These are not the droids you're looking for
Behold, the singularity looms. No, it's not the spooky event horizon of a black hole creeping across the Earth throwing us all into a spaghettified alien space-time! We stand on the cusp of a...
View ArticleSenator Inhofe 'demolishes' climate change with snowball
Clowning around in the Senate hit new heights of fun last week when James Inhofe (R-OK) playfully lobbed a snowball pretending to demolish 100 years of empirical data supporting human-induced climate...
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ISIS may have roots in climate change
Farmers ride in their tractor in the drought-hit region of Hasaka in northeastern Syria on June 17, 2010. Analysts often point to many factors that contributed to the rise of ISIS. Sunni frustration...
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Noted climate contrarian suddenly discovers concern with email subpoenas
Most major extinction level events in the fossil record are correlated with massive changes in global climate Professor emeritus Richard Lindzen is a noted climate change skeptic who has suddenly...
View ArticleThis week in science: you say tomato, I say mutato
For eons plants and animals evolved the old-fashioned way. Then we developed artificial selection and agriculture really took off. Which brings us to present day:Today, however, humans can skip the...
View ArticleBe very afraid
Lock your doors, close your windows! Watch out! Duck and cover! ISIS is coming! They'll creep and crawl out of their hypothetical no-go zones, or maybe from under your bed and inside your closet,...
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Florida Republicans adopt a see-no-evil strategy for climate change
Florida population density map based on Census 2010 data courtesy of Wikipedia commons When it comes to climate change, the peninsula of Florida is on the front lines. It is a highway for major...
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Arctic ice cap near all-time winter low
Click image for an excellent, comprehensive article by Chris Mooney at the Washington Post. Image courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Most reports of Arctic ice cover concern the minimum...
View ArticleThis week in science: 3-2-1 isn't just an area code
If you like following politics and appreciate science—and who doesn't?—the continuing saga of our space program offers a great lesson. It's got everything: larger than life technology zillionaires...
View ArticleOn descent with modification, old school and new
Nature has been radically modifying living things for billions of years. Natural descent with modification is responsible for a huge chunk of our dazzling biosphere, a tiny portion of which is shown...
View ArticleThis week in science: pretty in pink
The Arctic is being affected by climate change faster than other parts of the planet. There is mixed research suggesting in some ways, the Antarctic might be least affected. But if the Earth heats up,...
View ArticleFlorida official skirts banned words, hilarity ensues
In case you missed it, there are reports Florida Gov. Rick Scott or someone acting on his behalf has unofficially banned the term "climate change." Here we see how that translates into real life during...
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Ted Cruz is just like Galileo
Galileo discovered evidence to support Copernicus’ heliocentric theory when he observed four moons in orbit around Jupiter. Beginning on January 7, 1610, he mapped nightly the position of the 4...
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This week in science: views wide and narrow
Well, at the risk of sounding sensationalist, why not an occasional mind expander? After the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator will start working this spring, it will allow researchers...
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Water shortages and water solutions
Drought as recorded in snowfall on Half-dome in Yosemite Valley on March 19 of 2012 and 2015. There was certainly no shortage of water in the Northeast this winter. Boston and several other communities...
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Republicans compare climate change to religion
Rick Santorum, no doubt feeling left behind by all the money flowing to Jeb Bush and the adoration gushing to Ted Cruz, attempted to assert his relevance this weekend. Kudos that he did so without...
View ArticleThis week in science: making waves
Sea Stills - Ray Collins from Ray Collins on Vimeo.Up to now, the Search of Extraterrestrial life or SETI has used a passive approach: they only listen. But some are wanting to go a step further and...
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Crowd-sourcing the Iran nuke deal
It is fortunate for the world that making a reliable nuclear weapon is not easy. Just initiating a runaway fission reaction under controlled conditions in a friendly test range is tricky enough. To...
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Windows 8: From Hell's heart I stab at thee
Once upon a time an outfit called the Coca-Cola company came out with a new product. They called it New Coke. The can was slightly different, the drink inside was slightly sweeter and tangier from...
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Iran nuke deal is a lucky break in light of history
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on Sunday Talk this weekend to gripe about any nuclear weapons deal with Iran, President Obama took to the media to reassure friend and foe: As...
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Study finds coral reefs vulnerable to climate change
Bleached branching coral (foreground) and normal branching coral (background). Keppel Islands, Great Barrier Reef The beautiful corals which color the world's reefs and act as rich habitats for all...
View ArticleThis week in science: do the math!
Not many remember the interest rate correction of 1994, when rates finally went up after a long decline. But plenty of fixed-income mutual funds and bond-holders got caught by surprise, in part because...
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Income inequality: Good service is good business
If you stop and think about it, every business is a service business. Businesses exist to sell, to sell they must have customers, and there is no better way to earn those customers than providing...
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West coast 'blob' may be to blame for drought and cold
A "blob" of warm water has been contributing to the weird weather, producing effects similar to what climate change brings. Click image for full story at Tech Times Beware the blob! Yes, scientists say...
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Researchers to study large methane plume above the Four Corners
Methane is a gas often associated with swamps in the southeast or West Texas oil deposits. But last year scientists found the largest concentration in the US hanging quietly above in an unexpected...
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This week in science: pinko-world
Dwarf planet planet Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, acquire a pinkish hue as seen by New Horizons' color camera recently. Click image for more on mission and timeline Do you think scientists go...
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More insured Americans means more profits for medical industry
Who could have possibly predicted that a sharp increase in the number of Americans with comprehensive health insurance would result in more paying customers for the medical industry? Outside of anyone...
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Beyond the Hubble
The Cat's Eye Nebula as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in the constellation Draco. Click to embiggen Ask anyone to name a telescope and odds are one answer will come up every time: Hubble. Not as...
View ArticleUS ground to orbit launch capability is dependent on former enemies
So close! SpaceX almost landed a Falcon 9 lower stage vertically on an autonomous barge and they'll probably succeed soon If it was written into a Cold War movie plot 40 years ago no one would buy it:...
View ArticleThis week in science: she's a witch!
Will the real Mike Rogers (R-AL) please stand up? Because there's a fire and brimstone Mike Rogers who hates him some commie leader and likes to wax elegantly on a certain president who purportedly...
View ArticleCreationists still blaming Darwin for Columbine
If creationism is the zombie lie behind all biology and geology, the Governor's Mansion in Louisiana might stand in for the castle ruins where the burnt and battered monster is reanimated and sent off...
View ArticleA drone too far?
As a youngster, I built and flew model aircraft, similar in principle to the one above, but we didn't call them drones. We called them radio-controlled airplanes and if you have a son or daughter with...
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Thawing permafrost could boost global warming in more ways than one
Rapidly thawing Arctic permafrost and coastal erosion on the Beaufort Sea, Arctic Ocean, near Point Lonely, AK. Photo Taken in August, 2013 Power plants and automobiles burning fossil fuels and spewing...
View ArticleThis week in science: stardrive?
There is great excitement in some corners of the space exploration community this week, as several NASA people opened up a discussion with engineers and others outside the agency over a mysterious,...
View ArticleHouse seeking to slash spending on Earth science
Hard to believe there were times when either political party regularly distinguished itself and alternately embarrassed the entire nation when it came to science. Or that for a few brief shining years...
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Do we all live in a giant hologram?
The large scale universe projected onto a two-dimensional boundary There is an active field of research in cosmology and physics seeking to explain the cosmos in terms of a radical idea: we live in a...
View ArticleGOP clown car bewildered by how to respond on evolution
The GOP clown car made headlines a few years when an assembled panel was asked during a debate if they accepted the organizing principle in evolutionary biology and several signaled "no." This cycle is...
View ArticleThis week in science: abort, abort!
Up to now SpaceX has been contracted to launch satellites and unmanned resupply missions to the ISS. But the company has big plans for manned spaceflight. And toward that goal, they tested their...
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This week in science: GMOs are PEOPLE!
"There before him, a glittering toy no Star-Child could resist, floated the planet Earth with all its peoples."—2001 During the early days of the Bush administration, in the final few, lazy summer...
View ArticlePush for American-built rocket engines goes bipartisan
SpaceX Dragon capsule reentry animation: this is how a 21st century spacecraft should workWe all know how certain media sources love the smell of bipartisanship in the morning. Here John McCain, yes,...
View ArticleGood Kill: A film that looks at the toll of drone warfare
Last month we briefly reviewed the basics of drones and drone warfare. Today, we're pleased to present an interview with the director behind a new, timely movie on that very subject: Andrew Niccol.Good...
View ArticleThis week in science: two in the Bush
Well worth a few minutes of three-day weekend ZenFormer Florida Governor and presumed current front runner in the 2016 GOP primary, Jeb Bush, spoke on climate change this week. In just a couple of...
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The promise of NewSpace
Ceres as revealed by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 4, 2015, from a distance of 8,400 miles (13,600 kilometers). The bright spots may be water ice. We throw a lot of terms around here on Daily Kos,...
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It's flooding down in Texas
Whole Foods Market on Lamar being cleared of debris, silt and ruined groceries after the Memorial Day flood in May 1981. It was almost like the Memorial Day flood of 1981 all over again. Torrential...
View ArticleAs Texas floods, now is the time to examine its teaparty Republicans
Drone video of flooding in Central Texas over Memorial Day weekend.The drought in Texas ended with a wet, thundering bang last weekend, but the political hypocrisy may just be getting started. The Lone...
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This week in science: from icy worlds to warm-blooded dinos
Images of Pluto returned by New Horizons. Click image for background on mission This week more images of Pluto were released by the New Horizons team showing what appear to be polar caps. We'll know...
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Book Review: Dire Predictions 2nd Edition
Dire Predictions: understanding climate changeBy Michael E. Mann and Lee R. Kump DK Publishing, $ 25.00 US or less, Available NowWe gave two opposable primate digits way up to our last review of Dire...
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This week in science: the fault lies not in our stars
Planned telescopes and existing upgrades of land-based telescopes over the next decade. Most of these devices use adaptive optics to eliminate atmospheric interference, i.e., twinkling. Click image for...
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Riding the quantum wind?
Cantino planisphere 1502, earliest surviving chart showing the explorations of Columbus to Central America, Corte-Real to Newfoundland, Gama to India and Cabral to Brazil. Tordesillas line depicted,...
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Storm watchers advise against complacency during hurricane season
This map shows the tracks of all tropical cyclones in the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. The points show the location of each storm at 6-hour intervals. The color represents the storm's maximum...
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