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Science Forum Index » Miscelaneous » [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday July 18, 2008...
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| Bob Park... |
 Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:10 pm |
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Guest
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WHAT
1. GOOD LORD! GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS VANDALIZE APS.
Science is open. If better information becomes available scientists
rewrite the textbooks with scarcely a backward glance. The Forum on
Physics and Society of the APS exists to help us examine all the
information on issues such as global climate change. There are physicists
who think we dontherefore entirely appropriate for the Forum to conduct a
debate on the
pages of its newsletter. A couple of highly-respected physicists ably
argued the warming side. Good start. However, on the denierChristopher
Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, who inherited
his fatherdegree is in journalism and heEnglish tabloid. Whatever it is
that Viscounts do, he may do very well,
but he doesnit. Worse, somebody fed the media the line that Moncktonthe
APS had changed its position on warming; of course it has not. Few
media outlets took the story seriously.
2. SPACE STATION: "SEND IT SOMEWHERE SPECIAL."
I have a place in mind. Space-science writer Michael Benson used this
title in The Outlook section of Sundaywhether the International Space
Station, at a cost approaching $100
billion, is being finished just so we can drop it in the ocean? It is;
so whatoff to explore other planets. Three days later the Post carried a
rebuttal by NASA contractor Jeff Volosin. The ISS, he argued is needed to
prepare crews to travel to Mars and back. He didnJames Van Allen would
have said of both ideas: "How old-fashioned." Wake
up: Voyager 2 just entered interstellar space, Messenger revisited
Mercury, Phoenix found water on Mars. Somebody, anybody, tell me what
humans can do in space as well as the robots?
3. BLOOPER: WORLD POPULATION IN 1798.
I wrote in last weekthat 1 million." I should have said 1 billion. I
apologize; my fingers
have a mind of their own, but they arenbeing told of errors and atoned by
responding to more than 300 emails.
They are still coming in today.
4. POPULATION: U.S BIRTHS SET RECORD.
The U.S. population clock as I write this is at 304, 633,590, but the
scary number is the growth rate, 4,315,000 births in 2007, more than
double the number a century ago, and topping the number born in 1957 at
the height of the post-war baby boom. The biggest factor by far is
immigration. The birth rate among Hispanic immigrants far outpaces the
modest 2.1 average births per women.
5. YEMEN: GOVERNMENT IMPLEMENTING FAMILY PLANNING.
One of the poorest and least pleasant countries in the world despite
booming oil revenues, it has one of the highest birth rates. Yemen must
import 75 percent of its food and suffers acute water shortages. The
government campaign aims at reducing the awesome fertility rate by raising
awareness. It is widely believed in Yemen that contraception can cause
health problems and is forbidden in Islam.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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