New Research on Assessing Climate Change Impact on Extreme Weather

Three statisticians go hunting for rabbit. They see a rabbit. The first statistician fires and misses, her bullet striking the ground below the beast. The second statistician fires and misses, their bullet striking a branch above the lagomorph. The third statistician, a lazy frequentist, says, “We got it!” OK, that joke was not 1/5th as…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/31/new-research-on-assessing-climate-change-impact-on-extreme-weather/

Possible Hurricane Irma

I’ve been putting comments on, or links to posts on, the 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season Here, but I wanted to start a thread on Irma, which just now became a named storm. Irma is way out in the Atlantic, and its formation is so early that the NWS doesn’t have any significant information on it…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/30/possible-hurricane-irma/

The Hammer of God

No, this is not a religious reference to Houston or even Trump. This is, however, a notice that the sci fi classic by Arthur Clarke, The Hammer of God , is suddenly, and I assume temporarily, available for two bucks in Kindle version. Just thought you’d want to know.

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/29/the-hammer-of-god/

Harvey The Hurricane: Truly Climate Change Enahnced

Harvey the Invisible Rabbit: Did not exist. This is a picture of some men. Since they are men, they have some abilities. They can, for example, knock each other over, and they can play with balls. This is what men do, and this is what these men can do. This is a picture of some…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/28/harvey-the-hurricane-truly-climate-change-enahnced/

Is Harvey a failure of the assumption that we’ll adapt to climate change?

There are two reasons that it is fortunate that the death toll for Harvey is very low, apparently near zero. One is that all those people didn’t die! (Obviously.) The other is that we can ask honest questions about this event, while the event is still fresh in our minds (and, at the moment, actually…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/27/questions-about-harvey/

Trump’s Dump Is Not A Friday Burial Ceremony

Member of the press are so cute. They evolve so slowly. They are like monotremes or something. It is said again and again that a) government agencies and other entities, especially things like the White House, dump their news late on Fridays because this avoids the normal five day news cycle and allows hot stories…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/26/trumps-dump-is-not-a-friday-burial-ceremony/

You know of Pat Shipman at the very least because of her recent and, dare I say, highly controversial and excellent book The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction. If you’ve not read it, do so. But, in the mean time, another book she wrote in the same area, The Animal…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/25/24431/

Harvey’s effects on petroleum pricing and related things

The following information is cribbed (with permission) from a FACTBOX produced by S&P Global Platts. Petroleum companies in the Gulf, especially around Houston, are are responding to likely shutdowns or possible damage due to the strengthening Hurricane, which is expected to have its largest impacts over the next 36 hours or so (longer for some…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/25/harveys-effects-on-petroleum-pricing-and-related-things/

How to clean coal

It suddenly became apparent, just a couple of days ago when President Trump was ranting and raving at a political rally, that the man does not know what clean coal is. This is a concern because his entire energy policy stems from the assumption that we can mine lots of coal in West Virginia and…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/24/how-to-clean-coal/

E.O. Wilson’s Anthill

Anthill: A Novel Winner of the 2010 Heartland Prize, Anthill follows the thrilling adventures of a modern-day Huck Finn, enthralled with the “strange, beautiful, and elegant” world of his native Nokobee County. But as developers begin to threaten the endangered marshlands around which he lives, the book’s hero decides to take decisive action. Edward O.…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/24/e-o-wilsons-anthill/

It is amazing how little we know about animals

Many years ago I was working on a project that, if I recall correctly, used the basic idea of the mouse-elephant curve to test out some statistical feature of reality or some such thing. Or the reverse. Either way, the point is I was using the mouse-elephant curve data. What is the mouse-elephant curve? This:…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/24/it-is-amazing-how-little-we-know-about-animals/

Ask Exxon

Remember the revelation back a year or so ago that Exxon Mobil knew all about the likely effects of the global warming they contributed to, and the subsequent denials by Exxon that this was not true, yada yada yada? A paper has just come out that confirms what we all said then. From the abstract:…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/24/ask-exxon/

The Mythical Republican Climate Pivot

Every now and then, I hear someone giving the Republican Party credit for finally starting to get on board with 20th (or even 19th) century science, and 21st century eyeballs, to accept the idea of climate change. That is annoying whenever it happens because it simply isn’t ever true and never will be. Media Matters…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/24/the-mythical-republican-climate-pivot/

US government disbands climate-science advisory committee

Posting this with no comment because it is expected and so obviously bone-headed Trump: US President Donald Trump’s administration has disbanded a government advisory committee that was intended to help the country prepare for a changing climate. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration established the committee in 2015 to help businesses and state and…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/24/us-government-disbands-climate-science-advisory-committee/

Hunley Blast Killed Hunley Crew, Research Suggests

A while back, I read Confederate Saboteurs: Building the Hunley and Other Secret Weapons of the Civil War by Mark Ragan. The central theme of the book was the invention, more or less, of the submarine and the torpedo, curing the Civil War, but the South. The torpedo was a very tricky idea at the…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/24/hunley-blast-killed-hunley-crew-research-suggests/

Harvey The Hurricane Is A Significant Event

Harvey the Hurricane will hit Texas roughly between Corpus Christi and Victoria (but stay tuned for exact details). Harvey is passing over water that is significantly warmer than usual, owing to global warming. This storm was too disorganized to even, under normal conditions, to have a name, just a day or so. But, when this…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/24/harvey-the-hurricane-is-a-significant-event/

Darwin’s Armada, Other Books, Cheap

Darwin’s Armada: Four Voyages and the Battle for the Theory of Evolution explores the explorations of Wallace, Huxley, Darwin and Hooker. You don’t see this in one book, and it is all very important and, for the moment, cheap at twice the price. I’ve never read The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/22/darwins-armada-other-books-cheap/

Let them eat cake

Stay classy, Trump administration. Details here.

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/22/let-them-eat-cake/

Dred Scott Slept Here

Minnesotans rarely miss an opportunity to link their fair state with a national or world event. Such as, “Minnesota mom among missing in South American air crash” and that sort of thing. Therefore, I found it interesting that Minnesotans have missed their intimate connection to events pertaining to monuments and their removal, in the broader…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/21/dred-scott-slept-here/

Cheap science book deals

I’ve mentioned at various times in the past The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett. This is not a new book, but it is an excellent scholarly and accessible accounting of the situation with respect to emerging diseases at the time of its publication in 1995. One…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/18/cheap-science-book-deals/

The Horses Of The World: Don’t say Neigh to this great book.

Over the years, the field guide and the coffee table book have merged, and we now have coffee table-ish books (but serious books) that include a species description of every critter in a certain clade. In the case of Horses of the World by Élise Rousseau (Author), Yann Le Bris (Illustrator), Teresa Lavender Fagan (Translator),…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/18/the-horses-of-the-world-dont-say-neigh-to-this-great-book/

The Kelly Fallacy

General John F. Kelly is retired from the US Marine Corps, where he commanded the Southern Command. He replaced political operative Reince Priebus as President Trump’s Chief of Staff. The White House Chief of Staff is the highest ranking staff member in the White House, and was formalized as such in 1961. This is not…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/17/the-kelly-fallacy/

Spike in Greenhouse Gasses

Greenhouse gases go up and down in three ways. First, there is the annual up and down cycle that happens because there is more land in the Northern Hemisphere. I won’t explain that to you now because I know you can figure out why that happens. Second, there is natural variation up and down aside…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/16/spike-in-greenhouse-gasses/

Trump has turned the corner

It wasn’t much of a corner, he was already pretty much there, but yesterday, Donald J. Trump, pretender to the Presidency of the United States, threw in his lot with the “good people” of the fascist, white-supremacist, KKK-loving movement. There is a lot of commentary out there about this. None of it surprises me, I…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/16/trump-has-turned-the-corner/

EPA’s new focus: Fox

I have a feeling that foxes are in trouble with the new EPA administration, but FOX is in great shape. According to an analysis by Media Matters, Scott Pruitt has spent considerably more time appearing on Fox News than other networks. In fact, he’s spent twice as much time on Fox as he has on…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/16/epas-new-focus-fox/

How FOX treats Christians vs. Muslims

Not the same. Muslims must take the blame for all things done by anyone linked to an extreme Islamic group or ideology. Christians have nothing to do with anything, they were just standing there minding their own beeswax. The video below was fixed by Media Matters for America thusly: In a notably hypocritical segment on…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/15/how-fox-treats-christians-vs-muslims/

Science Books: New And Cheap (not necessarily both)

Let’s start with CheMystery. This is a fun graphic novel mystery book by C.A. Preece and Josh Reynolds. Two cousins experience an incident that would make a physicist cry, but that works in a chemistry book because they now have the ability to observe and change matter. So this is a superhero book, designed to…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/15/science-books-new-and-cheap-not-necessarily-both/

Australia Solar Thermal Plant: Messed up reporting

SolarReserve will build, for the South Australia government, a solar thermal plant rated at 150 MW, which is about 25 MW more than that government uses currently. Over time, assuming Australia goes all on clean and green, the amount of electricity used by South Australia will increase substantially, but for now, this plant will provide…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/15/australia-solar-thermal-plant-messed-up-reporting/

Trump, Trainwreck, Fascist.

In a series of strange events, President Donald Trump once again invoked violence against a CNN reporter and, apparently, embraced the idea that he is a fascist. Following the homicidal terrorist attack on anti-White Supremacist demonstrators, trump saw fit to post the following tweet, memorialized here in a retweet by Kyle Griffin, an MSNBC producer.…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/15/trump-trainwreck-fascist/

Meanwhile, at the Special Prosecutor’s Office …

Just forget about Korea and Venezuela and North Carolina for a minute and watch this:

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/12/meanwhile-at-the-special-prosecutors-office/

Trump tweets: We are about to go to war

Here is the tweet: Military solutions are now fully in place,locked and loaded,should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 11, 2017 Locked and load means ready to pull the trigger. Making that conditional on Kim Jong-un becoming a pacifist means Trump is going…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/11/trump-tweets-we-are-about-to-go-to-war/

How to build your own computer

Almost every resource on the Internet on building your own computer is oriented towards building a gaming computer. The second most common discussion is how to build a “budget PC.” When I sought out the latest information on building a computer a few weeks ago, I did not like either of these two options. A…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/09/how-to-build-your-own-computer/

Mammoth Interview

Mike Haubrich and I are about to interview John McKay about his new book, Discovering the Mammoth: A Tale of Giants, Unicorns, Ivory, and the Birth of a New Science, for Ikonokast Podcast.

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/07/mammoth-interview/

Almost Free Book Alert: The Hunt for Vulcan by Thomas Levenson

Tom Levenson is a professor, a teacher of journalism and science journalism, and an Einstein scholar. He also knows a thing or two about Isaac Newton. One of my favorite non fiction books of all time is Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist. One of the reasons this…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/07/almost-free-book-alert-the-hunt-for-vulcan-by-thomas-levenson/

Elusive Neutrino Couplings Observed

These guys look like they are getting their bong ready, but in truth, they are up to something else. Everybody knows that neutrinos are everywhere, yet, nearly impossible to detect. A group of scientists have managed to pull off over 100 detection events over the course of about a year and a half using an…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/05/elusive-neutrino-couplings-observed/

Why is the White House silent on the Bloomington attack?

Is it because it wasn’t a very big attack, and no one was killed or injured? The FBI has determined that it was an explosive device that blew up at the Bloomington Islamic Center. I’m reminded of the attacks on Secretary Clinton, by the likes of Congressman Nunes, about ambiguity in the identification of an…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/05/why-is-the-white-house-silent-on-the-bloomington-attack/

Statue of Liberty, White Supremacy, and the Immigrant Question

The truth about the Statue of Liberty and that poem and everything. The Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of American openness to immigration since it was built. However, modern White Supremacists want us to believe it was something else. I found one example of that on the Internet, writtne by Hunter Wallace with…

source http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/08/03/statue-of-liberty-white-supremacy-and-the-immigrant-question/