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Movie review: Avatar.

While the sprogs were hanging out at the aquarium with the Grandparents Who Lurk But Seldom Comment, my better half and I went to see a 3-D IMAX screening of Avatar. My big concerns going in were that all the 3-D IMAX goodness would make me motion-sick, and that if that didn't get me, then the story by James Cameron might make me lose my lunch. I am happy to report that neither of these outcomes came to pass. Not that the plot here is especially sophisticated, nor the characters terribly complex, but they weren't as dreadful as I had feared from the Twitterati and the Facebookers. The main…

The full-throated howl of the uncompromising advocate

I'm going to rudely hijack one political issue to make a point about another. I think you'll quickly figure out what it is. NARAL has been undermining their own relevance by failing to support pro-choice positions in a misguided attempt to court moderates—basically, as Ezra Klein points out, they're failing to recognize their role in the political ecosphere. They're an advocacy group for a specific range of policies, not a politician who has to balance constituencies—they are supposed to be spokespeople for one particular constituency. …one thing groups like NARAL have a tendency to do is…

McIntyre tries moving the goalposts

What did Steve McItyre when he discovered that his post claiming that Bob Ward's complaint was discredited was completely wrong? He originally wrote: My main point here is that the RMS [actually by Bob Ward - TL] letter, publicly endorsed by the 37 profs, all supposedly experts in climate science, contains a statement about the course of sulphate emissions that is trivially seen to be inconsistent with the recently expressed IPCC AR4 view on the matter. After I pointed out that it was trivially seen to agree with the IPCC AR4 view, McIntyre comes up with: I had specifically referred to the…

Leakegate: the case for fraud

They have been some explosive new revelations in the Leakegate scandal. Remember how Leake deliberately concealed the fact that Dan Nepstad, the author of the 1999 Nature paper cited as evidence for the IPCC statement about the vulnerability of the Amazon had replied to Leake's query and informed him the claim was correct? Leake didn't report what Nepstad told him. Instead he claimed that the IPCC statement was "bogus", even though he knew it wasn't. Deltoid can now reveal that Leake's reporting was far more dishonest than originally believed. This is how Leake quoted Simon Lewis: Simon…

How to Reach People

In his entry today, Orac asks the question "How can we physicians and scientists deal with antivaccinationism? What "frames" can we use to combat the likes of Jenny McCarthy?". This is an excellent question. I understand exactly why Dr. Offit did not cover this in his book: I think he had a very specific remit in mind and such a question went beyond that remit. Maybe he will do a an AFP 2 or maybe he is hoping another big name in the field of vaccines or autism will step up to the plate the way he has and tackle that. I hope they do too. My field (I am a Web developer) is that of…

A weekend for Kafka: Feel like a bug

I wrote this one over a year ago. I wasn’t weirding out about educational choices, as I described in a recent post, but aging. Even though the circumstances are different, however, I’m still in a similar mindset. So, while terms like "yesterday" and "this week" are irrelevant here, I think it will fit in well. So, let’s all feel like a bug. I’m in a Kafkaesque mood, thinking of transformations, the helplessness of watching such change through a unique and uninterpretable perception. Perhaps this is because I’m turning 30 this week, and I haven’t quite come to terms with that fact. (It was…

Crossing 8 Mile: What does flu mean for Detroit?

According to a Pew survey, 61% of Americans are getting health information online. The internet is now the third leading resource for health information after doctors and family/friends. At a recent session hosted by USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, I learned this and many other things while chatting with journalists and other bloggers. It turns out (and I don't have the data in my hands yet) that some of the "sub-trends" are pretty interesting. For example, moms and other women seem to prefer facebook to other social networking sites. I've noticed this anecdotally…

The Question of Who "Chooses" To Participate In Clinical Trials

Is the current economy making more people want to participate in human research studies, asks Isis? In this new study here at MRU, we began advertising online last Wednesday. By Friday, my study coordinator had received 300 responses...I can't help but wonder if the current poor economy is driving more people to consider human research. Probably - I wouldn't be at all surprised. It seems possible to me, though, that is just an exacerbation of the situation that obtained previously - which is that poorer people have always been attracted to participation in clinical research trials either…

On bad evangelism

In Slacktivist Fred Clark's regular Left Behind blogging has reached a point in the novels where an Orthodox rabbi has gone on TV to explain that Jesus is the Messiah, and Jews should all be Jews for Jesus. One of the novels' protagonists (who found Jesus after seeing a billion or so people killed raptured) pumps his fists and cheers. This reaction, and the rabbi's broadcast itself, grate on Clark's ears. Clark is an evangelical Christian, and knows when someone's Doing It Wrong. This scene, he writes, "illustrates another important point in our lesson on How Not to Do Evangelism. Fist-…

On bullshit

Steve Benen reviews the ways in which Republicans now ranting about how insurance reform will kill grandma once loved their 'death panels,' adding: If reality had any meaning in modern politics, these "death panel" clowns would be laughed out of the building, and humiliated for life. The whole enterprise of the modern GOP seems to fit entirely into the category of what philosopher Harry Frankfurt described in his famous essay On Bullshit. He distinguished several approaches to truthfulness in statements. On one hand, people can be truthful â concerned about the accuracy of what they say and…

Workers die on the job, prevention tools often disregarded

It was just about this time last year when then Senate-candidate Dr. Rand Paul (R-KY) responded to a question about the 29 workers killed in Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine disaster and government's role in enforcing workplace safety regulations. Dr. Paul said "...a certain amount of accidents and unfortunate things do happen, no matter what the regulations are?" That view "accident just happen," runs counter to public health community's evidence that many traumatic, chronic and fatal injuries can be prevented. Investigations of work-related fatalities in particular---whether…

Stephen Asma responds

He has sent me a response to my criticisms of his criticisms of the New Atheism. Look below the fold for what he sent me. A lot of online feedback is remarkably angry, hostile, and generally melodramatic. Every time I write an online piece I get an army of people calling me a "moron," or telling me I'm too smart for my own good, or I'm too stupid for my own good. People vent spleen and project all kinds of things onto the article and the writer. I find all this amusing and don't take it personally. As a regular contributor to publications like SKEPTIC magazine, the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER and…

Japan Nuclear Disaster Update 28: Mostly about contamination, of the sea, and around the world

There is an increase in reports of activity of scientists studying the extent and impacts of radiation spilled or otherwise transferred into the ocean from Fukushima. TEPCO, in the meantime, seems to have a need to put a lot more water, possibly decontaminated to some degree, into the sea. Similarly, there is a plan afoot to release previously sequestered air from Reactor 2, with filtering to lower contamination applied to the air before the building's doors are opened. Venting began about four days ago. Another report has been released confirming that not only did Reactors 1, 2 and 3…

Birds in the News 181

tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter Black-crowned Night-Heron, Nycticorax nycticorax, photographed at Brazos Bend State Park, Texas. Image: Joseph Kennedy, 7 August 2009 [larger view]. Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/180s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400. Birds in Science Brainy male birds are more sexually attractive to female birds, scientists have discovered. Researchers gave male bowerbirds a set of cognitive tests to evaluate their problem solving ability. Bowerbirds that performed well in the tests also mated with the most…

When doctors betray their profession

And now for something completely different...but depressingly the same in some ways. Longtime readers—and I do mean longtime—might remember from several years ago a certain case adjudicated before the Vaccine Court. I'm referring, of course, to the Autism Omnibus. In Autism Omnibus, some 4,800 claimants were bringing action seeking compensation for "vaccine injury" characterized by autism. Basically, it was a large number of parents who thought vaccines had caused their children's autism seeking compensation from the Vaccine Court, and they implicated the MMR and thimerosal-containing…

Will Amazon kill off book publishers?

As reported here and elsewhere, Amazon is actually dipping its toes into the world of publishing. Which of course is an interesting challenge and threat for traditional trade publishers. And who knows, maybe academic publishers too, if Amazon decides it wants to disrupt that market as well. In any case, The New York Times has a nice set of four essays debating the topic, Will Amazon Kill Off Publishers?. Amazon is getting a lot of heat these days over its attempts to push its way into the hearts and minds of readers, writers and the larger book culture -- even comic books. Indeed, the news…

Cassidy Williams: An Emerging Computer Scientist with a Desire to Inspire More Women in STEM

  The ‘Nifty Fifty (times 4)’, a program of Science Spark, presented by InfoComm International, are a group of 200 noted science and engineering professionals who will fan out across the Washington, D.C. area in the 2014-2015 school year to speak about their work and careers at various middle and high schools. Meet Nifty Fifty Speaker Cassidy Williams  Twenty-two year old Cassidy Williams is passionate about being a role model to encourage more young women to pursue careers in computational science and other areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). As an Iowa State…

Stuff

I'm about to go out of town for three days to a conference on dealing with poverty issues, energy depletion and climate change, and I'm a little nervous. We've had no babies born since Meadowsweet's appearance two weeks ago, and I have three does due in the next week - not only am I a little nervous about abandoning Eric and Phil-the-Housemate to delivering baby goats (which has historically been a she who did the birthin' of the boys job), but I'm also a little sad at the thought of missing all the fun! Still it is a good and important thing, and it reminds me to let y'all know about…

Climate Change Plus Irreversible Evolution Will Force Key Ocean Bacteria into Overdrive

I've got a press release from the University of Southern California that seems important, but I don't have time today to read the study. So, you can look at the press release and tell me what you think of it. Climate Change Will Irreversibly Force Key Ocean Bacteria into Overdrive Scientists demonstrate that a key organism in the ocean’s foodweb will start reproducing at high speed as carbon dioxide levels rise, with no way to stop when nutrients become scarce Imagine being in a car with the gas pedal stuck to the floor, heading toward a cliff’s edge. Metaphorically speaking, that’s what…

The Facts on Solar Storms

"Leading scientists are warning that a massive solar storm could trigger a $2 trillion 'global Katrina' that short-circuits power grids worldwide." -Lesley Taylor If you've been keeping up with your online news lately, you may have heard that, undoubtedly, an impending Solar Storm will cause hundreds of billions -- if not trillions -- of dollars of damage. The impending storm has been compared to a global Hurricane Katrina. What's the hullaballoo about? Last week, the Sun launched forth a powerful Solar Flare, as imaged above by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. What was the big effect of…

The Popularity of Religious Nonsense

WorldNetDaily is reporting on a new poll, taken by ABC, which says that 60% of Americans believe in a literal 6-day creation and a literal global flood. This is a bit unsettling to the scientifically literate, but it should come as no big shock. The average American is likely to get their information not from science journals but from rags like the WorldNetDaily, which is basically an online version of the National Enquirer, but with more right-wing commentary sprinkled in. The article cited above provides a perfect example. In the middle of the article is a link to another WND story about…

Creationist Education Bill in Louisiana Receives Criticism

From the NCSE: Senate Bill 733, signed by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal on June 25, continues to draw criticism from scientists and political observers across the political spectrum. In the New Scientist, Amanda Gefter reports (July 9, 2008), "The new legislation is the latest manoeuvre in a long-running war to challenge the validity of Darwinian evolution as an accepted scientific fact in American classrooms." Since the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision, where intelligent design creationism was found to be nonscience and unconstitutional to present in science classes, Gefter explains that "…

Why climate change is so tricky to cover

Climatologists probably need to take a stiff drink before they open the papers (or fire up their web browsers) the morning after their studies appear in print or online. Two if the studies involved say anything interesting about global warming. Today's coverage of a Nature paper that predicts a decade-long, regional cooling trend for Europe and North America is sure to give the authors the jitters. Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany, and his co-authors laced their letter with caveats. They call their attempt to model the effects of meridional…

Dawn of the Leafy Age

Recently I've been trying to imagine a world without leaves. It's not easy to do at this time of year, when the trees around my house turn my windows into green walls. But a paper published on-line today at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science inspires some effort. A team of English scientists offer a look back at Earth some 400 million years ago, at a time before leaves had evolved. Plants had been growing on dry land for at least 75 million years, but they were little more than mosses and liverworts growing on damp ground, along with some primitive vascular plants with stems a…

Canada thrust into Copenhagen spotlight by spoof report carried by spoof WSJ

It would be funny if so much weren't at stake. Anonymous culture-jammers (probably the "Yes Men") earlier today apparently managed to fool the Wall Street Journal into reporting that Canada has abandoned it established greenhouse gas emissions reductions target of just 3% below 1990 levels by 2020. Instead, it would henceforth support something more in line with what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- and most of the developing world -- say is necessary to avoid dangerous interference in the global climate: 25-40% below 1990 by 2020. Within an hour, the Canadian government had…

SciOnline'09 and the future of Laelaps

This blog has been a little quiet over the last few days, but I was simply having too much fun at the Science Online '09 conference to find the time to sit down and blog. I got to meet some of my favorite bloggers, too many to mention them all here (I would undoubtedly forget some if I tried to make a list), but I was certainly glad to catch up with old friends and make some new ones. I didn't go just to hang out with other science writers, though. The primary reason I was at the conference was to co-moderate two sessions. The first, on using the web to teach college science with Andrea…

How to write clear emails to your professor (or, why I currently think my undergrad students are rockstars)

I haven't talked much about my teaching yet this semester, and it's high time I did - at least a little, particularly to contribute a bit to the discussion about PWIs. To be clear: my institution will consider me for tenure based upon my research, and to a lesser extent based on my teaching (I learned on Monday that our teaching expectations in my department are a little higher than elsewhere in my college because we focus our research on education as well). So my job is primarily intended to be about helping the engineering education research community learn new things, with a secondary…

It was the best of sources, and the worst of sources: the Internet and health information

Suppose you have a question about a new medication your doctor has prescribed to you. How do you find out more about it? You probably Google it, right? But what do you do with the list of results that come up, which is likely to include a Wikipedia page, a blog entry or two, some posts on e-patient forums, the manufacturer's website, and a few online pharmacies with FREE SHIPPING? Perhaps you skim these pages, judge their usefulness and reliability, and end up at a Wikipedia page or a knowledgeable blog entry written by the likes of Scibling Abel Pharmboy. No problem. But now suppose it's…

Upstream Transcription: A whole lotta stuff going on

Here I am, in the lab with one last experiment to go before I leave to feast on a Christmas Eve dinner, so while I wait for that last centrifugation step, I'll write a quick post about all these great papers on RNA Polymerase II and chromatin remodelling. As I've said before, if you want to understand what is going on with all of these non-coding RNA transcripts, you have to understand how DNA is organized. If you don't understand how DNA is packed in the typical eukaryotic (i.e. nucleated) cell, please read this: How Transcription Affects Genomic Organization and Vice Versa Then to get you…

Ask Dr. Free-Ride: The university and the pirate.

Recently in my inbox, I found a request for advice unlike any I'd received before. Given the detail in the request, I don't trust myself to paraphrase it. As you'll see, I've redacted the names of the people, university, and government agency involved. I have, however, kept the rest of the query (including the original punctuation) intact. In 2004 I denounced a music piracy case caused by a [U.S. government agency] contractor and [Research University X] computer scientist: Dr. [let's call him "Jolly Roger"]. This man used peer to peer technology to create CDs for third party distribution…

Lancet study, one year on

Les Roberts comments on the shoddy reporting of his study: I thought the press saw their job as reporting information. Most of the pieces discussing our report were written to control or influence society, not to relay what our report had documented. For example, the day after the article came out, Fred Kaplan, a defense correspondent for Slate magazine reported that, "Yet a close look at the actual study, published online today by the British medical journal the Lancet, reveals that this number is so loose as to be meaningless. But read the passage that cites the calculation more fully: We…

Crawling out of my cave

I’m beginning to think I should have been born a bear. I keep fighting the urge to hibernate. It must be seasonal effective disorder. I’d always attributed the stress I get this time of year to holiday plans and cramming for finals--you know, poor timing. This year, in hopes of curing those winter blues, I started Christmas early, and paced my studies well. Yet, I’ve still been tired and, well, mopey. For instance, I’ll hear a song or see something familiar, and start crying for no particular reason. Or, just when I think I have free time, I’ll fall asleep right where I’m sitting.…

Preparing doctors for the genomic tsunami

Mark Henderson has a great piece in the Times exploring the impact of personal genomics on the practice of medicine. The basic theme should be familiar to anyone who has been following the emergence of the personal genomics industry: doctors are currently almost completely unprepared for the onslaught of genetic information they are about to experience. Here's the situation: At present, genetic training focuses on Mendelian diseases - rare mutations in single genes, which usually have severe effects. People who inherit the Huntington's mutation, for example, will invariably develop the…

Studying whale behavior from Davey Jones locker

Story by Michelle Kinzel, OSU How do you study the sperm whale, Physeter catadon, when they dive up to 3 km (1.9 miles) to the bottom of the ocean floor and stay submerged up to 90 minutes? Sperm whales reach lengths of 18 m (60 ft) and possess blood volumes up to 3 tonnes. The blood stores oxygen that enables the whale to dive to great depths to the ocean floor. Dives more than 2 miles deep are possible for sperm whales, but more typical dives are 30 minutes long and 300 to 400 m depth. The elusive behemoths spend a significant amount of time in the deep sea. Spatial technologies,…

The Laelaps Movie of the Week: Raptor Island

What do you get when you put dinosaurs, terrorists, and Navy SEALs all in one place? The answer in "A mess," and in this case such a disaster carries the title Raptor Island. Starring Lorenzo Lamas, the film continues the long standing tradition of putting guns and monsters in the same place in the hopes that something good will come out on film. Indeed, it seems that more effort is required to serve up a plate of Hamburger Helper than was put into the story and dialog of this slice of movie cheese, and its painfully apparent from the very first scene. We meet our hero, "Hack" (Lamas) and his…

How to Eat Cheap

For the last few weeks and over the next month, attention to hunger will be at its annual peak. People will donate turkeys, time and checks, canned goods and garden produce to food pantries. Many of us will find ourselves thinking of those in need in this season. We'll dish out cranberry sauce and decorate cookies, volunteer at the food pantry or in the shelter kitchen, and focus on making sure that the season of lights and joy is also one where people aren't forgotten. This is a very good thing. It is also important to remember that most of the regularly hungry or food insecure people in…

Why I Hate Earth Day

I wrote this a few years ago for Earth Day's 40th anniversary, and frankly, I haven't changed my mind.   I bloody hate Earth Day. No offense to those of you who love it, and I know there are some awesome Earth Day programs out there, but by the time we get there, I'm spending my days hiding under the covers, because every freakin' time I open my email inbox a wave of the most nauseating spew of greenwashing comes flowing out. Guess what? A major department store chain, nearly in bankruptcy, is now selling the eco-tote, made from organic sheepskin, embossed with "Think Global, Act Local" to…

An unexpected analogy

While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts, most of which are more than a year old.) These posts will be interspersed with occasional fresh material. This post originally appeared on January 5, 2006. Remember how I said yesterday that I was going to post something today that I had been planning since…

Fire him. Right Now.

As some of you have already seen at Pharyngula, Dispatches, and the Lippard Blog, a New Jersey public high school teacher was caught on tape teaching religion instead of history. One of the audio recordings is available online. The quality is poor, but a with a little bit of equalizer work it is mostly understandable. The material that is on it is absolutely and completely outrageous. Things were said that don't belong within ten city blocks of a public school classroom, and it's a damn shame that the worst than can be done to the teacher is terminating his employment. Some of the things said…

Breast Cancer Crankery From Mike Adams

The latest crankery from Adams is the evil male-chauvinist conspiracy to perpetuate breast cancer for fun and profit being led by none other than those dastardly villains of the American Cancer Society. With his stunning report and links to the thinkbeforeyoupink campaign, he rails against the ribbons that are a "symbol of male-dominated control over women", and exposes the insidious lies of those who spend their lives looking for cures for this deadly disease. In this report, you'll learn how the cancer industry -- which is dominated by powerful men -- uses the same tactics today to…

A Christmas public health hazard

I am not a Christian (not now, not ever) but I have always liked Christmas. It's my favorite (secular) holiday and when the time comes (Christmas Eve or Christmas Day) we Reveres will likely write our traditional Christmas post explaining just why we aren't the obligatory curmudgeons on the issue. But that's for then. There is something I really hate about Christmas, although it's not really about Christmas specifically. It is a public health problem and it's probably worse on Christmas Day than any other day of the year. It's clamshell packaging. I thought about it (for the umpteenth time)…

Gallagher gets it?

The name "Richard Gallagher" may be familiar to some readers. Gallagher is the editor of The Scientist, and last year, somewhat naively suggested that the evolution/creation "debate" was actually a good thing (you can find the text of his editorial at this site). Both PZ and Jason Rosenhouse took him to task for the editorial (and Gallagher replied, and PZ shot back). The next month, The Scientist then published a number of letters responding to the editorial, and Gallagher also wrote a reply (republished here by the Discovery Institute). Gallagher ended that piece with this quote:…

A man after my own heart at Iowa State

Oh, dear. John West of the Disco Institute is in a furious snit because, after refusing to grant tenure to Guillermo Gonzalez, Iowa State University did promote Hector Avalos, of the Religious Studies department, to full professor. You can just tell that West is spitting mad that Iowa would dare to keep Avalos around, and thinks it a grave injustice that one scholar would be accepted, while their pet astronomer gets the axe. So now they're going to do a hatchet job on Avalos. Never mind that the two are in completely different departments, with very different standards. Never mind that the…

Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, and Amos Lee

The title sounds like the opening to a really odd joke, but in fact it was the concert bill last night in Albany. Bob Dylan is touring as always, and Elvis Costello is along doing a solo set, with Amos Lee opening for both. Kate and I went to the show, and it was... unusual. I'll put most of the review comments below the fold, just to avoid cluttering the front page more than it already is. I think the key realization of the evening, though, was that at age 66, Dylan has decided that he wants to be Johnny Cash circa 1968. What with one thing and another, we were a little late getting there,…

Hidden beliefs in science stereotypes predict size of gender gap across 34 countries

Think of a scientist - not anyone in particular, just a random individual working in the field. Got one? Did you picture a man or a woman? If it's the former, you're probably not alone. There have been a few times when I've only ever known a scientist through their surname on a citation and automatically assumed that they were a man, only to learn, to my chagrin, that they're actually a woman. It's always a galling reminder of how pervasive the stereotype of science as a male endeavour can be, even at an unconscious level. Now, Brian Nosek from the University of Virgina, together with…

Sunday Iconoclasm Blogging

Some irreverent souls have taken to Sunday blogging on a freethinking themes.  I choose to Ozymandize* that which we worship the most: our economic system. That plant in the middle is href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2009/07/color_of_the_year_mimosa.php">my mimosa ( href="http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=ALJU">Albizia julibrissin) tree, the one I am growing from seed.  It is, literally, a green shoot (although the leaves close and droop at night). style="display: inline;"> "They" say that green shoots are everywhere these days.  Do we believe "them"? href…

Just Remember, Parsons: Elephants Never Forget (And Neither Will I)

GoDaddy.com Chief Executive Bob Parsons feels absolutely no remorse for his choice to engage in elephant hunts in Zimbabwe. He posted this boastful video saying it's one of the most 'rewarding' things he does (warning - strong stomach required), and continues to defend it even after coming under fire for his actions. Parsons had this to say about his hunts (this wasn't his first): I spend a few weeks in Zimbabwe each year helping the farmers deal with problem elephants. The people there have very little, many die each year from starvation and one of the problems they have is the elephants, of…

Is Bill Maher really that ignorant?

Work and a conference intervene to prevent a fresh dose of Respectful Insolence today. Fortunately, there's still classic Insolence from the archives that hasn't been moved over to the new blog. This one originally appeared on March 7, 2005. The short answer is: Yes. The long answer is below. When I first posted on this yesterday, I had hoped things weren't as they appeared. Although representing himself as a free-thinking skeptic who proudly trumpets his atheism and calls religion a "neurologic disorder," Bill Maher has, sadly, apparently officially passed from the realm of "smug but…

RP 4: More on the movie Up! (or Upper)

So, analysis of the movie Up is pretty popular in the blogosphere. Figure I might as well surf the popularity wave. So, I have a couple more questions. The most important thing to estimate is the mass of the house. I am going to completely ignore the buoyancy of the house. I figure this will be insignificant next to the buoyancy needed. Anyway, let me go ahead and recap what has already been done on this in the blogosphere. Wired Science - How Pixar's Up House Could Really Fly - from that post: First, they calculated (seemingly correct) that the buoyancy of helium is 0.067 pounds per…

More on the movie Up! (or Upper)

So, analysis of the movie Up is pretty popular in the blogosphere. Figure I might as well surf the popularity wave. So, I have a couple more questions. The most important thing to estimate is the mass of the house. I am going to completely ignore the buoyancy of the house. I figure this will be insignificant next to the buoyancy needed. Anyway, let me go ahead and recap what has already been done on this in the blogosphere. Wired Science - How Pixar's Up House Could Really Fly - from that post: First, they calculated (seemingly correct) that the buoyancy of helium is 0.067 pounds per…