gregladen | November 17, 2007Today, deCODE genetics announced the launch of their consumer genotyping service, deCODEme. deCODEme is the first personal genomics company to launch, and will provide sequencing information about 1 million SNPs for the introductory price of $985. The service has two components:[source]
From deCODEme (Man, I'm siCK of these miXEDcase companynames.):
"Through your subscription to deCODEme, you can learn what your DNA says about your ancestry, your body -traits such as hair and eye color- as well as whether you may have genetic variants that have been associated with higher or lower than…
gregladen | November 17, 2007A few tidbits -- just to give a flavor -- from the Summary for Policymakers, which is available here. (Good luck downloading this file! You may want to wait until everyone is asleep...)
1. Observed changes in climate and their effects
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level
...
There is observational evidence of an increase in intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since about
1970, with limited evidence…
gregladen | November 17, 2007You all know about the honey bee waggle dance. A bee finds some nectar, returns to the hive, does a dance that communicates information about where the nectar can be found to other bees, and off the workers go to get the nectar.
Techies at Georgia Tech have applied this method to developing a better way to run servers.
After studying the efficiency of honeybees, Craig Tovey, a professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, realized through conversations with Sunil Nakrani, a computer science colleague visiting from the University of…
gregladen | November 17, 2007According to research just out from the University of Nottingham, lowering the differential between high and low incomes can have a more positive effect on child wellbeing than simply growing the economy in countries that are already wealthy.
From the press release:
Poorer children fare less well than richer ones in each society. But a recent UNICEF report detailing 40 indicators of child wellbeing, said children in the UK and the USA fared worse than in any of the other rich countries.
The new research examines whether the damage is done by being poor, or by being poorer than others.
To…
gregladen | November 17, 2007This report covers six topics:
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission trends
Mitigation in the short and medium term, across different economic sectors (until 2030)
Mitigation in the long-term (beyond 2030)
Policies, measures and instruments to mitigate climate change
Sustainable development and climate change mitigation
Gaps in knowledge.
This link will eventually get you to the PDF file of the summary for policy makers.
The full report is here.
gregladen | November 17, 2007A report accepted by Working Group II of the Intergovernmental on Climate Change but not approved in detail
Summary of main findings
Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases.
A global assessment of data since 1970 has shown it is likely that anthropogenic warming has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems.
Other effects of regional climate changes on natural and human environments are emerging, although many are difficult to discern…
gregladen | November 17, 2007The following is quoted from the Working Group I report
In the six years since the IPCC's Third Assessment Report (TAR), signifi cant progress has been made in understanding past and recent climate change and in projecting future changes. These advances have arisen from large amounts of new data, more sophisticated analyses of data, improvements in the understanding and simulation of physical processes in climate models and more extensive exploration of uncertainty ranges in model results. The increased confi dence in climate science provided by these developments is evident in this Working…
gregladen | November 17, 2007Last August, Dan Egerstad, of Sweden, hacked his way into secret email accounts of government embassies, various NGOs and corporations. It was easy, partly because it was not a secure network. He then posted a very large number of email user names and passwords.
The way he did it was simple.
There is a piece of software that acts, more or less, as a "caller ID blocker" that can be put on a node on the internet, including on your own computer.
This software, called "TOR" was developed by the Navy on the premise that "loose lips sink ships." They wanted Naval personnel to be able to…
gregladen | November 17, 2007
Corpus Collosum shows us this graph of search frequency on Google for the word "Science."
And asks "What could it possibly mean?"
What it means is this: The following is a graph of search frequency on Google for the word "Santa."
The graphs are from Google Trends. Just in case it is not utterly obvious, the steep annual dip in science is exactly correlated with the Santa Spike.
What is not entirely evident is why are there two Santa Spikes per year? The larger one in December makes sense, but this later one in Feb/March does not. Unless you know that this is the time each year of the…
gregladen | November 16, 2007Yet another way to make fun of the Creationists, the LOL Creashun Contest.
This is hybrid of cat blogging and blasphemy.
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gregladen | November 16, 2007This is the second in a series of reposts from gregladen.com on global warming.
Why Greenhouses have nothing to do with the Greenhouse Effect, and more importantly, why CAN'T I microwave toast?
A greenhouse is a glass house that is sealed to keep air in and insulated to keep heat in but at the same time allow sunlight in. This sunlight contributes to the heat in the greenhouse by warming the ground or other material in the greenhouse, and of course the light energy is used by the plants. But the point of a greenhouse is to keep air that is warmed, by the sun and/or heaters that may be…
gregladen | November 16, 2007Most New York University students would give up their right to vote for a full year's tuition. One in five will give up their right to vote for an iPod touch.
But only on a year by year basis. To get someone to give up their right to vote forever, you need to pay one million dollars. Two thirds of the NYU students said they would jump at this deal.
This study, involving 3,000 respondents and done for a journalism class, did not seem to specify the following condition: You give up your vote and give it to me (or someone else). History tells us that people will routinely do that. This…
gregladen | November 16, 2007Here is a preliminary list of resources for people to find out more about Intelligent Design. Please feel free to put this on your own site. If you want, email me and I'll send you the HTML code to make this one step easier. But you can also, if you are using Firefox, use "ctrl-u" to display the code and cut and paste it from there.
Please feel free to add to this resource for people who want to learn more about Intelligent Design.
Intelligent DesignIntelligent DesignIntelligent DesignIntelligent DesignIntelligent DesignIntelligent DesignIntelligent DesignIntelligent DesignIntelligent…
gregladen | November 16, 2007The Discovery Institute continues its terrorist-like tactics in the wake of a very successful airing of an anti-creationism Public Broadcasting System documentary.
The DI is providing helpful information for teachers and administrators who want to cost their school districts millions in legal fees and experience deep embarrassment. School administrators: Be afraid. Some of your teachers will read it and you will not be happy at the results.
This Document (PDF) is a "Briefing Packet for Educators" supplied by the Discovery Institute.
It is obviously a response to information…
gregladen | November 16, 2007Here are the first three working group reports:
Working Group I Report "The Physical Science Basis"
Working Group II Report "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability"
Working Group III Report "Mitigation of Climate Change"
The fourth report is said to be completed but is not yet posted. Likely, tomorrow.
gregladen | November 16, 2007Hot off the presses:
When some of the world's leading religious scholars gather in San Diego this weekend, pasta will be on the intellectual menu. They'll be talking about a satirical pseudo-deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose growing pop culture fame gets laughs but also raises serious questions about the essence of religion....
The appearance of the Flying Spaghetti Monster on the agenda of the American Academy of Religion's annual meeting gives a kind of scholarly imprimatur to a phenomenon that first emerged in 2005, during the debate in Kansas over whether intelligent design…
gregladen | November 16, 2007Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum are saying that it is now time to start plugging for donations for relief for Bangladesh in the wake of Sidr. I mildly disagree. Let me explain.
At this moment, I have yet to find a single on line secular vehicle for donating to this particular issue. If you go to the UN, for instance, there is a button you can press on a site that discusses Sidr to give WFP money, but there is nothing indicating where this money goes once you've pressed it.
Just as the world's press was unready and apparently still is unable to deal with a major disaster in remote and…