Written by Pierre L. Gosselin
A television documentary dubbed “The Weather Machine” produced in 1975 – long before NASA fiddled with the data – warned of an impending ice age (10:35), and maintained that the globe is cooling. Hat-tip: reader The Indomitable Snowman.
The documentary attempted and succeeded at presenting the latest on climate change at the time.
Written by Dr Klaus L E Kaiser
That title ought to get your attention in a hurry, don’t you agree? In my perception, it certainly should! So, what happened?
What Happened?
As you may have gleaned from recent news, on March 4, 2018, in the city of Salisbury (population of 60,000) in Wiltshire, England, two people were found on a downtown park bench in a state of unresponsiveness. They were transported to the local hospital where they are said to still remain in intensive care, nearly two weeks later.
Written by www.craigmurray.org.uk
By Craig Murray, former British intelligence officer, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, and Rector (i.e. Chancellor) of the University of Dundee. Originally published at CraigMurray.org.uk.
As recently as 2016 Dr Robin Black, Head of the Detection Laboratory at the UK’s only chemical weapons facility at Porton Down, a former colleague of Dr David Kelly, published in an extremely prestigious scientific journal that the evidence for the existence of Novichoks was scant and their composition unknown.
Written by Professor Dr. Joachim Burger Palaeogenetics Group
The transition from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages in Europe is marked by two key events in European history, the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the migration into this Empire by various barbarian tribes such as the Goths, Alemanni, Franks, and Lombards. This resulted in a profound cultural and socioeconomic transformation throughout the continent, and many settlements from this epoch would subsequently develop into the villages and towns we still know today.
Written by Michael Kile
Few stars in the frothy firmament of academic climate science shine more controversially than Dr Michael E. Mann, creator of the notorious “hockey stick” curve, gloomy prognosticator, conspiracy theorist, co-author of The Madhouse Effect: How climate change denial is threatening our planet, destroying our politics and driving us crazy, anti-Trump activist and fan of climate toothpaste, the only anti-apathy oral hygiene product with UH-OH formula.
Written by Bertrand de Jouvenel
“The eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding…. I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.” John F. Kennedy, speech at Rice University, 1962
Written by Morgan Kelly, Princeton Environmental Institute
Princeton University researchers have found that the climate models scientists use to project future conditions on our planet underestimate the cooling effect that clouds have on a daily — and even hourly — basis, particularly over land.
The researchers reported in the journal Nature Communications on Dec. 22 that models tend to factor in too much of the sun’s daily heat, which results in warmer, drier conditions than might actually occur. The researchers found that inaccuracies in accounting for the diurnal, or daily, cloud cycle did not seem to invalidate climate projections, but they did increase the margin of error for a crucial tool scientists use to understand how climate change will affect us.
Written by Mary Halton
Image copyright HUMAN ORIGINS PROGRAM, SMITHSONIANHumans may have developed advanced social behaviours and trade 100,000 years earlier than previously thought.
This is according to a series of papers published today in Science. The results come from an archaeological site in Kenya’s rift valley. “Over one million years of time” is represented at the site, according to Rick Potts from the Smithsonian Institution, who was involved in the studies.
Written by Professor Sir Venki Ramakrishnan
As Neils Bohr allegedly said, “It is hard to make predictions, especially about the future.” Indeed, Lord Kelvin’s 1895 declaration that “heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible” tends to loom in scientists’ minds when we are tempted to speculate about what technology might deliver.
Written by Paul Dorian
Overview: The sun is blank today for the 10th straight day and it has been without sunspots this year more than half the time as the current solar cycle heads towards the next solar minimum. Solar cycle 24 is currently on pace to be the weakest sunspot cycle with the fewest sunspots since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906. Solar cycle 24 continues a recent trend of weakening solar cycles which began with solar cycle 21 that peaked around 1980.
The last time the sun was this blank in a given year on a percentage basis was 2009 during the last solar minimum when 71{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the time was spotless. That last solar minimum actually reached a nadir in 2008 when an astounding 73{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the year featured a spotless sun – the most spotless days in a given year since 1913.
Written by Andrew Orlowski
Elon Musk’s audacious plans are usually met with acclaim, and sometimes even awe – but not this time. Fresh details of The Boring Company’s urban transport plans have been lambasted on social media.
The Tesla and SpaceX founder (pictured above) gushed about “1000s of small stations the size of a single parking space that take you very close to your destination & blend seamlessly into the fabric of a city, rather than a small number of big stations like a subway”.
Written by Gary Norman
The energy market is undoubtedly in a state of flux. The current power play between the U.S., OPEC and Russia is symptomatic of the changing geopolitical and economic dynamics of the entire market, U.S. tight oil seems set to completely upset the apple cart, and rapid technological advances are putting hitherto unattainable reserves within our reach.
Written by Lori Dajose Caltech
Quantum mechanics is the branch of physics governing the sometimes-strange behavior of the tiny particles that make up our universe. Equations describing the quantum world are generally confined to the subatomic realm—the mathematics relevant at very small scales is not relevant at larger scales, and vice versa.
However, a surprising new discovery from a Caltech researcher suggests that the Schrödinger Equation—the fundamental equation of quantum mechanics—is remarkably useful in describing the long-term evolution of certain astronomical structures.
Written by Lee Bell
Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast believe they have uncovered some mysteries in how the sun is able to heat its atmosphere.
Published in a study in Nature Physics, the scientists found that magnetic waves crashing through the sun are one of the key ingredients in the heating process and thus propelling the solar wind. The findings come after scientists suggesting for years that these waves may play an important role in maintaining the sun’s super high temperatures, but only now have they been able to prove it.
Written by Dr Jerry L Krause
A cycle has two extremes and two middles. The motion of a pendulum has two high points and one low point, which it passes through twice. The phases of the moon are a new moon, a full moon, and two quarter moons.
Newton’s great feat, which maybe is not commonly acknowledged, is he explained how there were two diurnal ocean tidal cycles each day which were obviously influenced by the moon’s cycle as it revolved (orbited) about the earth once about every 25 hours as the earth rotated about its axis with a period of 24 hours. Clearly these cycles have a period of time associated with them.
Written by Paul Homewood
It is worth returning to that letter in last week’s Sunday Telegraph, criticising Booker’s global warming groupthink article:
SIR – I agree with Christopher Booker that people tend to adopt the views of their “group” without checking facts or using critical thinking.
Nevertheless, his article contains inaccuracies. A big one: that climate change theory was immediately hailed as a scientific consensus.