Cardinals 7 Tigers 2 (Not televised in Romania, but I was up with a sick kid, so I followed the play-by-play on the internet starting at 3:30 AM) Cardinals 1 Tigers 3 (What was that stuff?) Cardinals 5 Tigers 0 (A convincing win in the first World Series game at the new Busch Stadium) Cardinals …
Month: October 2006
Missions Update
The following is from our e-mail update, sent this week to those who support us with their prayers and giving. Dear Family and Friends in Christ, “But the Lord said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of …
Crab Nebula
The Crab Nebula, from Astronomy Picture of the Day, October 26, 2006.
National Mole Day
Are you celebrating National Mole Day? National Mole Day—no, moles are not mammals that make tunnels under your lawn, nor brown spots on your skin, nor spies working within an organization—is a celebration of the chemical concept of the mole. So, what is a mole? Here's my Chemistry textbook definition: Mole: "quantity of a substance …
Population #3 — European Demographics
Being that we live in Romania, here are a few thoughts about European demographics: The population of many Eastern European countries is declining. This is due not only to low birthrates but also to high emigration rates. Many young, educated Romanians, for example, desire to move either to Western Europe or to the United States. …
The Orbitron
I just finished teaching about electron configurations and orbitals (quantum mechanics stuff) in Chemistry -- you know, the 1s22s22p63s23p64s23d6 stuff. Well, maybe you don't remember. Don't worry about it. If you do remember quantum mechanics, you'll appreciate the graphical depictions of orbitals at The Orbitron, a gallery of atomic orbitals and molecular orbitals. Even if …
Population #2
The previous post was about the U.S. population hitting an estimated 300,000,000 this week. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I read The Population Bomb by Paul Erlich back in the 1970s. Among its predictions: The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions …
300,000,000
The population of the United States is hitting 300,000,000 today (Tuesday). US Census Bureau Population Clock (11:30 AM Tuesday Morning, Eastern European Time Zone) A few observations: The United States is not overpopulated. Even relatively high-density areas, such as the Northeast and southern California have lower population densities than much of Europe and Asia. High …
Ununoctium — Element 118
Ununoctium (element 118, symbol Uuo) has been created by a lab in Russia, as part of a joint U.S.-Russia project. They created three atoms of ununoctium-294 by colliding nuclei of californium-249 with nuclei of calcium-48: I've already added it to my classroom periodic table: Comments: The creation of Uuo has been announced before. In 1999, …
North Korea Atomic Bomb Test
The basic USGS information regarding the near-surface 4.2 magnitude earthquake in North Korea, including location maps, can be found here. USGS Grace and Peace
Lake Effect
The first major winter storm of the season is hitting the Great Lakes right now. The weather radar at Intellicast shows lake-effect snows hitting both the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. As the air moves over the Great Lakes, it picks up moisture, which is then dumped as snow over the land downwind. Lake …
Pleistocene megafauna — Coming to a drive-thru safari park near you
North America just isn't the same without its native camels, horses, mastodons, and saber-toothed cats. Not all of these can be brought back, but how about reintroducing what we can into the wild? And substituting elephants for mastodons, and lions for saber-toothed cats. That is the proposal in the November issue of The American Naturalist. …
Continue reading Pleistocene megafauna — Coming to a drive-thru safari park near you
Nobel Prizes 2006
The three 2006 science Nobel Prizes—for physics, chemistry, and medicine—have all been awarded to Americans. Chemistry — awarded to Roger Kornberg of Stanford University, for his work on the transcription of DNA to messenger RNA. Physics — awarded to George Smoot of UC-Berkeley and John Mather of NASA for their discovery of small variations of …
Hurricane Tracks
This image, from Wikipedia, shows hurricane tracks from 1985 to 2005. It is the Wikipedia picture of the day for October 3, 2006. Click here for a larger image. Grace and Peace
A Lot of Gas
A commonly expressed argument against human-induced global warming is that A single eruption the size of the Mt. St. Helens eruption released more of these [greenhouse] gases, dust and ash into the atmosphere than all such emissions by human activity since the beginning of recorded human history. And there are numerous volcanic eruptions yearly. I …
Global Warming & Wayne Grudem
Last week, I linked to a Christianity Today article on global warming. I've been thinking about a quote by theologian Wayne Grudem in the CT article: Activities that produce carbon dioxide—such as "breathing, building a fire to cook or keep warm, driving a car or tractor, or burning coal to produce electricity … [are] morally …
Global Bubbling
Scientific American magazine offers some of its articles online for free. Free material from the October issue includes Impact From the Deep, which gives evidence that some mass-extinctions in Earth history were not caused by asteroid impacts but by massive upwellings of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas from the oceans. Here's the scenario: High levels of …
GeoChristian 