Jun 30 2010
This image is of the Gulf Islands National Seashore in Mississippi
This high-resolution image shows Petit Bois Island (top right) and the eastern end of Horn Island (top left) on June 26. In general, oil-covered waters are silvery and cleaner waters are blue-gray.
Apr 10 2010
Newly Found Planet Could Hold Water
March 22, 2010 [fair warning: FoxNews Link]
A newly discovered gas giant planet may have an interior that closely resembles those of Jupiter and Saturn in our own Solar System, and may hold water, the building block of life.
The newly found Corot-9b is one of a class of heavenly bodies called exoplanets — planets like Earth and Saturn that are discovered outside of our solar systems. More than 400 have been found so far, and of the billions of stars in the sky, many are likely to have planets.
[…]
Although the planet itself is a gas giant and hence has no solid surface to stand on, what if it possessed a moon like Saturn’s Titan? If the temperature were towards the lower end of the estimated range, then any moon would be an ice ball. If it were towards the upper end, it would be rather too hot for liquid water. But what if it were somewhere in the middle … ?
New worlds await.
But do we have the ingenuity to challenge the obstacles, and one day … Manage to Reach Them?
Feb 18 2010
Most of us know that Most Glaciers ARE Melting. Here are some stats:
A Reply to the Attacks on Climate Change Science
The science is sound and the glaciers are shrinking, says the Union of Concerned Scientists.
02/10/2010
A 2005 global survey of 442 glaciers from the World Glacier Monitoring Service found that only 26 were advancing, 18 were stationary, and 398 were retreating. Overall, about 90 percent of the world’s glaciers that scientists have measured are shrinking as the planet warms.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/…
And here’s what a shrinking glacier looks like using time-lapse photography, to speed up the action …
Feb 11 2010
For our scientifically challenged fellow-citizens, it may hard to understand, but simply experiencing a few record-setting Snow Storms, does NOT automatically disprove the theory of Global Warming (aka Climate Change). Science doesn’t work that way. Science takes evidence. Science takes data. Science takes experiments – and lots and lots of Measuring. … It takes measuring of those boring things, called Facts.
The theory of Climate Change, views weather events from a long-term perspective. Climate varies from year to year. Decade to decade.
Climate is a generational phenomenon. (could be why the younger generation “gets it” — more so than the older.)
Weather, on the other hand, changes with the wind. Weather is a daily event. Weather is the background noise, upon which we plan our daily lives.
In other words, weather can change – a lot; over the course of a week, or over a Season. … Weather can even swing wildly over the course of a day sometimes – just ask anyone caught without rain gear, when unexpected downburst rolls in.
Weather is volatile. Weather is constantly changing. Climate not so much.
Feb 08 2010
Crossposted at Daily Kos
THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS
This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.
When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:
1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?
2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?
3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.
:: ::
Steve Sack, Comics.com
Dec 30 2009
A must read account of NASA by Richard Hoagland. It does what science is supposed to do ask a question then seek an answer. But it also leads to an assumption of what if they already knew the answer.
I am only halfway through it. Hard reading for the not technically inclined, maybe even too far fetched for those who are technically inclined yet it makes perfect sense. Good reasons why we stopped moon missions. Why technology from the space age “stopped”, or rather didn’t but rolled over into that top secret black ops you can’t handle the truth nonsense.
We can’t afford not to handle the truth.
Dec 08 2009
Star Trek, Stargate, ET, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Science fiction or science fact? Or have I lost it completely.
Bob Dean along with several others in the projectcamelot community blend into a rich revealing of astounding proportions. So good it just can’t be true and from another movie that line “You Can’t Handle The Truth”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
NASA, Never A Straight Answer.
Oct 12 2009
Crossposted at Daily Kos. Look in the Comments Section of Daily Kos for more cartoons on the economy and sports. Somehow, I couldn’t fit them in the main text of the diary.
THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS
This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.
When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:
1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?
2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?
3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.
:: ::
Glenn Beck’s Fear and Paranoia
Dave Granlund, Politicalcartoons.com
Jul 22 2009
Forty years ago this week an event occurred that changed the history of mankind forever.
An event so monumental that the memory lingers on, even though the venue where the event took place has been, shall we say, “repurposed“.
But we’re not here to talk about the time that Minnesota Twins Manager Billy Martin appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Instead, let’s talk space.
NASA is forever trying to interest the world in space exploration…and forever struggling to come up with the money to get things done.
Well, I’m not a scientist, nor an engineer, and I don’t assemble rocket vehicles…but I am a fake consultant, and if NASA took my advice, I’d bet my fake paycheck that money would be a lot less of a problem.
Jul 04 2008
Cross posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST
We’ve reached the tipping point:
On the eve the annual G8 Summit where NASA’s Dr. James Hansen will announce that we’ve passed safe C02 levels (safe being maximum 350 ppm; we’re now at 385 ppm), Hansen has penned a comprehensive letter (PDF) to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, host of the G8 Summit, requesting his leadership in addressing his findings.
From Dr. Hansen’s letter (Reprinted with his permission on THE ENVIRONMENTALIST)
Dear Prime Minister [Yasuo Fukuda],
Your leadership, and continued leadership by Japan, is needed on the matter of climate change, a matter with ramifications for life on our planet, including all species. Prospects for today’s children, and especially the world’s poor, hinge upon success in stabilizing climate. ~snip~
Japan has been a strong supporter of actions to mitigate dangerous climate change, including the Kyoto Protocol. It is not Japan’s fault that international action has failed so far to slow emission of dangerous gases. But as the host for the upcoming G8 meeting, you can initiate discussion of an approach that could meet the challenge humanity faces.
The past approach, and extensions now under discussion, are fatally flawed and would doom our children and grandchildren to an increasingly impoverished life on a more desolate planet. Clear thinking and bold leadership of the international community are essential in the next 1-2 years to change the course of human history.
More below the fold…
May 26 2008
After the 422 million mile journey, which took 296 days, the Phoenix Mars lander successfully landed on Mars.
During the “seven minutes of terror,” NASA Scientists waited anxiously for communications that the craft had landed safely. The Phoenix Mars Lander has the same design as the Mar’s Polar Lander which crashed while landing near the south pole in 1999.
Mission Control Room During the Landing
On Phoenix, a robotic arm with a scoop at the end will dig into the permafrost terrain into the ice. Instruments on the spacecraft included a small oven that will heat the scooped-up dirt and ice to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Analyzing the vapors will provide information of the minerals, and that will, in turn, provide clues about whether the ice ever melted and whether this region was habitable for life.
“We see Phoenix as a stepping stone to future investigations of Mars,” said Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, the principal investigator of the mission.
First time ever photos from this part of Mars are expected to arrive within about an hour.
[Update] The first photos are in! Click here to go to the NASA website to view the images
May 13 2008
Lately it’s become apparent to some of us that if one desires to see one’s diary reach the rec list, one’s chances are greatly improved if the title includes a hint of conversion to Obamaism, a pillorying of Hillary, or the old stand-by, BREAKING!!! Now, by nature, historioranters don’t get to shout “breaking” all that often, but since you all seem to have abandoned Mike Gravel, and have said everything that could possibly be said about Barrackemiah and/or Billary, I’m left with little choice but to pander like Senator Clinton at a Great Silent Majority rally.
So join me, if you will, just outside the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight we’ll be scanning the skies, on the lookout for a school-bus-sized piece of space junk that NASA tells us (well, told us – the subject of this story broke literally and figuratively between 1973 and 1979) could crash/land almost anywhere on Earth. Perhaps in our observations, we’ll even get a glimpse of that rarest of celestial phenomena: A presidential candidate with a viable, workable, ambitious space policy.
