debate, Maldives, Earth Hour, Recession, Late Comments Food Crisis, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures, Paleoclimate, Glaciers, Sea Levels, Satellites Impacts, Forests, Corals, Wacky…
hrynyshyn | March 13, 2009Elizabeth Kolbert's interview in Yale's e360 magazine is a sobering read. But what's even more interesting than the light she sheds on the reasons why the polls keep finding the public is out of touch with the science is the stark reminder I came across in the article's comment section that we've blown the last quarter century.
Greenpeace has posted a PDF of a 1983 New York Times story that, with only minimal edits of a few numbers -- replace the carbon-dioxide concentration, which was 340 ppm back then, with today's 387 -- could easily run today. I've converted the whole thing to HTML and,…
nisbetmc | March 11, 2009
A Gallup survey report released yesterday finds that a record 41% of Americans--and 66% of Republicans--now say that news reports of climate change are exaggerated. I first spotted this troubling trend in a 2007 paper analyzing twenty years of public opinion about climate change. This latest survey reinforces my fear that climate advocates have fallen into a dangerous communication trap.
At the root of this growing perception is something I blogged about earlier this week: As long as science is communicated as the principal reason compelling policy action--and this "compelling" science…