earth science
gregladen | July 22, 2008NASA's fire and smoke web site, with photos such as the one shown below, keeps track of, well, fire and the attending smoke.
gregladen | June 23, 2008NASA's JPL has a new web site which focuses on surface conditions on one specific planet: The Earth.
It has a Sea Level Viewer which is basically a very fancy menu for a number of multi-media presentations, and a list of current or proposed missions. I am not overly impressed with this, but it may be a good resource for the kiddies.
Much more interesting, and in fact, quite impressive, is the "Climate Time Machine" ...
This shows ice melting, sea level change, CO2 emissions, and average global temperature. The CO2 emissions is fascinating, because CO2 emissions are an assay of…
gregladen | June 10, 2008The film we've all been waiting for ... Randy Olson (of Flock of Dodos fame) has produced a new film called Sizzle. In the film Olson uses the approach he used in Dodos to address the global warming issue. I have not seen the film but hope to review it soon.
Mean time, here's the press release in full:
SILLY AND SERIOUS PREMIERES:
"SIZZLE: A GLOBAL WARMING COMEDY" OPENS AT OUTFEST AND WOODS HOLE FILM FESTIVALS IN JULY
Hollywood, Ca. (June 9, 2008) - The new feature film from scientist-turned-filmmaker Dr. Randy Olson ("Flock of Dodos: the evolution-intelligent design circus," Tribeca 2006…
purepedantry | June 2, 2008You have got to check out this story from NPR:
The compass has been around since at least the 12th century, but scientists still don't know exactly how the Earth generates the magnetic field that keeps a compass needle pointing north.
But geophysicist Dan Lathrop is trying to find out -- by building his own planet.
His latest effort at the University of Maryland towers over him, a massive stainless steel sphere that looks like a prop from some old science fiction movie. Later this year he plans to fill it with molten metal and set the whole 26-ton ball spinning. At top speed the equator will…
gregladen | June 1, 2008Dinosaur tracks are reported for the first time on the Arabian Peninsula. These new tracks are located in Yemen. This find is interesting and important for several reasons.
You can place all the dinosaur remains from Arabia on one table, which is what they used to say about human fossil before several tens of thousands of human ancestor bits and pieces were eventually accumulated. But this does not mean that we don't know much about Arabian Dinosaurs. Back in the days of dinosaurs, the big triangular-shaped piece of land known as Arabia was firmly attached to, and indeed, totally part of,…
gregladen | May 30, 2008 water spout Check out this series of photos of a water spout up on Leech Lake, Minnesota.
These were shot by Roger Underwood, of Ames, Iowa.
gregladen | May 28, 2008... But don't panic. Apparently, this is normal.
It turns out that bacteria living at the bottom of the sea are far more abundant and diverse than scientists had previously thought. These bacteria appear to be consuming the planet's oceanic crust. This raises several interesting questions regarding the interaction and co evolution of life on Earth and the Earth itself.
[UPDATED]
This is all according to a paper being published May 29 in Nature. According to one of the study's authors, Katrian Edwards of USC:
A 60,000 kilometer seam of basalt is exposed along the mid-ocean ridge…
gregladen | May 19, 2008Quirky Pulsar System Challenges Theories of Binary Formation; Observing Stem Cells at Work; Large scale carbon sequestration
Quirky Pulsar System Challenges Theories of Binary Formation
From a Cornell Press Release:
An ongoing sky survey using the Cornell-managed Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico has turned up a massive, fast-spinning binary pulsar with a mysterious elongated orbit, researchers say.
The pulsar and its companion star challenge currently accepted views of binary pulsar formation and give researchers a new opportunity for understanding the fundamental properties of highly…
gregladen | May 18, 2008 Impacts from warming are evident in satellite images showing that lakes in Siberia disappearing as the permafrost thaws and lake water drains deeper into the ground. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory A new study led by NASA links anthropogenic climate change to a wide range of effects. The study involved scientists from about a dozen institutions and agencies, and looked at biological impacts arising from global temperature increase since the 1970s. The article is published in Nature. According to lead author Cynthia Rosenweig, "This is the first study to link global temperature data sets…
gregladen | May 15, 2008In this fiery and funny talk, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what's wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it's putting the entire planet at risk.
gregladen | May 5, 2008This is in Myanmar, where a repressive military government has yet to allow relief workers mustering now in nearby Thailand to enter the country to lend assistance.
Cyclone Nargis made land fall Saturday in southern Myanmar in the vicinity of Labutta with sustained winds of up to 120 mph. It is only now being reported to any significant degree, even though it was clear that this would be a major disaster even before land fall.
"Reports are coming out of the delta coast, particularly the Irrawaddy region, that in some villages up to 95 percent of houses have been destroyed," said Matthew…
gregladen | April 28, 2008Food webs --- the network of trophic (eating) interaction among the many species sharing a habitat or biome -- is a much studied aspect of ecology. Food web and other similar phenomena such as dispersal syndromes are epiphenomena of evolution, resulting from the negotiation of competitive and cooperative interactions among many individuals. Indeed, the food web is the gross-level movement of energy within the ebb and flow of entropy and life-based energy capture. This flow of energy is fundamental to all life systems.
The delicacy or vulnerability of a particular habitat ... the potential…
gregladen | April 27, 2008Some of my colleagues are downplaying the recent paper in science showing a: that mastodons are elephants and b: that birds and dinosaurs ... in particular Tyrannosaurus rex and turkeys ... are related. (See here and here, for instance)
Yes, it is true that these phylogenetic findings are wholly uninteresting, being exactly what we expected. But that is WHY these particular phylogenies were carried out.
You see, the research is being done with organic material that is very very old, and is amazingly, remarkably, unexpectedly and astoundingly preserved. The point of using this material to…
gregladen | April 25, 2008Did you ever notice how when there is one earthquake in the news, more follow right away, often leading to the impression that earthquakes come in clusters? Well, maybe they do come in clusters, but if they do, it is not the cluster you are observing on the news. That is entirely an effect of copycat journalism.
The recent earthquake in Illinois was, unfortunately for the journalistic appetite, not followed by any other really interesting earthquakes. So instead, we have two news items about earthquakes that have not happened ... yet ...
Earthquake in Illinois could portend an emerging…
gregladen | April 25, 2008The Bell Museum, in Minneapolis, has some fun stuff planned.
The Bell Museum's Seeing Climate Change Film & Video Festival is taking
place this weekend.
Don't miss a special breakfast edition of Cafe Scientifique this Sunday
at the Red Stag Supper Club. You can make reservations by calling
612.767.7766. More information is below.
TONIGHT AT THE BELL MUSEUM:
An Evening with National Geographic explorer Jon Bowermaster - 8 P.M.
The Bell Museum and The Will Steger Foundation welcome renowned
explorer and National Geographic correspondent Jon Bowermaster to the
Seeing Climate Change Film…
gregladen | April 21, 2008
Happy Earth Day, Earth! Do you recognize any of these locations?
A:
B:
C:
D:
gregladen | April 18, 2008Good question ... what IS in the air?
The simple answer is that the air ... the Earth's atmosphere ... is about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, with a tiny amount of some other gases including water vapor. Then, there's dirt. I want to talk a little about the oxygen, one of the other gases (carbon dioxide to be exact), the water vapor, and the dirt.
Oxygen
The oxygen is one of the most important parts to us because we (and all the other animals) need it to breath. To me, what is most interesting about the oxygen is that in the old days ... before any animals or plants evolved but life…
gregladen | April 17, 2008Check out the new Climatology of Global Ocean Winds Atlas:
You can drill down to various segments of the planet (well, the oceans) and loot at wind patterns in great detail, with nice rose plots and everything. (Click on the picture to go to the site.)
Winds are the largest source of momentum for the upper ocean, affecting the full range of ocean movement, from individual surface gravity waves to complete current systems. Ocean winds modulate air-sea exchanges of heat, moisture, gases, and particulates. This modulation regulates the interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean, which…