I am pretty excited about Puppy Bowl XI tomorrow afternoon on Animal Planet! So cute! (3pm)
Team Ruff vs Team Fluff
http://ift.tt/1CCjDSl
I am pretty excited about Puppy Bowl XI tomorrow afternoon on Animal Planet! So cute! (3pm)
Team Ruff vs Team Fluff
http://ift.tt/1CCjDSl
There’s been a lot of talk about the Willie Soon Controversy. Bottom line: Soon was an author on a paper that failed to disclose his extensive funding by the petroleum industry and its friends (over a million dollars to date, I believe) as required. I don’t have time to craft a detailed expose or commentary, but I wanted to get a bunch of resources in one place. I should mention that this is not all about Willie Soon, but rather, about climate science denialists more generally, a few specific others besides Soon, about how crap gets published now and then much to the giddiness of the denialist community, and about the ethical issues plaguing Soon, which have led to, among other things, tens of thousands of people signing a petition to get him sacked from his position at Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics lab.
It all starts with this paper:
Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model, published in the Science Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
The paper is by Christopher Monckton, Willie Soon, David Legates and William Briggs.
The paper has been examined by a number of scientists and others, and found wanting. Here is a selection of the critiques:
Roz Pidcock at The Carbon Brief: check: Scientists hit back at claims global warming projections are “greatly exaggerated”
William Connolley at Stoat: “the Monckton et. al [sic] paper is complete trash”
Thought Fragments: Monckton, Soon, Legates, and Briggs falsely claim to have presented a new climate model (see also this comment on that post.)
And Then There’s Physics: The designers of our climate
Not Spaghetti: The Monckton equation
Alexandray Cheung at Climate at Imperial College London: http://ift.tt/1wPbbbT
From the Daily Kos: Mocking Monckton’s Climate Model
Brian Merchant at Motherboard: How Climate Change Denial Still Gets Published in Peer-Reviewed Journals
From E&E Publishing, Gayathri Vaidyanathan: Heartland Institute finds route into U.S. science news conduit through China
The Boston Globe: Climate change skeptic accused of violating disclosure rules
Climate Investigations Center: Willie Soon Fails Conflict of Interest Test in Science Bulletin Article
About that petition to get him fired: Willie Soon, will he soon be fired?
There’s been a lot of talk about the Willie Soon Controversy. Bottom line: Soon was an author on a paper that failed to disclose his extensive funding by the petroleum industry and its friends (over a million dollars to date, I believe) as required. I don’t have time to craft a detailed expose or commentary, but I wanted to get a bunch of resources in one place. I should mention that this is not all about Willie Soon, but rather, about climate science denialists more generally, a few specific others besides Soon, about how crap gets published now and then much to the giddiness of the denialist community, and about the ethical issues plaguing Soon, which have led to, among other things, tens of thousands of people signing a petition to get him sacked from his position at Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics lab.
It all starts with this paper:
Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model, published in the Science Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
The paper is by Christopher Monckton, Willie Soon, David Legates and William Briggs.
The paper has been examined by a number of scientists and others, and found wanting. Here is a selection of the critiques:
Roz Pidcock at The Carbon Brief: check: Scientists hit back at claims global warming projections are “greatly exaggerated”
William Connolley at Stoat: “the Monckton et. al [sic] paper is complete trash”
Thought Fragments: Monckton, Soon, Legates, and Briggs falsely claim to have presented a new climate model (see also this comment on that post.)
And Then There’s Physics: The designers of our climate
Not Spaghetti: The Monckton equation
Alexandray Cheung at Climate at Imperial College London: http://ift.tt/1wPbbbT
From the Daily Kos: Mocking Monckton’s Climate Model
Brian Merchant at Motherboard: How Climate Change Denial Still Gets Published in Peer-Reviewed Journals
From E&E Publishing, Gayathri Vaidyanathan: Heartland Institute finds route into U.S. science news conduit through China
The Boston Globe: Climate change skeptic accused of violating disclosure rules
Climate Investigations Center: Willie Soon Fails Conflict of Interest Test in Science Bulletin Article
About that petition to get him fired: Willie Soon, will he soon be fired?
You have probably heard that an accusation has been made against the New England Patriots regarding their balls. It has been claimed that they intentionally deflated their balls during certain, perhaps many, games, in order that players be able to hold on to said balls during play. There is some evidence that this is true. In particular, the New England Patriots seem to have an exceptionally good record playing with balls that are wet and/or chilly — exceeding betting spreads which are, essentially, complex and generally accurate models — 80% of the time.
But now, a New England based scientist who has disclosed, as is proper, his fanship of the New England Patriots, has released a study suggesting that the Patriot’s balls may have deflated naturally, after they were moved from a warm environment to the colder environment of the playing field.
Thomas Healy, former college punter and founder of HeadSmart Labs, a sports safety think tank, has carried out experiments to test this hypothesis. Here is the scientist, Healy, pointing to the relevant calculations:
And here is Healy explaining his research on the behavior of foot balls:
Timothy Gay, who wrote “The Physics of Football,” which included a forward by Patriot’s Coach Bill Belichick, also chimed in. He notes that deflated balls would certainly provide an advantage, but he agrees with Healy’s results, and has confirmed them with his own calculations.
Bill Nye has also entered the fray, but he disagrees with Healy. Nye is backed up by a major web site known as “Funny or Die.” From a piece in Salon,
“Funny or Die” and Nye actually demonstrate[s] what would happen if balls went from 80 degrees Fahrenheit to 51 degrees Fahrenheit for such a short amount of time. Most importantly, Nye reminds us that man-made climate change is real. And unlike “deflate-gate” it is, as Nye says, “something about which you should give a fuck.”
Here is Nye’s video:
I’m thinking the jury is still out. But Bill Nye is certainly right about one thing. Climate change is real, and something to truly give a fuck about.
Sunday, February 1st, at 5:30 Central Time. It should be a good game, but don’t get your hopes up. You wouldn’t want to be deflated.
You have probably heard that an accusation has been made against the New England Patriots regarding their balls. It has been claimed that they intentionally deflated their balls during certain, perhaps many, games, in order that players be able to hold on to said balls during play. There is some evidence that this is true. In particular, the New England Patriots seem to have an exceptionally good record playing with balls that are wet and/or chilly — exceeding betting spreads which are, essentially, complex and generally accurate models — 80% of the time.
But now, a New England based scientist who has disclosed, as is proper, his fanship of the New England Patriots, has released a study suggesting that the Patriot’s balls may have deflated naturally, after they were moved from a warm environment to the colder environment of the playing field.
Thomas Healy, former college punter and founder of HeadSmart Labs, a sports safety think tank, has carried out experiments to test this hypothesis. Here is the scientist, Healy, pointing to the relevant calculations:
And here is Healy explaining his research on the behavior of foot balls:
Timothy Gay, who wrote “The Physics of Football,” which included a forward by Patriot’s Coach Bill Belichick, also chimed in. He notes that deflated balls would certainly provide an advantage, but he agrees with Healy’s results, and has confirmed them with his own calculations.
Bill Nye has also entered the fray, but he disagrees with Healy. Nye is backed up by a major web site known as “Funny or Die.” From a piece in Salon,
“Funny or Die” and Nye actually demonstrate[s] what would happen if balls went from 80 degrees Fahrenheit to 51 degrees Fahrenheit for such a short amount of time. Most importantly, Nye reminds us that man-made climate change is real. And unlike “deflate-gate” it is, as Nye says, “something about which you should give a fuck.”
Here is Nye’s video:
I’m thinking the jury is still out. But Bill Nye is certainly right about one thing. Climate change is real, and something to truly give a fuck about.
Sunday, February 1st, at 5:30 Central Time. It should be a good game, but don’t get your hopes up. You wouldn’t want to be deflated.
Radar data obtained from NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia were used to make this movie of asteroid 2004 BL86 and its small, newly discovered moon.
The asteroid and its moon passed closer to Earth last Monday (January 26, 2015) than any asteroid this large will again until the year 2027. At its closest, the pair was about three times the moon’s distance.
Want more? Best images of asteroid 2004 BL86 as it swept near Earth.
Bottom line: A movie – made with radar data – of asteroid 2004 BL86 and its newly discovered moon, which passed about three times the moon’s distance on January 26, 2015.
Radar data obtained from NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia were used to make this movie of asteroid 2004 BL86 and its small, newly discovered moon.
The asteroid and its moon passed closer to Earth last Monday (January 26, 2015) than any asteroid this large will again until the year 2027. At its closest, the pair was about three times the moon’s distance.
Want more? Best images of asteroid 2004 BL86 as it swept near Earth.
Bottom line: A movie – made with radar data – of asteroid 2004 BL86 and its newly discovered moon, which passed about three times the moon’s distance on January 26, 2015.
View larger. | Philae comet lander’s descent to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, as seen by the Rosetta spacecraft. The timestamp marked on the images are in GMT (onboard spacecraft time). Image via ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
NASA released the animated gif above on January 30, 2015. It’s a series of 19 images captured by Rosetta’s OSIRIS camera as the Philae lander descended to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on November 12, 2014. That was the day the Philae lander made history, becoming the first space probe to attempt a soft-landing on a comet. In the weak gravity of the 4-km-wide (2.5-mile-wide) comet, the spacecraft bounced several times from its initial touchdown point, became lost and then went silent when its battery ran out. On January 30, ESA said it would call off further searches for the lander for the time being and wait for the lander to “call home.”
ESA had said in November it was likely the lander had finally touched down in the shadow of a cliff or other obstruction, somewhere it could not receive enough sunlight to re-power its battery. And yet all hope for the lander was not and is not lost. As the comet continues orbiting the sun, its seasons are subtly changing (much as Earth’s are), meaning the sun is continually shifting in the comet’s sky, eventually, hopefully, bringing more sunlight to the lander’s location.
ESA said it will begin listening in a few more weeks with the hope that communications with the lander can be re-established by May or June.
But wait! Before you go, check out the image below …
View larger. | The Philae Lander against black space just off the comet’s surface during the first bounce off Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Image via ESA ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.
The image above is an absolutely awesome shot of the Philae lander, making its descent to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko above the Hatmehit crater on November 12, 2014.
Here the Philae Lander is seen against black space just off the comet’s surface (within the red crosshairs) during the first bounce after failing to land properly on the comet.
Philae Lander did eventually land in a still-unknown location on the comet.
Philae, call home!
Seasons are changing on Rosetta’s comet
Hatmehit crater on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The area in red marks the search area for the Philae lander. Image via ESA ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.
Here’s another awesome image of the Hatmehit crater on the top of 67P’s head from the OSIRIS (Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System) Narrow Angle Camera. The image is from December 13, 2014.
Here the Hatmehit crater is very well seen from an oblique angle with the red oval outlined area showing the search area of the washing-machine-sized Philae lander.
What are you actually seeing here? It’s a comet, moving in orbit around the sun. The nucleus of 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko is smaller than many mountains, is also much smaller than both of the Mars moons, Phobos and Deimos.
Many features look like ablation features, even though Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has only been in an orbit to allow sublimation only very recently, so could be impact features that have frozen.
Cliffs and boulders are also visible.
Bottom line: The wonderful Philae comet lander! It lies silent, presumably in darkness, on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. NASA hopes communications with the lander can be regained by May or June. While you’re waiting, check out these stunning newly released images!
View larger. | Philae comet lander’s descent to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, as seen by the Rosetta spacecraft. The timestamp marked on the images are in GMT (onboard spacecraft time). Image via ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
NASA released the animated gif above on January 30, 2015. It’s a series of 19 images captured by Rosetta’s OSIRIS camera as the Philae lander descended to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on November 12, 2014. That was the day the Philae lander made history, becoming the first space probe to attempt a soft-landing on a comet. In the weak gravity of the 4-km-wide (2.5-mile-wide) comet, the spacecraft bounced several times from its initial touchdown point, became lost and then went silent when its battery ran out. On January 30, ESA said it would call off further searches for the lander for the time being and wait for the lander to “call home.”
ESA had said in November it was likely the lander had finally touched down in the shadow of a cliff or other obstruction, somewhere it could not receive enough sunlight to re-power its battery. And yet all hope for the lander was not and is not lost. As the comet continues orbiting the sun, its seasons are subtly changing (much as Earth’s are), meaning the sun is continually shifting in the comet’s sky, eventually, hopefully, bringing more sunlight to the lander’s location.
ESA said it will begin listening in a few more weeks with the hope that communications with the lander can be re-established by May or June.
But wait! Before you go, check out the image below …
View larger. | The Philae Lander against black space just off the comet’s surface during the first bounce off Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Image via ESA ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.
The image above is an absolutely awesome shot of the Philae lander, making its descent to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko above the Hatmehit crater on November 12, 2014.
Here the Philae Lander is seen against black space just off the comet’s surface (within the red crosshairs) during the first bounce after failing to land properly on the comet.
Philae Lander did eventually land in a still-unknown location on the comet.
Philae, call home!
Seasons are changing on Rosetta’s comet
Hatmehit crater on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The area in red marks the search area for the Philae lander. Image via ESA ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.
Here’s another awesome image of the Hatmehit crater on the top of 67P’s head from the OSIRIS (Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System) Narrow Angle Camera. The image is from December 13, 2014.
Here the Hatmehit crater is very well seen from an oblique angle with the red oval outlined area showing the search area of the washing-machine-sized Philae lander.
What are you actually seeing here? It’s a comet, moving in orbit around the sun. The nucleus of 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko is smaller than many mountains, is also much smaller than both of the Mars moons, Phobos and Deimos.
Many features look like ablation features, even though Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has only been in an orbit to allow sublimation only very recently, so could be impact features that have frozen.
Cliffs and boulders are also visible.
Bottom line: The wonderful Philae comet lander! It lies silent, presumably in darkness, on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. NASA hopes communications with the lander can be regained by May or June. While you’re waiting, check out these stunning newly released images!
The Austrian Alpine Club (Sektion Brittania) runs an annual photo competition. I’ve finally got round to entering some of my summer pix; see here. Here’s my favourite that I didn’t enter; this was part of Stubai: Wilder Freiger by the Lubeckerweg.
The Austrian Alpine Club (Sektion Brittania) runs an annual photo competition. I’ve finally got round to entering some of my summer pix; see here. Here’s my favourite that I didn’t enter; this was part of Stubai: Wilder Freiger by the Lubeckerweg.
Nick
Nick
