Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Diesels greener than electric cars, says Swiss gov report

From The Register, UK:

Get a TDi estate not an EV, and save the planet! By Lewis Page, 8/31/10

        Swiss boffins have mounted an investigation into the largely unknown environmental burdens of electric cars using lithium-ion batteries, and say that the manufacturing and disposal of batteries presents no insurmountable barriers to electric motoring. However, their analysis reveals that modern diesel cars are actually better for the environment than battery ones.
        The revelations come in a new report [1] issued by Swiss government research lab EMPA, titled Contribution of Li-Ion Batteries to the Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles. The Swiss boffins, having done some major research into the environmental burdens of making and disposing of li-ion batteries - to add to the established bodies of work on existing cars - say that battery manufacture and disposal aren't that big a deal. However, in today's world, with electricity often made by burning coal or gas, a battery car is still a noticeable eco burden:
        The main finding of this study is that the impact of a Li-ion battery used in [a battery-powered car] for transport service is relatively small. In contrast, it is the operation phase that remains the dominant contributor to the environmental burden caused by transport service as long as the electricity for the [battery car] is not produced by renewable hydropower ...

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Warmist catfight: Revkin "making sh*t up" & should "shut the f*** up"

Wow- perennial alarmist Andrew Revkin of the New York Times Dot Earth blog seems to have touched a nerve amongst fellow warmists with his latest entry, On Harvard Misconduct, Climate Research and Trust. Revkin, attempting to be a bona fide journalist states,
"Do I trust climate science? As a living body of intellectual inquiry exploring profoundly complex questions, yes.
Do I trust all climate scientists, research institutions, funding sources, journals and others involved in this arena to convey the full context of findings and to avoid sometimes stepping beyond the data? I wouldn’t be a journalist if I answered yes."
After posting, Revkin promptly bolted to "camping over the next few days, so comment moderation will be very sporadic," but while he is away a catfight* has erupted amongst fellow warmists accusing Revkin of "making sh*t up," "ignorance," being "appalling," "pontificating" "nonsense" he "reads on the internet," etc. Here is some of the vitriol, courtesy of Tenney Naumer and computer programmer Steve Easterbrook [comments in italics added by me]:
Steve Easterbrook has his say on Andrew Revkin's latest attempt to join Judith Curry in her tribe of professional self-immolationists [note 'immolationists' is not an English word according to dictionary.com; immolation is defined as 'to sacrifice' and self-immolation as suicide for 'an extreme form of protest']
When did ignorance become a badge of honour for journalists? by Steve Easterbrook, Serendipity, August 28, 2010

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Paper: More ways the Sun influences Climate

adapted from the NIPPC Report

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Paper: Many climate science papers misuse statistics

A paper published today in the Journal of Climate finds that "a large fraction" of papers in the climate science literature misuse tests of statistical significance. While the author did not examine any of the repeatedly debunked tests of statistical significance in the hockey stick literature of Michael Mann & coauthors, he
"tested a recent, randomly selected issue of The Journal of Climate for at least one such misuse of significance tests in each article. The Journal of Climate was not selected because it is prone to include such errors but because it can safely be considered to be one of the top journals in climate science. In that particular issue we observed a misuse of significance tests in 14 out of 19 articles. A randomly selected issue of ten years before showed such misuse of significance tests in 7 out of 13 articles. These two samples perhaps would not pass a traditional significance test, but they do indicate that such errors occur in the best journals with the most careful writing and editing. Indeed, in one of this author’s papers such erroneous use occurred."
So, 74% of the articles in a recent issue of a top climate science journal misused tests of statistical significance, compared to only 54% of articles in an issue from 10 years before. Thus, one might surmise that there is a trend of unprecedented, record high misuse of statistics in the field of climate science. As stated by Edward Wegman, PhD in mathematical statistics,
"As statisticians, we were struck by the isolation of communities such as the paleoclimate community that rely heavily on statistical methods, yet do not seem to be interacting with the mainstream statistical community. The public policy implications of this debate are financially staggering and yet no apparently independent statistical expertise was sought or used."
And also well stated by the Clive Crook article in Atlantic Monthly,
Wikipedia: "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments...

Significance Tests in Climate Science
Maarten H. P. Ambaum, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, United Kingdom

Abstract: A large fraction of papers in the climate literature includes erroneous uses of significance tests. A Bayesian analysis is presented to highlight the meaning of significance tests and why typical misuse occurs. The significance statistic is not a quantitative measure of how confident we can be of the ‘reality’ of a given result. It is concluded that a significance test very rarely provides useful quantitative information.

See also the article today published in of all places Mother Jones illustrating more flagrant misuses of statistics in the field of climate science.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Wind Power Won't Cool Down the Planet

Often enough it leads to higher carbon emissions.

Paper: Strong Association of Sun with Climate Change

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Global Temperatures 1-2°C higher 6000 years ago

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Paper: AGW not responsible for economic losses from disasters

Have disaster losses increased due to anthropogenic climate change?

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Why Greenhouse Gases Won't Heat the Oceans

        Climate scientist Roger Pielke, Sr has noted that land surface temperature records (which comprise the vast majority of temperature records prior to the satellite era (1979-)) are unreliable due to land use changes and urban heat island effects, and that we should therefore look to ocean heat content changes as the most reliable metric for assessing global heating and cooling. The oceans cover 71% of the global surface area and hold at least 1000 times more heat than the atmosphere. Many have claimed that the 'missing heat' from 'anthropogenic global warming' has gone into the oceans, even though the heat seems to be 'missing' from the oceans as well. Recent data from the ARGO network of ~3200 floating robot sensors has shown that since full deployment of the system in ~2003, the ocean heat content has declined despite steadily rising 'greenhouse' CO2 levels:
From Loehle 2009: Cooling of the global ocean since 2003
How could this be? Here are the physical reasons why increasing concentrations of 'greenhouse gases' would not be expected to increase ocean heat content:

1. Infrared radiation from 'greenhouse gases' causes evaporative cooling of the oceans rather than heating
LWIR wavelength is ~8-14 microns
        CO2 and other 'greenhouse gases' re-emit radiation to the Earth and space in the long-wave infrared (LWIR) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. While ultraviolet and visible radiation from the Sun does penetrate the surface of the oceans to cause heating, the energy output of the Sun is relatively stable and obviously not linked to man. However, since the LWIR re-radiation from increasing 'greenhouse gases' is only capable of penetrating a minuscule few microns (millionths of a meter) past the surface and no further, it could therefore only cause evaporation (and thus cooling) of the surface 'skin' of the oceans. Stephen Wilde, LLB (Hons.), Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society explains this in detail, excerpted below:
"However the effect of downwelling infrared is always to use up all the infrared in increasing the temperature of the ocean surface molecules whilst leaving nothing in reserve to provide the extra energy required (the latent heat of evaporation) when the change of state occurs from water to vapour. That extra energy requirement is taken from the medium (water or air) in which it is most readily available. If the water is warmer then most will come from the water. If the air is warmer then most will come from the air. However over the Earth as a whole the water is nearly always warmer than the air (due to solar input) so inevitably the average global energy flow is from oceans to air via that latent heat of evaporation in the air and the energy needed is taken from the water. This leads to a thin (1mm deep) layer of cooler water over the oceans worldwide and below the evaporative region that is some 0.3C cooler than the ocean bulk below."
The recent paper by Roy Clark, PhD also discusses the physics and concludes, "Application of Beer’s law to the propagation of solar and LWIR [long-wave infrared] flux through the ocean clearly shows that only the solar radiation can penetrate below the ocean surface and heat subsurface ocean layers. It is impossible for a 1.7 W.m−2 increase [predicted by the IPCC due to man-made greenhouse gases] in downward ‘clear sky’ atmospheric LWIR flux to heat the oceans." (p. 196). Increasing levels of IR-active 'greenhouse gases' would instead be expected to cause increased evaporative surface cooling of the oceans. N.B. there is also a negative feedback phenomenon on CO2 levels discussed in a paper published in Nature which shows that the evaporative cooling of the ocean 'skin' from increased downwelling IR allows increased uptake of CO2 due to increased solubility of CO2 at lower temperatures.

2. Even if 'greenhouse gases' were capable of heating the oceans, the ocean heat capacity is so immense that there would be no significant change in ocean temperature
        The huge mass and heat capacity of the oceans regulates and stabilizes global temperatures to a far greater degree than any possible influence from mankind.
        The immense heat capacity of the oceans can be illustrated by assuming the oceans could be heated one-way by all solar energy absorbed by the Earth, and assuming no cooling due to convection, evaporation, or radiation. The oceans hold 1.3 billion cubic km of water. Assuming the density is 1 kg per liter, the mass of the oceans is 1.3 billion billion kg or 1.3 yotta grams. The total solar power absorbed by the Earth in one year is 89 peta Watts (PW):
        For a thought experiment, assume all 89 PW are taken up by the oceans and that the oceans don't release any of that heat. That would add 0.67 yotta calories to the 1.3 yotta grams, resulting in an increase in the ocean temperature of only 0.5C after an entire year.
        Now, let's also assume that the IPCC is correct that 'greenhouse gases' are causing 1.7 W/m2 'radiative forcing,' and that it is possible for this IR 'back-radiation' to penetrate and heat the ocean (even though we've already shown that is impossible above). The 1.7 W/m2 works out to 850 Tera watts (TW) [or .85 PW] when multiplied by the total Earth surface area of 500 tera square meters. Thus, the IPCC claims that 'greenhouse gases' are preventing .85 PW of energy from leaving the atmosphere to space. This .85 PW is less than the 89 PW from the Sun by a factor of 105 times. Plugging this into our thought experiment above shows that the change in ocean temperature from 'greenhouse forcing' would be 0.5C/105 or .005C in one year or only 0.5C after 105 years, assuming the oceans release none of this added heat!  In reality, of course, the oceans would release all or most of this added heat by convection, evaporation, or radiation, leaving at most only a few hundredths of a degree temperature change after 105 years. Thus, it is impossible for 'greenhouse forcing' to raise ocean heat content to any measurable degree, or cause melting of the icecaps from below, or increase sea levels from thermal expansion.

3. The Second Law of Thermodynamics requires heat to flow one-way from hot to cold.
        Since the atmosphere is colder (average radiating temperature of ~ -10 C) than the ocean surface (~ 17 C), the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that heat can only be transferred one-way from the ocean surface to the atmosphere, not the other way around.

1. The latest Chilingar et al paper also discusses heat capacity of the atmosphere, which should decrease due to added CO2: "saturation of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, with all other conditions being equal, results not in an increase but in a decrease of the greenhouse effect and average temperature within the entire layer of planet’s troposphere. This happens despite intense absorption of the heat of radiation by CO2. The physical explanation of this phenomenon is clear: molecular weight of carbon dioxide is 1.5 times higher and its heat-absorbing capacity is 1.2 times lower than those of the Earth’s air. As a result, the adiabatic exponent for a carbon dioxide atmosphere, at the same all other conditions, is about 1.34 times lower than that for a nitrogen–oxygen humid air"
2. Another empirical analysis which finds increased CO2 leads to increased cooling
3. Sea surface temperatures have been on a long-term decline since the Medieval Warming Period (~1000 years ago),  Roman Warming Period (~2100 years ago), and Egyptian Warming Period (~3100 years ago):
4. NOAA says the oceans are the drivers of global temperature, not the land surface.
5. Dr. Pielke asks whether James Hansen's GISS model should be rejected as unskillful.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Energy & Environment full special issue available

The British journal Energy & Environment is currently publishing a special issue focusing on paradigms in climate research. The German EIKE site is now hosting a pdf of the entire issue.

Some of these papers have already been the subject of posts here, such as those by Miskolczi, Clark, and Rorsch, and there are several additional papers of interest. The Guest Editorial by Rorsch introduces some of the papers in the special issue:
          The first paper by R. Clark presents the arguments that a further increase of CO2 in the atmosphere may not lead to an enhanced greenhouse effect. Especially the processes of radiation transfer in the atmosphere and the mass- and heat transfer at the surface are being reconsidered. The next paper by W. Eschenbach deals with thermostat hypothesis, that is the regulatory function of weather events.
          N. van Andel then further quantifies the effect of wind speed on mass transfer by water vapour and heat transfer by evaporation. In the fourth paper W. Kininmonth notes that current computer models of the climate system appear to underestimate the rate of increase of surface evaporation (and latent heat exchange) with temperature – leading to a gross exaggeration of the surface temperature response to radiative forcing. D. Thoenes then deals with the stabilising effect of the oceans on climate, a topic of major importance based on calculations supported by experience with salt evaporation pools on Bonaire. P. Siegmund comments briefly on the papers by Thoenes and in N. van Andel’s paper this issue is also considered.

          The paper by F. Miskolczi explores basic physics and could be subtitled “A new interpretation of weather balloon observations”. It leads the author to deduce new relationships between the energy fluxes in and out of the atmosphere, which has become known as the ‘Miskolczi theory’. W. Gilbert explores the relationship between surface temperature and water vapour concentration and augments the Miskolczi paper with respect to the thermodynamic forces driving the hydrological cycle. The title of the last paper by van Andel expands on the consequences of the Miskolczi Theory.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Is the 'Greenhouse Effect' based on a 'cool' Sun?

        Most descriptions of the 'greenhouse effect' are similar to that offered by Wikipedia: "If an ideal thermally conductive blackbody was the same distance from the Sun as the Earth, it would have an expected blackbody temperature of 5.3°C. However, since the Earth reflects about 30%... of the incoming sunlight, the planet's actual blackbody temperature is about -18 or -19°C, about 33°C below the actual surface temperature of about 14 °C or 15 °C. The mechanism that produces this difference between the actual temperature and the blackbody temperature is due to the atmosphere and is known as the greenhouse effect."
        This calculation is based upon the Stefan-Boltzmann law, radius of the Sun and Earth, distance between the Sun and Earth, and albedo (reflection, mostly from clouds), from which the following equation is derived:
Te = Temperature of the Earth surface
Ts = Temperature of the Sun surface
Rs = Radius of the Sun = 6.96x10^8 m
a   = Albedo (reflection of incoming solar radiation mostly from clouds) = 0.306
E  = IR emissivity of the Earth (assumed to be ~1)
D  = the Astronomical Unit = distance between the Sun and Earth = 1.496x10^11 m
        If we plug in the value for the temperature of the Sun (5778°K) used by the Wikipedia article, we find that the temperature of the Earth without an atmosphere (setting albedo to 0) should be 278.68°K (5.53°C). This is very close to the 5.3°C ideal blackbody temperature as stated above. If we then set albedo to the commonly used value of 0.306 for Earth with an atmosphere, we find the Te calculation drops to -18.8°C. The 'greenhouse effect' is then calculated from the globally 'averaged' earth surface temperature of 15°C - -18.8 = 33.8°C. Note also the G&T paper has shown that it is not possible to calculate an 'average' Earth surface temperature (p.70-71), which also renders the 'greenhouse effect' calculation moot. In addition, all of these calculations are based on the incorrect assumption that the Earth, atmosphere, and Sun can each behave as ideal blackbodies.
       The value for Sun surface temperature used in these calculations (5778°K or 5505°C) is a low estimate and thus biases the calculation to show an enhanced 'greenhouse effect.' The reason why is shown in the graph below of the observed distribution of solar radiation reaching the top of the atmosphere as a function of wavelength (solid black line).
Ts based on wavelength at Max Intensity
We see that the wavelength at maximum intensity is in the visible spectrum at about .475 microns or 475 nanometers, which is what the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 82nd Edition, CRC Press, 2001 also shows as the maximum 'Solar Spectral Irradiance.' The Wein displacement law can then be used to calculate the Sun surface temperature based upon the maximum irradiance wavelength, resulting in a Sun surface temperature of 6101°K (5828°C). Another source gives an even higher figure, "The Sun's outer visible layer is called the photosphere and has a temperature of 6000°C," which is equivalent to 6273°K.
        If we had used the Sun surface temperature of 5778°K assumed by the Wikipedia article, we would find that the Sun emitted more energy than an ideal blackbody throughout the visible spectrum, which is impossible:
Solar flux exceeds blackbody Wikipedia Ts
        If we now use the Sun surface temperature calculated from Wein's displacement law as the input to the equation above, we find the Earth surface temperature without an atmosphere should be 294.26°K or 21.11°C. Since the 'average' Earth surface temperature is commonly cited as 15°C, that means the Earth with a 'greenhouse gas' atmosphere along with the additional factors of convection, evapo-transpiration, and adiabatic effects is colder than an Earth without!
see also the peer-reviewed Chilingar et al paper Cooling of the atmosphere due to CO2
h/t comments by Gord, graph source

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Paper: Sea Level Rise Not Accelerating

A paper published yesterday in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Oceans, confirms other studies of tide gauge records which show that there has been no statistically significant acceleration in sea level rise over the past 100+ years, in contrast to statements of the IPCC and Al Gore. Sea levels have been rising naturally since the peak of the last major ice age 20,000 years ago, and the rate of rise began to decelerate about 8,000 years ago:
Sea Level Curve in black

Authors: Manfred Wenzel, Jens Schröter

Note: The 1.56 mm/yr non-accelerating rate of sea level rise would result in sea levels 6 inches higher than the present in 100 years. The oscillations noted in this study correspond to the typical full and half-cycle lengths of the natural Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the natural 60-year climate cycle. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation warm phase has been shown to produce a marked temporary rise in global mean sea levels.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Lemur Demur

The alarmist pronouncement today,  Biodiversity Hot Spots More Vulnerable to Global Warming Than Thought, turns out to be a very far-fetched hypothesis based on the disproven notion that global warming causes more frequent El Niños, which then might cause more heavy rains in Madagascar, which then might "anecdotally knock fruit off the trees when lactating lemurs need it most, and may even kill trees outright, " and thus might malnurish lemur babies...

To further 'support' this outlandish theory, the article states, "Not only that, cyclones making landfall have a direct negative effect on the fecundity -- or potential reproductive capacity -- of lemurs. The team also discovered that fecundity "was negatively affected when El Niño occurred in the period before conception, perhaps altering ovulation, or during the second six months of life, possibly reducing infant survival during weaning." Note to team: There has been no increase in frequency or magnitude of El Niño events since 1856, and these events have occurred in a normal distribution despite steadily rising CO2 levels, and tropical cyclone activity is at a 30 year low.  In addition, global warming has been shown to cause an explosive increase in biodiversity.

This is another study which makes one wonder whether it is possible for scientists to get funding for anything in which the grant proposal does not mention a link to anthropogenic global warming.

ScienceDaily (Aug. 12, 2010) — Global warming may present a threat to animal and plant life even in biodiversity hot spots once thought less likely to suffer from climate change, according to a new study from Rice University.
      Research by Amy Dunham, a Rice assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, detailed for the first time a direct correlation between the frequency of El Niño and a threat to life in Madagascar, a tropical island that acts as a refuge for many unique species that exist nowhere else in the world. In this case, the lemur plays the role of the canary in the coal mine.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Disastrous Inconvenient Truth

The alarmist media are playing up the Russian heat wave and Pakistan floods (now officially "the worst disaster in history") as portents of global warming. Graphs from the World Health Organization International Disaster Database suggest a different conclusion:
Deaths from natural disasters 1975-2009
Number of people reported affected by natural disasters 1975-2009
Natural disasters reported 1975-2009 [peaked with the record 1998-1999 El Nino and on decline since]
Q: since the number of people affected leveled off well before the number of disasters reported, does that indicate a reporting bias as to what constitutes a "disaster?"

UPDATE: from atmospheric scientist Roger Pielke Jr:
"While I have no illusions that the inane debate over causality of specific physical events will continue as long there is weather, there should be no ambiguity in the fact that researchers who have look for a signal of increasing GHGs in increasing disaster losses (whether measured in dollars or in lives) have yet to see such a signal. It would be scientifically incorrect to claim that GHGs have been shown to account for any portion of the damage or suffering resulting from recent events."

UPDATE 2: Global death toll from extreme weather events declining http://www.thegwpf.org/the-observatory/1378-indur-m-goklany-global-death-toll-from-extreme-weather-events-declining.html

Paper: No Increase in El Niño Events since 1856

The alternating equatorial warm/cold Pacific Ocean temperatures, known as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), have large influences upon worldwide weather/climate. According to Wikipedia, "the studies of historical data show that the recent El Niño variation is most likely linked to global warming." However, a paper published yesterday in JGR finds no such link to global warming, with no change in frequency or magnitude detected since 1856, and finds a normal distribution instead.

El Niño–Southern Oscillation: Magnitudes and asymmetry
By David H. Douglass, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA

Abstract: The alternating warm/cold phenomena in the Pacific, known as El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), is characterized by large perturbations to the worldwide climate. Indices have been defined to characterize this phenomenon. However, the commonly used indices contain an unwanted effect from the annual cycle that can be reduced by digital filtering. Using a filtered ENSO index NL on data from 1856 to the present allows more accurate calculations of various quantities to be made. New results are (1) the distribution of positive values of NL is Gaussian. Thus, large-magnitude El Niño events come from the tail of this distribution and not from some rare external perturbation. (2) The probability of occurrence of an El Niño of any magnitude can be calculated. A 1997–1998 El Niño will occur once in approximately 70 ± 20 years, while an El Niño 25% larger will occur once in approximately 700 ± 200 years. (3) The distribution of negative values of NL deviates from Gaussian because of a deficiency of large La Niña events. (4) Examination of the 20 largest El Niño events since 1856 shows that there is no increase in the frequency of such events with time.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Paper: Increasing CO2 Cools the Climate & Benefits Agriculture & Reforestation

Physicists G. V. Chilingar, O. G. Sorokhtin, L. Khilyuk and M. V. Gorfunkel, authors of the paper Cooling of the Atmosphere due to CO2, also published the peer-reviewed study Greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect in Environmental Geology, International Journal of Geosciences, providing physical evidence that rising CO2 should result in slight cooling of climate, and is benefitial to agricultural productivity and reforestation. The authors also find that methane accumulation has no significant effect on the climate.

Abstract: Conventional theory of global warming states that heating of the atmosphere occurs as a result of accumulation of CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere. The writers show that rising concentration of CO2 should result in the cooling of climate. The methane accumulation has no essential effect on the Earth’s climate. Even significant releases of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide into the atmosphere do not change average parameters of the Earth’s heat regime and the atmospheric greenhouse effect. Moreover, CO2 concentration increase in the atmosphere results in rising agricultural productivity and improves the conditions for reforestation. Thus, accumulation of small additional amounts of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere as a result of anthropogenic activities has practically no effect on the Earth’s climate.

Introduction: For comprehensive analysis of the influence of increasing concentration of the greenhouse gases on the global temperature of atmosphere, one needs to develop an advanced physicochemical theory of mass—energy redistribution among the Earth’s systems. This advanced theory should include: (1) evolution of the composition of atmosphere, (2) evolution of the geological conditions, (3) data on changing solar radiation, (4) the Earth’s revolution precession, (5) oceanological data, and (6) multiple feedbacks between the atmosphere and ocean.
         The authors investigate the greenhouse effect using the adiabatic model, which relates the global temperature of the troposphere to atmospheric pressure and allows one to analyze the temperature changes due to variations in mass and chemical composition of the atmosphere. The existing feedbacks between atmosphere and ocean are intentionally neglected in the article with the focus on the atmospheric temperature changes due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases emission... (read remainder at link above)

How CRU Cooked the Books on Siberia

We learned in December 2009 from the Russian newspaper RIA Novosti that Hadley CRU had tampered with Russian temperature data by including only 25% of available weather stations in its reports:
"Climategate has already affected Russia. On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change...had probably tampered with Russian climate data. The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory.
Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country's territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.
The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations. On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations. IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.
Turns out, not only did HADCRU cook the books by selecting stations with incomplete data and only 25% of the available stations, they used another trick* of selecting 1976 as the base year (at the end of the global cooling scare) to begin their time series for Siberia, even though they had data back to 1936. As reported by an Italian Climate Blog, this resulted in a much more alarming trend line:

*"trick" is defined by Michael Mann as "a clever way to solve a problem"

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Earth Energy Budgets without 'Greenhouse Gases' or 'Back Radiation'

        The foundation of the greenhouse theory is that 'greenhouse' gases absorb infrared radiation from the earth and then 'back-radiate' this energy to the earth to cause global warming. Several prior posts have illustrated that the concepts of greenhouse gas 'back-radiation,' 'heat-trapping,' 'heat capture,' and 'radiative forcing' are essentially all referring to the same unphysical, fundamental error of the greenhouse theory that cannot be found in textbooks of physics. Several commenters have indicated that they think it is impossible to explain the temperatures of the earth and atmosphere without incorporating 'greenhouse gases' and  'back-radiation' in diagrams of the Earth's energy budget, such as the famous Kiehl/Trenberth/IPCC Energy Budget, which shows 'back-radiation' to be a very significant 324 W/m2 (95% of the average solar input!) at all times 24/7/365.
        However, the earth-atmosphere system can be much more simply described (see Occam's Razor) with real physics without using 'greenhouse gases' or 'back-radiation' at all. Here are five Earth Energy Budgets which completely explain the earth-atmosphere system without 'greenhouse gases' or 'back-radiation,' in stark contrast to the IPCC alarmist & unphysical Energy Budget:

4. Lettau, 1954

5. Source Pending

Without the foundations of 'back-radiation,' 'heat-trapping,' 'heat capture,' and 'radiative forcing,' the 'greenhouse gas' theory collapses like a house of cards, and adding additional trace CO2 has no measurable effect upon the climate.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Ship find shows Arctic Sea Ice conditions similar to 1853

Bow of the HMS Investigator
The international news media are hailing the archaeological find of a British naval ship the HMS Investigator on July 25 in an area far north (600 km) of the Arctic Circle that was previously unreachable due to sea ice. The HMS Investigator was abandoned in 1853, but not before sailing the last leg of the elusive Northwest Passage. The ship had been sent on a rescue mission for 2 other ships mapping the Northwest Passage. Now, thanks to "climate change," archaeologists working for Parks Canada were finally able to plot a small window of time this summer to allow passage to the ship's location:
Parks Canada had been plotting the discovery of the three ships for more than a year, trying to figure out how to get the crews so far north. Once they arrived and got their bearings, the task seemed easier than originally thought. It took little more than 15 minutes to uncover the Investigator, officials told The Globe and Mail last week. “For a long time the area wasn’t open, but now it is because of climate change,” said Marc-André Bernier, chief of the Underwater Archaeology Service at Parks Canada.
Interesting that the ship was lost in 1853, right at the end of the Little Ice Age, and coincidentally just 3 years after the start of the HADCRU global temperature record, from which we are led to believe the earth has warmed about 0.7C. If we are seeing "unprecedented" global temperatures and changes in Arctic sea ice, how did the HMS Investigator get this far north at the end of the Little Ice Age?

Links: Globe & Mail   CTV News  CNN

Monday, August 2, 2010

Paper: Cosmoclimatology is Real

A paper published online today in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Atmospheres lends credence to the cosmoclimatology theory of Svensmark et al, finding that increases in galactic cosmic ray counts (GCRs) have a statistically significant correlation to increased cloud formation.
The theory of cosmoclimatology explains why small changes in total solar irradiance (TSI) during solar cycles may be amplified due to secondary effects on galactic cosmic rays and cloud formation:
Even though solar irradiance only changes about .1% during a solar cycle, the secondary effects of changes in the solar magnetic field on GCRs can be up to 25% or more:
As proven empirically by the study published today, increases in GCRs seed more clouds which reflect more sunlight back into space ("albedo") and result in cooling of the earth. The study published today finds that a 15% increase in GCRs resulted in up to a 9% change in the "cloud index" which corresponds to an increase in cloud opacity. Dr. Roy Spencer illustrates the magnitude of poorly-understood cloud effects on the global climate system in his new book,
Given the potential magnitude of these effects, there is no reason to infer that changes in trace "greenhouse" gases such as CO2 have had any effect on the climate.

A correlation study of high-altitude and midaltitude clouds and galactic cosmic rays by MIPAS-Envisat by Susanne Rohs, Reinhold Spang, Franz Rohrer, Cornelius Schiller and Heinz Vos
Abstract: The cloud index (CI), the cloud occurrence frequency (Occ), and the extinction data (Ext) of the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding instrument on board Envisat (MIPAS-E) from July 2002 to March 2004 are used to investigate a possible link between galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) and midaltitude and high-altitude clouds (CI, Occ: 9–18 km, Ext: 12–24 km). The zonally averaged data with 3 km vertical resolution are averaged over six major Forbush decrease (FD) events and subsequently correlated with the Climax neutron monitor data (CNM). In order to allow for nucleation and growth of ice particles, time lags from 0 to 5 days are applied. We find several weak but statistically significant correlations with an excess of positive cloud-GCR correlations. Introducing a time lag does not enhance the correlations significantly. Subdividing the data in a global grid with 30° × 90° × 3 km resolution shows higher correlations in some regions. The investigation of the individual FD events yields a heterogeneous picture. Overall, there is a weak tendency toward a positive cloud-CNM correlation. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test shows that for time shifts from 0 to +5 days a weak GCR-cloud effect is evident in the MIPAS-E measurements. An estimation of the impact of this effect delivers that a 15% increase in CNM would result in a small decrease in CI (corresponding to an increase in cloud opacity) which is most pronounced at 9 km altitude (−9% to +0.5%). For log(Ext) a decrease of −5 to 0% is calculated at 12 km altitude which shifts toward weak positive values at higher altitudes.
Related: Svensmark's latest paper and accompanying article
article noting how feedbacks amplify solar variation and high variability of UV up to 8%

Sunday, August 1, 2010

The graphic below comes via our friends at [un]skepticalscience, assuring us that while 97% of "climate scientists think  that global warming is 'significantly' due to human activity," a shocking 72% of news coverage does not reflect this "consensus" and similarly 74% of the public are not convinced.

However, close examination of the source of the claimed 97% consensus reveals that it comes from a non-peer reviewed article describing an online poll in which a total of only 79 climate scientists chose to participate. Of the 79 self-selected climate scientists, 75 agreed with the notion of AGW. Thus, we find climate scientists once again using dubious statistical techniques to deceive the public that there is a 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming; fortunately they clearly aren't buying it.


Sympathy Sheath of Roses

A mixed sheath arranged with assorted rose shades, with rosemary and foliage to compliment. Sentimental rosemary adds a fresh fragrance to the bouquet, but also means remembrance. We can create a rose sheath in single colours if you would prefer. This sheath is arranged in floral foam to ensure freshness so would be perfect to send to a Tangi or funeral service and burial.

SKU: . Categories: , .


Matter Domination -

70,000 Years

We have seen that over time, the energy densities of matter and energy equalized until at around 50,000 to 70,000 years, the energy density of the Universe becomes dominated by matter.  The temperature remains high enough that the hydrogen and helium atoms remain ionized, that is, they have not combined with electrons.  Thus, the atoms remain positively charged, and continue to interact with photons.  Matter here would also include cold or warm dark matter; that is, all matter that is moving at non-relativistic speeds (speeds well below the speed of light).  According to the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model, cold dark matter dominates the Universe at this stage.  This permits gravitational collapse to make the very slightly more dense regions caused by quantum mechanical irregularities during cosmic inflation become denser, ultimately leading to the formation of the structures we see in the Universe.  Unfortunately, while there are strong theories for how the baryonic matter formed, the LambdaCDM model does not provide any mechanism for the formation of the CDM.

It was thought that matter domination has continued to this day, but recent evidence shows that the rate of expansion of the Universe started to increase some 6 or 7 billion years ago, leading to the conclusion that energy, in the form of dark energy, may have reversed the matter domination so that we are in an era of dark energy domination.

Astronomy & Cosmology -

The Early Universe

(or "What Banged in the Big Bang?")


"GCN5" Related Products

GCN5 Chemiluminescent Assay Kit

Cat.No.: Kit-1736
Product Overview: GCN5 (also known as KAT2A) is involved in various cellular events, and its dysfunction is linked to a number of human diseases including cancers and diabetes. GCN5 is a histone acetyltransferase that functions primarily as a transcriptional activator. It also functions as a repressor of NF-kappa-B by promoting ubiquitination of the NF-kappaB subunit RelA in a HAT-independent manner.
Size: 96 reactions
Description: The GCN5 Chemiluminescent Assay Kit is an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) designed to screen for inhibitors of GCN5. The GCN5 Chemiluminescent Assay Kit is based on the GCN5 enzyme transferring an acetyl group from an acetyl donor (acetyl CoA) to a histone substrate. The acetylated histone is recognized by a highly specific primary antibody, followed by an HRP-labeled secondary antibody. The chemiluminescence produced by HRP can be measured using a chemiluminescence reader.
Applications: Great for studying enzyme activity and screening small molecular inhibitors for drug discovery and HTS applications.
Storage: Stable at least 6 months from date of receipt, when stored as directed. Kit components require different storage conditions. Be sure to store each component at the proper temperature upon arrival.
Kit Components: GCN5 human recombinant enzyme: 10 µg; -80°C Acetyl CoA (1 mM): 500 µl; -20°C 10X HAT assay buffer: 10 ml; -20°C Primary antibody 21: 25 µl; -20°C Secondary antibody 2: 12 µl; -20°C HRP chemiluminescent substrate A (transparent bottle): 6 ml; +4°C HRP chemiluminescent substrate B (brown bottle): 6 ml; +4°C Blocking buffer: 25 ml; +4°C White microplate (or strips) precoated with Neutravidin and Histone peptide: 1 plate; Room temp.

Online Inquiry

Note： There will be extra charge for optional service!
Optional requirements on this protein    +Expand
C-fusion    N-fusion   Non-tagged
His    GST   Fc   Others
Monomer Isolation    Dimer Isolation    Not required

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Ask Biology Expert

Section A- Description problems.

problem1)a) Discuss the concept and scope of public nutrition, highlighting the role of public nutritionalist in health care delivery.

b) What is protein energy malnutrition? Discuss the essential variable features of PEM in children.

problem2)a) describe the clinical features and preventive strategies for iodine deficiency.

b) What are the methods for prevention and control of anaemia?

problem3)a) Briefly describe determinant of food security.

b) describe the implications of population growth on quality of life.

problem4)a) describe the term nutritional status. Discuss the importance of anthropometry in assessing nutritional status.

b) Discuss WHO, 2006 classification for assessing the nutritional status.

problem5) Enlist the manifestations linked with the deficiency of the following nutrients.

i) Thiamin

ii) Riboflavin

iii) Niacin

iv) Folic acid

problem6)a) describe nutrition monitoring and nutrition surveillance. List present programmes of nutrition monitoring in India.

b) Name supplementary feeding programmes and describe any one which has relevance to primary school children.

problem7)a) What are biochemical tests used for assessing vitamin A deficiency.

b) Define the term diet survey. List the methods used for assessing the dietary intakes of individuals and describe any one of them.

problem8)a) Differentiate food based and nutrient based strategies.

b) Discuss the function of dietary diversification and food fortification in combating public nurtrition problem.

problem9)a) What do you understand by preventive strategies? How could it be helpful in combating malnutrition?

b) Supplementation is the short term preventive strategy. Present a critical review on the statement.

problem10)a) Discuss any one technique you will use for conducting need assessment.

b) Briefly comment on the significance and constraints of nutrition education.

Section B- OTQ (Objective Type problems)

problem1) Describe the following in 2-3 sentences.

i) Programme monitoring

ii) Formative research

iii) Interpersonal Communication

iv) Process of nutrition education communication

v) Lathyrism

vi) Formative evaluation

vii) Public distribution system

viii) Double fortified salt

ix) Change agents

x) Keratomalacia

2) Fill in the blanks :-

i) Tetanus is caused by a toxin produced by bacillus.......................... .

ii) Supplementary food must provide ..................... Kcal and................ g proteins per day/ per child.

iii) On adequate iodine intake, the median urinary iodine is ................................. .

iv) BMI of considered as an indicators of obese grade 11.

v) Bleeding gums is a manifestation of.........................deficiency.

vi) ............................deficiency leads to pernicious anemia.

vii) Fortification of common salt is done with ........................................ ..

viii) the ex of a common vaccine preventable disease.

Biology, Academics

  • Category:- Biology
  • Reference No.:- M92517

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Create a provider database and related reports and queries


OK, maybe I didn't describe my problem the right way, or I am now making some progress figuring it out by myself...

Here's my need:

I have a table, called attributes, which contains just 3 fields:

userid, attributeid and value

I have records holding data that I want to split and create other records with, using an INSERT statement. Here's an example, from this record :

userid ; attributeid ; value
1 ; 14 ; 2000-11-29

I want to AUTOMATICALLY create these 2 records (in one or 2 queries, I don't mind) :

userid ; attributeid ; value
1 ; 33 ; 11 (or November)
1 ; 34 ; 29

Of course, if I have 100 records with attribute '14' set to a date, I want to be able to create 200 records (with attribute 33/34) in a single or 2 queries at the most.

I am guessing that is feasible in SQL, but I read that 'WHERE' clause cannot be used in an INSERT statement. How can I achieve the same goal ?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.


Details: Payment & Pricing

Also:  Our inventory is FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED.   Please do not ask us to hold items for you “until you can get there” or “until next Tuesday”.  We’ve done that and then been stood up, and in the meantime lost the sale to someone else.

And, an apology in advance but I will no longer respond to emails etc asking us to hold items; not only does it take up time to respond to those emails, but some of those requests are from spammers who now have flooded me with garbage emails.

Regarding our First Come First Served policy:
A question some customers have asked, because we don’t yet have debit or credit card capability is “With your First Come, First Served Policy, how do I make sure that if I’m ordering on-line that I get what I’m ordering?”

That’s obviously a really good question.

The best way to ensure that you get your item is to contact us for the final price (including shipping) and then pay immediately via PayPal.

Here’s what I wrote to a potential customer this morning:

If you prefer not to use PayPal, what’s happened before is that if you want to put a check in the mail, just tell me that you’ve done so with the exact amount of the check, the info on the check and the time and date it’s mailed, and I will accept that as the “first come, first served”.  If the check arrives as indicated, all is well.

If the check arrives with a postmark later than promised, and someone else is waiting for the item, then they may end up with it – it depends on when that second person offers to pay.

This happened with a Rudyard Kipling  print earlier this year. Several people were interested; one person went back and forth with me over 3-4 weeks, promising to pay by PayPal. He finally did, but someone else had sent a check which was postmarked earlier than the PayPal payment – and the earlier date won.  (Of course, that latter person got a refund.)

If paid by PayPal, you get an immediate receipt from that entity by email. If paid by check, I will let you know as soon as the check arrives and will send an emailed receipt.

Shipping costs will depend on how quickly you want an item; that would be determined at purchase. (I’ve recently learned that the USPS will not accept art as “media” for the lower cost “media mail” although I’ve previously shipped several items that way. So I’ll have to figure out costs based on how quickly the item needs to arrive.)

Pricing Information:

Please understand that unlike some shops we do not artificially inflate our prices and then give discounts to people who ask for them.  Our prices are firm (although we may on occasion have a sale on certain items, but those would be announced in advance).


How Customer Relationship Management Software Builds A Better Relationship With Customers?

How does Customer Tracking Software Assist in Creating a Better Relationship With Customers?

To run every business successfully, it is required to create a better relationship with the customers. To assist in creating a better relationship with customers, GA Technocare Technology brings an effective and proficient Customer Tracking Software that is able to track queries and purchases of any customer so that the company can manage its customers easily and can provide a better service to them.

GATT provides a Customer Relationship Software for all types of business around the world at an affordable cost. This system deals effectively if it comes to track sales, purchases, orders, and deals for the company. Considering the benefits, this system has become an inherent element of business. It assists in creating and managing inventories.

Client Relationship Manager Software provides a detailed dashboard by using which the company can manage contacts of customers and clients. This feature assures creating a way of communication between the company and customers. This activity brings a satisfactory support service to customers and it guarantees a building of trust between that is required for a better growth of company.

Being a Leading CRM Systems, it assures the execution of every feature in an error-free way. This system can be integrated easily with emails that assist in the mass mailing to different customers and clients. This provides a way to an effortless communication between. By using this system, it becomes quite easier to manage social marketing for the company.

How CRM Management Software Can Help in Better Customer Service?

Trying out CRM Management Software designed by GA technocare technology is supposed to bring many positive changes in terms of increasing the work productivity of company.  This software holds many core features that create a great impact on the business. The first and underlying feature of this software is its encrypted database, which is actually a central repository to capture customer information on daily basis.

In retail and e-commerce sector where customer lands to get product and services, it becomes significant to record end-to-end customer data and information so that better, effective and on the spot, service can be provided. As Leading CRM System captures customer data, the administrator gives its access to authorised employees who deal with the customers.

Once the customer interacts with employee, entire existing details of customer get reflected on the computer screen. In this way, customer does not need to explain the whole matter again the again. As a result, customer service gets improved. Gradually, customer flow also gets soared, which leads to enhancement in the productivity of company.

As we come to other essential functions of Customer Relationship Software, it can be easily integrated with the existing server system of company, you get remote access to customer data as it is cloud-based system, and it has a simple and state-of-the-art interface that eases employee to operate it.

As it has various function modules, various functional requirements of organisation can be covered easily. By providing customer history, it helps sale & marketing department to generate the sales reports. Indeed,

CRM Software is the great source of information that lets users to operate the entire business process digitally.

For a regular and rapid growth of a company, it is required to have relationship maintained with customers. As long as the customer will get better services, will not leave the company. Providing better service is not a tough task if you work towards satisfactory deliverance. Customer CRM Software assists you in reaching to this objective effortlessly.

Using CRM Management Software, it is easy to store customers’ details so that instant interactions can be made in order to resolve their queries. CRM stores details on a centralized dedicated server so that you can access the stored data anytime just by connecting to the server. The security feature of this software keeps your data in an encrypted form so that no unauthorized person can look into it to steal details.

GA Technocare Technology offers the most versatile CRM Software For Small Business that performs more functions than just storing customer information. This software is able to track your company financially and it will give you an insight into the progress of sales and deals by your company. By briefing the real condition of company, it enables you to take a better decision for your company.

Client Relationship Management Software creates a detailed record of client contacts. This feature enables you to stay in touch with your clients so that your company does not lose old clients. Using this software, sales, deals, orders, quotations, and payments can be handled easily. As this software deals with many accounting and financial activities, it saves time and proves to be cost-effective.

How CRM Management System Helps in Lead Generation for Sales Team?

The CRM Management System is an excellent source of customer information, where one can find entire purchase history of customer. It has an encrypted database to capture, manage, organize, and utilize customer data. While providing customer support, representatives can coordinate with the customer having customer history on the computer screen. In this way, it becomes easy to understand the real issue of customer to provide effective solution.

Automating sales process is another critical aspect of customer contact software or Cloud Based CRM.  For sales team, this software helps to provide monthly and yearly sales data by which it becomes simple to forecast the future sale of company. Staying updated with purchase history of customer, it helps the company to generate business lead of potential customers who can give business to company.

This software can be easily integrated with existing software system of the company. Owing to its simple and handy functionality, users can easily get used to it. For a user, it is easy to adopt and implement. Adding remote access control feature is the basic aspect of designing Web CRM software. Since the use of mobile has increased, professionals seek to get access control of data via mobile.

Needless to say, every advanced CRM software is a customised software in current time. Thus, GATT claims to develop flexible and customised software that can accomplish specific functions of business. Taking above elaborated features into consideration, investing in CRM software is certainly a wise decision. So, we GATT as well-known CRM software provider insists you to implement CRM software in your enterprise to see dramatic enhancement in business growth.

How to Choose the Best CRM Software for Your Company?

If you run a company, you must be familiar with CRM Software. As by the name, it is clear that the software is used to create a better relationship between a company and its customers. In case of choosing the best CRM software for your company, you must set your budget, objective, and features.

GA Technocare Technology is an IT company that provides effective CRM Software India at incredibly low cost for you that covers every feature of CRM including the guaranteed security of your data. Your objectives such as managing sales, deals, point of sales, marketing, and accounting can be obtained by using this proficient software.

Top CRM Software provides numerous facilities that are used to achieve a quick growth of the company. This software is used to find leads and follow-ups. It is also used to gain the loyalty of customers by storing key information about the customer such as interactions and queries in order to provide a better support. CRM assists in managing client contacts so that your company can stay in touch.

GATT delivers the Top CRM Software that covers all major activities such as tracking of sales, lead generation, email nurturing, email tracking, sales forecasting, order tracking, performance and competitor tracking. Along with it, web CRM stores customer details such as purchase histories, past interactions, preferences, personal information, order information, and queries on a central server. The best thing is, it synchronizes instantly if any data is changed so that every employee gets the same data.


GDP Growth Rate | Australia

Australia 0.80 Jun/17
New Zealand 0.80 Jun/17

This page displays a table with actual values, consensus figures, forecasts, statistics and historical data charts for - GDP Growth Rate. This page provides values for GDP Growth Rate reported in several countries part of Australia. The table has current values for GDP Growth Rate, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency plus links to historical data charts.


Sentence Examples with the word Geonim

Individual Geonim produced valuable works (of which later), but what is perhaps most important from the point of view of the development of Judaism is the literature of their Responsa or answers to questions, chiefly on halakhic matters, addressed to them from various countries.

The commentaries of the Geonim have been mentioned above.


Recipe Database

Oven Baked Pork Chops & Potatoes

Recipe courtesy of RecipeTin Eats

1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce

2 tbsp ketchup

1 tbsp soy sauce, all purpose

2 tbsp brown sugar (or white)

1 tbsp olive oil (or vegetable or canola oil)

1 garlic clove, minced

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

800g / 1.6 lb baby potatoes, larger ones cut in half (can also use larger russet potatoes cut into 1 inch cubes)

1 tbsp olive oil

  1. Meanwhile, mix the rub ingredients together in a small bowl.
  4. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove tray from oven, slather some reserved rub on the surface then bake for a further 10 - 15 minutes until pork is cooked and golden. If necessary, switch to grill/broiler on highest heat at the end and grill for a few minutes until pork is caramelized and golden - I usually do this.

If marinating, place in a ziplock bag, add the pork and massage from the outside to coat the pork in the Rub. Refrigerate for up to 24 hours. If freezing, put the bag straight in the freezer, then defrost before using. It will marinate while defrosting.


What You Need to Know About the Human Genome Project

What You Need to Know About the Human Genome Project

For many scientists, researchers, and members of the public who love technological innovation, the recent announcement of a project to synthesize the human genome can’t help but recall another memorable launch that took place nearly 26 years ago. October 1, 1990, marked the launch of the original Human Genome Project: a ground-breaking, international research collaboration whose goal was the complete sequencing, or mapping, of the human genome. Join us for a look back at this unique project that allowed us, for the first time, to read and understand nature’s complete genetic blueprint for how to build a human being.

What is a genome?

chromosomesA genome is the term for the complete set of DNA found in a living organism; DNA is the chemical compound that contains the necessary genetic instructions for an organism’s development. DNA molecules have a famous double-helix shape: two twisted and paired strands that are each made up of chemical units called nucleotide bases. Adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C) are the four bases. In a DNA molecule, the bases located on one of the strands pair with their opposite numbers on the second strand to create what are known as base pairs.

In the human genome, there are approximately 3 billion base pairs, which are located in the 23 chromosome pairs that are contained in the nucleus of each of our cells. Each chromosome in turn contains anywhere from hundreds to thousands of genes, for an estimated total of 30,000 genes in the human genome.

What does sequencing a genome mean?

Sequencing is the process of examining a segment of DNA to determine the precise order of the base pairs on its strands. To do this, the Human Genome Project used a map-based method known as the BAC-method. (BAC stands for “bacterial artificial chromosome.”) The method involves fragmenting human DNA into pieces of a large but manageable size (about 150,000 to 200,000 base pairs each), and cloning these fragments in bacteria, which then store and replicate the human DNA through their natural growth processes until there are large enough quantities of DNA to be prepared for sequencing.

The next step is to map each BAC clone to determine where the DNA it contains has come from within the human genome; this involves cutting each BAC clone into even smaller fragments (called subclones, of about 2,000 base pairs in length), and then running these subclones through a sequencing reaction process. Finally, scientists use a sequencing machine to generate hundreds of base pairs from each sequencing reaction. Computers then assemble the pairs into contiguous sequence stretches that represent the order of DNA in the human genome.

Whose DNA was used for the Human Genome Project?

The Human Genome Project relied upon the DNA of a number of volunteers. Naturally, given the extremely sensitive nature of the genetic information being handled throughout the course of the project, confidentially was a top priority, and researchers took several steps to protect the identity of the volunteers.

Participants were recruited at random through local public advertisements and underwent extensive counseling before consenting to participate and donating blood samples. Before choosing samples for sequencing, researchers removed any identifying labels from the samples. Furthermore, far more volunteers provided blood samples than were eventually used in the project, so even the volunteers themselves did not know whether or not their samples were used.

Has the human genome been completely sequenced?

organized peopleOur map of the human genome is now as complete as it can be, given the limits of existing technology. About 1% of the portion of the genome that contains genes is unrecoverable by any current sequencing method. To fill in the gaps and obtain the sequence of these sections, new technologies must be invented. However, for the purposes of scientific research, the gene-containing portion of the human genome is essentially functionally complete, thus allowing scientists and researchers to use our newfound, comprehensive understanding of human genetics to improve human health and advance the fields of biotechnology and genetic engineering.

Who owns the human genome?

As a publicly-funded initiative, the Human Genome Project made immediately public every part of the genome that it had sequenced, and it continues to regularly post new genome data. However, in the years following the official completion of the Human Genome Project in April 2003, many thousands of patents on human genes were and continue to be filed by private companies (although because the majority of these patent applications have not yet been acted on, it’s not clear how much of the genome can be freely used today for commercial purposes).


Reason and Faith

Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, ‘Why should anything go right; even observation or deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?’ The young sceptic says. ‘I have a right to think for myself.’ But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, ‘I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all.’

— G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy  <link>


foundation for educational excellence

The Dissertation Proposal Format: 5 Basic Points

When writing any major academic paper, such as a dissertation, you may be required to write a proposal section as part of your work. If you have not written a proposal section as part of an essay before then you may be wondering exactly what you need to do as part of the work. In order to give you a better understanding of the format and structure required the following outlines five basic points to consider whilst composing your proposal.

  1. Introducing the topic that you will discuss
  2. One of the first things that you will need to do is introduce the particular topic that you will be discussing as part of your paper. You do not necessarily need to go into great detail; however, it is important that the reader is aware very early on exactly what it is that you will be writing about. Furthermore, they will probably have a general awareness after having read your title; however, you still need to ensure that there is no doubt as to what you will be researching and writing about.

  3. Including a hypothesis
  4. You will most likely base your dissertation on some form of hypothesis, and it is important to include this hypothesis as part of your proposal. Essentially, with an understanding of what topic you will discuss, as well as an awareness of the hypothesis that you will be referring to throughout your paper, anyone reading your proposal should have a good understanding of why you are doing the work.

  5. Referring to relevant studies
  6. In order to demonstrate that you have an awareness of the subject that you are discussing, it can be a good idea to include any relevant studies, particularly those that the most associated with the hypothesis that you have made.

  7. Outline any research methods
  8. You will almost certainly have to use a wide variety of different research methods in order to create your essay. Therefore, you should outline and discuss any of the methods that you expect to use as part of your work.

  9. Proposing a realistic timeframe
  10. Finally, an important aspect of your proposal is that you provide a realistic timeframe for when you will do the work. Therefore, it is important that you thoroughly review exactly what it is that you expect to do, so as to ensure that any timeframe you create is as accurate as possible.


Advice For Dealing With A Personal Injury

Personal injury is serious and you should never take it lightly. Regardless of the outcome, you will help make this world a little bit safer. The following article can help you with personal injury taken care of.

Look online for attorneys that are reputable. You can find out about each potential lawyer. Look for an attorney that is experienced with successful and long track records.

Not doing so may make it seem you are untruthful or manipulating the court.

You must know about the defendant in a personal injury suit. You might have a claim against more than one policy. If you speak with them and they aren’t giving up this information, get an affidavit.

Gather the contact information for witnesses to your accident. The court case could take quite a while and your lawyer needs to get accurate statements as quickly as possible to prepare. People move away or become forgetful, so getting information as soon as possible may be what wins your case.

You should seek medical attention as soon as you get injured.Having the proper records can prove in court that you have been hurt and deserve a financial reward for what occurred.

Write down every little detail you can think of to give to your lawyer if you’re in a car accident. Take down license plate number of any other cars at the scene.Be sure you write down who the insurance companies information. Make copies of a citation or any other paperwork. Your case will move along more quickly if you can do much of the legwork.

It can take a while to resolve a personal injury suit, but you just may need to do it. Use the information here to get you started on the right path when suffering a personal injury. Many people can benefit from the information.


Touch Cancelled for the 11th June

You’ve probably seen it, but in case you have not, Touch has been cancelled this week as the impending one way system coupled with the fact most people are at the festival means means most will struggle.

But it will return the following week! If you subscribe to the calendar feed on the calendar page, which is any one of these

IOS (Apple)

They automatically add IWRFC events to your mobile devices that use any of the systems listed, just click the relevant link for your device and IWRFC events will magically appear on your phone and tablet calendars, times, details, and any changes that are effected as well, think of it as a pocket Isla, forget Siri and that Cortana thing


Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Storing passwords in database

This is one of the most common and trivial challenges that developers face in any enterprise application development – How to store passwords in database in a safe and secure manner?
It’s common sense to reconcile that passwords should not be stored as plain text as it would be possible for anyone to hack the passwords if he has access to the database table.

One option is to encrypt the passwords using a symmetric key and decrypting it for comparison during password authentication. But then we have the problem of securely storing the secret symmetric key, because if the key were compromised all the passwords would become accessible.

The most common and simple solution to this problem is to ‘hash’ the passwords before storing it in database. MD5 or SHA-1 hash algorithms can be used to perform a one-way hash of the password. To compare passwords for authentication, you retrieve the password entered by the user and hash it; then you compare the hashed value with the hashed value in the database. This method is quite foolproof and safe as it’s impossible to convert a hashed entry into its original value.
But still it possible for a hacker to perform a brute-force dictionary attack on the passwords and guess some passwords. More info on this here.

To hinder the risk of a dictionary attack, it is important that password contain special characters that are difficult to guess. Another option is to ‘salt’ the password before hashing it. Salting the password means adding some padding data in front or back of the password to create a new string that is hashed and put inside the database table. This padding data could be a random generated number or the userID of the user itself. This makes the dictionary attack much difficult to succeed.

Recently there was a lot of furor over the security of MD5 algorithm. The problem is that of MD5 hash collisions. The problem that arises is the following:

Since what we did is take the characters in some text, however many they are, and producing 128 characters out of them somehow, there will be lots of texts that give the same set of 128 characters, and hence have the same MD5 value. I.e. the hash-function is not 1-1 as we say. So how do we know that the file we received is not one of those other millions of files that have the same MD5 value? The simple answer is, we don’t. But what we believe is that the chance that this other file will be meaningful is miniscule. In other words, we believe that even if someone were to tamper with our file on its way to us, they would not be able to produce a file that has the same MD5 value and can harm u.
But the site below shows how two different postscript files end up having the same MD5 hash. http://www.cits.rub.de/MD5Collisions/

So, what are the other options? Tiger and SHA-2 are still considered to be safe hash functions to use. One could possibly also apply a number of hash-functions to the same file, as secondary checks.


Firefighter Injured In Factory Fire Out Of The Hospital

A Clark County firefighter is now recovering at home from injuries he sustained while battling a fire. Captain Robert McChord was released from the hospital Monday afternoon. He was treated for smoke inhalation.

Captain McChord was one of several firefighters battling a fire Sunday at Rockwell International, which is a factory on Rockwell Road. Firefighters spent about 30 minutes putting it out. They say the fire started when a worker left a small fire unattended that quickly spread out of control.

Most of the materials that burned were plastic, which created the large amount of smoke.


What does the duck represent? Well, the duck connects the two doctors. … We’ll see a duck at the other end, which is the witch doctor. … Ryan’s character refers to this doctor as a ‘quack’. — Soulless Minions,
Joe vs the Volcano @0:16:20

In the book, it’s not centennial. That’s movie only. In the book, it’s just the prom. — Soulless Minions and Sofa Dogs,
Drive Me Crazy @0:13:25

Why does it take her so long to recognize him? Yeah, it’s kind of weird. Well, now, it’s: okay, she’s almost been almost brainwashed by the MCP. Yeah, but we don’t know this character yet, so there’s no context. — Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy,
Tron @0:59:35

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Choreomania aka dancing plague: was a social phenomenon that occurred primarily in mainland Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people dancing erratically, sometimes thousands at a time. The mania affected men, women, and children, who danced until they collapsed from exhaustion.

There is no consensus among modern-day scholars as to the cause of dancing mania.The several theories proposed range from religious cults being behind the processions to people dancing to relieve themselves of stress and put the poverty of the period out of their minds. It is, however, thought to be as a mass psychogenic illness in which the occurrence of similar physical symptoms, with no known physical cause, affect a large group of people as a form of social influence.

so , i have this new fascination with dancing mania .

the latest known report of it was in italy in the late 1950’s .

as few as one child , to entire religious / pagan communities , would be consumed by this overwhelming urge to dance ; many fainting or even dying before they stopped . there was even a large group of children in the 1500s that hopped & skipped from country to country , much like the Pied Piper nursery rhyme . in some cases , if people saw the colors red or black , they would get craaaazy mad & get violent . many people had visions of other dancers that weren’t really there . some heard hypnotic music that was never played . when i was little , i saw a ballet about a girl who stole cursed red pointe shoes , put them on , & they posessed her to dance until she had to cut off her own feet … it was supposed to be a lesson about greed . but the relativity of the time the play was written and the random outbreaks of dancing mania ….

awesomely creepy shit , yes ?

and , this may just be me , but it goes hand in hand with the belief that faeries would lure humans into a festival they were holding for the summer seasons - until their feet bled , or until they died . they wouldn’t be able to stop themselves , as much as they wanted to , because those tricky faery bastards would get them to … pretty much … party until they collapsed .

there are no explanations for why this mass hysteria happened . after 1959 , there were no more accounts of “choreomania” happening anywhere in the world .


by Jennifer Burns

The Image of Language
At the most recent meeting of the College Arts Association, I was surprised by what seemed to be the general consensus among the theoretically-minded that art history bears a particularly problematic relation to theory. It seemed fairly clear to everyone that the works of art we attempt to discuss are obstructions to our theorizing, roadblocks which force us to detour off the theoretical highway. In most cases the presenters still wanted to engage with an image or two, but this engagement was typically presented as a sacrifice demanded by the hungry gods of the discipline, a sacrifice always at odds with the rites required by the equally demanding gods of theory.

It seems that one of the things that is being fantasized here is a realm of pure thought in which ideas float weightlessly, unhindered by contact with the sort of solid objects into which art history continually finds itself bumping. Helping to secure this fantasy is a certain view of language, one which sees language as precisely that ethereal, non-resistant medium in which this pure theory is articulated. In this paper, I want to revisit a particular critique of this view of language- Paul de Man's 1979 essay "Semiology and Rhetoric"- in order to offer us a way out of this untenable split between pure dematerialized theory on the one hand and dense, resistant visual images on the other. De Man's understanding of language is, I think, particularly useful to art historians in that is foregrounds the imagistic within language, and the way in which this figural component resists and disrupts the smooth flow of grammatical meaning.

The title of the essay announces de Man's basic project: he divides language into two parts, the semiological, or grammatical structure of language, and the rhetorical, or figural dimension of language. 1 These two components of language are deadly antagonists in de Man's view, battling each other ceaselessly, yet never resulting in a clear victory. De Man's clearest formulation of these two properties of language comes in the following example:

Let me begin by considering what is perhaps the most commonly known instance of an apparent symbiosis between a grammatical and a rhetorical structure, the so-called rhetorical question, in which the figure is conveyed directly by means of a syntactical device. I take the first example from the sub-literature of the mass media: asked by his wife whether he wants to have his bowling shoes laced over or laced under, Archie Bunker answers with a question: 'What's the difference?' Being a reader of sublime simplicity, his wife replies by patiently explaining the difference between lacing over and lacing under, whatever this may be, but provokes only ire. 'What's the difference' did not ask for difference but means instead 'I don't give a damn what the difference is.' The same grammatical pattern engenders two meanings that are mutually exclusive: the literal meaning asks for the concept (difference) whose existence is denied by the figurative meaning.2

Read figurativel, the sentence "what's the difference?" shouldn't be answered at all, because of course the point of the remark was that "there's no difference." Read literally, the answer is "the difference is that (fill in the blank)." These two different meanings of the sentence exist alongside each other and can neither be reconciled with each other nor definitively decided between. De Man goes on to claim that grammar and rhetoric, literal and figurative meaning, always find themselves in this antagonistic relation with each other. Furthermore, de Man insists that this antagonism is fundamental to how language operates. To read a text as if it is able simply to say what it means (based on its grammatical structure) is to repress the presence of the figural which is everywhere working to undermine that meaning.

Although de Man would acknowledge that it is possible to read in this literal-minded way, he suggests that professional interpreters cannot afford to subscribe to this belief in grammatical transparency. He challenges us to undertake the rather more difficult route of attending to both the semiological and the rhetorical, and of showing how the never-ending battle between the two simultaneously constitutes and makes impossible whatever the text is trying to say. For de Man it is this mode of reading which comes into play whenever you read a text as a text. In a later essay, de Man writes:

The resistance to theory is a resistance to the rhetorical or tropological dimension of language, a dimension which is perhaps more explicitly in the foreground in literature (broadly conceived) than in other verbal manifestations or- to be somewhat less vague- which can be revealed in any verbal event when it is read textually. Since grammar as well as figuration is an integral part of reading, it follows that reading will be a negative process in which the grammatical cognition is undone, at all times, by its rhetorical displacement. 3

De Man here proposes that the approach to interpretation known as deconstruction has met with resistance precisely because it attends to the figural dimension of language, and the way in which figurative meaning undoes the work performed by the literal meaning of the words. Rather than evaluating the accuracy of this diagnosis, I want to focus our attention on de Man's explicit location of the imagistic within language. The image, with all its complexity, with all its resistance to reading, is an integral part of the strange creature we call language. There is, in this sense, no theory without images.

I want to provide two more readings to exemplify de Man's view of language. Both are chosen deliberately from a discipline notorious not only for its repression of the figural in an attempt to preserve grammatical transparency for its discourse, but also frequently involved in attacking visual images themselves as performing a dangerously seductive sleight-of-hand, shortcircuiting thought through an appeal to the senses. I'll begin with that section of Plato's Republic known as "The Allegory of the Cave" (Book VII, 514-517).

We find the inhabitants of Plato's cave chained in place, looking away from the cave's entrance and toward its rear wall. Their heads are fixed in this position by heavy shackles. Behind them, a fire is burning, and between the fire and the prisoners is a low wall. Crouched behind this low wall are several men with puppets, who periodically put on puppet shows using "implements of all kinds...human images and shapes of animals as well, wrought in stone and wood and every material." 4 The prisoners cannot see the puppet show itself, because it takes place behind them, but they can see the reflection of it that is projected on the back wall of the cave by the firelight. Given that they cannot move their heads in order to see anything else, these prisoners "deem reality to be nothing else than the shadows of the artificial objects."5 Not only do these prisoners mistake reality for an image, but it is an image of an image, the firelit reflection of a dumb show.

One of these unfortunates is allowed to escape, and goes staggering around the cave, his vision stunned by the light entering the distant mouth of the cave. At this point he still maintains a belief in the reality of the shadows. Then he is dragged forcibly out of the cave, into the light of the sun, and once his eyes have adjusted to the painfully blinding light, he begins a process of looking that starts with "the shadows and, after that, the likenesses or reflections in water of men and other things, and later, the things themselves, and from these he would go on to contemplate the appearances in the heavens and heaven itself, more easily by night, looking at the light of the stars and the moon, than by day the sun and the sun's light." 6 Here we find a hierarchy of visual images, with shadows and reflections the most debased, things themselves next, then the heavens by night, and ultimately, the sun by day. When the former prisoner is finally able to look upon the sun directly, he has at last reached reliable knowledge: "at this point he would infer and conclude that this it is that provides the seasons and the courses of the year and presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some sort the cause of all these things that they had seen." 7

Finally, Socrates informs Glaucon that this whole story of the cave has been nothing other than an extended metaphor for their state of knowledge: "this image, then, dear Glaucon, we must apply as a whole to all that has been said, likening the region revealed through sight to the habitation of the prison, and the light of the fire in it to the power of the sun."8 Thus everything we see with our eyes is nothing but the flickering reflection of a puppet show, and the sun in the story of the cave was not the sun, but a figure for the idea of the good, which is the ultimate radiating source of knowledge. Everything we see by the light of the sun is mere appearance, a mere shadow of the form of the good. In the most extreme formulation of Socrates' point, we might say that reliable knowledge is achieved solely through rejecting the appearances of the world and contemplating the form of the good.

This resounding rejection of the visible world as a means to true knowledge is certainly the grammatical sense of this passage. When we attend to the rhetoric of the passage, however, we find that the text depends heavily on the visual. Note first the language by which Socrates directs Glaucon to consider the image of the cave:

When Socrates wants Glaucon to contemplate his words, he asks him to "picture" what he is saying. Conceptualization is thus figured as a form of visual representation; thought is the making of a mental picture. To 'conceive' is to 'picture'. 10 Furthermore when Socrates checks in to see if Glaucon is following him, Glaucon responds by saying "all that I see" 11 ; when he understands Socrates, he 'sees.' If the vision of our eyes is not a reliable means to knowledge (according to the grammar of the allegory), thought and understanding continue to be figured in visual terms (according to the rhetoric).

But the most obvious rhetorical strategy of this section of the Republic is the figure of the cave itself. To make his point about the unreliability of the visual world, Socrates draws a vividly detailed picture of the cave and the captive's subsequent emergence into the sunlit world. Although ultimately we are told that this is just a figure of speech, just a metaphor for Socrates' actual point, we nonetheless come to understand his rejection of the visible through the textual image he has created. It is primarily the image of the cave, and not the brief lines that recontextualize it as a metaphor for the Good, that does the most for Socrates' claim that we should reject the world of appearances as unreliable.

It needs to be stressed that the rhetorical dimension of language, so subversive of grammatical meaning, does not operate solely in texts that make little attempt to foreground their rhetorical nature. Rather, the rhetorical is present in all texts, insofar as we read them as texts. Even texts that are extremely self-conscious about the metaphorical properties of language find their meanings constantly undone by the metaphors they employ. Let's look at an example from Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, focusing on a passage that attends to the metaphors operating in traditional philosophical thought:

It is pictures rather than propositions, metaphors rather than statements, which determine most of our philosophical convictions. The picture which holds traditional philosophy captive is that of the mind as a great mirror, containing various representations- some accurate, some not- and capable of being studied by pure, nonempirical methods. Without the notion of the mind as mirror, the notion of knowledge itself as accurate representation would not have suggested itself. Without this latter notion, the strategy common to Descartes and Kant- getting more accurate representations by inspecting, repairing, and polishing the mirror, so to speak- would not have made sense. 12

In this passage, and in his book generally, Rorty critiques philosophy's picture of the mind's relation to the world- that the mind is a mirror- under which philosophy has labored. Rorty believes that this picture has been detrimental to philosophy, leading as it does to an obsessional concern with the 'accuracy' of the mirrored representation. Rorty would be the first to admit that there is no philosophy without a guiding picture of some kind; he simply wishes to provide a different metaphor for philosophical endeavor- that of conversation. Far from taking all metaphors away, Rorty gives us yet another metaphor.

This, at least, is the grammatical sense of this passage. When we attend to the text as a text, however, we find a figure that we might not expect in this context, a figure that leads us closer to Plato's formulations of philosophical truth even as grammar points us in the other direction. "The picture which holds traditional philosophy captive," Rorty says. Here the mirror is a picture that imprisons us. When we are incarcerated in the domain of the picture, the one thing we cannot see is that it is a picture: our ignorance that the picture is simply a picture, a metaphor to guide our thought, is what keeps us captive. With this phrase, we find ourselves back in chains in Plato's allegorical cave. As in the cave, in this passage our freedom of movement is constricted by fetters that don't allow us to see that the reflected puppet show is merely an image. In this prison we mistake the figure of the mirror for reality, just as the inhabitants of the cave believe that the flickering figures reflected on the wall are reality itself.

What I hope both of these readings help to show is that the figural does indeed pose a significant challenge to grammatical meaning, a challenge that threatens the easy unfolding of theoretical argument in any discipline. If we locate the subversive operations of the image within language, then struggling with the imagistic- and continuously finding one's meaning suspended as semiology and rhetoric battle for supremacy- is very much part of doing theoretical work. If art history imagines that there is a language or disciplinary locus where it is unnecessary to contend with the recalcitrance of images, it not only misrecognizes the nature of the theoretical enterprise, but its own possibilities for contributing to that enterprise.


Hotel Tirol

You step out onto the balcony to watch the sun rise over the mountains, the cool morning air glides over your body, and you take in the delicate scents of the nearby flora. Energised by the power of nature, you skip your morning coffee and head outside.

Krumers Alpin Resort & SPA

The snow gently patters on the window; you take a seat, flip through the morning newspaper and enjoy the elegance of the library. An energising breakfast of sausages, cheeses and freshly prepared eggs ensues.

Schlosshotel Fiss

You are taken aback by the magnificent location of the Schlosshotel Fiss, they weren’t kidding with the claim that they ‘redefine the meaning of located on the slope’.

Park Igls

Work is busy, your brain is busy and life in general is busy. You’ve been struggling to eat healthily while life is so demanding, so you book a week away – a week for your body, mind and spirit.

Angerer Alm

You catch the cable car just in time for the last ride up, the sun is setting and you’re taken aback by the magnificent views – it feels like you’re floating to a magical land, far, far away.

Hotel Arlberghöhe

You arrive in Arlberg to be greeted by glistening white snow, spectacular vistas and the Hotel Arlberghöhe, with its unparalleled position on the slope. Your skiing day commences with the ultimate kick start: the Arlberghöhe breakfast buffet.

Singer Sporthotel & SPA

You breathe in, indulge in crystal-clear air at over 1,300m altitude and instantly feel the glory of Tyrol. This family-owned Alpine hideaway effortlessly combines Tyrolean hospitality and fabulous food with simply stunning panoramas.

Hotel Pirchner Hof & Farm

You are drawn to the Pirchner Hof and the teachings of Hildegard von Bingen, particularly their maxim ‘nurture life wherever you find it’. From the moment of arrival you are enveloped in tranquillity, and feel truly nurtured.