From NYT > Science:
One day early in 2004, Robert Noble, an architect specializing in sustainable design, asked himself why parking lots in the United States weren't covered in solar panels and used to generate clean energy. A few firms had been building carports with solar panels
Hi,
How to calculate the area for 90° Rectangular Elbow Duct (Square throat - 100mm)??
Explain about babitting process and welder qulification is required for that
I want to operate my house by my cell phone. Moreover, I want the security signals, like gas leakage, on my cell phone by sms. and my house should be operated weather m at home or anywhere in the world. please suggest me in detail. I want to do it in the time period of one month.
Why vektor goup Ynd5 and Dyn5 most of use for distribution transformer?
if the power factor of the utility is low ,is it effect the performance of the induction motor ? What does means by the P.F mentioned on the nameplate of the motor. Is it constant or changes with load?
Beam NASA up from this order, editorial, Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)
"The president is known to be a fan of the old "Star Trek" series, which frequently moralized on the pitfalls of "imperial condescension." Mr. Bolden may find some in the Muslim world more intransigent than a Klingon as he attempts to launch them into the space age."
NASA - no longer "The Right Stuff", opinion, Sussex Sun
"Wouldn't it be interesting to find out what Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldren (sic), or any of the other former NASA astronauts think about the new goals established for NASA by the president of the United States?"
Retro Rockets, opinion, Washington Times
"Was this the big liftoff? Well, no. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden elaborated on the agency's "priority" to reach out to Muslim countries during a July 1 appearance on the Al Jazeera network. Conservatives were vexed, and the White House predictably sprang to his defense. But the offending glare is not new, if a speech Mr. Bolden made June 15 at the American University in Cairo is any gauge."
Ramirez Editorial Cartoons (A take on an iconic image)
NASA logo makeovers: New Arabic Sensitivity Administration
"MichelleMalkin.com readers have answered the call of duty! Last night, inspired by reader Duke, I put out a call for NASA logo redesign Photoshops to mock Team Obama's Muslim-pandering makeover of the space program. Entries are pouring in to my mailbox. Had to share some of the best and most pointed images with you right away. Pick your favorites:"
Video: Obama's NASA mission to Muslims, Fox News
NASA's Final Frontier: The Muslim World, Fox News
Yet again, an Obama official says "Muslim," right-wing media freak-out follows, Media Matters
"Of course, since an Obama official made completely noncontroversial comments about reaching out to the Muslim world in order to gain contributions to the fields of science and technology, the right-wing media freaked out."
NASA: Mission to Mecca?, Washington Post
"But I still found Bolden's comment troubling, for a reason of my own: since when is it U.S. government policy to offer or refuse cooperation with various nations based on the religion their people practice? Last time I checked, the Constitution expressly forbid the establishment of religion. How can it be consistent with that mandate and the deeply held political and cultural values that it expresses for the U.S. government to "reach out" to another government because the people it rules are mostly of a particular faith?"
If you don't have coal, salt and copper, then how would you earth your connection temporarily at a campsite?
A comment below about intelligent people who believe in dumb ideas made me want to revisit the Creationism demographics in the GSS. More on point I wanted to look at the relationship between IQ and Creationism crossed with demographic variables. I used the WORDSUM variable as a proxy for IQ (the correlation is ~0.70). WORDSUM scores range from 0 to 10; 10 being a perfect and 0 being not so perfect. To get a sense of the range, here are mean WORDSUM scores by highest degree attained, constrained for the years 2004 and later:
| Mean WORDSUM | |
| No High School Diploma | 4.57 |
| High School Diploma | 5.91 |
| Junior College | 6.29 |
| Bachelor | 6.82 |
| Graduate | 7.73 |
I decided to limit the year to 2004 and later because to explore Creationism I want to use the variable EVOLVED, which was asked in 2004 and 2008. I selected EVOLVED because the sample size was not that small, nearly 1,500, and, the response is dichotomous. Here’s what EVOLVED asked:
Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals. (Is that true or false?)
Querying Americans about human descent from animals primes them to be a bit on the Creationist side. True and false come at at about 50:50 for the above question. Below is a table where the columns have mean WORDSUM scores for non-Creationists and Creationists, and the rows indicate the particular demographic. I have put in bold those variables where the horizontally adjacent cells are outside each other’s 95% confidence interval. Additionally I constrained the sample to non-Hispanic whites (so the N is closer to 1,350).
| Accepts Human Evolution | Creationist | |
| No College Degree | 6.14 | 5.95 |
| College Degree | 7.43 | 6.96 |
| Liberal | 7.36 | 5.84 |
| Moderate | 6.25 | 5.78 |
| Conservative | 6.42 | 6.48 |
| Democrat | 6.9 | 5.84 |
| Independent | 6.13 | 5.92 |
| Republican | 6.54 | 6.35 |
| Bible is…. | ||
| Word of God | 5.03 | 5.93 |
| Inspired Word | 6.71 | 6.45 |
| Book of Fables | 7.11 | 5.88 |
| Protestant | 6.61 | 6.21 |
| Catholic | 6.35 | 6.08 |
| No Religion | 6.8 | 5.31 |
| Confidence in existence of God…. | ||
| Atheist and Agnostic | 7.13 | 6.87 |
| Higher Power | 6.74 | 5.66 |
| Believe Sometimes | 6.8 | 6.06 |
| Believe With Doubts | 6.52 | 6.06 |
| Know God Exists | 6.49 | 6.18 |
| Male | 6.51 | 5.8 |
| Female | 6.82 | 6.4 |
| Age | ||
| 18-34 | 6.1 | 6.03 |
| 35-64 | 6.79 | 6.29 |
| 65 and older | 7.25 | 5.89 |
First, I have no explanation for the age differences. Second, notice that liberals and Democrats who are Creationists tend to be kind of unintelligent. It’s not surprising to me that those who believe that the Bible is the Word of God but are not Creationists are less intelligent than those who are (the two ranges were almost outside of the 95% confidence interval). I suspect these are individuals lacking in the faculties with which to make any inferences at all from their putative beliefs, or, those who regularly get confused on questions because they have minimal comprehension of complex grammatical constructions. In my opinion something similar is going on with liberals and Democrats who are Creationist, though there is a subtle difference. In this case their social-political milieu would tolerate acceptance of the scientific consensus, but they go with their common sense gut. I have minimal experience with politically liberal Creationists of late, but when I was younger I knew a few, and their opinions were generally inchoate and vague due to an indistinct comprehension of the basic abstract issues. In other words, these were just not the sharpest tools in the shed.
How do I test switching time of external relay with LabView switching executive?
I am using PXI 2529 switch to test relay, I can get my drop and pick up voltage and current now I want to record my pick up and drop away time on a graph and values.
Keith's 1 July note: NASA's New AA for Public Affairs is David Weaver. He starts work on 19 July at NASA HQ. Details to follow.
Van Hollen chief of staff tapped for NASA post, Gazette.net
"President Barack Obama has appointed Rep. Christopher Van Hollen's top aide to be the chief spokesman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration."
Of Moose and Men: 50-Year Study Into Moose Arthritis Reveals Link With Early Malnutrition:
“As the study entered its second decade there was increasing evidence of Osteoarthritis (OA) in the moose population,” said lead author Rolf Peterson from Michigan Technological University. “OA is a crippling disease and is identical to that found in humans. It is commonly believed to be caused by ‘wear and tear,’ but the complex causes have remained poorly understood.”
…
Over the course of the study the team discovered a rise in OA as the moose population increased, and a decrease when the population fell, leading to the idea that OA is linked to moose malnutrition when food is scarcer. The team found moose that were malnourished when young would develop OA in older age.“We have shown how malnutrition early in life increased the risk of OA later in life, but this also applies to humans as much as to a herd of moose in the wild,” said Peterson.
“These findings cast new light on how early humans first developed OA,” said co-author Dr Clark Spencer Larsen, an anthropology expert from Ohio University. “The study of human remains from archaeological contexts reveals OA increased where societies changed from foraging plants and animals to an increased dependency on farming.”
Such changes were documented in a mid-continental population of Native Americans 1000 years ago. In this group arthritis increased by 65% as society turned from foraging and hunting to agriculture and the cultivation of maize.
“Initially the increase in OA was put down to increased joint stress due to the labour of agriculture. However research now shows that, like the moose in Isle Royale, nutritional deficiencies early in life may have been the main cause. Early malnutrition was certainly a part of existence for many pre-historic human societies, and remains a fact of life for millions of people across the world, so this study is also relevant for modern human society.”
The original paper is in Ecology Letters, and it should be online at this address. I do wonder if more detailed understanding of the long term impact of early life nutrition is going to drive parents crazy with alarm as every new study which comes out produces a shift in recommendations.
In February I was birding on Fort Desoto and came across this specimen of a gray nickernut plant. The seed pods were bursting open and gave me a great look at where these popular seabeans come from.
Some interesting facts about nickernuts from the excellent book, Sea-Beans from the Tropics, by Ed Perry IV and John [...]
Although living on a private island is the ultimate way to live on the open seas, in the not too distant future people may be living on private islands but man made structures located below the water. One new proposal by UK-based designer Phil Pauley envisions a biosphere set in the ocean that would create a self-sustaining underwater habitat for aquanauts, tourists, and oceanographic life sciences. Made up of submersible spheres, the structure dubbed Sub Biosphere 2 would maintain and support life while acting as a secure underwater seed bank.
Read more: Sub Biosphere 2: A Self-Sustaining Underwater City | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World
We have screened 25 children up to date and I am more comfortable doing the Denvers now. Over the course of the summer I believe I can process everything more fluidly. The majority of the children are all presented with delays regardless of the treatment. There are some frustrations with the screening test particularly in the language and personalneeds section. For example learning colors s
The morning..The chill breath of morning airScraping gravel of wood wheels and a crash into a lamp postSo cold Yet merry faces pulling ropes to steer.Grey passes overhead. Does not dispell the cheer.and a cold..Heavy nose pressure. Hot eyes and a cold.The warmth of the room relieves the symptoms for a while.The head lightens but still the threat awaitsof a heavier head head sore headache.t
Tim and I were still so pumped this morning about seeing the bear yesterday at Yosemite. That's the first thing we said to each other this morning Can you believe we saw a bear. We were parked right beside a Jack In The Box so we thought we would try it for breakfast this morning. I ran over while Tim was getting ready and tinkering around the motorhome. The biscuits were really good but the
When I was younger about 15 I kept a black marble journal filled with my own philosophical musings. Once I had a friend write a response in it but mostly I worked through ideas with private words. It begins with the question of whether there is a right answer for everything if there is such a thing as the right way to go about change the ultimate solution. If there is some decision some righ
Through a combination of luck and good mangement this 4th of July we awoke in one of the most famous towns in America. Independance Day is a very big deal in Gettysburg and the rest of the country for that matter. Civil war enthusiasts from all over the nation had gathered to reenact the famous battle staged at Gettysburg so naturally we went along to take a look. With the temperature already
After yesterdays entry I went down to cockle bay again to try and find the Outback Centre as it features a lot of Aboriginal art and culture only to find that it is under renovation Boo hiss So after spending a lifetime doing my laundry and sharing my love of Dexter with fellow hostelites I went with my room mate down to the cinema to watch Eclipse. Yes I know terrible but although there i
