Stephen Fry, Nanoscience Guy

Stephen Fry narrates this video about nanoscience from the University of Cambridge. Cambridge has a decent science playlist on their YouTube channel and an AV page on the university website called Cambridge Ideas.

The Pale Blue Dot

"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love." ~ Carl Sagan

Scientific Morality

Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, presented a TED talk called "Science can answer moral questions" earlier this month. While Harris' disdain for religion is evident and may consequently offend some people, I think his examination of the common themes in human values reaches an important conclusion:

"Values are a certain kind of fact. They are facts about the well-being of conscious creatures. Why is it that we don't have ethical obligations toward rocks? Why don't we feel compassion for rocks? It's because we don't think rocks can suffer. And if we're more concerned about our fellow primates than we are about insects, as indeed we are, it's because we think they're exposed to a greater range of potential happiness and suffering. Now, the crucial thing to notice here is that this is a factual claim. This is something we could be right or wrong about. If we've misconstrued the relationship between biological complexity and the possibilities of experience, well then we could be wrong about the inner lives of insects."

Universal Perspective

Or, as shitmydadsays would say: "Universe is 14 billion years old. Seems silly to celebrate one year. Be like having a fucking parade every time i take a piss."

Getting Warmer by the Numbers

This video is an interesting look at the back and forth of the climate change debate. Today, the Associated Press released an article by their science writer, Seth Borenstein, detailing the results of a new analysis on climate data.

"The AP sent expert statisticians NOAA's year-to-year ground temperature changes over 130 years and the 30 years of satellite-measured temperatures preferred by skeptics and gathered by scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville."

"Statisticians who analyzed the data found a distinct decades-long upward trend in the numbers, but could not find a significant drop in the past 10 years in either data set. The ups and downs during the last decade repeat random variability in data as far back as 1880."

Parts Per Million

It's no secret, people love cold hard facts. Scientists can huff and puff about global warming all they want, but it's hard for other people to care about something on such a vast scale if they have nothing for comparison. We can't all go to Antarctica or Greenland and see the ice melting for ourselves. Even if we could, many of us probably wouldn't fully understand, while others would chock it up to a natural phase of weather (ie. interglacial).

Unfortunately for all of us, we've already exceeded the recommended 350 Carbon dioxide parts per million (ppm) that all the experts are getting excited about. Right now, we're hovering around 387 ppm. 350.org seems to be running a successful multimedia campaign to raise awareness, centered around a Global Day of Climate Action on October 24th.

I think it's a great idea to get people organized in their communities. I just have a nagging question in the back of my mind... If 350 is the upper limit, shouldn't we be aiming for something below that?

Hell, I'm moving further inland soon. You coastal people can deal with it.

Call of the Wild

For some, it may be easy to forget that Isabella Rossellini is a famous actress and not a kooky high school biology teacher. But if I were a biology teacher, you better believe I'd be using these videos in my class. Check out both seasons of "Green Porno" at the Sundance Channel website.

You may have asked yourself at some point, why sex? Why not just asexually divide like creatures did at the beginning of our world? Fortunately for us, unique combinations of DNA help many species to fend off parasites. So, as the article's title says, "Like Sex? Thank a Parasite."