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late April 2018 |
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Asteroids could have delivered water to the early Earth (Science News) published article: The delivery of water by impacts from planetary accretion to the present (Science Advances) (no paywall) Watch thousands of asteroids orbit the sun (Earth & Sky) in a NASA video Mud cracks reveal Martian lake's history (Sky & Telescope) polygonal shapes on rock surfaces Uranus smells like rotten eggs (Astronomy) H2S is more abundant than NH3 Martian Homes and Gardens (Astronomy) "a handbook for settling Mars" free, downloadable 26-page pdf booklet The mystery of methane on Mars (Nature) its abundance varies... what's producing it? where is it going? Mars' moons likely formed by proto-Mars impact with Ceres- sized object (Astronomy) with a short simulation published article (Science Advances) New NASA head confirmed (Science) with zero background in science.... only in TrumpWorld TESS launches tonight (4/18/2108) at 6:51 pm EDT (NY Times) Diamond-containing meteorites originated in the asteroidal remnant of long-lost planet (Washington Post) published paper (Nature) Discover comments How Clipper gets to Europa (ars technica) climate change 9 questions about global warming you were too embarrassed to ask (Vox) the best 'short' description of the evidence, how we know it's human-caused, and its future Antarctic glaciers are driving their own melting (Scientific American) in a positive feedback loop published article (Science Advances) Rising CO2 may not be as good for plants as once thought (Science News) long-term experiment shows a suprising reversal of fortune Half of coral in Great Barrier Reef died (Atlantic) during 2016 heat wave Recent ocean 'heat waves' have forever altered Great Barrier Reef (Scientific American) published article (Nature) (paywall) Arid/humid climate boundary in the US creeps eastward (Scientific American) a nation divided What will America look like in 10,000 years? (NY Times) a climate-change quiz Effects of global warming will hit poorer countries first (Nature) Egypt, Bangladesh et al. will feel effects first.... rich countries much later Climate change is making it harder to predictdisease outbreaks (Scientific American, May 2017 issue) 20th anniversaruy of the hockey-stick graph (Scientific American) time to speak out on Earth Day environment How big is your carbon footprint? (Scientific American) celebrate Earth Day (Sunday, 4/22/18) with real data 7 things we've learned since the last Earth Day (Vox) plastic is a big problem; Greenland's ice is melting too fast... and more climate politics The problems with EPA's Scott Pruitt (Politico) all 13 of them but his biggest failure is his failure to protect the environment (Washington Post) How the science of persuasion could change the politics of climate change (MIT Tech Review) Pruitt signs bill limiting science used in decisions (Washington Post) EPA's Pruitt battles to eliminate 'secret science' (Vox) and what's 'secret science' anyway? Why the EPA 'secret science' proposal is nonsense (Union of Concerned Scientists) Pruitt's 'secret science' proposal driven by politics (Union of Concerned Scientists) climate solutions Rocks that turn CO2 into stone (NY Times) in Oman Daunting math of global warming requires carbon capture (MIT Tech Review) |
First image of a surviving supernova companion (Astronomy) was it responsible for the explosion? The hunt for the sun's siblings (Astronomy) DNA of 350,000 stars queried γ-ray supernova remnants shed light on cosmic rays (Sky & Telescope) nice pun? A type II supernova finally explodes -- on the computer (Nature) the first ever 3-d calculations with good physics! Black holes in globular clusters likely experience multiple mergers (Earth & Sky) Wandering around the Lagoon Nebula (Quartz) a 2-minute video |
A virtual tour of 6 exoplanets (Earth & Sky) that is, if you have a virtual-reality headset & earphones .. if not, don't bother Escape from Proxima Centauri b: not likely with chemical rockets (Scientific American) what happens around an M star stays around an M star |
A link between galaxy shape and galaxy age (Science News) young galaxies are flat; old galaxies are more blobby published article (Nature Astronomy) (no paywall) Gaia Data 2 Release Billion-star map to transform astronomy (Nature) it's full of stars! Gaia's map widens cosmic consensus (Sky & Telescope) The Milky Way, as never before (Scientific American) Earth & Sky has some maps others don't New 3-D map of Milky Way coming April 25 (Scientific American) ---------------------- Merger of giant galaxies began just 1.5 Gyr A.B. (Astronomy) also 14 galaxies might (have) become the universe's most massive structure (Sky & Telescope) free preprint (arXiv) of published article (Nature) (paywall) An almost-as-large galaxy protocluster is described here (Astrophysical Journal) (paywall) Is there more than 1 SMBH at the center of the Milky Way? (Earth & Sky) |
Einstein's 'spooky action-at-a-distance' spotted in objects almost large enough to see (Science) in pairs of aluminum drum heads -- about the width of a human hair -- etched onto silicon chips Should quantum anomalies make us rethink reality? (Scientific American) 'is the moon there when no one looks' still unresolved? Searching for new laws of physics with ultra-accurate clocks (Quanta) e.g., tightening the constraints on dark matter The next gravitational wave discovery: continuous gravitational waves (Max Planck Institute) The illusion of time (Nature) book review of Carlo Rovelli's 'The Order of Time' read with extreme caution Rotating wormholes can cast detectable shadows (arXiv) Making sense of the multiverse (Knowable) instead, be very afraid |
How the Internet went wrong, in 15 steps (New York) "Even those who designed our digital world are aghast at what they created" What's NOT included in Facebook's 'Download your data' (Wired) uh oh.... another day, another FB lie Facebook could easily make privacy the default (Washington Post) but it still hasn't Hillary Clinton: "They were never going to let me be President" (NY Times book review) she still doesn't get why she's not President Guns banned at NRA talk by VP Mike Pence (Washington Post) wait... wasn't gun- carrying supposed to make everyone safer? imperiling a free press America is no longer the standard bearer for a free press (Time) how press protections are undermined in America Trump's war on the press (Politico) its deep roots Why Trump is winning, and the free press is losing (NY Books) adapted from a talk at the Center for Media at Risk The rise of fake news (Newsroom) What Trump wants: freedom from the press (NY Times) ---------------------- life in America How the baby boomers screwed America (Vox) they cut their own taxes while increasing the US debt, allowed our infrastructure to crumble, degraded our education system, and done nothing about global warming Amazon gets tax breaks; its workers get food stamps (Intercept) The state that foreshadows America's future (NY Times book review) Texas How to help schools and students (NY Times) although it's good to know where to s end money if you have an excess... why isn't our government (and our taxes) taking care of this? Upzoning the American dream (New York) the housing crisis in America Securing cities from cyber-attacks (American Prospect) American democracy in trouble? (Vox) 5 books say yes Adapting to American decline (NY Times) The Reinvention of America (Atlantic) already here or coming soon Gathering of Nations: April 25 -27, 2018 Albuquerque, NM North America's biggest powwow ---------------------- voting local Voting starts soon in NC (Raleigh N&O) what you need to know Check if you're registered to vote in NC (NC Election Board) Who's running for office in Durham (Durham Herald Sun) and why Where Durham County DA candidates stand on issues (Durham Herald Sun) Voting Guide (IndyWeeK) and endorsements, mostly with reasons Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People endorsements (Scribd) without reasons Durham People's Alliance endorsements (Durham Herald Sun) nationwide Republicans and Democrats should both be worried about 2020 election (538) demographic problems for GOP; Electoral College problems for Dems Debunking the myth that identity politics is bad for the Democratic Party (Vox) maybe, but it's bad for the country ---------------------- Durham & the Triangle Durham is the 12th- most millennial city (Politico) Triangle is going to grow -- by a lot (Raleigh N&O) get over it Durham County homicide database (Durham Herald Sun) who was killed where and when Gentrification in Durham (Durham Herald Sun) ---------------------- trips Basin and Range National Monument (NY Times) landscapes, art, and aliens A photo journey to Ethiopia's Danakil Depression (Atlantic) 10 parks where the sky is dark (Sky & Telescope) how can Big Bend NP not be on the list? A voyage along Trump's wall (New Yorker) how life landscape and life will change along the border Palio di Siena: a survivor's guide (NY Times) the mad horse race Guadeloupe... where French colonialism lives on (Atlantic) A photo trip to Socotra (Atlantic) a Yemeni island in the Arabian Sea with bizarre plants and animals ---------------------- Syria How Syria came to this (Atlantic) 7 years of civil war, and 500,000 dead Why is OK for Assad to kill Syrians by non-chemical means? (Washington Post) Syria civil war map (Syria Live Map) Syria: who controls what (Al Jazeera) ---------------------- Inside Tillerson's ouster (New Yorker) the last days of his brief and chaotic tenure |
teachers on strike What's at stake in teachers' strikes (The Nation) the future of democracy Why even GOP teachers are striking in Arizona (NY Times) and elsewhere How Arizona teachers' walkout will play out (Tucson Daily Star) first statewide teacher strike (April 26-27, 2018) in AZ history Arizona teachers want more than a raise (Vox) they want public schools funded again Colorado teachers strike (4/26/18) (Denver Post) what they want... and the bill threatening them with fines, jail, and being fired without a hearing Striking teachers in coal and gas country force rethinking of giveaways to big energy companies (Intercept) It's time for NC public school teachers to negotiate their own terms (Raleigh N&O) teacher pay has dropped 11% over the last 15 years How many more Durham teachers must take a personal day before schools close on 5/14/18? (Durham Herald Sun) ---------------------- civilizations Was there a pre- human civilization on Earth? (Atlantic) how easy would it be to find evidence? to-be-published article preprint (arXiv) If there were a previous industrial civilization, would we know? (MIT Tech Review) Washington Post commentary Scientific American comments 'Civilizations': the most ambitious story about art (Washington Post) ever told on television Dinosaurs were lucky (Scientific American, May 2017 issue) their unlikely triumph ---------------------- learning & teaching Why American students haven't gotten better at reading in 20 years (Atlantic) a failure to build knowledge at the expense of comprehension 25-year-old textbooks & holes in the ceiling (NY Times) inside American education.... with pictures Does math make you smarter? (NY Times) The soul-crushing student essay (NY Times) applying to college and from the extreme right wing Spending more money on K-12 education might not be a smart move (Raleigh N&O) what a dumb comment... more money for NC education is smart & crucially important "Blood on our hands" if we don't arm teachers (Raleigh N&O) says GOP "lawmaker" (money for gun training but not for teacher pay?) Is the future of college the future of retail? (Atlantic) part digital, part physical Legacy college admissions should go away (Raleigh N&O) ---------------------- science (and math) Closing the gender gap in some STEM fields could take 100 years (or more) (PLOS Biology) 40 years for Chemistry; 50 years for Math; 90 for Physics; 110 for Astrophysics; 280 for Computer Science !! Human-giant-sloth interactions go back 15,000 years (Science) Chronological clues to life's early history (Quanta) lurk in gene transfers So why are there ice holes in the Arctic? (Washington Post) How to talk to evangelicals about evolution (Smithsonian) I don't buy it Is science hitting a wall? (Scientific American) increased research efforts are yielding diminishing returns The new era of multi-messenger astronomy (Scientific American, May 2017 issue) How the sweet potato conquered the world (NY Times) Science and religion are "remarkably harmonious" (Raleigh N&O) sure, if you live in Fantasyland Was a nuclear geyser responsible for the origin of life on Earth? (Science Direct) Progress in the "chromatic number of the plane" math problem (Quanta) ---------------------- days and months North Carolina Science Festival (NCSF) is April 1 - 30 April 21 is Astronomy Day (Sky & Telescope) and April is Math and Statistics Awareness month and National Poetry month and... ---------------------- Physics Nobel Prize needs reform (Nature) it's biased against women & younger scientists; emphasis should be on serendipitous discoveries more commentary and reviews (Not Even Wrong) |
early April 2018 |
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An infrared tour of Jupiter's north pole (Astronomy) from Juno The 15-quadrillion- dollar prize: asteroid mining (Bloomberg) Venus ascending (Sky & Telescope) in the night sky Life adrift in the clouds of Venus? (Earth & Sky) Astronomy has more details published article (Astrobiology) April is Global Astronomy Month (Astronomers without Borders) with emphasis on our Moon upcoming missions MarsInSight, NASA Mars lander mission (NASA) launch in May 2018? TESS, a NASA mission to find exoplanets in the solar neighborhood (NASA) launch in April 2018? NASA-tv to cover launch passing the baton from Kepler to TESS (Earth & Sky) seeking exoplanets closer to home (Nature) Parker Solar Probe, a NASA mission to 'touch the sun' (Johns Hopkins) launch August 2018? ...do not fall for the 'send your name to the sun' prank BepiColombo, a combined ESA/JAEA mission to Mercury (ESA) launch October 2018? ---------------------- climate change Cleaner air will change the climate (Science) likely making it warmer as polluting aerosols are reduced ... but effects might be regional Eroding mountains might release CO2 (Science) and not trap it via the carbon cycle Oceans' circulation hasn't been this sluggish in 1000 yrs (Washington Post) AMOC has weakened by 15% since mid-20th century, as judged indirectly Nature comments Scientific American comments published article #1 (Nature) published article #2 (Nature) (both paywall) Ocean heat waves : more frequent and lasting longer (Nature) over the last 100 years Scientific American comments The Arctic: shattering records, altering world climate (Scientific American, April 2018 issue) (paywall) Why are glaciers melting from the bottom? (Scientific American) it's complicated energy and climate US is winning the climate fight in electricity (Vox) but losing everywhere else How to reduce your personal carbon footprint (NY Times) at home, on the road, & in the sky The danger in closing nuclear power plants (Vox) we need more carbon-free energy, not less (but, hey, never mind radioactive waste) climate mitigation The role of CO2 capture and utilization in mitigating climate change (Nature Climate Change) it's highly unlikely that this will account for more than 1% of mitigation needed but XPRIZE announces 10 finalists in CO2 conversion contest (XPRIZE) politics and climate Are Pruitt's EPA rollbacks a myth? (Politico) is he "dangerously effective" or not "having much of an impact"? Climate change denialists say polar bears are fine (NY Times) scientists disagree |
A zoo of disks around young stars (Astronomy) Sun's giant tornadoes are not spinning (Royal Astronomical Society) how can tornadoes not spin? A supernova remnant surrounding an isolated neutron star (European Space Agency) in the SMC 'Fast Supernovae' reveal their secrets (Sky & Telescope) 72 more discovered A walk in time through the Crab Nebula (Chandra) 1999 - 2018 The most distant star ever seen (Astronomy) gravitationally-lensed blue supergiant at z = 1.5 published article Nature Astronomy free access |
Life in the Universe conference, April 12 - April 13 {Breakthrough Initiatives) watch/listen live That Earth 2.0? Never mind... perhaps (Scientific American) Kepler 452b may not exist it's only a 90%- confidence level detection (Astrobites) Do stellar X-rays sterilize otherwise habitable exoplanets? (Astronomy) flares and CMEs are not uncommon on red dwarf stars searching for life on exoplanets remotely (from arXiv) Surface and temporal biosignatures A review of exoplanet biosignatures Exoplanets: possible biosignatures Exoplanet biosignatures: a review Exoplanet biosignatures: a framework for assessment Exoplanet biosignatures: observational prospects ---------------------- |
First precise distance to one of Milky Way's globular clusters? (Hubble) parallax measurements reduce uncertainty to 3% A swarm of black holes at the center of the Milky Way? (Science) thousands? tens of thousands? mostly x-ray binaries? Sky & Telescope has more details Nature comments A cosmic cold front moves through the Perseus Cluster (Chandra) The SMBH jets in Pegasus A (Astronomy) are much wider than expected Is the Milky Way getting bigger? (Royal Astronomical Society) slightly, slowly Flashes in the night: fast radio bursts (Scientific American, April 2018 issue) (paywall) |
Is there a background gravitational-wave hum due to the 105 black-hole mergers per year? (Astronomy) in the universe Dark photons (wait, what?!?) likely don't exist (Science News) says new measurements of fine-structure constant A new GR effect on Mercury's orbit predicted (Science News) too subtle to have been detected so far, but soon .... Independent analysis of DAMA dark- matter signal doesn't find it (Quanta) but DAMA's dark-matter signal.... still there, after 20 years (Nature) but no one else can confirm it Gravitational waves could solve some of the deepest mysteries of the universe (Nature) origin of black holes. structure of neutron stars, origin of galactic hierarchy Is a higher-energy collider needed? (Back Reaction) or are physicists just making up reasons? CERN experiments on antihydrogen atoms tighten limits on violations of special relativity (Science) Reversing time's thermodynamic arrow? (Quanta) making energy flow from hot to cold |
Boycott Turbotax & TaxAct (HR Block) (Vox) you're just paying lobbyists supporting complicated tax law... use Credit Karma, it's free Friday the 13th, a 20th century invention? (Vox) or An origin obscured by the mists of time (Snopes) Tax dollars for napping (NY Times) would be funny if it weren't true Where blue-collar America is strongest (538) America's middle has been outperforming the coasts for decades, and rural America is doing just fine the shame of Paul Ryan Paul Ryan personifies a devil's bargain (Atlantic) that some in GOP made with Trump and again (Vox) Paul Ryan (NY Times) from flimflam to fascism Paul Ryan's parting gift to the rich (Salon) yet another tax cut ---------------------- voting NC: ground zero in voter suppression? (Raleigh N&O) says documentary showing in Durham's Full Frame Festival What we know and don't know about election hacking (538) ---------------------- the Facebook scandal(s) apology sonata(s) Zuckerberg: ignorant about FB or misleading Congress deliberately? (Intercept) The privacy question Zuckerberg kept dodging (Vox) what are you giving up by logging into FB? The three questions Zuckerberg hasn't answered (Atlantic) Senate fails Zuckerberg test (CNN) Congress doesn't understand Facebook Senate wilts in front of Zuckerberg (Intercept) good news for FB How can you regulate something you don't understand? (Washington Post) The apology tour begins (PBS) 14 min with Sheryl Sandberg: robotic and laughable MZ's statement to Congress (Washington Post) how to deal with stupid Find out what info Facebook has on you (Facebook) you may not want to Why won't FB provide European-style GDPR rights to Americans? (Guardian) 4 government strategies for fixing Facebook (Pro Publica) fines for data breaches; liable for objectionable content, ethics review boards 9 questions for Congress to ask Z (Vox) Facebook: the "silliest-in-history" corporation? (Rolling Stone) it's swallowed the free press, undermined democracy, and privatized spying... is it too late to fix? Fine Facebook big-time (Washington Post) an amount with 4 commas, and counting How to fix Fakebook (Avaaz) sign the this letter The case against (Vox) it's destroying journalism, breaking society, & making people lonely and depressed.... turn it off A Zuckerberg-free Facebook? (Wired) if only Don't fix it. Replace it. (NY Times) what's already happened The Cambridge Analytica scandal(s) (Vox) explained most of FB's users (Washington Post) have had private data collected by 'malicious actors' Zuckerberg has been apologizing for privacy violations since his freshman year (Vox) Our privacy has been eroded, and we're OK with that (NY Times) sadly ---------------------- Democracy alarm bells? A stress test for American democracy (American Prospect) we have only a time to pass it Will we stop Trump before it's too late? (Madeleine Albright, NY Times) How democracies die (Guardian) an excerpt from the book We're in a second civil war (Medium) only one side will win ---------------------- newspaper destroyers The hedge fund that is gutting newspapers (Washington Post) but journalists are fighting back Duke refuses to cut ties with alumnus- owned hedge fund that is "stripping newspapers" (Duke Chronicle) it's not just Facebook that's evil As vultures circle, the Denver Post must be saved (Denver Post) Parachuting journalism (American Prospect) as local newspapers wither away, how not to cover America The excruciating death of local news (Daily Beast) "It’s profits first, news last." excuse me.... this is news? ---------------------- MLK, Jr. & America, 50 years later now Where do we go from here? (National Civil Rights Museum) Lessons for today (NY Times) 50 years on: cause for weeping -- and hope (Washington Post) 3 actions for today (Atlantic) Good jobs in black communities have disappeared, evictions are the norm, and extreme poverty is rising (Atlantic) so why aren't cities expldoing? and then The final, most haunting sermon (Atlantic) When the revolution was televised (Atlantic) The poor people's campaign (Atlantic) Glee, satisfaction, and weeping (NY Times) how America reacted ---------------------- Amazon, the Postal Service, & Trump The facts (Politifact) Trump's statement earns 3 Pinocchios (Washington Post) "means significant errors" What's really hapenning (Vox) guess who's not telling the truth? Trump vs. Amazon, the sequel (Washington Post) Trump has a point about Amazon? (Daily Beast) not that it's true, but just that it appeals to his base ---------------------- Remembering 1968 How the party of Hubert Humphrey became the party of minorities & elites (Atlantic) The report on race that shook America (Atlantic) has the Kerner report been forgotten? How 2001: A Space Odyssey changed cinema (Guardian) Why 2001's HAL spoke with a Canadian accent (NY Times) and more here ---------------------- The myth of the criminal immigrant (Marshall Project) debunked Whither Democrats? (538) go for suburbans or white working class? it's not clear The 193 TV stations that Sinclair owns (Vox) does it own one (or many) of yours? Watch JC Superstar live performance (Broadway World) if you missed it on NBC Easter night MBS takes the US MBS: a Saudi prince's quest to remake the Middle East (New Yorker) the long story Fawning over MBS, a repressive dictator (Vox) MBS got everything he wanted on his US trip (ThinkProgress) while bodies pile up in Yemen |
UNC-CH faculty pass 'Chicgo-style' free-speech principles (Raleigh N&O) The myth of learning styles (Atlantic) debunking - again - the theory that some people learn better visually or aurally or ... published article (Anatomical Sciences Education) is the most recent of many National NAEP math and reading scores remain constant (Washington Post) but gaps between high- and low- achievers increase science A challenges to how early humans migrated from Africa (Washington Post) by a 85,000-yr-old finger fossil Exploring the mathematical link between two geometric worlds (Quanta) math or physics? North Carolina Science Festival (NCSF) is April 1 - 30 March for Science? (Science) maybe creating Science & Tech fellowships in state legislatures will do more good The Scientific Paper is obsolete? (Atlantic) badly argued, overly long, and mostly not true... the silliest opinion piece ever? Noah's flood never happened (Skeptical Inquirer) 21 reasons why Why whales got so big (Atlantic) The War on Science is over. Republicans won. (New Republic) or at least the war on climate science Did calcite crystals help Vikings navigate? (NY Times) by measuring polarized light ---------------------- teachers say enough (or not enough) updates (4/13/18) AZ governor relents, gives teachers 10% raise; 20% by 2020 (AZ Central) teachers skeptical KY legislature overrides GOP governor veto in win for teachers (NY Times) OK teachers end 9-day strike after winning raises and extra funding (NY Times) Many KY schools still closed (HuffPost) KY learns you can't have school without teachers ---------------------- What striking teachers teach us (Washington Post) money matters Teacher walkouts threaten GOP hold on conservative states (NY Times) as it should The 21 states where some or all teachers are forbidden from collecting Social Security (Education Next) and you wonder why teachers are so worried about pensions? Why teachers are striking "all over" (USA Today) duh.... ("all over" = OK, KY, AZ, WV) A deeper cause behind teachers' strikes? (Washington Post) teachers -- and teaching -- are competing with the elderly Oklahoma teachers strike on 4/2/18 (Washington Post) despite raises passed last week Teachers rally in Frankfort, KY (Louisville Courier Journal) AZ teachers rally for more education money (AZ Central) Adjuncts on 1-day strike at Loyola (Chicago) (Inside Higher Ed) will it spread? ---------------------- teaching Surviving the Internet (Washington Post) teaching privacy protection and saving brains from digital overload Why are more than 20% of NC teachers chronically absent? (Raleigh N&O) giving teachers a bad name Why teacher absenteeism charges are unfair (Raleigh N&O) The day the purpose of college changed (Chronicle of Higher Education) February 28, 1967 |
late March 2018 |
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Why NASA's James Webb telescope is delayed (again) (Washington Post) more money, more time The Warren divide: meteorites fall into two groups (Science) and contain clues to the origin of the asteroids & planets Is the sun's γ-ray emission correlated with the solar cycle? (Scientific American) or with CMEs? or ...? Solved: why comets emit x-rays (Oxford U) electrons in magnetic field heated by solar- wind interactions Mars's oceans formed early (Nature) says the evidence of the shorelines Mars's oceans tied to rise in its volcanoes (Earth & Sky) Asteroids and comets are main suppliers of organics to Mars (Earth & Sky) and not space dust Running out of hiding room (Scientific American) where is Planet 9? A new kind of tectonics on Venus? (Science News) somewhere between no plates (Mars) and many plates (Earth) 5 things we've learned about Saturn since Cassini died (Science News) Oort cloud invader: Scholz's star, 70,000 years ago? (Earth & Sky) comets (and other things?) scattered Astronomy has additional data and graphs Primeval salt: clues to the rise of Earth's oxygen? (Scientific American) did it happen in the blink of an eye? Oumaumau: visitor likely from a double-star system (Earth & Sky) climate change on trial in California Who should pay for climate change? (538) but first, a tutorial for the judge A trial judge asks questions about climate change (Vox) here are the (excellent) answers Chevron denies responsibility for warming (Scientific American, via Climatewire) but accepts climate consensus Oil doesn't cause global warming, people burning it does (Grist) kind of like guns? Why the official text of climate change is outdated (Grist) and the updates (all free & downloadble): What we've learnt since the IPCC 5th Assessment (Royal Society) (32 page summary Extreme weather events (National Academies of Science) in the context of climate change (187 page book) Climate Science Special Report, 4th National Climate Assessment (US Global Change Research Program) (477 page book) ---------------------- Greenland's ice sheet: melting faster than ever (Scientific American) in recorded history How warming is affecting America's national parks (Guardian) Surprises lurk within the climate system (IOP Science) multiple extreme weather events, civil unrest? climate optimism Climate change: cataclysmic, not apocalyptic (Progress and Peril) focus on water management, agricultural productivity, and cooling Ecomodernism (Breakthrough Journal) Stephen Pinker's case for optimism on climate change and pessimism The Paris climate accord fantasy (New York) environment Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (New Yorker) 56 years ago |
'Recent' neutron- star merger produced 1 - 5 solar masses of europium and 3 - 13 solar masses of gold (Astrophysical Journal) (paywall) |
Exoplanet dynamics: how a planet avoids tidal lock-in (Science) a big danger for exoplanets around M stars Why returning to Venus will help in the search for an exo-Earth (Astronomy) TRAPPIST-1 updates Clues to habitability (Earth & Sky) from the TRAPPIST-1 system commentary by Scientific American link within to published article in Nature Astronomy avoids paywall or.... TRAPPIST-1: too much water to support life (EurekaAlert!) ---------------------- Hot (2000°C), metallic, and as dense as Mercury (Warwick U.) K2-229b has 2.5 Earth masses What Ca isotopes tell us about the origin & evolution of protoplanets (Nature) different-size bodies grew at the same rate, but stopped growing at different times 13 irrelevant reasons to believe in ET (New York) a guide for the gullible |
dark matter or not A galaxy devoid of dark matter (Scientific American) defies explanation but it has very large globular clusters (Sky & Telescope) But maybe it will prove that dark matter exists? (Quanta) A little less in the dark (Astrobites) an analysis of the published article ---------------------- The 21-cm cosmic dawn signal, revisited Setting off a noisy dark-matter debate (Quanta) What it means (Astrobites) Why it (probably) isn't due to dark matter (Astrobites) and the related Imprint of cosmic reionization on dwarf galaxies (Astrobites) ---------------------- the Magellanic Stream (Earth & Sky) whence it came, where it's going How did the biggest SMBHs get so big? (Science News) still a mystery Studying cosmic voids with the CMB (Earth & Space) 774 voids now cataloged... includes a nice map of the local superclusters The first galaxies (Sky & Telescope, April 2018 issue) how did they form and light up the universe? (paywall) read with caution The Big Bang was not the beginning (New Scientist) an eternal roiling chaos spawned the universe (paywall) |
What is Real? book review Einstein, Bohr and the war over quantum theory (Nature) questioning the Copenhagen hegemony A problematic point of view? (Not Even Wrong) an anti-Copenhagen mindset Quantum's leaping lizards (NY Books) excellent review, but mostly behind a paywall... best line: "quantum theory reduced the entire field of chemistry to" a physics app ---------------------- Hawking's last paper A smooth exit from eternal inflation (arXiv) the paper itself, last updated 3/4/2018 What it's about (Starts with a Bang) in layman language Why it's not ground-breaking (Back ReAction) and answering the nonsense hype about multiverses (London Telegraph) ---------------------- 5 quantum puzzles (Cosmos) in the spirit of Schrödinger’s cat Black hole echoes: a break with Einstein's general relativity? (Quanta) read with caution Are some supposed black holes actually black stars or gravistars (Scientific American) somewhere between black holes and neutron stars Sky & Telescope comments read with extreme caution Why the tiny energy of empty space is a huge mystery (Quanta) ok, it is, but invoking the multiverse to account for it is desperately absurd The universe could end in a collision with a bubble of nothingness (New Scientist) a collapse of the Higgs boson in a distant corner of the universe could have produced an expanding bubble of vacuum energy (paywall, thank god) but an old idea (Live Science) |
social irresponsibility How Facebook and Google are destroying journalsim (New York) and threatening democracy What Zuckerberg thinks of FB users: "dumb f***s" (Guardian) or, more correctly, of people who give their personal data to him Facebook's danger it's not just privacy violations (NY Times) it's destroying the social fabric Tech dystopia is here (Atlantic) Uber's fatality, Facebook's disgrace What FB data can do, when unsupervised (Forbes) The case against (Vox) it's not just privacy Billions bilked by billionaire (Washington Post) what Trump and Zuckerberg have in common Another day, another Facebook scandal (Vox) the Cambridge Analytica mess 'Law and Order' in Trump-land (NY Times) preserving the social order of the white and the rich A moral reckoning in Silicon Valley? (New Yorker) but not, apparently, in the White House America's Shkreli problem (American Prospect) in a word, narcissism and some possible solutions The Face(book) of Big Brother (American Prospect) end FB abuse: make it illegal to package and sell personal data What FB owes you (Wired) much more than you're getting Will Congress finally do something? (Washington Post) or will the Britiah? (Guardian) Coming to grips with the gun problem (Vox) the solutions aren't a mystery Complete guide to FB's privacy and security settings (Wired) warning: even if you don't have an account, FB tracks you online Trump and Obama both used Facebook (Politifact) similar data access, different purposes ---------------------- Iraq, 15 yrs later How America destroyed Iraq (NY Times) and left 1,000,000 (or more?) Iraqi dead What were we doing in Iraq anyway? (Atlantic) reflections on the anniversary 15 years of war, in 50 photos (Atlantic) The unrepentant warmonger, John Bolton (Atlantic) some things haven't changed in 15 years America, the torturers A torturer nominated to lead the CIA (NY Times) but torture whistle-blowers go to prison? (Washington Post) shame on us Breaking out the Nuremberg defense for Gina Haspel (Intercept) but no shame for some in DC ---------------------- the new demographics Growing gender, age, and education gaps in American politics (PEW) a 33-page report with lots of graphs The many US counties that are dying (NY Times) with more deaths than births More white working- class voters, fewer college-grad voters (NY Times) how bad exit polls led to misinterpreting the 2016 election ---------------------- |
John Ehle, NCSSM co-creator (Raleigh N&O) along with NC School for the Arts, and Governors School Gerrymandering updates nature rules Frogs: back from extinction? (NY Times) well, at least a few species The sad demise of the Carolina parakeet (Real Clear Science) the US's only native parrot Oldest footprints in North America? (Washington Post) "right where they should be" The beauty of sandstorms (Atlantic) in 31 pictures Hummingbird metabolism (NY Times) is amazing Eggs are designed to break from the inside (Science News) obvious, right? yeah, in retrospect ---------------------- Destroying one of America's best exports (Washington Post) higher education teachers on strike Red-state teachers in revolt? (NY Times) is Oklahoma next? or is Arizona? (Washington Post) no, it's Kentucky (The Hill) 3/30/18: many state schools closed by strike over pensions ---------------------- 3/20 Illinois primary election results update on science candidates running IL-3, Lipinski (pro-science, awful on social policy) wins close primary IL-6, Casten (clean energy tech) wins over Mazeski (chemist) in close race IL-11, Foster (ex-Fermilab physicist) wins, unopposed IL-14, Brolley (civil engineer) loses ---------------------- Robert Langlands wins math's Abel prize (Quanta) The quest for heavy elements and the island of stability (Scientific American, April 2018 issue) (paywall) |
early March 2018 |
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The shape of life in the distant past (Aeon) how do we distinguish between living and non- living in the ancient fossil record? We should not extinguish native ET life (Science 2.0) such as on Mars, Titan, Callisto, .... (spoiler alert: it's veryyyy long) and Searching for life on Mars before it's too late (Astrobiology) and Searching for life of Mars: 4 fallacies and an oversight (Astrobiology) free 19-page downloadable ebook about Mercury & Venus (Astronomy) updates on the hot volatile planets Juno @ Jupiter A deeper look at Jupiter (Nature) a broad overview of new results Jupiter as never seen before (Earth & Sky) Never-ending surprises (Atlantic) focusing mostly on clouds & atmosphere Amazing storms and streams (Sky & Telescope) clouds & atmosphere, but with part-real, part-simulated fly- over the cloudtops 4 surprising things (Science News) Unearthly jet streams (NASA) Nearly solid-body rotation (Nature) in the deep interior (paywall) A solid core? (Nature) maybe, maybe not, but heavy elements diluted outward to half the radius (paywall) ---------------------- A 640-km wide impact crater in the Colorado plateau? (Astrobites) made 750 Myr ago by a Mars-size impactor? James Webb Space telescope: running out of time? (Atlantic) delayed again full (depressing) GAO report Superconducting materials found in meteorites (Science) raising hopes for finding higher-temp superconductors Alien life could thrive on Enceladus (Washington Post) Earth experiment replicates Enceladus conditions Enceladus: teeming with methane- belching microbes? (Scientific American) Nature published article (no paywall) climate science Shutdown of ocean convection by melting Arctic ice (Washington Post) follow link within article for free published article in Nature Climate Change Why the extremely warm Arctic winter should be alarming (Vox) 5 reasons Unprecedented climate events (Science Advances) how humans raised the chances of extreme events in more than 50% of the world Global warming: 9 questions you were too embarrassed to ask (Vox) can we please stop calling it 'climate change' when it's (only) about warming? Geophysical constraints on US wind & solar power (Energy and Environmental Science) bottom line: the two could provide 80% of US energy needs -- as long as proper planning is done (paywall) ThinkProgress comments policy Geoengineer polar glaciers? (Nature) to slow sea rise Washington state carbon tax fails (Atlantic) Oregon cap-and- invest bill fails also lessons learned? (ThinkProgress) Non-linear effects of global warming on economic output (Nature) Potential economic effects of climate change (US GAO) environmental policy 67 environmental regulations on their way out (NY Times) media How the media covered climate in 2017 (Media Matters) more coverage, but dominated by Trump's views Physics Today comments |
750-au dust cloud surrounds a young star (Hubble) A new binary neutron star (Sky & Telescope) the 16th.... more testing of general relativity to follow Red-giant's stellar wind revives its neutron-star companion (ESA) x-ray bursts follow Runaway stars in the Milky Way (Earth & Sky) slingshot by binary encounters or a supernova Astroseismology reveals inner structure of a white dwarf (Physics Today) how the nuclear composition varies with radial distance |
Fate of exomoons during planet- planet encounters (Sky & Telescope) collateral damage? Snowball planets can still harbor life? (Scientific American) expanding the habitable zone TBP article (arXiv) Can we detect alien civilizations from their space junk? (Astrobites) an alternative to listening for signals or atmospheric spectroscopy Surprising amount of water in the atmosphere of WASP-39b (Hubble) |
All galaxies take about 1 Gyr to rotate (Astronomy) regardless of size/mass Shredded remnants or dwarf galaxies or evicted Milky Way stars? (Sky & Telescope) 2 stellar streams in question the first stars? A surprising chill before cosmic dawn (Nature) first evidence for star formation in a cold- gas universe? at 180 Myr A.B. Sky & Telescope comments: hints of non--gravity dark-matter interactions? Atlantic comments Guardian comments Science comments (minimally, as usual) Nature published article about the observations (free via Atlantic) Nature published article on speculation that dark matter cooled the hydrogen (paywall) Skepticism warranted? (Preposterous Universe) ---------------------- Zombie supernova: hints of the early universe? (Astronomy) summary of Kavli round table |
the science Hawking did (and didn't) Hawking radiation (NY Times) but a reminder: it's never been seen and it did lead to the The black-hole information paradox arose just after (1975) (Matt Strassler) also discussed here (Science News) but it remains unresolved despite Hawking's pronouncements (arXiv) Black holes have no hair (phys.org) but unproven in both General Relativity and in quantum theory Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems (Wikipedia, beware!) but inapplicable in virtually all realistic black-hole and cosmology situations A brief history of Stephen Hawking (New Scientist) a legacy of paradox A compilation of links to Hawking's important published papers (Physics World) Or just a creature of the media? (Columbia Journalism Review) how reporters pander to celebrity Pop-culture Hawking (FirstPost) Simpsons, Star Trek, and more Hawking: more machine than human? (Wired) uncritical lists.. read with caution The Life and Times of Stephen Hawking (Astronomy) free downloadble 9-page ebook The science that made him famous (Quantum Frontiers) singularities, black hole properties and evaporation 5 ways Hawking transformed science (Global News) sorry, 'A Brief History of Time' isn't one of them ---------------------- How fast can gravitational-wave detection get? (Wired) To test Einstein's GR equations, poke a black hole (Quanta) progress claimed on proving the black-hole stability conjecture Truth before beauty (New Scientist) the universe's laws are uglier than we thought (paywall) Does the Schrödinger equation govern the physics of self-gravitating astrophysical disks? (Scientific American) An experiment that will show whether gravity is a quantum force? (Quanta) Unexpected superconductivity in misaligned graphene sheets (Nature) Quantum upside-down cake (Nature) topological super- conductors in 2D |
Last temptation (Atlantic) Trump and the evangelicals: in bed with each other Twitter exposed Fake news and false rumors dominate facts every time on Twitter (Atlantic) in huge MIT study: The spread of true and false news online (Science) Science comments Washington Post comments Vox comments ---------------------- Winston Churchill: mass murderer? (Washington Post) How constitutional rights became unenforceable (NY Books) Kafka in Washington Time to bail out the heartland? (Vox) Rand releases report on gun research (Vox) spoiler alert: gun control saves lives How Beijing defied American expectations (Foreign Policy) trying to isolate it or weaken it hasn't worked |
The truth about astronaut Kelly's genes (Atlantic) no they didn't change by 7% due to being in space What Facebook, Google, & Twitter owe America (Politico) with our system under assault, it's payback time Unfixable?: Americans' digital stupidity (Salon) why Americans fall for trolls and bots elections have consequences for science 2018: the year of scientists running for Congress (Washington Post) 30 candidates, as opposed to 2 non- physician current members (cf. to 7 talk-show hosts and 220+ lawyers) Scientists supported by pro-science resistance (314 Action) 8 STEM candidates running for Congress (Science) and a few more (Science) 20 science candidates to watch (Science) by congressional district 3/6/18 Texas election results from Dallas News engineer Joe Kopser and ex-mathematician Ruth Wilson both make runoff, now face each other retired geologist Jon Powell doesn't make runoff clinical oncologist Jason Westin doesn't make runoff ---------------------- What if America had no public schools? (Atlantic) Trump's know-nothing science budget (New Yorker) The 'math' behind the perfect free throw (Scientific American) no, it's the 'physics' not the 'math' |