How do you sell Dystopia as Utopia?

How do you sell Dystopia as Utopia?
With lies & propaganda, of course!

This is a great article by Mariah Blake on the willful negligence that has led to the nearly 100% of the planet's population being exposed to the toxic and carcinogenic chemical known as "C8" (perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA). 

It's also a great story of the tireless efforts of a handful of people - former employees, neighbors, farmers, etc- that worked to make sure that this whole thing was not swept under the rug by the chemical industry and DuPont.

Typical things that expose us to C8: stain resistant carpets, carpet cleaning liquids, Teflon cookware, microwave popcorn bags, Gore-Tex, floor wax, treated upholstery, clothing, and furniture, etc., food contact paper & wrappers, and dental floss.

Highlights include that DuPont knew about the health risks for nearly 50 years and did everything they could to cover it up and side-step their responsibilities to the public.  While finally caught red-handed dumping their toxic waste, and ordered to pay the victims, communities, for clean up and even further research, etc. they still are doing everything possible to stall the actual restitution.  One legal firm hired to administer funds to people has used $9 million while delivering $50,000 so far to victims, to give you an idea of how that's going.

Other standard Industry tricks, like hiring "regulatory strategists", lobbyists, public relations firms, and paying for narrowly focused scientific research meant to cast doubt on anyone or anything said against their "better living with chemicals" philosophy, and spin things to appear in their favor, as well as finally, creating a new subdivision within their corporate legal structure to hopefully distance themselves from the full legal, financial, and social consequences of their bad-actor behavior.

There's a movie in here, that I hope gets made so that more people are aware of this.

Oh, almost forgot the good news:  2015 marks the final year of the phase-out of C8.  It has been replaced with the also largely exempt (grandfathered) or untested variants, like C6, C7, C5, etc.

Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/blog/ten-years-after-toxic-chemical-settlement-dupont-failing-keep-its-promises
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weinberg_Group

Unprecedented 8 satellite view of magnetospheric substorm details and reconnection

Energy tracked from solar wind to Earth

In July 2012, scientists took advantage of a rare eight satellite conjunction across the magnetotail to gain more details of the substorm process.  Below is a depiction of of the satellites involved:

Credit:
NASA/SVS

The initial magnetic reconnection happened very quickly, in a region a couple hundred miles across.  Then, the energy was converted and moved the distance between the Moon and Earth, changing forms along the way.  The final destination was to light up the Aurora at high latitudes.

“One of the unique features of our research field is that microscopic things can sometimes run the whole show,” says David Sibeck, the project scientist for ARTEMIS and THEMIS at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “The tiniest causes may have global consequences."

Indeed, small events that happen for a millisecond can drive energy flows lasting up to 30 minutes and cover an area 10 times larger than Earth.

To cover such a vast region, multiple spacecraft are needed, situated at different points throughout the magnetosphere, the protective bubble created by the Earth's magnetic field within the flow of the solar wind.

Have a look at the video to get an idea of the scale we're talking about:

While much of these details have been known and modeled for some time, this is the first multi-scale in-situ measurement, and paid off with some new information about the process.

The energy that this represents is equivalent to a 7.1 magnitude earthquake.  For more details, check out the paper that was produced from the mission results:

Electromagnetic Energy Conversion at Reconnection Fronts
V. Angelopoulos, A. Runov, X.-Z. Zhou, D. L. Turner, S. A. Kiehas, S.-S. Li, and I. Shinohara
Science 27 September 2013: 341 (6153), 1478-1482. [DOI:10.1126/science.1236992]

Abstract
Earth’s magnetotail contains magnetic energy derived from the kinetic energy of the solar wind. Conversion of that energy back to particle energy ultimately powers Earth’s auroras, heats the magnetospheric plasma, and energizes the Van Allen radiation belts. Where and how such electromagnetic energy conversion occurs has been unclear. Using a conjunction between eight spacecraft, we show that this conversion takes place within fronts of recently reconnected magnetic flux, predominantly at 1- to 10-electron inertial length scale, intense electrical current sheets (tens to hundreds of nanoamperes per square meter). Launched continually during intervals of geomagnetic activity, these reconnection outflow flux fronts convert ~10 to 100 gigawatts per square Earth radius of power, consistent with local magnetic flux transport, and a few times 10¹⁵ joules of magnetic energy, consistent with global magnetotail flux reduction.


Late next year, NASA is scheduled to launch the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission which will add one more important elelment of the reconnection process - getting a simultaneous measurement of the front side reconnection that preceeds the process shown above.

More information can be found at this NASA page:  Several NASA Spacecraft Track Energy Through Space

Red Sprites

Jason Ahrns, University of Alaska Fairbanks

I like to cover ongoing mysteries in science, and the topic of Sprites is a good one!  Although they were reported in scientific literature as far back as 1886, it wasn't until 1925 that the theoretical underpinnings were discussed.  Experimental proof didn't come for almost 7 decades!

This recent photo was taken by Jason Ahrns of the University of Alaska Fairbanks who was working with an airborne team of researchers from NCAR, using a 'normal' dSLR camera with an image intensifier and settings of f/1.8, ISO 6400, 3/4 second exposure.  They use more sophisticated equipment for the actual research, but bring their personal cameras along to get shots like this which are nicer to look at!

So, what are they?

Sprites are a form of electrical discharge in the upper atmosphere, called the "mesosphere" in the range of 50 to 90 km above Earth.  They are not lightning, but are related to lightning strikes.  As I said in the intro, they are a mystery and we have just begun to get a rough idea about them.  Here's a bullet list of what we do know so far:

•    they are a cold plasma phenomenon
•    they were named after "air spirits", for their rare sightings
•    they are red-orange at the tops, and bluish at their bottoms
•    they tend to appear in clusters of at least 2
•    they can be preceded by an orange halo above
•    they last for just milliseconds
•    they can be produced by both positive and negative (cloud to ground) lightning strikes, but are most often produced by the more rare positive strikes
•    positive lightning produces 7 to 10 times more halos than negative
•    every lightning strike 'tries' to create them
•    initial estimates of their energy were low by a factor of 50
•    they produce VLF & ELF radio waves
•    they consist of balls of ionization that move downward at ~10% of the speed of light, followed by upward moving balls
•    they were theoretically anticipated by C.T.E. Wilson, Cavendish Laboratory, in 1925
•    they were first captured in images by J.R. Winckler,  University of Minnesota in 1989

If you're interested in using Sprites for classroom material, I recommend this publication: THE DISCOVERY OF RED SPRITES AS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR INFORMAL SCIENCE EDUCATION


References (including above):
http://www.spaceweather.com/
http://musubk.blogspot.com/
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2002/B/20026035.html
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2004GL021943/abstract
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1927/wilson-bio.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_%28lightning%29


UPDATE: August 18, 2013

Some of the comments from a G+ version of this story

UPDATE: Sept 17, 2013

A new video from NASA talks about their Firestation experiment aboard the ISS, which has started operations recently.

In recent decades researchers have discovered some strange things happening in the cloud tops.  High above ordinary lightning, exotic forms known as red sprites and blue elves shoot toward the heavens, cold cousins to the fiery bolts below. In some places jets of antimatter fly upwards, triggering the detectors on NASA's orbiting high-energy observatories.  And as often as 500 times a day, Earth briefly mimics a supernova, producing a powerful blast of gamma-rays known as a Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flash or TGF.

No know knows exactly how these phenomena are related either to each other or to the lightning down below. 

A new experiment called "Firestation" onboard the ISS aims to find out.  Firestation is a package of sensors designed to explore the links between TGFs, ordinary lightning, and sprites.

  

Something up there is accelerating low-energy particles of air to nearly the speed of light, producing gamma-radiation and, sometimes, a cascade of antimatter.  Rowland wants to find out what that strange, unknown "something" is.  Firestation is poised to crack the mystery. 

The full story can be read here: ISS "Firestation" to Explore the Tops of Thunderstorms

Stay tuned for the latest findings!
 

Are Noctilucent Clouds connected with Climate Change?

NLCs in Finland.  (c) Pekka Parviainen

NASA reported yesterday that their AIM Mission continues to add to our understanding of Noctilucent Clouds (NLC).

"The 2013 season is remarkable because it started in the northern hemisphere a week earlier than any other season that AIM has observed," reports Cora Randall of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado. "This is quite possibly earlier than ever before."

The ScienceCast video below was posted in the STEM on Google+ Community, where the focus was aimed toward work that connects NLCs to climate change.

NLCs are cloud-like phenomena that are located near the edge of polar mesospheric clouds in the upper
atmosphere. They are made of ice crystals and are typically observed in the summer months at latitudes between 50° and 70° north and south of the equator when the Sun is below the horizon.

Their occurrence can be used as a sensitive guide to changes in the upper atmosphere.

Wikipedia pulls some of the connections together:

There is evidence that the relatively recent appearance of noctilucent clouds, and their gradual increase, may be linked to climate change.[1] The author of this study, atmospheric scientist Gary Thomas of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado has pointed out[2] that the first sightings coincide with both Krakatoa and the nascent Industrial Revolution, and they have become more widespread and frequent throughout the twentieth century, including an uptick between 1964 and 1986. The connecting of global warming and noctilucent clouds however, remains controversial.[2]

Climate models predict that increased greenhouse gas emissions cause a cooling of the mesosphere, which would lead to more frequent and widespread occurrences of noctilucent clouds.[3] A competing theory is that larger methane emissions from intensive farming activities produce more water vapour in the upper atmosphere.[4] Methane concentrations have more than doubled in the past 100 years.[5]

One possible weakness is the timing coincidence of the first sightings.  Given the limited time of day, typical geographic location, and overall appearance of NLCs being so similar to aurora, they may have been lumped together with that phenomenon.  See photos [A, B] of recent low latitude aurora, which is also a fairly rare event.  Oddly, NLCs are anti-correlated with the peak of the solar cycle which is going on right now, and is the direct cause of the conditions that spark the aurora.

It's also curious to me that the word "competing" is used between cooling of the mesosphere and more water vapor in the upper atmosphere, as both are necessary characteristics of NLCs.
 
Relating to the last post here is the question: Is it better to push the envelope when it comes to possible connections to climate change in order to increase awareness, or is it too risky given that many people won't have adequate knowledge of varied and lessor known phenomena, and how they would relate?  The risk being that either people will dismiss these connections out of hand, or if ultimately disproved, would become fodder for denialism.


[1] Thomas, GE; Olivero, J (2001). "Noctilucent clouds as possible indicators of global change in the mesosphere". Advances in Space Research 28 (7): 939–946. 
[2] Phillips, Tony (August 25, 2008). "Strange Clouds at the Edge of Space". NASA.
[3] A. Klekociuk, R. Morris, J. French (2008). "First Antarctic ground-satellite view of ice aerosol clouds at the edge of space". Australian Antarctic Division. Retrieved 2008-10-19.
[4] "Noctilucent clouds". Australian Antarctic Division.
[5] Hsu, Jeremy (2008-09-03). "Strange clouds spotted at the edge of Earth's atmosphere". USAtoday.

 

Promotion vs Accuracy in Science Writing

Promotion vs Accuracy in Science Writing

Via redOrbit.com, Image Credit: Roman Pyshchyk / Shutterstock

It's no secret that photographs are great for gaining attention.  The photo goes hand-in-hand with the headline itself.   It's also no secret that in science writing, 2 things are very common - that articles tend to be "dumbed down" to communicate with as large of an audience as possible, and that the articles tend to leave out elements of doubt, scope, or context that are carefully included in the original peer-reviewed science paper.

The headline, or sometimes the photo itself crosses the line in order to grab more attention, which is arguably their purpose from the start.  The goal of the Science article is to communicate real, accurate, and true information, while the goal of the headline/photo is usually simply to gain attention.

So the age-old question is naturally produced: does the end justify the means?  If an inappropriate photo gains a lot of attention for an article, but at a sacrifice of authenticity, is it an overall "plus"?

Certainly there is something to be said of the intended audience.  If the audience is the general public then it seems reasonable to stretch for that extra percent of attention while sacrificing a small portion of realism.  This is especially true if the author has already decided, even unconsciously, to modify the information for wider understanding and for brevity, as mentioned above.

I'll save the question of what the consequences of this might be for a later post, but one wonders if public trust in science, or other credibility issues could be at stake.

Take the photo at the top of the article. There are several incarnations of it used in other science stories, for example Plasma Arc Waste Gasification Plant to be Made in Marion? in Feb 2012.

Add caption

However, let's take a closer look at the photo itself.  Have we even started with a real photo?  In this case, no - it has been photoshopped as shown here.

Start with a stock photo of a common novelty plasma ball, in this case by the same photographer - Roman Pyshchyk.

Clean it up, work the center area into a circle shape, and perhaps add some wires at the edges

to make the thought of electricity come to mind, and voilà! - you've created "plasma".

From here, it's just a quick search for stock photos of fingers, and some more photoshopping, and you can offer a photo of "hand-held plasma".




With this kind of photo in hand, we can now get the attention that the article deserves.  Now, what was the article about again...?

Plasma Device Developed at MU Could Revolutionize Energy Generation and Storage, University of Missouri

Like the original source, I used the 2 minute video that shows the actual device in operation, along with a short interview with the head of the research, Prof Randy D. Curry.

The results were quite low, compared to posts that used the more interesting fantasy photo.  The redOrbit.com article garnished 4.6k FB likes, 273 Twts, 3.7k +1s, on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ respectively.  On G+, it drove at least 2 posts to the "what's hot" list:  +Mara Mascaro got 1613 +1s, 650 shares, and 324 comments, while +Lacerant Plainer got 600 +1s, 183 shares, and 92 comments nearly a month later using the same photo.

Probably unsurprisingly, we confirm the idea that a good photo draws more attention.  The question that remains open is do they, when used improperly, undermine the authority that peer reviewed science tries to bring to the public? 

3D Now on Google Plus

This is the first post of "3D", which is a site dedicated to expanding on news, further explaining, or connecting it to relevant topics. 

Modern, across-the-board sources of media are all included - mainstream, alternative, independent, and social media, as well as blogs, print & broadcast media, and scientific journals and studies.  Additionally, where possible, expert opinion or other credible perspectives will be given through question & response to guests, which will include original authors, members or representatives of organizations involved, and other contributors.

The format is heavily leaning on the workings of Google+ social media, and Blogger.  The main benefits being consolidated comments and the expanded format of a blog.


I want to check the auto-post from Blogger to G+.  I need a couple volunteers to check out the comments here, and how they function between these 2 services.

Who's out there?