In the News - Oh Pluto...

In the News

So recently I came across this article describing how Pluto has yet again been screwed by the scientific community: As Science Evolves, So Does Pluto. And I thought it pertinent to reminisce about my old friend, the planet, I mean dwarf planet, I mean planetoid, I mean plutoid, what?!?!?.

1930 - 2006 - Pluto was discovered and deemed the 9th planet in the solar system. Essentially completing the popular acronym MVEMJSUNP.

2006 - The IAU (International Astronomical Union) destroyed the ever loving acronym (what the hell is a MVEMJSUN?) by reclassifying Pluto as a "Dwarf Planet". This classification includes Ceres - the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt and some other objects large enough beyond Pluto's orbit in the Kuiper Belt (Like Eris). They determined this because they felt that Pluto did not "clear" its orbit (I think because its moon Charon is roughly the same size).

2008 - And they go and do it again. Pluto is now referred to as a "Plutoid". Why? I don't think there is any good reason other than their definition of a "dwarf planet" sucked so they came up with a less controversial definition and needed a new name with it. Now Plutoids are big objects outside of Neptune's orbit. Abandoning Ceres to be the only "dwarf planet".

And in 2009 the debate continues with the article previously mentioned. As Science Evolves, So Does Pluto.

My take on it is that it is all basically semantics. Nothing has changed since 1930. Pluto is still the same size. It still has the same orbit. And as far as I am aware will be like that for a long long time (until it flies into Neptune). They discovered Charon in 1979 and that didn't change anything. I say put it back to being a planet. It is different enough from the other stuff in the Kuiper Belt and it has a fairly long history as a planet. Just leave it be.

A rose by any other name...

In the News - Life under glass

In the News

Ok, not glass but ice. My wife forwarded this article to me that I found pretty interesting. It seems that life has been found in the frozen region under a glacier with no air or light. The microbes were living off of iron, converting it to energy. Fascinating stuff considering what the implications could be for research of life on other planets.

Ancient microbes discovered alive beneath Antarctic glacier

In the News: Global Change vs. the Economy

In the News

Obama pushing stronger fuel-efficiency standard

Obama has hit the ground running. He has already managed to get praise and piss off people in one fell swoop. He recently proposed changes to the way the auto industry makes their cars to make them more environmentally friendly (AKA green). To do this the auto industry would need to make billions of dollars in changes in an already weakened, possibly dying industry.

Now here is where we have the problem. The auto industry in the first place is one of the most corrupt industries in America today. Chopping off the head may be the only way to save them. They made this blatantly clear when they all flew to DC in their private jets to asks for money from congress. The money from the flight alone could have been used to pay several employees for years, not to mention the cost of just maintaining the jets to be ready on a moments notice. I am all in favor of just letting them sort it out themselves. But the problem again is the American people. For the most part they did nothing wrong but they are the one's getting punished. Even with all the money Congress gave to the auto giants they are still laying off tons of people (I'm sure so they don't have to lose as much, better them than us). And they are still in threats of failure. What did the hard working line worker do to deserve this? It is probably all his fault to end up in a declining job market and be put on the butcher's block because some individuals desire to do whatever they please.

But if they fail, others will. We are a country and a society that is built upon itself, so much so that like Jenga, if you take out the wrong block, the whole thing could fail. I was just told that if AIG went under, then I would not have been able to come into work since they supply my company's insurance. It's insane that a company I had nothing to do with would hinder my being able to get a paycheck. The same could be said for almost all the mega-companies. Unfortunately they need to stay afloat - but at what cost to the "little man"?

To finish, I can just say that I commend Obama for enforcing greater restrictions, unfortunately it may be at an inopportune time. And I can say for certain, I will likely never buy an American car again, at least not until they clean up their act.

In The News - Trying to Sue the Scientific Method

In the News

An Article over at Cracked.com lists some people who have tried to sue the Scientific Method (and thankfully lost).

http://www.cracked.com/article_16896_7-stupid-people-who-sued-scientific-method.html

If you don't feel like reading the entire article here is a brief synopsis.
The lawsuits include:

1. A lawsuit stating the Large Hadron Collider was going to destroy the Earth by a botanist.

2. A lawsuit against testing to verify if voting machines work by the makers of the voting machines.

3. A lawsuit to redefine pi as a number easier to remember. (I see no problem remembering 3.1415926somethingsomethingsomething)

4. A lawsuit stating that water retained all the medicines that have been diluted in it, no matter how diluted the water was.

5. A lawsuit that vitamins cure AIDS. (you have to check out the picture on the page, it is classic)

6. A lawsuit by scientists against the government to change the status of polar bears from threatened to endangered and a counter-suit by oil and steel companies to get it removed all together.

7. And a lawsuit against NASA for putting a 300 kilogram bullet into a comet which caused changes in the natural balance of the universe. (Best quote from the article "Which was awesome, because not nearly enough space missions are directed by Michael Bay.")

In The News: VP Debate and the Environment

In the News

One of my major concerns as a geologist is the environment. In regards to that, Governor Palin has come across as not only ignorant but down right backwards on her thinking. I think Biden's comment of "drill, drill, drill" hits the nail right on the head. Personally I think that instead of wasting time and money on more drilling we could spend the same time and money on renewable resources and get the return not only sooner, but then we would be sustainable.

However, the main focus of this rant is on Palin's comment about global warming at the VP debate:

IFILL: ... Let's talk about climate change. What is true and what is false about what we have heard, read, discussed, debated about the causes of climate change?

PALIN: Yes. Well, as the nation's only Arctic state and being the governor of that state, Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state. And we know that it's real.

I'm not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.

But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don't want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?

We have got to clean up this planet. We have got to encourage other nations also to come along with us with the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that.

As governor, I was the first governor to form a climate change sub-cabinet to start dealing with the impacts. We've got to reduce emissions. John McCain is right there with an "all of the above" approach to deal with climate change impacts.

We've got to become energy independent for that reason. Also as we rely more and more on other countries that don't care as much about the climate as we do, we're allowing them to produce and to emit and even pollute more than America would ever stand for. So even in dealing with climate change, it's all the more reason that we have an "all of the above" approach, tapping into alternative sources of energy and conserving fuel, conserving our petroleum products and our hydrocarbons so that we can clean up this planet and deal with climate change.

How does that even make any sense? If somehow McCain wins, he better not die.

In the News: Must you believe in what you study?

I found this very interesting article today stating that Rhode Island University gave a PhD in Geoscience to a Young Earth Creationist (YEC). A YEC is a person that goes against the mainstream scientific viewpoint and believes that everything the Bible says is correct and the Earth is about 6-10 thousand years old, not the 4.6 billion years old the scientific community has adopted.

Actually, not only was his thesis about geology, it was a paleontology degree studying mosasaurs. These animals lived over 65 million years ago during the Mesozoic (The Age of Dinosaurs) and could not have easily fit into the YEC viewpoint. It was stated very clearly by the PhD recipient that he did not believe the science that he was studying, nor the conclusions that he came to.

This leads to my question: can you get a degree in something you profoundly feel is wrong? Most scientists I know feel that Creationists are just wrong based on piles of evidence upon evidence that has been produced for several hundreds of years and, like the flat earth theory, this hopefully will fade into the past. But people are entitled to their own opinions and a society that forces what to believe is not the society Americans signed up for. So let them believe what they want to and I will believe what I want to and we will probably both argue and yell and try to convince the other is wrong but when is life not like that.

But I have a problem with this degree that was granted without any apparent problems to a person who essentially lied through his teeth to get it. What was his point in getting it anyway. He does not believe in what most geologists or paleontologists do, why place himself into that sort of scrutiny? Does he want to convert the masses? Maybe, but then why proclaim that everything we have done was right and then go "I was just lying about that". It makes him look like an idiot where his viewpoints seem to have even less clout than they would have had before.

Go to any SVP (Society of Vertebrate Paleontology) or GSA (Geological Society of America) meeting and present your actual findings and I can guarantee that they will pick apart any findings you have. But don't take that as a religious thing, it's a science thing. Trust me I know. I had 2 years of work taken apart in one finding. But you know what, science moves on and no matter what you think you know. It will turn out to be wrong in the long run.

So again, I pose the question, should a PhD be presented to someone who is making a mockery of the scientific community?

Some links for this story
http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-is-science.html
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/02/20/should-creationists-be-able-to-get-phds-in-geoscience/
http://trueancestor.typepad.com/true_ancestor/2007/02/can_a_student_p.html

In the News: Global warming is definitely, most probably almost certainly human caused

So a new report came out today stating that global warming is likely the result of human activity. So what makes this report different from the many before it?

Nothing that I can tell.

I mean really. How many of these things need to come out before the US government will actually do anything. You know this report was primarily for the benefit of the US public since the rest of the world has grown up and accepted the earlier reports. The most profound international program, the Kyoto Protocol, has been panned by Bush, since it allowed too much leniency for developing nations even though we (the US) produces a vast majority of the CO2 entering the atmosphere.

One thing that I extremely dislike in the report is that they state the effects of global warming are not going to go away anytime soon. Eventually they state much further down the article that this does not mean we shouldn't do anything about it, and that if we do nothing the effects will get much worse. But what about the people that just read the first half of article? It's not like any of us hasn't done that before. It is my worry that this will lead people to the wrong conclusion; that to do nothing will be just as good, if not better than actually trying to stop this.

Anyway, that's my vent. Here is a link to a couple of the stories

Reuters

Associated Press

Live Science

In the News - Bring Pluto Back!!!!

The IAU (International Astronomical Union) has officially demoted Pluto to a new class: the Dwarf Planet. This means that under the classical definition of planet ratified at the meeting there are only 8 classical planets.

I am at odds about this. I say we start a petition to bring Pluto back. Anyone with me, comment on this blog and we will get this overruled. Come on people Pluto was not just any planet for most of you. It was your inner rouge.

This is not the usual planet, like Mars or Jupiter, that could go in any old elliptical orbit like all the others, but this was an eccentric planet. Willing to take risks. To think outside the box. To become the 8th planet at times and not always the 9th. What other planet can boast that. NONE I tell you, none. What planet could live in the realm of gaseous planets and still not be considered one of them, none other than our beloved Pluto. And now they go and try to take that away from us.

From this moment on, I am on strike of the planetary system set up by the world. Strike I tell you. STRIKE!!!!

Article Here

And note: The definition of a dwarf planet states that the dwarf planet "has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, and is not a satellite."

In the News - Intelligent Design is Dead

In a recent article on Yahoo! It states that many Clergy are now on the side of scientists in the view of evolution:

"As a legal strategy intelligent design is dead. It will be very difficult for any school district in the future to successfully survive a legal challenge," Scott said. "That doesn't mean intelligent design is dead as a very popular social movement. This is an idea that has got legs."

But pastors are speaking out against it. Warren Eschbach, a retired Church of the Brethren pastor and professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania helped sponsor a letter signed by more than 10,000 other clergy.

"We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests," they wrote.
Catholic experts have also joined the movement.

"The intelligent design movement belittles God. It makes God a designer, an engineer," said
Vatican' Observatory Director George Coyne, an astrophysicist who is also ordained. "The God of religious faith is a god of love. He did not design me."

Scientific Discussion - New Orleans

Scientific Discussion

Since everyone else needs to make their thoughts known I figured I would join into the game. First off I want everyone to know I am a Democrat. I voted for Kerry and I have no love for Bush. I don't think he has done a good job in his presidency and I think he has made a lot of bad decisions. Ok that being said my comments:

1. I don't know why people are blaming Bush on everything that happened in New Orleans. First I feel that it is not his job to wait for every little thing to happen then respond to it.

2. Second (and the big thing): the day after the hurricane New Orleans was not that badly hit. Several other towns in Mississippi and Louisiana were MUCH worse off, so federal help went to them first. It is the day after that help was down there. The problem first appeared to be bigger than originally thought when the levees broke. That's when New Orleans became the vast disaster area it was. But that was 2 days after the hurricane and all the help was already elsewhere. They could not just drop everything they were doing to rush back.

3. Third: studying geology for the last 6 years I have heard about New Orleans for a very long time. The way they built up the city is similar to Venice. If anyone knows about Venice it is currently sinking so they have to continually build up the streets and buildings. New Orleans blocked off the Mississippi River so that no new sediment was being deposited on the delta where the city was built. A delta is essentially a big bag of sand and silt in water on the edge of the gulf. Now place a city on top of it. This forces the land to settle in the water. Back to current conditions - the city has been sinking causing it to be lower than sea level. The only thing holding out the ocean was the levees. Picture this, a bathtub surrounded by water and then the wall breaks on the tub and it fills with water. It has been known for some time that New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen and no one has tried to fix it.

4. Fourth: Several of the families could not leave the city before it happened but most chose to stay for some stupid reason of "I didn't think it would be so bad". Well it was, and they told you to leave but you didn't and several of them still choose to stay. Even the nursing home was offered busses to leave but the families said they would be fine.

5. Fifth and final: The media is a major problem with this whole thing. They are making problems out to be worse than they are and things that are really bad they are not paying much attention to. They keep blaming Bush without trying to find any help for anyone and don't get me into the whole racist thing. I agree there are gangs and problems and such like that but just because someone is black does not mean they are in a gang and just because they are white does not mean they are innocent. I think the majority of people there are in desperate need for help but it is the few that need to yell at the cameras that get the majority of the attention. And the mayor of New Orleans isn't helping anyone by cursing at the camera saying that Bush should do something. They even had a priest doing the same thing but at FEMA this time.

I personally believe that the setting for this was in place and that it was gonna happen. Was everything done afterwards to help the people, probably not. But we can't focus on that, we need to help the people now and get this city up and running, however long it takes. And this time we need to learn how to do it right. (Now for the bleak geologic future): The reason they need to figure this out is because there are several cities on the coast that are the largest cities on the planet. Because of global warming (not taking place as fast as people are warning but still really fast geologically) the coastal cities will be drowned out. So if they learn how to do it right they might actually be able to save the world in the future.