gregladen | June 16, 2013Yesterday, Minneapolis had a convention pursuant to the process of electing a new Mayor. Also, sausages were made. I dare you to look: An Outsider’s View of the DFL Minneapolis Mayoral Convention
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Photo Credit: Sri Dhanush via Compfight cc
gregladen | June 13, 2013High temperatures and dry conditions have caused the outbreak, increased intensity, and rapid spread of numerous wildfires in Colorado. Again. Fires happen, but the number, size, and intensity of wildfires in the western United States has been very high in recent years, and this is caused by global warming.
Global warming causes more rain and more frequent and more severe storm lines. More rain causes more plant growth in otherwise arid regions, and severe storms knock a lot of that vegetation down. This causes more light to get to the ground, so "ladder" vegetation, which enhances fire…
gregladen | June 13, 2013No. Not if it is natural.
In a decision that could have broad-reaching effects on the future of science and medicine, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that:
— "A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated."
— But, synthetically created "strands of nucleotides known as composite DNA (cDNA)" are "patent eligible" because they do not occur naturally.
SOURCE
Our system of patents is badly broken, I think. About the only people I've ever heard say otherwise are ... wait for it ... patent lawyers.
At least this one little…
gregladen | June 12, 2013This is a long but excellent presentation of The Climate Desk, originally posted HERE where there is a blog post by Chris Mooney giving more details.
climatenexus on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free
A recent post of mine on the topic is HERE.
gregladen | June 12, 2013This is what came across my desk this morning. A bit more activity than usual, but not by much. Enjoy. Or, rather, Be Afraid.
Congressman Demands Obama Apologize To Oklahoma For Investing In Climate Change Research
Just as extreme weather season kicks off, freshman Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) demanded that President Obama apologize to Oklahoma for allocating funding to climate change research. Bridenstine, a climate denier who serves on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, plans to introduce a bill that defunds climate change research.
Thousands more forced from home by…
gregladen | June 12, 2013Obviously, you don't want to help melt the ice cap. But you can help scientists figure out how and why it is happening and to learn important details of what might be one of the most important effects of global warming happening right now.
First, a word on why this is important. Look out the window. If you live in Bavaria, and you look out your window, perhaps you can see fish swimming by because you are in the middle of a huge flood affecting Central Europe. Look out the window. If you live in the American Midwest, it is either raining, about to rain, or it just rained, and you might be…
gregladen | June 11, 2013Bob Alberti is a friend of mine in Minneapolis (actually, he was even my student for a few weeks). I was rather startled to see is very scary face staring at me from the Internet this morning (see above). All I can say, is if you run into this guy, watch out! His snark is very, very sharp.
From the Star Tribune article featuring Bob:
A recent study declared Minneapolis parks the best in the nation. We also have another fine natural resource: technology pioneers/comedians who go on the Internet and smack down snooty New Yorkers. Which brings us to Bob Alberti.
...
“When I was a kid, I went…
gregladen | June 10, 2013I hope it is very very good because if not the fact that it looks exactly like a trash can I just bought at Target could make it a laughing stock.
It is assembled in the USA. That's a good start!
Here's a question for the true geeks: What prior RAM had the same speed as the fastest flash/hard drive storage of today's computer?
In case that video was not visible for you here's part of it via Youtube:
gregladen | June 9, 2013I've noticed a lot of Internet chatter about the Mantis Shrimp lately, and I don't know what that is about. But it could be this:
How would you design an experiment to test each of the hypotheses suggested here?
(Also, I note that I do not endorse the contents of this video. Spiffy music and a smart sounding voice tells our brains this must all be true and accurate but most YouTube videos like this in areas I now about are full of mistakes. If you are an expert on this stuff feel free to make comments or corrections below. Also, my reference to "cold fusion" is snark, in case that was…
gregladen | June 8, 2013Geoffrey Miller, author of The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature, has made a goof.
Miller is an evolutionary psychologist with an interested in IQ, the usual sex related things Evolutionary Psychologists are interested in, etc. etc.
On June 2nd he wrote this tweet:
Dear obese PhD applicants: if you didn't have the willpower to stop eating carbsk, you won't have the willpower to do a dissertation #truth
The number of way in which this is wrong is myriad.
Anyway, he's in a heap of trouble. Here is a video from his university, the University of New Mexico,…
gregladen | June 7, 2013Cold Fusion was first reported in 1989. The original experiment was supposed to have produced extra heat that could not be explained wiht chemistry or electronics, so naturally, fusion was considered. Contrary to popular belief, that original experiment has been replicated successfully. The problem isn't that the first experiment produced actual extra heat and no one doing the same experiment could match that result. Rather, none of the attempts at using this experimental set up worked, including the first one. So, yes, the experiment was successfully replicated, and in all cases,…
gregladen | June 7, 2013Weatherman Bob disappeared today. He was consumed, or maybe absorbed, by his Green Screen. A Green Screen is a screen, green in color, with special properties. A TV studio camera and the equipment it is hooked to replace the green screen with an imaginary background. So, a person who is not green can stand in front of the Green Screen and to the TV viewer it will look like the person is standing in front of something else. This is how weather reporters on TV ply their trade. They look like they are standing in front of a map of the region showing cold fronts and warm fronts and…
gregladen | June 6, 2013On June 6th, 1944, some 160,000 soldiers aboard about 5,000 boats of diverse design crossed the English Channel and carried out the Invasion of Normandy, one of the more important events in recent history. Many of the soldiers were so sick from choppy seas that leaving the boats and walking or running into German gunfire seemed like a good idea. The invasion was originally planned for the 45h of June, but a very precise weather forecast told the Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower, to wait until the next day. The forecast for the 6th of June, integrated with the logistical features of the…
gregladen | June 6, 2013D-Day was today in 1944. My father was involved. Wikipedia is silly. Kids these days have no idea. There is, of course, a classic movie on the topic.
[A timely repost]
What does "D-Day" mean?
The term "D-Day" is military for "The Day" just like "H-Hour" is military for "The Hour" on which something will happen. However, once D-Day happened everyone started to use the term "D-Day" to refer to this event. The idea is you can put the date "D-Day" in your planning documents and refer to it without having the date set, or if you do have the date set, to avoid saying the date out loud.
So…
gregladen | June 6, 2013I have two items for you. First is a video produced by Media Matters on Right Wing Science. I especially love Bill Nye's facial expressions as he is assailed with unbelievable stupidity:
And now, also from Media Matters, this fun infographic. Share it around!
gregladen | June 6, 2013When I was a kid, there was a strange looking garbage can in the back yard. It looked like a regular metal garbage cans (garbage cans were metal back in those days, before plastic was invented) but it was covered with round holes about one inch in diameter. It was also heavily corroded and lived behind the large brick fireplace that was also in the back yard. No one used it for anything but I remember that it had an interesting story that went along with it.
This can was used back in the day, before I was born, by my grandfather (who lived upstairs) to burn garbage. The story was about a…
gregladen | June 6, 2013A paper came out in today’s Nature about glacial melting and its contribution to sea level rise. This paper does not present new research, but rather summarizes and evaluates the last several years of research on modeling and measuring contiental glaciers and their dynamics.
From the Abstract:
Since the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, new observations of ice-sheet mass balance and improved computer simulations of ice-sheet response to continuing climate change have been published. Whereas Greenland is losing ice mass at an increasing pace, current…
gregladen | June 6, 2013The first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season has developed. Tropical Storm Andrea formed over the last several hours, and now exhibits winds of 63 knots at 5000 feet, with a surface intensity of about 50 knots, though these winds are only found in the "right hand" side of the storm, now sitting in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. Most likely, this is all Andrea is going to manage as the storm moves north to make landfall, where it will also interact with upper level winds which will convert the storm to a big rain storm over the next day and a half. However, Andrea will be a very…
gregladen | June 5, 2013William Shatner reads Where the Wild Things Are to some kids.
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