2. July was one of the worst flooding seasons in global history. At last 134 pople were killed in Texas, 34 in China,69 in the Himalayas, and in early August, hundreds were missing in Pakistan and India. The chemistry of why flash flooding is getting worse is outlined here. “Though floods naturally occur, increased moisture and rising temperatures from climate change are in some cases supercharging storms. According to a study in Nature, between 2020 and 2100, the size of the global population exposed to flood hazards is estimated to increase by 15.8%.”
5. The mysterious Shroud of Turin has captivated Christians for a long time. Is it really the burial garment laid over Jesus following his crucifixion? Radiocarbon dating has been inconclusive. Now, the art world steps forward to suggest that the image was made from a statue and not a body.
6. Trump is dismantling science in the US . Why do we have a government that no longer serves the people and our futures? Because this is the will of at least one political party. This story dominates much of the science news so far this year.
The US became strong by investing in science. Now it will lose ground to China. Cuts to agencies like NOAA, the CDC, and EPA will leave the average citizen less able to protect themselves. Is the intent of this to create a crisis or to set up another expense we all must shoulder such as private weather information or a medical treatment? I’ve got to wonder, especially given the assault on science.
Fortunately for the rich people, they’ve found a workaround: fund politicians and set up phony news sources (including the White House itself) to spread lies about science and to top it off, fire scientists and defund education. They are well on their way to becoming the deities they think they deserve to be. After all, lightning does strike twice.
The outcome of the having no nuclear deal is maybe a bust. Iran’s nuclear program is getting no surveillance. They don’t care about our feelings and thus, Iran has made enriched uranium. They are close to making it weapon-grade. What is that and why should anyone care? Sit back for a science lesson. (or skip to next paragraph with a bold font if you want to avoid it)
Uranium is a dense heavy metal that decays–meaning it’s radioactive and gives off particles and energy and transforms into a slightly lighter metal, thorium, which is also radioactive.
It emits an alpha particle, the Mac truck of subatomic particles, which is also a helium nucleus. This is where earthly helium comes from! All forms of uranium are radioactive, but not the helium it emits. Don’t worry, your party balloons are safe. (If you want to learn more about sub-atomic particles, let me know!)
Uranium is unstable and thus radioactive. The word radioactive was coined by the Curies in 1898, with radio being related to ray as in a ray of light Many radioactive elements and nuclear reactions cause their surrounding to glow due to their energy. Uranium is slowly radioactive with all isotopes having long half-lives. It can be found in deposits across the globe.
Uranium can be made into a source of power when it undergoes fission. During fission, the core of the atom (the nucleus) is hit with a neutron and split into smaller pieces and new lighter elements are made. The lighter elements are more stable and the energy needed to hold the large unstable uranium together is released. More neutrons fly out and if enough atoms of the right isotope of uranium are nearby, they split other uranium atoms. A chain reaction ensues and this keeps the energy release going. If the reaction is fast enough, a bomb is created.
Here’s the catch, not all forms of uranium undergo fission. Only the isotope with 92 protons and 143 neutrons in the nucleus, uranium 235 or U-235, is unstable enough to be broken in this fashion. And it’s not very plentiful. Only 0.7% of naturally occurring uranium is this isotope. And to allow for the chain reaction to occur, you need to concentrate this form of the metal. This is needed for both weapons grade and power reactor uranium but weapons grade uranium needs more concentration aka enrichment. This is not easy. Why does it take so much work? Chemical reactions occur with the outside of the atom–the electron cloud. This is an easy way to separate chemicals–by their different reactivities due to different electron clouds surrounding them.
All isotopes of uranium have the same cloud of 92 electrons. This means the isotopes have to be separated by mass. The uranium is reacted with fluoride and forms a gas, then is passed through a porous membrane which only lets the smaller 235 isotope through. Alternately, it might be centrifuged. There are a few other less efficient methods of enrichment. This process demands lots of energy. Monitoring the energy use of enrichment facilities is one way to watch to see if a country is working on producing weapons grade U-235.
I suppose that’s nothing new but disappointing for idealists everywhere. People are terrible—they will draw out a war to get their way. Fortunately for me personally, I’ve been a scientist for so long, I no longer score in the idealist category on personality tests. That influence came from my educator parents. I’m one of those pattern seekers. I play the long game.(click for vacation photos).
You know who also plays the long game, Christian Nationalists. They now have the president who has promised to bring the apocalypse. Yes, he did. And some of them are here for it, as this flag in my neighborhood shows. It says: The final chapter God Wins.
It might seem harmless but look up Christian Nationalism. They are planning on seeing the Final Chapter, as in the final chapter of Revelations, which ends in destruction and god and angels coming down. The Apocalypse. You can read about these folks cheering on the apocalypse here. And by the way, they hate Jimmy Carter.
I saw apocalypse flag flying homeowner today as we both walked our dogs. We look similar when out walking. Our paths didn’t quite cross or I would have asked her to explain more about the flag.
Do I really think the apocalypse is at hand? No. It would ruin the world economy and that’s the last thing the autocrats want. But according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, it’s 90 seconds to doomsday. Better stock up on necessities, maybe a water purifier, and get your vaccines while you can! And personally, I’m going to cut back on social media because it’s full of inaccuracies and products I don’t/won’t need.
Some in this town have gotten a political mean streak and passed it on to their kids. Kids, or another immature group, have been roaming the town late nights and early mornings stealing political signs and in darkness ringing doorbells of people who might be signaling that they are open minded. Pella is poisoned with such bigotry.
I can’t understand why people here are so afraid and define themselves by opposition to others. Maybe they hate something inside themselves. How deep does the censorship urge go in these people? Do they want scientists to be censored? The real fear of many scientists is yes, they do.
I’m proudly displaying signs and I’m here to confess to one more reason I’m a Democrat—science policy. I admit, science policy isn’t going to sway the vote of a low information voter. But do you think even those voters want to pave the ways for cures and sharing of information that could lead to those cures? Who should own these cures? Will they be only for the rich? Might they be curious about new sources of energy? Do they want protection from toxins and a healthy life? Do they use weather forecasting and knowledge about weather and climate to keep safe or at least comfortable? Do they want to invest in basic science? Science can bring security to our lives, security that could be tossed out with the wrong president or party in charge.
Why should government be involved in science? The government has long led the way in innovations, especially in computers and the life sciences. Every new drug since 2010 has started off with tax-payer funded basic research. Basic research is the study of a phenomenon or set of observable facts to understand them without a product in mind. Funding for basic research can come from the government, academia, or business. The federal government provides funding for about 40% of basic research, much of it health related. One thing that is good about government funded research is that it is shared with the public. Accessibility to scientific findings funded by the government was implemented during the Obama years. Biden has kept that legacy alive. This means that important discoveries won’t be made secret from the public and all of us, especially other scientists, can benefit and move things forward. As Isaac Newton said, science stands on the should of giants.
Private funding of discoveries has a few downsides. For one thing, private organizations often have CEOs making huge salaries and sometimes these people can be huge jerks. Privatized research often has less oversight and has the potential to harm human and animal subjects. It doesn’t have to share research results and thus, hoards information that can be valuable to everyone. We could even see scientific advances being made available to a select few. Think about the harassment people get in Pella simply for having a sign!
Trump has already done things that alarmed scientists such as altering a FEMA Hurricane map. In fact, he has interfered with science based decision making over 200 times. (As a comparison, Biden has done this two times.)
In stark contrast, Biden-Harris has moved to regulate and eliminate toxic substances such as endocrine disruptors from our lives while Trump issued an executive order that for every new regulation, two regulations had to be eliminated. Biden-Harris made limits and laws against toxic substances a priority. They even have worked to limit polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS. (Read here) Meanwhile, Trumps speaks highly of asbestos.
There are more comparisons and you can find them here, where I got much of my information. For further analysis, click here.
It’s sad that some in Pella are prompted to engage in censorship. Just remember, according to this book if you aren’t a Puritan, you are the enemy within. But Puritans respected science, so under Republicans, things have gotten much worse. Now even scientists are the enemy within. We saw how things went when a pandemic was downplayed. Let’s not do it again. Vote NO for poisons and censorship
And by the way, putting American flags on a sign might make it harder to steal.
What makes a kid like science? It isn’t information or government edict, advanced courses, or religion. Yes, a promise of a good job helps kids like me who grew up middle class. but it can’t be all it is, because there are times when science is routine, boring, and demands repetition, because some of the joy of science is being able to predict.
One of my favorite exercises in high school was the bug collection, which had been done for eons. I’m not sure it’s done anymore but I remember just being so fascinated with catching the bugs and classifying them. I needed to add a twist so future chemist me had this thought that instead of sticking the bugs on pins and putting the pins on a piece of Styrofoam or cardboard, I incased them in plastic. Each bug was set in transparent resin. Giving them a category and finding their scientific name was a whole new language, and an interesting one at that. I remember one kid getting in trouble for turning in an old collection, one his brother had done. The evidence? He had a cicada in his collection that didn’t emerge in the year we were supposed to be catching our bugs. Science triumphed. Why would you ever want to cheat in science?
What’s missing in the STEM education discussion these days is curiosity, and the sense of wonder about and the respect for the whole vast natural world as compared to the engineered world of humans. In fact, respect for scientists themselves is missing from our political landscape in Iowa.
I was just about to put this old book in the Little Free Library near the park. I paused because I wanted to read it one more time. I don’t think enough people understand what it takes to really, really be a scientist and to persist in it. I thought I might, for a post, just go through a few of the entries in that old book and see what scientists had to say about what brought them to science.
The scientists interviewed pointed to a few factors which helped them along the way—financial assistance and autonomy of thought. Neither of these things will the average kid get from a right-wing authoritarian. What are we getting from our state education department?
In the science homework that I’m seeing in the schools, there’s a whole lot about evidence. What’s the answer? How do you know? And that’s fine. Science is evidence based. But there’s a whole swath of it that’s missing.
Likewise, long ago the now Iowa Governor came to visit my private school science department to tell us how much she likes science and private schools. I am seeing through a glass dimly here but I didn’t like her because she didn’t get science and was not there to listen to what we had to say.
Now, she acts as if she’s done miracles with STEM education. She might even be the next Secretary of Education, all while ignoring doctors and scientists. In other words, she ignores the informed opinions that scientists with autonomy of thought have given her. This is not anything to model if you want to promote science. She is a Trump supporter and Trump said that listening to scientists is something “only a fool would do.” Instead, you have to listen to the money.
Few people on the Iowa STEM council are working scientists, especially sparse are the natural sciences and basic sciences such as chemistry and biology. I’ve seen some of the curriculum and it has a heavy emphasis on design and engineering. And of course, there are corporate partners and a focus on jobs. It should be called a sTEM Council with a lower-case s. Current science focuses on methodology which many older scientists point out, can be boring. And I really, truly worry about a future where the only people paying for science are people that are making money from it. In the past, the government and universities have been drivers in basic science, the foundation of scientific discovery.
Instead, politicians publicly bash scientists. This in turn causes a public distrust, especially among Republican voters. It’s unlikely that Iowa’s Republicans will look at the evidence. They will instead, create a science-hostile climate for the foreseeable future, making a mockery of STEM education.
I hate to break the news to those who think in binary terms but there are not two sexes. Scientists used to think this but now we know more.
The idea that sex chromosomes consist of a big one, X, and a smaller one, Y, goes back to 1905. The pioneering work was done by Nettie Stevens, who by the way shares my birthday. She discovered that in many species, the tiny chromosome conferred maleness. She studied meal worms to reach her conclusion. Her idea was briefly stolen by a man.
We’ve all learned this in school: XX means a female, XY means a male. But after nearly 120 years, it’s time to update, because human life is more complicated. Being male or female comes as a result of some biological tug of war, often helped along by chromosomes but not always. Sometimes hormones come into play and anatomy is not always forthcoming.
One to two out of every 100 people will not fit the purely XX female or XY male genetic patterns. The blanket term for this is intersexual. What’s their story? The answer has many twists.
Some people carry the genes of an absorbed twin, and that twin might have been a different sex.
Some have gonads which are different than their chromosomes due to disruptions during sexual development in utero.
Others have genes that give them gonads different than their chromosomes, so an XX person might have male sex organs or an XY person will develop breasts and female sex organs. This is rare, it occurs in one out of 4,500 people.
Men can have XYY chromosomes, a condition called Jacobs Syndrome. Some may be abnormally tall and have learning and speech challenges which can cause them to be bullied.
Biologists say sex is hard to identify because it could be based on anatomy, or chromosomes, or hormones. I haven’t even discussed hormones! It’s a topic best left to endocrinologists. Making laws about sexual identity, especially when done by the less informed is reckless and possibly malevolent.
Catherine Haustein 