North Carolina is a state that Trump won in 2016 that this year is seen as a possible Democratic pickup so it was not surprising that Trump held a rally there last week.
As Seth Meyers, says, what was troubling though was that there was no sign of any precautions being taken to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
After he was exposed as publicly playing down the seriousness of the virus even though he knew it was highly contagious and dangerous, Trump said that he only did so so as not to create panic. That explanation has been blasted as dangerous by creating a false sense of complacency at a time when accurate information was essential so that steps could be taken to minimize the spread.
But it appears that even now his administration is trying to minimize the danger by pressuring the scientists who work for the Centers for Disease Control to change their reports to comport with his optimistic statements.
[Read more…]
The bottom of the oceans is a mostly unexplored frontier that does not get as much attention as the frontier of space. But it does attract adventurers who seek to go where no one has gone before. On January 23, 1960 Auguste Piccard and Don Walsh went to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepest known point in the world that, at a depth of 11,034m, is deeper than Mount Everest is high. But no went there again there for over a half-century until in 2012, when filmmaker James Cameron went there in a submersible. Unfortunately, the submersible had many systems failing during the trip so that, although he was not in danger, it was never used again. I blogged about this back then. No one went again for another seven years. But in the last year that picture has changed dramatically.
[Read more…]
The wildfires in the Pacific Northwest have been on a devastating scale. Starting in California they have spread north to Oregon and Washington states and consumed millions of acres of land. While California is subject to regular drought and heat and is thus prone to wildfires, the other two states are cooler and rainier and thus do not usually experience this level of fires. The level of fire activity in those areas is being called ‘unprecedented’.
Washington Gov. Jay Inlsee on Wednesday held a news conference after touring Bonney Lake, where the Sumner Grade Fire has burned more than 800 acres including four homes, and has forced evacuations.
Inslee previously issued a statewide emergency proclamation due to fires in eastern and central Washington. However, the fires have only gotten worse and due to recent weather conditions, around 480,000 acres have burned since Monday,
“This is an extraordinary series of events we have suffered,” Inslee said, pointing to the combination of dry grass, high temperatures and heavy winds.
The governor said the conditions have been exacerbated by the changing climate in Washington, and said he looks forward to working with people across the state to fight the cause of the fires.
Its title is The Idea that a Scientific Theory can be ‘Falsified’ Is a Myth: It’s time we abandoned it and can be read here.
From the very beginning of this pandemic, Donald Trump has downplayed the seriousness of it and avoided taking the tough actions required to curb it. Tim Dickinson has compiled a list of the 22 times that Trump has indulged in magical thinking, claiming that the virus would just go away all by itself, because of warmer weather or by some kind of ‘miracle’ or that it was not dangerous or some such nonsense, ignoring the warnings of public health experts that we needed concerted national action, and praising himself relentlessly for his non-action.
[Read more…]
Samantha Bee explains that this is not just a waste of money and a breeder of anti-science beliefs but can also be very dangerous to women’s health.
Suppose you could get a layer of liquid to stay suspended in mid-air, then you could observe counter-intuitive things such as objects like toy boats floating on both the top and bottom surfaces, being right side up on the top surface and upside down on the bottom surface.
But how could you get such a layer of liquid to defy gravity in this way? It turns out you can, as can be seen in this video.
