HFO-1234yf, a climate-friendly alternative refrigerant for car air conditioning systems touted by environmental activists, may instead be a greater problem than the products they insisted was causing pollution.
Solar photovoltaic (PV) mass-market polycrystalline panels are typically about 15% efficiency. Pretty terrible, right? Maybe, maybe not. Cars - both gasoline and electric vehicles, despite what the electric car hype machine claims - are only slightly more efficient at 15-25%, as is eating, and biology had all of existence to perfect that process. Ethanol and other biofuels, which were the darling of anti-science environmentalists in the Anything-But-Oil camp before electric cars because they are the ultimate solar-powered device, are a dismal 2% efficiency.
It's not correlation/causation (though less and less is, since science has learned that causation is now teaching us less and less about how to actually fix things) but some in the social fields are claiming there are biological truths to stereotypes about the left and right, like that progressives are self-indulgent and clueless on national issues while conservatives are fear-mongers with a fetish for exaggerated dangers.
Science for the win!
What is a paltry $195 billion in real cost versus $1 trillion in potential savings? Fans of 'jobs created or saved' fuzzy economics will love a report by the Joint Center For Political and Economic Studies, which says that six new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) air quality regulations, which will cost about $195 billion over the next 20 years, will save well over $1 trillion. I italicize $1 trillion because it works best if you use a Dr. Evil voice to read it so I wanted to give you a visual hook. Like him, it may take some trial and error to figure out what number will have enough impact to mobilize people into action so, like these numbers, just make them up until you get the desired effect.
A number of midwives believe modern births rely too heavily on medication and technological intervention and they instead have created 'birthing rituals' to send the message that women's bodies know best and that birth is about female empowerment.It's no surprise the Pacific Northwest, home of progressive anti-vaccine efforts, is also on the vanguard of this latest fad in anthropology. In Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Melissa Cheyney, assistant professor of medical anthropology at Oregon State University, documented rituals used by midwives and conducted interviews with midwives and new mothers.
It's two weeks until Christmas and if you are a Science 2.0 reader, that means it is at least time to think about shopping for a Christmas gift. Demographically, not a lot of you were lining up to gratefully overpay for Apple's latest offering or whatever else obedient Oprah viewers are expected to buy on Black Friday.Here are three nifty ideas that are science related for your consideration, in three age ranges. If you just like gadgets you can check out the Top Gadgets of 2011 instead.For The Young
A problem began to come into existence a few decades ago and in the polarized climate enabled by instant access to partisan spin, it's only going to get worse.The problem isn't always that people are anti-science, though documenting the numerous instances of global warming deniers on one side and anti-science hippies on the other is always fun, it may be that people accept science too much - and there is a backlash on the way because people don't always understand that accepting science isn't always going to mean things don't change when new information comes to light.
One of the biggest difficulties in understanding and acceptance of evolutionary biology is the eye. It isn't just detractors who are trying to protect a sectarian viewpoint, it is genuinely curious people, smart people, who don't get it because it isn't easy. Science is difficult and, inside science, evolution is difficult. We've even had prominent biologists here submit the idea that perhaps, given its difficulty, evolution might be better reserved for college students, the same way quantum mechanics is reserved in physics and surgery is reserved for actual doctors even though high school students learn anatomy.
Numerical models had a tough decade to start off the 2000s. A field that had shown itself to be both scientific and applied in areas like semiconductor physics was extrapolated out to cultural issues and economics and successfully predicted...nothing.A new model created by an international research group claims they can now predict which European countries are more likely to become united or which are more likely to break up. It does so by not only considering demographic and economic criteria but also culture and genetics.What? Europe? No predicting the Arab Spring? No riots in China?
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, an old saying goes. Roman, Arabic or Chinese, it doesn't matter who claims to have credit for immortalizing it first, people have known it to be true since there were more than two people.Since physicists love Alice and Bob, we can make a psychological dissonance graphic also by introducing a third character, Carol. If the solid lines are positive and dashes are negative, there is equilibrium as long as everyone is an enemy or everyone is a friend. It is where there is one enemy that games of "Risk" really get played.
The last few years have seen a real spike in end-of-the-world conspiracy theories. Why? More asteroids, more flares, more earthquakes? No, just more Internet to talk about them, which gives bored news media something to talk about and bored science sites more news media to debunk.At least one end-of-the-world scenario for 2012 has been eliminated already - like the Christmas shopping season, people are pushing debunking the apocalypse farther and farther back and science is already eliminating 2012 apocalypses before 2011 is even over. Sheesh. When will we learn to just enjoy the anticipation?
If you've ever thought you were being abducted by an alien or, if you are 400 years old, seduced by a succubus, and couldn't move, you are not alone. A new article in Sleep Medicine Reviews says 7.6% of the population has had the same experience and it's called sleep paralysis.The psychologists define sleep paralysis as "a discrete period of time during which voluntary muscle movement is inhibited, yet ocular and respiratory movements are intact" and it often involves hallucinations.
