How plausible is he? Alan Boyle has done some research.
I agree that the getting-knocked-out-all-the-time thing is a problem. But no more so for Bruce Wayne than almost every teevee detective I watched when I was young. It seems like Mannix or Jim Rockford should have been sitting around drooling with all of the concussions they took almost every episode.
Carl Zimmer has the story.
A graduate student at the University of Chicago named Matt Friedman was starting to research his dissertation on the diversity of teleosts. While paging through a book on fish fossils, he noticed a 50-million year old specimen called Amphistium. Like many fish fossils, this one only showed the bones from one side of the animal. It was generally agreed that Amphistium belonged to some ordinary group of teleosts, although biologists argued over which one. But Friedman saw something different. To him it looked like a flounder.
[Via LGF]
David Brin has a warning for irresponsible astronomers.
When in danger, most people in a group recognize the responsibility to be quiet, and not give themselves away to an enemy by making noise, sometimes to the point that a crying baby will be stifled, and even suffocated. I think that this is a similar case where people should be enjoined, by force if necessary, because we cannot know the consequences. I see very little potential benefit to this, and a great deal of risk. The apparent insularity of the SETI folks cannot continue–we are all on this planet, not just them.
We can capture a powerful greenhouse gas and store energy at the same time. Just imagine pastures full of this.
It has squirrel undies beat hands down. Errr…so to speak.
I’ve often made this argument, but never as concisely:
The Right believes in biology, but not in evolution; the Left believes in evolution, but not in biology.
It’s a little oversimplified (as is any statement about the “Right” or the “Left”), but a good generalization. Of course, when it comes to sexual orientation, the Right doesn’t believe in biology, either. But I think that the Left is much more prone to a belief in the Blank Slate myth.
Get with the program!
“When people look at glaciers around the world, the majority of them are shrinking,” said Slawek Tulaczyk, an assistant professor of earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who led a team studying Shasta’s glaciers. “These glaciers seem to be benefiting from the warming ocean.”
Except the ocean seems to be cooling, at least lately.
One of the signs of a conspiracy theorist is that every bit of evidence, even counterevidence, is spun to support the theory.
B-Chan has some thoughts on the ending of his life.
I never read much by him, but by all accounts, he did seem to be an unhappy man. I’m sure that being a homosexual in the fifties and sixties didn’t help. In any event, if there’s a better place, here’s hoping he’s there now.
More links over at Instapundit.
Frank J. has a plan to deal with the asteroids. Sort of.
Here’s what we’ll do: We’ll paint Mars blue. The asteroids will see Mars, think it’s us, and hit it instead. It’s simple and it will work. So you’re asking, “Why not paint Venus? It’s the same size and should make a more convincing Earth.” That’s idiotic. For one thing, it’s super-hot there, so how the hell do you plan on painting it? Also, it’s further away from the asteroid belt than us, so the asteroids will see the real Earth before seeing the decoy Earth. Painting Venus is a truly idiotic plan. You’re disgustingly stupid for even suggesting it. This is why I sometimes think of just giving up blogging because I just can’t deal with people as stupid as you are.
I know how he feels. Sort of.
…with wind mills:
…the only feasible backup for the planned 25-gig wind base will be good old gas turbines. These would have to be built even if pumped storage existed, to deal with long-duration calms; and the expense of a triplefold wind, gas and pumped storage solution would be ridiculous. At present, gas turbine installations provide much of the grid’s ability to deal with demand changes through the day.
The trouble is, according to Oswald, that human demand variance is predictable and smooth compared to wind output variance. Coping with the sudden ups and downs of wind is going to mean a lot more gas turbines – ones which will be thrashed especially hard as wind output surges up and down, and which will be fired up for less of the time.
The fiends.
Alan Boyle has a great interview on the upcoming research to be performed on the Large Hadron Collider.