Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal

Micahel Tobis, over at Only In It For The Gold, is always a worthy read. Today, he had the image below in a post:

Image courtesy of Only In It For The Gold. Click to go there.

For a much more detailed answer, the go to person is Michael Pollan. Here are two article Dr. Pollan wrote for the NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/opinion/10pollan.html

The second one is best but much longer. It will make your jaw drop.

Open Letter to President Elect Obama

Image of Seismogram at Nevada Seismic Lab in Nevada. The quake in Chile was so strong it is pegging the meters on seismograms world wide this morning.

An 8.8 Magnitude quake has hit Chile. It was recorded at a depth of only 35km. This is very shallow and likely means that  catastrophic damage is possible. Large aftershocks are already being recorded.

Data and images from USGS- about 300,000,000 people were close to the quake. 6 million felt a magnitude 7 quake.

The quake hit when most people were in bed asleep.

The USGS says this quake occurred 230 km north of the location of the 9.5 quake of May 1960. That quake holds the record for the largest magnitude quake measured with instruments. It killed over 1600 people.

Update Saturday afternoon:

A Tsunami Warning remains in effect for many areas of the Pacific. The BBC web site as usual has the best coverage world wide. The pictures of roads and bridges in Chile are frightening. We live on a very dynamic planet. It’s easy to forget that sometimes.

One of the very best science blogs online is written by astronomer and author Phil Plait. He has been covering the story of the magic wands the Iraqi government has been buying to detect bombs. These things work as well as those copper bracelets you see advertised on late night TV. You know, the ones that are supposed to make you feel great and work better.

They even have sports stars singing their praises! (This advert would be totally banned in most countries)

Horse Hockey

It’s all bunk of course.

There has never been any scientific study (or known physics) for that matter that would indicate that they can do anything except turn your wrist green from wearing it!

Now copper bracelets are one thing. If someone wants to spend their money on them, it’s their business. When people are wasting millions on a product that is so fraudulent the British government has arrested the maker, then that is something different. The sad fact is that it is daily costing lives. Lives of innocent men, women and children. Possibly lives of American servicemen as well.

So click the image below to read Phil’s post and bookmark his site. He is one of the best science writers out there. His book Death from the Skies would be a great one for a high school astronomy class too.

See what I mean. Carl Sagan is turning over in his grave. Before you get smug about how archaic they are in Iraq, open your morning paper and read your horoscope.

Later,
Dan

I usually don’t link to magazines, but this cartoon by Tom Tomorrow in Salon is pretty much how most scientists see things now. You can’t blame them either. Thanks to Joe Romm at Climate Progress or the heads up on this.

Click image to go to Salon's website and see the full size.

and here it is: