You are browsing the archive for December 2010 - Page 2 of 2 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
13 December 2010
Neil deGrasse Tyson: “50/50 Odds the LHC Will Discover the Higgs Boson”
Here is the last part of my interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson from earlier this month. I almost didn’t ask this question, but it elicited a fabulous answer about the nature of scientific discovery. What is the Higgs boson you ask? Here is my explanation, and keep in mind, I’m a meteorologist not a particle physicist! I don’t even know enough about it to be dangerous. Few people other than …
11 December 2010
Why It’s Raining in Greenland & Eastern North America Is Going Into A Deep Freeze
If you live anywhere from the Mississippi Valley to the East Coast in America, you are about to get cold. Real cold. A major Arctic blast is on it’s way south. The leading edge of the cold air (The Arctic front) will reach South Florida by Sunday night. There will be tons of lake effect snow, and flurries as far south as Birmingham and Atlanta. In the meantime, way up north …
8 December 2010
The St. Louis Arch and Splitting Squall Lines
A friend sent me this XKCD cartoon today. This is actually something meteorologists get asked about all the time! Dozens of people have told me that there is a rainfall hole over their house! I suspect many of you reading this have thought the same thing. As weather radar has become available in real time on the web, this belief has grown markedly. I even found a discussion in a …
5 December 2010
Shouldn’t we want our leaders to be smarter than we are? Neil deGrasse Tyson (Part 3)
Here is the third part of my chat with renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. In this clip, you’ll see us discuss a couple of subjects. First, Tyson responds to my questions about scientific literacy (or, should I say, the lack of same). His answer to my questions were more wide-ranging than even I expected; I think it was Tyson at his best as a critical thinker as to how science …
4 December 2010
Conversation with Neil deGrasse Tyson-Was Pluto Worth It?
Neil deGrasse Tyson gets LOTS of questions on Pluto. When I sat down with Tyson on Friday, I considered asking nothing about it. Instead I asked just one: You used the demotion of Pluto as a way of teaching science and scientific method to millions of people. Was it worth it???
3 December 2010
A Conversation with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (Part One)
Everyone has one of those lists. You know, a list of the three or four people you would most like to sit down and have a conversation with.
Today, I had the opportunity to talk to one of the people on my list.
It was none other than the Director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium, famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
1 December 2010
An Even More Inconvenient Truth
It’s called CAMM Worldwide. That stands for Connect A Million Minds. The project was started by Time Warner and it’s based around a simple fact: The U.S. now ranks 35th in Math and 29th in Science worldwide. That means that your child’s above average grades in math and science are C’s and D’s compared to the rest of the industrialised world. As one scientist said recently, “China has more really …
Dan Satterfield has worked as an on air meteorologist for 32 years in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama. Forecasting weather is Dan's job, but all of Earth Science is his passion. This journal is where Dan writes about things he has too little time for on air. Dan blogs about peer-reviewed Earth science for Junior High level audiences and up.