science – Page 3 – The View from a Drawbridge

Things Get Cloudier

The following sentence makes me feel really old: Things were a whole lot simpler when I was a child. I remember running home to proudly tell my mother that I now knew the names of all the clouds. Cirrus. Cumulus. Stratus. Nimbus. And the various combinations thereof, such as cumulostratus and cirronimbus. I took a great deal of comfort from the fact that now I’d be able to look skyward and always have a name for what I saw.

Those days are gone. According to this article on the Nat Geo site, for the first time in 30 years, the International Cloud Atlas has named 11 new cloud types. Eleven. That’s a lot. I wonder if I’ve seen them all. Among this pantheon are cool names such as asperitas, fluctus and cavum.

The article goes on to say that these new designations came about mainly because so many of us have cell phone cameras these days, and odd cloud photos kept popping up that did not fit neatly into the 4 cloud system of yore. That’s the cool thing about science. The more you observe, the more you have to describe, and the more you learn.

And I have no doubt that I could add these 11 new cloud types to my knowledge base if I took the time. But will I? Probably not. I already feel pretty overwhelmed as a general rule.

That leaves me with very mixed emotions about this new development. I really liked it when the sky made sense to me. Oh, it’s still wondrous and beautiful, but now it’s… dare I say it? Over my head.

Fluctus-620x389 — Fluctus clouds. Nope. I definitely haven’t seen these yet.

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The NASA Tank Top Debacle

Recently I shared this on my Facebook page because it delighted me.

I love that someone is standing up for girls. I love that I’m not the only one in this world who wants girls to love science and dream just as big as their male counterparts. This small act just made me so happy.

And then came a shitstorm of epic proportions. This, from her blog:

“Every few years I manage to touch the 3rd rail of the internet and I am reminded how aggressively histrionic so many men can be toward women disrupting the status quo. Since this tweet I have been called repeatedly <offensive terms warning> “idiot”, “ass”, “whore”, “piece of shit”, “dick”, “moron”, “twat”, “bitch”, “crazy bitch”, “asshole”, “motherfucker”, “garbage”, “cancer”, “psychopath”, “faggot”, “dyke”, “dyke ass”, “cunt”, and “retard”. I’ve been told to “shut up” and “fuck off”. I was told I should be “punched in the head”, “raped”, “euthanized”, that I “needed a bullet to the brain”, and “should kill myself”. I was sent cartoons of Nazis kicking women on the ground. Because I moved 5 shirts. 25 feet.”

I don’t understand why men are so easily threatened. Don’t they have daughters? Sisters? Mothers? What causes them to go straight to name-calling mode in these situations? Do they think that’s a good look? If this is an attempt to appear superior, it backfires in a monumental way.

I get that they are feeling threatened and are therefore lashing out. Their sense of entitlement and privilege is being challenged from all sides these days. They’re not used to that. They’re the only group that has had the luxury of not being used to that.

But I’d like to respectfully point out that some of their fears are patently absurd. Are these men afraid that their chances of working at NASA would be threatened by this small act? Trust me, this reactionary type of man isn’t fit to scrub a NASA toilet, let alone compete with the big girls.

But the most terrifying, most sobering fact about this type of backlash is that, thanks to other white males for the most part, these irrational and threatened men have access to guns. And it’s becoming quite obvious that it isn’t the terrorists, it’s the disenfranchised white male who poses the biggest threat to our society.

But the days of appeasing these men are over. I’ll be moving tank tops every chance I get now. Believe that. Keep fighting the good fight, Katie Hinde!

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What to Do When You Can’t March

I used to lament being born in the early 60’s. I was too young to participate in the “really good” protests. Be careful what you wish for. Here we are again.

Unfortunately, I have a really strange work schedule, so most marches march right on past me. I would have loved to participate in the women’s march on Washington, for example. Or the protest against the immigration ban, or the march for science, or even the produce your dang tax returns one. But nooo… I get to sit in my lonely little work tower, wishing I could lend my voice to the ever-increasing cacophony.

Other people can’t march for other reasons. Health issues. Location. Having small children at home. Time constraints. For everyone that does march, there are probably 5 who would like to, but can’t. It can feel really frustrating.

But there are still things that you can do. I think the most important thing you can do is speak up. Let people know how you feel. When it’s perceived that the majority feel a certain way, it becomes the norm. So you don’t have to march to be a part of the strengthening tide of protest. You just need to let others know you’re with them. I highly recommend blogging. But even just posting something on your Facebook page, or bringing issues up with friends and family, can be effective. If you get even one person to stop and think, “Hmmm. Maybe the earth isn’t flat after all!” then you’ve done something. You’ve become part of progress.

It is also important to put your money where your mouth is if you can. Support Planned Parenthood. Support public radio. Support the ACLU. Also, boycott companies that you feel are not on the right side of history for whatever reason, such as United Airlines, Ivanka Trump, Wells Fargo, Monsanto and Walmart. Money talks.

In addition, it’s extremely important to let your congressmen know how you feel on various issues. Call them. E-mail them. Write them. Pester them. Sign legitimate petitions. Vote. It’s the people who didn’t bother to vote who got us in this protest-worthy situation in the first place.

I also wear my heart on my sleeve in the form of bumper stickers on my car. I think this is a lot more effective than most people realize. I see people taking pictures of my bumper all the time. And I also sport a yard sign, as you can see, below.

Ask yourself this: do most of the people who know you know exactly where you stand? Then you’re doing well! Keep it up! #resist

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The New Dark Ages?

Back in 2013 I wrote a post entitled, “When Did ‘Intellectual’ Become a Dirty Word?” Little did I know at the time that that was just the tip of a very ignorant iceberg. I am beginning to look at 2013 as the halcyon days. Imagine that.

Ironically, I started that post by saying, “I really want to try to avoid getting political on this blog.” Snort. Now it seems like that’s all I do. But I can’t stay silent. I had that luxury in 2013. I don’t anymore.

Now we are thrust headlong into a political shit storm in which our own government is trying to dismantle our public education system. While they’re at it, they are destroying every environmental victory we’ve made since the 1970’s. They’re attacking science and medicine. They’re defunding art. They’re demonizing the media and all things that allow for the free flow of information. They’re impeding travel. They are clinging desperately to fossil fuels even though they know it’s destroying our planet. They are gleefully widening the gap between the rich and the rest of us.

This is worse than the Dark Ages, because so many of us know better these days. This is not the road we want to take. It only leads to destruction.

I keep having these dreams where half of us are trying to reason with the other half by using facts and proof and intelligence, and the other half is not listening, and destroying everything in its path with steam rollers. It makes no sense. The inmates control the asylum. Whose idea was it to give them the keys to those damned steam rollers?

I used to have a bumper sticker that said, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” Word. Perhaps it’s time to buy another one.

Don’t turn out the lights, folks. The darkness is descending. And no doubt we’ll all come away with something much worse than a stubbed toe.

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A Message to the World

Hello. I’m an American. Never in my life did I imagine that I would say this, but I am ashamed of the state of my country. I am embarrassed at the face we are currently showing to the world. This is not who we are.

Never again will I look at another country and assume that all its people agree with its government. Because I don’t. Never again will I think of the resident of another country as possessing a stereotypical characteristic based on that person’s place of birth. Because clearly, I no longer fit in here.

In recent months I’ve been seeing a great deal of ugliness. I’ve seen Americans spewing hate. I’ve seen selfishness and greed and intolerance. I’ve seen ignorance deified and intelligence vilified. I’ve seen science discounted and fantasy encouraged. I’ve seen violence. I’ve seen misogyny. I’ve seen fraud. I see more and more lies every day.

I am so sorry that things have gotten this way. I didn’t vote for Trump. I wouldn’t have approved any of his cabinet members or his choices for the Supreme Court. There is not a single thing that this man has done that I agree with. Not one.

I’m particularly mortified that his immigration policies are making so many people live in fear. This is not acceptable to me. I am a second generation American, and the vast majority of the people who live here are descended from immigrants. We have absolutely no right to do what we are currently doing.

We also have no right to treat the Native Americans the way that we do. If anyone should have moral currency with regard to how we treat the land here, it should be them. They should not be beaten down for wanting water that is safe to drink. Shame on us.

We, of all people, should not have the right to negatively impact women’s health at home or abroad. We should also appreciate the good work that other members of the United Nations do every single day. We should be good stewards of our environment, because what we do affects the entire planet.

I just want you to know that many Americans still believe in human rights, freedom, justice, the environment, freedom of speech, science, peace, and respect for all people who do good in this world. I want you to know that those of us who feel this way will not remain silent. We will speak out for the values that we all strive to maintain. Our voices might get drowned out by those in power, but please don’t stop listening for us. We are here.

Because what you’re seeing now is not who we are.

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Lemons as Jet Fuel, or Why I Haven’t Given Up on the Environment

It’s really easy to despair at the state of the environment. Global climate change becomes increasingly impossible to deny with each passing day. But our government seems to be doing everything in its power to maintain our outmoded culture of fossil fuelishness.

And yet, even in this sea of pervasive ignorance and selfishness and greed, there are little islands of hope. We have made scientific inroads, and this progress seems to be exponential. We are discovering better ways to live in the world.

Just getting rid of our old fashioned light bulbs, for example, has made an undeniable impact. And a zero emissions trolley just rolled past my window. We are learning more effective ways to recycle. We are even coming up with methods of getting energy from our landfills. (You don’t often hear of anything positive coming from a landfill.) Our solar cells and batteries are becoming much more efficient, and wind power is gaining a foothold. We are starting to actually grasp how dangerous pipelines and fracking are.

Just the other day, I stumbled upon this intriguing article from the University of Queensland. A researcher there is coming up with a way to mass produce limonene, the chemical that gives citrus its smell, with the end goal of using that to produce a clean, renewable jet fuel. Now how cool is that?

Dr. Claudia Vickers maintains that it would be impossible to produce enough limonene from lemon peels, but she’s working with yeast that may create a synthetic form of it in larger quantities. I find this fascinating. And it gives me hope for the future.

Discoveries such as this are why we need to encourage our youth to embrace science. We need researchers and physicists and biologists and chemists and mathematicians if we are ever to pull ourselves out of this downward spiral that we have brought upon ourselves. Science doesn’t have to be hard or boring or geeky. It can be amazing and rewarding and heroic.

The bottom line is that science is our only hope. And we should never give up hope.

lemon

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What the Clouds Can Teach Us

When you go for weeks on end without seeing the sun or the stars, it’s easy to start to imagine that they’re not there anymore. (And I live in Seattle, so I know what I’m talking about.) The clouds seem to be pushing down on the earth, and there’s this free-floating feeling of claustrophobia that permeates the atmosphere. The world seems a lot smaller than it actually is

At times like this I kind of get a sense of what it must have been like to live in a world without advanced science. If all you can believe is what you see with your own two eyes, it would be easy to think that the world is flat. Magic must seem real. It would be much simpler to believe in a higher power when you yourself feel so utterly powerless. (And by that I mean leaders of any kind who are willing to tell you what you want to hear even though it’s based on no evidence whatsoever.)

But I can live with clouds, despite their ability to obscure and cause despair, because I’ve flown in airplanes above them, where the sun is still shining brightly. I’ve seen photographs of the big blue marble on which we live, and I know that the clouds are shifting and temporal. There is no need to make ritual sacrifices, as the sun will rise again without our help. Just speak that truth as often as you can. Spread the word. Let no one forget.

The scientific method has proven many things I cannot see. That may sound like faith, but faith is a belief in things without proof, often based upon the words of people who lived without science. And even those who choose that fundamental path rely on science every single day, even as they discount it.

If you’ve ever ridden in a car, used electricity, taken advantage of modern medicine, or communicated with anyone by any method other than smoke signals, you are benefiting from science. You cannot function in the modern world without it. But of course you still have the right to believe that it’s evil, if that’s what you really want.

But in the meantime, I will look up at the clouds and know with certainty that the sun is shining above them. And one of these days, I’ll see it again. Because when all is said and done, science prevails. It’s in the very gravity that keeps you from floating away.

webcomic_xkcd_-_wikipedian_protester

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The Contradictory Metrics of Ignorance

I just came across a group on Facebook called Jewish Ritual Murder. It has 1057 likes. Its sole purpose is to perpetuate false stories that promote the myth of the Jewish blood libel. There’s an insane belief out there that Jews ritually murder Christians and use their blood for any number of nefarious purposes. This fiction has been used for centuries to justify violence against Jews. It has even been known to decimate entire communities. I’ve reported this page to Facebook. Many people have. It’s a hate crime. I hope it will be gone by the time you read this.

jewish-ritual-murder

Update: Facebook felt that this page does not violate its community standards. Please join me in reporting this if you agree with me that by perpetuating these lies it perpetuates hate.

It never ceases to amaze me that humanity seems to be becoming more ignorant with each passing day. That shouldn’t be mathematically possible. If we look at facts as a unit of measure, and assume people learn something new every day (I certainly seem to), then we as a species should be increasing in knowledge by leaps and bounds. And yet here are some more ridiculous and entirely false things a scary number of people believe:

Telephones cause brain cancer.
Humans never landed on the moon.
Evolution is a myth.
Humans once coexisted with dinosaurs or dinosaurs never existed.
Global climate change isn’t occurring, or if it is, it’s normal.
The earth is only 6,000 years old, give or take. Oh, and it’s flat.
The American Civil War had nothing to do with slavery or racism.
Benjamin Franklin was once president of the US.
People are gay by choice.
Africa is a country.
Blue moons are actually blue.
Barack Obama is a Muslim.
Elvis is alive.
The sun revolves around the earth.
Vaccines cause autism.

So why do we seem to buy in to all this stupidity despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary? Well, I have a few theories. Let’s go back to my “facts as a unit of measure” concept.

Unfortunately, in this day and age, it’s even easier to stuff your head full of false information. That leaves you little room to focus on the facts. The best way to combat against this is to fact check everything, but most people seem to be too busy waiting for the sky to fall or the next vampire movie to come out. Another way to avoid false information is to stop watching FOX news, stop assuming the scientific method yields mere opinions, and stop believing every meme that you read.

We also need to realize that, yes, we forget things we have learned, but that does not mean we should rely on the shorthand of sound bites to fill those voids. Knowledge shouldn’t be a spectator sport. We all need to make an effort to stay informed.

We also need to fight against this idea that “intellectual” is a dirty word. We need to emphasize education, not demonize it. How can knowing more facts ever be a bad thing?

An alarming number of children in the world today have little or no access to education. When you fill the planet with that many empty heads, there’s plenty of space for ignorance to thrive. Crime, terrorism, and violence do not come from a place of intelligence. Truly educating (as opposed to indoctrinating) people can only make the world a better place.

Take in as much information as you can, but learn the difference between fact and fiction. Read, but consider the source. Don’t blindly follow your leaders. Rely on logic. Don’t slide down the slippery slope of stupidity. Use your head for something other than a hat rack.

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Magical Thinking

Does anyone besides me remember Omni Magazine? I loved that publication. I used to wait for each month’s issue with great anticipation. Even just seeing photos of the cover still gives me butterflies.

Omni first came out in 1978, and it was all about science. It discussed the latest technological innovations, all of which I’m sure would seem quaint nowadays, but at the time they were very cutting edge. It also included a short science fiction or fantasy story every month that I would devour. In addition, they took on parapsychology, and I found this quite fascinating as a teenager.

I remember perusing the classifieds in the back of the magazine sometime around 1984 and I noticed that a university (somewhere in Texas, I think, but don’t hold me to that) was asking for volunteers for a parapsychology experiment. Sign me up!

For a year or so after that, I would periodically receive these exciting little packages in the mail. In them would be a cassette (remember those?) and a prepaid return envelope. The cassette would have what they said were randomly generated tones. I was to listen to those tones and concentrate on changing them with my mind, making them longer or shorter or higher or lower. Then I was to mail the cassette back to them for analysis.

Once I’d send the cassette back, they’d send me a new cassette, plus a report on how much I’d “changed” the last soundtrack. (And of course heat, humidity and travel damage had no impact. It was all me, me, me.) Needless to say, I won’t be bending spoons in Vegas any time soon, but it was still kind of fun to be involved.

I never knew how many people participated in that study, and I was never told what their conclusions were. For all I know, it was actually a study on how gullible teenagers could be. I’d love to find out, but since I can’t even remember the name of the institution, I’d have a hard time tracking it down.

I was heartbroken to learn that Omni Magazine ceased to exist in 1997. I owe a great deal to it, because it legitimized my geeky struggle to be myself as I rode the roller coaster of puberty. It felt good to have that validation. It made me feel less alone.

And for a brief shining moment, it allowed me to think I might just be able to control things with my mind. Everybody should have that feeling at least once in their lives.

mind-control

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You Don’t Have to Believe in Global Warming

It must be awfully stressful to be a climate change denier. If you fall into that category, I have to admire your tenacity, your grit, your firmness of conviction. Especially in light of the fact that fewer and fewer people agree with you.

According to a Gallup Poll in March, 2016, 64 percent of Americans are extremely concerned about it, up from the all-time recorded low of 51 percent back in 2011. And 65 percent of us believe global warming is caused by human activities.

And scientists (the ones who study these things, after all), are even more definitive. According to Wikipedia, “A survey found 97% agreed that global temperatures have increased during the past 100 years; 84% say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that ‘currently available scientific evidence’ substantiates its occurrence.”

No one likes to be a member of an ever-shrinking group, but hey, you are entitled to your opinion. And opinions don’t have to have anything at all to do with facts. For example, I am of the opinion that cranberries are torture devices that get trotted out every Thanksgiving. You don’t have to agree with me.

Even so, I’m sure we can find some common ground. For example, most of us should be able to agree that we need to take care of the planet on which we live, for ourselves and for future generations. It’s the only planet we’ve got, right? We can all agree that our actions have consequences, even if we don’t agree about what those consequences will be.

So it’s official. I will no longer judge you harshly for being of an opinion that flies in the face of science. I will no longer ridicule you for having a belief that is so foreign to my own. Don’t you feel better already? I do. What a load off our minds. Group hug!

But in exchange, I’m going to double down on you if you neglect or abuse the planet. Just as I would be wrong to go out and destroy all the cranberry bogs, so you would be wrong to negatively impact the earth. Fair’s fair.

If you aren’t willing to stand on that common ground, then I can only conclude that your agenda is far more nefarious, and you might want to take a hard look at your level of selfishness, laziness, and greed. In that case, you’d feel a whole lot better if you simply come clean and admit that it isn’t that you don’t believe in global warming. It’s actually that you don’t give a shit.

But I’d like to have more faith in you than that. I think you can believe what you will and still do what you must. Your actions mean much more to me than your thoughts. Especially if you’re choosing to be thoughtless.

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