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DK includes both sides of the spectrum.

See the graph here and the quotes below it.

It's one of those things that people had always suspected based on their intuition, but was not formally studied until recently.

The original study is here.

DO NOT watch the film "gasland".
It is full of lies, inaccuracy and misleading examples.
Horrid.

"has been hired to poo poo the film because it might hurt their business."
ah, so people who dislike lies and factual inaccuracies are part of a big conspiracy. Riiiight.

Some examples:
Water on fire: this is a known phenomena the predates fracking. If it was caused by fracking, it would take 1000's of years to go from the source to the water. The shot they get that from was no where near any fracking.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
http://www.skepticblog.org/tag...

Haliburton Loophole: No such thing.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/P...

There's no telling what innocent young minds might stumble across out there. I mean, everyone knows that diseases are caused by the Wrath Of God, not DNA replication errors.

That's why we have to maintain control of the curriculum.

Creationism (as in Biblical creationism) is spreading in China through missionary work:

http://www.skepticblog.org/2009/01/18/chinese-creationist/

But it's worse than that. US creationist organizations are actively translating their materials and working to disseminate them on a global scale:

http://nwcreation.net/international.html

I hate saying this, because it's so cruel, and ad hominem attacks aren't exactly the strongest ways to dispute something, but Focardi is old. It's certainly not out of the question that the Pauling Effect has come into play here. And just because someone is a scientist doesn't mean that he or she is immune to greed. Focardi published his original nickel/hydrogen cold fusion paper in 1994, and several high profile physicists, as well as fellow University of Bologna collaborators, tried and failed to replicate his results. He barked up that tree a bit more, then retired, then came out of retirement to work on this. Maybe he finally got it to work reproducibly, but if so, he should have gotten others to verify something.

What energy breakthroughs have been rejected as "kooky?" The concept of biodiesel was accepted easily, as was the photoelectric effect, and nuclear power. Even newer breakthroughs, like Gray & Nocera and their water-splitting catalyst have been accepted easily. The reason everyone suspects this to be a hoax is not because it's in the field of energy production, but because it's in the field of cold fusion, which has never been demonstrated to function at all, just like perpetual motion. When history shows zero successes and hundreds of failures and hoaxes, it's not unreasonable to expect another hoax when the perpetrator's activities mirror those of previous hucksters.

I honestly would like for this to work, I'd like my children to be able to grow up in a world where energy concerns didn't taint their entire lives. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not just smoke and mirrors to protect the money to be made.

This is a great opinion piece, and thank you for posting it. I don't know what you meant by the "Tact is unfortunately overrated." comment, but I don't consider ESR's post as being tactful or politically correct. Rather, unlike RMS's tweet-rant, ESR has posed a thorough intellectual take down of Steve Jobs, even pointing out that Jobs' egomaniacle nature essentially killed him because he thought he could cure himself with alternative medicine instead of simply having the tumor removed, which would have saved his life.

I don't see how arguing that a person's control-freak nature caused them to make an incredibly stupid decision that ended up killing himself can be described as "tactful" or "politically correct," but it needs to be said. Let's not confused well-reasoned thoughtful arguments with "sugar coating" things.

I found the cause of death in this article by Brian Dunning:
Steve jobs had a form of pancreatic cancer that can usually be treated quite well.
But instead of getting the necessary operation, he decided to try to cure it with dieting and that's why he's dead.

Think of the cart going sideways:

The wind drives the props, this produces energy, this energy can be used to "drive the car". The car's driving does not effect the amount the props spin (within reason for this thought experiment). So the speed of the car is only limited by the friction forces and conversion efficiency between the wind's power and movement. So in this case, there is no reason that car with prop could go faster than the wind.

When the car is pointed into the wind, it now has the additional benefit of any acceleration causing additional energy from the props, but it is limited by friction and conversion efficiency. I was just going to say you can't go faster than the wind "downwind" but then a quick google cleared that up. It would be really interesting to see a polar plot of this car's performance based on angle of wind and angle of car.

Iceboats hare typically clocked in the 50mph+ range, with wind as low as 5 mph, though more typically 10 mph wind. The wing shape of the sail and the angle of apparent wind make the vessel move faster downwind by tacking than going in a straight line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind
http://torontoist.com/2010/01/historicist_sailing_faster_than_the_wind.php
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2908/how-can-racing-yachts-sail-faster-than-the-wind

video of the mentioned BUFC
http://skepticblog.org/2010/05/27/sailing-directly-downwind%E2%80%A6-faster-than-the-wind/

This is a unique solution, but I think is more of a gee wiz than a practical device that will have economic value.

Phil

How can you have a positive slant vaccine article?

"Man gets immunized, doesn't get the sniffles..."

You expand the scale. You report on where's being hit by the targeted disease (and there are many) or not being hit hard--whether it be at the national level, state level, city level, or school level--and look at the immunization rates in these places.

Since the general population hates math and prefers personal stories, you can always focus on a particular unvaccinated child who died as a result. Report on how some kids can't be vaccinated (and on whom the vaccine just doesn't take) and are at risk because other kids who could be vaccinated weren't.

Vaccinations are a social responsibility. If you don't vaccinate your kid, you're putting everyone's kids at risk (and adults, of course, but mostly kids and old folks).