Scientists have discovered what seems like a new form of plant communication between a “vampire” plant and its prey. 

As described in a study recently published in the journal Science, weed science expert Jim Westwood of Virginia Tech took a close look at how the parasitic plant called a dodder attacks his host.

Westwood specifically looked at how the dodder interacted with two host plants, Arabidopsis and tomatoes. It has long been known that dodders are “vampire-like” parasitic plants. Like a nightmare from an alien horror film, the dodder wraps itself around its host. It then uses a long probe to literally tap into its victim and drain their fluids.

Researchers had done previous work that found that when the dodder first sinks its “fang” into its victim, it also begins to transport RNA – a sort-of DNA translator – between it and its host. 

New data from the Hubble Space Telescope and computer simulations have revealed that the universe has much less ultraviolet light than previously thought. 

My first involvement with the Acid Rain scare was indirect, but added to awareness of the limitations of data and understanding of atmospheric and ocean mechanisms. 

It also heightened awareness of the political nature of environmental science. I knew the extents because of membership in the Canadian Committee on Climate Fluctuation and Man (CCCFM). It was part of the National Museum of Natural Sciences Project on Climate Change in Canada During the Past 20,000 years. 

The committee was funded jointly by the National Museum of Natural Sciences and Environment Canada. It met yearly for several years, bringing together a wide range of specialists to focus on a region, time period, or area of study. Papers were published in Syllogeus, edited by Dr C.R.Harington of the Paleobiology Division. A review of them underlines how much the IPCC sidelined progress in climatology.

My election to Chair of the CCCFM likely caused its demise. In my acceptance speech I urged people not to rush to judgment on the recent anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis. I was unaware at the time of the involvement of Environment Canada (EC) in the promotion of the hypothesis and the work of the IPCC.

The UK government has announced that driverless cars will be allowed on public roads from January next year. It also invited cities to compete to host one of three trials of the tech, which would start at the same time. 

In addition, ministers ordered a review of the UK’s road regulations to provide appropriate guidelines.

The Department for Transport had originally pledged to let self-driving cars be trialled on public roads by the end of 2013.

Business Secretary Vince Cable revealed the details of the new plan at a research facility belonging to Mira, an automotive engineering firm based in the Midlands.

“Today’s announcement will see driverless cars take to our streets in less than six months, putting us at the forefront of this transformational technology and opening up new opportunities for our economy and society,” he said.

UK engineers, including a group at the University of Oxford, have been experimenting with driverless cars. But, concerns about legal and insurance issues have so far restricted the machines to private roads.

Other countries have, however, been swifter to provide access to public routes.

Death is the one certainty in life – a pioneering analysis of blood from one of the world’s oldest and healthiest women has given clues to why it happens. 

Born in 1890, Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper was at one point the oldest woman in the world. She was also remarkable for her health, with crystal-clear cognition until she was close to death, and a blood circulatory system free of disease. When she died in 2005, she bequeathed her body to science, with the full support of her living relatives that any outcomes of scientific analysis – as well as her name – be made public.

Researchers have now examined her blood and other tissues to see how they were affected by age.

What they found suggests, as we could perhaps expect, that our lifespan might ultimately be limited by the capacity for stem cells to keep replenishing tissues day in day out. Once the stem cells reach a state of exhaustion that imposes a limit on their own lifespan, they themselves gradually die out and steadily diminish the body’s capacity to keep regenerating vital tissues and cells, such as blood.

Two little cells

In van Andel-Schipper’s case, it seemed that in the twilight of her life, about two-thirds of the white blood cells remaining in her body at death originated from just two stem cells, implying that most or all of the blood stem cells she started life with had already burned out and died.

“Is there a limit to the number of stem cell divisions, and does that imply that there’s a limit to human life?” asks Henne Holstege of the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, who headed the research team. “Or can you get round that by replenishment with cells saved from earlier in your life?” she says.

Chemistry debunks junk climate science in the ‘global warming causes ocean acidification’ debate. Established Chemistry proves that if temperatures were rising then, conversely, acidification would be falling, not increasing. Such is the woeful science ignorance (or intentional deceit) of climate alarmists. 

Indisputable facts

Discussion about those facts

Besides the above chemical and physical facts, it is well known that an increase in water temperature will reduce the solubility of CO2.

Leave any opened cold carbonated drink – from champagne to Coke – to warm up and see what happens to the fizz, which is CO2 in case you didn’t know. Your warmed champagne/Coke goes ‘flat’ because the carbon dioxide has escaped the liquid and entered the atmosphere.

It is therefore not rocket science to state with complete confidence that warm water naturally contains less CO2 than cold water.

The oceans are outgassing CO2 due to the slight warming trend since the end of the Mini Ice Age (c. 1850’s). The exact cause of this trend IS NOT known and remains the subject of much scientific debate! There is evidence that there is a gap of many centuries between planet-wide temperature swings and atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

The ebola virus that has killed almost 1,000 people in West Africa this year is fatal for “up to 90{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}” of those infected, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). But note the words “up to”… What is the normal fatality rate, asks James Fletcher? 

The WHO describes ebola as “one of the world’s most virulent diseases”. It is, according to the organisation’s website, “a severe, often fatal illness, with a case fatality rate of up to 90{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}“.

A case fatality rate – or CFR – is a relatively simple measurement. It’s the number of people diagnosed with an illness divided by the number of people who die because of it. But in the current outbreak, the proportion of infected people dying is far lower than 90{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}.

“That 90{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} figure actually comes from one outbreak of ebola which took place in the Congo between 2002 and 2003. It’s the highest rate we have ever seen,” says Maimuna Majumder, a biostatistician and epidemiologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

NASA has tested an “impossible” electric space drive that uses no propellant – and found it works even when it is designed not to. This has sparked immediate skepticism of the technology. 

IVANPAH DRY LAKE, Calif. (AP) — Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant’s concentrated sun rays — “streamers,” for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair. 

Federal wildlife investigators who visited the BrightSource Energy plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one “streamer” every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator’s application to build a still-bigger version.

The investigators want the halt until the full extent of the deaths can be assessed. Estimates per year now range from a low of about a thousand by BrightSource to 28,000 by an expert for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group.

The deaths are “alarming. It’s hard to say whether that’s the location or the technology,” said Garry George, renewable-energy director for the California chapter of the Audubon Society. “There needs to be some caution.”

The bird kills mark the latest instance in which the quest for clean energy sometimes has inadvertent environmental harm. Solar farms have been criticized for their impacts on desert tortoises, and wind farms have killed birds, including numerous raptors.

Brace yourself! The Asteroid-1950-DA has a 0.3{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} chance to hit Earth some 800 years from now in 2880. The good news, however, is that it’s more likely to miss the globe and keep wandering through the inter-galactic space. 

Collision Damage

A collision could be a major calamity that would affect all life on Earth. Though the asteroid has a diameter of only 1 km (0.6 miles), its speed is what makes it so powerful. At a speed of 38 MILES/SECOND it’s going substantially faster than the fastest rifle bullet. Though its mass is unknown at this time, its potential collision with Earth would likely create an impact crater many miles across and tremendous global cooling as the result of the ensuing atmospheric dust if it were to hit land. If it were to land in an ocean it would certainly cause an enormous tsunami causing severe damage and loss of life all around the ocean’s shore.

Needless to say neither prospect would be desirable.

Past Evidence

There is plenty evidence of past collisions with asteroids and other inter-stellar objects on Earth. For example, the Earth was hit by a large-sized hunk some 70 million years ago, at the Cretaceous—Paleogene (K—Pg) boundary, also referred to as the “K-Pg extinction event.” It wiped out many species then on Earth including all non-avian dinosaurs.

On Earth craters from past meteorite and asteroid impacts are largely obscured by subsequent erosion. On other planets and our Moon their craters are still quite obvious millions of years later and some even to the naked eye. Because there is no water on the Moon, nor any atmosphere, there also is no erosion and the impact craters are as visible now as they were millions of years ago. So, let’s get back to the future.

The Future

If you plan to live for another 800+ years you may need to take precautions about the 1950-DA’s current trajectory, at least for your own longevity. However, if that is not a problem for you then consider living in the present and concentrate on surviving more current threats to your longevity.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC9) in Las Vegas. If you ever doubted scepticism towards man-made global warming as a growing social movement, well, you couldn’t after attending that conference with hundreds of enthusiastic doubters in attendance and some 6,000 watching online. 

Claims of rapid and effortless weight loss are swiftly making this little supplement popular. But does it actually work? Learn all the facts about raspberry ketone and if it will work for you. 

As the so called pause in global warming continues, space scientists may be giving climate scientists some pause for thought. 

Global surface temperatures have remained statistically flat for over a decade following a rapid rise in the second half of the 20^th century despite the fact that the long-term increase in carbon dioxide associated with this rapid global warming has continued throughout the whole of the pause period.

Two pieces of research published this year suggest that the sun has played a bigger role in these events than is widely accepted by climate scientists and they imply, as a result, that the role of ‘greenhouse gases’ may be less significant than climate scientists currently believe.

The research shows that the sun is far more variable than we had previously thought and that variations in solar activity correlate very closely with changes in global surface temperature. This challenges the prevailing orthodoxy in climate science that our star plays no significant role in global warming.

Accused of being “flat Earth deniers of settled science” requires placing the Ptolemaic Model in perspective. Discussed for two centuries by the Greeks, Aristotle in 400 BC gave a solution involving approximately 50 transparent concentric spheres which rotated to provide the movements of planets and stars observed on a fixed, flat Earth.

 

New independent climate analysis reveals what may be the greatest flaw in modern climate science- a simplistic over-reliance on the assumption of steady state atmospheric conditions. New research from France employs a two-way formulation for heat evacuation by radiation from the planet rather than the standard one-dimensional ‘greenhouse gas theory.’ 

 It reveals that convection plays a more dominant role than radiation in our climate and that number fudging by so-called climate “experts” may be the only truly discernible extent of “man-made” global warming.

In a new paper, ‘Diurnal Variations of Heat Evacuation from a Rotating Planet,’ submitted to open peer review at Principia Scientific International (PSI), Joseph Reynen, a retired Dutch scientist living in France, puts standard climate science calculations under the microscope and reveals that for too long the “experts” used an outdated guesstimating process relied on before the modern era of accurate computing.

Reynen’s study is yet further validation to what an increasing number of independent scientists are saying is a major error by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC gave an uncritical free pass to an assumed physical interpretation from a pre-computer era approximation which put a great emphasis on a fixed artificial energy absorption rate instead of actual absorption for the real energy flux coming from our sun.

As Reynen delves into the technicalities he explains, “In the beginning of the 1900’s computers were not available and by splitting-up the radiation in up-ward and down-ward components, and introducing a co-ordinate transformation with the so-called optical thickness concept, analytical solutions were possible, although in the form of integrals. Quadrature techniques were available at that time to evaluate numerically those integrals, with no need for computers.”

But that assumption of fixed solar energy flux has been blown apart by the latest physical measurements by satellite and by rigorous ground-based analysis from experts from the “hard” sciences. Indeed, the scope of Reynen’s paper is not to give detailed results for diurnal variations of the sun power, but rather to demonstrate that one-dimensional steady state models based on the one-way heat flow concept of Swedish professor, Claes Johnson is an accurate tool to show the very small influence of infrared-sensitive gases for the global and annual mean heat budget of the planet.