Another Option Dimming

Carbon sequestration (that is, the storage of atmospheric carbon where it will not quickly re-enter the atmosphere) has been the long sought magic bullet to slay the problem of global warming, allowing us to maintain our carbon intensive lifestyles.

One possibility was to fertilize the Southern Ocean with iron to create algal blooms, that then die and settle into deep oceanic sediments, carrying their carbon with them.

While early research was promising, to some degree, new research is not nearly so optimistic. Pollard and colleagues report in the Jan 29th edition of Nature (2009), that rates of carbon sequestration are much lower than previously reported.  At the rates reported by Pollard even the fertilization of every ocean on the planet would not help significantly.

Regardless, the RV Polarstern (shown above) is now adding 20 tonnes of iron to an area of the Southern Ocean between Antarctica and Argentina.   Data from this experiment should settle the matter, but it does not sound promising.

Photo Credit: Hannes Grobe, Wikipedia Commons

Unemployment in Williams Lake: Explained

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

If you don't understand what has created the economic crisis in North America, take a very few minutes and watch this video.  The visual explanation of the crisis is excellent.

At the point where housing prices plummet and the system begins to fall apart, make the mental connection across the American border to the economy in Williams Lake.  As all those houses begin to lose value and homeowners are evicted, who needs wood to build new ones?

Hat Tip: Daily Dish

I Swear: I Did Not Know He Was Missing

The grave of Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) has finally been found and confirmed.

The December 5th issue of Science (2008) reports that DNA from a skeleton found under a medieval church in Frombork, Poland, has been matched to hairs recovered from the binding of an astronomical reference book used by the Polish astronomer.

Copernicus is generally credited with providing a scientific foundation to the idea that the earth moves around the sun.  His work was generally discredited by the Catholic Church although not in his lifetime.  Support for the Copernican system, however, was a factor that led to Giordano Bruno's execution for heresy in 1600.  

Bruno's fate undoubtedly factored into the later recantation of the Copernican system by Galileo in the 1630s.  It was Galileo's work with the just invented telescope that led to new support for the Copernican system.

Photo Credit: My modification of the facial reconstruction of Copernicus by D. Zadel, Forensic Lab, Polish Police.

Orbital Debris

Looks can be deceiving.  This small window crack occurred in orbit when the space shuttle (STS-007: 1983 Challenger flight) encountered what is believed to have been a flake of paint.  The pitting was disturbingly deep.

On February 10, two large satellites collided over Russia while travelling in orbits almost 90 degrees to each other.  No one knows how much orbital debris was created by the impact but it is assumed there will be hundreds of fragments.  Most much bigger than a flake of paint as each satellite weighed much more than half a ton.

These satellites were in an orbit 750 km high which places them almost 400 km above the International Space Station (ISS).  So, little risk to the ISS.  However, many other satellites are up there and will now be at risk from the hundreds of objects in the debris fields.  If a large piece of debris hits another satellite it will create more debris and could cause a cascade of satellite impacts.

In the past two years both China and the USA have tested their anti-satellite capability by hitting old satellites with a missile.  Again, more debris.  In the latter case I, and my family, actually witnessed the disintegration of the US satellite has it passed over Williams Lake just ten minutes after missile launch.

Photo credit: NASA

The Borg

Found throughout much of British Columbia is the slave-taking ant Polyergus breviceps.  

These ants attack the nests of other ant species--mostly members of what is known as the Formica fusca group, those medium sized black ants common pretty much everywhere.  They kill any ants defending the raided nest, then enter and carry away the larvae and pupae.  These are taken back to their own nest where they pupate into adults that will now work for their new colony.

As Polyergus ants convert members of other ant species to functional members of their own colony, perhaps they were the inspiration for The Borg of Star Trek infamy.  I know of no other group of animals, other than ants, that can do this.

Odd fact: almost all of the raids carried out by Polyergus ants occur between 3 and 6pm. 

Other specimens from the particular collection, of which, one member is shown here, are now in Missouri where Dr. James Trager is examining their DNA in an effort to revise the classification of Polyergus ants.

Photo credit: me

My Vote for Best Homepage

Click on the image above.

My Vote for best homepage, other than An Unreliable Fingerpost, is the Astronomy Picture of the Day. Each day of the week, including weekends, they add a new picture of astronomical or atmospherical interest. The pictures also come with a short explanation of what is being shown.

Images of deep space are some of my favorites. If you take a close look you can see tiny galaxies in the background, millions or billions of light years away. It is fascinating to contemplate what might exist in those galaxies.

Shown here is a non-descript galaxy known only as NGC 4921 (approx. 320 million light years away). What might be happening in any of the hundreds of millions of solar systems within it?
Click on the image above and gaze at the countless tiny galaxies, even further away, in the background.

If you were holding a grain of rice at arms length while looking at the night sky, this image would represent a portion of the sky much, much, smaller.

An Anniversary

Today, February 17, the mayor of Rome will lay flowers at the feet of the statue of Giordano Bruno in the marketplace of Campo de' Fiori. It is a symbolic gesture of independence from the Vatican, the institution that burned Giordana at the stake on this day in 1600.

Bruno was a philosopher and former Dominican priest. He travelled throughout Europe in the late 1500s, managing to antagonize both Protestant and Catholic officials wherever he went with his annoying habit of open inquiry. He was arrested by the Inquisition in Venice (mostly for deciding to leave the home of a patron who collected intellectuals in a manner analogous to stamps) and then turned over to Roman authorities.

Amoung his heresies was the belief in the existence of other worlds.

Ingrid Rowland has just published a new book on the life of Giordano. While some parts dive into the minutia of philosophy, it is a book that can be read more broadly than just by philosophers. I have a copy if anyone on campus would like to look at it.

Also today, Bill Maher, releases his movie 'Religulous' as a DVD. Religulous, is a scathing attack on organized religion (full disclosure: I haven't seen it).

Is the release date a coincidence?

Photo credit: Me

A Unique Approach

What is remarkable about this landscape photograph, is that the landscape is in an aquarium and the landscape atmosphere is created by carefully adding colored pigments to the water.

The artist is Kim Keever.  For more of these landscapes go to:

http://www.ktfineart.com/artists/kim_keever/?show=home

Hat Tip: Daily Dish

Crime and Punishment

Ohtshuki and others (in the Jan 1, 2009 edition of Nature), attempt to determine how effective punishment is in achieving a stable and cooperative society through mathematical modelling.

Their results: punishment is seldom effective in achieving this goal.  

That doesn't mean, however,  that people with poor reputations get away with bad behaviour. The most stable behavioural models, in most conditions, arose when people cooperated with those with good reputations and simply chose not to interact with those with a bad reputation. 

This strategy broke down if the public was unable to determine who should have a good or bad reputation.  Thus, evolution has equipped most people with fairly good radar in this regard.

Photo credit:WPClipart.com

The Evening Sky

For those that have been noticing the bright star in the western sky at sunset, it is Venus.  As its orbit is much closer to the sun than ours, it is only ever visible near sunset or sunrise.  Right now it seems high in the sky around 6pm but has almost set by 9.

Because of its close proximity to both the Sun and Earth, it is a very bright object, often mistaken for a UFO by drivers getting a fleeting glimpse when it is near the horizon.

The photo shows the current night sky at 6pm, looking just south of west from Williams Lake.

Photo credit: Sky and Telescope-Interactive sky chart

University Grading

Macleans Magazine has recently reported on the case of a University of Ottawa professor who was suspended for giving all of his students an A+.  

Grading is near and dear to the hearts of all students and probably the one aspect of teaching that virtually all university instructors dislike the most.  Years ago, while attending an academic conference one professor framed the role of universities to me as, "Universities are not about teaching, they are about accrediting."  

Is this true?  As I often say in class, "Sort of."

Accreditation (i.e., the formal evaluation of a student to assess their grasp of discipline specific standards or of an institution to ascertain this) is absolutely vital in a modern economy.  It ensures that students are ready, or at least almost ready, to handle complex tasks when they enter the workforce.  

But, what about teaching, or more appropriately, facilitating learning?

Of this, I have almost no idea, however, I feel some comfort in that no one else really does either.

Perhaps a topic for another post.