Priscilla Ahn – The Boobs Song
An evening pause: Some romantic silliness true for us all.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Year: 2023
Ancient lava vent high on a Martian volcano
Click for original image.
Today’s cool image illustrates the once violent and active volcanic past of Mars, now long dormant. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 11, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as a “vent and channel” located high on the northeast flanks of the giant volcano Arsia Mons.
The rim around the vent suggests that lava had once bubbled up out of the vent and hardened around it, as most of the lava flowed downhill along the channel. And though this vent appears to be the source of this channel, it is not. The channel continues to the southwest uphill until it reaches the edge of Arsia Mons’ caldera, a region where there are many such vents, many much larger and deeper than this one.
» Read more
Pushback: Arizona State University loses major donor for its anti-first amendment actions
Bring a gun to a knife fight: In protest of Arizona State University’s anti-first amendment actions, a major donor, Tom Lewis, has withdrawn an annual $400K donation, used to support the T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development at ASU’s Barrett College facility that Lewis had contributed more than $2 million to found.
His action was prompted by the hostility and opposition to a February 8, 2023 university event by Barrett College’s faculty, including a petition signed by 37 of 47 members, condemning the event, before it had even occurred. From his press release [pdf]:
Because these were mostly conservative speakers, we expected some opposition, but I was shocked and disappointed by the alarming and outright hostility demonstrated by the Barrett faculty and administration toward these speakers. Instead of sponsoring this event with a spirit of cooperation and respect for free speech, Barrett faculty and staff exposed the radical ideology that now apparently dominates the college.
After seeing this level of left-wing hostility and activism, I no longer had any confidence in Barrett to adhere to the terms of our gift, and made the decision to terminate our agreement, effective June 30, 2023.
Adding weight to Lewis’ decision was the fact that several weeks earlier ASU had fired the Lewis Center’s executive director, Ann Atkinson, as well as Lin Blake, the events operator for the theater where the event was held. Atkinson made it clear their termination was retaliation because they had organized the February conference.
» Read more
Stanford president resigns due to research fraud allegations
The president of Stanford University, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, has now resigned because of allegations of fraud and data manipulation in papers published by him and others.
The report finds that overall Tessier-Lavigne “did not have actual knowledge of any manipulation of research data” and “was not reckless in failing to identify” the problems in the papers. Yet it concludes that he did not respond adequately when concerns were raised about the papers on PubPeer or by a colleague at four different points over 2 decades—most recently in March 2021. For example, it chides him for failing to follow up when Science did not publish the corrections he submitted.
The report also faults Tessier-Lavigne for his “suboptimal” decision not to correct or retract the 2009 Nature paper, despite “vigorous discussions” about what to do; instead, he and colleagues published follow-up papers revising the findings. Without “an appropriate appetite” for corrections, “the often-claimed self-correcting nature of the scientific process will not occur,” the report says.
In other words, he too often looked the other way when associates were sloppy or were found to have faked data.
This story is an addendum to one I posted yesterday, where a researcher in 2020 had found 1 in 4 clinical trials to be either unreliable or fraudulent. His revelation however was ignored by the medical community, just as Tessier-Lavigne ignored fraud or sloppiness at his own lab.
Nor has anything really changed in the medical research community. Though Tessier-Lavigne has stepped down, the actual perpetrators of the fraud are facing no punishment.
Despite the findings of data manipulation, the report does not assign responsibility to any specific members of Tessier-Lavigne’s lab or determine whether the data manipulation fit the federal definition of research misconduct, “fabrication, falsification, fabrication, or plagiarism.” Whether the findings should be reported to the federal Office of Research Integrity will be up to Stanford, Filip says.
It appears we can trust little from the modern medical research community. There is certainly good work being done, but telling the difference between the good and the bad is now very difficult, if not impossible.
Astronomers detect white dwarf star with two faces
The uncertainty of science: Astronomers using ground-based telescopes have discovered a white dwarf star in which the surface chemistry of its two hemispheres are very different, one strongly dominated by hydrogen while the other instead dominated by helium.
The team used the Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS) on the Keck I Telescope to view Janus in optical wavelengths (light that our eyes can see) as well as the Near-Infrared Echellette Spectrograph (NIRES) on the Keck II Telescope to observe the white dwarf in infrared wavelengths. The data revealed the white dwarf’s chemical fingerprints, which showed the presence of hydrogen when one side of the object was in view (with no signs of helium), and only helium when the other side swung into view.
The article lists a lot of proposed explanations, most of which suggest the star’s magnetic field is acting to segregate the materials. All assume these observations are certain and that there is no mixing at all, something we should doubt considering the resolution of the data (a mere point that is rotating).
Venezuela officially signs onto Chinese lunar base project
Venezuela on July 17, 2023 officially signed an agreement with China to participate in China’s lunar base project.
Venezuela is the first nation, after Russia, to sign on to the project.
Since Venezuela has no space industry and is a bankrupt socialist state that can barely feed its people, this at first glance appears to merely be an effort by China for some international PR. One detail from the article however tells us what the deal is really about: “Venezuela will make its satellite control ground station infrastructure available for lunar missions.” In exchange for providing Venezuela some minor educational aid, China gets use of the ground stations that presently exist in Venezuela, and likely the right to build its own there as well.
Graham Mackenzie – Josh’s Jigs
An evening pause: Performed live 2023 in Glasgow.
Hat tip Alton Blevins
July 18, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who acts as a second pair of eyes to make sure we don’t miss anything.
- Insurance rep says Viasat’s $420 million claim for satellite failure will impact other customers
In plain English, insurance companies might have to raise rates to satellite companies to cover Viasat’s claim, an entirely ordinary situation when it comes to satellite insurance.
- Video of NASA press conference in advance of the last Antares/Cygnus launch using Russian engines
The launch date is presently August 1, 2023 at 8:30 pm (Eastern). After this launch Northrop Grumman will not be able to launch an Antares rocket until it gets new engines and first stage from Firefly. In the meantime it will use SpaceX’s Falcon 9 to launch three Cygnus capsules to ISS.
- Another Chinese pseudo-company, Nayuta Space, proposes a methane rocket dubbed “Space Chaser-1”
The company also claims it will have a reusable suborbital launcher that sounds awfully like New Shepard, with variations.
- A new “ultra-high-speed” wind tunnel in China
It appears designed above all to simulate conditions needed for the hypersonic testing.
- Video of first test of SpaceX’s Superheavy launchpad deluge system
It was a partial test, but indicates again that SpaceX will be ready for another Starship/Superheavy orbital test launch in August, as promised. Will the FAA? I remain doubtful.
Ohio Attorney General to college administrators: Discriminate and YOU will be personally liable
Making the law mean something again
Bring a gun to a knife fight: In what is certain to become the most powerful deterrent to leftist bigotry in academia, Ohio attorney general Dave Yost has notified the administrators in his state’s public colleges that “qualified immunity” will not be available to them if they are personally sued for discriminating against any individuals and lose.
Employees found guilty of such practices as employing application essays to discern an applicant’s race “might not be protected by qualified immunity, a doctrine that protects public officials from being personally liable in certain situations,” Yost wrote, according to The Dispatch. “Any attempt to invoke that doctrine would likely be frivolous, and my office may be unable to raise any qualified immunity defense on your employees’ behalf,” Yost wrote.
Glacial evidence in the dry equatorial regions of Mars?
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, rotated, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 3, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the eastern half of a six-mile-wide unnamed crater with a depth of about 1,500 to 2,000 feet from rim to floor.
What makes this picture significant is the patchy material in the center of that crater floor, some of which looks almost like very old peeling paint. It also resembles the kind of glacial features routinely seen in many craters poleward of 30 degrees latitude on Mars.
Is this another example of such glacial features? If so, its location is what makes it significant.
» Read more
The results of one in four medical clinical trials are probably fraudulent or unreliable
In 2020 a researcher in Great Britain decided to analyze the raw data used by 500 medical clinical trials, and found that one in four contained fraudulent or unreliable data.
Carlisle, an anaesthetist who works for England’s National Health Service, is renowned for his ability to spot dodgy data in medical trials. He is also an editor at the journal Anaesthesia, and in 2017, he decided to scour all the manuscripts he handled that reported a randomized controlled trial (RCT) — the gold standard of medical research. Over three years, he scrutinized more than 500 studies.
For more than 150 trials, Carlisle got access to anonymized individual participant data (IPD). By studying the IPD spreadsheets, he judged that 44% of these trials contained at least some flawed data: impossible statistics, incorrect calculations or duplicated numbers or figures, for instance. And 26% of the papers had problems that were so widespread that the trial was impossible to trust, he judged — either because the authors were incompetent, or because they had faked the data.
Carlisle called these ‘zombie’ trials because they had the semblance of real research, but closer scrutiny showed they were actually hollow shells, masquerading as reliable information. Even he was surprised by their prevalence. “I anticipated maybe one in ten,” he says.
There is the real story, however.
Carlisle rejected every zombie trial, but by now, almost three years later, most have been published in other journals — sometimes with different data to those submitted with the manuscript he had seen. He is writing to journal editors to alert them, but expects that little will be done.
In other words, the peer-review medical community continues to allow fake research to be published, even when it has been warned that research is fake.
But of course, we must trust everything they tell us. They are SCIENTISTS, and we must “follow the SCIENCE!”
SpaceX to raise another $750 million in stock sale; earnings rise to $8 billion in ’23
According to anonymous sources, a new stock sale at SpaceX is likely to raise another $750 million because of enthusiasm on Wall Street for the stock due to the company’s growing earnings, which are expected to double to $8 billion this year.
Last week, CNBC reported that Elon Musk’s SpaceX valuation reached nearly $150B following an announcement of a stock sale by existing investors. According to a copy of the purchase offer sent by CFO Bret Johnsen, which CNBC obtained, the company has entered into an agreement with new and existing investors to sell up to $750 million in stock at a price of $81 per share. This represents a 5% increase from the previous secondary sale at $77 per share, which valued the company at approximately $140B. SpaceX has not provided any comments regarding the purchase offer.
Though the article does not say, that revenue comes from two sources, SpaceX’s rocket launches and its Starlink constellation. In the first case the company dominates the launch industry, because its launch price is so much cheaper than everyone else. In the second case, Starlink is producing so much revenue because Elon Musk forced the company to move fast and get its satellites in orbit quickly. Though both SpaceX and Amazon announced their internet constellations at about the same time, Amazon has still not launched any satellites, while SpaceX has more than 4,000 in orbit. This active and operating constellation has allowed SpaceX to grab market share that Amazon is now likely never to get, even when it begins launching.
All this makes SpaceX very appealing to investors, which is why its private stock price has gone up. It is also why it has been able to raise now almost $11 billion in private investment capital for building both Starlink and its Starship/Superheavy rocket.