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Showing posts with the label science

Old Truths, New Aspects

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The biggest critters with backbones are living today: baleen whales. Finding the largest of them started getting harder about a century back. We didn't quite drive the blue and fin whales to extinction, happily. We're learning when they got so big, and maybe why. We're also learning more about origins of dinosaurs and the domestic cat. It's not the same origin. One happened around the time we started storing grain, the other 200,000,000 years ago. Give or take a bit. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Oldest Human Fossils?

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Humanity's current model may be a whole lot older than we thought. A team of scientists say that remains found in Morocco are human, Homo sapiens. The scientists also say these folks lived about 300,000 years ago. If that's confirmed, they were around 100,000 years earlier and about 2,000 miles away from where we thought Homo sapiens showed up. Other scientists say T. rex may not have been fluffy. It looks like the big dinosaur lost its feathers somewhere along the line. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

GSLV, Rocket Lab: Looking Good

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India's 'monster rocket,' the GSLV Mark III, successfully put the GSAT-19 E satellite in orbit this week. BBC News called some coverage of ISRO's launch "euphoric." That's understandable. India is like America in the late 20th century, where spaceflight is involved: and is rapidly catching up. I'm not euphoric, quite, but I see what's happening as very good news for everyone. Rocket Lab's Electron test launch wasn't entirely successful. But the company thinks they can get the system working, and plan to start commercial launches later this year. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

New Worlds: The Search Continues

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There's a huge telescope under construction in Chile: the E-ELT. When compete, astronomers using it plan plan on looking for new worlds, and observing the early universe. We may have spotted a second super-Saturn. We'll know more about that in September.... ...Telescopes have come a long way since Galileo repurposed the " Dutch perspective glass " for astronomical observation. About Galileo, Copernicus, the sun, and the Church: it's true.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Climate Change, Whirligig Icebergs

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Climate change is still in the news. Don't worry, I won't rant about impending doom, or say that Earth's climate isn't changing. This planet's climate has been changing for several billion years. I'd be astounded if it stopped changing now. How much we know and understand about our own past, and Earth's, is also changing. I'll be talking about that, and why I'm not upset that we're learning. I'll also take a look at (real) climate change, why I think we are not doomed, and choices we must make soon. "Soon," in this case, is somewhere in the next millennium or so. My opinion. We really do not want to make these decisions hastily.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Acting Like Truth Matters

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"Folks have thought truth is important for quite a while... "...I think truth is important, too. As a Christian, I'd better...." More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Ammonites, Dinosaurs, and Us

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Today's world is remarkable for a lack of dinosaurs. Big ones, anyway. Those critters would have been among the first things someone would notice here for upwards of 200,000,000 years. Then, about 66,000,000 years back, something awful happened. The only dinosaurs left are those little tweeting, chirping, and cawing critters we call birds. Ammonites had been around for even longer, but whatever finished the 'thunder lizards' wiped them out, too. We showed up much more recently, and are learning that there's a very great deal of our past, and Earth's, that we don't know. Not yet.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Good Intentions

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Variations on "dead men tell no tales" go back at least to 1560 or thereabouts in my language. The idea is much older. 1 As advice goes, it's arguably flawed. Folks who are dead aren't chatty, but their bodies occasionally pop up at inopportune times. I'll be talking about unmarked and unremembered graves, insane asylums, and similarly-uncheerful things. It's not all bad news, though. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Repeatable Results That Aren’t

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I'll be talking about scientific research that may not be "fake:" but isn't reliable, either. The good news is that many scientists want to fix the problem. I'll also take a look at truth, beauty, Copernicus, and how a science editor sees faith and science. Faith and science Truth and Beauty "...There Will be Babblers...." Being Scientific News and views... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Looking for Life: Enceladus and Gliese 1132 b

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We haven't found life on — or in — Enceladus. But we've found organic compounds in the Saturnian moon's salt-water geysers. Scientists detected an atmosphere around Gliese 1132 b, a planet about 39 light-years away. It's Earth-like, in terms of size; but too hot for life as we know it. We'll almost certainly learn a great deal, though, by studying its atmosphere.... ...Abraham, Moses, and Minnesota I take the Bible, Sacred Scripture, very seriously. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 101 - 133 ) I don't, however, insist on believing only what I find in the Bible. That's just as well, since I live near the center of North America. I'm pretty sure that Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Saint Peter, and the rest, didn't know that the land I live on exists. But I'm quite sure that the State of Minnesota is real: even if it's not "Biblical."... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Mars: Leaky Red Planet

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What we're learning about Mars, and a new type of really small spacecraft, reminded me of earth, air and kilts. Also pharaohs, Thomas Paine, and Lord Kelvin. By then I was running out of time to write something more tightly-organized. I figured you might be interested in some of what I have written. On on the other hand, maybe not. So I added links to my ramblings before and after what I said more-or-less about the science news, and figure you can decide what's interesting and what's not. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Pesticides in the Water

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I live on Earth, so caring about what happens here makes sense. I've talked about enlightened self-interest, Yeats, Ehrlich, and getting a grip, before. Often, actually. ( February 17, 2017 ; January 20, 2017 ; September 16, 2016 ; August 12, 2016 ) A news item about scientists finding a particular sort of pesticide in America's drinking water got my attention. So did what they said about it: which made sense. Whether or not this becomes a hot news item, like the "Flint Water Crisis," depends partly on how badly editors need something to angst over. My opinion. What happened in Flint, Michigan, was real enough. There's a pretty good Wikipedia page on it. Briefly, Flint's drinking water was okay until the city started drawing from the Flint River instead of Lake Huron and the Detroit River. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

DNA and Cancer

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Apparently quiet a few sorts of cancer 'just happen,' no matter how much fiber we eat, how much we don't smoke, and how far we run each day. Or exercise, in my case. Thanks in part to now-replaced defective hips, my running days never really happened. That doesn't mean that we're all gonna die from random cancer. I think it means we should think about paying more attention to testing before symptoms appear.... After talking about oddly-under-reported 'cancer' news, I kept going; mostly about mutations, and why being healthy is okay... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Knowledge: Opening the Gift

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The quote is from Tennyson's " Ulysses ," among my favorite poems; and the source for my Google Plus tagline: "...To follow knowledge, like a sinking star, "Beyond the utmost bound of human thought...." (" Ulysses ," Tennyson (1833)) I'm not "an idle king," and take my family obligations seriously, so I won't be setting off on a voyage of discovery. Thanks to a pretty good Internet connection and research skills, I can "follow knowledge" without leaving my desk. My shameless curiosity may need some explanation. Or maybe not, if you read my Friday 'science' posts. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Baryons, Gravity Waves

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These are exciting, or disquieting, times. Which it is depends partly on how much a person likes living in a world where scientific knowledge is rapidly changing. I like it, a lot.... ...Since this is a "religious" blog, I'll be discussing — briefly, for me — how my faith relates to experiments using CERN's Large Hadron Collider and science in general.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Earliest Life: Maybe

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We're not sure how skulls found in central China fit into the family tree. They're a bit like Neanderthals, a bit like folks still living in that part of the world, and not quite like anyone else. Other scientists found what may, or may not, be the oldest evidence of life found so far. That's in Quebec, Canada. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

TRAPPIST-1: Water? Life??

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TRAPPIST-1's planets may support life: or not. We don't know. Not yet. We're pretty sure that all seven are rocky worlds, like the Solar System's inner planets. Three are in the star's habitable zone. The inner two definitely do not have one sort of atmosphere that would make life as we know it impossible. Even if we don't find life there, we'll learn a great deal while looking. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Face Transplant at Mayo

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Andy Sandness wasn't born looking like that. He's lived with the consequences of a "wrong choice" for more than a decade. Agreeing to get Mayo Clinic's first face transplant won't undo his decision. But now he has a second chance for a normal life. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Pollution: Still Learning

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Scientists found PCBs and PBDEs in deep-sea critters, armyworms are on the march in Africa, and Mexico City's air isn't as clean as we'd hoped. Rational concern seems reasonable.... ...Last week I talked about blaming our tools for our mistakes. ( February 10, 2017 ) This week I'll revisit Lovecraft's "placid island of ignorance,"sort of.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Bogs and Bison

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The good news is that bison are back in Banff, and Britain's bogs may bounce back, too. Keeping wetlands wet isn't what many folks had in mind, back in my youth. But as I keep saying, we've learned quite a bit since then.... ...This post's afterword is a quick look at how folks have perceived natural resources, plus a bit about pessimism and being human.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .