Tag: science

Seven big failed environmentalist predictions

3:49 pm

Link here.

Like the author, I remember every single one of these doomsday predictions. I also remember how every single one of these predictions was wildly wrong. Until these fear-mongers can reliably predict things, I see no reason to believe them.

His article however does provide one entertaining tidbit:

You know how old I am? I’m so positively ancient that I remember when one of Jimmy Carter’s big answers to the impending shortage of oil was to increase federal funding for research on how to extract oil from shale. It ended the way you would expect: it went nowhere. But some decades later, private oil companies did find a way to more economically extract oil from shale—and environmentalists promptly made it public enemy #1.

All true. And just one more example of how the government fails at something while private enterprise, fueled by the profit motive, finds a way to make that exact same thing happen.

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Layered mesas inside Martian crater

10:40 pm

Layered mesas inside a Martian crater

Cool image time! In their weekly release of new images, the hi-resolution camera team for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have posted a wonderful image of the complex layering and terracing inside Spallanzani Crater, located in the high latitudes of the red planet’s southern hemisphere. The image on the right is only one small section of the much larger image.

So what is the composition of these layers? Spallanzani Crater lies in the high latitudes of the Southern hemisphere (around 60 degrees in latitude) so there is a good possibility that the deposits are ice-rich. If we look more closely we will notice fractured mounds, which sometimes indicate the presence of subsurface ice. Another interesting observation is the presence of grooves in the shaded slopes of some of the layers. Perhaps these grooves formed because of the sublimation (the direct transfer of solid ice to water vapor) of ice from these slopes since slopes tend to get warmer than the surrounding terrains.

This image hardly shows a breakthrough discovery, but I like it because it illustrates nicely the wonderful but very alien landscape of Mars. To walk its surface will be a daily adventure for its first colonists.

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Seismic data of Yellowstone has found a bigger second magma chamber

9:52 am

Geologists have mapped the existence of a second deeper and larger magma chamber under Yellowstone National Park.

Scientists had already known about a plume, which brings molten rock up from deep in the mantle to a region about 60 kilometers below the surface. And they had also imaged a shallow magma chamber about 10 kilometers below the surface, containing about 10,000 cubic kilometers of molten material. But now they have found a deeper one, 4.5 times larger, that sits between 20 and 50 kilometers below the surface. “They found the missing link between the mantle plume and the shallow magma chamber,” says Peter Cervelli, a geophysicist in Anchorage, Alaska, who works at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

The discovery does not, on its own, increase the chance of an eruption, which is driven by an emptying of the shallow chamber. The last major eruption was 640,000 years ago, and today the threat of earthquakes is far more likely. But the deeper chamber does mean that the shallow chamber can be replenished again and again. “Knowing that you have this additional reservoir tells you you could have a much bigger volume erupt over a relatively short time scale,” says co-author Victor Tsai, a geophysicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The discovery, reported online today in Science, also confirms a long-suspected model for some volcanoes, in which a deep chamber of melted basalt, a dense iron- and magnesium-rich rock, feeds a shallower chamber containing a melted, lighter silicon-rich rock called a rhyolite.

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Chinese scientists do genetic experiments with human embryos

11:22 pm

What could possibly go wrong? A Chinese team of scientists have been experimenting with genetically manipulating the human embryo to see if they can prevent a genetic blood disorder.

The team attempted to modify the gene responsible for β-thalassaemia, a potentially fatal blood disorder, using a gene-editing technique known as CRISPR/Cas9. The researchers say that their results reveal serious obstacles to using the method in medical applications. “I believe this is the first report of CRISPR/Cas9 applied to human pre-implantation embryos and as such the study is a landmark, as well as a cautionary tale,” says George Daley, a stem-cell biologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston. “Their study should be a stern warning to any practitioner who thinks the technology is ready for testing to eradicate disease genes.”

They not only found the technique unreliable in curing the genetic disease, it also produced many more unpredicted mutations.

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The first reflected light from an exoplanet detected

5:29 pm

For the first time scientists have detected directly the reflected light coming from an exoplanet.

Astronomers using the HARPS planet-hunting machine at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile have made the first-ever direct detection of the spectrum of visible light reflected off an exoplanet. These observations also revealed new properties of this famous object, the first exoplanet ever discovered around a normal star: 51 Pegasi b. The result promises an exciting future for this technique, particularly with the advent of next generation instruments, such as ESPRESSO, on the VLT, and future telescopes, such as the E-ELT.

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Hubble finds something astronomers can’t explain

8:41 am

The uncertainty of science: The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted the explosion of a star that does not fit into any theory for stellar evolution.

The exploding star, which was seen in the constellation Eridanus, faded over two weeks — much too rapidly to qualify as a supernova. The outburst was also about ten times fainter than most supernovae, explosions that destroy some or all of a star. But it was about 100 times brighter than an ordinary nova, which is a type of surface explosion that leaves a star intact. “The combination of properties is puzzling,” says Mario Livio, an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. “I thought about a number of possibilities, but each of them fails” to account for all characteristics of the outburst, he adds.

We can put this discovery on the bottom of a very long list of similar discoveries by Hubble, which this week is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its launch.

On that note, as part of that celebration Space.com today has published a long interview with me about Hubble and my book, The Universe in a Mirror, the saga of the Hubble Space Telescope and the visionaries who built it. They have also published an excerpt from the book. Check both out.

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Rosetta records the appearance of a new jet on Comet 67P/C-G

9:21 am

jet appears on comet

Cool image time! Images taken two minutes apart by Rosetta have captured the emergence of a new jet on Comet 67P/C-G.

The two images released today show the remarkable onset of such a jet for the first time. They were taken on 12 March from a distance of 75 kilometres. In the first image, obtained at 07:13 CET, several rays of dust jets frame the upper, illuminated side of the comet. The dark underside shows no such features. Two minutes later, the picture has changed: a spectacular new jet has emerged on the dark side, hurtling dust into space and displaying a clearly discernable fine structure.

This was the first jet observed in a shadowed area, and the scientists think this jet might have started because it was just before dawn there.

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TMT construction postponed again

7:49 am

The builders of the Thirty Meter Telescope have temporarily extended the suspension of construction originally demanded by Hawaii’s governor.

The tone of the article, especially the comments by the governor, suggests that the state is accepting the reality that they have no legal right to stop construction, and are making that fact very public. Instead, the govenor is now beginning the public relations campaign to make construction possible despite the protests, including negotiating some other givebacks to the protesters to shut them up. Sadly, those giveback appear to be the decommissioning of some other working telescopes as well as some increased restrictions on access to the mountain by the public.

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No obvious evidence of advanced civilizations in 100,000 galaxies

10:57 pm

A search for evidence of advanced civilizations in the WISE orbiting telescope database has come up mostly empty.

Theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson proposed in the 1960s that advanced alien civilizations beyond Earth could be detected by the telltale evidence of their mid-infrared emissions. It was not until space-based telescopes like the WISE satellite that it became possible to make sensitive measurements of this radiation emitted by objects in space.

Roger Griffith, a postbaccalaureate researcher at Penn State and the lead author of the paper, scoured almost the entire catalog of the WISE satellite’s detections — nearly 100 million entries — for objects consistent with galaxies emitting too much mid-infrared radiation. He then individually examined and categorized around 100,000 of the most promising galaxy images. Wright reports, “We found about 50 galaxies that have unusually high levels of mid-infrared radiation. Our follow-up studies of those galaxies may reveal if the origin of their radiation results from natural astronomical processes, or if it could indicate the presence of a highly advanced civilization.”

Though the spin of the article is that no clear evidence of alien civilizations was found, I am most intrigued by those 50 candidate galaxies.

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Ground-breaking for LSST takes place in Chile

3:12 pm

The official launch of construction of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) took place today in Chile.

Today, collaborators from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Chile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Technológica (CONICYT) and several other international public-private partners will gather outside La Serena, Chile, for a traditional Chilean stone-laying ceremony to celebrate the construction launch of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).

They did the same kind of ceremony in Hawaii for the ground-breaking of the Thirty Meter Telescope, but things have gone very sour since. In Chile, however, I expect no problems. I wonder which local community has more sense.

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More evidence found for liquid water on Mars

8:39 am

A new study suggests that a liquid but very salty water does appear on Mars, during the night in the winter and spring months.

The team used Curiosity’s weather-monitoring equipment to look for those conditions and found that they occur every day in months throughout winter and spring. They suggest that overnight and before sunrise, some of the frost that forms on the planet’s surface interacts with the strong salts and turns liquid, seeping into the soil. This lines up with previous studies, which have detected geographic features that suggest flowing water.

The results come from the Gale Crater, which is itself too cold to support microbial life — even with liquid water present. But the study authors believe this phenomenon could occur anywhere on the planet, and may actually be more common in areas closer to the polar regions. Still, Mars is a pretty desolate place, and the amount of water we’re talking about is minimal at best. “There’s so little water that you can’t even see it visibly,” Morten Bo Madsen said.

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The distortion of the global surface temperature datasets

11:33 am

Link here. Goddard does a good job of illustrating the differences between the measured and reported climate temperature datasets, and how the reported numbers are consistently shifted to make the past cooler than measured and the present hotter than measured.

He often attributes this bias to dishonest tampering with the data to support the theory of global warming. He might be right, but it is important to remember that you shouldn’t necessarily assign malice to things that are just as easily explained by human error or stupidity. In this case he also notes that almost all the weather stations that have been decommissioned in the past few decades have been located in rural areas. To replace their data, global warming scientists average the data from nearby stations, most of which are in urban areas that exhibit warmer temperatures because city constructs tend to cause local warming. The result? The recent datasets tend to show a strong trend upward.

What is causing a cooling in the datasets from prior to 1970 however is not explained by mere error. The data hasn’t changed. Someone must be deciding to adjust it downward, for reasons that are simply not justifiable.

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Dark energy evidence found to be uncertain

10:10 am

The uncertainty of science: Astronomers have discovered that the type of supernovae they have used as a standard to measure the accelerating expansion of the universe, which also is evidence for the existence of dark energy, are actually made up of two different types.

The authors conclude that some of the reported acceleration of the universe can be explained by color differences between the two groups of supernovae, leaving less acceleration than initially reported. This would, in turn, require less dark energy than currently assumed. “We’re proposing that our data suggest there might be less dark energy than textbook knowledge, but we can’t put a number on it,” Milne said. “Until our paper, the two populations of supernovae were treated as the same population. To get that final answer, you need to do all that work again, separately for the red and for the blue population.”

The authors pointed out that more data have to be collected before scientists can understand the impact on current measures of dark energy.

It has always bothered me that the evidence for dark energy was based entirely on measurements of type 1a supernovae from extremely far away and billions of years ago. Not only was that a different time in the universe’s history when conditions could be different, our actual understanding of those supernovae themselves is very tenuous. We really do not have a full understanding of what causes them, or how they even happen. To then assume that these distant explosions are all so similar that their brightness can be used as a “standard” seems untrustworthy. From my perspective, the conclusions, though interesting, are being pushed based on extremely weak data.

The research at the link illustrates just how weak that data was.

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New Horizons begins Pluto approach phase 2 of 3

11:41 pm

It’s getting closer! On April 5 New Horizons began the second of three approach phases in preparing for its July 14 fly-by of Pluto.

During this phase, which lasts until June 23, the spacecraft’s instruments will take the first ever color and spectral photos of the Pluto system. Observations taken during this period will provide sharper focus of Pluto and its five moons. Long exposure images will scan the region for additional moons and a possible ring system. Ultraviolet observation of both the surfaces and atmospheres of Pluto and Charon will begin during this phase.

The main goal of these observations, besides gazing at Pluto and its five moons, is to scan the region that the spacecraft will pass through, and make sure there is nothing there that might pose a threat.

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Rosetta team adopts new approach strategy

9:12 am

Because of the problems Rosetta experienced during its last close fly-by of Comet 67P/C-G the engineering team has worked out a new approach strategy for future observations.

Essentially, they are postponing any close fly-bys for the near future. Instead, they will observe from farther away, while reassessing the situation and planing for later opportunities.

Meanwhile, on April 12 the next opportunity to listen for Philae begins.

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Russian hunters find frozen carcass of extinct whoolly rhino

10:38 am

In September Russian hunters accidentally discovered the frozen remains of an adolescent whoolly rhinoceros.

Larger than modern-day rhinos and more suited to extreme cold and harsh environments, the woolly rhino first appeared about 3.6 million years ago. Weighing up to an estimated 4,000 pounds and equipped with 24-inch-long horns, these intimidating creatures co-existed with early humans and were often hunted. Yet for all their strength, the woolly rhino became extinct over 10,000 years ago. Unlike the woolly mammoth, little is known about this species since few specimens have ever been retrieved. Those that have were often mummified to a point where study was impossible, and up until now, no calf has ever been found.

RT reported that experts at the Yakutsk academy will attempt to extract DNA from the calf’s remains and try to come up with a more accurate date on when the creature died. Nicknamed “Sasha,” researchers say the calf died at least 10,000 years ago and may have been 18 months old when it perished.

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Global Warming advocates debunk their own theory

10:32 am

Climate models vs climate reality

The statements and data provided by advocates of human-caused global warming themselves provide strong evidence that their theory of human-caused global warming is wrong.

The article is detailed and includes a lot of hard but easy-to-digest data, such as the graph on the right, which shows how all the computer models predicting global warming have failed to predict the lack of warming for the past eighteen years. (The models predicted the rising colored lines. Actual global temperatures are shown by the black line.) This quote however is a nice summation:

Allow us to cite one more example out of many that could be brought to bear. On June 6, 2007, the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition published an analysis of seasonal climate predictions made by the New Zealand Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) showing that the Institute did not even achieve 50 percent accuracy. Director Dr. Jim Renwick’s response was telling. “Climate prediction is hard, half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don’t expect to do terrifically well,” he told the New Zealand Herald. Dr. Renwick, who is an IPCC lead author and a member of the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Commission for Climatology Expert Team on Seasonal Forecasting, stated on New Zealand Radio, “The weather is not predictable beyond a week or two.”

This is huge! Phil Jones, a top AGW guru, admits “we don’t know what natural variability is doing,” and Judith Curry says that the climate models are “imperfect and incomplete” and natural causes “dominate” human effects on global temperatures. And IPCC/WMO bigwig Jim Renwick concedes his organization’s climate predictions are wrong more than half the time — and they can’t predict the weather more than two weeks out. Yet, we are supposed to empower national and international politicians and bureaucrats to completely regulate, re-engineer, tax, and regiment human civilization on a planetary scale, based upon the same faulty computer models that have universally, spectacularly failed — over and over again.

I hate to say this, but it appears that the only “deniers of reality” we have in this debate are the political advocates of human-caused global warming, people like Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Al Gore, who continue to refuse to recognize the reality that there has been no warming during the past eighteen years.

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New studies struggle to explain the origin of the Moon

10:03 am

The uncertainty of science: Three new studies on the mystery of the origin of the Moon all appear to better confirm the theory that it was created when the Earth collided with a Mars-sized planet.

It is important to be aware of the uncertainties here. All these studies were done to try to address problems with the impact theory, and though they kind of answer the questions, they leave behind some important doubts.

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Governor orders one week shut down of Thirty Meter Telescope project

8:46 am

Bowing to the demands of about two dozen protesters, the governor of Hawaii has ordered a one week halt in the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea.

You can read statements from the governor, the protesters, and the telescope’s project manager here. Make sure especially you read the statement by the telescope manager, as it outlines in great detail the negotiations over the past seven years between the telescope and the local community. This project was not forced upon them. They discussed it and agreed to it. As the statement notes,

Following an appeal of the permit and further contested case proceedings, the TMT project has proceeded in full compliance with the law. The TMT site was selected with great care and respect. There are no archaeological shrines or burial sites within TMT’s project site. Comprehensive research by expert hydrologists confirm there is no threat to the aquifer.

This is the same story we’ve seen for the past half century with every telescope that has been built in territories where the local native population has some say in construction. Years of negotiation are ignored just as construction is about to begin by a small number of protesters demanding a halt. The protesters always claim a combination of religious and environmental concerns. In every case, these so-called passionate demands somehow vanish after they are promised some additional cash.

It would a terrible tragedy for Hawaii, and the human race, if this $1.4 billion telescope ends up getting canceled because of the complaints of a handful of people who to my mind are behaving like extortionists. It will also be unfortunate if the government bows to this extortion and rewards them for this behavior.

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