Category: science

Climate Change Deniers Write Another Fact-Free Op-Ed

Climate Change Deniers Write Another Fact-Free Op-Ed

The letter itself is based on a single claim. So let’s be clear: If that claim is wrong, so is the rest of the letter. Guess what? That claim is wrong. So blatantly wrong, in fact, it’s hard to imagine anyone could write it with a straight face. It says: “The U.K. Met Office recently released data showing that there has been no statistically significant global warming for almost 16 years.” This is simply, completely, and utterly false.

Worth a read.

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world – New Scientist

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world – New Scientist

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York’s Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world’s transnational corporations

Take this with a grain of salt. Being connected may not be the same as being in control. And I am not sure what assumptions they made and how true they may be. But the study is an interesting one and might give rise to more.

How German Solar Has Made All German Electricity Cheaper

How German Solar Has Made All German Electricity Cheaper

The Fraunhofer Institute found that – as a result of the Merit Order ranking system – solar power had reduced the price of electricity on the EPEX exchange by 10 percent on the average, with reductions peaking at up to 40 percent in the early afternoon when the most solar power is generated.

Its amazing how public policy can work when it isn’t subverted by zealots and shills chanting Drill Baby Drill.

ScienceNOW: Findings suggest that privilege promotes dishonesty

ScienceNOW: Findings suggest that privilege promotes dishonesty

To see whether dishonesty varies with social class, psychologist Paul Piff of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues devised a series of tests, working with groups of 100 to 200 Berkeley undergraduates or adults recruited online. Subjects completed a standard gauge of their social status, placing an X on one of 10 rungs of a ladder representing their income, education, and how much respect their jobs might command compared with other Americans. The team’s findings suggest that privilege promotes dishonesty. For example, upper-class subjects were more likely to cheat.

Freakanomics’ bagel story reports the same findings. There was more theft of bagels at the wealthier client sites and more theft on executive floors.

Zoologger: Unique life form is half plant, half animal

Zoologger: Unique life form is half plant, half animal

These hybrids play merry hell with our attempts to classify organisms into neat groups. “The division between plants and animals is collapsing completely,” Moestrup says. Instead, many microorganisms may be animal and plant at once, or switch between the two, like M. rubrum. The new M. chamaeleon breaks yet another barrier. It is halfway between a pure animal and a hybrid.