Busy Summer!

Let me just say I am sorry that I haven't had time to post more over the past few months this summer has been crazy busy for me. I have a few posts that I need to finish up; including 2 book reviews, a National Park Series post, and a museum visit. I hope to finish up at least one of those today and should have the rest out by early next week. While you wait here is a comic by SMBC that I missed posting while I was away and below the fold with be two videos by Potholer54, his 2nd and 3rd Golden Crocoduck nominees.

The Future of Wind Energy

Greenman3610 takes on the idea that wind energy is not as efficient in this video and explains why cutting funding to the growing industry would be a bad idea.

Why do people still refer to Hovind?

Seriously I wonder that all the time. Anyway another great take-down of Hovind/anti-evolution arguments by Potholer54

Crazy March

By now most people probably know that NOAA has said that March 2012 was the warmest March on record, well if you are wondering why Greenman3610 has a great two part video series, below, explaining why.

Golden Crocoduck Nominees 1

So Potholer54 has the first of his Golden Crocoduck videos for this year! Enjoy.

C0nc0rdance reads Darwin

Yes I know Sunday was Darwin day sorry I am a few days late. As a treat here is a selection for Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, see my copy here, read by C0nc0rdance, see a previous reading by him here. The recording isn't great but he ends with one of my favorite lines:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Himalayan Glacial Melt

So as I covered in my last post, and many others, climate change is happening and we know this through several different lines of evidence. One of those lines of evidence is ice loss and while most of the focus has been on sea ice, particularly in the Arctic, continental glaciers, like those on Antarctica and Greenland, have been losing ice as well. A new study was recently released that set to find out how much and showed that overall these continental glaciers are losing ice. The news media decided to pick on something else from the paper and that was the Himalayan glaciers and decided for some reason that over the last 10 years there has been no ice melting there. Potholer54 decided to actually read the paper and he decided to point out what the media decided to ignore.

Interview of Dr. Hayhoe

Another video, this time by Greenman3610, is an interview with Dr. Katharine Hayhoe from Texas Tech University. It is sad some of the intimidation that she has had to face because she dared say that the climate is in fact warming and we are likely the cause of it. Having met her a couple of times I know she is extremely nice and I can't imagine why people would act like this other than to discourage her continued research.

Explanation of Human Ancestry Made Easy

So a few years ago Potholer54 made a video series pretty much explaining the history of the earth and life and one of those videos was Human Ancestry Made Easy. He apparently got some questions about some of the content. Now I use the term questions loosely here because it is pretty obviously creationists trying to show that evolution doesn't work, even though it does and they are wrong. I think the bigger issue is just the way Potholer54 phrased the statement and he at least tries to explain it here, although I don't think he did a perfect job with it either but he at least got closer.

Why SOPA is bad

So I wanted to get another non-video post up before I posted more videos but this video is too important. I know I normally don't post about political issues but SOPA and PIPA will kill the internet as we know it and will make blogs almost impossible to exist so please watch and do what you can to make sure these bills not only die buy don't come back, although they probably will.

Sea Level Rise

One last video and then I will try to get some posts with actual substance (who am I kidding right?). This is another one by Greenman3610 in which he interviews the actual scientists at December's annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and discusses the potential sea level rise if the climate keeps changing at the current rate.

Circumcision and YouTube policy

So anyone who has followed this blog for a while knows that I post a lot of videos from a YouTube user known as C0nc0rdance, no seriously a lot of videos from him. I do this because he makes well informed well researched videos that summarize the scientific understanding right now. Most of these topics are also on more medical oriented topics which tend to be outside my area of expertise so I appreciate the effort he puts into the videos. A few months ago he posted a series on circumcision in baby boys. It was interesting and is worth checking out but it was really outside of my interests for this blog. When I got back from break I saw the video below and decided that I would put up the full series. Well since then the video has been restored but YouTube's earlier bad action will mean I will still post the series for all to see. Note that the circumcision series itself (2 videos) is below the fold.

History Lesson!

This was far to good not to share, especially with my views on what the History Channel has become. Oh, and one more thing if you are on YouTube go subscribe to the maker of the video CGPGrey he makes very funny and informative stuff!



H/T Know Your Meme

Its all the Sun's Fault!

Anyone who has had a discussion with people who deny that humans are causing climate change has surely heard this one before, even if the person doesn't believe the climate is actually changing they will find a way to work in a, "Well even if it is it is all the sun's fault anyway!" There is no doubt as a geologist that the sun is the largest driving force behind climate and this can be traced back through geologic time. The question then becomes well if in the past the sun caused climate change, although not always just the sun itself sometime with the help of how the earth was rotating the sun (we can discuss this at a later date if you want), is the sun doing stuff now that could be causing climate change? The simple answer is NO but I will let Greenman3610 take it from here.

Water Fluoridation

So C0nc0rdance does it again releasing another heavily researched medical video on a controversial medical topic. Yes this video has been out for a while but sorry I was busy traveling over the holidays. Anyway enjoy the video and I welcome any discussion that comes of it, or you could go join the one already in progress in the comment section of the video itself. On a related note you could, and in fact should check out his short 2 part series explaining how the dose makes the poison I posted a while ago.

Monckton the Response

So over the course of a little while ago Potholer54 did a video series discussing the claims of Lord Christopher Monckton(see here part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5 which you should probably see if you haven't already). Well someone posted a summary of those videos and Monckton responded on the Watts Up With That blog. To that Potholer54 made a 2 video response, below, refuting those claims by Monckton and how he continues to avoid the evidence.

The Hockey Stick Graph is not all there is

I have heard the claim many times in the past that the only reason that we think that climate change is happening is because of the famous hockey stick graph done by Michael Mann and the rest of his research team. Well that isn't true and Greenman3610 does a great job breaking down that argument and showing what evidence there actually is.

A Vaccine Cover-up!

No! but C0nc0rdance breaks down a recent claim that says something very similar to that. It should be worth noting that my big post on vaccines and Autism has seen a lot of action recently not sure why just found it interesting.

Climategate the Second

Many of you might remember a few months ago when a bunch of emails for scientists at the East Anglia climate research group were hacked and released and that skeptics claimed proved that people had been lying about climate change. Well it didn't actual prove that (for evidence see here, here, and here) but that isn't keeping skeptics from hailing a new release of e-mails released from the same group as more evidence of the lie of global climate change. But not to worry Potholer54 is on the case and goes through all the emails and shows they don't actually show what people are claiming they show.

Drought and Climate Change

Another great video by Greenman3610 talking about how climate change is effecting the drought that is destroying agriculture in much of Texas right now.