cmooney | July 16, 2008
[From Sizzle: The scientist meets American culture.]
Yesterday my review of Randy Olson's Sizzle went up at Science Progress. I absolutely loved and raved about the movie. To my mind it's exactly the kind of thing we need more of.
So you can imagine how I felt when I surveyed the reactions from many of my fellow ScienceBloggers, who seem to be panning this film and just not getting it.
First, everyone is entitled to his or her aesthetic opinion. And indeed some fellow science bloggers really did like the film, including Bora, Jennifer Ouellette, and Greg Laden, to name a few.
Second, I…
sheril | July 16, 2008This week at Next Generation Energy we're taking on the question of input and output. Can we--and should we--balance the production of biofuels with food production? And to add complexity, I'm asked to forecast our transportation needs down the line and predict whether sustainable biofuels will play a role. Tall order, eh?
A recent world bank report leaked to The Guardian suggests that biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75%. But really, have biofuels acted independently? Doubtful. While it's possible their production has contributed to the high costs we're seeing today, the…
cmooney | July 15, 2008My review of Randy Olson's Sizzle just went up at Science Progress. Wonderful, excellent, hilarious, profound: These are some of the things that I would say about this movie. In the review I even note that Sizzle "may be the funniest global warming movie ever made (unless you count The Day After Tomorrow, which didn't mean to be)."
Here's an excerpt:
At the outset of Sizzle...Olson-the-mockumentary-character participates in a scene that will be all too familiar for people trying to promote science (or anything else) in Hollywood: He meets with studio executives to try to get funding for his…
sheril | July 15, 2008As if taking on evolution vs. intelligent design wasn't controversial enough, how about finding humor in global warming? Marine ecologist turned filmmaker Randy Olson has. In a big and poignant way...
I was first introduced to Randy Olson's work during Bob Steneck's invertebrate zoology course in graduate school. He told us about his friend and colleague who left a tenured faculty position at UNH to pursue film believing there must be a better way to educate broad audiences about the significance of science. Olson's decision to leave the comfort and stability of the ivory towers struck…
sheril | July 14, 2008I've been offline for months, having tired of the ridiculous ramblings you flightless hominids occupy yourselves with involving God knows what. However, on that topic, the recent outbursts in and out of the blogosphere have me so perplexed, I'm inclined to give everyone involved a good bite on the nose.
From a bird's eye view, I cannot fathom why humans spend so much time arguing over who's got religion right. Honestly, take it from a highly evolved species [ahem, the conure], all of your bemoaning isn't worth peanuts. Believe whatever you'd like, but don't get your feathers ruffled over…
sheril | July 14, 2008
Real ad for epMotion: An automated pipetting system.
Yes folks, biotech is targeting women in science. Readers can, uh, form their own opinions of Eppendorf's approach...
sheril | July 11, 2008Earlier this year, some in Sebastopol, California were very concerned over potential health hazards of wireless internet and halted a local company from providing public wifi access. (For details, visit O'Reilly). While I'm less nervous over electrical sensitivity, I can't help but wonder what residents would think about reports of a new microwave ray gun able to beam sounds directly into people's heads. From this month's New Scientist:
The device - dubbed MEDUSA (Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio) - exploits the microwave audio effect, in which short microwave pulses rapidly heat…
sheril | July 10, 2008McCain and Bush are recommending a plan for offshore drilling...
Having spent much of 2006 working hard to keep it far away from Florida's coast, I cannot overemphasize that this is a miserable idea. Craig McClain sums it up well over at Deep Sea News:
First, the current supply of drilling ships will put a seven year hiatus on any offshore oil making it to the market. Second, our offshore oil reserves are insufficient to meet our consumption for more than a handful of years. These are not my opinions, not a liberal or conservative view, but rather fact. X divided by Y equals Z. It's math…
sheril | July 10, 2008 Readers response to my post on biofuels yesterday was tremendously interesting with many new ideas, perspectives, and avenues to wander down in the future. The second installment at Next Generation Energy is already up this morning offering a different persepctive from Joseph Romm of Climate Progress:
Toyota, General Motors, and Volkswagen have already said they will introduce plug-in hybrid electric-gasoline vehicles to the U.S. market in 2010. These vehicles are likely to have a 20 to 40 mile range running on electricity before they revert to being a fuel-efficient gasoline hybrid. That…
cmooney | July 9, 2008
[Kivalina, Alaska, is suing Exxon Mobil and 24 other fossil fuel companies over climate change.]
My latest Science Progress column is up: It's about the growing potential for global warming tort cases--in which aggrieved parties directly sue polluting companies and seek damages--to succeed going forward. As I note:
...courts are beginning to notice the swell of cultural change that we see rising all around us on the climate issue. We're moving closer and closer, as a society, to fully accepting our responsibility to deal with global warming, and the courts--which have often served as a kind…
cmooney | July 9, 2008
Right now, Hurricane Bertha is a reintensifying Category 1 over the open Atlantic. But on Monday, the storm rapidly intensified to Category 3 or possible Category 4 status before a subsequent rapid weakening occurred yesterday.
Bertha was odd to begin with--having formed extremely far east for so early in the season, or indeed, for any time during the season--and becoming a July major hurricane was yet another remarkable feat. All of which makes Bertha a particularly troubling storm, as I write over at The Daily Green:
But perhaps even more worrisome is this recent appearance of very intense…
sheril | July 9, 2008Today marks my inaugural post at a brand new Seed Scienceblog called Next Generation Energy: An evolving interactive forum on alternative energy. Each week my co-bloggers and I will dissect which ideas are real contenders and what will be practical (and affordable) at the start of the 21st century. We'll separate fact from hype and ponder how the heck to get ourselves out of this pesky energy crisis and back on our feet... errr, tires. I'm passionate about this subject from a conservation perspective and looking forward to participating in the dialog. Here's a peek:
Corn ethanol isn't…
sheril | July 8, 2008
Well folks, it's that special time once again when we celebrate all things wondrous and marine... Carnival of the Blue 14 is now live over at The Blue Economy.
sheril | July 7, 2008As I've written in the past, species are constantly blinking in and out of existence. This may or may not be of concern depending on your scale of interest. After all, extinction is the only real certainty.
Last month Andy Revkin asked, 'Does the world need leatherback turtles? '
Need, eh? Well, maybe he's posing the wrong question... We don't fully understand the ecological role of sea turtles, but we do know their numbers are a shadow of former abundance. Their loss is reflective of a growing global trend: the loss of ocean species through fishing down food webs and incidental bycatch…
sheril | July 3, 2008Meet Tropical Storm Bertha:
Chris may be driving across the desert, but he's always got an eye to developing storms and has asked me to post the latest while he's offline.
Bertha has formed in the far eastern Atlantic and according to Jeff Masters, this is the first time we're observing a tropical depression east of 34° longitude in the first half of July. Coincidentally, sea surface temperatures in the area are 2-3°C above average...
More at WunderBlog and from the National Hurricane Center.
sheril | July 3, 2008According to ABC, a new study reports that women tend to drop out of research between their postdoc positions and running their own labs. I can't say I'm shocked. While personal anecdotes are not reliable evidence, by age 28 I've already seen this trend firsthand among my peers many, many times.
We ladies make up approximately 45% of postdocs, 29% of tenured faculty, and only 19% of those running independent labs. Yes I've written about this topic before, but what's different here is that researchers found no evidence of gender bias, but rather 'women's desire to be with their children…
cmooney | July 2, 2008
That's the title of my latest Science Progress column....even though the column itself is not entirely about sheep. Rather, it's a recounting of the Mooney-Nisbet science communication "boot camp" at Caltech....but, well, sheep came up, and believe it or not, it was in a pretty profound way.
Insofar as that's possible.
For more, read the column.
P.S.: Did anyone else notice Sheril subbing for me at Science Progress last week and writing a pretty profound column on the plight of postdocs? Even if you did notice, you may not know that this is her first piece of freelance science writing, and a…
sheril | July 2, 2008Just before the Olympic Games, a 5,000 square mile blue-green carpet has covered China's Yellow Sea.
The event is likely due to excess nitrates from pollutants like sewage and agricultural run-off, which can act like extra fertilizer for plankton. (Remember The Simpsons?) While Chinese officials blame warmer waters--and yes, it may potentially exacerbate the likelihood of algal blooms--that influence more likely serves to compound the effects of a bad situation.
While it appears this species is not toxic, impacts may still be severe. Algae can deplete surrounding waters of oxygen and…
sheril | July 1, 2008What is it about that person? You know the one... You can't explain it, but when they're in the room, no one else matters. You light up and feel more alive. Try to think of something clever to say... a joke, a story, anything that might invoke a smile. Attraction.
'They Always Do' is a track about this force of nature. A jazzy melody by singer/songwriter Heath Brandon on his new CD 'Stand Clear of the Closing Doors'. About sixteen years ago, Heath and I played percussion together in the Suffern Jr. High School orchestra. His voice was much squeakier back then and he didn't know it…
sheril | June 27, 2008
This week I've composed my first column at Science Progress called 'Plight of the Postdoc: Is modern American science strangling its young talents in the cradle?' The piece explores some illuminationg--and troubling--figures about the arduous road ahead for many early career scientists.
At first glance, it might seem that American science finds itself in a kind of golden age. According to the National Science Foundation, the United States is graduating more Ph.D.s in science and engineering than ever before, with 29,854 in 2006 representing an all time high. Meanwhile, we spend more on…