Category Archives: Other science

aka stamp collecting

I Object

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U.S. Chamber of Commerce seeks trial on global warming

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, trying to ward off potentially sweeping federal emissions regulations, is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a rare public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change.

Chamber officials say it would be “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” — complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect.

What a bad idea for science.

This doesn’t bring the Scopes trial to my mind, as mentioned in the article — that wasn’t primarily about whether evolution was valid science. This is more like the story of how the Indiana House once unanimously passed a bill to make pi a rational number (3.2; the bill died in the senate). Our legal system doesn’t get to decide what is sound science or not; if it attempts to make such a decision, mother nature won’t care at all and won’t serve any contempt-of-court sentence for disobeying the judge.

The legal system doesn’t argue the same way that science does, which is why this is a common tactic for anti-scientists. Creationists putting Darwinism “on trial” in literature is not uncommon. The absurdity of calling evolution “Darwinism” aside for the moment, these “trials” include appeals to ridicule that might sound convincing to some, because there is much about science that isn’t intuitive. In physics, one could probably convince a lay person that quantum mechanics and relativity are wrong using a legal style of argument, just by pointing out some of the counterintuitive, nonclassical (or non-Galilean) aspects (A single particle goes through both slits? Absurd! Twins can age at different rates? Preposterous!) But QM and relativity are true, regardless of how much they contradict classical experience.

It can’t merely be lining up experts, either, because there is no science so well-established that you can’t find a somebody, somewhere, who has a degree and disagrees with the mainstream. There are physicists who disagree with QM and relativity, just as there are biologists who are creationists (or cdesign proponentsists). The bench isn’t very deep of course (there are more biologists named Steve who agree that evolution is true than all who are touted to disagree), but they are out there. What matters is the empirical evidence, and the people best qualified to tell us this are the scientists who do the kind of work in question, not a judge. True, the judge might/should rule in favor of the scientists in this kind of case, but if he didn’t, that wouldn’t change the fact that smoking causes cancer, evolution is true, photons interfere with themselves, pi is irrational and humans are causing global warming. That’s what the evidence tells us.

The Aqueous Aragorn Effect

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Water Striders. Filmed in slow-motion, of course.

There’s actually a bit of physics here, starting with the obvious, the reason they don’t sink: surface tension. Water is polar, so the molecules tend to attract each other, making the surface act like a series of springs and able to support small masses, up to the point that the attraction is overpowered.

Once the strider starts moving, we can see some more physics in action:

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The water strider is actually hard to see in this picture — it’s a little above and the the left of center. The black dots are a shadow of sorts. The insect would not cast much of a visible shadow if it were on a flat surface; it’s small and light will tend to diffract around the legs. But what’s happening here is that the feet make an indentation in the water and it turns the now-curved surface of the water into a lens. And the lens is concave, so the light diverges and leaves a dark spot because light has been directed away.

The water strider has been moving, and this disturbs the water. We see the waves from this disturbance and the interference as two separate waves pass through each other.

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Once again, you’re seeing the effects displayed on the creek bed, rather than the surface.

Those Who Can, Do. Those Who Can't, Explain.

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Usain Bolt: The Science of Running Really Fast

Even without knowing the times, you can see that this is a special run. The first few seconds are fairly average, and as expected the acceleration trails off after around 40m, but then he just keeps going. Bolt covers 60-80m faster than 40-60m, somehow increasing his acceleration, and takes 80-100m at the same speed, with no significant deceleration.

Getting to the Root of the … Solution

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The Root Bridges of Cherrapungee

The root bridges, some of which are over a hundred feet long, take ten to fifteen years to become fully functional, but they’re extraordinarily strong – strong enough that some of them can support the weight of fifty or more people at a time. In fact, because they are alive and still growing, the bridges actually gain strength over time – and some of the ancient root bridges used daily by the people of the villages around Cherrapunjee may be well over five hundred years old.

Here's to You, Mrs. Robinson

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Deet, de de de deet deet, de de deet deet de de deet.

The DEET alarmism story you didn’t see in the newspaper

[F]or people who use DEET in the recommended manner, there are simply no problems, and the new study does nothing to change that, Lorin said. Indeed, after a review of published and unpublished literature of DEET’s toxicity in 2003, the American Academy of Pediatrician raised the recommended level of DEET concentration in repellents used on children to 30 percent from 10 percent, and lowered the minimum age for use from 2 year to 2 months.

In other words, the body of scientific literature suggested DEET was considerably safer than previously believed.

On side note, I had a tough time finding anything with 25% DEET in it last summer; most of the “family” sprays were 7%. I happened across some of the tougher stuff this spring and snapped up two bottles. And I hardly ever hallucinate.

A Vegetable is only Deception

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The Fruit Is A Lie

A fruit — a ‘true fruit’ — is one where all tissues are derived from the plant ovary and this alone. This includes peas. Whereas strawberries, for example, also include some of the flesh from the peg that holds the ovary, disqualifying them from fruit status. The apple gets its carpels involved as well as the ovary, leading to a kinky pome. ‘True berries’ are also ‘true fruits’, but not the other way round. Grapes, currants (red and black), elder- and gooseberries are all proper upstanding berries which will not deceive you or smuggle themselves into your house in pies before stealing your silver while you sleep.

So why call it a fruit when it isn’t? To most of us, knowing the particulars isn’t all that important in the grand scheme of things, though this sort of knowledge is possibly useful for the aspiring lawyer-type child, looking for a loophole to not eat their tomatoes and bell peppers after being admonished to eat their vegetables. We’re after the first-order approximation here, not the more detailed solution. I don’t particularly care if it’s not really a fruit, but it’s actually a fruit wrapped inside a mystery, with little enigmas on the outside — I want to throw it into a category and forget it. Is it a fruit or a vegetable? “False dichotomy” is not an acceptable answer for a non-biologist (or even for a pedant who’s off-duty)

Driving Cognitive Costs Down

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Realizations of Rounded Rectangles

Time for an expert: I asked Professor Jürg Nänni, author of the exemplary Visual Perception, a book detailing our best-to-date scientific understanding of the processes involved in visual cognition. “Could rounded rectangles actually take less effort to see?”

Nänni confirmed my theory: “You are absolutely right. A rectangle with sharp edges takes indeed a little bit more cognitive visible effort than for example an ellipse of the same size. Our “fovea-eye” is even faster in recording a circle. Edges involve additional neuronal image tools. The process is therefore slowed down.”

IT’S PROBABLY ONE REASON WHY ALLCAPS is so frikkin’ annoying, too.