WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 27 Jul 07 Washington, DC
1. STRANGELOVE: IT'S NOT THE WARHEADS THAT NEED REPLACING.
Last week the Bush administration delivered the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Strategy to Congress in the form of a document called Maintaining Deterrence in the 21st Century. It's an urgent call to get back into the bomb-building business. Deterrence is a euphemism for retaliation - after all, nobody takes the Bush missile defense seriously. The White House acknowledges that there are no known problems with the thousands of warheads in our stockpile. None should be expected for 100 years according to a study by the JASON advisory group. To be absolutely certain, however, the White House says we will have to resume underground testing - unless Congress funds the Reliable Replacement Warhead. This is a new wrinkle in nuclear blackmail - the administration has elected to blackmail Congress. The result of testing would be a wave of tests around the world. Predictably, North Korea is angrily charging the U.S. with a double standard, just as diplomacy seemed to have made progress in getting them to shut down their plutonium production reactor.
2. THE RIGHT STUFF: MARS ROVERS PULLED OVER FOR BREATHALYZER.
Actually, Spirit and Opportunity, are simply hunkered down on short rations with a massive dust storm cutting their sunlight. NASA's problems are with human astronauts. According to Aviation Week, an independent panel studying astronaut health reported that on at least two occasions unnamed astronauts had been launched into space in spite of being crocked. No word on whether they were wearing diapers. Meanwhile, there is a report of sabotage to a computer on Space Shuttle Endeavor, which is set for launch to the ISS on Aug 7.
3. CLIMATE: SCIENCE MAGAZINE EDITOR DECLARES "GAME OVER."
Donald Kennedy's editorial in today's Science points out that we have passed the tipping point in the climate controversy. He rightly attributes consensus to the "relentless progress of science." Although most deniers attribute any climate change to solar variations, they never call for launching DSCOVR to monitor Earth's albedo. The deniers, Kennedy says, "retreat to the safety of the Wall Street Journal op-ed page." They've been there all along of course. Who could forget the 1998 petition drive headed by physicist Frederick Seitz opposing the Kyoto Accord? (WN 13 Mar 98 ) The petition card was accompanied by a WSJ op-ed that described increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere as "a wonderful and unexpected gift of the industrial revolution." If Rupert Murdock takes over the WSJ, don't look for improvement.
What's New? -- by Bob Park
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Friday, August 3, 2007
1. CLIMATE: WILL THE WALL STREET JOURNAL JOIN THE CONSENSUS?
Last week, WN predicted that if news mogul Richard Murdoch was successful in acquiring the WSJ, its editorial policy on climate would not get greener. Several readers, however, pointed out that Murdoch may have had a recent epiphany on climate. Indeed, Monday's New York Times quoted a May 8 Murdoch speech, "Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats." To demonstrate his conversion, he went out and bought a Prius � for a lot less than it cost him to buy Dow Jones. "The debate is shifting," he said, "from whether climate change is really happening to how to solve it." Is that enough to change the WSJ? I don't know.
2. FUEL ECONOMY: HOUSE BILL LEAVES OUT BOOST IN CAFE STANDARDS.
Debate on The New Directions for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act begins today. The 720 page bill has a lot of good stuff, but fails to boost the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard. John Dingell, the Representative from Chevrolet and Ford, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, killed any increase in CAFE. That sets up a Conference fight with the Senate, which included an increase in its version. Dingell will probably win. The rest of us will lose.
3. PLANTING THE FLAG: THE NORTH POLE IS CLAIMED FOR RUSSIA.
A Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker and two mini-submarines planted the Russian flag on the sea floor at a depth of 2.6 miles. No one takes that flag stuff seriously anymore, but the North Pole has more recoverable resources than the Moon.
4. MARTIANS: THE PHOENIX MARS LANDER IS TO BE LAUNCHED TOMORROW.
How can it be that 30 years after the Viking landings on Mars we still don't know if there is life on our nearest neighbor? What have we been doing? Life to which we are not related may be the most important quest in science. It would put in perspective the foolish philosophical musings about �purpose� that over the ages led to spilling the blood of countless millions - and still takes lives. Perhaps then we could get on with making the most of the wonderful cosmic accident of life on Earth. Phoenix is not meant to search for life, but to see if conditions on Mars justify a search. If all goes well, Phoenix will touch down in the Martian arctic in May, 2008. Thirty years ago, two Viking Landers put Martian soil in nutrient solutions and analyzed evolved gas for evidence of life. It seemed positive, but was later identified as just a chemical reaction.
1. CLIMATE: WILL THE WALL STREET JOURNAL JOIN THE CONSENSUS?
Last week, WN predicted that if news mogul Richard Murdoch was successful in acquiring the WSJ, its editorial policy on climate would not get greener. Several readers, however, pointed out that Murdoch may have had a recent epiphany on climate. Indeed, Monday's New York Times quoted a May 8 Murdoch speech, "Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats." To demonstrate his conversion, he went out and bought a Prius � for a lot less than it cost him to buy Dow Jones. "The debate is shifting," he said, "from whether climate change is really happening to how to solve it." Is that enough to change the WSJ? I don't know.
2. FUEL ECONOMY: HOUSE BILL LEAVES OUT BOOST IN CAFE STANDARDS.
Debate on The New Directions for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act begins today. The 720 page bill has a lot of good stuff, but fails to boost the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard. John Dingell, the Representative from Chevrolet and Ford, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, killed any increase in CAFE. That sets up a Conference fight with the Senate, which included an increase in its version. Dingell will probably win. The rest of us will lose.
3. PLANTING THE FLAG: THE NORTH POLE IS CLAIMED FOR RUSSIA.
A Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker and two mini-submarines planted the Russian flag on the sea floor at a depth of 2.6 miles. No one takes that flag stuff seriously anymore, but the North Pole has more recoverable resources than the Moon.
4. MARTIANS: THE PHOENIX MARS LANDER IS TO BE LAUNCHED TOMORROW.
How can it be that 30 years after the Viking landings on Mars we still don't know if there is life on our nearest neighbor? What have we been doing? Life to which we are not related may be the most important quest in science. It would put in perspective the foolish philosophical musings about �purpose� that over the ages led to spilling the blood of countless millions - and still takes lives. Perhaps then we could get on with making the most of the wonderful cosmic accident of life on Earth. Phoenix is not meant to search for life, but to see if conditions on Mars justify a search. If all goes well, Phoenix will touch down in the Martian arctic in May, 2008. Thirty years ago, two Viking Landers put Martian soil in nutrient solutions and analyzed evolved gas for evidence of life. It seemed positive, but was later identified as just a chemical reaction.
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WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 21 Sep 07
Washington, DC
1. THE MORAL LAW: THE GENETIC BASIS OF THE GOLDEN RULE.
The feature story in the Science Times section of
Tuesday’s NY Times is based on the work of
psychologist Jonathan Haidt, University of
Virginia. It reinforces recent brain scanning studies that
found "mirror cells" in the motor cortex.
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN07/wn081707.html
For the full story of how evolution designed
our universal sense of right and wrong, see
"Moral Minds" by Marc D. Hauser (Harper-Collins,
2006).
2. EVOLUTION: HOW OUR GENES CHANGE TO FIT OUR DIET.
Gene mixing among populations slows things down,
but in spite of a lot of sleeping around, humans
are evolving. A Monday NY Times story by
Nicholas Wade, reports that people in populations
with high starch diets, produce considerably more
amylase, the enzyme that converts starch to
simple sugars. In fact, they have many extra
copies of the amylase gene.
Last year, WN reported that University of
Maryland biologist Sarah Tishkoff led a team that
found four distinct mutations that confer adult
lactose tolerance. Originating in herding
populations, adult lactose tolerance is spreading
around the world.
3. X-CONFERENCE: THE LOOPHOLE IN ALIEN REFORM LEGISLATION.
For two years Congress has struggled to find a
way to deal with illegal aliens, but, according
to the Paradigm Research Group, Congress is
focused on the wrong aliens. PRG held a press
conference Monday in the National Press Club to
demand that presidential candidates support a
"truth amnesty" to end the "government-imposed
truth embargo on the facts
confirming an extraterrestrial presence."
According to a Wash Post story by Dana Milbank,
the candidates seem to be ducking the issue; the
response of a Hillary Clinton spokesman was, "Let
me check with the mother
ship."
PRG alleges the CIA entered into a top-secret
liaison program with the extraterrestrials
"approximately 60 years ago," which would explain
a lot. There must have been leaks; polls report
that half the public knows
space aliens are here. All we know is that
aliens, and alien believers, don’t have a sense
of humor.
4. EARMARKS: NEW AGE INSTITUTE TAPS INTO DEFENSE DOLLARS.
The House defense-spending bill earmarks $2M for
the nonprofit Samueli Institute to research
alternative medicine, yoga and “bioenergy”
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn071505.html
.
A Bloomberg.com story by Brian Faler says the
institute was started by Henry Samueli, Chairman
of Broadcom Corp., and his wife, Susan. The
earmark was inserted by Peter Visclosky (D-IN)
who has received large campaign contributions
from the Samuelis. In Washington, you get what
you pay for.
Washington, DC
1. THE MORAL LAW: THE GENETIC BASIS OF THE GOLDEN RULE.
The feature story in the Science Times section of
Tuesday’s NY Times is based on the work of
psychologist Jonathan Haidt, University of
Virginia. It reinforces recent brain scanning studies that
found "mirror cells" in the motor cortex.
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN07/wn081707.html
For the full story of how evolution designed
our universal sense of right and wrong, see
"Moral Minds" by Marc D. Hauser (Harper-Collins,
2006).
2. EVOLUTION: HOW OUR GENES CHANGE TO FIT OUR DIET.
Gene mixing among populations slows things down,
but in spite of a lot of sleeping around, humans
are evolving. A Monday NY Times story by
Nicholas Wade, reports that people in populations
with high starch diets, produce considerably more
amylase, the enzyme that converts starch to
simple sugars. In fact, they have many extra
copies of the amylase gene.
Last year, WN reported that University of
Maryland biologist Sarah Tishkoff led a team that
found four distinct mutations that confer adult
lactose tolerance. Originating in herding
populations, adult lactose tolerance is spreading
around the world.
3. X-CONFERENCE: THE LOOPHOLE IN ALIEN REFORM LEGISLATION.
For two years Congress has struggled to find a
way to deal with illegal aliens, but, according
to the Paradigm Research Group, Congress is
focused on the wrong aliens. PRG held a press
conference Monday in the National Press Club to
demand that presidential candidates support a
"truth amnesty" to end the "government-imposed
truth embargo on the facts
confirming an extraterrestrial presence."
According to a Wash Post story by Dana Milbank,
the candidates seem to be ducking the issue; the
response of a Hillary Clinton spokesman was, "Let
me check with the mother
ship."
PRG alleges the CIA entered into a top-secret
liaison program with the extraterrestrials
"approximately 60 years ago," which would explain
a lot. There must have been leaks; polls report
that half the public knows
space aliens are here. All we know is that
aliens, and alien believers, don’t have a sense
of humor.
4. EARMARKS: NEW AGE INSTITUTE TAPS INTO DEFENSE DOLLARS.
The House defense-spending bill earmarks $2M for
the nonprofit Samueli Institute to research
alternative medicine, yoga and “bioenergy”
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn071505.html
.
A Bloomberg.com story by Brian Faler says the
institute was started by Henry Samueli, Chairman
of Broadcom Corp., and his wife, Susan. The
earmark was inserted by Peter Visclosky (D-IN)
who has received large campaign contributions
from the Samuelis. In Washington, you get what
you pay for.
-
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Friday, October 12, 2007
1. NOBEL MESSAGES: STINGING REBUKES FOR ADMINISTRATION POLICIES.
The week began with three scientists sharing the Nobel Prize in Medicine for "discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells." It produced a revolution in mammalian biology, buts it's also a reminder of Bush obstruction of human embryonic stem cells. The week ended with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore jointly winning the Nobel Peace Prize for spreading awareness of man-made climate change. Gore has also won an Emmy and an Oscar. He even won the popular vote for President, only to be defeated by the Supreme Court.
2. MORE MESSAGES: "PLENTY OF ROOM AT THE BOTTOM" - FEYNMAN, 1959.
We're almost scraping the bottom now. Quantum size effects were first seen 30 years ago in layered films of dissimilar metals a few atoms thick. This week, Albert Fert, at CNRS in France and Peter Grunberg at Julich in Germany shared the Physics Prize for independently discovering giant magnetoresistance (GMR) in layered nickel and chromium films. Both credited Stuart Parkin of IBM with applying GMR to drastically reduce the size of hard drives. Media reports said it made iPods possible, but it also has important applications. Many felt Parkin should have shared the Prize, but it put the U.S. on notice that the days of sweeping the prizes are past - and nano is the future. The Chemistry Prize announced the next day bore this out. Gerhard Ertl of the Max Planck Institute in Germany won the Prize for advancing the ultra-clean, single-crystal surface approach to the study of individual gas molecules interacting with metals, pioneered by the late Harry Farnsworth at Brown. Everyone in the field applauded the choice of Ertl to receive the prize.
3. PETITION: HAVE YOU GOTTEN THE CARD TO SIGN FROM FRED SEITZ?
Familiar? What's New 13 Mar 98. Fred signs his note as "Past President, NAS." That should be "Way Past." He now heads the Board of the George C. Marshall Institute. Look that up in Wikipedia. Click on its funding sources - that will explain a lot. Also see the Oregon Institute of Science and Technology http://www.oism.org/. The OISM is supported mostly by sale of home-schooling materials, including McGuffey Readers, the 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica, and the 1913 Noah Webster Dictionary. Don't trust your kids with anything more recent. The CISM Home Page lists a faculty of six, but at least two of them are dead. Well, who could tell?
1. NOBEL MESSAGES: STINGING REBUKES FOR ADMINISTRATION POLICIES.
The week began with three scientists sharing the Nobel Prize in Medicine for "discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells." It produced a revolution in mammalian biology, buts it's also a reminder of Bush obstruction of human embryonic stem cells. The week ended with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore jointly winning the Nobel Peace Prize for spreading awareness of man-made climate change. Gore has also won an Emmy and an Oscar. He even won the popular vote for President, only to be defeated by the Supreme Court.
2. MORE MESSAGES: "PLENTY OF ROOM AT THE BOTTOM" - FEYNMAN, 1959.
We're almost scraping the bottom now. Quantum size effects were first seen 30 years ago in layered films of dissimilar metals a few atoms thick. This week, Albert Fert, at CNRS in France and Peter Grunberg at Julich in Germany shared the Physics Prize for independently discovering giant magnetoresistance (GMR) in layered nickel and chromium films. Both credited Stuart Parkin of IBM with applying GMR to drastically reduce the size of hard drives. Media reports said it made iPods possible, but it also has important applications. Many felt Parkin should have shared the Prize, but it put the U.S. on notice that the days of sweeping the prizes are past - and nano is the future. The Chemistry Prize announced the next day bore this out. Gerhard Ertl of the Max Planck Institute in Germany won the Prize for advancing the ultra-clean, single-crystal surface approach to the study of individual gas molecules interacting with metals, pioneered by the late Harry Farnsworth at Brown. Everyone in the field applauded the choice of Ertl to receive the prize.
3. PETITION: HAVE YOU GOTTEN THE CARD TO SIGN FROM FRED SEITZ?
Familiar? What's New 13 Mar 98. Fred signs his note as "Past President, NAS." That should be "Way Past." He now heads the Board of the George C. Marshall Institute. Look that up in Wikipedia. Click on its funding sources - that will explain a lot. Also see the Oregon Institute of Science and Technology http://www.oism.org/. The OISM is supported mostly by sale of home-schooling materials, including McGuffey Readers, the 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica, and the 1913 Noah Webster Dictionary. Don't trust your kids with anything more recent. The CISM Home Page lists a faculty of six, but at least two of them are dead. Well, who could tell?
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Friday, November 16, 2007
1. DEATHBED CONVERSION: ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST.
The glee with which many of the faithful pounce on breathless tales of deathbed conversions by famous atheists, from Thomas Paine and George Washington to Charles Darwin, can be humorous. The just released, "There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind," by Anthony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese (HarperCollins, 2007) breaks new ground in the deathbed conversion genre. Varghese composed Flew's conversion for him without waiting for the inevitable. In the New York Times Magazine, Mark Oppenheimer says Flew, 84, is suffering aphasia. His conversion to deism is attributed by Flew to new findings about DNA: He can't see where the first DNA came from. Neither can anybody else - yet. Who voted Flew "the world's most notorious atheist" anyway?
2. STEM CELLS: THERAPEUTIC CLONING ACHIEVED IN PRIMATES.
Nature magazine yesterday carried the report of an Oregon group that created the world's first cloned primate embryos from skin cells, allowing embryonic stem cells to be harvested. This had previously been achieved only in the mouse, and after years of failure, some thought it would not be possible in humans. There are practical problems, such as the need for human eggs, but it has increased optimism in the field. Since the stem cells can only replace tissue in the donor, it should not rouse ethical concerns, but of course it will - witness yesterday's defeat of the stem- cell initiative in New Jersey.
3. THE BRAIN: DOES THAT HURT? WHAT ABOUT THIS?
"Pain," hospital staffs are told, "is what the patient says it is." But the placebo effect and people faking it make the lack of a good metric a major obstacle in medical treatment and research. That may be about to change. According to Nature, researchers at the University of Oxford reported at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego last week that they've found a neural signal that correlates with pain. Low- frequency brainwaves picked up by electrodes positioned in the thalamus and the periaqueductal grey area seem to provide an objective measure of pain that correlates with subjective judgment.
4. CLIMATE: UH, MAYBE WE SHOULD FIND OUT WHAT THE PROBLEM IS.
Warming is caused by atmospheric contaminants that change the energy balance with the sun. Last week an "elite" group talked about sending up vast amounts of other contaminants to make it go the other way. Yes, they really did. Before we do that, maybe we should launch DSCOVR to measure the energy balance. Built and paid for, the Bush administration is hiding it in a Greenbelt, MD warehouse.
1. DEATHBED CONVERSION: ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST.
The glee with which many of the faithful pounce on breathless tales of deathbed conversions by famous atheists, from Thomas Paine and George Washington to Charles Darwin, can be humorous. The just released, "There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind," by Anthony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese (HarperCollins, 2007) breaks new ground in the deathbed conversion genre. Varghese composed Flew's conversion for him without waiting for the inevitable. In the New York Times Magazine, Mark Oppenheimer says Flew, 84, is suffering aphasia. His conversion to deism is attributed by Flew to new findings about DNA: He can't see where the first DNA came from. Neither can anybody else - yet. Who voted Flew "the world's most notorious atheist" anyway?
2. STEM CELLS: THERAPEUTIC CLONING ACHIEVED IN PRIMATES.
Nature magazine yesterday carried the report of an Oregon group that created the world's first cloned primate embryos from skin cells, allowing embryonic stem cells to be harvested. This had previously been achieved only in the mouse, and after years of failure, some thought it would not be possible in humans. There are practical problems, such as the need for human eggs, but it has increased optimism in the field. Since the stem cells can only replace tissue in the donor, it should not rouse ethical concerns, but of course it will - witness yesterday's defeat of the stem- cell initiative in New Jersey.
3. THE BRAIN: DOES THAT HURT? WHAT ABOUT THIS?
"Pain," hospital staffs are told, "is what the patient says it is." But the placebo effect and people faking it make the lack of a good metric a major obstacle in medical treatment and research. That may be about to change. According to Nature, researchers at the University of Oxford reported at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego last week that they've found a neural signal that correlates with pain. Low- frequency brainwaves picked up by electrodes positioned in the thalamus and the periaqueductal grey area seem to provide an objective measure of pain that correlates with subjective judgment.
4. CLIMATE: UH, MAYBE WE SHOULD FIND OUT WHAT THE PROBLEM IS.
Warming is caused by atmospheric contaminants that change the energy balance with the sun. Last week an "elite" group talked about sending up vast amounts of other contaminants to make it go the other way. Yes, they really did. Before we do that, maybe we should launch DSCOVR to measure the energy balance. Built and paid for, the Bush administration is hiding it in a Greenbelt, MD warehouse.
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Friday, January 25, 2008
1. STIMULUS: HOW COME NOBODY THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE?
In case you didn't notice, your 401k is shrinking. Don't worry � President Bush has a plan: send a check to every family in America. People are supposed to spend it on the shoddy merchandise they didn't buy at Christmas. Where is the money coming from? From taxes we paid to end Iraq's WMD program. It worked perfectly; there is not a WMD to be found in Iraq. No one could think of anything except war to spend the stimulus money on (like maybe health insurance for children, or fusion energy, or the International Linear Collider) so Congress agreed to the President's plan to write everyone a check. After decades of public-service announcements telling people to save, we can now expect to be told the opposite. So much for the laws of economics. The program would be more environmentally friendly if they cut out the middleman. Instead of every family, send checks to every business. Operating on a government subsidy would free business from the need to produce more useless crap to sell.
2. LA SAPIENZA: POPE CANCELS VISIT AS SCIENTISTS PROTEST. Benedict XVI had
been invited to lecture at Rome's most prestigious university to mark the start of the academic year. Sixty-seven professors protested, led by particle physicist Marcello Cini. In a 1990 visit to La Sapienza, the Pope, then Cardinal Ratzinger, supported the trial of Galileo by quoting oddball science philosopher Paul Feyerabend: "The trial against Galileo was reasonable and just." Using a quote to make his point is a standard ploy of the Pope to preserve deniability. "The pontiff didn't say it," the Vatican will explain, "he was quoting someone else." The protest led Prime Minister Romano Prodi, to pontificate, "No voice should be stifled in our country." He's right, and that includes the voices of protestors. Yesterday Prodi lost a vote of confidence in the Senate and must resign. In any case, the Italian Government denied any role in pressuring the Vatican to cancel the talk, as Benedict XVI implied.
3. SCIENCE ON THE ISS: A LOT OF PAPERWORK IS INVOLVED.
Expectations for the $100B International Space Station were high in 1998 when on-orbit assembly began, but recent collaborations put it in perspective. An Aeronautics professor at the University of Tokyo and the Japan Origami Airplane Association expect astronaut Koichi Wakata to launch a heat-resistant paper plane back to Earth from the ISS later this year. It's expected to survive reentry. Another Japanese astronaut is training with the world-champion boomerang thrower to find out on the ISS if a paper boomerang can circle in zero gravity. It can't.
4. MIRACLE STUDY: LEGAL NIGHTMARE GOES ON.
For seven years WN has reported on the infamous Columbia prayer study, (WN 5 Oct 07) , exposed as fraud by Bruce Flamm at UC Irvine. Flamm is now being sued for defamation by one of the authors. He doesn't deny the study was fraudulent, but claims Flamm defamed him by persisting. Initially dismissed by the court under an anti- SLAPP law, the suit against Flamm has been reinstated on appeal.
LINK
1. STIMULUS: HOW COME NOBODY THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE?
In case you didn't notice, your 401k is shrinking. Don't worry � President Bush has a plan: send a check to every family in America. People are supposed to spend it on the shoddy merchandise they didn't buy at Christmas. Where is the money coming from? From taxes we paid to end Iraq's WMD program. It worked perfectly; there is not a WMD to be found in Iraq. No one could think of anything except war to spend the stimulus money on (like maybe health insurance for children, or fusion energy, or the International Linear Collider) so Congress agreed to the President's plan to write everyone a check. After decades of public-service announcements telling people to save, we can now expect to be told the opposite. So much for the laws of economics. The program would be more environmentally friendly if they cut out the middleman. Instead of every family, send checks to every business. Operating on a government subsidy would free business from the need to produce more useless crap to sell.
2. LA SAPIENZA: POPE CANCELS VISIT AS SCIENTISTS PROTEST. Benedict XVI had
been invited to lecture at Rome's most prestigious university to mark the start of the academic year. Sixty-seven professors protested, led by particle physicist Marcello Cini. In a 1990 visit to La Sapienza, the Pope, then Cardinal Ratzinger, supported the trial of Galileo by quoting oddball science philosopher Paul Feyerabend: "The trial against Galileo was reasonable and just." Using a quote to make his point is a standard ploy of the Pope to preserve deniability. "The pontiff didn't say it," the Vatican will explain, "he was quoting someone else." The protest led Prime Minister Romano Prodi, to pontificate, "No voice should be stifled in our country." He's right, and that includes the voices of protestors. Yesterday Prodi lost a vote of confidence in the Senate and must resign. In any case, the Italian Government denied any role in pressuring the Vatican to cancel the talk, as Benedict XVI implied.
3. SCIENCE ON THE ISS: A LOT OF PAPERWORK IS INVOLVED.
Expectations for the $100B International Space Station were high in 1998 when on-orbit assembly began, but recent collaborations put it in perspective. An Aeronautics professor at the University of Tokyo and the Japan Origami Airplane Association expect astronaut Koichi Wakata to launch a heat-resistant paper plane back to Earth from the ISS later this year. It's expected to survive reentry. Another Japanese astronaut is training with the world-champion boomerang thrower to find out on the ISS if a paper boomerang can circle in zero gravity. It can't.
4. MIRACLE STUDY: LEGAL NIGHTMARE GOES ON.
For seven years WN has reported on the infamous Columbia prayer study, (WN 5 Oct 07) , exposed as fraud by Bruce Flamm at UC Irvine. Flamm is now being sued for defamation by one of the authors. He doesn't deny the study was fraudulent, but claims Flamm defamed him by persisting. Initially dismissed by the court under an anti- SLAPP law, the suit against Flamm has been reinstated on appeal.
LINK
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Friday, March 7, 2008
1. WEATHER: THE 2008 ICCC ENDS.
The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change held in New York, ended Tuesday. No, no, it wasn't that government thing; this one was sponsored by the Heartland Institute. No, I have no idea what the Heartland Institute is, or where it gets its money, but I can guess. Don't feel bad if you missed the meeting; a lot of people did. One third of all the scientists at the meeting thought the chilly temperatures in New York this week were evidence of climate cooling; one third thought it was just cold weather, and the other one said he had no opinion.
2. THEORY: FLORIDA IS TEACHING THE WHOLE COUNTRY.
As WN has been reporting, the compromise on science standards approved by the Florida Board of Education calls for replacing the word "evolution" with the phrase "scientific theory of evolution." This gives teachers an opening to explain to students how science works. Now, according to an editorial in yesterday's New York Times, school officials have inserted "scientific theory of" before every major scientific consensus in the standards, such as the "scientific theory of electromagnetism". Thanks to a free press doing its job, what began as an attempt by religious conservatives to impose their superstitious beliefs on Florida students is now a lesson to people around the country on the openness of science.
3. LAW: WILL THE FLORIDA LEGISLATURE INTERVENE?
A Republican State Senator filed a bill she calls the "Academic Freedom Act." It would disallow actions against students for taking a position on evolution and ban penalties for teaching alternatives to evolution. The "scientific theory" rule should take care of that; there is no "scientific" alternative to Darwinian evolution.
4. ANTISCIENCE: NASA NIXES ALFA MAGNETIC SPECTROMETER.
In selling the ISS to Congress NASA always held up the antimatter experiment of Nobel physicist Sam Ting as an example of basic science on the space station. Never mind that it never went through peer review. If you're spending a $100B on a space station anyway, why not put AMS on board? It almost sounded free. So AMS was built at a cost of $1.5B. According to Andrew Lawler in today's Science, NASA now says it can't afford to put AMS on the ISS unless Congress comes up with another $4B or so. NASA is exaggerating the cost, but it does cost four times as much to send an astronaut to the ISS as it does to put a rover on Mars. It's not possible to calculate the ratio of scientific value for a Mars rover over an astronaut since it involves a zero in the denominator
5. PEER REVIEW: THE PFIZER CHALLENGE IS A PAIN.
According to yesterday's Nature, a ruling is expected next week on whether the drug maker Pfizer can force the New England Journal of Medicine to hand over confidential peer reviews involving two painkillers that suppress the COX-2 enzyme. Peer review does not ensure a paper is correct, and is sometimes abused by reviewers, but it is a vital motivator of careful work.
1. WEATHER: THE 2008 ICCC ENDS.
The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change held in New York, ended Tuesday. No, no, it wasn't that government thing; this one was sponsored by the Heartland Institute. No, I have no idea what the Heartland Institute is, or where it gets its money, but I can guess. Don't feel bad if you missed the meeting; a lot of people did. One third of all the scientists at the meeting thought the chilly temperatures in New York this week were evidence of climate cooling; one third thought it was just cold weather, and the other one said he had no opinion.
2. THEORY: FLORIDA IS TEACHING THE WHOLE COUNTRY.
As WN has been reporting, the compromise on science standards approved by the Florida Board of Education calls for replacing the word "evolution" with the phrase "scientific theory of evolution." This gives teachers an opening to explain to students how science works. Now, according to an editorial in yesterday's New York Times, school officials have inserted "scientific theory of" before every major scientific consensus in the standards, such as the "scientific theory of electromagnetism". Thanks to a free press doing its job, what began as an attempt by religious conservatives to impose their superstitious beliefs on Florida students is now a lesson to people around the country on the openness of science.
3. LAW: WILL THE FLORIDA LEGISLATURE INTERVENE?
A Republican State Senator filed a bill she calls the "Academic Freedom Act." It would disallow actions against students for taking a position on evolution and ban penalties for teaching alternatives to evolution. The "scientific theory" rule should take care of that; there is no "scientific" alternative to Darwinian evolution.
4. ANTISCIENCE: NASA NIXES ALFA MAGNETIC SPECTROMETER.
In selling the ISS to Congress NASA always held up the antimatter experiment of Nobel physicist Sam Ting as an example of basic science on the space station. Never mind that it never went through peer review. If you're spending a $100B on a space station anyway, why not put AMS on board? It almost sounded free. So AMS was built at a cost of $1.5B. According to Andrew Lawler in today's Science, NASA now says it can't afford to put AMS on the ISS unless Congress comes up with another $4B or so. NASA is exaggerating the cost, but it does cost four times as much to send an astronaut to the ISS as it does to put a rover on Mars. It's not possible to calculate the ratio of scientific value for a Mars rover over an astronaut since it involves a zero in the denominator
5. PEER REVIEW: THE PFIZER CHALLENGE IS A PAIN.
According to yesterday's Nature, a ruling is expected next week on whether the drug maker Pfizer can force the New England Journal of Medicine to hand over confidential peer reviews involving two painkillers that suppress the COX-2 enzyme. Peer review does not ensure a paper is correct, and is sometimes abused by reviewers, but it is a vital motivator of careful work.
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Dardedar
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Friday, March 14, 2008
1. PHYSICS BLOC: FERMILAB PHYSICIST WINS HASTERT SEAT.
Tuesday, on his first day in office, Bill Foster (D-IL) cast the deciding vote to prevent tabling a Congressional ethics bill that would create an outside panel to investigate ethics complaints against House members. He will have to run again in November, but Foster's victory in a special election on Saturday to fill the seat vacated by the resignation of Dennis Hastert looked pretty convincing. Hastert had represented the vermilion 14th District for 20 scandal-filled years. Foster's PhD in physics is from Harvard (1984) and he had been at Fermilab for 22 years. Prominent scientists contributed both time and money to Foster's campaign, and he becomes the third PhD physicist serving in the House. He campaigned against the Iraq War and called for research on alternative energy.
2. A BIGGER PRIZE: TEMPLETON BUYS ANOTHER SCIENTIST. The 2008 Templeton
Prize was awarded yesterday to Polish cosmologist Michael Heller, 72 a Roman Catholic priest. The monetary value of the award is adjusted to be larger than the Nobel Prize. Initially, the prize was given to more saintly types, beginning with Mother Teresa in 1973, but of the last ten winners, seven have been physicists or cosmologists. After all, what's the point in becoming rich and powerful if you can't buy that which is important to you? For the governor of New York, what was important was submission of beautiful women. For Sir John Templeton the important thing is scientists declairing that they see the hand of God in the laws of nature. In 1998 he tried to buy the AAAS Dialog in Science and Religion. He came close, but settled for buying one scientist at a time. Heller believes God's existence can be found in the mathematical nature of the world. At the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Krakow, Poland, where he is a faculty member, Heller says he will use his prize to create a center for the study of science and theology, and will introduce his concept of "the theology of science."
3. THE WAR GOD: BUSH SPEAKS TO RELIGIOUS BROADCASTERS.
On Tuesday, the President delivered a 42-minute speech to the National Religious Broadcasters 2008 Convention in Nashville defending the Iraq war policy. It was a friendly audience. Mr. Bush promised to veto any legislation that seeks to reinstitute the hated "fairness doctrine" which required broadcasters to give air time to opposing views: "This organization has had many important missions, but none more important than ensuring our airways - America's airways - stay open to those who preach the 'Good News.'" (Applause, and shouts of "Amen".)
4. EARMARKS: SENATE REJECTS BILL TO BAN EARMARKS.
McCain, Obama and Clinton voted for the bill to ban earmarking, but only 26 other senators joined them. The plague of earmarking is out of control, and is at least partly responsible for the budget disaster that struck science this year. It's always been there, but 30 years it was largely confined to public-works projects such as sewers. It expanded into academic pork in the eighties. Many influential scientists cheered because it meant more money for science; What's New took a lot of flak for opposing the practice.
1. PHYSICS BLOC: FERMILAB PHYSICIST WINS HASTERT SEAT.
Tuesday, on his first day in office, Bill Foster (D-IL) cast the deciding vote to prevent tabling a Congressional ethics bill that would create an outside panel to investigate ethics complaints against House members. He will have to run again in November, but Foster's victory in a special election on Saturday to fill the seat vacated by the resignation of Dennis Hastert looked pretty convincing. Hastert had represented the vermilion 14th District for 20 scandal-filled years. Foster's PhD in physics is from Harvard (1984) and he had been at Fermilab for 22 years. Prominent scientists contributed both time and money to Foster's campaign, and he becomes the third PhD physicist serving in the House. He campaigned against the Iraq War and called for research on alternative energy.
2. A BIGGER PRIZE: TEMPLETON BUYS ANOTHER SCIENTIST. The 2008 Templeton
Prize was awarded yesterday to Polish cosmologist Michael Heller, 72 a Roman Catholic priest. The monetary value of the award is adjusted to be larger than the Nobel Prize. Initially, the prize was given to more saintly types, beginning with Mother Teresa in 1973, but of the last ten winners, seven have been physicists or cosmologists. After all, what's the point in becoming rich and powerful if you can't buy that which is important to you? For the governor of New York, what was important was submission of beautiful women. For Sir John Templeton the important thing is scientists declairing that they see the hand of God in the laws of nature. In 1998 he tried to buy the AAAS Dialog in Science and Religion. He came close, but settled for buying one scientist at a time. Heller believes God's existence can be found in the mathematical nature of the world. At the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Krakow, Poland, where he is a faculty member, Heller says he will use his prize to create a center for the study of science and theology, and will introduce his concept of "the theology of science."
3. THE WAR GOD: BUSH SPEAKS TO RELIGIOUS BROADCASTERS.
On Tuesday, the President delivered a 42-minute speech to the National Religious Broadcasters 2008 Convention in Nashville defending the Iraq war policy. It was a friendly audience. Mr. Bush promised to veto any legislation that seeks to reinstitute the hated "fairness doctrine" which required broadcasters to give air time to opposing views: "This organization has had many important missions, but none more important than ensuring our airways - America's airways - stay open to those who preach the 'Good News.'" (Applause, and shouts of "Amen".)
4. EARMARKS: SENATE REJECTS BILL TO BAN EARMARKS.
McCain, Obama and Clinton voted for the bill to ban earmarking, but only 26 other senators joined them. The plague of earmarking is out of control, and is at least partly responsible for the budget disaster that struck science this year. It's always been there, but 30 years it was largely confined to public-works projects such as sewers. It expanded into academic pork in the eighties. Many influential scientists cheered because it meant more money for science; What's New took a lot of flak for opposing the practice.
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Dardedar
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Friday, April 11, 2008
1. NO SCIENCE DEBATE: CANDIDATES WILL DEBATE JESUS.
It seemed to be going well for efforts to arrange a debate on science issues. The National Academies, the Council for Competitiveness and the AAAS had agreed to serve as official cosponsors; the plan was endorsed by all major research universities and scientific societies. However, in a world faced with the threat of global warming, dwindling fossil fuel, continuous warfare, disease and starvation on the rise in Africa, spiraling food prices world wide, the candidates must focus on "solutions." They have therefore chosen to attend "The Compassion Forum" instead, a "wide ranging and probing discussion of policies related to moral issues." It will be held at Messiah College somewhere in central Pennsylvania. Founded by the Brethren in Christ Church in 1909; Messiah's motto is "Christ Preeminent." It has not been decided whether the candidates will remain on their knees during the debate.
2. QI: "I DON'T KNOW HOW, BUT ACUPUNCTURE WORKS."
You will not be surprised to learn that WN got a lot of disagreement about the item on acupuncture last week. As one reader pointed out, "millions of people have been treated with acupuncture and say it works; scientists should be trying to find out how it works rather than ridiculing it." Look at it this way, an even larger number of people around the world say astrology works. If you think they're right you're beyond help. What we need to understand is why people think acupuncture works. If you ask an acupuncturist how it works, the answer is �qi.� What's qi? I refer you to http://www.csicop.org/sb/2000-03/qi.html for a full discussion. Briefly, dissection was forbidden in ancient China, as it was in the West before about 1500 AD. Beheadings, on the other hand, were common. The carotid artery and jugular veins sticking out of the severed neck looked like empty tubes, and were assumed to be passageways to let air flow through the body. Blood was thought to fill the body cavity. As recently as the late Ming dynasty (1368 � 1644) the arteries were thought to carry air. Qi is the word for air.
3. WHY NOW? IT'S NOT JUST HAPPENING AT MARYLAND.
And it's not just acupuncture. In the waning days of his administration Bill Clinton created a 20-member White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine, perhaps as a gift to Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), a true believer who had been a loyal supporter. The commission members advocated homeopathy, acupuncture, touch therapy, magnets, reflexology, crystals, chelation, craniosacral manipulation, echinacea, aromatherapy, yohimbe bark and more. Incredibly James Gordon, who had been a follower of the notorious Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, was chosen to head the commission. A Georgetown professor, Gordon predicted the Gordon Report would replace the 1910 Flexner report that established medicine as a scientific enterprise. It could happen. With the candidates talking up some form of National health coverage, the push is on for CAM therapies to maneuver to be included. How better to look scientific than to be on a university campus.
1. NO SCIENCE DEBATE: CANDIDATES WILL DEBATE JESUS.
It seemed to be going well for efforts to arrange a debate on science issues. The National Academies, the Council for Competitiveness and the AAAS had agreed to serve as official cosponsors; the plan was endorsed by all major research universities and scientific societies. However, in a world faced with the threat of global warming, dwindling fossil fuel, continuous warfare, disease and starvation on the rise in Africa, spiraling food prices world wide, the candidates must focus on "solutions." They have therefore chosen to attend "The Compassion Forum" instead, a "wide ranging and probing discussion of policies related to moral issues." It will be held at Messiah College somewhere in central Pennsylvania. Founded by the Brethren in Christ Church in 1909; Messiah's motto is "Christ Preeminent." It has not been decided whether the candidates will remain on their knees during the debate.
2. QI: "I DON'T KNOW HOW, BUT ACUPUNCTURE WORKS."
You will not be surprised to learn that WN got a lot of disagreement about the item on acupuncture last week. As one reader pointed out, "millions of people have been treated with acupuncture and say it works; scientists should be trying to find out how it works rather than ridiculing it." Look at it this way, an even larger number of people around the world say astrology works. If you think they're right you're beyond help. What we need to understand is why people think acupuncture works. If you ask an acupuncturist how it works, the answer is �qi.� What's qi? I refer you to http://www.csicop.org/sb/2000-03/qi.html for a full discussion. Briefly, dissection was forbidden in ancient China, as it was in the West before about 1500 AD. Beheadings, on the other hand, were common. The carotid artery and jugular veins sticking out of the severed neck looked like empty tubes, and were assumed to be passageways to let air flow through the body. Blood was thought to fill the body cavity. As recently as the late Ming dynasty (1368 � 1644) the arteries were thought to carry air. Qi is the word for air.
3. WHY NOW? IT'S NOT JUST HAPPENING AT MARYLAND.
And it's not just acupuncture. In the waning days of his administration Bill Clinton created a 20-member White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine, perhaps as a gift to Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), a true believer who had been a loyal supporter. The commission members advocated homeopathy, acupuncture, touch therapy, magnets, reflexology, crystals, chelation, craniosacral manipulation, echinacea, aromatherapy, yohimbe bark and more. Incredibly James Gordon, who had been a follower of the notorious Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, was chosen to head the commission. A Georgetown professor, Gordon predicted the Gordon Report would replace the 1910 Flexner report that established medicine as a scientific enterprise. It could happen. With the candidates talking up some form of National health coverage, the push is on for CAM therapies to maneuver to be included. How better to look scientific than to be on a university campus.
-
Dardedar
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What's New
Friday, April 25, 2008
1. SPACE EXPLORATION: STEPHEN HAWKING BOLDLY WENT.
In a lecture at George Washington University on Monday, Professor Hawking marked the 50th anniversary of NASA by calling for increased emphasis on space exploration. Such occasions seem to call for a little futuristic excess and Hawking obliged with a talk completely divorced from reality. Mars may harbor life but it won't be very smart, so he wants to visit planets on other stars. He compared people who think the trip would be too expensive to those who opposed the risky voyage of Columbus. Actually, Columbus was a careful man; had he possessed the technology he would probably have sent a drone first. After all, he had miscalculated the Earth's circumference. It was a good thing he ran into America or they would have perished. We know the distance to the stars much better. They are very far away - so far that we aren't going there. The good news is that "they" aren't coming here.
2. GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS: PANIC PUTS PRESSURE ON ETHANOL.
Seemingly without warning, an additional 100 million people have been plunged into poverty by the abrupt increase in the price of food. Most of the people on Earth could not dream of owning an automobile. For them the doubling of the price of wheat and rice is vastly more serious than $4 gasoline. Contributing to the severity is hoarding, the high price of fertilizer, a shortage of fresh water for irrigation, and yes, the diversion of food crops into bio-fuels. It's been thirty years since the world faced a food crisis of this magnitude, but no one seems willing to mention the Devil's name. A recent BBC report on the Sudan captured the crisis perfectly: "The reality is that there are more people in one refugee camp in Darfur today than there were in the whole of Darfur and Khordofan in the 1930's!" The problem is not too little food, but too many mouths. No matter what advances are made in the human condition, they will eventually be lost if population is not constrained.
3. HUMAN RIGHTS: POPE BENEDICT XVI ADDRESSED THE UN.
Human rights, he said, "are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts," and so indeed they are, although a scientist might prefer the term "instinctive." Natural law also leads to women bearing children in refugee camps at a high rate in spite of crowding and suffering. "The pill" offers a simple technology to prevent conception, however the Pope also warned against science that violates "the order of creation," which includes contraception. In societies that grant equal rights to women, however, including availability of the pill, the population stabilizes.
4. POLYGRAPH: ARMY ISSUES HAND-HELD POLYGRAPH.
In a story I've been sitting on for two weeks because it seemed too far out to be real, we must tell you that the Pentagon is issuing portable lie detectors to soldiers in Afghanistan. It can't be used on U.S. personnel, but they don't lie anyhow. It has two electrodes to measure conductivity of skin and a finger clip that monitors heartbeat. It sells for $7,500. What's New is prepared to certify that it works exactly as well as the non- portable version.
Friday, April 25, 2008
1. SPACE EXPLORATION: STEPHEN HAWKING BOLDLY WENT.
In a lecture at George Washington University on Monday, Professor Hawking marked the 50th anniversary of NASA by calling for increased emphasis on space exploration. Such occasions seem to call for a little futuristic excess and Hawking obliged with a talk completely divorced from reality. Mars may harbor life but it won't be very smart, so he wants to visit planets on other stars. He compared people who think the trip would be too expensive to those who opposed the risky voyage of Columbus. Actually, Columbus was a careful man; had he possessed the technology he would probably have sent a drone first. After all, he had miscalculated the Earth's circumference. It was a good thing he ran into America or they would have perished. We know the distance to the stars much better. They are very far away - so far that we aren't going there. The good news is that "they" aren't coming here.
2. GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS: PANIC PUTS PRESSURE ON ETHANOL.
Seemingly without warning, an additional 100 million people have been plunged into poverty by the abrupt increase in the price of food. Most of the people on Earth could not dream of owning an automobile. For them the doubling of the price of wheat and rice is vastly more serious than $4 gasoline. Contributing to the severity is hoarding, the high price of fertilizer, a shortage of fresh water for irrigation, and yes, the diversion of food crops into bio-fuels. It's been thirty years since the world faced a food crisis of this magnitude, but no one seems willing to mention the Devil's name. A recent BBC report on the Sudan captured the crisis perfectly: "The reality is that there are more people in one refugee camp in Darfur today than there were in the whole of Darfur and Khordofan in the 1930's!" The problem is not too little food, but too many mouths. No matter what advances are made in the human condition, they will eventually be lost if population is not constrained.
3. HUMAN RIGHTS: POPE BENEDICT XVI ADDRESSED THE UN.
Human rights, he said, "are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts," and so indeed they are, although a scientist might prefer the term "instinctive." Natural law also leads to women bearing children in refugee camps at a high rate in spite of crowding and suffering. "The pill" offers a simple technology to prevent conception, however the Pope also warned against science that violates "the order of creation," which includes contraception. In societies that grant equal rights to women, however, including availability of the pill, the population stabilizes.
4. POLYGRAPH: ARMY ISSUES HAND-HELD POLYGRAPH.
In a story I've been sitting on for two weeks because it seemed too far out to be real, we must tell you that the Pentagon is issuing portable lie detectors to soldiers in Afghanistan. It can't be used on U.S. personnel, but they don't lie anyhow. It has two electrodes to measure conductivity of skin and a finger clip that monitors heartbeat. It sells for $7,500. What's New is prepared to certify that it works exactly as well as the non- portable version.
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Dardedar
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Friday, May 2, 2008
1. HYBRIPHOBIA: REMEMBER WHEN POWER LINES CAUSED CANCER?
EMF stopped causing cancer in 1997, but no one bothered to tell Jim Motavalli, who wrote an Automobile column in the Sunday New York Times about the risks of EMF in hybrids. According to Motavalli the National Cancer Institute studied the cancer risks associated with electromagnetic fields. And so it did - but it couldn't find any. You might think Motavalli would at least check the Archives of the New York Times. On July 3, 1997, the day the massive four-year NCI study of power lines and cancer appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Gina Kolata reported in the Times that the study was unambiguous and found no health effects associated with electromagnetic fields. An editorial in the same issue of the Journal put it in perspective: "Hundreds of millions of dollars have gone into studies that never had much promise of finding a way to prevent the tragedy of cancer in children. It is time to stop wasting our research resources." It all began in 1979 when Nancy Wertheimer, an unemployed epidemiologist, and her friend Ed Leeper, drove around Denver looking for common environmental factors in the homes of childhood victims of leukemia. It practically jumped out at them - every home had electricity. Their study was so flawed it would have been laughed off but for Paul Brodeur, a scientifically-ignorant writer for The New Yorker. He wrote a series of terrifying articles about power lines and cancer that were collected in a 1989 book, Currents of Death.
2. FOOD PANIC: NOT ENOUGH FOOD, OR TOO MANY MOUTHS?
President Bush has asked Congress for an additional $770M in emergency food assistance for poor countries. The only complaint from Congress was that it won't be available until the new fiscal year in October. But these countries are poor because they are overpopulated, undereducated, and women have no control over reproduction. Food won't solve the problem unless it's linked to women's rights including easy access to the pill and education in its use.
3. GINA: THE GENETIC INFORMATION NONDISCRIMINATION ACT.
It passed Congress and Bush says he will sign it. That's good news; it's tough enough getting stuck with risky genes, without being denied insurance or a job because of your genome. The growth of genetic tests makes passage of the bill urgent, but it's Louise Slaughter (D-NY) who almost alone pushed the bill for 13 years. Daughter of a Kentucky coal miner, she earned degrees in microbiology and public health from the University of Kentucky.
4. CLIMATE: IT'S WARMING � EXCEPT RIGHT NOW IT'S COOLING.
There is a lot happening on this complicated planet besides greenhouse warming, so it's not too surprising that things added up to give us a little cooling. And give the warming deniers a rare - and temporary - victory. As we understand it, vacillating ocean floes spell a cooling trend up until about 2015, and then we can get back to warming. Oh sure, say the warming deniers.
http://www.bobpark.org/
1. HYBRIPHOBIA: REMEMBER WHEN POWER LINES CAUSED CANCER?
EMF stopped causing cancer in 1997, but no one bothered to tell Jim Motavalli, who wrote an Automobile column in the Sunday New York Times about the risks of EMF in hybrids. According to Motavalli the National Cancer Institute studied the cancer risks associated with electromagnetic fields. And so it did - but it couldn't find any. You might think Motavalli would at least check the Archives of the New York Times. On July 3, 1997, the day the massive four-year NCI study of power lines and cancer appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Gina Kolata reported in the Times that the study was unambiguous and found no health effects associated with electromagnetic fields. An editorial in the same issue of the Journal put it in perspective: "Hundreds of millions of dollars have gone into studies that never had much promise of finding a way to prevent the tragedy of cancer in children. It is time to stop wasting our research resources." It all began in 1979 when Nancy Wertheimer, an unemployed epidemiologist, and her friend Ed Leeper, drove around Denver looking for common environmental factors in the homes of childhood victims of leukemia. It practically jumped out at them - every home had electricity. Their study was so flawed it would have been laughed off but for Paul Brodeur, a scientifically-ignorant writer for The New Yorker. He wrote a series of terrifying articles about power lines and cancer that were collected in a 1989 book, Currents of Death.
2. FOOD PANIC: NOT ENOUGH FOOD, OR TOO MANY MOUTHS?
President Bush has asked Congress for an additional $770M in emergency food assistance for poor countries. The only complaint from Congress was that it won't be available until the new fiscal year in October. But these countries are poor because they are overpopulated, undereducated, and women have no control over reproduction. Food won't solve the problem unless it's linked to women's rights including easy access to the pill and education in its use.
3. GINA: THE GENETIC INFORMATION NONDISCRIMINATION ACT.
It passed Congress and Bush says he will sign it. That's good news; it's tough enough getting stuck with risky genes, without being denied insurance or a job because of your genome. The growth of genetic tests makes passage of the bill urgent, but it's Louise Slaughter (D-NY) who almost alone pushed the bill for 13 years. Daughter of a Kentucky coal miner, she earned degrees in microbiology and public health from the University of Kentucky.
4. CLIMATE: IT'S WARMING � EXCEPT RIGHT NOW IT'S COOLING.
There is a lot happening on this complicated planet besides greenhouse warming, so it's not too surprising that things added up to give us a little cooling. And give the warming deniers a rare - and temporary - victory. As we understand it, vacillating ocean floes spell a cooling trend up until about 2015, and then we can get back to warming. Oh sure, say the warming deniers.
http://www.bobpark.org/
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Dardedar
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Friday, May 16, 2008
1. BIG QUESTION: DOES SCIENCE MAKE BELIEF IN GOD OBSOLETE?
Yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, William Phillips, 1997 Nobel Prize for Physics, answered "Absolutely not!," while Michael Shermer, well known skeptic and author, said "It depends." Their stimulating debate was co-sponsored by the Templeton Foundation, created in 1987 to act as a "catalyst" for scientific studies into the "Big Questions." Shermer noted that "belief in God," cannot be obsolete since most people, including many scientists, are believers. Science, by contrast, begins with causality; supernatural causes don't count. To Phillips, however, that simply means that belief in God is not a scientific belief. Like most religious scientists, Phillips keeps science and religion separate. The God/Creator doesn't do much these days. He must be emeritus. Or perhaps quantum-indeterminacy exists to allow God to do stuff without being detected. You may recall that Templeton once went directly to the American Association for the Advancement of Science with a million dollars to create the AAAS Dialogue between Science and Religion. What Templeton bought was elaborate sound effects supporting his conviction that science and religion will find common ground. Many scientists found this relationship inappropriate and it was ended. For the American Enterprise Institute it seems perfect.
2. EINSTEIN'S GOD: PUTTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT.
Like many scientists of his era, Einstein often used God as a metaphor for forces of nature that are not yet understood. As a result, he is often incorrectly cited as a physicist who believed in God. It happened again in yesterday's AEI debate. Ironically, at that very moment a January 3, 1954 letter from Einstein to philosopher Eric Gutkind went on sale in a London auction house. The letter, handwritten in German one year before his death, described belief in God as "childish superstition," and ridiculed the belief that Jews are "the chosen people." The letter sold to someone with "a passion for theoretical physics," for $404,000, 25 times the pre-sale estimate
3. CASUALTIES OF WAR: THE FIRST CASUALTY IS COMMON SENSE.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday that medical care of the wounded needs major changes before he leaves office. Why not start with the Fort Bliss Restoration and Resilience Center? Last Friday the American Forces Press Service reported on the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at the new Center. The cutting edge treatments at the facility include Reiki, acupuncture and Qi Gong - three so-called energy" therapies that have in common that they are many hundreds of years old and have no conceivable mechanism of benefit other than the placebo effect. Our soldiers deserve better.
4. MIRACLE STUDY: IS THE LEGAL NIGHTMARE OVER?
The SLAPP suit against courageous Ob/Gyn Bruce Flamm at UC Irvine was thrown out of court last month. Daniel Wirth, the con man who arranged the pregnancy by prayer scam completed his jail term last. Still, the absurd study has never been withdrawn by the Journal of Reproductive Medicine. You might ask the editor, Dr. Lawrence Devoe 314 991-4440, why?
5. DSCOVR: WHITEHOUSE WITHHOLDS RELEVANT DOCUMENTS.
Why did NASA mothball a key $100 million space craft that could resolve remaining climate change questions? It appears that the Whitehouse is refusing to release any documents related to the decision.
1. BIG QUESTION: DOES SCIENCE MAKE BELIEF IN GOD OBSOLETE?
Yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, William Phillips, 1997 Nobel Prize for Physics, answered "Absolutely not!," while Michael Shermer, well known skeptic and author, said "It depends." Their stimulating debate was co-sponsored by the Templeton Foundation, created in 1987 to act as a "catalyst" for scientific studies into the "Big Questions." Shermer noted that "belief in God," cannot be obsolete since most people, including many scientists, are believers. Science, by contrast, begins with causality; supernatural causes don't count. To Phillips, however, that simply means that belief in God is not a scientific belief. Like most religious scientists, Phillips keeps science and religion separate. The God/Creator doesn't do much these days. He must be emeritus. Or perhaps quantum-indeterminacy exists to allow God to do stuff without being detected. You may recall that Templeton once went directly to the American Association for the Advancement of Science with a million dollars to create the AAAS Dialogue between Science and Religion. What Templeton bought was elaborate sound effects supporting his conviction that science and religion will find common ground. Many scientists found this relationship inappropriate and it was ended. For the American Enterprise Institute it seems perfect.
2. EINSTEIN'S GOD: PUTTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT.
Like many scientists of his era, Einstein often used God as a metaphor for forces of nature that are not yet understood. As a result, he is often incorrectly cited as a physicist who believed in God. It happened again in yesterday's AEI debate. Ironically, at that very moment a January 3, 1954 letter from Einstein to philosopher Eric Gutkind went on sale in a London auction house. The letter, handwritten in German one year before his death, described belief in God as "childish superstition," and ridiculed the belief that Jews are "the chosen people." The letter sold to someone with "a passion for theoretical physics," for $404,000, 25 times the pre-sale estimate
3. CASUALTIES OF WAR: THE FIRST CASUALTY IS COMMON SENSE.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday that medical care of the wounded needs major changes before he leaves office. Why not start with the Fort Bliss Restoration and Resilience Center? Last Friday the American Forces Press Service reported on the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at the new Center. The cutting edge treatments at the facility include Reiki, acupuncture and Qi Gong - three so-called energy" therapies that have in common that they are many hundreds of years old and have no conceivable mechanism of benefit other than the placebo effect. Our soldiers deserve better.
4. MIRACLE STUDY: IS THE LEGAL NIGHTMARE OVER?
The SLAPP suit against courageous Ob/Gyn Bruce Flamm at UC Irvine was thrown out of court last month. Daniel Wirth, the con man who arranged the pregnancy by prayer scam completed his jail term last. Still, the absurd study has never been withdrawn by the Journal of Reproductive Medicine. You might ask the editor, Dr. Lawrence Devoe 314 991-4440, why?
5. DSCOVR: WHITEHOUSE WITHHOLDS RELEVANT DOCUMENTS.
Why did NASA mothball a key $100 million space craft that could resolve remaining climate change questions? It appears that the Whitehouse is refusing to release any documents related to the decision.
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Dardedar
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Friday, June 6, 2008
1. ENERGY: $4 GAS SEEMS TO BE THE TIPPING POINT.
The nation has suddenly become energy conscious, forcing GM to slash production of SUVs and dump the Hummer. Why, you may wonder, did it take so long? Meanwhile, old energy scams are blossoming again. This week, a reader pointed out, a new web site that sells instructions ($49.95) for converting your car to run on tap water www.runyourscarwithwater.com. It uses the car battery to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Are these the same people who sold George W. Bush on the hydrogen car in 2003? Predictably, the focus on energy has even brought cold fusion back, with physicist Yoshiaki Arata at Osaka University claiming to have the first "real" demonstration of the 1989 Pons and Fleischmann fizzle. Even the hydrino is back.
2. HYDRINOS: HOW LONG CAN A REALLY DUMB IDEA SURVIVE?
BlackLight Power (BLP), founded 17 years ago as HydroCatalysis, announced last week that the company had successfully tested a prototype power system that would generate 50 KW of thermal power. BLP anticipates delivery of the new power system in 12 to 18 months. The BLP process, (WN 26 Apr 91) , discovered by Randy Mills, is said to coax hydrogen atoms into a "state below the ground state," called the "hydrino." There is no independent scientific confirmation of the hydrino, and BLP has a patent problem. So they have nothing to sell but bull shit. The company is therefore dependent on investors with deep pockets and shallow brains.
3. CREATIONISM IN TEXAS: ITS STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES.
Texas is a huge textbook market with a major influence on content. Republican Governor Rick Perry, and Don McLeroy, a dentist who chairs the State Board of Education, are both creationists. So are 7 of the 15 board members. And this summer the board will determine the curriculum for the next decade. Curriculum standards call for teaching the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution. The "weaknesses" seen by the creationists are religious objections. The New York Times quotes McLeroy as saying, "that little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe."
4. CELL PHONES: DANGEROUS EXPOSURE TO LARRY KING.
A grieving widower told Larry King his wife "held it against her head and talked all the time," (WN 29 Jan 93) . That interview set off the great cell phone panic. Now, 15 years later, Dr. King interviewed three neurosurgeons who said they don't hold cell phones against their heads. Can microwaves be the cause of mutant strands of DNA? Dr. King didn't ask, and the neurosurgeons probably didn't know. The answer: http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/cont ... t/93/3/166 .
5. HUNGER: THE SOLUTION IS NOT SHAMBAS IN AMERICA.
In the name of land reform, many of the most productive agricultural regions of Africa have been divided into tiny farm plots called shambas. Because of high birth rates, a shamba is hard put to support a single family. With the best of intentions, 27 immigrant families from Africa are now being relocated on small plots in Vermont.
LINK
1. ENERGY: $4 GAS SEEMS TO BE THE TIPPING POINT.
The nation has suddenly become energy conscious, forcing GM to slash production of SUVs and dump the Hummer. Why, you may wonder, did it take so long? Meanwhile, old energy scams are blossoming again. This week, a reader pointed out, a new web site that sells instructions ($49.95) for converting your car to run on tap water www.runyourscarwithwater.com. It uses the car battery to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Are these the same people who sold George W. Bush on the hydrogen car in 2003? Predictably, the focus on energy has even brought cold fusion back, with physicist Yoshiaki Arata at Osaka University claiming to have the first "real" demonstration of the 1989 Pons and Fleischmann fizzle. Even the hydrino is back.
2. HYDRINOS: HOW LONG CAN A REALLY DUMB IDEA SURVIVE?
BlackLight Power (BLP), founded 17 years ago as HydroCatalysis, announced last week that the company had successfully tested a prototype power system that would generate 50 KW of thermal power. BLP anticipates delivery of the new power system in 12 to 18 months. The BLP process, (WN 26 Apr 91) , discovered by Randy Mills, is said to coax hydrogen atoms into a "state below the ground state," called the "hydrino." There is no independent scientific confirmation of the hydrino, and BLP has a patent problem. So they have nothing to sell but bull shit. The company is therefore dependent on investors with deep pockets and shallow brains.
3. CREATIONISM IN TEXAS: ITS STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES.
Texas is a huge textbook market with a major influence on content. Republican Governor Rick Perry, and Don McLeroy, a dentist who chairs the State Board of Education, are both creationists. So are 7 of the 15 board members. And this summer the board will determine the curriculum for the next decade. Curriculum standards call for teaching the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution. The "weaknesses" seen by the creationists are religious objections. The New York Times quotes McLeroy as saying, "that little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe."
4. CELL PHONES: DANGEROUS EXPOSURE TO LARRY KING.
A grieving widower told Larry King his wife "held it against her head and talked all the time," (WN 29 Jan 93) . That interview set off the great cell phone panic. Now, 15 years later, Dr. King interviewed three neurosurgeons who said they don't hold cell phones against their heads. Can microwaves be the cause of mutant strands of DNA? Dr. King didn't ask, and the neurosurgeons probably didn't know. The answer: http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/cont ... t/93/3/166 .
5. HUNGER: THE SOLUTION IS NOT SHAMBAS IN AMERICA.
In the name of land reform, many of the most productive agricultural regions of Africa have been divided into tiny farm plots called shambas. Because of high birth rates, a shamba is hard put to support a single family. With the best of intentions, 27 immigrant families from Africa are now being relocated on small plots in Vermont.
LINK
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Dardedar
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Friday, June 20, 2008
1. OSTP: URGENT RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE NEXT PRESIDENT.
On Monday, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars held a media briefing to release a report, "OSTP 2.0, Critical Upgrade." Drawing on the advice of former Presidential Science Advisors, the report calls on the next President to: 1) Name a Cabinet-level Assistant for Science and Technology Policy early, 2) Integrate OSTP with other policymaking bodies in the White House, and 3) Establish mechanisms to obtain expert advice in a timely manner. Above all, the Science Advisor must have easy access to the President. Written by some of the smartest science-policy experts in Washington, the report refrains from bashing the current OSTP. What's New is under no such restraint.
2. SHELL GAME: PRESIDENTIAL POWER AND THE HYDROGEN HOAX.
In his 2003 State-of-the-Union Address, President Bush promised to free us from dependence on oil from the Middle-East and clean up our environment by using hydrogen as a fuel. Oceans of hydrogen are available. Presidents are not required to be familiar with the first law of thermodynamics, but the willingness of industry to play along is frightening. Within months, GM had a hydrogen car driving around Capitol Hill, and Shell had added a hydrogen pump at a nearby station. This week Honda announced the Clarity, a highly-subsidized hydrogen fuel-cell car and said Jamie Lee Curtis is buying one. She lives near one of the four hydrogen stations in California. Today a NY Times editorial was mildly skeptical. You can make cars that run on hydrogen, although they have big problems, but it won't fix the energy problem or clean up the environment.
3. RUNNING ON WATER: JAPANESE COMPANY UNVEILS CAR.
Sigh! Genepax uses a membrane to breaks the water down into hydrogen and oxygen, and then uses the hydrogen as fuel. A year ago there was a similar scam (WN 10 Aug 07) . Sam Leach did it in 1971, when gas was only $1.31 corrected for inflation. He demonstrated his car, collected money from "investors," and then retired to an ocean-side villa in California. Occasionally seen in a chauffer- driven Rolls Royce that ran on gasoline, it was rumored that Leach had sold out to the oil barons.
4. CELL PHONES: THEY ALSO DON'T MAKE POPCORN POP.
Cell phones, WN has pointed out, can't cause cancer, but several readers have directed me to a web site that purports to show cell phones popping corn. "So how do you explain that, Mr. Smartypants?" I couldn't, but Wired reports that the hoax was the work of Cardo Systems, a company that markets low-power stuff.
5. SACRED LICENSE PLATES: I DON'T BELIEVE THEY'RE LEGAL.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State has filed suit to prevent the state of South Carolina from producing specialty license plates showing a cross superimposed on a stained glass window and bearing the words, "I believe." It doesn't say what is believed in but we can assume it's not legalization of marijuana.
Link
1. OSTP: URGENT RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE NEXT PRESIDENT.
On Monday, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars held a media briefing to release a report, "OSTP 2.0, Critical Upgrade." Drawing on the advice of former Presidential Science Advisors, the report calls on the next President to: 1) Name a Cabinet-level Assistant for Science and Technology Policy early, 2) Integrate OSTP with other policymaking bodies in the White House, and 3) Establish mechanisms to obtain expert advice in a timely manner. Above all, the Science Advisor must have easy access to the President. Written by some of the smartest science-policy experts in Washington, the report refrains from bashing the current OSTP. What's New is under no such restraint.
2. SHELL GAME: PRESIDENTIAL POWER AND THE HYDROGEN HOAX.
In his 2003 State-of-the-Union Address, President Bush promised to free us from dependence on oil from the Middle-East and clean up our environment by using hydrogen as a fuel. Oceans of hydrogen are available. Presidents are not required to be familiar with the first law of thermodynamics, but the willingness of industry to play along is frightening. Within months, GM had a hydrogen car driving around Capitol Hill, and Shell had added a hydrogen pump at a nearby station. This week Honda announced the Clarity, a highly-subsidized hydrogen fuel-cell car and said Jamie Lee Curtis is buying one. She lives near one of the four hydrogen stations in California. Today a NY Times editorial was mildly skeptical. You can make cars that run on hydrogen, although they have big problems, but it won't fix the energy problem or clean up the environment.
3. RUNNING ON WATER: JAPANESE COMPANY UNVEILS CAR.
Sigh! Genepax uses a membrane to breaks the water down into hydrogen and oxygen, and then uses the hydrogen as fuel. A year ago there was a similar scam (WN 10 Aug 07) . Sam Leach did it in 1971, when gas was only $1.31 corrected for inflation. He demonstrated his car, collected money from "investors," and then retired to an ocean-side villa in California. Occasionally seen in a chauffer- driven Rolls Royce that ran on gasoline, it was rumored that Leach had sold out to the oil barons.
4. CELL PHONES: THEY ALSO DON'T MAKE POPCORN POP.
Cell phones, WN has pointed out, can't cause cancer, but several readers have directed me to a web site that purports to show cell phones popping corn. "So how do you explain that, Mr. Smartypants?" I couldn't, but Wired reports that the hoax was the work of Cardo Systems, a company that markets low-power stuff.
5. SACRED LICENSE PLATES: I DON'T BELIEVE THEY'RE LEGAL.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State has filed suit to prevent the state of South Carolina from producing specialty license plates showing a cross superimposed on a stained glass window and bearing the words, "I believe." It doesn't say what is believed in but we can assume it's not legalization of marijuana.
Link
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Dardedar
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Friday, June 27, 2008
1. THE PRIZE: WILL $300 MILLION BUY A BETTER BATTERY?
I told my class last year that if they invent a better battery they could save the world and become rich doing it. I neglected to explain how that would happen, but John McCain has a way. He proposes that we offer a prize for a better battery amounting to "one dollar for every for every man, woman and child in America." I'm in! McCain figured the prize at $300 million, but I just checked the Population Clock and he's $4,450,595 short. Oops! In the time it took to type that the population went up another person, or another dollar depending on how you look at it. It does that about every 10 seconds. If I win the prize, I plan to sue McCain for the difference. To win the prize, McCain said, the battery must "leapfrog" commercially available batteries. How much is "a leapfrog"? The Oxford English Dictionary defines "leapfrog" as "surpass or overtake." The Financial Times explained that by "leapfrog," McCain means it must deliver power at 30 percent of current costs.
2. PEW FORUM: U.S. RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE SURVEY.
The latest findings of the respected Pew Forum's massive survey make it clear that we are an overwhelmingly religious people. Only 16 percent identify themselves as "unaffiliated" and only a tenth of those are atheists. The strongest predictor of a person's faith has always been the faith of their parents, but with interfaith marriages increasing, a quarter of adult Americans have switched to another religion. The greatest gain was in unaffiliated, but even among the unaffiliated 70 percent said they believe in God. The willingness of Americans to compartmentalize their beliefs, holding totally contradictory convictions in different spheres, is remarkable. Scientists accept as a given that behind every physical effect lies a physical cause. That seems to rule out supernatural causes, leaving gods with little to do.
3. SCIENCE BUDGET: SUPPLEMENTAL BILL IS A DISAPOINTMENT.
The feeble position of science in America today was evident in the $186 billion supplemental war spending bill approved by the House last week. The last hope for those science agencies devastated by the appropriation, the supplemental bill that went to the Senate included only $400M for science, less than half what was sought. The Senate, which previously approved three times that, is expected to accept the House figure. By now thoroughly domesticated, the science community meekly expressed its gratitude.
4. MARS: THE PHOENIX LANDER FINDS GOOD SOIL, LITTLE WATER.
Nothing here for the Mars Society which planned to make rocket fuel for the return trip from the water they believed was abundant. Nor does it rule out the possibility that Mars supports, or once supported, life. That possibility should rule out human explorers because of the danger of contaminating Mars with Earth organisms. Never mind, the robots are doing great.
5. WINDMILL: GOVERNMENT REPORT DEFENDS COLLIDER.
You will recall the courageous assault of Don Quixote, alias Walter Wagner, and his loyal servant Sancho on the monstrous Large Hadron Collider. (WN 4 Apr 08) . The court set a hearing for September 2. Operation of the LHC is set to begin in two weeks.
1. THE PRIZE: WILL $300 MILLION BUY A BETTER BATTERY?
I told my class last year that if they invent a better battery they could save the world and become rich doing it. I neglected to explain how that would happen, but John McCain has a way. He proposes that we offer a prize for a better battery amounting to "one dollar for every for every man, woman and child in America." I'm in! McCain figured the prize at $300 million, but I just checked the Population Clock and he's $4,450,595 short. Oops! In the time it took to type that the population went up another person, or another dollar depending on how you look at it. It does that about every 10 seconds. If I win the prize, I plan to sue McCain for the difference. To win the prize, McCain said, the battery must "leapfrog" commercially available batteries. How much is "a leapfrog"? The Oxford English Dictionary defines "leapfrog" as "surpass or overtake." The Financial Times explained that by "leapfrog," McCain means it must deliver power at 30 percent of current costs.
2. PEW FORUM: U.S. RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE SURVEY.
The latest findings of the respected Pew Forum's massive survey make it clear that we are an overwhelmingly religious people. Only 16 percent identify themselves as "unaffiliated" and only a tenth of those are atheists. The strongest predictor of a person's faith has always been the faith of their parents, but with interfaith marriages increasing, a quarter of adult Americans have switched to another religion. The greatest gain was in unaffiliated, but even among the unaffiliated 70 percent said they believe in God. The willingness of Americans to compartmentalize their beliefs, holding totally contradictory convictions in different spheres, is remarkable. Scientists accept as a given that behind every physical effect lies a physical cause. That seems to rule out supernatural causes, leaving gods with little to do.
3. SCIENCE BUDGET: SUPPLEMENTAL BILL IS A DISAPOINTMENT.
The feeble position of science in America today was evident in the $186 billion supplemental war spending bill approved by the House last week. The last hope for those science agencies devastated by the appropriation, the supplemental bill that went to the Senate included only $400M for science, less than half what was sought. The Senate, which previously approved three times that, is expected to accept the House figure. By now thoroughly domesticated, the science community meekly expressed its gratitude.
4. MARS: THE PHOENIX LANDER FINDS GOOD SOIL, LITTLE WATER.
Nothing here for the Mars Society which planned to make rocket fuel for the return trip from the water they believed was abundant. Nor does it rule out the possibility that Mars supports, or once supported, life. That possibility should rule out human explorers because of the danger of contaminating Mars with Earth organisms. Never mind, the robots are doing great.
5. WINDMILL: GOVERNMENT REPORT DEFENDS COLLIDER.
You will recall the courageous assault of Don Quixote, alias Walter Wagner, and his loyal servant Sancho on the monstrous Large Hadron Collider. (WN 4 Apr 08) . The court set a hearing for September 2. Operation of the LHC is set to begin in two weeks.
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Dardedar
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Friday, July 11, 2008
1. SPIRITUAL REALITY: TEMPLETON PRIZE FOUNDER DIES AT 95.
John Templeton, raised in the Bible-Belt town of Winchester, KY, was a devout Presbyterian whose middleclass parents stressed the virtues of thrift and compassion. He learned both lessons so well that in 1968 he renounced his U.S. citizenship, moving to the Bahamas to avoid the income tax, and in 1987 was knighted for his philanthropies by the Queen. Believing spiritual understanding to be more important than understanding nature, he created the Templeton Prize for Spiritual Realities, directing that it be adjusted annually to be larger than the Nobel Prize. Now about $1.5 million, it was first awarded to Mother Theresa in 1973. In recent years the Templeton Prize has been awarded almost exclusively to physicists who dream up connections between science and religion.
2. MALTHUSIAN REALITY: POPULATION GROWS GEOMETRICALLY.
Last year Russia established September 12 as Family Love Day, a holiday for people to stay home and do their part to halt population decline. Maternity wards were braced for business on June 12, but it was just another slow day. Just give women control over their own reproduction, and populations will stabilize. Food production, Thomas Malthus observed in his 1798 essay, grows arithmetically; without effective contraception, or war, or pestilence, he warned, world famine is inevitable. Government and business leaders were horrified at this negative thinking, not to mention the Church. Governments need armies, business needs workers, religion need souls to save. Malthus was vilified, and accused of favoring war and disease. The world population in 1798 was less than 1 million.
3. UNREALITY: ONLY CHINA SUPPORTS POPULATION CONTROL.
The world population today is 6.7 billion, in spite of pandemics and almost continuous warfare. The closest the U.S. government has come to investing in population control is to fund Gerard O'Neill's loony fantasies of space colonies. Malthus is rarely mentioned today, and almost never favorably. Much is made of the fact that in industrialized countries the population is stabilized or shrinking as it is in Russia. Alas serious food shortages are growing, famine is widespread in Africa, shortages of clean water are on the increase, fuel costs are rising rapidly and ocean fisheries are declining. Energy shortages make all the other problems more difficult to deal with. Overpopulation is never mentioned as the cause, but the world population may already be unsustainable.
4. GASOLINE SCAMS: ABOUT THOSE VOODOO FUEL SAVINGS.
Last week we called attention to the Hydro Assist Fuel Cell and the Pre- Ignition Catalytic Converter advertised in mainstream magazines by the same company. Where to send your money was clear from the ads, but who was getting your money was not. Eric Krieg, http://www.phact.org/hafc.htm, perhaps the world's top debunker of perpetual motion and free energy scams, has tracked it down and tells me it was none other than Dennis Lee, who now uses the company name of Dutchman Industries. WN has followed Lee and his perpetual motion machines for eleven years
LINK
1. SPIRITUAL REALITY: TEMPLETON PRIZE FOUNDER DIES AT 95.
John Templeton, raised in the Bible-Belt town of Winchester, KY, was a devout Presbyterian whose middleclass parents stressed the virtues of thrift and compassion. He learned both lessons so well that in 1968 he renounced his U.S. citizenship, moving to the Bahamas to avoid the income tax, and in 1987 was knighted for his philanthropies by the Queen. Believing spiritual understanding to be more important than understanding nature, he created the Templeton Prize for Spiritual Realities, directing that it be adjusted annually to be larger than the Nobel Prize. Now about $1.5 million, it was first awarded to Mother Theresa in 1973. In recent years the Templeton Prize has been awarded almost exclusively to physicists who dream up connections between science and religion.
2. MALTHUSIAN REALITY: POPULATION GROWS GEOMETRICALLY.
Last year Russia established September 12 as Family Love Day, a holiday for people to stay home and do their part to halt population decline. Maternity wards were braced for business on June 12, but it was just another slow day. Just give women control over their own reproduction, and populations will stabilize. Food production, Thomas Malthus observed in his 1798 essay, grows arithmetically; without effective contraception, or war, or pestilence, he warned, world famine is inevitable. Government and business leaders were horrified at this negative thinking, not to mention the Church. Governments need armies, business needs workers, religion need souls to save. Malthus was vilified, and accused of favoring war and disease. The world population in 1798 was less than 1 million.
3. UNREALITY: ONLY CHINA SUPPORTS POPULATION CONTROL.
The world population today is 6.7 billion, in spite of pandemics and almost continuous warfare. The closest the U.S. government has come to investing in population control is to fund Gerard O'Neill's loony fantasies of space colonies. Malthus is rarely mentioned today, and almost never favorably. Much is made of the fact that in industrialized countries the population is stabilized or shrinking as it is in Russia. Alas serious food shortages are growing, famine is widespread in Africa, shortages of clean water are on the increase, fuel costs are rising rapidly and ocean fisheries are declining. Energy shortages make all the other problems more difficult to deal with. Overpopulation is never mentioned as the cause, but the world population may already be unsustainable.
4. GASOLINE SCAMS: ABOUT THOSE VOODOO FUEL SAVINGS.
Last week we called attention to the Hydro Assist Fuel Cell and the Pre- Ignition Catalytic Converter advertised in mainstream magazines by the same company. Where to send your money was clear from the ads, but who was getting your money was not. Eric Krieg, http://www.phact.org/hafc.htm, perhaps the world's top debunker of perpetual motion and free energy scams, has tracked it down and tells me it was none other than Dennis Lee, who now uses the company name of Dutchman Industries. WN has followed Lee and his perpetual motion machines for eleven years
LINK
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Dardedar
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Friday, July 18, 2008
1. GOOD LORD! GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS VANDALIZE APS.
Science is open. If better information becomes available scientists rewrite the textbooks with scarcely a backward glance. The Forum on Physics and Society of the APS exists to help us examine all the information on issues such as global climate change. There are physicists who think we don't have warming right, I know one myself. It is therefore entirely appropriate for the Forum to conduct a debate on the pages of its newsletter. A couple of highly-respected physicists ably argued the warming side. Good start. However, on the denier's side was Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, who inherited his father's peerage in 2006. Lord Monckton is not a scientist, his degree is in journalism and he's a reporter for the Evening Standard, an English tabloid. Whatever it is that Viscounts do, he may do very well, but he doesn't know squat about physics and his journalism suffers from it. Worse, somebody fed the media the line that Monckton's rubbish meant the APS had changed its position on warming; of course it has not. Few media outlets took the story seriously.
2. SPACE STATION: "SEND IT SOMEWHERE SPECIAL."
I have a place in mind. Space-science writer Michael Benson used this title in The Outlook section of Sunday's Washington Post. Benson asks whether the International Space Station, at a cost approaching $100 billion, is being finished just so we can drop it in the ocean? It is; so what's his alternative? Attach engines and send it, with its crew, off to explore other planets. Three days later the Post carried a rebuttal by NASA contractor Jeff Volosin. The ISS, he argued is needed to prepare crews to travel to Mars and back. He didn't say for what. As James Van Allen would have said of both ideas: "How old-fashioned." Wake up: Voyager 2 just entered interstellar space, Messenger revisited Mercury, Phoenix found water on Mars. Somebody, anybody, tell me what humans can do in space as well as the robots?
3. BLOOPER: WORLD POPULATION IN 1798.
I wrote in last week's WN that, the "world population in 1798 was less that 1 million." I should have said 1 billion. I apologize; my fingers have a mind of their own, but they aren't very smart. I always appreciate being told of errors and atoned by responding to more than 300 emails. They are still coming in today.
4. POPULATION: U.S BIRTHS SET RECORD.
The U.S. population clock as I write this is at 304, 633,590, but the scary number is the growth rate, 4,315,000 births in 2007, more than double the number a century ago, and topping the number born in 1957 at the height of the post-war baby boom. The biggest factor by far is immigration. The birth rate among Hispanic immigrants far outpaces the modest 2.1 average births per women.
5. YEMEN: GOVERNMENT IMPLEMENTING FAMILY PLANNING.
One of the poorest and least pleasant countries in the world despite booming oil revenues, it has one of the highest birth rates. Yemen must import 75 percent of its food and suffers acute water shortages. The government campaign aims at reducing the awesome fertility rate by raising awareness. It is widely believed in Yemen that contraception can cause health problems and is forbidden in Islam.
1. GOOD LORD! GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS VANDALIZE APS.
Science is open. If better information becomes available scientists rewrite the textbooks with scarcely a backward glance. The Forum on Physics and Society of the APS exists to help us examine all the information on issues such as global climate change. There are physicists who think we don't have warming right, I know one myself. It is therefore entirely appropriate for the Forum to conduct a debate on the pages of its newsletter. A couple of highly-respected physicists ably argued the warming side. Good start. However, on the denier's side was Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, who inherited his father's peerage in 2006. Lord Monckton is not a scientist, his degree is in journalism and he's a reporter for the Evening Standard, an English tabloid. Whatever it is that Viscounts do, he may do very well, but he doesn't know squat about physics and his journalism suffers from it. Worse, somebody fed the media the line that Monckton's rubbish meant the APS had changed its position on warming; of course it has not. Few media outlets took the story seriously.
2. SPACE STATION: "SEND IT SOMEWHERE SPECIAL."
I have a place in mind. Space-science writer Michael Benson used this title in The Outlook section of Sunday's Washington Post. Benson asks whether the International Space Station, at a cost approaching $100 billion, is being finished just so we can drop it in the ocean? It is; so what's his alternative? Attach engines and send it, with its crew, off to explore other planets. Three days later the Post carried a rebuttal by NASA contractor Jeff Volosin. The ISS, he argued is needed to prepare crews to travel to Mars and back. He didn't say for what. As James Van Allen would have said of both ideas: "How old-fashioned." Wake up: Voyager 2 just entered interstellar space, Messenger revisited Mercury, Phoenix found water on Mars. Somebody, anybody, tell me what humans can do in space as well as the robots?
3. BLOOPER: WORLD POPULATION IN 1798.
I wrote in last week's WN that, the "world population in 1798 was less that 1 million." I should have said 1 billion. I apologize; my fingers have a mind of their own, but they aren't very smart. I always appreciate being told of errors and atoned by responding to more than 300 emails. They are still coming in today.
4. POPULATION: U.S BIRTHS SET RECORD.
The U.S. population clock as I write this is at 304, 633,590, but the scary number is the growth rate, 4,315,000 births in 2007, more than double the number a century ago, and topping the number born in 1957 at the height of the post-war baby boom. The biggest factor by far is immigration. The birth rate among Hispanic immigrants far outpaces the modest 2.1 average births per women.
5. YEMEN: GOVERNMENT IMPLEMENTING FAMILY PLANNING.
One of the poorest and least pleasant countries in the world despite booming oil revenues, it has one of the highest birth rates. Yemen must import 75 percent of its food and suffers acute water shortages. The government campaign aims at reducing the awesome fertility rate by raising awareness. It is widely believed in Yemen that contraception can cause health problems and is forbidden in Islam.
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Doug
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DOUGBarbara Fitzpatrick wrote:While there is no evidence linking cell phones and cancer, there has been evidence linking cell phones and decreased sperm production in men. So far all I've seen just shows increased cell phone use correlates with decreased sperm production - not anything (viable anyway) to say causation.
Right. In fact, it could be that causation is working the other way. For all we know, men with lower sperm counts just like to talk more and thus use cell phones more than men with high sperm counts.
"We could have done something important Max. We could have fought child abuse or Republicans!" --Oona Hart (played by Victoria Foyt), in the 1995 movie "Last Summer in the Hamptons."
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Dardedar
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DARDoug wrote:DOUG
Right. In fact, it could be that causation is working the other way. For all we know, men with lower sperm counts just like to talk more and thus use cell phones more than men with high sperm counts.
They guys are calling girls to hook up. This inevitably lowers their sperm count.
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Doug
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DAR
They guys are calling girls to hook up. This inevitably lowers their sperm count.
DOUG
Yes, why are there sperm banks when some guys can't give theirs away?
They guys are calling girls to hook up. This inevitably lowers their sperm count.
DOUG
Yes, why are there sperm banks when some guys can't give theirs away?
"We could have done something important Max. We could have fought child abuse or Republicans!" --Oona Hart (played by Victoria Foyt), in the 1995 movie "Last Summer in the Hamptons."