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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 …
17 February 2011
The Great Backyard Bird Count
You can play a role in adding to scientific knowledge tomorrow. The great backyard bird count runs from Friday, February 18th through Monday, Feb. 21st. Click the image below to go to the website. It’s easy to do, and science needs your help! Canadians, we need your help too. A big thank you to Earth Gauge for the heads up on this. I missed it last year!
13 February 2011
Is BP Lying About Clean Gulf Beaches?
Here is a video produced by BP about the Gulf Coast Beaches. They claim in the video that the sand is clean, but this appears to be untrue. First, the very slickly-produced BP video: Now a video from a local resident. Tar balls as far as the eye can see. The difference is he can’t afford to put his view on TV. BP can. A much different story it seems. …
19 January 2011
Is The Sun White or Yellow?
Ask a meteorologist “why is the sky blue?” and they will (at least they should) quickly give you the proper answer. The basics are this: shorter wavelengths of blue light are scattered by the air molecules much more than longer wavelengths of red light. The blue light gets scattered across the sky and makes the sky look blue. The technical term is Rayleigh scattering.
2 January 2011
Let’s Hope 2011 is a Brighter Year for Science than 2010 Turned Out To Be
I write this blog because the natural world is amazing and I want to share what I find out with others. My background is in atmospheric science but I try to post frequently on any aspect of science that meets my definition of wild. It’s sad that so many people get caught up in these end of world myths like 2012. Even more are seduced by such laughable myths like …
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 …
18 October 2010
Great Poster for Teachers
Found this online today and it’s a must for Earth Science teachers everywhere. This is definitely my longest post ever! Okay so click on it and download the full size image and then get a poster made! kudos to Karl Tate at OurAmazingPlanet.com
12 October 2010
Is Dirty Air A Factor In The Diabetes Pandemic?
There is a real pandemic of type two diabetes in America. Until recently it was thought that this was due to the fact that most Americans are overweight and have rather terrible diets. I can always tell the flights to America at Heathrow in London. I just look at the people in the gate area. If most are overweight, the odds are high it’s a U.S. destination. This same problem …
1 September 2010
Denialism and The Age of Disinformation
Chris Mooney and Michael Specter along with others did a lecture at MIT last April. MIT has put the video up online and it is well worth a view. The topic was denialism and disinformation. How can so many people believe things that someone tells them with no critical thinking. (My post on Authoritarians goes along with this quite well I suspect) I regularly get asked if the world is …
24 August 2010
Are You An Authoritarian? (Some fascinating psychological research)
I recently read a fascinating book. It’s called the Authoritarians and it was written by Robert Altemeyer. Altemeyer is a professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba. You can read his book online for free or buy it from amazon.com. I stumbled across it doing research on climate skepticism. I have often wondered why some people are totally immune to facts. I’m talking about the kind of person who, …
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.