Random Thoughts

If you need some science for your Christmas tree, here are a few articles. There are more but how much Christmas science can you read in one day? The Great Debate: Real vs. Artificial Christmas Trees - a good reason to go organic in your choice of trees. Need A Christmas Gift For That Special Left-Leaning Chick?If you need some science for your Christmas tree, here are a few articles. There are more but how much Christmas science can you read in one day? The Great Debate: Real vs. Artificial Christmas Trees - a good reason to go organic in your choice of trees. Need A Christmas Gift For…

  Bali is a word that in 10-15 years I hope will represent and define the time when humanity made an essential shift in direction.  There are currently some 10,000 people attending the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali.  More than 180 countries are represented along with numerous attendees from non-governmental, intergovernmental groups and of course the media.  The general reason for the meeting is to start work on the replacement of the Kyoto accord to address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions which expires in 2012.   The Bali conference is…

The impact that humanity is having on climate change is directly related to the fact that there are so many of us. Add on top of our shear numbers the fact that we treat the planet harshly and it is clear why we are moving toward a global crisis. Consider some facts about the growth of human population. Humans have been on the planet for hundreds of thousands of years. It took until 1804 for our numbers to reach 1 billion. It took another 123 years to reach 2 billion in 1927. It only took another 33 years for us to reach 3 billion in 1960 and 14 years to reach 4 billion in 1974. That means…

  There is no question in my mind but that oil will rise to at least $100 a barrel within the next two years. It is easy to see a scenario of $125 a barrel price in the same time frame. The triple digit price of oil will become the norm. Recently it has been trading in the $80-90 range, and as it approached the upper end of that range the media began again covering the story with “sky is falling” concern about what this might mean for the economy. This reminded me of the comment that James Schlesinger, the first U.S. Secretary of Energy made about the country’s approach to energy:…

  It was 50 years ago this week that the Russians launched Sputnik, the first man made satellite to orbit the earth. It changed the world.  In fact, there are few, if any events of the last 50 years that had such a global impact on just about every aspect of humanity.    I can still remember the night that, as a young boy standing in the front yard with my parents; we looked up at the starry sky waiting for Sputnik.  There it was, a slow man-made star moving across the sky. We listened to its’ beeping on the radio. It filled me with wonder.  I did not see it as…

  I have written here several times about the fact that the U.S. crossed a tipping point in 2006 regarding global warming.  It is now a subject that a majority of Americans have awareness of and are concerned about.  As with most large issues that are complex, it often takes time for the citizens to understand and to then take action.  If it can be made personal or emotional the process is accelerated.  Global warming is no different.   Two or three years ago, when I was discussing global warming, the enormity of the problem and the developing urgency to act, I…

  In a prior column, I have written about the transformative power of the cell phone.  Currently there are more than 2.1 billion cell phone accounts in the world and more than 220 million in the US.  More people have cell phones than have computers or use the Internet.  Globally, there are some 15 to 20 million news cell phone accounts opened up every month.   The cell phone has obviously changed the way we communicate.  We are all available all the time no matter where we are.  Text messaging is a new form of communication that did not exist before the cell…

There are four fundamental forces at work in the universe. Gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. For centuries, science has sought one unifying theory, a single force to explain how and why the universe works. The vacuum effect may be the elusive theory they have been searching for. Basically, the vacuum effect is the regulation of matter's internal empty space by the compression exerted upon matter by the surrounding external empty space. The principle of the vacuum effect is this: External empty space is constantly compressing matter, which…

It is the general consensus among today's scientific community that the universe is expanding. The chief reason for this belief is the perception that the visible galaxies are moving away from us. However, a paradox exists. The galaxies, it seems, are "accelerating" away from us. In a universe this old a rapid "deceleration" should be well underway, with the Milky Way slowly gaining ground (or rather, space) on our cosmological neighbors. Intriguingly, the perception of galaxies accelerating away from us is more indicative of a "collapsing" universe. To visualize this concept, we must…

  Fifteen years ago, when Americans went shopping and came across the  phrase “Made in China” it usually was on small, inexpensive trinkets, toys and souvenirs.  Ten years ago we started to see these words on apparel.  Five years ago we started to see these words seemingly everywhere.  During the last five months, if we saw these words it might have meant the death of our pets, food borne illness or perhaps poisoning. [My favorite editorial cartoon on this subject showed two people holding the same product.  One was saying “A great dessert topping!”  The…