ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 706
August 25, 2015
Greenhouse Gases Melted Ice Age Glaciers
Photo credit:
As glaciers retreat, they leave behind moraines such as this one, which can reveal the timing of their leaving. Calin Tatu/Shutterstock
By dating boulders exposed by the retreat of glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age, researchers have resolved an apparent anomaly during the time of the last great climate change. The process has provided valuable evidence for the likely impact of the current increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide on the world’s remaining rivers of ice.
How to Make a Cloud in Your Mouth
Learn how to make a wispy cloud come out of your mouth, even when it’s not cold out. Like any awesome trick, physics is to thank for the mouth cloud. This simple and fun demonstration can be used to explain the cloud in a bottle experiment, and real clouds in the sky.
instagram.com/thephysicsgirl
facebook.com/thephysicsgirl
twitter.com/thephysicsgirl
physicsgirl.org
Physics Girl has joined PBS Digital Studios! https://www.youtube.com/user/pbsdigit…
Videography: Forbidden Kingdom Digital – forbiddenkingdomdigital.com
Editing: Dianna Cowern and Forbidden Kingdom Digital
Cloud in a Bottle: Bearded Sicence Guy
Moon and Pluto images: NASA
Ten Cloud Images: NOAA
Spray bottle footage: soraphotography/shutterstock.com
Stock Images: pixabay.com
Music:
Michael Miller – https://soundcloud.com/michaelrmmiller
YouTube – “Ersatz Bossa,” “On the Bach”
Apple – “Galleria Long”
Resources:
Cloud Appreciation Society: https://cloudappreciationsociety.org
Pylon Appreciation Society: http://www.pylons.org
Biscuit Appreciation Society: http://www.biscuit.org.uk
Sloth Appreciation Society: http://www.slothville.com
Hairless Animal Appreciation Society: https://www.facebook.com/HairlessAnimalsAppreciationSociety
August 24, 2015
The Best Thing About NCSE’s Grand Canyon Trip
The best thing about NCSE’s Grand Canyon trip is the rafters. Also, the Canyon itself. And the food. And the amazing guides who run the boats and cook the meals and lead the hikes and know every bit of river lore you could desire.
Among the best things about NCSE’s Grand Canyon trip are the rafters.
Steve Newton and I do our part to introduce rafters to the wonders of the Canyon, its geology, natural history, and human history. We’ve run the river a few times, and study up beforehand, and I think we do a pretty good job.
But our rafters bring a whole different wealth of knowledge with them. This year’s trip included a sedimentologist who had done research in the same formations that make up the Grand Canyon. Rafters figured out pretty quickly that, if they weren’t on Steve’s boat that day, they could lean on her for insights into the rocks we were passing.
Another rafter was a fisheries biologist who had spent years studying the endangered native fish of the Grand Canyon, and now studies salmon in Oregon. He had a blast exploring his old haunts, and showing the rest of us the fish, lizards, and other critters around us. Most touchingly, he and his wife had come on the trip for their 5th wedding anniversary; she had never been to the Grand Canyon before, and we were honored that they chose to share that celebration with all of us. (She was one of two nurses and one former physician assistant on the trip, which came in handy when a rafter cut his hand on a rock, though the boatmen are wilderness EMTs and could’ve handled it, too.)
Rafters and I examine aquatic larvae from a sidestream. Photo copyrighted by rafter Dave Bishop, used with permission.Another of our rafters was a high school teacher with a degree in entomology. She and I used a kick net to check for insect larvae in a side stream, then looked at them in camp that night under the microscope I brought along. Her husband was appropriately impressed with her examinations and explanations of the algae, and alderfly, caddisfly, dragonfly, and damselfly larvae, noting, “I’ve never seen her doing her science before.”
Other rafters were avid skywatchers and birdwatchers, explaining what we saw flickering in the night sky, and what was flickering among the trees on shore.
Regardless of their areas of expertise, the assembled teachers, molecular biologists, nurses, geophysicists, firefighting English professors, programmers, photographers, and assorted others all came together out of their love of science and science education. That meant the conversation after dinner (did I mention that the dinners were amazing?) weren’t your run of the mill affairs. People talked science. Atheists and theists compared notes on interactions with particularly silly fundamentalists, and how they confronted attacks on evolution and climate change from ideologues. Scientists and teachers shared tips and tricks for spreading the joy of science to a new generation.
Also, there was a lot of talk about baseball.
If that sounds like fun, check the FAQ, and get in touch to be put on a waiting list for next year’s trip (in early July, full details to come shortly). And if you’d like to share that kind of experience with a few particularly special teachers, consider donating to the Teacher Scholarship Fund.
Mexico Is Using Drones To Protect Sea Turtle Nests
Photo credit:
Freshly laid turtle eggs in a nest. Matt Jeppson/Shutterstock
Mexican officials recently announced they will be using drones to help curb the illegal poaching of protected turtles and their eggs on popular nesting beaches.
Olive ridley sea turtles flood to La Escobilla and Morro Ayuta beaches in Oaxaca state to make nests and lay their eggs. But with an estimated 0.02 to 0.2% of the 10,000 hatched turtles on the beaches actually reaching maturity, new measures are being put in place to stop the threat of poaching.
Fossil of Earliest Known Baboon Unearthed in South Africa
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Here is a comparison of morphology in UW 88-886 (left), P. angusticeps males (CO 100, center), and P. izodi males (TP 89-11-1, right). P. izodi lived sometime between 3.7 million to 2.0 million years ago. Wits University
Researchers looking for fossils of early human ancestors at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in Malapa, South Africa, have unearthed the partial skull of the earliest baboon ever found. The 2-million-year-old fossil may represent the first appearance of modern baboon anatomy, according to findings published in PLoS One this week.
One Last Look At Saturn’s Moon Dione
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Last view from the Cassini orbiter of Saturn's moon, Dione. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
This extraordinary photograph marks the Cassini orbiter's final view of one of Saturn's many moons, Dione. Taken from a distance of 474 kilometers (295 miles) away, its pockmarked surface is shown in glorious detail. This is the fifth time that the orbiter has zipped past this moon, but this time it is also the probe's last.
This Is What The Center Of The Milky Way Looks Like
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An X-ray image of a portion of the Milky Way. ESA/XMM-Newton/G. Ponti et al. 2015.
These images reveal a remarkable view of some of the events taking place in the Milky Way – and show their effects on their surroundings. The mosaic images, which span 1,000 light-years across, were compiled from a month’s worth of X-ray data from ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, which orbits Earth.
Vaccine Provides Broad Protection Against The Flu In Mice
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Researchers make important breakthrough in finding a vaccine with long-term protection against the flu. CLIPAREA Custom media/Shutterstock
Influenza – or the flu – is a highly infectious, viral illness. The flu shot is a seasonal vaccine that only protects against a certain type of the flu virus. This means people have to receive the flu shot every year as the virus that causes the flu changes annually. Finding a vaccine that can protect people against multiple variants of the virus has been quite difficult, but two different studies report an important breakthrough.
Hubble Takes Spectacular Photograph Of Nebula And Star Together
Genetic Study Shows How Honey Bees Evolved In Response To Deadly Parasite
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The researchers found that the honey bees managed to survive the introduction of the deadly Varroa mite. Alexander Mikheyev/OIST
A new genetic study of wild honey bees living in forests near Ithaca, New York, sheds light on how they rapidly evolved resistance in response to the deadly parasitic mite Varroa destructor. The mite, originally from Asia, has been implicated in causing the deaths of millions of bee colonies across North America and Europe, and yet the population in Ithaca is still going strong, despite being infected with the parasite in the mid-1990s.
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