A Senate vote yesterday narrowly allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to monitor and regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. There has been a lot of spin and furor over this vote, but in the end I think that this was heavily (though not totally) influenced by a political (and heavily partisan) denial of climate change.

Here’s the deal: The Clean Air Act allows the EPA to monitor and regulate various pollutants emitted by industries. A recent provision, Section 202(a), added six greenhouse gases to that list — specifically, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride — and paves the way to allow the EPA to actively regulate them.

However, a Joint Resolution was submitted by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), basically disallowing that Section of the Act. In other words, this Resolution would not allow the EPA to regulate those greenhouse gas emissions.

The Resolution was voted down by a 47-53 vote. Yay! Interestingly, not one of the 53 votes against it came from a Republican. A half dozen votes supporting it did come from Democrats, however.

What do we make of this?

Those who voted for the Resolution have a list of reasons. They say this is a power grab by the EPA, trying to overreach its authority. That, however, is clearly wrong. The idea of the EPA regulating pollutants goes back to the Clean Air Act’s beginnings in 1970. Since then, when new pollutants are found, they are added to the EPA’s list. Greenhouse gases are pollutants by definition, so the claim that this is some power grab is thin indeed.

There are also claims that this will allow the EPA to impose a backdoor tax on small businesses, farms, and so on, in the form of permits. This idea has more traction. I’ll note that some of the Democrats who voted for the Resolution have made these same claims as well. I agree that there is a financial burden on small businesses, and I am loathe to see it get any worse. However, I think climate change is a bigger problem overall, and it needs to be addressed.

Also, and very importantly, it should be noted that the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA must regulate these gases. That puts both those above claims into shady territory.

Regulation is needed. It’s a good thing. Regulations make sure industry doesn’t take advantage of lax laws and lax law enforcement. One of the root causes of the current recession, and the oil spill in the Gulf, is a lack of regulations and enforcement. I’m all for allowing corporations to grow and to profit, but there has to be some oversight. While the vast majority of private businesses operate above board, it only takes a handful to truly screw things up. That’s why we have laws.

But even if the supporters of the Resolution do believe those claims are valid, I still have alarm bells ringing in my head, because for at least some of them this is really about scientific ideology.

About this Resolution, Orrin Hatch (R-UT) came out and said, "There is nowhere a scientific consensus on one of the EPA’s findings that humans are causing warming or that warming is necessarily bad for the environment or for humankind." Senator Hatch, that’s utter garbage. There is a consensus. The disagreement over this is almost entirely a manufactured controversy, artificially created and pumped up by a religiously fervent noise machine.

Not everyone on that side said this, to be fair. Moderate Olympia Snowe (R-ME) stated that she understand what the science actually says, and I’m glad — very glad! – to hear that. But people like Hatch, Inhofe, and others make me very suspicious indeed — see the Related Posts at the bottom of this post for a litany of reasons why.

Obviously, this is a complicated issue. We have the real danger of greenhouse gas emissions and the real danger opposite it of over-regulation. But time and again we have seen the far-right members of Congress stomp on science, and I’m pretty much at the "fool me twice, shame on me" stage when I hear them on these issues. And I know I agree with this sentiment:

"The Murkowski resolution gives the United States Senate a choice between real science and political science," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois. "That’s what it comes down to."

"This discussion about global warming is now political, not scientific. And this is absurd," added Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont.

As even Senator Murkowski said, science is what it is — though reading her entire statement, I don’t think she actually puts a lot of stock in it. It is my fervent hope that someday — maybe even after the mid-term elections coming up this fall — we’ll have a Congress that truly understands that and acts on it.

Tip o’ the thermometer to reddit.

Robot-human intermarriage. The Harlem Globetrotters performing mathematical wizardry. Hearing, “Good news, everyone!” when bad news is on the way. It means one thing: Futurama is back.

The interstellar travels of the Planet Express crew—canceled by Fox in 2003 but kept alive by syndication, straight-to-DVD movies, and the unstoppable force of geek fandom—return with 26 fresh episodes on Comedy Central, starting with a full hour on June 24 at 10PM eastern.

Here’s our conversation with voice actor Billy West. The voice behind Philip J. Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg, and Zapp Brannigan on Futurama (not to mention Stimpy on Ren & Stimpy and Looney Tunes characters like Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in Space Jam) talks of the origin of the professor’s vocabulary, why Richard Nixon is the President of 31st century Earth, and whether it’s weird to talk to yourself so much.

(For spoilers about the new episodes, check out our interview with executive producer David X. Cohen, coming in two weeks.)

Discover Magazine: Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: During the hiatus, what was the turning point when you felt like this was really going to happen?

Billy West: Because, I think, the Futurama movies sold well, it gave them an indication of who was still out there. So as I’ve maintained all along, the super fans of this show kept it alive. It’s too good to go away. That’s my feeling.

DM: We’re big sci-fi nerds, and the show itself both parodies and pays homage to a lot of the past TV shows and movies. Were you a sci-fi person before you did Futurama?

BW: I used to try to tell my friends about some cool show I saw, and so I’d go to explain and I’d say, “Wait, let me just do it for you,” and I’d wind up doing a ream of characters in a scene. So, that’s where I think a lot of artists cut their teeth, because you didn’t have any way to instantly replay anything. It was on TV, and then it was gone. And maybe you’d see it in the re-runs, but if not, you’re out of luck, Charlie.

But, the thing about those movies: The Day the Earth Stood Still and all these things that people make fun of now were hair-raising back then. You know? To see this giant robot that was going to open up his hatch in front and disintegrate the entire planet put a lot of stuff in jeopardy. It was always the human race that was at stake with sci-fi, which is what I love. I love that much hanging in the balance. It’s a popular theme, probably more today than ever.

DM: Any other particular favorites of yours?

BW: Oh, yeah. It Conquered the World, where this craft from Venus somehow wound up in the Sierra Madre hills or wherever they filmed it. This thing that was in the spaceship hid out in a cave, and it looked like a giant cucumber or some sort of root vegetable with teeth and eyes, and it had these little vampire bats that would crawl out from underneath it and go and sting people in the neck, and they’d become his servants. Everybody wants everybody else to serve them. You will serve!

DM: Does the fact that you grew up on that stuff influence the way you do some of the characters on the show? The professor, in particular, is a classic sci-fi mad scientist.

BW: Yeah, I would say so. My whole world was a sonic one. I mean, more than watching something, I listened to it, spectrum-analyzed it in my head. I could remember what pitch they were in and what accent. Was it Midwestern or was it Mid-Atlantic or was it Southwestern or Eskimo? It just registered in my head for some reason. I can’t do anything else, but I can do that really well.

I would remember the lingo that some of these guys used, and I’ve dropped it here, there, and everywhere in the show. I think there was one sci-fi movie where the guy with all the answers—the mad scientist—ran out of answers, and somebody said something to him and he went, “Ah, fuff!” So the professor wound up saying, “Oh, fuff.” There was another instance where a lot of people in the 40’s: Instead of saying “robot” they would say, “What’s the big idea with the rob’t?” So I had Dr. Zoidberg, any time he refers to them he goes, “What’s with the rob’t? Why won’t the rob’t come home?”

It’s juicy because it’s language nobody knows, and it’s a pronunciation kind of thing that nobody remembers. I’ve had a love of language since day one, and when I listen to old radio broadcasts I listen to the stuff they used to say, the detectives, or whoever. There was a whole other bunch of descriptions for things, which would be brand new today.

Next: Futurama’s vision of the future and Nixon’s return

Blood donation is fraught with arcane restrictions and a mess of complex requirements meant to keep the blood supply as safe as possible (I can’t give, for instance, because I lived in England in the early 1990s. Thanks a lot, mad cow scare.) But one of its most controversial—a lifetime ban on donation by men who’ve had sex with other men—may finally be coming to an end.

Massachusetts lawmakers like Senator John Kerry are pushing an overturn of the ban. The Red Cross, American Medical Association, and American Association of Blood Banks all want the lifetime ban to go away, though the Red Cross supports in its stead a single-year donation ban dating back to the last sexual encounter.

The lifetime ban was enacted in 1983 before AIDS was widely understood and has long infuriated gay rights groups since it applies to all gay men regardless of their HIV status. Heterosexuals who engage in risky behavior, like having sex with prostitutes or HIV-positive partners, are only banned from giving blood for a year [Boston Globe].

Besides the ugly unfairness of that arrangement, there’s the fact that HIV testing now allows for the detection of infection just weeks after it happens, and everybody who donates blood is screened.

Dr. Norbert Gilmore, an AIDS clinician, says the first priority for medical officials has to be keeping the trust of Americans in the blood donation system. But we can do that and still get rid of rules that reflect the AIDS panic of the 1980s and not modern scientific advances.

“With the technology we have, the risks are so small that keeping this ban in place is like permanently grounding the entire aviation system because we’re afraid that eventually we might have a single crash,” he said [BusinessWeek].

The Department of Health and Human Services is considering the change. If the agency decides to ax the lifetime ban, the change would have to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. UCLA research (pdf) found that going to a one-year ban instead of a lifetime one would bring in 90,000 more pints of blood every year; demolishing any ban based on sexual orientation, meanwhile, could bring in 210,000.

Related Content:
80beats: Lesbian Parents & Their Well-Adjusted Kids: What the Study Really Means
80beats: Obama to Hospitals: Grant Visiting Rights to Gay Couples
80beats: Familial Rejection of Gay Teens Can Lead to Mental Health Problems Later
DISCOVER: The Real Story on Gay Genes

Image: flickr / crispichikin

Walking by a replica of Sally Ride’s flight suit during visits to NASA and Space Center Houston, Calvin Dale Smith would snicker. Later, he told his wife that he knew the location of Ride’s original flight suit. He didn’t tell her that it was in their home, in a duct tape-wrapped suitcase.

As Wired reports, Smith allegedly got his hands on Ride’s flight suit while working as a contractor at Boeing’s Flight Group Processing Office, which maintains the suits. During his time there, he also stole a NASA Omega watch and several machined spaceship parts (including a safety tether and airlock parts).

According to court documents (pdf), Smith’s wife turned in her husband, who had previously served jail time for domestic violence, after being asked to send her estranged husband his belongings. He wanted a suitcase, “the suitcase.”

Though the first American woman in space’s blue jumpsuit is estimated to fetch $2,500 if sold to the public and $3,500 at an open auction, Smith apparently, according to a local KHOU TV news report, wanted the suit because of a “crush” on the astronaut. A rejection letter found with the suit also shows an unsuccessful attempt to sell it to the Smithsonian.

According to Wired, Smith pleaded not guilty on May 27. He has a July 12 court date and, if convicted, could serve 10 years in jail. Closing KHOU TV’s report: “If convicted, Smith’s obsession with Sally is taking him on a Ride, to Federal Prison.”

Related content:
Science Not Fiction: Trend Watch: Scientists as Fashion Accessories
Bad Astronomy: Astronauts in the bag
Cosmic Variance: Women in Space — We. . . um . . . salute you

Image: NASA

When you saw the Hale-Bopp comet, you may have seen material from a distant star passing by. In a new study, a team of astronomers argues that most of the comets that streak through our solar system were actually born in other solar systems.

Given their eccentric orbits and infrequent visits, comets seem like worthy candidates for an exotic origin. But the prevailing thinking said no, they are rather ordinary. Researchers thought most of the comets that pay us a visit initially formed from the sun’s protoplanetary disk—the same swirling mass that formed our own planet—and came to reside in the weird Oort cloud region at the periphery of our solar system. From there, the gravitational bullying of larger bodies can dislodge a few like Halley’s Comet or Hale-Bopp, which swerve into an orbit that sees them visit the inner solar system now and then.

In a study in Science this week, researchers led by Harold Levison posit a different idea: Many of the comets hanging around our solar system are stolen. It goes like this:

Like most stars, the sun may very well have been created in a tightly nestled birth cluster, a stellar nursery with tens, hundreds or possibly even thousands of stars. During millions of years of intimate infancy, the newborn stars could have exchanged vast numbers of comets from the fringes of their disks, each of them winding up with an ensemble of hand-me-downs from their stellar siblings [Scientific American].

The idea arose because the Oort cloud itself doesn’t make sense under the long-standing interpretation of comet origins.

The researchers argue that the Oort cloud’s 400 billion objects could not have all originated from within the solar system: There are about 70 times fewer objects there than needed to explain the Oort cloud’s size. Therefore, the team argued, a large portion of the material that makes up the Oort cloud had to come from somewhere else [Los Angeles Times].

Levison’s team found that this material “from somewhere else” could constitute as much as 90 percent of the Oort cloud.

Other astronomers had proposed the same idea in decades past, but lacked the computing power to model such a scenario. As computing power marches ever upward, these models of the solar system may prove more and more ideas to be possible: Just two days ago we reported on a separate team that finally had the computing power to model the formation of Saturn’s tiny moons, showing that they could have formed from the planet’s rings.

Then again, a model is just a model.

Julio Fernandez, an astronomer with the University of the Republic in Uruguay, said the study was interesting but relied on several assumptions. Among them: that the sun formed in a star cluster; that every star in such a cluster formed a planetary system with a comet swarm around it, just like ours; and that the sun was close enough to other stars in the cluster to be able to capture an entire comet cloud [Los Angeles Times].

Even the population of the cloud itself, which spurred this question of alien comets, is just an estimation. The Oort cloud is a hypothesized region that extends to the most distant extent of the sun’s gravitational influence—maybe even halfway to the nearest foreign star. Guessing how many objects reside there isn’t a shot in the dark, but it’s no exact science, either.

Related Content:
DISCOVER: NASA Takes a Wild Comet Ride
80beats: Saturn’s Rings May Have Birthed Its Small Moons—And More Could Be Coming
80beats: Comets Not So Likely To Smash Into Earth And Kill Us All
80beats: A Newly Discovered Comet Brings Tidings from the Oort Cloud

Image: Wikimedia Commons

After I posted the amazing picture of the Shuttle launch and the F-15E fighter jet last week, I got a nice email from Peter Hugosson-Miller, an avid skydiver. He and some friends went jumping over Florida one day a few years back… in fact, it was on April 24, 1990. If that date sounds familiar, then maybe the picture he sent me will jog your memory:

In the foreground are Peter and his jump-buddies, and in the background is the Space Shuttle Discovery launching the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit!

How freaking cool is that?

The picture was taken by Van Wideman, and just slays me. I remember what I was doing on that very day — getting ready to start my PhD work using that telescope, an adventure that would last for ten years. At the time, though, it sure felt like jumping out of an airplane…

The final launch of Discovery is scheduled for September 16, 2010.

Picture credit: Van Wideman, scanned by Peter Hugosson-Miller, touched up a bit by me to clean up blemishes and adjust contrast. Used with permission.

One of the perks of being a Hill staffer is access to cool new technologies when lobbyists visit. And so in 2006, I looped around D and 2nd in a hydrogen car. When I asked the nice man who brought the vehicle about safety and the inherent 'chicken and egg' problem (cars and fueling stations - which comes first?), he provided a clearly scripted response intended to brush off public concerns. I was sure he'd repeated it dozens of times that afternoon and--needless to say--I wasn't convinced. * * * * * * * On Monday when I announced my new position with UT's Webber Energy Group, some commentors inquired about hydrogen. In short, despite all the hype, it's unlikely to become a significant source of energy. I'll explain what makes this energy carrier appealing, followed by outlining its detractors, especially regarding use in personal vehicles. Hydrogen has superior energy density compared other fuels (a whopping 120 MJ/ kg in the liquid form). You may remember that George W. Bush often brought up the way its combustion yields water avoiding emissions. He committed over $1 billion to the development of a hydrogen car. And it's true that fuel cells can produce electricity with ...

I linked to this on Twitter, where people enjoyed it. Don’t want folks who are still stuck in 2008 and only reading the blog to miss out. Abstruse Goose, click for legible original:

Tom Whyntie points out that the rabbit should really be more spherical.

NASA just released an interesting picture of our home planet, taken from the GOES satellite:

[Click to massively englobenate.]

This image is in the infrared, and maps out the heat emitted from Earth. Brighter spots are giving off more IR — like the desert region in southwest South America, and the westernmost tip of Africa peaking over on the right — and darker spots show areas where less IR is emitted.

You might think that these dark spots are cooler, but you have to be careful here. The dark areas are actually cool high clouds. But they also trap the heat of the Earth — they don’t heat up themselves, but prevent the heat below them from escaping. High clouds like this are in reality warming us up slightly, even though they themselves are cold!

Interestingly, the low clouds in the image are white, as is open ocean. That means that the Earth is good at radiating away heat from its surface whether or not low clouds are present. Low clouds let the heat right through! So the type of cloud present affects the way the Earth’s temperature is maintained.

One lesson to be learned here — and it’s a good one — is that figuring out how the planet heats up and cools off is very complicated. A corollary of this is that when someone (a politician, say, or a demagogue) starts railing about scientists who are struggling with this information, they are almost certainly oversimplifying the case. Yeah, this stuff is hard. But that’s precisely why I tend to side with the majority of scientists who devote their lives to looking at this data, and not some talking head on TV whose only job is to confuse the issue even further.

[Note: I'll have another post on this very topic coming very soon. Stay Tuned.]

Image credit: Rob Simmon, GOES Project Science Office, NASA

I'm excited to announce my Point of Inquiry guest, for the program airing on Friday, June 18: Bill McKibben. He is author of many great books including, most recently, Eaarth: Making Life on a Tough New Planet--which is prompting a ton of discussion right now about the new world we're going to have to inhabit for the rest of our lives (and indeed, for many generations) because of anthropogenic climate change. Although I've failed to do so for the last two shows, I'm announcing this interview in plenty of time to take questions for McKibben from POI listeners. I will be interviewing Bill on Monday afternoon, the 14th, so that leaves three full days for thinking about questions you might like to hear him address on the air. So leave your questions for Bill McKibben below, or, head over to the Point of Inquiry forums and leave them there. Either way, I'll be reading some off on the air...

The editors of 3 Quarks Daily have finished their deliberations and compiled a list of finalists for their Science Prize. The good news is I’m in, and thanks to everyone who submitted a post and voted for one. The bad news is that the competition is immensely stiff (although no real surprises here – these are some of the finest science bloggers around).

It’s all down to Dawkins now.

In no particular order, here are the finalists:

1. Cosmic Variance: Free Energy and the Meaning of Life
2. My Growing Passion: The Evolution of Chloroplasts
3. Not Exactly Rocket Science: Gut bacteria in Japanese people borrowed digesting genes from ocean bacteria
4. Observations of a Nerd: Evolution: The Curious Case of Dogs
5. Scientific Blogging: MSL: Mars Action Hero
6. The Loom: Skullcaps and Genomes
7. The Primate Diaries: Chimpanzees Prefer Fair Play to Reaping an Unjust Reward
8. The Thoughtful Animal: Does oral sex confer an evolutionary advantage? Evidence from bats
9. Why Evolution Is True: The Evolutionary Calculus of Depression