Tag: science

  • Wuhan Coronavirus COVID-19

    This bothers me: if people can test negative and then go into quarantine for 8 days, and only then test positive, that argues for continued extreme social distancing until better treatment and/or a vaccine is developed. But this also bothers me. If even the left (albeit the British left) can see the problems that accrue […]

  • Science and Faith

    Acton: Christians should support markets and churches, NOT social democracy. Hear, hear! It never was a consensus. WUWT: Already 240 Published Papers In 2016 Alone Show the “97% Climate Consensus” Is A Fantasy Acton again: More than 100 Nobel Laureates Plead with Greenpeace to Drop Opposition to GMOs

  • Just Odds (no Ends today)

    Luna thought that Ron might suffer from a variety of this problem. Awe-inspiring: a type II-P supernova caught in mid-burst. The explosion takes months, then hours, then no time at all. (Kind of like Hemingway’s character’s bankruptcy.) An MIT course in how to make your own videos to publish on YouTube. (Ignore the headline.) Finally, a beautiful video of […]

  • Arctic Climate Change and Extinction

    I can barely understand the abstract: The Arctic Ocean is undergoing rapid climatic changes including higher ocean temperatures, reduced sea ice, glacier and Greenland Ice Sheet melting, greater marine productivity, and altered carbon cycling. Until recently, the relationship between climate and Arctic biological systems was poorly known, but this has changed substantially as advances in […]

  • The Solar System – to scale

    A charming video created to help people visualize the solar system. It’s hopeless, but sometimes the attempt is worthwhile anyway: To Scale: The Solar System from Wylie Overstreet on Vimeo. (Cross-posted on my work blog.)

  • Mosquitos

    The state bird of Alaska, profiled in the Alaska Dispatch News: there are about 17.5 trillion of them. Read the whole article to find the answer to the question: Is the biomass of mosquitoes on the North Slope larger than that of all caribou? The accompanying picture is pretty accurate, too.

  • Another Drake Equation component

    Gamma Ray Bursts may be limiting the evolution of life. Because of them, only 10% of galaxies, and only the outskirts of those, are hospitable to life.

  • Earthquake Map of Anchorage

    Here’s an interesting map, showing where the areas of Anchorage most susceptible to seismic activity are located. (I live in one of the green areas, yay!) (Via Twitter, like so many good things online.)

  • Tab Sweep

    Walter Russell Mead talks about liberalism 5.0. Mead is always worth reading, but I’m more interested in the death of liberalism 4.0 than in what follows it. Enjoy every small victory, because it is temporary. Dave Barry once said that no truly stupid idea ever dies: they keep coming back, like horror-movie zombies, to eat […]

  • Zubrin: Mars the Hard Way

    Bob Zubrin’s not enamored with NASA’s Mars proposal: The kindest thing that can be said about this quintuple rendezvous plan is that it is probably the unplanned product of the pathology of bureaucracy, rather than the willful madness of any individual. For a fifth of its cost, NASA could fly five simple direct sample return […]