We should have had one by now.
Another reason to move out, I guess. It would be a natural disaster on top of the unnatural one that is California voters.
Category Archives: General Science
Cats
…recognize their own names, even if they don’t bother to respond.
[Update a few minutes later]
OK, statements like this never make any sense to me:
Saito says she thinks feline pets learn to recognize their names because of what is in it for them. “I think cats associated their names with some rewards or punishments,” she says—adding that she thinks it is unlikely the cats understand their names are attached to them. “There is no evidence that cats have the ability to recognize themselves, like us,” she explains. “So, the recognition about their name is different from ours.”
My emphasis. Gee, every time I see a cat ignore itself in the mirror, instead of treating the image like another cat, I think that’s evidence of ability to recognize itself.
Methane On Mars
I suppose it’s possible that this is an April Fools post, but I don’t think Leonard would do that.
Climate Sensitivity
What is the plausible worst case?
The Day The Dinosaurs Died
This is great science writing. And if this happened today, unlike an excess of plant food in the atmosphere, it probably really would wipe out humanity, or at least a great portion of it.
We could be looking a lot harder for these things, and learning how to deflect them, but Congress would rather build a big monster rocket.
Atheism
It’s not consistent with the scientific method. I agree.
The Younger Dryas
It was apparently much worse than we thought:
As Kennett noted in a recent article in The Current (a university press maintained by UCSB), the crater would have led to widespread destruction, characterized by biomass burning, megafaunal extinctions and global cooling. “It’s much more extreme than I ever thought when I started this work,” he said. “The more work that has been done, the more extreme it seems.”
The discovery was made possible by a Chilean group of scientists who were studying sediment layers at the well-know Quaternary paleontological and archaeological site, known as Pilauco Bajo. Years ago, these scientists recognized changes in the sediment record that were associated with the YDB impact event.These included a “black mat” layer that coincides with the disappearance of South American megafauna fossils and human artifacts dated to the Pleistocene (12,800 years ago), indicating a severe shift in the climate. This was a major find since the vast majority of evidence for the YDB Impact has been found in the northern hemisphere.
Imagine that happening today. And here we’re obsessing over two degrees Celsius.
Better get moving on that vital SLS, so we can protect ourselves. #NotReally
Trump’s “Slashing” Of “Science” Budgets
Ummmmm…no.
The media hysteria is also mistaken (as always) in imagining that NASA human spaceflight has (and has ever had) much to do with science.
Freeman Dyson
“We don’t understand climate.”
He’s not wrong.
[Update late morning]
Is climate change like an asteroid, or diabetes? I’d say neither, but to the limited degree that it’s an understood problem, diabetes is a much better analogy.