gregladen | December 15, 2007I hope these stories are not related to each other
Great beasts peppered from space
There is fairly convincing evidence that the explosion of an object not of this earth hit mammoths and other Pleistocene Mega Beasts with shrapnel up in Siberia and Alaska.
Boeing's 12,000lb chemical laser set to fry targets from aircraft
Earthlings have finally developed an effective, large scale, and portable Ray Gun.
Global group aims to return Martian soil to Earth
There is a plan to go to Mars and bring back some dirt. Who knows what is going to be in that dirt?
Who Speaks for Earth? ... From Seed…
gregladen | December 15, 2007
Planet Hazard produces Google Maps with major polluters. This allows you to look up your own location if you are in the US, by county, state, etc., and to access the data in various ways.
Learn about the unknown hazards around you - the toxins you may be breathing. PlanetHazard uses information from the EPA to map over 86,000 companies throughout the United States that emit hazardous air pollutants.
gregladen | December 15, 2007Every year around this time, we start to get a lot of two-faced animal stories. I'm not sure why.
[story here]
[hat tip: Science Buzz]
gregladen | December 15, 2007KDE 4.0 is upon us. I believe it is essentially out there, being tested and messed with, with the final launch etc. happening in a few weeks (mid January).
KDE is a Window Manager (no "s" in that Window, please note) for Linux. I'm not big on KDE myself, but my daughter uses it.
KDE 4.0, compared with earlier versions, will have more stuff, be flashier, etc. etc. etc. as we would expect. And, it will use about 30% less memory.
Oh, and have you heard that Vista Service Release 1.1 is going to reduce the memory load of Windows Vista by 4%? No, you haven't heard that? Well, of course not…
gregladen | December 15, 2007... agreement was finally reached in Bali. After an hours-long public standoff Saturday in which the unthinkable happened -- boos and hisses at a treaty conference -- the world's nations adopted a common two-year "road map" leading to the first comprehensive update to the ailing 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The last update, the Kyoto Protocol, only binds three dozen industrialized countries to cut emissions, and many of the adherents are not on track to hit their targets by 2012, when its terms expire. The new agreement will likely lead to a future set of limits allowing Kyoto…
gregladen | December 15, 2007OMG, look at this:
... oh wait, it's a fake. But an interesting fake. Read about it here, on Afarensis.
gregladen | December 15, 2007From the NCSE:
Over two weeks after it was first reported that Christine Comer was forced to resign from her post at the Texas Education Agency, apparently because she forwarded a brief e-mail announcing a lecture on "intelligent design" by Barbara Forrest, the state's newspapers continue to provide a steady stream of news and commentary. And groups with a stake in the integrity of science education in Texas continue to voice their concern. As the Austin American-Statesman (December 14, 2007) observed in its latest story, "The controversy over Comer's departure put the agency's scientific…
gregladen | December 15, 2007The Texas Based Institute for Creation Research would offer an online degree in Science Education. Approved by a State Advisory Board yesterday, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board will consider the degree in January.
Could this be why there has been a shakeup at the Texas Higher Education department?
The prospect of the ICR offering a degree is at the same time chilling and satisfying. Accroding to NCSE Director Eugenie Scott:
They teach distorted science ... Any student coming out from the ICR with a degree in science would not be competent to teach in Texas public schools…
gregladen | December 15, 2007Friday Ark # 169 Blog Carnival is HERE.
I and the Bird #64 - Iowa Caucuses Edition is HERE.
gregladen | December 14, 2007Saturn's rings probably date back billions of years and could likely be around forever although they are continually changing, according to a new study published this week.
Data collected by the Voyager spacecraft in the 1970s and later the Hubble telescope originally led scientists to think the planet's famous rings were relatively young in cosmic terms and possibly created by a comet that smashed into a large moon.
But new data collected by the Cassini probe suggests that rather than being formed some 100 million years ago, the rings were probably formed as the solar system was being built…
gregladen | December 14, 2007REPOST from gregladen.com
"Everyone needs to understand the basic facts of evolution as well as the essentials of the scientific method... When people are deprived of a scientific approach to reality as a whole, they are robbed of both a full appreciation of the beauty and richness of the natural world and the means to understand the dynamics of change not only in nature but in human society as well."
-Ardea Skybreak, "The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism"
Ardea Skybreak's new book, "The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: Knowing what's real and why it matters…
gregladen | December 14, 2007
Or maybe even PCP...
If religion was merely an opiate, that would be cool. There would be a lot of stoned people waking around. But it could be argued that religion is a harder drug, one that makes people do harder, more unsavory things than just sitting around bleary eyed and happy. Like killing people.
A new book addressing the horrors of religion is in press. This is Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World by Bob Avakian.
Avakian takes an explicitly Marxist approach to examine the question of what harm can come from believing in god (any god).…
gregladen | December 14, 2007From a UC Santa Cruz Press Release:
The infamous Indian Ocean tsunami that struck on December 26, 2004, caused tragically high mortality--from 10 to 90 percent of the population at various locations. Yet in 1930 a tsunami of similar size, generated by an earthquake near the Ninigo Islands, struck northern Papua New Guinea and killed just 0.1 to 1 percent of the population on the coast there.
Why were these islanders living earlier in the century better protected?...
Tsunami expert Simon Day proposes that oral traditions made the difference.
Day and colleagues were investigating historic…
gregladen | December 14, 2007Given the latest efforts in Texas and Florida (and elsewhere) to push religious views into the science classroom, I thought it might be helpful to remind everyone of this blood curdling story.
Dover gets a million-dollar bill
That's $1M less than what law firm says it's owed
CHRISTINA KAUFFMAN The York Dispatch
Article Last Updated: 02/22/2006 12:29:04 PM EST
Legal fees for thousands of hours of attorney services and a six-week trial: $1 million.
Damages paid to 11 parents whose rights were violated in the Dover Area School District: $1 each.
A sense of closure: Priceless.
The Dover Area…
gregladen | December 14, 2007... Nine Yahoos Dancing...
Flushed with Victory, Bill The Moron O'Reilly Adds One Day to Jewish Holiday:
Despite declaring "victory" in the "War on Christmas" this week, Bill O'Reilly continued to harp on his favorite subject last night with Focus on the Family's Carrie Gordon Earll. Discussing the group's "Attack on Christmas 2007" list, Earll mentioned that Old Navy's catalogue uses the phrase "holiday morning." O'Reilly then suggested the store may be trying to "incorporate the nine days of Hanukkah in the holiday morning description" as a "marketing tool."
Think Progress has the Video.
gregladen | December 14, 2007And others who may wear mascara and other cosmetics. We've banned cosmetics with mercury. This makes Minnesota stricter in this regard than the Federal Government or any other state.
What I find amazing is that Mercury was not already banned from substances that you rub on yourself.
[source]
gregladen | December 14, 2007Global Warming Deniers Find Comfort in Geophysical Meetings PaperA paper presented at the American Geophysical Union is one of the few papers, if any, you will see mentioned on Fox News. The story claims that volcanoes under the ice sheet in Greenland are melting the ice cap. This could be an alternative explanation for what others see as global warming.
The truth? Research has shown that there is a correlation between how thick the Earth's crust is across Greenland, and how thick the Ice cap is, adjusting for various factors. Thinner crust is overlain by thinner ice. The idea is that…