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Comment Re:Nuclear (Score 1) 3

by GregLaden (#51065191) Attached to: Yes, we can use 100% renewable energy.
Not really. Most, nearly all existing US plants can't follow load. Newer designs (I don't think there are any of these in the US) are sometimes designed to allow some degree of responsiveness to load. Generally speaking power plants that ultimately run large turbines using a single power source such as burners or a nuclear pile don't do well as load-following sources, but are better at baseload.

Submission + - October was the hottest month in NASA's entire temperature database. (scienceblogs.com)

Submitted by GregLaden
GregLaden writes: Scientists track the global surface temperature, an average of readings from thermometers at approximately head height, and an estimate of sea surface temperatures, in order to track global warming. Over the last year or so we have been seeing many record breaking months, but this month, October 2016, both the Japan Meteorological Agency and NASA has identified October as an extraordinary month.

October 2016 is significantly warmer than any month in the NASA record, which goes back to 1880 (and there were no warmer months, likely, for thousands of years prior to that, or at least, not many).

From these data we can generate numerous rather impressive graphics showing a 12 month moving average, Octobers compared over time, year to date, etc.

Submission + - A call to RICO climate change science deniers (scienceblogs.com)

Submitted by GregLaden
GregLaden writes: The argument could be made that the organized effort to disrupt climate change science and the development of effective policies to address climate change is criminal, costing life and property. The effort is known to be generally funded by various actors and there are people and organizations that certainly make money on this seemingly nefarious activities. A group of prominent scientists have written a letter to President Obama, Attorney General Lynch, and OSTP Director Holdren asking for this to be investigated under RICO laws, which were originally designed to address organized crime.

Submission + - Making Liquid Fuels From Sun And Air (scienceblogs.com)

Submitted by GregLaden
GregLaden writes: There is promising research on converting atmospheric CO2 and water, using sunlight as a source of energy, into burnable liquid fuels.

This is not a carbon capture technique because the CO2 ultimately returns to the atmosphere after burning the fuel, but it could allow the production of enough liquid fuel to allow the rest of the motorized economy to switch to mainly electric.

There are key uses for liquid fuels, even if most "engines" become electric motors.

The science of how this works is fairly interesting, and a recent writeup in Science gives some of the details.

Submission + - Do comments on web pages ruin science?

Submitted by GregLaden
GregLaden writes: Last week Popular Science shut down comments on their web pages citing the damage being done to the public perception of science as their reason. Earlier research suggested that this might be a good idea because trollish negative comments can color the perception by readers of a news story. However, some have taken Popular Science’s move to be anti science, implying that science itself is positively affected by web and blog comments, as though these comments contributed to the science being done itself. Here, I take exception to this and suggest that while comments are important in relation to the public perception of science (which itself is important) blog and web commentary never, or only rarely, influences the process of scientific inquiry itself.

Comment Laid Back Turkey (Score 1) 447

by GregLaden (#42074779) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Geekiest Way To Cook a Turkey?
This method may involve the most work and get the best result: Laid Back Turkey. It was first popularized by Julia Child. You remove the entire carcass except certain bones, broil the exposed, livid flesh for a while, then lay the whole thing broiled side down on a huge pile of stuffing, then bake it. Further instructions here: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/11/18/how-to-cook-a-turkey-2/
Science

Submission + - Harvard develops drug-filled, injectable sponge that expands inside the body (geek.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Harvard bioengineers have perfected injecteing us with a drug-filled sponge instead of just a liquid.

It may seem strange to want to inject a piece of sponge into your body, but it does actually help solve a number of invasive problems. For example, sometimes it is necessary to have drugs released slowly into our bodies, and/or some kind of bio-scaffold is required to be positioned so that it can help support a damaged organ or to engineer new tissue.

This new, injectable sponge is incredibly useful because not only can it be filled with drugs that then are slowly released, it also has a memory and can be collapsed down to a tiny fraction of its original size.
Mars

Submission + - What has Curiosity found that is "earth-shaking"? (npr.org)

Submitted by Randym
Randym writes: NASA scientists have some exciting new results from one of the rover's instruments. On the one hand, they'd like to tell everybody what they found, but on the other, they have to wait because they want to make sure their results are not just some fluke or error in their instrument.

The exciting results are coming from an instrument in the rover called SAM. "We're getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak, and the data looks really interesting," says John Grotzinger. He's the principal investigator for the rover mission. SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) is a suite of instruments onboard NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity.

Grotzinger says they recently put a soil sample in SAM, and the analysis shows something Earth-shaking. "This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good," he says.

Comment Re:Probably (Score 1) 761

by GregLaden (#41412447) Attached to: Can a Court Order You To Delete a Facebook Account?
Killing people to save money is not civilized. It is barbaric. That you personally would like to receive the death penalty instead of some other sentence is neither relevant nor interesting. And no, to the commenter above, courts can not arbitrarily order an execution in the US or most places.
Technology

Submission + - The Galileo Thermometer was not invented by Galileo (scienceblogs.com)

Submitted by
GregLaden
GregLaden writes: "The object known as the Galileo Thermometer is a vertical glass tube filled with a liquid in which are suspended a number of weighted glass balls. As the temperature of the liquid changes, so does the density. Since each glass ball is set to float at equilibrium in a sightly different density of the liquid, as the temperature increases, each glass ball sinks to the bottom. It turns out that this thermometerc was actually invented by a team of instrument inventors that formed a scientific society who had the impressive motto "Probando e Reprobando," which in English means "testing and retesting." The Accademia del Cimento operated under the leadership of the Grand Duke Ferdinand II from 1657-1667 in Florence, Italy.

According to Peter Loyson, who has written a corrective article for the Journal of Chemical Education, Galilio did invent a temperature measuring device called a thermoscope."
Earth

Submission + - Hurricane Could Make a Mess of Republican Convention 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "ABC News reports that Hurricane Isaac, currently a tropical storm brewing southeast of Puerto Rico, is on track to hit Florida the same day that Mitt Romney and 50,000 Republican delegates, journalists, protestors and guests descend on Tampa for the Republican National Convention but whether it will skim the east coast near Miami or crash head-on into Tampa, is still up in the air. The worst possible scenario is that Hurricane Isaac stays on the western track, skating over the Caribbean Sea south of Haiti, crossing the primarily flat landscape of western Cuba into the Gulf of Mexico then curving east and hitting Tampa dead-on. "Tampa is just as vulnerable as New Orleans was in the sense that the water will funnel into the bay area and from the storm surge which will flood completely the whole entire city of Tampa," says meteorologist Max Golembo. "It would be a disaster in the Tampa area." If a hurricane or tropical storm is bearing down on Tampa, the priority of law enforcement is to evacuate residents, leaving GOP officials to make the decision of when to evacuate delegates says Hillsborough County Emergency Management spokeswoman Holly Wade. "We have to look at a lot of factors, like timing and landfall," says Wade. "We provide the weather information, then we take that to the host committee, which decides if the event goes on or if the event gets altered." A Category 2 hurricane could disrupt convention activities because the Tampa Bay Times Forum, site of the festivities, is within a mandatory evacuation zone for storms of that magnitude. “Absolutely we’re prepared to call it off,” says Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn. “I mean, human safety and human life trumps politics. I think the RNC recognizes that. The organizers, certainly Governor Romney recognizes that.”"
Biotech

Submission + - Fathers bequeath more mutations as they age (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "In the 1930s, the pioneering geneticist J. B. S. Haldane noticed a peculiar inheritance pattern in families with long histories of haemophilia. The faulty mutation responsible for the blood-clotting disorder tended to arise on the X chromosomes that fathers passed to their daughters, rather than on those that mothers passed down. Haldane subsequently proposed that children inherit more mutations from their fathers than their mothers, although he acknowledged that “it is difficult to see how this could be proved or disproved for many years to come”.
That year has finally arrived: whole-genome sequencing of dozens of Icelandic families has at last provided the evidence that eluded Haldane. Moreover, the study, published in Nature, finds that the age at which a father sires children determines how many mutations those offspring inherit. By starting families in their thirties, forties and beyond, men could be increasing the chances that their children will develop autism, schizophrenia and other diseases often linked to new mutations (abstract)."

Submission + - Booted from airplane for wearing anti-TSA T-shirt (rt.com)

Submitted by Cigarra
Cigarra writes: PhD student Arijit learned the hard way that in Brave New America you can't mock TSA's Security Theater and go on about your business. According to a recolection in RT.com:

After being vigorously screened and questioned multiple times, Arijit says he was finally given permission, once more, to board his plane. The pilot of the aircraft, however, had had enough of the whole ordeal and asked the Delta supervisor to relay the message that, due to the discomfort the shirt had caused, neither Arijit nor his wife would be allowed to board the aircraft.

Just how much humiliation is the general American public willing to tolerate in the name of 'security'?
Government

Submission + - UK Govt Says Open Standards Must Be Royalty Free (h-online.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The H reports on an interesting development in the United Kingdom's procurement policy. From the article: 'New procurement guidance from the UK government has defined open standards as having "intellectual property made irrevocably available on a royalty free basis". The document, which has been published by the Cabinet Office, applies to all government departments and says that, when purchasing software, technology infrastructure, security or other goods and services, departments should "wherever possible deploy open standards".'

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