Wallace and Gromit get a hand at home
A Wallace and Gromit exhibition is at the Powerhouse museum. Sadly, though, the article says no W & G film is currently in production.
Wallace and Gromit get a hand at home
A Wallace and Gromit exhibition is at the Powerhouse museum. Sadly, though, the article says no W & G film is currently in production.
Despite Schlesinger’s more optimistic outlook, he stresses sharp emissions reductions must begin, in case his estimates are wrong.
“...for argument’s sake, let’s suppose the [climate sensitivity] is larger than the values we determined....humanity must act sooner and more rapidly...” Schlesinger said.Indeed.
The bottom line is that a single act of intercourse between a young couple has on average a one in 20 chance of pregnancy – this assumes the opportunity presented itself on a random day, as these things tend do when you are young.However, the article then goes on to talk about the effectiveness of various forms of contraception, but only seems to quote figures if they are used correctly. This seems a bit of an oversight.
As many of you know, National Review is not a non-profit — we are just not profitable. A lawsuit is not something we can fund with money we don’t have. Of course, we’ll do whatever we have to do to find ourselves victorious in court and Professor Mann thoroughly defeated, as he so richly deserves to be. Meanwhile, we have to hire attorneys, which ain’t cheap.Righto. So a publication that is making no profit decided to escalate a fight by challenging him to sue after they called him "the man behind the fraudulent climate-change “hockey-stick” graph, the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus" and approved this quote:
Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet.What idiots.
South Australian senator Cory Bernardi, formerly Mr Abbott's parliamentary secretary, said: ''I do not think human activity causes climate change and I haven't seen anything that changes my view. I remain very sceptical about the alarmists' claims.''
Queensland senator Barnaby Joyce said the whole debate about whether humans were causing the climate to change was ''indulgent and irrelevant''.
The second unexpected point is the look of the thing. Jackson has pioneeringly shot The Hobbit in HFR, or High Frame Rate: 48 frames a second, as opposed to the traditional 24, giving a much higher definition and smoother "movement" effect. But it looks uncomfortably like telly, albeit telly shot with impossibly high production values and in immersive 3D. Before you grow accustomed to this, it feels as if there has been a terrible mistake in the projection room and they are showing us the video location report from the DVD "making of" featurette, rather than the actual film.Some other critics have noted that it makes it way easier to spot the changes from special effects shots to reality, and that it makes fast motion look wrong (speeded up, I think they say.)
The jokesters, however, know it can go badly wrong. A Kyle Sandilands radio stunt involving a lie detector test and a 14-year-old, who revealed she was a rape victim, was deplored across the nation.
Record temperatures across Queensland have helped show solar power units on private homes are keeping peak electricity demand down in rural areas of the state, a utility says.
Ergon Energy, which supplies regional areas of the state outside Brisbane and the south east corner, says the most noticeable impact is on the mid-afternoon peak loads.
Temperatures on Tuesday soared to 40 degrees across much of Queensland, with new records for December were set in the southeast, and while they dropped slightly on Wednesday, temperatures were still above the monthly average.
With solar power units in regional areas capable of generating around 173 megawatts (MW), Ergon says as much as 150mw is flowing back into the system from private homes.
Chief executive Ian McLeod says peak demand of 1957 MW during the heatwave was down by 14 per cent on the record peak of 2285 MW in January 2010.
'After a number of mild summers this heatwave has been the first real test of where peak demand is heading on those few hot days of the year,' Mr McLeod said in a statement.
'The record growth of the last decade may be behind us.
'A reduced peak demand reduces the need for more investment in new substations or increasing the capacity of existing substations and powerlines and this takes the pressure off rising power prices.'
The next steps are harder: A carbon price is a necessary condition for facing up to the pollution our consumption is causing. If we don't want to pay the price of our pollution, then we don't want to tackle climate change. So far, the sad reality is that we are not prepared to act. That is why nothing much has been achieved on the carbon front since 1990.Why then might the U.S. consider putting a price on its carbon emissions, through taxing pollution? One powerful reason has nothing to do with climate change: It needs the money. Taxing carbon might be politically painful, but not as painful as taxing income. So for the wrong reason there are some grounds for optimism.What would be even better is if some of the money were spent on new technologies. Current renewables can't bridge the carbon gap. Low-density intermittent energy just doesn't generate enough electricity to carry though decarbonisation. But future renewables just might, and here is not only the best hope on the climate front, but also precisely where the U.S. stars. Its deep technological base and its entrepreneurial culture provide one of the best places to drive through the necessary advances.For the rest of the world, the lessons are much the same. Everyone needs to switch out of coal, and gas provides a now much more abundant alternative whilst we develop new technologies. Sadly Europe is engaged in a dash from nuclear and gas towards coal.It needs to waste less money on current expensive renewables -- especially the really expensive options like offshore wind -- and get serious about future renewables. Next generation solar technology is an obvious candidate. And everyone needs to put a carbon price in place.The climate change problem can be cracked, but not through current policies. And in the meantime the world needs to get used to the idea that the U.S. no longer needs the Middle East to keep its cars and industries moving.
I think there were some surprising aspects in Deser et al.‘s results. Not that I didn’t expect natural multi-annual variations to be important (on shorter time scales, they are very pronounced), but what strikes me is the strong contrast (on a 50-year time scale) between the global mean temperature (lower graph), which was not very sensitive to the regional atmospheric circulation, and the regional temperatures which were strongly influenced.
It has long been recognized that local and regional climate would warm at different rates than the global mean, but not with such large differences as presented by Deser et al. at the time scales of 50 years and for continental scales. Their results imply that while some regions could experience almost zero warming over 50 years, this will be compensated by substantially stronger in other regions (because they also find that the global mean temperatures to be largely insensitive to the different model initial conditions).
These results also imply a surprisingly long persistence of weather regimes in different parts of the world. Usually, one tends to associate these with inter-annual to decadal scales. However, Deser et al observe:
Such intrinsic climate fluctuations occur not only on interannual-to-decadal timescales but also over periods as long as 50 years… even trends over 50 years are subject to considerable uncertainty owing to natural variability.These findings were in particular important for the winter season at mid-to-high latitudes. Hence, they could be entirely attributed to chaotic dynamics. On the other hand, the two simulations that they highlighted in their study represented extreme cases, and most of the simulations suggested that the future outcome may be somewhere in between.
My interpretation of Deser et al.‘s results is that the range of possible future temperatures gets broader at the same time as the most likely outcome follows a warming curve. This means that the most likely scenario is warming for the future while there still is a small possibility that the temperature for a particular location hardly changes (or even cools) over a 50-year period.What strikes me as important about this is it surely means that those economists or advocates who argue for money to be spent more on adaptation to climate change rather than limiting emissions are barking up the wrong tree.
Over the last 10 to 15 years, the concentration of sperm samples collected by the bank dropped 37% from 106 million cells per milliliter to 67 million, according to Dr. Ronit Haimov-Kochman, a leading Israeli infertility researcher at the Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center.Now a very similar sounding study in France finds much the same:
New research shows that the concentration of sperm in men's semen has been in steady decline between 1989 and 2005 in France. In addition, there has been a decrease in the number of normally formed sperm.
The study is important because, with over 26,600 men involved, it is probably the largest studied sample in the world and although the results cannot be extrapolated to other countries, it does support other studies from elsewhere that show similar drops in semen concentration and quality in recent years.
They found that over the 17-year period there was a significant and continuous 32.2% decrease in semen concentration (millions of spermatozoa per millilitre of semen), at a rate of about 1.9% per year. The researchers calculated that in men of the average age of 35, semen concentrations declined from an average of 73.6 million/ml in 1989 to 49.9 million/ml in 2005.
In addition, there was a significant 33.4% decrease in the percentage of normally formed sperm over the same period. Changes in the way sperm shape (morphology) was measured during this time may partly explain this decrease and make it difficult to give an estimate for the general population. However, the researchers say that these changes do not account for the total decrease in the quality of sperm morphology observed over the study period.
In their paper, the researchers write: "To our knowledge, it is the first study concluding a severe and general decrease in sperm concentration and morphology at the scale of a whole country over a substantial period. This constitutes a serious public health warning. The link with the environment particularly needs to be determined."A few observations:
Poor women who drank tea were viewed as irresponsible as whisky drinkers in early 19th-century Ireland, new research by Durham University has unearthed.This is the best bit:
Critics at the time declared that the practice of tea drinking – viewed as a harmless pastime in most past and present societies – was contributing to the stifling of Ireland's economic growth, and was clearly presented as reckless and uncontrollable. Women who drank tea wasted their time and money, it was said, drawing them away from their duty to care for their husbands and home. It was felt this traditionally female responsibility was vital to progressing the national economy.
Pamphlets published in England at the time suggest that the concerns about tea drinking were also felt widely outside Ireland. Some believed it threatened the wholesome diet of British peasants and symbolised damage to the social order and hierarchies.
According to the Durham University paper, published in the academic journal Literature and History today (5 Dec) and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, reformers singled out tea drinking amongst peasant women as a practice which needed to be stamped out to improve the Irish economy and society.
Author Dr Helen O'Connell, Lecturer in English Studies at Durham University, who analysed pamphlets and literature from that time, said: "Peasant women were condemned for putting their feet up with a cup of tea when they should be getting a hearty evening meal ready for their hard-working husbands.
Pamphlets the reformers distributed to peasant households lambasted tea drinking as a luxury poor women could not afford and which could even cause addiction, illicit longing and revolutionary sympathies. It was also said that tea drinking could even be akin to being a member of a secret society, a belief which heightened political anxieties at a time of counter revolution within the Union of Britain and Ireland.
Dr Helen O'Connell said: "The prospect of poor peasant women squandering already scarce resources on fashionable commodities such as tea was a worry but it also implied that drinking tea could even express a form of revolutionary feminism for these women.
"If that wasn't enough, there were also supposedly drug-like qualities of tea, an exotic substance from China, which was understood to become addictive over time."
When birds bathe in water or saturate themselves with dust they are actively maintaining their plumage. In well-watered areas bathing is most common, in arid ones dusting is more often observed. Experiments with quail show that frequent dusting helps to maintain an optimum amount of oil on the feathers. Excess plumage lipids, including preen oil, are absorbed by the dust and expelled along with dry skin and other debris. If quail are prevented from dusting, their feathers quickly become oily and matted. Dusting may also help to discourage bird lice, but no experimental evidence exists as yet showing that to be the case.
Wrens and House Sparrows frequently follow a water bath with a dust bath (one reason to suspect an anti-parasite function for dusting). Overall, the amount of time and effort birds put into bathing and dusting indicates how critical feather maintenance may be. Feathers are marvelous and intricate devices, but keeping them functional requires constant care.
A bird is considered to be bathing whenever it uses any of several stereotyped movements to wet its feathers. One pattern, wading, is commonly observed in birds with strong feet and broad, short, flexible wings. In a typical sequence a bird stands in the water, fluffs the feathers to expose the bare skin between their bases, and rapidly flicks the wings in and out of the water. The breast is submerged and rolled vigorously back and forth, and then, as the front end emerges, the head is thrown back, forming a cup with the partially elevated wings and tail, and dousing the feathers of the back. Those feathers are elevated so that the water reaches the skin, and then lowered, forcing the water between them. The sequence may be repeated, with the bird submerging farther in each cycle, until it is a mass of soaked disarranged feathers. Variations on this theme can be seen in different species, such as robins, thrushes, mockingbirds, jays, and titmice.
After bathing, birds dry themselves using ritualized movements. Even swimming birds must force the surplus water from between their feathers to protect their insulating properties. Anhingas and cormorants, which often sit in a characteristic sunbathing posture with drying wings spread, are perhaps also thermoregulating. (Vultures take on similar sunbathing postures in the morning. Sunbathing, which occurs in many birds, may stimulate skin parasites into activity so they can be more readily picked off.) Songbirds shake themselves to throw off water by vibrating wings and tail and ruffling feathers. All birds normally follow bathing with preening.
Preening is the simplest and most common of feather care activities. It involves two different actions, nibbling and stroking. All other feather care activities seem to be a prelude to preening, or at least end in a bout of preening. Preening serves the function of returning feathers to their correct position and form and often involves the addition of oil to the feathers from the Uropygial gland. Wiping is simply wiping the feathers with the bill, pressing them into place and perhaps spreading some oil over them. Nibbling is a more serious attempt to put the feathers back into pristine condition. The bird uses its bill to nibble along the edges of feathers straightening them out and ensuring the barbules are all zipped up.One thing I am not sure I have heard about before, however, is "anting":
Many different songbird species have been observed picking up single ants or small groups and rubbing them on their feathers. Less commonly, other songbirds "ant" by spreading their wings and lying on an anthill, and squirming or otherwise stimulating the ants to swarm up among their feathers.
The purpose of anting is not well understood, but the most reasonable assumption seems to be that it is a way of acquiring the defensive secretions of ants primarily for their insecticidal, miticidal, fungicidal, or bactericidal properties and, perhaps secondarily, as a supplement to the bird's own preen oil. The former explanation is reinforced by a growing body of evidence on the biocidal properties of ant secretions and by an observation of a jungle Myna (Acridotheres fuscus) actively "anting" with a millipede, whose potent defensive secretions (evolved to fend off the millipede's enemies) could be smelled from 15 feet away. Likewise, the observed correlation of anting activity with high humidity might be explained by the documented fungicidal properties of ant secretions. Because the seasonal timing of anting and molting (spring and summer) often correspond, some have suggested that anting may soothe the skin during feather replacement. It seems more likely that the seasonal relationship simply reflects the greater activity of ants during those periods.Interesting.
Birds have long been known to line their nests with vegetation rich in compounds that drive away parasites. Chemicals in tobacco leaves are known to repel arthropods such as parasitic mites, so Monserrat Suárez-RodrÃguez, an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, and her colleagues wondered whether city birds were using cigarette butts in the same way.
In a study published today in Biology Letters1, the researchers examined the nests of two bird species common on the North American continent. They measured the amount of cellulose acetate (a component of cigarette butts) in the nests, and found that the more there was, the fewer parasitic mites the nest contained.