Author Archives: Christopherd3o

North Carolina is urging people to evacuate — days after Hurricane Matthew.

by Christopherd3o Posted on October 13, 2016

A new study from Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at UCSF indicates that women who choose to get abortions are actually quite certain in their decision. In fact, they report having less doubt than with other medical decisions, such as getting a mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 35 (!) states require medical providers to counsel a women seeking abortion, and 27 of those mandate a waiting period between the counseling and the procedure. These laws make up many of the freshest threats to abortion rights in the country.

Previous research has backed up the claim that these waiting periods are medically unnecessary, but this is the first of such studies to scientifically compare a woman’s certainty about getting an abortion to, say, finally getting that mole removed. (Check out the study here.)

“These laws presuppose that women are conflicted in their decision about abortion, but need additional time or information to make a decision,” lead author Lauren Ralph told us. “[Our research] directly challenges the narrative that decision-making about abortion is exceptional or different from other health decisions.”

The takeaway? Never assume women aren’t assured in their medical decision-making — it’s patronizing, scientifically inaccurate, and just not a good look.

Why are we writing about abortion? Click here to learn more.

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North Carolina is urging people to evacuate — days after Hurricane Matthew.

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It hasn’t rained this much in England since 1767, or maybe since ever

by Christopherd3o Posted on February 3, 2014

It hasn’t rained this much in England since 1767, or maybe since ever

By

Rob

There aren’t many things bleaker than a soggy English winter, and this winter has really provided something for the Brits to whinge about.

Nearly six inches of rain fell on southern and central England in January, triggering floods and producing the heaviest monthly drenching since record-keeping began at an Oxford University weather station in 1767. And the mid-winter deluges have continued into these first few days of February. 

Hitherto-unprecedented flooding such as this has been forecast to afflict the region as the climate changes.

The head of the country’s Environment Agency warns in an op-ed in The Telegraph that it can’t afford to protect both rural and urban areas from floods:

The south of England has had its wettest January since 1910. Roads have been impassable, train and plane travel disrupted and 250,000 homes have been without power.

Environment Agency staff have been working the whole time to help communities at risk. They’ve been running pumping stations, erecting defences, issuing warnings and clearing blockages from rivers — often in the most challenging conditions. …

Yes, agricultural land matters and we do whatever we can with what we have to make sure it is protected. Rules from successive governments give the highest priority to lives and homes; and I think most people would agree that this is the right approach.

But this involves tricky issues of policy and priority: town or country, front rooms or farmland?

Flood defences cost money; and how much should the taxpayer be prepared to spend on different places, communities and livelihoods — in Somerset, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, or East Anglia? There’s no bottomless purse, and we need to make difficult but sensible choices about where and what we try to protect.

What role is climate change playing here? [Insert boilerplate statement about how hard it is to attribute individual weather events to global warming.] Still, these wet conditions in England are precisely those that have been forecast by climate models.

“The frequency and severity of the flooding seen over the past few months is likely to become more commonplace in the future due to climate change,” a flooding expert told The Guardian. “This means maintaining investment in flood defences in the longer term, but also making buildings and infrastructure more resistant, and being better prepared to actively respond to flooding.”


Source
Difficult choices, as the flood waters rise, The Telegraph
Heavy rain and wild weather forecast for southern England and Wales, The Guardian

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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It hasn’t rained this much in England since 1767, or maybe since ever

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Chart of the Day: Net New Jobs in October

by Christopherd3o Posted on November 8, 2013

Mother Jones

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The American economy added 204,000 new jobs in October, but about 90,000 of those jobs were needed just to keep up with population growth, so net job growth clocked in at 114,000. That’s not bad. In addition, revisions to previous months increased previous estimates for August and September by 60,000 new jobs. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the labor force participation rate fell, and the headline unemployment rate increased from 7.24 percent to 7.28 percent. However, unlike the job growth numbers, this is based on a separate survey that counts furloughed government workers as unemployed, so it’s not very meaningful. It will bounce back down next month.

Overall, then, the news was reasonably good, if not spectacular, but tainted by some artificial job losses due to the shutdown. We’ll have to wait until next month for a clearer picture.

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Chart of the Day: Net New Jobs in October

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Bill would boost renewables to 25 percent by 2025, has no chance in hell of passing

by Christopherd3o Posted on November 1, 2013

Bill would boost renewables to 25 percent by 2025, has no chance in hell of passing

By

Shutterstock

Most states in the union require utilities to generate a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable sources. A new bill in Congress would take that strategy national.

Sens. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) — cousins, as it happens — introduced legislation this week that would require utilities across the country to generate a quarter of their electricity from wind, solar, and other renewable sources by 2025.

That’s right in line with Colorado’s current renewable electricity standard, and it’s modest compared to California’s, which calls for utilities to get 33 percent of their electricity from renewables by 2020. Look abroad and it’s more modest still: Germany generates 23 percent of electricity from renewable sources, with a goal of reaching 80 percent by 2050. Around the world, 138 countries have renewable energy goals or requirements in place.

“Clean energy creates jobs, spurs innovation, reduces global warming and makes us more energy independent,” said Mark Udall. “This common-sense proposal would extend Colorado’s successful effort to expand the use of renewable energy alongside natural gas and coal to the entire nation.”

But Congress isn’t about to pass anything of the sort. Because, ew, clean energy. The Udalls first introduced similar legislation in 2002, when they were both members of the House, then introduced it again two years ago in Senate. No luck so far — but bonus points for persistence.

Energy Department

Click to embiggen.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

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Bill would boost renewables to 25 percent by 2025, has no chance in hell of passing

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Why Are So Many People in a Blind Rage These Days?

by Christopherd3o Posted on October 1, 2013

Mother Jones

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Paul Waldman, as he so often does, says what I’ve been thinking:

I wish I could write something optimistic as we begin the government shutdown. I wish I could, but I can’t. In fact, this morning I can’t help but feel something close to despair….The reason for my despair isn’t about this week or this month. It’s the fact that this period in our political history—the period of lurching from absurd crisis to absurd crisis, with no possibility of passing a budget let alone legislation to address any serious problems we face, with a cowardly Republican leadership held hostage by a group of insane political terrorists who think it’s a tragedy if a poor person gets health insurance and it’s a great day when you kick a kid off food stamps, a period where this collection of extremists and fools, these people who think the likes of Michele Bachmann and Steve King are noble and wise leaders—this awful, horrific period in our history, when these are the people who control the country’s fate, looks like it will never end.

Roger that. But then he adds this:

In June of last year, Obama expressed the belief that if he was re-elected, “the fever may break, because there’s a tradition in the Republican Party of more common sense than that.”….But it was never going to happen. That’s not only because of their white-hot hatred of him, but also because, generally speaking, the crazier a Republican member of Congress is, the less they have to worry about political consequences from their craziness. The most radical members come from the most conservative districts, where the only question determining who gets elected is which candidate in a Republican primary is the most extreme, hates Barack Obama the most, and can talk with the most contempt about liberals and government and all the “thems” his constituents despise so much.

This is conventional wisdom, of course. The reason the tea party caucus isn’t willing to compromise is because there’s no pressure on them to compromise. Their constituents are as crazy as they are. They want the safety net slashed, taxes cut, the EPA put out of business, and the Fed eliminated. They believe that Obamacare is the thin edge of the wedge that’s driving America into decline and ruin. They believe this so strongly that they’re willing to do anything to turn the country around. If that means government shutdowns and financial panic, so be it.

But why? There’s always been a faction of right-wing craziness in America. It’s part of our DNA. But how did it become so widespread? The usual answer involves the rise of conservative think tanks, conservative talk radio, Fox News, the Christian right, and racial resentment toward a black president. And maybe that’s it. Somehow, though, it doesn’t feel quite sufficient. But if it’s not, then what’s going on? What’s happened over the past decade or two to spin up so many Americans into a blind rage?

Complaining about tea party congressmen misses the big picture. The problem is the people who voted them into office. What happened to them?

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Why Are So Many People in a Blind Rage These Days?

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"Inequality for All": A Must-See Movie For the 99 Percent

by Christopherd3o Posted on September 27, 2013

Mother Jones

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Jacob Kornbluth’s new documentary Inequality for All, which stars economist and former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich, is being hyped as a “game changer in our national discussion of income inequality.” It probably won’t be that, since it’s preaching to the choir, but the film is a welcome addition to that discussion.

Inequality for All, which opens Friday, weaves between scenes of Reich lecturing clear-eyed Cal coeds in his Wealth and Inequality class, 1950s-style graphs and charts illustrating growing income disparity, and archival clips of happy white people in the post-World War II age of prosperity. There are also interviews with working-class people left behind by the American Dream, such as a worker at a California power plant that has hired anti-union consultants, and a mom who works at Costco and has $25 in her bank account.

Kornbluth also chats with the odd member of the 1 percent. “The pillow business is quite tough because fewer and fewer people can afford to buy the products that we make,” pillow-making millionaire Nick Hanauer explains. “The problem with rising inequality is that a person like me who earns a thousand times as much as the typical worker doesn’t buy a thousand times as many pillows every year. Even the richest people only sleep on one or two pillows.”

In a comprehensive and digestible way, Reich lays out the stark facts of income inequality (for example, the 400 Americans richest currently earn more than half the country’s population combined) and how we got here. He blames the decline of unionization, globalization, and technology for suppressing pay, and enriching the few, who then use their increasing political clout to protect their status. “When the middle class doesn’t share the gains, you get into a downward vicious cycle,” Reich explains as the film cuts to an Wheel of Fortune-type animation illustrating that cycle: Wages stagnate, consumption drops, companies downsize, tax revenues decrease, government cuts programs, workers become less educated, unemployment rises—and so on.

As Reich notes, he’s been “saying the same thing for 30 years” about growing income inequality. He worked to combat it during his stints in the administrations of Presidents Ford, Carter and Clinton, and now he’s fighting it from the outside, writing books, recording commentaries, and trying to instill his righteous fire in others. On the last day of class, he gives an inspirational sendoff, telling his students to go out and “change the world.”

The ending of Inequality for All is predictable, but that’s okay, because Reich is so likable—and he’s right.

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"Inequality for All": A Must-See Movie For the 99 Percent

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Go Kiwis!

by Christopherd3o Posted on September 11, 2013

Mother Jones

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This sentence about Team America’s crushing loss in the fifth America’s Cup race yesterday made me happy:

Team New Zealand leads 4 to minus-1 and needs five more wins to claim the oldest trophy in international sports.

That’s not a score you see very often, is it? Other things being equal, I’d normally root for the American team in any international sporting competition. But things are so very not equal right now, and I would really love to see Larry Ellison get ground into dust in this race. It’s true that he’s arguably not the person who originally turned the America’s Cup into a farce—one that’s now more a legal marathon and a loophole competition than an actual sporting event—but he’s sure done his bit to make sure it stays that way. Go New Zealand!

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Go Kiwis!

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The Star Tau Boo Flips Its Magnetic Field, Too

by Christopherd3o Posted on August 28, 2013

The Sun does a lot of crazy things: it spawns roiling loops of superheated plasma that stretch for thousands of miles, it blows huge chunks of itself off into space and, every 11 years or so, its insides do a little flip. The solar magnetic field turns on its head, and the north pole becomes the south, and the south, the north. The sun is actually gearing up for one of these flips, says NASA, and it should take place any time now.

It’s nice to see, every now and again, some of these behaviors elsewhere in the universe—to know that the sun might be strange, but not too strange. For the first time, says the American Museum of Natural History, scientists reported seeing another start go through a similar magnetic field flip.

As described in a new study, scientists have been watching as a star, known as Tau Boötis (and nicknamed Tau Boo), flipped its magnetic field back and forth. The behavior isn’t exactly the same as the Sun’s, though. Where the Sun takes 22 years to go through a full cycle, flipping and flipping back, Tau Boötis does it in just two.

It’s still mostly a bunch of conjecture, but the scientists in their study have already suggested a way that they think Tau Boötis’ flip is different than the Sun’s, other than the rapid clip. Tau Boötis has a huge planet orbiting right up close. The scientists think that this huge planet, much like Jupiter but with an orbit that takes just 3.3 days, may be affecting the star’s magnetic field. Astronomy explains:

For Tau Boo, tidal interactions between the star and the planet might be an important factor in accelerating the cycle, but we can’t be sure of the cause,” said Fares.

Tau Boo spins on its axis once every 3.3 days — the same amount of time as it takes the hot Jupiter to complete one orbit. One hypothesis for Tau Boo’s rapid cycle is that the planet makes it rotate faster than usual, and this is affecting the generation of the magnetic field.

“There are still some big questions about what’s causing Tau Boo’s rapid magnetic cycle,” said Fares. “From our survey, we can say that each planetary system is particular, that interactions affect stars and planets differently, and that they depend on the masses, distance, and other properties.”

We still don’t really know why the Sun’s magnetic field flips like this in the first place. So, having a second example of stellar magnetic field flipping to compare the sun’s behavior against should be extremely helpful to scientists working to understand this phenomenon.

More from Smithsonian.com:

Watch Five Years of the Sun’s Explosions
Why the Sun Was So Quiet for So Long
For the First Time, NASA Took a Photo of the Sun’s Tail

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The Star Tau Boo Flips Its Magnetic Field, Too

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These Scientists Just Spent Four Months Pretending They Were on Mars

by Christopherd3o Posted on August 14, 2013

The HI-SEAS dome. Photo: Sian / HI-SEAS

One hundred and twenty-one days ago six people, including science journalist Kate Greene, shut the door to their new home, a 1,300 square foot dome on the slopes of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano. They were there to try to understand what life would be like living in a small colony on the surface of Mars. Their main goal of their mission, HI-SEAS, was to figure out how to feed people on such a long journey to a remote location.

Yesterday, the team emerged from their home “with their recipes and without the space suits they were required to wear each time they ventured onto the northern slope of Mauna Loa” says the Canadian Press.

Greene chronicled her adventures in HI-SEAS for Discover Magazine, including this Day-in-the-Life photo essay:

The other crew members kept their own blogs, too.

The Canadian Press:

The six researchers were selected by the University of Hawaii and Cornell University for the NASA-funded study to prepare meals from a list of dehydrated, preserved foods that are not perishable. They examined pre-prepared meals similar to what astronauts currently eat, and concocted meals themselves in an attempt to combat malnourishment and food boredom.

So what did they come up with? Spam. A lot of Spam. And lots of interesting ways to use Spam. “The researchers prepared several dishes using Spam, including a Cajun jambalaya and a fried rice noodle dish,” says the CP.

Spam sushi. Photo: Sian / HI-SEAS

The struggle was trying to come up with how to build varied recipes from a set list of ingredients which include a lot of canned, dried and frozen things, and very few perishables. NPR:

NASA makes an excellent apricot cobbler and a sweet and sour pork in ready-to-eat pouches, says Jean Hunter, a food engineer at Cornell. But “on a planetary surface mission, the timeframe is long enough that the astronauts will have time to get tired of their menu, no matter how good it is,” she tells The Salt.

More from Smithsonian.com:

Solar System Lollipops And Other Food That Looks Like Things
Unpack a Meal of Astronaut Space Food

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These Scientists Just Spent Four Months Pretending They Were on Mars

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