Monthly Archives: November 2009
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Yes, Virginia, There is a Climate Conspiracy
Just not the one you might think.
Climate change cover-up? You better believe it
There is, in fact, a climate conspiracy. It just happens to be one launched by the fossil fuel industry to obscure the truth about climate change and delay any action. And this release of emails right before the Copenhagen conference is just another salvo—and a highly effective one—in that public relations battle, redolent with the scent of the same flaks and hacks who brought you “smoking isn’t dangerous.”
Troubles Melt like Lemon Drops
Rainbow trapped for the first time
In 2007, Ortwin Hess of the University of Surrey in Guildford, UK, and colleagues proposed a technique to trap light inside a tapering waveguide, which is a structure that guides light waves down its length. The waveguide in question would use metamaterials – exotic materials that can bend light sharply.
The idea is that as the waveguide tapers, the components of the light are made to stop in turn at ever narrower points. That’s because any given component of the light cannot pass through an opening that’s smaller than its wavelength. This leads to a “trapped rainbow”.
Doctor Obvious Goes Back to School
Nothing to do with Tom Hanks
Goldbogen and his colleagues found that big fin whales are not just scaled-up versions of little fin whales. Instead, as their bodies get bigger, their mouths get much bigger. Small fin whales can swallow up about 90% of their own body weight. Very big ones can gulp 160%. In other words, big fin whales need more and more energy to handle the bigger slugs of water they gulp. As their body increases in size, the energy their bodies demand rises faster than the extra energy they can get from their food.
This scaling may explain some of the weird diving patterns found in lunge-feeding whales. Blue whales are twice as big as humpback whales, for example, but both species dive for the same period of time (about eight minutes) and to the same depth (148 meters). All things being equal, you’d expect that blue whales would be able to dive deeper and longer, because they could store more oxygen in their bigger bodies. Blue whales also make fewer lunges than humpback whales (6 versus 15). It’s possible that the gigantic blue whales are hard up against a size limit. They need so much energy for their lunges that they can’t afford to hold their breath longer, and they can only manage to make a few lunges before they run out of reserves and have to head for the surface.
Give Me Dramamine
8 Mind-Boggling Optical Illusions
Most involving apparent motion.
The High School Science Gender Gap
Studying the science gender gap at the high school level
Although the study is preliminary, its primary result—girls are not enjoying their science classes—is not terribly surprising. The more important question to answer is why girls aren’t as engaged as boys.
Meep, Meep, Thud
“It should remain airborne until until gravity overtakes it” is an awkward way of explaining. Gravity is always there, so the acceleration is always toward the earth. That’s why it slows down and eventually changes direction.
There is a world championship for anvil launching?
If this were Wile E. Coyote, no matter where he ran, the anvil would land on him.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
… and ships, weapons and sci-fi contraptions and more. The Blueprints Database