In 2006, 2% of the world's astronomers, led by a guy with a television show, decided Pluto should not be a planet. Recently discovered Eris was bigger, they said, so rather than make Eris a planet they made Pluto a rock. They did so by specifically creating a new definition of planet designed to exclude Pluto - "A body that circles the sun without being some other object's satellite, is large enough to be rounded by its own gravity (but not so big that it begins to undergo nuclear fusion, like a star) and has "cleared its neighborhood" of most other orbiting bodies."
TIME magazine got its opening right but then wanders off into a fairytale... From the debacle of the hacked Climategate e-mails to the bitter disappointment of Copenhagen to the slow death of carbon cap and trade in the Senate, the past year has mostly been one of reversals for the U.S. environmental movement.Then the article by Bryan Walsh goes on to extol Californians for (hopefully - it was written before the election, though we all knew it would fail) not suspending a somewhat silly law requiring green technology 10 years from now in return for making it easier to get people employed today.
Isaac Newton, the man who invented calculus, described the law of universal gravitation and built the first reflecting telescope and is rightfully considered one of the most influential scientists in history, also practiced alchemy for three decades, says Indiana University professor William Newman.No surprise, many scientists dabbled in alchemy. Alchemy was an offshoot of chemistry, to some, though centuries before literary geniuses like Chaucer ridiculed alchemists as charlatans.
A 20-year attempt to deal with global warming by capping emissions and putting a price on carbon (the so-called "cap and trade") has died again. But while activists insist that means even more lobbying and 'awareness' (seriously, is anyone unaware of global warming by now?) Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger in The Atlantic note that is just dressing up old ideas in new clothing.Instead of knee-capping industry, we need to focus on innovation.
The NCAA has for established a rule for mandatory testing of all student athletes in D-1 schools effective for the 2010-2011 academic year.But there is something devilish in the details, writes Roger Groves in Forbes - students can take the test or be excused from it if they establish they sign a waiver relieving the school of liability.
Bill Nye "The Science Guy" of television fame, was approaching the podium to talk at USC and, in mid-sentence, dropped to the floor.Did members of the audience rush to help? No, they all pulled out their mobile phones to tweet to the world that Billy Nye The Science Guy just collapsed on the floor, apparently assuming someone else would actually help the guy.
"Cars" is the Pixar movie where I thought they would finally take a fall. I didn't like the art in previews but my kids wanted to see and away we went. Like everyone else, I thought the finished product was terrific.For "Cars 2", unlike (the also terrific) "Toy Story 3", John Lasseter is back directing. Basically, I am sold that these guys can do no wrong after fifteen solid years of doing no wrong.The basic premise is that Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) go overseas to compete in the first-ever World Grand Prix to determine the world’s fastest car. I don't need to know anything else, just take my 8 bucks.
If the Universe follows Einstein's General Relativity as its law of gravity and the Big Bang picture of the Universe works is how the Universe works, then the laws of physics say we have to have dark matter, writes Ethan Siegel.All he was General Relativity + the Big Bang and the rest he figured out from the physics: by computing predictions and comparing them with the data.You want a Universe without dark matter, and -- at the very least -- you have to throw out General Relativity.
Do more boys get autism or is it under-diagnosed in girls? Or over-diagnosed in boys?Leaving aside that the autism spectrum has been extruded out so far that virtually every personality type is labeled some form of autism, the fact remains that real autism, the kind with severe symptoms, exists.Researchers at the universities of Exeter and Bristol say that even when symptoms are equally severe, boys received autism diagnoses more often.
The Copenhagen Accord reached at a U.N. summit in December 2009, though non-binding, agreed that money to give a quick push to efforts to slow climate change from 2010-12 would have a "balanced allocation between adaptation and mitigation."But that's not the case - instead, political efforts mean the $30 billion pledged is geared too strongly toward mitigation and only 11 percent of the money will go to adaptation strategies like new farming practices, according to the report by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
