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 …
Alaska Volcano Observatory
The US Geological Survey operates five volcano observatories, which keep watch on regions of volcanic activity in the United States. The five observatories are for the Cascades, Hawaii, Yellowstone, Long Valley (in California) and Alaska. My web site of the week is for the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Here's a description of the Alaska volcanoes from …
More Climate Change
More on climate change: Christianity Today has posted an article on climate change: Cool on Climate Change. The article highlights the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance. The opening paragraphs of the article read: A new coalition argues Christians need not heed warnings that millions will die from human-induced global warming and says we should seek more practical …
Global Warming Report (Part 2)
My friend Glenn Brooke has written further thoughts regarding my post "Global Warming Report." Read it here. Grace and Peace
The Face on Mars
In 1976, the Viking 1 orbiter took a picture of a feature on Mars that had the appearance of a human face. Some people went from "It looks like a human face; isn't that interesting" to "It must have been constructed by aliens!" In 2001, the NASA Mars Global Surveyer took better resolution images of …
Global Warming Report
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has published an article on global temperature change. Here is the abstract: Global surface temperature has increased ~0.2°C per decade in the past 30 years, similar to the warming rate predicted in the 1980s in initial global climate model simulations with transient greenhouse gas changes. Warming is larger in …
Scientists on money
Most scientists aren't in it for the money, but some of them end up on banknotes. I got these from a page called Banknotes Featuring Scientists and Mathematicians. Einstein Galileo Curie Rutherford Grace and Peace
Name that element
We're doing elements and atomic theory in Chemistry right now. Sometimes I give my students worksheets, and sometimes I give them "funsheets." I tell them that all worksheets are funsheets, but they aren't convinced yet. Here's a funsheet. You may need a periodic table or a list of the elements to help with some of …
Coming to a tight parking spot near you!
How about a car whose length is just a little longer than a Hummer is wide? How about being able to park two cars in a single parallel parking spot, by pulling into the space with the nose of the car against the curb? That's the Smart Car; a somewhat common car on the streets …
The one who caused chaos and strife
2003 UB313 finally has a name, and thankfully it is not named "Xena." Because it is larger than Pluto, this distant object threw the world of astronomy into chaos when it was discovered, eventually leading to the downgrading of Pluto to the lowly status of "dwarf planet." The International Astronomical Union has decided on the …
Arctic sea ice
According to NASA, Arctic sea ice is melting at an accelerating rate. NASA image. Yellowish areas of the ocean were covered with winter ice a few years ago, but are now open water year-round. Global warming is certainly occuring. Is it human-induced? Is it part of a natural cycle? I don't know, but the questions …
Barney the Dinosaur meets Jöns Jakob Berzelius
A few years ago while teaching about element symbols in Chemistry, this song just popped into my head: Jöns Jakob Berzelius Words by Kevin Nelstead, Bucharest Christian Academy Sung to the tune of "John Jacob Jingelheimer Schmidt" John Jakob Berzelius His symbols are our symbols too When sodium we talk about “N-A” we will shout …
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New Gulf of Mexico Oil Field
Chevron has announced the discovery of an oil field off the coast of Louisiana that could rival the Prudhoe Bay field (Alaska North Slope) in size. This does not mean that the United States will soon have a source of cheap petroleum: the well was drilled in 7000 feet of water, down to a total …
The Inner Life of the Cell
Web site of the week: "The Inner Life of the Cell." This site has a computer animation of the inner workings of a white blood cell. Absolutely amazing—both in terms of the animation, and the processes it portrays. It is a testimony to the wisdom and power of the Creator. I got this link from …
GeoChristian 