Tag: science

The Great Moonbuggy Race

11:21 am

The Great Moonbuggy Race.

The Great Moonbuggy Race is an engineering competition that requires a team of six students to design a “proof-of-concept” wheeled rover that will race over a half mile of simulated lunar terrain. In April, two team members, one male and one female, will drive the completed vehicle in competition at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. This contest will present design challenges that are similar to those encountered by the original lunar rover team. This is the 16th year of competition for high school teams, but it will be the first year for Chicago’s public high school students.

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White nose syndrome has been found in bats in Europe

10:22 am

White nose syndrome, the fungus that has been killing bats in the northeast United States these past five years, has now been definitively found on bats in Europe.

With this information, scientists now know that it is the differences between North American and European bats that can explain why European bat colonies can survive the fungus while North American bats cannot. Furthermore, this information should show us how future North American bats will adapt to the fungus.

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Six former and current employees have sued the FDA agency under the Obama administration over its secret surveillance of their private emails.

3:25 pm

How Obama encourages transparency: Six former and current employees have sued the FDA agency under the Obama administration over its secret surveillance of their private emails.

According to a release by the law firm representing the group, the FDA targeted the employees with a “covert spying campaign” that lasted for two years after it learned they had written a letter to President-Elect Obama in early 2009. … The plaintiffs allege the agency used spyware to read the their personal emails and take screenshots while they used government computers. But whether such reconnaissance is illegal is not quite clear. According to the Washington Post, “the startup screen on FDA computers warns employees, ‘you have no reasonable expectation of privacy,’ ” including any communication accessed or sent from the machine.”

According to the law firm representing the current and former FDA employees, the monitoring continued even after the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General “denied the FDA’s request to take any criminal and/or administrative action against the whistleblowers” and noted the whistleblowers’ communications with Congress were protected under law.

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Newt and Scientists: A Long, Complicated Love Affair

3:00 pm

Newt and scientists: A long, complicated love affair.

The article gives you the science community’s take on Gingrich. And since that community is almost entirely Democratic in make-up and routinely hostile and almost bigoted in their hatred of Republicans, it is not surprising that this take has a certain schizophrenic air about it. They want to like him because of his passionate interest and support of science, but how can they? He’s a Republican (whispered softly like one was saying a curse word.)

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Data issued last week without fanfare by both the UK’s Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit has confirmed that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

9:11 am

Data issued last week without fanfare by both the UK’s Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit has confirmed that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

The article also discusses at great length the additional influence the sun and its sunspot cycle might have on the climate, something I have discussed here at great length. However, the above factoid is the article’s most important data point.

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DNA research suggests that “Native Americans” actually came from a tiny mountain region in Siberia.

10:03 am

DNA research suggests that “Native Americans” actually came from a tiny mountain region in Siberia.

I added the quotes above. It is really hilarious to see the headline’s use of the politically correct term “Native Americans” while simultaneously describing proof that the American Indians were as much immigrants to the New World as everyone else.

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The Kepler team today announced the discovery of eleven new solar systems holding twenty-six planets.

2:06 pm

Planets galore! The Kepler team today announced the discovery of eleven new solar systems holding twenty-six planets.

The planets orbit close to their host stars and range in size from 1.5 times the radius of Earth to larger than Jupiter. Fifteen of them are between Earth and Neptune in size, and further observations will be required to determine which are rocky like Earth and which have thick gaseous atmospheres like Neptune. The planets orbit their host star once every six to 143 days. All are closer to their host star than Venus is to our sun.

No Earths in the habitable zone quite yet, but we are circling in on our prey.

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