Daylight Saving Time snafu lands kid in jail

From the “spring forward fall back” department: A fifteen-year old boy in Pennsylvania was incarcerated for twelve days, wrongly accused of making a hoax bomb threat – because his school…

Panic of the Day: Cell Phones Kill Bees

There’s an article on UK’s The Independent website about a most unusual scientific theory. “Cell Phones kill bees.” From the article: Some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile…

What's that Smell?

Today the ER editorial Board poked some fun in Hits and Misses at the proposed forensic body farm, and Bidwell Ranch by suggesting I add a “stink-o-meter” to my www.bidwellranchcam.com…

What if Global Warming Melted All Ice Worldwide?

Picture: Get ready to Panic! Oroville, Willows, Marysville, and Sacramento will be underwater – the Sutter Buttes will be the only landmass in the very center of the valley. “What…

Discovery: Photosynthesis may be Quantum Effect Driven

PhysOrg has a summary of new research suggesting that the near instantaneous energy transfer achieved by photosynthesis may rely on quantum effects. From the article: “Through photosynthesis, green plants and…

The "D" Word (Drought) may be premature

With the “D” word a headline in just about every Bay Area newspaper this morning it bears some examination of "drought" definitions.  The word drought does not have a universal…

The Day of Rainbows

Rainbow over Bidwell Ranch – my weather station in the foreground Today was one of those unique weather days where orographic lifting (moist air blowing upslope till it cools and…

Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high

Here’s more inconvenient news from solar researchers. Even though our sun is quiet at the moment while we are in between peaks in the 11 year sunspot cycles, scientists based…

What could they possibly be thinking ?

Today, just for a moment, I thought I was transported in time back to last Sunday, April 1st, because surely this had to be an April Fools joke. Nope. It’s…

Calculating Easter

Did you ever wonder why the date of Easter is not fixed like Christmas, or St Patrick’s Day? Well its because there is a series of complex and somewhat inane…

New hope for hearing loss

Here’s one of the best reasons ever to support stem cell research. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, recently published research findings in Developmental Neuroscience which suggest…

The adapability of man to his climate

Yesterday, the IPCC Climate Change Report was released. Now the hand wringing starts. I’ve made a lot of entries on climate change here, I’ve given newspaper interviews, radio interviews, written…

It's the Sun, stupid

The The United Nations’s IPCC Report comes out today so I thought I’d make a report too. James Carville used to remind Clinton during the ’92 campaign that “its the…

The Sun may disrupt GPS system, banks, hi-tech during next solar max

As previously mentioned on this blog, sunspot 930 released a masive solar flare in December, even though we are in the solar minimum between 11 year sunspot cycle peaks. Now…

Flying Wind Farms

Here’s a novel idea. The Economist magazine has an article on Flying wind farms. Now we’re not talking about ordinary, land based windmills here. We’re talking about actual airborne —…

Guest Blogger: William F. Buckley on Climate Change

From RealClearPolitics April 03, 2007 Business of Global Warming Feels a Lot Like Inquisition By William F. Buckley The heavy condemnatory breathing on the subject of global warming outdoes anything…

$10 million plus X Prize offered for a 100-MPG car

Now here’s something I can get behind. The X Prize Foundation, which spurred innovation by offering $10 million for the first privately built spacecraft plans to offer millions for the…

Newspapers to add smellovision stickers

As newspapers look for new ways to attract and retain advertisers, some are going for the nose. USA Today is launching its first national campaign using scent technology. Omni Hotels,…

In search of the perfect thermometer.

Lon Glazner, a fellow blogger and local electronics engineer made some comments about my post on the NASA/CSU study on California temperatures. Well that got me started…so below are Lon’s…

Polarization

I don’t know why I’m posting this other than its how I feel today.