Category Archives: Science And Society

Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

A Hundred And Ten

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As Glenn says, we’re going to see more people living to be this old. And as a commenter notes, there aren’t very many people left who were born in the nineteenth century. My maternal grandmother would have been two years older, had she lived, but she died at the ripe young age of ninety eight, fourteen years ago (whereupon I became a full orphan, and next in line, having no longer any living ancestors).

Of course, I take these folks’ recommendations for a long life with a healthy bag of salt. Particularly when they recommend a life of celibacy. I think that it’s good genes, and good luck, more than anything else.

Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Seven Apollos

Alan Boyle has come up with a new set of science-project-based monetary units to get our heads around the costs of the bailout.

This sort of thing provides support for the politically naive argument for more money for one’s pet project, e.g., “we could do seven Apollos for the cost of one Iraq war–surely we can afford at least one.” But federal budget dollars aren’t fungible, and the political importance of various choices isn’t necessarily consistent, either, due to the vagaries of how these decisions are made. Note also that, at the time, getting to the moon in a hurry was important for reasons having little or nothing do to with space. It’s unreasonable to expect those particular political stars to align again.

Not to mention the fact that because we were in a hurry, we chose an architecture and path that was economically and politically unsustainable. Just as NASA’s current path is, which is no surprise, considering that they chose to recapitulate Apollo, rather than building an incremental affordable infrastructure that would provide the basis for true spacefaring.

General Science, Science And Society

The Last Of The Neanderthals

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Here’s an interesting piece on the latest research, at National Geographic:

“Most Neanderthals and modern humans probably lived most of their lives without seeing each other,” he said, carefully choosing his words. “The way I imagine it is that occasionally in these border areas, some of these guys would see each other at a distance…but I think the most likely thing is that they excluded each other from the landscape. Not just avoided, but excluded. We know from recent research on hunter-gatherers that they are much less peaceful than generally believed.”

“Sometimes I just turn out the lights in here and think what it must have been like for them.”

Nasty, brutish, short.

And many people have no idea how close we are to returning to those days, should things take a wrong turn.

Science And Society, Technology and Society

Getting Better

11 Comments

The latest installment of “Better All The Time” is up at The Speculist. It’s all pretty good (I found sensation in a bionic arm without sensors fascinating), but I liked this:

Hey, did you notice? The world didn’t end! We get so used to the world not ending that sometimes we take it for granted. But in honor of our not being sucked into a giant black hole or blasted back in time to when our entire universe was nothing but diffuse particles, the Times Online has compiled a list of 30 other time the world didn’t end.

If you like that sort of list, keep this in mind: those thirty days are just a tiny, tiny subset of the total number of days in which the world has not ended. In fact, we are (and I hope I don’t jinx it or anything by pointing this out) batting a perfect 1000 on that score.

Yeah, every day, they tell us the world won’t end, and it doesn’t until one day it does. Which sucks. And there’s no one around to say “I told you so.”

Science And Society, Technology and Society, Weird

The Latest In Medical Transplants

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Eeeeuuuuwwww…:

… Patients who come into the hospital with suspected pneumonia now get an antibiotic within six hours, instead of four hours previously, to allow more time to assess the need for drugs.

One controversial strategy: fecal transplants. For one patient with recurrent C. diff, Kettering suggested a stool transplant from a relative, to help restore good bacteria in the gut. But Jeffrey Weinstein, an infectious-disease specialist at the hospital, says the patient “refused to consider it because it was so aesthetically displeasing.”

To say the least. Though some kinky folks might get off on it. It’s certainly a simple procedure compared to a heart or a kidney.

Some might argue that a lot of folks in Congress have already had the procedure done, except it was transplanted to the wrong location, considerably north of where it was supposed to go.

General, Science And Society

Devastation

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Here are some before and after pictures of the Bolivar Peninsula.

I wonder what was different about the houses that remained standing?

Our house in Boca is just a few houses from the Intracoastal, on the mainland side, but the barrier island that separates us from the sea is a lot narrower than the Bolivar. I don’t know what kind of surge it would take to cross it and fill the Intracoastal and neighborhood canals, but I’ll bet a lot of the multi-million-dollar mansions on the ocean would get wiped out, or at least badly damaged in a similar situation. But they might help blunt the blow of the water and keep it from getting to us. A worst-case for us would probably be a similar west-bound storm hitting north Broward, around Deerfield Beach or Hillsboro, which would maximize surge up here.

[Update a while later]

Jeff Masters has more, on the almost total destruction of Gilchrist.

I don’t see any description of the type of construction. Our house is cement block on concrete slab. I can see a wood frame getting stripped off its foundation, but it’s pretty scary to think what kind of force it would take to empty our lot.

Education, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Why I Have A Blog

25 Comments

To get past the gatekeepers.

I put up a(n admittedly semi-snarky) comment at Keith Cowing’s place yesterday, and he chose not to publish it (his comments section is moderated) for whatever reason. His blog, his call.

It was in response to “NASAAstronomer’s” comment that:

…if McCain and Palin win, we’ll be teaching creationism in our science classes, so how likely is it that space science will get funded?

My (unpublished until now) response:

Yes.

Right. I’m sure that will be one of their first acts, to mandate the teaching of creationism in science classes.

Can you explain to me how that works exactly? Will it be an executive order, or what?

This kind of Palin derangement is amazing. Lileks noticed it, too:

Here’s your Sarah Palin overreaction of the day. Presumably she took out the entrails, dried them, and used them to lynch librarians. It’s really obvious, isn’t it? She wants to kill Lady Liberty and all she represents. The plane is included in the picture because she personally shoots polar bears from above, like she’s GOD OR SOMETHING. The comments have the usual reasoned evaluations – she’s a PSYCHO, a LUNATIC. That picture is so sad and so true.

I don’t know if anyone’s stated the obvious yet, but this might be the first time people have become unhinged in advance over a vice-presidential candidate. Not to say some aren’t painting McCain as something the devil blurted out in a distracted moment during his daily conference call with Cheney, but a Veep? It took a while for people to believe that Cheney commissioned private snuff films with runaways dressed up to resemble a portion of the Bill of Rights, but Palin is She-Wolf of the Tundra right off the bat. And god help us she can use email, which means she will control the government. The most Spy ever did with Quayle was stick him in a dunce hat. By the time we reach the election Oliphant will probably draw Palin sodomizing by an oil derrick with guns for arms. I have to confess: I think Palin is an interesting politician, but the people she’s driving batty are much more fascinating.

Imagine twelve years of this.

Yes.

Well, we’ve survived eight years of BDS. I suspect that we’ll pull through a swamp of PDS.

Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space

What A Mess

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I’m looking at reporting from what looks like the Sheraton in Clear Lake, and there are reports of furniture with NASA logos floating in the bay. Gotta think that some of the JSC facilities were flooded.

If space were important, we wouldn’t have mission control in an area susceptible to floods and hurricanes. The Cape has some geographical reasons for its location, but the only reason that JSC is in Houston is because Johnson wanted it there, and the land was free.

[Update in the afternoon]

Here’s more on NASA’s fragile infrastructure. The agency’s ground facilities are just as non-robust as its space transportation system.

Here is how it seems to work: a hurricane threatens JSC – so NASA shuts off email and other services to a large chunk of the agency. Why? Because NASA deliberately set the system up such that other NASA centers – some of which are thousands of miles away and poised to offer assistance and keep the rest of the agency operating – have their email and other services routed out of JSC – and only JSC (or so it would seem). A few critical users have some service, but everyone else is out of luck for at least 48 hours. Would any self-respecting, profitable, commercial communications company do something as silly as this? No. They’d never stay in business. Only NASA would come up with such a flawed and stupid plan.

That’s too harsh. I can imagine the FAA, or DHS doing exactly the same thing.

It’s just more of that wise, foresightful government thing.

[Update about 1:30 PM EDT]

Jeff Masters says that Galveston lucked out:

Although Ike caused heavy damage by flooding Galveston with a 12-foot storm surge, the city escaped destruction thanks to its 15.6-foot sea wall (the wall was built 17 feet high, but has since subsided about 2 feet). The surge was able to flow into Galveston Bay and flood the city from behind, but the wall prevented a head-on battering by the surge from the ocean side. Galveston was fortunate that Ike hit the city head-on, rather than just to the south. Ike’s highest storm surge occurred about 50 miles to the northeast of Galveston, over a lightly-populated stretch of coast. Galveston was also lucky that Ike did not have another 12-24 hours over water. In the 12 hours prior to landfall, Ike’s central pressure dropped 6 mb, and the storm began to rapidly organize and form a new eyewall. If Ike had had another 12-24 hours to complete this process, it would have been a Category 4 hurricane with 135-145 mph winds that likely would have destroyed Galveston. The GFDL model was consistently advertising this possibility, and it wasn’t far off the mark. It was not clear to me until late last night that Ike would not destroy Galveston and kill thousands of people. Other hurricane scientists I conversed with yesterday were of the same opinion.

And of course, the lesson that the people who stayed behind will take is not that they were lucky and foolhardy, but that the weather forecasters overhyped the storm, and they’ll be even less likely to evacuate the next time. And one of these times their luck will run out, as it did for their ancestors a few generations ago, when thousands were killed by a hurricane in Galveston.

[Update mid afternoon]

Sounds like things could have been a lot worse at NASA, too.

NASA had feared that a storm surge from Galveston Bay would flood some
buildings on the 1,600-acre Space Center. Its southeast boundary is near
Clear Lake, which is connected to Galveston Bay. However, the water did
not rise that high.

Apparently the Guppy hangar at Ellington was destroyed, but it was never much of a hangar–more like a big tent.