Watching the Earth breath from space: OCO-2 and measuring CO2

Climate Change, Physical Science and Math, , , , ,

The OCO-2, aka, Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2, is a satellite that measures CO2 in the atmosphere, using a spectrograph.

From a news article in today’s Science, “One of the crowning achievements of modern environmental science is the Keeling curve, the detailed time series of the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) begun in 1958 that has enabled deep insights into the mechanisms of global climate change. These measurements were difficult to make for most of their 60-year history, involving the physical collection of air samples in flasks at a small number of sites scattered strategically around the globe and the subsequent analysis of their CO2 inventories in a handful of laboratories throughout the world.”

The purpose of the OCO-2 was to make these measurements much more accurate and efficient, and to provide more granularity in the details. The space craft was launched in July 2014, replacing an earlier OCO (OCO-1, if you like) which was launched in 2009.

Do not tell Donald Trump about this satellite. He’ll have it shot down.

Anyway, the current issue of Science Continue reading Watching the Earth breath from space: OCO-2 and measuring CO2 →

Interesting Books Cheap

Other, , , ,

This will be useful for any writer: The Field Guide to Sports Metaphors: A Compendium of Competitive Words and Idioms, cheap right now on Kindle, but I think I’m going to get a print copy as a gift this year for my sports-loving cousin that it is so hard to find gifts for.

There are many metaphors we can quickly identify from the realm of sports: covering all the bases (baseball), game plan (football), and par for the course (golf). But the English language is also peppered with the not-so-obvious influence of sports and games, such as go-to guy (basketball) and dead ringer (horse racing). Filled with pithy entries on each idiom, plus quotes showing how big talkers from President Obama to rapper Ice-T use them, this quirky little handbook from former minor league ballplayer and award-winning journalist Josh Chetwynd is sure to be a conversation starter at tailgates, cocktail parties, and in the boardroom.

Originally published as “The Restless Sea,” Mapping the Deep: The Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science by Robert Kunzig is…

A vivid, up-to-date tour of the Earth’s last frontier, a remote and mysterious realm that nonetheless lies close to the heart of even the most land-locked reader.

The sea covers seven-tenths of the Earth, but we have mapped only a small percentage of it. The sea contains millions of species of animals and plants, but we have identified only a few thousand of them. The sea controls our planet’s climate, but we do not really understand how. The sea is still the frontier, and yet it seems so familiar that we sometimes forget how little we know about it. Just as we are poised on the verge of exploiting the sea on an unprecedented scale—mining it, fertilizing it, fishing it out—this book reminds us of how much we have yet to learn. More than that, it chronicles the knowledge explosion that has transformed our view of the sea in just the past few decades, and made it a far more interesting and accessible place. From the Big Bang to that far-off future time, two billion years from now, when our planet will be a waterless rock; from the lush crowds of life at seafloor hot springs to the invisible, jewel-like plants that float at the sea surface; from the restless shifting of the tectonic plates to the majestic sweep of the ocean currents, Kunzig’s clear and lyrical prose transports us to the ends of the Earth.

How to replace a US Senator who leaves or dies in office

Politics, ,

The Constitution of Great Britain, which was famously not a thing, defined three entities of what Americans would call government, one elected by the common people, the King or Queen, and in between, the House of Lords, inherited and fancy like the Monarch, but many, and representing the wealth and power of the people.

In a sense, there were three branches of government, the monarchy (king), the aristocracy (we might call them the 1% today), and the democratic branch, aka, the unwashed masses. This conceptualization of the British government is neither new nor mine. In the words of “Massachusettensis,” quoted by John Adams, Continue reading How to replace a US Senator who leaves or dies in office →

The Next Presidential Science Advisor

Politics, , , ,

It is rumored that Donald Trump will pick Doctor Pee as his science adviser. Doctor who? This doctor.

Art Robinson wants to mix all the radioactive waste into water and distribute it in the oceans. He thinks AIDS is made up. Public schools should be abolished. A lot of crazy stuff that has become normal in the White House. He almost won a seat in congress in 2012. He was also the Chairman of the Oregon Republican Party.

He also collects urine. Mine? No not mine, urine! It is part of his super secret research project, which he runs in his own home. He wants 50,000 volunteers to each send him one urine sample every six months, so that he can put the samples in his special machine and cure all diseases.

I believe that for the Trump Administration, Dr Art “Pee” Robinson is the perfect science adviser. What do you think?

Kevin de León to Challenge Dianne Feinstein

Politics, , , ,

California Democratic state Senate president Kevin de León, a youngish progressive representing Los Angeles, and a strong Latino voice, is going to challenge Dianne Feinstein in the California Senatorial election. There will be primary, and the way things work in California, there could be any combination of candidates (across party) running against each other, including Feinstein and de León.

Feinstein is well liked and respected, but she is old-school, and still seems to believe in things like, Republicans can be talked to, and no matter how bad they are every single day, maybe some day one will do something that isn’t totally bone-headed and nefarious. It seems to be Senator Feinstein’s recent comment that maybe Trump could be a good president after all is the straw that set this particular camel’s back in motion, if you will pardon the mixing of metaphors. Also, Dianne Feinstein would be 91 in her last year in office, which is kind of old.

Personally, I think that some of Feinstein’s rhetoric is just the way Senators talk, they pretend things are normal when they are not, and they are all hauty tauty because they are the Senate, after all, and not the House.

One theory I’ve heard is that Feinstein, who is a bit old to run, will win, then in a year or so, step down and be replaced by an appointee of Jerry Brown. That is a really bad idea because it will be so obviously inside trading that it will backfire, and we don’t need that bad will going on right now. The best outcome is probably that de León simply wins. But, I’d love to hear from Californians what they think of all this?

Gene Therapy Is Starting To Be A Real Thing

Evolutionary Biology, Health and Medicine, , ,

Today, the an FDA advisory committee recommended that the FDA approve full clinical trials for a type of gene therapy that addresses a rare genetic condition causing deterioration of the retina. This is found in 8.6×105 of people world wide, so not many. the therapy involves injecting a virus bearing the preferred copy of the gene, the non-broken allele, into the eyeball, where the new gene somehow reduces, stops, and seemingly reverses, the deterioration.

The therapy was previously looked at in a preliminary study with a small sample of people. Here is the abstract from that study: Continue reading Gene Therapy Is Starting To Be A Real Thing →

When it comes to the energy transition, Governors matter A LOT

Energy

I’m in Minnesota, and I’m here to tell you that our governor is pretty good, but he’s retiring. No, not just his personality, he is actually retiring as in not running for re-election. My choice to replace him is Rebecca Otto who has the best energy transition policy bar none.

Find out about the policy here: Rebecca Otto’s Clean Energy Plan for Minnesota
Please go contribute to her campaign HERE.

(Rebecca is also the strongest candidate to run and win in Minnesota.)

But there are some other great-for-energy governors running as well. Get Energy Smart NOW! has information on Ralph Northam, and he is running on a “climate change is real” and “we have to do something about this” platform, against “Enron Ed” Gillespie.

The post is: When it comes to Virginia, being concerned about environment/climate demands vote for Northam. Check it out and find out what a good Virginia governor looks like.

Note, the governor’s race in virginia is old-style. They do it in odd years. So, now. Also, while Northam is leading Enro Ed in the polls, there are experts who believe these polls are off. So, get involved!

Netflix gets Stranger

TV Shows and Movies

Stranger Things Season 2 will be available on October 27th, just in time for Halloween.

I expect there will be widespread disappointment, because there is always a lot of disappointment from the usual suspects when something loved is extended, redone, or done again. Part of the charm of the first season was discovering the 1980s retro allegory, and there is more of that in the new Stranger Things, but since it is the second time around … well, we’ll see. Also, Eleven was one of the great science fiction characters ever written, directed, and acted, and I understand that Eleven’s character is different this time around. So that will be a blow to civilization itself. Continue reading Netflix gets Stranger →

The Furry and Creepy Creatures of Britain

Animals, Books

A Field Guide to Britain’s Spiders

No, this is not a new Harry Potter story. It is a pair of books on British Wildlife.

I wish I had Britain’s Spiders: A Field Guide (Princeton University Press (WILDGuides)) Lawrence Bee, Geoff Oxford & Helen Smith for the United States.

The Chelicerata include the Arachnids, which in turn includes such as the scorpions, harvestmen, mites, etc. The largest single group of Arachnids is the spiders (Araneae). They all breath air, they all have eight legs, they all have venom injecting fangs (see THIS for more on that). Of all of the orders of organisms, spiders are seventh in terms of total species diversity, with over 45,000 species. (For reference, there are about 5,400 species of mammal and about 10,000 species of bird. Continue reading The Furry and Creepy Creatures of Britain →

Venomous: How the Earth’s Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry

Books

You can read this book review, or you can just go HERE and listen to our interview with author Christie Wilcox. I promise you in advance that you will want to read her book!

But, if you want to read the book review, here it is…

Did you ever do anything that hurt, then you had to do it again and you knew it would still hurt, and you didn’t like that? Like getting your teeth cleaned, or licking a nine volt battery. OK, maybe you didn’t have to lick the nine volt battery, but you get my point.

When I was working in the Ituri Forest, in the Congo, taking a walk in the forest was one of those things. All sorts of things hurt. Your feet hurt because of jungle rot combined with sandy gritty stuff permanently indurated in your shoes. The leaves and branches you would have to move through hurt because it was early in the morning and they were cold and wet. And so on.

But one of the things that was not inevitable, but nearly daily, was being stung by a venomous beast of some kind. The most serious threat, of course, was snakes but that never happened to me. Much more common, but more common a night, was to be bitten or stung by a venomous ant. But that only happened, maybe, once a week or so. But nearly every day, if I would walk far enough in the forest (hundreds of meters) especially early in the morning, would be the venomous caterpillars.

Cute little caterpillars with some extra long furry thingies sticking out of them. When you brush against them, there is instant local pain, a bit like a bee sting (but different) followed quickly by shooting pains from the site of contact to the nearest major lymph node (usually the arm pit), followed by pain in the lymph node. The pain would eventually go away, after minutes, sometimes a bit longer.

Continue reading Venomous: How the Earth’s Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry →

A guide to the butterflies (book review)

Books

A Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America is a field guider’s field guide. It is the shape and size of a traditional field guide. The designers of this book said “we don’t need no stinking margins” so there are no margins. Color bleeds on the page edges allow a quick index to major butterfly categories. There is a two page spread visual index. A no nonsense introduction give you the basics about how to use the book, how to be a butterflyer, and how to not be a jerk about butterflies (like, don’t net them and kill them). The front covers even have those flaps that you can use as bookmarks.

Ranges are an interesting problem with butterflies, since their biogeography is both very heterogeneous and in some cases rapidly changing. Also, a key feature of their breeding ranges is not so much when they are there, but how many times they cycle through broods over the warm months. So the maps are interesting: Continue reading A guide to the butterflies (book review) →

Monarch Butterflies and Milkweed: An amazing new book

Books

Monarchs and Milkweed: A Migrating Butterfly, a Poisonous Plant, and Their Remarkable Story of Coevolution by Anurag Agrawal is a fantastic, readable, scientifically rich, detailed monograph about – you guessed it – the monarch butterfly and the milkweed plant.

The monarch butterfly begins a springtime northward migration by flying a good ways north, where females lay eggs and die. Then the eggs hatch, the caterpillars feed and metamorphose, and the newly minted butterflies then fly further north, and this cycle happens again. This happens a few times. The southward migration is different. The butterflies, which are across large areas of temperate North America, fly all the way south to their Mexican wintering grounds.

Continue reading Monarch Butterflies and Milkweed: An amazing new book →

New Book by Michael Mann and Meg Herbert

Books, Climate Change

The Tantrum that Saved the World is a kickstarter fueled campaign to produce a children’s book about climate change.

The book will come in two parts. the first part is the story about a small girl child who finds out about, and attempts to address, global warming (more or less … you’ll have to read the book to find out the details!). the second part is about the science of climate change, expanding on the first part.

According to Michael Mann, “We wrote this book because, in our view, nothing like it exists. It educates by entertaining kids. It encourages action by inspiring them.” For her part, illustrator Megan Herbert wanted to turn her “frustration about climate inaction into something positive, to tell myson that I care about the world that I’m passing onto him. I want all kids to understand the challenges ahead and to be inspired to act positively rather than be overwhelmed.”

The book will be printed in an eco-friendly way, especially the eVersion of it!

Click HERE to visit the Kickstarter page and get in on this during the first hours of the campaign, which just started!

Check out the video:

Other books by the same authors:

GRANDMOTHERS CHAIR by AH

The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy by MM

The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines by MM

Dire Predictions, 2nd Edition: Understanding Climate Change by MM

Minnesota Candidate Proposes Cost-Cutting Single Payer Health Insurance Plan

Politics, , , , ,

And why not? Minnesota tends to lead when it comes to finding ways for government to do good.

Minnesota State Auditor Rebecca Otto is running for Governor in Minnesota, and moments ago she announced the details of her much anticipated “Healthy Minnesota Plan.”

Here’s the link for the details.

Obamacare was good, better than what was there before, but it came out of the gate as a compromise between the usual opposing forces in Washington. Many of you not in Minnesota may not know this, but Continue reading Minnesota Candidate Proposes Cost-Cutting Single Payer Health Insurance Plan →