science

Lots of Ink: Obama White House to scuttle NASA?s Constellation program, have contractors fly astrona Many people saw this coming, but major outlets are reporting now it is official executive branch policy embedded in the upcoming, proposed US budget. The billions of dollars already spent on the Constellation Program at NASA to build Ares rockets and Orion crew capsules for missions to the Moon and elsewhere won’t be followed by more. Rather, NASA is to buy such services from aerospace industry without prescribing the exact specs of the hardware itself. Further, it appears that, for now, a US
Post Date:01/29/2010 11:59:43
ksjtracker.mit.edu

Forensic Science Commission meets today, but does it have rulemaking authority? Some say "No" (LIVEBLOGGING BELOW) This was received via email from the national Innocence Project out of NYC, which will webcast today's Forensic Science Commission meeting out of Harlingen:As you are probably aware, the Texas Forensic Science Commission is meeting [this morning] for the first time in six months. This is the commission?s first meeting since Gov. Rick Perry suddenly replaced its chair and several of its members while it was in the middle of an investigation into the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. The Innocence Project will stream live video of the meeting on our website. The meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. (Central) on Friday, January 29, and will run several hours. Newly appointed commission chairman John Bradley decided to hold the meeting in Harlingen, which makes it difficult for many interested parties in the state to attend. Those who cannot be in Harlingen can watch the meeting live online starting at 9:30 a.m. (Central). The agenda for the meeting is here. The Willingh
Post Date:01/29/2010 07:34:00
gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com

Watts not to love: New study finds the poor weather stations tend to have a slight COOL bias, not a My guest blogger today is one of the best meteorologists around, Dr. Jeff Masters, former Hurricane Hunter and now Director of Meteorology for the Weather Underground.
Post Date:01/28/2010 16:24:30
climateprogress.org

Probably Best We Ask BEFORE Enacting Legislation “The reason for the recent decline in water vapor is unknown? Hmmm. I wonder if there is anything else that the climate computer models on which we are relying to predict future climate change may have missed?” – read the whole post.
Post Date:01/28/2010 15:22:14
thechillingeffect.org

Mars Orbiter Finds There Was Liquid Water on Mars An Eon Later Than Previously Thought [del.icio.us] Scientists long thought these depressions where caused by surface ice that sublimated into vapor when much of Mars' atmosphere disappeared around 4 billion years ago. But note the tiny depression connecting the lower right of the center depression to the top of its neighbor to the southeast; researchers now believe liquid water carved channels like this some 800 million years after liquid water was thought to be unsustainable there.
Post Date:01/28/2010 14:40:30
www.blahblahtech.com

NIF Moves 5.9 Million Degrees Closer To Fusion Power [del.icio.us] With the need for a cheap and abundant alternative to fossils fuels more important than ever before, the field of fusion energy is getting hotter. Really, really hot. 6 million degrees hot. Yes, the National Ignition Facility, the Department of Energy's pet fusion project, has finally fired up its 192 lasers and zapped something, moving us one step closer to the day of clean, nearly free, fusion energy.
Post Date:01/28/2010 14:33:42
www.blahblahtech.com

The Wakefield MMR verdict Here’s a very brief piece I bashed out for the Guardian newsdesk today on the Wakefield finding, the further reading below will be more helpful if you’re interested in the story. Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Thursday 28 January 2009 In medicine, ?untoward incident inquiries? tend to look for systems failures, rather than one individual to blame. [...]
Post Date:01/28/2010 13:25:14
www.badscience.net

Is Today`s Sea Level Rise Nothing New The sea level in Israel has been rising and falling over the past 2,500 years, with a one-meter (a little over 3 feet) difference between highest and lowest levels. The north coast of Israel. According to a new study supervised by Dr. Dorit Sivan, Head of the Department of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa, rises and falls in sea level over relatively short periods do not testify to a long-term trend. Dr. Sivan also stated that it is early yet to conclude from the short-term increases in sea level that this is a set course that will not take a change in direction. Direct excerpt from this EurekAlert story...... According to Dr. Sivan, the changing sea level can be attributed to three main causes: the global cause - the volume of water in the ocean, which mirrors the mass of ice sheets and is related to global warming or cooling; the regional cause - vertical movement of the earth's surface, which is usually related to the pressure placed on the surface by the ice
Post Date:01/28/2010 08:23:20
global-warming.accuweather.com

Bacteria rebuilt to make oil Eric Steen / JBEI E. coli bacteria were genetically engineered to produce oil, then sequester themselves from the droplets to facilitate oil recovery, as shown in this photo. Researchers have engineered a common type of bacteria to produce biodiesel and other goodies from plain old plants. The microbial trickery, detailed today in the journal Nature, promises to add "nature's petroleum" to America's energy supply within the next few years....(read more)
Post Date:01/27/2010 17:30:00
cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com

Theory of general relativity for dummies? Can someone please explain to me the Theory of General Relativity? simply? I am in 6th grade.
Post Date:01/27/2010 14:47:51
feeds.feedburner.com

Phys Ed: How Exercising Keeps Your Cells Young - Well Blog [del.icio.us] The runners, on the other hand, had remarkably youthful telomeres, a bit shorter than those in the young runners, but only by about 10 percent. In general, telomere loss was reduced by approximately 75 percent in the aging runners.
Post Date:01/27/2010 11:21:26
www.blahblahtech.com

Car pool, string theory and human genetic history A
Post Date:01/26/2010 08:00:43
openparachute.wordpress.com

Climate Scandal Recap Here’s a helpful crib sheet on recent scandals undermining the credibility of international bureaucrats pushing carbon control, courtesy of Investors Business Daily: ? In late November, thousands of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia were leaked to the public. The evidence strongly suggests that researchers colluded to prove the global warming scientific “consensus” by rigging, burying and destroying data that ran counter to their political agenda. ? Last week, the public learned that claims made by the U.N.’s International Panel on Climate Change were not based on science, but on speculation. Specifically, the IPCC’s 2007 report said the Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2035 due to man-made global warming … ? Also in the last week, it was revealed that U.S. researchers working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are excluding temperature data from cold regions for a database used by the U.N.
Post Date:01/26/2010 06:41:04
thechillingeffect.org

Meerkat Blues Meerkat BluesOriginally uploaded by ucumariPhotographer ucumari writes below her photo of a Natural Science Center, Greensboro, meerkat:"Have some fun! Lets write a new song, add your lyrics!"Ucumari begins:"I woke up this morning,Didn't have a clue,Why my baby left me,Now I got the meerkat blues"I suggest:"I dug me a tunnel...tryin' to ferget 'er.Standin' watch for 'er now...Only she'll make me better."Your turn:
Post Date:01/23/2010 15:47:00
russlings.blogspot.com

A Practical Physics Problem Willie Mays' classic catch in the 1954 World Series -- in which he turned his back on a fly ball, raced full-speed toward the centerfield wall and, seemingly without looking, caught the ball over his shoulder -- almost seemed to defy physics. How did he know where the ball would be? Science may have the answer.Science, and math.
Post Date:01/22/2010 21:49:00
rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com

Could a Deep-Sea Snail's Shell Inspire Next-Gen Body-Armor? [del.icio.us] A team led by materials scientist Christine Ortiz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology investigated the iron-rich shell of the ?scaly foot? mollusk, whose triple-layered shell gives it one of the strongest exoskeletons seen in nature. The researchers believe that copying its microstructure could help in the development of armor for soldiers, tanks, and helicopters. Their work was published (pdf) this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Post Date:01/22/2010 13:26:58
www.blahblahtech.com

Culinary Trivia 4 The term 'food' is a wider one inclusive of different types of food items like ice creams, burgers, sandwiches, cakes, pastries, cookies, chips, macaroni, pizzas, pasta, noodles, breads and much more. Culinary science has professionalized this art of food making and it is widely accepted a job for millions to survive. Food itself got subdivided on the basis of regions. Sandwiches ? Sandwich is one of the widely popular food items in the world. ? They are seen as dietary food rather than a full fledged meal. ? It is estimated that Americans eat more than 300 million sandwiches a day. ? Although, mainly non-vegetarian in nature, it veggie counterparts are widely popular in India.
Post Date:01/21/2010 19:04:09
www.culinaryschoolsu.com/blog

UN Misses Copenhagen Climate Deadline Today's Financial Times reports that the timetable for setting emissions targets agreed to at the Copenhagen climate conference is already coming unglued: The timetable to reach a global deal to tackle climate change lay in tatters on Wednesday after the UN waived the first deadline of the process laid out at last month?s fractious Copenhagen summit.Nations agreed then to declare their emissions reduction targets by the end of this month. Developed countries would state their intended cuts by 2020: developing countries would outline how they would curb emissions growth.But Yvo de Boer, the UN?s senior climate change official, admitted that the deadline had in effect been shelved.Other reports:BBC: UN climate deadline turns out to be 'flexible' NYT: U.N. Official Says Climate Deal Is at Risk ABC News (Oz): UN says Copenhagen failed to deliverAFP: No guarantee of warming treaty this year: UNGuardian: UN drops deadline for countries to state climate change targetsBloomberg/BW: Copenhagen
Post Date:01/20/2010 23:18:00
capitalclimate.blogspot.com

Berkeley Lab scientists win four DOE Early Career Research grants Berkeley Lab scientists Christian Bauer, Delia Milliron, Feng Wang and Feng Yuan were among the 69 recipients from across the nation who will divide up to $85 million in five-year research grants under the U.S. Department of Energy's new Early Career Research Program.
Post Date:01/15/2010 13:30:38
newscenter.lbl.gov

Economics as theology and propaganda RDan Linda Beale quotes Maxine Udall on Casino-like finance: The defunct [classical "freshwater"] economists have provided a convenient narrative in which government of, by and for the people can never act as a countervailing force against large corporations, but instead is viewed as promoting individual freedom only when allied with and strenuously promoting the financial well-being and increased power of those very same large corporations.Beale goes on: All of a sudden in "law and economics" [Beale's student] had found a theory that claimed to explain everything based on what was asserted as intuitively appropriate self-interest rationales--not just why markets are important, but also how tort law should work, and contracts--efficient breaches are fine, even if you do break your solemn word--, and even constitutional law (Gary Becker's unconvincing work suggesting that discrimination will disappear if one only trusts in markets). With that theory in hand, he had stopped asking questi
Post Date:01/15/2010 06:14:00
barefootbum.blogspot.com