Yearly Archives: 2014

Most Efficient Tornado Hunt Ever

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Al Franken likes to joke about having run the most efficient campaign for Senate ever, referring to when he beat incumbent Norm Coleman by just a couple of hundred votes (on the first count … the number went up during the grueling recount). Now, we have an example of the most efficient ever tornado hunt.

This is in Russia where, apparently, every single vehicle has a dash cam just in case something interesting happens. You see the guy back out of his garage, see the tornado coming down the street, and when he tries to drive back into his garage for safety … well, just have a look:

Hat tip Paul Douglas, source of video here.

Penguins: The Ultimate Guide

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There is a new book out on Penguins: Penguins: The Ultimate Guide written and edited by Tui De Roy, Mark Jones, and Julie Cornthwaite.

It is a beautiful coffee table style book full of information. All of the world’s species are covered (amazingly there are only 18 of them) and there are more than 400 excellent photos. The book covers penguin science (science about them, not by them). There is also quite a bit about their conservation.

The layout of the book is interesting. The last section of the book, by Julie Cornthwaite includes portraits of each species, and a compendium of interesting facts such as which is the fastest penguin, strange things about their bills, their odd moulting behavior, interesting color variants, how they “fly”, interesting mating facts, and what threatens them. Then there is a table organized taxonomically giving their status, population estimates, ranges, and main threats. Following this is a two page bird-guide type spread on each species, with a range map, photos, descriptions, information about their voice, breeding behavior, feeding behavior, etc. That is what you would expect in a book about penguins.

But the first, and largest, part(s) of the book provides its uniqueness. The first section, by Dui De Roy, covers penguins generally, or specific exemplar species or groups of species, to provide an overview of what penguin-ness is all about. The second section, edited by Mark Jones, consists of 17 essays by various experts on specific topics, such as how penguins store food, how they are tracked at sea, and penguin-human interaction. I would like to have seen more about penguin evolution (which is interesting) but the sparsity of coverage of that topic does not detract from the book’s overall quality.

If you are into birds, you probably don’t have a penguin book, so this will fill the bill. As it were. This is also one of those books that totally qualifies as a great present to give someone you know who has an interest in birds generally, or penguins in particular. I should also mention that there are a couple of pages in the back on where to see penguins. Warning: They don’t smell very good.

I recommend the book. The following video has nothing to do with the book, but there are penguins in it:

Don't Even Think About #ClimateChange (ADDED: Free Chapter)

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Climate change is emotional, especially when the effects are disastrous and people’s lives are ruined. It is vague, sometimes. For example, bad weather happens and always has happened, so an increase in frequency or severity of bad weather isn’t necessarily qualitatively novel, and can be hard to put one’s finger on. Although the negative effects of climate change are already here, more serious effects are in our future. So, climate change has a component that is mysterious and hard to relate to, because it is in the future. Climate change is global, but spotty on a given day or in a given month. So, you may spend a long period of time between direct bouts with the phenomenon and forget about it or write it off as an “it can’t happen here” sort of thing. Climate change is scary or depressing, or both, so it is one of those things one tends to avoid thinking about. Climate change is complex, and climate change includes variation that is hard to understand.

NEW: Get your free chapter of this great book from the NCSE. Click here!

When we look at how the human mind works, using the tools of anthropology, psychology, or any of your favorite ways to study the human condition, we find that we are better at some things than others. All those things I just said about climate change are things we humans tend to be bad at, find hard to comprehend, evaluate, understand, or explain.

Therefore, climate change has two very important characteristics. 1) It is very important, representing an existential threat that we must deal with; and 2) we are cognitively, emotionally, intellectually, pragmatically, unable to deal with it. Or, one would hope, unable to deal with it easily. Hopefully we will get past that.

George Marshall’s Don’t Even Think about It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change is a must-read book for anyone interested in messaging and communication about climate change. You may know of George Marshall’s work; he’s the guy who made that great video on “How to talk to a climate change denier” (I’ve pasted it below).

If you know even a modest amount about climate change, and if you are likely to accept scientific consensus as valid (and the consensus on climate change is nearly 100% and is quite valid), then you may wonder how the heck people actively deny it. Less mysterious but still enigmatic is how people not actively engaged in denial don’t just accept the science. There is a handful of easy answers to these wonderments. Ignorance, financial incentive, getting bad information by a well funded and very active denialist industry, probably account for much of this. But just as climate change is something we address in science, denial of climate change, or refusal to engage in the issue, can also be addressed with science. Marshall’s book does this.

Marshall examines why people who aren’t worried about climate change do worry about being hit by asteroids or killed by terrorists. He examines the enigmatic fact that having children, who will certainly be more affected by climate change than the parents will be, makes it more likely to deny the reality of the phenomenon. He talks about the role of myth, fiction, and stories in shaping people’s belief, as opposed to science. He looks at why victims of climate change, such as those who lost everything in a major flood or terrible storm, exhibit a personal denial of the salient facts underlying their plight.

I have been dealing with science denial of one form or another for many years, much of that time surrounding the issue of evolution (as opposed to creationism). There are two things I’ve observed that relate to Marshall’s book. First, the patterns of cause of denialism are rarely simple. There tends to be a political cause, in some cases there tends to be a religious cause (especially with respect to evolution), there tends to be a money-related cause, and so on. But it is unrealistic to attribute denial to a simple causal agent, and one does so at one’s peril. The other observation is the commonness of well meaning people who look at denial think about if for a moment and come up with a simple fix. There isn’t a simple fix for such a complex thing. This is why Don’t Even Think about It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change is a must-read book for anyone interested in messaging and communication about climate change.

I strongly recommend this book.

Marshall has a post on his book here. Andy Skuce has reviewed it here. The Facebook Page for the book is here. The video I promised you is here:

Don’t Even Think About It: Why our Brains are Wired to Ignore Climate Change—a book review

Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader's Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis.

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According to John Berger, author of the newly released book Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader’s Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis, time is running out. The climate is changing in ways that will bring unwanted results, and we as a species are slow off the mark to do something about it.

Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader’s Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis begins with a description of the global climate in the not too distant future, 2100. It is of course a guess, perhaps fiction. But Berger’s description of the world in 2100 is plausible, and much of it probable. We don’t know, of course which parts are more vs. less likely. Killer heat waves are common. Forest are dying. Wildfires are frequent and abnormally large. Natural habitats, all of them, are being destroyed by changing conditions, causing widespread species extinctions. Serious diseases well ensconced in the tropics have spread widely. Island nations and low lying continental regions are being flooded, or are already destroyed by rising seas. And more.

By 2100, the Arctic Ocean is virtually ice-free. That amplifies global warming, because the reflective ice is replaced by darker water, which absorbs more heat. Without the ice, walruses are virtually gone. The huge shoals of shrimp-like krill that swarmed and bred beneath the margins of the ice shelves are gone.The whales that strained tons of krill have starved. So have the krill-eating fish and seals that had eaten the fish—and that needed ice during breeding and pupping season. Polar bears that depended on the seals and that bore their young on ice have become very scarce.A small population remains on land where they interbred with grizzlies…

With water so scarce and costly, many farms over the past decades had first fallowed their fields and, when the rains failed, had finally gone out of business.Then food prices had shot up. … Many people simply left the region. Farm economies unraveled…

Skeletal remains of shorefront buildings and walls protruded from the surf. A congealed mass of plastic flotsam and jetsam identified the high-water mark. …

And that is just a sampling. And, again, there is nothing in Berger’s alarming description that is “alarmist” in the sense science denialists usually use the term. Alarming, yes. Alarmist, no. Just realistic.

Berger describes climate change and its mechanism, gives some history as to how we know what we know, and discusses the perils of climate change in several major categories: That pertaining to the United States in particular, though he also discusses the situation across the globe; economic perils, health related perils, extreme weather, extinction, and bad things that happen to the ocean.

The hardest chapter to write, the one that is most likely wrong in detail, and at the same time, the most important, is on “Tipping Point Perils.” There is presently a discussion on the internet about one tipping point that is probably not realistic: the rapid extinction-event level warming induced by the release of large amounts of Methane from beneath the Arctic sea (and nearby land areas). Berger goes out on a limb a ways with his discussion of Methane, as do many others, and we hope there is not really a “Methane Bomb.” For the most part, though, he addresses the Arctic Methane problem fairly realistically, pointing out evidence on all sides of the issue.

Most of Berger’s tipping points are more realistic and still quite serious, including his discussion of methane. For the most part, a “tipping point” is an out of control positive feedback, where warming induces the rapid increase of some effect which in turn increases warming. Like melting permanent ice and snow, which normally sends an important quantity of the Sun’s energy back into space. Another is the qualitative change in climate systems, such as changes to large scale oceanic currents which contribute greatly to how heat is distributed across the planet. Obviously, glacial melt is on this list as well.

Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader’s Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis is a fun read. If, you know, you like non-fiction apocalyptic stories.

An important point is this: Berger does not say the game is over. He advocates taking action and makes the claim that these perils can be addressed, and of course, must be addressed.

Fortunately, many global studies confirm that we have the technology, financial capability, and renewable energy resources to successfully transition to an energy economy largely free of fossil fuels. But this will require some hard technological and political choices.Very large global programmatic investments in energy efficiency, renewable energy technology, agriculture, forestry, as well as carbon capture and storage will be needed to protect the climate…

Unfortunately, the movement for climate protection and clean energy does not have 50 years to put clean energy proponents in high offices and end business-as-usual energy policies. Fortunately, grassroots political activism plus new technology sometimes produces faster results. President Obama himself used grassroots organizing and social media to gain the White House in 2008. Social media was also indispensable to the Arab Spring revolutions that began in Tunisia in 2010. But whereas many climate organizations are already active on the web, their initiatives are often lost in internet cacophony, much of it created by powerful commercial interests.

The book has a foreword by Benjamin Santer, and an introduction by Paul and Anne Ehrlich.

Berger has a PhD in Ecology and has been involved in environmental issues in a number of ways, including advising for the National Research Council.

Bruce Levenson's Racism In Broader Context: We need to be smarter.

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Donald Sterling appears to be a hard core racist, and this, appropriately, got him in trouble. Recently, Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson released an email he had written some time back, which discusses race related issues vis-a-vis the Hawks, and announced that he was bowing out of ownership from the team because of this racist email.

The media reaction to this has been fairly uniform, and includes an aspect that I think should be examined more closely. Bruce Levenson, and his statement, have been placed in the same category as Donald Sterling and his statements. But they should not be. Given the relatively high degree of personal and institutional racism found in professional sports in the US, one could argue that Levenson’s racism is mild. One could even go further and say that he indicates a disdain for racism, and this disdain is reflected in the offending email.

The reason this is important is that racism is important, and racism associated with a major American institution like sports is very important. A child who brings a switchblade to school is treated in the same way, by school regulations, as a child that brings a plastic knife to school to make it easier to eat his apple, in some districts, because both are seen as the same thing by an unthinking (or, worse, pre-thinking, let the rules do your thinking for you style thinking) policy. The equation of Levenson and Sterling is a similar phenomenon. The discussion about race and racism in America and in sports needs to be smarter than this.

To expand on this idea I’ve Fisked Levenson’s letter (leaving off the first part). My objective is to give Levenson something of a break in considering his written words, pointing out where he is actually being anti-racist. Having said that, it is true that the email is insufficiently critical of certain aspects of the Hawks’ situation, and makes some assumptions that are probably incorrect and essentially racist, by someone who is not a trained sociologist or anthropologist. But, it is just an internal memo expressing thoughts for consideration, so to some extent that can be understood.

I don’t want to say that Levenson should or should not own the Hawks. I do want to say, though, that equating and placing in the same narrow category Levenson and what he has said and done, and Sterling and what he has said and done dumbs down the conversation too much.

From: Bruce Levenson
To: Ferry, Danny
CC: Foreman, Todd (ucg.com); Peskowitz, Ed (ucg.com)
Sent: 8/25/2012 11:47:02 PM
Subject: Re: Business/Game ops

…4. Regarding game ops, i need to start with some background. for the first couple of years we owned the team, i didn’t much focus on game ops. then one day a light bulb went off. when digging into why our season ticket base is so small, i was told it is because we can’t get 35–55 white males and corporations to buy season tixs and they are the primary demo for season tickets around the league….

This is not a racist statement per se. It is probably true that wealthier white males and traditional corporations (owned and operated mainly by wealthier white males) are the market for season tickets for major professional sports. This reflects many aspects of how our society works, and therein certainly lies racism. But pointing it out as the guy trying to sell the tickets is a simple observation.

when i pushed further, folks generally shrugged their shoulders. then i start looking around our arena during games and notice the following:

– it’s 70 pct black
– the cheerleaders are black
– the music is hip hop
– at the bars it’s 90 pct black
– there are few fathers and sons at the games
– we are doing after game concerts to attract more fans and the concerts are either hip hop or gospel.

Then i start looking around at other arenas. It is completely different. Even DC with its affluent black community never has more than 15 pct black audience.

Before we bought the hawks and for those couple years immediately after in an effort to make the arena look full (at the nba’s urging) thousands and thousands of tickets were being giving away, predominantly in the black community, adding to the overwhelming black audience.

These statements can be taken as observation, not a judgement. One might ask for verification or more information, but the author of these observations has not said here if this is a good or a bad thing intrinsically, but rather, is simply pointing it out as background. The equation of various observations with a race-based trope is potentially problematic. Also, this is a laundry list of things to blame for bad sales, and that is more than a little uncomfortable. But this is a memo about bad sales.

My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a signficant season ticket base. Please dont get me wrong. There was nothing threatening going on in the arean back then. i never felt uncomfortable, but i think southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority. On fan sites i would read comments about how dangerous it is around philips yet in our 9 years, i don’t know of a mugging or even a pick pocket incident.

There is simply no way to interpret this analysis as blatantly racist. It is quite the opposite. Levenson is pointing out that there seems to be racism among the fans, and that a threshold of sorts has been crossed making racist white male potential fans less likely to go to the arena.

This was just racist garbage. When I hear some people saying the arena is in the wrong place I think it is code for there are too many blacks at the games.

This is a very important statement. He is expressing disdain for racist attitudes about the venue.

I have been open with our executive team about these concerns. I have told them I want some white cheerleaders and while i don’t care what the color of the artist is, i want the music to be music familiar to a 40 year old white guy if that’s our season tixs demo. i have also balked when every fan picked out of crowd to shoot shots in some time out contest is black. I have even bitched that the kiss cam is too black.

One could argue over what the best approach to handling the lack of high price ticket sales is, but if that is the goal, appealing to a white audience by including among some of the amenities and concurrent events more white is the same as appealing to any effort at diversity.

The problem with this is the intent to undue what appears to be an overwhelming interest by African Americans in this particular team and venu. Saying that these components of the experience is “too black” certainly seems racist, but it is also couched in terms of the goal of “increasing diversity” (in this case white male country western listening potential ticket buyers, which is not the sort of diversity we are usually concerned with). A better statement might have been to express an interest in maintaining what appears to be a very successful inclusion of the African American community which is apparently predominant at the location of the venue while at the same time encouraging others to engage. In other words, it looks like the idea is to “undo” a shift towards a strong African American fan base.

Gradually things have changed. My unscientific guess is that our crowd is 40 pct black now, still four to five times all other teams. And my further guess is that 40 pct still feels like 70 pet to some whites at our games. Our bars are still overwhelmingly black.

This is obviously a sensitive topic, but sadly i think it is far and way the number one reason our season ticket base is so low.

This is a potentially important statement because it reveals Levenson’s feelings about the situation. He acknowledges the racist nature of the situation and the discussion, and expresses a dislike for the apparent fact that “too many” black people scares away white people.

And many of our black fans don’t have the spendable income which explains why our f&b and merchandise sales are so low. At all white thrasher games sales were nearly triple what they are at hawks games (the extra intermission explains some of that but not all).

Regardless of what time a game starts, we have the latest arriving crowd in the league. It often looks and sounds empty when the team takes the floor.

In the past two years, we have created a section of rowdy college students that has been a big plus. And we do a lot of very clever stuff during time outs to entertain the crowd. Our kiss cam is better done than any in the league.

We have all the same halftime acts that other arenas have but i question whether they make sense. people are on their cell phones during half time. i wonder if flashing on the scoreboard “$2 off on hot dogs during halftime tonight” just as the half ends would be a better use of our halftime dollars and make the fans happier.

We do all the usual giveways and the fans are usually their loudest when our spirit crew takes the floor to give away t-shirts. It pisses me off that they will yell louder for a t-shirt then for our players.

These are all context-free observations about how the games are sold together with an observation about late arriving fans and cell phone use. These issues may be generally true across sports, or the league, when a team is not generating enough excitement.

Our player intro is flat. We manufacture a lot of noise but because of the late arriving crowd and the fact that a lot of blacks dont seem to go as crazy cheering (another one of my theories) as whites, it is not great. Even when we have just returned from winnng four straight on the road, i am one of the few people in the arena standing and cheering when our team takes the floor. Bob has kicked around ideas like having the starters coming down aisles rather than off the bench during intros. Sounds cool but may highlight all the empty seats at the start of games.

This is more about the nature of the games and lack of excitement, but embedded within it is a statement about “blacks” behavior at games … less crazy cheering than white people. I have no idea what to make of that. This may be mainly an unexamined bias in observation or attribution of a lack of enthusiasm because the team does not generate it to being explained as a “black” trait. One gets the feeling more focus should be placed on the team and its ability to generate enthusiasm.

Not enough of our fans wear hawks jerseys to games. i have just begun to push for ideas like discount food lines for folks wearing jerseys, special entrances, etc. I think we need a committed and perhaps incentivized fan club. We need to realize atl is simply different than every other city. Just adopting nba best practices is not enough. we have to create our own.

If this team, this city, has a local culture, it would be just like a lot of other urban sports venues. Only Wisconsinites wear cheese on their heads. Saint’s fans (NFL) seem to like to watch their team beat up the other team. And so on. It is not unreasonable to address the local culture no matter what it is or how it might arise, though obviously a more careful analysis would be preferred.

I am rambling and could probably go on forever. If you have any specific areas you would like my thoughts on, let me know.

Best,
Bruce

ps – I have cc’d todd and ed so they can chime in with additional or different thoughts.

Sent from my iPad

In the end, Levenson decided that he was too much like Donald Sterling to own the team and gave up ownership. He stated “If you’re angry about what I wrote, you should be. I’m angry at myself too."

That is a lot more than Donald Sterling ever did.

There is an entirely different perspective out there that has to do with Levenson’s motivations vis-a-vis his career and business. I don’t accept that as an alternative to the race-related narrative. Levenson’s memo exists and is a discussion of race in relation to business, regardless of whether he fabricated it from thin air or really thought these thoughts. Nonetheless, the it’s business viewpoint does have a ring of reality to it. So I’ll end by quoting Mo Ivory who is one of the commenters who has suggested this, and who lives in Atlanta (though she is originally from New York and is not a Hawks fan):

So, like all other non-Atlanta natives living in Atlanta long term, when the Hawks play the New York Knicks, this native New Yorker whips out her Carmelo Anthony jersey and heads to Phillips Arena. The reason Bruce Levenson could not make the Hawks profitable is not because black people don’t buy season tickets, or arrive at games late, or spend all their time at the bar, or black fathers don’t bring black sons to the games. It’s because the Hawks suck. They have no marquee players and they don’t win games!

About that disease outbreak in the US #Enterovirus #EV-D68

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This is the time of year parents start scanning their facebook feeds and other sources of information for what to expect our children to get sick with, how badly, and when. For a couple of years in a row, a few years ago, we were getting hit with a norovirus, causing diarrhea, vomiting, and a lot of lost daycare or school days. This year we are seeing reports of an outbreak of the scary-sounding “Enterovirus EV-D68.” Hundreds of kids are sick enough to get treatment in several states, currently Colorado, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia and Kentucky. (By the time you read this more will probably be added to that list.)

This virus is part of a large family of viruses that includes a lot of diseases, some pretty benign and some more serious. But the best common name for this particular virus, the one that includes this type of virus as well as several others, is the dreaded “Common Cold.”

This is probably a bit worse than the regular common cold for some people, indicated by the number of hospitalizations, some of which include pretty serious cases. The peak season for this type of virus is September, though it is sometimes called a “summer cold” because it starts to spread earlier in they year. It also seems like this particular virus is spreading quickly and hitting communities with large percentages. But, it is not clear how different than usual this is. CNN quotes Dr. Mary Jackson, an infectious disease expert, “It’s worse in terms of scope of critically ill children who require intensive care. I would call it unprecedented. I’ve practiced for 30 years in pediatrics, and I’ve never seen anything quite like this.” She is based at a hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, where about 15% of the patients who came in have been placed in intensive care, of about 475 treated as of a couple of days ago.

So there are two things you need to know. First, this is probably a normal cold spreading more widely and quickly than other years. Second, there is probably a higher incidence of more serious infections with this cold, so be more vigilant and go ahead and set your parental trigger for calling in your child’s sickness to a more sensitive level.

Image above from here.

And, there are a few things you need to do. First, update your kid’s “cover your mouth when you cough” training. Second, update your kid’s “wash your hands a lot” training. Third, keep your kid home when sick to the extent that you can.

Just to be clear. EV-D68 is not common. When I say it is a version of the “common cold” I mean that it is one of many viruses, a diverse group, that are on the list of things that cause what we call “a cold.” The specific enterovirus EV-D68 might be pretty rare, which may be why reactions to it can be worse. There is a very small number, up until now, of confirmed cases of it world wide, but only a tiny percentage of instances of the common cold are ever tested to see what the exact cause is.

This is the time of year kids (and teachers) go back to school to learn new things and exchange pathogens. Expect a lot more of this over coming weeks.

Personally, I think everyone in the whole world should stock up of food and water and quarantine themselves form all other humans for 14 days. Inside, with a good mosquito net. Imagine how many human-reservoir or insect-human reservoir disease would go extinct!?!? Of course, then no one would have a well developed immune system after a while and we would all die but for a while it would be great!

That asteroid did kinda hit the Earth after all! Maybe.

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Remember that asteroid that was supposed to pass harmlessly by the Earth on Sunday? Well, things didn’t go exactly as planned…

Apparently, a meteor hit Nicaragua late Saturday night, forming a 12 meter wide crater. This would be a small chunk to make a crater that little. It has not been confirmed yet, but there is a strong possibility that this meteor was associated with 2014 RC. NPR quotes AP which quotes a Nicaraguan government official as saying the meteor “appears to have come off an asteroid that was passing close to Earth.” NPR also quotes the BBC which quotes another astronomer: “Astronomer Humberto Saballos said the meteorite could have broken off from the 2014RC asteroid which passed Earth at the same time.”

The event was caught on a security cam*:

I await further analysis and consideration. It could be a coincidence. Or perhaps this somewhat larger asteroid, 2014 RC, was traveling in a pack. They are known to do that. If so, “coming off” 2014 RC may be too vague a statement. Perhaps it came off a gazillion years ago. Or perhaps a handful of chunks were traveling together because the were mutually attracted in antiquity (via gravity).

*If you go to that link you will learn that the Earth is doomed because we are about to be rained down upon by a large number of asteroids. But be careful, take it with a grain of salt. Phil Plait at Slate wrote a post that discusses this: No, We’re Not Facing an Onslaught of Asteroid Impacts. This rumor comes from the same source that told us that the “supermoon” was going to kill everyone (it did not).

There is an asteroid out there known as 2014 NZ64 that is at the root of that story. It was just discovered. The asteroid is expected to pass by the earth 399 times between 2017 and 2113, however, the asteroid’s exact track and location is unclear because it was observed for too short of time. The best estimate at the time, though, is that 2014 NZ64 has a very low probability of hitting the earth ever, and pretty much no chance in the nearish future. The 399 measured future passes sum to an impact probability of 0.0000021. Just out of curiosity I’d like to know the estimated probability of something else happening to this asteroid, like it hitting the moon or another asteroid or something. Probably also low.

The Consensus on Climate Change From 97 Experts!!!

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This is a big thing. Starting just now, 97 different top experts on climate change, starting with Michael Mann (author of this book), one per hour, will have a say about the consensus. This is being run by Skeptical Science.

From Dana Nuccitelli’s post at The Guardian,

Research has shown that when people are aware of the expert consensus, they’re more likely to accept the fact that humans are causing global warming, and also more likely to support taking action to address the problem. Hence the consensus gap is a significant roadblock preventing us from tackling global warming.

To help close this gap, the website Skeptical Science has launched a 97-hour social media event starting today, 9/7. Each hour, the site will publish a relevant quote from a climate scientist, along with a playful caricature drawn by Skeptical Science founder and University of Queensland researcher John Cook. Each caricature lists the scientists’ name, title, expertise, and academic institution.

You can see the event unfold in an interactive 3D animation HERE. (Just pin the scientist down with your mouse cursor and make them talk!)

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Polar Vortex Begets Baby Boom?

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Nine months after the Polar Vortex covered a good part of American with freezing cold, there appears to be a baby boom, according to one unverified news story:

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – It’s been nine months since our bitter cold winter ended.
Now, delivery rooms are bracing themselves for a Polar Vortex baby boom.
All 39 maternity rooms and the NICU are full this weekend at a Des Moines hospital.
Doctors believe the baby bonanza is a result of the polar vortex last December and January.
In case you forgot, it was one of the snowiest and coldest winters on record.
August and September are usually the busiest months for maternity wards, draw your own conclusions why.

I’m holding out for more data.

Twitter Analytics? Inspect your Twitter feed for impact

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You can now see what happens when you tweet something. Twitter has a web page that tells you how many “impressions” a tweet has, how many “Engagements” (any kind of click on your tweet) and, for convenience, the percentage of tweets with which your tweeps engaged. There are also summary graphs for engagement rate, link clicks, and retweets. There is also a graph that shows your daily frequency of impressions from your entire twitter feed and a few helpful summary statements such as your current day’s impressions in relation to your 28 day average.

If you click on a tweet, you get a graph showing activity every several hours across the days since the tweet was born, with details of the kinds of engagements that happened.

Now you can obsessively track your tweets instead of just tweeting them.

This service was previously available only to verified users and advertisers Now it is available to anybody.

Click here to visit the page.

It turns out that coffee is special

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But you knew that already.

The Coffea canephora Genome has been sequenced. This is probably more important than the Human Genome project because humans are completely useless first thing in the morning, but coffee is very important first thing in the morning.

Some important plant evolution involves wholesale duplication of large parts of the genome. This does not appear to be the case with coffee. Rather, diversification of single genes characterizes the genome, so, according to the paper reporting these results in Science, “…the genome includes several species-specific gene family expansions, among them N-methyltransferases (NMTs) involved in caffeine production, defense-related genes, and alkaloid and flavonoid enzymes involved in secondary compound synthesis.”

Also of great interest is the apparent fact that caffeine related genes either evolved separately from, or engaged in the important work of making caffeine separately from similarly functioning sets of genes in tea and cacao (chocolate). I had always suspected tea was … different.

So, not at all unexpectedly, the most important molecule on earth evolved more than once!

Elizabeth Pennisi also has a writeup here.

Titanic Fearless Dinosaur Unearthed

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I’m sure you’ve heard. The most complete skeleton of a titanosaur, a newly named species, Dreadnoughtus schrani, is being reported from Argentina.

It is not a bird. I mention that because we’ve been talking about how birds are dinosaurs lately (see:”Honey, I shrunk the dinosaurs” and “Flying Dinosaurs: A new book on the dinosaur bird link.”).

Dreadnoughtus schrani is a sauropod. Brontosaurus, if it existed, would be a sauropod. These are the dinosaurs with the little heads, long necks, and long tails. In cartoons they are sometimes called “long-necks.” Dreadnoughtus schrani is, as mentioned, a titanosaur, a particularly large long neck.

How does this relate to the other dinosaurs? The dinosaurs are part of a really big group of organisms that includes crocodiles, pterosaurs (those flying things) and so on. Within this group are the proper dinosaurs which you can think of as being divided into three groups. One group is the Ornithischia, named from the greek for “birdlike.” These are not birds either, but their hips somewhat resemble bird hips. (Birds are “lizard hipped” dinosaurs, which completes the paleoirony.) The Ornithischia are separate from the other two groups which are the Sauropods and the Theropods. The Theropods include Tyrannosaurus rex and pigeons. The Sauropods includes the Brontosaurus-like dinosaurs, though of course, there is no such thing as Brontosaurus. Because people who name dinosaurs are, essentially, sadistic.

Anyway, Dreadnoughtus schrani is estimated to have been about 26 meters (85 feet) long. So if you live in a typical city lot it could eat the bushes on your front lawn while knocking over your garage out back with its tail. It would have weighted about 59 metric tons. That’s about 65 regular tons. Nobody really knows what a ton is unless you are in certain professions, so that’s about 33 cars, or about 70 head of cattle. So, the average American could replace the usual meat in their diet with meat from one well fed Dreadnoughtus schrani for about two centuries. Give or take. This is all based on the one specimen found in Argentina. But, that individual was not full grown. So, wow. I’m not sure if Dreadnoughtus schrani is the biggest sauropod, as there are others in this size range.

The specimen is about 45% complete as a skeleton, but about 70% of the bones in the body are represented. Unfortunately the head is missing. But really, where could it be? I’m sure they’ll find it if they keep looking!

Titanosaurs were the major large dinos during the Mesozoic (252 – 66 mya) in the southern continents. This particular find dates to the Upper Cretaceous, the latest part of the Mesozoic.

From the paper:
srep06196-f2

(A) Reconstructed skeleton and body silhouette in left lateral view with preserved elements in white. (B) Left scapula and coracoid in lateral view. (C) Sternal plates in ventral view. (D) Left forelimb (metacarpus reconstructed) in anterior view. (E) Left pelvis (ilium partially reconstructed) in lateral view. (F) Left hind limb in anterior view (metatarsus and pes partially reconstructed and reversed from right). (G) Transverse ground thin section of humeral shaft, showing heavy secondary remodelling (arrow indicates extent of dense osteon formation), a thick layer of well-vascularized fibrolamellar bone, and a lack of lines of arrested growth or an external fundamental system. Abbreviations: acet, acetabulum; acf, acromial fossa; acp, acromial process; acr, acromial ridge; ast, astragalus; cc, cnemial crest; cof, coracoid foramen; cor, coracoid; dpc, deltopectoral crest; fem, femur; fhd, femoral head; fib, fibula; flb, fibrolamellar bone; gl, glenoid; hum, humerus; il, ilium; ilp, iliac peduncle; isc, ischium; isp, ischial peduncle; lt, lateral trochanter; mtI, metatarsal I; mtII, metatarsal II; of, obturator foramen; pop, postacetabular process; prp, preacetabular process; pu, pedal ungual; pub, pubis; pup, pubic peduncle; rac, radial condyle; rad, radius; sc, scapula; scb, scapular blade; sr, secondary remodelling; tib, tibia; tpp, tuberosity on preacetabular process; ul, ulna; ulc, ulnar condyle. Scale bars equal 1?m in (A) to (F) and 1?mm in (G). (Skeletal reconstruction by L. Wright, with G. Schultz.)

The name means “Fearless-creature guy-who-funded-expedition.” According to the authors, this is specifically where the genus name comes from:

Dreadnought (Old English), fearing nothing; genus name alludes to the gigantic body size of the taxon (which presumably rendered healthy adult individuals nearly impervious to attack) and the predominant battleships of the early 20th century (two of which, ARA [Armada de la República Argentina] Rivadavia and ARA Moreno, were part of the Argentinean navy). Species name honours the American entrepreneur Adam Schran for his support of this research.

For more information:

The Scientific Report article (which appears to be Open Access): A Gigantic, Exceptionally Complete Titanosaurian Sauropod Dinosaur from Southern Patagonia, Argentina

An open access paper on how this type of dinosaur even walked: March of the Titans: The Locomotor Capabilities of Sauropod Dinosaurs.

Michael Balter with Science Mag: Giant dinosaur unearthed in Argentina

Mr. Dinosaur Brian Switek: Enormous New Dinosaur as Formidable as Its Namesake Battleship

Ian Sample at The Guardian, including a video: Battleship beast: colossal dinosaur skeleton found in southern Patagonia

Francie Diep at Scientific American: New “Dreadnought” Dinosaur Most Complete Specimen of a Giant

Near Earth Object Will Be Near Earth

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Phil Plait says “Don’t Panic!” and he should know because he is the Death from the Skies!: The Science Behind the End of the World which is about things hitting the earth. The object is called 2014 RC and it was discovered on September 2nd. It will arrive on Sunday.

The object is about 20 meter across, and Phil told me on twitter yesterday that this is roughly the same size as the Chelyabinsk asteroid that made a pass over Russia last year.

Remember. Random events occur in clusters. Otherwise they would be called “regular events.” So there is probably no meaning to two similar objects coming near Earth in the same geological instant.

2014 RC will come to nearly within the zone that our higher satellites orbit, a fraction of the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Even though you can see some of those satellites, this object is not shiny so you’ll need a pretty good telescope to spot it.

In 2008 a 4.1 meter diameter asteroid named 2008 TC3 entered the atmosphere and exploded 37,000 kilometers above Sudan, creating 600 or so meteorites (that were recovered) weighting a total of 10.5 kilos. That was the first time astronomers spotted an object in outer(ish) space and predicted its impact. In 2014, 2014 AA, between 21 and 4 meters in diameter, was spotted by astronomers and 21 hours later hit the planet’s atmosphere. It probably hit the Atlantic Ocean near West Africa. The similar sized Chelyabinsk asteroid, the one that exploded over Russia, caused uncounted injuries (but several, probably over 1000) mainly from people running to their windows to see what the bright light was, and getting hit with glass when their windows blew apart; the bill for repairing damaged property came to about $33,000,000.

So the three comparative examples we have don’t help much if you want to know the answer to the question “what if an object this size hits the earth.” One went into the sea, one totally exploded leaving many fragments to fall on Sudan, and one blew up at a glancing angle. Chances are, if 2014 RC was aimed directly at the planet in a perpendicular angle, it would either blow to bits or become much smaller on the way down. Meteor Crater, in Arizona, is over one kilometer across and was probably caused by an object about 50 meters across (when it hit). A similar sized object created Tswaing crater, in South Africa. While these and similar impacts would have had very serious effects near the site, such as disintegrating nearby living things, the impacts were not sufficient to have left a record in the paleontology or archaeology of the regions. Or we’re not looking hard enough. It is safe to surmise that if a few-meters-wide object made impact with the Earth in a populated area, it would be a major disaster, but if it did so in the ocean it would probably not have large effects.

The interesting thing about 2014 RC is, of course, that it was only just discovered. So much for the idea of building a Destroyinator in time to stop an object this size that happens to be aimed at us from striking its target. That approach, apparently, is for larger objects. But still, as Phil Plait says, the science of keeping track of near Earth objects is underfunded.

…at the very least, we need bigger ‘scopes for asteroid searches. We’re doing pretty well in that department, with Pan-STARRS, and the LSST (which is still some years away from operating). But even then they can’t cover the whole sky, which is why I support the efforts of both the B612 Foundation and NASA’s NEOCam. A lot of science will come from these missions at the very least, and who knows? If they do spot a rock with our name on it, at least we’ll get the chance to do something about.

Do you want to see 2014 RC? No problem. Just follow the instructions from Universe Today:

Seeing it will take careful planning. Unlike a star or planet, this space rock will be faint and barreling across the sky at a high rate of speed. Discovered at magnitude +19, 2014 RC will brighten to magnitude +14 during the early morning hours of September 7th. Even experienced amateurs with beefy telescopes will find it a challenging object in southern Aquarius both because of low altitude and the unwelcome presence of a nearly full moon.

Closest approach happens in daylight for North and South America , but southern hemisphere observers might spot it with a 6-inch scope as a magnitude +11.5 “star” zipping across the constellations Pictor and Puppis. 2014 RC fades rapidly after its swing by Earth and will quickly become impossible to see in all amateur telescopes, though time exposure photography will keep the interloper in view for a few additional hours.

And remember, Amateur astronomers: pics or it didn’t happen!

The graphic above is from NASA, where you will find additional information.

Important new meta-study of sea level rise in the US.

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This is not a peer reviewed meta-study, but a meta-study nonetheless. Reuters has engaged in a major journalistic effort to examine sea level rise and has released the first part (two parts, actually). It is pretty good; I only found one paragraph to object to, and I’ll ignore that right now.

There are two reasons this report is important. First, it documents something about sea level rise that I’ve been trying to impress on people all along. The effects of sea level rise do not end at one’s perceived position of a new shoreline. Here’s what I mean.

Suppose you are standing on a barrier island, and your feet are on a grassy sandy knoll 10 feet above high tide. You are standing next to a climatologist who says “some projections say that the sea level will rise by one foot more than it already has by 2100. You breath a sigh of relief because you are standing 10 feet above high tide, and you realize that one foot of seal level rise is easily accommodated by the sea you see in front of you.

But you would be a fool to not be worried for several reasons. First, you are standing on a 10 foot high sea cliff. The sea cliff represents erosion that happened since the last bout of sea level rise (and is actually an ongoing process). When the sea rises by one foot that sea cliff will erode away. The land many hundreds of yards behind you may be fine, but the place you are standing will be gone. It is hard to predict how much land will horizontally erode with a given rise in sea level, but it is generally a positive number, rarely zero (there are places where it effectively can be zero but not along the sandy shores). Second, as you stand there looking at the sea, the restaurants and businesses along the road behind you and the residential and commercial properties all across the nearby hinterland are busy lowering the ground water by taking water out for their own use as if it didn’t matter. So, while the sea may rise up one foot by 2011, it may also drop a foot because of the groundwater removal. Third, if the sea rises only a little across certain kinds of sediments, the weight of the sea may further suppress the land. Fourth, if this bit of land you are standing on is along the US Atlantic coast, you probably get more than one foot of sea level rise if the global sea level goes up by one foot. This has to do with the shape of the oceans, wind and water currents, etc. Fifth, one foot of sea level rise means many feet of extra storm surge when that rare tropical storm comes along. The chance of a hurricane hitting a given beach along the Atlantic is low. But we’re talking about the year 2011. Between now and then a hurricane with enhanced storm surge will come along and remove the land you are standing on. Sixth, the climatologist you are standing next to is an optimist. He is referring to “some estimates.” The funny thing about sea level rise estimates, as well as polar ice sheet melt estimates, is that they keep changing over time, always in one direction. Ten years ago the estimate was one foot by 2200. Now, it’s 4 feet, and some estimates suggest 6.6 feet. Also, looking at the paleo record, the last time atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were at their present level plus what we expect to put in the air over the next few decades for good measure, sea levels were so high we used meters instead of feet! Figure 25 feet, maybe 40. The town behind you will eventually be gone, buried deeply in the sea, a nice fishing ground. That probably won’t be by 2100, but is it really your job to throw every human that exists after 2100 under the climate change bus because it is a nice round number? No. No, it isn’t.

The Reuters report deals with most of those issues (though in a different way), chronicling numerous cases of actual current and ongoing encroachment of the sea on the land. And this brings us to the second key thing about this report. Reuters documents that the humans are running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Local business leaders who want to preserve their short term profits are controlling supposedly long-term-thinking state and federal agencies so nothing gets done. Big Science (in the form of NASA) is busy studying glacial melt and sea level rise from rocket-launching bases that are being washed away by the rising ocean, and acting as though they can somehow stop that. Congress. It does nothing. And so on.

This is the first in a series of reports, it is excellent, and I look forward to the rest of them. You can read it here. By the way, a lot of what is documented by Reuters was covered earlier in this book: Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, worth a look!

(The graphic above is from the National Climate Assessment report of 2014.)