This is the Playpump:

The basic idea is that children in Africa play on a manually driven merry-go-round, not unlike those found in many playgrounds and enjoy themselves, not even thinking of it as work, but in the process they pump water out from a well into a tank so that it can be used by their communities.   Of course, there’s no doubt water wells provide a much healthier alternative to carrying water miles or using surface streams and ponds for water, and the makers of the Playpump claim it is superior to the traditional hand-operated pumps that have generally been used to provide water because it’s powered by children playing as they would anyway.

Seems like a good idea, right?
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Radiometric dating is a pretty awesome area of science that involves dating materials by using isotopic ratios and the decay rates of radioisotopes found in various samples.   It’s the most accurate means of dating the earth and based on radiometric dating, scientists have concluded that the earth is 4.54 billion years old.   So called “young earth” creationists hate this, because they insist the earth is actually six thousand years old.   Thus they love to attack radiometric dating.  Here’s a great video that explains the issue and how radiometric dating really works

I’d like to add that it’s not as if radiometric dating needs to stand on its own on this one.   Yes, it is the gold standard for dating of geological material, but there are many other observations that can be made which indicate that the earth must be on the order of billions of years old.   The fact that there is room for discourse in refining the accuracy of the calculated dates does not mean that the data is completely wrong by many orders of magnitude.
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I don’t even know that I need to comment about why this is so offensive, distasteful, disingenuous, ignorant and downright savage.   This comes from Slashdot:

How Slums Can Save the Planet

“One billion people live in squatter cities and, according to the UN, this number will double in the next 25 years. Stewart Brand writes in Prospect Magazine about what squatter cities can teach us about future urban living. ‘The magic of squatter cities is that they are improved steadily and gradually by their residents,’ writes Brand. ‘Squatter cities are also unexpectedly green. They have maximum density — 1M people per square mile in some areas of Mumbai — and have minimum energy and material use. People get around by foot, bicycle, rickshaw, or the universal shared taxi.’ Brand adds that in most slums recycling is literally a way of life e.g. the Dharavi slum in Mumbai has 400 recycling units and 30,000 rag-pickers. ‘Of course, fast-growing cities are far from an unmitigated good. They concentrate crime, pollution, disease, and injustice as much as business, innovation, education, and entertainment,’ says Brand. Still, as architect Peter Calthorpe wrote in 1985: ‘The city is the most environmentally benign form of human settlement. Each city dweller consumes less land, less energy, less water, and produces less pollution than his counterpart in settlements of lower densities.’”

Reader Kanel adds this note of perspective:
“Kevin Kelly is another guy who wrote about slums in a very positive light, though he was more interested in self-organisation and why cities are cool, I think. Kelly also reports on the strange trend for slum tourism. What we’re seeing here is that the ’slums’ have become a vehicle for people to bring out their own ideas about cities, humans, and the universe at large. I have a feeling that we’re not really going to learn a lot about slums if we study them through these guys.”

Tourism? Self-organization? Why cities are “Cool”? The fact that comfortable westerners are willing to “tour” these destitute settlements of filth and desperation is offensive enough in its own right that they’d be gawked at.   These are not places where people are being creative and expressive for the sake of the greater good, they’re simply trying to cope with inhuman conditions.   If they figure out a way to stay alive in these miserable conditions, it’s not a beautiful work of self-organization, its human suffering, pure and simple.

I’m reminded of Joseph Stalin saying something like “One death is a tragedy – ten thousand are a statistic.”   When you step back and see the slum grow and change, it might look like some kind of elegant mathematical expression, and perhaps it is.   Yet what this is made up of is human beings, living in filth, squalor and constant danger of disease, fire, murder or any number of other things.   And yes, while slums do often improve over time, it’s because the residents generally DON’T WANT TO LIVE IN SLUM CONDITIONS.   Example: parts of New York City are now fashionable when in the late 1800’s they were about the cheapest and worst parts of the city.  Nobody would want to go back!

Yes, I realize that this is a transitional thing and that some countries have not experienced industrialization to the extent they will eventually.   Still, I’m amazed that these could be considered a good thing.

The original article is even worse.   The ass who wrote it seems to think it’s amazingly efficient to live in a slum and points out that many slums see food grown locally, even with “pigs raised on the third floor,” as it subsistence agriculture and living in the excrement of a pig is somehow a positive thing.

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By now you’ve probably heard of the tragic events in Huntsville Alabama, where Biology professor Amy Bishop allegedly shot and killed three fellow faculty members of the University of Alabama.   I use the word “Allegedly” as a technicality, because although she has not been convicted or confessed, it’s pretty clear that she did do it.     Of course, all killings and killers are unique, although this one seems to fit the pattern of a “workplace rampage” – the kind of killing which is usually the result of an extreme amount of anger and frustration and often involves a feeling of being treated unfairly.  These usually (but not always) result in the death of the perpetrator, either by suicide or because they refuse to surrender and are shot by police after trying to continue to kill.  At this point it’s not clear whether or not Bishop attempted suicide, but had run out of amunition or had the gun jam.   It’s also not clear whether she had made any attempt to flea the scene.

Not surprisingly, discussion quickly moved to the topic of religion and politics.   There’s thus far no evidence that Bishop was in any way an “Intelligent Design” or creationism advocate.   However, according to some in the community, she was a regular church goer – although to a church that was decidedly “liberal” in social additude.   She was also a member of the Clergy Letter Project, a project which seeks professors and scientists to give advice to clergy on issues of science.   Other than that, she does not appear to have been especially active in religion.   A number of reports (especially local) have pointed out that she was a “liberal from New England” or used similar language.   A number of outlets have also stated that she was a “Socialist.” These reports seem to based their conclusion on some comments by her students, in which they state that she was not openly political in class but that she was “a socialist.”  Despite the headlines, it’s not really clear from these comments that she was actually a “socialist” in the sense of being for overthrowing the entire capitalist system and creating a Workers’ Paradise – it may simply be that she was a bit left wing.   (Not that this is unusual in professors in general)

The bottom line is that, despite grasping for straws on both sides, there’s really no evidence that Bishop had any extreme beliefs or was all that active politically or religiously.   Even if she was, that really doesn’t count for much.   There are millions of Christians, Atheists, left-wingers, progressives, socialists, conservatives and libertarians who have never killed anyone and never would.

There is, however, some information which indicates a troubled past.   In 1986, Bishop shot and killed her 18 year old brother in Braintree, MA. The bizzare incident happened when she shot her brother in the chest with a shot gun and was found in the street holding the gun.   Police investigated the incident, but were unable to find any conclusive evidence to refute Bishop’s claims that it had been an accident.   Although some suspected it was not, no charges were ever filed.

Possible trigger was a tenure dispute?
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Lead is not exactly an uncommon material.   In fact, you probably come in contact with it on a fairly regular basis.  There’s lead in most electronic solder, lead in your car battery, lead in your tackle box, lead on the belts of SCUBA divers, lead on the fenders of old cars and lead in your wine glasses.  There are lead bullets all over the world, littering shooting ranges and sitting on

Lead is, of course, toxic, which is why you shouldn’t do anything like eating the lead or grinding it into a fine powder and inhaling it.   The toxicity of lead, however, is fairly mild.   The Romans used to mix lead with vinegar and produce something they called “lead sugar,” which they sprinkled on foods.  That was a very bad idea and eating paint chips that contain lead in the form of lead carbonate is another bad idea.   This is especially true if you do so on a regular basis, since these forms of lead tend to enter the body fairly easily and accumulate, causing progressive damage with repeated exposure.

However, lead in its metallic form is perfectly safe to work with and even hold in your hand.  Its an excellent choice for things like gutters, where lead and copper can be used to create gutters that are low maintenance and last many years, resisting corrosion and wear and tear.   The lead is not very mobile in the enviornment and because of the durability of these gutters, they are popular for all kinds of buildings.

So why not install them in a school?   Well, because there are no words like “the safety of the children,” to dismiss all rational discussion and because we live in a society where a single broke thermometer is enough to evacuate an entire school and bring in hazmat teams in moonsuits.
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A recent article ran in The Economist entitled “Skepticism’s Limits.” The article in question felt directly with climate change and so-called “climate change skeptics.” However, I’d like to respond directly to the issue of skepticism that the article brings up, which could be applied to any topic of debate in the scientific community – or for that matter, the unscientific community.

In fact, I’m purposely avoiding the issue of climate change, because, while I do tend to think that much of the debate on climate change has involved cherry-picked data or trumped up predictions, I don’t feel qualified to state just how trumped up they are.   Really, I just don’t know and I don’t want to speculate too much on this one.   I probably could do so if I also did hours of research, but that’s not the point here.

As one who considers myself a “skeptic,” I have found many don’t quite get the concept of scientific skepticism.  One question I get a lot is “are you skeptical about everything.”   The answer is no, or at least, not to the same degree.   Carl Sagan said “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”  This statement really sums up one of the most important concepts in skepticism:  that all things are not equally plausible and that those which are the most far fetched require the greatest degree of skepticism.

From the article:

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In the US, teaching a religious scripture class in a public school (government sanctioned, tax payer funded) would simply not happen.  We have black latter law against that, and even in the deepest backward bible-belt backwaters, something as blatant as a scripture class is just not going to happen.  Sure, teachers may try to throw in some religious messages (which they shouldn’t) but even that could lead to a lawsuit in federal court.

Not so in Australia.   Despite being a country well known for its skepticism and generally secular, it seems that a vestige of the religious days still exists in some public schools in New South Whales.   On the bright side, while these classes are actually being mandated by the government (seriously), they are optional for students to take and more than half of families elect to have their children opt out of these classes.   Still, by law non-scripture students can’t be taught another subject during scripture class sessions.  Apparently this came about because it would give them the benefit of having time for additional education and thus encourage more to not take scripture class (or that was the justification anyway).   This amounts to a kind of no-compete clause that assures that schools all have dedicated time for religious indoctrination that cannot be used by any other subject.

This law goes all the way back to the late 1800’s and still applies today in New South Whales.   Many other parts of Australia continue to have mandated scripture classes in public schools, but now allow students to take other classes in place of the religious classes.  Only New South Whales still has a law directly preventing other classes from using the time and forcing students to choose between doing nothing and being taught religious beliefs.

Via Homepage Daily:

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I recently got an email from someone asking me if I could point them to good scientific information on the health effects of RF radiation, such as from cell phones and wifi devices and the relationship (or lack there of) to cancer risk.  There have been many posts on this site about RF Radiation and the trumped up charges of health effects, but none seemed to fit the bill for what this person was looking for.

It was then that I realized something:  protection from non-ionizing radiation is a concern to health physicists and HPS generally does an extremely good job of providing scientifically sound and easily understood information.   I’ve cited HPS before as being a scientific professional organization that is uncommonly good with outreach to the public and media and an organization that many others could learn from.

Sure enough, they have an excellent fact sheet on mobile phones.

The fact sheet is recent, adopted only last month.   If I had to nitpick anything with it, I might say that the statement “data regarding long-term use (more than 10 years) of mobile phones is very sparse and unreliable” is a bit misleading, because we do have numerous studies that looked at people who have been using mobile phones since the early 1980’s.   In general, there’s no reason to presume there are any dangers and this is something that the fact sheet makes clear.   Even if it takes an average of 40 years for an enviornmental stressor to produce an effect, we should still see at least the beginning of the trend after much shorter periods of time.

Additional information on wireless devices can be found from HPS here.

Here is one of my favorite “Expert Answers on the topic”

I’ve said before that if a school does not teach evolution, they may as well not teach biology.  It would be better to spend another year on physics or chemistry than to teach biology without evolution, because without evolution, biology makes no sense – it would be like trying to teach chemistry without acknowledging the existence of elements or electrical charges.  It’s too fundamental to leave out!

Recent news from China has shown an example of how a little understanding of evolution and developmental biology can shed light on what otherwise seems damn near supernatural. Organisms evolve and as they evolve they gain and lose certain traits.   The various traits of an organism are controlled by its genetics, but it’s not as simple as one gene making one trait.  Many traits and structures are controlled by multiple genes, including control genes, which regulate how and when a gene is expressed.   This is a nifty feature because it makes it possible for genes to be used in multiple ways.  For example, the genes that build arms and hands can be used to produce legs and feet, either through a recombinant mutation or by changing how and where they are expressed.

Since we all have evolved from previous species, we carry all kinds of genes for traits that they had, even if we ourselves do not manifest the traits associated with these genes.  It may simply be that the gene is “switched off” or that it has mutated in a way that makes it no longer effective at producing a given trait.   This is very helpful for evolution because these genes are like a library that can produce complex traits without having to completely reinvent them from the ground up.   A single mutation can switch back on one of these genes, inherited from previous ancestors and usually not useful.   However, on the rare occasion that it is, it can reemerge, sometimes being used in a totally different way.

Thus, our understanding of genetics has shed light on evolution and vice-versa.

And that is why it’s not really that weird that there’s a snake in china with a clawed foot sticking out of it…

Okay, it’s still weird, but the basic explanation is pretty simple: a mutation of some sort has caused the snake to manifest traits associated with a genes that have been long dormant and were inherited from the past ancestors of the snake which did have legs.   If we didn’t accept evolution we’d be left scratching out heads and looking at this saying “what the…”

So what the hell is a gene for a leg doing in a snake?  Did God put it there?  What for?   Did Satan do it?   Is this snake really Satan?   No.  The answer is much more straight forward than that.  It’s there because the snake evolved from legged reptiles.

Via the New Scientist:

On 29 September, Francesca Galeazzi walked to the top of a small hill in Greenland’s Jakobshavn fjord carrying a black gas tanks, kneeled down, opened the valve and released 6 kilograms of pure carbon dioxide into the air.

Galeazzi, part of an expedition of artists and scientists, later wrote on her blog:

The CO2 came out violently, freezing the air around the nozzle and producing an unpleasant whistle.

She had purposefully chosen a pristine spot. Others on the expedition were shocked by her actions. According to an interview she did recently with the UK Royal Society of Arts, one stopped talking to her entirely.

Galeazzi makes a powerful point. The average UK citizen emits 100 times as much CO2 in holiday flights each year, and producing the food and drink we each consume emits another 600kg. We don’t tend to think of these emissions because we don’t physically see them being released over the Greenland ice sheet.

But the real point of Galeazzi’s “installation” is about carbon offsets and, as she puts it “justifying bad behaviour”.

Okay, while I agree that “carbon offsets” are a crock of bull, this is even worse.   Apparently it’s another example of “raising awareness” but this also includes the classic guilt trip.  Yes, now it’s “bad behavior ” to take your family on holiday so that you might actually get to bond with the kids or see a pristine place in the world (notice her “bad behavior” of flying to Greenland in the first place is not mentioned).  Of course the reality of things is that aviation doesn’t account for all that much CO2 and trying to call innocent travel “bad behavior” is not going to do much when one considered the amount of emissions that things like coal produce.

The other part nobody seems to want to mention is that had this artist not released this CO2 from a tank, it would have ended up being burped up by a soda drinker, shot out of a paint ball gun, released from a portable cooling system or otherwise vented from any of the numerous end users of industrial Co2.

From the “artist’s” blog:

You might think I carried out an evil horrible action. I would like to reassure you, I didn’t! I have done something great: I have offset the carbon emissions generated by the CO2 cylinder, through an online Gold Standard Carbon Offsetting scheme! Cool no? This is great stuff; one can go about consciously polluting the world, wasting energy, producing tonnes of waste and abusing natural resources without feeling guilty at all!! One can simply pay somebody to compensate for his/her ‘bad’ actions somewhere else, and become carbon neutral!

Don’t you think this is great?

Do you?

Personally I think it is appalling.

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