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You are browsing the archive for March 2011 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.

30 March 2011

Arctic Freeze Up This Winter Ties For Lowest On Record

  Maximum Ice Extent Ties Record Low Every winter, the Arctic ocean freezes and you can literally walk from Canada across the Pole to Russia (except in a few areas that rarely freeze). The stunning loss in Arctic ocean sea ice continues, and while the summer melt gets most of the attention, this winter the amount of Arctic ice was tied for the lowest on record. Here are the official …

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29 March 2011

When Dealing with Climate, Perception and Reality are Sometimes Very Different

Was it a bad winter? Ask someone what kind of winter we have had here in the Eastern USA and you will probably be told it was brutal. Same for last winter as well, with the record breaking snow storms in Washington DC and the heavy snowfalls in the UK as well. Scientific reality, however, can be quite different from perception. Dr. James Hansen at NASA has put together a …

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28 March 2011

Need Help with Math-Ask This 12 Year Old

I did a blog post on Khan Academy the other day, and how he is teaching math to thousands of kids, but Jacob Barnett is one kid who does not need to watch any of Sal Khan’s videos. He could actually do a few for him! If you’re a college student in Calculus 2 and are having trouble with integration by parts or trig substitution, then you may want to …

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25 March 2011

The Very Real Consequences of Defunding NOAA Satellites

I rarely pay much attention to federal budget issues, but this issue is on my turf. Having worked around TV-news folks for 31 years, I am rarely surprised by politics or politicians! You tend to get rather jaded because you end up seeing a lot of crazy things, day in and day out! That said, this is one I really could not believe. It seems the House of Representatives proposed …

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24 March 2011

I’m a Klutz, but Apple Makes A Durable iPhone!

The TV station I work for operates a dual polarimetric weather radar called ARMOR (Advanced Radar for Meterological Operations and Research.). The radar is a joint project between WHNT and the University of Alabama at Huntsville and we were the first TV weather department in the world to have dual pole capability. UAH and NASA scientists at the National Science Technology Center use it for research and we use it …

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22 March 2011

The Mozart of Physics

Astronomer Brian Cox (whose series Wonders of The Universe is currently airing on BBC Two) has presented a great program on Richard Feynman. It’s available for the next 6 days on BBC Radio 4.

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20 March 2011

Could One Person Fix American Students Lousy Math Scores? Meet Sal Khan.

I found Khan Academy by accident. I was reading a paper on climate science and realised that I poorly understood a concept in statistics, so. I googled it and found khanacademy.org. I’ve been hooked ever since ,and if you know a student who is struggling in maths, show them the web site immediately. If you did lousy in high school or college maths, (and want to understand it better) then show yourself Khan …

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18 March 2011

Run on Potassium Iodide–Shortages for those who really need it? (Science illiteracy has consequences)

I listened to a great interview on The World as I drove home for dinner tonight. Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, had some choice words for those who have bought out the supply of potassium iodide here in the U.S. She basically called stupid, the Americans who bought and started taking the tablets. If things got much worse in Japan, they may actually …

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16 March 2011

Updated Radiation Trajectory for Fukushima

Here is the most recent trajectory forecast for air above the damaged nuclear plant in Japan. The model guidance continues to indicate an offshore flow for the next 48 hours. Experts in the USA are recommending that folks within 75 km of the plant move outside that zone. Will update these a couple of times a day as long as the situation warrants…

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15 March 2011

Radiation from Coal vs Nuclear Plants

I’ve had several emails about my post last night and specifically about the fact that that coal fired power plants produce more radiation than nuclear power stations. I did some research and found a very good article in Scientific American on just this subject. They actually used Tennessee and Alabama for the examples used in the study. Coal ash has been in the news a lot recently with the huge …

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