Tag Archives: field

There Are Things That Erode Public Trust in Science. Primordial Gravity Waves Aren’t One of Them.

by EliseRussel Posted on July 6, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

I had to laugh just a little when I read this last night:

Jan Conrad, an astroparticle physicist, claims that “The field has cried wolf too many times and lost credibility,” and he worries that false discoveries are undermining public trust in science. He lists some dubious results which have caused a stir amongst physicists and the general public over the past couple of years, including the faster-than-light-neutrinos that weren’t, the primordial gravitational waves that are probably just dust, and several Dark Matter candidates which remain shrouded in uncertainty and contradiction.

When nutritionists constantly change their minds about what’s good or bad for us, that undermines public trust in science. This is because everyone eats, and stories about diet and nutrition are plastered all over TV, social media, blogs, magazines, newspapers, and every other form of human communication.

But those primordial gravitational waves that are probably just dust? I’m here to assure you that 99.9 percent of the world doesn’t give a shit. Most people have never heard of it. Most of the ones who have heard of it don’t understand it. And almost by definition, most of the ones who do understand it have a pretty sophisticated understanding of the conditional nature of delicately measured new results in fields like astrophysics.

So put me in the camp with Jon Butterworth, who wrote the linked article, and Chad Orzel, who argue that the very fact of releasing preliminary results and then correcting them if they turn out to be wrong is what distinguishes science from pseudoscience. Nor, as Butterworth points out, would it help to keep results under wraps until everything is neat and tidy. “As I said at the time regarding the false faster-than-light neutrinos, imagine the conspiracy claims if the data had been suppressed because it didn’t fit Einstein’s theory.”

All true. But really, the most important thing is simply that controversies on the bleeding edge of physics are of interest to only a tiny fraction of humanity, and most of them already know when and how to be skeptical. As for the rest of us, we just turn on our cell phones every day and marvel at how cool science is. Nothing about neutrinos or gravitational waves is going to change that.

See the article here: 

There Are Things That Erode Public Trust in Science. Primordial Gravity Waves Aren’t One of Them.

Posted in Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on There Are Things That Erode Public Trust in Science. Primordial Gravity Waves Aren’t One of Them.

Holy Shit. This Is How the Duggars’ Homeschooling Curriculum Allegedly Dealt With Sexual Abuse.

by WileyDPIWfcbe Posted on May 22, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

All I can tell you about this tweet is that the Duggars are/were fans of Bill Gothard and that this sexual abuse “lesson” does appear to have been a part of his curriculum at one time.

Gothard himself has been the subject of sordid allegations.

Update: “This is what purity culture does. More than anything else, it silences victims.” —Samantha Field, whose thoughtful post “how Josh Duggar is getting away with it” served as Sarah Galo’s source for Gothard’s insane sexual abuse counseling sheet. Go read the whole thing.

Link to article: 

Holy Shit. This Is How the Duggars’ Homeschooling Curriculum Allegedly Dealt With Sexual Abuse.

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Holy Shit. This Is How the Duggars’ Homeschooling Curriculum Allegedly Dealt With Sexual Abuse.

Bees Love Nicotine, Even Though It’s Killing Them

by JorjaW12uqno Posted on April 29, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

If a ubiquitous class of pesticides called neonicotinoids harms bees and other pollinators—as many scientists think they do—why don’t those buzzing insects just avoid pollen and nectar that contains them?

That’s the question posed by a new study published in Nature by a team of UK researchers. Champions of these chemicals, the authors note, often argue that bees can simply choose not to forage on neonic-laced plants—an entomological twist, I guess, on the personal-responsibility creed often employed by the food industry to defer blame for the harmful effects of junk food.

What the research team found is remarkable: Far from avoiding neonics, foraging honeybees and bumblebees tend to prefer food laced with it—even though it causes them harm. To test how pollinators react to traces of neonics, the team created controlled environments over 24 hours for both bumblebees and honeybees and gave them two food choices: a straight sugar solution or a sugar solution laced with neonics at levels found in farm-field nectar.

According to the researchers, bees make food choices based on “gustatory neurons in hair-like sensilla” in their mouths. Potential food that’s toxic and/or non-nourishing normally triggers spikes in “bitter”-sensing neurons, alerting the bee to stop eating and move on top something else. The neonic-laced sugar water didn’t generate that reaction for either the bumblebees or honey bees, and so they consumed it freely—and tended to take in more of it than the neonic-free solution.

Why the preference? Here’s how Geraldine Wright, the study’s lead author and a professor at the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University, put it in the press release accompanying the study (ScienceDaily): “Neonicotinoids target the same mechanisms in the bee brain that are affected by nicotine in the human brain.” In other words, while neonics don’t register as toxins, the do give bees the same buzz (so to speak) that people get from a cigarette. Thus the poisons “may act like a drug to make foods containing these substances more rewarding,” Wright added. (Neonics are synthetic versions of of nicotine, and thus chemically similar.

And just as human smokers court all manner of health trouble, the neonic-loving creatures of the study ate less than control groups that didn’t have access to the fun stuff. Cutting calories may sound great for a 21st century American, but it’s not good for beehives relying on well-fed foragers.

Because bees evidently seek out neonics, the authors argue, strategies to limit their exposure by planting pesticide-free nectar and pollen sources along roadsides and whatnot—a key element of President Obama’s “Federal Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators”—might not by enough. “Instead,” they write, “long-term changes to policy that include reducing their use may be the only certain means of halting pollinator population decline.”

Another recent Nature study, this one by Swedish researchers, provides yet more reason for concern. The team tracked how wild bee populations and honeybee hives fared in 16 fields planted with rapeseed (canola)—half of which had been sewn with neonic-treated seeds, half of which hadn’t. The result: Populations of two kinds of wild bees—bumblebees and the solitary bees—dropped in the treated fields compared to the control ones. They found greatly diminished reproductive success in solitary bees in the treated fields. And bumblebee hives in treated fields showed slower growth and produced fewer queens than their control counterparts—both signs of diminished health.

As for honeybees, the insecticide seed treatment “had no significant influence on honeybee colony strength,” the authors report. That finding is consistent with previous studies suggesting that “honeybees are better at detoxifying after neonicotinoid exposure compared to bumblebees,” they write. But they note that their research took place over a short time—several weeks in summer when canola plants flower—and the “lack of short-term effects does not preclude the existence of long-term effects” on honeybees. And their conclusion is hardly comforting: Neonics “pose a substantial risk to wild bees in agricultural landscapes, and the contribution of pesticides to the global decline of wild bees may have been underestimated.”

Responding to similar research, the European Commission placed a moratorium on most neonic use back in 2013. But here in the United States, the chemicals remain ubiquitous. This spring, US farmers will likely plant 174 million acres of corn and soybeans—a combined swath of land about equal to the state of Texas. The majority of it will likely be with seeds that have been treated with neonics, which are then taken up by the crops and present in plant tissue, nectar, and pollen, ready to poison any creatures that munch (except humans—neonics aren’t considered toxic to us).

As the chart below chart—taken from a recent paper by Penn State entomologists Margaret Douglas and John Tooker—shows, US neonic use has exploded since treated seeds first hit the market in 1994. That may mean lots of pleasant neural sensations for bees, if the UK study has it right; but it should make any species that depends on pollination for sustenance—like us—think twice.

From: Previous Article Next Article From: “Large-Scale Deployment of Seed Treatments Has Driven Rapid Increase in Use of Neonicotinoid Insecticides and Preemptive Pest Management in U.S. Field Crops,” Douglas and Tooker, Environmental Science & Technology.”

Read More: 

Bees Love Nicotine, Even Though It’s Killing Them

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Bees Love Nicotine, Even Though It’s Killing Them

Underwater, melting glaciers are louder than a symphony of chainsaws

by FrancesLease Posted on March 7, 2015

Underwater, melting glaciers are louder than a symphony of chainsaws

By on 6 Mar 2015commentsShare

Think about the best rock concert you’ve ever been to. Pretty loud, right? Well, some parts of the ocean are that loud all the time but for a somewhat less rockin’ reason: bubbles.

That’s right. Bubbles from melting glacier ice are basically the Rolling Stones of the sea, according to a new study published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. When snow condenses into glacier ice, it forms tiny, spherical air pockets. As the glacier ice then melts, those air pockets pinch off into bubbles, and that pinching off process is what’s causing all the racket. This study looked specifically at glaciers in fjords — long, thin inlets of the ocean surrounded by high cliffs — and found that the average noise there registered at a whopping 120 decibels (think chainsaws), and the frequency ranged between 1000 and 3000 hertz (think the top half of the piano register).

Erin Pettit, a geophysicist from the University of Alaska Fairbanks led the study. She and her colleagues used underwater microphones to capture the noises coming from a fjord called Icy Bay in Alaska and two others — one in Alaska and one in Antarctica. In an interview with the Associated Press, Pettit said she didn’t expect to find so much ambient noise coming from the ice:

“The glacier fjord sound on a typical day for Icy Bay, (Alaska) is louder than being in the water beneath a torrential downpour, which really surprised me.”

After taking measurements in the field, the researchers conducted laboratory experiments to makes sense of their observations. Here’s a video of melting ice from those experiments:

The researchers point out that acoustic monitoring could be a way to remotely monitor glacier melt, now that they know what glacier melting sounds like. They also warn that as glacier ice retreats and fjords quiet down, local marine ecosystems could feel the ripple effects. Whales hunt by listening for their prey, so noisy glaciers might drive them to quieter waters. Seals, on the other hand, might like the noise because it hides them from the whales. Indeed, harbor seal populations have declined near retreating glaciers.

In other words, whales are basically the grumpy old codgers telling everyone to keep the music down, while harbor seals are the rowdy youths using the noise to confuse and evade their elders. Is it just me, or are these the makings of a great cartoon? Anyone have any good bubble-themed band names?

Source:
Researchers: Bubbles popping from glacier ice make fjords the world’s noisiest natural ocean

, U.S. News and World Report.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Get stories like this in your inbox

AdvertisementAdvertisement

Read original article:  

Underwater, melting glaciers are louder than a symphony of chainsaws

Posted in Anchor, Anker, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Safer, solar, Uncategorized, Wiley | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Underwater, melting glaciers are louder than a symphony of chainsaws

All the best science experiments involve dynamite

by ColetteUKM Posted on February 19, 2015

All the best science experiments involve dynamite

By on 18 Feb 2015commentsShare

Picture a scientist. Good. Now make that scientist a geologist who studies tectonic plate movement. Are you picturing a total badass? Well, you should be, because from 20th century Arctic expeditions to modern day explosives, badassery abounds in the study of plate tectonics.

Let’s start with Alfred Wegener, the German scientist who first proposed the concept of continental drift way back at the start of the 20th century. Yesterday, the New York Times published this beautiful cartoon about Wegener’s work:

To recap: Wegener flew around in hot air balloons to study the atmosphere, hunted seals, fended off polar bears, traveled around on dogsleds, rigged up scientific equipment to box kites, and — perhaps most impressively — endured wicked backlash from the scientific community for what was then a radical new concept. (Lest you forget, this all happened in the early 1900s, which makes these expeditions about a thousand times more impressive.)

Okay. I promised you explosives.

While continental drift is now common knowledge, scientists still don’t entirely understand how the continents move, which is why some of them recently decided to detonate a bunch of dynamite 50 m below the ocean floor off the coast of New Zealand.

No, this was not the move of a bunch of mad scientists, but an attempt to create some harmless seismic waves. Seismic waves like those generated by earthquakes have long been a useful tool for geologists to explore the earth’s underbelly because they pass through (or bounce off of) different surfaces differently. By measuring how these waves travel, scientists can effectively see the different layers of whatever the waves are moving through.

The problem is, seismic waves from earthquakes are too big to get a very precise picture. Seismic waves generated with carefully placed explosives, on the other hand, provide a much more fine-grained view of whatever they’re traveling through.

And so, equipped with plenty of dynamite and hundreds of seismometers, this international crew of researchers continued the tradition of badassery in their field and blew up the ocean (they didn’t really, but it sounds cool when I say it like that). More importantly, the team came away with some valuable new information about how the plate under New Zealand moves around. Turns out, there’s a thin, lubricating layer of rock between the plate and the mantle that allows for some slippage. Scientists have suspected layers like this to exist under other plates, so this is further evidence that this may be a common feature of tectonic plates around the world.

Our big takeaway? Scientists should probably use dynamite more often.

Source:
Geophysicists blast their way to the bottom of tectonic plates

, Physics World.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Get stories like this in your inbox

AdvertisementAdvertisement

Source: 

All the best science experiments involve dynamite

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, Landmark, LG, Mop, Nespresso, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on All the best science experiments involve dynamite

Here’s Some of the Dumb Stuff People Did With Drones Last Year

by Constantinee9g Posted on January 29, 2015

Mother Jones

Thanks to the federal intelligence employee who got buzzed and crashed a remote-controlled quadcopter on the White House grounds earlier this week, there’s a renewed interest on drones’ potential to cause mayhem.

Last November, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released a list of 193 incidents of “drone misbehavior” (as the New York Times put it) reported to air traffic control officials in 2014. The list didn’t include incidents reported to law enforcement, so it’s not necessarily comprehensive. But it does offer a glimpse of the challenges of incorporating flying robot vehicles into everyday life.

Some highlights from the report (see the full list at the end of this post):

Drones and sports: There were more than a half-dozen incidents of people flying drones near crowded sporting events. Drones were spotted near games at the University of Arizona in Tucson; Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee (twice); Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin; the Big House in Ann Arbor during a University of Michigan game; FedEx Field during a Washington REDACTED game; and Citi Field during a Mets game.

Drone strike: Of all the incidents listed in the FAA report, just one involved a drone striking a person. In October, a small drone flying low over the Daytona Beach Municipal Stadium struck “a citizen causing (a) minor abrasion.”

Close calls: One of the obvious concerns is that some yahoo (or even a skilled pilot) will fly drone into a aircraft with actual people on board. The FAA report lists several close calls and near misses in 2014. On September 30, the pilot of an inbound regional jet reported a flying device that almost hit the plane at 4,000 feet, just north of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. In August, a medevac helicopter in Las Vegas reported almost getting hit by a drone at 200 feet as it was trying to leave a hospital. In June, a helicopter pilot in Stockton, California, reported almost hitting two remote controlled gliders at about 750 feet. And in March, a pilot in Tallahassee, Florida, said he almost struck a “remote controlled aircraft” while flying at 2,300 feet. One pilot had to take evasive action in the skies above Oklahoma City in October when a two-foot wide drone came within 10 to 20 feet of his plane at roughly 4,800 feet.

High altitude: There are at least 18 incidents involving drones flying above 4,000 feet, with some as high as 15,000 feet. (Most of the drones available to the general public fall into the FAA’s Model Aircraft category, which means they’re supposed to stay under 400 feet.) In a report from last May, a pilot approaching LaGuardia Airport reported seeing a 10- to 15-foot-wide drone at 5,500 feet above the southern tip of Manhattan.

Grounded: In August, a pilot was arrested after getting stuck in a tree at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC after climbing up to retrieve a crashed drone.

From – 

Here’s Some of the Dumb Stuff People Did With Drones Last Year

Posted in alo, Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Here’s Some of the Dumb Stuff People Did With Drones Last Year

"Bull City Summer": Incredible Photos From a Year Embedded With a Minor League Club

by GudrunNesmith Posted on August 31, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Twenty-five years after Bull Durham introduced the world to the minor league world of Crash Davis, Annie Savoy, and Nuke LaLoosh, a group of writers and photographers descended on Durham, North Carolina, to document life with the hometown team. The result is Bull City Summer: A Season at the Ballpark, a rich photo book interspersed with smart, poignant essays about the game’s rhythm, its injustice, and its occasional grace.

The essayists introduce us to a familiar cast of characters: the elderly couple who’ve missed just 50 games in 30-plus years; the aging veteran playing out the string in Triple-A, four years removed from a World Series appearance with the Yankees; the Duke philosophy professor who, before succumbing to colon cancer in 2013, would “adopt” a player every year, bringing him cookies and the occasional CD filled with classical music; the Cuban first baseman whose league MVP award will get him no closer to the big leagues; the general manager who helped revitalize the club in 1980 and who claims at the start of one essay, “I’m a gifted salesman. I hate it, but I am.”

Meanwhile, the photos highlight the play between the sort of regional authenticity that clubs sell to local fans and the generic ballpark experience found in dozens of baseball towns—Corpus Christi, Rancho Cucamonga, New Britain, wherever—around the country. There are still lifes; there are landscapes; there are stadium workers and players and fans in varying arrangements and formats, including the occasional tintype.

Running throughout Bull City Summer, though, is that old sense of the minor leagues as something special, something sui generis. “The majors are baseball’s height, but the minors are its depth,” writes Adam Sobsey, “and what we have here may be richer.”

All photos from Bull City Summer: A Season at the Ballpark, Daylight Books. Conceived and edited by Sam Stephenson. Photographs by Alec Soth, Hiroshi Watanabe, Hank Willis Thomas, Alex Harris, Frank Hunter, Kate Joyce, Elizabeth Matheson, Leah Sobsey. Essays by Michael Croley, Howard L. Craft, David Henry, Emma D. Miller, Adam Sobsey and Ivan Weiss.

Center Field #2, 2013 Alec Soth

Holly, 2013 Alec Soth

Outside the Ballpark #2, Durham, North Carolina, June 2013 Alex Harris

Light in a Summer Night #7, 2013 Frank Hunter

Approaching storm, Goodman field Frank Hunter

Vendor Frank Hunter

In collaboration with Colby Katz, Allen Mullin, Ben Berry, Emma Miller, Ivan Weiss, Michael Itkoff, Mika Chance, Matali Routh, Ryan Vin, and Sara Schultz: A Futile Attempt to Take a Portrait of Everyone who Attended the Latest Regular Season Game, 2013 Hank Willis Thomas

Pitching practice (Team psychologist), April 2013 Kate Joyce

Craig Albernaz’s Catcher’s Mask, 2013 Hiroshi Watanabe

Untitled, 2013 Elizabeth Matheson

Daylight Books, 2014

Link:

"Bull City Summer": Incredible Photos From a Year Embedded With a Minor League Club

Posted in alo, Anchor, Brita, Casio, Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on "Bull City Summer": Incredible Photos From a Year Embedded With a Minor League Club

Did Obamacare Wreck a Baseball Game?

by HwaCopewic Posted on August 22, 2014

Mother Jones

A few days ago, a Chicago Cubs game was called in the fifth inning after the grounds crew had so much trouble spreading a tarp that the field got soaked during a rain delay and play couldn’t be continued. The Corner reveals what really happened:

Insiders at the ball club report that the real culprit is Obamacare. Because the Affordable Care Act requires offering health benefits to employees who work more than 130 hours per month or 30 hours a week (“full time”), the Cubs organization reorganized much of its staff during the off-season. Sources that spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times claimed that, on Tuesday night, the crew was drastically “undermanned.”

Huh. What do you think of that, Dean Baker?

The problem with this story is that employer sanctions are not in effect for 2014. In other words, the Cubs will not be penalized for not providing their ground crew with insurance this year even if they work more than 30 hours per week. Apparently the Cubs management has not been paying attention to the ACA rules. This is yet another example of the skills gap that is preventing managers from operating their businesses effectively.

Quite so. My guess is that this is just another installment in the long-running effort of American corporations to use Obamacare as a scapegoat for everything under the sun. Usually this has to do with raising copays for their employees or something like that, but the ingenuity of American capitalism knows no bounds. Why not blame a rain delay on Obamacare too?

For a more likely cause of penny pinching on the grounds crew, the Wall Street Journal has you covered.

Continue reading:  

Did Obamacare Wreck a Baseball Game?

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Did Obamacare Wreck a Baseball Game?

The Minnesota Vikings’ New Stadium Will Be a"Death Trap" For Birds

by EmilyFlagg Posted on August 2, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The Minnesota Vikings’ new football stadium was supposed to be a point of pride for fans. The $1 billion state-of-the-art facility in the heart of downtown Minneapolis is set to be completed in 2016, and will put the crumbling Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome out of its misery. But a number of groups are getting angrier about a darker side to this dream project: The stadium’s shiny glass walls, which are almost certain to pose a lethal hazard to migrating birds.

Continue Reading »

View this article:  

The Minnesota Vikings’ New Stadium Will Be a"Death Trap" For Birds

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, oven, PUR, Radius, Safer, Uncategorized, Venta, wind power | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Minnesota Vikings’ New Stadium Will Be a"Death Trap" For Birds

Neo-Nazi Banners, Blackface, and Homophobic Chants: World Cup Fans Behaving Badly

by JosefinaReno Posted on June 24, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Hooligan culture has long brought out the ugliest elements of soccer fan bases. But recently the consensus is that hate speech—and even violence—have gotten worse in soccer stadiums around the world, from Europe to South America.

That’s why FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, has gone on the offensive during this year’s World Cup, slapping “Say No to Racism” patches on players’ jerseys and on signs around the pitch during matches. FIFA also has a number of tools in its arsenal to punish offending parties, from banning individual fans and fining countries to even deducting teams’ points or suspending them altogether.

Despite these efforts, racism and homophobia have emerged in the stands and on the field at this year’s World Cup in Brazil. Here’s the worst of the worst so far, and how they stack up to past misbehavior:

Continue Reading »

Link to article – 

Neo-Nazi Banners, Blackface, and Homophobic Chants: World Cup Fans Behaving Badly

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, Mop, ONA, Oster, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Neo-Nazi Banners, Blackface, and Homophobic Chants: World Cup Fans Behaving Badly