Did an extraterrestrial impact cause the Ice Age extinctions? If so, this could be one more motivation to get our act together in terms of finding and managing these things.

A tutorial. This should be of interest to anyone in hurricane country. In many ways, wind shear is a more important factor in the intensity of storms than water temperature (one reason that the effect of global warming, if it occurs, is not obvious, with respect to more or more intense hurricanes).

Supergerms. No word on whether or not kryptonite has any effect.

Is most scientific research sloppy?

I wouldn’t be shocked if that were the case. We see enough examples of it (global warming being one notable area) to think that it could be just the tip of the iceberg. Getting it right is hard work, and there are a lot of researchers out there who are desperately working on degrees, or under the pressure to publish or perish, even if the research turns out to be perishable.

The Earth is just about half-way through the agricultural revolution where one worker can on average produce food for two workers and their dependents now. From the beginning of the agricultural revolution that freed up folks to make other goods and services around 1750-1850 to today where we have only half of workers worldwide give or take working in agriculture, 6 times as many people and 35% more calories per person from 1960-1990 alone.¹

Compare that to the BBC radio report saying that since the dawn of the PC revolution (I got my Apple ][+ with disk drive and language card mail order near the dawn of the personal computer revolution in 1983). We are nearly at one billion PCs worldwide and on a pace for 3.5 billion PCs worldwide in about ten years.² Interesting times indeed.

Jim Hansen has released the code for his models.

On two separate occasions, Hansen, who two weeks ago contrasted royalty with

Whether it’s increasing the salinity of the oceans, or decreasing it, we know who to blame.

Whether it’s increasing the salinity of the oceans, or decreasing it, we know who to blame.

Whether it’s increasing the salinity of the oceans, or decreasing it, we know who to blame.

Chris Mooney wrote a book called “The Republican War On Science.”

While it was obviously (from its title) of partisan intent, it was well researched, and did make a good case for it. And it even purported to attempt to appear bi-partisan, by pointing out a few examples of political attacks on science from the left. However, it gave them extremely short shrift, in my opinion. Here’s just one example of the kind of thing with which he could have balanced the book, had he truly wanted to.

My problem with Chris’ book is that it was too polemical, when he had an opportunity to make a serious point–that science is continually under assault by people with an agenda from all points on the political compass. By attempting to make it a partisan issue, it results in a misdiagnosis of the problem. After all, if it’s only a “Republican” war on science, then the solution is simple–elect Democrats. Unfortunately, the problem is much more complex than that, and the notion that it’s not holds us back from finding a real solution.