Solar plants are cheaper than fossil fuel plants--will conservative coal huggers please shut up now?? (via @io9.com)

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From the io9 post, a Minnesota judge sums up his findings in why a solar-based plan for energy generation in Minnesota should move forward:

"[T]hese proposals offer competitively-priced energy generation; at firm prices; the fewest new environmental impacts; and significant protections against the imposition of project cancellation costs....[I]t bears mentioning that this procurement represents an important turning point in Minnesota's energy resource planning process. Since 1991, Minnesota has had a statutory preference in favor of renewable energy sources. Yet, that preference is overridden when the nonrenewable source has a lower total cost. Notwithstanding the statutory preference, it seemed that nonrenewable energy sources always won the head-to-head cost comparisons. Not anymore. Geronimo entered this bidding process as the sole renewable technology and beat competing offerors on total life-cycle costs."

The fact that the sun is a giant ball of never ending energy that is hurling insane amounts of said energy at us all day long yet all rich energy companies can do is keep digging in the ground (presumably where they hide their heads) tells us that these rich companies have entirely too much power and our politically leaders are entirely corrupt. The fact that we still need to have this conversation in the 21st century is absurd. The sun is a source of essentially limitless energy. Why the fuck do we still let these asshole oil companies tell us where we'll get our energy from? Wars are fought in the Middle East for oil. Terrorism is used to fight corrupt governments in Africa because of oil. So much death and pain, all for oil. All the sun has ever done is cause some skin cancer. Meanwhile, it's thes ource of all life. But no, lets keep digging for oil.

But why do we keep digging for oil? Simple. Our political leaders let it happen. They take money from corporations to keep the old ways going. Well here is proof that the old ways are the wrong ways. At least, when it comes to energy production.

Read the whole io9 post: http://io9.com/why-solar-power-is-more-cost-effective-than-natural-gas-1497305827

Amazingly, Congress held a hearing back on 12/4/13 on alien life. Yep, they actually spoke with scientists and everything. via io9

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the original post on io9

Honestly, the fact that this happened at all should have been headline news on every news website in the world. In our "Christian" nation, it's a shock when any of our leaders actually give a scientist the time of day, let alone ask them questions. Of course, if you read the original io9 post, you can tell that the politicians really don't have any reasonable knowledge of what the search for alien looks like outside of a science fiction film. But hey, I give them points for trying. Let's hope this wasn't just a flash in the pan and that they ask about aliens again some time.

From October: Newstatesman.com posts about a geophysicist who sees capitalism destabilizing the Earth's human-support systems.

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From the article:

But the bottom line was clear enough: global capitalism has made the depletion of resources so rapid, convenient and barrier-free that “earth-human systems” are becoming dangerously unstable in response. When pressed by a journalist for a clear answer on the “are we f**ked” question, Werner set the jargon aside and replied, “More or less.”

"There was one dynamic in the model, however, that offered some hope. Werner termed it “resistance” – movements of “people or groups of people” who “adopt a certain set of dynamics that does not fit within the capitalist culture”. According to the abstract for his presentation, this includes “environmental direct action, resistance taken from outside the dominant culture, as in protests, blockades and sabotage by indigenous peoples, workers, anarchists and other activist groups”.

Original article: http://goo.gl/yADZPJ

This is some scary stuff and it's essentially my worst nightmare. Back int he early 1990s there was a comic book the predicted the worst possible endgame for capitalism. The comic was called "The Legionaires" and while it was a superhero comic, it took place in the distant future after the Earth had been strip-mined literally beyond the capacity of the Earth's ability to support it. The planet literally collapses and breaks up. Luckily Earth's biggest cities had developed domed cities as defenses against nuclear war and alien invasions, so the comic didn't end in one issue. The point is, it doesn't take a geophysicist to recognize what happens when you let capitalism run amok. The whole idea of "free market capitalism," in the end, denies the laws of physics and, as a result, is ultimately unsustainable.

It's a really shame our corporate and governmental leaders don't read comic books.

So sad: "The Ocean is Broken" theherald.com.au reports on dwindling signs of life in the oceans.

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From the article:

What was missing was the cries of the seabirds which, on all previous similar voyages, had surrounded the boat.

The birds were missing because the fish were missing.

Exactly 10 years before, when Newcastle yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen had sailed exactly the same course from Melbourne to Osaka, all he'd had to do to catch a fish from the ocean between Brisbane and Japan was throw out a baited line.

"There was not one of the 28 days on that portion of the trip when we didn't catch a good-sized fish to cook up and eat with some rice," Macfadyen recalled.

But this time, on that whole long leg of sea journey, the total catch was two.

No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all.

"In years gone by I'd gotten used to all the birds and their noises," he said.

"They'd be following the boat, sometimes resting on the mast before taking off again. You'd see flocks of them wheeling over the surface of the sea in the distance, feeding on pilchards."

But in March and April this year, only silence and desolation surrounded his boat, Funnel Web, as it sped across the surface of a haunted ocean.

Read the rest of "The Ocean is Broken" here: http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/.

This is a very sad read. It actually should be more sad, since they pin the debris in the Pacific to the Japanese tsunami when the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (which was made worse by the Tsunami) has existed in the Pacific since the 90s while evidence of it goes back as far as far as 1988. We've been doing this to our planet for a long time. We're just now catching on, as a people, that it's causing serious damage to sea life.

The saddest part of this article is when they mention the part about how cleaning up the mess would cause more damage to the environment than just leaving all the garbage in the water. This fact alone should be enough to spur the boat industry to develop clean energy powered boats. Instead everyone just sulks about how bad things are. I think we've forgotten how to be inspired.

I think there is still hope, however. We just have to realize that we caused all this change in the world and that means we can change it back--but we have to choose to change it back.

Special thanks to my old friend Zoe for posting about his on Google Plus.

A UCLA study from last year suggests that eating lots of processed foods with fructose makes you stupid. Explains a lot about America today, doesn't it?

Seriously, look around at the America today. Now compare it to the America of the 60s when humanity, itself, was moving forward. We were going to the moon, literally! Now we can barely keep our bridges from crumbling. Here's a quote from a press release about this study at UCLA's website:

"Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think," said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a professor of integrative biology and physiology in the UCLA College of Letters and Science. "Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain's ability to learn and remember information."

So, everyone, please read those ingredients labels and throw away the vast majority of food with fructose or high-fructose corn syrup in it. You'll be smart for doing it and smarter, too.

Sad news. Hopefully, people will think about how much we've benefited from going into space & want to go back.

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High School Girl Makes Massive Cancer Tech Breakthrough while Media Focuses on Santorum (literally and figuratively)

I spotted this story on Engadget back in December (original here: www.engadget.com/2011/12/08/high-school-senior-kills-canc... ) but have intentionally been sitting on it to see if the mainstream news would run with the story or just continue covering the same old Santorum (I'm not just referring to the Republican). Typically, this amazing breakthrough ("the Swiss Army Knife" of cancer treatments) has not become a major story in the news. Cancer kills more people in the US than terrorism kills around the world. I lost a college friend and a grand father to it, I know three people fighting it now, the current statistics say that one-in-three adults in the western world will get cancer. Yet the USG spends hundreds of billions (even trillions) of dollars fighting terrorism while cancer gets infinitely less and the press does nothing but exploit this focus on war and ignores the more realistic threats to American life (along with it's hopefully treatments). Why are America's priorities so screwed up?

Free swag bag contents from #amnhsciam Beyond Planet Earth tweetup event last night. Thanks @amnh & @sciam!

Free swag bag contents from #amnhsciam Beyond Planet Earth tweetup event last night. Thanks @amnh & @sciam!, a photo by thepetecom on Flickr.

Contents included*:

Creatures of Light exhibit at AMNH flyer (opens March 31, 2012) Sounds cool!

Beyond Planet Earth flyer detailing the exhibit we saw last night :) which was a lot of fun!

AMNH Museum Calendar (always useful when planning AMNH visits!)

Beyond Planet Earth Moon Base card with AR symbols on the back for use with the (very cool) "Beyond Planet Earth" Augmented Reality app for iOS (AR is used really well in this exhibit, btw)

Free copy of the February 2012 issue of Scientific American magazine (Nice! I haven't read a magazine in forever! Well, aside from my own (thepete.com/mag) and it's mostly pictures!)

Free copy of "Zagat: Discover the Upper West Side" 2011 restaurant guide (very useful during visits to AMNH!)

Free package of Astronaut Ice Cream! (YESSSSS!)

*Contents did NOT include the little plastic astronauts and spaceships. Those I got for $10 in the gift shop after seeing Beyond Planet Earth.

The #amnhsciam Beyond Planet Earth Tweetup from @amnh and @sciam

via Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/thepete/sets/72157628935412391

Check out more pics by clicking that there Flickr link!

More pics coming tomorrow! (I'm tired!)

At the @amnh tweetup with @sierrarein and a bunch of other smart people.

At the @amnh tweetup with @sierrarein and a bunch of other smart people., a photo by thepetecom on Flickr.

Can't wait to get inside that planetarium!

New Canary Island Grows Reminding Us We're Just Passengers on this Planet

From CoalSpeaker.com:

Amazing video of the new island being created as we blog…

This is amazingly cool. Of course, three jokes come to mind:

1) Get Fox News on the phone! The problem of Global Warming and rising sea levels is solved! The Earth is creating new land for us! Everybody buy SUVs!!

2) A new island in the Canary Islands?!?! QUICK! TEST A NUKE ON IT! (Or am I thinking of the Bikinis?)

3) Watch that video at 1:40 and tell me you weren't surprised no locals were yelling "GODZILLA!!"

But seriously, this is Mother Nature (or geology?) at work and it's totally cool.  Read more about it in another CoalSpeaker post or you can read even more at Telegraph.co.uk (beware the autoplaying video they have!)  While local cats are happy for the freshly cooked fish washing ashore, there have been evacuations due to tremors and to the toxic gases coming up with the fresh ground.  I think they've also closed beaches and the nearest airport.

4) I wonder how long it'll be before there's like eight Starbucks on that island.

Science is Cool: Earth got its oceans delivered.

Holy crap this is cool--from NASA.gov:

Astronomers have found a new cosmic source for the same kind of water that appeared on Earth billions of years ago and created the oceans. The findings may help explain how Earth's surface ended up covered in water.

New measurements from the Herschel Space Observatory show that comet Hartley 2, which comes from the distant Kuiper Belt, contains water with the same chemical signature as Earth's oceans. This remote region of the solar system, some 30 to 50 times as far away as the distance between Earth and the sun, is home to icy, rocky bodies including Pluto, other dwarf planets and innumerable comets.

Science is so damn cool.  So now we think we have an understanding of how our oceans were created.  They were delivered by comets.  We've always understood that this was possible, but seeing a comet with the exact same chemical composition as our oceans is as close to proof as I think we'll ever get.

That makes me wonder if the same impact(s) that likely brought us our oceans also ejected the moon into orbit.  It also makes me think about the potential for more surprises to be delivered by Comet Express.  Who knows what else could end up on our doorstep?  If oceans were delivered once, anything is possible.  Hell, there have been theories for years that life, itself, was deposited here via cosmic-object-impact.

Science is awesome.

Arctic Sea Ice Continues Decline, Hits 2nd-Lowest Level

Arctic Sea Ice Continues Decline, Hits 2nd-Lowest Level, a photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr.

The above pic comes from NASA's Flickr stream. The yellow line is where there's usually ice. The red line is the Northwest Passage. Yes. That's right, the Northwest fucking Passage.

This is some seriously crazy shit here, folks. Hundreds of years ago, Henry Hudson bet his life on finding the Northwest Passage and he lost that bet. Now Global Warming has *created* the Northwest Passage. This is an incredible, scary thing. Our *planet* is literally changing in front of our eyes.

This is not supposed to happen.

The phrase "cosmic scale" exists for a reason--it means that time doesn't really pass for us because we're here for such a short time compared to the rest of the planet and the rest of the universe. When things change this quickly something serious is going on and there could be a lot of ripple effects that we could have a hard time predicting.

Keep watching the skies...

China starts the Second Space Race without US

Found this via UnknownSkywalker:



According to an article at physorg.com, China is beginning work on a space station starting with this first module.  Now, this doesn't mean China will be conquering space before Christmas.  This first module is just for practice. The real station goes up in 3 parts starting in 2020.

Yeah, it seems like a pretty unimpressive start to the Second Space Race, but hey, the First Space Race started with the Russians tossing a 2-foot-diameter mirror ball into orbit in 1958. Consider that the first serious attempt at a space station, Skylab, wasn't until the 70s and Mir didn't go up until the 80s.  So, 8 years to launch the first third of a space station is actually pretty damn fast.

Of course, Americans won't have anything in space in 8 years because we put our economy in front of the advancement of human kind and, apparently, the spread of communism into space.

I swear, if, in 2030, we've got Space Commies to deal with, I'm blaming Obama!!

Download NASA Sound Clips and Ringtones!

Our tax dollars at work! But don't blame NASA. I'm sure they would spend our taxes on going to Mars if the government would give them enough money instead of paying for wars all the time. Meanwhile we can show our love for the space program by using these cool sound clips as ringtones and computer sound FX. We're all nerds, here, right?

Go here:

http://www.nasa.gov/connect/sounds/index.html

HUGE NEWS IF TRUE: Speed of Light Breakable if You're a Neutrino

Kind of huge news, assuming it can be reproduced by other scientists.  What's the huge news? Turns out the speed of light may not be the speed limit of the universe after all.

What happened was that some guys at CERN in Switzerland shot a neutrino beam at a sensor panel 700KM+ away and it got there in less time than it would take light to get there.  They replicated this 16,000 times.

Read more in the article capped above at Nature.com.

I'm reeeeally hoping this is true.

 

 

Hurricane/Tropical Storm #Irene Spews Sediment from Connecticut River

Sediment Spews from Connecticut River, a photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr.

NASA's Flickr page has some amazing photos--not just of space, but of the Earth--including this one showing all of the sediment churned up by hurricane Irene. It's done quite a bit of damage to local ecosystems and was probably something most folks didn't think about happening. I know I didn't.

I wonder how far that damage will end up going. Click through to the Flickr page for a LOT more explanation of the pic and what it could mean for local ecology!

TODAY is Carl Sagan Day: http://www.carlsaganday.com/

Link: TODAY is Carl Sagan Day: http://www.carlsaganday.com/

website666com:

Carl Sagan auto-reblog/RT!!

To celebrate his legacy at the 76th anniversary of his birth (November 9, 1934), and to increase public involvement in the excitement of astronomy and space exploration, a local coalition of science and reason-based organizations announces the SECOND ANNUAL CARL SAGAN DAY, NOV. 6 2010.

Oh and:

Live Streaming beings at 12:00PM Eastern.
Click to join us!

This is the coolest info graphic EVER! From

This is the coolest info graphic EVER! From spacethebeyond:

15 Things You Didn’t Know About Outer Space

I didn’t know: 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, some of the specifics of 11, 12, 13 and 14.

And I *read* and stuff!!

thepete.com is a darkened site in honor of Earth Hour 2009

I've also darkened my Twitter page, too.

Check out EarthHour.org for more info!!

Or go here: http://thepete.com/my-earth-hour-commercial-on-12secondstv

Or watch these:


12seconds Earth Hour Commercial on 12seconds.tv


12seconds Earth Hour Commercial on 12seconds.tv