Well…there has been lots of discussion about the effects of climate change like riding seas and growing season changes for crops…but the other day, I read an article about climate change that was the scariest one so far. If we do nothing to limit CO2 emissions and we get the predicted 6 degree rise in temps by the end of the century, one of the most important ocean plants, phytoplankton, will state to die off. Now, this will play havoc with the food chain since phytoplankton is the base for all of the life in the seas…but that is not the scary part, the scary part is that phytoplankton is responsible for almost 50% of the oxygen production on Earth and if they go away, there won’t be enough air left to breathe. Now, how’s that for a direct danger to us from climate change? But, I think that will not be enough for the climate change deniers out there…after all, that’s 85 years away and they will all be dead by then anyway…that’s the way they think…that’s the way conservatives think and I continue to shake my head at the stupidity that is on display every day from these folks…geez…
Category Archives: Science
Here’s some irony for you…
Well…we had some exciting news from NASA yesterday where they revealed that there is liquid water on Mars during what is it’s summer…as you know, on Earth, everywhere there is liquid water there is life…from the deserts to miles underground, there is life, even in places you would never think it would be. But, this discovery of water rises to irony when you remember a little treaty that was signed by all the countries on Earth in 1968…that we would never send a probe to investigate anywhere there is liquid water present..to avoid contaminating that world with earth organisms that have been shown to be able to survive in space…they even put a bunch of microbes on the outside of the ISS and left it exposed to hard space for two years with most of them surviving the vacuum and the extremes of hot and cold that exist there. So, where does that leave us? One of the rovers that is now in Gale crater is near some of these water flows and can’t be sent to look at them…and no new probes…even the Mars 2020 one that is supposed to bring back samples can go near them….this is a conundrum that we need to address…with the possible discovery of life on another planet, how can we tie our own hands? Not sure what the answer is but the water discovery is still exciting….
Pretty cool discovery…
Well…going to get off the politics thing for today and talk about a really cool discovery that was just announced today….spelunkers in Africa were exploring a cave system and one of them saw a 7 inch wide crack that looked interesting so he wedged himself into it, and about 20 feet in, the crack expanded into a huge cavern that was filled with stalagtites hanging from the roof….but, that was not the cool thing…on the floor of the cave were some large bones and human looking skulls that the cavers took pictures of and took to a paleontologist who just freaked out when he saw them…to make a long story short, they went back to the cave and discovered a brand new human ancestor, Homo Naledi and added a new branch to our family tree…even in these days when you think everything has been discovered, just a bunch of guys having fun move the science forward and help us understand the history of us..pretty fricking cool the way I see it….
Energy….
Well…as you know, I get some weird thoughts when I’m out on the bike and I have had this one running through my head for a couple of weeks now…so, I thought I’d try to put it into words and just see what happens….the whole thing started with the realization or recognition that matter and energy are just two forms of the same thing and that everything that is living on the Earth comes from the photons that the sun emits….but, you know that…I hope…and those photons, when converted into matter by plants…are then used by me to make the chemical energy that I use to drive the bike…but, it doesn’t stop there….I find it kind of interesting how quickly this chemical energy can be changed into potential, kinetic, or heat energy while I’m on the ride. Ride to the top of the first hill, and the chemical energy has been converted into potential energy…you can’t see it or feel it but, at the top of the hill, the bike and I are full of this type of energy…and it is quickly released when I head down the next hill…..then the legs take over and the chemical energy is converted into kinetic energy…or the energy that comes with movement of a mass…and then when I stop all of that kinetic is converted into heat by the disc brakes…and then the cycle starts all over again when I start moving again….I find that kind of interesting…not sure if you will….
Another crash and burn….
Well….I did have one thing that I wanted to do today and I forgot about it….I really wanted to watch Space X try to land their booster on the floating platform but I got distracted by other things and forgot…I did get to see the launch which came off great and that was cool but the landing didn’t go well…again….but they are getting closer and it will be cool when they finally do it….haven’t seen the landing yet but it should be pretty cool when it’s gets posted….that’s it….this one was fast to keep from going another one down….
Dinosaurs never existed?
Well…sometimes when I’m reading, I come across articles that makes my jaw drop at the abject stupidity of people in this modern age…and, it happened again this week when reading about a religious group whose sole purpose is to stop the teaching of anything about dinosaurs in all US schools. I am still laughing at the reason for this lunacy…that these people think dinosaurs never existed; that they were a hoax that was hatched in Victorian England and that every scientist since then has been in on the hoax. Now, who would spend a minute of their time on something as stupid as this? I guess it’s just another incidence that says the world is just going to hell…that people think scientific fact is somehow negotiable with the opinions of the ignorant masses having as much weight as well proven theories….shaking my head again….
Rockets away….
Well…have been feeling like crap again today with another fever up over 101 and I am getting really tired of it…was just getting over the past one and got up coughing my lungs out again….but, that’s not what this one is about…there is going to be another Space X launch tonight at 6:10 and, after they put the satellite into orbit, they are going to try to soft land again on one of their floating landing pads….that should happen about 7 or so and NASA is going to cover the launch live…not sure if they are going to cover the landing but that would be the cool part…at least there will be video of it tomorrow….that’s it…feeling too crappy to write more so I’ll hit the couch and try to rest….
The anti-vaxxers are nuts…
Well…there has been a building story over the past year or so about people opting to not get their children vaccinated due to some stupid, unfounded belief that the vaccines cause autism in children….all driven by some doctor in England who faked the numbers in a “study” he did to make it look like there was a causitive relationship between getting the standard MMR vaccine and the increasing incidence of autism…not sure what his reasoning was but that’s not the point…the point is that modern vaccines are safe and effective. But, that doesn’t stop the idiots out there that think their beliefs are better than the scientific evidence…I’m talking to you Jenny McCarthy…and have put many children with other illnesses at risk by their stupidity. When my kids were little, they all got all of the vaccinations on time…why would any parent subject their kids to to the pain and possibly life altering effects that come with getting the measles or mumps? I had all of those diseases when I was a kid and can remember being out of school for weeks with chicken pox and I remember the pain from the mumps that I would not wish on anyone…let alone my own kids. I think not vaccinating your kids is a form of child abuse that needs to be stopped…but the repubs keep making it easier to opt out of vaccinations for “freedumb” or some such nonsense…I guess that is just a normal outcome of their anti science and ignorance…still doesn’t justify it…geez…
Some science stuff….
Well…as you know, politics has been boring me lately so I thought I’d do one with some short science thoughts…sounds like as good an idea as any so I think I’ll give it a go…Space X almost did what many have said is impossible over the weekend…they landed their first stage rocket on a barge in the ocean off Florida…a little too hard to reuse it, but they got it down on a tiny little platform..well…tiny is kind of relative…the barge was about 100 yards long but I still think it was a pretty cool thing to try…there is a naked eye comet that is visible in the northern sky for the next week or so and it looks kind of green…there have been so really cool pictures taken through telescopes that Phil Plait has posted in Bad Astronomy on Slate so go out and take a look…both at the site and outside if it’s clear…should be near Orion….They are getting ready to restart the LHC at CERN in the next month or so and they have upgraded it to have twice the power it had when the found the Higgs boson…can’t wait to see what they are going to try next…maybe prove supersymmetry or extra dimensions? It will be pretty cool no matter what they do….one last thing…take the time to find the new Hubble image of the Andromeda galaxy….just a breathtaking set of photos and you can see the individual stars it is such high resolution….made me smile….
Vaccines work…
Well…with the huge outbreak of whooping cough in Traverse City over the past couple of weeks, we are seeing the results of the misguided efforts on the right to cater to the anti-vax crowd and their wrongheaded idea that vaccines cause autism. A few years back, the repubs here in Michigan effectively gutted the herd protections that vaccines bring by allowing parents to opt out by just filing a paper with the state saying they object to vaccinating their kids for any reason whatever…and this is what we got from that law…hundreds of cases of whooping cough, measles, mumps, and other preventable diseases that were on the verge of eradication before people started to believe that vaccines were a plot or a danger to their kids…driven mostly by fox news and fear mongers there. I just want every parent that wants to not vaccinate their kids to be shown the pictures of the polio epidemic before the Salk vaccine was invented and see the death and destruction that occurred before this breakthrough. I have vaccinated all of my kids with no reservations whatsoever…I still remember how sick I was with mumps and measles when I was a kid before the advent of vaccines for those diseases and surely didn’t want my kids to go through it…for the sickness or even the deaths that came from these diseases…I hope people come to their senses and vaccinate their kids…if they don’t, they put everyone at risk and I don’t think it’s their decision to make…geez….