Category Archives: Science And Society

General Science, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Daisyworld

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…meet rainmaking bacteria:

Barbara Nozière of Stockholm University, Sweden, and colleagues suggest that surfactants secreted by many species of bacteria could also influence the weather. While these are normally used to transport nutrients through membranes, the team have shown that they also break down the surface tension of water better than any other substance in nature. This led them to suspect that if the detergent was found in clouds it would stimulate the formation of water droplets.

This is the kind of thing that makes me skeptical about bureaucratic solutions to planetary engineering, natural or otherwise.

Political Commentary, Science And Society

My Brain Hurts

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Living in a city apparently dulls the mind:

…scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it’s long been recognized that city life is exhausting — that’s why Picasso left Paris — this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.

Could this explain why they vote Democrat?

Humor, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society, Weird

Kermit Feels Their Pain

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It’s not easy being green:

The unexpected discovery of a nest of red-cheeked squirrels amidst the huge, partially constructed MegaPyre Solar Power plant has halted construction, casting doubt on the viability of what has been considered to be the environmentalist’s crown jewel of renewable power facilities.

The 20 gigawatt plant was expected to provide electricity to much of southern California, and was only 6 months away from completion when the nest of squirrels, which are on the endangered species list, was found. Due to federal regulations regarding endangered species, moving the nest to another location is not permitted.

The situation has confounded local environmentalists, who are now evenly divided on whether the solar power plant or the nest of squirrels is more important to their cause.

Hear that little sound? That’s the sound of the world’s tiniest violin.

[Yes, I know it’s a joke. The twenty gigawatts, if nothing else, is a dead giveaway.]

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, War Commentary

Man Bites Dog

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Here are two stories that are kind remarkable, in terms of their locale. First, the Huffpo, of all places, says that Al Gore is a scam artist:

You are probably wondering whether President-elect Obama owes the world an apology for his actions regarding global warming. The answer is, not yet. There is one person, however, who does. You have probably guessed his name: Al Gore.

Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that “the science is in.” Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.

Contemplate it for a moment, even go read it in whole, before considering the second, a protest of thousands of people supporting Israel…in Paris.

Unfortunately, it was still smaller than the pro-terrorist crowds.

General Science, Science And Society, Space

Free Fall

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As Clark notes, here is a very nicely written piece on parabolic flight and weightlessness. Rare is the reporter (even science reporters) who get the physics right on this, because (as he points out) they get confused by the phrase “zero gravity,” which doesn’t really exist anywhere in the universe. Only one quibble:

Each period of ‘weightlessness’ is limited to half a minute or so; otherwise we ‘zeronauts’ would continue freefalling right into the Nevada desert at 600mph. As it is, during half-a-minute’s power- dive we drop nearly 20,000ft – although inside the plane we are completely unaware of this.

This gives the impression that weightlessness only occurs when you “drop” (i.e., descend in altitude). But it actually happens on the way up as well. In both cases, you are “falling” (in the sense that there is no force acting on you other than gravity). First you fall up, then hit the top of the trajectory, then fall down, weightless all the while, and unable to discern your direction of motion. If this seems counterintuitive, it is. But consider an elliptical orbit. As you approach perigee you’re heading down (toward the earth), and once you reach it, you start heading back up (away from the earth) to apogee, but you’re in orbit, and free fall the entire orbit. A parabola in an aircraft is an orbit that, if continued, would intersect the earth’s surface (which is why it is wise to not continue it). And of course, to be more technical yet, it is only parabolic in an approximate sense (assuming flat earth). In reality, it is a tiny section of an ellipse, because the contents of the aircraft are (briefly) in orbit, within the atmosphere.

I should also note that the phrase “power dive” is also misleading. “Power dive” implies that you are diving with engines at full thrust to get down as fast as possible, but in fact, the engines are barely running above idle throughout (until the pullout). Their only function is to overcome wind resistance so that the aircraft can approximate a cannon ball falling in vacuum.