gregladen | August 3, 2010Colin will almost certainly not become a strong hurricane or reach landfall as a hurricane, so we should be looking out for Danielle the next name in the sequence.
According to NOAA, Colin will continue to strength and follow a WNW path until curving north. It will maintain tropical storm status or possibly (ca 25% chance) reach low level hurricane strength at most between 1.4 and 4 days from now and stay that way for a few more days without strengthening. After that, the models diverge so a lot of different things could happen, but most likely dissipation.
(Keep in mind, of course, that…
gregladen | August 2, 2010It turns out the American Teabagging Party is very diverse after all. They have all sorts of nutbags and morans amongst their members: Tea Party Diversity Event at Crooks and Liars.
Mn Guv Candidate picks up key endorsement from the Star Tribune.
... And, in that very same race, the Democrats hold a lead in early polls against Republican candidate Emmer.
Minnesotans: Check out MnAtheist events for the month.
gregladen | August 2, 2010... from the National Center for Science Education.
Click the picture to get the PDF of Darwin's Universe: Evolution from A to Z
.
gregladen | August 2, 2010A new mammal species has been discovered in Madagascar, and is described here on Tetrapod Zoology. It is NOT a primate.
Brian Switek reviews Shooting in the Wild: An Insider's Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom, an important book that "an in-depth look at wild animals on film, covering the history of wildlife documentaries, safety issues, and the never-ending pressure to obtain the "money shot."" (booklist). Brian's review, which I highly recommend, is HERE.
The PLoS Blog Pick of the Month for July has been announced, and it's a post by Hannah Waters of Culturing Science on…
gregladen | August 2, 2010That ad was made by Blue America and Americans for America (two .... American ... organizations).
The thing is, you can join in on the decision process for which Republican to feature in an ad produced by this team. But you have to donate at least a dollar for your vote to count. Like the old days!!!
Here's how you vote: just make a donation on the page dedicated to the culprit of your choice. If you click on the picture below, you go directly to their page. Because we're progressives and not conservatives, a one dollar donation equals the same single vote as a one hundred dollar donation…
gregladen | August 2, 2010When: Thursday, September 2, 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Emory Math & Science Center, 400 Dowman Dr., Atlanta, GA 30322
Proceeds to go to Light the Night - the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
Please join the Atlanta Skeptics on Thursday, September 2, 2010 for stargazing, food, drinks and conversations with astronomers. We are once again hosting a star party to celebrate the beauty of the universe around us while raising money for a great cause.
Astronomers Pamela Gay and Fraser Cain will be hosting the event, leading guests in exploration of the skies, and discussing what we see. Musician…
gregladen | August 2, 2010And somewhat notable.
We are looking more closely than usual at hurricanes this season because this is expected to be a fairly intense year for this category of meteorological event. Tropical Depression Four is now located at about 12.6N 41.1W, otherwise known as out in the middle of the Atlantic. It is heading WNW at a speed that would put it north of Puerto Rico mid morning on Thursday.
At the moment, it looks like TD4 is going to grow, be a pain for ships in the area but not overly severe, then very possibly be mauled by upper level winds. The probably that this feature will develop in…
gregladen | August 2, 2010Which Kindle should you buy (or beg the relatives to give you for your birthday)??? The Regular 6 inch Kindle or the fancier Kindle DX?
It is said that the two extant technologies .... Kindle-like low power ePaper displays vs "real tablet computers" will merge.
I'm sure this is true. It is just as sure as the fact that almost every computer monitor sold to the average customer is the shiny hard to read kind instead of the more functional non-shiny kind. And when the technologies merge, the marketing departments will grin and the users will squint.
Does any of this matter to you now?…
gregladen | August 2, 2010Then played back real slow:
Whoa.
Click here to find out who did this, why, and what it all means.
gregladen | August 2, 2010
And then .... there's this:
At the beginning of every school year, I try to post new and "the best of" blog posts specifically written for teachers. If you want to see this year's "back to school special" posts in a list, click here. I'll be posting these items through the month of September. There will likely be one or two items new every day.
Please feel free to send a link to all your teacher friends so they know about it!!!! And, if there is something you'd like to see discussed, let me know.
gregladen | August 2, 2010Why does the wind blow, and why does it blow the way it does?
When I teach human evolution, I feel compelled to bring in climate change. When I do that, I find it very unsatisfying to mention climate change as a thing that simply happened. I need to also discuss how climate itself works, both now (in the present era) and generally speaking. That can be hard. There are so many variables that matter, and that if you leave out will come back and bite you later when you suddenly need them to explain something. Anyway, when addressing climate and how it works, it is very difficult to not…
gregladen | August 2, 2010
See the missing bit? That is a 1.5 kilometer retreat of the so-called "calving front" of the glacier.
In truth, this particular sort of even is not that unusual, but what is interesting is that new satellite monitoring capabilities allow researchers to notice these events more or less when they happen, as opposed to during less frequent inspections of satellite imagery.
And, there are some climate-change related features of this event.
"While there have been ice breakouts of this magnitude from Jakonbshavn and other glaciers in the past, this event is unusual because it occurs on the…
gregladen | August 1, 2010Alex
Bonnie
Colin
Danielle
Earl
Fiona
Gaston
Hermine
Igor
Julia
Karl
Lisa
Matthew
Nicole
Otto
Paula
Richard
Shary
Tomas
Virginie
Walter
gregladen | August 1, 2010The Alaskan Oil Pipeline closed down yesterday for a routine maintenance, as one notable oil spill related to that line is still being dealt with, and a more recent smaller spill is being managed, we hope.
And amid this news, there are rumblings that BP, which owns 46% of the company that runs the pipeline, may be selling out and moving on.
gregladen | August 1, 2010Wrong.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
gregladen | August 1, 2010Astronomer Dimitar Sasselov and his colleagues search for Earth-like planets that may, someday, help us answer centuries-old questions about the origin and existence of biological life elsewhere (and on Earth). How many such planets have they found already? Several hundreds.
gregladen | August 1, 2010Steve Andrew dared to tickle the dragon's tail and now he is paying for it. The dragon in this case, is Climate Denialists in the Right Wing Media.
Andrew posted something about the recent, very alarming news that global warming seems to be cutting back significantly on the supply of oceanic plankton. The worst case scenario of this sort of process is, actually, mass extinction and everybody dies. There are less severe scenarios as well, but none of them are very much fun.
So yes, even as the climate chickens come home to roost, the denailists can't keep their bought and paid for (by the…
gregladen | August 1, 2010Anthropogenic global warming has been suspected for decades, and a simple one paragraph long characterization of the problem 40 years ago was substantially identical to any accurate characterization we might make today. One has to wonder why after 40 years of time we still see headlines telling us that it might, after all, turn out to be true that anthropogenic global warming is real. Indeed, it is a bit disconcerting when the inestimable climate blog RealClimate notes that this is the 35th "Anniversary of Global Warming" as a term in the peer reviewed scientific literature (though I…