In 1989, the communist dictatorship oddly named Union of Soviet Socialist Republics reached the extent of a third giant hole in the Arctic Circle, Kola Superdeep Borehole SG-3, where they'd been drilling for 19 years. It clocked in at nearly 8 miles deep.
If you hear someone outside science disparage the word 'consensus', they are talking about climate science - and the reference is not positive. 'Consensus' means a general agreement, of course, but to outsiders out to slam climate scientists, they think it means 'voting', in the best instance, and, in the worst it might mean that awful United Nations method of 'splitting the difference', which takes moral relativism to new heights and declares no one is right so everyone should be equally unhappy. In science, neither is true. No matter what you might think about the behavior or credibility of an individual scientist, no one has the kind of power to mandate their conclusions.
The 3,000-kilometer-long Transantarctic Mountains are a dominant feature of the Antarctic continent, yet up to now scientists have been unable to adequately explain how they formed. In a new study, geologists report that the mountains appear to be the remnant edge of a gigantic high plateau that began stretching and thinning some 105 million years ago, leaving the peaks curving along the edge of a great plain.
There are examples of positive political campaigns - Ronald Reagan appealed to what America could be, for example - but even that message of hope had an undercurrent of fear, namely that if things did not change, America would stay morassed in 1970s stagflation.
Fear is still used in political campaigns to steer public opinion, but a political scientist claims not everyone is equally predisposed to be influenced by that strategy. Who is most genetically predisposed to be swayed by fear? Well, it is a humanities study done by someone with no science training, so take a guess. Answer farther done if you can't connect the cultural dots.
Global warming has been hopelessly politicized since a Kyoto Treaty was jammed through over objections and then basically ignored by everyone. A science basis for American cars causing global warming but Chinese cars being exempt from pollution numbers did not exist and the dates for the Kyoto targets far too conveniently matched easy dates for two European countries(1) while penalizing everyone else.
The word 'synchronization' is part of our cultural lexicon - we 'sync up' with other people, 'sync our computers' and 'get in sync'. There's a reason it resonates (we'll come back to our use of that word later) with us - synchronous behavior underlies many natural systems, events and phenomena.
While driving to my doctor's office to get some persistent Toxicodendron diversilobum (that's poison oak) looked at, I listened to NPR. Just as you would expect of me, my radio stations will all have buttons for NPR, country music, whatever station carries Rush Limbaugh, and a variety of others. On NPR I was intrigued because the guest chef was preparing a meal for alternative Thanksgiving lifestyles, that being vegan and gluten-free.
Talking about "the 1 percent" has become a popular pastime, though usually the person doing the talking means someone else - outside TV commercials no one ever cops to being The Man.(1) Protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement meant it about rich, which investment bankers, for example, so they dutifully ignored the opulent wealth of Kanye West and his $355 t-shirt, Balmain jeans, Givenchy plaid and gold chains when he visited to show support for their cause.While he buys t-shirts to wear for $355 he only sells his own brand to young fans for $120 each. See? He is such a giver and therefore not part of the 1 percent.
In the 1990s, the US administration decided the best way to protect wages for American workers was by making it very difficult for those pesky foreign science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduates living here to get work visas. Student visas remained easy to get, it was okay to spend money to live in the US, but getting paid was a no-no.
In the summer of 2012 I wrote Celiac: The Trendy Disease For Rich White People, which annoyed a few people with celiac disease but a whole bunch of people who had latched onto a fad and craved medical or scientific legitimacy in doing so.
Anaphylaxis is a severe, sometimes life-threatening allergic reaction. After being exposed to a substance, sometimes even for the first time, the body releases histamine, allergen fighting antibody immunoglobulin E and other substances, which can cause airways to tighten and other symptoms.
Anaphylaxis has occurred, and been known about, basically forever. Charles Richet coined the modern term and got a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1913 for his work.
I-522, the initiative in Washington state that would have required special labels for foods that are genetically modified (a gene has been transferred from another organism to express a natural trait), has been defeated, making two high-profile defeats in a row for detractors of science who were trying to accomplish through legislation what they could not do in the marketplace. A similar California initiative lost last year.
