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jrosenhouse | December 17, 2014Well, it seems the big discussion is still going strong, even after six weeks. Incredibly, the comments still seem to be substantive and interesting. So here's another post to continue the discussion. Plus with my own ongoing blog lethargy, it's nice that there's any activity going on around here at all! So feel free to have at it.
gregladen | December 14, 2014ADDED NOTE: I changed the name of this post because some chose to shift the focus of the discussion from Greenpeace's horrendous act in Peru to whether or not my reaction is appropriate, as though I had done damage to some historic site or harpooned a whale. I live in Minnesota. I am not affected by arguments that certain reactions to a crime make the crime tolerable. But I want to take the focus off me, and return it to Greenpeace. The rest of this post has also been modified to include a statement that makes very clear why what Greenpeace did was wrong, and why it is alarming and requires…
gregladen | December 11, 2014This one is worth looking at because it was published as a letter to the editor in an actual newspaper. Or, at least, on the web site.
A little background is in order. First, Dennis Slonka wrote an Op Ed in the Providence Journal telling us that "Climate Science Will Never Be Settled." In it he made a number of incorrect statements about climate science, the IPCC, and Michael Mann. Then, Mann wrote a response that corrected the record. At some point, the Providence Journal corrected a small part of Slonka's post, removing a blinding error, which demonstrates Slonka's abysmal understanding…
sa smith | December 9, 2014Five kids in the first trial.
Then eleven.
Now thirty (ultimately 39):
Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cells for Sustained Remissions in Leukemia
Slowly but surely, HIV genetically modified to genetically modify relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients T-cells are prolonging (saving?) kids lives.
Ive written about this treatment a couple times before:
‘Dismal prognosis’ with leukemia? Nothing a GMO virus cant fix.
GMO virus vs B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Why is this not a standard therapy yet??
Basically, scientists get HIV to teach cancer patients Cytotoxic T-cells how to…
pgleick | December 8, 2014Over the past three years (and indeed, for 10 of the past 14 years) California has experienced a particularly deep drought. How bad is the drought? Is it the worst in the instrumental record? The worst in over a century? The worst in 1200 years? The worst “ever”? And why has it been so bad?
There is no single definition of “drought.” Drought, most simply defined, is the mismatch between (1) the amounts of water nature provides and (2) the amounts of water that humans and the environment demand. As the National Drought Mitigation Center puts it:
“In the most general sense, drought originates…
gregladen | December 5, 2014The outer reaches of Typhoon Hagupit are already affecting the target region in the Philippines. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the areas most under the gun, but the potential for serious problems covers a very large area. The storm has gone through quite a few changes over the last couple of days, but is probably strengthening somewhat right now. No matter what happens, it is going to hit the Philippines as a very serious storm.
Jeff Masters has an update here.
This is the same area that was hit with Typhoon Haiyan last year. Haiyan was a bigger storm. But, Haiyan was also…
denialism | December 4, 2014The GMO debate hosted by Intelligent Squared was excellent and informative. I admit I learned things from listening and that's always a bonus, but it's worth watching to see the "respectable" arguments against GMO posed and dealt with very effectively by the pro-side in this debate. Spoiler alert, the pro-GMO side spanked the anti-GMO, going from 30% pre-debate in support of GMO (~30% against and 38% undecided) to 60% in support of GMO post-debate with anti-GMO only climbing 1% to 31. While voting on points of science and data is largely irrelevant, science is not democratic, it is reassuring…
gregladen | December 3, 2014I'm going out on a limb here. 2014 has been a very warm year. We've had a number of record setting months. But, a couple of months were also coolish, and November was one of them. December started out cool (like November ended) globally, but actually over the last few days the global average temperature has been going up. But, unless December gets really warm really fast, is is probably true that we will break some records but not all. This entire discussion, however, is problematic for a number of reasons.
How much does one year matter?
How warm or cold a given year is does not matter…
gregladen | December 3, 2014Apotropaic magic is designed to ward off or control evil. In vampire fiction, as well as in real life in cultures that include a belief in vampires, apotropaic objects might be crucifixes, cloves of garlic, etc. Apotropaic methods are known to have been used in burials. In the photograph above, a sickle blade has been placed across a person's neck at burial time, probably to keep them from reanimating and becoming all vampiry (Individual 49/2012 (30–39 year old female) with a sickle placed across the neck, from the paper cited below.) Some people have believed that a regularly occurring…
esiegel | December 1, 2014“If you keep your eyes open enough, oh, the stuff you will learn. Oh, the most wonderful stuff.” -Dr. Seuss
It's been more than two years in the making; we started Messier Monday way back in October of 2012, and after 110 consecutive weeks, we finally arrived at our final entry last week. What better way to celebrate than to take a look back at all 110 entries?
Image credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University).
From Messier 1 through Messier 110, we've got you absolutely covered, with enough eye-candy (and link-candy, too) for days.
Image credit: Adam Block / NOAO…
gregladen | November 28, 2014It is here:
I wonder if we get one trailer a month for a year?
And then, this:
gregladen | November 27, 2014You know Thanksgiving has a story, linking it to the Pilgrims. I talk about the bigger cultural phenomenon here. But have you actually read the original story? There is a later version with more detail but this is the only nearly contemporary account:
You shall understand, that in this little time, that a few of us have been here, we have built seven dwelling-houses, and four for the use of the plantation, and have made preparation for divers others. We set the last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six acres of barley and peas, and according to the manner of the…
gregladen | November 26, 2014The literary thriller "Sins of Our Fathers" by Shawn Otto was release just a few days ago. I interviewed Shawn on Atheist Talk Radio last Sunday morning while you were at church. It is a great book and a pretty good interview. The book is about Anglo-Native relationships, gambling, banking, race relations, law, the American Dream, and other things, set in northern Minnesota.
Here is the interview:
http://mnatheists.org/media/radioshow/Atheists_Talk-0290-20141123.mp3
jrosenhouse | November 25, 2014I'm currently working out of my New Jersey office, which is to say I am home for Thanksgiving. I just wanted to mention, though, that I have my settings adjusted so that comments are automatically cut off on any post that is more than three weeks old. Comment threads that remain open too long tend to become magnets for spam. That is why the "Pope on Evolution" thread just closed. In most cases three weeks is plenty of time for everyone to say what they want to say, and the conversation tends to break down into a shouting match. However, if anyone who was commenting on that thread wants…
esiegel | November 25, 2014When you think of the origin of life, you probably think about the atoms coming together to make molecules, the molecules coming together to make self-replicating, information-encoded strands, and how all that took place here on Earth. But you might want to consider a different point of view!
A cosmological simulation of dark matter growing clumpier over time. Image credit: Andrey Kravtsov
Instead, try thinking about the fact that, to make those complex atoms, and to recycle them into new generations of stars, we needed a lot of generations of stars to live, die, expel that processed…
gregladen | November 25, 2014Yes, I have to post the "stay off the ice" post early this year. There have been several instances over recent weeks of folks wandering onto the ice and needing to be rescued (the most recent, here). This is not yet ice season. That hardish water you see on the surface is like that one person you briefly dated in college ... way to thin and very temporary. (Uncharacteristic joke but somehow I couldn't stop myself.)
Anyway, this is a fictionalized version of a true story recently told to me by two of the people involved. All the names of those still living have been changed. Please do not…
gregladen | November 20, 2014Shawn otto Shawn is the screenwriter and coproducer of the Oscar-nominated film House of Sand and Fog starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly. He has also written for several of film and TV's top studios. A few years back he started Science Debate 08, an effort to get a real debate over science policy issues as part of the presidential debate process. I promise you that all of the presidential campaigns have been aware of this effort, and many have agreed, but never all the candidates in one election. So that's politicians running away from science. (We'll see about 2016.)
Anyway,…
pgleick | November 19, 2014Guest Post: Matthew Heberger Pacific Institute, Oakland, California
New monthly water use data for California water utilities shows that residential water use varies widely around the state, and that the response to the drought has been uneven. Moreover, in some areas, residential use averages more than 500 gallons per person per day, indicating that we could be doing much more to save water.
In July, the State Water Resources Control Board, or the Water Board, issued an emergency regulation to increase water conservation in urban areas. The new regulations prohibit certain water uses, like…
jrosenhouse | November 18, 2014On Thursday I'll be heading up to Baltimore to give a talk at Johns Hopkins University. I'll be discussing an old favorite: The Monty Hall Problem! Actually, it's been about two years since I've given a talk on that particular subject, so it will be nice to have an excuse to revisit it.
From there it will be a quick shot up 95 and the NJ Turnpike to spend some time working out of my New Jersey office. Which is to say I'll be spending Thanksgiving with my parents and brother. Should be fun! I don't anticipate blogging from the road, however, so things will be even sleepier here than usual…