In the 19th century, scientists were working under the presumption that the universe was stable and, for practical purposes, infinite in all directions.  They believed matter moved through a field that gave it form.  They called this field an aether. 

Then Einstein came along and discovered a way to calculate relativistic mechanics without the need for an aether.  Einstein’s theory was subsequently backed up by experiments that seemed to show there was no aether of the type scientists had once presumed existed.

At the time Einstein first proposed his theories of bending space and relativity without an aether, he did not believe in a “Big Bang” expanding universe.  The Big Bang was actually the brain child of a Catholic priest.  It wasn’t until Hubble came along and showed that the spectra of distant galaxies seemed to shift toward the red end of the light spectrum in proportion to their brightness that Einstein finally conceded that the universe may actually be the product of a “Big Bang.”  However, in the decades that followed, a mountain of contradictory evidence has been accumulating that undermines these assumptions.

Today, we are at a point where scientists are claiming over 90{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the universe is made out of matter and energy that we can’t see and can’t detect.  They are claiming that infinitely dense objects exist (something Einstein also disagreed with.)  They are claiming that stars the size of asteroids can spin around at near light speed and emit a focused beam of energy that is detectable across galactic distances.  They are claiming that stable matter exists in the universe that violates the Island of Stability in nuclear chemistry.  In fact, I could go on listing absolutely bizarre and unproven claims until I had enough theory to fill an entire book.

All of these bizarre theories are the result of a few fundamental unproven assumptions.

The media are abuzz with news about another villain—the element nickel, with the chemical symbol “Ni.” For example, as USA Today reports, the maker of a wristband—made of plastic material—with a small tech device made of surgical steel was forced to institute a recall with full refund to wearers of such items after a few people complained about skin irritations. 

Every now and then a scholarly journal retracts an article because of errors or outright fraud. In academic circles, and sometimes beyond, each retraction is a big deal. 

Now comes word of a journal retracting 60 articles at once.

The reason for the mass retraction is mind-blowing: A “peer review and citation ring” was apparently rigging the review process to get articles published.

You’ve heard of prostitution rings, gambling rings and extortion rings. Now there’s a “peer review ring.”

The publication is the Journal of Vibration and Control (JVC). It publishes papers with names like “Hydraulic engine mounts: a survey” and “Reduction of wheel force variations with magnetorheological devices.”

The field of acoustics covered by the journal is highly technical:

Analytical, computational and experimental studies of vibration phenomena and their control. The scope encompasses all linear and nonlinear vibration phenomena and covers topics such as: vibration and control of structures and machinery, signal analysis, aeroelasticity, neural networks, structural control and acoustics, noise and noise control, waves in solids and fluids and shock waves.

JVC is part of the SAGE group of academic publications.

Here’s how it describes its peer review process:

[The journal] operates under a conventional single-blind reviewing policy in which the reviewer’s name is always concealed from the submitting author.
All manuscripts are reviewed initially by one of the Editors and only those papers that meet the scientific and editorial standards of the journal, and fit within the aims and scope of the journal, will be sent for peer review.  Generally, reviews from two independent referees are required.

An announcement from SAGE published July 8 explained what happened, albeit somewhat opaquely.

In 2013, the editor of JVC, Ali H. Nayfeh, became aware of people using “fabricated identities” to manipulate an online system called SAGE Track by which scholars review the work of other scholars prior to publication.

The Galapagos Islands’ Charles Darwin Foundation runs on an annual operating budget of about $3.5 million. With this money, the center conducts conservation research, enacts species-saving interventions, and provides educational resources about the fragile island ecosystems.  As a science-based enterprise whose work would benefit greatly from the latest research findings on ecological management, evolution, and invasive species, there’s one glaring hole in the Foundation’s budget: the $800,000 it would cost per year for subscriptions to leading academic journals.

According to Richard Price, founder and CEO of Academia.edu, this episode is symptomatic of a larger problem. “A lot of research centers” – NGOs, academic institutions in the developing world – “are just out in the cold as far as access to top journals is concerned,” says Price. “Research is being commoditized, and it’s just another aspect of the digital divide between the haves and have-nots.”

Academia.edu is a key player in the movement toward open access scientific publishing, with over 11 million participants who have uploaded nearly 3 million scientific papers to the site. It’s easy to understand Price’s frustration with the current model, in which academics donate their time to review articles, pay for the right to publish articles, and pay for access to articles.  

There is growing evidence that birds flying in the vicinity of a solar thermal power project in California’s Mojave Desert are being injured and even killed either by the solar heat that’s focused with mirrors on its three energy-collecting towers, or by colliding with the mirrors themselves. 

Yet a task force set up to investigate the problem at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) has brushed aside several recommendations by the forensics laboratory of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), according to the minutes of a meeting on the subject obtained by the Los Angeles public television station KCET.

The FWS had said wildlife mortality and injury at ISEGS may have been underrepresented because of inadequate searches for injured and dead animals, and it suggested ways to make those searches more thorough.

The panel – the Avian & Bat Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) – met in Nipton, Calif., on May 20, where it dismissed several FWS recommendations.

ISEGS is a solar thermal power generator that uses arrays of mirrors, called heliostats, that reflect and narrowly focus solar heat to “power towers” filled with water. The focused solar heat reaches a temperature of 800 degrees Fahrenheit, boiling the towers’ water to generate electricity.

Dead and injured birds have been found at the plant site, having been burned, evidently by the reflected solar heat, or with other injuries because they evidently failed to recognize the mirrored heliostats as solid surfaces, much the same way that birds crash into windows.

Australia is a great place to study sea level at the present time. Fremantle, along with Sydney has the longest record of sea level measurements in Australia, going back to 1897. 

Nearby Rottnest Island is the site of famous studies of sea level variation over the past few thousand years, including some sea levels a few metres higher than present.

In the last two years several papers have been published showing there is no reason to be alarmed over sea level rise and several alarmist papers also appeared (see references). Some alarmists claim there will be a rise of several metres by the end of the century. In this article, prepared for The Council for the National Interest WA (CNI),* we see why cherry-picking of data is a real cause for concern. 

There are two basic methods of estimating future changes in sea level: direct observation by tide gauges or by satellites, and computing by models.

Tide gauges are set up at stations to measure sea level at regular intervals. Technology has improved over time. While it is commonly assumed adjacent land is stable, it is known that some land is moving either up or down relative to the sea. The longer and more complete the record the better. The Fremantle record starts in 1897. Another station was set up at Hillarys in 1992. The records are shown in Figs. 1 and 2 (bottom of article).

Without statistical manipulation the Fremantle data appears to show a slight rise but nothing alarming, although there are some exceptionally high tides, and low tides (note 1941 and 1993).

Certain western governments and their science advisers think that alternative energy sources (like wind and solar power) and biofuels in particular are the salvation from “climate change,” previously called “global warming.” 

Astrophysicists have come up with compelling evidence that the ocean inside Saturn’s largest moon Titan is as salty as Earth’s Dead Sea, making it an unlikely location for alien life. 

Talking about Monsanto’s latest attempt to obstruct justice, halt transparency, and prevent people from stopping their seed and herbicide businesses from spreading is starting to seem redundant, but the company just keeps acting in increasingly objectionable ways.  Now, the company is refusing to release to the public lab tests conducted in St. Louis, Missouri, which gave them authority to use glyphosate in China.

Just months ago, Chinese food safety volunteers tendered a request to China’s Ministry of Agriculture to release the study that justified issuing the safety certificate for the import into China of Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicide RoundUp. Glyphosate was given a safety certificate in 1988 after studies submitted by Monsanto were conducted at Younger Laboratories in St. Louis Missouri.

The test was meant to be an acute exposure toxicity test in which rats were given RoundUp by mouth for several days, and rabbits were exposed to RoundUp by skin. The company claims that the herbicide had no effect on the eyes or the skin, and that no allergies ensued. However, they are refusing to release the lab report to China’s food safety volunteers, stating that it is an ‘industry secret.’

A revolutionary new study reveals that the core tenet of classical genetics is patently false, and by implication: what we do in this life — our diet, our mindset, our chemical exposures — can directly impact the DNA and health of future generations. 

A paradigm shifting new study titled, “Soma-to-Germline Transmission of RNA in Mice Xenografted with Human Tumour Cells: Possible Transport by Exosomes,” promises to overturn several core tenets of classical genetics, including collapsing the timescale necessary for the transfer of genetic information through the germline of a species (e.g. sperm) from hundreds of thousands of years to what amounts to ‘real time’ changes in biological systems.

In classical genetics, Mendelian laws specify that the inheritance of traits passed from one generation to the next can only occur through sexual reproduction as information is passed down through the chromosomes of a species’ germline cells (egg and sperm), and never through somatic (bodily) cells.  Genetic change, according to this deeply entrenched view, can take hundreds, thousands and even millions of generations to manifest.

The new study, however, has uncovered a novel mechanism through which somatic-to-germline transmission of genetic information is made possible.  Mice grafted with human melanoma tumor cells genetically manipulated to express genes for a fluorescent tracer enzyme (EGFP-encoding plasmid) were found to release information-containing molecules containing the EGFP tracer into the animals’ blood; since EGFP is a non-human and non-murine expressed tracer, there was little doubt that the observed phenomenon was real.

German scientists show that constant alarmist messages about dramatic and dangerously rising sea levels cannot be confirmed by raw tidal measurements. According to expert Klaus-Eckart Puls “measurements are actually showing the opposite.” Only “mysterious” government computer models show rises in sea levels, says the report.

Making the announcement on behalf of the European Institute for Climate and Energy Klaus-Eckart Puls says:

“Worldwide, neither tidal gauge data (200 years) nor satellite data (20 years) show any acceleration of sea level rise. That is in stark contrast to all past and current statements by the IPCC and several climate (research) institutes and climate-models. Moreover, there are indications that the satellite data (showing a higher [double] rate of increase) are significantly “over-corrected.”” [See ref 28 in the report]

‘Mysterious Case’ or Data Rigging?

The European Institute for Climate and Energy expressed their concerns about the reliability of certain official computer models adding, “Instead of adjusting the satellite data to those actually measured on the ground and correcting them downward, the discrepancy between gauge and satellite measurements continue to this date. Somehow, that does not appear to bother anyone. A mysterious case.”

Wilhelmshaven coast scientist, Karl-Ernst Behre from the Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research (NIHK ) explains that the best evidence shows sea levels have only been rising naturally “since the end of the last ice age we have good knowledge of the sea level changes on the German North Sea coast.”

The latest German research shows that sea level has risen naturally due to global warming by more than 50 meters in the past 10,000 years, says Behre. It has been nothing to do with humans.

Fresh scientific analysis of the heating and cooling rate of the moon has produced startling evidence to show that the greenhouse gas theory of global warming on earth is false. Italian researcher, Alberto Miatello presents a simplified version of his peer-reviewed and verified study to show that mainstream climate science has misunderstood a key function of earth’s climate system: its inherent cooling abilities. Principia Scientific International presents Miatello’s summary below:

 I have been asked to explain the main concepts of my article of 2012: “Lunar Cooling Refutes the Greenhouse Effect Theory”, without using too much mathematical symbolism and I am pleased to do that. 

I know that many readers find calculations and math of many technical articles quite unpleasant (even when they are necessary to prove some ideas/assumptions) and it is also true that before writing down math and calculations, all the physicists think about the main concepts they want to prove.

Therefore, I am pleased to explain the main concepts of that article here. Also, because I have been persuaded that the study of our moon’s heating and cooling rate is probably one of the most powerful experimental tools to prove that the Greenhouse Effect Theory (GHE) is a bogus, pseudo-scientific theory. It is most unfortunate that for too many years now the “theory” has been upheld unquestioningly by the political class and media propaganda (with a silent indifference among the scientific establishment), but with no actual physical law supporting it.

Why the Moon?

Firstly, the Moon receives exactly the same quantity of solar irradiance (1367 W/m²) as Earth.

Secondly, the Moon has no atmosphere, whereas Earth is surrounded by nearly 10 km of Troposphere, that lower part of our atmosphere in which the main climatic phenomena and weather reactions are taking place.

Thus, the Moon offers the most splendid natural physical location in the Universe to make a comparison with Earth and to challenge the most important points that GHE advocates are promoting:

1. Questions:

a) Does our atmosphere really keep our Earth’s surface “warmer” by nearly 33°C?

b) What would happen if we “removed” our atmosphere? Would we really be “frozen” by the “cold” outer space, in the same way as the flowers inside a greenhouse would be, in a cold winter, after removal of the transparent plastic layers/tents of the greenhouse?

The main point that GHE supporters seem keen to try and hide is that here on Earth’s surface the highest temperature ever recorded (in the Death Valley, California, USA) was just 56°- 57°C, a meager highpoint when compared to the Moon’s equator where the temperature normally reaches 117°C (390K) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon. That is more than double the value, although – as we know – the quantity of solar irradiance is the same: 1367 W/m² in both places.

So, far from being totally “frozen” by the lack of atmosphere, our moon is “over-heated” by the same solar irradiance which is impinging Earth. The reason? Firstly, because Earth’s albedo (due to clouds + atmosphere + Earth’s surface) is 0.3, whereas the Moon’s albedo (due to regolith of surface) is just 0.12. This means Earth reflects away nearly 30{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the solar radiation, whereas our Moon reflects just 12{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}. Therefore, the Moon absorbs much more heat enabling it to reach a higher temperature.

However, in an attempt to disguise this “inconvenient truth”, GHE supporters are trying to put confusion in the minds of their readers. For instance, “Skepticalscience” tells its readers that on the Moon the temperature “drops almost immediately … in several hours” from 117°C to minus 110°C. They say it is “due to the absence of atmosphere (such as here on Earth) which (in their opinion) should “protect” our surface from the “cold” of outer space.

But this statement, as we have seen, is clearly wrong.

Far from its temperature “dropping almost immediately … in several hours”, we have observed that on the Moon it takes 14.75 terrestrial days = 354 hours (!), at the lunar equator, to “cool off” from the highest temperature (117°C = 390K) to reach the lowest i.e. -173°C = 100K

So, the cooling rate of the Moon is very much slower than that of Earth: the Moon’s surface is cooling at a rate of 290/354 = 0.8°C/hour, whereas here on Earth, on a warm summer’s night, at over 20°C in the ambient outside environment, we have calculated that a cubic meter of boiling water (100°C) would lose 64°C in nearly 12.7 hours, which is 5°C/hour, i.e. a cooling rate more than 6 times faster!

Lord Christopher Monckton’s article on WUWT claims “100 percent” of skeptics at latest Heartland’s Climate Conference believe in greenhouse gas warming. But many WUWT readers condemn lordship’s spin.  

Upperclass Brit Monckton became a comical figure in Las Vegas on July 7, 2014 when his plum tones repeated the mantra of carbon dioxide climate forcing, a key element of the supposed human-enhanced greenhouse gas effect.

Like others in the “lukewarmist” club his lordship feels the need to circle the wagons insisting CO2 “must” cause some warming – how much? He didn’t say.

But Monckton’s mission was to rally the troops and he wasn’t leaving that Vegas stage till he got his “proof” his audience backed him. But then this was always going to be little more than a drum-banging exercise. In fact. no scientists at the conference even paid lip service to the glaring elephant in the room: why rising human emissions of carbon dioxide are not warming our planet – not even in the slightest. In fact, global cooling has been happening this century.

The harsh black and white backdrop to this is the extraordinary absence of any additional global warming for more than 17 years, despite Monckton’s supposed scientific consensus saying that levels of atmospheric CO2 are up about 40 percent. Thus, more CO2 in the atmosphere doesn’t lead to more heat. As such, the “laboratory” of earth’s atmosphere is telling us the theory looks busted.

Instead of facing facts our faux aristocrat emulated the discredited and now infamous alarmist paper by John Cooke et al. (it “proved” the 97 percent scientific consensus on humans dangerously warming the planet) submitting his own dubious six-question survey for conference attendees to complete. Polling duly completed his article claims all 600 of the assembled skeptics were on message. But plenty of savvy readers on WUWT weren’t buying any of it and nor was Andre Lofthus who last week in American Thinker wrote:

“Real scientists would demand to know the physics of how increased CO2 in the atmosphere causes global warming.  Is there any real physics behind this unsupported bold assertion?” But then most people aren’t aware that Monckton was never a government science adviser nor a scientist either.

The Danish press reports the case of a garden centre going out of business because of nearby wind turbines. Headaches are frequent among employees, and female workers complain of unusual bleeding and problems with their menstruation cycles.  They are worried that more serious illnesses may follow and five of them recently resigned from their jobs. The owner is now closing shop for fear of being held responsible should a child be born with deformities, as happened to numerous mink puppies at a fur farm near wind turbines in Jutland (1).

Boye Jensen, the owner of Lammefjordens Perennials, is 67-year-old. He started his plant nursery 43 years ago, and it became a prosperous business with 15 employees and annual sales of 12 million krones (equiv. $ 2.1 million). He was planning to continue working for another 6-7 years, then sell the nursery. But his business is now worth nothing, causing him an important financial prejudice.

He is presently consulting with his lawyer whether he should sue Vattenfal, the company that owns the wind turbines, or the Municipality of Holbaek, which approved their installation 400-700 metres from his garden centre. He will go to court, and seek damages worth several million krones.

Are doctors confused by statistics? A new book by one prominent statistician says they are – and that this makes it hard for patients to make informed decisions about treatment. 

In 1992, shortly after Gerd Gigerenzer moved to Chicago, he took his six-year-old daughter to the dentist. She didn’t have toothache, but he thought it was about time she got acquainted with the routine of sitting in the big reclining chair and being prodded with pointy objects.

The clinic had other ideas. “The dentist wanted to X-ray her,” Gigerenzer recalls. “I told first the nurse, and then him, that she had no pains and I wanted him to do a clinical examination, not an X-ray.”

These words went down as well as a gulp of dental mouthwash. The dentist argued that he might miss something if he didn’t perform an X-ray, and Gigerenzer would be responsible.

But the advice of the US Food and Drug Administration is not to use X-rays to screen for problems before a regular examination. Gigerenzer asked him: “Could you please tell me what’s known about the potential harms of dental X-rays for children? For instance, thyroid and brain cancer? Or give me a reference so I can check the evidence?”

The British Medical Association (BMA) is facing a backlash from Scottish doctors who say it is not doing enough to investigate the effects of giant wind turbines on the health of people living near them. 

Residents who live within a few miles of wind turbines have complained of chronic sleep deprivation due to the whirring of the blades, while others report nausea and headaches linked to the low frequency sounds they emit.

The symptoms are collectively known as Wind Turbine Syndrome, yet the Sunday Times reports that a meeting of BMA representatives was last month urged to support renewable energy due its purported benefits in mitigating the effects of climate change.

It was even suggested that if the BMA – which acts as a trade union of doctors – holds any assets in fossil fuel companies, it should switch them to “those providing renewable energy sources.”

Some doctors are now angry that the BMA is apparently ignoring pleas to address the public health impact of wind farms. The European Platform Against Windfarms (EPAW) had been lobbying the BMA to address the health of patients within close proximity of turbines, yet this was not considered at their meeting

A BMA spokeswoman said that EPAW had made contact after the deadline for submissions had passed, and added that the BMA does not make direct investments.

An EPAW spokeswoman said, however: “That a vote was subsequently taken at the meeting to divest from fossil fuels and invest in renewable energy without members having had access to the information we sent raises an issue of conflict of interests. Since May, attempts were made to have information given to members concerning adverse health effects of turbines. These attempts failed.”