gregladen | September 7, 2011This is the claim being made:
Oh, I can't believe she's never going camping again because she saw an alligator! Personally, I like running across this sort of animal.
I hope there is an actual scientific investigation of this. I'd love to know if this creature could possibly have wintered over. This is a rather large beast to haven not been in the wild for about a year, though I suppose it is possible that someone fed it up in their basement.
gregladen | September 7, 2011Here are a few books that those in the education biz should have on hand. If you are a parent with a kid in school, consider giving a copy of one or more of these books to your school's life science teacher and a key administrator or two.
A classic reference, the number one book you should have handy on your shelf if you area life science teacher or an administrator that oversees a life science department, is Evolution vs. Creationism: The Book by Genie Scott. The second edition is better (because it is more update) than the first, but if all you can manage is a used copy of the first,…
gregladen | September 6, 2011A few suggestions for books you can use at home to enhance, prepare for or catch up with various topics.
Great Physics Book: Black Bodies and Quantum Cats by Jennifer Ouellette.
Why the Wind Blows: A History of Weather
Home Chemistry: A New Guide for Hobbyists and Home Schoolers
gregladen | September 6, 2011You all know about the latest dustups and new research related to climate change, including the resignation of the Editor-in-Chief of a major journal as well as some new papers about global warming. There has been so much activity over recent days that I thought a new link farm would be a good thing. So, here it is. Please let me know if I've missed anything!
07-29-2011
On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth's Radiant Energy Balance
09-02-2011
Opinion: The damaging impact of Roy Spencer's science
In his bid to cast doubts on the seriousness of…
gregladen | September 6, 2011You have to tell your child's life science teacher (or, any science teacher for that matter) that your family does not support creationism, does not want to see anyone "teaching the controversy" and that you know that "Intelligent Design" is a form of creationism. I promise you, the creationist parents of your child's peers, and some of the creationist kids in the classroom, are not keeping their mouths shut. Why should you?
So, pursuant to this, I have composed a template for you to use as an email or letter to send to your child or ward's life science teacher:
Dear [Fill In the Blank],…
gregladen | September 6, 2011The question of whether clouds are the cause of global warming has been settled:
No, they are not.
The question was raised in July in a paper by Spencer and Braswell, published in the Peer Reviewed Journal Remote Sensing called "On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth's Radiant Energy Balance." (See this.) Spencer and Braswell's paper claimed that the Earth's temperature was not really rising due to fossil carbon in the form of CO2 being pushed into atmosphere. Rather, they said, any variation we see in global temperature is a result of natural…
gregladen | September 6, 2011Was Michele Bachmann's campaign sabotaged as part of an insidious plot? Maybe.
Should 9/11 really be represented in a child's coloring book with racist overtones? I'm thinking not.
Has Fox News finally become an honest and reliable source? Ah ... well, no, apparently.
gregladen | September 5, 2011
How come nobody told me about this!!!!
I eagerly await my copy of Land of Lisp: Learn to Program in Lisp, One Game at a Time!.
And while we are on the topic, Behold The Power of Regex: Emacs Lisp: Writing a Date Time String Parsing Function
gregladen | September 4, 2011On the face of it, it is impossible. Cosmic rays vary over time, and climate varies over time, and the two variations do not correspond. Global temperature has been going up over the last century, in correspondence with increased of atmospheric CO2, and this makes sense because the physics says that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and this whole global warming thing is a greenhouse effect. Bringing cosmic rays into the situation seems both unnecessary and difficult to do.
But it turns out that there is a cosmic ray - climate connection which is interesting if it turns out to be true. But this…
gregladen | September 3, 2011A small "Signal-to-Noise Ratio" means that there is not enough real information (signal) compared to the background noise to make a definitive statement about something. With a sufficiently high Signal-to-Noise Ratio, it is possible to make statistically valid statements about some measure or observation. This applies to a lot of day to day decisions you make in life.
Climate change denialists understand this principle and they use it to try to fool people into thinking that "the jury is still out" on Global Warming, or that scientists are making up their data, and so on. Here, I want to…
gregladen | September 3, 2011
NASA is giving the public the power to journey through the solar system using a new interactive Web-based tool.
The "Eyes on the Solar System" interface combines video game technology and NASA data to create an environment for users to ride along with agency spacecraft and explore the cosmos. Screen graphics and information such as planet locations and spacecraft maneuvers use actual space mission data.
"This is the first time the public has been able to see the entire solar system and our missions moving together in real time," said Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division…
gregladen | September 2, 2011There has been a major dust-up in the climate denialist world. A study published in late July made false claims and was methodologically flawed, but still managed to get published in a peer reviewed journal. The Editor-in-Chief of that journal has resigned to symbolically take responsibility for the journal's egregious error of publishing what is essentially a fake scientific paper, and to "protest against how the authors [and others] have much exaggerated the paper's conclusions" taking to task the University of Alabama's press office, Forbes, Fox News and others.
Let me break it down for…
gregladen | September 2, 2011As you know, I've started a bit of blogging at The X Blog. Please check out my latest post ...
Evolution is real. Creationism is not. Why are emails from creationists often published in respectable newspapers? There is a reason, and I'll tell you what it is below. (Preview: It is your fault.)...
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gregladen | September 1, 2011Here is an extended quote from the Preface of a new publication you may find interesting. I thought it was fascinating:
In 1995, the National Research Council's (NRC's) Committee on Space Debris wrote,
The threat that orbital debris poses to international space activities is presently not large, but it may be on the verge of becoming significant. If and when it does, the consequences could be very costly--and extremely difficult to reverse. By contrast, the cost of reducing the growth of the hazard can be relatively low....The committee believes that spacefaring nations should take…
gregladen | September 1, 2011This is an experiment. To reduce complexity in my own life and enhance the quality of communication between me and you, I'm going to try this "newsletter" thingie. It will probably be weekly, roughly timed for the middle of the week, and will include links to the blog posts I personally wish that you would not miss, information about other stuff happening on the blogosphere, a little section on activism to remind both you and me to do that, and a listing of ways in which you can reach out and touch me. Without actually, you now, touching me.
For now, I will probably cross-post this on my…
gregladen | September 1, 2011Is on line, but please be patient if there are technical problems. Lots of blogs are joining Freethoughtblogs.com this morning. I'll update you later on that interesting story.
Click here to visit the The X Blog. To which I am NOT moving. But rather, going.
gregladen | August 31, 2011I really am. When I was a kid, we had few books at home, and the library was two blocks away. Before kindergarten, so when I was less than five or six, I had worked out a route by which I would take my wagon to the library, crossing our urban streets away from the dangerous corners, to the library, pick up a pile of books and return the last pile. Then I would read them and bring them back.
After a summer of doing this they ran out of books in the children's section, which was not very large (this was the small branch library on Delaware by the Post Office, for those of you who know mid…
gregladen | August 30, 2011Sharing the results of a massive, worldwide study, geneticist Svante Pääbo shows the DNA proof that early humans mated with Neanderthals after we moved out of Africa. (Yes, many of us have Neanderthal DNA.) He also shows how a tiny bone from a baby finger was enough to identify a whole new humanoid species.
Humanoid? Whatever....