Texas Is Doomed Yet Again!

This just came across my desk from Dr. Kevin McLin of NASA at Sonoma State U in sunny Calif; arguably the 5th or 6th smartest guy I've ever met. (I'm the 1st, of course...) It is to weep. I thought I was done picking on the stupidity and closed mindedness of Texas educational system, but guess not. Seems the state of Texas has decided to cut 60% of the physics programs in the Texas state university system. I'll let that sink in for you, my gentle flowers... Yes, this is decidedly anti-education. Here's my take on this... Since G. Dubbya, we have been "striving for mediocrity" in this country educationally. No Child Left Behind, NCLB, is the single most dangerous legislation ever placed on the public's plate. It has seriously wounded the pursuit of excellence. As much as the politicians and the politically oriented and appointed Secretaries of Ed have tried to tell us that NCLB does not put more emphasis on a single test, it does. Simply as that. Anyone who tells you differently is either totally ignorant of the inner workings of NCLB AND the educational system or he/she is a politician; meaning he/she is clueless. Every state, every district, every individual school is evaluated on a single "one-size-fits-all" test. In CT, it's the CAPT. In NJ, it's the HSPA. In W VA, it's a sobriety test. In CT, GHS is compared to other schools in our "DRG", DemoGraphicGroup. We fair so-so on the CAPT in some areas. We fair not-so-so in some areas. THAT is what the public sees; the lack of our school population attaining a 100% mastery on every single part of the CAPT. Mind you, the CAPT here at GHS is not, I repeat, NOT a graduation requirement. At most of the other schools, it is. Now, it shouldn't matter, but it does; Duh! Kids know it's not required for them to pass this poorly written test. So, the kids who couldn't possibly care less don't. (Care less, that is...) Since they don't care, they do poorly. I've proctored exams where a kid or two close the exam booklets within 3 minutes after starting a 60 minute exam. Duh! However, if anyone is interested in looking, GHS beats the snot out of just about everyone else in CT on the advanced exams that actually get kids into colleges. The Texas decision bites right into that "advanced" group of kids that we as a nation point to as evidence that we as a nation actually do something right! Get rid of the options for the highest level kids, what do they have left? When I started college back in 1971, yes there were colleges that long ago, there were 96 physics majors in the Freshman class. By the time I graduated, there were 4 of us. Yes, it's a tough major. Yes, it's challenging. Yes, there are easier majors if you want to go that route. However, just because there are only 10 Seniors left at UT as physics majors does not mean the money spent on them (THEIR OWN FRIKKIN' TUITION MONEY, by the way) was a waste. Those 10 kids will go on to grad school and invent something that will help us or find the Higgs Boson or be the first human standing on Mars or be a drag on the welfare system because he's a lazy no good for nothin... Oh, sorry. I digress... Advanced kids NEED us! As far as I'm concerned, there is no more important issue facing American education than this. We are cheating our bright kids out of a truly challenging worthwhile education. C'mon, Obama. Do the right thing and help these bright kids! Secede Texas! Original article.

Visible Supernova in our Galactic Backyard!

Seems on Aug 25, a new supernova popped out in the Pinwheel Galaxy; a mere 21 Million light years away. Some techno-nerd info is at Astronomy Now Online, but a more down-to-earth layman explanation can be had at Science News.
With a good pair of binoculars or any size telescope, you can see it yourself! It's http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifjust above the handle of the Big Dipper. A boring, yet informative, video of where http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifto look is at Berkeley Labs .

New Moon Theory!

Well, I guess my Astro kids can call me a liar! I've been preaching for years about the "Big Crash" moon theory where a Mars-sized planet(oid) did a demolition derby thing with the earth long ago and the ejecta formed the moon. Well, there's a slightly new theory in town.

In Nature Magazine this month, comes an explanation on why the two "sides" of the moon are so different. The near-side, the one we see from earth, is mostly smooth while the far-side, the daunted "dark" side, is rough and mountainous and cratered and icky.







Following are images of near and far sides:




So, according to these guys, a Mars-sized panetoid did hit the earth, but formed TWO moons; one larger than the other. After a long time of gravity tugs at Lagrange points, the little guy smashed into the big guy and formed the back side. Also explains, differently than conventional theory, the tidal lock and why it faces us all the time. The little guy hit the big guy "slowly" so not much rock melted and no huge crater was formed. Just sorta covered one side with a thick layer of rock. This agrees with observation that the moon's crust is thicker on the back side.

Something to ponder.

Another Cause Of Asthma?

You may have seen a recent study in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, doesn't everyone read that?, about a link between asthma in children and the mother's exposure to magnetic fields. Synopsis report is at ScienceDaily.com. Study found 20% of their subject kids developed asthma versus 13% of general population kids.

What I found amazing is, on the same page as this report, under "Related Stories" were the following:

Use of Acetaminophen in Pregnancy Associated With Increased Asthma Symptoms in Children (Feb. 4, 2010)

Evidence of Link Between Acetaminophen Use in Pregnancy and Childhood Asthma, Researchers Say (Nov. 11, 2010)

Low Vitamin E Intake During Pregnancy Can Lead To Childhood Asthma (Sep. 4, 2006)

Obese Moms, Asthmatic Kids (May 21, 2009)

So, if your Mom is an overweight Tylenol-popper who lacks Vitamin E and lives under high-voltage wires and stood in front of the microwave over when pregnant with you, you have a 7 Bajillion% chance of having asthma.

Abstruse Goose!

Great online usually science-based comic. Here's an example.



Click comic to embiggenate and link to website...

Vesta Up Close & Personal

From Phil Plait's BA Blog, NASA's Dawn mission released new photos and a video of the approach to the 2nd largest asteroid, Vesta. It's a main belt member 500km, that's 300 miles, wide. According to Phil, that's the size of Colorado. Big rock. Note the cool "Snowman" crater system on left side.



Dawn will, after orbiting and probing Vesta for a while, head on over to the BIGGEST asteroid in the solar system, Ceres. At almost 1000km (600 miles) wide, it's quite large; like maybe two Coloradoes (Colorados? Coloradii?). Can't wait!

Hate to do this, but...

More news on AGW... From Science Daily, it seems that only 20% of the world's actual climate data is accessible even to the climatologists. SAY WHAT?

Well, according to the lead author, Manola Brunet of the URV's Centre for Climate Change, published July 20 2011 in Climate Research, "Some climate data in Europe go back to the 17th Century, but not even 20% of the information recorded in the past is available to the scientific community." Now, what does that mean?

It means to me that the climatologists and computer geeks who program the climate change computer models that all this AGW Bru-Ha-Ha is based on only have about 20% of the data to use... I'd never accept a LAB report in Fizzix or Astro class from one of my students who only used 20% of the available data. DUH!

"If we had access to all the historical data recorded, we would be able to evaluate the frequency with which these phenomena are likely to occur in the future with a higher degree of certainty," the expert explains.

Dramatic Climate Change is Unpredictable...

Just to back up two recent posts so you don't think I'm that whacky, this study from Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen shows climate change is due to a series of chaotic parameters and as such is almost impossible to predict. It was published in Geophysical Research Letters in October 2010.
Two interesting statements from the study:

"For millions of years the Earth's climate has alternated between about 100,000 years of ice age and approximately 10-15,000 years of a warm climate like we have today." Hmm. So, do you think that the stuff that happened 100,000 years ago has anything to do with what is happening today? If you don't, you are ignoring a Bajillion years of paleoclimatology. Most folks just don't get it that the earth is "old" and it has done this heating and cooling thing way before we were even little splotches of gooey slime on a beach front somewhere. There are astronomical factors (Milankovitch Cycles and Hale (Sun) Cycles to name two big ones), localized earth based cycles (El Nino/Nina/Nota Oscillations, Pacific decadal oscillation, Arctic Oscillation, and both the North Atlantic & North Pacific Oscillations) and plenty of positive/negative feedbacks that the climatologists themselves argue about which comes first.

"The most pronounced climate shifts besides the end of the ice age is a series of climate changes during the ice age where the temperature suddenly rose 10-15 degrees in less than 10 years. The climate change lasted perhaps 1000 years, then -- bang -- the temperature fell drastically and the climate changed again. This happened several times during the ice age and these climate shifts are called the Dansgaard-Oeschger events after the researchers who discovered and described them. Such a sudden, dramatic shift in climate from one state to another is called a tipping point. However, the cause of the rapid climate change is not known and researchers have been unable to reproduce them in modern climate models."
Wow. Nice summary of real paleoclimatology. Let me emphasize a few individual points from this one paragraph...
1. The most pronounced climate shifts besides the end of the ice age is a series of climate changes during the ice age where the temperature suddenly rose 10-15 degrees in less than 10 years. So, in the past, temps suddenly rose 10-15 whole degrees within 10 years! And the AGW alarmists have been hand-waving and pounding their fists on the floor in tantrums over the mere 0.7 (+-0.4) degrees since 1880! C'mon. When are we going to stop blindly believing these 22 or so computer models that can't even fit the CURRENT climate data. It is to weep. 10-15 degrees within 10 years is a drastic life-altering change, to be sure. However, we really shouldn't get our panties in a bind over this current questionable 0.7 degrees in 130 years...
2. "...the cause of the rapid climate change is not known and researchers have been unable to reproduce them in modern climate models." What did I say in the preceding paragraph? These past dramatic climate change shifts are caused by something and the 22 or so computer models can't shed any light on them! One reason? ALL, let me repeat that just in case you went to the bathroom for a minute, ALL the computer models are stuck on inputs of man-made CO2 as the culprit and they won't even LOOK in other places... sigh...

The researchers, via he image above, explained the two scenarios they investigated. One was the "tipping point" scenario where some external factor (Yes, like increased CO2) would cause the climate to seesaw back and forth and finally tip over into a different climate. The other scenario - the climate is like a ball in a trench, which represents one climate state. The ball will be continuously pushed by chaos-dynamical fluctuations such as storms, heat waves, heavy rainfall and the melting of ice sheets, which affect ocean currents and so on. The turmoil in the climate system may finally push the ball over into the other trench, which represents a different climate state. What was their conclusion?

"Peter Ditlevsen's (a climate researcher at the Niels Bohr Institute) research shows that you can actually distinguish between the two scenarios and it was the chaos-dynamical fluctuations that were the triggering cause of the dramatic climate changes during the ice age. This means that they are very difficult to predict."

Ta Da...

Absolutely Gorgeous ALL Sky Photo Mosaic

From APOD (Astronomy Picture Of the Day). This is a great composite image of both the northern and southern skies. Cool stuff!

AMATEUR Astronomer Finds Really Cool Nebula!

I saw this image of a newly discovered nebula a week or so ago. What I didn't know was that it was discovered back in January by an AMATEUR, not a PRO! That is SO KEWL!

According to Space.com and Sky & Telescope Mag, this "Soccer Ball" nebula "Kronberger 61, 'Kn 61' for short, is named after its discoverer, Austrian amateur astronomer Matthias Kronberger, who found the object after poring over data provided by the Digital Sky Survey. Kronberger and other amateur skywatchers were encouraged by professional astronomers to look specifically in the star field covered by Kepler [NASA's planet-seeking satellite]." It was found near Cygnus, The Swan, if that's interesting to you.

Ain't Astronomy grand!

Another Body Blow To AGW Alarmists

Oh, wait! You mean we need real observable DATA when we make a scientific claim? What a novel approach to science! In still another gaping hole blown into the Global Warming Machine, NASA's own data shows the computer models that all the AGW hype is based on and keep screaming doom and gloom and we're all gonna die are... well... how should I say?... terribly wrong!

Roy Spencer, principal research scientist in the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, and colleague Dr. Danny Braswell "...oompared what a half dozen climate models say the atmosphere should do to real honest-ta-goodness NASA satellite data showing what the atmosphere actually did during the 18 months before and after warming events between 2000 and 2011." [Quote from Science Daily] Emphasis added mine. Notice this scientific paper dares actually compare the computer model predicted "what should happen" to actual NASA satellite "what really happens". How dare anyone question the powerful computer models? Well, I've been screaming of this for years...

Spencer's original paper (a good read is you have nothing to do with a few billion neurons today), available here, points to a much more efficient heat release mechanism our atmosphere has than the mechanism proposed and predicted by the computer models. Why such a huge difference? Well, according to Spencer, the computer models treat the atmosphere as a closed system where the Ideal Gas Law (PV=nRT, beloved equation for all high school Chem kids) holds dominion. As any high school Chem kid knows, the atmosphere first is NOT A CLOSED SYSTEM and the Ideal Gas Law is ONLY TRUE for... ready?... IDEAL gases! The atmosphere is anything but 'ideal'.

Along with the aerosol problem research I posted earlier this weak, AGW has a couple black eyes and a few cracked ribs now... What's missing in the computer models? Aerosols, cloud formation, THE SUN, real science data, and the LAWS of Thermodynamics. Yeah, good model...

Yet Another Cellphone Study Says "NO"!

When Will People Get It? Cellphone use DOES NOT cause any physical harm to humans or any other known carboniferous life form! In yet another of a Bajillion real scientific studies, the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, University of Basel reports, "We did not find that young mobile phone users have an increased risk for brain tumors when regularly using mobile phones..." and "We did not see that the risk increased after five years or more since the first use of mobile phones."
The study is published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.


There have been no, let me repeat that for the slow readers, NO scientific link found between cellphone use and cancer. None. Nota. Zilch. Goose Egg. Empty Set. There's a huge difference between 12 idiots on a jury awarding BIG $$$ to a grieving widow of a guy who dies from brain cancer who just happened to also use a cellphone and having a real scientific conclusion. A jury decision is usually not indicative of scientific thought; as seen recently in the Casey Anthony trial. Sheeze! Remember what the forman of the OJ trial said after they let him go? "I never heard of this DNA stuff before and I'm not sure I believe in it." BELIEVE in DNA?

Meanwhile, back on planet earth...

Hubble Bubble Popped!

According to PhysicsWorld.com, cosmologists from US and China have dispelled the Hubble Bubble alternative to Dark Energy.

This "Hubble Bubble" was proposed to explain away the strange teeth-grinding hair-pulling Tums-popping world of Dark Energy, DE. DE is the mysterious force that is causing the Universe to expand at an accelerated rate, beating up on the better understood gravity. The Bubble was a supposed large "area" around the earth that was proposed to be expanding at a constant rate, but slightly slower than the rest of the Universe was expanding. This would give the appearance that the far away parts of the U were moving away faster thus the illusion of an accelerating expansion overall.

So, RIP Hubble Bubble.

Aerosols & Anthropogenic Global Warming

Paper in Science Magazine finally addresses the atmospheric aerosol problem in global warming, GW. It's been known for a long time that the predictions made by the GW alarmists are based solely on computer models and not on any reliable scientific data. This is the primary reason I'm a semi=proud AGW skeptic. Not "denier". Skeptic. These computer models do not include parameters like aerosols (dust and large molecules) and cloud formation and have minimal sun effects.

According to the authors, "Climate model projections neglecting these changes would continue to overestimate the radiative forcing and global warming in coming decades if these aerosols remain present at current values or increase."

So, paraphrasing, the computer models have been and will continue to exaggerate any AGW effects because they simply do not include enough parameters. Climate change, yes, climate changes, is so complex it simply cannot be accounted for yet. Paper is a nice read if you want your head to hurt.