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.
"The Year Of (insert your favorite cause here)" is usually driven by marketing departments and often to correspond to some sort of milestone. 2009 was "The Year of..." both Galileo and Darwin, for example, though no one seemed to find a way to bring either to mainstream popularity and make a buck. What about 2010? Sure, the UN declared 2010 the 'International Year of Biodiversity' but, like most things the UN is involved in, it cost a lot of money and doesn't actually do anything. Outside science, 2010 is the Year of the Nurse. Everyone likes nurses.
Cooks want to tell you grilling is an art or a craft. We know better. Grilling, like anything worth doing, is a science. Anything that has been around for a million years is a science and fire has been considered by millenia as the thing that put humans on the map so nothing is more fundamental to anthropology, evolution and archeology than man, meat and fire.
Conservatives have long lamented the politicization of science. And why wouldn't they? Scientists as a bloc haven't voted Republican in decades and when Republicans limit science, there is an outcry (and even whole books!) but when a Democrat limits science the outcry is pretty much limited to ... me. Conservatives have not, for example, lamented the politicization of talk radio because they do much better there.
Finally, there is at least some controversy about Ardipithecus ramidus - 'Ardi'. Ardi was the missing link that was bigger than a meteor hitting the Earth or whatever, right? Nope, that was Darwinius, also called Ida (see Science by PR Blitz). This one got nowhere near the press because they didn't have a book and TV show about it before the science was even revealed.
Some new research out of the Dynamic Robotics Laboratory at Oregon State University could have practical, humanitarian uses, like prosthetic limbs for humans or helping people in wheelchairs gain 'walking' mobility. It could also be used for awesome military power. You know what I am talking about. Yep, the blurb will read "taking on dangerous missions in the military" but we know it means whacking wholesome rebels in a galaxy far, far away.
A 'message in a bottle' has been a mainstay for romantics throughout the centuries - sure, putting up an old picture on the Internet is a faster way to meet new people now but there is something poignant about the randomness of nature coupled with an intentional act of bridging distances, though these days you'll have Greenpeace ramming your ship if you try it - unless it's for science.
Check out these awesome videos from NASA's new Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). If you aren't familiar with it, SDO is part of NASA's Living With a Star Program, which should help us understand the Sun's influence on Earth by studying the solar atmosphere in small time scales and in many wavelengths simultaneously.The end goal is to help us understand solar variations that influence life on Earth by determining how the Sun's magnetic field is generated and structured and how this stored magnetic energy is converted and released into the heliosphere and geospace in the form of solar wind, energetic particles, and variations in the solar irradiance.
The Phoenix Mars Lander is dead, says NASA. Last week, the Mars Odyssey orbiter flew over the Phoenix landing site in final attempts to communicate with the lander but no transmission was detected and since Phoenix also did not communicate during 150 flights earlier this year, NASA declared its mission over.The latest image transmitted by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed what appears to be ice damage to the lander's solar panels.
Birds wouldn't be happy in a Trader Joe's, it seems. Stuffed with aisles full of organically grown, gluten-free, range fed deliciousness, birds would see through expensive marketing and know that, nutritionally, organic food is no better, it is just a different process.And scientist birds would be confused why no one in the food industry knows what the word 'organic' means.What Is The Meaning Of "organic" (and Inorganic) Food? by professor Lee Silver
Lance Armstrong will be in my neighborhood tomorrow but he won't be coming by for coffee. It's the first stage of the Amgen Tour of California, starting in Nevada City and ending in Sacramento 104 miles later.
I recently saw an article that surprised me, and it isn't often I am surprised by anything that shows up on the Internet. It was written by Adrienne J. Burke at the New York Academy of Sciences and titled "Conversations with seven Science 2.0 pioneers" but that isn't what surprised me either; Science 2.0 gets used all of the time and it is a registered trademark (of yours truly) but I only bothered to trademark it when people started trying to use it to make money. The NYAS article is free so they aren't going to get a cease-and-desist or anything like that.
If you hadn't noticed before today, the impact of the Gulf Oil spill may have been understated. Sure, sure, I know what you are thinking; in the Internet-plus-24-hour-news-Age everything is overstated but just this once the mass hysteria apparently did not come close to the actual damage.The issue still remains how to clean it up and it will involve a little bit of cutting edge technology but also a whole lot of ancient physics - and I'll even show you how to duplicate it in your house.
