In the past few weeks, there have been some rumblings about imposing new criteria on scientific research grants. In particular, attention has been brought to the National Science Foundation, where Lamar Smith, having identified a number of NSF programs that he considers to be frivolous, has proposed new criteria, including:
[that the research is] in the interests of the United States to advance the national health, prosperity, or welfare, and to secure the national defense
Well, I thought this thing was a science for dummies quiz because the questions were so ludicrously easy, but then again, I am not the normal person. Just in case, here is a picture of my scores. And for the record, I took the test only once and was done in about 30 seconds.
My “science” scores
How well did you do?
The “them” I am talking about is congress, and the “it” is the ludicrous ethanol mandate that was foisted on us by the evil progressive green movement to make tax payers enrich a bunch of them in return for a royal shafting. AP reports that the ethanol and green lobby are storming D.C. to buy off enough politicians to keep ripping of tax payers and anyone that buys gas so some liberals can make big … Read more
Wow:
A study published recently in Environmental Science and Technology by scientists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Columbia University Earth Institute adds heft to that argument, indicating just how much human life nuclear power may have saved over the years. To wit, researchers estimate nuclear power has prevented more than 1.8 million deaths due to air pollution between 1971 and 2009.
Given our fears, the findings are counterintuitive. But
As the usual suspects are all atwitter with the news of a new pope and his extracurricular activities, some might miss the news that science has taken yet another step in understanding the super complex mysteries of the universe with the belief that they have actually found the Higgs boson, or God particle in layman’s terms:
GENEVA – The search is all but over for a subatomic particle that is a crucial building
A trio of articles published in the last week blow the doors off everything the media has been telling us about alternative energy. The first two are from Bjorn Lomborg, the economist who accepts that global warming is real but rails against top-down economy-crushing solutions (his “Cool It!” documentary is worth a look).
First, the electric car: the salvation to our energy and climate woes. How is that doing? Certainly it must be … oh… Read more
Because as usual with the green communists in charge and their insane energy policies, gas prices are going up. I found some old receipts and was doing the math, and 37 days ago I filled up at $3.48 a gallon. Yesterday I paid $3.93 for each gallon. That’s a 45 cent jump in just 37 days, and there is no economic boon anywhere to justify increased demand for oil. So, WTF is going on? … Read more
We don’t say this enough in science: holy shit!
A meteor that exploded over Russia this morning was the largest recorded object to strike the Earth in more than a century, scientists say. Infrasound data collected by a network designed to watch for nuclear weapons testing suggests that today’s blast released hundreds of kilotonnes of energy. That would make it far more powerful than the nuclear weapon tested by North Korea just days ago
With “innocent dead mutated cell experiments“!
The work, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), uses the nanoscopic organelles and other tiny components of mammalian cells as fragile templates on which to deposit silica. The researchers then heat the cell to burn off its protein. The resultant hardened silica structures are faithful to the exterior and interior features of the formerly living cell, can survive greater pressures and temperatures
We’ve been over this and over this: corn ethanol is a disaster. It’s fiscal sinkhole, an environmental fiasco and an engineering nightmare. It tears apart cars, encourages monocropping and raises food prices. And it is net energy loser. Libertarians, environmentalists, most conservatives, engineers and many liberals have found agreement on this one topic: corn ethanol needs to go.
You would think that with the worst drought since the Dust Bowl sending food prices through the … Read more
