science

Spring in the US is early … very very early. – #climate

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The USA-NPN (USA National Phenology Network) has been tracking and mapping the start of the spring season across the country using models called the Spring Leaf and Bloom Indices. Wait .. push pause and hold on there a second … who? OK, let’s step back a bit. The USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) monitors the influence … Read more

Who are the 300 science denying scientists?

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The underlying news is this …  300 Scientists Tell Trump to Leave UN Climate Agreement More than 300 scientists have urged President Trump to withdraw from the U.N.’s climate change agency, warning that its push to curtail carbon dioxide threatens to exacerbate poverty without improving the environment. In a Thursday letter to the president, MIT professor … Read more

The Wikipedia Bot wars

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There have been a few media stories about editing bots battling it out on Wikipedia and so I wondered what the alpha source for this was. It turns out that it all stems from a paper published within the Open Access Journal Plus One. Even good bots fight: The case of Wikipedia First the Basics … Read more

Carl Sagan’s Thoughts on Abortion

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Carl Sagan’s book titled “Billions and Billions, Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium“, contains a rather interesting chapter on the topic of Abortion. (Chapter 15 to be precise). Side Note: Interestingly enough, Carl himself never once used the phrase “Billion and Billions” in Cosmos. He did of course stress the B … Read more

Flurry of State Bills Introduced to Penalize Electric Car Drivers – Why?

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I personally love the idea of switching from gas guzzling to an electric vehicle, and plan to do exactly that. If not wholly EV, then a hybrid at least. The rise of the EV has however also seen a corresponding rise of legislation that punishes people financially for switching to electric vehicles. Which states? These six have now … Read more

Unprecedented #Arctic weather has scientists on edge

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Bryan Thomas, who works as station chief at NOAA’s Point Barrow, Alaska, observatory is deeply troubled. As he sits within his office there in Alaska, he can look North out over the Arctic ocean in the middle of February. It should all be sea ice, but it is not … “I could see what’s known as water-skyoffsite link — … Read more