Temperatures on a nearby “super Earth” exoplanet varied dramatically recently, suggesting that large and very active volcanoes may exist on the alien world’s surface, a new study reports. 

Researchers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope found that temperatures on 55 Cancri e — a planet eight times more massive than Earth that lies 40 light-years away — swung between about 1,832 to 4,892 degees Fahrenheit (1,000 to 2,700 degrees Celsius) from 2011 to 2013.

“This is the first time we’ve seen such drastic changes in light emitted from an exoplanet, which is particularly remarkable for a super Earth,” study co-author Nikku Madhusudhan, of the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy in England, said in a statement. “No signature of thermal emissions or surface activity has ever been detected for any other super Earth to date.” [The Strangest Alien Planets (Gallery)]

This atmospheric variability was observed on the “day side” of 55 Cancri e, which lies so close to its host star that it completes one orbit every 18 hours. The planet is tidally locked, meaning one side always faces the star and the other always faces away.

The researchers said they aren’t sure what’s behind the huge temperature shift, but they’ve got a leading candidate in mind.

“We think a likely explanation for this variability is [that] large-scale surface activity, possibly volcanism, on the surface is spewing out massive volumes of gas and dust, which sometimes blanket the thermal emission from the planet, so it is not seen from Earth,” lead author Brice-Olivier Demory, of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, said in the same statement.

If this interpretation is correct, volcanism on 55 Cancri e would likely be even more intense than it is on Jupiter’s moon Io, the most volcanically active body in Earth’s solar system, researchers said.

The rationale for the crop loss prediction in SSRC Press Release 2-2015 is as follows:

1. Recent trends have been affirmed the predicted shift of global climate from the past era of global warming to a new period of intense global cooling. This climate shift was also defined in detail in the December 10, 2014 Global Climate Status Report (GCSR), an SSRC publication, and the schedule for the next phase of global temperature decline in the November 20, 2014, SSRC Press Release 4-2014. 

2. The ongoing reduction in energy output from the Sun has been confirmed including: a. NASA and the Royal Observatory of Belgium verified this month (April) that the current 11-year solar cycle has recently peaked and that the second of two small peaks at the top of this cycle was the stronger of the two. Importantly, sunspot records going back to 1750 shows this stronger second sunspot peak only occurs in a long term declining period of solar activity just prior to an historic cold epoch.

Even though the overall solar cycle was weak, this strong secondary solar peak was brief, yet powerful resulting in a temporary spike in global temperatures 2014-2015. b. NASA and the broader solar physics community have acknowledged that this current solar cycle (number 24) is the weakest in 100 years, as was correctly predicted by the SSRC. See SSRC Press Release 1-1015.

It is expected to weaken further in the next two 11 year solar cycles, number 25 and 26. The SSRC believes this next cold epoch which has already begun, will last until the 2040’s and will produce the same global crop devastation as the Dalton Minimum (1793-1830). The following Figure 1, depicts the SSRC predicted decline in solar activity over the next two decades with the lowest level of sunspots and global temperatures in 2031.

The historical record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, claimed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as the justification for greenhouse gas reduction, is a fraud.  Research by a Freiburg, Germany professor, Ernst-Georg Beck of the Merian-Schule, shows that the IPCC construed and concocted the pre-1957 CO2 record from measurements on recently drilled ice cores, ignoring more than 90,000 direct measurements by chemical methods from 1857 to 1957. [fn. 1]

The IPCC’s hoked-up record attempts to prove that CO2 concentrations have been steadily increasing with the progress of human industrial civilization. Beck’s work confirms a wealth of previous investigations which demonstrate that the IPCC cherrypicked its data in an attempt to prove that we must stop industrial development and return to the horse-and-buggy age, or face oppressive heat and melting of the polar ice caps.

It shows that the Kyoto Treaty on reduction of greenhouse gases was based on a scientific fraud which violates the laws of the universe, denying the well-established determination of climate by cyclical variations in the EarthSun orbital relationship and in the Sun’s heat output.

In a thorough review of 175 scientific papers, Professor Beck found that the founders of modern greenhouse theory, Guy Stewart Callendar and Charles David Keeling (a special idol of Al Gore’s), had completely ignored careful and systematic measurements by some of the most famous names of physical chemistry, among them several Nobel prize winners.

Measurements by these chemists showed that today’s atmospheric CO2 concentration of about 380 parts per million (ppm) have been exceeded in the past, including a period from 1936 to 1944, when the CO2 levels varied from 393.0 to 454.7 ppm.

A major inquiry has been launched into the reliability of official global surface temperature records following widespread allegations that data has been manipulated to prove that global warming is happening. 

According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), from which the US government draws official statistics, 2014 was the hottest year globally since records began in 1880. However, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and the University of Alabama (UAH), both of which rely on satellite systems to gauge global temperatures, show no such warming.

NOAA gathers its data from a network of more than 3,000 weather stations known as the Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN).However, in the light of the different pictures being painted by the satellites and weather stations, analysts have examined the data and point to hundreds of examples of data from the weather stations being “adjusted”, potentially exaggerating global warming.

Writing in the Telegraph, Christopher Booker explained: “Figures from earlier decades have repeatedly been adjusted downwards and more recent data adjusted upwards, to show the Earth having warmed much more dramatically than the original data justified.”

A study published this week in the peer-reviewed journal ‘Scientific Reports’ revealed thatglobal warming is not progressing at the rate suggested by the worst-case computer models released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

The study, which was led by Patrick T. Brown of Duke University, examined 1,000 years of temperature records that showed global warming was not progressing as fast as it would even under the most severe emissions scenarios as outlined by the IPCC.

The study showed that “natural variability in surface temperatures, caused by interactions between the ocean and atmosphere, and other natural factors, can account for observed changes in the recent rates of warming from decade to decade.”

Using the term climate “wiggles,” the researchers note they could slow or speed the rate of warming from decade to decade, and either heighten or cancel out the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, which are believed to cause global warming. If not properly explained and accounted for, these wiggles may alter the dependability of climate modelsand lead to an “over-interpretation of short-term temperature trends.“

“By comparing our model against theirs, we found that climate models largely get the ‘big picture’ right but seem to underestimate the magnitude of natural decade-to-decade climate wiggles,” Brown said. “Our model shows these wiggles can be big enough that they could have accounted for a reasonable portion of the accelerated warming we experienced from 1975 to 2000, as well as the reduced rate in warming that occurred from 2002 to 2013.”

Patients who suffered brain damage as a result of taking a swine flu vaccine are to receive multi-million-pound payouts from the UK government. 

The government is expected to receive a bill of approximately £60 million, with each of the 60 victims expected to receive about £1 million each.

Peter Todd, a lawyer who represented many of the claimants, told the Sunday Times: “There has never been a case like this before. The victims of this vaccine have an incurable and lifelong condition and will require extensive medication.”

Following the swine flu outbreak of 2009, about 60 million people, most of them children, received the vaccine.

It was subsequently revealed that the vaccine, Pandemrix, can cause narcolepsy and cataplexy in about one in 16,000 people, and many more are expected to come forward with the symptoms.

Across Europe, more than 800 children are so far known to have been made ill by the vaccine.

Narcolepsy affects a person’s sleeping cycle, leaving them unable to sleep for more than 90 minutes at a time, and causing them to fall unconscious during the day. The condition damages mental function and memory, and can lead to hallucinations and mental illness.

Fred Singer claims in a recent post at WUWT that Climate Nay-Sayers are giving Climate Scientists a Bad Name.  I think that Fred puts me into this detestful category of deniers and the issue is again that (in)famous “back radiation” or Downwelling Longwave Radiation DLR. Fred writes:

• One of their favorite arguments is that the greenhouse effect does not exist at all — because it violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics; 
• i.e., one cannot transfer energy from a cold atmosphere to a warmer surface. 
• It is surprising that this simplistic argument is used by physicists, and even by professors who teach thermodynamics. 
• One can show them data of downwelling infrared radiation from CO2, water vapor and clouds, which clearly impinge on the surface. 
• But their minds are closed to any such evidence.

A major publisher of scholarly medical and science articles has retracted 43 papers because of “fabricated” peer reviews amid signs of a broader fake peer review racket affecting many more publications … 

[T]he Committee on Publication Ethics, a multidisciplinary group that includes more than 9,000 journal editors, issued a statement  suggesting a much broader potential problem. The committee, it said, “has become aware of systematic, inappropriate attempts to manipulate the peer review processes of several journals across different publishers.” Those journals are now reviewing manuscripts to determine how many may need to be retracted, it said. – Washington Post, March 27, 2015 

The Daily Bell published a reaction to the WaPo article on March 28 (see Real Tragedy of ‘Science’: Faith Declines as Fakery Grows). As that analysis explained, the scandal’s breadth is extraordinary. Dishonest scientists give us multiple reasons to distrust them. We have some additional thoughts.

Science, according to scientists, is about facts and evidence. These brave truth seekers prove their hypotheses with rigorous experimentation, and then share the newfound knowledge to make the world better.

That’s the theory. Reality is different.

Scientists are no more neutral than journalists are. Some try to expand human knowledge without regard for their own self-interest. Most are like everyone else; they just want to pay the bills and find meaning in their work.

The core problem is the idea that acting in one’s own self-interest is somehow wrong or shameful. This causes scientists to hide their true motivations and possibly mislead the public. The fabricated peer reviews reported in the Washington Post are a good example. The only surprise is that publishers are finally resisting.

(NaturalNews) While the debate rages on about whether or not vaccines cause autism, a confidential document has surfaced that makes clear what science has led Natural News readers to believe: Yes, vaccines are linked to autism. 

The document,^[PDF] which runs over 1,000 pages, is from the fraudulent and corrupt GlaxoSmithKline. Several hundred pages in, it’s revealed that vaccines are tied to autism. It’s blatantly outlined in a chart, along with a long list of other conditions caused by vaccines, including “motor development delay,” “tremor” and “altered state of consciousness.” Autism is listed in this chart as a nervous system and mental impairment disorder associated with receiving GSK’s Infanrix hexa vaccine.⁽¹⁾

Open letter from alumni accuses University of Queensland of promoting fraudulent claims by global warming alarmists.

Academics exposed for financial conflict of interest as respected analyst, Malcolm Roberts, asserts, “John Cook and / or his employer are receiving funds in return for his deceiving the public, politicians and journalists.” 

The full letter by Malcolm Roberts to Professor Peter Høj,  Vice Chancellor and President of The University of Queensland, is published below.

Dear Professor Høj:

As an honours engineering graduate from the University of Queensland I am inquiring of you as to the reasons our university supports the work of John Cook who serially misrepresents climate and science? Specifically, why is our university wasting valuable funds to mislead the public through a free course and by producing associated international video material?

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/uq-offers-free-course-to-combat-climate-change-deniers-20150422-1mqtic.html

Please refer to the lower half of page 4 of Appendix 5, here: http://www.climate.conscious.com.au/CSIROh!.html

It details John Cook’s fabrication of an unscientific ‘consensus’. Science is not decided by claims of consensus. Resorting to claims of consensus is unscientific and contradicts the scientific process.

Fabricating false claims of scientific consensus is not honest.

Science is decided by empirical scientific evidence. John Cook has repeatedly failed to provide any such evidence that use of hydrocarbon fuels is causing the entirely natural climate variability we experience.

America’s FTC might be chasing after snake-oilers offering “detect cancer” smartphone apps, but that doesn’t mean your mobe can’t play a genuine diagnostic role. 

Researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital reckon with a bit of cloudy goodness, custom-made add-on optics and the right reagent kit, smartphones can gather data that helps with cancer diagnoses.

The hospital boffins probably have a better claim to respectability than Health Discovery, since the hospital isn’t selling anything, but has merely published findings in PNAS.

The setup, here, doesn’t do the analysis on the smartphone, nor does it solely rely on the smartphone as the diagnostic tool.

Rather, their “digital diffraction diagnosis” system uses a separate imaging module to capture a hologram of the sample, then sends the image upstream to a cloud computing environment to conduct the analysis.

The samples are marked with “microbeads” before image capture (see image above). These “bind to known cancer-related molecules”, the hospital’s release states. The group also developed image processing software it claims can process 10 Mbytes of data in “less than nine hundredths of a second”.

Working with PAP smear data, the researchers say their system matched conventional pathology in identifying samples as high risk, low risk, or benign.

Similar results were observed for lymph node biopsies and in human papilloma virus detection, the hospital reckons.

Among other things, the hospital hopes to improve the system by integrating bigger databases into its back-end in the future.

At a current $1.80 per assay, the hospital says the technology would be particularly useful in regions with poor access to he kind of pathology infrastructure typically associated with cancer diagnostics. 

Nasa’s Curiosity rover has found that water can exist as a liquid near the Martian surface. Mars should be too cold to support liquid water at the surface, but salts in the soil lower its freezing point – allowing briny films to form. 

The results lend credence to a theory that dark streaks seen on features such as crater walls could be formed by flowing water.

The results are published in the journal Nature.

Scientists think thin films of water form when salts in the soil, called perchlorates, absorb water vapour from the atmosphere.

The temperature of these liquid films is about -70C – too cold to support any of the microbial life forms that we know about.

Forming in the top 15cm of the Martian soil, the brines would also be exposed to high levels of cosmic radiation – another challenge to life.

But it’s still possible that organisms could exist somewhere beneath the surface on Mars, where conditions are more favourable.