I was browsing Ars Technica this morning when I came across this article about allergies. It's an interesting read, but the thing that struck me this: [Ruslan] Medzhitov is currently turning his attention to a question that could change immunology yet again: why do we get allergies? No one has a firm answer, but what […]
Science: [James] Gillies [spokesman for CERN] told The Associated Press that the readings [suggesting neutrinos can travel faster than the speed of light] have so astounded researchers that "they are inviting the broader physics community to look at what they've done and really scrutinize it in great detail, and ideally for someone elsewhere in the […]
Those of you with even a passing interest in the scaremongering over carbon dioxide levels will remember the climategate “trick” to hide the decline. Basically, scientist Keith Briffa stopped using bristlecone pine tree rings as climate “thermometers” after 1960 because while we know from real thermometers temperatures were going up, his bristlecone pines started showing […]
Last week, NASA made a big hullabaloo about a microbe that they had “trained” to consume arsenic instead of the normal phosphorus. The discovery was said to open up all sorts of new possibilities when it came to what sorts of environments we could theoretically discover life in on other planets. A week later, it […]
From Peter M. Hekman of San Diego, in The San Diego Union-Tribune re: nuclear power. Read the whole thing, but this is the paragraph that won it: I can factually state that more people died in the back seat of former Sen. Ted Kennedy’s car than have ever died as a result of an accident […]
The Sun has entered a period of relative quiet over the past year or so. A lack of sunspots is key to good cell phone service and satellite TV, but it can also affect the climate. Sunspot minimums, like the Maunder and Dalton, have been synonymous with global cooling and subsequent ice ages. This is […]
While campaigning Barack Obama vowed that he wouldn't subordinate science to politics like President George W. Bush had. He was lying. Barack Obama too ignores the science when it conflicts with his policy goals, as David Freddoso has noted: But before this ceremony even took place, Obama’s administration had already begun cutting corners on its […]
You're probably asking yourself what the heck is dendroclimatology? Well, it's the study of tree rings to determine past climate. It's one of the key tools that the AGW alarmists use to show that it was cooler way back then than it is now -- and it's all our fault. You might have learned back […]
Professor Robert P. George has an excellent, thoughtful response to twelve questions on the issue of stem cell research, abortion and science posed by law professor Douglas Kmeic. Kmeic, as some of you may remember, was an ardent pro-life Catholic who drank the Obama Kool-Aid. I encourage you to read all of the questions and […]
The space shuttle Atlantis almost blew up in 1988 due to an identical problem -- damaged heat shield tiles -- that ultimately brought down the shuttle Columbia 15 years later. The exhaustive attention NASA now devotes to making sure shuttle heat shields are damage-free and safe for re-entry is a direct result of the 2003 […]