Environmental Disasters and Media Manipulation

From an interview by investigative journalist Greg Palast in his book Vulture's Picnic, in which we find that most scientists who supported the idea that the ocean cleaned up after BP oil spills is mostly false, and most of those biologists who support the idea were paid by BP itself as an effort to manipulate the population through media outlets like NPR...

"Now, without shame, BP and the Interior Department are using this same “Bugs Ate the Oil” stunt in the Gulf. They added a twist. Maybe it didn’t work perfectly in cold Alaska, but bacteria just love Mississippi.
This Mississippi island was impressively oiled, but I wasn’t impressed. Something was missing.
Habeus corpus picis? Where are the fish corpses, Professor?
In the water, Steiner explained. While we would see a couple of oil-packed fish carcasses on the beach, the big slaughter is actually going on way out there, in the fishing grounds and beyond.
The killer: BP, that is, Bacterial Plumes.
Steiner told me that bacteria were indeed eating up some of the hydrocarbon from the blowout, “but mostly the methane, not the heavy crude.” Bacteria certainly munch on some of it (good), which encourages bacteria to make bacterium babies by the trillions (bad). As the bacteria feast, said Steiner, they breathe, as all creatures do. The result: not much oxygen left in the water for fish. The fish can’t breathe and they drown."

The Neurogrid Artificial Brain

Inspired by GRAPE-6, a $60K supercomputer that has revolutionized astrophysics, Neurogrid provides an affordable option for brain simulations. It uses analog computation to emulate ion-channel activity and uses digital communication to softwire synaptic connections. These technologies impose different constraints, because they operate in parallel and in serial, respectively. Analog computation constrains the number of distinct ion-channel populations that can be simulated—unlike digital computation, which simply takes longer to run bigger simulations. Digital communication constrains the number of synaptic connections that can be activated per second—unlike analog communication, which simply sums additional inputs onto the same wire. Working within these constraints, Neurogrid achieves its goal of simulating multiple cortical areas in real-time by making judicious choices.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/brainsinsilicon/neurogrid.html

Could a computer capable of greater processing capacity than the human brain in a smaller package replace our own minds? If those computers became self-aware...

Comet ISON Now Visible to Naked Eye After Cosmic Outburst

Next Monday morning (Nov. 18), ISON will be passing close to the bright 1st magnitude star Spica in Virgo. Using the handle of the Big Dipper, sweep an arc to the brilliant orange star Arcturus. Then continue that arc on to Spica. Using binoculars, ISON should still be readily be visible as a fuzzy star with a short tail.

More: Comet ISON Now Visible to Naked Eye After Cosmic Outburst

Look to ESE over the next few days to spot the comet near the ecliptic. Follow the latest Comet ISON news at Space.com.

An Out-Of-Control Satellite Is Plummeting To Earth Right Now

A European gravity-mapping satellite has begun its uncontrolled descent through the atmosphere, and there's a (incredibly minuscule) chance it could land on your head.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/jalopnik/full/~3/vsjU87uz4l8/@ballaban

My question is whether I get to keep if it lands on my property. 

Venus

Venus is shining brightly above the western horizon this evening. 

Travel Faster than Light with the Alcubierre Drive

In 1994, the Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed a method of stretching space in a wave which would in theory cause the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft to contract and the space behind it to expand.[1] The ship would ride this wave inside a region known as a warp bubble of flat space. Since the ship is not moving within this bubble, but carried along as the region itself moves, conventional relativistic effects such as time dilation do not apply in the way they would in the case of a ship moving at high velocity through flat spacetime relative to other objects. Also, this method of travel does not actually involve moving faster than light in a local sense, since a light beam within the bubble would still always move faster than the ship; it is only "faster than light" in the sense that, thanks to the contraction of the space in front of it, the ship could reach its destination faster than a light beam restricted to travelling outside the warp bubble. Thus, the Alcubierre drive does not contradict the conventional claim that relativity forbids a slower-than-light object to accelerate to faster-than-light speeds. 

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Alcubierre_drive.html

Perhaps in a century or more we may actually be travelling arosss our own solar system, or even the galaxy. 

Draconids Meteor Shower

The Draconids meteor shower will be visible to the north from 8-10 October this year. Best viewed just after sunset, look north to Vega in the Lyra constellation, and it will be just to the southwest. 

Buzz Aldrin on Star Talk

Buzz Aldrin joins the lively crew of StarTalk Live.

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/media.startalkradio.net/uploads/shows/STR-S04E28-2013-09-22-startalk-live-at-town-hall-with-buzz-aldrin-part-2.mp3

Can Liquid Water Exist on Mars?

I wondered whether water was possible on Mars due to the atmospheric pressure differences from Earth. I wondered whether the pressure differences would cause the freezing point to shift to a lower temperature because of the lower pressure. Apparently, only the boiling point is affected by atmospheric pressure, and the low pressure on Mars causes ice to sublimate directly into a gas (because the boiling point is below the freezing point), so there is no chance of liquid water being discovered on its surface.

WATER ICE Discussion - Mars Rover Blog and Forum

2013 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: The Existence of Nothing

A very nihilistic title to be sure, but the Asimov debat continues to inspire discourse years later. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OLz6uUuMp8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Curiosity's Greatest Hits in Its One Year on Mars

"Can you believe it's been a full year since the Mars Curiosity rover made its absolutely spectacular red, dusty landing? Millions watched with bated breath the day that NASA's Mars Science Laboratory began its historical journey. It may have taken everyone's favorite interplanetary robot a little while to get up and running, but once it did, the discoveries kept on coming. Here's a look back at some the more fun, mind-blowing, and all around spectacular of Curiosity's finds in honor of its first martian anniversary."

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/NKD-2mBQlgo/curiositys-greatest-hits-in-its-one-year-on-mars-1029853730

It Takes More Energy to Produce and Operate a Prius than a Hummer

The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate ‘green car’ is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer. 

Think in terms of EROEI (energy returned on energy invested)

However, if that was the only issue with the Prius, I wouldn’t be writing this article. It gets much worse. Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

Ignoring the actual environmental costs to promote perceived gains is hardly green.

All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn’t end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?

A cost savings turns into another energy loss.

When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer — the Prius’s arch nemesis. Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles — the expected lifespan of the Hybrid. 

The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.

That means that today's Prius will likely never be more green than today's Hummer.

So, if you are really an environmentalist — ditch the Prius. Instead, buy one of the most economical cars available — a Toyota Scion xB. The Scion only costs a paltry $0.48 per mile to put on the road. If you are still obsessed over gas mileage - buy a Chevy Aveo and fix that lead foot. 

...or spend less than half of the cost of the Chevy or Scion and get a standard motorbike that gets 60-70mpg and has a fraction of the carbon and physical footprint of economy cars.

One last fun fact for you: it takes five years to offset the premium price of a Prius. Meaning, you have to wait 60 months to save any money over a non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses.

Full article: Prius outdoes Hummer in Hummer damage

Don't forget; the net result of more fuel-efficient cars is higher overall consumption rates and more vehicles on the road due to lower operating costs. Hello unintended consequences.

Oregon passes unconstitutional bill that infringes natural right of parents to opt out of vaccination ‘requirements’

A new Oregon law would make it more difficult for parents to refuse vaccinations for their children, beyond the unconstitutionality of such a law. It really comes off as state propaganda, since the CDC (the drug industry's government mouthpiece) provides the "educational" material as part of a reeducation effort for those with a critical mind who choose to opt out. 

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Intelwar/~3/KRHZuwYYw8I/oregon-passes-unconstitutional-bill-that-infringes-natural-right-of-parents-to-opt-out-of-vaccination-requirements_062013

Solar Held back by Government Policy

As is typical, progress is held back by government intervention and bad public policy. A more effective path would be to simply circumvent the bureaucracy and allow the market to work. 

Solar PV permitting processes tend to be rather laborious and slow-moving — especially in the US — so any improvements to and streamlining of such processes by local governments is to be highly commended. The bureaucracy associated with such permitting processes is thought to be one of the primary obstacles to higher rates of household solar PV adoption in the US.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IM-planetsave/~3/W8Mwumk8LNc/

Or we could keep letting the state make life worse. 

Clarke on Two-Dimensional Life

"The planet was absolutely flat. Its enormous gravity had long ago crushed into one uniform level the mountains of its fiery youth-mountains whose mightiest peaks had never exceeded a few metres in height. Yet there was life here, for the surface was covered with a myriad geometrical patterns that crawled and moved and changed their colour. It was a world of two dimensions, inhabited by beings who could be no more than a fraction of a centimetre in thickness."

From Aurthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, the author offers what reminds me of what Flatland must look like to a visitor, though I cannot imagine how a three-dimensional creature could survive under these pressures. 

Volcano Spews 4km Ash Plume

Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano erupted Monday afternoon, sending a plume of ash almost four kilometers into the air and starting a number of wildfires. The 5,452-meter volcano is one of the most active in Mexico and has experienced several major eruptions since 1994.

More: http://feedly.com/k/129jyPN 

EPA Reverses Itself on Fluoride

In a surprising reversal, last month EPA’s announced that it intends to lower the maximum amount of fluoride in drinking water because of growing evidence supporting the chemical’s possible deleterious effects to children’s health. 

In 2006, the National Academy of Sciences report that found dental fluorosis – caused by too much fluoride – capable of putting children at risk of developing other dental problems including the breakdown of tooth enamel, discoloration and pitting.

More: EPA Reverses Itself on Fluoride

Lightspeed

Arthur C. Clarke on near-lightspeed travel, from Childhood's End:

    "The important fact was that I knew how far they had to travel, and therefore how long the journey took. NGS 549672 is forty light-years from Earth. The Overlords ships reach more than ninety-nine per cent of the speed of light, so the trip must last forty years of our dine. Our time; that's the crux of the matter.
    "Now as you may have beard, strange things happen as one approaches the speed of light. Time itself begins to flow at a different rate-to pass more slowly, so that what would be months on Earth would be no more than days on the ships of the Overlords. The effect is quite fundamental; it was discovered by the great Einstein more than a hundred years ago.
    "I have made calculations based on what we know about the Stardrive, and using the firmly-established results of Relativity theory. From the viewpoint of the passengers on one of the Overlord ships, the journey to NGS 549672 will last not more than two months-even though by Earth's reckoning forty years will have passed. I know this seems a paradox, and if it's any consolation it's puzzled the world's best brains ever since Einstein announced it.

Sealife from Science Fiction

Arthur C. Clarke on sealife, amazingly real, from Childhood's End:

    A fish with incredibly exaggerated jaws was visible in the viewing screen. It appeared to be quite large, but as Jan did now know the scale of the picture it was bard to judge. Hanging from a point just below its gills was a long tendril, ending In an unidentifiable, bell-shaped organ.
    "We're seeing it on infrared," said the pilot. "Let's look at the normal picture."
    The fish vanished completely. Only the pendant remained, slowing with its own phosphorescence. Then, just for an instant, the shape of the creature flickered into visibility as a line of lights flashed out along its body.
    "It's an angler; that's the bait it uses to lure other fish. Fantastic, isn't it? What I don't understand is-why doesn't his bait attract fish big enough to eat him? But we can't wait here all day. Watch him run when I switch on the jets."
    The cabin vibrated once again as the vessel eased itself forward. The great luminous fish suddenly flashed on all its lights in a frantic signal of alarm, and departed like a meteor into the darkness of the abyss.

Continuum, an Agorist Review

Statism comes in all flavors. While Continum appears, on the surface, good science fiction, it comes off more as what happens when the government produces art. Remember Sandman, from Post-WWII Germany? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ojzpuMdSxc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Continuum, while having a 90s feel in its writing, also has a slightly "off" presentation. Such anti-capitalist sentiments are only felt on the statist side, with anything but an aesthetic delivery. Corporatism is hardly acceptable, my Che Guevara was hardly more than a criminal thug with moral aspirations. Oh, the irony. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW1bFY11tFQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Travis: anyone that smart is actually smart. 

Texas Wildlife

Texas is a beautiful place. The foliage, while rather dry at times, is a unique blend, along with what comes here through human intervention. So, our kids uave a handful of rubber snakes, one of which is realistic, and to scale. What's worse? It usually ends up with the patio toys. Yeah, you probably already guessed it. The youngest says he sees a snake on the patio. It looks like the toy snake, so I go to pick it up. Then it turns, looks at me, flicking its tongue. 

Schrödinger's God is Dead Alive

I love being agnostic, because both positions are potentially plausible. I try to ground my beliefs in scientific principle as well as philosophy and morality, and not knowing whether something exists at once proves that it can not be proven either way without hard evidence. 

Schrodinger's cat is both dead and alive, and I believe the principle applies to theistic arguments as well. On one hand, I can not disprove the existence of gods, and on the other a theist is equally unable to prove the existence. We are at an impasse but the agorist in me takes it a bit further, promoting the idea that we are both wrong, and both right. 

I am an agnostic agorist for good reason.  Grounded in the nonaggression principle, it is immoral for a theist to force his view on me, and equally immoral for me to force my view on a theist. We can both be correct and incorrect at the same time. 

Nuclear Power and Human Nature

From Omni Magazine, October 1978;

If the world is to step back from the nuclear brink, the United States, which led the way there, must lead the way back; its President must reassert leadership.

The radioactive particle is too dangerous and implacable for fallible humans to fool with.

"Despite the best efforts and intentions of the people of the United Nations," said Jacques-Yves Cousteau, addressing the U.N. in 1976, "human society is too diverse, national passion too strong, human aggressiveness too deep-seated for the peaceful and the warlike atom to stay divorced for long. We cannot embrace one while abhorring the other; we must learn, if we want to live at all, to live without both."

The strange thing is, we all know that and we always have. From time out of mind, our mythology has prepared us. The tales of Prometheus and Pandora, and of Faust, and the notion of hubris in Greek tragedy, are as apt now as when invented. More apt. How, in the Ages of Bronze or Iron, could those lessons have been so perfecty applicable, and so desperately important? It is almost as if the old storytellers had blinked, millenia in advance, at the white thermonuclear flash, and had begun preparing their admonitions.

Pandora opened her box, of course, and Prometheus stole the fire, Perhaps these things are inevitable, given the nature of man and matter.

Elements of the Periodic Table

Elements of the Periodic Table - OpenLearn - Open University: Explore the impact of chemical elements on our bodies, the world around us and see how they changed the course of history

Clarke on Theism and Science

Arthur C. Clarke on theism and science, from Childhood's End:

"You know why Wainwright and his type fear me, don't you?" asked Karellen. His voice was somber now, like a great organ rolling its notes from a high cathedral nave. "You will find men like him in all the world's religions. They know that we represent reason and science, and however confident they may be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not necessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now. The Wainwrights fear, too, that we know the truth about the origins of their faiths. How long, they wonder, have we been observing humanity? Have we watched Mohammed begin the Hegira, or Moses giving the Jews their laws? Do we know all that is false in the stories they believe?"

Claim: Arctic sea ice is disappearing faster than anyone thought

The September 2012 record low in Arctic sea-ice extent was big news, but a missing piece of the puzzle was lurking below the ocean's surface. What volume of ice floats on Arctic waters? And how does that compare to previous summers? These are difficult but important questions, because how much ice actually remains suggests how vulnerable the ice pack will be to more warming.

New satellite observations confirm a University of Washington analysis that for the past three years has produced widely quoted estimates of Arctic sea-ice volume. Findings based on observations from a European Space Agency satellite, published online in Geophysical Research Letters, show that the Arctic has lost more than a third of summer sea-ice volume since a decade ago, when a U.S. satellite collected similar data.

More: http://junkscience.com/2013/02/24/claim-arctic-sea-ice-is-disappearing-faster-than-anyone-thought

Welcome to reality...

Prizatization of Resources to Promote Sustainability

I've written on the concept of the Tragedy of the Commons in the past. An example in Field's Natural Resource Economics presents more than one potential solution to the problem of over-consumption in the commons, exacerbated by the lack of property rights in the world's oceans:

The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently, and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will lower the yield a shared limited resource, even to the point of ultimately depleting it, even when it is clear that it is not in everyone's short or long term interest for this to happen.

The net result is that no individual has any economic incentive to practice sustainable harvesting of fish, and in fact has the opposite incentive; if others are harvesting greater amounts, they are receiving greater compensation in the market for producing greater quantities of goods. This creates a situation whereby depletion of natural resources happens at an ever-increasing rate, with the end result being a supply of fish unable to meet the demand. The responsible firm who practices sustainable fishing in fact drives themselves out of the market. Each firm has an incentive to harvest as much as possible and deliver those goods to the market, guaranteeing each a continued ability to operate and profit.

Another unfortunate effect of this concept in practice is through the act of prohibition by the state. When a particular market for goods or services is prohibited through fiat, that simply drives the market underground, rather than bringing an end to that particular market. Prohibition also has an incentivizing effect on that market, as it drives up the potential profits due to the heightened risks associated with the black market demand. The illegal drug trade is one such example, with the inherent violence associated being an unfortunate unintended consequence of prohibition (see also alcohol prohibition).

One solution with proven effectiveness is the privatization of those resources at risk of depletion by over consumption. With the evident reversal in the decline in the populations of elephants, where the prohibition of poaching elephants had little effect in Kenya compared to implementing a property rights scheme in Zimbabwe, it becomes apparent that under the right circumstances, the free market is more effective at alleviating over-consumption of resources than efforts by governments.

As long as profit is the motive for exchange, the concept of the Tragedy of the Commons will likely continue in practice to present a need to consider implementing property rights schemes that encourage sustainability over the long term. Property rights promote a long-term sustainability by creating a system whereby profits can be guaranteed in the future, but only by moderating trade in resources today.

Kitchen Science for Kids

Having some fun teaching my daughter some scientific principles in the kitchen, we discussed solutions and solutes, viscosity, and density. We put together a list of materials and she made guesses as to which would be soluble in other materials. Only one gave her pause, whether sugar would dissolve into lemon juice, yet she was proven correct once she completed the experiment. Not bad for a seven year old. 

The Economics of Time Travel

Watching the sci-fi movie Looper, I find myself analyzing it from multiple perspectives, so needless to say I will have to watch it again soon. I enjoyed the film, along with the level at which it addressed the science involved in time travel; enough to attract viewers with a new twist, but not so much that it overwhelms the audience in it's complexity. This is good because it makes the film a fun ride without feeling like you've just prepared for a quiz. 

In a future in which government has given way to corruption and violence, "loopers" are assasins, with their targets being delivered from a future in which time travel is prohibited by law. As with government prohibition, the typical effect is that the market moves into the black, ignoring the law entirely. 

The guns are also varied and unique themselves, with much creativity on the part of the production crew. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276104/

Corn, corn, and more corn

Drinking a Manzanita soda with a Starlite vodka from texas, I can't help but laugh at the fact that, by Michelle Obama's new food standards, my spiked soda is now a vegetable. The Apple-flavored pop is corn-sweetened with high fructose corn syrup and the vodka is yellow corn and wheat distilled seven times. 

Rock out with the government intervention...

Influenza Vaccine and Adverse Reactions

Always the skeptic, I will often begin with a predisposed notion, question it's validity, and then research to either support or refute a theory. With vaccines, and influenza in particular, I color my views based on my experiences. In the case of the flu, my own adverse reaction to the vaccine prompted my opposing position to it's widespread application. Lately, I'm questioning that position and looking for statistical information to either support or refute my beliefs.

I'll start out by focusing on the raw numbers from a neutral source:

To determine the vaccination rate and its adverse reactions after influenza vaccination, we administered an anonymous questionnaire survey during the last three influenza seasons from 2005-2006 to 2007-2008. In total, the rate of Influenza vaccination was 82.3% in health-care personnel. Dividing the subjects into four groups by work category, the vaccine coverage rates were as follows: physicians 67.9%; nurses and nursing assistants 91.2%; technicians, pharmacists, therapists, and administrative personnel 80.2%; and other personnel not directly involved in patient care but having the potential of being exposed to infectious agents 89%. The most frequent adverse reaction after vaccination was soreness at the injection site in 33.4%, followed by skin redness in 18.1%, myalgia in 17.7%, fatigue in 17%, and febrile sensation in 15.2%. After vaccination, such adverse reactions began within 24 h in 70.6% of subjects. Eighty-nine percent of those adverse reactions persisted for 1-3 days, but 11% persisted more than 4 days. Serious adverse reactions were not noted; the reported adverse reactions were relatively minor and transient. Surprisingly, among those who were vaccinated, the physicians' participation was the lowest. We believe that influenza vaccination is safe and that physicians should be more concerned with influenza vaccination and its impact on the health-care community.

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19050354

That prompts me to think about the implications of such data.

What will receiving lifelong flu shots every year do to your immune system?

With all of those vaccinations, will you be more susceptible to influenza-related complications and death?

We really don't know.

Health officials have leapt ahead with recommendations of "flu shots for all" without safety studies—so by getting a flu shot, you are effectively offering yourself up as a laboratory rat.

It isn't just an ordinary flu vaccine they are promoting this year—it's the new trivalent vaccine, which may be even more reactive than the monovalent. This vaccine is a three-in-one, containing influenza A, influenza B, and 2009 pandemic swine flu (H1N1) strains.

Administering this highly suspect formulation to 300 million people has potentially disastrous implications. Red flags were already popping up last year, and this flu season has raised many more.

More: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/11/01/flu-vaccine-and-its-side-effects.aspx

Make your own conclusions from that information, just as i have.

Quote from Death by Black Hole

deGrasse Tyson:

I claim no special knowledge of when the end of science will come, or where the end might be found, or whether an end exists at all. What I do know is that our species is dumber than we normally admit to ourselves. This limit of our mental faculties, and not necessarily of science itself, ensures to me that we have only just begun to figure out the universe.

I for one hope we never reach the end of the journey of discovery.

Quote from Death by Black Hole

A famous end-of-science prediction came in 1894, during the speech given by the soon-to-be Nobel laureate Albert A. Michelson on the dedication of the Ryerson Physics Lab, at the University of Chicago:

The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote…. Future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals. (Barrow 1988, p. 173)

Even at any future point, such a prospect should likely never be uttered, let alone held in any positive regard. The idea that one can ever know all there is to learn about the universe and it's mysteries is not only a false notion, but it ruins the discovery process. Coming to the end of such a process of learning and presuming that there is nothing left to learn would be such disappointment, knowing there is nothing more to learn, nor further reason to explore.

PIA14873: Does 'Pacman' Have Teeth?

In visible light, the star-forming cloud catalogued as NGC 281 in the constellation of Cassiopeia appears to be chomping through the cosmos, earning it the nickname the "Pacman" nebula after the famous Pac-Man video game of the 1980s. However, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, observed the nebula in infrared light, revealing a different view. NGC 281 is a giant cloud of dust and gas located about 9,200 light-years away within our own Milky Way galaxy, and spans about 130 light-years in space. Inside the cloud, a new cluster of stars is forming. This young cluster, called IC 1590, appears as a group of stars near the center of the red and green cloud in the upper portion of the image. 

More: Source

2012 Was Hottest Year Ever in U.S.

The numbers are in: 2012, the year of a surreal March heat wave, a severe drought in the Corn Belt and a huge storm that caused broad devastation in the Middle Atlantic States, turns out to have been the hottest year ever recorded in the contiguous United States. 

How hot was it? The temperature differences between years are usually measured in fractions of a degree, but last year’s 55.3 degree average demolished the previous record, set in 1998, by a full degree Fahrenheit.

If that does not sound sufficiently impressive, consider that 34,008 daily high records were set at weather stations across the country, compared with only 6,664 record lows, according to a count maintained by the Weather Channel meteorologist Guy Walton, using federal temperature records.

That ratio, which was roughly in balance as recently as the 1970s, has been out of whack for decades as the country has warmed, but never by as much as it was last year.

More: 2012 Was Hottest Year Ever in U.S. - NYTimes.com

The Rise and Fall of the Canada Lynx and Snowshoe Hare

An interesting article on the rises and declines in the interconnected Canadian lynx and snowshoe hare populations:

Amid the understory of North America's boreal forests, the Canada lynx lies in wait for its favorite prey, the snowshoe hare. Positioning itself along one of the well-beaten trails connecting the hare's feeding and nesting sites, the lynx sits patiently, its mottled gray coat camouflaging it in the brush. When a hare happens by, the lynx makes its move, bounding from its cover and initiating an exhilarating chase in which the hare dashes one way, then another, frantically trying to evade its adversary. And whether for the thrill of the chase, the tantalizing taste of the hare, or a combination thereof, the lynx will wait hours on end for this moment, the opportunity to pounce on an unsuspecting snowshoe hare.

More: http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2011/06/rise-fall-canada-lynx-snowshoe-hare

I was a bit disappointed in myself for not fully learning about the link between the populations before visiting the Yukon territory...