Science

Sometimes I look with considerable interest at the global warming deniers because I think, for a brief moment, they may have found something of importance to say. So far, though, I always find that they are as dazed and confused as ever. This is the case with the recent salvo from self-proclaimed "rocket scientist" David Evans. David Evans claims expertise on global warming because of two things: his being a "rocket scientist" and his having previously done "carbon accounting" for the Australian government. Now ANYTIME someone tells you they are a "rocket scientist" it should be a red flag to you. I have never met anyone, including people who work for NASA, to identify themselves professionally as a "rocket scientist." Turns out Evans has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and has not published a single peer-reviewed research paper on the subject of climate change. In fact he has published only a singlepaper in his entire career, and that was back in 1987 and had nothing to do with global warming. THis puts him on par with me vis a vis global warming: educated, smart and probably informed. I don't claim to be an expert in the field. Instead I cite experts in the field to support my claims.

Global warming is hitting us already. It is no coincidence that some of the biggest storms and an unexpected number of storms are hitting us now. Nor are food shortages coincidence...nor are they caused primarily by biofuels. Extreme weather, an expected part of global warming, is hitting us hard, damaging crops around the world. Crops are established based on a particular climate. That climate has changed and it will take time for agriculture to adapt and infrastructure to be put into place. Time and money.

Global warming isn't our future. It is our now.

I have covered how the more optimistic scientists think we have 10 years (now more like 8) to deal with global warming before we are hit with the full brunt of it. Essentially that means we have that period to mitigate the eventual effects. Keep in mind that there will be some delay before the worst happens. That relative optimism is fading. Now even some of the most optimistic scietists are realizing that the models were wrong. Global warming is hitting harder and faster than predicted. Things are WORSE than the models predicted. Jim Hansen, possibly the top global warming scientist and the head of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Sciences (where my wife works), has revised the estimate of how long we have to act to mitigate global warming down to one year. This is our last chance right now. Time has run out to act.

I actually met Tyson on our way to New York at Washington DC's Union Square Station. I was with Chris Rabb of Afronetizen and we just bumped into him.

Chris just started talking to him and I was just standing agog. He actually reminds me of Fuzzy Bear from The Muppets. A really, really smart and sexy Fuzzy Bear. Make that what you wish.

I love this clip because the point he wants to make is that the universe was not made with us in mind. He also had the audacity to have pictures of aborted fetuses with extreme birth defects to make exactly that point.

Takes balls of steel in today's political environment to do that.

PS : As per his wikipedia entry, NdGT was vote the sexiest astrophysicist in the United States by People Magazine.

"Dr. Katari ... invited me to a first session with a lovely group of rapists, murderers and robbers." --John Cleese in The Benefits of Laughter Yoga with John Cleese

Whenever I start researching uplifting stories involving science or technology for Kenneth Cole's Awearnessblog, I always end up unearthing some really funky project from India. The latest is the Yoga of Laughter created by Dr Madan Kataria who has this published on his website, Laughter Yoga :

Recently I wrote a piece kind of throwing together the ideas of human evolution and personal genealogy, two things that clearly are ultimately connected because they both come down to simple genetics and who begat whom, but in reality are so separated in time that we cannot properly connect them. But those who accept genealogies and DNA tests for paternity have to accept evolution, because the concepts are the same. Ultimately genes work a certain way and we understand how they work quite well. Evolution is no great mystery or controversy. What is amazing is that Darwin, with no concept of genes, came up with a system that once genes were studied was found to fit very well how genes actually work. Genetics and Evolution started as separate fields, but amazingly the two separate fields merged almost perfectly. To me genealogy is simply what we can see up close of our evolutionary path. Once we get a few generations back, the branches of our ancestry become quite tangled and hard to see...but they are there. And their imprint is in our genes.

Recenly some new developments occurred in studying human evolution that I now want to fit into my previous thoughts on the subject. Slowly it seems like the path of human physical and cultural evolution is being outlined, and I am enjoying each new piece of information.

I am flabbergasted that someone like Ben Stein, a man who actually had a game show built around how nobody was smarter than him, would become an apologist for the anti-evolutionists aka Intelligent Design movement. His membership in Mensa should be revoked immediately for the offensive anti-science, let's pander to the extreme right narrative of the pseudo-documentary, Ben Stein is Expelled : No intelligence Allowed.

Well, when PZ Meyers, my favorite science blogger, demands we join his minions and spread the word of a counter documentary for ID propaganda, am all over it. Sit back and pass the popcorn, it's time for Expelled Exposed.

An ongoing effort of mine is to fight the misuse of antibiotics. Misuse of antibiotics has been an increasing health hazard for people, leading to many strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria that infect, and sometimes kill, people, particularly children, the elderly and the immunocompromised. Last time I wrote about this I was able to report a victory in the fight to keep antibiotics effective. Today I want to introduce the latest fight.

First, for those who want more background, the Union of Concerned Scientists has an excellent rundown. An excerpt from their site:

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are on the rise. Patients once effectively treated for pneumonia, tuberculosis, or ear infections may now have to try three or more antibiotics before they find one that works. And as more bacterial strains develop resistance, more people will die because effective antibiotics are not identified quickly enough or because the bacteria causing the disease are resistant to all available antibiotics.

Why have bacterial strains become resistant? The short answer is overuse of antibiotics. Physicians and hospitals have overprescribed the drugs, and patients have demanded them—even for illnesses not caused by bacteria. Veterinarians, too, overprescribe drugs to treat sick animals.

Republican corruption has inspired voters to vote out a good chunk of the Republican leadership. Democrats have replaced Tom DeLay and Mark Foley. This coming Saturday, March 8th, voters might elect Democrat Bill Foster to replace the disgraced Dennis Hastert. Bill Foster is a successful busiessman and eminient physicist and would make an excellent Congressman. The race is very close.

Among Bill Foster's many supporters is Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Obama has taken time out of his presidential campaign to make an ad supporting Foster:

You can make a last minute contribution to elect Bill Foster to Congress through Senator Dick Durbin's Act Blue Site. And if you live in Illinois, you can volunteer on Saturday, March 8, for Bill's campaign: Marianne_at_foster08.com.

I was reminded today by a foolish comment in another diary on Culture Kitchen by a global warming denier that this nation needs more common sense in Congress. The latest global warming denial foolishness is claiming that because it is cold this winter, global warming can't be happening. This is a huge fallacy. Trying to deny a century-long pattern based on a single season is about as wrong as you can get in science. What we need is more scientific input in Congress...and what better way to do that then electing a scientist to Congress. We have that chance March 8th in Illinois.

Corrupt Republican Dennis Hastert was the Congressman in the IL-14 district until he resigned in disgrace. Hastert was one of the leaders of the Republican Party who knew about and ignored, even covered up, the pedophilia of Republican Congressman Mark Foley.

Now Bill Foster, an eminent scientist at Fermilab and successful businessman, is running to take his place. This race pits Foster, who is against the Bush/McCain Iraq quagmire and for affordable healthcare, against pro-Bush, pro-War, right wing extremist Oberweis. The choice is clear. Bill Foster is the man.

Before he became a scientist, starting at age 19 and with $500 from their parents, Bill and his brother built a company that now manufactures over half of the theater lighting equipment in the United States. At Fermilab Bill is a leading scientist in elementary particle physics. He has also managed several multimillion dollar accelerator construction and research projects, and led teams of engineers and physicists to help build the latest round of Fermilab's giant particle accelerators. An impressive career as a businessman, scientist and manager. Experience that would be excellent in Congress.

Race, ethnicity, culture, family...all important to people. But usually we think of these things completely separate from reality.

I have been reading several books that together have put some of this into perspective. Each of us are part of the whole sweep of human evolution, and we are all related in a very real, genetic way.

This man might be your ancestor:

(Ramesses II, king of Egypt, 13th century BC)

Yep, I bet lots of people today could, if only we had all the information, trace their ancestry back to this man. I would guess somewhere in the millions of people today are his descendants.

Go back far enough and we are all related. This is a fact. Or, more precisely, every little piece of our DNA ultimately derives from a common ancestor that can be traced back to some specific time and place.

This has most accurately and famously been done with our mitochondrial DNA. This DNA is something we all get from our mothers, so it is a strictly maternal descent. Men contribute nothing to it. In 1987 an amazing paper in the Journal Nature presented an analysis of modern mitochondrial DNA to show that all human beings can trace their mitochondrial DNA back to a common ancestor living in East Africa some 100-150,000 years ago. At that time some 20,000 anatomically modern humans were around.