gregladen | August 29, 2013A bit of documentary on the Donner Party:
Donner Party Archaeology and Forensic Science
Donald L Hardesty discusses the archaeology and forensic science used at the Donner Party camp sites in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
This is a good video, but I can't embed it, but go have a look.
gregladen | August 28, 2013A few items of interest from the intertubes:
Mann: Reality and threats of climate change are clear
This is a guest column in the Times Dispatch by climate scientist Michael Mann discussing ongoing legal issues.
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli certainly has some odd characters coming to his defense in this paper for his attempts to go after climate scientists like myself.
First came Charlie Battig, who sought to defend Cuccinelli’s 2009 attempt to subpoena my personal U.Va. emails ...
Most recently the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley of Edinburgh, Scotland, used offensive personal attacks and…
gregladen | August 28, 2013A virtual tour of the areas threatened by the Yosemite Rim Fire.
Hat Tip Mother Jones
gregladen | August 28, 2013Climate science denialist Christopher Monckton wrote a post at WUWT blog in which he describes the non-existent stall in global warming. At the end of the post he writes:
Meanwhile, enjoy what warmth you can get. A math geek with a track-record of getting stuff right tells me we are in for 0.5 Cº of global cooling. It could happen in two years, but is very likely by 2020. His prediction is based on the behavior of the most obvious culprit in temperature change here on Earth – the Sun.
My friend and Colleague, John Abraham of St. Thomas University (he blogs here) wrote the following letter:…
gregladen | August 26, 2013First, watch it:
Then, go here to sign the petition!!!!!
A while back a few of us were talking about naming storms and droughts after climate denialists. Maybe this petition will help make that happen!
gregladen | August 25, 2013The following is an entry from the Esoteric Programming Language project (see link below):
HERE is the site. If you go check it out, don't miss the programming langauge designed for Orang Utans, called Ook!
Hat Tip: Ryan Jean
gregladen | August 25, 2013!!! WARNING *** POST IS META *** WARNING !!!
We’ve been watching the new House of Cards (produced by Netflix). Here’s how I can tell it is good. Amanda actually started to watch it, which is unusual because she rarely watches anything. But she watched the first one, liked it, then tuned in to the second one a few days later and I had the opportunity to watch it with her. But I decided not to for reasons I won’t bore you with. However, I did catch the first two or three minutes. Which caught my attention so I caught the next five or six minutes. And so on. I ended up watching the…
gregladen | August 25, 2013Apparently, there is a Faith Healer [who] Convinces Followers To Never Vaccinate, [and] Now Church [is] The Center Of Measles Outbreak
The Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, Texas, run by Kenneth Copeland Ministries, has long been a strong anti-vaccination stronghold. Now, it is the epicenter of a major outbreak of Measles in the United States.
And, here is a poll that asks: Should anti-vaccine parents be held liable if their child spreads an illness?
Say an unvaccinated child has the measles and passes the disease onto a baby who’s too young to be vaccinated. If that baby gets…
gregladen | August 25, 2013So, how has the Atlantic hurricane season shaping up so far?
According to data accumulated by the National Weather Service, as shown (with added items) here ...
... we should have had about four or five named storms at this point in the season. Since numbers for this time of year are small, variation is large, so this is not too meaningful but it can give us an idea.
So far, we have had these storms in the Atlantic:
Tropical Storm ANDREA
Tropical Storm BARRY
Tropical Storm CHANTAL
Tropical Storm DORIAN
Tropical Storm ERIN
The next storm will be named Fernand, and it may be forming as we…
gregladen | August 24, 2013News from Fukushima Update # 69
by Ana Miller and Greg Laden
Over the last several weeks we’ve heard repeated, alarming, and generally worsening, news from Fukushima Diachi, the Japanese nuclear power plant that suffered a series of disasters that make The China Syndrome look like a Disney family movie. One question is this: Has a new set of problems (new leaks, apparently the fifth such “unexpected” leak) occurred that is really significant, or is this level of spewing of radioactive waste from the plant pretty much run of the mill but somehow the press only now noticed something TEPCO has…
gregladen | August 23, 2013Paul Douglas has also been following the Al Gore OMG Category Six!!1!!! discussion. Here's what he has to say about the thing I just wrote about:
I'm thinking we might need to add some degrees onto the thermometer next week!
gregladen | August 23, 2013These things are all connected.
A couple of days ago a good ally in the climate change fight ... the fight to make people realize that climate change is not some librul conspiracy to raise taxes on the rich ... goofed. It was a minor goof, barely a goof at all. We do not yet know the nature of the goof but it was somewhere between saying something in a slightly clumsy manner and a bit of misremembering something that happened in 2005 during an interview. That's it. Nothing else to see here.
But that goof has been wrenched form its context and turned into a senseless and embarrassingly…
gregladen | August 22, 2013I was surprised to find a link to this in my inbox this morning. Here's a picture:
It appears to be unironic.
gregladen | August 21, 2013Neil Tappen is probably most well known for having worked out the species and distribution of species in Central and western East Africa in the 1950s, as everyone who has worked in the area since then, from Jane Goodall to Richard Wrangham, has used his work as a tool in their own study of apes and monkeys of the region. He also worked on bone growth and development and taphonomy. Many others know him for his teaching and training of students, of which there were many. If you are reading this blog, you probably know or at least know of Genie Scott, for example. Neil was her undergraduate…
gregladen | August 21, 2013Let's say you want to do a market-related study in which you gain entry to one thousand homes representing sets of people defined by the usual variables of income, ethnicity, urban-suburban lifestyle etc. The first thing you do is to ask a few people, real nice like, if you can go through their stuff and take a lot of photographs and notes. Most of them say no, and you perhaps even discover that the one or two who actually agree to this are odd ducks. So you go to Plan B. This involves breaking into the homes when the people are out so you can get your data despite the fact that they don't…
gregladen | August 19, 2013I thought I was being a nice guy by not blocking John Kwok the moment he tried to friend me on Facebook. But that was a mistake.
At first, there was only the occasional strange note from him via Facebook "email." But then, several hours ago, the dam broke and the Kwok just poured in. The following "conversation" is probably not work safe, and do make sure you are not drinking coffee while you read it. If you dare. And have a lot of free time.
He stopped as soon as I mentioned my friend in the CIA. Figures.
One final word on this subject, courtesy of my friend PZ Myers:
For those who…
gregladen | August 19, 2013Science communicator and policy expert Sheril Kirshenbaum has joined Scientific American's "Plugged In" blog. Sheril is Director of The Energy Poll at The University of Texas at Austin. Go visit her introductory blog post and find out what she's up to (and also, links to the various books she wrote).
gregladen | August 18, 2013The last several decades of climate change, and climate change research, have indicated and repeatedly confirmed a rather depressing reality. When something changes in the earth's climate system, it is possible that a negative feedback will result, in which climate change is attenuated. I.e., more CO2 could cause more plant growth, the plants "eat" the CO2, so a negative feedback reduces atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas bringing everything back to normal. Or, when something changes in the earth's climate system, we could get a positive feedback, where change in one direction (…
gregladen | August 17, 2013If you are a meat eater, you probably appreciate the texture and flavor of a nice piece of loin, or a properly cooked pork chop, or a chicken breast that is moist and flavorful. But what is it about hot dogs that you appreciate? The pasty enigmatic texture? The idea that the casing either is, or imitates, the intestines of a pig? The possibility that the 'meat' inside the thing includes a high proportion of anus tissue, other bits of skin that were unsuitable for use as leather (i.e., nostrils), nerve tissue, and other non-muscle parts of animals, often of unspecified species?
Let me put…
gregladen | August 16, 2013I recently discovered that there is a widespread belief that there is a huge, gaping, plot hole in Harry Potter Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowlings. Or so people say. Greta Christina pointed it out on a Facebook post of Sarah Moglia's, and when I googled it, I discovered widespread dismay about the pointlessness of the entire book.
The claim is made that there is no reason for any of the things that happen in this book to have happened. The ultimate result of most of the book's plot is to get Harry Potter transported to the clutches of the Dark Lord in order to contribute, as an ingredient, in…