… what political party you are a member of…
Climate scientist Anthony Leiserowitz drops some serious knowledge on “Moyers & Company”. In two bullet points, he describes exactly what Obama needs to say about global warming and what we can do to stop climate change. Let’s hope Obama watches Bill Moyers videos.
Ben Goldacre, the Bad Science column writer and at present, Wellcome research fellow in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has a book coming out soon (Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients
Bottom line: All that icky stuff you hear, think, assume, guess, wonder about regarding the medical industry, especially Big Pharma? Well, a lot of it is true. The NYT piece is especially focused on the file drawer effect. The is where studies that show result B are put quietly in the file drawer, while studies that show the result A (the one you were hoping for) are published and publicized. In some areas of science there are actually rules that stop this from happening (or slow it down, anyway) but in pharmaceutical research (and psychology, I’ve heard) it probably happens a lot
If I toss a coin, but hide the result every time it comes up tails, it looks as if I always throw heads. You wouldn’t tolerate that if we were choosing who should go first in a game of pocket billiards, but in medicine, it’s accepted as the norm. In the worst case, we can be misled into believing that ineffective treatments are worth using; more commonly we are misled about the relative merits of competing treatments, exposing patients to inferior ones.
Ben will probably be around quite a bit promoting his book so expect podcasts and stuff.
Bob Grisham is a teacher and football coach at this Alabama high school. He has a few things to say about Michele Obama which one might consider offensive and racist, and he has a few things to say about gay people, which one might consider offensive and homophobic.
A yahoo like Bob Grisham would be fired for saying the things he said in most school districts around the US. But what will happen to him in some Stupid State like Alabama? He’ll probably get a medal.
But maybe what he said wasn’t really offensive and I’m over interpreting. You be the judge:
Birdchasers: An educational documentary ideal for the Discoverie Channel.
Two teams of birdwatchers spend the entire birding season (from June 1st through June 22nd) in sometimes friendly, sometimes not so friendly competition in a desperate and dangerous search for dangerous and disparate birds. Team A is from Cornell University Bird Research Center, and their main objective is to collect good scientific data and a few nice pictures. Team B consists of Corey Finger and Mike Bergin, from the Internet Blog 10,000 Birds. The bloggers, with the nickname “The Dominators,” are mainly after the photographs, but also intend to collect some scientific data.
Team A, led by Dr. John W. Fitzpatrick, has a bird radar search vehicle, an Imax Movie Van, and several binocular-wielding bird counting graduate students. Mike and Corey have a 1998 Subaru Forester, some old binoculars, and one really good lens for their Pentax K-1000 camera. Throughout the season, Mike and Corey consistently “get the shot” despite all odds against them, while the well funded and elaborately equipped Cornell team, less mobile and more cumbersome, is often left lagging behind. Yet, when push comes to shove the two teams need to rely on each other, and have more than a few opportunities to save each other’s beaks. At the end of the season, it turns out that all they really want is a big group hug.
Here’s a clip of the renegade Dominators of Storm Chasers to provide a sense of how the 10,000 Birds Blogger team would approach their birding:
And here is a clip of the academic meteorology team of Storm Chasers to provide a sense of how the Cornell Ornithology team would approach their birding:
So, what do you think, should we crowdfund this? Or won’t it fly? As it were….
From the AGU fall meeting, 2012
Land area burned by fires has increased in the United States over the past 25 years, consistent
with a trend toward climate conditions more conducive to fire. In contrast, fires for agricultural
and forest management show declining trends in the western U.S. despite overall increases in
wildfire activity and associated carbon emissions. Looking ahead, new IPCC climate projections
offer insight into potential changes to U.S. fire activity over the next 30-50 years based on the
climate sensitivity of fires in recent decades. Scientists will present new data on which regions of
the U.S. might see fire seasons become longer and more intense.Participants:
Louis Giglio, Research Associate Professor, University of Maryland College Park, Maryland,
and Physical Scientist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA;
Christopher Williams, Assistant Professor of Geography, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of
Biology, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA;
Doug Morton, Physical Scientist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland,
and Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, College Park, USA;
Hsiao-Wen Lin, Graduate Student Researcher, Department of Earth System Science, University
of California, Irvine, USA.
Sessions: NH52A, B22B, B41B, B23F
The Public Religion Research Institute has conducted a poll about the Superbowl They found:
27% of Americans believe that God plays a role in determining which team winds a sporting event.
53% of Americans believe that god rewards athletes who have faith with good health and success
42% of Americans don’t think that those 53% of Americans are correct.
By religion, there is variation in the percentage of people who believe that god determines the outcome of sporting events, or that god rewards athletes of faith. They have a graph:
50% of Americans are fine with athletes making public shows of their religiosity during a sporting event. An amazingly low 4% don’t approve. Which is funny, because every single person I know disapproves of this, religious or otherwise. I suspect this may be the way the question was asked (in this poll, 45% don’t think it matters).
And now, for the scary bit, the part that proves that most Americans are not patriots:
Nearly 9-in-10 (89%) Republicans agree that public high schools should be allowed to sponsor prayer before football games, compared to more than three-quarters (77%) of independents and nearly 7-in-10 (68%) Democrats.
Are those same people also against due process, freedom of speech, and the right to own a firearm? I think not. Makes no sense. Why religiously believe that failing to have strong beliefs that conform to the Constitution makes one evil, except here and there? WHY?
Photo Credit: Ed Yourdon via Compfight cc
Skeptical Science is a great source for information about climate change. One of the coolest things they’ve got over there is a moving GIF demonstrating how the folks in the climate science denialism industry try to convince people that global warming isn’t real. This involves cherry picking data to show small segments of time with either flat lines (no warming) or decreasing lines (cooling), and ignoring that the longer term pattern is one of a distinct increase.
Here’s the graphic:
For more information about this graphic, and other great stuff, check out the Skeptical Science web page.
According to the Turkish Daily News …
The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey … has put a stop to the publication and sale of all books in its archives that support the theory of evolution, daily Radikal has reported.
The evolutionist books, previously available through TÜB?TAK’s Popular Science Publications’ List, will no longer be provided by the council.
The books have long been listed as “out of stock” on TÜB?TAK’s website, but their further publication is now slated to be stopped permanently.
Titles by Richard Dawkins, Alan Moorehead, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Levontin and James Watson are all included in the list of books that will no longer be available to Turkish readers.
The Huffington Post has written an utterly gratuitous post designed to do nothing but garner Google Search Hits, providing information about this Sunday’s Superbowl. It is well known that all sports fans automatically know when their favorite sports events are on, as this information is beamed to chips planted in or near their brains. Nonetheless, there are people who don’t receive this information automatically but still need to know it. For instance, the Superbowl is a great time to do shopping at the mall, or even better, Best Buy or the Sports Authority, assuming you know where those stores are located and what the store hours are.
For those of you who need to know the Superbowl details, here they are:
The teams will be the San Francisco 49ers vs. the Baltimore Ravens, and the game is on Feb 3rd, this Sunday.
The start time of the game is 6:30PM Eastern, 5:30PM Central.
The game will be on CBS (click here to find your local station) and streamed here on line.
According to Huffington Post, “There will also be several hashtags to track on Twitter, including #Ravens, #SBRavens, #49ers, #Niners, #QuestforSix, #SB47 and #HarBowl.”
Beyonce will be featured during the Halftime Show.
There will also be the usual amazing commercials.
Minnesota Atheists is auctioning off a rare $20.00 bill that does not say “In God We Trust” on it. I’ve already placed my first bid of $36.66! Go here to check it out. Good luck!
TRIGGER WARNING: Rape, molestation, physical attack, misogyny, abuse. Followed by one billion angry women kicking the patriarchy in the ass. You have been warned.
Continue reading One Billion Rising
Glaciologist Jason Box describes a post-warming world that you won’t even be able to recognize.
Anthropogenic global warming is a long term phenomenon that is caused by the release of Carbon, in the form of Carbon Dioxide, from fossil deposits, though burning of fuels such as oil, natural gas, and coal. There are other human causes as well, but some of those relate to the use of fossil fuels (such as the leakage of methane gas from oil extraction operations, or from delivery pipelines).
The evidence for warming comes from a variety of sources, but mainly from land based thermometer stations from about the mid 19th century and later, higher tech measurements such as satellites.
The following graph is provided by the National Climatic Data Center and comes with its own caption attached, providing the original source:
Roman Numerals? What the heck does Exel Vee Aye Aye mean anyway? Does anybody really know?
The Superbowl may be one of the few places where we count above three in Roman Numerals anyway. I assume this is a subtle reference to the gladiatorial aspects of the contest. Which reminds me of this:
A man “lies crumpled on the sand … Behind him a dark trail leads back to the spot from which he has just been dragged. Looking closer, we notice something slightly odd about the figure crouching over the wounded man. His posture does not suggest a doctor attempting to staunch bleeding, or even to check heartbeat or pulse. Look a little closer still, and you may be inclined suddenly to reel back or to close your eyes. The man sprawled at such an odd angle beside the injured [man] has his face pressed against a gaping tear in [his] throat. He is drinking blood fresh from the wound…” Why? Well, to cure his epilepsy, of course. The date is 24 AD, the injured man is a gladiator, and the man drinking the blood must have bribed his way to the front of the line because he’s getting what a lot of other people in Ancient Rome routinely sought. A nice blood meal, for medicinal purposes, of course.
The 49ers are in the Superbowl. The Packers, the Rival Team for us Minnesotans Wisconsin, are not, but they were in the playoffs. The former is named after miners, the latter is named after factory workers. Let’s not forget the workers and the importance of unions!
Mike over at 10,000 Birds points out that a bird-named football team has only ONCE ever won the Superbowl, although lots of bird named teams have been a post-season threat. This year, the Falcons and the Ravens were both in the playoffs and there was a distinct chance they’d play each other. Unfortunately, it did not work out that way. But, at least we’ve got one bird in the bowl.
A bird in the bowl is worth two in the playoffs, I guess.
Anyway, you need to know that the next I and the Bird NeoWebCarnival will be on Ravens.
And, I have to mention the Vikings. They were in the playoffs, and I have to say that no one really expected that. They did better than planned. Next year, they will be in the Superbowl and they will win. I hope they beat the Saints.
But let’s not get too emotional about it all. After all, being a Viking is just a job, as my friend Martin Rundkvist tell us, though I can’t figure out where the heck he said that.
Janet Jackson’s Costume Failure. Say no more.
The 49ers are from San Francisco. You would think that a team from San Francisco would be more sensitive to LGBTA issues, but I guess not. One of the team members, maybe two, have said very anti-gay things recently, even though they participated in an “it gets better” video production. At least one of the players did not know he was helping gay people, and is now regretuful.
I have relatives in DC and one of them is from Baltimore.
For the above reasons I’ll be supporting the Ravens. They’re from Baltimore, right? Should be a good game!