[Vo]:Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday June 22, 2007
-Forwarded Message-by Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jun 22, 2007 1:46 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday June 22, 2007 WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 22 Jun 07 Washington, DC 1. STEM CELLS: BUSH DECLARES ALL HUMAN LIFE IS SACRED. Peace activists say the same thing. The President said this while issuing his second-annual summer-solstice-veto of legislation to lift his ban on embryonic stem cell research. He said that the United States is founded on the principle that all human life is sacred – unless you’re in Iraq, where 80 American lives have been sacrificed so far this month. I couldn’t find such a principle in the Constitution; instead I found the First Amendment. By imposing his bizarre religious belief that embryonic stem cells are people on the rest of us, the President has violated the constitutional rights of every living, breathing American. 2. POPULATION: HOUSE REVERSES BAN ON CONTRACEPTION AID. Before you applaud, it faces a veto, and there are not enough votes for an override. The ban is a key element of Bush foreign policy, though why the U.S. opposes birth control in other countries is beyond comprehension. Uncontrolled population growth will, in time, overtake every advance in human condition. 3. MILEAGE: SENATE VOTES TO RAISE FUEL ECONOMY STANDARDS. With Detroit howling, the Senate yesterday passed the first substantial increase in fuel mileage requirements in more than two decades. It would raise the combined average mileage of cars and light trucks from 25 mpg to 35 mpg. If we already had that kind of mileage we wouldn’t need oil from the Middle East. 4. RELIABLE REPLACEMENT WARHEAD: HOUSE SAYS NO NEW NUKES. In its present form, the appropriations bill eliminates RRW funding and calls for development of a nuclear weapons strategy before any new warheads can be considered. Thomas D’Agostino, the White House choice to head the National Nuclear Security Administration, admits there are no known problems with the W-76 or other warheads in the stockpile, but something might come up so we should develop the RRW. But there might be an unexpected problem with the RRW, so we should develop the More Reliable Replacement Warhead, MRRW, and then the Even More Reli... 5. SALMON RUSHDIE: MUSLIM WORLD IS FURIOUS OVER KNIGHTHOOD. The bestowing of a knighthood on the novelist led to a second fatwa against him. An apostate Muslim, his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, was called blasphemous, earning him a death sentence from Ayatollah Khomeini. It forced Rushdie to live in hiding for nine years. To be apostate is unforgivable to Muslims. Only religion can inspire such irrational hatred. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]:Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday June 15, 2007
-Forwarded Message-by Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jun 15, 2007 2:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday June 15, 2007 WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 15 Jun 07 Washington, DC 1. COLLISION: LHC DELAYS STARTUP - TEVATRON DELAYS SHUTDOWN. It’s now official: the LHC will not attempt a November startup. Because electricity in Geneva is prohibitively expensive in the winter that puts it off until April. Which opened up the possibility of keeping the Tevatron, at Fermilab in Batavia, IL running through 2010, giving the venerable accelerator an additional year to look for evidence of the legendary Higgs boson http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN07/wn033007.html . Perhaps when the God particle is confirmed it will inspire a new exhibit at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY - perhaps. 2. CONSTRUCTION: WHY NOT JUST DECLARE THE ISS FINISHED? Today was supposed to be the day astronauts would stitch up a rip in a thermal blanket that tore on launch. Atlantis is docked at the ISS on a 13-day construction mission to install new segments of solar panels to enhance the energy supply in preparation for Europe’s Columbus module which is supposed to join the ISS later this year. Plans changed when three Russian computers crashed. The computers maintain orientation of the ISS and control oxygen levels. The Russians think electrical noise from the new solar panels is to blame. They did what you and I would do, they rebooted, but the computers re-crashed. We all have days like this with our computers. In space it leads to scary talk about abandoning the ISS. 3. CLIMATE: CRUCIAL HURRICANE SATELLITE IS AT RISK. The Associated Press this week quoted a letter from the chief of NOAA to a Florida Congressman warning that although the aging QuikScat satellite could fail at any moment, replacement plans have been pushed back to 2016. Loss of QuikScat would seriously degrade predictions of the intensity and path of hurricanes. It was launched in 1999 with a design life of two to three years. 4. CONSERVATION: NEW MEXICO SENATORS DISAGREE ON ENERGY BILL. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) normally work pretty well together, considering the ideological space between them, but Bingaman, who chairs Energy and Natural Resources is chief sponsor of a wide-ranging energy bill that mandates a major increase in automobile and light truck (read SUV) fuel efficiency (to 35mpg) and requires utilities to get 15% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. The Bush administration and many Republican senators want a bill that promotes drilling to push down the price at the pump. In fact, the drop in gas prices for the past three weeks is the really bad news. We need $5 gasoline to begin changing life styles. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]:Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday June1, 2007
-Forwarded Message-by Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jun 8, 2007 10:35 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday June1, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 7 Jun 07 Washington, DC 1. IRAQ: TO WHAT PROBLEM IS THE TROOP SURGE A SOLUTION? The news this week was dominated by stories about non-solutions to non-existent problems. At his confirmation hearing yesterday, General Lute the new war czar, told the Senate that unless there is political reform, violence will rage for another year regardless of a troop build up. 2. IRAN: DO WE NEED ANTIMISSILE DEFENSES IN EASTERN EUROPE? Iran is pushing forward with enriching uranium. What will we do about it? Install antimissile sites in Poland and radars in the Czech Republic. Putin is offering the giant radar in Azerbaijan, but he notes that Iran doesn~Rt have a missile. No matter, we don't have a defense. 3. MEXICO: SOMETHING THERE IS THAT DOESN'T LOVE A WALL. The bipartisan immigration reform bill failed in the Senate in the early morning hours today. Other Great walls have not worked well. Before I built a wall, Frost wrote, I'd ask what I was walling in or walling out. 4. SPACE: WHY FINISH THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION? With an astronaut love triangle and shuttle problems, it hasn't been a great year for the ISS, but then, there has never been a great year for the orbiting boondoggle. Atlantis is again set for launch at 7:38 pm ET today. NASA must complete the ISS so it can be dropped into the ocean on schedule in finished form. 5. STEM CELLS: POSSIBLE NEW SOURCE OF EMBRIONIC-LIKE CELLS? Nature yesterday described a brilliant gene transfer method of reprogramming fetal mouse cells to be indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells. Many mouse cures haven't carried over to humans. What is sad is that it should be necessary to take this route. A vast trove of embryonic stem cells in fertility clinics will be autoclaved to satisfy superstitious beliefs. 6. PASSAGE: STEPHEN E. STRAUS, 60, DIED OF BRAIN CANCER. The first director of the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH, his task was to turn the quack-dominated Office of Alternative Medicine, created by Congress, into a scientific center. He did it with grace, the only way possible, subjecting one quack cure after another to randomized double-blind tests, while enduring attacks from scientists who thought he moved too slowly. One after another all failed. Anything else would have invited interference from Congress. I was fortunate to serve on his Steering Committee. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]:Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday May 25, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: May 25, 2007 1:56 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday May 25, 2007 WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 25 May 07 Washington, DC 1. RRW: HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE NUKES NEW WARHEAD. The administration broke a leg coming out of the starting gate this week when a House panel eliminated funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead. First, the administration declined to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and now proposes to develop a whole new generation of nuclear weapons, while at the same telling other nations not to develop them. That might rank among the most dangerous strategies in history – unless the United States has an impenetrable shield against attack. Let’s take a look at how that’s coming. 2. MISSILE DEFENSE: CONGRESS IS THREATENING TO NUKE THAT TOO. A lot depends on a test of the antimissile shield in California and Alaska scheduled for this week. The shield hasn’t been exactly impenetrable in previous tests, though it’s alleged to have hit the target once in a highly choreographed test. In Texas they say, Even a blind sow will pick up an acorn occasionally. Fred Lamb, a physics professor at the University of Illinois, who recently led a study of missile defense for the American Physical Society, is concerned that the new test might be another acorn. He is quoted in the New York Times as worrying that a successful test would be cited as proof that the system has a substantial capability in a real battle situation. That would be a gross exaggeration. 3. CREATION: VEGETARIAN DINOSAURS LINE UP TO BOARD NOAH’S ARK. Jurassic Park it’s not. The $27M Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY opens Monday. Petersburg is across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, but it’s about 150 years behind. I was in Cincinnati for a meeting a number of years ago. It was a bright spring day, and I took the lunch period to walk in a pleasant park that ran a mile or so along the bank above the river. There were bronze plaques set in the walkway depicting long- extinct life forms characteristic of each geologic period. As they walked further and further back in time, children would stop to read each one. Across the river, the Creation Museum shows the world after the fall and expulsion from Eden. Frozen in time, dinosaurs and people were created on the sixth day, and never ate each other. The museum is a monument to the failure of education. Meanwhile, the National Association of State Boards of Education will elect officers in July. There is only one candidate for President-elect: Kenneth Wilson, a Kansas Republican who voted to change the state’s science standards to include intelligent design. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]:Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday May 18, 2007
-Forwarded Message-by Akira Kawasaii From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: May 18, 2007 5:36 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday May 18, 2007 WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 18 May 07 Washington, DC 1. DOE POLYGRAPH PROGRAM: COUNTER INTELLIGENCE TAKEN LITERALLY. A 30 Apr 07 memo notified Los Alamos employees that random polygraph tests of 8,000 personnel in high-risk categories will be conducted by the DOE as part of a new counter-intelligence program. Three years ago, a National Academy of Sciences study done at the request of the DOE, The Polygraph and Lie Detection, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN03/wn041803.html concluded that the high incidence of false positives made the polygraph worse than useless. Nothing indicates it will work any better for randomly chosen personnel. The polygraph, in fact, has ruined careers, but never uncovered a single spy. If you have an orgasm while being tested and lie about it, the operator can probably tell. For anything else, it’s a coin toss. 2. COLLAPSING BUBBLE: PURDUE LAUNCHES A NEW PROBE OF TALEYARKAN. Our last episode in the continuing Rusi Taleyarkhan sonofusion mystery ended as Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC), chair of the Science Investigations Subcommittee, asked for the report http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN07/wn032307.html . Last week, the subcommittee concluded that, although Purdue had bungled the investigation, the still-secret internal report reveals serious deviations from accepted scientific practices. In today’s installment, according to Science, there are new allegations, as a result of which the University is undertaking a broader study, expected to take another 3 months. It’s already been a year. 3. INTELLIGENT DESIGN: CREATIONIST ASTRONOMER DENIED TENURE. Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure at Iowa State University. The Discovery Institute was shocked at this blatant disregard of the cherished principle of “viewpoint diversity.” With Jay Richards, a theologian, Gonzalez wrote The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery. It’s a daffy twist on the anthropic principle, which was already daffy enough. The simple fact is that his colleagues voted him off the island. It’s not like he was tenured and then fired. 4. TENURE: IT DOES NOT GUARANTEE YOU’LL BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. Something happens to scientists who think too much about the anthropic principle. Frank Tipler and John Barrow wrote The Anthropic Cosmological Principle in 1986. Last year it won Barrow the $1.4M Templeton Prize. Tipler probably thinks he should have gotten it in 1994 for The Physics of Immortality, but he’s not giving up. In his new book, The Physics of Christianity, out this month, Tipler equates the Holy Trinity with the cosmological singularity. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]:Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday May 11, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: May 11, 2007 2:32 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday May 11, 2007 WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 11 May 07 Washington, DC 1. MISSILE DEFENSE BUDGET: CONGRESS BALKS AT SILOS IN POLAND. The Bush administration wants to install 10 interceptors in Poland and tracking radar in the Czech Republic – like the type of system that doesn’t work in Alaska. Congress is unlikely to provide the money. The Safeguard ABM system was abandoned, the Strategic Defense Initiative was stillborn, and Bush’s National Missile Defense is turned off. Ballistic missiles are easier to make than to stop. The only meaningful defense has always been the threat of retaliation. But a chilling article in today’s NY Times asks “retaliation against whom?” Missiles carry a return address. Bombs carried in by terrorists do not. 2. SCIENCE BUDGET: MAYBE WE COULD PRIVATIZE THE WAR IN IRAQ. At the annual AAAS Science and Technology Forum last week, one-time physicist Jack Marburger, told science policy wonks that prospects for increased science funding are poor. Marburger observed that science has been held to a constant slice of the federal pie for the past 40 years, and he says it’s not going to change now. He cited “competing societal priorities,” by which he must mean the war in Iraq. “New researchers will either find new ways to fund their work, or they will leave the field.” 3. NASA BUDGET: CLIMATE EXPERTS WARN THAT EARTH IS GOING BLIND. Seventeen years ago, Dan Goldin, then head of NASA, pushed hard for a major effort, called Mission to Planet Earth, to monitor changes in Earth’s environment from space. The head of the Space Subcommittee, Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), hated the idea, and transferred funding to the Space Station http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN97/wn111497.html . I recalled the episode when I read an op-ed in Wednesday’s Washington Post in which the heads of the three top climate/oceanographic labs warn that the shift of NASA funding to Moon/Mars is threatening observations of our own planet at a very critical time. 4. BELIEFS: SCIENTIFIC ILLITERACY REACHES CLEAR TO THE TOP. Last week at the Republican presidential debate, moderator Chris Matthews asked whether any of the wannabes did not believe in evolution. Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo raised their hands. John McCain waffled: “I believe in evolution, “he said, “but I also believe when I hike the Grand Canyon that the hand of God is there also.” The Sunday Washington Post pointed out that they weren’t that far from mainstream. In an ABC poll a year ago, 61% thought Genesis is literally true. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]:Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday May 4, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: May 4, 2007 2:37 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday May 4, 2007 WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 4 May 07 Washington, DC 1. SUPREME COURT: ABORTION RULING PUTS WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN LIMBO. Last month’s 5-4 decision upholding a ban on partial birth abortion ensured that the composition of the court will be an issue in the coming election. The awkward fact is that all five justices in the majority are Catholic. Stem cell research draws similar religious opposition from the Catholic Church and fundamentalists. It’s based on the magical belief that a soul is assigned to the zygote at conception. The zygote is certainly alive, with its own unique DNA, but that’s true of a bacterium. Based on a Genesis passage in which God breathes life into Adam, Jews and liberal Christians usually argue that the soul arrives when the newborn draws its first breath. However, there is not shred of evidence that a “soul” even exists, and it certainly has no place in science or law. 2. LIMBO: MAYBE THE COURT SHOULD HAVE CHECKED WITH THE VATICAN. Ironically, just a week after the Court rendered its decision protecting the fetus from late-term abortion, a 30-member International Theological Commission appointed by the Vatican abolished limbo. Limbo was where babies who died before being baptized were sent, including aborted fetuses. Because they were saddled with original sin, they couldn’t go to heaven. But now the panel has decided that because God is merciful, he’s going to let them into heaven anyway. It’s not clear what new information they have. Pope Benedict XVI agrees. While still a Cardinal he wrote a report saying limbo was “only a theological hypothesis.” Isn’t that all any of it is, Benny? 3. PROMISES, PROMISES: HAS THE PRESIDENT AGREED TO END THE WAR? What a turnaround! According to a tiny story in this morning’s NY Times, Bush told Congressional leaders yesterday in a 2-page letter that he would veto any measures that “allow taxpayer dollars to be used for the destruction of human life.” 4. NUCLEAR POSTURE REVIEW: FRAMING THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS DEBATE. A House Subcommittee yesterday created a bipartisan commission to reevaluate our nuclear posture, paid for with money from the President’s plan for a new generation of warheads. 5. CLIMATE: WARMING ACCELERATES AS “EYES IN THE SKY GROW DIM.” Sea ice in the Arctic is melting far faster than estimated. Molly Bentley points out in BBC News that the NRC found our ability to monitor change from space deteriorating as NASA collapses under the weight of human space flight. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be.--- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]:Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday April 27, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Apr 27, 2007 2:27 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday April 27, 2007 WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 27 Apr 07 Washington, DC 1. THE HABITABLE ZONE: THE GOOD NEWS IS THEY’RE NOT COMING HERE. Humans, fragile self-replicating chemical factories, are trapped on a tiny planet for a few dozen orbits about an undistinguished star among countless other stars in one of billions of galaxies. And yet, these insignificant specks have the audacity to imagine they can figure it all out - and maybe they can. The most compelling scientific quest is to find life to which Earthlings are not related. The first great discovery of this Century was to confirm that other stars have planets - lots of them. This week European astronomers found a planet in the habitable zone of Gliese 581, a red dwarf in the constellation Libra. The public was thrilled. We can learn a lot from here, and it’s going to be exciting. Each year I ask my class of freshman physics majors if they think humans will visit another star someday. Most say yes, so we take a few minutes of each class to plan the mission. What’s the closest star? How long are you prepared to travel? How big will the spaceship have to be? How will you pass the time? Anyway, we’ll be able to travel much faster some day, so maybe 50 years. There’s always one that insists there’s gotta be a basketball court. Near the end of the semester they calculate the kinetic energy of the spacecraft to make the trip in 50 years. Hmmm, the velocity is squared. Maybe, they conclude, we could just find a way to exchange e-mails. 2. WARHEADS: THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT NUCLEAR STOCKPILES ARE AGING. It was just five years ago that the Nuclear Posture Review, was leaked http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN02/wn031502.html . It was a Pentagon report calling for development of a new class of small nuclear weapons to blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons. Public exposure killed the plan. But Dr. Strangelove never gives up. The Bush administration is again pushing for a new generation of nuclear weapons; this time it’s the Reliable Replacement Warhead, an idea that’s been around for 30 years. In fact, having spent billions on a Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program, there’s no need for the RRW. U.S. warheads will retain their capability for another century. 3. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: IRAQ NO LONGER POSES A NUCLEAR THREAT.We invaded Iraq because of their weapons of mass destruction. It worked perfectly. Iraq hasn’t had a nuclear weapon since. But now we learn that there’s a nuclear threat brewing across the border in Iran. Unfortunately, our troops are sort of tied up. We need more missile defense sites like the ones we built in Alaska and California to deal with the missile threat from North Korea. Of course that missile defense is still being tested and we don’t actually turn it on, but we think we could. It worked anyway. North Korea still doesn’t have a missile, or a warhead. To take care of the Iran threat we want to install missile defenses in Eastern Europe like the one that doesn’t work in Alaska. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]:Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday April 20, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Apr 20, 2007 2:16 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday April 20, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 20 Apr 07 Washington, DC 1. BIGELOW SPACE STATIONS: BUDGET SUITES IN LOW-EARTH ORBIT. Space is just another place to do business, they used to say in the Reagan White House. What business, you might ask? The latest venture in space is Bigelow Aerospace, which revealed its plans last week at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Robert Bigelow, the founder and president of Bigelow Aerospace, intends to have three manned outposts, assembled from inflatable modules, in low-Earth orbit by 2015. Bigelow is also the owner of Budget Suites of America, a hotel chain, but he'll leave space tourism to the ISS. Bigelow is courting two markets: foreign space agencies that don't have access to a space station, and multinational corporations that want to get into micro- gravity research. That was the fatal miscalculation of previous space station programs: industry couldn't find anything worth doing in micro-gravity. So, is this crazy? Decide for yourself: Robert Bigelow also founded the National Institute of Discovery Science in Las Vegas, a secretive research group with links to the Pentagon that focuses on alien abductions and the paranormal. 2. SEX EDUCATION: ABSTINENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER. Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, according to a study ordered by Congress. Nor did they have fewer sex partners, or wait longer to become sexually active. The report, released late last Friday, comes just after the abrupt resignation of Dr. Eric Keroack, an anti-birth control zealot, appointed by Bush just four months ago to head the Office of Population Affairs of the Department of Health and Human Services. A non-board-certified gynecologist/obstetrician who operates six Christian anti- abortion centers in Massachusetts, Keroack had been notified of a state investigation into his private practice. 3. STUDENT LOANS: EVEN HIGHER EDUCATION HAS SUCCUMBED TO BRIBERY. In 1994, Congress established a program of direct student loans at lower interest rates. Bank of America and Citibank, the biggest banks in the student loan business, lavished millions in bribes on colleges and universities to get them to drop out of the federal program. The banks were led to the trough by Sallie Mae, the largest private student lender. Sallie Mae began as a quasi-governmental agency in 1972, but began privatizing 10 years ago. This week Sallie Mae announced it is selling itself and will become will become fully private. The CEO will walk away from the deal with about $257 million, while 10 million students will graduate with debts that average nearly $20,000. 4. MISTAKES: READERS TELL US WN HAS BEEN GETTING A LITTLE SLOPPY. Everyone in the APS Washington Office used to stop what they were doing late Friday to proof WN. We are now making the transition from APS to UMD, however, and we now means me. We will try to be more careful, but mystakes are possible. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]:Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday April 13, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Apr 13, 2007 12:53 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday April 13, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 13 Apr 07 Washington, DC 1. STEM CELLS: PRESIDENT BUSH VOWS TO PROTECT ONE-CELLED PEOPLE. The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act passed the Senate 63-34, but President Bush promises a veto. He said the use of embryonic stem cells in research crosses a moral line. In case you're wondering where this moral line is drawn, WN has looked into it. George W. Bush and other conservative theologians believe a soul is assigned to the fertilized egg at the instant of conception. That makes it a person, even though it's not counted in the census. In-vitro fertilization makes a lot more of these one-celled people than it needs; leftovers are stacked in the freezer until it starts filling up. President Bush cares deeply about these helpless one-celled people and wants to ensure they are properly flushed down the disposal rather than exploited by godless scientists interested only the reduction of suffering. 2. DIABETES: STEM CELL THERAPY IS USED TO TREAT TYPE 1 DIABETES. In yesterday's Wash Post, Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT), a long-time proponent of stem cell research, is quoted as saying, Our country is in grave danger of falling behind in one of the most promising fields of biomedical research. We already have. In a very preliminary study, researchers at the University of Sao Paolo in Brazil found that a remarkable 14 out of 15 type 1 diabetes sufferers were freed of dependence on insulin injections after treatment with stem cells drawn from their own blood. 3. SHUTTLE: SETTING A NEW AMERICAN RECORD FOR FLAG-POLE SITTING. By delaying the launch of the hail-dinged shuttle Atlantis until June, NASA has given Astronaut Sunita Williams a shot at the coveted American record for continuous time in space. The record will be set by Michael Lopez-Alegria next week when he returns to Earth on the Russian Soyuz. The delay didn't bother Williams, who told reporters, I have lots to do up here. Maybe she could run another marathon. But how do you run in zero-g anyway? 4. NOR ANY DROP TO DRINK: SIGNS OF WATER ON EXTRA-SOLAR PLANET. There's not likely to be a beach, and its 150 light-years away, but Hubble measurements of a star named HD 209458b have been interpreted as evidence of water in the atmosphere of a planet that passes in front of the Sun-like star every 3.6 days. The real significance is the possibility of someday being able to study the atmospheres of extra-solar planets for signs of life. 5. GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE: COOLING DOWN THE IPCC WARMING REPORT. The assessment of the impact of global warming issued by the IPCC last Friday, grim though it was, had actually been toned down in the final negotiations in Brussels at the insistence of the U.S. and China. According to the NY Times, Bush's top environmental advisor told reporters that the report reinforces the policies of the administration. Without population control measures, however, no other policies will help in the long run. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday April 6, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Apr 6, 2007 2:29 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday April 6, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 6 Apr 07 Washington, DC 1. LHC TEST: IT WASN'T THE BIG BANG THEY WERE LOOKING FOR. Intoxicated by the enthusiasm of its builders, WN predicted last week that protons would circulate in the Large Hadron Collider on schedule. Alas, a Fermilab-built quadrupole magnet failed a high- pressure test with a dramatic bang. That's what tests are for. To the chagrin of Fermilab, it was a simple design flaw. The magnet will have to be brought to the surface, but there is optimism that the 23 other magnets like it can be retrofitted in place. The LHC may be able to get back on schedule, but the traditional 3-month winter shutdown may have to be sacrificed. 2. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: THE COURT SOARS INTO THE TMOSPHERE. Still one vote short of a rubber stamp, the Supreme Court on Monday rebuked the Bush Administration for refusing to regulate greenhouse gases. It ruled 5-4 that the EPA must either begin regulating CO2 as an atmospheric pollutant, or declare that CO2 does not threaten humans, which EPA's own scientists dispute. The ruling effectively forces EPA to begin regulating tailpipe emissions, whether it likes it or not. Over the years, federal courts have sided with the consensus view of science on issues ranging from perpetual motion to creationism and pseudoscience, but any more appointments by Bush could change that. 3. CLIMATE CHANGE: BLEAK IPCC REPORT RELEASED TODAY IN BRUSSELS. Two months ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change put the odds that global warming is anthropogenic as 90% certain http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN07/wn020207.html . The report released today is titled Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Science Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN)says it provides us with even higher confidence of warming. However, Ralph Hall (R-TX), ranking Republican on the Committee, says the new report illustrates more uncertainty in the scientific community. Hmmm. It was Ralph Hall, you may recall, who supported building the Space Station because he thought it would find a cure for cancer http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN07/wn020207.html . 4. RUNNING IN PLACE: CAN AN ASTRONAUT FIND A CURE FOR NASA HYPE? Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams plans to run the Boston Marathon on board the ISS. She's been training on the treadmill at least 4 times a week for months. Is that good? I don't know. It's not as if she has anything better to do on the ISS. 5. GOD AND SCIENCE: THE SEARCH FOR MEANING IN THE NATURAL WORLD. We got some angry e-mail this week about the line Better a God particle than a God. A gratuitous slap in the face of people of faith? Not meant to be, but all of science is built on territory once occupied by gods. Is there some boundary at which science is supposed to stop? Keep the letters coming. We read them all, and answer as many as we can. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday March 30, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mar 30, 2007 2:23 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday March 30, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 30 Mar 07 Washington, DC 1. INTELLIGENT DESIGN: THE LHC WILL DO REAL CREATION SCIENCE. In November, on schedule, protons will begin circulating in the 27km ring of the Large Hadron Collider. After 15 years and $3.8B, the LHC is nearing completion at CERN in the tunnel used for LEP. The largest and most complex scientific instrument ever built, the LHC involves the collaboration of more than 2,000 physicists from 34 countries. The primary objective is to find the Higgs boson, the particle that catalyzed the creation of mass from energy to form the universe. Nobel laureate Leon Lederman called it the God particle. It is the only particle predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics that hasn't been found, but physicists are confident that the Higgs will be found by the LHC. There will likely be much more. Supersymmetry (susy) predicts a boson superpartner for each fermion. According to a story in New Scientist, there were hints of both the Higgs and susy in results from the Tevatron. In any case, we are on the threshold of spectacular advances in understanding the creation of the universe. Better a God particle than a God 2. SECRET DESIGN: CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE ACCORDING TO OPRAH. Why is The Secret suddenly the number-one best seller? When I first heard that The Secret by Rhonda Byrne is at the top of the NY Times bestseller list I didn't believe it. Besides, I look at the best seller list in the Sunday Times every week, and I hadn't seen anything called The Secret in either Fiction or Nonfiction. But there is a category called, Advice, that the NYT only posts on the web. You can think of it as books for people who watch daytime television. The great champion of The Secret is Oprah Winfrey. The Secret is a new-age theory about how to get rich, or layed, by just wanting it badly enough. It works for Oprah. The Secret quotes world renowned quantum physicist Dr. John Hagelin, who explains it this way, Quantum mechanics confirms it. Quantum cosmology confirms it. The universe emerges from thought and all of this matter around us is just precipitated thought. Well, so much for the Higgs. There is a tendency to attribute anything weird to quantum mechanics. 3. PAUL C. LAUTERBUR: MRI IMAGING INVENTOR DIED YESTERDAY AT 77. A chemist at the University of Illinois, Lauterbur shared the 2003 Nobel prize with British physicist Sir Peter Mansfield. A call had just issued for increased use of MRI imaging in women with a high risk of developing breast cancer. 4. DARK MATTER: A MOVIE BASED ON A PHYSICS TRAGEDY WINS PRIZE. In 1991 at the University of Iowa, a physics PhD graduate who was not chosen for an academic prize, killed five people at a physics department meeting. Physics departments everywhere initiated policies aimed at recognizing the severe pressure graduate students are under. A film based on the incident has now won the Alfred P. Sloan prize for best feature dealing with science. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday March 23, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mar 23, 2007 1:30 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday March 23, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 23 Mar 07 Washington, DC 1. MARCH MADNESS: COLD FUSION PEAKS AROUND THE VERNAL EQUINOX. On this day 18 years ago, the University of Utah announced the discovery of cold fusion without giving any technical details http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN89/wn032489.html . The peak came three weeks later when Stanley Pons received a standing ovation at the annual ACS Meeting in Dallas, but by June it was over. The Utah research was exposed as a pitiful embarrassment. For years the faithful sulked at their own annual meetings held at swank resorts around the world. There they could congratulate each other on their progress. Each year another experiment would be hailed as proof, but never survived replication. A few years ago, however, the bolder of the faithful began to reemerge from the dark, giving papers at professional society meetings. They now prefer to call their field Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR),and they held a session at the APS March Meeting in Denver. Next week they will hold a session at the ACS Meeting in Chicago. Once again, there is a new experiment that is being hailed as proof-at-last. Who knows, maybe this will be the one. 2. BUBBLE TROUBLE: CONGRESS LOOKS INTO THE OTHER COLD FUSION. Last month we predicted that Rusi Taleyarkhan's troubles aren't over http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN07/wn021607.html . You will recall that while he was at ORNL Taleyarkhan claimed in a paper published by Science that he had generated deuterium fusion in sonoluminescence. His claims were disputed by two experienced physicists, Putterman and Suslick, who repeated the work and got no indication of fusion. After Taleyarkhan joined Purdue as a Nuclear Engineering professor, another paper was published that seemed to independently verify his ORNL results. Who were the authors? Taleyarkhan's students. What were they being trained to do? They apparently had little to do with the research. When a Purdue misconduct investigation seemed headed for the wrong answer it was terminated. A second Purdue investigation cleared Taleyarkhan of misconduct. Now Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC), chair of the Science Committee's Investigations Subcommittee has requested a copy of the University's internal investigation reports. 3. WIKIPEDIA: HAS A BEAUTIFUL IDEA FALLEN VICTIM TO HUMAN NATURE? Science owes its success and credibility to openness. Findings, including details of how they were obtained, are exposed to the scrutiny of the entire scientific community. It sounds like a prescription for chaos, but it's a mechanism for self-correction. The alternative is dogma. Could openness be extended to all knowledge? With Wikipedia, it seemed to work for a time, but for those who profit from a misinformed public, including purveyors of pseudoscience, the target is too tempting to leave alone. 4. LAST WEEK: WE APOLOGIZE FOR BEING A FEW DAYS LATE WITH WN. Why do technical problems always come up on Spring Break? THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday March 16, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mar 19, 2007 5:22 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday March 16, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 16 Mar 07 Washington, DC 1. APOPHIS 2036: NASA SAYS IT HAS MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO. In 1998 Congress mandated a NASA Spaceguard Survey to discover, track and catalog the 20,000 or so near-earth asteroids and comets. NASA is behind schedule. Asteroids usually show up around budget time. The latest is named Apophis, which is headed our way in 2036. WN has a call in to Bruce Willis to see if he will be available in 2036. Apophis is nothing like the asteroid that spelled curtains for the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, nor does it have much chance of hitting Earth, but you play the cards you're dealt. This morning's New York Times has an op-ed by Apollo astronaut Russell Schweickart calling for public hearings to shame NASA into action. This looks like the old Washington Monument ploy, in which the Park Service threatens to close the most popular visitor site because of budget problems. 2. NASA BUDGET: NO ROOM FOR THE ALPHA MAGNETIC SPECTROMETER. Yesterday, Bart Gordon (D-TN), chair of the House ST Committee, noted that the budget reality bears little resemblance to the rosy projections offered by the Administration when the President announced his Vision for Space Exploration three years ago. Don't scrap the vision - kill the science. One casualty is the $1.5 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer that was scheduled to go to the ISS on a 2008 shuttle flight. Griffin now says there's no room for the AMS on the shuttle because every flight is crammed with hardware to finish the ISS. It wouldn't do to drop an unfinished ISS into the ocean. The AMS was designed to search for antimatter. Nobel prize winner Sam Ting of MIT, made the case for AMS personally to Dan Goldin. It was cited repeatedly by NASA to show that the ISS would do basic science http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN98/wn061298.html . 3. MARS ICE CAPS: EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY MEASURES WATER AT POLES. An instrument called the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) on board the Mars Express has measured the water trapped in layers covering the south polar region. The icy layers cover an area bigger than Texas, and in places as deep as 3.7 km. That is enough water to cover the entire planet with a layer 11 meters deep. They are now mapping the layers around the north pole of the arid planet. 4. EARTH'S ICE CAPS: ANTARCTIC ICE IS SLIPPING INTO THE OCEAN. And they don't know why. In Greenland the loss of ice is caused by melting, but that doesn't explain the rapid movement of ice into the ocean from the frigid West Antarctic ice sheet, even as the East Antarctic ice sheet is growing. The net loss is huge, raising sea levels. A special issue on Polar Science in today's Science magazine, notes that good measurements of the thickness of the ice sheet have only been made in the past ten years, so it is not yet possible to tell if this is a natural cycle. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday March 9, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mar 9, 2007 1:25 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday March 9, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 9 Mar 07 Washington, DC 1. GLOBAL CLIMATE: ARE THOSE WHITE URSINE CARNIVORES ENDANGERED? The Alaskan division of the Fish and Wildlife Service circulated a memo instructing biologists not discuss global warming or polar bears unless they have been designated to do so. Hmmm. A year ago NASA's top climate scientist, physicist James Hansen, was being pressured by a White House appointee to cool it on global warming http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN06/wn021006.html . NASA chief Michael Griffin put a stop to that, issuing a policy that allows scientists to speak their minds if they give their boss notice. Science owes its success to a culture of openness in which Nature is The Decider. Anything else is just religion. 2. CHRISTIAN CLIMATE: EVANGELICAL CLIMATE INITIATIVE OPPOSED. Conservative Christian sounds like an oxymoron to me, but there is a split between the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) which has expanded its agenda to include climate change and human rights, and really conservative groups. These would include James Dobson's Focus on the Family, Gary Bauer's Coalitions for America and Tony Perkins' Family Research Council. Note: Real conservatives aren't interested in conservation. The Christian right wants to get back to fighting the real enemy sex. Sex and drugs were the downfall of Ted Haggard, who was the President of the NAE http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN06/wn110306.html . 3. OPENNESS: THE MARCH MEETING OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY. The commitment of physicists to the principle of openness was tested this very morning in Denver at the APS March meeting, as it has been every year for 108 years. Roy Masters, author of God Science and Free Energy from Gravity, was to deliver Electricity from Gravity at 9:36 a.m. Anyone can deliver a paper at the March Meeting. What if Masters actually succeeded in using up our gravity to keep the lights on? Not to worry. 4. ENERGY: YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT WHAT BUSH IS DOING IN BRAZIL. Even as Roy Masters was talking about generating energy from gravity, George W. Bush was cutting a deal with President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva of Brazil to use ethanol. It made about as much sense. We've been through this before: Brazil makes ethanol from sugar cane. We grown corn. Corn is food. The diversion of food to fuel, even at today's trivial level, has already inflated the price of corn in Mexico, sending Mexicans north for better paying jobs. Toxic waste from fermentation of sugar cane is dumped in the Amazon. We don't have an Amazon. Because the energy balance is precarious, sugar cane must be harvested in Brazil by hand. That condemns vast numbers of laborers to serfdom. We don't have serfs - yet. What we do have is lots of people who are capable of running the numbers for the President to see if ethanol is any kind of a solution. None of these people seem to be in the White House. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday March 2, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mar 2, 2007 2:41 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday March 2, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 2 Mar 07 Washington, DC 1. FIRST AMENDMENT: HIGH COURT TAKES ON FAITH-BASED INITIATIVES. Early in his presidency, George W. Bush issued an executive order creating a White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives that gives billions of dollars to religious groups of its choosing without oversight. No politician dares to challenge it, but a group of atheists who pay taxes sued in federal court, arguing that it violated the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment. An appeals court ruled that the case can go forward. However, the White House director short circuited the process by asking the Supreme Court, stacked with conservatives, to weigh in. The issue is whether taxpayers have standing under the establishment clause to challenge the way the executive branch uses money appropriated by Congress. The Court heard oral arguments this week and is expected to rule before adjourning for the summer. 2. NASA EXPLORATION: THE ROBOTIC MISSIONS ARE GOING JUST FINE. The speedy New Horizons probe has gotten a boost from Jupiter on its way to Pluto. As it left Jupiter yesterday, the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager on board New Horizons took a spectacular picture of the plume from the Tvashtar volcano on Io. The plume was discovered by Hubble just two weeks ago. 3. THE OTHER NASA: RETHINKING THE VALUE OF HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT. The arrest of astronaut Lisa Nowak on charges of planning to kidnap and murder a romantic rival raised questions about plans for dealing with instability in space. The Associated Press obtained NASA's written procedure. It calls for binding wrists and ankles with duct tape, tying down with bungee cords and injection with tranquillizers. Meanwhile, fuel is being removed from the shuttle before sending it back to the garage to repair damage from a hail storm, delaying launch until at least the end of April. The shuttle is expected to retire in 2010, if a tree don't fall on it first, as the song goes. A replacement won't be ready before 2005. Budget cuts are likely to delay plans for a new manned spacecraft to replace the shuttle to at least 2015. Inevitably, it raises questions the value of humans in space. 4. SUPERSTITION: MAYBE, THE LOST TOMB OF A GUY NAMED JESUS? The documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, airs on the Discovery Channel, Sunday. It claims to have found a tomb in Jerusalem that held the remains of Jesus, his wife Mary Magdalene, their son Judah, his mother Mary, and assorted other family members. Coming just before Easter, it outraged the faithful who point out it couldn't be the same guy, that one ascended bodily into heaven. The War Between Religion and Science, ignited by the Intelligent Design movement, is heating up. According a front page story in today's Weekend Journal section of the Wall Street Journal, it's now generational. The story says that the new thing in adolescent rebellion is to be excessively devout, driving liberated parents nuts. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday February 23, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Feb 23, 2007 4:30 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday February 23, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 23 Feb 07 Washington, DC 1. OF PANDERING AND PEOPLE: WHO WILL CAPTURE THE CREATIONISTS? Even as these words are being turned into electrons, Senator John McCain is in Seattle delivering the keynote luncheon speech to the Discovery Institute. Eighteen months ago, just as the Dover School Board trial involving intelligent design was about to start, McCain came out in favor of teaching all points of view, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn090205.html . We have no idea what he is saying now, but it doesn't really matter; McCain is a master at the art of changing positions between breakfast and lunch. Apparently, however, he has decided, for the moment, to challenge Sam Brownback for the support of creationists. 2. POWER OF PRAYER: AUTHOR OF COLUMBIA STUDY COMMITS PLAGIARISM. More than five years ago WN called attention to a paper in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine in which researchers at Columbia claimed prayers doubled the success of in-vitro fertilization http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN01/wn100501.html . If total strangers on their knees halfway around the world could suspend the laws of nature, it would be the end of science. WN suggested we pray the study is wrong. Behold! Our prayers were answered: The lead author took his name off the paper and resigned as chair of gynecology; another author landed in prison on an unrelated fraud conviction. The editor of JRM still refused to retract the article. This week, the remaining author, a businessman who owns fertility clinics in Los Angeles and Seoul, was charged by the editor of Fertility and Sterility with plagiarizing the work of a student in Korea on a different paper. The avenging angel was Bruce Flamm, M.D., UC Irvine, who has hounded the authors, Columbia, and JRM relentlessly since the paper was published. 3. BLIND FAITH: THE UNHOLY ALLIANCE OF RELIGION AND MEDICINE Ironically, even as the fraudulent prayer study was going on in the Columbia medical school, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia, Richard Sloan, wrote an important book condemning those who pander to a superstitious public by claiming to show that religion is good for your health (St. Martin's Press, 2006). 4. MOONSHINE: IT GETS A BOOST FROM DR. W IN A WHITE LAB COAT. Newspapers today carried pictures of President Bush visiting a Novozymes laboratory in North Carolina, which is developing enzymes to make cellulosic ethanol. Squinting at a flask, the President exclaimed, So this is like a distillery! He seemed to acknowledge that ethanol from corn can never fill the need. 5. PASCAL'S WAGER: UK HIRED PSYCHICS TO FIND OSAMA BIN LADEN. The Daily Mail has obtained a 2002 Ministry of Defense report. Because of the high value of finding Bin Laden, MoD resorted to the use of novices when known psychics refused. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday February 16, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Feb 16, 2007 1:45 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday February 16, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 16 Feb 07 Washington, DC 1. UNCONSCIOUS: PRINCETON ENGINEERING ANOMALIES RESEARCH (PEAR). The closing of the PEAR laboratory at Princeton, after 28 years of non-accomplishment, may be a sign of declining interest in the paranormal, or it may just be an anomaly. Either way, Princeton University endured the embarrassment without compromising on the principle of tenure, which protects the right to hold minority views. Science is conditional. If someone comes up with better measurements or a better analysis, the textbooks are rewritten. The problem is that in the paranormal world, nothing ever gets better. In recent years, PEAR became the focus of the Global Consciousness Project, involving a hundred or so researchers at dozens of sites around the world, looking at the output of random number generators (RNGs). Exciting huh? They report deviations from randomness before major disasters, such as 9/11 and the Christmas tsunami in the Indian Ocean. They believe this is evidence of global consciousness. Or maybe RNGs are causing disasters http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn021805.html ? 2. INCONSISTENT: HOW TO GET THE BRONTOSAURUS ONBOARD NOAH'S ARK. Scientist of faith is an oxymoron. The University of Rhode Island recently accepted the dissertation of a doctoral candidate in paleontology, Marcus Ross, who just happens to also be a young-Earth creationist. His thesis is on mosasaurs, that lived 65 million years before Ross believes Earth was created. How does Ross deal with this? He says he uses different paradigms. Most scientists who regard themselves as religious, and there are many, interpret the scriptures metaphorically. Even so, they often partition their lives, treating faith as a virtue on one side of the partition, and a scientific sin on the other. Dr. Ross, meanwhile, now teaches earth science at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. He can't do much harm there. Wonder what paradigm he uses? As the song goes, Brother can you paradigm? 3. REPLACED: NEW KANSAS SCHOOL BOARD SETS NEW SCIENCE STANDARDS. Tuesday, the Kansas board of education scrapped creationist- inspired science education standards that represented Darwinian evolution as scientifically controversial. Only adopted in November 2005 http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn05.html the anti-evolution standards had not yet had any effect. Instead, the voters replaced the school board, and the new board replaced the science education standards. We can only imagine what new strategy creationists will come up. 4. UNCLEARED: LIKE THAT OTHER FUSION, BUBBLE FUSION DRAGS ON. A year ago Purdue announced a full review of the bubble fusion claims of Rusi Taleyarkhan, but four months later a story in Nature raised serious questions about the pace and secrecy of the review. This week, the university seemed to clear him, but supplied little detail. Taleyarkhan says he feels vindicated. Others are not so sure. It doesn't seem quite over. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday February 9, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Feb 9, 2007 1:29 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday February 9, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 9 Feb 07 Washington, DC 1. SKIPPING AHEAD: BUSH SENDS CONGRESS HIS 2008 BUDGET REQUEST. Congress, however, is still trying to put together a 2007 budget. The 2008 request isn't great news for every field of research, but in physics, NSF, NIST and the DOE Office of Science did well. In the absence of a 2007 budget, agencies are still spending at 2006 levels. However, a resolution adopted by the House does call for 2007 increases at NSF, NIST, and the DOE Office of Science. The Senate will presumably take up the House resolution soon. In any case, a 2008 budget won't pass Congress before October. Meanwhile, the Iraq War and the climate are both heating up, and the Democrats committed themselves to balancing the budget. This is not very promising for science funding. 2. SPACE STATION: LATEST ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN SPACE EXPLORATION. The space-exploration component of the request, got one of the largest increases. Exploration has come to mean exploration by astronauts, so we decided to let you know how exploration is going. The only space being explored right now is the orbit of the ISS, about 400 km above Earth. It was a big week on the ISS: The cooling system was overhauled. In the process, two records in space walking were set. NASA announced that station commander Michael Lopez-Alegria now holds the U.S. record, 61 hrs and 22 min, while astronaut Sunita Williams set the women's record at 22 hrs and 27 min. Way to go guys! The Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, of course, set records every day, but they don't count because they aren't people. On the positive side, robots never require psychological counseling. 3. COUNSELING: LOOK WHAT IT DID FOR TED HAGGARD IN ONLY 3 WEEKS. Pastor Ted resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after he admitted buying meth from his male prostitute http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN06/wn110306.html . He has since undergone three weeks of intensive counseling overseen by four evangelical ministers, and emerged completely heterosexual. NASA might want to talk to his therapist. 4. THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE: ENFORCING POPULATION LIMITATIONS? Several readers last week took WN to task over the population question. Should we force abortions, they ask, or jail parents, or take even more stringent measures? That doesn't seem to be necessary. Among affluent and educated nations, native-born populations are stable or shrinking now. Their growth is almost entirely by immigration. All that's needed is to remove our legal obstacles to birth control, and raise the standard of living and educational level of impoverished nations. That would probably be enough. If not, reduce tax deductions and other fecundity incentives. A few will still behave irresponsibly, but society can tolerate them in the name of freedom as we do with those who are environmentally insensitive. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday February 2, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Feb 2, 2007 12:28 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday February 2, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 2 Feb 07Washington, DC 1. THE LIMITS OF GROWTH: IT'S TIME TO REVISIT THE 1972 CLASSIC. The somber warnings of Dennis Meadows and his colleagues at MIT, 35 years ago, were spot on. Depletion of Earth's resources and destruction of the environment, Meadows warned, will lead to disaster unless nations of the world adopt policies of austerity and population control. Technological optimists were horrified by this negative thinking. Their alternative was The High Frontier, a 1976 book by Gerard K. O'Neill of Princeton, calling for building islands in space to offload excess population. Reality is the ISS. It houses 3 Earthlings at a cost of $100B. 2. PARIS: THE IPCC REPORT ISSUED TODAY IS ALREADY OUT OF DATE. Even as 600 climate scientists were meeting this week to update the IPCC report on climate, the Zurich-based World Glacier Monitoring Service reported that the rate of mountain glacier melt is accelerating. The IPCC report, however, does not incorporate data published after 2005. The IPCC report puts the probability at 90% that human activity is responsible for the observed warming, up from 66% in 2001. It's higher. The report refrains from recommending what actions governments should take. 3. WASHINGTON: THE ADMINISTRATION SUPPRESSES CLIMATE FINDINGS. On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee, Chaired by Henry Waxman (D-CA), looked into accusations that the administration interfered in federal climate research. Bipartisan criticism of the White House stance on climate was prompted by a survey conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, together with the Government Accountability Project, which turned up hundreds of government climate scientists who had experienced political interference in communicating their findings. Whenever WN cites a Union of Concerned Scientists report, there are complaints that UCS is an advocacy group, and so it is. WN would prefer that the government police itself. While we're waiting, WN will continue to look to UCS to give us the facts. They do it very well. 4. IRVING, TEXAS: EXXON MOBIL REPORTS RECORD PROFIT FOR 2006. Yesterday, Exxon Mobil announced 2006 profits of $40 billion, its second consecutive annual record. It's also the largest profit ever reported by an American company. If you're that profitable, you can bribe journalist to downplay the importance of global warming, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN07/wn010507.html . 5. THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE: WHY DOESN'T THE WORLD LIMIT OPULATION? Any program that conserves energy, or protects the environment, or feeds the hungry, or cures disease, will be quickly overtaken by population growth. Simple greed is certainly a factor in opposing population limits, but the fundamental obstacle is fundamental religion. Be fruitful and multiply, Genesis 1:28, is seen by many as a commandment. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday January 26, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jan 26, 2007 1:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday January 26, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 26 Jan 07 Washington, DC 1. STATE OF THE UNION: ALL WE ARE SAYING IS GIVE WAR A CHANCE. The President's actual words to Congress and the nation Tuesday evening were, Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq, and I ask you to give it a chance to work. But I kept thinking back to the chorus of the 1969 John Lennon song, Give Peace A Chance. It became an anthem at peace protests. Perhaps George W. Bush remembers it too. After all, in 1969 he was 23 and a member of the National Guard, but was never called up. 2. STATES IN THE CORN BELT: THE AMERICAN ADDICTION TO ALCOHOL. It's in our vital interest to diversify America's energy supply, the President said, and the way forward is through technology. He's absolutely right, as long as we choose the right technologies. You may recall his 2003 State of the Union speech; he assured us that Freedom Car, powered by hydrogen and pollution free, is the answer. This year he did not mention hydrogen. Hydrogen is dead. Last year Bush lamented America's addiction to oil, but the only thing that held down consumption was soaring prices. This year, Bush called for greater use of ethanol. Congressmen from the corn belt applauded wildly, but Mr. Bush didn't mention corn. Ethanol from corn is simply an agricultural subsidy. He was talking about making ethanol from switch grass and wood chips. Cellulosic ethanol has one big advantage: too little is known to say it can't work. 3. STATE OF CONFUSION: IS THE WISDOM OF THE MARKET PLACE A MYTH? We made a lot of progress, the President said, thanks to good policies here in Washington and the strong response of the market. I'm not sure what progress he had in mind, but roads were clogging with gas guzzling SUV monsters until fuel prices soared. If SUVs had been held to a reasonable CAFE standard, Ford would not have neglected improvements of its standard models, and might not be faced with cutting back, or worse. 4. VIRTUAL STATES: THERE WAS ONLY ROOM FOR ONE BIG CONTROVERSY. Unlike most State of the Union addresses, the President made no attempt to touch on all the critical issues the nation must deal with this year. With the exception of health care, the speech was devoted to Iraq and related terrorism issues. Coming out of a congressional election dominated by the Iraq War, that may be understandable. But here are a few terms a scientist might be inclined to search for in the speech and would not find: Basic research, which faces a severe funding crisis, failed to make the cut. Neither was the stem cell controversy, which pits religious fundamentalism against basic human compassion, touched on. Nor was the space program, which has evolved into a sort of pointless reality show adventure. Climate change and global warming, the major threats to civilization, warranted a bare mention. And finally, whatever happened to missile defense? THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday January 19, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jan 19, 2007 1:50 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday January 19, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 19 Jan 07 Washington, DC 1. GRAND CANYON: A GORGE THAT SEPARATES SCIENCE FROM IDEOLOGY. Three years ago, along with many others, WN covered the story of a creationist book on sale in Grand Canyon National Park that attributed the Grand Canyon to Noah's flood. The book is still on sale, and there are still plaques at scenic overlooks quoting Genesis. A 28 Dec 06 press release from PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) charged that Park Service employees are not allowed to give visitors an official estimate of the age of the canyon. What's New, Doonesbury, Skeptic magazine and a host of other sources with skeptical credentials, bought into that story too. This time, however, the charge was apparently fabricated. We are grateful to Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, for ferreting out the truth, and I join him in apologizing for being so easily duped. 2. OBSERVING EARTH: NAS CALLS FOR A SURGE IN CLIMATE RESEARCH. On Monday, the National Academy of Sciences released a two-year study, Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade. We can count polar bears, stick thermometers in the ocean, and measure the hair on wooly caterpillars, but the only way to find out what's going on with global warming is to study Earth from space. The Academy report finds that NASA's earth science budget has fallen by 30 percent, while the number of operating Earth-observing instruments on NASA satellites will fall by 40 percent by 2010. The funds are being siphoned off to prepare for a manned science station on the moon. NASA seems unable to describe just what science will be done. 3. AN INCONVENIENT QUESTION: WHAT IS THE EARTH'S ENERGY BALANCE? The Earth's albedo, or reflectivity, is fundamental to global climate. We don't know what it is. The only instrument capable of measuring and continuously monitoring the albedo is the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). Already built and paid for, it sits in a warehouse at Goddard SFC waiting to be delivered to the Lagrange-1 point, about a million miles in the direction of the sun. We understand why President Bush may not like DSCOVR. But not much has been heard from Congress or the public. 4. CONTINUING RESOLUTION: IT'S GOING TO BE A VERY LONG TWO YEARS. The Republican controlled Congress failed to get its work done in the fall, making some sort of continuing resolution almost inevitable. Dear Colleague letters went out this week urging appropriators to give priority to science in a continuing resolution, but a CR is by its nature a mindless steam roller. Meanwhile, the President is expected to make balancing the budget without raising taxes the main theme of his State of the Union address next Tuesday, even as he orders a surge in Iraq. Look for RIFs at DOE facilities and shortened operating time for accelerators and light sources. RHIC may not run at all in 2007. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday January 12, 2007
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jan 12, 2007 1:15 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday January 12, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 12 Jan 07 Washington, DC 1. CULTURE WAR I: BUSH PROMISES TO VETO STEM CELL RESEARCH BILL. The first science legislation of the new Congress passed the House easily and will pass the Senate overwhelmingly. However, the House vote was 37 short of the margin needed to override a veto. Last year Bush vetoed the bill and promises to do so again. The bill lifts the President's ban on using leftover stem cells from fertility clinics in research. The White House points to a study at Wake Forest that found stem cells in the amniotic fluid of pregnant women, but Anthony Atala, author of the study, warned that amniotic stem cells are no substitute for embryonic stem cells. A Presidential veto will spare leftover embryonic stem cells from the indignity of saving human lives and allow them to be thrown in the garbage with their dignity intact. 2. CULTURE WAR II: MORE TROOPS NEEDED TO QUEL SECTARIAN VIOLENCE. The new strategy for Iraq, which the President outlined on Wednesday, is the oldest strategy ever devised: double your bet. It doesn't always work. The problem, the President explained, is sectarian violence. Why, you may be asking, can't Shiites and Sunnis just get along? Briefly: the violence began in 656, 24 years after Muhammad died. Sunnis insist that the heirs of the four caliphs that succeeded Mohammed are the legitimate leaders of Muslims. Shiites are equally certain that only the heirs of the fourth caliph are legitimate successors of Mohammed. And then there's the business of the Madhi: Sunnis say he hasn't shown up yet, Shiites say he's in hiding, but he's coming back. Sound familiar? President Bush is absolutely right, there aren't enough troops in Iraq to settle this dispute. And never will be. 3. CULTURE WAR III: HOW BOB SCREWED UP THE AGE OF THE CANYON. Last week WN compared the Noah's-flood version of the age of the Grand Canyon (6,000 years)to the scientific version (6,000,000 years). WN said you have to add up the ages of the geologic strata exposed on the walls. That was pretty dumb; it would have given you about 2 billion years. What we should have said was, add up the time it took to erode through all the strata. 4. CULTURE WAR IV: NANCY PELOSI BANS SMOKING IN THE HOUSE LOBBY. Cultures can be changed after all. I would not have believed it possible that smoking would become an anachronism in my lifetime. 5. HIGGS LIGHT: MAYBE THE TEVATRON STILL HAS SHOT AT IT. Justification for building a Supercollider was based on the hope of finding the Higgs boson, if it exists. After the SSC died, hope turned to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and just maybe to the less powerful Tevatron at Fermilab. The LHC is expected to start up by the end of 2007, but meanwhile a new estimate of the Higgs mass comes out a little smaller, raising hope that the Tevatron might yet find it. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday January 5, 2007
HAPPY NEW YEAR! -Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jan 5, 2007 1:42 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday January 5, 2007 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 5 Jan 07 Washington, DC 1. THE JUNKMAN: EXXON USES MILLOY TO DOWNPLAY GLOBAL WARMING. The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report on Wednesday describing Exxon Mobil's efforts to manipulate public opinion on Global Warming. In doing so the report further exposes the role of Steven J. Milloy, the notorious Junkman who wrote Junk Science Judo (CATO, 2001), and a column for Fox News. WN reported a year ago that Milloy, who masquerades as a fearless debunker of bad science, in real life works for oil and tobacco giants http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN06/wn020306.html . 2. AGE: DOES THE PARK SERVICE KNOW HOW OLD THE GRAND CANYON IS? Somewhere between six thousand and six million years is as close as they can come. The six million year figure comes from adding up the ages of the geologic strata exposed on the canyon walls. You get six thousand years by adding up the begats in the Old Testament until you get back to Noah. So which is it? Three years ago, bookstores in Grand Canyon National Park began selling Grand Canyon: A Different View, approved by the Park Service. The book explains that runoff from Noah's flood carved the canyon http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn010204.html . A promised review of whether the book should be sold in the Park stalled over issues of church and state. Whoa! Geology is not church or state, it's science. Mary Bomar, Director of the National Park Service since October, should be called on to keep this silly religious tract out of National Park bookstores. 3. VALUES: SO WHAT DOES THE CONSTITUTION SAY ABOUT TAKING OATHS? The new Congress began on a note of monumental unimportance: the first Muslim elected to Congress, Keith Ellison, took the oath of office on the Koran (or is it Quran). The person who acquitted himself professionally was the rare-books librarian at the Library of Congress, Mark Dimunation, who came up with Thomas Jefferson's personal copy of the Koran for Ellison to use. Rep. Goode (R-VA) objected that an oath on the Koran would violate traditional American values. The Constitution requires an oath or affirmation from the President, but two presidents, Hoover and Pierce, chose to affirm rather than swear. Swear not at all, Jesus said. Yes should mean yes, no should mean no. 4. TERRORISM 2007: PAT ROBERTSON HAS BEEN TALKING TO GOD AGAIN. During a recent prayer retreat, God told him that a terrorist attack on the U.S. late in 2007 will result in a mass killing. Robertson relayed God's message to The 700 Club on Tuesday. The Lord didn't say nuclear, but I do believe it will be something like that. I have a relatively good track record, he said. Sometimes I miss. It's not clear whether God mumbles, or Robertson takes poor notes, but maybe in the future he could take along a recorder. He once asked God to unleash hurricanes on sinful Florida, but if sin leads to hurricanes, Florida has been sinful since they began keeping weather records. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday December 29, 2006
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Dec 29, 2006 12:19 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday December 29, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 29 Dec 06 Washington, DC 1. VIRGINS AND DRAGONS: DO YOU THINK WE MAKE THIS STUFF UP? Your letters are important to us, but this week we fell behind in answering the mail, for which we apologize. Since most of the mail this week was about the Komodo virgin, I propose to respond collectively. Half the e-mails assumed that I don't know squat about Ineffabilis Deus, issued by Pope Pius IX in 1854. That's not so; it's Latin for Ineffable God, I just don't know what ineffable means. Anyway, Ineffabilis Deus propounds the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which gives the Blessed Virgin Mary a pass on original sin. It doesn't say anything about Komodo Dragon moms, but I don't think they've ever been accused of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Other mail politely pointed out that the offspring of parthenogenesis must be female, otherwise where would they get a Y chromosome? But that's not so either. Komodo Dragons aren't on the XY system. They're on the WZ system, in which WZ is female, ZZ is male, and WW is inviable. Parthenogenic Komodos are either male or they don't make it. 2. HOLIDAY STORY: THE CONTRIBUTION OF GUT BACTERIA TO OBESITY. According to the cover story in this week's issue of Nature, there's an association between the bacteria that inhabit our gut and the regulation of body weight. Jeffrey Gordon and his colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis found that some intestinal microbes are more efficient at producing simple sugars and fatty acids for the gut to absorb. This is timely news. An earlier report in the New England Journal of Medicine found the average weight gain over a six week period from Thanksgiving through New Year's Day to be 0.9 pounds. If retained, that would just about account for the average weight gain through adulthood. 3. EARTHQUACKS: SCIENTISTS IN CHINA OBSERVED BEHAVING STRANGELY. On Tuesday, an earthquake that shook southern Taiwan damaged undersea cables and disrupted communications across Asia. It's not clear just what scientists at the earthquake bureau in nearby Nanning in southern China saw, but two days AFTER the quake they told The China Daily that snakes can sense a quake up to five days before it happens. How do they know this? The reptiles behave erratically. To observe this behavior they installed cameras at a local snake farm to monitor the snakes 24/7. The director of the bureau said snakes can sense a quake up to five days before it happens. Of all the creatures on the earth, the director said, snakes are the most sensitive to earthquakes. To test this claim I've started monitoring the erratic behavior of Washingtonians from my office window. My initial assessment is that there are far more earthquakes than anyone realizes. 4. BEST WISHES FOR 2007: WE PREDICT IT WILL BE AN IMPROVEMENT. In any case, What'S New will be back to take a look. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Season's greetings
Peace on Mars and Goodwill to Martians! ---hopefully for Earth too!--- -ak-
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday December 15, 2006
-Forwarded Message-from Akira Kawasaki From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Dec 15, 2006 4:01 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday December 15, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 15 Dec 06 Washington, DC 1. NASA'S MOONDOGGLE: EXPOSING THE DARK SIDE OF WHAT'S NEW. Viewed from the point of history several decades out, Michael Griffin told the NY Times last week, the retreat from the Moon to low Earth orbit will be seen to be a mistake. A year ago he told USA Today that the shuttle and the ISS were both mistakes http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn093005.html . So what are we doing about it? At $2 billion a pop, we're launching the shuttles as often as we can to finish the ISS so we can drop it in the ocean, or foist it off on some fool. Then we can get on with making really dumb mistakes like a manned lunar base. For what? Using fragile humans in space is hopelessly old-fashioned. Alas, WN makes mistakes too. Last week we said dark side of the moon, when we meant far side. We got a lot of mail. It was a goof, but we were talking about radio telescopes. In terms of anthropogenic radio waves, the far side is the dark side. 2. SUBPOENA: NEW TACTIC IN EFFORT TO STOP CLASSIFIED LEAKS. Grand jury subpoenas are usually issued to gather evidence, but federal prosecutors want to use the subpoena to hide evidence. The subpoena calls on the ACLU to turn over all copies of a classified document leaked by an unnamed source. If successful it would be a new tool to squelch leaks. We need a few leaks. Conscientious government employees willing to risk their careers by leaking classified documents are the only check on government excesses carried out behind a screen of national security. The Pentagon Papers in 1971 and the Nuclear Posture Review in 2002 were both hidden from the public using the ruse of national- security http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN02/wn031502.html. 3. HUMAN EVOLUTION: GOD KNOWS THERE'S ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT. Homo sapiens has been around for maybe 170,000 years. We live in a world that little resembles the Pleistocene wilderness in which our species first appeared. But must we make do with the same old genes? There seems to be hope. A team led by Sarah Tiskoff at the University of Maryland found four distinct mutations that confer adult lactose tolerance in different populations. These mutations appeared as recently as 3,000 years ago, and spread rapidly because of the reproductive advantage lactose tolerance confers. It seems to be just a matter of time before everyone in the world can tolerate lactose. Well, it's a start. The world is dangerously short of tolerance. 4. PROJECT BIOSHIELD: LET'S PRAY THERE ISN'T AN ANTHRAX TTACK. The response of the Bush Administration to 9/11 included Project BioShield at $5.6 billion. Nearly $1B went to VaxGen to produce 75 million doses of anthrax vaccine by 2006, even though VaxGen had just failed to produce an AIDS vaccine for which it got millions from NIH. VaxGen now says maybe 2009. On Monday, HHS decides whether to terminate VacGen or give them an infusion of cash. I would bet on the cash. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
Re: [Vo]: China's Neodymium monopoly is being felt
Uh, that too but also the freezing of its foreign assets, trade embargoes, and most importantly, stopping of all petroleum products sales by allied nations, among others. How would we react (U.S,) when faced with similar actions? -ak- -Original Message- From: Standing Bear [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Dec 11, 2006 7:12 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]: China's Neodymium monopoly is being felt On Friday 01 December 2006 17:51, OrionWorks wrote: FYI, It's my understanding that the Chinese government has recently increased the price of raw materials to all magnet manufacturers by 60%. This presumably includes the rare-earth material, NEODYMIUM. As previously mentioned on this discussion group the Chinese government quietly and methodically went about the business of purchasing all the mining operations for these kinds of rare-earth elements everywhere on the planet. They now own the whole shebang - everything. They maintain a total monopoly on these kinds of rare-earth supplies. And whadaya know! Suddenly they've decided to increase prices by 60 percent. I maintain a suspicion that rare earth materials, particularly Neodymium, are going to start playing an ever increasing vital role in the development of this planet's AE resources. China stands to make a tidy profit from their shrewd and complete takeover of this market. And the rest of us will be paying, literally, for our lack of foresight. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com Wars have been fought over that kind of monopolistic activity. The Japanese allegedly hit us at Pearl in the last century after we denied them sale of scrap iron needed by them; and the Germans were forced to use flammable hydrogen for the dirigible 'Hindenburg' with disastrous results simply because we had refused to sell them helium gas whose supply we then controlled. Stsnding Bear
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday December 1, 2006
-Forwarded Message- From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Dec 1, 2006 7:01 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday December 1, 2006 WHAT?S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 1 Dec 06 Washington, DC 1. FRAUD IN SCIENCE: SCIENCE MAGAZINE HAS DELIVERED A RESPONSE. It is not unethical to be wrong. Every scientist will at times be wrong, but we assume that authors of science papers THINK they got it right. The rewards of success are so high in certain areas, however, that it must be tempting to guess the answer without doing the research. We saw it in 2002 with Jan Hendrik Schoen at Bell Labs, and again in 2004 with the stem cell work of Woo Suk Hwang at Seoul National University. In the Hwang case, Science, which published the work, immediately retracted the two papers and began a thorough review of the peer review procedure. The report urges scientists to give special attention to research results that are especially visible or influential. Today, in a Science editorial, Donald Kennedy invites comments. 2. INCONVENIENT REFUSAL: SO MAYBE SCIENCE TEACHERS LIKE IT HOT. If you haven?t seen it, Al Gore made a film about global warming. It received overwhelming endorsement by scientists. On Sunday, the Wash Post ran an opinion piece by Laurie David, a producer of the film. She thought it was educational. Of course, so did the Discovery Institute when it distributed, Unlocking ?The Mystery of Life: The Scientific Case for Intelligent Design.? When the company that made Inconvenient Truth offered the National Science Teachers Association 50,000 free DVDs for use in classrooms, the NSTA said ?no.? I wouldn?t want them pushing Mystery of Life either, but NSTA seemed more worried about its ?capital campaign? contributors, including Exxon, Shell and the coal industry. 3. EXPORTING CREATIONISM: NO LONGER JUST AN AMERICAN PROBLEM? For years American scientists endured the barbs of colleagues in Europe about fundamentalist Christianity in the US. A Special Report in Nature this week warns that creationism is beginning to threaten science in Europe. Teaching creationism in public schools was outlawed by the Supreme Court in 1968 in Epperson v. Arkansas. It has been in retreat ever since with one name change after another. The latest was ?intelligent design.? Meanwhile, the UK is finding it necessary to teach remedial evolution to college students. Turks, and Islamic immigrants throughout Europe, cannot imagine anything happening except by God hand. 4. THE LIMITS OF GROWTH: BEWARE OF THOSE EXPONENTIALS. Yesterday in the NY Times, Thomas Homer-Dixon reminded us of a famous wager 26 years ago. Nobel Prize winner Paul Ehrlich bet the price of certain metals would increase in a decade as they were depleted. The late Julian Simon, a U. Maryland professor, bet they would get cheaper as substitutes and new deposits were found. Simon won. He asked me why the physicists had all bet with Ehrlich. ?Because, Julian, they understand exponentials,? I said. Today, Homer-Dixon points out, Ehrlich would win easily. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 24, 2006
-Forwarded Message- From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Nov 28, 2006 12:11 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 24, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 24 Nov 06 Washington, DC 1. BEYOND BELIEF: SCIENCE, RELIGION, REASON AND SURVIVAL. Sponsored by The Science Network, the Beyond Belief forum was held earlier this month at the Salk Institute. As described by George Johnson in the Tuesday NY Times, the meeting came to resemble the founding convention for a political party built on a single plank: in a world dangerously charged with ideology, science needs to take on an evangelical role, vying with religion as teller of the greatest story ever told. And what a story it is turning out to be! Yet, while the world is quick to embrace the benefits of science, people the world over cling to medieval superstitions and defend such beliefs as a virtue. Scientists are inclined to meekly declare their respect for superstitions even while proving them to be utter nonsense. That may change. In his recent best-seller, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, a participant in Beyond Belief, observes that God is a scientific hypothesis, but there is no evidence to support the hypothesis. Beyond Belief can be viewed at http://beyondbelief2006.org . 2. SPACE STATION: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, A BIT BEHIND SCHEDULE. Things are never easy on the ISS: first there was an overheating space suit, then an exterior hatch stuck and cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin's tether got in the way. But finally he got in position to address the ball with American astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria holding on to him. Meanwhile, Moscow mission control deliberated on how to position the ball. It's me that's supposed to be positioned properly, Tyurin snapped. At last, using a gold- plated 6-iron, Tyurin took his swing. He shanked it, according to The Moscow Times.com. No matter, I can see it moving away from us, Tyurin exulted. Element 21, a Toronto golf company, is paying the Russian Federal Space Agency an undisclosed amount for the golf stunt to promote its new golf club. That should silence the critics who complain that the ISS has no mission. 3. MARS: THE MARS GLOBAL EXPLORER HAS FINALLY FALLEN SILENT. Launched ten years ago, the durable space craft reached Mars orbit a year later. It has mapped the Martian surface, recorded seasonal changes, and gathered evidence of water in Mar's past. Today, the US has three orbiters and two surface rovers, and the European Space Agency has an orbiter, the Mars Express. Still, the Global Explorer was collecting valuable climate data. A disabled solar panel is thought to be the problem. Efforts to reestablish contact are given little chance. Construction, launch and operating costs over its long life totaled $242M, or about one-tenth the cost of a single shuttle mission to the ISS. It was, however, completely unable to hit a golf ball. 4. EMF: WIRELESS COMPUTER NETWORKS ARE THE LATEST CULPRIT. Health complaint? Could be wi-fi according to Wednesday's Evening Standard in the UK. Or you could just be neurotic. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 17, 2006
-Forwarded Message- From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Nov 17, 2006 12:03 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 17, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 17 Nov 06 Washington, DC 1. FREEDOM FUEL: HYDROGEN, IT SEEMS, IS NOT AN ODORLESS GAS. Last week a New Jersey court sentenced Patrick Kelly of Kuna, Idaho to five years in prison for defrauding investors in United Fuel Cell Technologies. I don't know Kelly, but in 2000 I got a letter from the Genesis Project in Boise, ID inviting me to join other scientists in developing an energy-efficient process for separating hydrogen from water. Bad smell. Two years later a company called Genesis World Energy claimed it had succeeded. WN cried scam http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN02/wn121302.html . Scams that claim to break the First Law of Thermodynamics are not uncommon. What made this scam different was that the Genesis web site said they weren't taking investments. However, only one month later, President Bush in his State of the Union address proposed the Freedom Car, powered by hydrogen, and pollution free http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN03/wn013103.html . Timing is everythng. Deep-pocket investors begged Genesis to be let in. 2. FREEDOM OF SCIENCE: IN DEFENSE OF SCIENCE AND SECULARISM. On Tuesday, the Center for Inquiry held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington to issue a declaration urging that public policy be based on science rather than faith. The declaration was signed by a number of leading scientists and advocates of strict church-state separation. The Center for Inquiry is an outgrowth of the Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, which publishes the Skeptical Inquirer. 3. ELECTRONIC TOYS: THE WONDERS MODERN SCIENCE MAKES POSSIBLE. There are lines all over the country to buy the PS3. But Beverly Hills Teddy Bear Co. is betting on a different horse: a button- activated, foot-tall, bearded Jesus in hand-sewn cloth and sandals. He recites such bible verses as, No one can reach the Kingdom of God unless he is born again. That oughta grab 'em. 4. TAMIFLU: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED IN THE WAR AGAINST BIRD FLU? There were reports this week of behavioral problems associated with the antiviral drug, but the maker, Roche, says new data shows the effects are from the virus, not the drug. The Defense Department hopes so. It stockpiled huge amounts of tamiflu. Donald Rumsfeld hopes so too. He left DOD, but he's a major stockholder in Gilead Sciences where he was once CEO. Gilead holds the rights to tamiflu which it outsources to Roche. 5. RED WINE: GOOD NEWS IF YOU RUN MARATHONS, AND YOU'RE A MOUSE. Resveratrol, already shown to reverse the effects of obesity in mice, as we reported on 3 Nov 06 , has also been shown to increase their stamina. However, researchers say it's impossible to drink that much wine. We can but try. 6. ALTERNATIVES: CHINESE TURNING AWAY FROM TRADITIONAL MEDICINE. Even as demand for the untested superstitions soars in the West. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 10, 2006
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 11/10/2006 1:43:04 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 10, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert l. Park Friday, 10 Nov 06 Washington, DC 1. PLAN B: THE ROLE OF THE WHITE HOUSE IN RESTRICTING ACCESS. You probably noticed that there was an election this week. The outcome won't make it easier for the Administration to block a federal magistrate's ruling, issued Monday, allowing the Center for Reproductive Rights to subpoena White House emails and other documents related to FDA's decision to deny over-the-counter access to the emergency contraceptive, Plan B, to women under 18, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN06/wn082506.html. Under-18 is the demographic group for whom conception is most likely to be an emergency. The Center for Reproductive Medicine is seeking to learn whether the White House interfered with the decision-making process of the FDA. 2. NECESSARY ADJUSTMENT? SECRETARY OF DEFENSE WASN'T ON BALLOT. Donald Rumsfeld was voted out of office anyway. Having replaced stay the course with necessary adjustments, President Bush replaced Rumsfeld with Robert Gates. As CIA Director, Gates was renowned for his uncanny ability to produce intelligence that supported whatever position the administration had already taken. Wasn't it that sort of intelligence that got us into Iraq? There is still a confirmation process to be gotten through, and that may not be easy. Wednesday, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), one half of the PhD physicist block in Congress, described the Gates nomination as deeply troubling. He called for a thorough and probing confirmation hearing for Gates. 3. SHUTTLE TO NOWHERE: A SHORTER MISSION OR A LONGER CALENDAR? Well, here we are again. Yesterday they rolled Discovery to the launching pad to prepare for a 12-day mission in December. NASA insists the hurry is to be certain it's not in space when the calendar changes to 2007; it might cause a computer glitch. Sound familiar? Same thing happened seven years ago with the dreaded Y2K problem. They wound up shortening the mission by two days to get it back before 1 Jan 00. You mean NASA can't solve a simple computer problem in seven years? Maybe there's some other problem. You get the cost-per-launch by dividing the annual shuttle budget by the number of launches, but the budget is by fiscal year. For FY07 the shuttle budget is $4.6B. 4. OBESITY EPIDEMIC: DOES IT MATTER WHERE YOU PUT THE STAPLES? Diet desperation led to the practice of stomach stapling. It's a Disgusting idea, but I have no reason to doubt its effectiveness. However, in Florida the state Board of Acupuncture banned ear stapling, not because it's not effective, but because of complications. Ear stapling is supposed to be a sort of long- lasting acupuncture, and I can assure readers that it's every bit as effective as traditional acupuncture. If you staple your dog's ear instead, it will have the same effect on your weight. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 3, 2006
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 11/3/2006 1:34:36 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 3, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 3 Nov 06 Washington, DC 1. DIETARY SUPPLEMENT: WHAT DID JESUS KNOW ABOUT RESVERATROL? Researchers report in Nature that massive doses of a natural substance found in red wine, resveratrol, offsets some of the bad effects of a high-calorie diet and extends life span - if you're a mouse. Resveratrol is in the skin of the grape where it serves as a fungicide. The corresponding dose for a human would be staggering, but many will try and stagger. It's been sold as a dietary supplement for years on the basis of the French paradox of low incidence of coronary heart disease. The first miracle of Jesus, related in John 2:1-12, was performed at a wedding party. When they ran out of party drinks, Jesus turned 6 jugs of water into wine. He could have turned it into beer I suppose, or even Dr. Pepper, or maybe he saw ahead to discovery of resveratrol's benefits. Thousands of Bible-Belt ministers have preached that the wine Jesus made must have been unfermented grape juice. 2. TED HAGGARD: ADMITS BUYING METH FROM HIS MALE PROSTITUTE. A year ago Ted Haggard said Heaven is only for born-again Christians http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn122305.html . Is there some place with higher standards? 3. EVOLUTION: THE HONEY BEE GENOME MAY REAWAKEN A CONTROVERSY. Four years in the making, a consortium of 150 researchers in 20 countries deciphered the 236-million-base genome. This is the fifth insect sequenced so far. It's of interest because of the bee's complex social behavior. People communicate by dancing, and so, it is said, do honey bees. The claim is that scout bees do an elaborate dance to let the hive know where the flowers are. It earned Karl von Frisch a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1973. Not everyone agreed. No other animal exhibits such a language, and language takes a lot of genes. The experiments of Adrian Wenner at UCSC seemed to show that bees just smell the flowers. The genome reveals a huge group of genes for odorant receptors, but no unique cluster of brain genes. So why do bees dance? In June I spent days watching as carpenter bees tried to convert my deck into sawdust. Carpenter bees are loners. They don't have hives, preferring to drill individual holes in my deck. But they dance like crazy. I think they're just hovering, but that's not easy. Like helicopter pilots, they must constantly make corrections. 4. HUBBLE: NASA PLANS REPAIRS OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST TELESCOPE. Planned for May 2008, it was a rare piece of good news coming out of NASA. It should extend Hubble's life to 2013. The decision was attributed to the ability to inspect the shuttle in flight. 5. PROLIFERATION: NORTH KOREA AGREES TO RETURN TO 6-NATION TALKS. As part of a deal brokered by China, North Korea agreed to resume the suspended talks and the U.S. agreed to discuss the financial sanctions it has imposed. Countries around the world prepared to impose U.N. sponsored sanctions following the recent test. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the Unversity of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 27, 2006
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 10/27/2006 1:17:30 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 27, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 27 Oct 06 Washington, DC 1. STEREOTYPE THREATS: DOES GENDER INFLUENCE MATH PERFORMANCE? It does if women expect it to. When Lawrence Summers speculated that innate ability might explain why there are fewer women in math and science, it cost him the presidency of Harvard. A study reported in Science by researchers at the University of British Columbia found that women exposed to bogus scientific theories linking their gender to poor math skills performed more poorly on subsequent math tests. Uncertainty over whether they could do it presumably affected how hard they tried. Professors over 70 also have a notorious stereotype, but I can't remember what it is. 2. HARVARD: CURRICULUM COMMITTEE PROPOSES REASON AND FAITH. The world is riven by religious war. It always has been. We live now in an age of science, but it is ancient, unfounded religious beliefs that are central to national disputes over the teaching of evolution, stem cell research, abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage. A Harvard curriculum committee has therefore recommended that every Harvard student be required to take one course on the interplay between religion and science. It must be framed in the context of social issues. This seems certain to influence other universities. Scientists had better start getting involved before the zealots take over. 3. CONSPIRATORS: HAVE THEY INFILTRATED BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY? In June, we mentioned the World Trade Center conspiracy theory of physics professor Steven Jones at Brigham Young University http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN06/wn062306.html . He believes the Trade Center was rigged with explosives on 9/11, with the connivance of the U.S. government. BYU suspended Jones pending a review of his 9/11 theories, but Jones has now agree to retire. This isn't his first trip into delusion. Seventeen years ago his delusion of geologic cold fusion got Pons and Fleischmann at the U. of Utah started on a cold fusion delusion of their own. 4. CELL PHONES ARE ATTACKING SPERM? SO BAN THE DAMN CELL PHONES. If they're not attacking sperm, ban them anyway. But there is not a chance that the reported low sperm counts among heavy cell phone users, reported at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine Conference in New Orleans on Sunday, had anything to do with cell phone radiation. The wavelength is far too long to have any direct chemical effect and the microwave heating from a cell phone is easily handled by the body's temperature regulating mechanism. It's too small to affect sperm, even if you put the phone in your underpants. Ashok Agarwal of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, studied 364 men at a fertility clinic in Mumbai, India. The real question is what they talk about for four hours a day. 5. INVISIBILITY: WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN? The Shadow knows. Researchers were able to deflect microwaves around a copper cylinder, if you happen to see with microwaves. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 27, 2006
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 10/27/2006 1:17:30 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 27, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 27 Oct 06 Washington, DC 1. STEREOTYPE THREATS: DOES GENDER INFLUENCE MATH PERFORMANCE? It does if women expect it to. When Lawrence Summers speculated that innate ability might explain why there are fewer women in math and science, it cost him the presidency of Harvard. A study reported in Science by researchers at the University of British Columbia found that women exposed to bogus scientific theories linking their gender to poor math skills performed more poorly on subsequent math tests. Uncertainty over whether they could do it presumably affected how hard they tried. Professors over 70 also have a notorious stereotype, but I can't remember what it is. 2. HARVARD: CURRICULUM COMMITTEE PROPOSES REASON AND FAITH. The world is riven by religious war. It always has been. We live now in an age of science, but it is ancient, unfounded religious beliefs that are central to national disputes over the teaching of evolution, stem cell research, abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage. A Harvard curriculum committee has therefore recommended that every Harvard student be required to take one course on the interplay between religion and science. It must be framed in the context of social issues. This seems certain to influence other universities. Scientists had better start getting involved before the zealots take over. 3. CONSPIRATORS: HAVE THEY INFILTRATED BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY? In June, we mentioned the World Trade Center conspiracy theory of physics professor Steven Jones at Brigham Young University http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN06/wn062306.html . He believes the Trade Center was rigged with explosives on 9/11, with the connivance of the U.S. government. BYU suspended Jones pending a review of his 9/11 theories, but Jones has now agree to retire. This isn't his first trip into delusion. Seventeen years ago his delusion of geologic cold fusion got Pons and Fleischmann at the U. of Utah started on a cold fusion delusion of their own. 4. CELL PHONES ARE ATTACKING SPERM? SO BAN THE DAMN CELL PHONES. If they're not attacking sperm, ban them anyway. But there is not a chance that the reported low sperm counts among heavy cell phone users, reported at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine Conference in New Orleans on Sunday, had anything to do with cell phone radiation. The wavelength is far too long to have any direct chemical effect and the microwave heating from a cell phone is easily handled by the body's temperature regulating mechanism. It's too small to affect sperm, even if you put the phone in your underpants. Ashok Agarwal of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, studied 364 men at a fertility clinic in Mumbai, India. The real question is what they talk about for four hours a day. 5. INVISIBILITY: WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN? The Shadow knows. Researchers were able to deflect microwaves around a copper cylinder, if you happen to see with microwaves. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 20, 2006WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 20 Oct 06 Washington, DC
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 10/20/2006 2:20:22 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 20, 2006WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 20 Oct 06 Washington, DC WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 20 Oct 06 Washington, DC 1. EMPIRE: PRESIDENT BUSH APPROVES A NEW NATIONAL SPACE POLICY. The change in the international political climate over the past decade is nowhere more evident than in a comparison of the new National Space Policy with the 1996 policy it replaces. The old policy committed the U.S. to greater levels of partnership and cooperation with other nations to ensure the continued use of outer space for peaceful purposes. The new policy defines peaceful purposes as whatever U.S. defense and intelligence- related activities are deemed to be in the national interest. Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power. The first goal of the 1996 policy was to:Enhance knowledge of the Earth, the solar system and the universe. Now the first goal is to: further U.S. national security, homeland security, and foreign policy objectives. 2. CLONED? WE WERE JUST GETTING USED TO GENETICALLY MODIFIED. According to Rick Weiss in the Washington Post, the Food an Drug Administration is about to approve the sale of meat and milk from cloned livestock. The FDA is responsible only for the question of human safety. Too much animal fat in the diet is dangerous, but no more so if it comes from clones. If there is no rational downside to an innovation we can always count on religion to discover supernatural objections. Some Jews, for example, worry that the Talmudic injunction against crossbreeding might forbid cloning, but a clone seems to go in the direction of species purity rather than a chimera. Christians are more likely to see the sin of pride in cloning. That is not unlike the Muslim concern that it might infringe on Allah's prerogative as creator, but maybe it's a gift from Allah instead. Buddhists seem to think it's OK if the motive is to reduce suffering, but how do the souls get shared? Hindus don't eat animals anyway. 3. STRING THEORY: STRINGING OUT THE SEARCH FOR A UNIFIED FIELD. Brian Greene, Columbia physicist and author of the wildly popular Elegant Universe, (Norton, 1999), wrote a very long and somewhat wistful op-ed in this morning's NY Times pleading for patience. If it has not yet shown us the way to an experimental test of the concept so also no mathematical contradiction has been found in the mountain of calculations. Meanwhile physics departments around the world have wagered scarce resources on a breakthrough. 4. EDWARD TELLER'S GHOST: A NEW GENERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Our stockpile of 6,000 nuclear weapons is growing old. Few who developed the first A-bomb are still alive. A deranged dictator on steroids is testing bombs of his own. The Bush plan? We start all over: Build an entirely new nuclear weapons complex making thousands of Reliable Replacement Warheads, warheads so reliable they won't even need testing. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: (VO) FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 20, 2006WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 20 Oct 06 Washington, DC
Forward from Akira Kawasaki ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 10/20/2006 2:20:22 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 20, 2006WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 20 Oct 06 Washington, DC WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 20 Oct 06 Washington, DC 1. EMPIRE: PRESIDENT BUSH APPROVES A NEW NATIONAL SPACE POLICY. The change in the international political climate over the past decade is nowhere more evident than in a comparison of the new National Space Policy with the 1996 policy it replaces. The old policy committed the U.S. to greater levels of partnership and cooperation with other nations to ensure the continued use of outer space for peaceful purposes. The new policy defines peaceful purposes as whatever U.S. defense and intelligence- related activities are deemed to be in the national interest. Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power. The first goal of the 1996 policy was to:Enhance knowledge of the Earth, the solar system and the universe. Now the first goal is to: further U.S. national security, homeland security, and foreign policy objectives. 2. CLONED? WE WERE JUST GETTING USED TO GENETICALLY MODIFIED. According to Rick Weiss in the Washington Post, the Food an Drug Administration is about to approve the sale of meat and milk from cloned livestock. The FDA is responsible only for the question of human safety. Too much animal fat in the diet is dangerous, but no more so if it comes from clones. If there is no rational downside to an innovation we can always count on religion to discover supernatural objections. Some Jews, for example, worry that the Talmudic injunction against crossbreeding might forbid cloning, but a clone seems to go in the direction of species purity rather than a chimera. Christians are more likely to see the sin of pride in cloning. That is not unlike the Muslim concern that it might infringe on Allah's prerogative as creator, but maybe it's a gift from Allah instead. Buddhists seem to think it's OK if the motive is to reduce suffering, but how do the souls get shared? Hindus don't eat animals anyway. 3. STRING THEORY: STRINGING OUT THE SEARCH FOR A UNIFIED FIELD. Brian Greene, Columbia physicist and author of the wildly popular Elegant Universe, (Norton, 1999), wrote a very long and somewhat wistful op-ed in this morning's NY Times pleading for patience. If it has not yet shown us the way to an experimental test of the concept so also no mathematical contradiction has been found in the mountain of calculations. Meanwhile physics departments around the world have wagered scarce resources on a breakthrough. 4. EDWARD TELLER'S GHOST: A NEW GENERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Our stockpile of 6,000 nuclear weapons is growing old. Few who developed the first A-bomb are still alive. A deranged dictator on steroids is testing bombs of his own. The Bush plan? We start all over: Build an entirely new nuclear weapons complex making thousands of Reliable Replacement Warheads, warheads so reliable they won't even need testing. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Well` well! Richard Hoagland has shown a Moon artificial head artifact photograph from Apollo 17 mission
October 16, 2006, On Coast to Coast Mission.com, George Noory presents a startling photograph of a robotic type head artifact resembling C3PEO from Star Wars. It is with small doubt not a natural object. EnterpriseMission.Com of Richard Hoagland's website is the main link. Back to the Moon!! :-) -ak-
[Vo]: (VO) FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 13, 2006
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 10/13/2006 1:51:36 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 13, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 13 Oct 06 Washington, DC 1. FIZZLE? SOMETHING EXPLODED, BUT NOBODY SEEMS TO KNOW WHAT. There was a seismic event near Kilju, North Korea. The signature was characteristic of an explosion: a sharp leading edge, unlike the release of elastic energy in a tectonic movement. But so far there is no report of airborne radioactivity, which is the most reliable evidence of a test and says the most about what sort of nuclear device it was. North Korea says it was deep underground, but there is typically some venting. If it was a nuclear bomb, it was very small. Bomb freaks in the Pentagon hyperventilate at the thought of a mini-nuke, but a fizzle would be more likely. 2. WOMEN IN PHYSICS: NEW BOOK TELLS THE STORY FOR THE FIRST TIME. Out of the Shadows: Contributions of Twentieth-Century Women to Physics, edited by Nina Byers and Gary Williams, is an important contribution to the history of science. It is forty stories of women who made major contributions to twentieth century physics, written by distinguished scientists who are themselves actively engaged in the areas of physics about which they write. Cambridge University Press, produced a beautiful 500-page volume, and the Sloan Foundation provided a grant that reduced the list price to $35. It cannot be read without a sense of regret at what the world lost by not having greater involvement of women in science. Even today, my freshman physics class averages only 10% women. 3. PERPETUUM MOBILE: GAS PRICES STIMULATE MORE ZERO-POINT DREAMS. About five times a year somebody comes out with a new device to make free energy. Most involve magnetic fields. See for example http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN06/wn082506.html . The oldest perhaps was Perigrinus in 1269, who proposed a magnet to attract iron teeth arranged around a wheel. Once you started it moving, inertia was supposed to carry it beyond the difficult gap to the next tooth. I tire of debunking these things, but this week a reporter called about Magnetic Power, Inc. He said deep-pocket investors, are putting money in it. They always do. MPI says its Quantum Dynamos tap the Virtual Photon Flux, a limitless source of energy. Inventors used to call that perpetual motion, but the Patent office won't patent perpetual motion machines. That was only a policy of the Patent office before 1985. It became case law after Joe Newman sued in federal court to force the Patent Office to issue a patent for his infinite source of energy (Quigg v. Newman) and lost. 4. DOVER EFFECT: MICHIGAN STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION BACKS DARWIN. Michigan had been targeted by the Discovery Institute in an effort to include intelligent design along with evolution in public school science curricula. However, following the Dover decision in federal court (Kitzmiller), the intelligent design move was reduced to trying to soften support for evolution. Instead, the Michigan Board solidified its support for evolution. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: (VO) [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 6, 2006
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 10/6/2006 9:54:32 AM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 6, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 6 Oct 06 Washington, DC 1. THE PHYSICS PRIZE: LOOKING BACK AT THE EMBRYONIC UNIVERSE. Are we so fortunate that we live at a time when we can develop the theory of creation? George Smoot mused in a 1992 press conference http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN92/wn042492.html . It was at the April Meeting of the APS in Washington; Smoot had announced results from the Cosmic Background Explorer mission launched in 1989. The COBE findings appear to confirm the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. Smoot, who is at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and John Mather of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, share the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for the COBE measurements. It was an exciting time. Sadly, however, it couldn't happen now. NASA has chosen to set aside relatively inexpensive science in favor of Hollywood sci fi spectaculars. 2. GIMME AN A: IMPORTANT PROGRESS MADE IN MANNED SPACE FLIGHT. One small step in data enhancement. After 37 years, the missing a turned up. An Australian computer programmer used high-tech software to analyze Neil Armstrong's One small step for man... quote. He claims Armstrong said a man just like he insisted. I tried to lip-sync it while listening to the tape, but couldn't squeeze the a in. I guess that's why I'm not an astronaut. 3. FUEL EFFICIENCY: THE DEMAND IS GROWING FOR SMALLER PEOPLE. According to Holman Jenkins in the Wall Street Journal, Detroit is talking small cars again, following the near collapse of the SUV market amid higher gas prices over the last two years. He points out, however, that the popularity of SUVs and pickups was linked to the obesity epidemic. People need taller cabs so they can fit behind the steering wheel and still reach the pedals. Meanwhile, gas prices have fallen 25% since the peak just two months ago, but they may be at the bottom. Reports that OPEC is preparing to cut production is already starting to raise oil prices. There is a way out. If we keep converting crop land to making ethanol, rising food prices will begin to reduce American waistlines. We just have to stay the course. 4. THE BOMB: THE AXIS OF EVIL IS TURNING UP THE PRESSURE. Foreign Ministers are gathering in London for crisis talks on how to deal with Iran's refusal to end its nuclear program, even as North Korea's threatens to conduct a test of a nuclear weapon. 5. NANO: FDA LACKS RESOURCES TO REGULATE THIS NEW TECHNOLOGY. There are 320 nanomaterials products already on the market, including cosmetics, dietary supplements, drugs and medical devices, with 200 more in the pipeline. However, there is no record of anybody being harmed, in spite of Prince Charles' worries about the world being reduced to a mass of grey goo by self-replicating nanodevices. We call such devices bacteria, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN03/wn050903.html . THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: (VO) FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 29, 2006
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 9/29/2006 1:49:27 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 29, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 29 Sep 06 Washington, DC 1. DOVER PAYBACK: HOUSE VOTES TO LIMIT THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE. The nation was distracted this week: the leaked Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, a terrifying new report on global warming, continued high gas prices, a White House lobbying scandal that grew from a few contacts with Jack Abramoff to 485, not to mention the news that two men have stepped forward claiming to be the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby. That allowed the House to quietly pass H.R. 2679, the Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act of 2006, with scarcely a mention in the media. The bill would prevent plaintiffs from recovering legal costs in any lawsuit based on the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which of course only happens when the court finds the plaintiff's Constitutional rights have been denied. The Senate is expected to pass a companion bill, S. 3696. Congress cannot simply abridge the Bill of Rights. Maybe they think th Supreme Court is stacked. Or maybe it's the election. 2. GLOBAL TEMPERATURE CHANGE: TIME TO HEAD FOR HIGHER GROUND. Nothing irritates global warming deniers more than a new report from James Hansen's group at NASA, but warming seems to be taking place at the rate predicted 20 years ago. On Monday, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a new report from Hansen's group that says the planet as a whole is approximately as warm now as at the Holocene maximum and within 1-degree C of the maximum temperature of the last million years. 3. POLITICS: SUPPORT GROUP FOR SCIENCE-FRIENDLY CANDIDATES. Organizers describe Scientists and Engineers for America as nonpartisan, but there is no denying that Bush Administration policies on science-related issues have not been popular in the science community. Two of the organizers, physicists Neal Lane and Jack Gibbons, were science advisors under Clinton. Susan Wood, who resigned from the FDA last year to protest inaction on making Plan B available over-the-counter, is another organizer. We have no word on whether Jack Marburger plans to join. 4. SPACE ELEVATOR: YOU MAY WANT TO TAKE THE STAIRS INSTEAD. Students in my Freshman class keep asking about space elevators. WN has never commented on the space elevator. It's not my field, but since when does that stop me? I keep thinking back to the tethered-satellite NASA spent years on. They deployed the 16km tether 256m before it stuck. They lost a $440M Italian satellite trailing a 12km tether. Now they want to tether a satellite from Earth? http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN96/wn030196.html 5. THE HIGH FRONTIER: FIRST FEMALE SPACE TOURIST BACK ON EARTH. Anousheh Ansari is back from her $20M bungee jump, along with snails, worms and barley grown on the ISS. We're not sure why. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 22, 2006
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 9/22/2006 2:29:09 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 22, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 22 Sep 06 Washington, DC 1. POLYGRAPH: SCIENCE MOVED ON FEDERAL AGENCIES NEVER NOTICED. Eighteen years ago, WN said, the polygraph can't tell a lie from the sex act, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN88/wn030488.html . It still can't, but Monday, the Office of the Inspector General of the the Justice Department released a 20-page report on the use of the polygraph by the Justice Department. The polygraph is used slightly less as an investigative tool (recall it failed to expose the Green River killer). But it is used increasingly to screen employees (recall it missed CIA super-mole Aldrich Ames, and has never uncovered a single spy). Meanwhile, brain research became the hottest frontier after physicists developed fMRI brain scanning, revealing what really goes on in our heads. The report never mentions all the unrefuted science showing the polygraph is worse than useless. Nor does it mention fMRI research advances. 2. DSCOVR LIVES: IT'S IN A BOX AT GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER. An article in the September issue of Seed magazine reports that the Deep Space Climate Observatory, built to measure Earth's albedo, is not entirely dead yet. It will remain in its box until the political winds send it to its rightful place at L1. 3. GLOBAL WARMING: THE BAD NEWS IS THAT GAS PRICES ARE FALLING. Waiting for the problem to solve itself after we exhaust fossil fuel reserves has a significant downside. So who's waiting? California is suing six automakers for environmental damage from auto emissions. The British Royal Society charged that Exxon funds groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute to spread misleading information about climate change. Sir Richard Branson says billions of dollars in his profits from Virgin companies will be invested in alternative energy, and a lot of billionaires in Forbes list of the world's richest people are investing in the same thing. Ford and Chevrolet are sinking under the weight of the SUV gas hogs they turn out (unfortunately, it's their workers who will pay the price). All this from higher gas prices? Let's shoot for $4 gas. But not everyone gets the message. A GM spokesman sought to counter California's suit by pointing out that GM is working on hydrogen-powered vehicles. Sigh! 4. APOLOGIA: TRUTH IS GOOD, BUT THE WHOLE TRUTH WOULD BE BETTER. Actually, I wasn't there. I only know what I heard on the news. People chanting Death to the Pope! didn't do much for their cause, whatever that is. It seems the Pope had quoted some 14th century Byzantine Emperor about the Prophet's command to spread the faith by the sword. If so, he might have added a little balance. In the 16th century, Francisco Pizarro, with the help of smallpox, conquered the Inca Empire, while Hernan Cortes, with the same ally, conquered the mighty Aztecs. They reportedly invoked the name of Santiago Matamoros (St James the Moor- killer) as they went into battle. People did bad things. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 15, 2006
Sept. 15, 2006 [Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 9/15/2006 2:23:49 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 15, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 15 Sep 06 Washington, DC 1. PROLIFERATION: IAEA DISPUTES HOUSE COMMITTEE REPORT ON IRAN. Who would have thought that relations between the U.S. and the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency could get worse? The IAEA complains that a House Intelligence Committee staff report, contains erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated information about Iran's nuclear program. Sound familiar? A caption in the House report says Tehran is enriching uranium to weapons grade, but the facility shown only enriches to 3.6%, enough for power production, but far from the level needed for weapons. Before the U.S. invaded Iraq, the IAEA had insisted, despite American objections, that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and later showed that some White House claims were based on forged documents. After the fall of the Saddam government, the U.S blocked IAEA inspections of damage to Iraq's nuclear facilities. But in a stunning vindication of the IAEA, Mohammed ElBaradei, director general of IAEA, was awarded the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn100705.html . 2. SPACE: INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION UNFURLS NEW SOLAR PANELS. The world's most expensive scientific laboratory installed additional solar panels yesterday, capable of producing 100 kilowatts or so of additional power for experiments. The panels cost $372 million to build, and about three times that much to send up to the ISS. Stand by for important new results. The only unique feature of a space environment is micro-gravity. One of the things you could study in micro-gravity is cavitation in spherical drops of water. A paper just published in Phys. Rev. Lett. reports important new insights from such studies except the experiments weren't done in space. They were done on a European Space Agency aircraft flying in parabolic arcs. 3. THIRD GREAT AWAKENING: BUSH SEES REVIVAL OF RELIGIOUS DEVOTION. The President told a group of conservative journalists this week that the confrontation between good and evil in the struggle with international terrorism has led to a revival of religious devotion. He believes it to be the Third Great Awaking. That may be, we secular types could fail to notice a revival or two, but according to Wikipedia we've already had four Great Awakenings. A survey released yesterday by Baylor University, however, does find Americans to be more active in religion than supposed. Baylor is a strict Baptist college in Waco, Texas. It was a frequent target of the late 19th century journalist William Cowper Brann, who published The Iconoclast. Brann's style was much like that of H.L. Mencken a generation later, and the Iconoclast had world-wide circulation. He printed frequent exposes of prominent Waco and Baylor citizens, and was shot to death on a Waco street. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
[Vo]: Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday June 30, 2006
-Forwarded Message- From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jun 30, 2006 1:19 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday June 30, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday 30 Jun 06 Washington, DC 1. NASA: DISCOVERY SET FOR LAUNCH TOMORROW, BUT JUST IN CASE... The mission is to see if the modified shuttle works. Everybody watches their fuel tanks these days, but NASA watches closer. The plan is for the crew to take refuge on the ISS if they find any damage when they get there. But what about the shuttle? It cost a few billion bucks, never mind what's it's worth. No problem! They rigged a 28-foot cable so flight controllers on the ground can throw the switches. I called Ann Thropojinic, a veteran astronaut we have relied on in the past, to explain these things. Does this mean the only function of the crew is to throw a few switches? I asked. Not at all, she replied, the crew is there to do weightless tricks for the cameras. 2. CERVICAL CANCER: FEDERAL ADVISORY PANEL RECOMMENDS VACCINE. Human papillomavirus (HPV)is the most common sexually transmitted disease. By protecting against four strains, Gardisil prevents most cervical cancer. The vaccine is expensive, however, and the disease is most prevalent among the poor. Still, vaccinating girls from 11-18 would cost less than the flight of Discovery. The recommendation was unanimous, but the vote to make Plan B available over the counter was also overwhelming. Why would anyone object? Because, a spokesperson for Focus on the Family snarled, You don't catch it, you have to go out and get it. 3. SENATE: IT WAS ANOTHER WEEK DEVOTED TO SAVING OUR DEMOCRACY. The Iraq War continues unabated, the deficit soars, the ice caps melt, and the Senate voted on whether a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning should go to the States for ratification. It was the fourth time the Senate has rejected such an initiative since the Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that flag burning is protected free speech. It failed by one vote. As a threat to the nation, flag burning may be as dangerous as gay marriage. An amendment to ban gay marriage had failed earlier. 4. HOUSE: BILL IS PASSED TO END MORATORIUM ON OFFSHORE DRILLING. The moratorium has been in effect for 25 years to protect shore areas; this is apparently how long it takes for people to forget the environmental cost of the 1969 leaks off Santa Barbara. Compared to imports, the amount of oil involved is trivial. 5. NONEVENT: IT'S MY LAST DAY AS DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC INFORMATION. The only title I have ever aspired to is Professor of Physics. That title has not changed, nor will What's New, nor anything else I can think of. As you know, What's New is now supported by the University of Maryland Department of Physics, which has made it my major teaching assignment; the APS allows me use the office in the National Press Building as a base to write it with help from a wonderful staff; and I continue to get up every morning to battle the Philistines, secure in the knowledge that when I get it wrong, WN readers will straighten me out. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 25, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 11/26/2005 1:03:29 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 25, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 25 Nov 05 Washington, DC 1. NASA: VISION FOR SPACE EXPLORATION IS ALREADY IN TROUBLE. It was less than a year ago, that President Bush announced his bold plan to send people to reexplore the Moon and then explore Mars http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn011604.html The plan is not going well. First, we're told, the International Space Station must be finished as the US promised, even if it is just a Disney World ride for too-rich tourists. That means 18 more shuttle flights, which aren't happening due to new cracks in the foam. If the ISS is ever finished, it can be dropped in the ocean. NASA will then get on with a crew exploration vehicle to go to the moon, where we were 36 years ago. But that leaves a four year gap between the shuttle and the crew exploration vehicle with no Americans in space. Would anyone notice? 2. DARWIN: AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY OPENS NEW EXHIBIT. In 1987, Norman Newell, a paleontologist at the AMNH, shared the Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award of the AAAS for his early and persistent campaign to alert scientists to the threat posed by creationism to scientific education. At that time, the Louisiana equal time law was before the U.S. Supreme Court http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN87/wn021987.html . This week, with the Dover School Board ID case before a Federal Court in Pennsylvania, the AMNH opened an exhibit on the life of Charles Darwin, featuring a live specimen of the storied Galapagos tortoise. Corporate sponsors for such educational exhibits are usually easy to find, but the Darwin exhibit reportedly had to rely on individual donors and private charities for the $3M the exhibit cost. Although the ID controversy frightened off corporate donors, a Creationist Museum near Cincinatti, apparently had little trouble raising $7M for an exhibit featuring Adam and Eve. 3. SHAMIFLU: THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE AND THE WAR AGAINST BIRD FLU. President Bush went to Congress early this month to ask for $7B to prepare the nation for a possible outbreak of Asian bird flu http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn110405.html . The federal government has since become the world's biggest customer for Tamiflu, produced by the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, Roche. That was good news for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who doesn't have bird flu. He doesn't have stock in Roche either, but he does have millions of dollars worth of stock in a company named Gilead Sciences, having been Gilead's Chairman prior to joining the Bush administration. Low-profile Gilead Sciences owns the rights to Tamiflu, which it outsources to Roche. There is little evidence that the antiviral drug would help much in a flu pandemic. 4. JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE: LAUNCH HAS BEEN DELAYED TWO YEARS. To cope with its budget problems, NASA will delay the launch of the infrared telescope. State Department permission is sought to launch JWST on the European Space Agency Ariane 5 rocket. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
OT: History
Nov. 22, 2005 Vortex, As timeof past events come into view as revealed in rummaging through archives and exchange of experiences, a final view of one's own place inhistoryjells as we ourselves become closer to history. Robert B. Stinnett spent some twenty years of his life in research to write his very well documented work on that short history segmentof FDR and WWII.I thank him for it. Some classified archived material he researched through for the first time has since been reclassified and withdrawn from view. His research material has been given to the Stanford Hoover Institute. I think it was premature to classify our human species as Homo Sapiens. Perhaps one day --- -ak-
RE: Fw: Ceramic pistons and liners
Nov. 23, 2005 Vortex, Hi, Ceramics brought the name Kyocera to mind. Looking up their website should guide you to your search. One of the suggested material that may fill your quest is Silicon Nitride. And there are many companies that may fill your needs beside Kyocera. Good luck! -ak- - Original Message - From: Noel D. Whitney To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: 11/23/2005 6:37:34 PM Subject: Fw: Ceramic pistons and liners Now that I am subscribed again - Like born again?? - Original Message - From: Noel D. Whitney To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 3:51 PM Subject: Fw: Ceramic pistons and liners - Original Message - From: Noel D. Whitney To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 8:54 AM Subject: Ceramic pistons and liners Regarding recent comm from Akira Kawasaki on small engines- Mode aircraft type , has anyone come across small ( typical max 50mm dia) engine which incorporated ceramic pistons and ceramic cylinder liners. i am after a source of same ?? I wrote to GE,s special materials lab in New York , but so far no reply. there was a company in Germany in the 90.s who did this to a very high degree - No piston rings and a rotating piston with power from both Compressed air and in both 2 stroke and 4 stroke formats for ICE use.Regretably they went out of busines hwen the 2 Germany,s got together! I want these for 2 uses - 1 ) Using Hydrogen without embrittlement problems and 2 ) poss. water/steam use and therefore no lubricationand high temps? Any help greatly appreciated and theres a pint of Guinness in Dublin for the finder! Rgds Noel Whitney - quantum leap.
Re: OFF TOPIC History's might-have-been's - Pacific war almost averted
Nov. 22, 2005 Vortex, Military documents obtained through "Freedom of Information Act" invoked by Stinnetshows that United States had broken both diplomatic and military codes used byJapan by 1939-1940. Roosevelt knew every move Japan was making. He knew that their navy was on the way. There was no radio silence as asserted. "God Bless" the Army and Navy code breakers. Pearl Harbor was not a surprise,the Midway tactic was known, and Yamamoto was later killed by knowing his inspection route. The sad thing on Japan's side was that they never caught on that their codes were broken. It is also safe to assume that United States knew about Japan scrambling to come to surrender negotiations through then neutral Russia much prior to dropping of the Atomic Bomb. Those commanders caught by surprise at Pearl were kept out of the crucial information loop. MacAurthur was not one of those. He just didn't get enough supplies in time. You see, Europe was the priority. By the way, Stinnet's book is "Day of Deceit, The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor". -ak- - Original Message - From: Jones Beene To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: 11/22/2005 11:27:58 PM Subject: Re: OFF TOPIC History's might-have-been's - Pacific war almost averted Speaking of"History's might-have-been's" during this period - how many realize how "fortunate: (i.e. downright lucky) we were at Midway? This "failed-trap", and our good-fortune,plus a rare Yamamoto slip-up -essentially lost the war for Japan during this one battle. We might have succeeded anyway, at far greater cost, butfor this battle, as they definitely had the upper hand in maritime strength prior. Jones BTW my stepfather was on the ill-fated Yorktown (both the first and second versions), and surviving that sinking (by torpedo) requiredits ownbit of luck.
FW: Re: CO2 Minipower Generator?
- Original Message - From: Akira Kawasaki To: Frederick Sparber Sent: 11/20/2005 8:24:37 AM Subject: Re: CO2 Minipower Generator? Nov. 20, 2005 Vortex, In the late forties, with the rage for powered model airplanes (among boys mostly), there developed many sized gas, methanol, and some Co2 powered engines. You will find them still actively traded on eBay. The Co2 engines were not too popular. They were almost curiosities in their simple and novel design. The only power source was from small (approve. 3/4"X 3") steel cylinders that were designed to supply home carbonated water from tap water. The cylinders had very high gas pressure which was eventually adapted to power pellet rifles, pistols and one shot model rocket cars, planes. It gets to be expensive power source over time. The cylinders are still available today with the standard and even elongated (4") design. The Co2 engine design point was in the cylinder head and piston. The piston head had a projection where as it approached "top dead center" in its up and down motion, the projection pushed against a ball valve in the cylinder head. This released the Co2 gas feeding into the cylinder head and powered the down stroke of the piston. This worked very well. And the engine ran about couple of minutes or so at full blast. There were no engine controls. The model planes usually ran on a free flight pattern.There was a problem. With so much gas being released the engine quickly became frosted with all the ambient heat being sucked IN. This caused the engine to freeze up after extensive use of cylinders. I suppose an electric generator could be designed to run off of anmuch improvedCo2 powered engine to power your laptop. Perhaps it could be designed to run for extended lengths of time.The only problem would be in chasing after the laptop as it buzzes around your room. Sincerely, -ak- - Original Message - From: Frederick Sparber To: vortex-l Sent: 11/20/2005 12:20:19 PM Subject: Re: CO2 Minipower Generator? At77 Fliquid CO2 has a pressure of 63.5 Atm(933 PSI) and a density of about 1.10 grams/cm^3. At STP there are 50 cm^3 of CO2 vapor per gram.An aluminum tube about 18 inches long by 1.0 inches I.D.could store about 750 grams of liquid CO2. Could one make a miniature steam engine run a minipower generator for my newly acquired laptop while I get used to doing strange things with my finger? For how long? :-) Fred
OT FW: Re: CO2 Minipower Generator?
apologies if vortex-l alredy received the missive From: Akira Kawasaki To: Vortex-l Sent: 11/20/2005 8:24:37 AM Subject: Re: CO2 Minipower Generator? Nov. 20, 2005 Vortex, In the late forties, with the rage for powered model airplanes (among boys mostly), there developed many sized gas, methanol, and some Co2 powered engines. You will find them still actively traded on eBay. The Co2 engines were not too popular. They were almost curiosities in their simple and novel design. The only power source was from small (approve. 3/4"X 3") steel cylinders that were designed to supply home carbonated water from tap water. The cylinders had very high gas pressure which was eventually adapted to power pellet rifles, pistols and one shot model rocket cars, planes. It gets to be expensive power source over time. The cylinders are still available today with the standard and even elongated (4") design. The Co2 engine design point was in the cylinder head and piston. The piston head had a projection where as it approached "top dead center" in its up and down motion, the projection pushed against a ball valve in the cylinder head. This released the Co2 gas feeding into the cylinder head and powered the down stroke of the piston. This worked very well. And the engine ran about couple of minutes or so at full blast. There were no engine controls. The model planes usually ran on a free flight pattern.There was a problem. With so much gas being released the engine quickly became frosted with all the ambient heat being sucked IN. This caused the engine to freeze up after extensive use of cylinders. I suppose an electric generator could be designed to run off of anmuch improvedCo2 powered engine to power your laptop. Perhaps it could be designed to run for extended lengths of time.The only problem would be in chasing after the laptop as it buzzes around your room\ Sincerely, -ak- - Original Message - From: Frederick Sparber To: vortex-l Sent: 11/20/2005 12:20:19 PM Subject: Re: CO2 Minipower Generator? At77 Fliquid CO2 has a pressure of 63.5 Atm(933 PSI) and a density of about 1.10 grams/cm^3. At STP there are 50 cm^3 of CO2 vapor per gram.An aluminum tube about 18 inches long by 1.0 inches I.D.could store about 750 grams of liquid CO2. Could one make a miniature steam engine run a minipower generator for my newly acquired laptop while I get used to doing strange things with my finge? For how long? :-) Fred
Fw: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 18, 2005
-Forwarded Message- From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Nov 18, 2005 8:46 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 18, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 18 Nov 05 Washington, DC 1. ISS BUDGET: WORLD'S MOST EXPENSIVE LABORATORY DROPS RESEARCH. The $16.5B NASA spending bill Congress sent to the President, with an extra $50M for Hubble repairs, is actually a little more than the President asked for. Michael Griffin has the final say on a Hubble repair mission, but he won't decide until after the shuttle flight set for May. Meanwhile, preparing for an unlikely Moon-Mars mission is costly. NASA says it will save $344M by halting life- sciences research on the ISS. That was about the only scientific research left. So what's this turkey for? A NASA spokesman told the Orlando Sentinel that lengthy visits to the station are the key to preparing astronauts for a return to the Moon. It seems more likely that research on the ISS was of little value anyway. This is one more sign that human spaceflight is headed for extinction. 2. INTELLIGENT DESIGN: PAT ROBERTSON SHOULD HAVE BEEN A WITNESS. Last week WN commented on the spectacle of televangelist Robertson calling down the wrath of God on a bucolic village in Pennsylvania. Kitzmiller v. Dover School District, which wound up testimony two weeks ago, turns on the issue of whether Intelligent Design is a scientific theory, as its proponents insist, or religion in drag. Several WN readers noted that this influential Christian evangelist has demonstrated that ID is religion. If Kitzmiller is appealed, as seems likely, WN urges that Robertson be called to testify. 3. ACADEMIC DECLINE: GROWING INFLUENCE OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY? A front page story in Monday's Wall Street Journal describes the spread of college courses questioning evolution. The driving force is the Templeton Foundation, which provides start-up funding for guest speakers, library materials, research and conferences. Between 1994 and 2002 Templeton funded nearly 800 courses. Over a 3-year period Guillermo Gonzalez at Iowa State collected $58,000 http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn060305.html. ID should be taught in college, but it should not be confused with science. 4. VATICAN DEFINES: THE CHIEF ASTRONOMER SAYS ID IS NOT SCIENCE. Earlier today, the Rev. George Coyne, the director of the Vatican Observatory said that intelligent design is not science and does not belong in science classrooms. This seemed to put the chief astronomer firmly on the side of Cardinal Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture and orthogonal to Austrian Cardinal Schoenborn http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn070805.html, and perhaps to Pope Benedict XVI, as we saw last week. 5. WEIGHT LOSS: NIH STUDY CONFIRMS THAT THE PHYSICS PLAN WORKS. A one year study, backed by NIH, found that the weight-loss drug Merida is more than twice as effective if accompanied by a program of diet and exercise. Why am I not surprised? This is, after all the Physics Plan, first proposed in WN six years ago: Burn more calories than you consume and we guarantee you will lose weight, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN00/wn022500.html. It is the only weight-loss plan endorsed by the First Law of Thermodynamics. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 4, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 11/4/2005 1:02:35 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday November 4, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 4 Nov 05 Washington, DC 1. EVOLUTION: BUSH ASKS FOR $7B TO FIGHT EVOLVING BIRD-FLU VIRUS. This is the final week of the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Board trial in a Harrisburg, PA federal court. Back in August, before the trial was underway, President Bush came down on the side of intelligent design, much to the delight of the religious- right http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn080505.html . On Tuesday, however, he announced that he would ask Congress for $7.1 billion to prepare the nation for a worldwide outbreak of flu. It's a hedge against evolution. Although a virulent strain of bird flu has killed at least 62 people in Asia, there have been no confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission. The fear is that the H5N1 virus will mutate (evolve) making that possible. Does this mean that Mr. Bush has changed his mind on evolution? 2. SUPREME QUESTION: WHAT ARE THE NOMINEE'S VIEWS ON SCIENCE? According to the news, Samuel Alito, the President's new choice for the Court, told Senators in both parties that the Court may have gone too far in separating church and state. How can they be too separate? That's particularly scary now when it seems possible that the decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Board will be appealed to the Supreme Court, no matter how it turns out. We'll go back to questions submitted by readers next week, but in light of Alito's nomination, WN will exercise its editorial prerogative, posing its own question this week: Does the intelligent designer who designs people, also design viruses? If so, is this conflict-of-interest? 3. FUNDAMENTALISM: THE POSITION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH EVOLVES. In the summer heat, a powerful Cardinal, writing in the NY Times, flatly rejected Darwinian evolution, outraging most scientists. However, WN wrote that, the Church's position is evolving, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn070805.html , and so it has. In an Associated Press story today, Cardinal Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said, we know the dangers of a religion that severs its links with reason and becomes prey to fundamentalism. The faithful have the obligation to listen to that which secular modern science has to offer. Amen. 4. NASA: THE ERA OF HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT ENDED 33 YEARS AGO. That's when Apollo 17 returned from the moon. Someone had better tell NASA. Thursday, Michael Griffin told the House Science Committee that the agency needs another $5B to continue operating the shuttle until 2010. It will take that long to complete the International Space Station so we can begin to dismantle it. The shuttle was the biggest technological blunder in history, but the station is closing the gap. The shuttle was supposed to make it cheaper to send things into space. It didn't. The space station was supposed to do something. I can't remember what. But we do still need the shuttle for one final repair mission to Hubble. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 28, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 10/28/2005 2:14:15 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 28, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 28 Oct 05 Washington, DC 1. INTELLIGENT DESIGN: CORNELL WILL SEEK TO EDUCATE THE PUBLIC. Last Friday, even as What's New was being written in Washington, events were taking place elsewhere that must be commented on. In New York, CBS News was releasing its most recent poll on public attitudes toward the theory of evolution. A little further North in Ithaca, Hunter Rawlings, the president of Cornell University, was delivering a courageous State-of-the-University Address, http://www.cornell.edu/president/announcement_2005_1021.cfm. The CBS poll found that just over half (51%) of Americans believe God created humans in their present form. Clearly, the scientific community has work to do. In his speech, Rawlings went straight to the point, committing Cornell to venture outside the campus to help the American public sort through the issues [raised by intelligent design]. He described ID as a political movement seeking to inject religion into state policy and our schools. The commitment is very much in the tradition of Cornell, whose founders, A.D. White, the first president, and Ezra Cornell saw sectarian strife as the greatest threat to the new university. 2. EVOLUTION: THE DISCOVERY INSTITUTE DID WHAT SCIENCE COULD NOT. The question of how we know is being asked on the pages of the daily news for the first time since the 1925 Scopes trial, thanks to the Discovery Institute. With the world beset by religious wars, this is an opportunity for people to see that no wars are fought over science. Scientific disputes can be settled only by better evidence. It's too complex to see how it could happen without magic is not going to get you far. Meanwhile, Harvard announced plans to study the hardest question of all, the origin of life. And right at ground-zero, the University of Kansas Natural History Museum will open an evolution exhibit on Nov 1. 3. KANSAS: YOU CAN'T JUST CHOOSE THE SONGS YOU WANT TO HEAR. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association had reviewed the latest draft of the Kansas science education standards. They objected that the draft failed to make it clear that supernatural phenomena have no place in science. As a result, Kansas will not be allowed to use copyrighted science education materials developed by the two organizations. Gerald Wheeler, a physicist and the executive director of the NSTA, pointed out that, science is not a jukebox. 4. SUPREME QUESTION: RIGHT NOW THERE'S NO ONE TO ASK IT OF. Don't relax yet, there will be. This weeks choice came from Dave Clary, who would ask: Does legislation aimed at protecting natural resources contravene a Higher Law that says these resources were put here for humans to consume. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
RE: Nature giving an inch?
Oct 26, 2005 Vortex, I used to subscribe to Nature. I still receive their Nature Alerts when the next issue comes out. It gives a brief sentence on their various topics covered. The article in question discusses the activity of Putterman and his experiments in sonoluminescence at UCLA. Nothing new. -ak- [Original Message] From: Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Date: 10/26/2005 12:27:07 PM Subject: Nature giving an inch? The Google Alerts program brought me the following link: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051024/full/4371224a.html I am not a subscriber to nature.com, so I do not know what the article says, but Google brought me a partial quote: Physics: Far from the frontier Nature.com (subscription) - London,England,UK ... problem with reports of tabletop fusion is that for most scientists they evoke memories of the notorious, and now largely discredited, 'cold fusion' claim made ... Note that it says: now largely discredited . . . Perhaps it is my imagination, but I detect a slight change in emphasis. Unfortunately, at this rate it will take a hundred years for Nature to admit its mistake. - Jed
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 21, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 10/21/2005 12:45:23 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 21, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 21 Oct 05 Washington, DC 1. SUPREME QUESTION: WHAT ARE THE NOMINEE'S VIEWS ON SCIENCE? Our request for questions that should be asked of Supreme Court nominees to elicit their views on science drew a huge response. Traditionally, nominees are not questioned about their religious views on the assumption that an oath to uphold the constitution makes the nominee's religious views irrelevant. Science, which bases judgements solely on the evidence, is the antithesis of religion and is clearly relevant. The WN staff felt the question that best captured the consensus of our readers' views in the fewest number of words was from Abi Soffer at SLAC: How does being descended from a monkey affect your judicial philosophy? WN will include more suggested questions each week until the confirmation process in the Senate is over. 2. INTELLIGENT ASTROLOGY: TRIAL FOCUSES ON DEFINITION OF SCIENCE. In early August, expecting it might come up in the Dover School Board case, WN copped a definition of science from the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. It mentions the natural world http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn080505.html, but not the supernatural. On Tuesday, Michael Behe, the defense's irreducible-complexity guru, testified in favor of a broader definition. According to a NY Times story, Behe acknowledged that scientific theory by his definition would fit astrology as well as intelligent design. 3. SPACE RACE: SO WENT THE LAST ISLAND OF SANITY IN A CRAZY WORLD Who would have believed that the United States, having landed men on the Moon 36 years ago in a race with the Soviet Union, and having spent more than $600B on its space program, would today be locked in another race to send humans to the Moon? A race with China? And China may be ahead? Go on! Now suppose I told you that the United Kingdom, long admired by scientists for staying clear of the ISS, is urged by a commission of the Royal Astronomical Society to enter the race? Say it ain't so, Joe. 4. BUT I HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS: THE MOON MAY BE A SOURCE OF OXYGEN. In a 1989 interview on CNN, Vice President Dan Quayle explained why the U.S. should undertake a manned mission to Mars: We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN89/wn090189.html. That didn't pan out, but I have some good news: we don't have to go all the way to Mars for oxygen. UV images obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope show ilmenite deposits on the Moon. Need to breathe on the Moon? Just smelt up a little ilmenite. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 14, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 10/14/2005 1:43:37 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 14, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 14 Oct 05 Washington, DC 1. SUPREME IRONY: SHOULD NOMINEES BE QUESTIONED ABOUT SCIENCE? After nominating Harriet Miers for a seat on the Supreme Court, President Bush sought to reassure religious conservatives by stressing Miers' evangelical Christian roots. Bush said it's part of who she is. He's right, but traditionally the personal religious views of nominees are not taken up in the confirmation process. If the First Amendment is upheld, it shouldn't matter. So forget religion. Far more important in the Twenty-First Century is the nominee's views on science. There are, after all, few cases that come before the courts today that do not have a scientific component. Scientists must construct a list of basic questions that would give some insight into the nominee's vie on science. For example: do all physical events result from earlier physical events, or can they be caused by clasping your hands, bowing your head, and wishing? Send your suggestions to What's New. WN will print the best of them. 2. FAITH-BASED GOVERNMENT: SENATOR BROWNBACK(R-KS)HEARS THE CALL. Senator Sam Brownback has been more public than other Republican senators in raising questions about the nomination of Harriet Miers. A prayer-group-Republican from Kansas who wants to be President, Brownback has an open mind on the question of religion in politics: it can be either a Protestant conservative, or conservative Catholic. Brownback, now Catholic, has been both. 3. TOURIST CLASS: BILLIONAIRE BACK FROM INTERNATIONAL SPACE SPA. Gregory Olsen, the third tourist to buy a $20M ticket to the ISS http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN02/wn042602.html, has returned from his week at the world's most exclusive spa. He gushed to an Associated Press reporter: It was kind of like this wondrous thing. Unlike Dennis Tito, who had stomach problems during his week at the ISS, Olsen played the fantasy-adventure game all the way, even taking along his own science experiments. WN is confident that Olsen's scientific studies, whatever they are, will be as important as those conducted by NASA on the ISS. 4. SHENZHOU VI: CHINA LAUNCHES TWO TAIKONAUTS ON LIVE TELEVISION. Wednesday, in a demonstration of growing confidence in its human space-flight program, China launched two taikonauts on a five day mission to low-Earth orbit, and did it in full view of the world. While Shenzhou VI poses no military threat, it is a demonstration of economic strength; China can now afford to squander vast sums on pointless programs. Happily, this serves world peace by diverting China's resources from more dangerous adventures. 5. 2005 PHYSICS IG NOBEL: THE PRIZE IS NOT ALWAYS TO THE SWIFT. Like that other prize with a similar name, you gotta be patient. This year, the Ig went to John Maidstone from Australia for an experiment to measure the flow of black tar through a funnel. Begun in 1927, one glob drips every nine years. He shared the Ig with a colleague who died between the second and third drops. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa? SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 7, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 10/7/2005 11:30:06 AM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday October 7, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 7 Oct 05 Washington, DC 1. NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS: THEORY OF QUANTUM OPTICS RECOGNIZED. Half of the Prize went to Roy Glauber, 80, a Harvard theorist who continues to teach freshman physics. The other half was divided between John Hall, 71, and Theodor Haensch, 63. Hall is a Senior Scientist at NIST and a Fellow at the University of Colorado's JILA. Haensch directs the Max-Planck-Institute for Quantum Optics in Munich, Germany. Optics was regarded as a mature area of physics before the invention of the laser in 1960, which made all sorts of new experiments possible. At Harvard, Roy Glauber, then 35, began recasting optics in terms of quantum theory. His work provided the mathematical basis for Hall and Haensch to develop techniques to measure frequencies with the accuracy needed for atomic clocks and global positioning systems. 2. NOBEL PEACE PRIZE: EFFORT TO HALT PROLIFERATION RECOGNIZED. Today it was announced that Mohammed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was the co-winner of the 2005 Peace Prize, along with the agency he heads. It was a stunning vindication of ElBaradei, who was reelected to a third term as IAEA director in June only after the U.S. grudgingly withdrew its opposition. Before the U.S. invasion, ElBaradei and the IAEA repeatedly insisted, over American objections, that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. None have ever been found. 3. HOLY WAR: PRESIDENT DELIVERS A MAJOR SPEECH ON TERRORISM. Timing is everything. Yesterday, before the Peace Prize was announced, President Bush delivered what the White House said would be a major speech about progress in the War on Terrorism. To a predictably friendly audience at the National Endowment for Democracy, the President declared that 10 terrorist plots around the world have been thwarted since 9-11. After the speech, the White House began making a list. This is like a boy making a list of the naughty things he hasn't done in hopes of a reward. We can only admire the President's restraint in stopping at ten. 4. JOUR 101: BE CAREFUL WHICH RAFT YOU TAKE DOWN THE CANYON. Balance is a good thing for tour boats, but it makes no sense at all applied to religious explanations of the geology of the Grand Canyon. A story in yesterday's NY Times by Jodi Wilgoren followed two expeditions down the canyon, one led by a Christian fundamentalist minister, the other by Dr. Eugenie Scott, a geologist and the director of the National Center for Science Education. The story could have been educational. It wasn't. All a non-scientist could take from the story is that there are two ways to interpret what you see in the canyon. 5. JOUR 102: HOW WILL AN ANNULAR ECLIPSE AFFECT YOUR HOROSCOPE? On Monday, a relatively rare annular eclipse was seen across Spain and Portugal, which happens if the moon is at its apogee and doesn't quite cover the Sun's disk. It's quite spectacular, an Associated Press account in the NY Times quoted Dr. Stephen Maran of the American Astrological Society. Yes, it was. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
Oil. Oil, everywhere? Whether goest Cold Fusion?
Oct. 04, 2005 Vortex, As posted earlier when oil was around thirty dollars a barrel, Canadian tar sand oil wasbeingscooped upprofitably at nine dollars a barrel. With the half speculative market for oil now running at well over sixty dollars a barrel, investment fever in those tar sands have heated up. Even China has been looking for tar sand assets to buy. It was estimated that recoverable oil was close to equalling those of Saudi Arabia. (so why invade Iraq?) Now, heightened interest is rising on existing oil assets that estimates reserves atFour Times that of Saudi Arabia. And this is because the oil prices are comfortably stable above thirty dollars a barrel. BP has been at recovery efforts for nine years and just about succeeding. Others are at it also. And all that oil is in the continental United States as massive oil shale deposits. And I do not believe those reserves are part of the "peak oil"estimation. Then aside from oil is our coal reserves of several hundred year's worth. What with humanity's mission by "Intelligent Design" going helter skelter down the combustion road --- where in hell are we going? -ak-
Hydrogen fueled car engine
Sept. 30, 2005 Vortex, It seems a long term testing of a Hydrogen fueled system for a car has run into a problem (fatal?) just prior to release for sale to the public by United Nuclear Research. This occurred on Sept. 14th. It is the classic problem that people familiar with metallurgy have run into since early times. This is Hydrogen Embrittlement.It occurred on metals such as iron, aluminum, and other metals that made up an automobile engine. As CF experimenters know Hydrogen ( and D2) is a very active element on "condensed matter". Well, so much for a direct hydrogen fueled power source --- maybe.Perhaps a hydrogen fuel cell powered electric motor may be the route to go. -ak-
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 23, 2005
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 9/23/2005 1:32:55 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 23, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 23 Sep 05 Washington, DC 1. THE POISON PILL: MOON/MARS PUT ON THE KATRINA-RELIEF HIT LIST. Last week, WN characterized NASA's plan to return to the moon in 2018 as an impossibly expensive and pointless program that some future administration would find it necessary to cancel, thus sparing the Bush administration the blame for ending human space exploration. Yesterday, the NY Times printed an expanded version as an op-ed http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/opinion/22park.html . Meanwhile, the Republican Study Committee, a group of fiscal hawks in the House,launched Operation Offset to strip unnecessary spending from the national budget to offset the cost of rebuilding after Katrina. Moon/Mars is high on their list of things to cut, but the list is 23 pages long. Terminating the ISS, for example, is not on the list, which includes things like delaying Medicare drug benefits, eliminating increases to the global AIDS initiative, cutting off federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and numerous other soft fuzzy programs. 2. NASA: GRIFFIN SAYS NEXT SHUTTLE LAUNCH WON'T BE BEFORE MAY. Just a month ago the NASA Administrator was saying the shuttle would not fly before March 4. But the Stennis Space Center, which is responsible for testing the engines, is just 45 miles East of New Orleans, and many of the employees are without homes. 3. NORTH KOREAN NUKES: IS THIS BLACKMAIL, OR IS IT CONFUSION? On Monday, it was announced that six-nation talks in Beijing had reached an agreement under which North Korea would scrap its nuclear arms program in return for something to feed its citizens and perhaps a little respect. By Tuesday, North Korea said it would start to dismantle when the U.S. gave it a light-water reactor. The U.S. said it wasn't sending any reactors until the weapons program was gone. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Rice said everybody had to stick to what had been agreed to, but no one agrees on what that was. Today, North Korea said it will simultaneously pursue peaceful nuclear power, while the U.N. inspects its weapons program. Tomorrow? Who knows. 4. NATURAL HISTORY: MUSEUMS DEAL WITH CREATIONIST CONFRONTATIONS. With the first court test of whether intelligent design theory belongs in science class beginning on Monday, visitors to natural history museums complain that exhibits disagree with biblical accounts. Meanwhile, the Discovery Institute issued a statement dissociating itself from the Dover School Board's misguided approach in treating the trial as a test of the establishment clause of the First Amendment, rather than the free speech clause, as the Discovery Institute would prefer. 5. FUEL ECONOMY: DO INCREASED STANDARDS FOR SUVS HAVE A CHANCE? Maybe, with another hurricane tearing up the Gulf. Boelert and Markey are leading the effort, selling it as a way to combat high gas prices. They didn't have many sponsors a week ago, but that was before Rita took aim at the Texas refineries. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 16, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 9/16/2005 12:41:55 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 16, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 16 Sep 05 Washington, DC Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to The United States Constitution 1. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: McCARTHY ERA CHANGE IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL. A federal judge in Sacramento ruled Wednesday that reciting the Pledge in public schools is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. The ruling was immediately denounced by conservative religious groups, and is certain to be appealed. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales vowed that the Justice Department will fight to overturn the ruling. As a substantive issue, the Pledge ranks right up there with flag burning. Congress added the words under God in 1954 at the suggestion of President Eisenhower. This was at the height of the communist witch hunt, at which time the public equated communism with atheism. A half-century later, we might note, the chief enemies of freedom are far from Godless. 2. PLEDGE OF RESTORATION: COST OF KATRINA RECOVERY MAY TOP $200B. President Bush last night began by declaring a faith in God no storm can take away. He told the nation We will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to rebuild. That was the right thing to say, but after the Iraq screw-up, the Katrina screw-up, and the tax-cut screw-up we're in for hard times. 3. INTELLIGENT DESIGN: DOVER SCHOOL BOARD UNABLE TO STOP TRIAL. On Tuesday, a federal judge in Harrisburg, PA denied the Dover Area School Board request for a summary judgement. The trial will begin as scheduled on September 26. The legal team that represents the 11 parents who filed the lawsuit welcomed the decision. The lawsuit challenges a decision by the Board to require biology teachers to present intelligent design as an alternative to the scientific theory of evolution. The lawsuit alleges that intelligent design is a religious theory that lies far outside mainstream science. Who is the intelligent designer? The answer makes it clear that this is just religion. 4. THE POISON PILL: NASA UNVEILS PLANS TO VISIT THE MOON IN 2018. 2018? In 1961 John Kennedy promised the Moon before this decade is out. From a standing start, America was on the moon in seven years. Now, after 44 years of space progress, it's gonna take twice as long? What are we looking for? NASA says they'll find water, hydrogen and valuable commodities. On the Moon? Go on! Maybe someone takes that seriously, but he's not writing this column. We've got robots on Mars right now. Put a few of them on the moon. They don't break for lunch, or complain about the cold nights, and they live on sunshine. Space exploration with humans is about over. The bills won't come due until Bush is safely out of office. Stick the next administration with an impossibly expensive and pointless program and let them take the blame for ending human space exploration. This is a poison pill. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 9, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 9/9/2005 1:32:29 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 9, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 9 Sep 05 Washington, DC 1. KATRINA: THE COST OF THE HURRICANE RECOVERY KEEPS GROWING. The New York Times today estimated the recovery costs at more than $100B. So far, Congress has approved $51.8B in spending. Meanwhile, there have been huge tax cuts for some of us. So the focus of today's What's New is on unanticipated expenditures. 2. ZERO-POINT ENERGY: KATRINA REVIVES A STRUGGLING INDUSTRY. Even as gas approaches the price of bottled water, Katrina has cut oil production in the Gulf and shut down key ports. Drilling in the ANWAR faces a key vote, and the President has ordered oil released from the strategic reserve. So where is the free-energy industry? Right on schedule. The San Francisco Chronicle had a rather skeptical article in the business section this week about a clean, inexhaustible energy source. However, we don't do perpetual-motion in the 21st Century. Nowadays we tap zero-point energy http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN02/wn080202.html, and Magnetic Power Inc says it's on the verge of it. We are still having trouble making it repeatable, the CEO said. All we know is that we're seeing more energy output than input, what else could it be? Is this sounding vaguely familiar? The Air Force sank $600,000 in the company. Last year, the AF was investing in teleportation http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn102904.html. Any time now we can expect to hear new claims for cold fusion. 3. HYDROGEN ECONOMY: NEW CATALYST PRODUCES HYDROGEN FROM WATER. Well, not exactly. The prospect of a hydrogen economy hinges on the ability to produce hydrogen economically. Thirty years ago, an inventor named Sam Leach claimed to have invented a car that ran on water. He said it used a secret catalyst to dissociate water. That would be thermodynamically impossible. But a brief report in Scientific American last week implied a new rhenium catalyst might dissociate water. It was based on an article in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, but the title of the story in SA was misleading. The hydrogen was from catalytic oxidation of organosilanes. Cars still won't run on water. 4. MISSILE DEFENSE: WE DON'T SEEM TO HEAR MUCH ABOUT IT LATELY. Maybe it's no longer needed; after all, the election is over. A report from the General Accounting Office this week doesn't ask whether it works. It didn't the last we heard 8 months ago, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn021805.html. GAO concludes that funds are needed to sustain the system to 2011. Why sustain it? In 1979, in Grand Forks, ND, a worthless missile defense system was turned off 24 hours after it was declared completed. 5. MARS: TESTING A FISSION-POWERED ROCKET ENGINE TO SEND HUMANS. The problem is finding a place to test it here on Earth. In the first test of a nuclear rocket engine in 1965, the exhaust was just aimed skyward. NASA will not be allowed to vent to the atmosphere this time. Design and operation of a Ground Test Facility capable of removing fission products from the exhaust is a major engineering project. Why is it we're going to Mars? THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 2, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 9/2/2005 11:27:41 AM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday September 2, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 2 Sep 05 Washington, DC 1. THE WAR: PRESIDENTIAL WANNABES GET THAT OLD-TIME RELIGION. Senator John McCain made it clear last week that he too can read polls. In an interview with the Arizona Daily Star, McCain said all points of view should be available to students studying the origins of mankind. WN was unable to reach Senator McCain for clarification, but by all we think he means just evolution and intelligent design. Or maybe he hopes to corner the votes of those who worship the giant frog from whose mouth the river of life flowed. McCain's appeal to evolution deniers came just four days after Senator Frist made a pitch to the scientifically challenged http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn082605.html. 2. THE POLL: INTELLIGENT DESIGN IS IN THE RIGHT PEW FAR RIGHT. The respected Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 64% of Americans favor teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools. A scary 38% want to REPLACE evolution with creationism. The tiny glimmer of hope for civilization was the number of inconsistencies in the responses, suggesting confusion over the meaning of the terms. There is room for education. 3. THE SCIENCE ADVISOR: IS THERE A WHITE HOUSE SCIENCE ADVISOR? Actually, no. The President didn't consult his science advisor about intelligent design because he doesn't have one. George W. Bush eliminated the job when he named John Marburger Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Previous OSTP directors held both titles, and WN always referred to Marburger as Science Advisor. We were wrong, but not alone. We Googled science advisor and got 597,000 hits on a nonexistent job. As they used to say at Stony Brook when he was president, this would never have happened if Jack Marburger was alive. 4. THE CHIMP: COMPLETE GENETIC MAP CONFIRMS DARWIN'S THEORY. Scientists at MIT and Washington University, St. Louis, announced Wednesday that they have determined the precise order of the 3 billion bits of genetic code needed to make a chimpanzee. There is only a 1 percent difference from the human genetic code. But for that 1 percent, chimpanzees would have a seat in the UN. Robert Waterston, who led the Washington University team, was quoted in yesterday's Washington Post saying, I can't imagine Darwin hoping for a stronger confirmation of his ideas. 5. THE WOMEN'S HEALTH CHIEF: OFFICIAL RESIGNS OVER PLAN B DELAY. Assistant FDA Commissioner Susan Wood has resigned following a decision to further delay action on a plan to allow easier access to the morning-after contraceptive. An expert advisory panel of the FDA favored the change 23 to 4, in order to reduce abortions and unwanted pregnancies. Opposition comes from religious conservatives who believe a fertilized egg is a new life. Although Plan B is a contraceptive, researchers think that in some cases it might keep a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. Susan Wood's job description calls for her to be a champion for women's health. The description fit her well. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday August 26, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 8/26/2005 1:44:44 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday August 26, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 26 Aug 05 Washington, DC 1. THE WAR: SENATE LEADER JOINS PRESIDENT ON INTELLIGENT DESIGN. Back before he began humming Hail to the Chief to himself as he walked the Capitol halls, Bill Frist headed the bipartisan Senate ST Caucus http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN97/wn021497.html, and pushed for increased science funding. Recently, he reversed his opposition to stem cell research, supporting it despite strong opposition by the President. Bush said he believes human life is a gift from our Creator. Some scientists saw Frist's action as a calculated move to demonstrate independence. Although Frist had never voted in an election prior to running for the Senate, he does know how to count votes, and he knows there are a lot more born-again Christians in this country than scientists. Friday, Bill Frist, sided with the President on intelligent design, calling for teaching it in science class with evolution. 2. THE MIRACLE STUDY: COLUMBIA PRAYS THE SCANDAL WILL GO AWAY. The prayers aren't working. Bruce Flamm, MD, Clinical Professor at the U. of California, Irvine Medical Center, is the reason http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn060404.html. A 2001 study from Columbia University Medical School, published in a respected, peer-reviewed journal, reported in-vitro fertilization was twice as likely to result in pregnancy if patients were prayed for without their knowledge by total strangers halfway around the world. WN gently explained that they must be crazy http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN01/wn100501.htm. Bruce Flamm dug deeper, publishing his findings in Sci. Rev. Alt. Med. In four years he has not let up. Under pressure from the Dean, the lead author, Dr. Rogerio Lobo, has removed his name from the study. Another author, a notorious scam artist, is in jail on separate fraud charges. The University has never retracted or apologized for the study, but has now told the journal to remove all links to Columbia. Maybe an intelligent eraser could help. 3. FREEDOM TO READ: FBI DEMANDS LIBRARY RECORDS UNDER PATRIOT ACT On 5 Sep 86, WN broke the story of the FBI's infamous Library Awareness Program. Agents had asked the physics librarian at the U. of Maryland for circulation records of persons with Russian- sounding names. The librarian refused. It took the ACLU and the American Library Association years to get Library Awareness stopped. Now we learn that the FBI is at it again, demanding circulation records from a Connecticut library under the Patriot Act. Because the PA prevents public disclosure concerning such demands, little information is available. In the 80's, hundreds of critics of the program were the subject of FBI checks. 4. HOMEOPATHY: IT DOESN'T WORK. BUT DIDN'T WE ALREADY KNOW THAT? A study at the University of Berne, reported in Lancet, compar 110 trials each of homeopathy and conventional medicine and found benefits attributed to homeopathy were merely placebo effects. The editors of Lancet called for an end to further investment in research on homeopathy, and for doctors to be honest with their patients about homeopathy's lack of benefits. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday August 19, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 8/19/2005 1:04:52 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday August 19, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 19 Aug 05 Washington, DC 1. THE BEACH: NATURAL CURES THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT. Last week at the beach? Need something to read? Kevin Trudeau's top bestseller might have you looking for a rip tide to throw it into. Worried about too much sun? The sun does not cause skin cancer, sun screens do. This sort of logic is on every page. Scientists in secret laboratories are developing chemicals that are added to our food, but not included on the label. These secret poisonous chemicals are specifically designed to make people hungry so they buy more food, make them fat because fat people eat more, addict them to the product and cause disease. The food industry, the drug companies, the government, and the scientists are in cahoots to keep you sick and profits up. What's the evidence? Kevin Trudeau doesn't do evidence. A 42 year-old ex-convict and infomercial guru, he preys on the most vulnerable among us, the sick and elderly. The FTC fined him $2 million and barred him from selling products with infomercials - except for his book. He wears his convictions like badges of honor - proof that the establishment is trying to silence him. 2. BACK HOME: THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON SCIENCE, BY CHRIS MOONEY By the time you're back from the beach, The Republican War on Science should be in the bookstores. It was already being printed two weeks ago when the President of the United States publically took the side of biblical literalists in the dispute over the teaching of religious alternatives to evolution in public schools http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn080505.html. Global warming deniers, stem cell research opponents, those who claim to see a link between abortion and breast cancer, they're all here. This meticulously researched and documented account of how scientific research is being displaced in government by ideologically driven pseudoscience could hardly be more timely. 3. GLOBAL WARMING: MAYBE THE SENATE JUST NEEDS MORE FIELD TRIPS. Four Senators, three of them Republican including Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has been a global warming skeptic, returned from a trip to Barrow, AK, the northernmost U.S. city, convinced that warming is real. If you can go and listen to the native people and listen to their stories and walk away with any doubt that something's going on, I just think you're not listening, Graham said. I would rather rely on data, but if this works, go there. 4. NASA: THE NEXT SHUTTLE FLIGHT WILL BE IN THE SPRING - MAYBE. A minority report by seven of the 25 members of the Columbia review board, critical of the agency for compromising safety to return to flight, was followed by an announcement that the shuttle will not fly before March 4. This again raises questions about the future of the ISS. It was built with no clear idea of what it was for. NASA now defends the ISS solely on the basis on commitments to partner nations to complete it. What's the point? It's reminiscent of the ABM system in Grand Forks, ND, abandoned in 1979, 24 hours after its construction was declared complete. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday August 12, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 8/12/2005 1:16:35 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday August 12, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 12 Aug 05 Washington, DC 1. GLOBAL WARMING: ANOTHER DISPUTE SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN RESOLVED. Homo sapiens has been around for maybe 50,000 years, but most of what we've learned about our universe, from how big it is to how small its pieces are, has been learned in the span of a single human lifetime. What made it possible was the development of a scientific culture that is open and conditional. The effect of homo sapiens on Earth's climate is perhaps the most complicated problem humans have tackled, and conceivably the most important. The system is working. We have a consensus on warming; disputes remain only over the details. One detail was records that were interpreted by a group at the U. Alabama in Huntsville as showing that the troposphere had not warmed in two decades and the tropics had cooled. However, three papers in Science this week report errors in the Alabama-Huntsville calculations. It seems that warming of the troposphere agrees with surface measurements and recent computer predictions. The group at Alabama-Huntsville concedes the error, but says the effect is not that large. That's the way it's supposed to work. It's a textbook example of science in the process of resolving a very complicated problem. 2. CREATIONISM: ABC NEWS AND GETTING THE DINOSAURS ON NOAH'S ARK. Earlier this year, WN asked a rhetorical question, Is ABC News nuts? http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn021105.html. There is new information. Last night, ABC Evening News took viewers to the Museum of Earth History in Eureka Springs, Ark. Disputes are different in the Bible world. Genesis says a pair of every kind of air-breathing animal was taken on board Noah's Ark and in a world that's only 10,000 years old, that must include dinosaurs. Or it may be that the reporter, Jake Tapper, went to school in Kansas. Religious views of creat ion that challenge accepted science are gaining support across the country, he told viewers, The Kansas Board of Education this week tentatively endorsed new standards allowing more criticism of evolution in explaining the origins of life. As further proof, ABC showed President Bush delivering his intelligent design should be taught in schools remarks. To balance the President, science had AAAS CEO Alan Leshner, I have no problem with people talking about religion as religion or belief as belief. Hmmm. It's dangerous to talk about religious belief as if it were science. So what was ABC's conclusion? Science is increasingly on the defensive. 3. SPACE: A FLAWLESS LAUNCH OF THE MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER. The journey will take seven months, and it will remain in Mars orbit four years, sending back information on weather, climate and geology. It's not likely to find a reason to send humans. 4. PHILIP KLASS: TIRELESS DEBUNKER OF UFO FANTASIES DIES AT 85. An electrical engineer and senior editor of Aviation Week, Klass offered a $10,000 prize for solid scientific evidence of visits by extraterrestrials. He himself never uttered a word he could not back up. His health had been failing for several years, but there was still fire in his words. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday August 5, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 8/5/2005 12:04:12 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday August 5, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 5 Aug 05 Washington, DC science n. the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. (Oxford English Dictionary, eleventh edition) 1. THE PRESIDENT: MAYBE THE WHITE HOUSE COULD USE A DICTIONARY. Conservative Christian supporters are gloating. On Tuesday, in an interview with Texas reporters, the President of the United States came down on the side of equal time for intelligent design. Referring back to his time as Governor of Texas, Mr. Bush said, I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught. Which two sides are those Mr. President? I don't think we can teach the Genesis story in science class, even after you pack the Court. Surely you're not talking about the intelligent design thing? Can someone tell us who or what is doing the designing? I think that will tell us whether it's science or religion. 2. THE FOUNDER: DISCOVERY INSTITUTE DOESN'T NEED A DICTIONARY. The Washington Post on Saturday had a little-noticed letter from Bruce Chapman, founder and President of the Discovery Institute. Director of the White House Office of Planning and Evaluation under Ronald Reagan, Chapman learned from the master. Facts are not important, what matters is conviction. The only religious believers in all this, he writes, are the Darwinists, who are out to punish scholars who see the weakness of Darwin's theory. And who are these scholars? This brings up another alarming trend, conservative think tanks manned by scholars who do no research, but spew out books laden with conviction. Chapman perfected this by recruiting bright young believers to the cause and assigning them the task of becoming biology PhDs. 3. THE SCIENCE ADVISOR: THE PRESIDENT HAS A SCIENCE ADVISOR? Asked by the New York Times to comment, John Marburger responded, Evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology intelligent design is not a scientific concept. Good response. It would be nice if the President's science advisor advised the President. 4. THE VATICAN ASTRONOMER: CATHOLIC CHURCH SPLITS OVER EVOLUTION. A cardinal close to the pope has ties to the Discovery Institute http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn071505.html, but in today's issue of The Tablet, Britain's Catholic Weekly, Father George Coyne, an American Jesuit priest and a distinguished astronomer, directly attacked Cardinal Schoenborn's position on evolution. 5. THE PRINCE: WEALTHY BRITISH FARMER LOOKS TO THE MOON FOR HELP. Tormented by fears of nanorobots turning the planet into grey goo, and poisoning by genetically modified foods, Prince Charles fights science by embracing homeopathy, coffee enemas, organic farming, and now biodynamics, which involves planting according to cycles of the moon and signs of the Zodiac. In a monarchy you are stuck with what you get, while in a democracy we can pick the best qualified among us to lead. But it's only a theory. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday July 29, 2005
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 7/29/2005 1:53:35 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday July 29, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 29 Jul 05 Washington, DC 1. SHUTTLE: THE SPACE SHUTTLE DOESN'T WORK IT NEVER DID WORK. Why is everyone afraid to say so? The real problem isn't foam falling off the fuel tank. The shuttle was sold to Congress as a way to launch things into space more cheaply. On the contrary, it's the most expensive way to reach space ever conceived. The problems we're facing now result from the refusal to acknowledge that reality. Initially, anything that went into space, including commercial and military satellites, was required to be launched from the shuttle. With the total cost of the shuttle program at about $150B, the average cost/flight is about $1.3B. The shuttle was strangling space development before the Challenger disaster. Then it was declared to be a science laboratory, but no field of science has been affected in any way by research that has been conducted on the shuttle or space station. The last scheduled research mission was the final flight of Columbia in 2003. The shuttle's only mission now is to supply the ISS. 2. ECHINACEA: THE THEME THIS WEEK IS THINGS THAT DON'T WORK. There is no reason why herbal remedies couldn't work. The bark and leaves of the angiosperms are packed with biologically active chemicals. Surely, among the thousands of herbals on the market, one must work. With a budget of over $100M, and under pressure to show it's not biased against alternative medicine, the new National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH set out to find it. Well, ephedra worked, but side effects were fatal http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn010204.html. Why not ask herbalists what would be a sure thing? Answer: Echinacea. Millions of Americans use the purple cone flower to prevent or treat colds. Native Americans used it, and we all know that primitive societies had wondrous cures that today's narrow-minded scientists can't explain. But in initial tests, it didn't seem to work http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn052804.html. This week, the New England Journal of Medicine published a convincing NCCAM funded test: Echinacea does not prevent or cure colds. 3. PRAYER: FOLLOW-UP STUDY FINDS NO BENEFIT FOR HEART PATIENTS. Prayers for the sick are probably the most widely practiced healing tradition in the world. An earlier study with the same lead author, Mitchell Krucoff, MD, at Duke University Medical Center, continues to be widely cited as scientific evidence for the power of prayer. In a much larger follow-up study, however, 748 patients who had common cardiac procedures were not helped by intercessory prayers of groups throughout the world, drawn from Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Buddhist denominations. You will not be surprised that the authors conclude that so-called noetic therapies, defined as therapies that don't involve the use of tangible drugs or devices, deserve further scientific scrutiny. Science assumes that all events result from natural causes http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn120304.html. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday July 8, 2005
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 7/8/2005 1:28:11 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday July 8, 2005 WHATS NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 8 Jul 05Washington, DC 1. POLITICAL SCIENCE: IS THE CONGRESSMAN DOING CLIMATE STUDIES? Who among us has not engaged in disputes over research findings? Disagreements between researchers are a normal part of the scientific process. The success and credibility of science is anchored in the willingness of scientists to make their data and methods available to other scientists for independent testing. Openness is a sacred obligation. However, three scientists, who have had their share of such disputes, recently received letters from Representative Joe Barton (R-TX), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, demanding complete records, going back 10 years, of their paleoclimate work, including computer codes and a list of all studies on which they were authors and the source of funding by next Monday. Their climate studies, which support global warming, figured prominently in the 2001 report of the UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It seems unlikely that Rep Barton plans to repeat their studies; his record of support for environmental legislation is 0%. Barton is, however, among the top recipients of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, and the aggressive tone of his letters sounds to most scientists like an effort to intimidate. 2. WHATS IN A NAME? A SUGGESTED PUBLIC NAME CHANGE FOR APS. When APS first opened a tiny Washington Office in 1984, it said American Physical Society on the door. I ran into a lawyer who had an office on the same floor, Youre the Physical Society guy arent you? Id like to come by and talk to you; I need to lose about 20 pounds. I stepped back and looked him over, closer to 40 Id say. In any case, our name causes confusion. It would have been better if it had been done 100 years ago, but its not going to get any easier, so the Executive Board voted unanimously to poll the membership changing the public name of the society to American Physics Society. So far, about 75% favor the change. 3. IDENTITY THEFT: HIDING FROM THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT. The 1966 Freedom of Information Act was a tribute to the self-confidence of our nation. No other nation has anything like it. But agencies hate it, and keep finding new loopholes that have to be plugged, http://www.bobpark.org/WN94/wn090294.html. Last week, the Federation of American Scientists filed a lawsuit charging that the National Reconnaissance Office has been hiding unclassified budget records by invoking the operational files exemption. Operational files refers to records that document how foreign intelligence is collected, which these files arent. 4. CATHOLICS TOO! ARCHBISHOP FINDS A LITTLE INTELLIGENT DESIGN. In yesterdays New York Times, Cardinal Schoenborn, editor of the official Catechism, rejected John Paul IIs supposed acceptance of neo-Darwinism when he said evolution was more than just a hypothesis. Schoeborn goes on to quote Pope Benedict XVI, We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Well, thats it, if we believe in science were on our own. On the other hand, the Churchs position is evolving. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA;=1
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, June 24, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 6/24/2005 12:34:13 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, June 24, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 24 Jun 05 Washington, DC NOTICE: WN COMES OF AGE; IT WAS BORN 21 YEARS AGO, 29 JUN 84. The 1 Jul 05 issue will be a little different, but you might not even notice: The University of Maryland Department of Physics will now assume responsibility for sending it out. The Department of Physics has always been supportive of WN, even making it part of Bob Park's teaching assignment. WN will maintain its eclectic mixture of news and opinion, and will continue to be assembled by the same What's New team in the Washington Office of the APS. The APS Home Page, of course, will still have a link to What's New. 1. VOODOO SCIENCE: PENN MED SEVERS TIES TO TAI SOPHIA INSTITUTE. You may recall that WN reported a month ago that the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the oldest medical school in the nation, had formed a partnership with the Tai Sophia Institute to offer a master's degree in Complementary and Alternative Medicine http://www.bobpark.org/WN05/wn051305.html. Friends of Penn Med are relieved to learn that it has quietly severed ties to Tai Sophia. 2. THE LAW: WERE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS A FAITH-BASED INITIATIVE? With the Supreme Court about to announce a decision on displaying the ten commandments, Christian groups launch a get-out-the-prayer campaign. It will be hailed as a test of the power of prayer if they win. Monday, on the floor of the House, Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) accused Democrats of being anti-Christian during a debate over what Democrats described as coercive and abusive religious proselytizing by evangelical Christians at the Air Force Academy. That violated House collegiality rules, halting business for an hour until Hostettler withdrew the remarks. On Wednesday, an Air Force panel investigating the religious climate at the Academy found that faculty members had indeed used their positions to promote their Christian beliefs, but they had the best intentions, according to Lt. Gen. Brady who led the panel. 3. INTELLIGENT DESIGN: STILL DEBATING THE NON-DEBATE IN KANSAS. The front lines have shifted to Dover, PA where a federal judge will consider a lawsuit charging the School Board with violating the separation of church and state by requiring that children hear about Intelligent Design in science class. However, the Discovery Institute is still getting mileage out of the refusal of scientists to engage in a rigged debate in Kansas. This time it's Dr. John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, who seems to be in charge of explaining that ID is science. West teaches Political Science at Seattle Pacific University, where we ground everything we do on the gospel of Jesus Christ. So much for science. 4. THE SPORTS EDGE: TO BE A STAR, YOU GOTTA DO WHAT THE STARS DO. Copper bracelets 30 years ago. Magnets 10years ago. Now it's the titanium necklace, which regulates your body's electric currents. 5. JACK KILBY: AWARDED THE 2000 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS, DEAD AT 81. His integrated circuit wrote the future more finely than anyone ever dared imagine. The smallest became the most powerful. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org Whats New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, June 17, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 6/17/2005 2:00:11 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, June 17, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 17 Jun 05 Washington, DC 1. PATRIOT ACT: READ ANY GOOD BOOKS? THE FBI WANTS TO KNOW. In times of grave national threats, we are asked to trade freedom for security. It is, however, difficult to restore freedom once the crisis passes. The Patriot Act gives the FBI authority to examine all library circulation records. All the FBI needs is an order from a secret court. What happened to the Fourth Amendment? Libraries are even forbidden from informing patrons that their reading habits are being monitored. Libraries now get rid of circulation records as soon as possible. President Bush threatened to veto any measure that would weaken his powers under the Patriot Act. Nevertheless, the House voted 238-187 to limit the FBI's authority to monitor our reading. It's basically the Freedom to Read Protection Act introduced two years ago by Bernie Sanders (I-VT), http://www.bobpark.org/WN03/wn041103.html. Bush was already pressuring Congress to renew the 15 provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to expire at the end of 2005. 2. ACTING PATRIOTS: SENATE COMMITTEE WANTS TO TOUGHEN THE ACT. While the House was voting to put limits on the Patriot Act, the Senate Intelligence Committee approved a bill to give the FBI expanded powers to subpoena records without the approval of a judge or grand jury in terrorism investigations. 3. PATRIOTS' ACTS: LIBRARIANS ARE A LOT TOUGHER THAN THEY LOOK. Last month, USA Today printed a story by a library director in Washington state. An FBI agent stopped by a branch library to request a list of people who had borrowed a biography of Osama bin Laden. It seems that a patron had found a handwritten note in the margin that sounded like a terrorist had written it. One had. The library consulted Google and found it to be an Osama bin Laden quote. That didn't stop the FBI, which subpoenaed a list of everyone who had borrowed the book since November 2001. Would anyone have checked out bin Laden's biography if they knew it would get them on an FBI list? That's not a democracy. The library flatly refused. Fifteen days later the FBI backed off. 4. CREATIONISM: THE TULSA ZOO IS PREPARING A GENESIS EXHIBIT. It's only fair. The Zoo had other god exhibits. According to CNN the elephant exhibit had a statue of the Hindu god, Ganesh. 5. INTELLIGENT DESIGN: THIS DOESN'T LOOK LIKE KANSAS TOTO. It's not, Dorothy, it's Holland. According to Science magazine, Maria van der Hoeven, the science and education minister, wants to stimulate a debate about intelligent design. It certainly stimulated a discussion, but not exactly a debate. They do love the idea in Kansas, but in the Netherlands things are a little different. Van der Hoeven, a member of the Christian-Democratic Party and a Catholic, got no support from either one. She's been too busy defending herself to explain just what she has in mind. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, June 10, 2005
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 6/10/2005 1:34:59 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, June 10, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 10 Jun 05 Washington, DC 1. AIN'T MISBEHAVIN: QUESTIONABLE SURVEY OF QUESTIONABLE RESEARCH The media loved the story. The first I heard of it was an e-mail from an evangelical Christian that began: This is what happens when you take moral certainty out of the picture. Something called the Health Partners Research Foundation surveyed several thousand scientists funded by NIH. Overall, one-third of the respondents admitted engaging in at least one sort of misbehavior in the last three years. Does that mean the chances are one in three that the numbers in the study were fudged? Any scientific misconduct is too much, of course, but they're not just talking about research misconduct as defined by the Office of Science and Technology Policy: fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism. They also include stuff like, inadequate record keeping, and overlooking the use of flawed data by others. Misbehavior, of course, is not limited to scientists. Consider the next item. 2. CREATIVE EDITING: WHITE HOUSE AIDE ADJUSTS SCIENTIFIC CONTENT. A lawyer with no scientific training, Phil Cooney was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute fighting greenhouse-gas restrictions before moving to the White House. The chief of staff to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Cooney was assigned to edit government climate reports to make them more supportive of Administration policy. According to the New York Times, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the President's science advisor, John Marburger III, also approved the reports. 3. CONSTITUTION: LOUISIANA SCHOOL DISTRICT DOESN'T HAVE A PRAYER. In 1994, the Tangipahoa Parish school board voted to require teachers to read students an it's-only-a-theory disclaimer before they studied the theory of evolution in science class. In 1997, a Federal District Court found the disclaimer violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The School Board appealed the case, and lost again. So they appealed to the Supreme Court, and struck out for good. Meanwhile, the courts repeatedly told the Board to put a stop to prayers at school functions, including school board meetings. But by now the board had a taste for losing, and appealing that decision. Experts say this could also end up in the Supreme Court. Encouraged by the political climate, the Board has outside financial help from the Alliance Defense Fund, a powerful Christian legal group. 4. MISSILE DEFENSE: THERE HAVE BEEN NO ATTACKS, IS IT WORKING? When we last visited the Presidents missile defense system, there had been a series of flops www.bobpark.org/WN04/wn121704.html. An outside panel examining the failures has just issued its final report. In an effort to meet the end-of-2004 deadline imposed by the President, it concluded, officials put schedule ahead of performance. Manage quality first and then schedule, the panel advised. But a missile defense no longer seems urgent. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, May 27, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 5/27/2005 12:52:10 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, May 27, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 27 May 05 Washington, DC 1. SPACE: VOYAGER 1 REACHES THE LIMIT OF BUSH'S ATTENTION SPAN. It's been traveling for 28 years and is now 8.7 billion miles from Earth. It just reported that it has entered the region of the heliosheath, where the solar wind begins to dissipate. It may be in this region another 10 years. Its Pt-238 radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) should keep operating until about 2020. When Voyager 1 crosses that final boundary, becoming the first human artifact to enter interstellar space, Earth won't know. Communications with Voyager will be cut off to save $4.5M of NASA's $16.5B budget (.025%), for Bush's Moon/Mars vision. 2. ETHANOL: RUM JOINS BOURBON AT THE ENERGY-INDEPENDENCE PARTY. In the name of energy independence, the government has required that five billion gallons of ethanol be blended into gasoline each year. Every gallon gets a 51 cent subsidy. And yet, we still seem to need a lot of Arab oil. So the Senate adopted an amendment to the energy bill raising the mandate to eight billion gallons of ethanol. To get support for the amendment, they gave the sugar industry $8M for a pilot program in Hawaii to make ethanol from sugar cane. Will that reduce the need for Arab oil? No, but we won't mind as much. Brazil, which has no oil, began using ethanol from sugar cane. Friends at the University of Campinas told me the energy balance is positive only if the cane is grown and harvested manually, condemning a portion of the population to serfdom. It also pollutes rivers with alkanes. 3. HYDROGEN: PRESIDENT BUSH PUMPS HYDROGEN AT FILLING STATION. Speaking of energy balance, here's one that is guaranteed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics to be negative. With a security cordon disrupting traffic for blocks around, the President held the nozzle at the sole hydrogen pump in Washington, DC at a Shell station www.bobpark.org/WN04/wn111204.html. It proves: you can make hydrogen, you can put it in cars, and you can drive the cars. Is it practical? No! Will it diminish oil dependence? No! Will it cut pollution? No! Will it happen? Not this way! 4. STEM CELLS BILL: PRESIDENT'S FIRST VETO WOULD BE A BAD ONE. In spite of a threat to cast his first-ever veto, 50 Republicans broke ranks as the House voted 238 to 194 on Tuesday to repeal the President's restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. As is now so often the case, debate was filled with biblical references. But Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) asked: Who can say prolonging life is not pro-life? 5. SEARCHING WHAT'S NEW: OUR NEW SEARCH ENGINE IS WORKING GREAT. We apologize to those who tried to use the WN search engine in recent weeks, but now it's working better than ever. Our tight format (500 words) limits the amount of background we can provide, but by using the search engine at www.bobpark.org you can now get more than two decades of background. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, May 20, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 5/20/2005 2:26:00 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, May 20, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 20 May 05 Washington, DC 1. MIRACLES? I DON'T THINK SO. NBC DATELINE IS NOT SO SURE. Dateline's investigative reporters traveled around the world exploring claims of divine intervention, and Wednesday night they shared their findings with us in a program called Miracle. It was an hour program, but it seemed much longer. I thought a trip to the bathroom might help. It took a few minutes after I got back before I realized Miracles had ended. Who could tell? It was now Revelations -- something about an astrophysicist and a cute nun trying to prevent the end of days. Oh well, I didn't miss anything important. Dateline found that there are things that no one has explained. Amazing! What have those scientists been doing? Viewers were in front of their TVs ready to learn something, and there was something terribly important for them to learn. But they weren't told that not a single miracle has ever been verified. They were left to believe that the existence of miracles is an open scientific question. Has NBC no shame? 2. LOS ALAMOS: BIDDING OPENS FOR MANAGEMENT OF THE LABORATORY. Competition is wide open amid concerns that a changing culture at the Lab would threaten scientific and technical excellence. The new model seems to be a university/defense contractor team. Three teams are expected to bid: The University of Texas teamed with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman with an academic teammate yet to be named, and the University of California, which managed the Lab for 62 years by itself, now teamed with Bechtel Corp. 3. EAST IS EAST AND WEST IS WEST, AND NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET. Several news accounts this week commented on an apparent rise in the surface of eastern Antarctica, due to increased snow and ice accumulation, as predicted by climate models. But which side is eastern Antarctica? Clearly, every side of Antarctica must be northern Antarctica. 4. EVOLUTION: SO IS IT TRUE THAT CHARLES DARWIN WAS A DEMOCRAT? Dover, PA, school board candidates could run in both Republican and Democratic primaries. On Tuesday, seven incumbents who support a policy requiring high school biology students to be told about intelligent design, won the Republican primary. Meanwhile, seven challengers, all of whom oppose mentioning intelligent design in science class, won in the Democratic primary. The school board election will be held in November. 5. KANSAS: IS INTELLIGENT DESIGN SCIENCE? DEFINE SCIENCE. The plan was to sell ID as science. Nobody bought it. So now there's a move on the Kansas School Board to redefine science as a systematic method of continuing investigation. Yes, I know. But it won't help anyway. Courts have ruled that ID is religion. So what Kansas needs is a new definition of religion. How about: A way of explaining why it wasn't really your fault. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, May 13, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 5/13/2005 1:00:49 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, May 13, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 13 May 05 Washington, DC 1. VOODOO MEDICINE: TAI SOPHIA AND PENN MED FORM A PARTNERSHIP. Tai who? What's going on with the great Ivy League med schools? A study at Columbia claimed to show that the prayers of complete strangers halfway around the world increased pregnancy rates of fertility patients, who were not even aware of being prayed for. The study was revealed to be fraudulent. Somebody had to tell them this? http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn120304.cfm Harvard too has been embarrassed by ties to the wacky world of alternative medicine. Now, the oldest medical school in the nation, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, is pandering to the public's obsession with mystical healing. Medical and nursing students at Penn will be able to earn a master's degree in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) from Tai Sophia Institute. Tai Sophia began teaching acupuncture 30 years ago, but has since expanded into other medical arts that don't work. Two weeks ago, Tai Sophia sponsored a Deepak Chopra conference http://www.aps.org/WN/WN98/wn100998.cfm. Wayne Jonas, author of Healing with Homeopathy, is on the Board of Trustees. 2. ACUPUNCTURE: OR MAYBE YOU COULD JUST EAT A ALAPENO PEPPER. JAMA, May 4, reports a randomized, controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of acupuncture with sham acupuncture in treating migraine. There were 302 patients in the study. Acupuncture is widely touted for treating migraine, but in 12 sessions over 8 weeks, sham acupuncture, in which the needles are inserted in the wrong points, was just as effective as inserting them in the correct points. This should greatly simplify the training of acupuncture specialists. Just stick the damn needles anywhere. 3. NASA: GRIFFIN SAYS WE CAN'T DO EVERYTHING, AND HE'LL PROVE IT. The good news is that NASA is working on a shuttle mission to fix Hubble. Then we finish the space station and build a replacement for the shuttle. And then oops, that's it. We're out of money. We can keep an astronaut or two going in circles until we're ready to go back to the Moon, though I can't remember why it is we want to go back there. It means we'll have to give up the Space Interferometry and Terrestrial Planet Finder missions, the top missions looking for signs of extra-solar life. 4. PROLIFERATION: MAYBE THE N. KOREAN ARMY IS DIGGING LATRINES. After the weapons-of-mass-destruction fiasco in Iraq, warnings from intelligence agencies are harder to take seriously. It may be that Kim Jong Il, like Saddam, just wants to look dangerous. Dig a few tunnels. If that doesn't do it, pull the fuel rods. 5. LOS ALAMOS: NANOS STEPS DOWN AND KUCKUCK IS INTERIM DIRECTOR. I can remember when the low turnover rate at Los Alamos was a matter of concern. Making a former admiral Director solved that. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, May 06, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 5/6/2005 1:33:46 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, May 06, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 6 May 05 Washington, DC 1. SCOPES II: EVOLUTION ISN'T ON TRIAL, CIVILIZATION IS ON TRIAL. State Board of Education Hearings on teaching evolution in Kansas schools began yesterday in Topeka. A string of PhD witnesses proved that a PhD is not an inoculation against foolishness. One of the first was Jonathan Wells, a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute. A graduate of Unification Theological Seminary, Wells was chosen by Sun Myung Moon to enter a PhD program. He was inspired to, devote my life to destroying Darwinism. Wells went on to earn a PhD in Theology from Yale and a PhD in Biology from UC Berkeley. Another witness against evolution is Mustafa Akyol, the spokesman for a fundamentalist Muslim organization in Istanbul that intimidates teachers into giving the Genesis account of creation. Jack Krebs, vice president of Kansas Citizens for Science, one of the science organizations boycotting the hearings, complained that, they are trying to make science stand for atheism. Of course that's what they're trying to do, but it's also true that many scientists are atheists. After all, we assume that events have natural causes. As we learn more about causes, God's domain keeps shrinking, or at least moving, like God's Little Acre in the Erskine Calwell novel. I leave the extrapolation to the reader. 2. NATIONAL PRAYER DAY: PRESIDENT BUSH INVOKES INTELLIGENT DESIGN. Yesterday was also the 54th annual National Day of Prayer. In an East Room ceremony, President Bush said, Freedom is our birthright because the Creator wrote it into our common human nature. Sigh. He went on to say we celebrate the freedom to pray as you wish, or not at all. Oh good. On Capitol Hill, Tom DeLay (R-TX), speaking from his soapbox in the Cannon House Office Building, called for spending, less time on our soapboxes and more time on our knees. 3. TABLE TOP FUSION: TOTAL MEDIA CONFUSION OVER UCLA FUSION DEVICE. Last week, WN pointed out that media stories about a UCLA neutron generator were, uh, uninformed. High-energy deuterium ions strike a deuterium-loaded target. Now and then you get d-d fusion, as Rutherford did in 1934. The new wrinkle is a pyroelectric crystal to generate the accelerating voltage. The Economist on April 30 totally mangled the story, referring to it as cold fusion in an editorial (it's VERY hot fusion). The story speaks of energy from crystals (groan), and winds up with Dr. McCoy on Star Trek. 4. THE HEINZ AWARDS: TWO FORMER APS PRESIDENTS ARE RECIPIENTS. Presented by the Heinz Family Foundation since 1994, the $250,000 prizes recognize individual achievement across a spectrum of activity. Of the six recipients of this year's award, two served as president of the APS. Sidney Drell of Stanford was APS president in 1986. A theorist and arms control advisor, he received the award for contributions in the Public Policy category. Mildred Dresselhaus of MIT was APS president in 1984, formerly at MIT, scientist, researcher, educator and trailblazer for women in the sciences was the recipient in the category of Technology, the Economy and Employment. It was a joy to have worked for them both. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Searching for issue # 13/14, March - June 1997 of Infinite Energy magazine
April 31, 2005 Greg, Contact IE by e-mail, phone or fax. They can satisfy your need for the issue. IE has a website. -ak- [Original Message] From: Prometheus Effect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: OU Builders [EMAIL PROTECTED]; FreeEnergy [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Prometheus Effect Group [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Vortex vortex-l@eskimo.com Date: 5/1/2005 8:51:59 PM Subject: Searching for issue # 13/14, March - June 1997 of Infinite Energy magazine Hi Guys, Do any of you have the double issue 13/14 1997 of Infinite Energy? On pages 59 - 61 there is a review of the SMOT titled: The Things We Get Up To.. SMOT: Simplified Over-Unity Toy by Christopher Tinsley I wish to write a review on the paper and the incorrect conclusions formed. I will then publish my review and send a copy to Infinite Energy for their action. Hopefully they will do the right thing, publish my review and help to set the record straight that the Prometheus Effect at the heart of the SMOT is OU. Any help would be appreciated as when I asked Jed Rothwell for assistance I was told to Go to Hell. Guess he was having a bad day. Now it's just engineering effort, time and money, Greg Find local movie times and trailers on Yahoo! Movies. http://au.movies.yahoo.com
RE: OT : Social Insecurity
April 30, 2005 Vortex, Hi Keith, I do not believe Pres Bush understands what he is talking about which is a Shell Game. And Who pays off (if ever) the Special bonds? We do(citizen taxpayer). And who pays off the gov. bonds of any kind? We do. Its a sucker game all around while the Legal Tenders are printed in ever increasing numbers as most people don't get it, blaming it on inflation. I believe that is one of the reasons the Eurodollar and the EU was created. We'll see if it itself works. Watch out when nations start to demand purchases and payments in Eurodollars. Why should central banks of nations keep their currency reserves in so called Federal Reserve U.S. Gov. bonds which loses value faster than the interest it accrues? Alexander Hamilton established the sound Dollar that held its intrinsic value but this was deteriorated and eventually destroyed by today, according to history. Let's see if financial chaos eventually appears someday. I hope not for my nation but its getting pretty slippery as politicians of unwashed principles try to figure it out. -ak- [Original Message] From: Keith Nagel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Vortex vortex-l@eskimo.com Date: 4/28/2005 8:54:59 PM Subject: OT : Social Insecurity Mr. Bush on Social Security...tonite. / Mr Bush sez: In a reformed Social System, voluntary personal retirement accounts would offer workers a number of investment options that are simple and easy to understand. I know some Americans have reservations about investing in the stock market, so I propose that one investment option consist entirely of TREASURY BONDS, which are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. Options like this will make voluntary personal retirement accounts a safer investment. / Mr Bush continues... Now, it's very important for our fellow citizens to understand there is not a bank account here in Washington, D.C., where we take your payroll taxes and hold it for you and then give it back to you when you retire. Our system is called pay as you go. You pay into the system through your payroll taxes and the government spends it. It spends the money on the current retirees and with the money left over, it funds other government programs. And all that's left behind is file cabinets full of IOUs. // Hm IOUs? What are those? Sounds risky... From the US government site Social Security Online http://www.ssa.gov/qa.htm Social Security is largely a pay-as-you-go system with today's taxpayers paying for the benefits of today's retirees. Money not needed to pay today's benefits is invested in special-issue TREASURY BONDS. // Oh, so those IOU's are TREASURY BONDS. How about that. Comments? K.
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, April 29, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 4/29/2005 1:16:22 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, April 29, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 29 Apr 05 Washington, DC 1. ENERGY: MAYBE THIS IS THE WAY THE SYSTEM IS SUPPOSED TO WORK. Last night President Bush began his press conference talking about high gasoline prices. First, he said, we must become better conservers of energy. Terrific! The price at the pump is doing the job. The President even called for a nuclear energy policy. And earlier in the week, he called for incentives to encourage the switch from SUVs to hybrids. The Cheney solution was always to drill more wells. Bush also said in the press conference that we must develop new energy sources, such as hydrogen, ethanol or biodiesel. Three years ago we were told that the way to reduce dependence on foreign oil is with Freedom Car http://www.aps.org/WN/WN02/wn011802.cfm#1. Alas, hydrogen is a fuel, but it's not an energy source. Freedom Car won't happen in your lifetime http://www.sc.doe.gov/bes/hydrogen.pdf . But the biodiesel idea is interesting. Biodiesel fuel can be made from animal fat. Linking it to a liposuction facility would alleviate two serious national problems at the same time. 2. CLIMATE CHANGE: ENERGY-BALANCE FINDING IS THE SMOKING GUN. A week ago, an important editorial in Science by Donald Kennedy called attention to NASA's recent decision to delay or cancel planned Earth science missions and terminate orbiting spacecraft to feed the pointless Moon/Mars mission. A report in this week's Science shows how just short sighted that is. An international monitoring effort, Argo, has deployed 1,800 instrumented floats in oceans around the world since 2000. A NASA team led by James Hansen collected data from the floats and precisely determined ocean levels from satellite observations. They found that Earth is absorbing more energy than it's radiating back into space, an imbalance large enough to raise temperatures 1 F this century, even if greenhouse gas emissions are capped tomorrow. There can no longer be genuine doubt that human-made gases are the dominant cause of observed warming, Hansen said. This energy imbalance is the 'smoking gun' that we have been looking for. 3. TRANSITION: PHILIP MORRISON, A MAN OF CONSCIENCE, DIES AT 89. Sent to the island of Tinian to help assemble the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, he toured the city a month later and spent the rest of his life campaigning against nuclear weapons. 4. TABLE-TOP FUSION: SMALL NEUTRON GENERATOR IS FAR FROM RECORD. Newspapers around the country reported the amazing result that a UCLA team had demonstrated fusion of deuterium to form helium in a table-top device. They were, of course, scooped by Ernest Rutherford, 71 years ago. Fusion is easy. A self-sustaining reaction is not. The unique feature of the UCLA device is to get the accelerating voltage from a pyroelectric crystal, which makes it quite compact. Unfortunately for civilization, there are thousands of fusion devices in the world not much bigger than a walnut. They are in every nuclear weapon to produce a pulse of neutrons at just the right time. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Nature re Putterman cold fusion
April 27, 2005 Vortex, Hi Mark. Did the Nature article say what the crystal was? Thanks for the news tip. -ak- [Original Message] From: Mark Goldes [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Date: 4/27/2005 1:00:00 PM Subject: Nature re Putterman cold fusion News Nature 434, 1057 (28 April 2005) | doi: 10.1038/4341057a Physicists look to crystal device for future of fusion Mark Peplow, London Top of page Abstract Desktop apparatus yields stream of neutrons. Seth Putterman is usually on the side of the sceptics when it comes to tabletop fusion. But now he has created a device that may convince researchers to change their minds about the 'f-word'. Tabletop fusion has been a touchy subject since Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann said in 1989 that they had achieved 'cold fusion' at room temperature. Putterman helped to discredit this claim, as well as more recent reports of 'bubble fusion'. Now Putterman, a physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has turned a tiny crystal into a particle accelerator. When its electric field is focused by a tungsten needle, it fires deuterium ions into a target so fast that the colliding nuclei fuse to create a stream of neutrons. Putterman is not claiming to have created a source of virtually unlimited energy, because the reaction isn't self-sustaining. But until now, achieving any kind of fusion in the lab has required bulky accelerators with large electricity supplies. Replacing that with a small crystal is revolutionary. The amazing thing is that the crystal can be used as an accelerator without plugging it in to a power station, says Putterman. Putterman got the idea when he delivered a lecture on sonoluminescence and energy focusing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Physicist Ahmet Erbil suggested that Putterman should instead consider ferroelectricity. Here's someone telling me in front of 100 people that I'm working on the wrong thing, recalls Putterman. But the comment got him started on his fusion reactor. The result is published in this week's Nature (see page 1115). Will he be able to avoid the controversy that has dogged other fusion claims? My first reaction when I saw the paper was 'oh no, not another tabletop fusion paper', says Mike Saltmarsh, an acclaimed neutron hunter who was called in to resolve the dispute over bubble fusion. But they've built a neat little accelerator. I'm pretty sure no one has been able to generate neutrons in this way before. Putterman himself isn't worried. If people think this is a crackpot paper that's just fine, he says. We're right. Any scientist who says this is too wonderful to believe is welcome to reproduce the experiments. Top of page Related links RELATED STORIES * Collapsing bubbles have hot plasma core * US review rekindles cold fusion debate * Nuclear flash in a pan * Table-top nuclear fusion EXTERNAL LINKS * Putterman on energy focusing * Fusion tutorial
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, April 15, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 4/15/2005 12:37:30 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, April 15, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 15 Apr 05 Washington, DC 1. KANSAS: AAAS TURNS DOWN AN INVITATION TO DEBATE EVOLUTION. Last Friday, the Kansas State Department of Education invited the American Association for the Advancement of Science to provide expert opinion regarding the mainstream scientific view of the nature of science, at a hearing on evolution. Drawing from the Santorum report language accompanying the No Child left Behind Act, the invitation says the curriculum should help students understand the full range of scientific views that exist. Of course. The problem is that there is only one scientific view of the origin of species: Darwin's natural selection. The hearing will be nothing but elaborately staged theater, with intelligent designers portrayed as scientists. The AAAS CEO, Alan Leshner, quite properly declined, We see no purpose in debating a matter of faith. Neither does WN. But wait, isn't this the same Alan Leshner who defends the AAAS Dialog on Science, Ethics and Religion? In an editorial in the 11 Feb 05 issue of Science, Leshner argued that getting together with religious leaders to discuss the relation of scientific advances to other belief systems is helpful http://www.aps.org/WN/WN05/wn021105.cfm. 2. EPHEDRA: FEDERAL JUDGE IN UTAH LIFTS THE FDA BAN ON EPHEDRA. In 1998 WN exposed Vitamin O as ordinary salt water. The FDA was barred from taking action because salt water is a natural supplement. Later that year a UCSF study reported serious side effects from ephedra http://www.aps.org/WN/WN98/wn112798.cfm. Sold on the web as herbal ecstacy, the FDA said ephedra, was also protected by the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act (DSHEA). It's estimated that there are more adverse reactions to ephedra than all other herbal supplements combined, but not until a young major league pitcher became a victim did the FDA ban it http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn010204.cfm. Ephedra was the only supplement banned since passage of DSHEA. Now there are none. The judge lifted the ban because the FDA had not determined a safe level. The FDA had not determined a safe level because it would be unethical to test a substance on people if it's known to be harmful. Once again there are calls to change DSHEA. 3. HOMEOPATHY AT 250: THE POWER OF MEDICINE THAT DOES NO HARM. My mail box has been crammed full of homeopathy stuff all week. Sunday was the 250th birthday of Samuel Hahnemann, the German physician who founded homeopathy in an age of purging and blood- letting. Hahnemann's law of similars would be a disaster, he not come up with his law of infinitesimals. His diaper rash cure, for example, is rhus toxicodendron (poison ivy). Lucky for baby, the law of infinitesimals says to dilute it 200C, i.e. there isn't any. We excuse Hahnemann, who didn't have Avogadro's number (neither did Avogadro, it was determined 50 years later), but homeopaths know it, which goes beyond stupid. And homeopathy has its own DSHEA. In 1938 Senator Royal Copeland, a homeopath, exempted homeopathy from the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act. After all, it would be like trying to show holy water had been blessed. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CF
April 11, 2005 Vortex, Has the discussion group that poplulated Vortex been moved? I am not too much into, or interested in,biblical topics mixed into CF. -ak-
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, April 08, 2005
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 4/8/2005 1:24:07 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, April 08, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 8 Apr 05 Tucson, AZ 1. PROLIFERATION: JUST WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS, MORE RELIABLE NUKES. Three years ago, Pentagon planners hatched the infamous Nuclear Posture Review, a secret plan to publicly oppose nuclear proliferation, while developing a new class of small nuclear weapons meant to blur the line between nuclear and conventional http://www.aps.org/WN/WN02/wn031502.cfm. However, free people don't do secrecy well, and the plan was leaked, killing it. No matter, Linton Brooks, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the designated Dr. Strangelove, keeps trying new plans looking for ones he can sell to David Hobson (R-OH), the powerful chair of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, that rarest of fiscal conservatives who will block a dumb weapons program. A year ago it was a new pit facility that can make pits for a new nuclear bunker-buster. Brooks is now pushing for a warhead so reliable that it could be deployed without testing. This is the old Reliable Replacement Warhead plan proposed 30 years ago. It's hard to oppose reliability but the first atomic bomb used in anger was an untested design. 2. MARS: SPIRIT AND OPPORTUNITY JUST KEEP GOING, AND GOING... NASA is pushing on with plans to stick the next president with a pointless trillion-dollar mission to put humans on Mars or be remembered for ending human space flight. Locked in space suits, astronauts would have only the sense of sight. Meanwhile operations of the twin rovers have been extended another 18 months. They don't need air, water, or space suits. They live on sunlight, never rest, never complain, and have better eyes than humans. When they finally wear out, their switches will be turned off. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be remembered as the President who led America into an era of truly modern space exploration where no human can ever set foot. 3. 2005 TROTTER PRIZE: AN AWARD FOR OVERLAPPING THE MAGISTERIA. In February http://www.aps.org/WN/WN05/wn022505.cfm, WN commented on a session at this year's AAAS meeting in Washington DC devoted to the proposition that science and religion are non-overlapping magisteria. But at Texas AM they see it a little differently: the Trotter Prize is awarded for illuminating the connection between science and religion. How better to illustrate the overlap than to give the award this year to one of the nation's top pseudoscientists, Dr. William Demski, a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, often regarded as the leading intelligent design theorist. The Intelligent-Design movement seeks to portray intelligent-design as science. However, by resorting to a supernatural explanation it clearly belongs in some other magisteria. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, April 01, 2005
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 4/1/2005 1:26:38 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, April 01, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 1 Apr 05 Washington, DC 1. AMBIGUITY?: ..DEAD WRONG ON ALMOST ALL PRE-WAR JUDGEMENTS.. The President's Commission on Intelligence Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction released its report yesterday. The media have described it as scathing. It wasn't. The cover letter explained that intelligence professionals didn't fudge the data, they really believed what they said. They were simply wrong. Like that's OK? The President, appearing with the co-chairs at a press conference, seemed pleased, even though in principle he's responsible for anything that went on during his watch. Whether someone at the White House should have asked a few hard questions wasn't in the Commission's charge. Besides, the President fired CIA Director George Tenet, who said the question of WMDs was a slam-dunk. That was before Tenet was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn121704.cfm. 2. PIGASUS: IT'S APRIL FIRST, THE PIG THAT FLIES IS ON THE WING. Yes, it's the day the coveted Pigasus Awards will be announced. The winners are informed by ESP, but their names came to me last night as I slept, as in a dream. The lucky winners will receive handsome trophies of the Flying Pig via psychokinesis. If they don't get delivery they should look inwardly. All the winners and details will be posted today on Randi's web site http://www.randi.org/jr/040105capitalizing.html. 3. HIGHER AUTHORITY: EVANGELICALS RELY ON THE BIBLE FOR GUIDANCE. It's not just creationism. The success of the religious right in the last election seems to have led them to test the limits. In Colorado, the State Supreme Court took a man off death row after it was disclosed that in imposing the death penalty, the jury had consulted the bible (Leviticus 21:24, an eye for an eye...). In pharmacies around the country, devout pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills because of their religious beliefs. But surely the strangest case is that of John Brown, an evangelical Christian from Dallas, who founded Zion Oil. It has always seemed ironic that the chosen land should be the only place in the Middle East that doesn't sit on a sea of oil. Brown is convinced that passages in the Old-Testament pinpoint the exact spot to drill: a field near Afula. In Deuteronomy 33:24 Moses said, Most blessed of sons be Asher... may he dip his foot in oil. Asher's plot of land looks like a foot to Brown, and he has a license to drill under the toe. This sort of Bible Code led the faithful to sink millions in Brown's plan. Lo, there came oilmen from the West. 4. JOE NEWMAN: LEGENDARY INVENTOR OF THE ENERGY MACHINE RETURNS On Monday, he held a press conference here in the National Press Building. Joe made one contribution to society in his lifetime, by suing the Patent Office for denying him a patent. The 1986 decision in Newman v. Quigg (the Patent Commissioner) is now cited as the authority for denying patent applications for perpetual motion machines out of hand. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, March 25, 2005
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 3/25/2005 11:44:16 AM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, March 25, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 25 Mar 05 Washington, DC 1. FREEDOM ELEMENT: DO YOU KNOW HOW EASY IT IS TO SELL BALONEY? In his 2003 State-of-the-Union address, President Bush called for building a Freedom Car, powered by hydrogen and pollution free http://www.aps.org/WN/WN03/wn013103.cfm. Baloney, but people didn't ask where the hydrogen will come from. They asked if it's safe. Hey, it's fuel -- fuel burns. However, Dr. Addison Bain insists that in the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, it was the paint that burned, and compared it to rocket fuel. More baloney, but guess who bought it http://www.aps.org/apsnews/0700/070004.cfm? However, A.J. Dessler, D.E. Overs and W.H. Appleby found the burn rate of an actual piece of Hindenburg fabric to be thousands of times too slow. The fire consumed the Hindenburg in 34 seconds. If the 800 foot-long craft was painted with solid rocket fuel, it would have taken 12 hours to burn end to end. Dessler is a PhD physicist (Duke), 26 years as Professor of Space Physics and Astronomy at Rice (15 years as Dept Chair), directed the NASA Marshall Space Sciences Lab (4 years), and is Sr. Scientist at Univ of Arizona, Lunar and Planetary Lab. What about Dr. Bain? 2. DIPLOMA MILLS: MAYBE THEY CAN GET TOGETHER FOR CLASS REUNIONS. In his memoir, The Freedom Element: Living with Hydrogen, Doctor Bain says he is a former manager of hydrogen programs at Kennedy Space Center, but what is he a doctor of? He writes of being teary-eyed at finally becoming a PhD, but nowhere mentions his alma mater. Even the bio on the jacket of his book gave no clue. A Google search turned up nothing after Flathead High School in Montana. Someone suggested we try California Coast University, a distance-learning university in Santa Ana. That's where Lynn Ianni, the therapist for The Swan on Fox Television, became Doctor Ianni in 1998. Although CCU has no campus, that's not a problem; it has no courses. There, in the same graduating class with Dr. Ianni, getting a Management PhD, was Dr. Addison Bain. Now look at me, would you? Here I am getting all teary-eyed too. 3. SCIENCE BY INTIMIDATION: DOES BEING RIGHT COUNT FOR NOTHING? The 2003 IMAX film Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, sponsored by NSF and Rutgers, would seem to be just the sort of documentary that science centers thrive on. Not exactly. It was turned down by a dozen Science Centers, mostly in the South, because of a few brief references to evolution. There goes the profit margin. The result is that IMAX films just aren't made if the science might offend the religious right. It's worse in schools. Even if there is no prohibition on teaching evolution, teachers leave it out rather than listen to all the complaints. In the 1925 Scopes trial, Clarence Darrow said, John Scopes isn't on trial, civilization is on trial. It still is. And it's losing. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, March 18, 2005
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 3/18/2005 12:04:42 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, March 18, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 18 Mar 05 Washington, DC 1. THE VISION: AEROSPACE ENGINEER PICKED TO LEAD NASA TO MARS. Described in media stories as a Johns Hopkins physicist, Michael D. Griffin is at the Applied Physics Lab, a government contract lab far from the campus, and although he has a B.A. in physics, his Ph.D. is in Aerospace Engineering from the Univ. of Maryland. During the Reagan years he was Deputy for Technology of SDI (Star Wars), which managed to squander $30B on mythical weapons. Eighteen months ago, Griffin testified before the House Science Committee on The Future of Human Space Flight. He began by invoking Queen Isabella and Columbus. OK, so he's not very original, but the Columbus mission was to find a short cut to plunder the riches of the East. That is just the sort of sound conservative economics the universe needs. But maybe, before we settle the rest of the solar system as Griffin proposes, we might want to ask our robots if there are any riches out there to plunder. Meanwhile, it probably wouldn't hurt to take better care of this planet. These other places don't look that great. 2. FICTION: AN IMAGINATIVE CREATION THAT DOES NOT REPRESENT TRUTH The Index of Forbidden Books was abolished by Vatican II, but Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who used to be the top enforcer in the Vatican, still harbors nostalgia for the old days. Don't buy and don't read The Da Vinci Code, he instructed Catholics. That should help sales, as though it needed help. Some scientists would put Michael Crichton's novel, State of Fear, on an Index. It's standard Crichton, i.e. the bad guys are scientists. In Jurassic Park, for example, scientists discovered the secret of life and used it to make a theme park. Scientists in State of Fear predict global-warming catastrophes; when it doesn't happen, they create disasters. Well, at least scientists are powerful bad guys. But Crichton laced the book with genuine citations and graphs from the literature, creating a sense of authenticity, but some say, crossing a line. It is pretentious, but it's fiction. 3. HYDROGEN: THE HINDENBURG DISASTER RETOLD AND RETOLD AGAIN. Everyone has seen the horrifying film of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster. A 1/28 scale model of the giant airship, made for a Hollywood movie, hangs in the National Air and Space Museum. A plaque said It's hydrogen exploded. That's incendiary language to the National Hydrogen Society, which promotes hydrogen as a fuel. Dr. Addison Bain, a founding member, undertook his own investigation of the accident, declaring, Hydrogen does not explode. He claimed it was the fabric covering the airship that burned. The Department of Energy bought it, the Air and Space Museum revised the plaque, the media did specials on it. Alex Dessler, a physicist and former director of the Marshall Space Flight Center did not buy it. He led a group that found Bain wrong on every point. So who is Dr. Addison Bain? Stay tuned. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: The Alchemist Newsletter from ChemWeb.com
Title: The Alchemist - March 2005 Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] EarthLink Revolves Around You. - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki Sent: 3/8/2005 1:28:58 PM Subject: The Alchemist Newsletter from ChemWeb.com Mar 8, 2005 In The Alchemist this issue, collapsing bubbles hotter than the stars, unraveling a cellulose mystery, and rolling up e-paper. Also in the latest issue: turning garbage gas into something useful and the boron aggregates that cluster together at last. physical: Overheating bubbles bio-organic: A once indigestible problem organic: Plastic fantastic makes rollable e-paper a reality environmental: Making the most of methane inorganic: Boron bridges the gap Overheating bubbles The idea of sustainable and useful desktop fusion remains a controversial field, but studies into related laboratory effects continue. Now, Ken Suslick and David Flannigan of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated that the temperature inside a collapsing sonoluminescent bubble is four times the temperature of the surface of the sun. When bubbles in a liquid get compressed, the insides get hot - very hot, explains Suslick, but until now nobody has measured this temperature. Sonoluminescence arises from acoustic cavitation when small gas bubbles in a liquid are "irradiated" with sound waves above 18 kHz. As the bubbles collapse intense local heating occurs, which produces light. Suslick and Flannigan observed the spectra of the light, which reveals the bubble's incredibly high temperature, and suggest that such temperatures could only arise from a plasma. Temperature inside collapsing bubble four times that of sun back to top A once indigestible problem UK researchers reveal that the ability to digest cellulose, the most common organic material produced by life, is not such a rare talent in the animal kingdom as scientists previously thought. Angus Davison of the University of Nottingham and Mark Blaxter of the University of Edinburgh were aware that a few animals possess cellulase enzymes, which is capable of breaking down the tough sugar-based polymers produced by plants. However, scientists were puzzled as to why an enzyme hundreds of millions of years old should not be more widespread in the animal kingdom. After all, cellulose would make a ready fuel source for any organism if it could be broken down. Now, the researchers have discovered that cellulases are not so rare after all, turning up in earthworms, sea urchins, lobsters, and bees. The researchers suggest that our ancient evolutionary ancestors may also have had cellulase enzymes, although why we lost them remains a mystery. Unravelling a genetic mystery back to top Plastic fantastic makes rollable e-paper a reality A polymer-based display developed by Dutch company Philips under the PolymerVision brand, can be rolled up like a newspaper. The PolymerVision PV-QML5 announced on March 2 is an ultra-thin (100µm) featherweight 320 x 240 pixel active-matrix display, five inches from corner to corner. Each layer of the matrix is flexible allowing the whole sheet to be rolled up. While flexible plastic displays have been discussed for several decades, this device is perhaps the first to become a commercial reality. According to Philips, it generates four shades of gray and can be read under almost any light conditions, even sunlight, as though it were real newsprint, but with the obvious advantage that the contents can be changed. Philips rollable displays to offer paper-like reading experience in mobile applications back to top Making the most of methane Methane from garbage dumps and landfill sites could be converted into useful fuel more effectively, according to Viktor Popov of the Wessex Institute of Technology, in Southampton, UK. Popov has developed a solution to the problem of air getting into the methane during extraction of the gas from landfills. The solution could make extraction from even small sites economically viable. The solution uses on three-layer membrane based on clay to cover a landfill site. Carbon dioxide is pumped into the semi-permeable layer which then acts as a pressurized barrier to the outside, preventing air from being drawn into the landfill as the methane is pumped out. The next step in the development of the idea will be to find a way to remove the nitrogen from the extracted methane. Making the best of garbage gas back to top Boron bridges the gap Inorganic clusters bridge the gap between molecular chemistry and solid state chemistry. Now, John Kennedy and colleagues from the University of Leeds and CLRC Daresbury have investigated the cluster chemistry of boron hydrides in the hope of extending the chemistry of this intriguing class of compounds beyond the well-worn stable region of clusters containing just twelve boron atoms. They report two macropolyhedral metalloborane
RE: A cause celebre?
Feb. 26, 2005 Vortex, I see Miles is making a presentation at the March APS meeting.so is Miley and others well known to him. I presume Miles is salaried at the current university and they are generous enough to give a free hand in CF experimentation.. Perhaps he can get a paid leave of absence to pursue CF work. If so, he could join Miley or others as a visiting professor and he could contribute his expertise. Perhaps he could make the contacts at the March APS meeting. Remember Miley just received a large grant ($100 K) from the New Energy Foundation that took over Infinite Energy. I would think Miles could make a proposal to enable him to pursue his CF ideas together with laboratories involved with CF. This way foundation funds will not be wasted in duplicate facilities. The New Energy Foundation should undertake a larger profile campaign (fight) for CF while they solicit tax deductible donations for their non profit efforts. -ak- [Original Message] From: Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2/26/2005 3:11:02 PM Subject: A cause celebre? A mainstream CF researcher asked Ed Storms and I to tone down or remove the Manifesto we posted on Thursday, THE DOE LIES! I asked Mel Miles whether he thinks it is over the top. He replied with a very depressing message. He says he understands why traditionally minded academic researchers may feel this is excessive, but he thinks the Manifesto is justified, and he agrees we should leave it. He also said the university stands by him, and would like him to work on CF full time. They have even agreed to release him from teaching. But without funding the project cannot begin. Miles has been looking for funding for years. He even considered going to China. He feels the DoE was his last chance. He is old, and he will probably retire for good now. He yearns to do another CF experiment, but he has no way to do it. I have a feeling we -- the people who support CF -- should try to make this a cause celebre. Perhaps this time the public will see that the opposition has gone too far. Ed I are trying to stir up the public with out bold red headline, but so far the response has been lukewarm. 150 copies of the Manifesto have been downloaded. I am not sure what we should do, or what we can can do. But I have a sense that Mel is a perfect poster boy (as the dreadful modern cliche has it). Consider: The University supports him, and is willing to let him do research full time. He has a stellar record. He is old; this is his last chance. As for what else we can do . . . Does anyone here have suggestions? If there are steps that cost a few thousand dollars I would be willing to pay for them. The most effective steps probably will not cost much. Here are few ideas: Expand the headlines and the document. Call upon the readers here and at LENR-CANR to speak up, contact their Congressmen, contact reporters. Of course we have all done this sort of thing before, but we have seldom had such a clear-cut injustice, and such a straightforward, reasonable demand. I think people will see that we are not asking for much. We want the government to give a research grant to a scientist that the government itself nominated at Distinguished Fellow. If that is not a reasonable, sensible demand, what is? Perhaps we could purchase advertising on Google. Not sure what, but whenever anyone types cold fusion, or energy we could have small ad come up saying: THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY BROKE ITS PROMISE WE DEMAND FUNDING FOR COLD FUSION NOW THE LAST CHANCE FOR ONE OF AMERICA'S LEADING SCIENTISTS [Link to LENR-CANR.org] Putting an ad like that in newspapers would be terribly expensive, but perhaps Google would be cheaper. I do not know. If thousands, or tens of thousands, of people read the manifesto (and the HTML pages), and they contacted the authorities, perhaps it would have an effect. Other CF researchers would prefer we do this quietly, behind the scenes, the polite academic old-school way. Ed I feel that the time for that has passed. - Jed
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, February 25, 2005
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2/25/2005 12:54:38 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, February 25, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 25 Feb 05 Washington, DC 1. MISSILE DEFENSE: CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER FINALLY DECIDES: NO! With US interceptor missiles refusing to come out of their silos, http://www.aps.org/WN/index.cfm, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin did the same, declaring that Canada would concentrate its defense efforts elsewhere. President Bush had personally lobbied the PM since August to join the US in ballistic missile defense http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn082704.cfm. Martin appeared to be leaning toward joining, agreeing in August to share information on incoming missiles, but the plan had virtually no public support. 2. JUICED: CANSECO WANT'S A POLYGRAPH EXAM ON PAY-PER-VIEW TV. Why should science concern itself with baseball's steroid-enhanced bad boy? It shouldn't. But the best-selling author of Juiced wants to prove he's telling the truth about those other over-paid, bulging, mesomorphic icons who used the needle. For telling the truth, Canseco thinks he should make a lot of money. He believes the polygraph detects lies. So does Rep. Joe Barton (D-TX), chair of the House Energy Committee, who thinks we could round up all those spies at Los Alamos http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn073004.cfm. Does anyone pay any attention to what science says? For 20 years WN has reported overwhelming scientific evidence that polygraphs can't tell a lie from the sex act. Does anyone listen to science? 3. ABC: PETER JENNINGS REPORTS ON UFOs SEEING IS BELIEVING. Yawn! ABC advertised it as a fresh look at the UFO phenomenon, but there was Stanton Friedman, author of Crash at Corona and a major creator of the highly-profitable Roswell myth. ABC called it, the enduring mystery of Roswell. There was no mystery, but it was a gold mine, shamelessly exploited on TV documentaries, and nothing has changed. It ended with one of the world's leading physicists, who looked a lot like Michio Kaku, saying You simply cannot dismiss the possibility that some of these objects are from a civilization millions of years ahead of us in technology. Sigh. 4. SCIENCE MEETS SOCIETY: AAAS AND NON-OVERLAPPING MAGISTERIA. On Saturday, six distinguished scholars solemnly discussed the late Stephen Jay Gould's idea that both science and religion have their place in a full life, but do not overlap. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have chosen science as a career have an obligation to share with the public what we learn about how the world works. Not because scientists have any claim to greater intellect or virtue, but because science is the only way we have of separating the truth from ideology, or fraud or foolishness. It pains me that some of us get so little gratification from this that they carry on a separate affair with this Magisteria person. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: The Silent Giant
February 22, 2005 Vortex, The referenced "Silent Giant" by Mike is too busy currently propping up Mitsubishi Motors ever since it fell into disrepute because of hiding quality defects. After all, "Motors" was spun off from it originally. A rescue effort for a petroleum consuming product maker which produces revenue has priority over laboratory findings which has yet to be programmed for a scale-up development. -ak-
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, February 18, 2005
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2/18/2005 10:23:43 AM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, February 18, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 18 Feb 05 Washington, DC 1. MISSILE DEFENSE: UNTESTED DEFENSE MEETS NON-EXISTENT THREAT. In last Sunday's missile defense test, an interceptor missile again refused to leave its silo. Who can blame it? It's crazy out there. A month ago, a minor software glitch caused a malfunction http://www.aps.org/WN/WN05/wn011405.cfm. This time it was a tiny switch in the silo. The Missile Defense Agency doesn't seem worried; tests don't count if they don't get to the end game http://www.aps.org/WN/WN02/wn121302.cfm. Does missile defense seem just a little less urgent these days? According to Defense Daily, plans for around-the-clock operation of the system have been dropped in favor of an emergency alert status -- no point in turning it on if no one is shooting at us. Maybe North Korea will agree not to launch a surprise attack. At his Tuesday confirmation hearing, Deputy Secretary of State nominee Robert Zoellick said he thinks North Korea is lying about having nukes. President Bush thought Iraq was lying about NOT having nukes. 2. SCIENCE MEETS SOCIETY: IS SCIENCE JUST ANOTHER BELIEF SYSTEM? The 11 Feb 05 issue of Science has an editorial by Alan Leshner, AAAS CEO, Where Science Meets Society. That's also the theme of next week's AAAS meeting in Washington. Leshner contends that conflicts between science and certain human beliefs are on the increase. He thinks bringing scientists and religious leaders together to discuss the relation of scientific advances to other belief systems is helpful, and thinks we should try diplomacy and discussion for a change. In the first place, conflicts are not increasing. Relations have never been better. Skeptics are no longer forced to recant, nor even denied tenure. And as for diplomacy, we could start by negotiating Intelligent Design Theory. Scientists might concede that God created Adam and Eve in exchange for a concession that the serpent evolved by natural selection. 3. GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS: JUST ASK YOUR RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR. Did you know that we all sense the future? Did you know that our minds influence the functioning of machines? If you knew both of these things, you will not be surprised to learn that random number generators around the world anticipated both 9/11 and the Indian Ocean tsunami. The Global Consciousness Project, headed by Dean Radin http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn080604.cfm found these events in the output of 65 RNGs in 41 countries. And this is just the start. Once they refine what constitutes an anomaly in a random signal, they'll be able to predict even the most trivial events -- after they happen. But a more ominous interpretation is that the RTGs are causing these horrific events. A sensible precaution would be to ban the use of all such devices. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, February 11, 2005
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2/11/2005 11:51:13 AM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, February 11, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 11 Feb 05 Washington, DC 1. D. ALLAN BROMLEY: FORMER APS PRESIDENT DIED YESTERDAY AT 78. Moshe Gai informs us that Allan was stricken yesterday at lunch. He died on the way to the hospital. One of the world's leading nuclear physicists, he was also an outspoken proponent of science and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1988. In a 1989 meeting with George H.W. Bush to discuss the position of Science Advisor, the President's first question was about cold fusion. Bromley had just learned the results from a collaboration he had arranged to test the claim. There were no neutrons. Confidently he told the President that the reports out of Utah were in error. 2. PROLIFERATION: TAUNTING IS ONLY AGAINST THE RULES IN THE NFL. Let's see if we've got this right: based on unfounded rumors of nuclear weapons in Iraq, the U.S. committed itself to a war that has so far cost the lives of more than 2,000 American troops and another 10,000 wounded. Perhaps 18,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, and more than 6,000 military. This carnage has cost us $153 billion, and there's no end in sight. Although he had no weapons of mass destruction, we're told the Iraq war is justified because Sadam is a really bad guy. Kim Jong Il is no sweetheart either, and N. Korea is dancing in the end zone with its nukes. 3. PUBLIC ACCESS: APS POLICY INCORRECTLY STATED BY WHAT'S NEW. Last week, WN misstated the position of Editor in Chief Marty Blume on public access, for which I profoundly apologize. In Marty Blume's words, We already allow authors to post the final versions of their papers on eprint archives anywhere (which would include the NIH's pub med central) and to make them available immediately. This is already done with many articles posted on the Cornell arXiv, and we have seen no effect on subscriptions. The new NIH policy announced last week by Elias Zerhouni goes a step further: authors are asked to post on public Web sites. 4. IS JOHN OF GOD A HEALER OR A CHARLATAN? IS ABC NEWS NUTS? In an hour long report last night, Primetime Live co-anchor John Quinones traveled to a remote area of Brazil to find out if John of God is really a miracle healer as his followers claim. Wake up ABC! It's the 21st Century. In a position to help millions of viewers understand that they live in a rational universe, ABC has chosen instead to tell them that their sad superstitions are open scientific questions. To give the program credibility they turned to one of the world's most respected surgeons, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Oz is no doubt a fine surgeon, but he has touch therapists in his operating room helping patients connect to the healing energy everywhere. When ABC dumped Michael Guillen as science editor, http://www.aps.org/WN/WN02/wn122702.cfm it seemed like a good sign. But it looks like they still don't get it. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, February 04, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2/4/2005 12:16:03 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, February 04, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 04 Feb 05 Washington, DC 1. STATE OF THE UNION: OUR ANNUAL LOOK AT WHERE SCIENCE FITS IN. This will be brief, since I fell asleep. However, we did a word search on the transcript. Bingo! We got a hit on scientific research. It came up in a discussion of the need to build a culture of life. (When was it that life became a code word?) The President thanked Congress for doubling NIH funding, but he urged the lawmakers to quit dawdling on his energy strategy, including safe, clean nuclear energy. That was it for science. 2. HUBBLE: WILL EARTH'S MOST PRODUCTIVE SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENT DIE? In his opening statement at a hearing on Hubble options, Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), Chair of the House Science Committee, observed: One can't help but root for it; surely he can do more than that. It's widely expected that on Monday the President's asking budget will only include funds to dump Hubble in the Ocean. What madness compels this act? Hubble, Joe Taylor testified, is still in the prime of its scientific life. Steven Beckwith, director of the Space Telescope Institute, said it's the nation's most productive science facility. It was designed to be serviced by the shuttle. The James Webb Space Telescope won't go on line before 2011. Even more powerful, we will no doubt come to view JWST with the kind of affection we now feel for Hubble. But long before that happens Hubble is posed to explore dark energy and extrasolar planetary systems. The official explanation for cutting the service mission to Hubble is that, at more than $1B, it's too expensive. Whoa! Lou Lanzerotti testified that it would cost no more than a flight to the ISS, and the nation is committed to 25-30 shuttle flights to the ISS. Would someone tell us what the ISS is doing? And how is NASA paying for 25-30 flights at $1-2B each? Is Ken Lay doing NASA's books? As we pointed out years ago, shuttle arithmetic is not that hard. You just divide the cost of the shuttle program by the number of flights http://www.aps.org/WN/WN93/wn032693.cfm . President's budget or not, it's Congress that controls the purse. 3. PUBLIC ACCESS: AT NIH, ZERHOUNI ANNOUNCES A NEW ACCESS POLICY. The public pays for research done on federal grants as well as the cost of publishing it; they shouldn't have to pay again to see it. Under a new policy that goes into effect on May 2 researchers on NIH grants will be asked to submit their results to a public Web site within one year after publication in a scientific journal. There are advantages to having articles in one federal database. However, most journal publishers, including APS Editor in Chief Marty Blume, oppose the policy, fearing it will cut into their subscription base. A leading proponent of free access, former NIH Director Harold Varmus, only regretted that scientists were asked to submit their data. He would have preferred expected. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, January 28, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 1/28/2005 11:40:00 AM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, January 28, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 28 Jan 05 Washington, DC 1. VISION: WHERE DOES THE ADMINISTRATION GET ITS SCIENCE ADVICE? On Feb 7, when the President's FY06 Budget Request is released, Sean O'Keefe will announce that no money is allotted for repair of the Hubble Space Telescope. However, money will be provided to drop the greatest telescope ever built into the ocean. Fixing Hubble with astronauts is too dangerous, O'Keefe said. Repairing Hubble with robots is too uncertain, an NRC panel said. It's too expensive anyway, the White House said. On the same day, the White House estimated the budget deficit at $427B. Besides, it wasn't too dangerous for the ISS crew to spend five hours outside yesterday repairing a Russian robot arm. So what's the arm for? It's so astronauts can make repairs without going outside. Hmmm. But why would anyone bother to repair the ISS? It doesn't do anything. Drop the ISS in the ocean, and save Hubble. 2. JIMO: U.S. PLANETARY SCIENTISTS DO IT THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY. It sounded exciting in 2003 when NASA announced that the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission would be the first nuclear-propelled mission under Project Prometheus. But now it looks like a plan to put them off while NASA focuses on Moon/Mars. Kinky is nice, but if conventional will get to Europa, they'll take it. Europa may be the last hope of finding other life in the solar system. 3. OPINIONS: THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY--OPINIONS ARE ANOTHER MATTER. The Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to plug the No Child Left Behind Act. Health and Human Services paid columnist Maggie Gallagher $21,500 to promote the marriage initiative. This is hardly big bucks compared to a guy with a good jump shot, but fans still need to know who's paying. WN gets tons of mail from readers pointing out stories we missed. We use a lot of them but no one ever enclosed a check. 4. CREATIONISM: SHOULD WARNING MESSAGES BE REQUIRED ON BOOKS? Manufactures are required to include warnings on labels. Why not text book publishers? Besides, the stickers Cobb County wanted on biology texts weren't exactly wrong evolution really is just a theory. http://www.aps.org/WN/WN05/wn011405.cfm Science is open. If someone comes up with a better theory, the textbooks will be rewritten. Although requiring warning labels on medicine bottles is vital, on books they become official doctrine. Several readers suggested stickers for bibles in Cobb County: This book contains religious stories regarding the origin of living things. The stories are theories, not facts. They are unproven, unprovable and in some cases totally impossible. This material should be approached with an open mind, and a critical eye towards logic and believability. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, January 14, 2005
[Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 1/14/2005 10:20:32 AM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, January 14, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 14 Dec 05 Washington, DC 1. EARTHQUACKS: THE DEEPER MEANING OF THE TSUNAMI IS EXAMINED. Religions are busy explaining how we should view a disaster that claimed more than 150,000 innocent lives. Innocent? Buddhists explained that seemingly innocent victims could be paying for some really bad stuff they did in previous lives. A leading Moslem cleric in Southern California says it was, a test from God to see how human beings respond. Columnist and pretentious theologian William Safire also saw the tsunami as a test, and compared it to God's test of Job. Sure Job is faithful, Satan had scoffed, God made him rich and powerful. Wagering that Job would remain faithful, God lets Satan take it all away: Job's sheep are stolen, his servants slain and a great wind kills his children. Whereupon Job falls to the ground and worships God, the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. So Job passes the test. Never mind his sons and daughters who died, or his servants who were murdered, it's all about Job. Well, thank God for physics. The tsunami was caused by the release of elastic energy in a tectonic earthquake. 2. MISSILE DEFENSE: A MINOR SOFTWARE GLITCH CAUSED THE FAILURE. Testing is the theme of WN this week. The last interceptor never got out the silo http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn121704.cfm, but the head of the Missile Defense Agency said the system would work if nothing went wrong. That sounds right to me. They'll try again in February, but there seems to be no urgency. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld delayed a decision to start the system, citing absence of any long-range missile threat. The threat seemed far more imminent when the administration was seeking congressional approval for the missile defense system http://www.aps.org/WN/WN03/wn032103.cfm. 3. CREATIONISM: COURT ORDERS WARNING STICKERS REMOVED IMMEDIATELY. The constitutionality of a creationist message got a court test. You will recall that in Cobb County, GA, stickers were placed on high school biology texts warning that evolution is a theory, not a fact http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn111204.cfm. Yesterday, in ordering the stickers removed, a federal judge said the stickers convey an impermissible message of endorsement. 4. ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE: IOM REPORT CALLS FOR TOUGHER STANDARDS. For a decade, WN has argued that the 1994 Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever enacted http://www.aps.org/WN/WN98/wn091898.cfm . This week, an Institute of Medicine report, Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the United States, called for major revision of DSHEA. It went much further, recommending that the same principles and standards of evidence apply to all medical treatments whether labeled as alternative or conventional. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Physics Today Article on DoE re-review of CF effect.
January 13, 2005 Vortex, Snail mail being what it is, I received the January issue (Volume 58 issue One) of Physics Today yesterday. There is a short column in the 'Issues and Events' listed in the Table of Contents titled Cold Fusion gets a chilly Encore, by Toni Feder. The article goes over the brief history of the Pons Fleischmann's CF claims and DOE's original study of them (Huizenga's committee). What the DoE seems to find, after review of 14 selected revirewer's varied, uneven comments on the status of CF since 1989 was that, in sum, CF was not a repeatable science, not well documented, and the magnitude of the effect if it exists, is not of any greater magnitude since 1989, The DoE is taking the side of the negative. The positive conclusions in the minority review, the DoE found not sufficient to fund as a general area of research. However DoE left the door open for future specific research proposal fundng as passed upon by the 'peer review and relevance'. What this means for actual funding approvals to come across, I don'y know. It looks more like an escape hatch for the DoE position rather than a door of opportunity for CF reasearcher. Yet the proponents fo the re-review process seems to be happy with the scraps. They have found a measure of scientific respectability and a huge increase in (I presume private) funding inquiries, as per McKubre and Hagelstein. There are web links available to access DoE's CF review release and also the individual reviewer's comments. These have been availbla in Steven Krivt's New Energy Times website and Jed Rothwell's LENR/CANR website much earlier than now. -ak-
FW: WHAT'S NEW Thursday, December 23, 2004
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 12/23/2004 10:27:05 AM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Thursday, December 23, 2004 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 24 Dec 04 Washington, DC 1. ACUPUNCTURE: RESEARCHER FINDS THE HAYSTACK IS FULL OF NEEDLES. Huge breakthrough? A University of Maryland researcher, who has been touting acupuncture for the last 17 years, now reports it may actually work sort of. Here's the picture: a few thousand years before it was known that blood circulates or germs cause disease, doctors who had never dissected a frog, claimed that yin and yang could be balanced by inserting needles into the right points, among the hundreds of points strung along 12 meridians. They called it acupuncture, from the Latin acus, needle and punctus, prick. Which is odd, because they were Chinese. But if they figured out acupuncture, they must have been smart enough to learn Latin. Scientists today can't even find the meridians. A Maryland study of 570 elderly patients who suffer from arthritis of the knee, found that 6 months of acupuncture modestly reduced pain and improved agility. Six months? Why not take an aspirin? Scientists suggest the needles stimulate release of endorphins. Jalapeno peppers do the same thing. So it wouldn't matter where you stick the needles would it? Then who needs an acupuncturist? 2. PAIN: CAN YOU BALANCE YOUR YIN AND YANG WITHOUT GETTING STUCK? It's been a great holiday season for the purveyors of alternative cures. First there was a flu vaccine shortage. In addition to Oscillococcinum, http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn121004.cfm , olive leaf extract, grapefruit seed extract, African ginger, and ionic silver were being sold along with supposed immune-boosting multi- vitamins to treat or prevent flu. All of this stuff is sold under the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act of 1994, which means it doesn't require FDA approval. Then Merck recalled its popular painkiller Vioxx, on the basis of a slight increase in heart attack risk. That led to similar concerns about the other big COX-2 inhibitor, Celebrex, and finally, it got down to Aleve, an over-the- counter drug, for which the risk was barely significant. WN believes most chronic pain sufferers will insist they are fully willing to accept the small risks. 3. NASA: EVERY CANDIDATE TO REPLACE O'KEEFE IS THE FRONTRUNNER. Last Friday WN mentioned two frontrunners to replace O'Keefe as NASA chief: Gen. Kadish, head of the Missile Defense Agency, and former member of Congress Bob Walker. Well, it's getting pretty crowded at the front. Early Saturday morning Bob Park debated retired Marine Major General Charles Bolden on BBC World News. BBC described Bolden as the frontrunner. CQ Today reported that Sen. Brownback (R-KS), Space Subcommittee chair, is pushing retired Air Force General Pete Worden, who headed the Office of Strategic Influence http://www.aps.org/WN/WN02/wn022202.cfm . All former astronauts are also frontrunners. The litmus test is a conviction that the most important goal is Moon/Mars. 4. MISTLETOE: WN WENT SEARCHING FOR A HOLIDAY-CONNECTED STORY. Used by the druids in exotic sacrificial ceremonies, mistletoe injections are the latest quack cancer cure in Europe. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, December 17, 2004
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 12/17/2004 10:25:16 AM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, December 17, 2004 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 17 Dec 04 Washington, DC 1. MISSILE DEFENSE: EXPLAIN TO ME AGAIN WHY THEY WERE TESTING IT? The Missile Defense Agency said this week's flop would not affect the decision to declare the system operational. In the previous test, two years ago, the kill vehicle failed to separate from the booster. That was unfortunate, but MDA said it didn't affect the success rate because the interceptor never reached the endgame http://www.aps.org/WN/WN02/wn121302.cfm. This week, the Missile Defense Agency tried again. This time the interceptor failed to make it out of the silo. In April, a GAO report said the tests were not realistic. The MDA director, General Kadish, director explained, you can't operationally test the system until you put it in place http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn043004.cfm. So what's the problem? There are now 6 interceptors in place in Ft. Greely, AK, just hanging out waiting to be tested operationally. 2. NASA: THE SEARCH IS ON FOR SOMEONE TO REPLACE SEAN O'KEEFE. General Kadish is said to be high on the list. Under O'Keefe, top NASA positions were often filled by military men, but competition is stiff. Although several former astronauts are rumored to on the list, the front runner is thought to be Bob Walker, a former Member of Congress who was chair of the House Science Committee. He predicted the space station would produce a Nobel Prize, backed cold fusion, and introduced his Hydrogen Futures Act, which in the initial version violated the First Law of Thermodynamics. He is now the Chairman of Wexler Walker, a Washington lobbying firm tied to science and space interests. A member of the President's Moon-Mars commission, Walker has no science background, but then neither does O'Keefe, who has just accepted the job of Chancellor of Louisiana State University. He says he took it for the money. 3. THE HUBBLE FACTOR: O'KEEFE SHOULD BE GIVEN A MEDAL OF FREEDOM. O'Keefe bore none of the blame for the Columbia accident, but it led to the Hubble problem. The Columbia review called for using the ISS as safe haven in case of a shuttle problem, but that's not practical for a shuttle flight to the Hubble orbit. While O'Keefe pushed hard for the President's Moon-Mars plan, he decided Hubble should go. O'Keefe is going instead. It's time to start over. Put the shuttles in museums, and drop the ISS in the Philippine Trench, but take care of Hubble till it can be replaced. In the meantime, if Tenet is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom after telling the President that weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are a slam-dunk, why not give one to O'Keefe? 4. TARGETED PRAYER: PRAYER WARRIORS ARE LINKED BY THE INTERNET. On ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings there was a report about Christian prayer teams organized over the internet from the World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs. By praying in unison for specific targets they say the effect is multiplied. They could pray for Missile Defense. It will have as much effect as a test. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.d2fusuion.com
Title: Message December 12, 2004 Vortex, After a long absence, I received this message from Russ George: He also attended the ICCF-11. Check out my revised web page for more. www.d2fusion.com Following the DoE report,Russ is getting numerous contacts from inquiring venture capitalists. Well, well! perhaps the long dry spell on cf is ending. I am sure these inquiries are happening to other notables in cf research. Nobody is talking much. Russ George's website is a makeover of an older website he ran for several years. He was involved with Stringham's Sonofusion, later with witnessing Arata Zhang's DS cathode experiment in Japan, Induced Les Case's Pd catalyst experiment to be repeated at SRI, andother SRI replication efforts. Didn.t get much credit for all this though. With CF seemingly dried up recently, he turned his attention to CO2 remediation and was somewhat busy in that field. Now, with the DoE report out and inquiries being made, his "new" fusion website has appeared. -ak-
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, December 10, 2004
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 12/10/2004 1:36:26 PM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, December 10, 2004 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 10 Dec 04 Washington, DC 1. HUBBLE: NRC CALLS FOR SENDING A SHUTTLE MISSION TO REPAIR IT. The problem was never with the space telescope. The problem from the start has been the Shuttle. Mankind's greatest scientific instrument was built under a NASA decree that anything that goes into space must go there by way of the shuttle. That meant Hubble had to be put in low-Earth orbit, which is far from ideal for observations. Moreover, Hubble was designed for routine shuttle maintenance visits. NASA said shuttle launches would be weekly, but five or six times a year was the best they could do. After Columbia, O'Keefe decided it's too dangerous for astronauts to service Hubble, we'll have to use robots. But if astronauts can't go to Hubble, how they gonna go to Mars? This week, the National Research Council said it's not likely that NASA could complete development of a robotic mission before Hubble breaks down, and called for a mission of the rebuilt shuttle to repair Hubble. Could we be seeing the influence of the astronaut lobby? Like who needs astronauts if a robot can fix Hubble? 2. SNAFLU: YOU READ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL FOR MEDICAL ADVICE? The Bush Administration announced Wednesday it intends to buy 1.2 million doses of flu vaccine from Germany. If you can't wait, the WSJ gave its list of options last week. FluMist was their top pick, but you gotta be under 50 to get it. I don't remember ever being under 50. After hand washing, WSJ lists Oscillococcinum. WSJ checked with a research methodologist at Sloan-Kettering. He said it probably doesn't prevent flu but may cut its duration by 6 hours. Six hours! They can tell that? WN bought a 6-dose carton, a three-day supply. Of what? Boiron, the maker, says it's from duck livers, but the homeopathic dilution is listed as 200C. That's gotta be a record. It's also impossible. Maybe they could help Balco with a homeopathic performance enhancer. 3. COLDER-THAN-EVER FUSION: THIS BOOK WON'T END THE CONTROVERSY. Several cold-fusion proponents took the trouble this week to send WN the announcement of a new book, The Rebirth of Cold Fusion: Real Science, Real Hope, Real Energy by Steven Krivit and Nadine Winocur. It was clearly timed to coincide with release of the DOE report. The book drew praise from Arthur C. Clarke, Brian Josephson, and Martin Fleischmann, among others. It's not in the bookstores here yet, but Amazon lists it. The authors are editors of New Energy Times, which calls itself Your best source for cold fusion news and information. Krivit has a bachelor's degree in business management, Winocur maintains a private psychotherapy practice. They've got the right qualifications. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
