strongNASA IceBridge Mission Prepares for Study of Arctic Glaciers/strongbr /br / br /In a world where the blogosphere is filled with politically motivated versions of what is 'really' happening to the cryosphere it is good to know that real scientists are taking real risks to get real data.nbsp; I take my hat off to them.br /br / strongNASA IceBridge Mission Prepares for Study of Arctic Glaciers/strongbr /br / br /Press release March 18, 2010br /br / WASHINGTON -- NASA's Operation IceBridge mission, the largest airborne survey ever flown of Earth's polar ice, kicks off its second year of study when NASA aircraft arrive in Greenland March 22.br /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/chatter_box/nasa_icebridge_mission_prepares_study_arctic_glaciers target=_blankread more/a/p

strongBaird : The Wonder Of Television/strongbr /br / The following article was scanned by me from br /strongThe Wonder Encyclopedia For Children/strongbr /Odhams, 1933.br /br / Apart from minor adjustments to layout and removal of page references it is verbatim.br /I present it here as a view from the past, when television was a brand new scientific achievement being presented as a new wonder to children and using the latest photographic illustration techniques.nbsp; br /br / John Logie Baird describes broadcast television in his own words.br /br / -----------------------------------------br /br / strongTHE WONDER OF TELEVISIONbr //strongbr /Electric Eyes that Scan the World br /br / By J. L. BAIRDbr /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/chatter_box/baird_wonder_television target=_blankread more/a/p

P class=MsoNormalTextbooks are not mere non-fiction books. Whereas you can feel free to doubt what ispresented in a typical non-fiction book (mine excluded), textbooks are a record of the true facts and principles in a field. Textbooks, you see, should not be questioned. /pbr /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/mark_changizi/mind_hacks_over_stacks_facts target=_blankread more/a/p

img alt= align=center src=/files/images/Albrecht_von_Haller.jpg width=250 height=317 style=width: 250px; height: 317px; /br /nbsp;Now here’s an interesting chap.br /nbsp;br /The Göttingen Academy of Sciences [1] was founded in 1751 with Albrecht von Haller (1708 – 1777) [2] as the main driving force in the setting it up.nbsp; He had very definite views on what an academy should be. nbsp;The historian Morris Kline writes:–br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/beamlines/albrecht_von_haller_%E2%80%93_views_and_outcomes target=_blankread more/a/p

strongA Critique Of A Multiply-Published Article On Ice Sheet Collapse/strongbr /br / An article in AIG News, the emAustralian Institute of Geoscientists/em Quarterly Newsletter No. 97 August 2009, purports to state that collapse of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is impossible.br /br / In this critique I demonstrate the writers' use of straw man arguments and other unscientific methods to support their arguments.br /br / I commence with the authors' abstract and conclusions.nbsp; The body of the text will be dealt with in due course.br /br / strongWhy the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are Not Collapsing.br //strongCliff Ollier and Colin Painbr /br / Abstract:br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/chatter_box/critique_multiplypublished_article_ice_sheet_collapse target=_blankread more/a/p

div class=almost_half_cell p“The Role of Abathur (the Third Life) in the Mandaean Story of Creation.”/pbr / /divpa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/scientist/third_life target=_blankread more/a/p

Genetic engineering may one day turn the Anopheles mosquito, the transmitter of malaria, into a natural 'flying vaccinator' for the disease, a new study in emInsect Molecular Biology/em suggests. br /br / Scientists have successfully generated a transgenic mosquito expressing the Leishmania vaccine within its saliva. Bites from the insect succeeded in raising antibodies, indicating successful immunization with the vaccine through blood feeding.br /br / The research, led by Associate Professor Shigeto Yoshida from the Jichi Medical University in Japan, targets the saliva gland of the mosquitoes, the main vectors of human malaria.br /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/flying_vaccinator_answer_malaria target=_blankread more/a/p

Early last month, the now-famous paper by Dr Andrew Wakefield that supposedly linked vaccines to the onset of Autism, was formally A target=_blank href=http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/340/feb02_4/c696retracted/a by the Lancet, the journal that published it back in 1998. This was a monumental decision, considering it was the conclusions drawn from this paper that launched the firestorm of debate around the safety of vaccines, and likely the cause of the current vaccine crisis. br /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/rogue_neuron/autism_and_vaccines_why_people_still_believe_hype target=_blankread more/a/p

A 3,000-year record from 52 of the world's oldest Sequoia trees shows that California's western Sierra Nevada was drought-ridden and often on fire from 800 to 1300, according to a new study published in emFire Ecology/em.br /br / During those 500 years, known as the Medieval Warm Period, extensive fires burned through parts of the Giant Forest at intervals of about 3 to 10 years. Any individual tree was probably in a fire about every 10 to 15 years.br /br / Knowing how giant sequoia trees responded to a 500-year warm spell in the past is important, the authors say, because climate change will probably subject the trees to such a warm, dry environment again.br /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/tree_rings_reveal_fire_history_ancient_sequoias target=_blankread more/a/p

Dogs likely originated in the Middle East, according to a new genetic analysis published this week in Nature.br /br / The study reports genetic data from more than 900 dogs from 85 breeds and more than 200 wild gray wolves (the ancestor of domestic dogs) worldwide, including populations from North America, Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. Researchers used molecular genetic techniques to analyze more than 48,000 genetic markers. br /br / The data include samples from Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran — but they have not pinpointed a specific location in the Middle East where dogs originated.br /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/dogs_came_middle_east_biologists_say target=_blankread more/a/p

Our genes may not be the basis for human individuality, according to new studies in emScience/em and emNature/em. The key may actually lie in the sequences that surround and control our genes. br /br / The interaction of those sequences with a class of proteins, called transcription factors, can vary significantly between two people and are likely to affect our appearance, our development and even our predisposition to certain diseases.br /br / The discovery suggests that researchers focusing exclusively on genes to learn what makes people different from one another have been looking in the wrong place.br /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/our_genes_dont_make_us_unique target=_blankread more/a/p

Butterflies are emerging over 10 days earlier in Spring than they did 65 years ago, and anthropogenic global warming is probably at fault, according to a study in emBiology Letters/em. nbsp;br /br / The study found that mean emergence date for adults of the Common Brown butterfly (Heteronympha merope) has shifted 1.6 days earlier per decade in Melbourne, Australia. Early emergence is causally linked with a simultaneous increase in air temperatures around Melbourne of approximately 0.14°C per decade, and this warming is known to be human-induced.br /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/global_warming_blame_earlier_butterfly_emergence target=_blankread more/a/p

Humans use a wide range of cues, both verbal and non-verbal, to communicate different emotions. br /br / But vocalizing some positive emotions may be a socially learned behavior, as opposed to a product of evolution, according to a new study in emPNAS/em that looked at non-verbal emotional vocalizations in two different cultural groups. br /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/vocalizing_positive_emotions_socially_learned_or_evolved target=_blankread more/a/p

When men make sexist comments, they insult all women within earshot and negatively influence how they feel towards men in general, say researchers writing inem Sex Roles/em. br /br / The University of Connecticut team examined women's reactions to overhearing a catcall remark and, in particular, how observing a specific sexist incident impacts women's feelings and attitudes towards men. br /br / They asked 114 undergraduate female students to watch a video and imagine themselves as bystanders to a situation where a man made either a sexist catcall remark (Hey Kelly, your boobs look great in that shirt!) at another woman or simply greeted her (Hey Kelly, what's up?). br /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/bystander_sexism_affects_how_women_think_men target=_blankread more/a/p

Blocking the protein Granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) can reduce or prevent cigarette smoke-induced lung inflammation in mice and may lead to new treatments for smoke-related disease, specifically chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). br /br / The findings appear in theem American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine/em.br /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/blocking_gmcsf_protein_may_prevent_smokinginduced_copd target=_blankread more/a/p

The newly discovered gas giant Corot-9b may have an interior that closely resembles those of Jupiter and Saturn in our own Solar System, according to a new paper published today in emNature/em. br /br / Some evidence also suggest that the exoplanet, discovered last Spring, may also be temperate enough to allow the presence of liquid water. nbsp;br /br / Corot-9b orbits its star every 95.274 days, a little longer than Mercury takes to go round the Sun. It is the first transiting planet to have both a longer period and a near-circular orbit. Its orbit is slightly elliptical but at closest approach to its parent star it reaches a distance of 54 million kilometers. br /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/water_jupiterlike_corot9b target=_blankread more/a/p

strongUnderstanding Climate : #3 - Tilting At Seasons/strongbr /br / br /The tilt of the earth's axis gives us our seasons.br /br / But not in an obvious way.br /br / br /Understanding climate science requires a cross-disciplinary approach.nbsp; This is the second part of the mainly astronomical section.nbsp; In a href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/chatter_box/understanding_climate_2_earth_air_water_firepart 2/a, I introduced the idea of, in a manner of speaking, building a model of our earth-moon-sun system.nbsp; Here I continue with a discussion of seasons and their primary astronomical causes.nbsp; br /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/chatter_box/understanding_climate_3_tilting_seasons target=_blankread more/a/p

br / Information processing and entropy management - that's what organisms are about, right? Information and entropy are terms that get people excited, and yet it's extremely difficult to integrate formal ideas about information, free energy, entropy, etc. (much of this from modern statistical mechanics) into a meaningful biological framework. People (including myself) love to toss around terms like entropy and information, but in most cases I have encountered, efforts to apply these concepts to molecular/cellular biology are hopelessly vague and unhelpful. Once you get beyond the level of individual proteins in biology, it's difficult to apply some of the traditional concepts of physical chemistry.br /br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/adaptive_complexity/cost_biological_entropy_management target=_blankread more/a/p

strongThe Fallacy Of The Average/strongbr /br / br /A fallacy is a pattern of logical reasoning which appears on its surface to be a pattern of sound reasoning.nbsp; The fallacy of the average is based on the false notion that the effect of a thing averaged out on a large scale is equivalent to an effect of the same thing on a small scale.br /br / A drop of rain falling anywhere in the Pacific is self-evidently insignificant as a matter of scale.br /br / But what if that single drop of rain falls into the mains supply circuit of a radio?br /br / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/chatter_box/fallacy_average target=_blankread more/a/p

pNetherton syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive genodermatosis of unknown cause characterized by: erythroderma, trichorrhexis invaginata (TI) (bamboo hair), ichthyosis linearis circumflexa (ILC), atopic diathesis and failure to thrive./pbr / br / pThe syndrome is named either as Netherton or as Comel and Netherton./pbr / pa href=http://www.scientificblogging.com/scientist/netherton_syndrome_ns_or_bamboo_hair target=_blankread more/a/p