Why I Wish We Taught More Statistics

Ed Yong explains what it means to say that something causes 16% of cancers.
It doesn't mean:

• He can name the cancer victim
• He is certain it causes cancer
• His 16% is higher than someone else's 15%
• 84% of cancer is caused by something else (100-16=84)

I'd like to live in a world where this makes perfect sense to everyone who has finished high-school math.

Shaping Silicon on the Nano-Scale

Shaping silicon on the nano-scale promises a way to make a battery that stores lots of energy and lasts for many charges.

This remind me of the story of Thomas Edison's first long lasting light bulb filament. He took a bit of cotton thread, shaped as he liked and then baked it until all that was left was carbon. If he put a thin carbon wire in a vacuum, he had a reasonably long-lasting light bulb. Ingenuity never grows old.

The Things You Find in Your Basement

Making a nuclear bomb is pretty easy, if only you can get the weapons-grade uranium. Apparently Kodak had 3.5 pounds of weapons-grade uranium sitting in a lab in the basement from 1974 to 2006. It is not enough for a bomb, but enough to make the Department of Defense awfully nervous.

 They used it to check chemicals for impurities.

Looking for a Backup Earth

There has been ever more exciting news of late in looking for a a hospitable, earth-like planet. Thanks to a new orbiting telescope, the news is coming faster.

Most of the best looking planets are bigger and closer to their sun that earth. that is bad news because they will probably be too hot. If it is true that earth-like planets are normally too close to a sun, maybe we should be looking near a cooler red dwarf star to find a habitable planet.

Of course, the very idea does bring this to mind.

Plus, recent progress in how we might get there.

"Visualizing" Earthquakes

Have you ever wondered what an earthquake would sound like? Well, it wouldn't sound like anything because earthquake frequencies are in the 0.01 - 100 Hz range and we humans can't hear anything below 20 Hz.

But if you were to speed up the frequency, it would sound like this. (Note: in speeding up the frequency, they speed up the recording so what you hear in a minute, took an hour in real life.)

This Seed Grew 30,000 Years Ago...

And now a Pleistocene-era plant is once again growing on earth.

Our thanks go out to the hero of science who made this all possible: 

The Big One

We keep hearing about the big earthquake that may happen off the coast of Vancouver Island. A new paper says that Japan's latest quake makes our next quake more likely. Estimates put the likelihood between 10-35% that we will get on in the next 50 years. Oh did I mention it was a 9.0.

Sunshine: It's Good For You Again

Are you tired of the nanny state telling you to wear your sunblock? Vindication at last! For some months, I have been hearing murmurs that sunlight does more good than harm. It is one of those subjects where a bunch of evidence exists that goes against accepted science and government recommendations. This is not yet accepted as fact in the mainstream, so treat it as such. Even so, I guess it is time to write a post.

According to Dr. Michael Holick, "Vitamin D deficiency is the most common medical condition in the world." It leads not just to rickets and osteoporosis, but hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and stroke, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, dementia, autoimmune diseases, and cancers including, surprisingly, skin cancer. See here for a summary.

It is still recommended to wear sunglasses and limit exposure of your hands and face. They already get plenty of sun.

Yes, Virginia There is Controlled Fusion

A student was asking me if humans had ever achieved controlled fusion. I was pretty sure the answer was yes, but couldn't think of any examples. (Note We have not achieved a controlled fusion reaction that released more energy than was input.) Well here is an example put together by a 14-yr-old who also dreamed up a practical near-term use.

Going for a walk...with my Geiger counter

Hobbies Getting Out of Hand

Theodore Gray, the Mad Scientist of Popular Science speaks frankly while doing chemistry demos. Did you know that Pyrex is no longer pyrex? He shows why this matters at 28:00 (it involves a blow torch). He also makes salt(think about it!), a cutting torch out of bacon and appears on a Japanese game show. Don't you wish my classes were like this?

  Along the way, Gray has made the periodic table website, book and table; re-popularized the song (slower). He put all his columns into a book: Experiments You Can Do At Home--But Probably Shouldn't. He even praises the iPad for enabling the Harry Potter version of his book.

Full circle: Harry Potter sings the element song.

Wood Stove. Big Deal!

The four biggest killers of the world's poor are hunger, dirty water, indoor smoke and malaria which kill 7, 3, 3 and 2 people per minute (p.338). There are 500,000 minutes in a year.

Now consider the Envirofit G-3300 stove. "These stoves reduce smoke and harmful gases by up to 80 percent, reduce fuel use by up to 60 percent and reduce cooking time by up to 50 percent compared to traditional cooking fires and stoves."

the facts

Operation Red Flag

48 min IMAX video of modern dogfight simulation.
Inspired? Flight Simulators: Flight Gear, YS Flight Simulator (works will on slower computers), Microsoft Flight Simulator X (Demo or paid versions), or X-Plane (the best?)

For Our Friends in Social Studies

How to use Google better:

BTW, the advice on screen capturing is for a Mac. On a PC use the "print screen" button. You can crop the picture elsewhere. (Eg. On Word, crop the picture, then copy and paste to make to crop permanent.)

 From elsewhere on the same site: WWII as a Facebook feed.

World's Longest-Running Experiment

Is brittle coal pitch a liquid or solid?
85 year-long experiment continues.
You can watch it unfold live. The next drop
is expected around 2013.

Alternative Certification

Some people can learn from books. Some need a teacher. The downside of teachers is that we are expensive and not very responsive at 2:00 in the morning or whenever you might most like to learn. Either way, however, reliable, professional teachers are needed to provide grading: to assure that the student has learned.

Uh oh!

A tricorder?*

Somewhere in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum there are terrahertz waves that can penetrate human bodies and react differently to different chemicals. We have large lab devices to make these. We may soon have small ones. Possibilities!

Repeat: there is serious talk of a handheld, non-contact device that can analyse the inside of a human.

*A tricorder is a gizmo from Star Trek. It is a handheld device that can analyse things without opening or even touching them.

Thinking Like a Neanderthal

Neanderthal man had bigger brains than we homo sapiens do but they didn't think the same way. New Scientist has some ideas on how they would have thought.

Matt Ridley (the Rational Optimist) thinks the most important difference was our eagerness to trade. By trading, we benefit our own innovations as well as the other guys' innovations and the innovations of everyone he knows. We might not have been smart enough to think of connecting a sharp rock to a spear, but if we meet anyone who was, we get sharp spears too.

A Different Approach to Global Warming

What if action on global warming focused on something other than CO2. What if it was more effective? A new study investigates how we could reduce warming by concentrating on methane and carbon black (soot).

On Goldilocks and Climate Change

So are we cooking under greenhouse gasses or on the verge of a new ice age? Or mightn't it be both?

Aviation Photo Contest

Aviation Week and Space Technology is having its annual photo contest.  

Reader's choice - Defense (click for contest finalists)                                                     

Turn And Burn by Michael_Johnson

An F-15C of the 65th Aggressor Squadron turns and burns as the pilot attempts to evade an F-22A Raptor. Credit: Jamie Hunter, Woking, Surrey, England.

 Best of the Best has a Canadian Perspective (click for artist's work)

Jason Pineau, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories De Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter rests under a thin band of aurora borealis on Point Lake, Northwest Territories.