Month: April 2012

Astronomers have identified two of the oldest known stars, about 12 billion years old, both only a hundred light years away.

4:19 pm

Astronomers have identified two of the oldest known stars, about 12 billion years old, both only a hundred light years away.

What is intriguing about this discovery is that these two white dwarfs had to have formed very soon after the Big Bang, long before the Milky Way galaxy existed as we know it today. How they ended up here is an interesting puzzle.

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Editors representing almost two dozen journals have publicly asked for an investigation into almost two hundred papers authored by anesthesiologist Yoshitaka Fujii.

4:07 pm

Editors representing almost two dozen journals have publicly asked for an investigation into almost two hundred papers authored by anesthesiologist Yoshitaka Fujii.

On 8 March, the journal Anaesthesia published an analysis questioning data in 168 of Fujii’s papers. Now the group of editors, mostly from journals focusing on anesthesiology, is planning to retract what may be Fujii’s entire English language body of work if the institutions with which he was affiliated cannot confirm that the studies took place, that the original research data have been verified, and that the studies had been properly reviewed in advance for ethical considerations.

Given the results of the Toho University investigation, getting those confirmations might be problematic. According to Ken Takamatsu, dean of the university’s faculty of medicine, Fujii told Toho’s investigating committee that he had discarded the experimental data for all of the studies then being questioned, but he claimed there had been no fabrication. [emphasis mine]

The number of papers in question equals 193. If these are all retracted it would be a new record.

The highlighted words illustrate something that pertains to the climate field, climategate, and Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University. Jones, like the anesthesiologist above, had also destroyed his original data, making it impossible to verify the validity of his work. In both cases, such behavior is completely unacceptable in the field of science. It appears the field of anesthesiology recognizes this obvious fact. Sadly, the climate field does not, as Jones’ work is still considered valid by too many climate scientists.

One more thought: That it was possible for so many papers to be published in peer-reviewed journals — despite the fact that the editors now admit that they cannot even confirm that the studies took place — tells us a great deal about the failures in modern peer-reviewed science.

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Mars: dry with only periodic short bursts of wetness.

9:04 am

Mars: dry with only periodic short bursts of wetness.

Though this Science article outlines well the present “consensus” for Mars’s past climate, it also tries to make it sound like the planetary science community had once believed that Mars was once ocean-covered like the Earth and now has abandoned that consensus. To this I say bunk. Though many respected planetary scientists have looked for and found evidence for a past ocean on Mars, this possibility has always been controversial. From my readings most planetary scientists have always believed that Mars has generally been dry, interspersed with short periods when there is flowing liquid water on its surface. Even the advocates of the Martian ocean never proposed an Earthlike ocean, but a somewhat shallow and short-lived phenomenon.

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Fifty top NASA experts, including astronauts, scientists, and engineers, have issued a letter demanding that NASA stop making global warming claims in press releases and websites.

1:51 pm

A new consensus: Fifty top NASA experts, including astronauts, scientists, and engineers, have issued a letter demanding that NASA stop making global warming claims in press releases and websites.

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.

The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.

The individuals who signed this letter comprise a who’s-who from NASA’s science and space exploration work over the past fifty years. Their willingness to sign such a letter cannot be dismissed lightly.

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Despite protests from the U.S. and South Korea, North Korea is continuing preparations for the launch an Earth observation satellite.

1:37 pm

Despite protests from the U.S. and South Korea, North Korea is continuing preparations for the launch an Earth observation satellite.

North Korea recently entered into a food aid agreement with the U.S., which requires the Asian nation to halt long-range rocket launches in exchange for critical resources to stem the country’s widespread poverty and famine.

Officials from the U.S. and South Korea have said that the Unha-3 launch is a violation of this agreement, and could carry significant consequences. South Korean officials have said they may even shoot down parts of the Unha-3 rocket if they breach the state’s borders.

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SpaceX is planning its own spaceport about three miles north of Mexico at the southern tip of Texas.

4:07 pm

SpaceX is planning its own spaceport about three miles north of Mexico at the southern tip of Texas.

SpaceX had been looking at sites at various potential sites, including ones in Florida, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Company officials have said they plan to operate out of Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base as well. A third, commercial launch site frees them from range restrictions that exist at the other two locations.

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Passover

10:56 am

For the next two days posting will be light. I am in Chicago visiting family for Passover, the annual Jewish holiday celebrating the release of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. During the Seder meal, Jews read the Haggadah, which retells the story of the Jewish slavery in Egypt and their escape, with the idea of reminding each person what is like to be a slave, and then to be free. As it says in the Haggadah,

In every generation each individual is bound to regard himself as if he had gone personally forth from Egypt.

Tonight, this is what Jews do. It would be nice if all people reflected on this and did the same.

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The actual cost to launch

7:30 am

In writing this short post on the efforts of Lockheed Martin and Orbital Sciences to launch rockets for the small satellite market, Clark Lindsey made this comment:

It costs around $50 million to launch a Orbital Sciences Minotaur 4, which can put 1,730 kg into LEO while the Lockheed’s Athena 2 will cost around $65 million to put 1,712 kg into LEO. SpaceX currently posts charges $54M – $59.5M for launching to LEO 10,450 kg (equatorial) and 8,560 kg (polar). If SpaceX is able to sustain these prices in routine operation, it will obviously result in some disturbance to the launch industry.

Let’s deconstruct these numbers again, this time listing them by the cost per kilogram:
» Read more

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The Obama administrations Treasury Secretary admitted Wednesday that the federal government’s debt is “unsustainable,” but then added that solving the problem shouldn’t be a top priority, because the government still needs to “do things.”

2:12 pm

Modern doublethink: The Obama administration’s treasury secretary admitted Wednesday that the federal government’s debt is “unsustainable,” but then added that solving the problem shouldn’t be a top priority, because the government still needs to “do things.”

Geithner’s refusal to confront what he admits is a looming disaster illustrates for all to see the normal operating policies of this administration.

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“The bear population is not in crisis as people believed.”

12:11 pm

“The [polar] bear population is not in crisis as people believed.”

The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic. [emphasis mine]

The study here illustrates again the unreliability of another prediction by scientists advocating global warming. The polar bear population might be under threat, but the evidence so far doesn’t yet support that theory.

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