There is a fantastic paper just out in Science: “Sustained miniaturization and anatomoical innovation in the dinosaurian anceestors of birds” by Michael Lee, Andrea Cau, Darren Naishe and Gareth Dyke. I want to talk about this research but if you really want to know more about it, don’t rely on me; one of the co-authors of this important paper is Darren Naish, who happens to be a stupendous blogger, and he has written the research up here. So go read that for sure, and revel in the excellent graphics. Meanwhile I have a few random thoughts.... READ THE REST HERE

The climate change documentary, "Years of Living Dangerously" was nominated for two Emmy Awards. That was well deserved and fantastic news. But, frankly, with Cosmos also nominated for the same categories, no one really expected more than the nomination. But, while Cosmos dis win in the "Outstanding Writing For Nonfiction Programming" category, and good on them for doing that, "Years of Living Dangerously" took the award for "Outstanding Documentary or NonFiction Series. This is of course because it is a great, well done documentary. But I like to think part of this outcome has to do with…

I just realized that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a brief with the court in relation to Mann vs. the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the National Review, Mark Steyn, and Rand Simberg (variously). This is disappointing and will probably color my opinion of EFF going forward on whatever else they do. Their brief isn't just ethically wrong, or something I disagree with. It is unintelligent and poorly considered. They simply got it wrong, as though they did not know anything about the law suit. It is embarrassing. I wonder how they got talked/roped into this? I would really…

Tina Fey, ah, Sarah Palin, um, not sure, produces point by point rebuttal to Elizabeth Warren's speech on progressive values: And now ...

Larry Clifton has suggested that Michael Mann’s law suit against the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the National Review, Mark Steyn, and Rand Simberg is ruining it for everyone, and a lot of his right wing conservative friends agree. But they are all wrong, so wrong that one wonders how they could be so wrong. It smells to me like willful ignorance. This is Michael Moore. For a while, Clifton had a picture of Michael Moore instead of Michael Mann on his Digital Journal post. Made me laugh. For people who spend most of their time whinging about how other people are ruining the…

A new paper advances our understanding of the link between anthropogenic global warming and the apparent uptick in severe weather events we’ve been experiencing. Let’s have a look at the phenomenon and the new research. Climate Change: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. It is mostly bad. Sometimes it is ugly. I was looking at crop reports from the USDA and noticed an interesting phenomenon in Minnesota, that is repeated across much of the US this year: Fewer acres are in crops but among those acres that are planted there is a high expected per-acre yield. The higher yield will make up for the…

Above: Ferguson police spent the evening dropping tear gas containers on reporters to keep news of police repression from getting out. They are unaware of the deadly truthful combination of cell phones, citizens, and twitter. My fellow American: You live in Ferguson, you just don't know it yet. NOTE: BREAKING: Rep. Clay Says St. Louis County Police to be Relieved of Duty #Ferguson — Derek Wallbank (@dwallbank) August 14, 2014 ___________________________ Some petitions about #Furgeson "Ferguson police just executed my unarmed son!" Stop the police abuse. Send the National Guard to…

I've spoken to a lot of Minnesota DFLer's (that's what we call Democrats 'round these parts) about today's Primary, especially in relation to the auditor's race. Rebecca Otto, who, full disclosure, I don't know at all but whose husband is a friend and colleague, is the incumbent. Rebecca has really put a shine on the Auditor's office. I understand that the previous auditor, a Republican, pretty much sucked, so that might have made looking good a bit easier for Rebecca, but it can't be true that all of the other auditors across the country also suck, and the various professional associations…

New for August 16th I will try to keep new information and updates in the same post for a while until I have a chance to do a comprehensive re-overview of everything. The 16 August update from WHO indicates a large uptick in the daily number of cases. Over the two days of the most recent reporting period an average of 76 cases per day have been identified as confirmed, probable, or suspect, with a total of 76 deaths over that period of time. Good news is that the situation in Nigeria doesn't seem to be developing. There were no new cases over the this reporting period, and one death.…

Don't forget to go and vote in today's primary! I for one will be voting for Rebecca Otto for auditor. She is nationally recognized as one of the best Auditors ever in the country. Rebecca Otto is the DFL endorsed candidate. The person running against her in the primary, Matt Entenza, has run a highly questionable and dishonest campaign. See this for more details.

Please someone make this happen. Thank you very much.

A list of reviews of Nicholas Wade’s book “A Troublesome Inheritance,” mainly by anthropologists and others who have investigated issues surrounding the concept of “race” in humans. Bethune, Brian: Inheritance battles Daniels, Anthony: Genetic disorder Dobbs, David: The Fault in Our DNA Fuentes, Augustín: The Troublesome Ignorance of Nicholas Wade Geneticists, Lotsofthem: An Open Letter Goodman, Alan: A Troublesome Racial Smog Johnson, Eric Michael: On the Origin of White Power Laden, Greg: A Troubling Tome Marks, Jonathan: The Genes Made Us Do It Marks, Jonathan: Review of A Troublesome…

Lots to talk about here: Published on Aug 1, 2014 Arctic Emergency: Scientists Speak On Melting Ice and Global Impacts (1080p HD) This film brings you the voices of climate scientists - in their own words. Rising temperatures in the Arctic are contributing the melting sea ice, thawing permafrost, and destabilization of a system that has been called "Earth's Air Conditioner". Global warming is here and is impacting weather patterns, natural systems, and human life around the world - and the Arctic is central to these impacts. ------------------------------------------------- Scientists…

Three years after the disaster at Fukushima, science correspondent Miles O'Brien returned to the Daiichi nuclear plant for an exclusive look at the site. Follow Miles on a never-before-seen tour of Daiichi's sister site, Fukushima Daini, which narrowly avoided a meltdown during the Tohoku earthquake. As the country debates turning its reactors back on, Miles asks: will Japan have a nuclear future?

I don't like the messaging Holdren almost always seems to start with: "While we can't attribute a single bla bla bla to climate change" (it is not the right way to phrase what is happening, this is a good video just out:

It is probably safe to say that Nigeria now has an outbreak, as a handful of cases contracted in country seem to have been reported, though it is too early to be sure this will stick. Hopefully it won't. There is also one suspected case, a death, in Saudi Arabia, of someone who would have caught it in Liberia. The number of new cases per unit time seems to have increased, or at least, stayed high as it has been for the last several days. The following chart based on WHO data shows the cumulative number of cases and deaths, including probable, suspected, and confirmed, as per WHO reports…

The National Review is a political magazine, and Mark Steyn, I think, writes for them (I really don't keep track). A while back Steyn and/or the National Review made some seemingly very defamatory statements about Michael Mann, the climate scientist. Career-damaging really icky accusations of fraud and such. They were bogus accusations, but they were also not just trollish yammering of the type we see all the time from the science denialist gaggle. So, Mann sued them. I prefer the Law and Order version of law. Something happens on Monday, on Tuesday everything is confusing, on…

The WHO came out with a new report today with the latest figures on Ebola. These numbers take us to the end of July. There are two bits of bad news. First, the number of new cases is high, as high as any prior report (but keep in mind that these reports cover uneven time periods). There are 163 new cases and 61 new deaths, bringing the total number of confirmed cases and deaths to 1009 and 574, with the total number of confirmed, probable, and suspected to 1,603 cases and 887 deaths. Second, Nigeria is now in the mix. There was previously only one case in Nigeria, a Liberian man who…

LATEST UPDATE HERE ... new numbers just in from WHO, and they are bad. I had suspected this might be the case. Disease like Ebola are potentially easily cured using serum. Here's the idea. Someone gets the disease and survives, and their body now produces products that give them an immunity. So, you take a bunch of their blood, clean it up as best you can, and inject the serum (the cleaned up blood, to oversimplify) with these immune products, in to a person with the disease. That stops the disease, at least some of the time. The early history of the discovery of many nasty viruses…

So, you accept the science of climate change and global warming as legit. But you often encounter people, at family gatherings, on your Facebook page, on Twitter, at social events, etc. who don't. Do you keep your mouth shut when someone says something clearly wrong that brings the science into question illegitimately? If you do, and others are listening, then one voice, a denialist voice, is influencing people. Probably better to say something. The problems is that the denialist schtick involves having a lot of different arguments, with absolutely no regard as to legimacy, against the…