This Is Cool

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She's Blinded By Science

In other Cathy McMorris Rodgers news, our fair congresswoman voted for an amendment--it passed on party lines--that prevents the Department of Defense from studying how climate change will affect our national security.

None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to implement the U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report, the United Nation’s Agenda 21 sustainable development plan, or the May 2013 Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order.

Denying reality must take a lot of energy. Or really dark glasses.

Science For Breakfast

Find original story here

Science Is Cool

...if not a little weird.

Being Young Again

Over on the New York Times Wellness blog, some researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim have developed a low-tech means of assessing aerobic fitness and estimating your “fitness age.” I made my selections on their rather simple online calculator and got this.

Must be time for me to visit the cosmetic surgeon because I look closer to my VO2MAX rating than I do my fitness age.

Let's See How High We Can Go

If you haven't caught the many hints yet, May is National Bike Month. (Enter bike to work month in Google and check out how many Washington-based sites are listed first. Cool.) Anyway, during National Bike Month we reached an important milestone.

There are many reasons to ride a bicycle. It costs less than a car. To enjoy a sense of freedom. To get fit. It's fun. It's good for the environment. The list can go on.

Yet how ironic that during National Bike Month the milestone we reached is 400 parts per million of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Millions of years from now, the next self-proclaimed intelligent species will be excavating our fossils and studying the record buried within. And they will be amazed at what they find. Sure, they might be impressed with the bullet trains, the tallest buildings, and that we had a space program.

But what will amaze them is that we, who seemed to be so advanced, cooked the planet and killed ourselves off.

Our Times Will Get More Interesting

Today's Spokesman Review has an article about a report on global warming and the effect and expected effects on the United States. I'm still working my way through the section that focuses on the Northwest (PDF), but while I was digging around I noticed these key points (PDF) about the science. Then check out the questions about climate change (PDF).

1. Although climate changes in the past have been caused by natural factors, human activities are now the dominant agents of change. Human activities are affecting climate through increasing atmospheric levels of heat-trapping gases and other substances, including particles. 

2. Global trends in temperature and many other climate variables provide consistent evidence of a warming planet. These trends are based on a wide range of observations, analyzed by many independent research groups around the world. 

3. Natural variability, including El Niño events and other recurring patterns of ocean-atmosphere interactions, influences global and regional temperature and precipitation over timescales ranging from months up to a decade or more. 

4. Human-induced increases in atmospheric levels of heat-trapping gases are the main cause of observed climate change over the past 50 years. The “fingerprints” of human-induced change also have been identified in many other aspects of the climate system, including changes in ocean heat content, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, and Arctic sea ice.  

5. Past emissions of heat-trapping gases have already committed the world to a certain amount of future climate change. How much more the climate will change depends on future emissions and the sensitivity of the climate system to those emissions.  

6. Different kinds of physical and statistical models are used to study aspects of past climate and develop projections of future change. No model is perfect, but many of them provide useful information. By combining and averaging many models, many  clear trends emerge. 

7. Scientific understanding of observed temperature changes in the U.S. has greatly improved, confirming that the U.S. is warming as expected in response to global climate change. This warming is expected to continue. 

8. Many other indicators of rising temperatures have been observed in the U.S. These include reduced lake ice, glacier retreat, earlier melting of snowpack, reduced lake levels, and a longer growing season. These and other indicators are expected to continue to reflect higher temperatures. 

9. There have been observed trends in some types of extreme weather events, and these are consistent with rising temperatures. These include increases in: heavy precipitation nationwide, especially in the Midwest and Northeast; heat waves, especially in the West; and the intensity of Atlantic hurricanes. These trends are expected to continue. Research on climate changes’ effects on other types of extreme events continues. 

10. Drought and fire risk are increasing in many regions as temperatures and evaporation rates rise. The greater the future warming, the more these risks will increase, potentially affecting the entire U.S. 

11. Summer Arctic sea ice extent, volume, and thickness have declined rapidly, especially north of Alaska. Permafrost temperatures are rising and the overall amount of permafrost is shrinking. Melting of land and sea-based ice is expected to continue with further warming. 

12. Sea level is already rising at the global scale and at individual locations along the U.S. coast. Future sea level rise depends on the amount of temperature change and on the ice melt around the world as well as local processes like changes in ocean currents and local land subsidence or uplift.

In Denial

A couple days ago the Spokesman Review published a Q&A on 15 topics presented to Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Topic number 12 was global warming.

12. Do you believe the human activity is significant factor that causes global warming? Should the federal government regulate carbon emissions to slow or reduce the impact of global warming?

Her response: 

Scientific reports are inconclusive at best on human culpability for global warming. Regardless of which theory proves correct, the goal is the same – to reduce carbon emissions, we need innovation in the private sector; not excessive government regulation to stifle some industries while rewarding others. I oppose “cap and trade” and other Big Government schemes because they will destroy jobs while likely having minimal impact on the climate. Further we have little influence over excessive and unregulated emissions from foreign countries like China that opens one coal fired electric plant every week.

I would ask our congresswoman to have a look at the information NASA and the Washington State Department of Ecology present on global warming and climate change. The science is not inconclusive.

In its recently released Fourth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 1,300 independent scientific experts from countries all over the world under the auspices of the United Nations, concluded there's a more than 90 percent probability that human activities over the past 250 years have warmed our planet.

The industrial activities that our modern civilization depends upon have raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million to 379 parts per million in the last 150 years. The panel also concluded there's a better than 90 percent probability that human-produced greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have caused much of the observed increase in Earth's temperatures over the past 50 years.

They said the rate of increase in global warming due to these gases is very likely to be unprecedented within the past 10,000 years or more.

Our congresswoman would have us wait until it's too late. Meanwhile, the poles melt, the glaciers recede, the crops wither, and the storms kick our butts.

Why We Get Fat

Dr Dan Lieberman's interesting take using evolutionary biology to explain why humans are so good at putting on weight. Dr Lieberman has also been a leading researcher on the human running form (both are PDFs).

I'm So Confused

Bill Nye 'splains it in easy to understand words but I'm just not gettin' it.

The Da Vinci Exhibit

We checked out the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit at the MAC today. It must have been something to have been one of the brightest stars during the Renaissance. Da Vinci's ideas, inventions, mastery, and the time and energy he put into his work were simply incredible.

A Patient Bill Nye Explains

Now if the people that really needed to understand climate change would just listen.

Ya Gotta Believe

Some folks were ecstatic that the new Miss USA was one of two contestants who supported teaching evolution in school. That's two out of fifty-one contestants. A reflection on our science scores? Maybe. Check out Alyssa Campanella's remarks in response to the question, "Should evolution be taught in schools?"



I do believe in it. I'm a huge science geek. I like to believe in the big bang theory and the evolution of humans throughout time.

Sorry, but if she was such a huge science geek, I think her explanation would have been a little different. Evolution is not something you believe in. It's not a faith system. It's a scientific theory that provides the best explanation we have for the variance we find in life forms. The Big Bang theory is unrelated to evolution. Evolution is not anti-religion but some of the religious are anti-evolution.

For more fun, check out the other contestants' answers to the interview questions. Our own Miss Washington gives a particular dreadful answer. If nothing else, the questions and answers highlight the vacuousness of beauty pageant competition.



She ain't no Little Miss Sunshine.

Science Can Be Funny

I did a double take and read the article just to make sure it was on the up-and-up. There should be no problem getting middle school kids to read about getting gas from Uranus to use for fuel. Even the authors recognize the word play.

That the planet which is the butt of so many poor jokes should be relatively rich in methane as well is purely coincidental, but as a mining site it has several advantages.

And accessing the gas riches of Uranus will require nuclear powered ramjets.

Dad, How Do F##kin' Magnets Work?

Okay, hopefully the kids aren't phrasing the question in that manner.

The Insane Clown Posse asked that question last year in their song Miracles, "F##kin' magnets, how they work?"

And from that, courtesy of Maggie Koerth-Baker, we now have an explanation that I can almost understand.

In cats, couches—all the everyday things that aren't magnetic—the magnetic fields produced by electrons simply cancel each other out. For every electron that's spinning clockwise, there's another electron spinning counterclockwise. All electrons produce magnetic fields, even the ones in cats and couches. But cats and couches aren't magnetic because their electrons' magnetic fields interfere with one another and keep the overall magnetic force so weak as to be nonexistent.

Magnets are different.

Then she explains how. Check it out. If nothing else, it should give you more time before you get exasperated and change the subject.

"Hey, look at this lady bug."

Who Says The American Education System Is Second Rate?

The Texas Tribune asked 800 registered voters their views regarding evolution.

Nearly a third of Texans believe humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and more than half disagree with the theory that humans developed from earlier species of animals....

You can read the entire survey here (PDF). And there's a crosstab showing which candidate for governor the survey respondents support here (PDF).

Apparently the purpose of the survey was to help determine the effect of religion on politics and politics on religion and show which respondents support which candidates running for governor.

However, I think it's more notable that these are presumably educated adults. 98% of the respondents have at least a high school education and only 41% disagree with the statement that humans lived with dinosaurs.

NOVA Program

Last night the kids and I watched Nova's Evolution: What Darwin Never Knew. While I could do without the drama, repeated DNA graphics, and weak attempts at suspense building, I did find it fascinating when it finally got to the meat of the program. (Sloppy editing moment: The narrator said, "From leopard" while the video clearly showed a cheetah. Oops!)

The first half hour or so was pretty basic stuff and a bit boring for me, but I suppose the program was geared to a lowest common denominator. The hour after that was the most interesting and I learned a little more about control genes and their role in how life forms develop. Pretty cool stuff.

The next forty years or so of genetic science should be very exciting.

In The Interest Of Science...

I was checking out science tattoos--no, I'm not seriously thinking about it--and found one containing an equation for powering a bicycle.

Hey, if you're going to get a tattoo, you might as well get something useful, right? Or you could buy the book instead. The book is probably cheaper than the tat.

A Skeptic Looks At Barefoot Running

This is the first I've heard of The Skeptoid so I can't address his writings, but he does have an interesting post about barefoot running. And he approaches the subject with skepticism which is a good thing.

That evolution has made us into bipeds that walk and run barefoot across the savannah is not a perfect argument that we're well adapted to do so. There are many examples in nature of creatures who evolved detrimental traits. The giraffe's laryngeal nerve runs all the way down its neck into its chest, loops around its aorta, then runs all the way back up to its larynx; making it absurdly long and prone to many types of failure. The Irish elk developed antlers so large that the energy required to grow them exceeded the available food sources and the species became extinct. The mating ritual of the Kakapo flightless parrot is more likely to attract a predator than a mate. The retinas in all vertebrate eyeballs are inside-out, creating an unnecessary blind spot. The list goes on forever. The point is that evolution does not create perfectly adapted creatures; it creates adequate creatures.

Funny he should mention the laryngeal nerve in giraffes. The bizarre path taken by the laryngeal nerve is true for all mammals, including humans. It's just more pronounced and noticeable for giraffes since their necks are so long. I have no idea what failures of the nerve he's referring to. I've never read anything about that nor can I find anything on the subject. But he does make one good point, that being evolution does not create perfectly adapted creatures.

But enough about evolution. The article is about barefoot running. The lack of hard data means we really don't know if it's better or not for you. But I can say that it works for me.

Something To Keep In Mind

From The Real MFG