Whale Poop

What does happen to whale fecal matter? I would imagine that, after untold millennia of millions of whales, porpoises, seals, walruses, etc. relieving themselves with abandon in our planet's oceans, the Mariana Trench would be chock-a-block full and we would be up to our surfboards in whale poop.

And the EPA lets them do it! A sea-kayaker can't sh*t in his hat and dump it overboard without being fined hundreds of dollars by our coral-reef huggers. Yet a freed Willy can defecate to his heart's content without so much as a Sierra Club reprimand.

Yes, this is meant as a scientific spoof ... but also to demonstrate that we are getting sillier and sillier with our environmental angst.

Signed,
Jacques Cousteau

Francis N. Stein

Mary Shelley was writing fantasy when she wrote the thriller, "Frankenstein". But now such a monumental medical event is well within sight. Let me explain. Medical researchers can take organs and other body parts from cadavers and re-engineer them into working organs and body parts for living patients. It is done thusly: first the organs are decellurized. That is, a variety of solutions (dependent on the body part) are used to dissolve all the cellular matter from these body parts, see: NIH publication. What is left is the extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffold. Then these ECM structures will be placed in a nutrient bath along with stem cells extracted from the bone marrow of the target patient. In a matter of days, these stem cells re-arrange themselves into the muscles, nerves, blood vessels, etc. of what once was these body parts ... only they are, in effect, brand spanking new body parts (hearts, kidneys, eyes, stomachs, etc.) for the target patient. And these parts are a genetic match for this target patient ... with no chance of rejection. Truly remarkable!

Now I know this sounds like science fiction, but it is not a hoax. Yes, such remarkable developments are just getting started, but so far a new bioengineered bronchus was grown and installed in a woman in Guatemala (without rejection) and new skeletal muscle segments have also been bioengineered (see: all things stem cell). Clearly, this process is now very complex and fraught with setbacks, but it is, nevertheless, possible ... and it is probably only a matter of years before people can order new body parts from bioengineering factories. And, if this be the case, why shouldn't Francis N. Stein be able, at some future point, to order his twin to be created out of an assemblage of body parts or, even, as a whole? This is the Mary Shelley connection. I am intrigued by how life might be breathed into such a construct (a bolt of lightning?) and what might be the thought contents of a bioengineered brain (tabula rasa?). But (bio)science marches on ... trampling over such seeming monstrous obstacles. And yes, such a possibility raises a myriad of ethical and spiritual issues, but it now seems quite likely to this observer that our grandchildren will need to deal with such matters -- hopefully not with torches and pitchforks.

A Star in the East

Here is a celestial phenomenon that appeared over Norway yesterday. Was is a strange manifestation of the northern lights? Or the test firing of a Russian missile? Or even a sign that the Messiah was coming to Oslo to accept some sort of prize? You decide.

The Newest Huckster

P.T. Barnum would be so proud.

Hide the Decline

Climategate has opened a can of worms insofar as the shenanigans that the "scientists" at East Anglia University went through to push their self-serving conclusions about global warming. Now Steve McIntyre has pulled back the Wizard-of-Oz curtain on the "trick" that these charlatans used to "hide the decline" in global warming after 1960.

Instead of the actual measured global temperature decline (please reference the above chart), this data was thereafter "adjusted" to show a dramatic increase in "Global Warming" (the "hockey stick"). This hoax was then adopted by Al Gore and the UN's IPCC to push their new-world-order agenda. This may well be the biggest scientific scandal since Galileo was crushed by the Catholic Church for his heliocentric view of our solar system. To get the complete story, please reference Steve McIntyre's blog post: Hide the Decline (And I give a tip of the hat to Michelle Malkin for this reference.)

Can we please have vigorous congressional hearings to get to the bottom of this Climategate hoax? And, as I have suggested in previous e-mails to any Kool-Aid drinkers, I think that East Anglia University, Penn State University, the UN's IPCC, Al Gore, The Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Barbara Boxer ("Ma'am"), and Henry Waxmax should be class-action sued for one trillion dollars ... with the proceeds distributed to all those scientists who were squashed for being Global-Warming doubters (sneeringly called "Deniers") and even a few million to the hacker(s) who brought this scientific scandal to light.

Balloon Bubble Head

From the Associated Press: "[The balloon boy's father], Richard Heene was 'obsessed' with trying to land a TV show and become famous. 'Heene believes the world is going to end in 2012.' [attorney, Linda Lee] said. 'Because of that, he wanted to make money quickly, become rich enough to build a bunker or something underground where he can be safe from the sun exploding."

I kind of doubt that any bunker, however deep, will protect this (un)reality-show bubble head from an exploding sun. No wonder his apparently-put-upon son seems to suffer from ongoing dyspepsia.

What if They Are Wrong?

This is an artist's conception of a ship that will travel the Earth spewing water-vapor clouds that would then cool off our planet. This would be just one more (expensive) attempt to counter what is thought by many to be man-made global warming. Add to this, new proposed cap-and-trade legislation and huge government programs (battery technology, solar power, wind power ... but not nuclear power ) to reduce our use of fossil fuels and it is clear that man is pulling out all stops to cool down his planet.

But what if they are wrong? What if man is misreading the science (wouldn't be the first time) and is hastening the advent of our world's next ice age? What then ... would we have any redress against those chicken-littles who did us in? I think not.

Beam Me up Scotty

Having just spent some time in New Mexico, it does not surprise me to read that this state is allocating $198 million to build a spaceport. See: New Mexico Spaceport. I say that it doesn’t surprise me because New Mexico is mostly quite elevated terrain (Santa Fe is at 7,000 feet above sea level) and therefore it is much cheaper to launch and retrieve spacecraft from such higher elevations. Why the United States chose sea-level Cape Canaveral as its primary launch point for manned space flight might have made some sense in the 1960’s (when emergency recovery of aborted flights from other locales was more problematic) but it is clearly very uneconomic today when the same logic does not apply. The second head-scratching reason is that New Mexico has become a more liberal state with Bill Richardson as its governor. And liberals, for reasons that escape me, often have romantic and unrealistic notions about the intersection of science and economics (witness their current global-warming mania).

Thus, that New Mexico is spending any level of public funds, let alone almost $200 million, to support the starry-eyed commercial endeavor of that tow-headed limey megalomaniac, Richard Branson, seems to me as loopy and wasteful. Even if the technology of this Star-Trek-light private-sector pie-in-the-sky effort succeeds, the revenue generated from the few flights a year it would attract cannot possible justify this kind of public-sector outlay. And, (God-forbid) after the first unsuccessful paying-passenger space launch, this facility will, I predict, likely become a ramshackled tumble-weed racetrack.

I Believe …

- Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas
- There are many other greenhouse gasses – methane, water vapor, etc.
- Man creates but a small percentage of the Earth’s greenhouse gasses. See this.
- Nature has many mechanism that cleanse the Earth of greenhouse gasses
- Greenhouse gasses do cause the Earth’s temperature to rise.
- The amount of this global increase for each gas is only a scientific approximation
- Many, many other things cause the Earth’s temperature to increase and decrease
- These things include: solar activity, Earth’s orbital mechanics, ocean current changes, etc.
- The degree of warming and cooling for each of these things is generally poorly understood
- There are other unknown unknowns that also affect the Earth’s climate
- “Scientific” modeling of future climate change on Earth without a complete knowledge and understanding of all these parameters and their effects is a fool’s game
- The Earth’s politicians are currently letting this foolish and imprecise “science” dictate policy
- The economic consequences of these proposed policy decisions will be staggering
- This all makes no sense whatsoever

The Concensus on Global Warming ...

is beginning to crumble. See:

Al Gore's worst nightmare

Solving Forever Our Energy Needs

Lightning, they say, is produced by static electricity. However, I thought that static electricity requires a very dry environment … which doesn’t exist in rain storms. Also, lightning is also produced during violent volcanic eruptions which involve lots of water vapor as well as other conducting gases and particulates. In thinking about magnetism and how it can produce electricity (mechanically moving a electrical conductor perpendicular to the flux lines of a magnetic field), I have been struck by how lightning might be produced by this very same process. Think about it … rain storms involve the rapid uprising of thunderheads high into the Earth’s atmosphere (many above 50,000 feet) and volcanoes, the rapid rise of the volcanic plumes to equal or higher elevations. Both these uprisings involve an electrical conductor (mostly water vapor) traveling rapidly through the lower-level flux lines of the Earth’s magnetic field. Why wouldn’t this process mimic a generator? Once this electricity is produced it seeks to ground itself … thus lightning.

If this does more accurately describe the process of lightning generation, then why could mankind not also mimic this process to generate forever all of our Earth’s electricity needs? All we would need is to drag large electrical conductors across the Earth’s magnetic flux lines. Since the Earth itself provides enormous mechanical movement with its spinning, large conductors suspended from geo-synchronous orbiting satellites might well supply unlimited amounts of electrical power to the termini of these conductors down on terra firma. And this electrical power generation process would be greener than green … no carbon emissions, no nuclear waste, no acid-rain producing sulfur emissions, no more Al Gore pontificating. Yes, I expect that there would be enormous engineering difficulties to be overcome to build such a geo-generator, but surely it would be worth it. Tell me if and where I am off the mark.

Global Warming Solutions

Some innovative solutions to our global warming “problem”:

- Pour concrete caps on all volcanoes to stop them from spewing noxious gasses
- Have everyone open their refrigerator doors and leave them open
- Set off multiple nuclear explosions in space to push the Earth further from the sun
- Fizz all soda pop with nitrous oxide instead of carbon dioxide
- Require that all cars only go down hill (with their engines off)
- Turn around all our air conditioners to point them outwards
- Outlaw all executive jets (including Obama’s, McCain’s and Schwarzenegger’s)
- Kindly ask China and India to regress back into third world countries
- Have all Southern hemisphere peoples move north in their summer and visa versa
- Stop humans from eating any plants (which, as we know, soak up carbon dioxide)
- Build all our house with mud and wattles, not wood
- Reduce the allowable respiration tempo in humans by one-half
- Stop all cows from farting by giving them Gas-X
- Make everyone get their news on the Internet by outlawing newsprint
- Change the calibrations on all thermometers by minus ten degrees
- Make Al Gore "Imperial World Emperor"

The Madness of Crowds

From: Watts up with that?

"But even more impressive is the change since the last big peak in global temperature in January 2007 at 0.594°C, giving a 16 month ∆T of -0.774°C which is equal in magnitude to the generally agreed upon “global warming signal” of the last 100 years."

Eagles Don't Flock

H. Ross Perot (nee Pearow) has used the shibboleth “Eagles don’t flock, you must find them one at a time” at his various companies. Well, like many other "scientific" assumptions, this one also falls to the facts:

The Pope Knows

Pope Benedict XVI has publicly urged caution on the part of ecomaniacs when it comes to their crusades against “man-made” global warming … see: The Pope Knows Galileo must be spinning in his grave to see the Catholic Church coming down on the side of reason instead of superstition. (Source: The Drudge Report.)

A Scientist on Global Warming

The following was written by Joe Bastardi, a noted Climatologist and a contributor to Accuweather, a very well respected web site that gives weather forecasts tailored to your specific area. See for yourself: http://www.accuweather.com/

Our knowledge of the past should serve as a foundation for actions in the present. While not dismissing those who are concerned about global warming, I am disturbed that they often base their conclusions on data that, in the context of time, are only a grain of sand on the beach. They cite temperature changes from the last 10, 50, or 100 years, ignoring the fact that climate history and cycles didn't start 10 years or even 10 centuries ago.

Nothing that is happening today is new or different. I have yet to have a global warming "true believer" tell me why over the past hundreds and thousands of years, before any significant or even detectable human influence, there were periods where carbon dioxide and temperature levels were well above those of recent experience. There are also places in our northern plains that have been covered with glaciers at one time and tropical rain forest at others, all without man's influence. There is no reason to think that this can't happen again no matter what we do. Anyone with a true understanding of climate history knows that the relatively small changes experienced over the last 100 years could easily be "natural."

After ignoring the past, some analysts then use computer projections to predict temperatures for the next 100 years or more. It is astounding to see people put so much faith in these man-made computer models, yet ignore the actual facts of the past. As someone who has made a living at pointing out the folly of worshipping the false idol of atmospheric models, I find these projections to be a classic case of being blinded by the lure of the latest technological fad. Perhaps this is the most telling difference between those who are accepting of the "global warming hypothesis" and those of us who are skeptical. The former tend to base their conclusions on the guesses of computer models. We skeptics focus on actual climate history and conclude that nothing out of the ordinary is occurring.

I consider myself an environmentalist. Steps should be taken to make sure we use God's blessings with a sound sense of stewardship. This is the role of science, to provide us with the information necessary to make intelligent decisions. The advancement of science in all areas necessitates open dialogue.

Unfortunately, I fear that the policies being promoted in the name of global warming are not being driven by a search for scientific truth, but by a political agenda. Many great scientists, more gifted than I, have had their voices muffled when they dissent from what might be considered the "politically correct" version of the global warming story. For example, there are many climate scientists whose work uses actual climate data from satellite and weather balloons and shows little to no warming.

Global-warming alarmists and most of the media, despite the fact that these are the most reliable data sets available, routinely ignore their work. This is just one of many examples that could be cited. As a scientist, I find it discomforting to see people trying to shut down debate on this matter by ignoring research that doesn't fit preconceived conclusions.

Furthermore, I fear that this political agenda may be at odds with the ideas that have led to the establishment of our nation as a beacon of freedom and prosperity. A policy aimed at reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a gas that is essential for life as we know it, would necessarily restrict human freedom and economic growth. To reduce carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption must be reduced, with restrictions on the choices we can make about how we live, travel, and produce goods and services.

The state of North Carolina may soon consider implementing policies geared toward reducing CO2 emissions. People need to take the time to look at all sides of the issue. Unfortunately much of the rhetoric in this area is meant to appeal to a generation reared on "Fern Gully," with no sense of sound science or history. I ask people of good will to at least consider the arguments here. I sincerely hope that the fight is for the betterment of the gift God gave us, Earth - not a hasty effort based on self-guilt that could derail America's train of freedom.

And by the way, enjoy the weather; it's the only weather you got.

AUTISM

There has recently been lots of hysterical commentary linking thimerosal, a mercury-based ingredient in childhood vaccines, with the increase in incidents of childhood autism. Robert Kennedy Jr. and Imus (in the Morning) have been two of the more vocal of these maniacal accusers. But, working against this frenzy have been numerous scientific studies pooh-poohing such a relationship. (See the NY Times Article published today.) To me, there are two possible explanations for this autism phenomenon: 1) The increased incidents of childhood autism are a function of our increased sensitivity to the symptoms of this malady (and the increased services offered to autism sufferers) and/or 2) some environmental substance that seems to be disturbing the genetic construction of these autistic children … possibly through their parents. Now, if this substance is not thimerosal, what chemicals are now so rife that they might be candidates for such genetic disturbance? Two candidates come immediately to mind – alcohol and designer drugs. However, alcohol has been around for eons whereas the increased popularity of designer drugs seems to coincide much more closely with the perceived growth of childhood autism.

How should we go about proving or debunking such a relationship? First, we must get around the political incorrectness of such a theory. Second, we need to probe the incidents of childhood autism in developed countries where designer drug use is much lower than in the United States (if there are any) to see if such a relationship might exist. And finally, if the previous results suggest, we need to investigate the history of designer drug use by the parents of autistic children and then perform statistical relationships between each of these drug-use patterns and the possible autism among their issue.

I think that such a study is very much worth the social disruption that it might cause. After all, our children are our future.

Hole in One

Astronomers Find Huge Hole in Universe
By SETH BORENSTEIN,
AP (Aug. 24) - Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe. That's got them scratching their heads about what's just not there. The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing. That's a giant expanse of nearly 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness, a University of Minnesota team announced Thursday. Astronomers have known for many years that there are patches in the universe where nobody's home. In fact, one such place is practically a neighbor, a mere 2 million light years away. But what the Minnesota team discovered, using two different types of astronomical observations, is a void that's far bigger than scientists ever imagined.
"This is 1,000 times the volume of what we sort of expected to see in terms of a typical void," said Minnesota astronomy professor Lawrence Rudnick, author of the paper that will be published in Astrophysical Journal. "It's not clear that we have the right word yet ... This is too much of a surprise."

Never daunted by the lack of scientific credentials, I offer these possible explanations for this hole in our universe:

1) I know that the accepted astronomical paradigm for the universe is likening it to the edge of an expanding balloon with no real “center.” But isn’t it possible that this hole is, in fact, the locus of the big bang? In others words, the big bang obviously threw enormous amounts of fundamental matter out from some point in space. Could it not be that this hole is due to such a vacating of the universe’s “Garden of Eden”?

2) We generally know and somewhat understand black holes … spots of enormous gravity that suck everything back down into their centers … even light. Could it not be that black holes have an antithesis, or white holes? And that such white holes in space are filled with anti-gravity (anti-gravitons?) that push all matter away?

3) We have all read in science fiction about worm holes – connections to other universes or other time-space continuums. Could not this (these?) vacuum of space be a portal to such a worm hole?

4) Is it possible that there was a spot (or spots) in our nursery universe where matter and antimatter existed in roughly equal quantities … and that these dipoles, early-on, annulated one another to leave a great nothingness?

God’s Gifts

"The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe." - Albert Einstein

I am not a religious person but I do find it remarkable that man inhabits an ecosystem that enjoys a plethora of possibly providential coincidences … any of which, if missing, would likely doom us to annihilation. And there are other, often man-evolved extras (primarily, I think, stemming from man’s obsession toward species survival), which make our lives on Earth much more livable and tolerable. I have listed below many of these gifts, generally in order of importance, with a line separating those which seem essential versus those that are just palliative (the latter, collectively may be called civilization):

-Gravity/Celestial Dynamics – Otherwise the Earth and all of its creatures would go flying off into space
-Electricity/Magnetism – Otherwise the Sun’s cosmic rays would strip away our atmosphere and cook us all like so many shish-ka-bobs
-Atomic Fusion/Fission – Otherwise our Sun would be provide us no warmth, light, or sustenance … with predictable results
-Photons/Electromagnetic Spectrum – Otherwise we would be without light and all the benefit that light and other radiations provide us
-The Limit of Speed (Speed of Light) – Otherwise all the radiation from all the universe’s sources would be instantaneous and very likely lethal
-Number and Variety of Elements (Periodic Table) – Life could not exist without this wide array of elemental building blocks
-Earth’s Self-Regulating Atmosphere – Without these feedback mechanisms (including the ozone layer), our planet would be as devoid of life as Mars or our moon
-Photosynthesis – Otherwise the source of all nourishment on Earth would not exist and carbon dioxide might smother our atmosphere
-Light Ice – Ice, strangely, being lighter than water, floats and insulates the water beneath it … otherwise, life might only exist within our tropics
-Combustion (Oxygen/Carbon Dioxide Cycle) – Otherwise energy and what it brings to life (locomotion, warmth, etc.) would be very scarce
-DNA/Evolution/Organic Chemistry – Otherwise life, if it existed at all, would be extremely primitive and short-lived
-Vast Variety of Molecules/Inorganic Chemistry – Otherwise, most of our planet’s basics (water, carbon dioxide, ozone, etc.) would not exist
- Water's Capillary Action -- Otherwise water and its solutes could not travel against the pull of gravity and most plants would not exist
- Carbon-Based Life Forms – Other-element-based life forms are problematic and, if sustainable, would be quite inefficient
___________________________________________________________
-The Concept of Time – Keeps man grounded relative to his limited lifespan
-Human Procreation/Sex -- Enables man to ensure the continuation of his species
-Crop Cultivation – Enables man to manage his carbohydrate food supply and thus to multiply and prosper
-Animal Husbandry -- Enables man to manage his protein food supply and thus to flourish
-Language/Writing/Information Technology -- Enables man to pass on useful information efficiently and thus maintain a knowledge base
-Man’s Creativity/Tool-building Genius -- Enables man to multiply his muscle and brain power and thus to thrive
-Man’s Work Ethic -- Enables man to better utilize his time and thus be more productive
-The Scientific Method/Mathematics -- Enables man to better understand his condition and thus control life’s randomness
-Doctoring/Medicine -- Enables man to survive longer and therefore magnify his productivity with experience
-Money/Accounting/Economics -- Enables man to understand and organize his endeavors better and thus to prosper
-Social Organization/Government (occasionally benign) – Enables better cooperation and efficiency within man’s societal groups
-Man’s Emotions (Humor/Love/Fear/Hate/etc.) – Inspires man to higher levels of achievement
-Religion/Ethics – Meant to provide the society of man with more benevolent motivations and, thus, less self-destructive strife ... and religion helps mankind deal with the vagaries and randomness of life

-Beauty/Aesthetics – Provides man with a more satisfying life experience and an avenue to celebrate his uniqueness
-Taste Buds/Odor Receptors – Motivates man to eat a wider variety of foods and therefore achieve better nourishment
-Music/Harmonic Scales – Provides man with a more relaxing life experience and, therefore, less anxiety
-Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwiches – On toasted rustic white bread with fresh ground pepper and lots of mayonnaise

Ecomania

The only certain thing in life is change. The earth has, over the course of its 4 ½ billion years life, gone through many dramatic shifts in its ecology. Today, there are roughly one million animal species on earth. But throughout history it is estimated there have been at least one hundred times this many … the rest having disappeared. During the days of the dinosaurs, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were as much as ten times what they are currently. During the world’s ice ages, glaciers were thousands of feet thick over most of what we now know as New England. Around 250 million years ago, all the world’s continents were part of one massive land mass called Pangaea … which then broke into pieces and drifted around the world to their current locales. Even what we now know as India broke off much later from Africa and, after about 40 million years, slammed into Asia, creating the Himalayan Mountains in the process. (And this, I assume, is why we have elephants and tigers in both locations.) About 700,000 years ago the massive caldera that sits under Yellowstone Park blew its top and darkened our entire world for years, dramatically changing our world’s ecology. And it is expected to duplicate this climatic act sometime during the next few thousand years (perhaps even tomorrow).

And yet today, many of the human species believe that the way things are now are inviolate and should never change even the slightest bit … else it is man who is at fault. If the ecology of the snail darter changes and this fish is not able to adapt to these changes, then man must reverse these ecology changes so that the snail darter can survive throughout eternity. This syndrome I like to think of as “ecomania” … that is, the belief that man owns (and can control) nature and ecology and not the reverse. This, of course, is as silly as watching an egomaniac prancing and preening on the world’s stage as though he/she will live forever. (Remember Bette Davis in her latter years, face sagging from a stroke and not realizing she was a crone, behaving as though she were still 30 and vivacious). I’m afraid that nature will teach us all in the end that we are but a trivial adjunct to our earth’s ecology. (If the billions of humans in the world were all stacked like cordwood in the Grand Canyon, they would only fill a few miles of this river gorge.) To think that we can control and remedy nature’s ways, I think, comes from man’s harnessing of atomic energy. This has inflated our collective ecomania far beyond logic and may, in the end, contribute more to our undoing than atomic weaponry.

Nature will eventually teach us all that the current mass hysteria about how we are despoiling our environment is but a flip of a butterfly’s wing in the hurricane that is nature’s true way.