Best Science Books 2015: The Telegraph Best Science Books 2015 [Confessions of a Science Librarian]

As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I’ve done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.

And here we are in 2015!

As in previous years, my definition of “science books” is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.

Today’s list is The Telegraph Best Science Books 2015.

• NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman
• Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
• Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science by Richard Dawkins
• The Vital Question: Why is life the way it is? by Nick Lane
• Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology by Johnjoe McFadden, Jim Al-Khalili
• 13.8: The Quest to Find the True Age of the Universe and the Theory of Everything by John Gribbin
• A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design by Frank Wilczek
• Cosmosapiens: Human Evolution from the Origin of the Universe by John Hands
• The Cabaret of Plants: Botany and the Imagination by Richard Mabey
• The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science by Andrea Wulf

And check out my previous 2015 lists here!

Many of the lists I use are sourced via the Largehearted Boy master list.

(Astute readers will notice that I kind of petered out on this project a couple of years ago and never got around to the end of year summary since then. Before loosing steam, I ended up featuring dozens and dozens of lists, virtually every list I could find that had science books on it. While it was kind of cool to be so comprehensive, not to mention that it gave the summary posts a certain statistical weight, it was also way more work than I had really envisioned way back in 2008 or so when I started doing this. As a result, I’m only going to highlight particularly large or noteworthy lists this year and forgo any kind of end of year summary. Basically, all the fun but not so much of the drudgery.)

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1PYeRqp

As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I’ve done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.

And here we are in 2015!

As in previous years, my definition of “science books” is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.

Today’s list is The Telegraph Best Science Books 2015.

• NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman
• Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
• Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science by Richard Dawkins
• The Vital Question: Why is life the way it is? by Nick Lane
• Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology by Johnjoe McFadden, Jim Al-Khalili
• 13.8: The Quest to Find the True Age of the Universe and the Theory of Everything by John Gribbin
• A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design by Frank Wilczek
• Cosmosapiens: Human Evolution from the Origin of the Universe by John Hands
• The Cabaret of Plants: Botany and the Imagination by Richard Mabey
• The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science by Andrea Wulf

And check out my previous 2015 lists here!

Many of the lists I use are sourced via the Largehearted Boy master list.

(Astute readers will notice that I kind of petered out on this project a couple of years ago and never got around to the end of year summary since then. Before loosing steam, I ended up featuring dozens and dozens of lists, virtually every list I could find that had science books on it. While it was kind of cool to be so comprehensive, not to mention that it gave the summary posts a certain statistical weight, it was also way more work than I had really envisioned way back in 2008 or so when I started doing this. As a result, I’m only going to highlight particularly large or noteworthy lists this year and forgo any kind of end of year summary. Basically, all the fun but not so much of the drudgery.)

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1PYeRqp

Lifeform of the week: Horseshoe crab

Image Credit: H Dragon

The first time I became aware of horseshoe crabs was during a trip to Montauk – the eastern tip of New York’s Long Island. Walking along the beach, I saw the discarded shell of a most unfamiliar creature. It was much larger than normal sea critter debris, probably comparable to a salad serving bowl. Obviously it had either 1) fallen from an alien spacecraft or 2) been shot out of an oceanic wormhole that connected to a prehistoric time when all animals were bigger and weirder-looking. As I continued to walk, I encountered more of these shells and was forced to revise my original hypothesis: radiation creating mutant super-crustaceans perhaps?

It took minimal description and “this big” gesturing for locals to answer queries about what I’d seen. These were the shells of the Atlantic horseshoe crab, and if the animal looks like it comes from another era, that’s because it does. Among the earliest complex organisms, it has survived changes to the planet that killed off countless other creatures.

But the future is less certain, as their population has been decreasing in recent decades. Strangely, this animal’s survival is both threatened and protected by its ability to provide resources to several other lifeforms, including our own species.

Living fossils

Horseshoe crabs are ancient. Evolving between 250 and 550 million years ago during the Paleozoic Era, they predate mammals, flowering plants and even dinosaurs. Close cousins the trilobites, who did pretty well through most of the era, finally expired during a mass extinction at its close. But horseshoe crabs managed to survive.

Pre-season Montauk. A fine place to learn about horseshoe crabs. Image Credit: Alex Reshanov

Today, four species remain: the Atlantic horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) – found along the eastern coast of North and Central America – as well as three species inhabiting the Indo-Pacific region. Some of the largest concentrations of Atlantic horseshoe crabs are centered around Delaware Bay, whose sandy coves provide optimal spawning grounds.

Though named crabs, presumably for their crustacean-like appearance and aquatic lifestyle, they are more closely related to spiders and scorpions.

Not your average arthropod

Top and bottom views. Image Credit: Chosovi.

The Atlantic horseshoe crab looks its age. Its body is covered by a hard exoskeleton. Once fully formed, this armor is impenetrable to most would-be predators (sharks and sea turtles being notable exceptions.) Horseshoe crabs shed their shells and form new ones as their bodies grow. Young crabs molt several times before even hatching out of their eggs.

They have an absurd number of eyes for such a large creature: more than ten, including clusters of photoreceptors found on the tail. (Curiously, their species name comes from the mythical one-eyed giant Polyphemus.) So much light-sensing equipment is necessary because horseshoe crabs mate in accordance with lunar cycles and must be able to spot changes in the moon’s illumination.

The spike-like tail, which some people wrongly assume is a stinger or some other dangerous weapon, is totally harmless. The crabs use these to steer and to turn themselves over if crashing waves along the sea shore flip them onto their backs.*

Beach party

Image Credit: Amy Roe.

Atlantic horseshoe crabs spend much of their lives on the ocean floor. But when it’s time to spawn, they head for the beach like a bunch of college students on spring break. The timing varies by location, but the peak is generally somewhere between late May and early June. Droves of crabs emerge from the surf at high tide during full and new moons to get it on (by means of external fertilization). Females, which are larger than males, dig into the wet sand and deposit their eggs while attending males eagerly wait to contribute their gametes to the event.† Males outnumber females, and a single batch of eggs may be fertilized by as many as five or six males. Females lay four to five clutches of eggs at each tide, containing several thousand eggs. Only a fraction of these reproductive efforts will survive to adulthood.

For those eggs that do mature into adult crabs, the process involves about ten years of growth and molting after hatching.

Blue blood and red knots

Horseshoe crab blood lends them even more of an alien appearance. Because it transports oxygen using copper-based hemocyanin (rather than the iron-based hemoglobin we are more familiar with), the fluid is blue. Not only is the crabs’ blood cool-looking, it is currently the fastest and most effective method for assuring that IV medications and vaccines are free of endotoxins.‡ A component of the blood – amebocytes – forms clots if it comes into contact with endotoxins. After receiving FDA approval in the 1970s, Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) became the standard method for testing any injectable medical products. To obtain this valuable substance, horseshoe crabs are collected and bled in a laboratory. The idea is to extract an involuntary blood donation without actually killing the animals, but unfortunately not all the crabs survive this procedure (mortality is estimated to be as high as 10 to 15 percent).

Having your blood forcibly drained in a lab may sound bad enough, but horseshoe crabs have even bigger problems. Unfortunately for them, it turns out they also make excellent bait for certain kinds of fishing. Eels and conchs find the horseshoes irresistible, making them the preferred bait for fisherman, and unrestricted commercial harvesting during the 1980s and 1990s led to a substantial reduction in the crab population.

Red knot. Image Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

This decline might have gone largely unnoticed, had it not been for a corresponding drop in the numbers of a migratory shore bird called the red knot (Calidris canutus). Alarmed scientists and bird watchers soon realized that the birds, which make a pit stop in Delaware Bay to refuel for their journey north, were losing an essential food source: horseshoe crab eggs. The birds’ arrival in the bay coincides with the crabs’ annual spawning and, under normal circumstances, the chaotic orgy kicks up plenty of calorie-rich eggs for the birds to devour.

Since this pattern was established, several east coast states have experimented with legislation aimed at reducing the harvesting of horseshoe crabs. Such measures include restricting the taking of crabs until after the height of spawning season, prohibiting the taking of female crabs, and outright bans on horseshoe crab harvesting in some states. While potentially good for red knots, this has also driven up the price of bait for those who make their living catching eels and conchs.

Technology to the rescue

Image Credit: spakattacks.

Science is working on ways to keep both fisherman and birds in business. Artificial bait is already in the works, and a much simpler mechanism, bait bags (which prevent other fish from swiping bait intended for eels and conchs) have reduced the amount of bait necessary for fishermen to make successful catches.

And there’s even hope for a crab-free way to test for endotoxins. In 2011, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that researchers found a way to test for these bacteria using liquid crystals – the material employed in making some computer monitors and flat screen TVs. The crystals flow like a liquid but can form crystallized molecular structures similar to that of a solid when they run into certain contaminants. Conveniently, they are sensitive to endotoxins, and the structural changes they undergo upon meeting these bacteria alter their optical properties, i.e. they look different once you add endotoxins. The crystals are purportedly more sensitive to endotoxins than old-fashioned horseshoe crab blood and significantly cheaper (one quart of blue blood runs about $15,000). Before you get too excited, recall that the march of progress can be a slow one, especially when human health is at stake. It may be years before liquid crystals can be rolled out as the new LAL. Let’s hope we don’t run out of horseshoe crabs before then or it’s back to rabbits.

* This happens fairly often and, even with the aid of their tails, they can’t always get back on their feet and may become stranded and die. You can save them by simply flipping them back over if you see them on their backs flailing their legs in the air. Flip from the shell, though, not the tail (it’s delicate).

† Horseshoe crab males are literally clingy. “Attending” often means hanging on to the female by means of a special grasping adaptation on one of the legs.

‡ Endotoxins are a kind of poisonous bacteria that aren’t killed by heat sterilization and can cause fevers and even fatalities if they enter the human bloodstream. Previous testing technology required the use of live rabbits and was slow-going.

This post was originally published in June, 2011.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1yJxxAi

Image Credit: H Dragon

The first time I became aware of horseshoe crabs was during a trip to Montauk – the eastern tip of New York’s Long Island. Walking along the beach, I saw the discarded shell of a most unfamiliar creature. It was much larger than normal sea critter debris, probably comparable to a salad serving bowl. Obviously it had either 1) fallen from an alien spacecraft or 2) been shot out of an oceanic wormhole that connected to a prehistoric time when all animals were bigger and weirder-looking. As I continued to walk, I encountered more of these shells and was forced to revise my original hypothesis: radiation creating mutant super-crustaceans perhaps?

It took minimal description and “this big” gesturing for locals to answer queries about what I’d seen. These were the shells of the Atlantic horseshoe crab, and if the animal looks like it comes from another era, that’s because it does. Among the earliest complex organisms, it has survived changes to the planet that killed off countless other creatures.

But the future is less certain, as their population has been decreasing in recent decades. Strangely, this animal’s survival is both threatened and protected by its ability to provide resources to several other lifeforms, including our own species.

Living fossils

Horseshoe crabs are ancient. Evolving between 250 and 550 million years ago during the Paleozoic Era, they predate mammals, flowering plants and even dinosaurs. Close cousins the trilobites, who did pretty well through most of the era, finally expired during a mass extinction at its close. But horseshoe crabs managed to survive.

Pre-season Montauk. A fine place to learn about horseshoe crabs. Image Credit: Alex Reshanov

Today, four species remain: the Atlantic horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) – found along the eastern coast of North and Central America – as well as three species inhabiting the Indo-Pacific region. Some of the largest concentrations of Atlantic horseshoe crabs are centered around Delaware Bay, whose sandy coves provide optimal spawning grounds.

Though named crabs, presumably for their crustacean-like appearance and aquatic lifestyle, they are more closely related to spiders and scorpions.

Not your average arthropod

Top and bottom views. Image Credit: Chosovi.

The Atlantic horseshoe crab looks its age. Its body is covered by a hard exoskeleton. Once fully formed, this armor is impenetrable to most would-be predators (sharks and sea turtles being notable exceptions.) Horseshoe crabs shed their shells and form new ones as their bodies grow. Young crabs molt several times before even hatching out of their eggs.

They have an absurd number of eyes for such a large creature: more than ten, including clusters of photoreceptors found on the tail. (Curiously, their species name comes from the mythical one-eyed giant Polyphemus.) So much light-sensing equipment is necessary because horseshoe crabs mate in accordance with lunar cycles and must be able to spot changes in the moon’s illumination.

The spike-like tail, which some people wrongly assume is a stinger or some other dangerous weapon, is totally harmless. The crabs use these to steer and to turn themselves over if crashing waves along the sea shore flip them onto their backs.*

Beach party

Image Credit: Amy Roe.

Atlantic horseshoe crabs spend much of their lives on the ocean floor. But when it’s time to spawn, they head for the beach like a bunch of college students on spring break. The timing varies by location, but the peak is generally somewhere between late May and early June. Droves of crabs emerge from the surf at high tide during full and new moons to get it on (by means of external fertilization). Females, which are larger than males, dig into the wet sand and deposit their eggs while attending males eagerly wait to contribute their gametes to the event.† Males outnumber females, and a single batch of eggs may be fertilized by as many as five or six males. Females lay four to five clutches of eggs at each tide, containing several thousand eggs. Only a fraction of these reproductive efforts will survive to adulthood.

For those eggs that do mature into adult crabs, the process involves about ten years of growth and molting after hatching.

Blue blood and red knots

Horseshoe crab blood lends them even more of an alien appearance. Because it transports oxygen using copper-based hemocyanin (rather than the iron-based hemoglobin we are more familiar with), the fluid is blue. Not only is the crabs’ blood cool-looking, it is currently the fastest and most effective method for assuring that IV medications and vaccines are free of endotoxins.‡ A component of the blood – amebocytes – forms clots if it comes into contact with endotoxins. After receiving FDA approval in the 1970s, Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) became the standard method for testing any injectable medical products. To obtain this valuable substance, horseshoe crabs are collected and bled in a laboratory. The idea is to extract an involuntary blood donation without actually killing the animals, but unfortunately not all the crabs survive this procedure (mortality is estimated to be as high as 10 to 15 percent).

Having your blood forcibly drained in a lab may sound bad enough, but horseshoe crabs have even bigger problems. Unfortunately for them, it turns out they also make excellent bait for certain kinds of fishing. Eels and conchs find the horseshoes irresistible, making them the preferred bait for fisherman, and unrestricted commercial harvesting during the 1980s and 1990s led to a substantial reduction in the crab population.

Red knot. Image Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

This decline might have gone largely unnoticed, had it not been for a corresponding drop in the numbers of a migratory shore bird called the red knot (Calidris canutus). Alarmed scientists and bird watchers soon realized that the birds, which make a pit stop in Delaware Bay to refuel for their journey north, were losing an essential food source: horseshoe crab eggs. The birds’ arrival in the bay coincides with the crabs’ annual spawning and, under normal circumstances, the chaotic orgy kicks up plenty of calorie-rich eggs for the birds to devour.

Since this pattern was established, several east coast states have experimented with legislation aimed at reducing the harvesting of horseshoe crabs. Such measures include restricting the taking of crabs until after the height of spawning season, prohibiting the taking of female crabs, and outright bans on horseshoe crab harvesting in some states. While potentially good for red knots, this has also driven up the price of bait for those who make their living catching eels and conchs.

Technology to the rescue

Image Credit: spakattacks.

Science is working on ways to keep both fisherman and birds in business. Artificial bait is already in the works, and a much simpler mechanism, bait bags (which prevent other fish from swiping bait intended for eels and conchs) have reduced the amount of bait necessary for fishermen to make successful catches.

And there’s even hope for a crab-free way to test for endotoxins. In 2011, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that researchers found a way to test for these bacteria using liquid crystals – the material employed in making some computer monitors and flat screen TVs. The crystals flow like a liquid but can form crystallized molecular structures similar to that of a solid when they run into certain contaminants. Conveniently, they are sensitive to endotoxins, and the structural changes they undergo upon meeting these bacteria alter their optical properties, i.e. they look different once you add endotoxins. The crystals are purportedly more sensitive to endotoxins than old-fashioned horseshoe crab blood and significantly cheaper (one quart of blue blood runs about $15,000). Before you get too excited, recall that the march of progress can be a slow one, especially when human health is at stake. It may be years before liquid crystals can be rolled out as the new LAL. Let’s hope we don’t run out of horseshoe crabs before then or it’s back to rabbits.

* This happens fairly often and, even with the aid of their tails, they can’t always get back on their feet and may become stranded and die. You can save them by simply flipping them back over if you see them on their backs flailing their legs in the air. Flip from the shell, though, not the tail (it’s delicate).

† Horseshoe crab males are literally clingy. “Attending” often means hanging on to the female by means of a special grasping adaptation on one of the legs.

‡ Endotoxins are a kind of poisonous bacteria that aren’t killed by heat sterilization and can cause fevers and even fatalities if they enter the human bloodstream. Previous testing technology required the use of live rabbits and was slow-going.

This post was originally published in June, 2011.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1yJxxAi

December 2015 guide to the five visible planets

The moon and planets as they appear before sunrise Wednesday, December 2, 2015. Read more.

If you like planets, you still need to get up early. The two most noticeable planets throughout December, 2015, are dazzling Venus (brightest) and Jupiter (second-brightest). Look east before dawn! You can’t miss them. Then look for fainter Mars in between the two. Saturn will join the procession of morning planets, starting around mid-December. Mercury, though nominally an evening planet all month long, won’t be far enough from the setting sun to view till the final week or two of December. And check this out … if you’re in North America, you can witness an awesome planetary event on December 7 as the moon covers, or occults, Venus. Follow the links below to learn more about the December planets.

Mercury, lone evening planet, visible starting around mid-December

Venus, brightest planet in the east before sunrise

Info on December 7 occultation of Venus here

Jupiter, second-brightest planet, high up before sunrise

Mars shines between Venus and Jupiter

Saturn visible before sunrise starting around mid-December

When will all five visible planets appear simultaneously?

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Astronomy events, star parties, festivals, workshops

From the Northern Hemisphere, you might be able to use the Summer Triangle to locate Mercury near the horizon in late December. Draw an imaginary line from Vega and through Altair to Mercury. Binoculars could be helpful! Read more

Mercury, lone evening planet, visible starting around mid-December. In early December, 2015, Mercury will be sitting too close to the sunset glare to be visible.

However, we expect people from both Earth’s Northern and Southern Hemispheres to begin to see Mercury in the deepening dusk around the middle of this month. Late month will be best, with Mercury setting 80 to 90 minutes after the sun by the year’s end. Binoculars will help out with your Mercury quest.

Mercury reaches its greatest elongation from the sun December 28 or 29 (depending on your time zone). Mercury will be well placed for viewing for a few weeks, centered on this date. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, try star-hopping to Mercury from the Summer Triangle, as depicted on the above sky chart for late December.

By the way, Mercury will swing back into the morning sky on January 14, 2016. Later in the January of 2016, Mercury will join up with the other four morning planets – Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Saturn – to feature the first appearance of all five visible planets in the same sky since the year 2005.

Look for all five visible planets in the predawn/dawn sky from about January 20 to February 20, 2016!

When will all five visible planets appear simultaneously?

Circle Monday, December 7, on your calendar to witness the coupling of the moon and Venus before (and after) sunrise. Read more.

Venus, brightest object in the east before sunrise. No matter where you are on Earth, here’s a very fun observation to make this month: Venus before dawn. Venus is the brightest planet and third-brightest sky object overall, after the sun and moon. When it’s visible, it’s very, very prominent in our sky.

So step outside some early morning, and look east. You’ll surely see Venus shining there.

What’s more, use this dazzling world and the planet Jupiter, the fourth brightest celestial object (after the sun, moon and Venus) to locate the fainter planet Mars in the morning sky. Simply look above Venus, but below Jupiter, to see the red planet Mars aligned with Venus and Jupiter in the December morning sky.

And, no matter where you are … be sure to circle Monday, December 7, on your calendar.

The waning crescent moon will have an extremely close encounter with Venus before (and after) sunrise on December 7. Residents of North America will be able to watch the moon occult – cover over – Venus. Depending on where you live in North America, this occultation will be visible in the predawn, dawn or daytime sky on December 7. More info about the occultation here.

You won’t want to miss Venus and the other early morning planets – Jupiter and Mars – which glorify the predawn sky all month long. At mid-northern latitudes, Venus rises about three and one-half hours before the sun at the beginning of the month, and by the month’s end, rises about three hours before sunrise.

At temperate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, Venus rises about two and one-half hours before sunup all month long.

Info on December 7 occultation of Venus here

Get up early to see the waning moon, Regulus and Jupiter on the mornings of December 2, 3 and 4. For illustrative purposes, the moon appears larger on this chart than in the real sky. The green line depicts the ecliptic – Earth’s orbital plane projected outward onto the constellations of the Zodiac. Read more.

Jupiter, second-brightest planet, high before sunrise. Jupiter is the first of the morning planets to appear in the sky, rising in the east an hour or so after midnight local time at the beginning of the month. By the month’s end, Jupiter will actually rise before local midnight from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

From all parts of Earth, the king planet Jupiter shines highest in the predawn sky, followed by Mars, Venus and then Saturn (visible near the horizon before sunrise, starting around mid-December).

The waning crescent moon shines close to Jupiter on the mornings of December 3 and December 4.

If you have binoculars or a telescope, it’s fairly easy to see Jupiter’s four major moons, which look like pinpricks of light on or near the same plane. They are often called the Galilean moons to honor Galileo, who discovered these great Jovian moons in 1610. In their order from Jupiter, these moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

These moons circle Jupiter around the Jovian equator. In cycles of six years, we view Jupiter’s equator edge-on. So, in 2015, we got to view a number of mutual events involving Jupiter’s moons through a high-powered telescope. Click here or here or here for more details.

Click here for a Jupiter’s moons almanac, courtesy of Sky & Telescope.

The waning crescent moon shines close to Mars before sunrise December 5 and 6. Read more.

Mars shines between Venus and Jupiter. Mars is nowhere as bright as Venus or Jupiter. Even so, modestly-bright Mars is easily visible in the predawn sky. Mars shines in between Venus, the sky’s brightest planet, and Jupiter, the sky’s second-brightest, all month long.

Let the waning crescent moon help guide your eye to Mars in the morning sky on December 5 and December 6. If you live in the right place in Africa, you can actually watch the moon occult -cover over – Mars in the predawn sky on December 6. Click here for details.

Mars will continue to brighten month by month, until the Red Planet culminates in brightness in May, 2016. Believe it or not, Mars will be about as brilliant then as Jupiter is now!

In the second half of December, draw an imaginary line from Mars through Venus to locate Saturn near the sunrise point on the horizon. The green line depicts the ecliptic – Earth’s orbital plane projected outward onto the great dome of sky.

Saturn visible before sunrise starting around mid-December. Although Saturn is a morning planet all through December, it’ll be lost in the sun’s glare until about mid-month. Saturn will be fairly easy to locate by the end of the month, as this world rises about two hours before sunrise by the month’s end.

How can you recognize this wonderful planet? By drawing an imaginary line from Mars through Venus to spot Saturn near the sunrise point on the horizon, as shown on the sky chart above for late December. Binoculars may come in handy.

Saturn, the farthest world that you can easily view with the eye alone, appears golden in color. It shines with a steady light. Binoculars don’t reveal Saturn’s gorgeous rings, by the way. For that, you need a small telescope. But binoculars will enhance Saturn’s golden color.

Saturn’s rings are inclined at about 26^o from edge-on in December 2015, exhibiting their northern face. A few years from now, in October 2017, the rings will open most widely, displaying a maximum inclination of 27^o. As with so much in space (and on Earth), the appearance of Saturn’s rings from Earth is cyclical. In the year 2025, the rings will appear edge-on as seen from Earth. After that, we’ll begin to see the south side of Saturn’s rings, to increase to a maximum inclination of 27^o by May, 2032.

Click here for recommended almanacs. They can help you know when the planets in your sky

What do we mean by visible planet? By visible planet, we mean any solar system planet that is easily visible without an optical aid and that has been watched by our ancestors since time immemorial. In their outward order from the sun, the five visible planets are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. These planets are visible in our sky because their disks reflect sunlight, and these relatively nearby worlds tend to shine with a steadier light than the distant, twinkling stars. They tend to be bright! You can spot them, and come to know them as faithful friends, if you try.

Bottom line: Venus, Mars and Jupiter adorn the predawn/dawn sky all month long. Saturn joins the morning planets around mid-month, whereas Mercury – the lone evening planet – appears at dusk in middle December.

Easily locate stars and constellations with EarthSky’s planisphere.

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Awesome month for planets before dawn: October, 2015! Photo taken October 2, 2015 by Mohamed Laaifat Photographies in Normandy, France.

Eastern sky before dawn now. Photo taken September 18, 2015 and submitted to EarthSky by Greg Hogan in Kathleen, Georgia. Thanks, Greg!

View larger. Evening dusk on August 5: Venus at left. Mercury is climbing higher, toward Regulus (at top) and Jupiter (beneath Regulus).

By the evening of July 12, Venus and Jupiter were farther apart and lower in the western sky after sunset. Photo by Robert Kelly. Thanks, Robert!

Photo taken June 13, 2015 by John Nelson at Puget Sound, Washington. Thanks, John!

View larger. | Photo taken in early June, 2015 by Göran Strand in Sweden. He wrote: “One of the last nights during the spring when the stars were still visible … ” Follow Fotograf Göran Strand on Facebook, or @astrofotografen on Instagram. Or visit his website.

View larger.| Venus near the setting sun on November 18, 2014 by Helio de Carvalho Vital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He wrote, “I managed to capture Venus as it is starting its return to dusk, despite the fact that it is still at a mere 6.2° distance from the sun. The photos show it a few minutes before setting behind the northern side of the 1,021-meter high Tijuca Peak, located some 6.5 km away. It was deeply immersed in the intense glare of the sun, that would set some 13 minutes later.”

Lunar eclipse on the night of October 8, 2014. The object to the left is the planet Uranus! This beautiful photo is by Janey Wing Kenyon of Story, Wyoming.

Debra Fryar in Calobreves, Texas captured this photo of the moon and Jupiter on May 31, 2014. Jupiter was close to the twilight then.

With only a modest backyard telescope, you can easily see Jupiter’s four largest moons. Here they are through a 10″ (25 cm) Meade LX200 telescope. Image credit: Jan Sandberg

Jupiter was rivaling the streetlights, when Mohamed Laaifat Photographies captured this photo in Normandy, France. Visit his page on Facebook.

Venus by Danny Crocker-Jensen

These are called star trails. It’s a long-exposure photo, which shows you how Earth is turning under the stars. The brightest object here is Jupiter, which is the second-brightest planet, after Venus. This awesome photo by EarthSky Facebook friend Mohamed Laaifat in Normandy, France. Thank you, Mohamed.

Skywatcher, by Predrag Agatonovic.

Easily locate stars and constellations with EarthSky’s planisphere.

Don’t miss anything. Subscribe to EarthSky News by email

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The moon and planets as they appear before sunrise Wednesday, December 2, 2015. Read more.

If you like planets, you still need to get up early. The two most noticeable planets throughout December, 2015, are dazzling Venus (brightest) and Jupiter (second-brightest). Look east before dawn! You can’t miss them. Then look for fainter Mars in between the two. Saturn will join the procession of morning planets, starting around mid-December. Mercury, though nominally an evening planet all month long, won’t be far enough from the setting sun to view till the final week or two of December. And check this out … if you’re in North America, you can witness an awesome planetary event on December 7 as the moon covers, or occults, Venus. Follow the links below to learn more about the December planets.

Mercury, lone evening planet, visible starting around mid-December

Venus, brightest planet in the east before sunrise

Info on December 7 occultation of Venus here

Jupiter, second-brightest planet, high up before sunrise

Mars shines between Venus and Jupiter

Saturn visible before sunrise starting around mid-December

When will all five visible planets appear simultaneously?

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Astronomy events, star parties, festivals, workshops

From the Northern Hemisphere, you might be able to use the Summer Triangle to locate Mercury near the horizon in late December. Draw an imaginary line from Vega and through Altair to Mercury. Binoculars could be helpful! Read more

Mercury, lone evening planet, visible starting around mid-December. In early December, 2015, Mercury will be sitting too close to the sunset glare to be visible.

However, we expect people from both Earth’s Northern and Southern Hemispheres to begin to see Mercury in the deepening dusk around the middle of this month. Late month will be best, with Mercury setting 80 to 90 minutes after the sun by the year’s end. Binoculars will help out with your Mercury quest.

Mercury reaches its greatest elongation from the sun December 28 or 29 (depending on your time zone). Mercury will be well placed for viewing for a few weeks, centered on this date. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, try star-hopping to Mercury from the Summer Triangle, as depicted on the above sky chart for late December.

By the way, Mercury will swing back into the morning sky on January 14, 2016. Later in the January of 2016, Mercury will join up with the other four morning planets – Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Saturn – to feature the first appearance of all five visible planets in the same sky since the year 2005.

Look for all five visible planets in the predawn/dawn sky from about January 20 to February 20, 2016!

When will all five visible planets appear simultaneously?

Circle Monday, December 7, on your calendar to witness the coupling of the moon and Venus before (and after) sunrise. Read more.

Venus, brightest object in the east before sunrise. No matter where you are on Earth, here’s a very fun observation to make this month: Venus before dawn. Venus is the brightest planet and third-brightest sky object overall, after the sun and moon. When it’s visible, it’s very, very prominent in our sky.

So step outside some early morning, and look east. You’ll surely see Venus shining there.

What’s more, use this dazzling world and the planet Jupiter, the fourth brightest celestial object (after the sun, moon and Venus) to locate the fainter planet Mars in the morning sky. Simply look above Venus, but below Jupiter, to see the red planet Mars aligned with Venus and Jupiter in the December morning sky.

And, no matter where you are … be sure to circle Monday, December 7, on your calendar.

The waning crescent moon will have an extremely close encounter with Venus before (and after) sunrise on December 7. Residents of North America will be able to watch the moon occult – cover over – Venus. Depending on where you live in North America, this occultation will be visible in the predawn, dawn or daytime sky on December 7. More info about the occultation here.

You won’t want to miss Venus and the other early morning planets – Jupiter and Mars – which glorify the predawn sky all month long. At mid-northern latitudes, Venus rises about three and one-half hours before the sun at the beginning of the month, and by the month’s end, rises about three hours before sunrise.

At temperate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, Venus rises about two and one-half hours before sunup all month long.

Info on December 7 occultation of Venus here

Get up early to see the waning moon, Regulus and Jupiter on the mornings of December 2, 3 and 4. For illustrative purposes, the moon appears larger on this chart than in the real sky. The green line depicts the ecliptic – Earth’s orbital plane projected outward onto the constellations of the Zodiac. Read more.

Jupiter, second-brightest planet, high before sunrise. Jupiter is the first of the morning planets to appear in the sky, rising in the east an hour or so after midnight local time at the beginning of the month. By the month’s end, Jupiter will actually rise before local midnight from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

From all parts of Earth, the king planet Jupiter shines highest in the predawn sky, followed by Mars, Venus and then Saturn (visible near the horizon before sunrise, starting around mid-December).

The waning crescent moon shines close to Jupiter on the mornings of December 3 and December 4.

If you have binoculars or a telescope, it’s fairly easy to see Jupiter’s four major moons, which look like pinpricks of light on or near the same plane. They are often called the Galilean moons to honor Galileo, who discovered these great Jovian moons in 1610. In their order from Jupiter, these moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

These moons circle Jupiter around the Jovian equator. In cycles of six years, we view Jupiter’s equator edge-on. So, in 2015, we got to view a number of mutual events involving Jupiter’s moons through a high-powered telescope. Click here or here or here for more details.

Click here for a Jupiter’s moons almanac, courtesy of Sky & Telescope.

The waning crescent moon shines close to Mars before sunrise December 5 and 6. Read more.

Mars shines between Venus and Jupiter. Mars is nowhere as bright as Venus or Jupiter. Even so, modestly-bright Mars is easily visible in the predawn sky. Mars shines in between Venus, the sky’s brightest planet, and Jupiter, the sky’s second-brightest, all month long.

Let the waning crescent moon help guide your eye to Mars in the morning sky on December 5 and December 6. If you live in the right place in Africa, you can actually watch the moon occult -cover over – Mars in the predawn sky on December 6. Click here for details.

Mars will continue to brighten month by month, until the Red Planet culminates in brightness in May, 2016. Believe it or not, Mars will be about as brilliant then as Jupiter is now!

In the second half of December, draw an imaginary line from Mars through Venus to locate Saturn near the sunrise point on the horizon. The green line depicts the ecliptic – Earth’s orbital plane projected outward onto the great dome of sky.

Saturn visible before sunrise starting around mid-December. Although Saturn is a morning planet all through December, it’ll be lost in the sun’s glare until about mid-month. Saturn will be fairly easy to locate by the end of the month, as this world rises about two hours before sunrise by the month’s end.

How can you recognize this wonderful planet? By drawing an imaginary line from Mars through Venus to spot Saturn near the sunrise point on the horizon, as shown on the sky chart above for late December. Binoculars may come in handy.

Saturn, the farthest world that you can easily view with the eye alone, appears golden in color. It shines with a steady light. Binoculars don’t reveal Saturn’s gorgeous rings, by the way. For that, you need a small telescope. But binoculars will enhance Saturn’s golden color.

Saturn’s rings are inclined at about 26^o from edge-on in December 2015, exhibiting their northern face. A few years from now, in October 2017, the rings will open most widely, displaying a maximum inclination of 27^o. As with so much in space (and on Earth), the appearance of Saturn’s rings from Earth is cyclical. In the year 2025, the rings will appear edge-on as seen from Earth. After that, we’ll begin to see the south side of Saturn’s rings, to increase to a maximum inclination of 27^o by May, 2032.

Click here for recommended almanacs. They can help you know when the planets in your sky

What do we mean by visible planet? By visible planet, we mean any solar system planet that is easily visible without an optical aid and that has been watched by our ancestors since time immemorial. In their outward order from the sun, the five visible planets are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. These planets are visible in our sky because their disks reflect sunlight, and these relatively nearby worlds tend to shine with a steadier light than the distant, twinkling stars. They tend to be bright! You can spot them, and come to know them as faithful friends, if you try.

Bottom line: Venus, Mars and Jupiter adorn the predawn/dawn sky all month long. Saturn joins the morning planets around mid-month, whereas Mercury – the lone evening planet – appears at dusk in middle December.

Easily locate stars and constellations with EarthSky’s planisphere.

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Awesome month for planets before dawn: October, 2015! Photo taken October 2, 2015 by Mohamed Laaifat Photographies in Normandy, France.

Eastern sky before dawn now. Photo taken September 18, 2015 and submitted to EarthSky by Greg Hogan in Kathleen, Georgia. Thanks, Greg!

View larger. Evening dusk on August 5: Venus at left. Mercury is climbing higher, toward Regulus (at top) and Jupiter (beneath Regulus).

By the evening of July 12, Venus and Jupiter were farther apart and lower in the western sky after sunset. Photo by Robert Kelly. Thanks, Robert!

Photo taken June 13, 2015 by John Nelson at Puget Sound, Washington. Thanks, John!

View larger. | Photo taken in early June, 2015 by Göran Strand in Sweden. He wrote: “One of the last nights during the spring when the stars were still visible … ” Follow Fotograf Göran Strand on Facebook, or @astrofotografen on Instagram. Or visit his website.

View larger.| Venus near the setting sun on November 18, 2014 by Helio de Carvalho Vital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He wrote, “I managed to capture Venus as it is starting its return to dusk, despite the fact that it is still at a mere 6.2° distance from the sun. The photos show it a few minutes before setting behind the northern side of the 1,021-meter high Tijuca Peak, located some 6.5 km away. It was deeply immersed in the intense glare of the sun, that would set some 13 minutes later.”

Lunar eclipse on the night of October 8, 2014. The object to the left is the planet Uranus! This beautiful photo is by Janey Wing Kenyon of Story, Wyoming.

Debra Fryar in Calobreves, Texas captured this photo of the moon and Jupiter on May 31, 2014. Jupiter was close to the twilight then.

With only a modest backyard telescope, you can easily see Jupiter’s four largest moons. Here they are through a 10″ (25 cm) Meade LX200 telescope. Image credit: Jan Sandberg

Jupiter was rivaling the streetlights, when Mohamed Laaifat Photographies captured this photo in Normandy, France. Visit his page on Facebook.

Venus by Danny Crocker-Jensen

These are called star trails. It’s a long-exposure photo, which shows you how Earth is turning under the stars. The brightest object here is Jupiter, which is the second-brightest planet, after Venus. This awesome photo by EarthSky Facebook friend Mohamed Laaifat in Normandy, France. Thank you, Mohamed.

Skywatcher, by Predrag Agatonovic.

Easily locate stars and constellations with EarthSky’s planisphere.

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What’s the birthstone for December?

Turquoise
Turquoise is considered by some to be a symbol of good fortune and success, believed to bring prosperity to its wearer.

In the language of chemists and geologists, turquoise is known as “copper aluminum phosphate.” Turquoise is often found in weathered igneous rock that contains copper minerals, where it crystallizes in veins and nodules. The gemstone usually develops in rock near water tables, located in semiarid and arid environments. The chemicals in turquoise come from adjacent rock, leached out by rain and groundwater.

Turquoise is a relatively soft gemstone, and can be easily scratched and broken. This porous opaque stone is easily discolored by oil and pigments, and changes color when it loses some of its water content. A sky blue shade in turquoise is due to the presence of copper, while iron gives it a greener tone. Ochre and brown-black veins in the stone occur during the formation of turquoise, caused by inclusions from nearby rock fragments or from oxide staining. The most valued variety of turquoise is an intense sky blue color, like the color of a robin’s egg. Hard, relatively non-porous compact stones have the best appearance because the stone can be finely polished. Pale and chalky varieties however are sometimes impregnated with oil, paraffin, liquid plastic and glycerin to give it a good polish.

This stone can be found in Armenia, Kazakhstan, China, Australia, Tibet, China, Mexico, Brazil, and Egypt. In Iran, where some of the best stones are found, turquoise is the national gem. The American southwest-Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and California-are primary producers of turquoise. Much of the specimens have a light color, and are porous and chalky-only about 10% is of gem quality.

Its name is believed to originate from the French phrase “pierre turquoise” meaning “Turkish stone” because turquoise was brought to Europe by Venetian merchants who first acquired it in Turkish bazaars. It is also considered by some as a love charm. When received as a gift, the turquoise symbolizes a pledge of affection. Shakespeare used this lore in “The Merchant of Venice’. In it, Leah gave a turquoise ring to Shylock when he was a bachelor, hoping it would win his affections so he would ask her to marry him. In Russia, the turquoise is popularly used in wedding rings.

Turquoise is one of the earliest known stones to be used in jewelry. Pharaohs of Early Egypt wore them. A tomb excavated in 1900 contained the mummified remains of Queen Zer, who ruled in 5500 B.C.; found on her arm were four magnificent turquoise bracelets. Beads dating back to 5000 B.C. have been found in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). In Iran, turquoise was the national gemstone, adorning thrones, daggers, sword hilts, horse trappings, bowls, cups, and ornamental objects. Senior officials wore turquoise seals decorated with pearls and rubies. In the 7th century A.D., turquoise pieces inscribed with passages from the Koran and Persian proverbs were valued amulets. It was used as jewelry in ancient Siberia, around the Fifth and Sixth century B.C. During the Middle Ages, they were popularly used as decoration of vessels and covers for manuscripts. And it was again popular as jewelry during the Renaissance. It has also been found in ancient burial sites in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Mexico and Central America. The Incas crafted beads and figurines out of it, and the Aztecs made pendants and ritual masks.

Turquoise has a rich history in the American southwest. Native Americans have been using this gemstone to create magnificent jewelry and ornamental pieces for the past several thousand years. It was called “Chal-cui-hui-tal”, meaning “the highest and most valued thing in the world”. The Zuni, Hopi, Pueblo and Navajo Indians made magnificent necklaces, ear pendants and rings. The blue in turquoise symbolized the Heavens, and green symbolized the Earth. The stones were used by medicine men to work charms. The Navajo believed that turquoise pieces, thrown into a river while offering a prayer to the rain god, would bring much needed rain. Apache lore held that a turquoise attached to a bow or gun would ensure accurate aim.

There are many superstitions associated with the turquoise. In the Third century, it was believed to protect its owner from falling off a horse. A change in color revealed the infidelity of a wife. Twelfth century Arabian writings said “The turquoise shines when the air is pure and becomes pale when it is dim.” They also believed that its color changed with the weather. Persians said that the reflection of the new moon on a turquoise stone brought good luck, and guarded against evil. It was said to have a healing effect on the eye-merely looking at it strengthened the eye, while placing it on an inflamed eye brought a cure. A 15th century philosopher attributed its change of color to its ability to attract poisons. It was a barometer of its user’s health, turning pale in illness and losing color in death, yet regaining its original beauty in the hands of a new and healthy owner.

Photo credit: Rob Lavinsky

Zircon
The alternate birthstone for December is the zircon.

Zircon, in its unchanged natural form appears colorless to pale yellow, or green. These colors are caused by minute quantities of thorium and uranium that replaces zircon in the crystal structure. But over the vast spans of geologic time, other forces work within the zirconium silicate crystals. The uranium and thorium inclusions emit radiation that alters the original crystal structure. A glass-like material is formed, with colors of red to brown, orange and yellow.

The mineral zircon, known as zirconium silicate, is commonly found as a minor constituent in igneous rock such as granites and some kinds of metamorphic rock. Gem quality zircon stones are usually rare. These gemstones are formed mainly in pegmatites (coarse-grained igneous rock) and in fissures. But due to weathering of the gem-bearing rocks, most zircons are found in alluvial and beach deposits.

A new blue color for zircon, called “starlight blue,” was created by heating golden brown or yellow zircon in the 1920s. From Gems and Crystals by Anna S. Sofianides and George E. Harlow:

In the 1920s, a new blue gemstone suddenly appeared in the market. Endowed with spectacular brilliance, it was an immediate hit.

The gems were zircons, normally brown to green – but not blue. George F. Kunz, the legendary Tiffany gemologist, immediately suspected trickery; not only were there extraordinary stones available in abundance but available all over the world! Upon Kunz’s behest, a colleague made inquiries during a trip to Siam (Thailand) and learned that a large deposit of unattractive brown zircon had stimulated color- improvement experimentation by local entrepreneurs. Heating in an oxygen-free environment had turned the drab material into “new” blue stones, which were sent to outlets worldwide. When the deception was revealed, the market simply accepted the information, and the demand for the new gems continued unabated.

The most prized zircon is the red gemstone, which is rare. The pure intense blue and sky blue varieties are also highly valued, while the colorless, orange, brown and yellow stones are less expensive. Many zircons on the market are heat treated, and sold as blue, golden brown or colorless stones. Colorless zircons are the best imitators of diamonds, in appearance only, with a brilliant fire that is almost as dazzling as the real thing. However, the resemblance is superficial. Zircon is a brittle stone, easily broken with a well-placed knock, due to internal stresses in the crystal caused by radiation damage and heat treatment. But despite its frail disposition, the stone is still highly valued because of its stunning beauty.

Major sources of zircon are the Chanthaburi area of Thailand, the Palin area of Cambodia and the southern part of Vietnam near the Cambodian border, where gemstones are found in alluvial deposits. Bangkok is well-known as a major center for processing zircons, where everything from heat treatment, cutting and marketing is carried out. Another important source is Sri Lanka, well known for a colorless variety of zircon called the ‘Matura diamond’. The gemstones are also found in Burma, France, Norway, Australia and Canada.

Its name is probably derived from the Arabic words “zar” and “gun”, meaning “gold” and “color”. The gemstone is found in a wide range of colors, and possess great brilliance, fire and clarity.
The hyacinth and jacinth, reddish-brown and orange-red varieties of zircon, were a favorite stone of ancient Arabs and was even mentioned in the famed book, ‘Arabian Nights’.

Green zircon was among the stones of the ‘Kalpa Tree’ of the Hindu religion, where it represented the tree’s foliage. This tree was a symbolic offering to the gods. Hindu poets of the 19th century described it as a glowing ensemble of precious stones that also included sapphires, diamonds and topaz.

Zircon was regarded as the amulet for travelers in the Eleventh century, protecting them from disease, injury, and insomnia, as well as assuring a cordial welcome wherever their travels would take them. The gem was also believed to hold magic powers to fight evil spirits. During the Fourteenth century, zircon was popular as a safeguard against the Black Death, the great plague that wiped out one quarter of the population of Europe. The stone was believed to possess healing powers. It was prescribed to insomniacs to induce sleep, used as an antidote against poison, and as an aid to digestion.

December’s birthstones are turquoise and zircon. Find out about the birthstones for all the months of the year:
January birthstone
February birthstone
March birthstone
April birthstone
May birthstone
June birthstone
July birthstone
August birthstone
September birthstone
October birthstone
November birthstone
December birthstone

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Turquoise
Turquoise is considered by some to be a symbol of good fortune and success, believed to bring prosperity to its wearer.

In the language of chemists and geologists, turquoise is known as “copper aluminum phosphate.” Turquoise is often found in weathered igneous rock that contains copper minerals, where it crystallizes in veins and nodules. The gemstone usually develops in rock near water tables, located in semiarid and arid environments. The chemicals in turquoise come from adjacent rock, leached out by rain and groundwater.

Turquoise is a relatively soft gemstone, and can be easily scratched and broken. This porous opaque stone is easily discolored by oil and pigments, and changes color when it loses some of its water content. A sky blue shade in turquoise is due to the presence of copper, while iron gives it a greener tone. Ochre and brown-black veins in the stone occur during the formation of turquoise, caused by inclusions from nearby rock fragments or from oxide staining. The most valued variety of turquoise is an intense sky blue color, like the color of a robin’s egg. Hard, relatively non-porous compact stones have the best appearance because the stone can be finely polished. Pale and chalky varieties however are sometimes impregnated with oil, paraffin, liquid plastic and glycerin to give it a good polish.

This stone can be found in Armenia, Kazakhstan, China, Australia, Tibet, China, Mexico, Brazil, and Egypt. In Iran, where some of the best stones are found, turquoise is the national gem. The American southwest-Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and California-are primary producers of turquoise. Much of the specimens have a light color, and are porous and chalky-only about 10% is of gem quality.

Its name is believed to originate from the French phrase “pierre turquoise” meaning “Turkish stone” because turquoise was brought to Europe by Venetian merchants who first acquired it in Turkish bazaars. It is also considered by some as a love charm. When received as a gift, the turquoise symbolizes a pledge of affection. Shakespeare used this lore in “The Merchant of Venice’. In it, Leah gave a turquoise ring to Shylock when he was a bachelor, hoping it would win his affections so he would ask her to marry him. In Russia, the turquoise is popularly used in wedding rings.

Turquoise is one of the earliest known stones to be used in jewelry. Pharaohs of Early Egypt wore them. A tomb excavated in 1900 contained the mummified remains of Queen Zer, who ruled in 5500 B.C.; found on her arm were four magnificent turquoise bracelets. Beads dating back to 5000 B.C. have been found in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). In Iran, turquoise was the national gemstone, adorning thrones, daggers, sword hilts, horse trappings, bowls, cups, and ornamental objects. Senior officials wore turquoise seals decorated with pearls and rubies. In the 7th century A.D., turquoise pieces inscribed with passages from the Koran and Persian proverbs were valued amulets. It was used as jewelry in ancient Siberia, around the Fifth and Sixth century B.C. During the Middle Ages, they were popularly used as decoration of vessels and covers for manuscripts. And it was again popular as jewelry during the Renaissance. It has also been found in ancient burial sites in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Mexico and Central America. The Incas crafted beads and figurines out of it, and the Aztecs made pendants and ritual masks.

Turquoise has a rich history in the American southwest. Native Americans have been using this gemstone to create magnificent jewelry and ornamental pieces for the past several thousand years. It was called “Chal-cui-hui-tal”, meaning “the highest and most valued thing in the world”. The Zuni, Hopi, Pueblo and Navajo Indians made magnificent necklaces, ear pendants and rings. The blue in turquoise symbolized the Heavens, and green symbolized the Earth. The stones were used by medicine men to work charms. The Navajo believed that turquoise pieces, thrown into a river while offering a prayer to the rain god, would bring much needed rain. Apache lore held that a turquoise attached to a bow or gun would ensure accurate aim.

There are many superstitions associated with the turquoise. In the Third century, it was believed to protect its owner from falling off a horse. A change in color revealed the infidelity of a wife. Twelfth century Arabian writings said “The turquoise shines when the air is pure and becomes pale when it is dim.” They also believed that its color changed with the weather. Persians said that the reflection of the new moon on a turquoise stone brought good luck, and guarded against evil. It was said to have a healing effect on the eye-merely looking at it strengthened the eye, while placing it on an inflamed eye brought a cure. A 15th century philosopher attributed its change of color to its ability to attract poisons. It was a barometer of its user’s health, turning pale in illness and losing color in death, yet regaining its original beauty in the hands of a new and healthy owner.

Photo credit: Rob Lavinsky

Zircon
The alternate birthstone for December is the zircon.

Zircon, in its unchanged natural form appears colorless to pale yellow, or green. These colors are caused by minute quantities of thorium and uranium that replaces zircon in the crystal structure. But over the vast spans of geologic time, other forces work within the zirconium silicate crystals. The uranium and thorium inclusions emit radiation that alters the original crystal structure. A glass-like material is formed, with colors of red to brown, orange and yellow.

The mineral zircon, known as zirconium silicate, is commonly found as a minor constituent in igneous rock such as granites and some kinds of metamorphic rock. Gem quality zircon stones are usually rare. These gemstones are formed mainly in pegmatites (coarse-grained igneous rock) and in fissures. But due to weathering of the gem-bearing rocks, most zircons are found in alluvial and beach deposits.

A new blue color for zircon, called “starlight blue,” was created by heating golden brown or yellow zircon in the 1920s. From Gems and Crystals by Anna S. Sofianides and George E. Harlow:

In the 1920s, a new blue gemstone suddenly appeared in the market. Endowed with spectacular brilliance, it was an immediate hit.

The gems were zircons, normally brown to green – but not blue. George F. Kunz, the legendary Tiffany gemologist, immediately suspected trickery; not only were there extraordinary stones available in abundance but available all over the world! Upon Kunz’s behest, a colleague made inquiries during a trip to Siam (Thailand) and learned that a large deposit of unattractive brown zircon had stimulated color- improvement experimentation by local entrepreneurs. Heating in an oxygen-free environment had turned the drab material into “new” blue stones, which were sent to outlets worldwide. When the deception was revealed, the market simply accepted the information, and the demand for the new gems continued unabated.

The most prized zircon is the red gemstone, which is rare. The pure intense blue and sky blue varieties are also highly valued, while the colorless, orange, brown and yellow stones are less expensive. Many zircons on the market are heat treated, and sold as blue, golden brown or colorless stones. Colorless zircons are the best imitators of diamonds, in appearance only, with a brilliant fire that is almost as dazzling as the real thing. However, the resemblance is superficial. Zircon is a brittle stone, easily broken with a well-placed knock, due to internal stresses in the crystal caused by radiation damage and heat treatment. But despite its frail disposition, the stone is still highly valued because of its stunning beauty.

Major sources of zircon are the Chanthaburi area of Thailand, the Palin area of Cambodia and the southern part of Vietnam near the Cambodian border, where gemstones are found in alluvial deposits. Bangkok is well-known as a major center for processing zircons, where everything from heat treatment, cutting and marketing is carried out. Another important source is Sri Lanka, well known for a colorless variety of zircon called the ‘Matura diamond’. The gemstones are also found in Burma, France, Norway, Australia and Canada.

Its name is probably derived from the Arabic words “zar” and “gun”, meaning “gold” and “color”. The gemstone is found in a wide range of colors, and possess great brilliance, fire and clarity.
The hyacinth and jacinth, reddish-brown and orange-red varieties of zircon, were a favorite stone of ancient Arabs and was even mentioned in the famed book, ‘Arabian Nights’.

Green zircon was among the stones of the ‘Kalpa Tree’ of the Hindu religion, where it represented the tree’s foliage. This tree was a symbolic offering to the gods. Hindu poets of the 19th century described it as a glowing ensemble of precious stones that also included sapphires, diamonds and topaz.

Zircon was regarded as the amulet for travelers in the Eleventh century, protecting them from disease, injury, and insomnia, as well as assuring a cordial welcome wherever their travels would take them. The gem was also believed to hold magic powers to fight evil spirits. During the Fourteenth century, zircon was popular as a safeguard against the Black Death, the great plague that wiped out one quarter of the population of Europe. The stone was believed to possess healing powers. It was prescribed to insomniacs to induce sleep, used as an antidote against poison, and as an aid to digestion.

December’s birthstones are turquoise and zircon. Find out about the birthstones for all the months of the year:
January birthstone
February birthstone
March birthstone
April birthstone
May birthstone
June birthstone
July birthstone
August birthstone
September birthstone
October birthstone
November birthstone
December birthstone

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1i0E2Cp

Ben Swann returns, and this time he’s got the CDC whistleblower documents [Respectful Insolence]

When it comes to blogging, sometime’s it’s feast or famine. Some days there are more topics and stories that I’d like to blog about than I could ever get to, given that I generally only do one post per weekday, while other days I seriously think about skipping a day because there’s just nothing out there that interests me. This is one of the former kinds of days.

Seriously, there was an embarrassment of riches last night, so much so that I had a hard time making up my mind what story to write about. The one that I ultimately chose only just edged out the second place choice, and then only at the last minute and then only because it is a followup to a post I did about about a month ago. I might well get to the runner up tomorrow, but for now it’s time to revisit a story I’ve done a lot of blogging about because it’s come up again.

How many of you remember Ben Swann? Well, he’s back.

Regular readers might remember that Swann is the clueless, conspiracy-minded “investigative reporter” who anchors the evening news for WGCL-CBS46 in Atlanta. The location is important, because it’ means he’s the local news anchor for a major CBS affiliate who did a highly credulous story about the the “#CDCtruth” rally in October. As you recall, that rally involved the Nation of Islam, Barbara Loe Fisher of the antivaccine group the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) that she founded, and a whole gaggle of other antivaccine activists, the most prominent of whom was our old pal Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who’s risen, Phoenix-like, since his disappearance from the antivaccine movement several years ago, to write a fear-mongering book about mercury in vaccines and, of course, to headline the #CDCTruth rally in Atlanta in October. Basically, this tag team of pseudoscience was the culmination of a partnership between antivaccine activists with Minister Tony Muhammad of the Nation of Islam (NOI) that began when antivaccinationists used the “CDC whistleblower” manufactroversy to persuade high ranking members of the NOI that vaccines can cause cause autism in African-American boys. Using that misinformation, they were able to persuade the NOI to join in the fight against SB 277, the new law in California that will eliminate nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates beginning in 2016.

The whole “CDC whistleblower” saga is a long and complicated story that began in August 2014 and has progressed and metastasized since then to become a major focus of many antivaccine activists and groups. The long version of the tale can be found here and here. As is my wont, before I tell you what Swann’s up to now, I’ll provide a CliffsNotes version for the casual reader and newbie because it’s necessary to know a bit about who the “CDC whistleblower” is, what he claims, and what all this has to do with Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), which is where Swann comes in. Regular readers who are familiar with the story might want to skip ahead. If you don’t know the story, please read the next couple of paragraphs.

The “CDC whistleblower,” as you might recall, is a psychologist who works for the CDC and was involved in planning and carrying out some pivotal studies that failed to find a correlation between vaccination and autism, including a 2004 study whose lead author was Frank DeStefano (henceforth referred to as DeStefano et al). Beginning in November 2013, for reasons known only to himself, Thompson somehow became chummy with Brian Hooker, someone whom I like to refer to as a biochemical engineer turned incompetent antivaccine epidemiologist because that’s exactly what he is. Not realizing that his conversations were being recorded, Thompson spoke to Hooker in several telephone calls in which, apparently racked with guilt over his role in DeStefano et al examining MMR vaccine uptake as a risk factor for autism, he unburdened himself, kvetched about his CDC colleagues, and basically accused the CDC of covering up a finding that earlier MMR vaccination correlated with autism in African American boys. Even if one were to take that finding at face value, it actually was a study that showed that Andrew Wakefield was basically wrong in that no such correlation was found in Caucasians, male or female, African American girls, or any other racial group. That right away should have suggested to Thompson that it’s a spurious finding due to small numbers in the subgroup. It was, of course, a finding that disappeared when proper statistical correction was made for confounders.

As a result of these conversations and the data supplied to him by Thompson, Brian Hooker did an epically incompetent “reanalysis” of DeStefano et al. What this reanalysis claimed to find was that DeStefano et al had done some statistical prestidigitation to eliminate a statistically significant difference in African American males correlating with age of MMR vaccination. Of course, as I discussed at the time (as did many others), Hooker, in his love of “simplicity,” had neglected to control for important confounders and imputed way too much significance to a spurious correlation that disappeared when proper correction for confounders was made. As I’ve put it many times, simplicity in statistical analyses of epidemiological data is not a virtue. In any case, so incredibly incompetent was Hooker’s analysis that the journal actually retracted the paper. Because Thompson’s allegations appeared to confirm the central conspiracy theory of the antivaccine movement (that the CDC knew vaccines cause autism but were hiding it from the public), the antivaccine movement has been beating this dead horse of a scandal for over 15 months now.

Nere’s where Rep. Bill Posey comes in. Back in July, the week before the House of Representatives went on recess, Rep. Posey gave a five minute speech on the House floor in which he claimed that Thompson had told him that his co-investigators on DeStefano et al had destroyed primary evidence for the study, claiming that the “four co-authors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all the hard copy documents that we had thought we should discard and put them in a huge garbage can.” Thompson, as you might recall, stated that he had saved a copy of these documents, and Rep. Posey told the House that he had them and demanded an investigation. Stories have appeared in the antivaccine crankosphere that Rep. Posey had 100,000 pages of documents.

Nothing much has happened since then, other than the tiny and ineffectual “#CDCtruth” rally in October. Certainly, Congress has not investigated the CDC whistleblower charges. So guess what happened? The antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism is more than happy to tell the tale:

Ben Swann began reporting on the problems in the vaccine program two years ago, and today on Age of Autism he discloses that Congressman Bill Posey has released to him the CDC documents turned over to Congress by Dr. William Thompson concerning the cover up of the links between the MMR and autism. Swann discusses Vaccine safety, vaccine choice, potential corruption at CDC and his plans for the #CDCwhistleblower documents in a video interview with Age of Autism Media Editor, Anne Dachel.

Oh, goody. Judging from his previous brain dead coverage of the #CDCtruth rally, we’re in for some entertaining times here on the skeptic side. For one thing, this move on Posey’s part, if he really has given Swann all of the CDC whistleblower documents, strikes me as sheer desperation. He obviously wasn’t getting any traction in his attempts to get a Congressional committee to investigate Thompson’s allegations; so he decided to dump the documents into the hands of a sympathetic journalist, who then gave an interview to the Internet’s premier antivaccine website and blog:

Here we learn where Swann got interested in the topic of vaccines:

It was in 2014*, I was in Minneapolis for an event that I was asked to speak at. It was an event about liberty, and while I was there, I had a chance to meet really two people whose names I did not know: Jennifer Larson and Mark Blaxill. These were two people who came to this event that was in part sponsored by the Canary Party. And I didn’t know what the Canary Party was either by the way, and while we were there, I had a chance to talk with them for a few minutes. They started explaining to me some of the issues with vaccines and concerns about vaccines. (*Correction: 2013)

And:

And then they were beginning to explain about the vaccine schedule, how much it’s increased over the past thirty years vs the number of cases that actually make it into vaccine court. It was really interesting. And so we decided to create a Truth in Media episode with Jennifer and Mark, and to interview Mark about this because the issue of vaccine court was so interesting to me.

Here is the video:

Contained in that video is ten minutes worth of seriously burning stupid. It hits many of the common antivaccine tropes, including the claim that the government has “quietly awarded” families of autistic children damages for vaccine injury. Never mind that the compensation was not for autism and the study used to claim to show this was unethical and poorly designed. Meanwhile, as I listened to Swann’s description of the Vaccine Court and its creation in 1986, I couldn’t help but hear Rob Schneider’s voice, because Swann was clearly cribbing the same talking points that Schneider does, full of the same misinformation and deceptive talking points. Of course, that’s not surprising, given that Swann relies on Mark Blaxill of the antivaccine Canary Party for his information. Swann also engages in—shall we say?—a bit of revisionist history about the Autism Omnibus hearing.

No wonder Swann thinks like this. Get a load of an analogy he makes in his interview:

Because there is this assumption that if you cover a certain subject you’re obviously taking a position on it, you’re taking a side on it. And as a journalist, that should never be true. No matter what issue you cover as a journalist, it should not be based on your own preference or your own opinion.

“As a lot of journalists would look at this story, …they’re told, ‘Well listen, those people are crazy. There’s all these anti-vaxxers out there. And if you do anything that indicates that you’re among them, or you’re one of them, it discredits you.’

“Now what’s completely nonsensical about that is, if we cover terrorism, if we cover ISIS, that doesn’t make us a part of ISIS. If we say, ‘Hey, let’s take a look at how ISIS formed in the first place,’ that doesn’t make you a terrorist or a suicide bomber. And yet if you say, ‘Let’s take a look at what these people are talking about when it comes to vaccination,’ they’ll say, ‘Oh wait, that makes you anti-vax.’ It’s a very bizarre thing.

No, it’s not bizarre at all. Swann’s analogy is ridiculous and deceptive. A better analogy would be if a reporter were to report on ISIS and credulously repeat its propaganda as news and as true. Any reporter that did that would rapidly become viewed as either sympathetic to ISIS or a dupe of ISIS, in just the same way that reporters like Ben Swann and Sharyl Attkisson are quite correctly viewed as either sympathetic to antivaccinationists or their dupes. Given the enthusiasm with which Swann regurgitates antivaccine talking points, I don’t think he’s a dupe. I think he’s become sympathetic to antivaccine views. Sure, it’s possible that he’s just so clueless about science that he thinks he’s really discovered an important story, but his conspiracy mongering about big pharma tends to lead me back to thinking he’s been converted.

He’s also proud of his previous coverage, which he really should not be. He gushes about how many people called him and sent him supportive e-mails and bragged about how “this is by far the largest news organization that’s ever covered this issue, and done it in a very public way.” Of course, given that CBS 46 is only a CBS affiliate, it should tell Swann something that it’s the biggest media outlet that’s covered the story.

He then attacks a straw man:

“One of the claims was that this whole thing was made up.

“As a journalist, that bothers me. It bothers me because, candidly, I haven’t seen the documents either. Maybe they’re right, maybe they don’t exist.

“So the next step for me was to contact Congressman Posey and say I would like to have the documents. Please release to me all those documents. And I’ll let your listeners know that Congressman Posey has complied with that request for the documents.

“So I now have copies of all of the information that Dr. Thompson handed over to Congress. We’re going through that information right now. We’re studying it and we’ll be releasing that information at some point, to the public.

“Again, because it’s not my information–it doesn’t belong to me. It is my job, I believe, as a journalist, to share that information. I want to do it in a responsible way. But it will be shared with the public because I believe they have a right to know.

“And again, the CDC should have done this themselves a long time ago. They should have come clean with it. They didn’t. Dr. Thompson could have come clean on his own, but he didn’t. He’s gone through the channels, based on what his attorneys have told him.

“But as a journalist, I have the ability to share that information. That’s one of the reasons that we’ve established Truth in Media Project and TruthInMedia.com so that truth can reach the public.

“So stayed tuned for that because very soon…you’re going to have access to those documents yourselves.”

Oh, goody.

Here’s the problem. First, no one say said that the “whole thing was made up.” Rather, what we have argued is that the case is almost certainly a major misunderstanding or misinterpretation of what actually happened. Certainly, its key premise, that DeStefano et al showed that African American boys who receive the MMR earlier are at a much higher risk of autism than those who don’t and that the CDC covered it up, is not supported by evidence and rests on the misinterpretation of the DeStefano et al dataset. More importantly, interpreting documents like the ones allegedly provided by William Thompson is not a simple matter. You need to know the science; you need to know a bit about how the CDC works; you need to know a bit of statistics.

Maybe that’s why it looks as though Swann won’t be reporting on these documents for CBS 46 but rather for his own YouTube channel. Indeed, he even uses the opportunity of the interview to pimp his IndieGoGo campaign Global Activist, an Internet series. There’s also another issue. Even if you take Thompson at his word and these are documents “destroyed” by the CDC, how can Swann even be sure that theyse are the real documents? How can we verify the chain of custody? Inquiring minds want to know!

Antivaccinationists have been flogging the CDC whistleblower manufactroversy for well over a year now. All they’ve managed to accomplish thus far are to ally themselves with the Nation of Islam, which has of late become so tightly associated with the Church of Scientology that it might as well be a wholly owned subsidiary, and to stage a small protest at the CDC and in Atlanta. Even if Swann does release all these documents, I highly doubt that he’ll manage to to what antivaccinationists and Twitter were unable to do: Make it into a real story that hits the national news in a big way and triggers a major investigation of the CDC. After all, if a Congressman couldn’t get that to happen after many months, either he wasn’t trying very hard (which is quite possible) or there’s just no there there.

I guess we’ll see.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1HCxUUC

When it comes to blogging, sometime’s it’s feast or famine. Some days there are more topics and stories that I’d like to blog about than I could ever get to, given that I generally only do one post per weekday, while other days I seriously think about skipping a day because there’s just nothing out there that interests me. This is one of the former kinds of days.

Seriously, there was an embarrassment of riches last night, so much so that I had a hard time making up my mind what story to write about. The one that I ultimately chose only just edged out the second place choice, and then only at the last minute and then only because it is a followup to a post I did about about a month ago. I might well get to the runner up tomorrow, but for now it’s time to revisit a story I’ve done a lot of blogging about because it’s come up again.

How many of you remember Ben Swann? Well, he’s back.

Regular readers might remember that Swann is the clueless, conspiracy-minded “investigative reporter” who anchors the evening news for WGCL-CBS46 in Atlanta. The location is important, because it’ means he’s the local news anchor for a major CBS affiliate who did a highly credulous story about the the “#CDCtruth” rally in October. As you recall, that rally involved the Nation of Islam, Barbara Loe Fisher of the antivaccine group the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) that she founded, and a whole gaggle of other antivaccine activists, the most prominent of whom was our old pal Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who’s risen, Phoenix-like, since his disappearance from the antivaccine movement several years ago, to write a fear-mongering book about mercury in vaccines and, of course, to headline the #CDCTruth rally in Atlanta in October. Basically, this tag team of pseudoscience was the culmination of a partnership between antivaccine activists with Minister Tony Muhammad of the Nation of Islam (NOI) that began when antivaccinationists used the “CDC whistleblower” manufactroversy to persuade high ranking members of the NOI that vaccines can cause cause autism in African-American boys. Using that misinformation, they were able to persuade the NOI to join in the fight against SB 277, the new law in California that will eliminate nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates beginning in 2016.

The whole “CDC whistleblower” saga is a long and complicated story that began in August 2014 and has progressed and metastasized since then to become a major focus of many antivaccine activists and groups. The long version of the tale can be found here and here. As is my wont, before I tell you what Swann’s up to now, I’ll provide a CliffsNotes version for the casual reader and newbie because it’s necessary to know a bit about who the “CDC whistleblower” is, what he claims, and what all this has to do with Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), which is where Swann comes in. Regular readers who are familiar with the story might want to skip ahead. If you don’t know the story, please read the next couple of paragraphs.

The “CDC whistleblower,” as you might recall, is a psychologist who works for the CDC and was involved in planning and carrying out some pivotal studies that failed to find a correlation between vaccination and autism, including a 2004 study whose lead author was Frank DeStefano (henceforth referred to as DeStefano et al). Beginning in November 2013, for reasons known only to himself, Thompson somehow became chummy with Brian Hooker, someone whom I like to refer to as a biochemical engineer turned incompetent antivaccine epidemiologist because that’s exactly what he is. Not realizing that his conversations were being recorded, Thompson spoke to Hooker in several telephone calls in which, apparently racked with guilt over his role in DeStefano et al examining MMR vaccine uptake as a risk factor for autism, he unburdened himself, kvetched about his CDC colleagues, and basically accused the CDC of covering up a finding that earlier MMR vaccination correlated with autism in African American boys. Even if one were to take that finding at face value, it actually was a study that showed that Andrew Wakefield was basically wrong in that no such correlation was found in Caucasians, male or female, African American girls, or any other racial group. That right away should have suggested to Thompson that it’s a spurious finding due to small numbers in the subgroup. It was, of course, a finding that disappeared when proper statistical correction was made for confounders.

As a result of these conversations and the data supplied to him by Thompson, Brian Hooker did an epically incompetent “reanalysis” of DeStefano et al. What this reanalysis claimed to find was that DeStefano et al had done some statistical prestidigitation to eliminate a statistically significant difference in African American males correlating with age of MMR vaccination. Of course, as I discussed at the time (as did many others), Hooker, in his love of “simplicity,” had neglected to control for important confounders and imputed way too much significance to a spurious correlation that disappeared when proper correction for confounders was made. As I’ve put it many times, simplicity in statistical analyses of epidemiological data is not a virtue. In any case, so incredibly incompetent was Hooker’s analysis that the journal actually retracted the paper. Because Thompson’s allegations appeared to confirm the central conspiracy theory of the antivaccine movement (that the CDC knew vaccines cause autism but were hiding it from the public), the antivaccine movement has been beating this dead horse of a scandal for over 15 months now.

Nere’s where Rep. Bill Posey comes in. Back in July, the week before the House of Representatives went on recess, Rep. Posey gave a five minute speech on the House floor in which he claimed that Thompson had told him that his co-investigators on DeStefano et al had destroyed primary evidence for the study, claiming that the “four co-authors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all the hard copy documents that we had thought we should discard and put them in a huge garbage can.” Thompson, as you might recall, stated that he had saved a copy of these documents, and Rep. Posey told the House that he had them and demanded an investigation. Stories have appeared in the antivaccine crankosphere that Rep. Posey had 100,000 pages of documents.

Nothing much has happened since then, other than the tiny and ineffectual “#CDCtruth” rally in October. Certainly, Congress has not investigated the CDC whistleblower charges. So guess what happened? The antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism is more than happy to tell the tale:

Ben Swann began reporting on the problems in the vaccine program two years ago, and today on Age of Autism he discloses that Congressman Bill Posey has released to him the CDC documents turned over to Congress by Dr. William Thompson concerning the cover up of the links between the MMR and autism. Swann discusses Vaccine safety, vaccine choice, potential corruption at CDC and his plans for the #CDCwhistleblower documents in a video interview with Age of Autism Media Editor, Anne Dachel.

Oh, goody. Judging from his previous brain dead coverage of the #CDCtruth rally, we’re in for some entertaining times here on the skeptic side. For one thing, this move on Posey’s part, if he really has given Swann all of the CDC whistleblower documents, strikes me as sheer desperation. He obviously wasn’t getting any traction in his attempts to get a Congressional committee to investigate Thompson’s allegations; so he decided to dump the documents into the hands of a sympathetic journalist, who then gave an interview to the Internet’s premier antivaccine website and blog:

Here we learn where Swann got interested in the topic of vaccines:

It was in 2014*, I was in Minneapolis for an event that I was asked to speak at. It was an event about liberty, and while I was there, I had a chance to meet really two people whose names I did not know: Jennifer Larson and Mark Blaxill. These were two people who came to this event that was in part sponsored by the Canary Party. And I didn’t know what the Canary Party was either by the way, and while we were there, I had a chance to talk with them for a few minutes. They started explaining to me some of the issues with vaccines and concerns about vaccines. (*Correction: 2013)

And:

And then they were beginning to explain about the vaccine schedule, how much it’s increased over the past thirty years vs the number of cases that actually make it into vaccine court. It was really interesting. And so we decided to create a Truth in Media episode with Jennifer and Mark, and to interview Mark about this because the issue of vaccine court was so interesting to me.

Here is the video:

Contained in that video is ten minutes worth of seriously burning stupid. It hits many of the common antivaccine tropes, including the claim that the government has “quietly awarded” families of autistic children damages for vaccine injury. Never mind that the compensation was not for autism and the study used to claim to show this was unethical and poorly designed. Meanwhile, as I listened to Swann’s description of the Vaccine Court and its creation in 1986, I couldn’t help but hear Rob Schneider’s voice, because Swann was clearly cribbing the same talking points that Schneider does, full of the same misinformation and deceptive talking points. Of course, that’s not surprising, given that Swann relies on Mark Blaxill of the antivaccine Canary Party for his information. Swann also engages in—shall we say?—a bit of revisionist history about the Autism Omnibus hearing.

No wonder Swann thinks like this. Get a load of an analogy he makes in his interview:

Because there is this assumption that if you cover a certain subject you’re obviously taking a position on it, you’re taking a side on it. And as a journalist, that should never be true. No matter what issue you cover as a journalist, it should not be based on your own preference or your own opinion.

“As a lot of journalists would look at this story, …they’re told, ‘Well listen, those people are crazy. There’s all these anti-vaxxers out there. And if you do anything that indicates that you’re among them, or you’re one of them, it discredits you.’

“Now what’s completely nonsensical about that is, if we cover terrorism, if we cover ISIS, that doesn’t make us a part of ISIS. If we say, ‘Hey, let’s take a look at how ISIS formed in the first place,’ that doesn’t make you a terrorist or a suicide bomber. And yet if you say, ‘Let’s take a look at what these people are talking about when it comes to vaccination,’ they’ll say, ‘Oh wait, that makes you anti-vax.’ It’s a very bizarre thing.

No, it’s not bizarre at all. Swann’s analogy is ridiculous and deceptive. A better analogy would be if a reporter were to report on ISIS and credulously repeat its propaganda as news and as true. Any reporter that did that would rapidly become viewed as either sympathetic to ISIS or a dupe of ISIS, in just the same way that reporters like Ben Swann and Sharyl Attkisson are quite correctly viewed as either sympathetic to antivaccinationists or their dupes. Given the enthusiasm with which Swann regurgitates antivaccine talking points, I don’t think he’s a dupe. I think he’s become sympathetic to antivaccine views. Sure, it’s possible that he’s just so clueless about science that he thinks he’s really discovered an important story, but his conspiracy mongering about big pharma tends to lead me back to thinking he’s been converted.

He’s also proud of his previous coverage, which he really should not be. He gushes about how many people called him and sent him supportive e-mails and bragged about how “this is by far the largest news organization that’s ever covered this issue, and done it in a very public way.” Of course, given that CBS 46 is only a CBS affiliate, it should tell Swann something that it’s the biggest media outlet that’s covered the story.

He then attacks a straw man:

“One of the claims was that this whole thing was made up.

“As a journalist, that bothers me. It bothers me because, candidly, I haven’t seen the documents either. Maybe they’re right, maybe they don’t exist.

“So the next step for me was to contact Congressman Posey and say I would like to have the documents. Please release to me all those documents. And I’ll let your listeners know that Congressman Posey has complied with that request for the documents.

“So I now have copies of all of the information that Dr. Thompson handed over to Congress. We’re going through that information right now. We’re studying it and we’ll be releasing that information at some point, to the public.

“Again, because it’s not my information–it doesn’t belong to me. It is my job, I believe, as a journalist, to share that information. I want to do it in a responsible way. But it will be shared with the public because I believe they have a right to know.

“And again, the CDC should have done this themselves a long time ago. They should have come clean with it. They didn’t. Dr. Thompson could have come clean on his own, but he didn’t. He’s gone through the channels, based on what his attorneys have told him.

“But as a journalist, I have the ability to share that information. That’s one of the reasons that we’ve established Truth in Media Project and TruthInMedia.com so that truth can reach the public.

“So stayed tuned for that because very soon…you’re going to have access to those documents yourselves.”

Oh, goody.

Here’s the problem. First, no one say said that the “whole thing was made up.” Rather, what we have argued is that the case is almost certainly a major misunderstanding or misinterpretation of what actually happened. Certainly, its key premise, that DeStefano et al showed that African American boys who receive the MMR earlier are at a much higher risk of autism than those who don’t and that the CDC covered it up, is not supported by evidence and rests on the misinterpretation of the DeStefano et al dataset. More importantly, interpreting documents like the ones allegedly provided by William Thompson is not a simple matter. You need to know the science; you need to know a bit about how the CDC works; you need to know a bit of statistics.

Maybe that’s why it looks as though Swann won’t be reporting on these documents for CBS 46 but rather for his own YouTube channel. Indeed, he even uses the opportunity of the interview to pimp his IndieGoGo campaign Global Activist, an Internet series. There’s also another issue. Even if you take Thompson at his word and these are documents “destroyed” by the CDC, how can Swann even be sure that theyse are the real documents? How can we verify the chain of custody? Inquiring minds want to know!

Antivaccinationists have been flogging the CDC whistleblower manufactroversy for well over a year now. All they’ve managed to accomplish thus far are to ally themselves with the Nation of Islam, which has of late become so tightly associated with the Church of Scientology that it might as well be a wholly owned subsidiary, and to stage a small protest at the CDC and in Atlanta. Even if Swann does release all these documents, I highly doubt that he’ll manage to to what antivaccinationists and Twitter were unable to do: Make it into a real story that hits the national news in a big way and triggers a major investigation of the CDC. After all, if a Congressman couldn’t get that to happen after many months, either he wasn’t trying very hard (which is quite possible) or there’s just no there there.

I guess we’ll see.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1HCxUUC

091/366: Turkey Talk [Uncertain Principles]

Not an incredibly artistic or innovative bit of photography, here, but I spent a good chunk of the day taking The Pip for his annual physical, so the only pictures I took were of SteelyKid’s schoolwork:

SteelyKid’s second-grade assignment to imagine and illustrate a conversation with a turkey.

This assignment asked her to draw herself asking a question that a turkey would then answer, and then the turkey asking her one in return. Her writing is more enthusiastic than accurate as far as spelling is concerned, but she has a good imagination. In case you can’t make it out (spelling corrected):

SteelyKid: Are turkeys fast runners?
Turkey: No, they are too fat and heavy so they do not run fast.

Turkey: What happens when you get full?
SteelyKid: We get sick and throw up on the ground.

And there’s this week’s bit of insight into the second-grade mindset…

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1IzdPJL

Not an incredibly artistic or innovative bit of photography, here, but I spent a good chunk of the day taking The Pip for his annual physical, so the only pictures I took were of SteelyKid’s schoolwork:

SteelyKid’s second-grade assignment to imagine and illustrate a conversation with a turkey.

This assignment asked her to draw herself asking a question that a turkey would then answer, and then the turkey asking her one in return. Her writing is more enthusiastic than accurate as far as spelling is concerned, but she has a good imagination. In case you can’t make it out (spelling corrected):

SteelyKid: Are turkeys fast runners?
Turkey: No, they are too fat and heavy so they do not run fast.

Turkey: What happens when you get full?
SteelyKid: We get sick and throw up on the ground.

And there’s this week’s bit of insight into the second-grade mindset…

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1IzdPJL

Moon and Jupiter in early December

On Wednesday morning – December 2, 2015 – the bright star right next to the moon is Regulus in the constellation Leo. And the very bright object nearby is a planet, Jupiter. The moon will be sweeping through Leo, near Jupiter in the next several mornings.

Do you have to get up early to see the moon and Jupiter? Though our chart shows the hours before sunup, Jupiter is up long before that. Its exact rising time depends on your latitude and longitude, but, generally speaking, Jupiter will be well over your horizon by 1-2 a.m. – that’s local time, the time on your clock, no matter where you are.

The star Regulus – and the moon – are above the eastern horizon even earlier on this date. If you stay up until very late evening on December 1 or 2, you might see the moon and the Leo star Regulus climbing over the eastern horizon before your bedtime.

Still, if you want to see Jupiter well – and maybe glimpse its moons through binoculars – you’re better off waking up early and looking in the predawn sky. The moon and Jupiter and the constellation Leo will be higher in the sky and easier to see at that hour.

That’s not the only reason to get up early, however. You can see two more planets – Venus and Mars. See the sky chart below.

Almost gone! EarthSky lunar calendars make great gifts. Order now.

For illustrative purposes, the moon appears larger than it does in the real sky. The green line depicts the ecliptic – Earth’s orbital planet projected onto the great dome of sky.

Plus, you can see sparkling blue-white Spica, the constellation Virgo’s brightest star.

Before dawn on December 2, use the moon to find Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation Leo. Then draw an imaginary line from Regulus, a key star of the Zodiac, through Jupiter to locate the planets Mars and Venus. Close to Venus is the star Spica, another key star of the Zodiac.

Bottom line: The predawn sky throughout the first week of December, 2015, offers fine views of the moon and planets. On the morning of December 2, the moon pairs up with Regulus, the constellation Leo’s brightest star. Jupiter will be the much-brighter object shining nearby.

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On Wednesday morning – December 2, 2015 – the bright star right next to the moon is Regulus in the constellation Leo. And the very bright object nearby is a planet, Jupiter. The moon will be sweeping through Leo, near Jupiter in the next several mornings.

Do you have to get up early to see the moon and Jupiter? Though our chart shows the hours before sunup, Jupiter is up long before that. Its exact rising time depends on your latitude and longitude, but, generally speaking, Jupiter will be well over your horizon by 1-2 a.m. – that’s local time, the time on your clock, no matter where you are.

The star Regulus – and the moon – are above the eastern horizon even earlier on this date. If you stay up until very late evening on December 1 or 2, you might see the moon and the Leo star Regulus climbing over the eastern horizon before your bedtime.

Still, if you want to see Jupiter well – and maybe glimpse its moons through binoculars – you’re better off waking up early and looking in the predawn sky. The moon and Jupiter and the constellation Leo will be higher in the sky and easier to see at that hour.

That’s not the only reason to get up early, however. You can see two more planets – Venus and Mars. See the sky chart below.

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For illustrative purposes, the moon appears larger than it does in the real sky. The green line depicts the ecliptic – Earth’s orbital planet projected onto the great dome of sky.

Plus, you can see sparkling blue-white Spica, the constellation Virgo’s brightest star.

Before dawn on December 2, use the moon to find Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation Leo. Then draw an imaginary line from Regulus, a key star of the Zodiac, through Jupiter to locate the planets Mars and Venus. Close to Venus is the star Spica, another key star of the Zodiac.

Bottom line: The predawn sky throughout the first week of December, 2015, offers fine views of the moon and planets. On the morning of December 2, the moon pairs up with Regulus, the constellation Leo’s brightest star. Jupiter will be the much-brighter object shining nearby.

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