(Found via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

This was a really great debate between the two camps of whether or not to add nuclear power to our arsenal of energy sources sans fossil fuels. The big piece wrong is that they are talking about two different sets of numbers. The pro side is talking about overall current energy needs, whereas the anti side was speaking about replacing transportation energy costs. Once you see that, it undercuts the anti side quite a bit.

Still, it is great to hear those points out. It does seem that with our knowledge, wind can and ought to be a strong power source, and solar ought to be on all suburban and rural rooftops. Hell, you can farm underneath wind turbines, so you might as well plug your tractor in and remove even more of the black energy required to generate our food.

Both points, though, miss a big step: transportation of energy. We lose tons of electricity over our power lines. Superconductors aren’t viable for mass production. Battery power keeps getting better so long as we keep wanting Internet access in our pockets. But how do you think all the electricity is going to get from 10,000 wind turbines to a town?

The first speaker was right that we can hold onto our nuclear waste materials while fourth-generation generators (waste burners, essentially) are developed further. And who wouldn’t love the idea of burning our kill-Earth-ten-times stockpile down to a simple kill-Earth-twice stockpile? That right there should be the front retort of any anti-nuclear energy argument.

So the future is nuclear for base load, wind for topping off that base and for sale (windy in one place, calm in another), and solar for the extra daytime use? Sounds reasonable for me. Now if we can either quit burning fossils for creating and moving our foods (oh yeah, and packaging them), we may do better. Plastics aren’t going anywhere, but I wouldn’t mind going back to a world of mostly wood, metal, stone, and glass.

It would help us all out if we made our food more short-range, for certain. And if I could take a train to anywhere in the region. But if we can at least kick the black energy for using our computers and lights and toasters, we’re at least going to be in a better place.

A great clip from his World Science Festival appearance the other night, especially the bit toward the end:

“One thing I think that as a nation we should be embarrassed by is that the scientists– you can do this experiment yourself, I’ve done the experiment– the scientists, by and large, know more liberal arts than the science that is known by liberal artists.”

Or you can read my longer, less funny version from a couple of years ago. Either way, it’s an important message: It should be exactly as embarrassing in educated company to say “I’m no good at math” as it would be to say “I’m no good at reading.” The fact that it isn’t– that it’s ok to laugh off innumeracy– is a major problem for us as a society.

Read the comments on this post…

This is actually a point I had never really thought about, and even I’m guilty of it. Of course in my family the line was closer to, “Oh, I could do any Algebra or Trig, but hit the wall at Calculus.” And of course, my family is an odd duck. I’m going to go ahead and claim I am not one of those liberal artsy folks who chuckle about being bad at math. But I’ve never called anyone out for laughing at being bad at math. Maybe it didn’t come up as much, because I grew up within music circles and music and math have a very strong relationship.

Back to their point: Orzel and Tyson are precisely right. Math should be a function like literacy. And it’s not even complex math. Arithmetic and basic Algebra should be proudly ingrained in all American brains. We don’t all need to be calculators. My wife regularly comments about how quickly I can multiply through things, but I attribute that to being quickly able to tear down problems (23 x 5 is actually (20×5)+(3×5) in my head) and having being the loot roller for more Dungeons & Dragons games than anyone else I know.

These guys don’t expect that either. They expect that it doesn’t matter what speed you can figure out a problem, they care that you can figure out the problem at all. Tyson properly goes into this with science as well. Organic Chemistry? Nuts to that. Asking how exactly something works, where it comes from, what are its limitations? Reasonable. Even if you can’t understand the specifics, you should at least be able to cut through the bullshit and see if the claim someone is making could actually be valid.

Actually, that ties into what I try to explain to my son. He’s following what advertisements are and it’s easy to see him get tripped up. He’s a knowledge hound, a precise knowledge hound, and I love him endlessly for it. So when some commercial makes a claim that its product does some amazing feat, I have to methodically walk him back and explain that ads, while not fully lying (usually), are shiny exaggerations of what something is actually capable of.

My favorite example: a box of Kix cereal. Right on the front, it claims to be a good source of Calcium and Vitamin D. Know what milk is chock-full of? Calcium and Vitamin D. So what does the Kix give you? Briefly crunchy filler. And yes, it tastes good and is easy to snack on so we still give it to the kids anyway.

To wrap up, I again agree: if someone makes the claim of being ‘bad at math’ and proud of it, remind them that it’s not okay to be illiterate in the basics of our civilization. We depend on it. I know I’m not touching on the fact math is probably not taught in the ways to reach all learners, but that’s a separate fault. I am sick of people being proud of being ignorant.

My dad is a brilliant man, double mastered in science and engineering. Knows something about everything. He’s why I’m abnormally adept at so much. But he’s a bad speller. He got screwed by an experimental method of teaching phonetics when he was a kid. He’s not proud, it’s just something he has to cope with. Doesn’t mean he can’t string a clear paragraph together or talk to someone about music or literature. So even if you’re bad at math, that’s no excuse for not being able to calculate my change at a coffee shop.

(Found via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

The Navy already operates dozens of small nuclear reactors in aircraft carriers and submarines, with an outstanding record of safety and reliability. They have an established training program that churns out nuclear-capable officers.

By analogy to the Army Corps of Engineering, we could create a Navy Corps of Nuclear Engineering. It would build and operate dozens of small nuclear power plants around the country.

To address security concerns, the first plants would be built on military bases, where the garrison can provide security. Licensing costs would be cut because the government would own and operate the plants.

The proposal should not offend small government sensibilities. Nuclear power is rife with market failures (and government failures). Huge research and development costs associated with traditional large scale nuclear power plants may be beyond the ability of private firms to finance. In addition, we know that private firms tend to underproduce the sort of basic R&D necessary to develop new generations of power plants. But the Navy already spends money to develop new naval reactors, which presumably could be scaled up at reasonable costs. Since the Navy need not worry about earning market competitive rates of return on its investment in R&D, moreover, there’s no economic disincentive to conducting that sort of R&D in the Navy.

(Found via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

I thought this was great. Small power plants at military sites means the technology gets used, they don’t use fossil fuels, our defense not only stays off the grid but can now offset some costs by selling leftover power to the grid.

Now all we have to do is upgrade the damn grid.

The novel illumination geometry that accompanies equinox lowers the sun’s angle to the ring plane, significantly darkens the rings, and causes out-of-plane structures to look anomalously bright and to cast shadows across the rings. These scenes are possible only during the few months before and after Saturn’s equinox which occurs only once in about 15 Earth years. Also at equinox, the shadows of the planet’s expansive rings are compressed into a single, narrow band cast onto the planet as seen in this mosaic.

I have been following an RSS feed for NASA’s Image Of The Day (link to feed in right column) for a while now. I don’t have as much interest in the stuff dealing with the shuttle or general equipment. But frequently, there are stunning pictures from our probes and telescopes of the objects in our heavens.

The picture above is my desktop picture. I like the humbling reminders of my insignificance in the universe, as well as the reminder that there is a greater universe beyond my own life. Perspective is a healthy thing to regularly inject in one’s existence.

Simply stop eating during the 12-16 hour period before you want to be awake. Once you start eating again, your internal clock will be reset as though it is the start of a new day. Your body will consider the time you break your fast as your new “morning.”

For example, if you want to start waking up at 2:00 am, you should start fasting between 10:00 am or 2:00 pm the previous day, and don’t break your fast until you wake up at 2:00 am. Make sure you eat a nice healthy meal to jumpstart your system.

Another example: If you are travelling from Los Angeles to Tokyo, figure out when breakfast is served in Tokyo, and don’t eat for the 12-16 hours before Tokyo’s breakfast time.

(Found via Zen Habits.)

As long as we eat, flatulence is going to be a fact of life. Gas is a by-product of the digestion process and we normally produce a half a liter of it everyday in the form of 14-20 farts.

The source of that gas is the bacteria that live in the lower intestinal tract. Any food that doesn’t get broken down in the stomach or the small intestine winds up in the large intestine in an undigested state, where it’s met by colonies of bacteria that break it down and convert it into nutrients. While the bacteria go about their business, they produce various gasses as by-products, including methane, hydrogen and hydrogen sulfide (this last one is the cause of the stench). All these gases then descend to the rectum where they’re released with the trumpeting fanfare of the vibrating anal sphincter. [emphasis mine]

I wonder if they’re hiring.

Here are some fun tidbits about the Equinox. Gotta dig any holiday or event that includes history, math, and astronomy, right?

The length of day and night may not be equal on the vernal equinox, but that doesn’t make the first day of spring any less special.

The fall and spring equinoxes, for starters, are the only two times during the year when the sun rises due east and sets due west, according to Alan MacRobert, a senior editor with Sky & Telescope magazine.

The equinoxes are also the only days of the year when a person standing on the Equator can see the sun passing directly overhead.

On the Northern Hemisphere’s vernal equinox day, a person at the North Pole would see the sun skimming across the horizon, beginning six months of uninterrupted daylight.

A person at the South Pole would also see the sun skim the horizon, but it would signal the start of six months of darkness.

(Found via mental_floss Blog.)

Really cool. Almost as cool as it is in Minnesota right now.

And no, they didn’t cancel school, even though it’s twenty below without the wind chill.

I have gone through my entire house and cut the electrical cost of lighting my home by seventy-five percent. While there may have been a bit of initial investment in these small, spiraling compact fluorescent bulbs, they will last me for years and each one uses less than one quarter of the energy of the equivalent light output from an incandescent bulb. Believe it or not, the initial investment wasn’t much at all. If bought in some bulk, they come out to around two dollars a bulb for the basic wattages that one would expect. Take into account that they last over five times longer and use one-fourth of the energy, and you’ll find they save tons of money over the rather long haul. If you keep your eyes peeled, you can find them for even less. We went to Lowes recently and they were offering rebates making packs of four bulbs free! The cost of lighting my entire house dropped seventy-five percent, and we have barely spent a dime. Please folks, do yourselves and the rest of the world a huge favor. Make your homes more energy efficient. You’ll save tons of money, our rather old electrical grids won’t be as strained, and in the end we’ll decrease our need for so much fuel in general.

In two years, I have changed zero compact fluorescents. None at all. And there are two or three that are burning almost permanently. The only bulbs I’ve changed? The one in the garage door opener. Our garage is not heated and incandescent bulbs work better in the cold.

Well, after having changed about half a dozen bulbs in three weeks (I used the leftovers from the house) I finally caved and put a CFL in there. It still works, though is a little dim when starting up. But you know what? I’m not going to think about it anymore now. And I’m all about not thinking.

I still have no idea how much energy I’ve saved. At least my conscience is clear.

Thanks, free will. I’m always happy you’re there.

Conversion within a unit system.    Know how many inches in a foot?  Of course you do.  How many ounces in a pint?  Probably.  How about in a gallon?  Uh.  How many feet in a mile?  How about a nautical mile?  If you know all those, you have a better memory than I do.  Know how many meters in a kilometer?  Yep, 1000.  How many mm in a meter?  Yep, 1000.  Know how many grams in a kg?  1000 again.  See no memory required.   So, how many mm in 5.876 m?  5876.  So, how many feet in 756 inches?  How many nautical miles in 19, 6758 feet?  How easy is it to check to see if your answer is right in metric?  And English units?  Admit it, you’re going to have to use the calculator twice, assuming you get the same answer both times.

 You want to know why European and Asian kids are kicking our children’s butts in math and science?  I guarantee this is part of the reason.

Conversion to a different system of units.  You know, whenever there’s an issue with metrication, it’s almost always because of conversion.  Someone does their calculations in one system of units and then converts it, but makes a mistake along the way.  Or someone does calculations in one system of units and doesn’t notice it needs to be converted.  We’ve lost spacecraft that way.  So, why does that argue for one system over the other.  Well everyone but us uses the smart system.  If we stop using English units, conversion issues become a thing of the past because, hey, we don’t have to convert any more.

There are, of course, also reasons associated with making us compatible with the rest of the world, improving the appeal of our products overseas.  And that it’s the law that we change (which has been there for decades).  Tool simplification, drastically reducing long term production costs because of reduced spares and tooling requirements. Lower error rates across the board because it’s so much simpler. There’s the fact that many aspects of life are already effectively 100% metric even in this country, like medicine and real science.

But, the bottom line is that the only reason we’re still doing things the stupid way is because we’re too proud to do otherwise.  And our children are paying for it.

*Skipped the math did you?

How’s this for a reason?  If you weighed 190 pounds, you’ll mass 86 kg.  That’s right, a double digit mass.

(Found via 3quarksdaily.)

(Found via Digg.)

Addition: This makes for a sweet desktop background image (when you download the high resolution version).

a Science Channel documentary in which scientists pour 10 tons of cement down a massive anthill, let it harden for a month, then carefully excavate it to demonstrate the internal structure of the colony. It took three days of pumping to fill the colony with cement.

I’m suddenly feeling a strange mix of being inspired for a D&D dungeon and looking back societal analysis through Star Trek.

I do get up easier and don’t get headaches anymore. That’s got to be the best part. I no longer feel like garbage for having not had a Dew by 8:30. This is especially noticeable on weekends when I did not regularly get a caffeine intake to start my days.

Part of me thinks I have this licked and that I can occasionally have a fountain drink with lunch. But I think I prefer the idea of cutting out high-fructose corn syrup in general. And though it is a false association, this article I found via McArdle, got me thinking:

You can observe this sort of thing in lab rats – if you infuse extra glucose into their brains, they stop eating, even under conditions when they otherwise would keep going. A few years ago, an odd result was found when this experiment was tried with fructose: instead of lowering food intake, infusing fructose into the central nervous system made the animals actually eat more. That’s not what you’d expect, since in the end, fructose ends up metabolized to the same thing as glucose does (pyruvate), and used to make ATP.

Now, to be fair, my change in food intake probably has more to do with me being a bit more conscious ofit since cutting out a part of it, than it does to the difference between glucose and fructose. However, I have honestly noticed more when I’m full and am more susceptible to feeling sick after eating too much. More than one plate of food and I’m heading for the strange tasting, generic Tums and an early bedtime.

The only really hard part is keeping myself alert while working at my desk. I do my best to get up and walk (as well as keep my eyes from the screens 100% of the time). But there are still those times when I’m doing my best not to keel over and wind up with a case of keyboard face.

For most of the summer, it remained dormant. Just dried and brown, but mostly perfectly fine. We lacked much rain this season, even though the poor people to the south of us in Iowa got unfortunate amounts.

As of the past month, we have finally gotten rain and really the loveliest weather possible. Much of my lawn greened up again with big patches getting nice and tall and falling over themselves. Alongside those were some amazingly tall weeds with atrocious flowers for the lad to pick for his mommy.

So with my son’s assistance in the garage, I managed to fire up my amusingly worn riding mower. It took a couple hours to recharge the battery enough for it to start, and once it did, it spewed out more grey oil smoke than it did when first fired up after being stored all winter. It freaked out the lad at first, but through the smoke I gave him a grin and he was reassured with grubby fingers jammed into his ears.

He rode with me for the first going over to knock out the taller patches. He liked it very much, especially grabbing at low branches as we drove underneath. I had him sit out on the second round of mowing for the simple sake of all the crud and dust I would be kicking up. (I had forgotten how rough it can be; I blew my nose when I was done and it was black as tar.)

Going over the lawn the second time, listing to Billy Joel all the while (along with wondering if I was the only person who does that), I couldn’t help but feel I was destroying a whole ecosystem. Before I embarked on this journey of ruination, crickets and grasshoppers thrived, chirping all day long. Now, underneath an evened green and brown patched lawn, is quiet. I have driven them from their homes, sent them out into the world with nothing for them.

I guess they’ll just go back to living in my shrubbery and woodpiles that have remained untouched for two years.