Tag Archives: unlike

What It’s Like to Be a Bird – David Allen Sibley

by Myrna Posted on April 15, 2020

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What It’s Like to Be a Bird

From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing–What Birds Are Doing, and Why

David Allen Sibley

Genre: Nature

Price: $18.99

Publish Date: April 14, 2020

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


The bird book for birders and nonbirders alike that will excite and inspire by providing a new and deeper understanding of what common, mostly backyard, birds are doing–and why "Can birds smell?" "Is this the same cardinal that was at my feeder last year?" "Do robins 'hear' worms?" In What It's Like to Be a Bird, David Sibley answers the most frequently asked questions about the birds we see most often. This special, large-format volume is geared as much to nonbirders as it is to the out-and-out obsessed, covering more than two hundred species and including more than 330 new illustrations by the author. While its focus is on familiar backyard birds–blue jays, nuthatches, chickadees–it also examines certain species that can be fairly easily observed, such as the seashore-dwelling Atlantic puffin. David Sibley's exacting artwork and wide-ranging expertise bring observed behaviors vividly to life. (For most species, the primary illustration is reproduced life-sized.) And while the text is aimed at adults–including fascinating new scientific research on the myriad ways birds have adapted to environmental changes–it is nontechnical, making it the perfect occasion for parents and grandparents to share their love of birds with young children, who will delight in the big, full-color illustrations of birds in action. Unlike any other book he has written, What It's Like to Be a Bird is poised to bring a whole new audience to David Sibley's world of birds.

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What It’s Like to Be a Bird – David Allen Sibley

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It Started with Copernicus – Keith Parsons

by Myrna Posted on October 15, 2019

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It Started with Copernicus

Vital Questions about Science

Keith Parsons

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $18.99

Publish Date: August 5, 2014

Publisher: Prometheus

Seller: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group


A unique approach to the philosophy of science that focuses on the liveliest and most important controversies surrounding scienceIs science more rational or objective than any other intellectual endeavor? Are scientific theories accurate depictions of reality or just useful devices for manipulating the environment? These core questions are the focus of this unique approach to the philosophy of science. Unlike standard textbooks, this book does not attempt a comprehensive review of the entire field, but makes a selection of the most vibrant debates and issues.The author tackles such stimulating questions as: Can science meet the challenges of skeptics? Should science address questions traditionally reserved for philosophy and religion? Further, does science leave room for human values, free will, and moral responsibility?Written in an accessible, jargon-free style, the text succinctly presents complex ideas in an easily understandable fashion. By using numerous examples taken from diverse areas such as evolutionary theory, paleontology, and astronomy, the author piques readers' curiosity in current scientific controversies. Concise bibliographic essays at the end of each chapter invite readers to sample ideas different from the ones offered in the text and to explore the range of opinions on each topic.Rigorous yet highly readable, this excellent invitation to the philosophy of science makes a convincing case that understanding the nature of science is essential for understanding life itself.

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It Started with Copernicus – Keith Parsons

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Most Ohio conservatives want to pay for renewables and stop propping up coal.

by MargieIGTj Posted on January 11, 2018

Here’s the idea: Build underwater barriers in front of the glaciers most vulnerable to collapse, keeping warm ocean water from sloshing in to melt them.

Princeton glaciology postdoc Michael Wolovick presented this concept at the American Geophysical Union conference in December, as the Atlantic reports.

The Antarctic glaciers Wolovick studies are subject to disastrous feedback loops: The more they melt, the more they are exposed to melt-inducing seawater. Recent studies have suggested these massive stores of ice could collapse much faster than previously thought, potentially raising sea levels by 5 to 15 feet by the end of the century (that’s seriously bad news for coastal cities).

Wolovick has been researching the feasibility of slowing that collapse with ‘sills’ constructed out of sand and rock along the fronts of these vulnerable glaciers. Unlike a seawall, they would be entirely underwater, but would keep warm ocean water from reaching a glacier’s vulnerable base.

That could stall glacial retreat dramatically, and maybe even reverse it. In Wolovick’s virtual experiments, even the least successful version of the sills slowed a glacier’s collapse by 400 or 500 years.

It’s all still a huge if, Wolovick admits, that requires more research. But if it works, it could buy some crucial time against sea-level rise.

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Most Ohio conservatives want to pay for renewables and stop propping up coal.

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Why Have Teen Abortion Rates Plummeted?

by NoellaPride Posted on February 8, 2017

Mother Jones

In the New York Times today, Scott Arbeiter writes about abortion:

The Guttmacher Institute reported last month that the rate of abortions per 1,000 women has fallen to the lowest rate since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. While the causes for this decrease are complex, many of us who are pro-life found this to be good news.

I’m not sure it’s all that complicated, especially for teen abortions. Take a look at this chart, which uses Guttmacher data on teen pregnancy rates and teen abortion rates:

As you can see, the teen abortion rate almost precisely followed the teen pregnancy rate from 1979-88 and 1995-2011. So there’s not a big mystery about abortion per se: when teens get pregnant less, they get fewer abortions. The exception is 1988-95. For some reason, teen abortion rates declined fairly dramatically even though pregnancy rates stayed about the same. So there are two interesting questions here:

Why did the teen pregnancy rate go down? The most obvious possibility is increased contraceptive use, but since 1995, at least, that doesn’t really seem to be the case (1995-2006 here, 2007-12 here).1 Another possibility is that teens became less impulsive starting around 1990 thanks to lower rates of lead poisoning.

What happened in 1988-95? Beats me. Teen pregnancy rates were fairly flat. Ditto for contraceptive use. But the abortion rate plummeted by a third.

The primary answer to the question of declining teen abortion rates is that teens are simply getting pregnant a lot less than they used to. That’s the issue to focus on.

UPDATE: A reader emails with a possible explanation for the 1988-95 mystery:

As a child of the 80s who sat through many health classes, I think you may be missing an important factor in the decline in teen pregnancy: AIDS. In the 1988-1995 period you describe, I can tell you that it was drilled into teenagers’ heads that unprotected sex would lead to AIDS and death. This was the era of Magic Johnson, Philadelphia, TLC’s Waterfalls, etc. Unlike earlier in the 80s, AIDS was no longer seen as confined to homosexual communities. Relatedly, condoms became widespread and “cool” for teenagers, in a way they weren’t in the 70s and 80s.

Maybe! It sounds pretty plausible, anyway.

1Data on teen contraceptive use is frustratingly hard to get. If anyone knows of a reliable data series that goes back to the 70s, I’d be obliged. It’s also worth noting that although overall contraceptive use has been fairly flat since 1995, the use of highly effective methods has increased.

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Why Have Teen Abortion Rates Plummeted?

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Here’s Why "Repeal and Delay" Is Suddenly So Hot Among Republicans

by HenryRjg87497 Posted on December 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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As long as we’re talking about health care this morning,1 it’s worth mentioning why Republicans are suddenly so gung-ho about “repeal and delay”—that is, repealing Obamacare now but waiting a couple of years to replace it with something else.

The official excuse is that health care is hard. Sure, Republicans have had six years to come up with something since the passage of Obamacare, but dammit, that’s just not enough time! Unlike Democrats, who jammed Obamacare down everyone’s throats in a mere 14 months, Republicans want to do the job right. They care about policy details, you see?

Does this sound unlikely? Your instincts are sound. Both Paul Ryan and Tom Price have legislative templates that could be turned into statutory language in a few months if Republicans wanted to. So why don’t they want to?

There are two reasons. First, they’re hoping that the mere passage of a repeal plan will cause insurers to abandon the exchanges and destroy Obamacare without any Republican fingerprints on it. But that’s dangerous. It could leave a lot of registered voters completely uncovered until the replacement plan passes. Even worse, there’s a chance this could destroy the entire individual health insurance market, not just Obamacare. That would earn them the ire of the insurance industry, the health care industry, and plenty of Republican voters.

So why take that chance? Because of the second reason for delay: If Republicans offer up a replacement plan immediately, it will inevitably be compared to Obamacare. And that won’t be pretty. There will be lots of losers, and every one of them will suddenly barrage their representatives with complaints. The media will aid and abet this with endless point-by-point comparisons of the two programs. The contrast with Obamacare will be so plainly and obviously negative that even outlets like Fox News will have trouble spinning the GOP alternative as a good thing.

Smart Republicans are keenly aware of this, and under no circumstances do they want to unveil a concrete plan that can be concretely compared to Obamacare. This is the reason for delay. The rest is just pretense.

1Remember, it’s still morning in California.

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Here’s Why "Repeal and Delay" Is Suddenly So Hot Among Republicans

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Climate change is driving fish crazy, literally.

by RafaelaBoard Posted on September 15, 2016

Turns out the largest sea creatures are most likely to go extinct, according to research published today in Science.

The research, led by Stanford’s Jonathan Payne, compared modern marine vertebrates and mollusks to their ancestors in the fossil record, all the way up to the last mass extinction 66 million years ago. Today, unlike in any previous time studied, a 10 percent increase in body size means a 13 percent increase in extinction risk.

This differs from a run-of-the-mill mass extinction, when your likelihood of dying off has a lot more to do with, say, where you live in the ocean or where you fall on the evolutionary tree.

And the biggest-is-not-best pattern has human fingerprints all over it — just think of the mastodon and moa.

“Humans, with our technology, have made ourselves into predators that can go after very large animals,” says Payne. But there’s an upside. Unlike the huge environmental changes that spurred mass extinctions in the past (and perhaps the near future), human activity has been known to do a quick 180.

After all, the oceans have seen very little extinction in the Anthropocene. “We still have a huge opportunity to save almost everything,” Payne says.

Link – 

Climate change is driving fish crazy, literally.

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Obama brags about low gas prices, but he shouldn’t.

by MariamE01ixix Posted on September 14, 2016

Turns out the largest sea creatures are most likely to go extinct, according to research published today in Science.

The research, led by Stanford’s Jonathan Payne, compared modern marine vertebrates and mollusks to their ancestors in the fossil record, all the way up to the last mass extinction 66 million years ago. Today, unlike in any previous time studied, a 10 percent increase in body size means a 13 percent increase in extinction risk.

This differs from a run-of-the-mill mass extinction, when your likelihood of dying off has a lot more to do with, say, where you live in the ocean or where you fall on the evolutionary tree.

And the biggest-is-not-best pattern has human fingerprints all over it — just think of the mastodon and moa.

“Humans, with our technology, have made ourselves into predators that can go after very large animals,” says Payne. But there’s an upside. Unlike the huge environmental changes that spurred mass extinctions in the past (and perhaps the near future), human activity has been known to do a quick 180.

After all, the oceans have seen very little extinction in the Anthropocene. “We still have a huge opportunity to save almost everything,” Payne says.

Original link – 

Obama brags about low gas prices, but he shouldn’t.

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