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Thinking Science...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 16, 2014 at 4:30am


So, you won't think it's just me...

On the blog "Physics and Physicists," Zapper Z writes the following:

A while back, I started a series of blog entry titled "You Can Teach Yourself To Think Like A Scientist". In Part 3 of this series, I mentioned about the general principal that one might be able to draw when reading the statements made by a US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. To refresh your memory, in a GQ Magazine interview, the senator was asked on how old he thinks the Earth is. He evaded answering the question by claiming that he's not a scientist, and that the issue has nothing to do with the economy of the US, which one would gather is the more important issue on his plate at that time.

Based on that interview, I tried to illustrate trying to extract the principals that Senator Rubio was using, which presumably are the principals that guide him in his decisions. His refusal to answer this question and based on his responses, one can conclude that he would rather defer such questions to experts. There's nothing wrong with that, and certainly, being put in a position like that, deferring to the experts is a rather smart way to respond to such a question.

However, such a principal no longer applies anymore, it seems. In the latest news report, it seems that Senator Rubio thinks that he's a climate expert.

"I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it," Rubio said.

The dear senator is picking himself up from a personal debacle with tea party constituents, i.e. actually trying to solve problems with immigration reform, an effort he now absolves himself of.

The title of his blog entry is "US Senator Marco Rubio Shifts Position And Thinks He's A Climate Expert." A long title/URL I'll admit.

The point he's making is the convenience of duplicity; clearly demonstrable Orwellian doublespeak. The senator is obviously making a political calculation, not reporting facts, or new data that would make him reconsider the science.

Governor Romney was for climate change in Massachusetts, working to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions until he was against it to win his party's presidential nomination, and gaff about it at the GOP convention (kind of like his flip-flop on the public mandate regarding healthcare reform). Unfortunately, we cannot ignore it, nor couch the group into a witty comedic punchline.

Tomorrow: Magical Thinking

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world exists by definition

Posted by Arnold L. Johnson on May 15, 2014 at 9:09am

The world is defined by the description of the behavior of men over time, that is what others write about them and what they write about themselves. With the prominence of written history men write others out of history and themselves into history. Glorifying self at the expense of debasing others is the normal political protocol while the form called "not mentioning" is a weapon of choice. History repeats itself so if you don't mention it, it won't be repeated. Alas, it comes back in another form especially if it proved useful in the remembered pass. That is the crux of energy theory (another lesson). Thus, there is a link between selective written history and the human experience that gets embedded in our minds, ie the guilt trip, original sin, and apologetics. Can you handle the truth?

It is a hideous thing to live a lie and not know it, even worse if you know it and go along with it. The Wikipedia definition of "civilization" is telling. It says that institutions, languages, cultural practices and all the trappings are sort of at the hands of a subjugating influence. They ran out of words when it comes to the word "colonization" because they used them for the word "civilization." By condensing the span of time into a brief explainable moment and using the afore mentioned form called "not mentioning" you could put yourself into the written historical record smelling like roses instead of the dung.

The discrepancy between civilization and colonization became apparent in the description of the actions taken by people of the Nile Valley and that of the invading Greeks and Romans. When you dive down into the words and actions you find the motives still in play. The dominant say they all are about civilization but really the force of the motive is colonization. The local leaders ever reaching for favors of higher levels, world leaders, popes, God (as defined by them). We faught for civil rights because that appealed to us, the right to be civil and be treated civil, the same as other citizens. But they had defined us as beast of their burdens and not citizens, by definition, the legal terms.

We have holy books we revere because supposedly they don't change, the real power is from the dictionary that changes every day. Every day! To hide or glorify or debase by definition. The most powerful book in the world is the one of legal terms and definitions (like Blacks Law Dictionary). Ooh I'm not effected by words like that! When we changed the "N" word to also mean "nappy" we couldn't wait to get "good" hair. Got'cha!!

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At The Bottom of the World...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 15, 2014 at 6:18am
Antarctica's Twaites Glacier, one of the six glaciers of the Amundsen Sea Embayment of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Credit: NASA

Sea level rise estimates are going to need to be revised upward: A portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that is home to some of the fastest-flowing glaciers on the continent appears to have entered a state of retreat and melt that is “unstoppable,” two new studies have found.



“It has passed the point of no return,” said Eric Rignot, lead author on one of the studies and a glaciologist at the University of California, Irvine, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.



The West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been of concern to climate scientists because it contains enough ice to add 10 to 13 feet to global sea level rise were it all to melt. (Because the ice sheet’s ice is bound to land, it increases the volume of the ocean as it flows into it, like ice cubes added to a glass of water; sea ice, on the other hand, doesn’t change the ocean’s volume as it melts because it is already displacing that volume, just as a melting ice cube doesn’t add volume to the glass.)



 Scientific American: Melt of Key Antarctica Glaciers "Unstoppable"

Tomorrow: Thinking Science

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Reporting Science...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 14, 2014 at 5:04am
Media Bistro

An interview with Miles O'Brien and how science in an entertainment-driven media frequently gets reported, often by many who don't have a science background or training. Mr. O'Brien did bring his training as a history major and enthusiasm for getting stories accurate - he demonstrates his chutzpah during the interview. Miles sadly had a traffic accident where a portion of his arm had to be amputated afterwards, (he seems to be in good spirits). If anything, the interview gives perspective on how science is reported to the nation, what holds our attention and what we ultimately emphasize and deem as important. Unfortunately, it also describes quite well the tripartite Venn diagram between dogma, ignorance and science denial. Source: StarTalkRadio.net

Tomorrow: At The Bottom of the World

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Acoustic Tractor Beam...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 13, 2014 at 7:48am
Credit: Physics World (link below)

An acoustic "tractor beam" that can pull an object by firing sound waves at it has been created by physicists in the UK and US. The beam was made using a commercial ultrasound surgery system and differs from previous tractor beams that use light. The researchers say their technique could be readily adapted for medical applications that manipulate objects or tissue within the body.



The new tractor beam has been created by Mike MacDonald and colleagues at the University of Dundee, University of Southampton and Illinois Wesleyan University by using an ultrasound ablation system, which is normally used to destroy tumours thanks to focused beams of intense sound. First proposed in 2006 by Philip Marston of Washington State University and realized using light in 2010 by David Grier and colleagues at New York University, the technique involves firing two beams of ultrasonic waves upwards at a triangular-shaped target at about 51° either side from the vertical direction. The target is shaped such that the beams bounce off opposite sides of the triangle, causing the reflected sound to travel straight up (see figure "Reflecting beams").



 Physics World: Physicists sound-out acoustic tractor beam

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Saturn Opposition...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 12, 2014 at 6:48am
Image Source: Link below

On May 10, at 2 p.m. EDT, Saturn reaches opposition — the point in its orbit when it lies opposite the Sun as seen from Earth. The planet then appears as a bright yellowish object at magnitude 0.1 in the constellation Libra the Scales. In the Northern Hemisphere, that star pattern rises in the southeast at sunset.



As you might guess, opposition means the planet rises at sunset, climbs highest in the south around 1 A.M. local daylight time, and sets as the Sun comes up. Opposition also brings Saturn closest to Earth, so it shines brightest for the year (at magnitude 0.1). During times of good seeing (atmospheric steadiness), an observer can pick out the more prominent features of the globe and rings through a 3-inch telescope.



There’s no rush to do this. An apparition (observing season) of Saturn spans a bit more than 10 months. The current one began in late November 2013 when Saturn emerged from the solar glare in the morning sky. The planet will remain visible until October, when it will sink too low in the west after sunset for useful observations.



 Astronomy: Saturn shines brightest in May, Michael E. Bakich

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Mother's Day (re post and add)...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 11, 2014 at 6:08am
Image Credit: IndieRockCafe.com

An anniversary, of sorts...

History of Mother's Day



"The first official Mother's Day celebrations in the United States took place in West Virginia in 1908, at the urging of Anna Jarvis. Anna's mother (also named Anna), who was active in her community, frequently organized women's groups to promote friendship and health. It had been her dream to reunite families divided by the Civil War with a day dedicated to mothers. When she passed away on May 12, 1907, Anna held a memorial service at her late mother's church in her honor. Her mother's idea of Mother's Day quickly caught on, and within five years of her death, virtually every state was observing the day on the anniversary of her death. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday of May as the official Mother's Day.



"You can do anything you want to do, if you set your MIND to it. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you." Mildred D. Goodwin, sunrise 15 September 1925, sunset 7 May 2009, laid to rest 12 May 2009.



Despite my challenging background, she said this often, and believed the quote I reproduced above, and more importantly: she (my MVP) believed in me. I am ever grateful that even as the light was fading from your eyes, you knew who your children - my sister and I - were.



Mildred: Her name means "gentle strength." She was that. Her name for me was "stink": diapers. You understand.



Please honor your mother (while she lives), who assists you in fulfilling your dreams: http://www.e-cards.com/area/mothers-day/ (also source of "history of Mother's Day" above)
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Nuclear Fusion With Hammers...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 10, 2014 at 7:48am

Michel Laberge’s favorite type of energy is the nuclear energy. And the reason for that, as Laberge discusses in this recent TED talk, is that it is the energy of the future. Today nuclear energy generates close to 20% of electricity in the US, but that is, of course, done through nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion, on the other hand, is thefuture of nuclear power, however generating energy in such a way is a gargantuan task for the engineers. There are many potential ways of harnessing the power of the atom and Michel Laberge offers a rather interesting one. High speeds, scorching temperatures and crushing pressure produced by synchronized hammers is the key of Laberge’s idea.



 Source: PhysicsDatabase.com

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Loop Quantum Cosmology...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 9, 2014 at 8:20am

This classic video discusses the rapidly growing field of loop quantum gravity or, more generally, loop cosmology. The main idea behind loop quantum gravity is that space-time is granular and that such granularity is a consequence of quantum mechanics. The powerful implication of this, if, of course, the theory turns our to be correct, is that quantum theory and general relativity can be joined together in what is usually called quantum gravity. Such a powerful junction of the two fields would enable cosmologists to answer some fundamental and almost esoteric questions, for instance, what was the nature of the big bang and what caused it. This video introduces the main ideas of the field and the leading experts, including their interviews.



 Source: PhysicsDatabase.com

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Expanding the Alphabet...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 8, 2014 at 7:05am
Image source: Huffington Post Science

For billions of years, the history of life has been written with just four letters — A, T, C and G, the labels given to the DNA subunits contained in all organisms. That alphabet has just grown longer, researchers announce, with the creation of a living cell that has two 'foreign' DNA building blocks in its genome.



Hailed as a breakthrough by other scientists, the work is a step towards the synthesis of cells able to churn out drugs and other useful molecules. It also raises the possibility that cells could one day be engineered without any of the four DNA bases used by all organisms on Earth.



“What we have now is a living cell that literally stores increased genetic information,” says Floyd Romesberg, a chemical biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, who led the 15-year effort. Their research appears online today in Nature.



 Nature: A semi-synthetic organism with an expanded genetic alphabet
Denis A. Malyshev, Kirandeep Dhami, Thomas Lavergne, Tingjian Chen, Nan Dai, Jeremy M. Foster, Ivan R. Corrêa & Floyd E. Romesberg
Nature: First life with 'alien' DNA
#P4TC:
DNA Codex
Google Mapping Human Genome
Book of Life

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The Dark God's Gift will return!

Posted by H. Wolfgang Porter on May 7, 2014 at 3:56pm

The 'Dark God's Gift' will return! Soon I'll be putting out the call for authors to submit works for DGG vol. II! Once more dark tales of sci-fi, fantasy, horror and more will envelop the minds of online readers at the Black Science Fiction Society. They 'Trynaught' will not be denied....

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El Niño...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 7, 2014 at 7:38am
Source: NOAA's El Niño Page

The El Niño / La Niña climate pattern that alternately warms and cools the eastern tropical Pacific is the 800-pound gorilla of Earth’s climate system. On a global scale, no other single phenomenon has a greater influence on whether a year will be warmer, cooler, wetter, or drier than average. Naturally, then, the ears of seasonal forecasters and natural resource managers around the world perked up back in early March when NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center issued an “El Niño Watch.”



The “watch” means that oceanic and atmospheric conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean are favorable for the development of El Niño within the next six months. These maps reveal one of the most significant of those favorable signs: a deep pool of warm water sliding eastward along the equator since late January.



As the warm surface water is pushed westward by the prevailing winds, cool water from deeper in the ocean rises to the surface near South America. This temperature gradient—warm waters around Indonesia and cooler waters off South America—lasts only as long as the easterly winds are blowing.



If those winds go slack or reverse direction in the western Pacific, the warm pool of water around Indonesia is released and begins a slow slosh back toward South America. The slosh is called a Kelvin wave. If the Kelvin wave has a strong impact on the surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific, then it can help change the atmospheric circulation and trigger a cascade of climatic side effects that reverberate across the globe.



 Climate.gov: Slow slosh of warm water across Pacific hints El Niño is brewing
Huffington Post: Climate Change Is Already Here
NOAA's El Niño Page

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The Drink That People Think Will Replace Food

Posted by William Hayashi on May 6, 2014 at 1:30pm

The Drink That People Think Will Replace Food

#blackscifi #afrofuturism #blacktwitter #blerd 

In December of 2012, three young men were living in a claustrophobic apartment in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, working on a technology startup. They had received a hundred and seventy thousand dollars from the incubator Y Combinator, but their project—a plan to make inexpensive cell-phone towers—had failed. Down to their last seventy thousand dollars, they resolved to keep trying out new software ideas until they ran out of money. But how to make the funds last? Rent was a sunk cost. Since they were working frantically, they already had no social life. As they examined their budget, one big problem remained: food.

They had been living mostly on ramen, corn dogs, and Costco frozen quesadillas—supplemented by Vitamin C tablets, to stave off scurvy—but the grocery bills were still adding up. Rob Rhinehart, one of the entrepreneurs, began to resent the fact that he had to eat at all. “Food was such a large burden,” he told me recently. “It was also the time and the hassle. We had a very small kitchen, and no dishwasher.” He tried out his own version of “Super Size Me,” living on McDonald’s dollar meals and five-dollar pizzas from Little Caesars. But after a week, he said, “I felt like I was going to die.” Kale was all the rage—and cheap—so next he tried an all-kale diet. But that didn’t work, either. “I was starving,” he said.

Click Here For The Full Article

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Ununseptium...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 6, 2014 at 7:00am
Credit: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories

The official Periodic Table of the Elements is one step closer to adding element 117 to its ranks. That’s thanks to an international team of scientists that was able to successfully create several atoms of element 117, which is currently known as Ununseptium until it’s given an official name.



The paper for this experiment has been published in Physical Review Letters.



Ununseptium, like many superheavy elements near the end of the periodic table, is incredibly unstable, existing only for fractions of a second before decaying into other elements. In fact, scientists didn’t actually observe any atoms of element 117 – its existence was confirmed by its decay. Indeed, the elements that 117 decays to themselves decay.



As part of the Periodic Table, Ununseptium would be considered a Group VII element, putting it in the same family as flourine, bromine and chlorine.



 Forbes: Scientists Confirm The Existence Of Element 117, Alex Knapp
Phys.org: Superheavy element 117 confirmed
Radio Chemistry: Element 117, Ununseptium

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Cinco de Mayo (re post and add)...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 5, 2014 at 3:22pm
Battle of Puebla - Wikipedia

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "fifth of May") is a celebration held on May 5. It is celebrated nationwide in the United States and regionally in Mexico, primarily in the state of Puebla, where the holiday is called El Dia de la Batalla de Puebla (English: The Day of the Battle of Puebla). The date is observed in the United States as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride, and to commemorate the cause of freedom and democracy during the first years of the American Civil War. In the state of Puebla, the date is observed to commemorate the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín. Contrary to widespread popular belief, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day—the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico—which is actually celebrated on September 16. (Wikipedia)



The National Society of Hispanic Physicists has a recognition page of Hispanic Americans in Physics - Past, Present and Future. Similar to what I posted during the month of February, my intention is to give the same attention to Hispanic Scientists and Engineers during the celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month.
Teaching for Change: Book link here


Almost 10 years before "Brown vs. Board of Education," Sylvia Mendez and her parents helped end school segregation in California. An American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage who spoke and wrote perfect English, Mendez was denied enrollment to a "Whites only" school. Her parents took action by organizing the Hispanic community and filing a lawsuit in federal district court. Their success eventually brought an end to the era of segregated education in California.


Praise for "Separate is Never Equal" by Duncan Tonatiuh
STARRED REVIEWS
"Tonatiuh masterfully combines text and folk-inspired art to add an important piece to the mosaic of U.S. civil rights history."
--"Kirkus Reviews," starred review
"Younger children will be outraged by the injustice of the Mendez family story but pleased by its successful resolution. Older children will understand the importance of the 1947 ruling that desegregated California schools, paving the way for Brown v. Board of Education seven years later."
--"School Library Journal," starred review
"Tonatiuh ("Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote") offers an illuminating account of a family's hard-fought legal battle to desegregate California schools in the years before "Brown" v. "Board of Education.""
--"Publishers Weekly"
"Pura Belpre Award-winning Tonatiuh makes excellent use of picture-book storytelling to bring attention to the 1947 California ruling against public-school segregation."
--"Booklist"



 Happy Cinco de Mayo!
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Tyranny of Authoritarians...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 4, 2014 at 10:57am
Image Source: The Graveyard Site

This was inspired by my read of the old COSMOS on my kindle. I happened upon this letter excerpt from Galileo to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615. Given the unbelievable, relentless assaults on the new show by Young Earth/Universe Creationists, Galileo might as well have been writing this letter in the 21st Century:



To the Most Serene Grand Duchess Mother:



Some years ago, as Your Serene Highness well knows, I discovered in the heavens many things that had not been seen before our own age. The novelty of these things, as well as some consequences which followed from them in contradiction to the physical notions commonly held among academic philosophers, stirred up against me no small number of professors-as if I had placed these things in the sky with my own hands in order to upset nature and overturn the sciences. They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment, and growth of the arts; not their diminution or destruction.

.

.

.

Now as to the false aspersions which they so unjustly seek to cast upon me, I have thought it necessary to justify myself in the eyes of all men, whose judgment in matters of` religion and of reputation I must hold in great esteem. I shall therefore discourse of the particulars which these men produce to make this opinion detested and to have it condemned not merely as false but as heretical. To this end they make a shield of their hypocritical zeal for religion. They go about invoking the Bible, which they would have minister to their deceitful purposes. Contrary to the sense of the Bible and the intention of the holy Fathers, if I am not mistaken, they would extend such authorities until even m purely physical matters - where faith is not involved - they would have us altogether abandon reason and the evidence of our senses in favor of some biblical passage, though under the surface meaning of its words this passage may contain a different sense.



That's aspersions...without asparagus!



 Fordham University
 Galileo Galilei: Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615

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Pseudo Gap Superconductors...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 3, 2014 at 4:32pm
Argonne National Laboratory

Thanks to a new study by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, researchers have identified and solved at least one paradox in the behavior of high-temperature superconductors. The riddle involves a phenomenon called the “pseudogap,” a region of energy levels in which relatively few electrons are allowed to exist.



Despite their name, high-temperature superconductors are actually quite cold – roughly 250 degrees to 350 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Conventional superconductors, like those used in MRI machines or particle accelerators, are even colder. Even though they are still quite cold, high-temperature superconductors are of special interest to researchers because, at least in theory, they are much easier to keep sufficiently cold and are thus potentially more useful.



 Argonne National Laboratory:
Scientists gain new insight into mysterious electronic phenomenon

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