Posts tagged: science
Dutch Scientists Reveal A Climate Change Prediction From 1981
It is very much worth checking out an item on Real Climate, from two Dutch scientists. They have found a paper by James Hansen and others from 1981, before climate change was even an occasion for political disagreement.
Hansen is now famous in the world of climate studies, and infamous to the world of the right wing, but back then he was a 40-year-old researcher who came up with a projection of how rising CO2 levels might affect global temperatures. Science lives for the “falsifiable hypothesis” — a claim that can be tested against the evidence — and that is what the paper by Hansen and his colleagues offered up. Three decades later, his worst-case projections were matched against what has happened since then.
Wendy M. Williams and Stephen J. Ceci, American Scientist 100 (2), 138 (2012)
Warning: It’s a psych paper, so the methodologies may seem somewhat lacking to those in other sciences. That said, it’s a provocative piece of work in that it suggests the cause of the gender imbalance in science is far simpler than has previously been thought.
(h/t to Ben Goldacre)
Orion clearly has a dong.
Don’t believe the comic? Check out this picture.
(via xkcd)
“Is that a nebula in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?”
“I think there was a time in my career where I did resent space cats and their tendency to photobomb these images…”
(by andyfreeberg; h/t to Bad Astronomy)
If you aren’t following This Is What A Scientist Looks Like and I Am Science (The Stories) yet, then we seriously need to talk. There’s an inspiring community being built before our eyes.
Do it. We’re not as crazy/mad/evil as most people think.
Not always.
Those of you in academia are probably just nodding your heads in agreement right now. Join the effort here:
What 7th graders think of scientists (and how they look) before and after they meet in person:
I think of a scientist as very dedicated to his work. He is kind of crazy, talking always quickly. He constantly is getting new ideas. He is always asking questions and can be annoying. He listens to others’ ideas and questions them. - Amy
Click thru to see before and after drawings. H/T Dr. SunWolf
Haha didn’t we all think this when we were lil’?
I’ve always loved this experiment.
I’m a scientist, and thank goodness I don’t look anything like that.
This is awesome. I should suggest it to our kid’s teacher.
Listen folks, climate change sucks. It sucks to talk about, it sucks to experience it, and it sucks to research it. I would say that it sucks to cause it, but we apparently haven’t learned that lesson yet.
I imagine the world’s climate scientists feel like they are in the back row of a bus, yelling at the drunk bus driver to turn before he drives off of a cliff. Except that the bus driver only speaks Klingon, and all the other passengers on the bus are beating you with baseball bats.
Here’s an example of why:
January 27, 2012: The Wall Street Journal publishes an op-ed letter from sixteen “scientists” saying that global warming and man-made climate change is not a threat that should be addressed, nor should it be brought up by today’s politicians. They essentially call climate science a money-making hustle.
- They say things like “CO2 is not a pollutant”, which makes me want to put them in a dry-cleaning bag and see if they change their mind.
- The sixteen are primarily engineers and retired weathermen. So that.
Of the sixteen, (at most) four have published peer-reviewed research in the field while (at least) six have ties to the oil industry. See here:
The Journal Hires Dentists To Do Heart Surgery | Media Matters for America
(h/t to @BadAstronomer)
seaHarmony: Because Other Dating Sites Are So Species-Specific
“When I look at his compound eyes, I see bioluminescence …”
(by theplantproductions)
Rick Santorum’s worst fears have been realised.
