milhayser | February 26, 2013For once an asteroid strikes when we were kinda, sorta expecting one to. According to the Washington Post, the Russian Academy of Sciences "estimated that the meteor weighed around 10 tons and was traveling at 10 to 12 miles per second (roughly 30,000 to 45,000 mph) when it disintegrated." The same report estimates that more than 1,200 people were injured by the blast in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, 900 miles east of Moscow. Based on video of the event, on Dynamics of Cats, Steinn Sigurðsson says it "looks like a fairly slow shallow angle impact, detonating with kiloton++ energy below…
milhayser | February 15, 2013On February 15th, Asteroid 2012 DA14 came hurtling between us and our satellites, twelve times nearer than the Moon, so close that it was visible through binoculars from certain parts of the globe. Greg Laden writes, "This asteroid is not going to hit the earth now or during any of the next few decades, but eventually it may well do so." On Starts With a Bang, Ethan Siegel writes that the Sun's 11-year Solar Cycle peaks in 2013, meaning we can look forward to a year filled with solar flares. Even when these are spewed towards Earth, our magnetic field protects us from irradiation. But solar…
milhayser | February 8, 2013It's not often that medical science seems nuttier than its alternative. On Respectful Insolence, Orac dismisses the enema as a cure for all ills, writing that the "liver, colon, and kidneys" are specialized to remove toxins, and you won't "become chronically ill if you don’t shoot water up your butt periodically to wash the poop out." On the other other hand, "bowel lavage" played an important role in a new study of patients infected by Clostridium difficile, which can cause chronic diarrhea and even death. But critically, after flushing the patient's poop out, researchers put someone else…
milhayser | January 18, 2013Flu season is gearing up in the northern hemisphere, and this year's strains appear more virulent than usual. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control declared an epidemic on January 11; the CDC estimates that between 3,000 and 49,000 people die from influenza or its complications every year. By comparison, the infamous flu of 1918 may have killed 500,000 Americans. Although the very young, elderly, and diseased bear the highest risk of death, healthy adults still bear the responsibility of minimizing overall transmission of the virus. In other words, everyone should get…
milhayser | January 14, 2013Reports that researchers elicited a temperature "lower than absolute zero" might make one question the meaning of the word absolute. On Built on Facts, Matt Springer writes "temperature is a relationship between energy and entropy, and you can do some weird things to entropy and energy and get the formal definition of temperature to come out negative." Usually collisions between atoms ensure that less than 50% of atoms in a sample are excited, no matter how much heat you add. But Springer analogizes "What if I start with a huge pile of ground-state atoms, and one by one I whack them with a…
milhayser | January 9, 2013On Starts With a Bang, Ethan Siegel makes headway on his tour of "110 spectacular deep-sky objects" first cataloged by Charles Messier in 1758. Before powerful telescopes were developed, the heavens consisted of the sun, moon, stars, a few bright planets, and the rare passing comet. Comets were actively sought by men like Messier, who one night saw a bright smudge—too ill-defined to be a star—that "neither brightened nor changed position nor altered in appearance over the subsequent nights." He had spotted the beautiful Crab Nebula, an expanding lacework of stardust blown out by a…
milhayser | December 7, 2012Although Curiosity has not found evidence of life on Mars, NASA announced yesterday that its suite of dirt analyzers works perfectly. Meanwhile new discoveries on Earth and the planet Mercury continue to imply the possibility of extraterrestrial life. On ERV, Abbie Smith marvels at the extremophile bacteria that have been locked under an Antarctic ice sheet for the last 2800 years, "happily (but slowly!) generating proteins in their hypersaline, super cold, no oxygen, ton of iron environment!" And though Smith would love to work in Antarctica, she says it "might be more fun to go to Europa…
milhayser | December 4, 2012A new look at twenty years worth of research shows that polar ice is in fact melting, and raising sea levels, faster than anticipated. Greg Laden writes "Greenland is losing ice about 500% faster now than it was in the early 1990s, while Antarctica is losing ice at about the same rate." Altogether, ice melt since 1992 "has contributed to about 0.44 inches of sea level rise." On Stoat, William M. Connolley says "Still – that adds up to 0.6 mm/yr. So it will have to grow if its to become interesting by 2100." With ice-bound methane poised to mingle with carbon dioxide and accelerate global…
milhayser | November 30, 2012On Pharyngula, PZ Myers deconstructs the hypothesis of two physicists who show an undue enthusiasm for biology. They claim cancer is caused by cells regressing from their modern, multicellular functionality to a "proto-metazoan" lifestyle of largely uncoordinated growth. Myers says their is no plausible avenue for such atavism, writing "you can’t take one of your cells, switch off a few genes, and set it free in the ocean to swim off and follow its primitive lifestyle." Considering the factors that really contribute to cancer, Myers concludes "scientists shouldn’t be looking for optimism,…
milhayser | November 26, 2012As organisms spread into new habitats, they diverge and differentiate to best adapt to their surroundings. But when separated species exploit similar niches, their body plans begin to converge, and they end up looking a lot like each other. Such is the case with Beaked Sea Snakes, uber-venomous consumers of spiny catfish and blowfish, long thought to be a single species but now shown by genetic analysis to be two. Meanwhile, PZ Myers considers the Creationist discipline of baraminology, which self-consciously strives to minimize the number of animals Noah needed to fit on his ark. Dr. Jean K…
milhayser | November 19, 2012Although the science is getting cold, the conversation about climate change was warmed over by President Obama on Thursday. On Thoughts from Kansas, Josh Rosenau says “This is a welcome change from the complete silence of the last few years, but falls well short of what the American people and the world deserve.” Rosenau argues that with scientific consensus long established, an attempt at policy is overdue. California, the economic canary in a coal mine, just enacted a cap-and-trade system designed to curb carbon emissions. Meanwhile, climate change denialists strive to maintain a false…
milhayser | November 16, 2012
"This is a map of the United States, with the spatial distortion reflecting the population sizes of different counties and the relative contribution of electoral college votes."
Along with President Obama, statistician Nate Silver emerged triumphant on election night, after calculating a 90% chance of victory for Obama and correctly predicting the outcome of every state. Chad Orzel allays suspicions of witchcraft on Uncertain Principles, writing that "statisticians have been refining the process of public opinion polling for something like a hundred years." Silver's projections for Obama…
milhayser | November 9, 2012
New research rethinks the possible prevalence of life in the Universe, suggesting that our asteroid belt—as disrupted by the gravitational influence of Jupiter—played a key role in seeding the Earth with water and organic compounds. Unable to coalesce, and situated around the solar system's "snow line," the belt provides millions of little ice trays which come smashing into the Earth on occasion. On Starts With a Bang, Ethan Siegel says "getting struck by asteroids can introduce new organics and materials into the ecosystem, and can knock off the apex animals of the time, paving the way for…
milhayser | November 5, 2012
Hurricane Sandy Impacts Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge (DE) by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Hurricane Sandy made landfall on October 29th, drawn northwest by two cold fronts into the most populous area of the United States. Coby Beck has a telling wind map of the colossal storm on A Few Things Ill Considered, which was abetted by "a full moon causing the highest high tides of the year." Sandy wreaked widespread devastation, and left over 100 Americans dead. Greg Laden writes that we have learned a lot from killer storms over the decades, and we were more prepared for Sandy than any…
milhayser | October 29, 2012Even the best and brightest can get things wrong, which is why science depends on corroboration to get things right. On Respectful Insolence, Orac investigates the conviction of six Italian seismologists for failing to warn people about an earthquake that killed 300. Orac writes “‘earthquake swarms’ are not uncommon in the L’Aquila region” and “a medium-sized shock in a swarm forecasts a major event within several days only 2% of the time.” But for accurately assessing the risk of a major event, the government employees have been sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter. On Starts…
milhayser | October 24, 2012On Respectful Insolence, Orac writes “the relationship between health insurance and, well, health is a question that can be addressed scientifically, which puts it right smack dab within the purview of science-based medicine.” Orac contradicts Mitt Romney’s statement that because a 1986 mandate requires hospitals to treat anyone needing emergency treatment, people don’t die for want of insurance. Orac writes, “Emergency rooms are not equipped to treat complex conditions; all they can do is to treat the acute problem.” And forced to eat expenses, private hospitals are liable to treat any…
milhayser | October 19, 2012On Universe, Claire L. Evans notes the renewed appreciation than can come with a change in perspective—whether it's seeing the space shuttle Endeavour roll past a Sizzler in South Central, or daredevil Felix Baumgartner leap towards the Earth from 24 miles up. Baumgartner, aided only by gravity and a spacesuit, broke the speed of sound during his four and a half minute freefall. And thanks to a video camera, he shared his experience with the world. Evans writes "The 21st century is an epoch of P.O.V. feats, of go-pros taped to helmets and steering wheels, streaming the direct visual stimulus…
milhayser | October 17, 2012Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have fostered chemical reactions at "one hundredth of a degree above absolute zero," analogous to conditions in interstellar space. By merging two parallel beams of ultra-cold atoms, scientists kept them sedated enough for quantum behavior. Chemical reactions "took place in peaks, at specific energies – a demonstration of the tunneling that occurs when quantum particles act as waves." While quantum chemistry is new, physicists have been chilling individual atoms for years—thanks in part to the work of new Nobel laureate Dave Wineland. On…
milhayser | October 12, 2012Alexander Pope wrote "Hope springs eternal in the human breast," but cancer isn't far behind. Yet when hope springs, it can lead the sick to the unproven, to more dire disease, and death. On Respectful Insolence, Orac tells the stories of two women—one Kenyan, one American—who avoided modern treatment for their breast cancers. Orac writes, "Neglected tumors like this often bleed or rot—or both. It’s truly horrible to behold, and at this point there is nothing a surgeon can do except to recommend local wound care and hope that the chemotherapy works." Sometimes it's not too late. And…
milhayser | October 10, 2012
Paul C. Broun by U.S. Department of Agriculture
Congressman Paul Broun struck something into the hearts of empiricists everywhere with his remark that evolution, embryology, and the Big Bang theory are "lies straight from the pit of hell." Some of us were put off, others angered, possibly amused, or else afraid for the fate of the nation. Greg Laden writes, "this man is saying that the Bible, which he takes absolutely literally, teaches us how to run our public policy and everything in society." And while Broun may be on the fringe of modern Christianity, he typifies today's Republican…