Phil Klein writes that the DC Circuit just made Barack Obama’s life a lot more difficult.
Good.
[Update a few minutes later]
More good news. The court also said that the EPA can’t fine people for not using a non-existent fuel additive.
[Update a while later]
And of course, the White House thumbs its nose at the court.
Why we should switch.
Maybe space-based societies will switch over.
How can you do it when they can be printed?
A plane has gone down with three on board in Antarctica.
How could they have let them fly in that kind of weather? NASA would never have taken such a risk, because space research is much less important than Antarctic research.
[Update a few minutes later]
So, if they don’t survive, will Antarctic researchers shut down all operations until they’ve had a national commission investigate it, perhaps for years? That’s what NASA/Congress would do.
In my book, I go through the litany of the number of problems they’ve had at Scott-Amundsen Station, and conclude:
…despite all of these problems, one of them fatal (and Nielsen might have lived longer had she gotten better treatment sooner) there has never been a call by anyone to spend billions of dollars on a unique specialized emergency vehicle to provide 24/7/365 access to and from the Antarctic station, though given sufficient resources some clever engineers could probably come up with such a thing. And unlike NASA, the National Science Foundation has (sensibly) never gotten those kinds of resources. Because we recognize that sometimes research is worth taking risks for, and that the lives of the researchers do not have infinite value, or even billions of dollars worth of value. Except, inexplicably, when it comes to space research.
I may add this incident to the book.
Why you should probably stop eating it.
…has been delayed again:
It’s not clear yet how much oil is recoverable, but even at the low end the field would include as much shale oil as America’s Bakken formation, which has helped transform U.S. energy production and the global energy landscape. If higher estimates prove more accurate, Australia could join the U.S. as one of the world’s top oil producers.
Good news for the world. Bad news for OPEC (and those who want to fund Islamism). And for global-warming hysterics.
This looks very encouraging.
The human body’s immune systems protect us from harmful substances. But the body often rejects conventional antibiotics. But the new materials can work because they change themselves once they come into contact with water in the body or on its surface. The material self-assembles into a new polymer structure that is electrostatically attracted to the bacteria membranes (it’s like putting oil and water together). The polymers then break through the cell membranes, destroying the cell. The bacteria, which have amazing adaptive capabilities, can’t adapt to this kind of physical attack.
It works because cells have a natural electric charge. The polymers are drawn only to infected areas. Other antimicrobial materials aren’t biodegradable, but these new materials are made of simple organic molecules. That means they can naturally exit the body, in contrast to other medicines that gather in the body and cause side effects. That means it isn’t likely to cause skin irritation or other problems.
The polymers also swell into a gel form that doctors can easily manipulate. Hedrick said they can do so because of a “molecular zipper effect.” That is, the polymers interlock in the same way that zipper teeth do. When you move them around, they simply re-zip into a form that is deadly to bacteria.
The hydrogel has another interesting property. It can attack whole colonies of bacteria, particularly if it is injected directly into the region of an infection. These bacteria collections, known as biofilms, can be like the coatings of film on your teeth, germs on touchscreens, or growths on medical devices. The hydrogel penetrates the film and disrupts it.
“We can kill 100 percent of the bacteria and reduce the likelihood of a recurrence,” Hedrick said.
Now, if they could just come up with something similar for virii.
Here‘s the (long) list.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of passing.
To the disappointment of thousands who signed the petition, the Obama administration recently informed us that it has, and will have no plans to build a Star-Wars-style death star. Now, there may indeed be good reasons to forgo this addition to the nation’s defense, but the first one listed, that it would cost 850 quadrillion dollars, was based on an extremely flawed estimate. Which isn’t surprising, because among the people doing the estimating, only one has any experience in aerospace engineering (and probably none in costing of such projects). Continue reading How Much Would A Death Star Really Cost?
Bummer. That scientist says he’s not seeking a mother to bear one.