Republicans deserve Newt Gingrich

Really, let’s just recognize the performance artists making up what was formerly known as the Republican Party are getting their just rewards. It’s been going this way for a long time and, like an abusive spouse with a love of the bottle hitting middle age, it’s been getting noticeably worse over the last few years. Conservative propaganda, funded by corporations and rich whackos, empowered with everything mass media and Madison Avenue can deliver, have hit the trifecta. [Read more…]

This week in science!

This week rumors swirled that … something … was found in the LHC data. There’s plenty of inside baseball players saying it’s likely to be tentative evidence that the search for the Higgs Boson is nearing a phase transition. So, what is the Higgs Boson you ask? The LHC rap above with intro by MC Hawking does a decent job of reviewing the basics; I wish could explain the Higgs in one graf. Because it’s only the most important particle in science right now, and — depending on its properties or its very existence — could even help illuminate the elusive bridge between two great fields of physics that explain our universe from quark to quasar, but don’t play well together at all: General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. But that’s a post for another day. For now, Cosmic Variance does an admirable job of summing up the science of detection, and this link explains the Higgs by gentle analogy for the non atom-smashing pro.

  • Anti-science marches on! This week Jon Huntsman ran with the banner, making a play for the critical for the know-nothing vote by backpeddling away on human induced climate change with a subtle dog-whistle shout-out to the climate conspiracy clowns. Meanwhile, climate talks are at a virtual standstill without strong US leadership and cooperation from India and China.
  • If somehow you missed it, Kepler bags a low mass, possibly earth-like planet circling in the habitable zone of a twin sun-like star. The Bad Astronomer has some great science insights on Kepler’s first big find, and this planet could the first of many with terrestrial potential we discover over the next several years.
  • The Mars Science Lab is on its way to Mars, where the Opportunity rover has found lead-pipe cinch evidence for flowing water. There’s a sense the decade of the naughts could see the universe give up some long-held secrets, near and far, at every level.
  • The lunar eclipse has begun: beautiful images abound, and for those of you in Eastern and Central Standard Time, where the moon is being drowned out by a rising sun, Cosmic Log and Wired Mag both offer great online viewing.

Lunar eclipse offers rare treat for some in the wee morning hours

The image above courtesy of Anthony Ayiomamitis gives an idea of the treat in store for star-gazer tonight. In the wee morning hours a beautiful full moon will offer up a rare show in crystal winter skies as it sets gently wrapped in red and gold in the west: the 2011 lunar eclipse. Cosmic Log has a great rundown of times and the best geographic locations in the US: [Read more…]

Cambrian predator was a real horror show

The already rather fearsome anomalocaris just got even more ferocious. Paleontologists found a well preserved specimen with detail on the eye arrangement, and this top predator of the Cambrian Explosion had eye stalks:

(MSNBC) — When you look at the animal it has these really gnarly looking grasping claws at the top of its head, for grasping onto its prey,” Paterson said. “It used these grasping claws at the front to shove its prey into its circular mouth, which is also fairly fearsome looking.”

Economy recovery really under way?

An analyst in the investment racket once told me “Things don’t usually move as fast as you think they will, but when they start moving they often keep going longer and further than you think they will.” The year was 1994, at the end of a long recession, and boy was he right. Hopefully, last week’s unemployment stats together with this one bode well too: [Read more…]

Aren’t they all God particles?

Thanks to the Higgs rumors I’ve already read enough God Particle articles to last me a lifetime. Besides, technically, given an a priori belief in a cosmic creator/planner, wouldn’t every particle be a “God” particle? But I do understand the Higgs is hard to understand, so its significance to physics is difficult for the layperson to to appreciate. This article just posted by Matt Srassler will bring you up to date on the hard science of detection, for non physicist, non engineers, you’ll find this excellent piece written with you in mind most helpful. Then there’s the LHC rap, and if you can get past the cheesiness factor, it’s actually quite good and even has an MC Hawking intro, below the fold. [Read more…]

Eat junkfood, lay on the couch, and get ripped like Adonis

Who wouldn’t want to believe you could lay around all day eating cake and fried cheese and become a healthier, lean-mean muscular god? The idea is so seductive that, despite real world experience to the contrary, variations of it form the basis for weight loss and workout scams to this day. The economic equivalent is the claim that getting rid of annoying rules and cutting the taxes on billionaires leads to a healthier economy and prosperity for all. We know for a recent historical fact that that isn’t true, because we’ve been cutting taxes on billionaires and deregulating for decades and the economy went straight into the shitter. Finally, someone with a megaphone used it to point this out. [Read more…]

CERN announces an upcoming announcement and presser on Higgs

Rumors swirled today that data may have been found that supports the Higgs boson at ~126 GeV. Reliable sources have speculated the data will show a certainty, that something’s there, to about 4.2 sigma, the threshold for official detection is 5 sigma, but that only triggers many rounds of attempted confirmation. I’m told that is probably the gist of what CERN will discuss, full statement below: [Read more…]

Jon Huntsman turns climate change denier

Chasing the know-nothing vote is apparently more important to Jon Huntsman than the integrity he once claimed to prize. Whereas before the former Utah Governor accepted the scientific consensus on climate change (And evolution), now he’s paying homage to the deniers by way of the long debunked CRU email hack:

(TPM) — “[T]here is — there are questions about the validity of the science, evidenced by one university over in Scotland recently,” Huntsman said, referring to the East Anglia University conspiracy that continues to fuel climate change skepticism. “I think the onus is on the scientific community to provide more in the way of information, to help clarify the situation.”

That’ll do pig, that’ll do.