WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 12 Mar 2010 Washington, DC

[Sam Wormley]

> WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 12 Mar 2010 Washington, DC
>
> 1. TRIANA: WHERE IS THE DEEP SPACE CLIMATE OBSERVATORY?
> You’ve seen the snapshot of the sunlit face of Earth, taken by Apollo 17
> astronauts on 7 Dec 1972, more than 100 times. It's the “blue marble,” one
> of the most widely distributed photographic images in existence. It always
> moves us, but never changes. Al Gore dreamed of a continuous live image
> transmitted from a solar satellite located at the L1 point between the
> Earth and the Sun. Gore chose to call it Triana after Rodrigo de Triana.,
> the crew member on the Pinta who first sighted the New World. But it has a
> far more important scientific purpose in the climate debate: is Earth's
> climate determined entirely by the Sun, or is there a component of
> anthropogenic warming? Built and paid for, Triana’s launch was delayed
> into the Bush administration by the Challenger disaster. Bush didn’t want
> anything to have Gore's initials on it, so the name was changed to the Deep
> Space Climate Observatory. But Bush didn't like that either, so the
> mission was canceled. But Triana, or DSCOVR, thankfully was not
> destroyed. It was locked up in Guantánamo, or a maybe a warehouse in
> Greenbelt, MD. A year ago Congress voted the money to refurbish DSCOVR,
> but we’ve heard little since. WN finds it’s getting an extreme makeover.
> The opposition to DSCOVR is based on the fact that the L1 is a retro-
> reflection (hotspot) point. And so it is, but DSCOVR will not be exactly
> at the L1 point. It will orbit the L1. In any case it is possible to
> analyze hotspot reflections.
>
> 2. CLIMATE OF FEAR: NATURE CALLS IT A "STREET FIGHT."
> In an editorial this week, Nature acknowledges that "climate research has
> taken a very public battering in recent months," and so it has. A few
> climate scientists ignored the simple rules of such a fight at considerable
> cost. Rule one: never imagine that your e-mail conversation is bound to
> remain private.
>
> 3. CELL PHONES: THE MAINE PROBLEM IS SCIENTIFIC IGNORANCE.
> The use of cell phones has become ubiquitous in modern society. There is
> also a lot of brain cancer. This has led to a lot of people to suggest
> that the two are connected, and the state of Maine is considering
> legislation that would require cell phone manufacturers to print a warning
> on the product. But has the incidence of brain cancer increased at
> anything like the numbers of cell phones. It is a troubling issue for most
> physicists who recognize that cell phones almost certainly can’t cause
> cancer. All known cancer agents act by breaking chemical bonds in DNA,
> creating mutant strands that may multiply to become cancers. Microwave
> photons are orders of magnitude short of being able to break chemical
> bonds. The Federal Communications Commission, the Food and Drug
> Administration and the American Cancer Society recognize this, but for most
> Americans the words “quantum mechanics” are simply an announcement that you
> won't understand what follows. Even a very bright high school student
> probably won't have any idea what you're talking about.
>
> 4. ACUPUNCTURE: MAY IT GO THE WAY OF PRAYER.
> BBC news this week reported that the British Fertility Society warns that
> there is no evidence that acupuncture or Chinese herbal medicine boosts the
> chances of getting pregnant through in vitro fertilization. You will
> recall that just a month ago we reported what we hope was the end to the
> prolonged struggle between courageous California obstetrician Bruce Flamm
> and the claim of fertility clinic owner Qwang Cha that prayer arranged by
> his clinics contributed to success of the procedure. Both cases involved
> beliefs that began in early childhood when the brain was still open to its
> first language.
>
> THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
> Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
> University of Maryland, but they should be.
> ---
> Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org

[Uncle Al]

Sam Wormley wrote:
>
> > WHAT�S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 12 Mar 2010 Washington, DC

[snip]

> > 3. CELL PHONES: THE MAINE PROBLEM IS SCIENTIFIC IGNORANCE.
> > The use of cell phones has become ubiquitous in modern society. There is
> > also a lot of brain cancer. This has led to a lot of people to suggest
> > that the two are connected, and the state of Maine is considering
> > legislation that would require cell phone manufacturers to print a warning
> > on the product.

[snip rest]

1) Japanese teenagers.
2) Decade of intense exposure.
3) Bullshit.

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz4.htm