MGTutoring.com. A Rational Perspective on Education.

August 30, 2011

More Against “Man-made Global Warming”

Filed under: Astronomy,Physics,Science — Administrator @ 1:09 pm

In “CERN: ‘Climate models will need to be substantially revised’, ” Andrew Orlowski  (Science, 25th August 2011 10:42 GMT) writes:

CERN’s 8,000 scientists may not be able to find the hypothetical Higgs boson, but they have made an important contribution to climate physics, prompting climate models to be revised.

The first results from the lab’s CLOUD (“Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets”) experiment published in Nature today confirm that cosmic rays spur the formation of clouds through ion-induced nucleation. …

This has significant implications for climate science because water vapour and clouds play a large role in determining global temperatures. Tiny changes in overall cloud cover can result in relatively large temperature changes.

Unsurprisingly, it’s a politically sensitive topic, as it provides support for a “heliocentric” rather than “anthropogenic” approach to climate change: the sun plays a large role in modulating the quantity of cosmic rays reaching the upper atmosphere of the Earth.
…
When Dr Kirkby first described the theory in 1998, he suggested cosmic rays “will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century.”

© Copyright 1998–2011

August 26, 2011

Bad Nutritional “Science”

Filed under: Biology,Exercise, Health & Nutrition,Logic,Science — Administrator @ 10:38 am

I don’t know if “Fatty foods may cause cocaine-like addiction” (by Sarah Klein, Health.com, March 28, 2010 2:42 p.m. EDT) is incompetent reporting, or incompetent “science,” but it’s fundamentally flawed and incompetent somewhere.

So they feed rats a diet that is not species-appropriate, and the rats develop health problems? Anybody with even slight knowledge of biology, nutrition, and evolution could tell you that.  I wonder what the actual diets were. I’d like to see that. Or is this stuff, “bacon, sausage, cheesecake, frosting, and other fattening, high-calorie foods,” appropriate and typical for rats? I cannot imagine that they evolved on that stuff. Have they had time to evolve to adjust to such foods?

Bacon is very different chemically from cheesecake and junk food. So is sausage. So why are they classified together? The body would respond to these things differently.

What’s more, they conflate “containing fat” with “causing fat.” And they draw conclusions about fat consumption based on feeding fat along with sugars and other crud. It’s impossible to tease out causes the way this study was done, or at least according to how it was reported. If A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, create a certain effect, how does one know A was the cause? Or B?

It would be interesting to see the actual study report. Was this bad “science” or bad reporting?

No wonder American health is bad and getting worse!!

August 24, 2011

Joe Camp: A Quote

Filed under: Quotes — Administrator @ 12:52 pm

“This man [Monty Roberts] is responsible for us [Joe and Kathleen Camp] beginning our relationship with horses as it should begin, and propelling us onto a journey of discovery into a truly enigmatic world. A world that has reminded me that you cannot, in fact, tell a book by its cover; that no “expert” should ever be beyond question just because somebody somewhere has given him or her such a label. That everybody and everything is up for study. That logic and good sense still provide the most reasonable answers, and still, given exposure, will prevail.”

– Joe Camp, p.11, The Soul of a Horse

August 23, 2011

Winston Churchill: A Quote

Filed under: Quotes,SAT, ACT, ETC. — Administrator @ 12:14 pm

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never–in nothing, great or small, large or petty–never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

– Winston Churchill

Quote from Ron Kurtus’ School of Champions.  HT: Ari A

Ron Kurtus’ School of Champions says about the speech that this quote is from “Study of Winston Churchill’s famous ‘Never give in’ speech of 1941 to the students at Harrow School, as a lesson in speech writing, public speaking, and history.” Then they provide  questions to think about and some discussion of writing, speaking, and history. Check it out!

August 19, 2011

Sugar is Bad?

Filed under: Biology,Child Development,Exercise, Health & Nutrition,Parenting,Science — Administrator @ 12:18 pm

Gary Taubes writes in “Is Sugar Toxic?:”

On May 26, 2009, Robert Lustig gave a lecture called “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” which was posted on YouTube the following July. Since then, it has been viewed well over 800,000 times, gaining new viewers at a rate of about 50,000 per month, fairly remarkable numbers for a 90-minute discussion of the nuances of fructose biochemistry and human physiology.

Lustig is a specialist on pediatric hormone disorders and the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, which is one of the best medical schools in the country. He published his first paper on childhood obesity a dozen years ago, and he has been treating patients and doing research on the disorder ever since.
…
If Lustig is right, then our excessive consumption of sugar is the primary reason that the numbers of obese and diabetic Americans have skyrocketed in the past 30 years. But his argument implies more than that. If Lustig is right, it would mean that sugar is also the likely dietary cause of several other chronic ailments widely considered to be diseases of Western lifestyles — heart disease, hypertension and many common cancers among them.

© 2011 The New York Times Company

Read the rest. Interesting article, food for thought — and action. And, like Dr. Emily Deans says in “Do Carbs Make You Crazy?:”

What have I learned from Gary Taubes and Peter and Kurt?  Don’t believe anyone.  Look it up your own self, and see if it makes sense in the context of physiology and evolution.

August 18, 2011

Vision Correction

Filed under: Exercise, Health & Nutrition — Administrator @ 10:08 am

Dr. Abraham Zlatin does CRT, which reshapes the cornea while you sleep. No cutting up the eye as with laser surgery. Sounds interesting.   I’ve thought of having Lasik, but I don’t like the idea of lasers messing with my eyes. It would be nice to be able to get around without contacts, though!  A video on YouTube shows the idea.

Wikipedia has an article about Orthokeratology.

Another non-surgical vision correction method is Ortho-C.

August 17, 2011

DNA Components From Space

Filed under: Animals,Biology,Science — Administrator @ 1:01 pm

In “NASA: DNA Found on Meteorites Indicates Life May Have Originated in Space” (The International Business Times, August 9, 2011 12:51 PM EDT), they say:

Researchers from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greebelt, Md., report evidence that ready-made DNA parts could have crashed to the surface on objects like meteorites, and then assembled under Earth’s early conditions to create the first DNA.

The discovery was made using samples from 12 carbon-rich meteorites, nine of them from Antarctica. The team extracted small fragments of the meteorite and ran them through a process to determine their structure. What they found was adenine and guanine. These are two of the nucleobases needed to make the rungs of DNA’s spiral ladder (in addition to thymine and cytosine, which were not present in the sample).

© Copyright 2011 The International Business Times Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The Department of Chemistry at Duke University discusses some of the past experiments, like the Miller-Urey experiment, that have been done regarding producing amino acids from simple compoungs:

In 1953, Stanley L. Miller and Harold C. Urey, working at the University of Chicago, conducted an experiment which would change the approach of scientific investigation into the origin of life.

Miller took molecules which were believed to represent the major components of the early Earth’s atmosphere and put them into a closed system.

The gases they used were methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), hydrogen (H2), and water (H2O). Next, he ran a continuous electric current through the system, to simulate lightning storms believed to be common on the early earth. Analysis of the experiment was done by chromotography. At the end of one week, Miller observed that as much as 10-15% of the carbon was now in the form of organic compounds. Two percent of the carbon had formed some of the amino acids which are used to make proteins. Perhaps most importantly, Miller’s experiment showed that organic compounds such as amino acids, which are essential to cellular life, could be made easily under the conditions that scientists believed to be present on the early earth. This enormous finding inspired a multitude of further experiments.

(more…)

August 16, 2011

Sea Eagle Cam

Filed under: Animals — Administrator @ 1:33 pm

Down under, in Sydney, Australia, both sea eaglets are born!! The Birds Australia Discovery Centre says:

Recent Events

15/08/11 SECOND HATCH: The second eaglet (S2) hatched on Monday 15th August at 1:45pm local time Australia (we are UTC+10 hours) after pipping at 9:45am.

14/08/11 FIRST HATCH: Pop the Champagne! The first eaglet (S1) hatched on Sunday 14th August at 8:55am local time Australia after pipping at 3:00pm on the 13th.

07/07/11 SECOND EGG: The second egg was laid on Thursday 7th July at 6:00pm local time Australia. Mum is staying very close to the eggs. The temperature was down to about 4C (39F) this morning.

04/07/11 FIRST EGG: Start the fireworks!!! At approximately 5:40pm on Monday 4th July the first egg was laid. The female had been sat in the nest since 5:15pm. She stood up a few times where we could see that, initially, the nest was empty. She then stood up at 5:40pm and there it was! Keep a close eye on what happens during the night as nobody has ever observed WBSEs on the nest at night before!
Some Basic Information On The Sea-Eagles & Sea-EagleCAM

Sea-EagleCAM has set up a high definition video camera monitoring the local White-bellied Sea-Eagles’ nest, 15 metres (50 feet) above the ground, in a eucalyptus tree within a protected nature reserve of Sydney Olympic Park, Australia (see Channel 7 News Story from August 2010). The video is fed back to the Birds Australia Discovery Centre at Olympic Park via an optical fibre cable giving a high definition video display to visitors as well as the video stream to Ustream.

August 15, 2011

Soy

Filed under: Biology,Child Development,Exercise, Health & Nutrition,Parenting — Administrator @ 10:53 am

The Weston-Price Foundation lists some of the problems with soy:

  • High levels of phytic acid in soy reduce assimilation of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc. Phytic acid in soy is not neutralized by ordinary preparation methods such as soaking, sprouting and long, slow cooking. High phytate diets have caused growth problems in children.
  • Trypsin inhibitors in soy interfere with protein digestion and may cause pancreatic disorders. In test animals soy containing trypsin inhibitors caused stunted growth.
  • Soy phytoestrogens disrupt endocrine function and have the potential to cause infertility and to promote breast cancer in adult women.
  • Soy phytoestrogens are potent antithyroid agents that cause hypothyroidism and may cause thyroid cancer. In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked to autoimmune thyroid disease.

…

  • Soy foods contain high levels of aluminum which is toxic to the nervous system and the kidneys.

© 2011 The Weston A. Price Foundation

 

August 12, 2011

Texas Weather Again

Filed under: Uncategorized — Administrator @ 12:19 pm

Way back in May, in “Texas Drought 2011: State Endures Driest 7-Month Span On Record” (The Huffington Post, 05/ 9/11 07:00 PM ET), Betsy Blaney said:

That the drought is looming over the Southwest while floodwaters rise in the Midwest and South reflects a classic signature of the La Nina weather oscillation, a cooling of the central Pacific Ocean.

This year’s La Nina is the sixth-strongest in records dating back to 1949.
…
Houston has received only 1.5 inches in the last three months – just 15 percent of its normal amount and less than some parts of the Sahara desert get during the same period of time.

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