Environment

BP's Tried And Tested Failures If you have a problem which has been attacked before, you don't try failed methods again unless your name is Homer Simpson - or you are too young to remember the event. The methods tried by BP in the Gulf of Mexico have been tried before.  They have failed before.  In the Gulf of Mexico.  At 18,000 feet, the same depth as the Deepwater Horizon well. Why does it take Rachel_Maddow - see video below -  to explain that bit of engineering history to BP?  I think I have a reasonable answer to that.  It has to do with the age distribution…

MODIS Rapidfire For Citizen Scientists - #2This is part #2 of a brief explanation of the NASA/GSFC MODIS Rapid Response System - Rapidfire - together with a Howto for citizen scientists.  The first part was - MODIS Rapidfire For Citizen Scientists - #1 A note on bookmarks May I suggest that you bookmark only the Rapidfire home page.  Using the home page menu will always take you to the current image set for the day.  Also, the Rapidfire front page gives easy access to all current data, so that a single link saves you having too many bookmarks to juggle. Rapidfire home page…

No hindu house in a village will be without a plant of Tulsi Ocimum sanctum . Surprising other religious groups in India also had their sacred plants. I had this plant in my house in the hedge and surprisingly I never had the swine flue or any flue for the last 20 years. What is the correlation. The plant has strong insect repellent . It is also known as protector against radiation damage. Devotees in temples get some holy water which is stored in container made or copper. The container of the copper is said to have germicidal properties. Remember famous Bordeaux mixtrue which was developed…

MODIS Rapidfire For Citizen Scientists - #1A brief explanation of the NASA/GSFC MODIS Rapid Response System - Rapidfire - together with a Howto for citizen scientists. National Aeronautics and Space Administration / Goddard Space Flight Center Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer is a bit of a mouthful, so I'll just refer to it as Rapidfire from here on, if you don't mind. The MODIS Rapid Response System was developed to provide daily satellite images of the Earth's landmasses in near real time.  True-color, photo-like imagery and false-color imagery are available within a few…

Arctic Summer 2010 - Hot Or Not? Will it get very warm in the Arctic this summer? It is already so warm in many parts of the Arctic that floes which would normally obstruct the free flow of ice for weeks or months are now surviving only days before breaking up.  That is abnormal.  The long term trend in summer peak temperatures shows little rise.  That is because most of the rise has occurred outside of the summer season. Before moving on, I have to give credit to Neven for the astute observation about summer temperatures. Neven has correctly identified that most of the…

Three  of the trees are worshipped as such like peepal( Ficus religiosa)  and bargad( Ficus bengalensis) and awala ( Phyllanthus emblica) . The first two are huge trees which can provide protection to the entire village as thier lives are unlimited and awala is good for health. However different Gods and Goddesses are worshipped with different plants and they have their specific values. Like goddess Kali is worshipped among others with flowers of Hibiscus  rosa sinensis. and Lord shiva is worshipped with flowers of Calotropis gigantea and Calotropis procera. We have…

Science 2.0 And Deepwater Horizon In this age of rapid communication via the internet we have a golden opportunity to engage in synergy on a global scale to solve problems in science and engineering. Synergy, as I use the term here, is an emergent property of a cooperative human system.  A forum is established in which all legitimate participants have an equal opportunity to submit ideas relating to the solution of a problem. A legitimate participant is any person having a legitimate interest in the outcome of the debate.  By way of example, a person on trial for a crime is a…

BP, GIS and The Mysterious Vanishing Open Letter Subject: BP control of GIS data Regarding the loss of an open letter from the web, from whatever cause. [EDIT]June 15 2010 - 00:23 BST. Important information has come to light which deserves prominence, hence this edit. I can confirm that the letter was written by Andrew Stephens and Devon Humphrey. I have been led to understand that the open letter was taken down because some web sites were reading more into the letter than was clearly stated. The letter has now been replaced with a note:http://thegisinstitute.org/blog/deepwater-horizon/…

Hello, I happen to have a suggestion for graphic artists.  All of the non biodegradable plastic created by nerbs in you usual chain, doesn't exactly sell the products better than older technique.  True bottles and things are necessary for some products like antibacterial soap, however older techiniques like used in food goods that have to breath also work.  Things like wax paper and cloth give designers the opportunity to get off of the computer for a few hours work three dimensionally and may be able to save you from carpal tunnel syndrome, and expand the artists medium…

First, they painted a dramatic black-drop, then they presented their latest statistics on public opinion on climate change. TNS gallup organized a press conference at the IPY Oslo Science Conference on Friday presenting their latest survey findings. TNS asked whether a cold winter (normal and totally perfect by my standards), Climategate and inaccuracies in the IPCC reports had influenced peoples trust in climate change. We've all read plenty of comments on the seeming contradiction between global warming and the ice cold and long winters we experience several places on the planet last season…