Phobos, closeup of fear | Bad Astronomy

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As I promised a little while back, the European Space Agency has released new extremely high-res pictures of Phobos, one of the moons of Mars! Check this out:

ME_phobos

Yegads. Click to embiggen, and see this in all its glory. This image, taken by the Mars Express spacecraft, has a resolution of 4.4 meters per pixel, meaning objects about the size of a two-car garage can be seen on the surface of Phobos. For comparison, this lumpy, battered moon (named for the Greek word for fear, a companion to Mars) is 27×22x19 kilometers (16×13x11 miles), so even though it’s on the tiny side, this is still a fantastic map of the surface.

And an important one as well: next year, Russia will be launching a probe called Phobos-Grunt (Phobos soil) that will attempt to land on the moon, collect a sample of its surface, and send it back to Earth! These images of Phobos will help the Russians figure out the best place to land.

On the ESA page linked above, you’ll also find a cool 3D anaglyph of Phobos, and if you want to stay up to date on all this, check out the Mars Express blog, too.

Image credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)


Released: Stunning Close-Up Photos of the Weird Martian Moon, Phobos | 80beats

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Phobos

The European Space Agency has released the latest pictures of the Martian moon Phobos, taken by the European Mars Express (MEX) probe during its recent flybys. On one flyby, MEX skimmed just 42 miles above the surface of Phobos, which is the closest any manmade object has ever gotten to the little Martian moon.

The image above is from a flyby that brought MEX within 63 miles of the surface; its High Resolution Stereo Camera took photographs that have a resolution of 14 feet per pixel. The images are being scrutinized by the Russian space agency as it tries to settle on a landing site for its ambitious Phobos-Grunt mission next year–the two potential landing sites are marked by red dots in the picture above. The Phobos-Grunt mission aims to collect a soil sample from Phobos, and then to return the sample to Earth for analysis.

Phobos is an odd little moon: it’s a potato-shaped rock measuring only 12 miles by 17 miles. Scientists believe the moon is relatively porous, but say its origin is still open to debate. Researchers suspect the moon is simply a collection of planetary rubble that coalesced around the Red Planet sometime after its formation. Another explanation is that it is a captured asteroid [BBC News]. Scientists believe that Phobos is being slowly pulled towards Mars, and tidal forces are expected to tear it apart one day.

The moon has drawn more attention lately, because it’s increasingly seen as a steppingstone for Mars-bound astronauts. Last month, NASA shifted its focus from sending humans back to the moon to a “flexible path” that includes the moons of Mars as potential destinations. The idea is that low-gravity locales such as Phobos (and Mars’ other moon, Deimos) should be easier to get to because they’re more accommodating for landing and ascent [MSNBC].

Related Content:
80beats: Photo Gallery: The Best Views From Spirit’s 6 Years of Mars Roving
80beats: Dis-Spirit-ed: NASA Concedes Defeat Over Stuck Mars Rover
80beats: New Images Reveal Traces of Ancient (and Life-Friendly?) Martian Lakes
DISCOVER: Russia’s Dark Horse Plan to Get to Mars describes the Phobos-Grunt mission

Image: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)


Did a Natural Gas Operation Cause a Spasm of Texas Earthquakes? | 80beats

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ShaleGasWhen small earthquakes rumbled beneath northern Texas in 2008 and again in 2009, scientists were puzzled. While they expect to see seismic activity in active zones like Haiti, Chile, and Turkey, where disasters have already struck this year, the area around Fort Worth, Texas sees only rare and tiny seismic activity. Now, some Texas seismologists are arguing that techniques used in conjunction with natural gas exploration provide a plausible explanation for what’s going on.

North Texas sits atop the Barnett Shale, one of the several giant layers of shale in the United States believed to hold a truly massive amount of natural gas. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas may reside in shales nationwide [USA Today]. The reason these giant deposits have remained largely untapped, however, is that shale isn’t particularly porous, and so extracting it requires drillers to fracture the rock in multiple places.

However, according to seismologist Brian Stump, it’s not the actual fracturing that may be to blame in this earthquake case. Rather, he points to “injection wells,” which are a way to get rid of the waste water that this gas exploration creates. Each natural gas well produces millions of gallons of wastewater that can be contaminated with salt, chemicals and crude oil. Injection wells dispose of the waste by forcing it deep into the ground under high pressure [Houston Chronicle]. Stump’s team used records of 11 of the tiny earthquakes (which at a magnitude of about 3.0 were too small to cause damage on ground level) to narrow the search for the quakes’ source. Those records pointed them to an area near the Dallas-Fort Worth airport where an injection well sits.

Because that well is close to an old fault, Stump’s team says the heat or pressure that the massive discharge of waste water creates is a plausible explanation for Texas’ quakes. However, they are careful to note that this is simply a plausible answer, and that the link hasn’t been proven. Understandably, Chesapeake Energy, which owns the well, was quick to reiterate that latter point, though the company closed the well last year as a precaution. “A direct, causal relationship between saltwater disposal wells and seismic activity in the DFW area has not been scientifically proven,” spokesman Brian Murnahan wrote in a statement. He declined to elaborate [Houston Chronicle].

Related Content:
Discoblog: Chile Quake Shifted Earth’s Axis, Shortened the Length of a Day
80beats: Why Chile’s Massive Earthquake Could Have Been Much Worse
80beats: Where in the World Will the Next Big Earthquake Strike?
80beats: Satellite Images Show the Extent of Haiti’s Devastation
80beats: The Earth *Really* Moved: Chilean Quake Shifted a City 10 Feet to the West
80beats: Geothermal Energy Project May Have Caused an Earthquake

Image: Energy Information Administration (map of major shale gas deposits)


Podcasting outer space, breaking filibusters and… science!

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David Brin is a Sentient Developments guest blogger.

I've been recording and posting some brief (for me) monologues on YouTube, starting with

Space Exploration Part 1 - Planning our next steps in beyond Earth ... followed by

Space Exploration Part 2 - Mining the sky: Are there economic incentives out there? ... and then

Space Exploration Part 3: The Big Picture, Where is the excitement? And what about warp drive? Finally, and just posted, there is

Space Exploration Part 4: Ambitious technologies for space: Space tethers, solar sails and space elevators.

More space-related postings will go up soon, plus some fun rants about SETI, andon the (crazy) notion of "cycles" of falling civilizations.

Nature interviews David Brin on scientists writing fiction.

I was also interviewed for the new documentary “The People vs. George Lucas.” I have no idea - yet - whether they used their footage of me appropriately. I attempted to be circumspect and speak well of Lucas -- where he deserved it. For example, I loved the “Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” and adored “The Empire Strikes Back.” So my disappointment in the films that followed came honestly... leading to my participation as editor and “prosecutor” in the book STAR WARS ON TRIAL. (by far the best and most fun way to explore these issues!)

Those guys at the SETI Institute sure have chutzpah! They plan to tun their first SETIcon August 13-15 at the Hyatt Regency, Santa Clara. “The Search for Life in the Universe in Science Fact and Science Fiction!” Thus perpetuating the myth that they love science fiction.... only don’t mention any possibility that the universe might -- just might -- be different, even slightly, than their standard model. Watch how quickly any alternate scenario is dismissed as “crazy science fiction stuff.” Anybody planning to attend? Oh, don’t get me wrong, it should be fun and interesting in its own right. The topic has fascinated my, all my life and I am glad the are pursuing the worthy search... (as opposed to some of their other, cultlike activities.) But if anyone is interested in some questions to raise....

Denialism includes “denial of progress.” One of the most insidious poisons going around, spread not only by the mad right but also by the lazier and more self-indulgent portions of the left, has been the notion that progress has failed. Even when wagging their fingers at us, in hope that we’ll become better people, Hollywood films like Avatar emphasize guilt and despair as motivators to become better people. Say what? Exactly how is that supposed to work? Instead of ... well, how about pride in what we’ve accomplished and encouragement that we can do more? Directors like James Cameron are sincere. They mean well. They really do want to propel us forward. They genuinely hope their guilt trips will make us better people... while showing in their films a belief that the goal is impossible to achieve! Which makes it all the more tragic that their messages kill the very ambitions they aim to stoke. The ambition to accomplish great things.

In fact, civilization is not vile and useless. Progress happens. It has never been happening faster. See just this one short summary for a partial list of reasons to feel restored faith in our can-do spirit. Of course, the list was compiled by some folks at Cato, who give all the credit to globalization and none to intelligent planning. But the facts still are what they are.

esson number one in human motivation, Jim. Guilt trips aren’t as effective as pep talks that positively reward and praise people for the great stuff they have already done, encouraging them to strive harder to move forward even faster. Go back to school. Re-take psych 1.

Murray Hill might be the perfect candidate for this political moment: young, bold, media-savvy, a Washington outsider eager to reshape the way things are done in the nation's capital. And if these are cynical times, well, then, it's safe to say Murray Hill is by far the most cynical...After the Supreme Court declared that corporations have the same rights as individuals when it comes to funding political campaigns, the self-described progressive firm took what it considers the next logical step: declaring for office....

=== SCIENCE ===

I provided two papers in the psychological research volume Pathological Altruism, edited by Barbara Oakley, Ariel Knafo, Guruprasad Madhavan and David Sloan Wilson (Oxford University Press). This volume takes on a once verboten topic -- can surficially beneficent or altruistic behavior sometimes be motivated by more unsavory drives like aggression, egotism or even rapacious self-interest? Can it even hurt the one who is being helped? My chapters are: "Self-Addiction and Self-Righteousness" and "A Contrarian Perspective on Altruism: The Dangers of First Contact". Those interested will have to wait at least half a year for Oxford to publish the volume. But make note, now. It will be worth the wait. (It also proves I am still doing science... albeit in the form of continuing guerilla raids outside my formal PhD!)

Not that I disagree... but the study was done by a liberal atheist. 😉 In fact, the lurid headline disguises an interestingly more complex article about whether higher general intelligence is associated with “evolutionarily novel” traits -- or much more recent adaptations -- like nocturnal activity (dependent upon artificial light), complex discourse.

The author argues that humans are evolutionarily designed to be conservative, caring mostly about their family and friends, and being liberal, caring about an indefinite number of genetically unrelated strangers they never meet or interact with, is evolutionarily novel. So more intelligent children may be more likely to grow up to be liberals. This jibes closely to my “horizons” model that saitiation trades off against the radius of inclusion, how widely you feel your sense of kinship extends, in space, time, and kind. The satiation tradeoff only works if a person has both certain personality traits (including satiability) and enoigh empathy-imagination.

=== MISC! ===

The worlds first commercial brain-machine interface.

See Mike Treder, of the Institute on Ethics in Technology, write about basics of health care.

Another for the predictions registry... e-readers like the Amazon Kindle. Now see this from EARTH (1989) “That's enough for now. More than enough. Go feed your pets. Get some exercise. I slipped some readings into your plaque. Go over them by next time. And don't be late.” Hm? Anybody know an earlier hit on this?

I wish I could find where I also predicted this! That nerves are only the flashiest active elements in the brain. The so-called “support” cells may be just as important, multiplying vastly the number of “active” elements and making the human brain that much harder to emulate!

And finally, some some political items I had lying around...

A TRICK TO DEFEAT THE FILIBUSTER

I've mentioned before that the New York Times ran an especially cogent article -- Mr. Smith Rewrites the Constitution, by Thomas Geoghegan -- about the absurd filibuster, its unjustified constitutional context, and possible ways around it. It’s one of the most enlightening legal articles I've read. I like especially Gohegan’s recommendation that Vice President Joe Biden simply rule from the bench that his own constitutional powers have been abridged.

On further consideration, in fact, the “Biden Option” could be even simpler than Gohegan suggests. Instead of the vice president using his presiding powers to rule against the cloture process, he can arrange for circumstances that simply bypass cloture, on a constitutional quirk. Here’s how. Simply coordinate enough Democratic Senators in order to arrange for a perfect match of the predictable, lockstep GOP nay vote. Say the result is a 41-41 tie, at which point Biden says:

"The vote for cloture being a tie, the US Constitution takes precedence over any mere Senate procedural rule. I shall now cast the tie-breaking vote. I vote 'Yes' for cloture. The motion carries, and debate on this bill shall close 30 hours hence." BANG!

The great thing about this approach is that it leaves Republicans with no wriggle room at all. Their sole option is to evade the tie, by changing some Republican votes from nay to yea! But the Democrats have far more inherent flexibility. Up to twenty extra Democratic senators may lurk in the cloakroom, ready to descend and vote either way -- to restore the tie or else using those GOP "yeas" to help add up toward a regular 60-vote cloture.

Sure it will be decried as trickery. So?

=== Miscellanea ==

The fundies have made it blatant and open: ”Science fiction is intimately associated with Darwinian evolution. Sagan and Asimov, for example, were prominent evolutionary scientists. Sci-fi arose in the late 19th and early 20th century as a product of an evolutionary worldview that denies the Almighty Creator. In fact, evolution IS the pre-eminent science fiction. Beware!”

See an interesting, if myopic, discussion of why economists failed to see the bubble crisis coming. And sure, none of them mention crackpot theories like my “Betrayal of the Smarter Sons.” I can’t blame them. That one was pretty bizarre, even if it contained some possible validity.

The honest truth is that I suspect other reasons. Oligarchy is an especially pernicious human trend that's rooted in our genes and also in capitalism's very roots. Marx was right that it is the ultimate, recurring threat. He was wrong to say that there aren't solutions that can keep capitalism vibrant, competitive and creative, for generations at a stretch. But those solutions tend to be "captured" by smart proto-oligarchs, much in the way that parasitic viruses and bacteria adapt to attack hosts in new ways.

Right now our immune system cannot adapt to oligarchy-driven distortions because our immune system (politics) has been suppressed by "culture war." Throw in some deliberate sabotage by certain hostile foreign elements and you have a theory that is more than adequate... if far too dramatic for anyone but a science fiction author to concoct or credit.

Too bad, since economic and political thinkers used to ponder a bigger picture. Krugman and Galbraith are peering at individual trees. They do not see the forest.

-- Is the Iraq War over? ---

enough for now....

Banana beats anti-HIV drugs – Independent

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Eureka! Science News
Banana beats anti-HIV drugs
Independent
This novel research from the University of Michigan Medical School found BanLec, "a jacalin-related lectin isolated from the fruit of bananas, ...
Bananas enlisted to help stop spread of HIVMontreal Gazette
Bananas 'may be key to fight Aids'The Press Association
Chemical in Bananas Could Help Prevent the Spread of HIVIndyPosted (blog)
AnnArbor.com -AIDSmeds.com HIV/AIDS Treatment News -Natural Products Industry Insider
all 40 news articles »

How Loaded are HV Cables?

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Hello, I was looking at CR4 forum: could you help me with this electrical question please:

On a HV network if I have a cable for which I know the sending and recieving MW/MVA and MVAr (say between two buses), how can I describe/define how 'loaded' the cable is if I compare it to a parall

Getting Serious About Genomics as Common Medical Practice

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Keith Grimaldi of Eurogene writes in response to a comment thread at Daniel MacArthur’s Genetic Future:

@AndrewYates
“Is there a law in the UK about providing medical advice without a medical license?”

I don’t understand your (and Sherpas) issues with what is medicine and what is not. Is it actually against the law to give medical advice if you are not a medical doctor? Is it against the law to give it DTC widely and freely as many government sites do (NHS, CDC, NIH, etc)? What about the pharmacist who advises me on medicines? What about buying ranitidine DTC in the supermarket? Where does medicine begin and end? What are the terms that define what has to be limited to a medical doctor and transmitted by the doctor directly to the patient? It seems that a lot of what you and Steve talk about as “doing medicine” apply to a whole load of stuff that is routinely done by non-medics, with no particular problems.

What makes 23andme with their (non-invasive) test “doing medicine” compared to say the NCI Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool? Especially as we are often reminded that classic risk assessments are more accurate than genetic tests. If that is the case then why is it not a problem that there are so many sites offering risk assessments with these more accurate algorithms, why are they OK DTC but genetic testing is not? What is the fundamental difference?

As far as I can see none of the DTC companies are making diagnoses or actually advising treatment – that I would agree is generally the realm of the medical doctor, but not always, unless it’s against the law for my pharmacist to advise me to take a ‘flu medication).

The lines are blurry and the regulation is poor but it’s not clear why DTC is being singled out for your collective attacks. You may not like the marketing methods (I would say that you certainly don’t), you might not think them useful as tests, on these I can understand your reasons. I don’t understand your reasons for thinking that it’s an illegal activity and that only medical doctors should be allowed to do it.

“why DTC is being singled out for your collective attacks”

Because genomics belongs as common medical practice, and the way to achieve that is to shed the groupies and get serious about how to actually apply genomic medicine in actual practice.

“Is it actually against the law to give medical advice if you are not a medical doctor?”

Yes.

Think: law. Can you give legal advice if you are not a juris doctor? That depends on how you represent yourself and what kind of contracts you solicit for the advice you “give.”

“Is it against the law to give it DTC widely and freely as many government sites do (NHS, CDC, NIH, etc)?”

  • Medical science itself is not medical advice. An analogy is that a law citation is not a court order.
  • It’s not unlawful for an agency of law to publish medical science —even if edited for “layperson’s consumption.”
  • Merely “publishing public medical science on a website” does not constitute a patient relationship between the reader and the publisher.

“What about the pharmacist who advises me on medicines?”

What a pharm tech can tell you over the counter is more aggressively regulated than anything in a medical office. Further, (and I’m going to get in trouble for this someday but) Pharmaceutical salespeople are specifically selected for their complicit ignorance so that they don’t accidentally disclose protected information about the drug. If you want to amuse yourself, pull out wikipedia in front of a drug rep and start telling them about their own drugs in front of a medical doctor.

“What makes 23andme with their (non-invasive) test “doing medicine” compared to say the NCI Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool?”

“Invasive” is a matter of relationship, not necessarily physical contact. “Information” itself cannot form a relationship with an individual to produce medical advice in the same way that the source code of software itself cannot to produce results. Note: “non-invasive” actually means “less invasive” with the implication being “less invasive than traditional surgery.”

Also: It’s not unlawful for an agency of law to publish medical science —even if edited for “layperson’s consumption.”

Commentary:

I am receptive to learn how 23andMe and Navigenics actually intended genetics for real application in medicine when they explicitly forbid that practice in their contract.

Yah, I got the memo: Everybody just chill, this is for the greater good.

Yah, well: I didn’t see any greater good. I just saw new people telling me what I should be “free” to think. I just saw celebrities gorging on cake while everyone else scrambled for bread. And I saw the same pharma psyops and the same condescending licensing games —just new people, and this time, they had the gall to tell me that “this is freedom.”

Now we all can see that the dream is dying, and we all can see you just wanted to buy horses and play tin soldiers. Hurry up and die so next generation can step on your corpse without tripping. Nice website.

Erie UFO sounds familiar to me | Bad Astronomy

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A wave of reports is coming in from the town of Euclid, Ohio, from folks there who are seeing a mysterious light hovering over Lake Erie and Cleveland. The light, they say, is very bright, lasts for a couple of hours, stays near the horizon, changes colors, and keeps coming back to the same spot night after night.

Here’s an MSNBC report about it:

Could it be an alien visitor from another world?

No, I don’t think so. In fact, I think it is another world. Venus, to be specific.

A Fort Wayne, Indiana website has an interview with one of the witnesses on video, and includes some still shots. Everything in his description, including the photographs, makes me think he and the others are seeing Venus.

Right now, Venus can be seen in the west — the direction to Lake Erie and Cleveland as seen in Euclid — shining brightly just after sunset. It is so bright it can be seen while the sky is still light (I’ve seen Venus in the middle of the day). It appears to hover. Changing atmospheric conditions can affect its color, especially when it’s low to the horizon. It can be seen night after night, in the same spot in the sky.

Sound familiar?

I’m not saying what these people are seeing is in fact Venus, but it sure fits everything I’ve heard in the news reports (sometimes the witnesses describe multiple lights, but when looking to the horizon, especially over a big city, it’s not too unlikely to see planes flying around). In the MSNBC report they talked to the FAA, the military, and others (including a UFO guy from England), but never talked to an astronomer. Hmmph. And note that in these news articles, Venus is never mentioned! That’s mighty peculiar, given how spectacular it is in the west after sunset. It’s really hard to miss. A likely explanation is that it’s not mentioned because it is, in fact, the culprit here.

I’m getting a kick out of just how positive so many people are that this is a flying saucer of some kind. I wonder how many of these folks actually are familiar with the night sky, and would recognize Venus when they see it? That’s why I think very few astronomers (pro or amateur) report UFOs: astronomers tend to know what they’re looking at in the sky.

The next time you hear a report like this, don’t jump to the conclusion that some interplanetary object is making a close encounter… because it may very well be interplanetary, but the encounter may not be terribly close.

Tip o’ the probe to Patrick Kent.


Green Power and Amp Hours

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Considering our efforts to go GREEN and the sources of power through wind and PV, unless we are very rich, we may not be able to configure a 15KW power source and have to rely on a more modest configuration that can supply a more modest but a steady supply of power during the day for extended use at

Metal and Concrete

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hello,

i want to know the weight of metal in one cubic meter M30 cocnrete ?

weight of metal in one cubic meter M20 concrete ?

weight of metal in one cubic meter M40 concrete ?

weight of metal in one cubic meter M50 concrete ?

& i also want to know the

The SXSW Iron Geek Champion!

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Kevin HazardAt high noon on March 15, 2010, four worthy competitors toed the line in anticipation of what would be the most grueling (and perhaps only) multi-event tech geek challenge at South by Southwest Interactive. The competition was intense, and while each participant proved deserving of the SXSW Iron Geek Champion title, only one could walk away a winner.

The Planet’s Server Challenge was selected as an official event in the tech triathlon, so Keith Shaw, Kyle Monson, Chris Boudy and Harry McCracken had to rebuild our Pentium4 server faster than their formidable opponents to walk away with the most points for the round. Hands flew, blood was shed and tears were cried, and after the dust settled, the results were posted:

  1. Kyle Monson: 1:02.4
  2. Chris Boudy: 1:13.4
  3. Keith Shaw: 1:16.3
  4. Harry McCracken: 1:58.2

Kyle walked away victorious from The Planet Server Challenge, but when the final scores were tallied from all the events, Chris Boudy was crowned the SXSW Iron Geek Champion. After prying him away from the droves of fans chasing his newly acquired stardom, we took a minute to chat with Chris about his experience in the Iron Geek triathlon and about his impression of SXSW Interactive.

Congratulations, Chris!

- Kevin

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The Bonus Riddle

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UPDATE:  The riddle remains unsolved and is now open for everyone to try it.  Comments are open.

Here it is!  Finally, the Bonus Riddle.  Real quick, a run-down of “da rules”:  You have until noon CDT Tuesday to submit your guesses.  You submit by email to Tom or Marian.  No comments will be allowed on the post until after noon tomorrow.  Only previous riddle solvers are eligible to compete.  You have three guesses, and only three.  Even if you guess it correctly on the fourth guess, it will be disqualified.  Tom has the final say on any controversial issues.  If not solved by noon CDT Tuesday the 16th, the puzzle will be open for comments and guesses from everybody.

Now, the people eligible to compete are:  Bruce, Adrianus V, Jim, Patricia, Doug, Dwight Decker, Rob, Alejandro, Stuart, Jim Hammill, Nick, Stephen, Jerry Thornton, Roger, Bill, and Curt.  We will be verifying names and “addresses” against your previous blog entries.  It’s not that we don’t trust you, because we do, but we like to be able to prove we gave away the prize to someone other than our cousins or best friends (who are, by the way, ineligible to compete in any of the riddles anyway).

So, without further ado, here are your clues:

The answer is an object.

It was not known to ancient man.

This contains many parts.

Modern studies of this object have only served to deepen its mystery.

While not as big as it appears, it may be more complex than originally thought.

The first of its “kind” found, it has become the most studied.

Has appeared in popular film.

Look at this image:

It is your final clue.

Tom and I wish everyone the best of luck.

One more thing; please put “riddle” in the subject line of your emails so they don’t get lost in the shuffle.

From the Revkin Interview: The Earthquake Threat to Oregon | The Intersection

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800px-ADBC_Branch_in_BeiChuan_after_earthquakeWhile there was much I liked about my Point of Inquiry interview with Andy Revkin, perhaps nothing was more striking than his direct analogy between the massively deadly 2008 Sichuan earthquake, in China, and what is likely to happen someday in Oregon. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing from him:

In Oregon…where there’s a known, extraordinary seismic risk, cities and communities are still not doing much to gird the buildings that matter most, like schools, to make them less likely to fall down and kill thousands of kids and teachers….essentially what you saw in Sichuan province, almost unavoidably will be seen in lots of places in Oregon, where there’s that extraordinary fault offshore, the Cascadia fault, that will generate an extraordinary earthquake, most likely in this century, pretty plausibly in the next few decades, if not tomorrow–that will destroy 1,200 schools. The schools are listed, they’ve been studied, we know where they are, the ones that are very likely or certain to fall down when that quake hits. If my kids were in one of those schools, I’d be pretty energized.

Revkin goes on to discuss why we tend to ignore risks like these, even though there is no possible rational justification for it….you can listen here. The section begins around minute 23:30. And don’t forget to subscribe to Point of Inquiry on iTunes!

Meanwhile, to jon a discussion that has begun about the show, zip over here…


One World – One Trip

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post thumbnail

Two parents, 2 daughters, 12 months, 17 countries, 1 world, 1 trip and 1 blog written by the whole family. One World – One Trip is the record of their journey around that world and back again. Each member contributes their point of view at different times during their explorations. Now home, newer entries are added to Around the World in Easy Ways.

Photo Op: It’s Match Day for UAB Medical Students – Decision Made on Residency … – UAB News

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UA News (press release)
Photo Op: It's Match Day for UAB Medical Students – Decision Made on Residency ...
UAB News
Following graduation from medical school, new physicians spend at least three years in a residency program, receiving advanced training in their chosen ...
'Match Day' for Medical School GradsArticle Ant (press release)

all 3 news articles »