Category Archives: Science

The only honest-to-goodness prophet in human history

Hi Readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
Amazing isn’t it? In all human history only one person has ever undeniably  and inescapably predicted the future. 

Predicted the tanks, machine guns, the mustard gas shells of WWI. Predicted the Manhattan Project, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, the Cold War of Mutually Assured Destruction. Predicted Agent Orange, DDT, sheep cloning, genetic engineering of agricultural products.   Biological warfare.  Thalidomide babies.

And who was it?  Nostradamus?  Nah.  He never predicted anything anyone could understand.

The prophetess was Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.  Married poet Percy Shelley even though he was married to another woman.  Stayed married to him long enough so’s the wife #1 suicided, so she had him all to herself.

And in 1817 wrote the novel, Frankenstein.  The book that understood what would happen when you turned human beings loose on something as dangerous as science.

Amazing.  Predicted the Doctor Frankenstein hidden  inside the human psyche would emerge when egomaniac academians piddle around in scientific laboratories.

Sarcastic Science

Sarcastic Science, she would like to know,
In her complacent ministry of fear,
How we propose to get away from here
When she has made things so we have to go
Or be wiped out. Will she be asked to show
Us how by rocket we may hope to steer
To some star off there, say, a half light-year
Through temperature of absolute zero?
Why wait for Science to supply the how
When any amateur can tell it now?
The way to go away should be the same
As fifty million years ago we came—
If anyone remembers how that was
I have a theory, but it hardly does.

Robert Frost

Amazing.

Old Jules

Tooth Fairies, Trouble-Makers and Japanese Nukes

2013 Tooth Fairy with Radioactivity Sniffer Dog

2013 Tooth Fairy with Radioactivity Sniffer Dog

Hi readers.

If you’re like me you probably wonder why the Tooth Fairy changed so much since we were kids.  It was the Baby Tooth Survey did it.  Here’s what happened:

When the Commandant of the National Tooth Fairy Regiment died of cancer in 1963 a lot of traitorous whining wimps in Missouri started crying about the fact the US Government was dropping hydrogen bombs on itself to pre-emptively protect itself in case someone else should drop nukes on Nevada and New Mexico. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Tooth_Survey

Baby Tooth Survey

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The Baby Tooth Survey was initiated by the Greater St. Louis Citizens’ Committee for Nuclear Information in conjunction with Saint Louis University and the Washington University School of Dental Medicine as a means of determining the effects of nuclear fallout in the human anatomy by examining the levels of radioactive material absorbed into the deciduous teeth of children.

Founded by the husband and wife team of physicians Eric and Louise Reiss, along with other scientists such as Barry Commoner, the research focused on detecting the presence of strontium-90, a cancer-causing radioactive isotope created by the more than 400 atomic tests conducted above ground that is absorbed from water and dairy products into the bones and teeth given its chemical similarity to calcium. The team sent collection forms to schools in the St. Louis, Missouri area, hoping to gather 50,000 teeth each year.[1] Ultimately, the project collected over 300,000 teeth from children of various ages before the project was ended in 1970.

Preliminary results published by the team in the November 24, 1961, edition of the journal Science showed that levels of strontium 90 in children had risen steadily in children born in the 1950s, with those born later showing the most increased levels.[2] The results of a more comprehensive study of the elements found in the teeth collected showed that children born after 1963 had levels of strontium 90 in their baby teeth that was 50 times higher than that found in children born before the advent of large-scale atomic testing. The findings helped convince U.S. President John F. Kennedy to sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the United Kingdom and Soviet Union, which ended the above-ground nuclear weapons testing that placed the greatest amounts of nuclear fallout into the atmosphere.[3]

Follow-up analysis
A set of 85,000 teeth that had been uncovered in storage in 2001 by Washington University were given to the Radiation and Public Health Project. By tracking 3,000 individuals who had participated in the tooth-collection project, the RHPR published results in a 2010 issue of the International Journal of Health Service that showed that the 12 children who later died of cancer before the age of 50 had levels of strontium 90 in their stored baby teeth that was twice the level of those who were still alive at 50.[3][4]

After that things seemed to settle down okay for a while.  Then came Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl.  Tooth Fairies were dying off like flies.  Gums rotting away, skin peeling off them like overcoats.

Fact is, we almost lost the whole kaboodle of Tooth Fairies when the Japanese started dumping all the radioactivity they could scrape together and sending it into the atmosphere headed for Alaska, California, Washington and Oregon.  Pumping water hotter than a two-dollar pistol into the Pacific Ocean.

Tooth Fairy recruitment programs went to zilch.  Finding new Tooth Fairies to replace the ones getting the blind staggers was tougher than the Mother Church trying to find women willing to be nuns.

Luckily, the US Military and the National Academy of Multi-Layered Police Forces, comprising about half the US population, came to the rescue.  Provided pistols to be held to the temples of potential Tooth Fairies who were trying to take French leave from the job.  But to compensate, providing body armor and radioactivity sniffing dogs to help the ones still able bodied enough to slip into a bedroom at night and reach under a pillow for a tooth stay alive longer.

Saved again by the police and the US military and mercenary forces.

Old Jules

If the shoe fits burn it off

shoe store xray machine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

During the 1950s wisdom used to bunch itself up and spread itself around at the local barber shops.  That’s where I first learned God was going to destroy us the way He did the Tower of Babel and for the same reasons.  The USSR had just put Sputnik 1 into orbit.  Too damned high in the sky to be tolerated by God.

That barber shop was also where I first learned all this uproar about radiation was a damned Communist lie intended to scare everyone out of their wits.  The proof of it was just around the corner of the square at the shoe store.  They had a machine over there where you could put your foot in and they’d shine radiation on it so’s you could look right through your shoes at the bones of your feet.

Anyone dying from it?  Anyone getting sick?  Heck no!

That shoe store had it all over J.C. Penny Company because of that machine.  We kids would go in there and they’d let us look at our feet anytime we wanted to.  And when shoes were to be bought the salesman could look through the viewer on one side, mama look through it on the other, and the kid through the third.  The salesman could then point with the pointer that the shoe wasn’t squeezing the toes, or was, etc.  Everyone loved that machine.

But government interference ruined it, same as it ruins everything else.  They made them take that machine out of there so nobody could look at his feet anymore.

Here’s what the sissie fuddyduddies say was the reason:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope

“Although most of the dose was directed at the feet, a substantial amount would scatter or leak in all directions. Shielding materials were sometimes displaced to improve image quality, to make the machine lighter, or out of carelessness, and this aggravated the leakage. The resulting whole-body dose may have been hazardous to the salesmen, who were chronically exposed, and to children, who are about twice as radiosensitive as adults.[7] Monitoring of American salespersons found dose rates at pelvis height of up to 95 R/week, with an average of 7.1 R/week.[5] (Up to ~50 mSv/yr, avg ~3.7 mSv/yr effective dose)[5] A 2007 paper suggested that even higher doses of 0.5 Sv/yr were plausible.[8] The most widely accepted model of radiation-induced cancer posits that the incidence of cancers due to ionizing radiation increases linearly with effective (i.e. whole-body) dose at a rate of 5.5% per Sv.[9]

“Years or decades may elapse between radiation exposure and a related occurrence of cancer, and no follow-up studies of customers can be performed for lack of records. Without such an epidemiological study, it is impossible to conclude whether this machine actually caused any harm to customers.[5] Three shoe salespersons have been identified with rare conditions that might be associated with their chronic occupational exposure: a severe radiation burn requiring amputation in 1950,[10] a case of dermatitis with ulceration in 1957,[11] and a case of basal cell carcinoma of the sole in 2004.[8]”

Those guys sharing their wisdom at the barber shops are mostly all dead now.  I’m guessing if a person wants to get smart in Portales he has to go to a hair stylist.  Can’t help wondering what they’re talking about in those places.

Old Jules

Takes a licking and keeps on ticking

geiger counter

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Tom, the retired USAF colonel who occupied the office next to me in the bomb shelter of the old National Guard HQ in Santa Fe, NM, should have known a lot about radioactivity.   He spent the entire Cuban Missile Crisis camped under the wing of his B-47 bomber.  Had all kinds of tales about the flight maneuvers a pilot had to perform to drop a hydrogen bomb and come away in one piece.

The New Mexico Emergency Planning and Management Bureau [EMPAC] was all housed in that bomb shelter.  Most of the section chiefs were retired colonels, except my humble self, and Louis, head of Radiation Control.  When nothing was going on there’d always be a few of us gathered in one office or another telling and listening to interesting experiences in our varied pasts.

So when Tom found his travel schedule was going to coincide with the one-day-per-year the Trinity Site where the first atomic bomb was detonated allowed visitors, we all envied him.  He was gone a week travelling all over the State, and a few days after he returned several of us gathered in his office to hear all about it.

Naturally there’d been a nice dog and pony show at an old ranch house from the time a mile or so away, now converted to oversight center.  Then, off to ground zero.

Tom described how it was all bare sand and soil, how they’d scraped away all the green glass that used to cover the spot.  How visitors were warned not to pick up any of that green glass if they should find a piece. 

So when his glance downward showed him a piece of that green glass peeking out of the sand near his foot, of course he had to tie his shoe.  Slipped it into his pocket.  Gave us all a sly smile when he pulled it out and held it in his palm.

Wow!  A piece of green glass from the first nuclear detonation on earth!  We all wanted to hold it.  Passed it around, all except Louis.  Our Rad Control section head.  He stepped back a pace when his turn came to hold it.

I’d like to put an instrument on that.”  Louis had access to plenty of instruments, had more than a thousand of them spotted all over New Mexico.  Part of the mission of his section was going around changing the batteries on those Geiger Counters regularly.

He was out the door and back while the rest of us waited in mild curiosity.  The glass was back on Tom’s desk and Louis clicked the power switch.  Didn’t actually have to get too near with the probe to peg the needle.  Didn’t have to put on the headset to hear the buzz.  We all heard it.

Louis had a straight shot at the doorway and he was first out.  Followed closely by everyone but Tom.  He just sat staring at that piece of green glass.  Probably wondering what the hell to do with it.

I’ve always wanted to visit the Trinity Site, but I never got around to it.  Even when I was living several years just up the road from it.

Old Jules

Hey! Lookee here! Manmade climate change! Ohshitodear!

Prosecutor:  Your honor, members of the jury, we have a guy with an IQ here.  An expert witness.  He knows all kinds of things about climate change.  After I ask him a few questions you jury members will be asked to decide whether climate change is guilty of being man made and what everyone ought to have to do to keep it from happening.  Professor Honest-to-Goodness, have you compiled data and examined it enough to form an opinion that climate change is happening?

Honest-to-goodness no-shit scientist:  Yes.  Climate change appears to be happening.

Prosecutor:  Have you created any hypothesis to explain why this might be happening?

Honest-to-goodness no-shit scientist:  Of course I have.  Hundreds, thousands of hypotheses are possible to explain ever piece of that data leading me to conclude climate change is happening.

Prosecutor:  Have you tested those hypotheses?

Honest-to-goodness no-shit scientist:  Um, well, I’ve tested one of them.  It would take forever to test all of them, and every time one’s tested the additional data the testing provides brings in more hypotheses to explain the data.

Prosecutor:  And did you reach any conclusions from the hypothesis you tested.

Honest-to-goodness no-shit scientist:  Well, it’s entirely possible man is contributing to the current climate changes, though it’s not absolutely certain what those climate changes actually are.  Climate change isn’t fully understood at this time.

Prosecutor:  Ah ha.  So your test of the hypothesis did show beyond a reasonable doubt that climate change is happening?  And a preponderance of the part of the evidence you believe you understand supports the hypothesis might be contributing to that climate change? 

Honest-to-goodness no-shit scientist:  Um.  There’s a strong possibility that might explain the parts we do understand about it.

Prosecutor:  Thank you Professor Honest-to-goodness no-shit scientist.  Your honor, members of the jury, I rest my case.  What we have here is prima faci evidence man is contributing to devastating climate change.  I suggest we dismiss this expert and call in some social engineers to recommend the appropriate penalties we can’t enforce in order to make the weather better.

Judge:  Members of the jury, you’ve heard the evidence.  Now I instruct you to go to the jury room and decide the case based only on the evidence before you.  Decide whether we have a preponderance of evidence [somewhat bad], or beyond a reasonable doubt [a lot worse].  Afterward you’ll all be asked to give television interviews explaining how you arrived at your verdict.

Old Jules

Hydrox: “So why can’t I hear Old Sol talking?”

hydroxwindow2

Hydrox: We pray him up every morning, pray him down evenings.  I hear one end of all these conversations you have with him, but I never hear Old Sol saying anything.

Me:  Once again, it’s your romantic mode of viewing reality.  You’re only sensing what’s immediately apparent, not seeing the underlying form.

Hydrox:  I have to see the underlying form to hear what Old Sol says?

Me:  Think of it this way.  You look across the meadow and see trees with birds in them.  And an inch in front of your eyes you see a grasshopper.  You have an a priori knowledge the movement of those birds and that grasshopper jumping are happening at the same time.  But they aren’t.  What your eyes tell you is now is a microsecond earlier for the birds than the grasshopper because of the speed of light reflecting off both, arriving at your eye simultaneously.

Hydrox:  You’ve lost me.

Me:  Your mind filters what it sees with a priori knowledge.  You can’t hear Old Sol talking because you have romantic, a priori knowledge Old Sol doesn’t speak.  You’re not able to sense the underlying form.  It’s the same reason the people who read this blog wouldn’t be able to hear you talk, can’t hear cats talk.

Hydrox:  Well I’ll be damned.

Me:  Think of it.  People in the Bible used to hear God talk.  Adam and Eve, Abraham, Job, Moses, they were hearing in the Classical mode of reality.  Underlying form.   They can’t hear God speak anymore because they’ve gone by necessity into the Romantic mode.  Their minds filter out what God says, because in the modern world if they allowed themselves to hear the kinds of things God said they’d get themselves into a pile of trouble.

Hydrox:  How do you mean that?  People hear God talking all the time.

Me:  Only when God says things they won’t get in trouble hearing and obeying.  God might be telling people all over the place they have to sacrifice their kids, the same way he told that to Abraham.  But you can’t go around hearing God telling you to kill your kids, nor anyone else the way God used to do.  Telling people to smite other people hip and thigh.  Stone them to death if they screw around, masturbate, don’t follow the rules.  People today who hear God telling them to do things of that nature are generally believed to be insane.  Especially if they go ahead and do it.

Hydrox:  So if I can rid myself of this stupid, romantic way of looking at reality I’ll be able to hear what Old Sol’s saying?”

Me:  Yeah, but you’ll need to keep it to yourself or people will think you’re crazy.

Old Jules

Scientists are going to have to do something about this

Hi readers.  I don’t know whether you’ve heard about this yet, or not, so I’ll fill you in.

The creatures on Zeta Trianguli Australis, HR3384, HR1925, Beta Trianguli Australis, 85 Pegasi, and Rho¹ Cancri are all really pissed off about how this Vietnam war just goes on and on.  They’re all around 40 light years away, so the news on earth is a bit slow reaching them, but that ain’t their problem.   That’s the problem created by earth scientists with their dumbass speed limits on radio and light waves.

Fact is, they’ve got creatures taking to the streets rioting about that war.  Religious types setting themselves afire in protest.  National Guardsmen on Pegasi who support the war even fired laser rifles at a bunch of college kids.

But that ain’t the worst of it.  On Zeta Trianguli they’re all stirred up about President Richard Nixon and all the stuff he’s doing to get re-elected.  Heck, they want the President of the US impeached!

What’s so terrible about it all is that creatures on some nearer locations are getting exercised about the Iran hostage crisis, thinking Jimmy Carter needs to do something about it.  And down the road a little way they’re celebrating Ronald Reagan getting elected.

A bit closer in, those monster-looking creatures aren’t anywhere nearly so happy though, as the ones still dancing in the streets about Ronald Reagan’s trickle-down de-regulation policies and his proposals to sell off all the National Forests and BLM lands to real estate developers.  Busting up the Air Traffic Controller Union.

No, those closer garden-slug-things with 16 eyes already went through that and it’s old news.  For them it’s Bill Clinton using the CIA to bring hard drugs into a Federal airstrip in Arkansas, getting into all manner of real estate fraud scandals, and messing up the clothing of some White House clerk-typist.

There are insectoids fairly put out by that second Bush.  And even though they’re fairly up-to-date, the intelligent grapevines on Alpha Centauri are fairly hacked about the wossname, BLM oil spill and this guy in the White House now.

I think you can see how this thing amounts to a crisis, and how the only people who can deal with it are the same people who created it.  Scientists.  Getting laws passed about how fast light and radio waves can travel.

That’s going to have to be changed.  Get everyone singing from the same songbook.

But while we’re at it we probably ought to end the Vietnam War and get Tricky Dixon out of the White House.

Old Jules

Old Sol’s Flipping Magnetic Field Crisis

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.

The Sun’s Magnetic Field is about to Flip

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/05aug_fieldflip/

http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2013/08/06/splash3.jpg

So here we are again, human beings screwing things up from hell to breakfast in the solar system.  Back a few decades ago before anyone had ever noticed the polarity of the sun reverses itself every eleven years [it’s assumed, because we donealready saw it happen three times already] nobody realized how badly human beings were messing things up.

This polarity reversal seems to correspond to Jupiter being at a particular place in its orbit, similar to the sun spot cycle doing it roughly then, also.  Pure coincidence.

The reality is that human beings are creating too much various stuff in their lifestyles and some laws are going to have to be passed to keep this sort of thing from happening.  Won’t be anytime at all before the academians calling themselves scientists will be lining up for grants to study it all and make recommendations about what laws need passing.

Because those solar reversals are just another sign that man needs to mend his ways.

I consulted Old Sol about it while we were praying him up this morning, but He seemed to have a cold, runny nose or some such thing.  Kept sort of sneezing I reckons, making funny noises.

Guess he didn’t want to talk about it.  Probably something personal.

Old Jules

The Rube Goldbergism Field

non electromagnet

Hi readers.  Thanks for the visit.

Every five-year-old knows you can create an electromagnetic field by wrapping a copper coil around a soft-iron rod and introducing a current.  But along about my 67th-or-so tip around the sun I began wondering what would happen if you wrapped a copper rod with a soft-iron wire and introduced a permanent magnet to the wire.  Surely, I figured, it would create a field of some sort, not necessarily an electric one, but something.

I tripped around the web trying to find out what people have found it does, didn’t find anything.  Asked my more smart-alec friends, and they only shrugged.

Finally I decided if I want to know, I’d have to try it hands-on.

The front part of the rod is as described.  The back part with the larger coil is iron, more likely steel wire with an anodized copper coating.  Figured to try it both ways, the anamagnetic coating on the copper coated wire allowing it to simulate ‘insulation’ between the wraps of wire.

Well, friends and neighbors, I don’t know what all that damned thing does.  Though I’m getting some fair indications of a couple of unlikely things it seems to do.  Along with it seeming to attract one-hell-of-a-lot of a particular kind of bug.

But their ain’t any point for me to make any claims about it one way or the t’other.  Some of you already know so much you’d already know it doesn’t do what it seems to.  And others wouldn’t, but would know it doesn’t put any food on the table.

So instead of me telling you what I think it does, I’m going to suggest if you’re interested you give it a try.  And listen really carefully with your eyes, ears, and complete attention to what goes on around you when you do it.

Meanwhile, this damned thing’s going with me, where ever I might go for a while.  Hasn’t entirely satisfied me I know everything I want to know about it.

Old Jules

If you can’t trust the Japanese, then who?

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Most of you will probably agree the Japanese are the most intelligent, advanced, scientifically advanced, politically and economically savvy people on the planet. It’s the reason most of you are driving Japanese automobiles.

Think about it: Japan invaded and raped East Asia for a decade, was bludgeoned to death by a costly sea war followed by two atomic bombs before they’d surrender. And within half-decade the US was at war defending Japan. “Korea,” Doug MacArthur declared, “is a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan!”

Obviously the Japanese were one hell of a lot smarter than those governing the US. The bombed-out Japanese industries were rebuilt by US taxpayers, providing them with decades newer steel mills and manufacturing capabilities than those on US soil. Ultimately the result was decline in US production and the slippery slope decline of US economic stability.

Think about it: Today the Japanese have a better space program than NASA:

http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl.t10.6/search/web?fcoid=417&fcop=topnav&fpid=27&q=japanese+space+program&ql=

Japanese Space Program
JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (former Nasda) is Japan’s version of Nasa.

  • Hayabusa was launched 9 May 2003. The probe sent to gather samples from asteroid 25143 Itokawa. After numerous glitches, the probe returned to Earth. Scientists have not yet opened the sample container.
  • In 2006, JAXA launched Akari, an infrared astronomy satellite. Its mission is to survey the entire sky in infrared. On 6 August 2007 it has surveyed 94 percent.
  • Selene was launched September 14, 2007. Selene was the largest lunar mission since NASA’s Apollo, Selene orbited the moon for 20 months. It provided data used to improve topological and gravity maps.
  • Oicets – This experimental satellite was designed to demonstrate optical communications between distant satellites. Launched in 2005, it was retired in 2009.
  • H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) first flew to the International Space Station on 10 September 2009.
  • In 2010 IKAROS probe was the world’s first spacecraft to use solar sailing as the main propulsion

The best engineers in the world are Japanese. Agreed? The most competent scientists in the world are Japanese. Agreed? The most savvy politicians and economists in the world are Japanese. Agreed?

If any scientists and engineers anywhere can be trusted to be right about important matters involving human science, engineering and environmental issues, the place to look for affirmation should be Japan. Agreed?

Japanese science and engineers designed and produced the three nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima power plants.

Are the most competent, advanced scientists and engineers in the world concerned about manmade climate change? Are they concerned about contaminating the North Pacific with radioactive cooling water? Obviously they are not.

After the disaster, then until now, have the most advanced, competent scientists in the world bothered to do anything to contain the cascade of environmental problems supposedly associated with nuclear fuel rods exposed to the atmosphere and sea water? They have not.

Japanese scientists and engineers knew everything they could know about the tectonic environment of Japan. They designed those plants and built them with all that in mind, took the worst possible scenarios into account. Obviously.

So how is it the populations of nations with less competent scientists and engineers, the people who drive Japanese automobiles, come to believe anything their own scientists postulate concerning other matters involving advanced science?

The most advanced, most intelligent, the most savvy scientists and engineers on the planet proved themselves capable of ignoring the obvious, of assuring Japan their nuclear power plants were safely constructed.

How can anyone bring himself to believe what any scientist, any engineer, any politician says about manmade climate changes? Particularly any scientist or engineer who isn’t Japanese.

Old Jules