If you weren’t at SLAC this afternoon, then you missed a great colloquium. Art Rosenfeld, the Commissioner of the California Energy Commission, gave a presentation on how standards are a leading effort in the fight for energy efficiency and CO2 reduction. He was a charming man, whose dedication to the […]
Science
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Inevitably, when the weight of evidence starts to crush the ribcage of your opinion, liquifying its organs and causing massive internal hemorrhaging, opinion starts to cry for momma. That seems to be what’s happening now, concerning much of the U.S. opinion on the “reality” of human-induced global climate change. This […]
Today, Secretary Bodman came out in defense of U.S. policy toward global climate change. He said that the U.S. spends more on this issue than the rest of the world combined (not sure on what we’re spending it, I am afraid – barely anybody even knows there’s an office of […]
Here are the highlights from the omnibus spending bill passed by the House today: **NSF**:“SEC. 20916. Notwithstanding section 101, the level for ‘National Science Foundation, Research and Related Activities’ shall be $4,665,950,000, of which not to exceed $485,000,000 shall remain available until expended for Polar research and operations support, and […]
As you probably heard, “the primary scientific instrument onboard the Hubble Space Telescope failed today”:http://story.news.ask.com//article/20070130/D8MVBN680.html after its backup power supply failed. While NASA suggests that 1/3 of the camera’s capabilities could be restored in a month or so, it’s clear that this marks the end of a brilliant era in […]
This past Friday, on “Talk of the Nation: Science Friday”, a half-hour of the two-hour program was devoted to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the Higgs particle [SciFriLHC]. The guests were luminaries of the hadron and future collider world – the spokesman of the CDF collaboration at Fermilab (Konigsberg), […]
I had a chance to talk to Jodi tonight. As I’ve mentioned, she is in Calcutta (Kolkata), India, for the “WIN07 Conference”:http://www.saha.ac.in/anp/win07.sinp/win07/index.html. For the last few days, we’ve mostly talked about how she should have pursued more vaccinations before going, and about her water-handling practices. Today, however, the timbre of […]
The saber rattling might be starting in Congress. A scan of news articles on the net reveals concerns over NASA budget shortfalls (1/2 billion), the cost in jobs in Long Island, and the loss of funding for new projects slated to start this year. Here is a sampling: “Congress : […]
Thanks to my dad for reminding me about “Talk of the Nation: Science Friday”. I usually miss the program because of work, but in this age of on-demand internet audio it’s no trouble to catch up with a podcast. I have a bunch I listen to on the weekend, and […]
As reported in a “BBC News Article”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6249721.stm today, the Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, is getting set to launch this fall. This is the culmination of about ten years of hard work by hundreds of engineers, postdocs, students, professors, and funding agencies. NASA and the Department of […]
For many weeks, the radio program “To the Best of Our Knowledge” has been running a series entitled “Electrons to Enlightenment”. It’s taking a wide and varied look at the issues of religion and science in modern American society. The most recent program discussed the relevance of evolution to a […]
As I have probably mentioned in the past, “On The Media” is one of my favorite weekly programs (and netcasts). It tackles issues concerning the media’s portrayal of events, and is interesting from a “peer review” point of view. In science, we review the work of other scientists and by […]