October 8, 2008
Links 35
1. The Boston Globe posted a few of Yann Arthus-Bertrand's photos seen in the Earth From Above exhibit. To see more, visit Arthus-Bertrand's site or his other site. (Don't ask me why he has two sites with nearly identical URLs.)
2. Sad Guys on Trading Floors - a new photo blog. So far, this entry is my favorite.
3. Eleven things the next president should do for science
5. A creepy WP article about Palin's campaign rallies, with excerpts like these:
Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."
...
"One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)
"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.
08 Oct 13:48 | Link | Category: Libraries & Digital Information, Link Dump '08, Photography, Politics, Science
October 4, 2008
Links 34
1. Sorted Books - Book spines arranged into stories.
2. Dark Roasted Blend judged Socotra Island the most alien-looking place on Earth (beating out places like Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni):
3. 41 Hilarious Science Fair Experiments - I'm not sure which is my favorite... there are so many to choose from. Maybe "Crystal Meth: Friend or Foe?" which I dearly hope was an observational study, not an experiment.
4. Dove Evolution Parody - If you ever saw the original Dove Evolution commercial, this one is parody of it, in reverse:
5. Jesus Is My Friend by Sonseed:
They're good, but no one can compare to the Faith Tones:
04 Oct 17:11 | Link | Category: Humor, Link Dump '08, Video
If this is true, we're screwed
In the midst of headlines about the economic meltdown and the latest political silliness, I noticed a news item that, if true, could be a harbinger of events that will make the other issues seem like small fry: Preliminary findings suggest that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.
As a greenhouse gas, methane is about 20 times more potent than CO2. Scientists "fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane."
People have been worried about arctic methane for years because there's a "lid" of permafrost over it (sub-sea and terrestrial), preventing escape to the atmosphere. Now one group of scientists say they have, for the first time, "documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface. These 'methane chimneys' were documented on echo sounder and with seismic [instrument]." At some locations the concentrations of methane were 100 times the background level.
The research hasn't been peer-reviewed or published yet, so take this news with a grain of salt. It may prove to be more hype than substance. If, however, it's true and the methane release instigates a positive feedback loop, we're f***ed. Eat drink and be merry...
04 Oct 16:34 | Link | Category: Science
Can it get any crazier?
I've been too busy to post all the crazy political links I've collected. You've probably seen many of them anyway, so I think I'll skip posting them here. Typing in my rants & raves on each one will just raise my blood pressure. They range from the important but underreported (McCain Makes Sharp Right Turn on Stem Cells) to the unbelievably absurd (Greta Van Susteren's awkward high-school crush on 'First Dude' Todd Palin).
Perhaps my favorite tidbit of craziness: "Palin told him that 'dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time,' Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said 'she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks,' recalled Munger"
The remaining month before the election promises to be long and painful -- especially with news that the McCain camp plans to pull out all the stops and play dirty (which will necessitate the same strategy from the other side).
Meanwhile, the state of the nation becomes increasingly precarious.
"Jefferson I think we're lost"