Well, for a given definition of “new.” It’s actually 407 million years old. Prototaxites fossils been known to science – specifically, paleontologists – for more than a hundred fifty years. But the fossils were mystifying and there was a kind of general understanding they were probably some kind of fungus that hadn’t been figured out…
WC has written about his adventures with varicella zoster virus (VZV) before. The short version is that because WC had chicken pox as a kid, he was at risk for shingles in his old age. And developed shingles in 2019 while on the wait list for the Shingrix™ vaccine. Ironically, when WC finally rose to…
During the heighth of the COVID-19 pandemic, global emissions of nitrogen dioxide fell to near pre-industrial level. Nitorgen dixoide (NO2) is mostly a by-product of internal combusion engines. It’s familiar as the stuff that contributes to smog. Water and ultraviolet light breaks down atmorpheric NO2 creating, among other things, a powerful oxidizer, the hydroxyl radical…
It’s not an exaggeration to say that a lot of early geologists – even as recently as the early 20th Century – were sexist swine. The story of Inge Lehmann illustrates WC’s point and shows even geologists are capable of change. Lehmann was born May 13, 1888, near Copenhagen, Denmark, the eldest of two sisters…
The otherwise sensible folks in Wisconsin gave Ron Johnson (R, Conspiracy Theories) another term as one of their U.S. Senators, albeit by a narrow margin (50.4% to Johnson Barnes 49.6%). And Senator Johnson has rewarded his voters by indulging himself in ever more bizarre conspiracy theories and anti-science screeds. Johnson had previously promoted disproven treatments for…
WC’s computer work station looks out over his suburban backyard. As WC writes this blog post, it’s 23° F outside. early on a lovely, sunny morning. An Anna’s Hummingbird, an unlikely winter bird in the Intermountain West, is perched on top of a shrub, defending WC’s hummingbird feeder from other hummers. The range expansion of…
There was a time when the publication most often cited in published scientific articles was The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, written by a science historian named Thomas Kuhn. His thesis was a challenge to the view of science as a smooth, continuous line of progress, where one scientist built upon the work of another. Instead,…
There’s a well-known playbook used by corporations caught marketing dangerous and deadly products. In fact, there’s quite a good book, Merchants of Doubt, by Naomi Orestes and Erik Conway. The book tracks the tactics used by big business when science has revealed dangerous products: tobacco, leaded gasoline, DDT, acid rain, anthropogenic climate change and more.…
Since he was just a pup, about 30-45 minutes after wolfing down a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, WC would be asleep on the couch. In the late 1970′s, a physiologist who was WC’s Thanksgiving guest explained it as a reaction to all of the tryptophan in turkey meat. Just before he dropped off to sleep. As…
He was the co-discoverer of the molecular structure of DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, the chromosome-building molecule. The discovery included the insight that DNA was formed by four chemical bases — adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine. Adenine always paired up with thymine, and guanine always paired up with cytosine. It changed biology forever, every bit as much…
The temperatures in Boise are peaking in the high 90s Fahrenheit. It’s stinking hot. In an effort to cool off, even a little, let’s talk about glaciers. A reader asked WC why glaciers carve “U”-shaped valleys, while streams carve “V”-shaped valleys. What does frozen water carve such distinctly different valley shapes? That’s an excellent question,…
Cosmology is struggling just now. There’s the problem of the missing mass – there are a lot of galaxies that spin faster then they should. Based on their stellar density, there’s not enough gravity to hold them together. The stars should scatter. Something massive but not radiating or reflecting electromagnetic radiation is providing additional mass,…
This will be nothing new for WC’s readers who stayed awake in their general science classes: warmer air holds more moisture. Those of us who lived in Interior Alaska in the winter come at the principle from the other side: the sub-zero winter temperatures mean there is almost no moisture in the air, because very…
An Alaskan named Paul Fuhs recently had an “Opinion” published in the Anchorage Daily News. It’s partially paywalled, but sometimes the algorithm lets you read an article or two without paying. He describes himself as a “longtime resources and energy development consultant.” In his published opinion, Fuchs defends Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy’s compromise of the…
Dr. Ryan Cole is a quack. The Washington Medical Commission found that Dr. Cole had made the following statements: None of those things are true. Every one of them is objectively false. By accepted definitions of “quack,” those statements certainly qualify Ryan Cole as a quack. The Washington Commission also carefully documented four specific instances…
It’s been a while since WC indulged his inner geek. And, despite the Felon in Chief’s efforts to destroy a large chunk of America’s technology infrastructure, there’s still technogeekery happening, and WC proposes to examine a small bit of it. Astronomy. There are three different very large, ground-based telescopes being built. The leader – in…
One of the most common tools a fascist government uses to assert and maintain its control is to censor news and reports with which it disagrees, or which contradict its claims. President Biden, in 2022, commissioned something called the National Nature Assessment, a study which was intended to measure how the nation’s lands, water and…
Those of us old enough to have lived through the Vietnam War will recall the Battle of Bến Tre, the capital of Kien Hoa Province, Vietnam, which lasted from January 31–February 5, 1968. At the end of the battle, the village had been effectively destroyed. Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett reported an unnamed American major involved…
There’s a dangerous mix of dubious capitalism and even more dubious science going on in the name of climate science, and it needs to stop. The dubious capitalism is the trafficking in “carbon credits,” a poorly regulated, sketchily thought out tax incentives for greenhouse gas emitters. Suppose you are multinational corporation whose business involves emitting…
WC is indebted to RBG for directing WC to the Geology of Colombia, a mammoth, on-line, four volume, bilingual summary of what is generally known and accepted about Colombian geology. It appears to have been originally written in Spanish, and the translator(s) were doubtless better geologists than translators. But any errors in this brief summary…
The Matsanuska-Susitna Borough will consider this Tuesday whether to move from machine-counted ballots to hand-counted ballots. The resolution completely blocking use of paper-counting machines would add to a rule passed by the assembly in 2022 that prohibited the use of vote tabulation machines and requires election officials to tally all borough votes by hand. The resolution is co-sponsored by…
Donald Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr, best known as a vaccine denier and conspiracy promoter, to serve as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He has no qualifications for the job of running one of the largest federal agencies. He’s a recovering junkie, a former environmental lawyer, a convicted…
Science is dependent upon peer review and wide dissemination of results of research. Peer review is a key process by which new research results are validated. And dissemination of new research data is accomplished through publication in recognized journals. Especially in the last hundred years or so, the twin processes have both corrected and advanced…
In Bellingham, Washington, in late March 1954, several citizens reported small holes had appeared in the windshields of their automobiles. The small size of the pits led Bellingham police officers to believe that the damage was the work of vandals using buckshot or BBs. Within a week, a few residents in Sedro Woolley and Mount…
Yawning – oscitation – is something that all vertebrates do. Even fish. And certainly birds, as this photo of a Burrowing Owl shows. It was taken on the Southeastern Brazilian coast – the blue behind the owl is the South Atlantic Ocean. The Burrowing Owl had just awakened and held this yawn for at least…
Since he was just a pup, about 30-45 minutes after wolfing down a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, WC would be asleep on the couch. In the late 1970′s, a physiologist who was WC’s Thanksgiving guest explained it as a reaction to all of the tryptophan in turkey meat. Just before he dropped off to sleep. As…
Most of both the boreal forest and tundra are underlain by permafrost, permanently frozen ground. The boreal forest is the band of trees and shrubs that grows in high latitudes; the tundra is at the area still further north where it is too cold too long for forests. In the summer, a layer at the…
Did you feel like Sudafed™, whose active ingredient is phenylephrine, didn’t do anything to help with your common cold symptoms? The original ingredient, pseudoephedrine, got locked up because it was being used in one of the processes for making methamphetamine. Over-the-counter Sudafed substituted phenylephrine on the basis of one dubious, scientifically sloppy study suggesting phenylephrine…
Let’s take a break from worrying about politics. Let’s talk about something new that should worry you, because none of us have enough to worry about yet. Unless you have been living under a rock, you know a bit about microplastics. The world produces 350 – 400 million tons of plastics each year. Worldwide, cumulative…
What to make of Polar Dawn, SpaceX’s latest private space flight? For those who don’t obsessively follow developments in humankind’s ventures away from Earth, SpaceX ran another Billionaire’s Joyride recently, with one billionaire, Elon Musk, launching another billionaire, Jared Isaacman and three passengers, into high Earth orbit. At an altitude of 1,408 kilometers, it’s the…
Wickersham's Conscience 
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