Posted inScience Sustainability

Cold weather and global warming: perfectly compatible

Last month I heard a conservative radio talk show host proclaim, "Hah! It's snowing in Arizona. Guess this will make John McCain change his mind about global warming." Idiocy must be contagious, because yesterday I heard something similar (on CNN, I believe). The weather person was saying that it was unusually cold in the central and eastern parts of the United States.The anchor responded with something like "Well, that's interesting, since the Copenhagen conference on global warming happened not long ago." Before he could expand upon this illogical train of thought, the weather expert interrupted to save him from further…
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Posted inScience Web/Tech

I don’t feel oppressed by technology

I love gadgets. They make me happy. Amazon just sent me a snazzier Garmin Nuvi. Trying it out while driving around yesterday, I had a great time. Really. I'm a believer that money spent on technological innovations actually can buy happiness, especially if what I've bought is made by Apple. So I found quite a bit to disagree with in a recent New Scientist article by Yair Amichai-Hamburger, "Free yourself from oppression by technology." (Yes, that's a real name; he's director of an Internet Psychology research center in Israel.)Such as...The other factor is relatedness: our need to feel close to other…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Science

Climate scientist emails show no fraud

Yes, I was right! Three weeks ago I said that the climate research email hack shows global warming is real, because the furor over the stolen messages was a big ado about nothing.Now AP reporters have read every email repeatedly. They discussed what the emails mean with experts in climate science and scientific methodology.The AP found that the emails show pettiness, not fraud. Scientists are human, just like the rest of us. They get irked at global warming deniers who try to play fast and loose with facts. Otherwise, the emails show that climate change science is solid. No big…
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Posted inScience

Live longer by slowing time down

Time keeps marching on. When I wrote my previous blog post, "How to make time slow down," I was 59. Now, I'm 61.Obviously I haven't been able to stop chronological time. Every year, on my birthday, my age meter advances a click. But we all know how time seems to fly sometimes, and drag at other times.None of us wants life to be a drag. However, the older I get, the more I want time to slow down. Perceived time, that is, because I know I can't do anything about those damn birthdays coming around every 365 days.Previously I quoted…
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Posted inScience

Craziness of creationists shown by 47-million-year-old fossil

Oh, Ida, it's so nice to meet a relative -- albeit a distant one. Really distant. As in 47 million years ago. Scientists hailed Tuesday a 47-million-year-old fossil of an ancient "small cat"-sized primate as a possible common ancestor of monkeys, primates and humans.Scientists say the fossil, dubbed "Ida," is a transitional species, living around the time the primate lineage split into two groups: A line that would eventually produce humans, primates and monkeys, and another that would give rise to lemurs and other primates.I love the idea, better termed "reality," that my ancestors include all sorts of other creatures.…
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Posted inHumor Science

Dancing cockatoo shows that birds can boogie

Browsing through some news web sites this morning, it was nice to come across a story that made me smile rather than frown (as swine flu and economic headlines do).For the first time, apparently, scientists have proven that an animal can dance to music. Snowball, a cockatoo, performs to various tunes. This video of him grooving to the Backstreet Boys was the first one I watched. Loved it! I wish our dog could do half (heck, a tenth) as well. And that I could put a video of her on You Tube that would get over 2,150,000 views.Unfortunately for our…
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Posted inScience

Non-shock: men see bikini-clad women as objects

Sometimes science reveals the obvious. New research shows that, in men, the brain areas associated with handling tools and the intention to perform actions light up when viewing images of women in bikinis....Although consistent with conventional wisdom, the way that men may depersonalize sexual images of women is not entirely something they control. In fact, it's a byproduct of human evolution, experts say. The first male humans had an incentive to seek fertile women as the means of spreading their genes.Guys, we can't fight evolution. So, embrace it.
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Posted inScience

Caution: universe may be much vaster than it appears

It's good to keep things in perspective. Sure, the economic times are tough. Most of us feel like we're being painfully squeezed by circumstances not of our own making. We do our best to keep balanced, hoping to maintain the equilibrium of the little corner of the cosmos that each of us calls "me."Well, there's truth in the conception that the world can be found in a grain of sand. Or, a single psyche.But it's also wise to keep in mind how small each of us is when compared to the unimaginable vastness of the universe. Which, according to a…
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Posted inScience

Lars Larson thinks global warming is an Oregon joke. That isn’t funny.

Oh, Lars, you're so funny. But only in your own right-wing mind. Today I heard Oregon's contribution to uninformed talk radio (Lars Larson has both a national and local show) praising global warming and today's record breaking heat wave. "Oh, sure, global warming is going to turn southern California into a dust bowl," I recall Lars saying. "But it's going to be great for Oregon. Just look at the terrific weather we're having. Global warming, bring it on." First of all, Lars, my daughter and her family live in Hollywood. Real people live down there, like they do elsewhere in…
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Posted inScience

Global warming doubters deserve to be scorned

Al Gore did a lot for me last night when "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar for best documentary. We'd just finished watching the movie on DVD. He'd already inspired me to do more to fight global warming. But my passion was still on simmer. Hearing Gore repeat nine words from the movie raised the heat of my activism: "It's not a political issue. It's a moral issue." Driving home from the Academy Awards party where I won the trophy for picking the most winners (including documentary feature and original song, thanks to "An Inconvenient Truth"), I turned on the…
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Posted inScience

George Taylor is a loser, not a winner

I couldn't agree more with a beautifully written and thoughtfully argued letter in today's Salem Statesman Journal, "Climate theory not a winner." The fact that I wrote it just adds self-centered luster to this shining rebuttal of the newspaper's ill-considered awarding of a Weekly Winner prize to an OSU climatologist, George Taylor. In my first three sentences, I establish the foundation for demolishing this editorial travesty: On Friday, Feb. 9, George Taylor was a Statesman Journal "winner" for challenging the conventional science about global warming. I assume the editorial board will next applaud those who still believe the Earth is…
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Posted inScience

Climate models undermine global warming skeptics

Along with the usual blather I hear on right-wing talk shows, there's a fresh falsity being spread over the airwaves: computer climate models are unsophisticated attempts to mirror changes in the Earth's weather and shouldn't be trusted. This isn't true. So don't believe global warming skeptics like George Taylor, who isn't Oregon's state climatologist but likes to pretend that he is. I heard Taylor spout his uninformed criticisms of climate models on KPAM's Victoria Taft show. Since those models show both that global climate change is going to be an increasingly serious problem, and that humans are responsible for a…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Science

Relax, right-wingers: George Taylor isn’t being fired

When the person who calls himself the Oregon state climatologist is compared to Galileo, it’s obvious that right-wing paranoia has gone over the edge. The headline of today’s Oregonian story (“To governor, Oregon has no ‘climatologist’”) might lead conservative conspiracy theorists to believe that Gov. Kulongoski has ordered George Taylor to disappear into the dungeon where he keeps state employees who disagree with his policy on global warming. Actually, the truth is much milder. Kulongoski wants Taylor to stop using the title of “state climatologist” because there is no such position in state government. That’s a fact. George Taylor isn’t…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Science

Facts about George Taylor and the “state climatologist”

Here, finally, are some solid facts about the Oregon state climatologist position that supposedly is occupied by George Taylor, who minimizes both global warming and the impact humans are having on global climate change. For well over a week I’ve been waiting for answers from the Oregon State University (OSU) News and Communication Office to my questions about Taylor and the “state climatologist” title that he holds. Patience pays off. I just got a couple of emails from Mark Floyd. At the end of this post you’ll find, verbatim, the first message he sent me. After I read it, I…
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Posted inScience

Oregon’s state climatologist flunks Climate Change 101

You’d think that someone called the “state climatologist” would understand basic facts about climate. But George Taylor isn’t big on facts. He doesn’t believe that humans are having a significant effect on global climate change, which puts him at odds with the world’s experts who just said otherwise. Of course, I’m sure there are a few biologists here and there who don’t believe in evolution. Hopefully none of them have the title of “state biologist.” If any do, I’m embarrassed for that state. Just as I’m embarrassed that George Taylor has the title of state climatologist in Oregon. Taylor has…
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Posted inScience Sustainability

So-called “climatologist” George Taylor has to go

George Taylor is a embarrassment to Oregon. He passes himself off as the official state climatologist even though Oregon doesn’t have such a position. Today an article in the Oregonian (“Experts square off over climate change”) quoted Governor Kulongoski: "He's not the state climatologist," the governor said. "I never appointed him. I think I would know.” Apparently Oregon State University’s College of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences gave Taylor this title, because the Oregonian story says that the position of state climatologist was dissolved by the legislature in 1989. Regardless, Taylor loves to spout off about how humans really aren’t a…
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Posted inBooks Home life Science

Happiness is a new mountain bike. Maybe.

My birthday has begun. Actually, it started five days ago. It’ll culminate on October 7, which used to be known as my “birthday.” I’ve decided to celebrate it like Ramadan—a full month of honoring what I reverence most: me. This makes perfect sense, because the older I get (have started to become 58), the fewer birthdays I have left to celebrate. Therefore the celebration should get longer as I age, to make up for fewer future celebratory opportunities. If I live to 100, I suppose I’ll be celebrating continuously. Anyway, here’s my first major gift to myself. A black 2007…
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Posted inScience

Secrets of the sexes, revealed!

After investing three hours of watching “Secrets of the Sexes” on Oregon Public Broadcasting, I figured that I should share what I learned about how men and women are different. Aside from the obvious, I mean. Note: this is serious research-based stuff, not cocktail party surmising. In the first episode I watched various Britons (this was a BBC production) riding in a cab and being treated to some personal cabbie chatter. When asked to recall the particulars of the conversation and cab ride, women were more tuned in to the emotional situation while men were more thing-oriented. Not a big…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Science

Progressives are battling for reality

It’s worth fighting for: reality. Indeed, the only thing really worth fighting for. My version of scripture says, “And what profiteth a man, if he wins all the world, and loses reality?” Right-wingers are out to overturn a vision of the world that has served us exceedingly well since the Enlightenment: there is an objective reality that, broadly speaking, is the domain of “science,” and there is a subjective reality that, broadly speaking, is the domain of “art.” Thus we have the sciences and the arts. We have physics and we have mystics. We have demonstrable facts and we have…
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Posted inScience

Bad week for creationists and intelligent designers

Evolution was on the march last week, crushing the creationist crazies and intelligent design dogmatists. Will they now give up their anti-science jihad? Not likely. Unfounded religious beliefs are addictive, like other drugs. They relieve the anxiety that comes from living in a complex, mysterious, uncertain world. When the unknown can be banished with the wave of a faith-filled hand, that’s damn appealing. It's wrong. But still appealing. Myself, I prefer reality. And that’s what evolution is: real. More evidence of this has arrived via two breakthroughs: a transitional fossil that shows how fish evolved into land animals has been…
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