Advertisement

You are browsing the archive for July 2013 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.

31 July 2013

Fascinating Theory On Life’s Origins Getting NASA’s Attention and Money

This press release from the Institute for Genomic Biology at the Univ. of Illinois (Champagne-Urbana) is well worth a read. NASA thinks this is so important, they gave the scientists 8 million USD to keep working on it. I don’t often reprint press releases here, but this is far from my field and I do not want to get it wrong. A unique theory about how life arose on Earth …

Read More >>

1 Comment/Trackback >>


30 July 2013

Milan In Italy Hit By Tornado- Again!

  This is from today in Milan. They were also hit last May by a large tornado. and more video of the twister and the aftermath here:

Read More >>

2 Comments/Trackbacks >>


29 July 2013

Brian Cox: Reaching Conclusions Based On Evidence- Why A Public Understandng of Scientific Method Is Crucial to Democracy

…and why it is not acceptable to promote bad science

Read More >>

1 Comment/Trackback >>


27 July 2013

Some Thought Provoking Science Videos

I thought I’d share some cool science videos for your weekend amusement. The first is from It’s OK to Be Smart. If you’ve never done your own scale model of the solar system, it’s well worth a visit to the park or beach. A must project with your kids of course! ..and 50 Science Misconceptions. How many did you NOT know?? I knew all but one. I admit that I …

Read More >>

No Comments/Trackbacks >>


22 July 2013

A Fantastic New “Pale Blue Dot” from NASA

A larger version is here. From NASA JPL today: PASADENA, Calif. — Color and black-and-white images of Earth taken by two NASA interplanetary spacecraft on July 19 show our planet and its moon as bright beacons from millions of miles away in space. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured the color images of Earth and the moon from its perch in the Saturn system nearly 900 million miles (1.5 billion kilometers) away. …

Read More >>

No Comments/Trackbacks >>


20 July 2013

A Lonely Speck In The Great Enveloping Cosmic Dark

Hat tip to Maksim Kakitsev who processed the raw images before NASA even. Here is the image of Earth and Saturn taken by Cassini  around 5:30 PM Friday July 19, 2013. The sun was behind Saturn, and Earth is the bright pixel below the rings. This is the second version taken by Cassini showing our small spinning fragment of solar driftwood.. The first image like this was taken by Voyager …

Read More >>

No Comments/Trackbacks >>


Wearing A Tinfoil Hat Is Getting Expensive- DC Court Says Michael Mann May Proceed in Defamation Suit Against CEI and National Review

Is a picture really worth a thousand words? Probably, and the one above has become one of the most famous science images, since the crew of Apollo 8 took a snap of the Earth rising over the lunar horizon. It was made by Dr. Michael Mann at Penn State University, and he had no idea the grief it would cause him. His book is a must read, and he details …

Read More >>

6 Comments/Trackbacks >>


17 July 2013

The Amazing Retrograding Low

It developed last Friday over Western Maryland, and brought 10 inches of rain to the coast of Delaware. Then it began to drift westward. This is not that unusual in the summertime, when an easterly wind can develop to the south of a strong upper ridge over North America. The easterly trade-winds form the same way, and steer tropical waves form the coast of Africa to the New World all …

Read More >>

2 Comments/Trackbacks >>


14 July 2013

Stormy Weather, Climate Change and the Chesapeake Bay

I spent Friday evening driving through Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, and then down to Hooper’s Island in the Chesapeake Bay. It was a stormy evening, with over 7 inches of rain reported across Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I was hoping to take some stormy sky pics, and I was not disappointed. Blackwater NWR is a beautiful area of marshes, and is a must see for those in …

Read More >>

No Comments/Trackbacks >>


10 July 2013

Baltimore Weathercaster Under Fire For Incorrect Statements on Climate Change

Two weeks ago I attended a climate change short course at the 41st American Meteorological Society conference on broadcast meteorology in Nashville. Top experts in the field like Dr. Tony Broccolli, Dr. Ben Santer (National Academies of Science) and Keith Dixon of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab spent the entire day with on air meteorologists updating them on the latest in the field. The AMS Committee on Station Science (I’m …

Read More >>

1 Comment/Trackback >>