Congress Can't DO That

I really don't know what to say about this one. Seriously. First of all, I didn't know that this was even possible. Second of all, how come no one is making a bigger deal of this? Just wait. I'm getting there.

I was reading this article over at the NY Times and it started off innocently enough. Here we go: "The Senate on Wednesday rejected efforts to block the Environmental Protection Agency's program to regulate greenhouse gases, defeating four bills that would have limited the agency’s attempts to address global warming." Interesting. I wonder what the House was doing while the Senate was doing that? Well...

"The Senate voted as the House was debating a measure that would also halt the regulations by repealing the agency’s scientific finding that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are endangering human health and the environment. That bill is expected to pass the House on Thursday." Wait. They're what?

How do you REPEAL science?! It's a scientific finding! It's right there in the name! Scientific! It's also right there in the rest of the name. Finding! It's a SCIENTIFIC FINDING! You cannot repeal a scientific finding simply because you're in Congress! My head hurts. I'm done for the day. But just to quickly review: Congress is taking way too many liberties with whatever power they think that they have. Way. Too. Many.

Sphere: Related Content

We're Scientifically Doomed

I came across an article over yonder at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that was titled "Why does U.S. fail in science education?" My question after reading that headline was "Why does the U.S. not only fail in science education, but also in proper grammar?" But I digress. Back to science. I really find the scales that they use to be completely meaningless, as they tend to categorize students as being 'proficient' or not. The problem with that is that in order to qualify as 'proficient' one usually has to get a minimum of around 60%-65% of the material correct. Sixty or sixty-five percent of anything is not proficient. It's barely half. And on most grading scales, it's all but failing. So I like it better when I am provided with how many people could actually answer the questions correctly. But let me be clear. I like the format better, not the results.

And that's what the article over at the Post-Gazette provides us with. They give us the percentage of people who could correctly answer some of the science questions. The results are so dismally low that I really want to know what people answered instead of the correct answers, as the correct answers seem to be pretty easy to noodle through. Let's take a look at some of them.

Fourteen percent of test takers thought that sound travels faster than light. OK, that's a solid 86 percent getting it right. I'm good with that. What I'm less good with is that 33 people disagree with the fact that Earth goes around the sun once a year. What the hell do think happens? Do they think it goes around more than once a year? Less than once a year? Do they think that the sun goes around Earth? There aren't a lot of choices that would make sense. I don't get it.

Here's one of the more appalling ones: 41 percent of people disagree with the statement that astrology is not at all scientific. Almost half. Geez. Just because stars are involved, it does not mean that it is scientific. It's a load of crap. I realize that there are plenty of people out there who really believe in this load of crap. I also realize that there are plenty of people out there who really like this sort of crap. That's all just fine. You can believe in it. You can even like it. But that doesn't change the fact that it is not scientific. No matter how much you like it.

And this one is as troubling as it is mystifying. 49 percent of people think that ordinary tomatoes do not have genes, but genetically modified tomatoes do. This just makes my head hurt to even think about. Where do those dimwits think that the genes to modify the tomatoes come from? The gene store? Even if you don't know squat about genetics specifically, shouldn't you be able to noodle this one through? Apparently not.

Do I take any consolation that, while in 1988 only about 10% of adult Americans were rated to be 'scientifically literate', in 2008 that number had risen to around 28%? No. Not really. 28% percent is abysmal. And who even knows what that means, anyway? We're just doomed, that's all. Simply doomed.

Sphere: Related Content

How Not To Stop An Oil Spill

I'm starting to get a little bit more than just a little nervous about this oil spill/leak/disaster that is going on in the Gulf of Mexico right now. It's been spewing a ridiculous amount of oil (oil that we need, for cryin' out loud!) since April 20th and it doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon. Now, that's not to say that they haven't been trying to stop the leak. They've been trying, uh....stuff to stop the leak. But nothing is making a whole lot of sense to me. I realize that I'm not a scientist (nor do I play one on TV), but their solutions don't seem to involve a whole lot of science.

After realizing that there wasn't just a simple "OFF" switch on this oil well, the first idea that was proposed and implemented in an attempt to save the environment from further damage was to burn the oil off of the water. Let that sink in (pun not really intended) for a minute. We're going to set an oil slick on fire. The flames. The billowing, dark smoke. Did I mention the flames? Yeah. There were flames. Oh, but they're also spraying it with some sort of detergent chemical as well, so maybe that will help cut down on the dark smoke once they've...cleaned...the oil? Something? I don't get it.

So, there was all of the burning and spraying. That hasn't done much other than make a mess from what I can tell. Their next brilliant solution was to build a containment box. According to The Washington Post, the box was "...a 100-ton, 40-foot-tall steel containment dome". They wanted to lower it onto the largest leak (apparently, there's more than one, so that should simplify things a great deal while we're racing against time to save a fragile ecosystem out there), sort of like a hat. Uh, OK....I...I...guess. Again, I'm not a scientist, but that doesn't seem like it would work. It's over a mile down there! How come I can see this outcome coming, but the folks who went ahead with this plan didn't? Whatever the reason, "The dome became clogged with methane hydrates, an ice-like slush created when pressurized gas from the well mixed with cold seawater. The hydrates, which are lighter than water, stuck to the inside of the dome and made it buoyant." I don't even know what all of that means (other than "it floated"), but you'd think that the scientists would have seen it all coming and moved onto their next idea.

But maybe they didn't move on because their next idea isn't much better than the two I've already described. According to The Washington Post next up "...is a small containment dome -- four feet wide, five feet tall and shaped like a barrel cut in half -- that will be lowered over the main leak." Four feet wide? Five feet tall? But...that other one was 40 feet tall and weighed 200,000 pounds! You can go from something that is 40 feet tall to something that is 5 feet tall? Why wouldn't you have just started with the smaller one? That way, if it worked, you could always lower the bigger one on top of it later, right? (Have I mentioned I'm not a scientist?) I don't know, but here's what they're saying about this plan: "The smaller dome will not capture nearly as much seawater as the large dome did....But it might also mean that less of the oil is captured." Really?

You don't say! A dome that is one-eighth the size of the original dome is going to not capture as much seawater, nor as much oil? Fascinating! I did not see that coming! Wait a minute. Yes, I did! Who wouldn't?! Oh, let me guess...the engineers and the scientists? Probably. Geez.

But here's my absolute favorite idea that they're getting ready to try. (For those of you new to the blog here, that's my way of implying that it's probably one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of.) I had to check various sources online to see if this was true because it seemed completely insane and something that I would have thought had been concocted by 14-year old boys. Ready? Remember, I'm not making this crap up. "Engineers will use golf balls and shredded automobile tires in what they call a "junk shot" to try to clog the oil well." Um, what now?

According to a one Kent Wells, the senior vice president of exploration and production for BP, "We'll be pumping pieces of tire. We'll be pumping knots in ropes...There's a little bit of a science in this, even though it sounds odd." What, exactly, IS that "little bit" of a science that you're implementing here? Because it doesn't just sound odd. It sounds freaking weird and useless. You're going to try and throw golf balls in there? And tires? Tell me something, if you can throw all of that stuff in there and get it to stop leaking, what so you just throw a big ol' LID in there and cap the damn thing off?! Golf balls and tires?! Good Lord, man.

I don't get why this relief effort is turning into an episode of The Three Stooges (with or without Shemp, it's your call). They seem a bit clueless when I read things like "Officials were testing some of the 30 pounds of "tar balls" that washed up on Alabama's Dauphin Island to determine whether they came from the spill." Do they usually have "tar balls" washing up onto that island? Oh, no? They don't? Then where in the hell do they think that they came from!? Of course they came from the damn spill! Again, NOT a scientist, but do you really need to be one to figure that out?!

We're doomed. Doomed.

Sphere: Related Content

There's More Where That Came From

If you were a sheep and you were in Australia and you'd been thinking about what would go with those nice plastic trousers you had heard that you were getting, I hate to disappoint you but you're not getting any pants. What? That's right. No pants. No pants for the sheep. The sheep will not wear pants. Now, that's really supposed to be more of a 'rule' and less of an 'announcement', but in this case, semi-sadly, it's an announcement. And it's straight from those Australian scientists who have abandoned plastic plants for sheep in favor of gas masks. Wait. What?

I do believe I'm a bit ahead of myself here. Allow me to retreat just a tad. See, if you believe a whole lot of scientists (and Al Gore) the Earth is gradually getting hotter. The globe, it is a-warmin'. Hence the term "global warming". (Have you seen Al Gore lately? He's undergone a bit of global expansion since his Veep days. He's packing enough insulation these days to keep his globe plenty warm.) Global warming is bad. Scientists (except the mad ones) are good. We're still not sure what Al Gore is. But the point is, the good scientists are trying to figure out what we can do about global warming and how to slow it down or stop it. In order to do so, they first have to look to the sources of what warms the earth. (Sources other than Al Gorge Gore.)

Greenhouse gases (presumedly the gases that turn the earth warmer and make it like a "greenhouse") are bad for the environment. Methane is a greenhouse gas. Methane is bad for the environment. Sheep emit methane from both ends. The question is how much methane do sheep release from their woolly little bodies? That will help determine if there is a particular breed of sheep that emits more methane than other breeds. It will also help determine if a sheep's diet influences their methane production. (See, I don't get that part. The sheep's diet is whatever is in the field. It's field food. They're field food feeders. Isn't grass just grass no matter how you chew it? It would be a lot easier if you knew which sheep were the ones going out for Indian food every other night, wouldn't it? I'm sure that would narrow down the culprits to a conspicuous group.)

Well since methane is a gas, you have to capture it. You can't just put it in your pocket and walk home with it (thank God). It needs a container. What scientists had been doing (because they're so scientific-y and all) it putting plastic plants on the sheep and measuring the exit emissions that way. Turns out however, "that only about 2 per cent of sheep methane emissions came from their rear." That according to a one Professor James Rowe as quoted by our mates down under at news.com.au. So instead they're just going to put a mask over the sheep's face and measure the methane that way (of course they are.) because, according to Professor Rowe, "Putting plastic trousers on sheep is much more difficult than holding a mask there for a minute or so." Yes. I should think so. Actually, putting ANY kind of clothing on a sheep, aside from being just plain wrong, would in fact be quite difficult.

You may or may not remember the poor cows who were having their methane measured and were being forced to sport these fancy tanks for a while there. Behold! Tank Cow!

Well, ain't that sporty? Naturally, after seeing the cow with his butt backpack there, I had visions of the poor sheep looking something like...Behold! My twisted vision of sheep having their methane measured:

(Yes, I know it's frightening. Just try being in my head for a little while. It's not always that pleasant!) But fortunately, the scientists are a little more balanced than I am (there's a sentence I never thought I'd say) and they had a better way of capturing that methane-y sheep breath in a way so that "The animal is not in any distress ... they don't really object to it." I'll be the judge of that...Behold!

Huh. Maybe he's right. That doesn't look too bad. (The sheep has a much better deal than the poor cow did.) It kind of looks like a breathalyzer for sheep. (I wonder if they'll have them walk a straight line when they're done.) The thing is that down in Australia, they have a lot of sheep and they have a lot of kangaroos. Turns out that kangaroos don't emit very much methane at all regardless of diet. Now, some schools of thought down there say that if people would just eat more kangaroo and less sheep, that they could reduce the number of sheep needed and increase the number of kangaroos needed. (I know how they would do one of those, but I'm not sure about the other. Kangaroo orgy, perhaps? I don't even want to think about it. All of those sexed up marsupials...hopping all over the place on top of each other....it would be madness!) The thing is, people don't want to eat kangaroo. The kangaroo meat that is available now? Yeah, most people that buy it feed it to their pets. Oh, yum! That'd be like if George W. told the US, "Less McDonald's, more ALPO!"

But if they can figure out how to cut the sheep's methane emissions, then it's a win-win all the way around. The earth is helped, kangaroo meat doesn't become dinnertime sustenance and the people can eat the sheep again. (Hmmm. OK, I guess it's not win-win for the sheep. They seem to kind of be getting screwed in the end here, but even if that's true, at least there won't be a lot of methane when it's happening!) And that's why the scientists are giving all of the sheep these little methane breathalyzer tests. It's probably a good thing, too. Professor Rowe doesn't seem to think that breeding kangaroos to take the place of sheep is all that feasible of an idea. "Have you tried to muster kangaroos?" he asked. I have not. However, judging from his tone, it wouldn't be a scenario all that far from the one that I described above. Not far all at.

I have no idea how they measure their Flask o' Flatulence when they've collected their sample, nor do I don't know what they do with it when they're done. I can only assume (and really, really hope) that both processes do not take place near an open flame.

Sphere: Related Content

Forecast For Argentina: Wind

Good Lord, where to start this one?

From our brave friends across the pond at the Telegraph.uk, I bring you this headline, the wording of which I had absolutely NOTHING to do with! Ahem.....

Cow farts collected in plastic tank for global warming study

I'm sorry, they f-ing did WHAT?!?

Cow farts collected in pla....

Oh, knock it off! It was a rhetorical question, for cryin' out loud!

Apparently, a cow has a slow digestive system. A really slow digestive system. That makes the cow one of the key producers of methane. Methane is one of your more potent greenhouse gases. You don't hear about it all that often because people are usually too busy harping about carbon dioxide and the carbon footprint. These scientists are getting busy harping about methane and the methane fartprint. (I'm sorry. I couldn't resist.) And they probably should because methane can trap the heat in the atmosphere about 23 times more effectively than carbon dioxide. (But, as I'm sure you are aware, it's much more important, with more complex issues such as the global warming, that the focus be directed squarely in the middle of that which is not of the most importance. I don't know why that is, but I think it has something to do with idiots.)

So it would seem that the cow's slow digestive system causes it to, um, break wind. A lot. And that, in turn, produces a lot of methane. But the scientists want to know what the impact of the methane is on global warming (which may or may not be happening, depending on whom you ask and whether or not you're wearing a parka right now).

In order to determine the effect of the methane, they need to figure out how much methane they're dealing with. In order to do that, they have to figure out a way to capture it so that it can be measured. (If you're still with me after reading that sentence, you'll know what's next. Not really. There's no way you'll see this coming.) They have decided that this would best be accomplished by running a tube from a plastic tank attached to the back of a cow into one of their four stomachs where the methane originates. When the methane is expelled (ie, flatulated), instead of going into the air, it will be captured in the tank for the scientists to later do something very scientific-y to in order to calculate the amount of methane and what to do about it. Behold! A methane producing bovine with a plastic tank strapped to it's back in Argentina:


Ah, geez. Look at him. On behalf of all non-bovine methane emitters, we're sorry.

So far, researchers (I use the term loosely, for cryin' out loud, and they should too) in Argentina have learned that the methane produced by the cows accounted for more than 30 percent of all of the Argentinian greenhouse emissions. If that seems like a lot, it's because it is, especially when you consider that Argentina has approximately 55 million cows grazing about there. (The cows are especially fond of the "famed Pampas grasslands". Note to self: Avoid famed Pampas grasslands when visiting Argentina.)

According to Guillermo Berra, who is a researcher at the NIAT (National Institute of Agricultural Technology), each cow produces between 800 and 1,000 liters of "emissions" every day. (That's a lot of Mexican food.) Guillermo and his cohorts are working in tandem with some folks over at the NCSTI (National Council of Scientific and Technical Investigations), presumedly also in Argentina. The NCSTI guys are trying out new diets for the cows. They're trying to improve their digestion, I guess by speeding it up? It's not really all that clear, and I'm not feeling like I need to ask anyone either.

Silvia Valtorta of the NCSTI, says that if a cow has a diet which consists of clover and alfalfa instead of grain that the "methane emissions are reduced by 25 percent." So instead of emitting between 800 to 1,000 liters of, um, cow-wind per day, they're only going to emit between 600 and 750 liters of, um, cow-wind per day. Doesn't seem like a lot, does it? Ah, well, at least it's something. It had better be at least something if they're going to make the cows look like bovine booster rockets.

Even though there are over 55 million cows in Argentina, they're only strapping the plastic tanks onto about 10 of them. And although that's a really small sample number, it's somewhat comforting to know that only 10 will be sporting the bovine backpack. Oh, and some of those cows are in a corral and their methane is collected in yellow balloons that hang from the roof. Of course it is.

Where, oh where is Gary Larson when we need him?

Sphere: Related Content

I'll Take My Chances With The "T"

I'm sure that the good folks across the pond there at Mail Online are just trying to keep the public informed and to help them out with the plethora of information that they provide. I'm sure that they didn't intend to have their serious article simply amuse me. I'm sure their intentions were in right place. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And irony, apparently.

According to Mail Online, there is a gene that is linked to intelligence that, if you have the "good version" of the gene, can help you live to be 100, but if you have the "rogue version" of the gene, you'll be lucky to see the ripe old age of 85. Without getting overly technical (because that is SO not the point of this post) there are two forms of the gene, the "T" and the "C" version. The gene regulates an enzyme called "something unpronounceable, but acronym-ized to read SSADH." SSADH detoxifies the brain by getting rid of any excess acid, and by protecting cells from damage so that they don't age as quickly. The "T" works 20% less than the "C" and those with the "T" don't do as well on IQ tests. So, you can remember which version is which if you think of the "T" as standing for "Toast", which is what you'll be because you won't live as long as those with the "C", which you can remember by thinking of "Century" because you have a pretty good shot at living that long. (Really, if you just remember "toast", you'll figure out that the other one is the good one.)

OK, so the Mail Online guys apparently needed a photo to go with this article o' information. They needed a photo of someone who could epitomize what they were explaining about the "T" and the "C" versions of this gene and how one can cause you to be more intelligent and to help you live longer. They needed something to show the amazing results and by-products of having the "C" version of this gene. Then someone must have remembered Patrick Moore. He's an astronomer! They're smart! He's eighty-five! He's old! He's smart and he's old, therefore he must have the "C" version of this gene and we should use a picture of him to illustrate how great this will be for all of mankind (who actually get the "C" version, that is. The rest of mankind is screwed.). Behold! The benefits of the "C" version:

Are you kidding me?! THAT is supposed to be encouraging? Or hopeful?! Apparently one of the unmentioned side effects of having the "C" version is the partial loss of torso and the need for a Mr. Peanut-like monocle. (Is his tie really that short?) Look, intelligence is great and longevity is pretty darn good too. But if I have to give up half of my torso and binocular vision, I'll take my chances with the "T".

Sphere: Related Content