The Science Thread!

[billy.pilgrim]

We anent allowed to say climate change.

While discussing new FEMA requirements


https://youtu.be/BLVYjACDN1E


And then there was the guy who actually said the words. Governor Ricky made him get a note from his doctor before he could return to work

[Vrede too]

2012:

New Law in North Carolina Bans Latest Scientific Predictions of Sea-Level Rise

That's apparently changed:

NC DEQ: Sea Level Rise

I'm not sure if the change was this year under our new Dem Gov. or if the stupidity was erased longer ago.

[Vrede too]

The petition to the American Museum of Natural History reads:

"Climate change denial funder Rebekah Mercer has no place on the board of a museum dedicated to science and education. Drop Mercer from the Board of Trustees."

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These are dark days for science

I try to be optimistic, but the past year hasn't been a great one for science.

The "war on science" you hear people talking about? It's real, and we're already seeing its results. Without input from researchers on the leading edge of science, policymakers are less equipped to make informed decisions — and it's easier for industry lobbyists to get their way.

Vacant posts, less advice

The numbers tell the story well. The Trump administration has filled only 20 of 83 top scientific posts as of the end of 2017, far fewer than the Obama or G.W. Bush administrations at the same point (63 and 51, respectively). The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has shrunk from 135 staffers under Obama to 45 under Trump. Most of the current OSTP staffers don't even have backgrounds in science.

Meanwhile, scientific advisory panels have been sidelined. According to a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), advisory committees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Energy and Department of the Interior (DOI) met less often in 2017 than at any time since 1997 — which is when the government began tracking these meetings. Just over 200 of the approximately 1,000 existing federal advisory committees across 24 agencies are scientific or technical, and UCS found that dozens of scientific advisory committees actually met less often than their charters directed in 2017.

Then there's EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a man who apparently doesn't want the agency to have any regulatory authority at all, and has repeatedly ignored recommendations of his own scientists. Pruitt recently banned advisors who receive EPA grants from serving on scientific advisory boards — industry scientists have always served on these panels, but with this change, the balance will be shifted towards a stronger industry presence....

[GoCubsGo]

Iconic Physicist Stephen Hawking Dies At 76


https://www.yahoo.com/news/stephen-hawk ... 55007.html

Fitting he would pass on Pi day.
3.14

[Vrede too]

Fitting he would pass on Pi day.
3.14

It's also Albert Einstein's birthday.

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Göbekli Tepe

Göbekli Tepe (pronounced [ɟøbekˈli teˈpe]), Turkish for "Potbelly Hill", is an archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, approximately 12 km (7 mi) northeast of the city of Şanlıurfa. The tell has a height of 15 m (49 ft) and is about 300 m (980 ft) in diameter. It is approximately 760 m (2,490 ft) above sea level.

The tell includes two phases of use believed to be of a social or ritual nature dating back to the 10th–8th millennium BCE. During the first phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars were erected – the world's oldest known megaliths. More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles are currently known through geophysical surveys. Each pillar has a height of up to 6 m (20 ft) and weighs up to 10 tons. They are fitted into sockets that were hewn out of the bedrock....

... Through the radiocarbon method, the end of Layer III can be fixed at about 9000 BCE (see above) but it is believed that the elevated location may have functioned as a spiritual center by 11,000 BCE or even earlier, essentially at the very end of the Pleistocene.

The surviving structures, then, not only predate pottery, metallurgy, and the invention of writing or the wheel, but were built before the so-called Neolithic Revolution, i.e., the beginning of agriculture and animal husbandry around 9000 BCE. But the construction of Göbekli Tepe implies organization of an advanced order not hitherto associated with Paleolithic, PPNA, or PPNB societies. Archaeologists estimate that up to 500 persons were required to extract the heavy pillars from local quarries and move them 100–500 meters (330–1,640 ft) to the site. The pillars weigh 10–20 metric tons (10–20 long tons; 11–22 short tons), with one still in the quarry weighing 50 tons....

Göbekli Tepe is regarded by some as an archaeological discovery of the greatest importance since it could profoundly change the understanding of a crucial stage in the development of human society. Ian Hodder of Stanford University said, "Göbekli Tepe changes everything". If indeed the site was built by hunter-gatherers as some researchers believe then it would mean that the ability to erect monumental complexes was within the capacities of these sorts of groups which would overturn previous assumptions. Some researchers believe that the construction of Göbekli Tepe may have contributed to the later development of urban civilization. As excavator Klaus Schmidt put it: "First came the temple, then the city." ...

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Tell Scott Pruitt's EPA: Stop your war on science



The petition to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and the EPA reads:

"EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's proposal to eliminate valuable data from the EPA's decision-making process will threaten public health and ultimately cost lives. Follow the guidance of the scientific community and do not adopt this disingenuous and harmful plan."

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Same topic, 6 weeks later, different petition as part of the official rule making process:

Don't let Scott Pruitt censor science

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Snapshot of extinction: Fossils show day of killer asteroid

New research released Friday captures a fossilized snapshot of the day nearly 66 million years ago when an asteroid smacked Earth, fire rained from the sky and the ground shook far worse than any modern earthquake.

It was the day that nearly all life on Earth went extinct, including the dinosaurs.

The researchers say they found evidence in North Dakota of the asteroid hit in Mexico, including fish with hot glass in their gills from flaming debris that showered back down on Earth. They also reported the discovery of charred trees, evidence of an inland tsunami and melted amber....

But, but, but, the fundies tell me that the Earth is only 6000 years old, and dinosaurs and human coexisted - I saw it with my own eyes at the Ark Encounters theme park in Williamstown, Kentucky.

There are skeptics:

Melosh called it the field's "discovery of the century." But other experts said that while some of the work is fascinating, they have some serious concerns about the research, including the lack of access to this specific Hell Creek Formation fossil site for outside scientists....

Incredible if true, science rocks.

... The researchers said the inland tsunami points to a massive earthquake generated by the asteroid crash, somewhere between a magnitude 10 and 11. That's more than 350 times stronger than the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Purdue's Melosh said as he read the study, he kept saying "wow, wow, what a discovery."

The details coming out of this are "mind-blowing," he said.

Comments:

They were laying there right next to two tickets to The Rolling Stones first ever world tour

It will happen again. Which species will take over after us? I predict cats.

Pssst, they already have.

[Vrede too]

... (Alexandria) Ocasio-Cortez attended Yorktown High School, graduating in 2007. She came in second in the Microbiology category of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair with a microbiology research project on the effect of antioxidants on the lifespan of the nematode C. elegans. In a show of appreciation for her efforts, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory named a small asteroid after her: 23238 Ocasio-Cortez....

[billy.pilgrim]

... (Alexandria) Ocasio-Cortez attended Yorktown High School, graduating in 2007. She came in second in the Microbiology category of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair with a microbiology research project on the effect of antioxidants on the lifespan of the nematode C. elegans. In a show of appreciation for her efforts, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory named a small asteroid after her: 23238 Ocasio-Cortez....

Feminist doing science. Me and tucker ain't too sure about that. Tucker asked me and I agree very much, “How did we wind up with a country in which feminists do science?”

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Feminist doing science. Me and tucker ain't too sure about that. Tucker asked me and I agree very much, “How did we wind up with a country in which feminists do science?”

Yeah, I learned about her high school science stardom from a commentor replying to someone mocking her science knowledge under an article about Tucky's misogynist stupidity and AOC's response to him.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2990&p=94482&hilit= ... nce#p94482
Then, she was also a chemist, mixologist to be exact.



Science.

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Federal Actions

This page lists federal actions targeting climate and other (non-climate) environmental science fields.

The Scientific Integrity Act is Good for Science and Good for Government

Tell Congress: Pass the Scientific Integrity Act

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I'm watching the Science Channel and the show discusses how all of Earth's water came from comets and asteroids that rained down "striking every inch of the planet's surface". Then, the very next show says no, there's water deep in the mantle where no comet could have penetrated. Some was ejected by volcanoes as water vapor creating clouds that eventually rained forming our rivers, lakes and oceans. The comets and asteroids only added to that.

[billy.pilgrim]

I'm watching the Science Channel and the show discusses how all of Earth's water came from comets and asteroids that rained down "striking every inch of the planet's surface". Then, the very next show says no, there's water deep in the mantle where no comet could have penetrated. Some was ejected by volcanoes as water vapor creating clouds that eventually rained forming our rivers, lakes and oceans. The comets and asteroids only added to that.

I thought water was on the 2nd or 3rd day.

[neoplacebo]

I'm watching the Science Channel and the show discusses how all of Earth's water came from comets and asteroids that rained down "striking every inch of the planet's surface". Then, the very next show says no, there's water deep in the mantle where no comet could have penetrated. Some was ejected by volcanoes as water vapor creating clouds that eventually rained forming our rivers, lakes and oceans. The comets and asteroids only added to that.

I thought water was on the 2nd or 3rd day.

Not sure, but it's one or the other. The only thing for sure is it only took six days to do all of it.

[Vrede too]

I thought water was on the 2nd or 3rd day.

Not sure, but it's one or the other. The only thing for sure is it only took six days to do all of it.

Great, now 3 explanations. :roll

A scientist captured an impossible photo of a single atom

A student at the University of Oxford is being celebrated in the world of science photography for capturing a single, floating atom with an ordinary camera.

Using long exposure, PhD candidate David Nadlinger took a photo of a glowing atom in an intricate web of laboratory machinery. In it, the single strontium atom is illuminated by a laser while suspended in the air by two electrodes. For a sense of scale, those two electrodes on each side of the tiny dot are only two millimeters apart....



...

Cool.

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Tell Your US Representative to Vote for the Scientific Integrity Act

From suppressing a report on the risks of formaldehyde exposure to misrepresenting research on the effects of fracking on drinking water sources, political interference in science can have serious consequences for the health and safety of the public....

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Act Now: Tell Congress to Block Andrew Wheeler’s Attack on Science