New gravity map

Gravity maps are way cool and help us picture the 4th dimension, which often we forget. Check out this new grav map:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8767763.stm

The Woo is a Lie

It's hard to think of a stranger article than the recent piece by Dr. Robert Lanza which appeared in the Huffington Post.

Titled "What are we? New experiments suggest we're not purely physical," this piece might have offered some actual new experiments; instead, we are presented with tired, hackneyed cliches about quantum theory and how this, supposedly, proves the existence of something other than reality. It is quite simply nonsense.

While arguing, "part of us exists outside of the physical world," Dr. Lanza does not offer any real evidence of this. Instead, we're retold old stories about the spookiness of the quantum world, mixed with assurances the scientific community is "trapped in an outdated paradigm." Kuhn references are the last refuge of anti-science scoundrels.

Quantum mechanics is strange and counter-intutive. But simply because phenomenon occur in ways unexpected to our normal experience is not an argument against the nature of reality. Quantum mechanics simply is. Electromagnetic radiation exists both as a wave and as a particle. There is no why. Extrapolating from quantum mechanics to a New Age, woo-ish interpretation of the world goes far beyond what the evidence actually suggests.

Dr. Lanza writes:

The world was once wondrous.

And indeed it still is. Learning science should not reduce one's wonder about the world; rather, it is through science that we develop an appreciation for just how wondrous reality is.

Dr. Lanza philosophizes:

My colleagues tell me we're just the activity of carbon and some proteins; we live awhile and die. And the universe? It too has no meaning. They have it all worked out in the equations -- no need for woo.

Now we see the crux of the matter. If Dr. Lanza wants to argue that we are something other than carbon molecules, the burden of proof is on him to produce evidence for it. Perhaps there is "something else"--we cannot absolutely rule out such a possibility. But science does strongly suggest that there need not be anything else in order to explain the world and the things that live in it. Therefore to argue that some unnamed "new experiments" are producing reality-shattering paradigm shifts about the nature of reality is, quite bluntly, wrong.

Tracking research vessels

Research ships are very cool. It's a small environment crammed with smart people, visiting beautiful places to do interesting work. Imagine that several times a day someone brings up a mud core--tens of millions of years old, which no one has ever seen before--and plops it down for you to start analyzing. Although prudish American ships are dry, European ships more sensibly understand the importance of the free-flow of alcohol. So where are all these ships?

Sailwx.info has a handy site allowing you to track the world's research vessels:
http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/researchships.phtml

You can see, for example, that the Polarstern is right now half way between Iceland and Greenland. The Thomas Thompson, from which science writer Wendee Holtcamp is blogging, in Deadliest Catch waters. It is interesting to think of all this cool research going on simultaneously around the world.

the slick

NASA has just released a spectacular picture of the BP spill taken on 19 June 2010:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=44375

BTW, not that these pictures come courtesy of a governmental science agency. Remember that the next time some anti-science politician suggest cutting funding for science and leaving all innovation to the private sector. Imagine if the satellite that took this picture were owned by a corporate giant who owned BP... I suspect in such a case we wouldn't be seeing any such pictures at all.

plastic weathering

Geologists tend to think differently about pollution than scientists in other fields. To an oceanographer, plastic pollution in the oceans is a huge issue because such plastic may take as long as 400 years to degrade. Four hundreds years is, of course, below the resolution of many geologic dating techniques, so in the geologists' mind 400 years seems like the +/- slop that is part of every calculation. This doesn't mean the immediate, current plastic problem is not deadly to marine life now; but in the long run, if we were to stop plastic pollution, in a time period measured by geologic thinking, things would be back to normal fairly quickly.

Now, as this article in New Scientist points out,

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627651.900-drastic-measures-save-plastic-treasures.html

20th century plastics are degrading faster than anyone thought. This includes works of art sculpted in plastics that are now disintegrating.

fast erosion

Creationists will no doubt take solace from the way this article is phrased:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100620155748.htm

Sometimes erosion does occur rapidly. In a river such as the Colorado, for example, long periods of little erosion are punctuated by rapid erosion during peak flows. This does not, however, mean that all of geology is wrong and that the drainage of Noah's Flood carved the Grand Canyon.

Science writers should take better care to understand the ways in which their headlines will be misused.

very cool graphic

A quite cool graphic showing the highest mountain, the deepest trench, and everything in between:

http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/infographic-mountain-to-deepest-ocean-trench-0249

Anakin Skywalker--borderline personality?

A new paper argues that Anakin Skywalker, the future Darth Vader, displayed classic signs of borderline personality disorder.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/06/05/psychology-darth-vader-revealed/

If true, this could be the first time the prequels had any correspondence to the way people actually behave.

Time Lapse Glaciers

An excellent site, the Extreme Ice Survey, showing graphics of retreating glacial ice.

http://www.extremeicesurvey.org/index.php/new_gallery/

Shake Maps

Predicting earthquakes on a short time scale is impossible. However, we know in the long term where earthquakes will occur, and we also know pretty well how the ground will behave.

This site details recent work modeling how Southern California will respond to the next big quake. It's just a matter of time.

http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/news/feature-stories/2010/clear-with-a-chance-of-tremors/

Is Lady Gaga puppet of the Illuminati?

Everyone knows the Illuminati control everything. So it should come as no surprise that Lady Gaga is controlled by them, too.

http://www.disinfo.com/2010/03/lady-gaga-puppet-of-illuminati-mind-control/

This site of tin-foil hat paranoia is as crazy as it seems. To cleanse the mental palette, indulge yourself in a site that attempts to analyze Lady Gaga from a literary theory perspective:

http://gagajournal.blogspot.com/

world stats

Scientists love quantification. Although not every aspect of science lends itself to numerical description, when you've got solid numbers, that makes it much easier to sell your idea to other scientists.

Here is a great site of real-time statistics about the world:

http://www.worldometers.info/

I particularly like Society & Media section--it's spooky to think of the amount of info being generated each second of each day.