gregladen | September 19, 2011In order to do good climate science, you have to understand and control for the sources of variation in the system. In any system that involvs metric change over time, there are four sources of variation:
1) Measurement or observational error (goofs, inaccuracies, bad calibration). The speed was 23 feet per second but the instrument read 22.5 or the observer wrote down 32 by accident, etc.
2) Internal (secular, natural) variation. If A causes changes in B over time, variation in B that would have happened anyway don't count in understanding the A-B link.
3) Causal relationship (causal…
gregladen | September 19, 2011The asteroid Baptistina has been on trial for several years, implicated in the K/T Boundary mass extinction event that killed off the dinosuars. But the jury is finally in. Baptistina is off the hook.
Observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission indicate the family of asteroids some believed was responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs is not likely the culprit, keeping open the case on one of Earth's greatest mysteries.
While scientists are confident a large asteroid crashed into Earth approximately 65 million years ago, leading to the extinction of…
gregladen | September 19, 2011I want to say a word about what a proxyindicator is. And isn't.
I noticed that the term is not in some, perhaps many, dictionaries, so I guess this leaves me free to do what I want with it! But wait, the term "proxy" is of course in the dictionary. It is an ancient short version of the word "procuracy" which is the authority to act for another. Thus, a proxy vote. Proxyindicator (or proxy indicator) is a term widely used in climate science though it is used in many other fields as well to refer to a measurement that is indirect, or more accurately, that stands in for the direct measurement…
gregladen | September 19, 2011I'm going to take the unusual move and post, below, and almost complete cut and paste of a piece of corporate informational mail from Netflix. If you are Netflix user, you've already got this in your email box, most likely. Before I do this, I want to explain why.
I'm not shy about critiquing corporations on this blog, but there are three things that compel me to be supportive of Netflix at this moment. I will add a bad thing or two about Netflix as well for those of you who hate kittens.
The first thing is that Netflix is not Blockbuster; Netflix is not obnoxious and evile like…
gregladen | September 19, 2011Check out this video my friend Lynn made:
More here, including lots of text. Teachers, you could probably find a use for this in your classroom.
gregladen | September 19, 2011... that probably ruins the whole thing. I have not yet read The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, so I could be wrong, but if you have a copy check it out and tell me if I've got it right.
Breifly, the book says: " it's a meticulously documented argument about how much violence has declined from our hunter-gatherer days ten millennia ago through medieval times to the modern day. " [from WEIT Website]
Here's the thing. The data Pinker (and others) have been using over the last few years for "hunter-gatherers" includes mostly, or at least in large number, groups that…
gregladen | September 18, 2011So, the other day, I was trying to find some links to podcasts that I'd done to put on my media page, so I did something that I would never otherwise had thought to do; I entered my own name in the search box at Apple's iTunes store. Everybody has entered their own name in the Google Search box, right? But who thinks of searching for themselves on iTunes unless you are a musician.
Or, looking for your podcasts. Which I found, by the way, so that was good. But there was also a thing called The Ballad of Greg Laden.
So my brain started ticking away and it pretty much figured out that…
gregladen | September 17, 2011Our own Eleanor Mondale has died, at the age of 51, of brain cancer.
She was the daughter of Vice President Walter Mondale, and a fellow citizen of Minneapolis.
From the Strib:
Her brain cancer was diagnosed in June 2005, after she suffered a seizure that May. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester found two tumors in her brain. With radiation, chemotherapy and surgery, her cancer was twice diminished. But a routine checkup in January 2008 found another tumor. In September 2010, she said that a new form of chemotherapy appeared to be shrinking the tumor, but that she knew nothing was…
gregladen | September 17, 2011Software Freedom Day is Today. So, go to your computer and see if there is any software in there you can let out.
Find out more here.
gregladen | September 16, 2011The Minnesota Atheist book project deadline is September 30th. "This is a chance to tell your story while becoming a published author, and to support Minnesota Atheists' mission of promoting positive atheism. This is an entirely volunteer effort, with all proceeds going towards Minnesota Atheists. The book, tentatatively titled Atheist Voices of Minnesota, will be a collection of writings by Atheists in or from Minnesota. For more information visit http://mnatheists.org/content/view/602/199/ , or email mnatheistbook@gmail.com."
For Everybody who pretends to be in the zipcode is 55433:
Sunday…
gregladen | September 16, 2011For the purposes of discussion in the Japan Disaster threads, I've made a graphic that very roughly approximates the zone of likely future very high rates of cancer if the Fukushima nuclear power plant were located where our (somewhat similar but smaller) plant is located, upwind during the winter of the Twin Cities. The lightened up area (circular) would be the zone in which agriculture would probably cease. Anyone who knows this area knows that the main outputs are electricity and produce!
This is not meant to represent what would happen here ... different plants, different conditions, etc…
gregladen | September 15, 2011It has been Just over six months since a magnitude 9 earthquake and ensuing tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. In the hours following that incident, nuclear power protagonists filled the blogosphere, the news outlets, and other media with assurances that little could go wrong, that the reactors would be managed, that the disaster would demonstrate, once things had settled down, that nuclear power was, indeed, safe.
One of the first things Ana and I noticed, and we were not alone, is that some of the same stories ... in some cases the same exact wording ... was…
gregladen | September 15, 2011The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA's Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet -- a planet orbiting two stars -- 200 light-years from Earth.
Unlike Star Wars' Tatooine, the planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet, known as Kepler-…
gregladen | September 15, 2011It has been something of a struggle over the years for the people of the Minnesota Planetarium Society. They've been trying to get a planetarium in Minneapolis for some time now, but for a number of reasons (not their fault) this has proved too difficult. Now there is good news. The Bell Museum, which is part of the University of Minnesota, will "absorb" the planetarium project, and eventually, there may very well be a dome that will replicate the night sky in Minnesota. I spoke with Nathan Laible, the Board Chair of the widely respected Minnesota Planetarium Society about the Planetarium…
gregladen | September 15, 2011I have never actually seen a snake eat a crocodile or a crocodile eat a snake, but I am pretty sure I've seen a snake planning to eat a Nile Croc. And that was in the geological present.
In the geological past, about 60 million years ago (during the "Eocene" a.k.a. "dawn age") there was a rain forest that is sort of the ancestor to modern rain forests, which is now a coal deposit (and thus, eventually, will be part of our air) in Columbia. It has yielded interesting materials, and the latest report, just published, is of a fossil dyrosaurid crocodyliform (ancient croc ancestor). It is…
gregladen | September 15, 2011My latest contribution to 10,000 Birds blog is a write up of some very interesting research that addresses the evolutionary history of the Penguin Tuxedo. Check it out. This post also has a handy-dandy downloadable PDF version of itself suitable for use in the classoom.
Also, if you haven't read this yet, please check it out: Could you sustain the energy level required to be a teacher?
gregladen | September 14, 2011Over the next few weeks, in the Northern Hemisphere, the mice will start moving in to your house.
There are many strategies to manage this, and there are many factors in play (including exactly what sort of "mouse" is moving into your house). But many individuals will want to live trap the critters. If you do, please don't move them to a distant location. It is a bad idea to do that with any animals.
Regardless of what you plan to do with the little furries once you've got them alive, you need to capture them first. Thus, the following timely repost:
Sheril has asked for suggestion…
gregladen | September 14, 2011There is now a fish that has evolved immunity to PCB's. PCB is a substance designed to use as an insulator in high-heat electrical equipment (like the transformers used in the electrical grid, or household radios and such). It is very bad for the environment, was taken out of use years ago, but the thing is, because it was designed to stand up to very tough conditions, it does not break down naturally. I grew up not far from where most of them seem to have been made, and was actually involved in some of the cleanup.
So, today, it is interesting to read about this fish:
Bottom-feeding fish…
gregladen | September 14, 2011Despite multibillion-dollar investments in cybersecurity, one of its root problems has been largely ignored: who are the people who write malicious code? Underworld investigator Misha Glenny profiles several convicted coders from around the world and reaches a startling conclusion.
Is he using the word "hackers" correctly? And, for those who do write malicious code like that stuff that ruins your computer, isn't firm punishment or waterboarding or something more appropriate than giving them a reward?
gregladen | September 14, 2011Artist Raghava KK demos his new children's book for iPad with a fun feature: when you shake it, the story -- and your perspective -- changes. In this charming short talk, he invites all of us to shake up our perspective a little bit.