Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal

Do you remember where you have heard that name before?

It as been years since I read it, but the Jungle by Upton Sinclair is still part of required reading in many literature courses.

There is a line in the book that has stuck with me. I may not get it word for word, but it goes like this:
“It’s very hard to convince someone of anything, if their job depends on it being otherwise.”

I would actually change the very hard, to nearly impossible.

Nowhere has this been seen more in the fisheries that are collapsing world wide. It’s probably the most under reported story on the planet.

Fisheries in EVERY ocean are in rapid decline. Many are near collapse, and the biodiversity of the planet is in peril.

I do not like any type of sea food. So, I wonder if I would be willing to give it up.

I think so.

Strawberry shortcake is my favourite desert, and I would certainly give it up if eating them were damaging the planet’s biodiversity. Fudge would be more difficult. (I tell myself that I would go without if I had to!)

If you like Sushi, however, then you need to make a decision now. The Blue Fin Tuna will likely be gone in less than 10 years. The stocks are collapsing due to massive overfishing in the Mediterranean. Most of it goes to Japan, where Sushi is a staple. Scientist warned, that unless the catch was reduced to 15,000 tons yearly, and a ban imposed on any fishing for 9 months a year, the Blue Fin Tuna will be gone in 5 years.

Europe, normally a leader on environmental issues, reduced it to 22,000 tons.

A stunning failure.

Upton Sinclair proves right again. Several organizations have urged boycotts of any store or restaurant that serves the Tuna. I am not sure if it will make a difference, but I am likely to join them.

One of the reasons that no one seems to care enough to change is the lack of education on the environment we live in. Most certainly, I will get emails after this post, saying who cares about a dumb fish. I know, that if these people had even a marginal understanding of how connected this planet’s oceans and atmosphere are, they would realize how ignorant they sound. You either know what a keystone species is, or you don’t.

Most do not.

Biologists, are many times surprised, at the effect removing some seemingly minor species from an ecosystem can have. Soon, we may force to extinction, some seemingly minor species that will have dire consequences on our own. Most of the oxygen you breathe does not come from plants. It comes from microscopic plankton in the Pacific Ocean.

Want to fool around with that food chain?

Later,

Dan

The folks at Earth Gauge have published a nice FAQ on Climate Change. It was done by Bud Ward the editor of the Yale Forum on Climate and Media, and Bobby Henson, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). (Bobby grew up in Oklahoma City across the street from my wife!). Bob Henson’s book, THE ROUGH GUIDE TO CLIMATE CHANGE is an excellent primer on the science.

I write frequently in this space about the myths online about climate change, and this FAQ does a good job of dispelling them.

You can check it out here:

http://www.earthgauge.net/climate-q-a

Later,
Dan

This post is not really about Science per say. It is something that you might say is from experience.

I am an amateur photographer. I have some shots that I really proud of. Some were by accident and some I planned that way! (I will never tell which were which!)

I get asked every now and then, if I could shoot pictures of a wedding.I immediately decline, and urge them to hire a professional!

Taking photos of a wedding is a job for someone who does it all the time! Someone who understands lighting. Wedding dresses are bright white, and the groom’s Tux is probably going to be dark black. This is VERY difficult for even a good amateur to get right.

Ask yourself, what physical memories your parents have of their wedding. Likely, your Mom has her wedding dress boxed away some place. Other than that, they have the photos. My wife’s Dad was a professional photographer, and when he got married, a fellow professional shot the pictures.

They are both gone now, but my wife has beautiful large photos of their wedding day, over 50 years ago.

My closest friend is a wedding photographer in the UK. I also know several here in the States. They are all seeing a big drop in their business, as more and more people, get high quality digital cameras. With wedding dresses, and a cake costing thousands, it seems tp make sense to young couples to cut costs, by getting someone they know with a fancy camera to take the wedding pictures.

This is a huge mistake.

Take my advice. Cut the costs on the cake, the place, or the dress. They will all be forgotten 10 years later. The pictures will be the one thing that lasts! I speak from experience. I celebrated my 25th wedding anniversary last month.

Every wedding photographer I know gets calls constantly asking if anything can de done with their amateur wedding photos. Sadly, the answer is not much.

Ernest Hemingway was being visited by the famous western landscape photographer Ansel Adams. Hemingway asked him “What brand of camera do use?”.

Adams replied “What brand of typewriter do you use?”.

Later,

Dan

I had two interesting letters in my mail today. One in the snail mail (Yea it is still around, much to my surprise!). The other in my email.

The email brought news of an embargoes story that I can now tell you about. Astronomers have taken the first real pictures of planets orbiting another star! This news is already online at the BBC and even the normally science deficient main stream USA media has it. I do have a pretty good picture that I am posting. This one is better than what I have seen online today.

If you are thinking that this is old news, that other planets have been known for awhile, you are right.

Before now, scientists inferred extrasolar planets by the wobbles in the star or a slight dimming, as a huge planet passed in front of it. This time, we have a photo. It was made by subtracting one wavelength from another. A technique used in satellite meteorology, so I am a little familiar with it. (See GOES Fog Product).

The other  snail mail letter was from the Heritage foundation. They are a huge, and wealthy conservative think tank. It seems that they have mailed hundreds of TV station science reporters, and Meteorologists a handy little booklet of the top 100 experts on Global Warming who are considered skeptics. They sure wasted the postage on the one to me!

So who are these experts? The same old people I constantly hear about. It seems that they actually had quite a bit of trouble getting 100 in a list. I rather doubt that the communication director to Sen. Inhofe of Oklahoma is a scientific expert on climate change. Nor the policy director for the CATO institute. Another conservative think tank.

Actually, almost NONE of the people listed in this little booklet have any recent publications about climate in a peer reviewed journal. Those that do have very little, and what they have has been shown to be faulty by numerous other papers. There are a couple of people listed who are real climate scientists, and they do have papers in peer reviewed journals. That is 2, or three – not 100. 

Compare that to the thousands of scientists, who continue to say, that we are facing an extremely serious planetary wide problem.

So why are they doing this? They want to continue to sow doubt. If they can get one of these skeptics added into a news story on Climate Change, then the public will continue to think that science is divided on the issue.

THEY ARE NOT.

If there is doubt, there will be no action on climate. They do not want to do anything but delay. They have been very successful. So much so that some climate scientists refuse to deal with the media anymore because their words will be twisted by this cadre of 50-60 people who get way more attention from the media than they deserve.

Here is a good article from the International Herald Tribune last August. It is well written and makes the point better than I can.

I have said it before and I will say it again. If you read where some “expert” says climate change is a hoax, ask yourself if the person making the statement has, and is, publishing papers on the subject in peer reviewed journals. If not, then they are giving you political opinion, not science.

Out of thousands, and thousands of scientists around the world, they could not even find 100 that disagreed. I think the Heritage institute made my point for me.

Later,
Dan

One of the most historic documents you can see is the Magna Carta. There are actually a few copies of it dating from 1215 AD. You can see one of thise copies at Salisbury Cathedral in England. The Cathedral itself is one of the great architecture masterpieces of the Medieval world. Truly a fabulous place to visit. Listening to the Evensong in the great nave brings back thoughts of those who listened to the choirs in the very same spot over nearly countless generations, and eight centuries.

This post is about preserving history though, so back to the Magna Carta! Look at the image of it. A bit yellowed in spots, but perfectly readable. (I know, because I have read the original, using my very imperfect Latin!). So why are those newspapers in your closet that you saved after the moon landing or the JFK assassination so yellow?

The answer is the paper. Paper printed after the 1860′s is mostly from wood pulp. The wood has impurities that make it acidic. So to keep it from yellowing, you will need to lower the PH of the paper.

There are several methods that you can try. Krylon makes an archival spray that will do this, but it is expensive. A homemade method is to put a good heavy dose of Milk of Magnesia, into a liter of water. Let it sit overnight, and then put your paper one sheet at a time onto a large pan and CAREFULLY pour the water on it. Let it sit for an hour and then drain the water and very carefully remove the paper and lay it on some paper towels to dry.

If you are worried you will mess it up, then spend the money on a can of the spray. Either way, store it in a dark place with relative humidity around 45%, and a temp near room temperature (21C). Also, store it in a folder that is also not made of acidic paper. You can find this at most framing shops.

I would practice on a newer piece of discardable paper to make sure you can move the wet sheet without damaging it!

I know a lot of people in the USA, and around the world will be saving the papers with President Elect Obama on the front page, and the above methods will keep it looking almost like new for future generations. That’s IF you can find a paper from that day! I’ve had no luck so far!!

It would be neat to add it to my collection of historic front pages, and I have not given up yet!

Later,

Dan