via sci-ence.org
This comic is a great guide to help you spot quacks and pseudoscientific claims. I think I just found a new online comic to read.
science
via mentalfloss.com
I finally got around to watching this hour and a half long video last night. I’m not a huge Stephen Colbert fan, but he toned down his shtick here for a great interview with one of my favorite person on the planet, Neil deGrasse Tyson. It was well worth my time. I could watch Neil deGrasse Tyson talk all day.
via reddit.com
I ran across this comic on Reddit and it really struck a chord with me. I remember back in 1986 when Halley’s Comet was last visible. I was in the 5th grade, but didn’t actually get to see it. I still have a Halley’s Comet pencil that I got in school that year. I will be 86 when it comes around next in 2061. Hopefully I will be about to get out of my bed with my cane and see it then, for the last time.
Carl Sagan was born 77 orbits ago. He was responsible for getting me, and millions of others, interested in science and astronomy as a kid. We lost him way too soon. I will never get tired of listening to his “Pale Blue Dot” essay. It’s one of the best things ever.
The days are quickly getting shorter and shorter. Many people hate this time of year, but I kind of like it. I love star gazing, and this time of the years give me more time to do it before it becomes too cold to be outside. I use to be able to find many constellations, but now that I live in a bigger city, I can’t really see much and have forgot most of them. Thankfully there are many iPhone apps to help me out now. Last night at work I had to head south of town for a bit, and it was great. I almost wish I lived more out of town, so I could see more stars.
One thing I’m really enjoying it watching Jupiter every night. It is currently in opposition to the Sun. Which means it rises when the Sun sets, and it visible all night as it rises in the east and sets in the west. It is real easy to spot. Because Venus isn’t currently visible, It’s the 2nd brightest thing in the sky at night after the Moon. Every night at work I see it in the east and I watch it move across the sky, and I see it in the west when I get home from work. I wish I had some binoculars or a telescope. It would be cool to try and see some of Jupiter’s Moons.
Many people never look into the sky at night. That’s the first thing I do when I walk out at night. I can’t name a ton of stars, but I can find Betelgeuse and Rigel in my buddy Orion, and Polaris is another no brainer to find. If you’re out and about at night this month, look up and try and find Jupiter. Then just think that that little speck of light is 369.8 million miles away, and it would take 1321.3 earths to fill up the volume of Jupiter. Our Solar System, and the Universe is filled with amazing and beautiful stuff that most people take for granted.
Now that the days are getting shorter, it’s always dark when I’m going to work in the morning. Our house faces south, so all winter long I will be greeted by Orion every morning when I walk out the door.
About a week or so ago I noticed a really bright star just a bit to the west of Orion. It looked like it was close to the ecliptic, so there was a good chance that it was a planet. I just wasn’t sure which one. So like anything, when I’m curious about it I look it up. I have many star map apps on my phone, so when I got to work I looked it up, and it was Jupiter. So for the past week, every morning when I have been greeted by Orion, I have also said hello to Jupiter.
Today on Universe Today, they have an article about that very bright star in the sky that is Jupiter. So if you’re up early every day like I am, look up and try to find Jupiter.
I love the all the great things on the internet and YouTube. I just watched an episode of Bill Nye: 100 Greatest Discoveries. I watched the Astronomy edition and it was great. I don’t know when they were one TV, but they are on YouTube now. Bill Nye covers a bunch of different science topics. I will have to work my way through all of them. Here is the episode I just watched in three parts.
So yesterday in our local paper there was an article about a local guy that sells HCG for weight loss. It was a reasonably good article, but they were a little easy on him. They tried to explain how it works, but anybody with more than two brain cell could read right through it and realize it doesn’t work. The reporter should have came right out and said HCG is homeopathic, and homeopathy is a scam, but I suppose that wouldn’t have been much of an article.
The best part of the article though wasn’t in the paper. It was the comments online. I am pretty happy about how many people of reason left comments. It was quite funny when the owner of the company started to chime in and tried to defend his snake oil. I find it sad that people like him are taking money from people looking for an easy way to lose weight. Losing weight is simple, take in less calories than you burn. Simple as that. It’s not easy, and can be very tough, but it’s simple physics.
via Friendly Atheist
This video is depressing and the amount of ignorance, discrimination, and hatred toward Atheists is amazing. It boggles my mind how we can be the most hated and mistrusted minority group despite being the “least violent, most tolerant, most intelligent, most progressive” minority group out there.
To me science and religion don’t mix. If science showed even a sliver of evidence of a God I would feel different, but the more we learn, the more obvious it is that there isn’t a God. I don’t understand how I’m part of a minority because I believe in science, but maybe someday the majority of the populace will wake up to science.
Thankfully I don’t live in the bible belt, so I haven’t been discriminated against too bad. I still believe the reason we were denied the ability to adopt a child was because we left the religious questions blank since they didn’t apply to us, but I don’t really have proof of this. That is just my speculation. My family is pretty battshit crazy about religion though. When I’m hanging around with my family, and reading their ignorance on Facebook, is about the only time I have to deal with religion. I just keep my mouth shut when I’m around my family, and chuckle when I read their Facebook comments.
I just watched a lecture that Neil deGrasse Tyson did at the University of Washington back in May entitled “Adventures of an Astrophysicist”. It was so good. Neil deGrasse Tyson is so good at explaining science and making it exciting. I try to watch and read everything he does. It’s all so great.
via youtube.com
Yes, this is how ridicules homeopathic medicine is. Why people believe in this stuff is beyond me. Why it’s even legal to sell homeopathic medicine also boggles my mind.
From time to time I ask people when they think Earth is closest to the Sun. They almost always say in the summer. That isn’t true. We are furthest from the Sun in the summer (in the northern hemisphere), and closest in January. I never really knew when we were the furthest, but thanks to Phil Plait, I know that day is today, and it’s called aphelion. Perihelion is when the Earth is closest to the Sun, and it’s in early January with aphelion happening six months later.
Many people don’t realize that our seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth, not by the distance from the sun. That is why the southern hemisphere has just the opposite seasons. It’s a pretty basic fact that if a person just stops and thinks about it for a bit, make perfect sense, yet people often miss it. And now you shouldn’t.
I just finished reading Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries. It’s such a great book. I think it would go a long way in science education to require reading such book, or maybe Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy, in high school. Maybe it’s just me and my interests, but those two book really get me interested in science, and wanting to learn more. I know science classes are probably too busy teaching their curriculum to require students to read books, but science is more about a way of thinking then actual facts. It’s about the process, and both of these books stress that.
When I was in high school I had no interest in most of the required reading books, and they made me hate reading. I enjoyed reading To Kill a Mockingbird and really loved In Cold Blood, but couldn’t even tell you what else I had to read in high school. Once I was done with school it was probably ten years before I picked up another book. School taught me to hate reading. Nowadays I’m not a hugely prolific reader, but I manage to read 20 or so books a year.
Having students read a variety of books in high school may encourage more reading and better overall education, but then again a lot of kids are just lazy. It’s tough to teach the lazy.
I just listened to a great episode of the Skeptically Speaking podcast about all the latest cellphone hoopla. It’s a great listen if you scared, or just interested in the possibility of getting cancer from cellphones. There is no evidence that cellphones cause cancer, but you can never be 100% sure because it’s really hard to prove something doesn’t exists. You can’t prove their isn’t a god, Big Foot, or unicorns, but they are all highly unlikely just like getting cancer from a cellphone.
