Scientists advised against consuming hypersexual zombie cicadas infected with psychoactive fungus.

Scientists advised against consuming hypersexual zombie cicadas infected with psychoactive fungus.https://t.co/zeOSj2oxwx — Harper's Magazine (@Harpers) September 11, 2019 For more info: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190625173456.htm ‘Flying salt shakers of death:’ Fungal-infected ‘zombie’ cicadas Date: June 25, 2019 Source: West Virginia University Summary: Cicadas can carry a fungus containing chemicals similar to those found in hallucinogenic mushrooms, making them…

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How’d They Calculate That?

News Brief by Kip Hansen   There are two recent stories in the NY Times that bring up a curious seemingly inconsequential oddity of mathematical computing.  They are both written by Steven Strogatz — in time order they were: “The Math Equation That Tried to Stump the Internet” and then, two days later, “That Vexing…

Forcing and Burning in Coal Country.

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach A 2015 paper by Xiaochun Zhang and Ken Caldeira has come to my attention. Inter alia, the abstract says: For example, the global and time‐integrated radiative forcing from burning a fossil fuel exceeds the heat released upon combustion within 2 months. Over the long lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere,…

California Super Bloom

This winter’s exceptional rain season is leading to stunning sites sights in California.~ctm From Space.com California’s ‘Superbloom’ of Wildflowers Looks Spectacular from Space! By Elizabeth Howell 3 days ago Science & Astronomy The Landsat 8 satellite, a collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, saw “an explosion” of wildflowers that covered green areas of…

Heat “waves” detected moving through pencil lead

At relatively balmy temperatures, heat behaves like sound when moving through graphite, study reports From MIT: Exotic ‘second sound’ phenomenon observed in pencil lead The next time you set a kettle to boil, consider this scenario: After turning the burner off, instead of staying hot and slowly warming the surrounding kitchen and stove, the kettle…

Data analysis: Global temperature has not increased under Republican presidents, only Democrats

From the website Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science  at Columbia University comes this hilarious but real bit of data analysis. Looking at short trends in the global surface temperature data, the analysis shows that global temperature has not increased under Republican presidents, only Democrats. It’s probably spurious correlation, but still very entertaining. – Anthony…

The Limits Of Uncertainty

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach In the comments to my post called “Inside the Acceleration Factory“, we were discussing how good the satellite measurements of sea surface heights might be. A commenter said: Ionospheric Delay is indeed an issue. For Jason, they estimate it using a dual frequency technique. As with most everything in the…