Our Cold War history is now offering scientists a chance to better understand the complex space system that surrounds us. Space weather — which can include changes in Earth’s magnetic environment — are usually triggered by the sun’s activity, but recently declassified data on high-altitude nuclear explosion tests have provided a new look at the mechansisms that set off perturbations in that magnetic system. Such information can help support NASA’s efforts to protect satellites and astronauts from the natural radiation inherent in space.

 

The brave new world of 3-D printed organs now includes implanted ovary structures that, true to their design, actually ovulate, according to a study by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and McCormick School of Engineering.

Image copyright: BARCROFT PRODUCTIONS/BBC

Scientists who drilled into the impact crater associated with the demise of the dinosaurs summarise their findings so far in a BBC Two documentary on Monday. The researchers recovered rocks from under the Gulf of Mexico that were hit by an asteroid 66 million years ago. The nature of this material records the details of the event. It is becoming clear that the 15km-wide asteroid could not have hit a worse place on Earth.

An overwhelming 82 percent of research papers produced by academics in the humanities are never cited, according to a recent study.

According to Inside Higher Ed, citations are the primary measure of a paper’s “scholarly impact.” The humanities, which include anthropology, archaeology, history, law and politics, literature, and the arts, has faced an overwhelmingly low citation rate in recent years. Recent studies have suggested that over 80 percent of humanities paper are never cited.

Late last year, a story emerged questioning the validity of a paper that had made a big splash when it was published in Science earlier in 2016. [featured above in The Guardian and round the world]

The paper was high profile, in large part because of its subject — the effect of plastic microbeads on fish. The authors claimed their data showed that young fish preferentially eat plastic microbeads instead of their other food options.

The Global Wind Energy Council recently released its latest report, excitedly boasting that ‘the proliferation of wind energy into the global power market continues at a furious pace, after it was revealed that more than 54 gigawatts of clean renewable wind power was installed across the global market last year’.

Well, on the surface, the recently touted “solar roof tiles” sound like a great idea, a roof with photovoltaic cells embedded in the tiles, barely distinguishable from ordinary roof tiles.

So, for the moment, let’s forget about the cost of the tiles and their installation, neither of which is exactly “peanuts.” There are other problems as well, like:

Not Everyone Lives in Sunny CA

‘Sustainable’ has become a buzzword applicable not only to agriculture and energy production but to sectors as far afield as the building and textile industries. Many large companies tout the concept and boast a sustainability department, and the United Nations has hundreds of projects concerned with sustainability throughout its many agencies and programs.

Until around half a century ago, this scepticism chimed with the scientific evidence. According to scientists’ best understanding of how waves are generated, a 30m wave might be expected once every 30,000 years. Rogue waves could safely be classified alongside mermaids and sea monsters. However, we now know that they are no maritime myths.

 

From the Guardian, via Yahoo: Finland, the new chair of the Arctic council, has appealed to climate change scientists to fight the threat of the US and Russia tearing up commitments to combat global warming.

The Nordic country takes up the two-year chairmanship of the body, increasingly a forum where arguments about climate change play out, at a ministerial meeting on Thursday in Fairbanks, Alaska, where the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, will represent the Trump administration.

On April 29 German ARD public television presented a report on a Canadian sea ice reconstruction using coral algae growth. The report (in German) can be seen at the ARD-Mediathek in the Internet (begins at the 16:38 mark).

German researcher Jochen Halfar of the University of Toronto found a coral algae type in Canada’s Arctic Ocean that forms annual rings. During the polar nights of winter, photosynthesis stops. In the spring it reactivates again and the algae starts to grow, and does so much better when there is less ice to block out the sunlight. This allows the sea ice cover to be reconstructed over the past several centuries.

One of the main accusations launched by climate activists is that anyone arguing against man-made global warming is “anti-science.” They tell us that the science is “settled,” and that anyone who objects is ignoring a blindingly obvious set of facts.

But what to do about someone like me? I’m in hearty agreement that the global climate has warmed by roughly one degrees Celsius over the past 150 years. However, my study of the relevant geology and physics leads me to believe that solar variability, not carbon dioxide, is responsible for this warming.