Recently came across an especially irritating editorial in the Washington Times and decided I really could not let the contentions stand.

Here it is, by Dariusz Leszczynski:

Helsinki/Finland, January 11, 2012-Epidemiological studies are given the most weight in evaluation of human health effects. Therefore, when researchers started their effort to find out whether cell phone radiation causes brain cancer, epidemiology was given the most of attention – and the most funding.

Well… yes, since Epidemology is the study of health events, disease patterns, health statistics and disease rates and their relation to factors like environment, lifestyle and other causes, it would seem to be the field of study that would apply to such a question.

It’s as straight forward as determining that geology is the appropriate field of science to look to when trying to determine the characteristics of a rock.

However, and please let me play “devils advocate”,

Only if I can play with science advocate.

is the epidemiology overrated?

No.

There, are we done?

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Although the winter for much of North America has been mild this season, in Alaska it has been extremely harsh.  While those who live in the more remote parts of Alaska are used to dealing with the extremes of nature, this year they are facing the prospect of being cut off from vital supplies of fuel due to the extent of ocean icing and the harsh weather that has made even airlifting of fuel problematic.   This is not the first time these settlements have faced these kind of fuel problems, and it’s not likely to be the last.   In the past, there have been close calls and times when distant Alaskans have been left without fuel for periods of time.  Yet each time this happens, there is always the possibility that remote villages will suffer or even lose lives.

Remote areas of Alaska are off the wider electrical grid and are far from natural gas pipelines or railways to deliver coal.   Heat may be provided, at least in part, by wood burning stoves that can use local fuel, although wood supplies may also be limited.   However, by far the most important source of energy is oil.   Diesel oil is the only way for these communities to generate electricity and provides most of the heat.   Petroleum also powers local transportation and powers the vital systems of the communities, either directly or by generating electricity.   Communications, drinking water wells, sanitary systems, heat and lighting all require energy provided by oil.

These communities use a lot of oil, and although they may have large storage tanks, the energy density of petroleum means that they can’t go very long without replenishment.   Getting the supplies to these communities is never a sure thing.   When it does arrive it’s expensive and it’s rapidly becoming more expensive as petroleum prices go up.  Due to both the costs of oil as a commodity and the difficulty in delivering it, the final cost can be upwards of ten US dollars a gallon when it is delivered.

Via NPR:

Ultra-Harsh Alaska Winter Prompts Fuel Shortages

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Living in Alaska’s outer reaches is challenging enough, given the isolation and weather extremes, but at least three remote communities also have experienced weather-related late deliveries of fuel so crucial to their survival during an especially bitter winter.

The iced-in town of Nome and the northwest Inupiat Eskimo villages of Noatak and Kobuk faced fuel shortages that illustrate the vulnerability of relying solely on deliveries by sea or air, potentially subjecting communities to the mercy of the elements. The villages, which just received their fuel, are especially vulnerable, unable to afford more additional storage tanks for gasoline and heating oil, which can run as high as $10 a gallon.

Compounding a problem with no easy answers, temperatures dipping as low as minus 60 over the past few weeks means air deliveries are delayed at the same time people are consuming more fuel more quickly. Some people in both villages also use wood-burning stoves for supplemental heat, but diesel is the critical commodity.

“It’s been pretty tough,” Noatak resident Robbie Kirk said of life in the community of 500, which finally received a fuel delivery on Tuesday, three days after the village store ran out of heating oil. “We usually have a nice reserve of fuel. Now we’re just playing catch-up.”

Nome missed its pre-winter delivery of fuel by barge when a huge storm swept western Alaska. In a high-profile journey, a Coast Guard icebreaker is cutting path in thick sea ice for a Russian tanker delivering 1.3 million gallons of fuel to the community of 3,500.

Without a fuel delivery, Nome would likely run out of certain petroleum products before the end of winter and a barge delivery becomes possible in late spring.

Until recently, the situation was much more dire for the smaller communities of Noatak and Kobuk, located farther north above the Arctic Circle, where relentless extreme cold prevented fuel deliveries by plane until this week, residents say.

Before the new supply of fuel arrived in Noatak, the village store borrowed some heating oil from the village water and sewer plant, said store manager Connie Walton. But filling the store’s two 23,000-gallon tanks has diverted any potential crisis.

“We’re good for another month and a half,” Walton said.

Residents in Kobuk also were highly relieved by an air shipment of heating oil that arrived Wednesday in the village of 150 people about 175 miles to the east. It’s been too cold for people to use their snowmobiles much, so gasoline isn’t as much of a concern, said City Clerk Sophia Ward. Running low on the diesel used to warm homes was another matter.

“I’m glad that it came in today,” Ward said Wednesday. “It’ll keep our elders warm.”

In Noatak, residents once had fuel shipped by barge on the Noatak River, but that has long been impossible since the river shifted and became shallow there.

Two years ago, residents began tapping into another source of fuel, thanks to the Red Dog zinc mine 40 miles to the northeast. The mine in 2009 began a program to sell gasoline and diesel to Noatak and another close neighbor, the village of Kivalina. The fuel is sold at cost, said mine spokesman Wayne Hall.

“This is strictly for what we can do to help out our closest community members,” he said. “Energy and heating costs are one of the biggest costs to families in this region.”

The program lets individuals buy fuel on Saturdays every three weeks at a staging area about 23 miles from the village. This winter, they can buy gas in 55-gallon drums calculated at $4.89 a gallon. Villagers also bring their own drums to fill with diesel fuel at $4.35 a gallon.

The latest Red Dog fuel day for Noatak took place on the day the village store ran out of diesel. So villagers formed a convoy of about 30 snowmobiles and freight sleds, and headed out in weather marked by temperatures of 47 below and, for the first 10 miles, dense fog, said Kirk, who regularly takes advantage of the sales.

“It basically cuts my heating fuel in half,” he said. “It’s pretty critical for me.”

The state also helps lower the soaring cost of electricity in Alaska’s rural areas, spending almost $32 million in fiscal year 2011 through its Power Cost Equalization program, which subsidizes residential electric rates and the power bills of community buildings. Power in most villages is diesel-generated.

With so many scattered settlements of a few hundred or less, the logistics of keeping them all supplied is daunting. The very fact that oil would be brought in by air should drive home just how difficult and expensive an operation this is. Even when the system works and fuel and electricity are available, it’s always extremely expensive. The cost may be offset by subsidies, but that only shifts the burden to the government and tax payers. Ultimately, there’s no getting around the fact that getting hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel to remote settlements is a costly undertaking.

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Background:

Shooting down an ICBM has always been an extremely challenging problem.  There is very little time to react to the missile and they travel at extreme speed.   The distances involved are enormous and because an interceptor must also travel at extreme speed, it can easily shoot right past the target.  This is made even more difficult by the fact that modern missiles have penetration aids and decoys that are hard to distinguish from the actual warhead.  Some also have the ability to maneuver and change course, making it difficult to plot an interception point.  The earliest systems addressed this in a simplistic, though likely effective way:  They would try to destroy the incoming warhead with a massive nuclear explosion.  For example, the Spartan missile carried a five megaton radiation-enhanced warhead that could destroy incoming missiles at a distance of 50 kilometers.   Another missile, the Sprint, used a much smaller explosive and was intended as a last line of defense for warheads that were entering their terminal phase.

Such systems, however, quickly fell from favor for a number of reasons.   For one, the massive blasts associated with them could have some catastrophic effects on the ionosphere and satellites in the area.  While this may have been considered preferable to absorbing an attack with nuclear missiles, it was still a major concern.   The use of high power nuclear explosives was also considered politically impalpable and the prospect of hundreds of nuclear-armed interceptors alarmed the Soviet Union.   The Soviets responded by designing new warheads that were radiation hardened and could withstand blasts up to as close as a few hundred meters.   They also threatened to build up their arsenal of nuclear missiles to include a large enough number to simply overwhelm any defense system

In the end, the US and Soviets both signed treaties to limit such weapons.   The US system, known as Safeguard, was only operational for a few months before being shutdown.   A similar Soviet system was dramatically scaled back and eventually had its nuclear warheads replaced with conventional explosives.

Today there are some interceptor systems that use missiles to intercept ICBM’s, although their effectiveness is somewhat limited.   One of the most notable is the US Aegis anti ballistic missile system. It’s quite effective against single warhead missiles that lack penetration aids and advanced features, but the effectiveness against a barrage of modern ICBM’s is questionable.

A separate approach developed in the 1980’s and focused on the use of directed energy weapons, especially lasers.   These would have a number of advantages over interceptor missiles.  They would be able to engage the target almost instantly and could track a fast moving and maneuvering target in ways that a physical interceptor never could.  The Strategic Defense Initiative was a program initiated by the Regan administration in the early 1980’s.   It studied a number of methods of intercepting missiles and warheads but focused especially on the use of high power lasers.   President Regan would say that one reason for pushing the program was the realization that even a single nuclear missile, perhaps launched by error, could not be stopped and would inevitably trigger a nuclear war.   Therefore, the ability to shoot down a missile quickly and effectively would be an important capability to help preserve world peace.

Whatever the motivation, the Strategic Defense Initiative had decidedly mixed results.  Huge amounts of money were expended and great strides were made in the development of high power lasers and remote sensing systems.   High speed interceptors were developed which eventually were incorporated into THAAD and the Aegis system.   High powered chemical lasers were developed and demonstrated to be capable of blinding satellites and tracking missiles, but showed limited potential against actual missile threats.   A few tests were conducted that showed the lasers could destroy the bodies of missiles, but this was generally limited to fairly thin-walled liquid fueled missiles, which were largely obsolete by the time.

The YAL-1:

After the close of the program in the early 1990’s, some attempts were made to find applications for the technology.   One was the YAL-1.  The YAL-1 is an attempt to make one of the huge chemical lasers developed for SDI into a viable weapon.   The mission of the YAL-1 is to shoot down ballistic missiles during the boost phase. This is a very short period of time during which the missile is just leaving the launch site on course for its target. It would be the ideal time to shoot down a missile, since it would avoid contamination of friendly areas with any materials on the missile and provide the quickest response to the threat.

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An interesting story has recent come out about research at the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory has been making the rounds.   It seems some studies relating to the cellular-level effects of ionizing radiation have found the effect is….. GASP…. not linear and directly proportional to dose level.

Via HealthCanal:

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I really hate to do this, and I realize that it’s a bit unprofessional to openly ask for help with editing a page that is not even officially up.  However, as readers here may know, I’m not the best speller in the world, although I may well be the worst.

I am about to launch a website for my bid for the US Congress.   However, I’m sure it has spelling errors in it and I can’t find them alone.   Paying for editing would be expensive and likely delay things even more.   That’s why I am asking to crowd source it from anyone kind enough to point them out.  I can be e-mailed or you can just point them out in the comments here.

The website (which is still not up as the main page) can be found at http://www.packard2012.org/test/

Once I am pretty sure there are no horribly embarrassing spelling errors I’ll move it to being the main page of the site.

I know that there are also parts of it that are lacking.   It does not have a full photo gallery yet, the donations service is still pending on having the account finalized.  The “policies” section needs a few additional ones added.  I’m aware of that and working to add them.  Right now what I need help with is spelling.

Thanks to anyone who will help out.

SSRI’s or Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor’s are used as anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drugs. They’re often regarded as about the safest drugs we have, since it’s almost impossible to overdose on them and the negative long term health effects seem to be negligible. However, there has been some concern expressed about their safety during pregnancy.

A number of studies have been conducted on the use of various SSRI drugs during various stages of pregnancy and breast feeding. The majority of the studies done have not found any harmful effects of the use of SSRI’s on developing fetuses or infants who breastfeed. While these drugs do pass through the placenta, the concentration of exposure is at least two thirds less for the developing fetus than for the mother.

However, one study, done in 2007, did find a slight increase in a few birth defects in mothers who received relatively high doses of certain SSRI medications during the first trimester of their pregnancy. The study did not find any significant increase in overall odds of most birth defects, but did find an increase in a few birth defects, such as certain cardiac defects. Still, the total risk remains tiny with or without SSRI’s, and while the increase was greater than the statistical error of the study, confounding factors cannot be ruled out, such as the possibility that depressed mothers might have less healthy babies for a variety of reasons.

You can read the entire study here.

The reception of the study in the medical community was generally more one of reassurance than concern. While it indicated that there was at least a possibility that a few narrow birth defects might possibly be associated with SSRI’s, the overall risk is very low. Interestingly, the study did not find that these risks increased for all types of SSRI drugs. Zoloft and Paxil did appear to produce slight increases in some birth defects, but Prozac, Lexapro and other antidepressants did not produce any detectable increase in any birth defects.

Given that the risks are not completely proven and appear to be extremely low, the Mayo Clinic says the following about the use of antidepressants during pregnancy:

Overall, the risk of birth defects and other problems for babies of mothers who take antidepressants during pregnancy is low. Still, few medications have been proved safe without question during pregnancy and some types of antidepressants have been associated with health problems in babies.

It should also be noted that these slight increases in risk have been speculated about since before the 2007 study, and most women who received the drugs during pregnancy would have been told (or should have been told) by their doctor that the possibility existed that there could be a small increase in some birth defects.

Now enter the lawyers. Lets say, you happen to have had a child with a common and minor birth defect, like a cleft lip or a club foot, both of which are fairly common and correctable. You might have just put your child’s foot in a brace or taken them for minor plastic surgery and then thought nothing of it. Well, if you happen to have been taking an anti-depressent, there are lawyers out there who want to be sure you don’t just go on with your life without giving them a crack at the drug companies. And they’re paying for advertising to make sure you know.

I am very very saddened to say that Christopher Hitchens has lost his battle with cancer.   He was 62 years old.   He was diagnosed more than a year ago, and while there was at least a slim hope of beating the cancer, we all have known for some time that this day was likely to be soon upon us.

Hitchens was an illuminating, if controversial force who contributed much to the world, especially in the areas of ethical and religious debate.   Despite his deteriorating health, he managed to continue his irreverent and pointed public commentary almost to the very end.

I first met Christopher Hitchens at Tam-5.  Sadly I never got a picture with him, but at least I shook his hand.  He was not able to make the next two Tam’s for various reasons and then he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which prevented him from attending many more conferences.

I’m sorry I did not get to know him better, though many of my close friends did.   We appreciate his contributions enormously and will miss him.

For those involved in skepticism, secularism and related areas, this is a sad day.

I realize I have been rather quiet about the run for the US Congress.  It turns out that it has taken a lot more time and effort just to do the basics and get things setup.  I just got the website hosting account setup a few days ago.  I hope to have the full website up soon, probably by the end of the week if things go according to plan.

In the meantime, I have a temporary page up that has little more than a logo, but just the same, if you’d like to bookmark it and admire the logo you can do so at:

packard2012.org

When nuclear fission was first discovered in the laboratory, in 1938, it was seen as a relatively strange reaction, resulting from humans taking a sample of the heaviest known element and shooting artificially-generated neutrons at it until some of the atoms absorbed a neutron and split.   While the experiment provided enormous insight into the nature of atoms and helped provide early confirmation of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, by demonstrating the release of energy from an observable change in atomic mass, it was regarded as something that occurred in the laboratory.

Fission was recognized as a potential energy source after the possibility of a fission chain reaction was realized.  A chain reaction occurs when neutrons produced by nuclear fission strike other fissile nuclei, releasing more energy in a self-sustaining reaction.   In 1942, an experiment at the University of Chicago proved that nuclear fission could indeed produce such a chain reaction.   The first artificial fission reactor was created by piling large amounts of uranium together with ultra-pure graphite blocks.  The graphite slowed neutrons, making them easier to absorb by the uranium nuclei, resulting in the fission chain reaction.  In 1945, the first artificial fission chain reaction to occur without the aid of a moderator when the first nuclear weapon detonated in the Trinity test.  The Trinity device used plutonium as the fissile material, an element produced in nuclear reactors at the Hanford site.   Plutonium is too short-lived to be found in large quantities in nature.  Another bomb, fueled by uranium was the result of years of painstaking isotope separation, which increased the amount of fissile uranium-235 available to far beyond what is found in natural uranium samples.

For many years, it was believed that such fission reactions were always limited to these artificial circumstances.   Nuclear fission, it was thought, was the result of painstaking efforts by mankind to gather up the necessary materials, enrich beyond their natural concentrations and either bring them together rapidly in large quantities or place them in the special conditions inside a reactor, where neutron moderators make it possible to sustain nuclear fission.

In 1940, Russian scientists observed the phenomena of spontaneous fission, where heavy elements like uranium split on their own without the need for a neutron to cause the event.  It was also known that uranium atoms could split as the result of a neutron generated by cosmic rays.   However, such events are uncommon and produce little energy.   They are distinct from the chain reactions that had only been observed in human-created nuclear reactors.

All this changed in 1972, when an unusual discrepancy in the concentration of uranium-235 from a mine in Gabon Africa was detected.  Chemical analysis of a unique uranium deposit  indicated that the formation had sustained a fission chain reaction at one time.   The possibility of a natural nuclear reactor of this type had been suggested as early as 1956, but the Gabon discovery was the first time that such an event was confirmed to have happened.  Further investigation of the site identified at least sixteen regions of the deposit where the concentration of uranium and lighter elements clearly indicated that significant amounts of nuclear fission had occurred.

The reactor at Gabon operated about 1.7 billion years ago, producing chain reactions for at least hundreds of thousands of years.   It was remarkably similar to modern, artificial nuclear reactors.   Fission occurred when water seeped into cracks and pores in the deposits of extremely high grade uranium ore.   The water acted as a moderator, causing the chain reaction.   In modern times, water can only be used as a moderator in reactors where the uranium has been slightly enriched to contain more uranium-235 than found in nature, but because uranium-235 has a half-life of about seven hundred million years, there was a great deal more when the Gabon reactor was critical.

Exactly how long the Gabon reactor was critical or how much energy was released is not known.   Scientists have estimated that it probably generated about 100 kW of power and likely operated intermittently due to the buildup of neutron poisons and variations in the water levels in the rock.   It also generated some amount of plutonium-239 and other heavy isotopes, which would have added to the available fissile fuel.

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Even as the US Mars Science Laboratory was sent on its way to the red planet, another ambitious mars mission died in orbit this week.

The Russian Phobos-Grunt mission was to be the first sample-return mission to the mars system.   The probe was not intended to land on mars.  Instead, it would include a lander bound for the martian moon Phobos and an orbiter.   The lander would include a series of scientific experiments along with a soil-collection system, capable of recovering 200 grams of material for return to earth.   Taking soil from Phobos is a bit easier than from mars, since the moon has less gravity and thus lifting off for the return to earth would be much easier. While Phobos may not be mars, it would still be an amazing achievement to bring back material from the vicinity of mars and a step toward conducting sample return missions on other moons in the solar system and eventually on mars itself.

Although Russian-lead, the probe was an international effort.  It carried an independent mars orbiter, Yinghuo-1 from the Chinese Space Agency.  It was to be the first Chinese interplanetary spacecraft.   It also carried a privately-funded experiment by the Planetary Society, which was aimed at proving whether bacteria could survive the trip between planets.  The European Space Agency also contributed to the program and provided assistance in the telemetry and ground-segment of the mission.

The probe lifted off successfully on November 9 and entered “parking orbit” around the earth.  From there it was supposed to preform systems tests and then fire a rocket engine to send it out of earth orbit and onto mars.  Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, the probe did not respond to commands.   Initially it sent back a series of weak signals which appeared to show it had entered safe mode, indicating some kind of systems failure or disrupting event.   Attempts by Russian controllers to send commands to the spacecraft failed to elicit a response and only a few weak signals were detected by ground receivers.

Additional efforts by Russian and European agencies to reestablish communications with the spacecraft have now officially ended.  Last week, ground stations in Australia did manage to pick up a weak signal from the spacecraft, but since then it has been completely silent.   It may be some sort of power systems problem which has resulted in the probe failing to obtain the necessary electricity to run systems from the solar panels, leaving it only the remaining energy in on board batteries.   Right now, it’s not certain what caused the mission to be lost.

The probe will likely return to earth some time in the next few months, as its orbit degrades.   Some concern has been expressed about the toxic hydrazine propellant onboard, but that’s unlikely to reach the ground.  In all likelihood, the tanks of the spacecraft will be breached up and the hydrazine burned up before it gets anywhere near the surface of earth.

The Soviet and now Russian space program has a long history of successful unmanned planetary probes, including some very impressive missions to Venus as well as lunar probes and missions to comets.  Yet it has suffered some extremely bad luck when it comes to mars.  Of the nineteen Russian missions to mars, dating back to 1960, not a single one has been entirely successful, with many exploding on launch or failing to successfully reach martian orbit.

There’s something a little ironic about the Soviet Union never being able to get to the red planet.