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The hypothesis of man-made global warming has existed since the 1880s. It was an obscure scientific hypothesis that burning fossil fuels would increase CO2 in the air to enhance the greenhouse effect and thus cause global warming. Before the 1980s this hypothesis was usually regarded as a curiosity because the nineteenth century calculations indicated that mean global temperature should have risen more than 1°C by 1940, and it had not. Then, in 1979, Mrs Margaret Thatcher (now Lady Thatcher) became Prime Minister of the UK, and she elevated the hypothesis to the status of a major international policy issue. Mrs...

Skeletal collections with trauma found from the Neolithic period in Anatolia suggest that injury was caused by daily activities and lifestyle, rather than systematic violence. However, shortly after this period there is an increase in trauma associated with violence that may suggest an increase in stress within and between populations in this area... The human remains come from the site of Titris Hoyuk, dating to 2900-2100 BCE. The site grew very quickly in this period from a small farming community to an urban centre within a large mud-brick fortification wall built over a stone foundation. Within one of the house...

Explanation: Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a modest central bar. Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073, pictured above, was captured in spectacular detail in this recently released image taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Visible are dark filamentary dust lanes, young clusters of bright blue stars, red emission nebulas of glowing hydrogen gas, a long bright bar of stars across the center, and a bright active nucleus that likely houses a supermassive black hole. Light takes about 55 million years to reach us from NGC 1073,...

The world's first "test-tube" meat, a hamburger made from a cow's stem cells, will be produced this fall, Dutch scientist Mark Post told a major science conference on Sunday. Post's aim is to invent an efficient way to produce skeletal muscle tissue in a laboratory that exactly mimics meat, and eventually replace the entire meat-animal industry. The ingredients for his first burger are "still in a laboratory phase," he said, but by fall "we have committed ourselves to make a couple of thousand of small tissues, and then assemble them into a hamburger."

n contrast some geranium species, which are a favourite among gardeners, are barely ever visited by the insects and popular types of Dahlia such as the cactus Tahiti and pom pom shaped Dahlia Franz Kafka were found to be poor at providing food for foraging bees. In the UK honey bee numbers have halved in the past 25 years while numbers of bumblebees have fallen by around 60 per cent since 1970 with three species going extinct and seven suffering serious declines. The researchers hope their work can help reverse the decline in many bee species by allowing gardeners to...

When opium was cheaper than whiskey – and Great Britain waged a "wicked" drug war When Opium Was Cheaper Than Whiskey - and Great Britain waged a "wicked" drug war The bottles have a beautiful aqua color to them. If you hold them up to the light, rainbows fire across the delicate patina. But their beauty belies the deadly reality behind the delicate hues. The bottles once held opium based "elixirs," such as Dr. McMunn's Elixir of Opium, most claiming to be a cure for a host of ailments, including the relief of "convulsions and spasmodic action," as well as...

Explanation: What are these Earthlings trying to tell us? The above message was broadcast from Earth towards the globular star cluster M13 in 1974. During the dedication of the Arecibo Observatory - still the largest single radio telescope in the world - a string of 1's and 0's representing the above diagram was sent. This attempt at extraterrestrial communication was mostly ceremonial - humanity regularly broadcasts radio and television signals out into space accidentally. Even were this message received, M13 is so far away we would have to wait almost 50,000 years to hear an answer. The above message gives...

Guest post by David ArchibaldThe most skillful climatologist the World has seen was Hubert Lamb (1913 – 1997). He can be credited with making the first prediction of the current solar minimum. This was in 1970 in a report (Weiss and Lamb) for the German Navy.He did it by making a reconstructed record of the average frequency of southwesterly surface winds in England since 1340. Quoting Lamb “We sense a cycle or periodicity of close to 200 years in length.” and “There may be a valuable indication of the origin of this apparent 200 year recurrence tendency, in that the...

My recent post, “What if They Are Wrong,” explored the possibility that human-generated CO2 will be determined, after all is said and done, to have no appreciable affect on climate. The post generated a lot of discussion. I want to follow up on some of that discussion with this brief post.CO2 is, after all, a trace gas and humanity has added to it a trace amount. An essential requirement that it have a major influence on our climate is a set of feedback mechanisms that magnify its effect. Most notably, for CO2 increase to have any seriously dangerous ramifications for...

Ron Fouchier, a giant of a man at more than two meters tall (6'6"), has dark circles under his eyes. His life has been stressful lately. "They want to paint me as a homicidal idiot," he says heatedly. He is referring, most of all, to a powerful institution from the United States, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB). … Fouchier is attracting so much attention because he has created a new organism. And although it is tiny, if it escaped from his laboratory it would claim far more human lives than an exploding nuclear power plant. The pathogen...

Explanation: This rugged road through the dark Atacama Desert seems to lead skyward toward the bright stars and glowing nebulae of the southern Milky Way. If you follow the road you will get to Cerro Armazones peak in Chile, future construction site for the 40-meter class European Extremely Large Telescope. For now though, sliding your cursor across the image will identify wonders of the southern skies in view. The scene is dominated by the reddish glow of the Great Carina Nebula, one of our galaxy's largest star forming regions. In fact, the remarkable skyscape is not a composite of varying...

As much as Foley likes discovering shipwrecks -- he's found or helped find 26 in the past 14 years -- he doesn't much like spending time looking for them, at least not in the conventional ways. Rather than sending dive teams down to survey 1,000-foot transects one fin kick at a time, Foley prefers to use autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to survey huge tracts of seafloor. Where the robots don't work well, Foley sends down divers armed with closed-circuit rebreathers and thrusters, allowing them to cover more ground. He wants to go faster, he says, because he needs a lot...

A new drug compound can recharge a class of antibiotics used to fight superbug bacteria, improving the antibiotics’ effectiveness 16-fold. It’s another volley on the part of humans in the ongoing battle between new drugs and bacterial resistance. This new compound doesn’t fight the bacteria itself — it just makes the antibacterial drugs more potent, and better able to fight the bacteria despite the bugs’ resistance. The compound, developed at North Carolina State University, could help researchers fight an emerging problem with a tricky bacterial enzyme. The enzyme is called New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase, or NDM-1, and it has been found...

ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2012) — For years, biologists have been amazed by the power of gecko feet, which let these 5-ounce lizards produce an adhesive force roughly equivalent to carrying nine pounds up a wall without slipping. Now, a team of polymer scientists and a biologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered exactly how the gecko does it, leading them to invent "Geckskin," a device that can hold 700 pounds on a smooth wall. Doctoral candidate Michael Bartlett in Alfred Crosby's polymer science and engineering lab at UMass Amherst is the lead author of their article describing the...

Josh from CartoonsbyJosh.com writes: Another ‘Gate’ – but this one turned round and bit the owner.Leo Hickman and co at the Guardian thought they had a bona fide leak of incriminating information on the funding of climate skeptics by the Heartland Institute.Two problems, the funding turns out to be rather small beer, especially in comparison to the vast sums of money paid to promote Climate Change Alarmism. Secondly it looked like the funds were going to fund scientists and with another trenche for a website to explain climate science research.Hardly a surprise, and not exactly incriminating. It is what the...

As if we all haven’t endured enough political ads this election year, an environmental activist group now wants to compel every TV meteorologist to promote its flawed policy agenda. ForecastTheFacts.org, led by Daniel Souweine, chief of staff of Citizen Engagement Lab- oratory, an organizational recipient of George Soros funding, declares, “Our goal is nothing short of changing how the entire profession of meteorology tackles the issue of climate change … and [TV meteorologists] who continue to shirk their professional responsibility will be held accountable ...

A new study of a promising Alzheimer's treatment has doctors buzzing that the drug may reverse the deadly neurodegenerative disease. But the new treatment isn't a new drug at all, rather a skin cancer pill that's been FDA-approved for more than a decade. The drug, bexarotene, reversed signs of Alzheimer's in mice brains and also improved their memory in as little as 72 hours, according to the study. "This is an unprecedented finding," study author Paige Cramer, a PhD candidate at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, said in a university written statement. "Previously, the best existing treatment for Alzheimer's...

Clara Lazen is the discoverer of tetranitratoxycarbon, a molecule constructed of, obviously, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon. It's got some interesting possible properties, ranging from use as an explosive to energy storage. Lazen is listed as the co-author of a recent paper on the molecule. But that's not what's so interesting and inspiring about this story. What's so unusual here is that Clara Lazen is a ten-year-old fifth-grader in Kansas City, MO. Kenneth Boehr, Clara's science teacher, handed out the usual ball-and-stick models used to visualize simple molecules to his fifth-grade class. But Clara put the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms...

Explanation: Aristarchus Plateau is anchored in the vast lava flows of the Moon's Oceanus Procellarum. At the plateau's southeastern edge lies the spectacular Aristarchus Crater, an impact crater 40 kilometers wide and 3 kilometers deep. Scan along this remarkable panorama and you will find yourself gazing directly at the crater's west wall for some 25 kilometers. Features along the terraced wall include dark impact melt and debris deposits, bright excavated material, and boulders over 100 meters wide. At a full resolution of 1.6 meters per pixel, the sharp mosaic was created from images recorded by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's narrow...

In the perfect world of economic liberals, every commodity has its price. Limited supply makes goods more expensive and vice versa. That's how markets work—at least in theory. In practice, things often look different, and this is especially true when it comes to emissions trading, a business subject to a very different mechanism: laws dictated by the European Union. Economists have generally praised the trading scheme as a nearly ideal instrument for reducing harmful carbon dioxide emissions. … But for the last half year, prices for CO2 certificates have dropped almost continuously, decreasing by about half, to around €8 ($10.60)...

Covering something that comes out of Joy Behar's mouth makes one feel a little dirty. Analyzing Behar is like analyzing a Kardashian, only Behar isn't that smart. If science could somehow harness energy from the brainwaves that come out of this dolt's head, we might be able to light a small birthday candle. But trudge through the muck we must, to deliver such wisdom unto the masses... Via NewsBusters: The shrill, extremist comments coming from the co-hosts on The View continued, Thursday. Liberal comedienne Joy Behar trashed Virginia for passing abortion restrictions, saying the new law makes the state like...

Yesterday afternoon, two advocacy groups posted online several documents they claimed were The Heartland Institute’s 2012 budget, fundraising, and strategy plans. Some of these documents were stolen, at least one is a fake, and some may have been altered.The stolen documents appear to have been written by Heartland’s president for a board meeting that took place on January 17. He was traveling at the time this story broke yesterday afternoon and still has not had the opportunity to read them all to see if they were altered. Therefore, the authenticity of those documents has not been confirmed.Since then, the documents...

Major embarrassment for Joe Romm, and DeSmog and their unthinking fans.In the hours after the ClimateGate emails were released, skeptics asked about their authenticity (as we are want to do). In the hours after the Heartland Documents (including at least one complete fake) were released, the commentators on the other side did not even ask (just as they uncritically accept any weak report in favour of their pet theory).They leapt to their defamatory conclusions in a smear-fest. At least one person out there has probably committed a criminal act. The rest are guilty of small brained unskeptical blind hatred, defamation,...

DeSmogBlog thoroughly investigates the academic and industry backgrounds of those involved in the PR spin campaigns that are confusing the public and stalling action on global warming. If there's anyone or any organization, ( i.e. scientist, self-professed "expert," think tank, industry association, company) that you would like to see researched and reported on DeSmogBlog, please contact us here.

The search for habitable alien planets will be harder because tidal forces could remove water from planets to leave them dry worlds. Tidal heating could affect searches for habitable exoplanet, according to researchers from the University of Washington. Strong tidal forces could render planets in the habitable zone unlivable. Tidal heating occurs as orbital and rotational energy is dissipated as heat on the crust of a planet or a moon. "This has fundamentally changed the concept of a habitable zone," said researcher Rory Barnes, a planetary scientist and astrobiologist at the University of Washington... A planet could experience tidal heating...

Explanation: These two spiral galaxies make a photogenic pair, found within the boundaries of the northern constellation Draco. Contrasting in color and orientation, NGC 5965 is nearly edge-on to our line of sight and dominated by yellow hues, while bluish NGC 5963 is closer to face-on. Of course, even in this well-framed cosmic snapshot the scene is invaded by other galaxies, including small elliptical NGC 5969 at the lower left. Brighter, spiky stars in our own Milky Way are scattered through the foreground. Though they seem to be close and of similar size, galaxies NGC 5965 and NGC 5963 are...

As we learned in science class in school, the Earth has a molten interior (the outer core) deep beneath its mantle and crust. The temperatures and pressures are increasingly extreme, the farther down you go. The liquid magmas can "melt" into different types, a process referred to as pressure-induced liquid-liquid phase separation. Graphite can turn into diamond under similar extreme pressures. Now, new research is showing that a similar process could take place inside "Super-Earth" exoplanets, rocky worlds larger than Earth, where a molten magnesium silicate interior would likely be transformed into a denser state as well. Simply put, the...

The gravitational pull of large gas giant planets can affect the orbits of smaller planets; that scenario is thought to have occurred in our own solar system. In some cases, the smaller planet may be flung into a much wider orbit, perhaps even 100 times wider than Pluto's. In the case of single stars, that's normally how it ends. In a binary star system, however, the two stars may play a game of "cosmic pinball" with the poor planet first. Moeckel and Dimitri conducted simulations of binary star systems, with two sun-like stars orbiting each other at distances between 250...

This artist's impression shows the super-Earth exoplanet GJ 1214b passing in front of its faint red parent star. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada There are many models predicting the potential sizes and locations for Earth-like planets. The new equation-of-state work performed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and their collaborators will help interpret the structure of exoplanets. Image Credit: Marc Kuchner/NASA GSFC

The path of true love never runs smooth, it is said. Especially on Valentine's Day. And for young planets, that path turns out to be an inward-moving annulus. A simulation by scientists in France and USA appears to show that Jupiter once strayed to flirt with the inner Solar System, before being "jilted" and sent back to its present-day position. The effect of this was to form the inner planets, according to the theory, which comes up with mass ratios for Earth and Mars similar to that observed today and which, remarkably, also accurately depicts the Asteroid Belt. If the...

Explanation: Reflection nebulas reflect light from a nearby star. Many small carbon grains in the nebula reflect the light. The blue color typical of reflection nebula is caused by blue light being more efficiently scattered by the carbon dust than red light. The brightness of the nebula is determined by the size and density of the reflecting grains, and by the color and brightness of the neighboring star(s). NGC 1435, pictured above, surrounds Merope (23 Tau), one of the brightest stars in the Pleiades (M45). The Pleiades nebulosity is caused by a chance encounter between an open cluster of stars...

Antibiotics don't help fight most sinus infections, although doctors routinely prescribe them for that purpose, according to a U.S. study. Researchers whose work was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that antibiotics didn't ease patients' symptoms or get them back to work any sooner than an inactive placebo pill. Antibiotics are known to fuel the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria and experts have grown increasingly worried about overuse. This is a particular concern with sinus infections, because doctors can't tell if the disease is caused by bacteria or by a virus, in which case antibiotics are useless....

Explanation: The Rosette Nebula is not the only cosmic cloud of gas and dust to evoke the imagery of flowers -- but it is the most famous. At the edge of a large molecular cloud in Monoceros, some 5,000 light years away, the petals of this rose are actually a stellar nursery whose lovely, symmetric shape is sculpted by the winds and radiation from its central cluster of hot young stars. The stars in the energetic cluster, cataloged as NGC 2244, are only a few million years old, while the central cavity in the Rosette Nebula, cataloged as NGC 2237,...

If true, it suggests periods of reduced Arctic sea ice during that time that made this feat possible.Reposted from the blog Ecotretas with permission A graphical comparison between the North East Passage (blue) and an alternative route through Suez Canal (red) David Melgueiro, a Portuguese navigator, might have been the first to navigate the Northeast Passage (known now as Northern Sea Route), between 1660 and 1662, more than 200 years before Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld, who did it ​​in 1878. One of the most detailed accounts for this voyage is given by Eduardo Brazão in The Corte-Real family and the New...

Parents at Warren High School in Downey were shocked by what we discovered about a two-story concrete classroom building that does not meet today’s earthquake-related building codes. But it was just one of thousands of school buildings that state experts said could be putting children at risk in the next big earthquake, including schools from Laguna Beach to Ventura; San Bernardino to Glendora; and many communities in between. The wakeup call came on the evening of March 10, 1933, in Long Beach when 230 school buildings were either destroyed or severely damaged in a 6.3-magnitude quake. Just one month later...

Proof electric cars DO cause more pollution than normal ones: Study shows impact is worse than petrol-powered vehicles Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2100936/Study-shows-impact-electric-cars-worse-petrol-powered-vehicles.html#ixzz1mNkAhlSk

We've been waiting and hoping that the Rhinestone Cowboy might come to Orange County one last time before finally hanging up his microphone, but it doesn't seem likely now -- not when a huge farewell has been slated for the Hollywood Bowl. As has been widely reported -- and repeated Sunday night just before the Lifetime Achievement Award honoree took the stage for a rousing, admirable tribute at the Grammys -- Glen Campbell, 76, is facing the onset of Alzheimer's by embarking on a farewell trek (The Goodbye Tour) behind one final album, his 61st (!), last August's acclaimed Ghost...

Jaroslav Flegr is no kook. And yet, for years, he suspected his mind had been taken over by parasites that had invaded his brain. So the prolific biologist took his science-fiction hunch into the lab. What he’s now discovering will startle you. Could tiny organisms carried by house cats be creeping into our brains, causing everything from car wrecks to schizophrenia? No one would accuse Jaroslav Flegr of being a conformist. A self-described “sloppy dresser,” the 63-year-old Czech scientist has the contemplative air of someone habitually lost in thought, and his still-youthful, square-jawed face is framed by frizzy red hair...

Oftentimes I'm perfectly happy being in the cheap seats when witnessing life's spectacular moments. (Well, not perfectly happy. I'm always searching for a better view.) Take the Northern Lights. In recent weeks, some people who normally might not be able to gaze at the Aurora Borealis from their own back yard got treated to quite the light show, thanks to a solar radiation storm late last month. But what would the Northern Lights look like from the real nosebleeds (though not cheap)? What would they look like from, say, the International Space Station? NASA has released video of a sequence...

But for the glow from the campfire, it is impenetrably dark. Never are there stars, as if that would be too much to hope for. Instead, beyond the rock overhang, it's pouring, waves of water relentlessly slapping the giant fronds of the jungle. It always seems to rain at night here in the mountains of Papua New Guinea. This is why Lidia and what's left of her people, the Meakambut, seek refuge in rock shelters -- they're dry. Located high in the cliffs, sometimes requiring a treacherous climb up vines, caves are also natural fortresses that once protected the Meakambut...

Explanation: Why would Venus appear oval? Venus has been seen countless times from the surface of the Earth, and every time the Earth's atmosphere has dispersed its light to some degree. When the air has just the right amount of dust or water droplets, small but distant objects like Venus appear spread out into an angularly large aureole. Aureoles are not unusual to see and are frequently noted as circular coronas around the Sun or Moon. Recently, however, aureoles have been imaged that are not circular but distinctly oval. The above oval Venusian aureole was imaged by the astrophotographer who...

Fun and interesting interactive look at the scale of the universe. http://images.4channel.org/f/src/589217_scale_of_universe_enhanced.swf

People who claim that “the science is settled” on global warming have to be pretty unsettled by the science news in the last week.“Setttled science”, of course, means that we are inevitably headed toward a disastrous warming of surface temperatures as forecast by some computer models, and we therefore need an international carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, pronto.Settled science would know all of the important “forcings” and “feedbacks” in the climate system, such as the sensitivity of surface temperature to changes in carbon dioxide (a forcing) and the behavior of clouds, which could either enhance or counter warming (a feedback).Now...

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Anthony Watts Foreword: Dr Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, authors of a new controversial skeptic book now hitting German bookstores, have asked me to post their response to comments made by climate scientist Georg Feulner of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in an interview by NTV television. Feulner insists that CO2 plays the major role in climate change and that the sun has little impact.You can read about the new book just published in Germany that is causing an uproar in the German green establishment here. The response is so vitriolic...

Do Latest Solar Studies Confirm Upcoming Global Cooling? Posted on February 13, 2012 by Anthony Watts Guest post by Matti VooroImage via Wikipedia I fully support the findings of  Jan –Erik Solheim , Kjell Stordahl and Ole Humlum and their very recent paper called The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24  dated February 2012. The abstract reads: Relations between the length of a sunspot cycle and the average temperature in the same and the next cycle are calculated for a number of meteorological stations in Norway and in the North Atlantic region. No significant trend...

Right-wingers tend to be less intelligent than left-wingers, and people with low childhood intelligence tend to grow up to have racist and anti-gay views, says a controversial new study. Conservative politics work almost as a 'gateway' into prejudice against others, say the Canadian academics. The paper analyzed large UK studies which compared childhood intelligence with political views in adulthood across more than 15,000 people. The authors claim that people with low intelligence gravitate towards right-wing views because they make them feel safe. Crucially, people's educational level is not what determines whether they are racist or not—it's innate intelligence, according to...

Hungary has taken a bold stand against biotech giant Monsanto and genetic modification by destroying 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds, according to Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar. Unlike many European Union countries, Hungary is a nation where genetically modified (GM) seeds are banned. In a similar stance against GM ingredients, Peru has also passed a 10 year ban on GM foods.

Why does Adele's 'Someone Like You' make everyone cry? Science has found the formula. -Excerpt- Twenty years ago, the British psychologist John Sloboda conducted a simple experiment. He asked music lovers to identify passages of songs that reliably set off a physical reaction, such as tears or goose bumps. Participants identified 20 tear-triggering passages, and when Dr. Sloboda analyzed their properties, a trend emerged: 18 contained a musical device called an "appoggiatura." An appoggiatura is a type of ornamental note that clashes with the melody just enough to create a dissonant sound. "This generates tension in the listener," said Martin...

The penetration to relict water of subglacial Lake Vostok happened at last on 5 February at 20.25 Moscow time. On 4 February there was a contact of the drill with the water lens at the borehole depth of 3766 m. The ice core bottom segment extracted from this depth served as evidence – the surface of the lower 70 cm of the ice core was glazed, as if it were submerged to water just before recovery. No ducts or capillaries in the ice core body were visually observed at this. Exactly this contact with the water lens in the borehole...

Shyness, bereavement and eccentric behavior could be classed as a mental illness under new guidelines, leaving millions of people at risk of being diagnosed as having a psychiatric disorder, experts fear. Under changes planned to the diagnosis handbook used by doctors in the US, common behavioral traits are likely to be listed as a mental illness, it was reported. The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders could also include internet addiction and gambling as a medical problem. … "We need to be very careful before further broadening the boundaries of illness and disorder," Simon...