Tag: science

Some detailed analysis by scientists of meteorite fossil paper

5:02 pm

Here’s some detailed analysis by scientists of the meteorite fossil paper.

Once again, there is a great deal of skepticism, most of which appears reasonably and justified. Though a number of scientists have applauded his work, it really looks like Hoover does not have sufficient evidence to claim his samples are alien biology. However, this quote stands out:

It appears likely that Hoover’s study may soon be ignored by the majority of the scientific community, instead of enjoying a healthy debate such as that raised by McKay’s 1996 paper on the Mars meteorite. Redfield says that a microbiologist that she knows refused to read it. [emphasis mine]

That hardly seems the right response from an open-minded scientist.

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More evidence Penn State’s investigation of Mann was a whitewash

1:15 pm

More evidence that Penn State’s investigation of IPCC climate researcher Michael Mann was a whitewash.

The key point is that the Penn State investigators never interviewed a principal who was able to confirm or deny a key charge against “Hockey Stick” lead author of “Hide the Decline” infamy Michael Mann. This individual has now been interviewed, and what he told federal investigators has indicted Mann and Penn State.

I have noted this already, the very week the Penn State report was issued, but it is nice to see there is further evidence to confirm my conclusions.

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A lean future for U.S. planetary missions

10:24 pm

Planetary scientists make their recommendations for the kinds of planetary missions they think the United States should do for the next decade. And it looks like a lean future, as the scientists also note that their primary recommendations, missions to Mars and Europa, should only be built if their budgets can be trimmed significantly:

NASA’s top priority, according to the survey’s recommendations, should be the Mars Astrobiology Explorer Cacher, or MAX-C, which could help determine whether Mars ever supported life and offer insight on its geologic and climate history. It would also be the first step in an effort to get samples from Mars back to Earth. However, the report said this mission should only be undertaken if NASA’s cost is about $2.5 billion, which is $1 billion less than independent estimates provided to the panel. The mission would be run jointly by NASA and the European Space Agency, according to the survey.

A mission to Europa and its subsurface ocean — which might support life — should be the second priority mission, the experts said. But its estimated price tag of $4.7 billion may make it too expensive without an increase in NASA’s planetary science budget or a paring of the mission’s costs. [emphasis mine]

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Planetary scientists reject meteorite fossil paper — without reading it

9:47 pm

Richard Kerr of Science is attending the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas, and has written a short article describing the reaction of planetary scientists to the meteorite fossil paper by NASA scientist Richard Hoover. Their reaction, hostile and disinterested, isn’t pretty. These two quotes will give you the flavor:

Whether they have closely examined the paper by astrobiologist Richard Hoover of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center or only heard about it in the hallways, the reaction is the same: not again.

Rather than taking a look themselves, researchers have other things in mind. One leading scientist half-jokingly suggested hanging Hoover in effigy in the conference center lobby.

» Read more

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NASA Statement on Astrobiology Paper by Richard Hoover

3:35 pm

In an unusual move, NASA has issued a statement on the alien fossil paper written by Richard Hoover. Key quote:

While we value the free exchange of ideas, data, and information as part of scientific and technical inquiry, NASA cannot stand behind or support a scientific claim unless it has been peer-reviewed or thoroughly examined by other qualified experts. This paper was submitted in 2007 to the International Journal of Astrobiology. However, the peer review process was not completed for that submission. NASA also was unaware of the recent submission of the paper to the Journal of Cosmology or of the paper’s subsequent publication.

This suggests that Hoover was having trouble getting published in one journal, and did an end-around to get published in a journal more agreeable to his conclusions.

Though this does raise questions about the validity of the research, it is always the research itself that matters. In this case I remain skeptical, but intrigued. I really would like to know why the peer-review process on Hoover’s paper was taking so long at the International Journal of Astrobiology. I would also love to read a critique of Hoover’s papers from scientists in the field.

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How Los Angeles’s community colleges wasted millions on green energy construction

1:50 pm

How the head of Los Angeles’s community college construction program wasted millions on green energy construction. This quote sums up the absurdity of this environmental wet dream:

As head of a $5.7-billion, taxpayer-funded program to rebuild the college campuses, Eisenberg commanded attention. But his plan for energy independence was seriously flawed. He overestimated how much power the colleges could generate. He underestimated the cost. And he poured millions of dollars into designs for projects that proved so impractical or unpopular they were never built. These and other blunders cost nearly $10 million that could have paid for new classrooms, laboratories and other college facilities, a Times investigation found.

The problems with Eisenberg’s energy vision were fundamental. For starters, there simply wasn’t room on the campuses for all the generating equipment required to become self-sufficient. Some of the colleges wouldn’t come close to that goal even if solar panels, wind turbines and other devices were wedged into every available space.

Going off the grid did not make economic sense either. Given the cost of alternative energy technology, it would be more expensive for the district to generate all its own electricity than to continue paying utilities for power.

Weather and geology also refused to cooperate. Three solar power arrays had to be scrapped because the intended locations were atop seismic faults. Plans for large-scale wind power collided with the reality that prevailing winds at nearly all the campuses are too weak to generate much electricity. To date, a single wind turbine has been installed, as a demonstration project. It spins too slowly in average winds to power a 60-watt light bulb. [emphasis mine]

Worse, the man who forced this idiocy on the colleges still sees nothing wrong with it. And his justification illustrates how completely uneducated he is.

He cast himself as an environmental visionary and predicted that the college system would eventually achieve energy independence. “Somebody needs to be first,” he said. “If the great explorers really had a map and knew where they were going, maybe we wouldn’t have the result we have today.

The fact is that the great explorers always had a map, and worked carefully from real data. Granted, the horizon was unknown, but the explorers who succeeded all ground their exploration on reality, not fantasy.

With foolish leadership like this, it is no surprise California is about to go bankrupt.

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Has a NASA scientist discovered alien fossils in several meteorites?

10:09 am

alien fossil?

Very very intriguing: A NASA scientist has claimed in a peer reviewed paper the discovery of alien fossils in several meteorites recovered on Earth. From the paper’s last paragraph:

The absence of nitrogen in the cyanobacterial filaments detected in the CI1 carbonaceous meteorites indicates that the filaments represent the remains of extraterrestrial life forms that grew on the parent bodies of the meteorites when liquid water was present, long before the meteorites entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

The news article describing this discovery is a bit more breathless in style than I would like, and makes me suspicious about these results. Moreover, that NASA held no press release or press conference for a result of this significance gives me pause. (Though NASA might have felt burned from the reactions they got from the arsenic-based-biology press conference and decided therefore to take a low profile here.)
» Read more

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Fraud in drug studies investigated

3:49 pm

A research anesthesiologist has been stripped of his professorship, fired from a German hospital, and is under criminal investigation for forging the medical research for more than 90 papers. Key paragraph:

German medical authorities are examining 92 of Boldt’s published papers amid allegations he forged documents, tested drugs on patients without their consent and fraudulently claimed payments for operations he never performed. Twenty-nine of the 92 papers have been identified as “highly suspected” of containing forged or distorted data, authorities said.

One third or more of his peer-reviewed papers are now suspect? Isn’t it the claim of peer-review science journals that this kind of fraud is impossible because the work will be carefully reviewed by the best people, most qualified to spot any fraud in their field? Yet, in this case this system failed at least one third of the time, if not more so, and did so frequently.

To me, this is further evidence that the best method for finding fraud is not review, but independent competition. Let others challenge the result or try to duplicate it. That way, we find out very quickly whether it is real or not.

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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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More press release journalism,
this time about sunspots

10:01 am

Did you hear the news? Scientists have solved the mystery of the missing sunspots!

You didn’t? Well, here’s some headlines and stories that surely prove it:

The trouble is that every one of these headlines is 100 percent wrong. The research, based on computer models, only found that when the plasma flow from the equator to the poles beneath the Sun’s surface slows down, the number of sunspots declines.
» Read more

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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 caves of Copernicus
and the Ocean of Storms

2:37 am

The discovery of new caves on the Moon keep coming. Today I have two new stories. The first is a discovery by professional scientists of a giant lava tube cave in the Oceanus Procellarum or Ocean of Storms. The second is the detection of a plethora of caves and sinks on the floor of the crater Copernicus, found by a NASA engineer who likes to explore the gobs of data being accumulated by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and made available to all on the web.

The image below of the Moon’s near side, taken by India’s Cartosat-2A satellite and taken from the science paper, shows the location of lava tube in Oceanus Procellarum (indicated by the red dot) and the crater Copernicus.

The Moon's near side, annotated

First the professional discovery. Yesterday, the Times of India reported the discovery of lava tube more than a mile long on the Moon. I did not post a link to the article because I didn’t think the news story provided enough information to make it worth passing along. Today however, fellow caver Mark Minton emailed me the link where the actual research paper could be downloaded [pdf]. This I find definitely worth describing.
» Read more

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