Hurricane porn

Hurricane Michael is hammering Florida right now. Unlike the previous hurricane to hit the US where there was a long lead time, this one seemed to appear suddenly. Hurricanes cause deaths and injuries and massive amounts of damage that lead to a great deal of suffering due to people losing their homes and livelihoods. And yet, there is something fascinating about seeing the power of nature as the winds and rain lash the Earth. I cannot help watching videos of its destructive power even as I feel guilty for doing so.
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Real snakes on real planes

I don’t like snakes. There is something about the way they look and move that gives me the creeps, even when I know they are members of a harmless variety. Apparently fear of snakes (and spiders) is a primeval instinct shared by many species that may have never encountered a snake before and yet recoil when they see one for the first time. On the other hand, I have no fear of spiders, though I know people who are terrified of them, so I am not a total coward.
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Some noteworthy aspects of the Nobel prize winners in chemistry

The Nobel prizes in Chemistry were awarded last week for discoveries that enabled scientists to speed up the process of evolution and thus produce treatments for various diseases.

For thousands of years, humans have been selectively breeding crops and animals to tinker with the genetic makeup of their future generations in humankind’s favor. The three new laureates have used modern molecular-based methods to re-create this process in the laboratory and therefore speed the process up considerably.

“This year’s prize in chemistry rewards a revolution based on evolution. Our laureates have applied the principles of Darwin in test tubes and used this approach to develop new types of chemicals for the greatest benefit of humankind,” said Claes Gustafsson, chairman of the Nobel committee for chemistry 2018 and a professor at the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden.
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Why worry? We’re doomed anyway

It has become an article of faith among many conservatives in the US that fears of global warming are a hoax perpetrated on the world by a cabal of scientists who are using fake climate models and manufactured data in order to spread alarm and thus get money for grants or some such reason. The Trump administration seems to be fully invested in this belief. But then there was this curious news item about an environmental impact statement issued by the government that predicts that global warming will be even worse than some of the scenarios.
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Dogs as a danger to wildlife

Domesticated dogs tend to be widely loved as companions and I am no exception to this feeling. Hence I was startled to learn that feral and free-roaming dogs may be responsible for the extinction of a large number of animal species.

There are now an estimated 1 billion domestic dogs across their near-global distribution.

Domestic dogs include feral and free-ranging animals (such as village and camp dogs), as well as those that are owned by and completely dependent on humans (pet dogs).
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The strange academic career ladder

In a BBC interview that was brought to my attention by Matt, this year’s co-winner of the Nobel prize in physics Donna Strickland was asked why she was still an associate professor and had not been promoted to full professor, something that I had noted in my earlier post, and she replied that she had never applied for promotion to full professor. Matt asked me to explain the weird academic rank system, so here it is.
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This year’s Nobel prize in physics

The award was announced today and went to three people: Arthur Ashkin (b. 1922) at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, Gérard Mourou (b. 1944) at École Polytechnique in France, and Donna Strickland (b. 1959) at the University of Waterloo in Canada. The press release announcing the winners provides concise descriptions of the work for which they were recognized.
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Hooray! There is no sexism and racism in physics!

This is according to Prof Alessandro Strumia of Pisa University.

Prof Strumia, who regularly works at Cern, was speaking at a workshop in Geneva on gender and high energy physics.

He told his audience of young, predominantly female physicists that his results “proved” that “physics is not sexist against women. However the truth does not matter, because it is part of a political battle coming from outside”.
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“It’s not the heat, it’s the dew point”

We all know that some hot days feel fairly comfortable while others at the same temperature feel clammy and muggy. We tend to identify the difference as caused by the relative humidity and this sentiment is often expressed by the statement “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity”. But actually, the humidity is not the best measure to use to measure the level of discomfort. A better measure is the lesser-known ‘dew point’. The National Weather Service explains what ‘dew point’ is and why this is the case.
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