Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

Water and ice at the bottom of the Antarctic Ice Sheet

11:27 pm

The uncertainty of science: Unexpectedly large amounts of flowing water and refrozen ice found at the bottom of the Antarctic icecap. Key quote:

It’s too early to know whether this new finding means that global warming will melt ice sheets slower or faster than scientists have predicted. But the work does suggest that current models of ice sheet dynamics are missing a huge factor, said glaciologist Donald Blankenship of the University of Texas, Austin. “The take-home message of this work is that [the bottom of ice sheets] can no longer be ignored” in the models, he says.

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Traffic and more roads

8:12 am

Puncturing the myth that more roads mean more congestion Key quote:

Read enough of these studies and you get a sense that much of the induced-demand hubbub is really a sub rosa extension of the war on the suburbs: Stop highway expansion and you can make life miserable enough for the minivan-driving masses that they’ll move out of their gauche “urban-fringe developments” and back to high-density metropolitan cores, where they belong.

In reading the full essay, I was struck by how much the scientific campaign against road construction reminded me of climategate.

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The Beer has Landed: Astronauts4Hire Completes Space Beer Microgravity Test

10:16 pm

The beer has landed: The first test of space beer in weightlessness has been completed. Key quote:

Astronauts4Hire Flight Member Todd Romberger was selected to perform the flight research. Todd sampled the beer during 12 microgravity parabolas, each reproducing the weightless conditions of space for 30 seconds at a time, and recorded qualitative data on beverage taste and drinkability as well as biometric data to gain a first look at alcohol effects the body.

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