The news is abuzz with a socket wrench having been printed with a 3D printer at the international space station. It’s claimed that this wrench was required to be used in an unstated task. 

Today is the shortest day of the year, so it should follow that mornings will start getting brighter from now on, shouldn’t it? Not necessarily, writes Kris Griffiths. 

This Sunday, 21 December, the northern hemisphere will experience the shortest day of its year, marked at 23:03 GMT by an astronomical phenomenon known as the winter solstice – the moment the North Pole is tilted furthest from the sun as the Earth continues on its orbit.

The solstice doesn’t always occur on 21 December. Sometimes it nudges into the early hours of 22 December, which will happen again next year. The hour of day also varies. Last year’s arrived at 17:11. Next year’s will at 04:38.

Whatever day or time it happens, for many commuters it means leaving the house and returning from work in darkness, in the knowledge that from here on in the long nights will get shorter, with the sun rising earlier and setting later as we journey again towards the spring equinox.

However, the more astute of these early risers might have perceived a curious development, which may have passed by the more bleary-eyed unnoticed.

It would seem logical that after the shortest day has elapsed the mornings would start getting lighter earlier, but this isn’t what happens – the mornings continue darkening until early in the new year.

Meanwhile, those who thought that the winter solstice would mark the earliest sunset would also be wrong as the earliest sunset arrives a couple of weeks earlier.

Hardly a day goes by without a news item about air pollution here or there, about the current “evil extraordinaire,” i.e. carbon dioxide (CO2), about “chemicals” of whatever description that may cause all kinds of unknown problems, and so forth. Nearly without fail, such media reports about CO2 are accompanied by pictures of “smokestacks.” More often than not, you are shown large (and even nuclear) power plant cooling towers with large volumes of white clouds belching out. Please, do have a closer look at such pictures and videos.

If the documentary evidence you are watching on the tube provides a large enough overview area, then you’ll notice that this white “pollution” quickly disappears in the air not far above their source, i.e. the top of the “smokestacks.” There is a simple reason for that:

The scene could be straight from a science-fiction film: a vision of everyday life, but with one jarring difference that makes you realise you’re on another planet, or in a distant future era.

A sports class is in full swing on the outskirts of Beijing. Herds of children charge after a football on an artificial pitch, criss-crossed with colourful markings and illuminated in high definition by the glare of bright white floodlights. It all seems normal enough – except for the fact that this familiar playground scene is taking place beneath a gigantic inflatable dome.

“It’s a bit of a change having to go through an airlock on the way to class,” says Travis Washko, director of sports at the British School of Beijing. “But the kids love it, and parents can now rest assured their children are playing in a safe environment.”

The reason for the dome becomes apparent when you step outside. A grey blanket hangs in the sky, swamping the surroundings in a de-saturated haze and almost obscuring the buildings across the street. A red flag hangs above the school’s main entrance to warn it’s a no-go day: stay indoors at all costs. The airpocalypse has arrived.

The European Space Agency has administered the last rites to its Venus Express probe, saying that the spacecraft is now out of control and has gone “gently into the night.”  Its nine years of exploration ending up as Venusian rubble.

The Greenpeace (GP) Detox Campaign to get rid of a variety of materials in textiles is in its third year.  Let’s dig into just one aspect of it, namely per- and poly-fluorinated compounds (PFCs for short) that are used to make water repelling or waterproof high quality outdoor gear such as rain jackets and hiking boots.

Latest Indian floods are being dishonestly linked to supposed ‘human caused’ climate change, says a prominent Indian environment scientist.  Dr Madhav Khandekar, a former research scientist from Environment Canada asserts that there “no evidence” to link the recent flooding in the Kashmire valley (Sept 2014) to humans. In what is increasingly being seen among independent scientists as alarmist propaganda Dr Khandekar adds that the UN’s Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change “should now be closed down.” 

“These extreme weather events are governed by natural variability and reducing human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would be a complete waste of time,” Khandekar told Principia Scientific International.

“I have presented my latest report on Indian monsoon floods and droughts and am asking unbiased news reporters to make the facts known, added Madhav, who is presently on the editorial board of the Journal of Natural Hazards (Kluwer) and has authored other well-received scientific reports on global warming (e.g. see here and here). Like other independent climate researchers he finds that recurring extreme floods and droughts are linked to large-scale atmosphere-ocean cycles like the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the equatorial Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).

In recent years, the summer monsoon has become weaker with frequent droughts (e.g., 2002, 2004, 2009 2012 and 2014). “The observational evidence it at odds with most climate model projections that predict the intensification of the monsoon with increasing concentration of atmospheric CO2,” said Dr Khandekar.

Science is supposed to take place by the use of the “Scientific Method” defined in the following way.

THE FREE DICTIONARY

“The principles and empirical processes of discovery and demonstration considered characteristic of or necessary for scientific investigation, generally involving the observation of phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis concerning the phenomena, experimentation to demonstrate the truth or falseness of the hypothesis, and a conclusion that validates or modifies the hypothesis”

OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY

“a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses. 

For most of us the scientific method is what is described in official scientific publications. Yet PB Medawar in his “Is the Scientific Paper a Fraud? http://www.albany.edu/~scifraud/data/sci_fraud_2927.html  argues that:

“The scientific paper in its orthodox form does embody a totally mistaken conception, even a travesty, of the nature of scientific thought.

The conception underlying this style of scientific writing is that scientific discovery is an inductive process. What induction implies in its cruder form is roughly speaking this: scientific discovery, or the formulation of scientific theory, starts with the unvarnished and unembroidered evidence of the senses. It starts with simple observation – simple, unbiased, unprejudiced, naive, or innocent observation – and out of this sensory evidence, embodied in the form of simple propositions or declaration of fact, generalizations will grow up and take shape, almost as if some process of crystallization or condensation were taking place.

The consensus science view that man-made global warming is caused by increased emissions of carbon dioxide (the so-called ‘greenhouse gas effect’) is under increased attack. The numbers from both thermometer readings and the very latest revised calculations by scientists show that the ‘theory’ has come unstuck.  Despite decades of higher CO2 emissions allegedly impacting atmospheric temperatures, the thermometers have been stuck on a 16-year plateau. Climate scientists have been at a loss to explain the “pause.”

According to the ‘experts’ more CO2 is supposed to mean more warming, but it just isn’t happening. So then, what gives? Is the ‘theory’ now busted? Astrophysicist and climate researcher, Joe Postma explains below:

Joe Postma: I, and fellow Principia Scientific International (PSI) researchers, can offer a quick summary of our reasoning why the ‘greenhouse effect’ from atmospheric gases is junk science. Apart from the disproof offered by the thermometers themselves (which show no warming despite ever-rising CO2 levels), judicious examination of the numbers in the physics is needed to explain the flow of energy entering and leaving Earth’s climate system.

The key number for our starting point is the actual energy scientists agree which is measured to be coming from the sun. This is known to be 1370W/m2.

 Now we reduce 1370W/m2 for albedo and adsorption effects, this gives 960W/m2   

Question: Can you explain in more detail where the figure of 960W/m2 come from? 

Joe Postma: The figure of 960 comes from 1370 * 0.7, where 0.7 is the absorptivity (one minus the albedo). As such, 960 equates to 88 degree Celsius of heating directly under the sun, i.e. on the equator plus or minus, say, ~15 degrees.

Question:  Now please explain where the IPCC get their ‘33 degrees colder’ assumption (climate scientists assume Earth is 33 degrees warmer than it would otherwise be, because of the supposed ‘greenhouse gas effect.’

Joe Postma: 33 degrees colder’ is simply the difference between the near-surface air temperature, and the effective blackbody temperature of the earth.  However the bottom of the atmosphere is always expected to be higher in temperature than the effective blackbody temperature in any case, independent of any greenhouse effect.

The world’s largest telescope has gotten its official construction go-ahead, keeping the enormous instrument on track to start observing the heavens in 2024. 

The European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), which will feature a light-collecting surface 128 feet (39 meters) wide, has been greenlit for construction atop Cerro Armazones in Chile’s Atacama Desert, officials with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced Thursday (Dec. 4).

“The decision taken by Council [ESO’s chief governing body] means that the telescope can now be built, and that major industrial construction work for the E-ELT is now funded and can proceed according to plan,” Tim de Zeeuw, ESO’s director general, said in a statement. “There is already a lot of progress in Chile on the summit of Armazones, and the next few years will be very exciting.” [Photos: World’s Largest Telescope Being Built in Chile]

E-ELT construction was first approved in June 2012, but on the condition that contracts worth more than 2 million euros ($2.48 million at current exchange rates) could be awarded only after 90 percent of the total funding required to build the telescope (1.083 billion euros, or $1.34 billion, at 2012 prices) had been secured. An exception was made for “civil works,” including the leveling of the site and a road up Cerro Armazones, ESO officials said.

In recent weeks, we’ve learned some very disturbing truths about glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup, which is generously doused on genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready crops. GE crops are typically far more contaminated with glyphosate than conventional crops, courtesy of the fact that they’re engineered to withstand extremely high levels of Roundup without perishing along with the weed.A new peer-reviewed report authored by Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant, and a long time contributor to the Mercola.com Vital Votes Forum, and  Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reveals how glyphosate wrecks human health.In the interview above, Dr. Seneff summarizes the two key problems caused by glyphosate in the diet:

• Nutritional deficiencies
• Systemic toxicity

Their findings make the need for labelling all the more urgent, and the advice to buy certified organic all the more valid.

Monash University’s work on a direct wireless sensor-to-brain interface to bypass optic nerve damage has had a boost with donations totalling AU$2 million that will help get the technology ready for human trials. 

The university has announced that Marc Besen and Monash chancellor Alan Finkel have each chipped in AU$1 million, to which the university will add a million of its own, enough to cover “critical development costs” of the project.

The Monash Vision Group’s (MVG) project is working to couple external vision sensors – a digital camera in glasses – via wireless to a brain implant. The idea is that the implant will stimulate the brain’s receptors directly, rather than via the optic nerve, so the system could help people not only with eye damage, but also with patients suffering nerve degeneration.

The honeybees have a problem: they are confused. More specifically, they wonder whether their primary task is to produce honey or to pollinate plants.