Start of Fall Practice and Arkansas State

Can you feel it only 38 more days till kickoff of the 2009 Virginia Tech football season. I for one am excited. Now we all know that before you have your first game you have to have your fall practices, one of the most hated things you go through as a player trust me 2 a days suck, and at this time next week the players for Virginia Tech will be reporting for camp with the first practice the next day. I can tell it is getting closer.

Virginia Tech also confirmed today that they have added Arkansas State to the schedule for 2011 to replace the vacancy left by Syracuse when they backed out of the commitment they had with VT for a home and home in 2010 and 2011. Now the replacement that VT made for 2010 of Boise State at FedEx field is somewhat respectable. Afterall Boise State is a giant killer at times, now I have a feeling it will be hard for them to come all the way across the country to play in a very pro VT FedEx Field. Arkansas State on the other hand went 6-6 last year in the Sun Belt Conference, if we want to be competitive we need to play the best and this is not the way to do it.

Virginia Tech vs Alabama

I know that this was put together by a Bama fan but that is ok because it is awesome and helps build the anticipation for the start of the season even more:



So I can't let the way that video ends be the actual end to this post so LETS GO HOKIES

Creationist Materials

Now I know most of the rest of the country isn't having the same problems as Louisiana but I figured I would pass this along since I have a feeling these creationists will try to get these into other school classrooms around the US. So for your reading enjoyment: http://lasciencecoalition.org/2009/07/26/louisiana-stealth-creationist-materials/#more-1504

40 years ago today

While I am sure that most people reading this already know this I figured since I was a science blog I had to say something about it. Well here it is today is the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon. In my opinion this is probably the greatest scientific achievement ever accomplished by the human race at least as of right now, that is until we put a man another another planet. So to honor those brave men and now women who serve/ed/or will serve in the space program I figured I would post this:



Raise your drink twice tonight one for the past and one for the future.

On a couple of unrelated notes I wanted to post these two videos, the first one because it is very educational and should help anybody who has ever had any long conversation with a creationist debunk much of what they have to say:



This last one because I am a big fan of thinking and it is interesting to see what these famous thinking men, and Homer Simpson, had to say about God:



Final thing I came across this last night but it made me more ready for the football season than before. They are backgrounds for your computer that have the VT football schedule on them so take a look:
http://www.cruhland.com/desktops/downloads.html

As always if you come across anything let me know and remember,

Taylor at the Manning Camp

So as we continue to approach the start of the 2009 NCAA football season (50 days left till kick off) I came across this article:

http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20090715/ARTICLES/907159954/1032?Title=Manning-camp-helps-Va-Tech-QB

It is a good read and nice to see that Tyrod made the most of his opportunity down here in Louisiana. I also liked the point he made about his first playing time being in Tiger Stadium currently being in Baton Rouge I have to hear about that all the time and I always try to admit that LSU is a good team and it is good to hear Tyrod say something similar. It would be really nice though to have VT beat Alabama to quite those SEC fans who keep putting down the ACC.

LETS GO HOKIES

Your WTF moment for today

So I actually came across this last night while cruising conservapedia but I was tired and didn't feel like commenting on it this this morning:

The average public school student spends more than "104 hours and 24 minutes per month watching television." [18] While public school students are boosting the advertising revenue for The Daily Show, homeschoolers are learning!

OK so that might seem legit and all but I want you to go to the link don't worry I'll wait........
So you done? Alright did you what I am trying to point out? No where in the article did it say that home schooled teens are less likely to watch TV or do anything else. Yes that's right conservapedia drew their own conclusions, ones which could be completely right and ones which could be completely wrong. I don't know so I am not going to draw any but I just figured I would point this out so we could have a nice WTF moment.

Global "Warming" and In God We Trust

So I know that over the last few days anyone who follows conservapedia a lot has noticed that they have had a lot of stuff on Global "Warming". It should as you may have noticed on some of my earlier posts be known as global climate change because while some areas will get warmer, some areas will get cooler and in the long run it effects more than just temperature as well. A few days ago they posted on some very local colder than normal days in a few locations as if a couple of days disprove that the earth is changing, I could very well point out to them that June in Baton Rouge was the 3rd warmest on record with the warmest 2nd half ever but I won't. Well today's post I decided I would comment on mostly because it is a misreading of science:

We Told You So Department: Alert Al Gore! A new peer-reviewed study may shake the foundation upon which man-made global warming fears are based. The new study discovered "something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models." The study, which was published on July 14, 2009 in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience, found CO2 was not to blame for a major ancient global warming period and instead found “unknown processes accounted for much of warming in the ancient hot spell.” The press release for the study was headlined: "Global warming: Our best guess is likely wrong."

"In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record," said oceanographer Gerald Dickens, a co-author of the study and professor of Earth science at Rice University. "There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models." [21] , [22] and [23]

Alright so here is what I really want to comment on click on link number 22 and it will take you to the abstract of the paper which says this:

The Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (about 55 Myr ago) represents a possible analogue for the future and thus may provide insight into climate system sensitivity and feedbacks1, 2. The key feature of this event is the release of a large mass of 13C-depleted carbon into the carbon reservoirs at the Earth's surface, although the source remains an open issue3, 4. Concurrently, global surface temperatures rose by 5–9 °C within a few thousand years5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Here we use published palaeorecords of deep-sea carbonate dissolution10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and stable carbon isotope composition10, 15, 16, 17 along with a carbon cycle model to constrain the initial carbon pulse to a magnitude of 3,000 Pg C or less, with an isotopic composition lighter than -50. As a result, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increased during the main event by less than about 70% compared with pre-event levels. At accepted values for the climate sensitivity to a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration1, this rise in CO2 can explain only between 1 and 3.5 °C of the warming inferred from proxy records. We conclude that in addition to direct CO2 forcing, other processes and/or feedbacks that are hitherto unknown must have caused a substantial portion of the warming during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. Once these processes have been identified, their potential effect on future climate change needs to be taken into account.

OK long yes with a lot of numbers which actually go to references. But to summarize their summary they say that global warming happened and our climate models can't completely take it into account. But the one thing I want to point out is this:

At accepted values for the climate sensitivity to a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration1, this rise in CO2 can explain only between 1 and 3.5 °C of the warming inferred from proxy records.

Yes that is right contrary to what conservapedia would have you think the CO2 increase did still cause an increase in global temperatures we just can't fully explain the complete increase in temps but 1-3.5 is still a large enough temperature change to cause drastic climate change all over the world.

One last thing on this topic while I am here. You read often people who say that in the past CO2 levels where much higher than they are today you can go ahead and believe them because that is true. However, the planet was significantly warmer when that extra CO2 was in the air as well, just think of the Mesozoic era.

Finally for this post and it is a little off topic Conservapedia posted this:

More intolerance by atheists: "Lawsuit seeks to block 'In God We Trust' engraving." Congressman Steve King observed, "This lawsuit is another attempt by liberal activists to rewrite history and deny that America's Judeo-Christian heritage is an essential foundation stone of our great nation."[20]

I found the start of this post to be a little funny, more intolerance by atheists. I am sorry I am not by any means an atheist but they are one of the most looked down on groups in the US. Example:



But what really got me about the post by conservapedia was how this not wanting "In God we Trust" on public buildings denied our roots as a judeo-christian founding. This nation was founded on the freedoms of man and at its roots the founding was mostly secular. Yes, there was reference to a creator and even rarely God. But the founders of the US were for the most part deists. Their God was probably similar to the judeo-christian-islamic God because that is what Europe was for the most part and well most of them had roots back to Europe. As the article points out the whole In God We Trust was not put on money or anything until 1956 same with it being in the pledge. Most people don't remember a time without it anymore so they just assume that is the way it has always been. But prior to that most people just accepted that there was religion and then there was the Government and they were two separate things and that was the way the founder's wanted it. So who is really being the conservative here, is it the atheists demanding that it not be put up or is it the republicans demanding that it be put up? I know what I think think but I would more than willing to hear what any of the rest of you have to say on the topic.

Alright but that was a long and varied post if you made it all the way through here is something on topic but that should give you a little laugh.



alright that took far too long to find!

Computer Software Design and Evolution

So I just came across this: http://www.scientificblogging.com/adaptive_complexity/intelligent_software_design_vs_evolution

It is a good read and does a really good job of refuting the same designer same material argument. There is one other thing that I would add and it is quite simply this. Yes most people only see a computer program going from 1.0-2.0 etc for most things like windows, however, if you ever look at the version of software such as Google Earth or AIM you will see that you end up with 4.95 before you finally get to version 5. You also often end up with beta versions of programs out on the market so that people can try them out and find out what works. Having done some programing work myself you will find that each program you make steps from the other ones you have done and you say well this works better. Then you keep looking and next time maybe you find something that works slightly better it is quite simply put evolution not creation.

Virginia Tech 2008 Montage

So I know that I haven't posted anything Virginia Tech related recently but with right around 57 days left till the season kicks off I figured I would post this since I came across it. Enjoy!

Gap between Science and the Public

3 Posts in one day I promise not to make this a regular thing heck I only had 4 posts last month. Anyway on to what I wanted to post. I had just found this http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/science/10survey.html?_r=5

I just want to say one thing about this article. Being a scientist myself I feel that what Alan I. Leshner says at the end of the article is right. I think that far too often scientists look at themselves as far to high and mighty and we don't take the time to properly educate the public to what is actually going on. Something that I think the Internet should allow people to do better with blogs and YouTube and other similar type things unfortunately those who are against science seem to be far better at it. Maybe it is just because they are more willing but that isn't what really matters is it. We need to help educate everyone that is the job of science after all.