gregladen | September 16, 2015Liquid fuel powering internal combustion engines is inherently inefficient. This is because innumerable explosions causing kinetic work to be done also makes piles of heat, and for other reasons. The same amount of energy put into an electric motor and an internal combustion motor produce more usable work for the former than the latter. Also, electric motors can operate at similar efficiencies across a range of speeds, while internal combustion motors require more messing around to change speeds. And then there is torque. Torque is apparently at the center of coolness for many vehicle…
gregladen | September 15, 2015OK, not really, I just made that up. But it should be! As all the kiddies are going back to school, especially yours if you've got 'em, and you are going to have your first meetings with the teachers (Parent Night, Conferences, etc.) over the next few days, this is a good time to bring your kid's teacher(s) a nice book.
A book on the Evolution Creation Debate for your kid's biology teacher, or school administrator. A nice science activity book, not necessarily to use in class, but for the elementary school teacher to get some ideas from.
Some ideas:
A local guide to birds or trees or…
gregladen | September 15, 2015Just a quick reminder to check out the Skeptical Science Reader Survey if you've not done so already.
gregladen | September 15, 2015Check out my latest contribution to the bird blog 10,000 birds:
Faithful Loons and Human Lunacy
Every year there manage to be two Loons out in front of the cabin, up in Minnesota’s lake country. They nest on the same, ever-expanding semi-floating but occasionally shrinking nest over behind the point, so we can’t see the nest without going across the marsh in a canoe. It is a great place to nest, but for one small detail. Behind the embayment formed by the point is a tall bluff, the edge of an ancient river valley that passed through the area during one or more (probably a few) prior…
gregladen | September 15, 2015The National Snow & Ice Data Center has declared that the Arctic Sea ice extent has reached its annual minimum and is now starting to expand. I was thinking that it was too early to say this, since in past years what looks like a minimum can sometimes be reversed by some additional melting. But they are the experts, so I suppose we should go with it for now.
If this is the case, then this is the fourth lowest minimum in the good data set covering the last several decades.
They do hedge a bit. Here is what they say:
On September 11, Arctic sea ice reached its likely minimum extent for…
gregladen | September 15, 2015A few items for you.
California drought: Sierra Nevada snowpack falls to 500-year low
The Sierra Nevada snowpack that is a critical water source for California fell to a 500-year low last winter – far worse than scientists had estimated and underlining the severity of the current drought, according to new research.
The snow accumulation in the mountains was just 5% of what is normal, inflating the risk of wildfires, drying up wells and orchards, and pushing communities into water rationing.
Climate Central has a couple of interesting US maps showing trends in change over time in Fall…
gregladen | September 15, 2015Great interview with Michael Mann related to Turnbull's election. Concerning fat tails.
Start it at 29:20:
gregladen | September 15, 2015After, not before, you get to the hospital, I always say.
But seriously, Robert Martin, the famous primatologist, has an interesting piece in Psychology Today exploring this question. Go read it. I've got a few thoughts spurred by this research I'll list briefly here.
First, it seems that wild primates give birth during their daily down-time, the period of time that they are generally inactive. Dirunal primates do so more at night, nocturnal primates do so more during the day. Various reasons have been proposed. I've not read the primary literature on this, but in my ignorance I wanted to…
gregladen | September 15, 2015Climate Change: Discover How It Impacts Spaceship Earth (Build It Yourself) covers many concepts in earth science, from paleontology to climate systems to how to make a battery out of apple (how can a kid's science activity not include the apple battery!). This book represents an interesting concept, because it involves kids in mostly easy to do at home projects, covers numerous scientific concepts, and takes the importance of global climate change as a given. There is a good amount of history of research, though the book does not cover a lot of the most current scientists and their key work…
gregladen | September 14, 2015California voters feel increasingly squeezed by their drought, according to a new USC Donrslife/Los Angeles Times poll.
September 11, 2015 — As one of California’s most severe droughts on record continues to worsen, more than one in three state voters say the drought has had a major impact on them and the lives of their families, according to results from the latest USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences/Los Angeles Times Poll.
Thirty-five percent of California voters said the drought has had a major impact, 50 percent said it has had a minor impact, and 14 percent said it has…
gregladen | September 14, 2015According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, "The monthly anomaly of the global average surface temperature in August 2015 (i.e. the average of the near-surface air temperature over land and the SST) was +0.45°C above the 1981-2010 average (+0.79°C above the 20th century average), and was the warmest since 1891. On a longer time scale, global average surface temperatures have risen at a rate of about 0.65°C per century."
See graphic above.
gregladen | September 13, 2015September is when the melt of the Arctic Sea Ice stops, and the re-freeze starts. We are probably not at the minimum yet, but the amount of melting is starting to level off so we can see where we are. The above graphic, made here (go and play with the interactive graph) shows the first ten years of ice freezing and remelting in the data set to use as a baseline for comparison, and the present year. Yes, there is much less sea ice on the northern end of the planet than usual.
This version of the graph shows the years with less ice, so far, than the present year. This includes the famous 2012…
gregladen | September 13, 2015Someone just asked on Facebook if humans are naturally carnivores. My response: What is a carnivore? Taxon? A certain percentage of meat in the diet? Some, even if just a few, humans living mostly off meat? What? Then, what is “naturally”? Genetically determined and unavoidable? Required because of our gut, or some nutritional thing? What if we were like cats, genetically driven to be effective hunters but seeming in need of some training from mom. Does that make it not natural? And, finally, of course, define the verb “to be” here. Thank you.
So, with that in mind, what about the sentence…
gregladen | September 8, 2015I'm on my way to a taping of the Humanist Views with Host Scott Lohman. I do these now and then and have done so since I first moved to Minnesota back when it was still cold here. We'll be talking about science knowledge, and why basic science knowledge is important. We'll also be talking about how to go about evaluating science stories you encounter in the news, or more likely, on your Facebook feed or in other social media.
Pursuant to this, I wrote a blog post that talks about how science stories go out to the general public. I also report on a request I sent out a few days ago to my…
gregladen | September 5, 2015
People were fascinated, excited, and some were enraged, by this awareness raising campaign of BirdLife South Africa.
I might have preferred this modification:
gregladen | September 5, 2015
The recently produced Massive Open Online Course on climate science denial is chock full of great videos that should be at everyone's fingertips. HERE is a list of the videos. Use it well and powerfully.
gregladen | September 4, 2015The FS608R Digital Camera Binoculars FHD 1080P from Gear Best is a low-end binocular with a built in camera that takes up to 2592 x 1944 (defaults to 2,048 x 1,536, and can go lower) pixel photos or avi movies (no sound).
Really good binoculars cost hundreds of dollars, but there is a range of inexpensive binoculars that everybody who uses binoculars (especially bird watchers) and/or has kids owns a few of. This is the extra set of binocs you keep in your car, near back yard window, let your kids play around with, or if you are a biology teacher, bring to school for the trip down to the…
gregladen | September 2, 2015Jonathan Marks' new book is called "Tales of the Ex-Apes: How We Think about Human Evolution"
I've got to tell you that when I first saw the title of this book, the letters played in my head a bit. Tails of the Ex-Apes. That would be funny because apes don't have tails. Or Tales of the Exapes. Pronounced as you wish. Perhaps in an Aztec accent.
Anyway...
Jon Marks is a colleague and a friend from way back. He is a biological anthropologist who has engaged in critical study of central biological themes, such as genetics, and he's said a few things about race. He wears black, often does…
gregladen | September 2, 2015Marine biologists from the University of Queensland is looking at coral reefs in Hawaii and what they see is not good.
They used high resolution images to track coral bleaching and death. Recently coral reefs in Hawaii suffered their first known mass bleaching event, caused by unusually warm waters associated with the now famous "Blob" of warm sea water in the Pacific.
An overall warming trend (anthropogenic global warming) along with the additional effects of a growing El Niño seem to be causing this.
This phenomenon is happening now. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, chief scientist at Global Change…