Slashdot Mirror

Sorry, I pressed "submit" rather than "preview". The papers referenced in the article appear to be:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/580 3/1243b?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&f ulltext=Faustman&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec= date&resourcetype=HWCIT

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/580 3/1243d?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&f ulltext=Faustman&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec= date&resourcetype=HWCIT

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/580 3/1243a

However, many appear present here http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?&search_submi t.y=0&search_submit=go&search_submit.x=0&site_area =sci&fulltext=Faustman&src=hw&sortspecbrief=date&s ortspec=date

Sorry, I pressed "submit" rather than "preview". The papers referenced in the article appear to be:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/580 3/1243b?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&f ulltext=Faustman&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec= date&resourcetype=HWCIT

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/580 3/1243d?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&f ulltext=Faustman&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec= date&resourcetype=HWCIT

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/580 3/1243a

However, many appear present here http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?&search_submi t.y=0&search_submit=go&search_submit.x=0&site_area =sci&fulltext=Faustman&src=hw&sortspecbrief=date&s ortspec=date

Sorry, I pressed "submit" rather than "preview". The papers referenced in the article appear to be:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/580 3/1243b?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&f ulltext=Faustman&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec= date&resourcetype=HWCIT

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/580 3/1243d?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&f ulltext=Faustman&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec= date&resourcetype=HWCIT

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/580 3/1243a

However, many appear present here http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?&search_submi t.y=0&search_submit=go&search_submit.x=0&site_area =sci&fulltext=Faustman&src=hw&sortspecbrief=date&s ortspec=date

Sorry, I pressed "submit" rather than "preview". The papers referenced in the article appear to be:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/580 3/1243b?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&f ulltext=Faustman&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec= date&resourcetype=HWCIT

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/580 3/1243d?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&f ulltext=Faustman&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec= date&resourcetype=HWCIT

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/580 3/1243a

However, many appear present here http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?&search_submi t.y=0&search_submit=go&search_submit.x=0&site_area =sci&fulltext=Faustman&src=hw&sortspecbrief=date&s ortspec=date

The three papers mentioned: 2003 paper (Islet Regeneration During the Reversal of Autoimmune Diabetes in NOD Mice): http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/302/564 8/1223?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fu lltext=Faustman&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcety pe=HWCIT

terst

Oooo. Since some people disagree, therefore McIntyre and McKitrick are wrong. No.

That was quick: we arrived almost immediately at the part about science that you don't understand. I am not pointing out merely that "some people disagree." You may be used to philosophical and religious discussions, where disagreements are not resolvable definitively and argumentation is a matter of superior persuasion.

But this is science; your sarcasm has no power here. It is not that "some people disagree." It is that the experts you cite have been shown to be incorrect in peer-reviewed journals, and to my knowledge there has been no response in kind. I've invited you to correct me on that and I invite you again.

Bradley 2003, Rutherford 2005, Wahl 2006, ...

William Connolley on realclimate parsed the question fairly, here:

The main points that most would agree on as "the consensus" are:

1. The earth is getting warmer (0.6 +/- 0.2 oC in the past century; 0.1 0.17 oC/decade over the last 30 years (see update))
2. People are causing this.
3. If GHG emissions continue, the warming will continue and indeed accelerate.
4. (This will be a problem and we ought to do something about it)

I've put those four points in rough order of certainty. The last one is in brackets because whilst many would agree, many others (who agree with 1-3) would not, at least without qualification. It's probably not a part of the core consensus in the way 1-3 are.

I understand that I can either argue from authority (ask you to take my word for it as an expert) or provide some evidence.

You will see in these Slashdot discussions plenty of weaseling on the first three points, despite readers of this list presumably being better informed on science than the general public. The first three points are not open questions in science. Like anything in science they are open for revisiting, but they are not where the action or controversy lies within the research community.

While I agree with the fourth point very strongly, and while a majority of participants in the relevant sciences probably do, it's not universally agreed. It's not really a scientific question, though; it's a question in economics, policies, values, and risk.

The broad scientific questions, the ones typically up for debate, are essentially settled.

What interests me here is why people continue to rant about questions that are part of the consensus, when the case is pretty much closed. They take offense when one has the temerity to suggest they are not only barking up the wrong tree, but that the tree they are barking up was chopped down for pulp years ago, but they don't seriously consider the possibility that while the policy is uncertain, the broad outlines of the facts are known well enough.

For those of you who think people like me are wrong, disingenuous, or even dishonest, consider how the situation looks to you vs how it would look if we were basically right. There would be organizations with substantial investments in resources (especially fossil fuels) whose long term value would be at risk. (There's ample precedent. Consider the history of the tobacco industry.) Their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders would be to minimize that risk. They would therefore inject the greatest possible doubt into the public's understanding of the science.

Consequently, there would be many arguments in the press, mostly appealing to the elements in the society who are generally most suspicious of regulation and taxation, that would cherry-pick evidence and spin tales that were scientifically incoherent and yet superficially convincing.

They would appeal to the fairness of the lay audience. They would claim that there are two sides to every issue. They would object to any presentation that was scientifically balanced on the grounds that their manufactured opinion was not represented. The echoes of this argument ring through every public discussion of the topic, on Slashdot and elsewhere.

Science and commerce do not deserve equal time on scientific questions. Cherry picked evidence does not deserve equal time with the totality of the evidence. The best policy is not a compromise between truth and fiction.

Capitalism is necessary for prosperity, and vigorous defense of private interests is part of the game. Cherry-picking evidence isn't illeg

The scientific community refers to it as social defeat stress disorder.

More good information and relevent links can be found here.

The scientific community refers to it as social defeat stress disorder.

More good information and relevent links can be found here.

After reading +3 comments, I realized that people are not getting it enough:

For those who have access to university libraries or work for academy, in short, have access to Science here is the movie

This is scary, colleagues.

Does anybody realize, that in the beginning robot only knows that he can move the legs in various directions? Period. That is it, nothing more. The Thing is given the goal: "Must. Move. Forward". In the movie, The Thing, this tetrapod starfish, is laying on the surface, then it gets up and starts crawling. And this crawling itself strikes you with the horrific resemblance to the crawling of real animals, which, I repeat, was not coded. NOT CODED.

Each leg has two joints. I call them "shoulder" and "elbow". After one leg is amputated at the "elbow", The Thing is able to perform the same scary move as before.

Watch the movie, it is worth it, believe me.

Now Patrick Moore (one of the founders of Greenpeace) has admitted the anti-nuke effort was a mistake - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html . A lot of myths about nukes still abound from Greenpeace propaganda from the 1970s. Unfortunately Greenpeace still beats this drum even though they clearly should know better now.

Until this situation changes I think we are still limited to WWII type chemical propulsion systems. The space elevator offers hope, maybe. We'll see.

This is why people prefer global climate change rather than global warming, because it gives people who read only headlines the wrong idea.

Yeah, "people prefer." People who can't make up their mind on what the "end of humanity" disaster will look like. Grow up with your 'end of the world, fire and brimstone' religion already. Your story changes daily.

What that article refers to is thermohaline inversion and the stopping of the Atlantic conveyor belt, which is responsible for a good chunk of the nice coastal temperatures in Europe. For more details, and just because I can, I'll point you to alink that is in the same article you just quoted.

Bzzzt. The Arctic conveyor belt is the result of the isthmus of Panama and the reason we have Ice Ages.

The Clean Air act is supposedly responsible for this nice little event.

Just like increased CO2 is supposedly going to bring an end to all mankind and doom for planet Earth. Spare me.

Nice little effort at cherry-picking your events. For an actual event, you can go to Greenland and see how their farming efforts are a little easier now.

Really? Because the last time I checked, the ice in Greenland is only getting thinner around the edges due to North Atlantic Oscillation, but is getting thicker in the middle and growing to the tune of a 54 cm net gain in the last 11 years.

However, the bad events far outweigh any positives we've gotten so far, primarily because it takes time to profit from change. Until we learn to take advantage of what Global Climate Change can do for us, we'll have seniors dying in droves from heat waves, pipelines and houses buckling due to vanishing permafrost and crops dying in areas that are getting too hot for comfort.

Gee... really? I haven't witnessed the mass heat waves wiping out humanity. Where are those exactly? Thousands dying a day must warrant news coverage somewhere, no? Ohhhhhh, you said "We'll" As in we will. Meaning hasn't materialized. Meaning pure conjecture. Meaning more fire and brimstone bogey men. Woooo, repent ye Excursion driving sinners and ye may yet be saved!

I'll pass on replying to your last paragraph since it is more religious non-sense. You've supplied no facts worth mentioning. Here are a few facts your brainwashed little mind may be unaware of:

• The largest carbon sink on Earth by far is limestone and dolomite. You see, when plankton die, their little CaCO3 shells get deposited on the ocean floor making lots and lots of it
• The burning of all fossil fuels combined only contributes an estimated 4-5 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere each year
• Soil decomposition/erosion is the single largest contributor of CO2 to the atmosphere. It dwarfs the burning of all fossil fuels combined by greater than one order of magnitude.
• CO2 can be pulled out of the atmosphere quite easily and cost effectively with iron sulfate fertilization of plankton. In the first year alone, an estimated 8 billion tons of CO2 could be sequestered in the oceans.
• Finally... and this may really break your brain... Has it ever occurred to you that the observed increase in CO2 is the result of our current cooler temperatures? -- "If global temperature cools as a result of some astronomical forcing or tectonic/ocean circulation effect, the lower temperatures will result in lower rates of chemical weathering. Decreased weathering means less CO2 being drawn from the atmosphere by weathering reactions, leaving more CO2 in the atmosphere to increase temperatures."

We are between Ice Ages right now. The planet itself is producing the vast majority of the CO2. I suggest you enjoy the weather while it lasts.

I already posted this in reply to a similar post, but since it keeps popping up, it's worth repeating. Svante Pääbos comment on this research from ScienceNOW:

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/ 2006/1106/1?rss=1

"Ancient DNA pioneer Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, says that this new work is "the most compelling case to date for a genetic contribution of Neandertals to modern humans." Indeed, Pääbo says, he will now search for the haplogroup D variant of microcephalin in his own studies of the Neandertal genome."

Also, what is posited is not extensive interbreeding between humans and an archaic homo lineage, but rather drive-by allele theft. This can be very effective, for reasons explained here:

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/11/neanderthal-intro gression.php

It amazes me that this kind of thinking gets anywhere at all.

Keep in mind that the media does a really poor job of reporting on scientific topics, and are often prone to sensationalist and simplistic interpretations. (Which can be blamed on poor reporting and the desire to make money by sensationalizing and "dumbing down" things for readers.)

The real story is that genetic analysis found alleles most concentrated in europeans that appear to have entered the gene pool around 37,000 years ago. The alleles, themselves, appear to be quite a bit older than 37,000 years. Since neanderthals were living in the same geographical area where we now find these alleles in humans, and because the timing matches up (humans and neanderthals both lived in europe 37,000 years ago) it's guessed that the human gene pool might've gotten these alleles from neanderthals. http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/ 2006/1106/1?rss=1 http://johnhawks.net/weblog/2006/11/08#introgressi on_faq_2006

If you want to read about the duesburg hypothesis please read the whole story as this is really old stuff and his views are not accepted by the scientific community.

| I've read the article. The same old debunked myths: Medieval Warm Period? Debunked.

My God, they used Mann's hockey stick to debunk the MWP? Sorry but that debunking is debunked!

| Variations in the output of the Sun? Debunked.

Not according to more recent research. Try this: and do some math. More debunking debunked!

Negative carbon isotope anomalies in carbonate rocks bracketing Neoproterozoic glacial deposits in Namibia, combined with estimates of thermal subsidence history, suggest that biological productivity in the surface ocean collapsed for millions of years. This collapse can be explained by a global glaciation (that is, a snowball Earth), which ended abruptly when subaerial volcanic outgassing raised atmospheric carbon dioxide to about 350 times the modern level. The rapid termination would have resulted in a warming of the snowball Earth to extreme greenhouse conditions. The transfer of atmospheric carbon dioxide to the ocean would result in the rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate in warm surface waters, producing the cap carbonate rocks observed globally.

Do Satellites Detect Trends in Surface Solar Radiation? http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/308/57 23/850

""Long-term variations in solar radiation at Earth's surface (S) can affect our climate, the hydrological cycle, plant photosynthesis, and solar power. Sustained decreases in S have been widely reported from about the year 1960 to 1990. Here we present an estimate of global temporal variations in S by using the longest available satellite record. We observed an overall increase in S from 1983 to 2001 at a rate of 0.16 watts per square meter (0.10%) per year; this change is a combination of a decrease until about 1990, followed by a sustained increase. The global-scale findings are consistent with recent independent satellite observations but differ in sign and magnitude from previously reported ground observations. Unlike ground stations, satellites can uniformly sample the entire globe.""

Enhanced greenhouse effect during industrial era: 2.4 W/m2. According to page 66 of the 2001 compendium of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC), about a quarter of this amount, or 0.6 W/m2, has occurred since the mid-1980s. Now 0.16 watts per square meter multiplied by 17 years equals 2.72 watts per square meter, enough to cause the observed warming!

So, it seems some smarter people than you have considered this possibility and consider it a possible explanation.

Although Bush has done much to harm the environment, denying anthropogenic global warming is not in his toolbox. I mean, as much as I hate to defend the man, we should be clear about the few things he hasn't done wrong. :)

Biggest recent incident of domestic terrorism? This is nothing!

Check out this link here for domestic religious fundamentalist terrorist incidents: Violence at US Abortion Clinics

or these ones here for domestic ecoterrorists and general antiscience terrorism:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/292/ 5522/1622

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/313/ 5793/1541

Biggest recent incident of domestic terrorism? This is nothing!

Check out this link here for domestic religious fundamentalist terrorist incidents: Violence at US Abortion Clinics

or these ones here for domestic ecoterrorists and general antiscience terrorism:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/292/ 5522/1622

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/313/ 5793/1541

I'd merely cite Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and say that analyzed peer reviewed academic journals for dissention on the topic of global warming, but such vague referencing doesn't really seem appropriate for the discussions that slashdot encourages. This however, is a summary of research into the peer reviewed journals. 75% of the articles analyzed agree that global warming is occurring, and that it is doing damage to Earth's biota. 25% of the articles are ambivalent towards the effects of global warming. That leaves a big, fat 0% of peer reviewed academic articles supporting the corporate viewpoint of global warming.

Sure humans can try and cope, but there are several billion other species on this planet that are incredibly susceptible to environmental change. I doubt that it could be successfully argued that the extinction of, say, 50% of these species is a good idea, and I don't think that humankind could really try and discover how to save these species before global warming kills either us or them.

I'd merely cite Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and say that analyzed peer reviewed academic journals for dissention on the topic of global warming, but such vague referencing doesn't really seem appropriate for the discussions that slashdot encourages. This however, is a summary of research into the peer reviewed journals. 75% of the articles analyzed agree that global warming is occurring, and that it is doing damage to Earth's biota. 25% of the articles are ambivalent towards the effects of global warming. That leaves a big, fat 0% of peer reviewed academic articles supporting the corporate viewpoint of global warming.

Finally, the Kyoto Protocols were a step towards undoing and reducing environmental damage caused by industry and agriculture. Unfortunately, the Kyoto Protocols aren't going to do much - while they are restrictive in a capitalistic sense, they are very lenient in an environmental sense, and will not effectively reduce global warming by themselves (see article here). I guess those of you in the United States do not have to worry about it much though, since the US never ratified the treaty - in fact, it sounds like certain government agencies are doing their best to prevent global warming from being acknowledged as a threat.

I think, that perhaps rather than trying to work out how survive the time-bomb that's ticking right in front of us, it might be better to try and work out how to defuse it.

While the Wikipedia entry counts China as the site of first domestication of pigs, recent mDNA research shows that multiple Eurasian sites first domesticated the pig. And that the European, not Asian, wild animal was the ancestor of today's pigs.

I'm still searching for the citation I read about a decade ago exploring an alleged simultaneous Korean/Peruvian first domestication of pigs, and (I more hazily recall) chickens. As I said, another story, or apparently stories.

Other "marxists" had their own reports of agriculture origins.

China was certainly the source of quite a bit of innovation, and likely will be again now that feudalism's intellectual/industrial stagnation is probably behind it. But of course "China" is a single word meaning many things, many of which are mutually exclusive.

Wikipedia credits the 1230s Koreans with "the first iron printing press" and 1040s China with "the first moveable type". But after a thousand years, the first inventions might be long gone and forgotten, and their geographical origin with them. No DNA traces left, just culturcentric claims to invention. At least they didn't invent the "perpetual patent".

I rather not repeat the Soviet experience with that.

Ooops. Still, I can try to salvage something.

The graph may be for the wrong event, but we still do have a general scientific consensus that the Permian extinction involved warming.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/050120_grea t_dying.html

Referring to

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/308 /5720/398?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT= &fulltext=permian+warming&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0& resourcetype=HWCIT

Now, as for the other spike... It doesn't show in the extinctions graph because that is a marine fossil diversity graph. The disruption appears to have mostly occurred for land creatures, but is still mentioned in numerous other article referring to it.

Yeah, it's an embarrassing error, but my general point still stands. There's no justification for saying that warming events are always good, and extinction events are always cooling.

... but is from a March, 2005 article in Science magazine. Interesting, but still kind of old news here...

Yes, IAAOC (I am an organic chemist - or at least a graduate student in organic chemistry at a major research university).

Charge is not determined merely by the number of bonds/bonded atoms but by the number of lone electrons.

Sure, carbon typically makes four bonds (e.g. methane [CH4] and carbon dioxide [O=C=O]), but uncharged carbon species exist with fewer bonds. For example, carbon radicals, such as the STABLE triphenylmethyl radical (see, e.g., http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/295/556 1/1846 - registration may be required) exist with three bonds and no charge.

Synthetic chemists ROUTINELY make use of carbenes, species with only two bonds and no charge. See, for example, the Simmons-Smith cyclopropanation (http://www.organic-chemistry.org/namedreactions/s immons-smith-reaction.shtm). (Okay, strictly this reaction probably proceeds by way of a zinc carbenoid intermediate, but you get the idea.)

I can't comment on the article itself as I haven't read it (too busy to go get the original reference), but I will agree that the summary leaves some to be desired.

Hmmm, nice that the article doesn't mention the actual author of the paper (published in Science). Also not surprisingly, the actual paper doesn't talk about 'smell'. Oh and for the person going on about sample size, of course the paper gives sample sizes.

Here's the abstract:

Volatile Chemical Cues Guide Host Location and Host Selection by Parasitic Plants
Justin B. Runyon, Mark C. Mescher, Consuelo M. De Moraes*

The importance of plant volatiles in mediating interactions between plant species is much debated. Here, we demonstrate that the parasitic plant Cuscuta pentagona (dodder) uses volatile cues for host location. Cuscuta pentagona seedlings exhibit directed growth toward nearby tomato plants (Lycopersicon esculentum) and toward extracted tomato-plant volatiles presented in the absence of other cues. Impatiens (Impatiens wallerana) and wheat plants (Triticum aestivum) also elicit directed growth. Moreover, seedlings can distinguish tomato and wheat volatiles and preferentially grow toward the former. Several individual compounds from tomato and wheat elicit directed growth by C. pentagona, whereas one compound from wheat is repellent. These findings provide compelling evidence that volatiles mediate important ecological interactions among plant species.

And here's the actual paper for those with access to Science articles:
    http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/313/5795/196 4.pdf

Finally, someone is thinking about the children.

I think it's safe to say that humankind is a temporary feature.

Perhaps if you're a creationist, you might believe that, but in comparison to the age of the arctic ice, most informed sane people would find that 'humankind' has been a little more than temporary.

Our lineage is at least 3.3 million years old http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/ 2006/920/1, older --- in my uninformed opinion --- than most of the arctic sea ice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age.

I can understand the utility of the rhetoric, but we've survived ice ages, droughts, famines, plagues and wars and I think that a little more water (lets say a few dozen feet) and heat (lets say 5-10 degrees) over the next few thousand years isn't going to do us in, as much as you'd like to believe it.

By the way, I'm a scientist, and I'm not that shocked.

It's by no means certain that if the NAD did stop they'd be that much on a effect in northern europe. It's been received wisdom for decades that northern europe is kept warm by the NAD, but a few years ago there was a report came out from a group that actually checked that and found that about 10% of the additional warmth of Europe came from the NAD, with the vast majority being delivered by the path of air currents deflected by the Rockies.

See this...

Richard A. Kerr "EUROPEAN CLIMATE:
Mild Winters Mostly Hot Air, Not Gulf Stream"
Science 27 September 2002 297: 2202
[DOI: 10.1126/science.297.5590.2202] (in News Focus)
The Gulf Stream does little to moderate European winters, it
turns out, and the atmosphere plays a bigger role in climate
change than once thought. The new analysis, to appear in
next month's Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological
Society, will no doubt stoke the debate over the relative role
of the Gulf Stream and the tropics in climate change
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/297/5590/220 2.pdf

Here's the study: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/313/579 2/1413

The article is rather confusingly written, surprising for National G.

A better one (IMHO) can be found here, and mentions that that Raymond et al's paper is in the current issue of Science .

There's also a summary in Science Now .

The article is rather confusingly written, surprising for National G.

A better one (IMHO) can be found here, and mentions that that Raymond et al's paper is in the current issue of Science .

There's also a summary in Science Now .

If you are going to claim that as CO2 went up, the climate changed, and vice versa, then you are stating, unequivocally, that CO2 drives climate.

... and vice versa, yes. You said that right in the previous sentence -- you should wait at least a few sentences before you claim that someone said it was a one way street :-).

So, the question then becomes, if the CO2 varies from 200-300ppm over the last 800,000 years, then what drove those changes?

Wait -- are you saying that their measurements are in error, or are you saying that you believe the measurements, but would like more explanation of the process they reflect?

Once again, this article confuses correlation with causation. If you are going to state that CO2 changes cause climate change, then you must also demonstrate a mechanism for the changing CO2.

The article didn't actually state this, but it is accepted science at this point. All the article really stated was that the level of CO2 is drastically higher now than it has been within the visible past.

If, on the other hand, climate change causes changes in CO2 levels

It does. It works both ways.

, then you need only explain climate change, something which has been adequately explained by solar cycles. http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/vars un.html and http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html

These are fascinating links. The first is to a discussion on usenet, and the second is to an ice age causation theory from 1941 (which may well be true -- it's just that that being true doesn't magically mean that the connection between CO2 and climate is untrue). I would find them more compelling if they were links to, say, papers published in peer reviewed journals which cast the "CO2 theory" of global warming into question. I can understand that you might have trouble finding one of those, of course, since there aren't any to speak of.

(I know, I know, the scientists are all league in a secret cabal. They all know it's a lie, but they keep saying it is so they can get their grant money. The global warming "skeptics" like Bjørn Lomberg are in it for the pure love of truth, but the poor fellows just can't get their reports published because it threatens the monied orthodoxy. I know. I know.)

In fact, it's more correctly stated that CO2 levels tend to lag behind climate changes by up to 900 years. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/299 /5613/1728 Although the folks at RealClimate like to just sweep this little fact under the carpet as unimportant. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13 To them, apparently, man made CO2 causes instant warming, but natural CO2 takes up to 800 years to have an effect.

The realclimate.org rebuttal you linked to above is actually pretty good on its own. For the peanut gallery, I'll quote the nut of it: "The reason has to do with the fact that the warmings take about 5000 years to be complete. The lag is only 800 years. All that the lag shows is that CO2 did not cause the first 800 years of warming, out of the 5000 year trend. The other 4200 years of warming could in fact have been caused by CO2, as far as we can tell from this ice core data. ... It comes as no surprise that other factors besides CO2 affect climate. Changes in the amount of summer sunshine, due to changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun

If you are going to claim that as CO2 went up, the climate changed, and vice versa, then you are stating, unequivocally, that CO2 drives climate.

... and vice versa, yes. You said that right in the previous sentence -- you should wait at least a few sentences before you claim that someone said it was a one way street :-).

So, the question then becomes, if the CO2 varies from 200-300ppm over the last 800,000 years, then what drove those changes?

Wait -- are you saying that their measurements are in error, or are you saying that you believe the measurements, but would like more explanation of the process they reflect?

Once again, this article confuses correlation with causation. If you are going to state that CO2 changes cause climate change, then you must also demonstrate a mechanism for the changing CO2.

The article didn't actually state this, but it is accepted science at this point. All the article really stated was that the level of CO2 is drastically higher now than it has been within the visible past.

If, on the other hand, climate change causes changes in CO2 levels

It does. It works both ways.

, then you need only explain climate change, something which has been adequately explained by solar cycles. http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/vars un.html and http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html

These are fascinating links. The first is to a discussion on usenet, and the second is to an ice age causation theory from 1941 (which may well be true -- it's just that that being true doesn't magically mean that the connection between CO2 and climate is untrue). I would find them more compelling if they were links to, say, papers published in peer reviewed journals which cast the "CO2 theory" of global warming into question. I can understand that you might have trouble finding one of those, of course, since there aren't any to speak of.

(I know, I know, the scientists are all league in a secret cabal. They all know it's a lie, but they keep saying it is so they can get their grant money. The global warming "skeptics" like Bjørn Lomberg are in it for the pure love of truth, but the poor fellows just can't get their reports published because it threatens the monied orthodoxy. I know. I know.)

In fact, it's more correctly stated that CO2 levels tend to lag behind climate changes by up to 900 years. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/299 /5613/1728 Although the folks at RealClimate like to just sweep this little fact under the carpet as unimportant. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13 To them, apparently, man made CO2 causes instant warming, but natural CO2 takes up to 800 years to have an effect.

The realclimate.org rebuttal you linked to above is actually pretty good on its own. For the peanut gallery, I'll quote the nut of it: "The reason has to do with the fact that the warmings take about 5000 years to be complete. The lag is only 800 years. All that the lag shows is that CO2 did not cause the first 800 years of warming, out of the 5000 year trend. The other 4200 years of warming could in fact have been caused by CO2, as far as we can tell from this ice core data. ... It comes as no surprise that other factors besides CO2 affect climate. Changes in the amount of summer sunshine, due to changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun

If you are going to claim that as CO2 went up, the climate changed, and vice versa, then you are stating, unequivocally, that CO2 drives climate. So, the question then becomes, if the CO2 varies from 200-300ppm over the last 800,000 years, then what drove those changes?

Once again, this article confuses correlation with causation. If you are going to state that CO2 changes cause climate change, then you must also demonstrate a mechanism for the changing CO2. If, on the other hand, climate change causes changes in CO2 levels, then you need only explain climate change, something which has been adequately explained by solar cycles. http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/vars un.html and http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html

In fact, it's more correctly stated that CO2 levels tend to lag behind climate changes by up to 900 years. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/299 /5613/1728 Although the folks at RealClimate like to just sweep this little fact under the carpet as unimportant. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13 To them, apparently, man made CO2 causes instant warming, but natural CO2 takes up to 800 years to have an effect.

Again, be very careful about assigning cause and effect in a system as complex as the atmosphere.

In other words, this extra datum is nice to have, but it changes nothing in any ongoing debate.

Here's the news story in Science magazine, which you can get without being a subscriber. It's not the actual peer-reviewed article, but it's written by somebody who understands this research.

What Rosenberg did, BTW, is to find a patient who was cured, and therefore had T cells that could kill the cancer. Then he found a patient who wsn't cured, and therefore had T cells that couldn't kill cancer. He took a receptor from the T cell that could kill cancer, and inserted the receptor into a T cell that couldn't kill cancer, therefore giving the T cell what it needed to kill the cancer. (In 2 of the 17 patients, anyway.)

One problem with this study is that they only followed the 2 successful patients for 18 months. There are lots of treatments that looked good after 18 months, and then tanked. You have to kill every cancer cell, or else they'll come back. And this is just for melanoma, and might not work for another cancer. But it might work out.

Building a Better Tumor Killer

By Jocelyn Kaiser
ScienceNOW Daily News
31 August 2006

In a first for gene therapy, researchers have successfully treated cancer patients by genetically modifying their immune cells to attack tumors. Although the treatment worked in only two of 17 patients, the researchers say this proof of concept, reported online today in Science, should pave the way for more gene-therapy cancer cures.

(more)

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/ 2006/831/3

TFP, for those of you who subscribe to Science or you college kids slashdotting in the library: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/313/579 1/1304

Here's the absctract for the original article. Unfortunately, you have to be a subscriber to see the whole thing.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/112 9003v1

I thought it was interesting how the lymphocytes stuck around for about a year. I thought they would have either died or kicked the gene out by then...

I'm not looking to make an ad hominem argument here, but please take anything that comes out of junkscience.com with a huge grain of salt. Steven Milloy, the site's creator, has a long history of paid-for punditry, primarily for the tobacco industry ( http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/junkman.ht ml , http://www.trwnews.net/Documents/Dow/junkscicom.ht m ).

Sites like junkscience.com take great care to mention only those few "prominent" scientists who share their view, while ignoring the distribution of views among researchers in the field. In reality, there's practically consensus that the recent global warming is a man-made phenomenon ( http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/570 2/1686 ).

Always do a background check on authors when hearing controversial claims.

Ulf Magnusson

The home pages for the Royal Society of Chemistry http://www.rsc.org/ and the public face of the American Chemical Society, http://www.chemistry.org/, as well as the American Physics Society http://www.aip.org/. It's a lot of foraging, but it will get you the technical gory details. If your local library has it, Chemical and Engineering News has roundups both in the front of the magazine, and in a one-page science-technology roundup. The rest of the mag is pretty much chemical industry, but has articles on particular areas at times.

As a previous poster mentioned, Science http://www.sciencemag.org/ and Nature http://www.nature.com/ are good all in one stops.

Personally, I start every monday lunch off with browsing the table of contents of JACS, J. Phys. Chem., Organometallics, Inorganic Chemistry, and J. Org. Chem. If you're not a chemist, these will probably bore you to death, but it's where I get my science news from, other than the Tuesday NYT.

But it's definitely how a majority of Americans feel. Science threatens their faith.

The article is about the US, Japan and a whole swack of European countries (presuming that I can include Turkey as European). Okay, but what about the rest of the world?

Where is the "OK, this is lame" selection?

I suggest that you go find some real scientists of the climate sciences and ask them for their opinion on the causes of global warming. There's practically consensus ( http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/570 2/1686 ) among workers in the field that the recent global warming is a man-made phenomenon.

That so many have begun questioning this is a testimony to the effectiveness of recent PR campaigns from those who'd suffer from regulations.

Please don't just take my word for it though. Do the research yourself. Find workers in the field and ask them for their opinion. Find web pages and articles that discredit the theory that humans caused global warming and DO BACKGROUND RESEARCH ON THE AUTHORS. That last point cannot be stressed well enough, as it will reveal a disturbing pattern of vested interests and hidden sponsors.

As an example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on _climate_change#Survey_of_US_state_climatologists, the only "against" I could find on that page. A quick background check reveals http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizen s_for_a_Sound_Economy.

I recommend the book "Trust Us, We're Experts" to anyone wanting to get insight into how the modern PR industry operates.

Ulf Magnusson

As i understand it the wobble technique is used because directly imaging low intensity light sources like these is extremely difficult when you have a giant hot star in the immediate vicinity. it would be like to distinguish a single LED attached to the side of a searchlight. so they use the indirect method of measuring the position of the star as it is moved by the orbiting body.

for more details on the telescope and other tools used here's the paper published in Science that likely spawned TFA

everything that has temperature > 0 emits light at some wavelength, we just have a bias for calling the human visible spectrum "Light", the infrared spectrum "Heat", and the shorter wavelength emissions names like "x-rays" and "ultraviolet rays". it's all the same phenomenon.

while i was looking for the paper referenced above I also found an earlier paper that probably drew attention to this particular pair of planemos. it doesn't appear they were aware of the binary configuration at the time. it can be found here

The very fact that a human test is necessary indicates the possibility, however slighty, that a dangerous response is possible. From what I can tell from reading online, there was plenty of animal testing done, including exposing other primates to the substance, but it responded uniquely to human biology. (One possibility, apparantly, is that because the production of the drug involved human proteins, the safe dosage was much lower in humans. I have no idea if that actually makes any sense ^_^)

Volunteers in Phase I studies are taking risks by enrolling, but the pharma company really screwed this one up. Lupus and cancer are the two big risks for any sort of immuno-modulatory treatment. This is why pharma companies have shied away from genetic therapies, where genes are introduced via virii--the patients tend to die from cancer. Any humanized MAb is going to have risks of autoimmune disease or cancer, but especially one targeted to a cell-surface immune receptor. Campath-1H (generic name Alemtuzumab), for example, can be used to treat MS or a certain leukemia, but can cause Graves disease (autoimmune attack on the thyroid) and depletes T-cells. Raptiva (Efalizumab), a psoriasis MAb treatment, can cause autoimmune or immune-deficiency side-effects. Parexel was lucky that all six patients didn't die of anaphalactic shock within the hour, and they definitely should have injected one patient first, to rule out catastrophic side-effects such as what occurred.

That's kinda why I think the entire organization of NASA should be replaced with something else.
Who is going to replace NASA? They are the best at what they do. You need to divest the organization from the burracracy. They have decades of experience. We should replace (about 1/2 of) our lawyer congressmen with scientists.

You are happy with one successful mission a decade that spends tons of money doing it!
So your suggesting cheaper-faster-more? That does not work. At least in the long run; in the economical sense.

Overall I think you get the wrong impression from my post. I am gratefull for the things NASA has accomplished despite small budgets and the erroneous initiatives of our political leaders. I am optimistic that in a few decades the agency will once again be great. I, like yourself, want a human future in space. But that's eaiser said than done my friend.

P.S. did you know that Voyager 1 & 2 have to adjust their telemetry to account for the engagement of the tiny magnetic tape head that records the data. That's right, every time that tape flinched, they had to stabilize the craft, otherwise, it would have produced blurry, unusable pictures of Saturn. One of a thousand examples of precise engineering that takes decades to get right.

The original research paper appears in this week's edition of Science and can be found via this page: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/312/57 82/1844a
(subscription needed to read the full paper).