Category Archives: Science (real)

And that’s the Truth! Pbbbbbbbbt!

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Genetically Modified apples that don’t brown are in the news this week. The Arctic Golden and Arctic Granny apples were created by Okanagan Specialty Fruits, a small company in Canada. The USDA approved them for U.S. consumers on Friday.

Moron Holding Sign“The morons say GMO foods cause famine?” an incredulous Rufus said when we saw one on ABC News holding a sign.

Global Warming, measles, and GMO apples give us a good stepping stone to consider facts and truth and moronity.

GLOBAL WARMING
Political Assertion: “Man-made Global warming is making sea level rise.”
Fact: The Isthmus of Panama “recently” formed; that allowed armadillos to migrate from South America into North America by the early Pleistocene.
Fact: The Bering land bridge intermittently connected Asia with North America as sea levels rose and fell under the effect of ice ages; at one point that allowed early humans to migrate from South America into North America.
Truth: The climate does change over time but none of those huge changes had anything to do with humans. Only a moron could believe a politician can fix it with a tax.

MEASLES
Political Assertion: “Vaccinations cause bad shit.”
Fact: The United States eliminated measles in 2000 thanks to vaccination levels over 90% of the school-age population. China and Mexico have almost no measles infections thanks to vaccination levels over 90% of the school-age population.
Fact: Measles cases in the United States are at their highest level since 2000.
Truth: Most current infections occur in unvaccinated people, most of whom declined the injections for religious, philosophical or political reasons. Only a moron could believe that the political science of climate change is so vastly right but the real science of disease prevention is so vastly wrong.

GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS
Political Assertion: “GMO foods cause famine.”
Fact: Genetically modified wheat doubled yields in Mexico, India, and Pakistan and have saved over a billion people from starvation.
Fact: Modern corn (maize) began with a huge leap in genetic modification about 10,000 years ago when farmers in Mexico domesticated maize by choosing seeds because they came from taller plants or tasted better or were easier to grind. This selective breeding or artificial selection led directly to the corn we enjoy today. Modern genetic tools reduce the labor force needed to produce enough food for us and reduce the need for evil pesticides.
Truth: Politicians make stuff up. Morons believe them.

TRUTHS
• The solar deniers cult simply ignore the inconvenient truths that their computer models are flawed, that Michael Mann’s flawed hockey stick graph was never real science, and even that solar activity has some small teeny-tiny relationship to temperature here.

Whether climate change is man made or not has become a religious argument with the faith-based politicians who believe with all their hearts and none of their brains using the story to make money and that magic will keep their feet dry and their crops growing. The facts paint a different story.

The climate is always changing. The wise human will prepare for the change while the moron rails against the thermometer.

• The liberal left and the conservative right have joined forces under the anti-vaxer’s tinfoil hat of political science disease prevention.

Whether vaccine is good or bad has become a religious argument with the faith-based anti-vaxers political cult who believe with all their hearts and none of their brains that magic will keep them safe. The facts paint a different story.

Vaccination can prevent the once common diseases that ravaged us — polio, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, rubella, mumps, tetanus, rotavirus and the flu. The wise human will protect him or herself while the moron rails against the needle.

• ABC  News also noted in the GMO story that 80% of the corn we eat is genetically modified. ABC News was dead wrong. 100% of the corn we eat is genetically modified.

Whether genetic mods are good or bad has become a religious argument with the faith-based politicians who believe with all their hearts and none of their brains trying ban all change and that magic will keep them fed. The facts paint a different story.

Foods evolve whether we do it in the field or the lab. The wise human will measure the impact of the change while the moron rails against the science.

So. Facts and truth and moronity.
The wise human observes a problem, gathers facts, has an idea, tests the idea, and draws a conclusion. The wise human tests that conclusion against any new data.
The moron hears a perfect idea on the Interwebs, finds a fact that confirms the idea, concludes it was a great idea and never ever needs changing, and then rails against the science that contradicts him or her.

And that’s the Truth!

 

Far Green Screws Consumers and Environment. Again

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New York City has banned yet another common product. First it was the trans fats when the City worried about gangs greasing up the subway tracks. Then the red Solo™ cup of soda. Next it was selfies with kittens.

Now, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that the largest city in the U.S. will ban polystyrene foam, effective July 1. No more packing peanuts. No more takeout coffee cups. No more Rigid Foam insulation.
Coffee Cup on the Beach
Actually I’m good with losing packing peanuts. They are such a PITA to store in my barn.

And I don’t drink coffee.

More than 75 cities and counties in California have banned polystyrene food and beverage containers and more. Brookline, Massachusetts, did the same in 2013. And now NYC.

Did the U.S. suddenly suffer a cranio-rectal inversion? Did the science-denying State of California suddenly end up on the East Coast?

There is, as usual, pretty good (read “scientific”) evidence that plastic is better than paper. It seems that science is anathema to the Far Green.

Let’s spend a minute with the real science instead of the political science.

Study after study has compared “styrofoam” cups side by each with paper cups to find that

• Polystyrene is derived from petroleum and natural-gas. It takes 4,748 gallons of water to make 10,000 Polystyrene cups. The 5.4 million BTUs needed to make 10,000 16-ounce polystyrene cups is about the same as burning 450 pounds of coal. Most important, it takes gallons of water.

• In addition to the renewable twenty million trees, most paper cups are coated with polyethylene, derived from petroleum and natural-gas. It takes 8,095 gallons of water to make 10,000 LDPE-coated paper cups with sleeves. The 6.5 million BTUs needed for 10,000 polyethylene-coated paper cups is equivalent to 542 pounds of coal. (The “greener” polylactide-coated paper cups require even more water and energy.)

Huh.

The average 16-ounce polystyrene cup uses a third less energy, produces half the solid waste by volume, releases a third less of the so-called greenhouse gases, and uses 40-percent less water than does the “green” 16-ounce paper cup with a sleeve.

[Editor’s note: the next wars will be fought over water.]

I know! I know! We’ll ban the plastic cup because it’s bad and promote the paper cup because it’s so much better for the environment.

We haven’t even gotten to life cycles.

Polystyrene is easy peasy to grind up and put through the process again and again and again so that marvelous, mailable cooler your steaks came in could have a new life as a high dollar coffee cup if the Far Green weren’t determined to cut down our forests.

Do you really want to save the environment? Carry your own mug. Don’t litter on my beach. Learn science.

 

Self-Correcting

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I often listen to the public radio broadcast Science Friday because it offers an ADHD overview of stories of discoveries and applications each week.

The show did the usual year-end-round-up last week: “What stories grabbed your attention this year? Was it the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa or the European Space Agency’s successful landing on a comet?” How about the fairly long list of scientific retractions? SciFri host Ira Flatow and his panel of science writers from Astronomy Magazine, CNet, and Scientific American buried the lead as they discussed these big stories from 2014.

The big story? Science is self-correcting.

Ebola did get a lot of attention in the MSM. The outbreak continues in West Africa. We tried a variety of experimental therapies and worked to contain, rather than cure, Ebola. And we made mistakes.

From the Sudan outbreak in 1976 that killed a storekeeper in a cotton factory in Nzara and 150 other people to British nurse Pauline Cafferkey who is now undergoing treatment at the Royal Free Hospital in London, researchers have examined and tried a long list of protocols, treatments, potential vaccines, and drug therapies.

There is still no effective medication or vaccine.

That’s the point.

Scientists have (and have had) a lot of ideas about this particular hemorrhagic virus but no final answer yet. After decades of research and work, we know how to eradicate polio, malaria, measles, rubella, and whooping cough. Parents who refuse vaccination have led to a resurgence of diseases unseen for decades in the United States from measles and mumps to Hepatitis B, rubella, and pertussis. Doctors continue looking for answers.

To date, only one infectious disease that affects humans has been eradicated. In 1980, after decades of efforts by the World Health Organization, the World Health Assembly endorsed a statement declaring smallpox eradicated.

But what about the mistakes?

The scientific method, paraphrased, is “Keep poking the bear. Eventually you’ll get him in the cage.”

You might lose some body parts along the way but, eventually, you will close the cage. Or at least have a good scientific theory.

The Scientist published the Top 10 Retractions of 2014. The two biggest were arguably stem cells and the Big Bang.

Nature published and then retracted two papers from Haruko Obokata in which she claimed she had developed Stimulus-Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency (STAP) cells from mouse cells. Science had earlier rejected one of those manuscripts for being too flawed to publish.

Astronomers announced in March that they had found ripples in space-time from the earliest moments of the universe. Scientists announced in April that the ripples may be little more than galactic dust.

These retractions aren’t the big news of science.

“It’s sort of a story of how science is self-correcting sometimes,” Ira Flatow said in the round-up.

I love phlogiston theory. Sixteenth century scientists believed that all combustible objects contain a unique element they called phlogiston. It’s released during burning, the theory goes, and fire can’t happen without it. We know better now.

Science is self-correcting.

Nineteenth century scientists believed the planet Vulcan orbited between Mercury and the Sun. French mathematician Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier proposed its existence because scientists of the day were unable to explain the peculiarities of Mercury’s orbit. (Einstein’s theory of general relativity now explains why Mercury bounces around the Sun.) We know better now. (Of course, there is still the question of Pluto.)

Science is self-correcting.

Nineteenth century scientists also believed the Martian canals, the apparent network of gullies and ravines, were anything from Interstate Highways to a sophisticated irrigation system. We know better now.

Science is self-correcting.

Twentieth century scientists believed that the size of the universe was constant. Since the total volume of the universe was fixed, the whole universe operated as a closed system. The Static Universe is often known as “Einstein’s Universe” because he incorporated it into his theory of general relativity. We maybe know better now.

Unca LudwigScience is self-correcting.

Twenty-first century scientists believed that fossil fuel combustion emits more CO2 than phlogiston. ^H^H^H. Twenty-first century scientists believed that fossil fuel combustion emits more CO2 than termites.

“Science is self-correcting,” Ira said.

“Except political science,” Dick added.

Seventeenth century political scientists of the Inquisition under Pope Paul V ordered Galileo Galilei to recant his theory that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the center of the universe. He was placed under house arrest for life. He was lucky not to have been placed on the rack for heresy.

Remember that the next time some solar denier like Ira tells you “Science is self-correcting but climate science is fixed.”

 

4 Years Ago I Couldn’t Even Spell Engineer and Now I Are One

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My granddaughter took a couple of online personality tests. One, she said, simply to determine what type of personality she has and the other to think a little bit about a career path.

She got engineer in the first.

She got engineer in the second.

Huh.

“The fact that Boppa is an engineer actually made me think about it,” she said.

On this day named for Laborers on which we do no Work, I’ll talk about engineering. And what I do for work.

I’ve had vocations or avocations in a dozen different fields. From the time my folks bought a little 21′ plywood cabin cruiser, I wanted to be a belly button designer; I spent my time in high school laying out boats. Lots of boats.

Stevens recruited me with their naval architecture program and access to the renowned Davidson Lab towing tank and marine research facility. Once I got there, I found out that naval architecture was a graduate program that taught us how to lay buildings on their sides and make them float.

I.Am.Not.A.Civil.Engineer. I’ve never, ever wanted be a civil engineer. Heck, I’m just barely civilized. And I certainly didn’t want to design floating bridges to carry bulk ore (although a floating skyscraper presents some intriguing hurdles).

I am an engineer but … I founded and chair a regional arts council with a popular summer music series.

I am an engineer but … I taught swimming so I could get out of gym class in college.

I am an engineer but … I made beer cans. Millions of them.

I am an engineer but … I competed in SCCA National races (the National runoffs are back in California next month for the first time since Riverside in 1968) and built a couple of race cars.

I am an engineer but … I’ve painted pictures with words and told stories with photographs for decades. I write a weekly newspaper column. And this blog. And other stuff. My photography and digital art hangs around the United States.

I am an engineer but … I taught for Vermont Colleges.

I am an engineer but … I’ve run boats up to 65′ long offshore and along the Intracoastal Waterway.

I am an engineer but … I managed a movie theater.

I am an engineer but … I’m a pretty good cook, despite the fact that Rufus thinks I dirty too many dishes.

There is almost no job that doesn’t benefit from an engineering degree. I know teachers and priests and lawyers and doctors, a ChemEng who has been the Tech guy-in-charge for decades for Great Performances and for the Metropolitan Opera, and a (former) president of a South America country all of whom were graduated from Stevens. One of my roommates there is an electrical contractor. One handled international patents for Bell Labs. The third was a spook.

Back to belly button design.

Engineering is a ball if the math and science excites you and, even more than that, if you just can’t pass some gadget without need not only to know how it works but also how to make it better.

Maybe it shouldn’t be “I am an engineer but …” Maybe it should be “Because I am an engineer …”

Because I am an engineer… I’ve invented a faucet and a table saw table and so much more.

Because I am an engineer… I designed and built the machines that make the batteries in the forklift that transports the Amazon package that showed up on your door. I designed and built a stacker that built great piles of Playboys and TVGuides and best selling novels.

Because I am an engineer… I designed and built a 30′ family sportboat with a catamaran hull. Belly button design at its finest.

Being an engineer isn’t labor. Because I am an engineer, I’m able to do art, and build and run boats, and make beer cans, and manage the movies, and race cars, and teach swimming and computers, and write, and photograph and paint, and more. Because I am an engineer, I have fun.

 

La La Liberals

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Thought for the Day
Some presidents have talked the talk and walked the walk.
Barack Obama talks the talk and walks the links.

This isn’t a comment on how many vacation days Mr. Obama (or any other President) takes. We know that all modern Presidential staffs are in constant contact with the mother ship no matter where POTUS himself happens to be.

This is a comment on how disconnected Mr. Obama is. He gives good speech. Kind of. With a teleprompter. But he sure isn’t much on follow through.

“If he walked on water,” my friend Lido Bruhl said, “you’d complain that he doesn’t get his feet wet. And that TelePrompTer canard is so 2008.”

Heh.

Here’s talking the talk. A (baker’s) dozen times.

Housing Meltdown:
Create a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners. Fail.

Jobs:
Notarized Campaign Promise• Create 1 million new manufacturing jobs by the end of 2016 and working to double American exports. Fail.
• Stand up for American workers and businesses by combating China’s trade practices. Fail.

Security:
• Develop a Cyber Security Strategy that ensures that we can identify our attackers and a way to respond. Can you spell Snowden? Fail.
• Close Guantanamo Bay. Fail.

Veterans:
• There were 400,000 claims pending within the Veterans Benefits Administration, and over 800,000 expected in 2008. Fail.
• Make the VA a leader of national health care reform. Fail.
• Create a veterans job corps. Fail.

Healthcare:
• Close the “doughnut hole” in Medicare. I still have one.
• Expand eligibility for Medicaid. Not in Florida or 23 other states.
• Move the U.S. health care system to standard electronic health records that providers can share. Not in Vermont or most other states.
• “Help up to 40 million, no 30 million, no 15 million, no 7 million, no 7 people get health insurance.”
• “If you like your plan…” Any other questions?

To be fair to my pal Lee, no politician keeps his campaign promises. In fact today, no politician even plans to keep her campaign promises.

To be more fair to my pal Lee, my rug-chewing friend Rufus had the same love affair with Glenn Beck as lefty loons have with Mr. Obama.

“What Beck does surely is news,” Rufus told me. “He has asked the questions I have been asking for months, and he has turned up some answers. I’ve never seen Beck make a statement without sources.

“Of course, I also like a six of Becks Premium light (64 cal /12 oz),” he said in that 2008 exchange.

That’s wrong, too. A 64 calorie slightly alcoholic soda pop isn’t beer.

The only purpose of a news show is to report the answers. Mr. Beck delivered perhaps five minutes of answers leavened with 18 minutes of advertising and 37 minutes of high volume rug chewing.

That ain’t news.

In fact, all that is is rousing the rabble.

Still the usual Liberal approach to
sing Lalalalalalalalala …
say the science is settled …
or point Oh, look! A squirrel!
and to scamper away does even less for a rational discussion than quoting Mr. Beck (or Keith Olbermann). All that is is rousing the rabble. Sound familiar?

Too many Liberals use the political scientific method: Have an idea and think it’s perfect. Find data that backs up the idea. Conclude it was a great idea and never needs changing.

We can do better.

We could apply the actual scientific method in government: Observe a problem and wonder about it. Do research and gather data. Have an idea. Experiment and gather more data to test the idea. Analyze that real data and draw a conclusion.

Oddly, that could even work on Facebook.