I’ve become increasingly fascinated by the “Fox News Effect”: Why it is that Fox viewers believe more misinformation about science, and also about politics, as documented in multiple studies. But of course, I’m not the only one who has been pointing this out–so, of course, has David Brock’s organization, Media Matters, the top press watchdog coming from the progressive corner.

Apparently, Media Matters’ attacks are getting under Fox’s skin, and as Politico reports, the network has responded by arguing that Media Matters ought to lose its tax exempt status. One slight problem: that’s a weak legal argument, and one that seems specially designed to serve a political goal–just as Fox’s claims about global warming and other topics often are…just as Media Matters and others have often observed.

Why should Media Matters be tax exempt, a nonprofit? Because while it surely expresses opinions, it is centrally an organization that educates about media bias, and does not directly support campaigns, candidates, or legislation. In this, it is just like umpteen other such organizations in Washington and around the country. It is just like all the conservative think tanks, and all the liberal think tanks, and all the advocacy groups…and on, and on, and on.

Indeed, there is an exact parallel of Media Matters on the right: The non-profit Media Research Center, which calls itself “a 501(C)3 organization whose mission is to educate the public and media on bias in the media.” I don’t think any of these organizations should lose their status…neither those with which I agree, nor those with which I disagree. Rather, I simply think that Fox should stop generating questionable arguments and claims for ideological reasons–both in its treatment of climate science and other factually contested issues, and in its dealing with critics.

The Pith: When it comes to the final outcome of a largely biologically specified trait like human height it looks as if it isn’t just the genes your parents give you that matters. Rather, the relationship of their genes also counts. The more dissimilar they are genetically, the taller you are likely to be (all things equal).

Dienekes points me to an interesting new paper in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Isolation by distance between spouses and its effect on children’s growth in height. The results are rather straightforward: the greater the distance between the origin of one’s parents, the taller one is likely to be, especially in the case of males. These findings were robust even after controlling for confounds such as socioeconomic status. Their explanation? Heterosis, whether through heterozygote advantage or the masking of recessive deleterious alleles.

The paper is short and sweet, but first one has to keep in mind the long history of this sort of research in the murky domain of human quantitative genetics. This is not a straight-forward molecular genetic paper where there’s a laser-like focus on one locus, and the mechanistic issues are ...

Combining the Kinect‘s body-scanning camera with overhead cameras, students at ETH Zurich’s Flying Machine Arena have created a nifty quadrocopter that’s controlled with simple gestures. Move around your right arm and the drone follows a similar path; raise your left arm and it flips; clap and it lands.

Hey, this is sort of like that sci-fi movie where people virtually controlled robots with just their body movements. It’s the weekend and we can’t think of the film—help us out in the comments section.

(via PopSci)

I’ve been hearing rumors about an end-of-the-world movie called "Melancholia", and I finally stumbled on a trailer for it:

It looks pretty interesting. Without too many spoilers — it’s in the trailer, after all — the doomsday is caused by a planet approaching the Earth, and we hear someone say it was hidden behind the Sun.

Now, I’ll say that’s not really possible. A planet falling in from deep space and approaching us close enough to harm us would be visible for decades, and since the Earth circles the Sun once per year there’s no way the Sun could hide it for very long — if the Sun were hiding it in April, for example, by November it would be high in the night sky and visible to everyone. At first I interpreted the line to mean it was orbiting the Sun on the opposite side of our orbit, but that doesn’t work either; a planet big enough to hurt us would have revealed itself through its gravitational influence on other planets long before now (Gerry and Sylvia Anderson did a movie in the 60s based on this called "Journey to the Far ...

In lieu of lots of text, above is a stylized representation of the routes which Neo-Africans took ~50 thousand years ago from their point of departure to parts unknown. The two colors represent two models. The red lines show two major streams issuing out of Africa, a northern route which pushed into the heart of Central Asia, and a southern oceanic one, which pushed all the way into Australia. The second differs, with eastern and western branches of non-African humanity. The models really start to break down within the last ~10,000 years. For example, by either model India has seen an admixture even between the two branches in the Holocene. Additionally, there may have been “false dawns” and admixtures.

In the early 2000s I accept the probable likelihood of the first model. But today I am more leaning toward the second. What’s your stance, and why? I’ll give my rationale below….

The primary reason I’m skeptical of the northern vs. southern route is that Melanesians are clearly southerners, while East Asians and Europeans are northerners. But the phylogenetic stuff I’ve run myself and that I’ve seen using autosomal data sets indicate that ...

This is a big time for space, though not in a good way. The James Webb Telescope is in jeopardy, and the space shuttle program finally expired. I don’t talk about space too much on this weblog because I wouldn’t add any value. I leave the details and nuances to those who know better. But in my earliest interests in science astronomy and physics played a big part in bringing home to me the wonder of it all. At the end of the day nature is one, and the great mystery is divided into pieces due to our own cognitive limitations, not because it lacks coherence.

As far as personal biography one of my first memories which has an exact date is the return of Columbia from orbit on April 14th, 1981.* I recall being somewhat confused as to the shape of the vessel. It seemed awkward and ungainly even compared to the small planes which I had in my toy collection at the time. As I came to understand the nature of the space shuttle I felt a conjoined tendency toward awe at its technological sophistication and ambivalence at the expense of manned space flight. ...

To much deserved fanfare, Bora Zivkovic launched the new Scientific American blog network, featuring 47 blogs and some of the best writers around. Several personal favourites are now on the site and demand your attention including Jennifer Ouellette, Eric Michael Johnson, Jennifer Frazer, Hannah Waters, Lucas Brouwers, Kevin Zelnio, Charles Choi, Christie Wilcox, Darren Naish, SciCurious, Jason Goldman and more. All of this prompts PZ Myers to declare that “Scienceblogs.com is dead“.

The big journalism story this week: the Guardian revealed that the News of the World hacked the voicemails of murdered girl Millie Dowler and deleted messages, prompting false hope in her parents and possibly perverting the course of justice. That was the first of several revelations that culminated in the paper ending its 168 year run, as a result of the ensuing scandal. Here’s as good a summary as you’ll get of the whole scandal by the man who broke the story: the awesome Nick Davies. The Guardian has predictably the best coverage of the continuing story.

“I am a feminist, because skeptics and atheists made me one,” says Rebecca Watson about the ...

Like many physicists, I spend a reasonable portion of the summer months traveling, delivering talks at conferences and workshops, and taking the opportunity to meet with colleagues and gain first-hand experience of the range of research being done in my field. For me, this began a couple of hours after my classes ended for the semester (congratulations to my General Relativity class, all of whom did very well at the end of the day), when I headed off to California to hang out with Sean for a few days and to give the Caltech physics colloquium.

I always enjoy visiting Caltech, and I find colloquia particularly fun talks to deliver, since they provide the opportunity to explain what’s going on at the frontiers of the field to physicists who spend most of their time working in their own, different areas. But this talk was particularly exciting to give, because of the location. I hadn’t realized, but the Caltech physics colloquia take place in a rather old lecture hall (201 E. Bridge) in which I was told Richard Feynman delivered his renowned lectures on physics. This part of Caltech is about to undergo a round of renovations, which meant that this was probably my last chance to speak in the same place that Feynman did – a wonderful experience. With most academic travel, the main payback from a trip like this is the chance to develop some new ideas with one’s collaborators. This time was no exception, and Sean, a student of his and I started discussions about a new dark matter idea that I’ll attempt to blog about here should it come to anything.

After a week back in Philadelphia, I was on a plane once more, this time for a short hop to my old stomping grounds in Cleveland, to take part in a workshop on gravity being held at Case Western Reserve University. The last decade or so have seen a resurgence of efforts to seek a sensible way in which General Relativity (GR) might be modified, either in ways that might yield new physics of the early universe, or in a manner that might explain phenomena at late times. The main original impetus for this work has been the possibility that the phenomenon of cosmic acceleration might be signaling a modification of gravity on the largest scales. However, among many researchers the current thrust is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which gravity may differ from GR, and at what scales one might expect any allowed modifications to appear.

It is, in fact, an extremely tricky proposition to modify GR, with almost any idea one might think of running into trouble either with established tests of the theory within the solar system, or with serious theoretical inconsistencies such as the appearance of particles with negative energies, known as ghosts. Many of the more interesting ideas involve models arising from extra dimensions, which have led not only to interesting modified gravity models, but also to new ideas about field theories in four dimensions, that I will discuss in another post soon. The gravity workshop focused on many of these new ideas, and, as often happens at small intense meetings, I left with lots of new ideas about my own work.

In June, I left for a lightning trip to Brazil, to speak at the very first meeting of the whole of the Brazilian Physical Society. This conference was held in the beautiful location of Iguassu Falls. Although I was, unfortunately, too ill from a flu I had caught to be able to travel to the falls themselves, I was lucky enough to see them from the air a couple of times. I will clearly have to go back! The meeting had several thousand people, and it was clear that Brazilian physics is undergoing a period of rapid expansion, something it is heartening to see given the pressures science is facing in many other parts of the world. One of the highlights was an event launching the new South American branch of the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). The ICTP, in Trieste, Italy, was founded in 1964 by Abdus Salam, with the goal of providing educating scientists from developing countries. Their new branch, in Sao Paulo, will be directed by Nathan Berkovitz and should extend the great work of the original. It’ll be interested to see how this endeavor develops – I wish them all the best.

I’d intended three days in Brazil, but ended up there for an extra twenty-four hours because the airport at Iguassa Falls was closed for a day by particulates from the Chilean volcano. I get delayed many times every year and find myself cursing airlines (I’d missed an important meeting in Cambridge a few weeks earlier thanks to USAir), but it’s hard to be furious at a volcano. The people at the Brazilian Physical society were wonderfully helpful and I’d like to thank them as publically as I can for taking such good care of us, dealing with our hotel rooms, and getting us rebooked on new flights.

Now I’m back to work, taking a few weeks without travel and trying to get new projects up and running, while finishing writing up a few papers before the new semester creeps up on me.

Did you know NASA collects 4 terabytes of data each day? And that a lot of this data is available to the public?

My friend Chris Pirillo interviewed Nick Skytland from NASA’s Open Government Initiative, and they talk about what NASA does beyond launching rockets:

Pretty cool. NASA does a lot of stuff… so of course the House of Representatives is talking about massively cutting it back. Incidentally, since writing that post, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) is gathering her forces to block canceling the James Webb Space Telescope program. I sent her a note thanking her, and hopefully the Senate can reign in the House’s political bluster.

And speaking of all this, with the successful launch of Atlantis, if you have Google Earth you can track the location of the Orbiter! Pretty cool. Also, as usual, Heavens-Above.com will allow you to predict the times when Atlantis and the Space Station are visible from your location.

Related posts:

- Congress puts NASA and JWST on the chopping block
- Atlantis rides above the waves
- Call for Help!

Not really part of the letter . Image made from images by NASA and Daniel Wetmore

Letter From Astronauts and Apollo Veterans Regarding Space Shuttle Retirement and Risk to ISS Operations

June 30, 2011

Charles F. Bolden, Jr.
Administrator National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASA Headquarters
300 E Street, S.W. Washington, D.C. 20546

Dear Administrator Bolden,

We believe that the planned retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet after the flight of STS-135 next month will create an unacceptable flight risk for maintaining safe and reliable operations of the International Space Station (ISS). As you well know, the shuttles are the only spacecraft that can provide independent spacewalks for critical ISS repairs.

If an incident or life support failure rendered the ISS uninhabitable, repair spacewalks to restore operations would not be possible from the space station. In a worst case scenario, deterioration and loss of systems on an abandoned ISS could result in an uncontrolled, catastrophic reentry with risks to populated areas around the world. This would have significant ramifications to foreign relations and liability for the United States, Russia and the other countries who participate as partners on the International Space Station. The recent near miss of space debris, which caused the ISS astronauts to seek shelter in the Soyuz spacecraft, is a reminder that a catastrophic accident is a stark possibility.

This issue was the subject of a commentary article we co-authored, published in the June 12th edition of the New York Daily News, which is enclosed.

The Space Shuttle fleet is the only spacecraft, now operating or under development, that is equipped with the airlocks, life support supplies and robotic arm needed to support the required two-person spacewalking repair crews. We believe the Space Shuttle fleet should be kept in service to provide the capability of independent repair spacewalks in the event that the International Space Station is crippled by a systems failure or accident. The Space Shuttles would also be available to support one or two logistics and science missions per year, provide unmatched capacity to return components and scientific experiments to Earth (with low gravitational loads on crew and cargo during reentry) and extend the reliability of space station operations with a Service Life Extension Program.

The capability of the Space Shuttles to provide the independent repair spacewalks, critical for restoring operations on a disabled ISS, would also be vital for protecting the ISS cargo and crew transport business of the emerging commercial space industry. Keeping the shuttle fleet in service would also comply with a new, internationally accepted flight criteria that we believe should be established: Any object placed in orbit that is too large for an uncontrolled reentry must have a spacecraft available to support independent EVA repairs.

To maintain this vital life safety margin for long-term ISS operations we are requesting the following:

*Congress should request an immediate, 3 week, impartial study and hold emergency hearings on this matter.

*In these hearings, Congress should consider passing emergency legislation ordering NASA to halt all work on modifying the Space Shuttle fleet for museum display. Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour should be stored at Kennedy Space Center in the Orbiter Processing Facility and maintained in such a manner as to keep them flightworthy. Moreover, the Vehicle Assembly Building, Crawler-Transporters, Launch Complex 39-A, Shuttle Landing Facility and other facilities and support equipment needed for Space Shuttle operations should be maintained in place to support future Space Shuttle flights.

*NASA and its International Space Station partners should consider the shared responsibility of developing funding solutions for the continued operation of the Space Shuttle fleet to ensure the long-term safety of space station operations. NASA led plans, as well as commercial alternatives to operate the shuttles commercially, should be presented to Congress and considered to reduce costs and budget impacts.

*To avoid any gap in providing independent repair spacewalks as a safety contingency for the space station, Congress, NASA and the ISS partners should evaluate the option of postponing the launch of STS – 135 until more external fuel tanks and other parts can be built to support additional shuttle flights in 2012.

We appreciate your consideration of our recommendation for NASA and Congress to take immediate action to reverse the retirement of the Space Shuttles. The Space Shuttles are the only solution for restoring space station operations with independent spacewalk repair capabilities. Given the risks and liabilities for NASA and the ISS partners if the International Space Station is crippled by a systems failure or accident, the Space Shuttles are too valuable an asset to be retired into museums. Sincerely,

Christopher C. Kraft
Former Director of NASA Manned Spaceflight Center
Houston, Texas

Scott R. Spencer
Transportation Management Consultant
Wilmington, Delaware

Endorsed by:

Robert L. Crippen, Pilot STS-1, Commander (STS-7, STS-41C & STS-41G)
Frederick H. Hauck, Pilot STS-7, Commander (STS-51A & STS-26)
Walter Cunningham, LM Pilot, Apollo 7
Neil A. Armstrong, Commander, Apollo 11
James A. Lovell, Jr., Commander, Apollo 13
Eugene A. Cernan, Commander, Apollo 17
Gene Kranz, Director of Mission Operations – Flight Director
Tom Moser, NASA Space Station Program Director
John W. Robinson, Chairman, Space Propulsion Synergy Team

cc: President Barack Obama
Vice President Joseph Biden
U.S. Senator Bill Nelson
U.S. Representative Ralph Hall

Cassini image of Titan. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Here’s a very nice image from the Cassini spacecraft of Saturn’s moon Titan.  The line cutting across the picture is Saturn’s rings.

One of the reasons I like this image is the very nice look at the dark areas on the moon, our usual view is cloud shrouded.  This view is possible because the camera used a spectral filter sensitive of the near-infrared light which cuts through the clouds.

Titan is an amazing place.  The moon is about half again as large as our moon and 80 percent more massive, in fact it is larger than Mercury although Mercury with its cool make up has a mass nearly twice Titan. It is the only moon with a substantial atmosphere and other than Earth it is the only place we know of so far that holds stable bodies surface liquid.  The moon is much too cold to have liquid water and instead it rains methane.  Can life exist on Titan and/or in its methane seas?  Could be, although it will likely be a long time before we find out.  Life there would be very cool indeed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Site update:

Part 2 was completed today.  So far, so good

Don’t forget to order the Pigeon constellation shirt if you are going to because today is the sale – See Tuesday’s post.

Pigeon Constellation Tee Shirt on sale Thursday. Click for a different view.

I saw this tee shirt the other day and got a kick out of it.  Turns out there is going to be a one day sale on Thursday, June 30, 2011 and this particular shirt is going to be just $ 3.00.  Yes just three bucks.  I’m going to get one or two.

Here’s the link directly to the Pigeon constellation shirt.  There are many other shirts available at Headlineshirts with designs covering a variety of views.  I might get the cat one too, after looking around there are a few I might get.

Anyways, to get the $3.00 price on the Pigeon shirt just add the sale code: SPACEBIRD on the check out page.

I am having to change some things due to some server issues (AGAIN..GRRR). I will be making the changes today so the site may act a bit funky until I can get things worked out.

Hopefully this will put an end to some of the problems in accessing the site.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Oh my!  Landing is going to be SCARY!

Source

On Saturday’s riddle, I featured M64, the Sleeping Beauty Galaxy.  Now, take a look at why this is called the Beauty:

NASA/Hubble ST - The Sleeping Beauty/M64

Can you believe that?  She doesn’t look real, does she?  It’s almost as if this incredible sight was deliberately painted, then stuck out 24 million light years away, waiting for someone to happen upon her.

You are seeing the result of two galaxies colliding about a billion years ago.  The center, where you see white blaze, is rotating clockwise.  In the outer portion of the galaxy you see this black, gaseous area.  This area is rotating counter-clockwise.  Now, where the two regions meet, the “shear”, there is this incredible explosion of new, hot, blue stars.  That’s the result of the tremendous forces involved pushing and moving against each other.  Around those gorgeous blue stars, you’ll see pink emission nebulae.  This is where the light from the stars is shining into the interstellar gasses and dust, and reflecting this glorious pink color (which our Hubble picked up).

The Beauty lies in the Coma Berenices constellation.  This is a fascinating region of the cosmos.  The Coma Berenices was named after an historical figure, one of the few constellations to do so.  In this case, the honor went to Queen Berenices II of Egypt.  Although Coma Berenices isn’t a very large constellation, she contains the Northern portion of the Virgo Cluster, along with several globular clusters.  She boasts eight Messier objects; one of which is the Beauty.  You will find a tremendous number of galaxies here, assorted nebulae, quasars, and the Northern Galactic Pole.

Enjoy.

1) Post from the past: Blood of the British.

2) Weird search query of the week: “khan cannabilism and evolution.” FYI, I abstain from consumption of human flesh.

3) Comment of the week, in response to “Reify my genes!”:

I’m going to venture a guess that 12 and 29 are a wildly attractive and completely anonymous white female and Indian male.

4) And finally, your weekly fluff fix:

Google+ for the Blogger and Researcher:

After a couple days of playing with it, I haven’t quite identified what it is for, or at least how I’m going to use it differently from twitter or facebook, but so far I am generally impressed – it’s easy, intuitive, and fast. It also allows you a level of selective privacy that – while possible to achieve – is very clunky on Facebook. It only took me 10 minutes on the web interface and another 10 minutes after downloading the Android app to figure out how it all worked. And Google+ is already far better integrated into the mobile user experience than Facebook is (though this is to be expected for a phone that runs Android).

Yes. I haven’t used Google+ much, but:

1 – The user experience is manifestly superior to Facebook’s still. Interaction with the UI is more fluid and natural. Again, this may be due to the fact that it can be superior because the user base is small. No idea.

2 – The circles are great. My Facebook requests I mentally put into two categories. One category are people who I recognize immediately. I know them. Another category are people I’m vaguer ...

Twice daily collection yields greater semen output and does not affect male libido in the ostrich.

“The success of an artificial insemination program in ostriches is highly dependent on the yield of viable semen. We, therefore, tested how semen output is affected by three different collection frequencies: once every 2d (48h interval), daily (24h interval), and twice a day (6h interval). Ejaculates were collected from seven male ostriches (aged 2-4 years) for 10 consecutive days using the dummy female method. We assessed semen characteristics (sperm motility, volume, concentration, number of sperm per ejaculate and sperm viability) and male libido (the delay between the presentation of the dummy and ejaculation, and the willingness to mount the dummy). The total daily output of semen and the number of sperm were greater at the 6h collection interval than at the 24h or 48h interval while sperm motility and viability were not affected. At the 6h interval, the number of live normal sperm increased over the treatment period while the number of live abnormal sperm was reduced. Furthermore, the time that males took to mount the dummy and their willingness to copulate with the dummy ...

This is a guest post by Jamie L. Vernon, Ph.D., a research scientist and policy wonk, who encourages the scientific community to get engaged in the policy-making process

The winds of change may be a blowin’.

A report from Greenpeace, U.S.A. has confirmed that ExxonMobil has been funding several prominent groups that have openly challenged the science behind global warming. The report largely focuses on grants provided to Dr. Willie Soon, a prominent climate denier. It reveals an elaborate “scientific” enterprise designed to distort the science of climate change. While Greenpeace focuses on findings that support their assertion that climate denialism has been historically sponsored by “Big Coal and Big Oil,” Leslie Kaufman over at the New York Times’ Green blog has uncovered a more optimistic side of the story.

Kaufman reports that ExxonMobil has followed through on a promise made to shareholders in 2008 not to fund groups that have become a “distraction” in the climate debate. According to her article, ExxonMobil has cut off funding to Dr. Soon and others. I’m not quick to praise ExxonMobil for these decisions because the motivation seems to be largely due to negative press rather than a genuine commitment to environmental issues. However, I was heartened by comments from Alan Jeffers, an ExxonMobil spokesperson who said, “I am not prepared to talk about the individual grant requirements, but if their positions are distracting to how we are going to meet the energy needs of the world, then we didn’t want to fund them.”

In light of the fact that several prominent Republican politicians have recently come out in support of the science behind anthropogenic global warming, it seems that the political currents may be turning in the right direction. Two of the top Republican Presidential candidates, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, have individually commented that humans are contributing to the problem. In addition, popular conservative Republican and New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, has expressed similar sentiments. It’s a good thing, too, because a recent Stanford poll reveals that the American public prefers political candidates who believe that humans have contributed to global warming and that the nation should move away from fossil fuels by investing in renewable sources of energy.

I have expressed my optimism on this issue throughout my posts here at the Intersection. It seems to me that America is moving toward a political environment where we might be able to establish a green energy plan for the future. Chris, however, is much more skeptical.

Let’s just hope for the best.

Follow Jamie Vernon on Twitter or read occasional posts at his personal blog, “American SciCo.”

Good news dental students: soon you will no longer have to approach your first victim patient with shaky, unsure hands. Researchers at Showa University in Japan have unveiled a new dental dummy, a realistic robot for dental students to practice on before taking the drill to real, human mouths.

I use the term “dummy” here loosely. Showa Tanako 2, as the researchers call her, has a wide range of human-like features. She can engage in simple conversations, flinch, roll her eyes, cough, and close her mouth like a real patient suffering from jaw fatigue. Oh, and she has a gag reflex.

So how did a group of dental researchers build such a realistic—albeit slightly scary—looking robot? Naturally, they sought help from Japanese sex doll maker, Orient Industry, who helped fashion the robot’s skin, tongue, and mouth. If the doll’s face didn’t look realistic, it wouldn’t “have the same effect on users psychologically,” Showa University professor Koutaro Maki said in the video released by DigInfo. “How doctors and students actually feel in the presence of a patient is a really big factor.”

On top of her movements, speech, and look, Showa Tanako 2 has one final similarity to human patients: she judges. ...