Actually, Canadafreepress is reporting that data from a recent peer-reviewed journal article [PDF] published in Climate Dynamics by Håkan Grudd of Stockholm University, Sweden confirms a general warming over the last 200 years. Global warming adherents shouldn’t get too excited about this, however because the study looks at dendrochronology (tree ring data) of the Scots Pine for the last 1500 years and the findings support a claim for a general COOLING trend of -0.3 degrees C over that time. The paper concludes that the late twentieth century is not exceptionally warm in the record; The warmest period over the past 1500 years was a 200 year span centered around 1000AD when there weren’t any SUVs around to take the heat for it (pun intended)! The findings should not come as a surprise to anyone interested in earth history. The Earth is currently in an interglacial period known as the Holocene. If past interglacials are any guide, we should be heading into another glacial period soon. It is important to note that while the findings of this researcher support a general cooling trend, they do not confirm or deny human impact on the environment in the short term. It is still possible that humans may yet create a climatic change on an order previously unseen in the last 1500 years and that we will only discover our impact after it becomes too late to do anything about it.

This story gives me hope that we may see just a bit more Star Trek tech in our lifetimes. Wired is reporting on a new medical test just approved by the FDA that physicians should be able to use that can identify respiratory viruses. The tester accepts a sample swab of RNA from an ill patient, converts it to DNA, performs polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to create copies, mixes the amplified DNA with color tags that will only bind to a specific virus, and identifies the virus and displays the results on-screen. The article mentions a New England Journal of medicine report that suggests that physicians get flu diagnoses wrong 83% of the time.

Non Prophet recently posted about The Nazca Lines which are strange geometric forms drawn in the desert in Nazca, Peru some in the shape of animals, so large that they are not visible in their entirety from the ground. There have been a multitude of proposed theories attempting to explain the creation of these lines over the years, and I found that this site lays them all out pretty well. The most interesting theory, to me is that laid out by the Nasca Lines Project which postulates that the glyphs indicate (at their terminal points) the location of geophysical faults where water seeps to the surface. Water would have been *very* important to those peoples living in this desert environment. In fact, it is only due to the extremely dry climate that the lines are still evident today. The theory is the work of David Johnson of NY, a photographer, former HS teacher of 25 years, and adjunct professor of Anthropology at the University of Mass. More detailed analysis is available on his site under ‘water research’.

I’ve seen this on a couple other blogs now, but I haven’t been able to find it for sale anywhere. This makes me think it was the work of a renegade math geek at some college. You can buy a plain clock and replace the face with any kind of printed art, and I might just do that I like it that much! There are only a couple tricky numbers: 5 made sense after Cathy pointed out it was the factorial of the square root, not the square root of the factorial. 7 gave me pause until I did the proof that .99 repeating actually does = 1 (n=.99rep;10n=9.99rep;10n-n=9;9n=9;n=1), and on 9 I can’t make out the exponents, can you figure them out?

I lose enough money in the company lottery pool on odds much worse than this, so I’m betting asteroid 2007 WD5 will slam into Mars on jan 30th even though NASA is only laying odds at something under 4% right now that it will. The Near Earth Object Program has the details. Even if it doesn’t hit, it’s worth keeping an eye on the red planet if weather allows…

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Ever wanted your very own cesium clock? According to this article on Wired, they’re available as surplus on ebay and crazy hackers like the Time Nuts are hooking them up and syncronizing themselves! Prove Einstein’s theory of general relativity for yourself! Run your own time server! Be a time lord!

(note: HP-5065A model shown is rubidium)

According to a story today in the New York Times (free reg. req., blah blah), scientists have begun to examine how humans construct their sense of self by combining the inputs of their various senses, and apparently have been able to trigger an ‘out of body’ experience using virtual reality techniques to trick the mind into attributing sensation to a virtual body. It seems to me that this is a bit like what happens to amputees that feel pain in their missing limbs. It does suggest that reports by people who have suffered traumatic accidents of a sensation of floating and looking down on their body don’t necessarily require a supernatural explanation.