Category Archives: Science/Medicine

Latest study predicts 10°C global warming.

Increased levels of greenhouse gases will have a much greater impact on climate change than previously thought and will lead to a “dramatically different” future, according to the largest ever climate change experiment.

If the predicted levels of greenhouse gases predictions are reached, the ice caps are likely to have melted and Britain will be an average 10°C warmer.

Then again, maybe we've got some time to prepare:

The first results from climate prediction.net show that average temperatures could eventually rise by up to 11°C – albeit after a new global climate pattern has been established over several hundred years, even thousands of years – even if carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are limited to twice those found before the industrial revolution.

The results are based on a distributed computer model run as a screen saver:

The experiment, launched in Britain in 2001 on the science page of The Daily Telegraph, has since seen about 100,000 PC users around the world download a special screen saver to run a Met Office computer model to explore a vast range of climate change scenarios.

Today's news about the horrific Tsunami in South Asia reminds me of the question I was pondering during our recent spate of hurricanes in Florida: Where should paranoid people live? What parts of the globe are least likely to have a natural disaster, be it earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, tornado, forest fire, mudslide, or the like?

They only measured lap heat, not actual sperm production, but the results are suggestive: Laptops may damage male fertility.

I can hear the jokes already.

While you and I were worrying about the budget — borrow more money to fund the move away from guaranteed social security???? — The American Street has been Waiting for a Protein to Shift.

Flu pandemic? If this keeps up I'm expecting a Biblical Flood.

Oh, wait. Global warming means Florida is going to be under water.

U.S. Reports Possible Case of Mad Cow.

Maybe it's natural cynicism. Maybe it's living in the UK during their right-wing government's denial of what turned out to be a serious Mad Cow problem (right down to the then-Agriculture Minister feeding his young daughter a hamburger on national TV). Maybe it's an economically irrational attempt to control visible if low-probability risk in a world full of invisible higher-probability risks. But Caroline and I don't believe the US government has a handle on the potential for a Mad Cow epidemic — it isn't doing enough testing, for one thing — and we haven't been eating any beef for months now.

So, no borscht this winter (the family recipe involves beef as well as kasha and sour cream).