Economist reports that my idea about doing non-destructive stem cell research has been successfully tested.
Once a fertilised egg has divided into eight cells, one of those cells can be removed in a biopsy without reducing the chance of a successful pregnancy….such biopsied cells might, instead, be encouraged to reproduce
Environmentalists (most notably, recently, Jared Diamond) are fond of using Easter Island as a cautionary tale of what happens when resources are depleted in a non-renewable manner. Well, it’s looking a lot like this example is a fairy tale:
By the time the second round of radiocarbon results arrived in the fall of 2005, a complete picture of Rapa Nui’s prehistory was falling into place. The first settlers arrived from other Polynesian islands around 1200 A.D. Their numbers grew quickly, perhaps at about three percent annually, which would be similar to the rapid growth shown to have taken place elsewhere in the Pacific. On Pitcairn Island, for example, the population increased by about 3.4 percent per year following the appearance of the Bounty mutineers in 1790. For Rapa Nui, three percent annual growth would mean that a colonizing population of 50 would have grown to more than a thousand in about a century. The rat population would have exploded even more quickly, and the combination of humans cutting down trees and rats eating the seeds would have led to rapid deforestation. Thus, in my view, there was no extended period during which the human population lived in some sort of idyllic balance with the fragile environment.
It also appears that the islanders began building moai and ahu soon after reaching the island. The human population probably reached a maximum of about 3,000, perhaps a bit higher, around 1350 A.D. and remained fairly stable until the arrival of Europeans. The environmental limitations of Rapa Nui would have kept the population from growing much larger. By the time Roggeveen arrived in 1722, most of the island’s trees were gone, but deforestation did not trigger societal collapse, as Diamond and others have argued.
I’m sure that the argument now will be that they were about to collapse any year now, but the evil white men killed them before they had a chance to.
It was supposed to be a higher-than-normal hurricane season this year, but it’s actually below normal, so far. And of course, some ignorant prognosticators even claimed that it was going to be higher than normal (and that way in the future) due to global warming. Roy Spencer explains both why this is nonsense, and why atmosphere and ocean modelers should be a little more humble.
Bedbugs. They’re baaaaccckkk.
It’s funny, you always hear that expression, “don’t let the bedbugs bite,” but you never actually associate it with the very real phenomenon that spurred it, if you’ve never experienced it. And it may mean that we have to rethink the balance between comfort and perceived threats to health from pesticides. Of course, it’s nothing compared to the holocaust caused by the banning of DDT. Thanks, Rachel!
Bedbugs. They’re baaaaccckkk.
It’s funny, you always hear that expression, “don’t let the bedbugs bite,” but you never actually associate it with the very real phenomenon that spurred it, if you’ve never experienced it. And it may mean that we have to rethink the balance between comfort and perceived threats to health from pesticides. Of course, it’s nothing compared to the holocaust caused by the banning of DDT. Thanks, Rachel!
Bedbugs. They’re baaaaccckkk.
It’s funny, you always hear that expression, “don’t let the bedbugs bite,” but you never actually associate it with the very real phenomenon that spurred it, if you’ve never experienced it. And it may mean that we have to rethink the balance between comfort and perceived threats to health from pesticides. Of course, it’s nothing compared to the holocaust caused by the banning of DDT. Thanks, Rachel!
Just in case you weren’t aware that Pat Robertson is an idiot:
The Rev. Pat Robertson said he hasn’t been a believer in global warming in the past, but this summer’s record-breaking heat is “making a convert out of me.”
Yes, we never had hot summers before we started driving those SUVs.
Just in case you weren’t aware that Pat Robertson is an idiot:
The Rev. Pat Robertson said he hasn’t been a believer in global warming in the past, but this summer’s record-breaking heat is “making a convert out of me.”
Yes, we never had hot summers before we started driving those SUVs.
Just in case you weren’t aware that Pat Robertson is an idiot:
The Rev. Pat Robertson said he hasn’t been a believer in global warming in the past, but this summer’s record-breaking heat is “making a convert out of me.”
Yes, we never had hot summers before we started driving those SUVs.
There’s apparently been a pretty good temblor up in the north bay of the Bay Area (think Marin County) about twenty minutes ago. Maybe they’ll mention it at the top of the hour.
You can bet that, with the heat we’ve had lately in CA (as well as everywhere else),people will be dredging up the claims about “earthquake weather.”
Hopefully it’s not a foreshock of something a lot bigger.