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gregladen | March 17, 2011I am told that Scienceblogs.com has upgraded and hardened its server thingies, so you should no longer be experiencing technical difficulties in reading your favorite blog. However, if you still are, please send your IP address to Scienceblogs, using this email: webmaster AT scienceblogs.com
Thank you very much. You may now return to your regularly scheduled disaster.
gregladen | March 17, 2011A very good stab at addressing the question by Rachel Maddow:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
gregladen | March 16, 2011From MoveOn:
House Republicans have declared an "emergency" today. Is it about unemployment? The situation in Libya? The disaster in Japan? Nope, it's about defunding NPR.
They're taking up an emergency bill that would ban any federal money from going to NPR or its affiliates.
A right-wing blogger's hidden-camera video has NPR on the defensive, even though it was so misleadingly doctored that even Glenn Beck's website questioned its credibility.1 But Republicans want to use this moment to take away NPR's funding for good.
Unfortuately Moveon appears insufficently savvy to give me a link to…
gregladen | March 16, 2011This is not intended to incite panic... for panic, see the post "Where is the nearest nuclear power plant to my house that is currently melting down!!!11!!." The purpose of this post is to facilitate addressing a question we've been discussing on my facebook page: If you lived near a nuke plant, would you routinely stock a reasonable supply of iodine/iodide tablets to take, just in case, and why or why not?
If you are in the US, click here. That's the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and they are there to help you find out where your nearest operating nuke plant is. I don't know about the…
tlambert | March 15, 2011Here's the original story on March 4:
An Israeli model has been hospitalised after being bitten on the breast by a snake during an ill-fated radio stunt. ...
She received a tetanus shot and stayed for observation, but has suffered no long-term damage from the incident.
Here's the Daily Mail version on Mar 15 after being sexed up:
But surgically enhanced Israeli model Orit Fox got more than she bargained for when the massive boa constrictor took objection to her over familiarity and reacted by biting into her breast.
However, it was the snake who came off worse because, while Ms Fox need a…
gregladen | March 14, 2011Because it's not a person, it's a radio show. Run by a person. And some other people.
I want to extend my warmest congratulations to Desiree Schell and Skeptically Speaking, the Canadian skeptics radio show and podcast with the motto: "Call In. Question Everything."
Desiree has been cranking this show out for almost two years, and the second anniversary will be this coming Sunday, when the 104th show will be recorded. That show will air on Friday, March 25th.
Skeptically Speaking exceeds or equals the best of the best in skeptical radio, and over the last two years has been enjoyed by…
tlambert | March 14, 2011By popular request Flying Binghi has his/her own thread. This is the only thread that FB can post to, and all replies to any comment to FB should go here.
I can't move comments, so I will delete comments that do not follow these rules.
gregladen | March 14, 2011A Defense of Nuclear Power As a Second Best Option
In light of the nuclear power plant partial meltdowns in Japan, there are calls for not expanding the U.S. nuclear power plant capacity, and even shutting down existing plants. What bothers me about this is that there is no discussion of how we make up the energy production shortfall...
Read the rest at MTMB
The Fukushima legacy
At one end of the hyperbole scale we have Helen "If you love this planet" Caldicott, who raises the specter of "cancer and genetic diseases" if things get any worse at the growing list of nuclear power reactors…
gregladen | March 14, 2011Also born today was Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli, the guy who identified the canals om Mars. And, in 1960, lisp was introduced, thus allowing the existence of emacs!
stoat | March 14, 2011We're back, hoorah!
[Update: but then last night, we were down again. Clearly whatever problems are going on have not been fully resolved.]
Scienceblogs has been down for the past few days, at least for me and a number of readers; though a small trickle of comments coming in suggests some people have been getting through. I don't know why; there were rumours of DDOS, then that it might be an error, so for all I know the site may go down again - I've heard nothing from the mgt for the past few days. Time for a backup, maybe?
Oh, and the title? I ran a half marathon on Sunday, I'm sure you can…
gregladen | March 13, 2011... according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. Maybe. This seems not to be an official prediction stated my the JMA, as it does not appear on their web site, but agency director Takashi Yokata has made the statement to news agencies. There have been, of course, numerous aftershocks already. A 3.8 mag aftershock occurred in the immediate vicinity of the earlier 9.0 quake just as I was writing up this blog post. A 4.9 magnitude quake occurred a half hour ago. Oh, wait, there was another one down in Okinawa, 3.7 magnitude, a few seconds ago. It is impossible to keep up! Over the last…
pharyngula | March 13, 2011I've been saying for a long time that that 'journal' that published the meteorite microbes story was a joke: now someone who has also published in the JoC gives us a look at the review process there. It's not very rigorous, as you might expect.
She also gives a good mineralogical explanation of the structures they were seeing (see also Ian Musgrave's summary). This paper's dead, Jim. But don't be surprised if you see it cited in other papers from the fringe astrobiology crowd in the future.
gregladen | March 13, 2011I keep wanting to know this so I put it here:
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Tokyo Time
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gregladen | March 13, 2011This webby thing called Opinionati is asking: Creation Museum denies admission to two men: What do you think?
Good luck trying to figure out how to use the site. But I thought you'd like to see it. Hat tip: Joe
gregladen | March 12, 2011Seriously. It's below the fold:
...
That, according to reports, is NOT a human. It is something else.
Details here.
gregladen | March 12, 2011On Skeptically Speaking:
This week, we take another look at water, and what happens to it after it goes down the drain. Researcher Liz Borkowski joins us for a look at the connection between sewage and civilization, and the struggle to introduce modern sanitation in the developing world. And we'll talk to Dr. Alistair Boxall, about the sources and effects of pharmaceutical contaminants in the environment.
This show records live on Sunday, 3/13 at 6 pm MT, and airs on CJSR on Friday, 3/18 at 6 pm MT. The podcast will be available to download by Noon MT on Sunday, 3/20.
Details.
mspringer | March 12, 2011So there's this alien invasion flick called Battle: Los Angeles. It's getting mixed reviews. Ebert hates it - "an insult to the words "science" and "fiction," and the hyphen in between them." With the caveats that his judgment is usually questionable, I haven't seen the movie, and I don't plan to see the movie, I'm thinking I'm relatively safe in trusting his opinion in this particular case.
Now it's also true that judging this kind of movie by its physics is an exercise in foolishness, akin to complaining about the lack of 8 consecutive 24 episodes of Jack Bauer enjoying a good night's sleep…
gregladen | March 12, 2011From the Roman aqueducts to the latest research on what happens when you turn the tap, it's an hour on water. Dr. William James joins us for a lesson on the history and technology of municipal water systems. And we'll talk to University of Toronto researcher Dr. Marc Grynpas about the science and safety of water fluoridation.
TONIGHT Last Night! on Skeptically Speaking.
I wrote this notice two days ago but forgot to hit "Publish" .... well, anywah, the pod cast for Skeptically Speaking generally comes out late Sunday, so tune in then if you did not catch the show live.
Also, Sunday Morning (…
gregladen | March 12, 2011I know a lot of pro-nukers are going to say things like "That's not really an explosion" or "the plants behaved exactly as expected" and "bla bla bla" but whatever, here's the film: