Hudson Valley Geologist

State funding of higher education

2012-01-31T07:36:00.000-05:00

Did you read my post Obama clueless about community colleges?

Just saw the following figure in the Chronicle of Higher Education. This is only one year of cuts. New York, and many other states, have had several years of these types of cuts.

Caminalcules

2012-01-29T12:16:00.000-05:00

When I was a graduate student at the University of Illinois, I was a teaching assistant for a class called History of Life - a class I liked so much I developed it for the community college where I teach now. It's an overview of the origin and evolution of life on Earth. Why is this taught by a geologist rather than a biologist? Because much of what we know about the origin and evolution of life is preserved in the sedimentary rock record and paleontology, the study of ancient life, is typically housed in geology departments (although there's obviously much overlap with fields like molecular biology).

At the University of Illinois, the course had a lab while at our community college it doesn't (although we do incorporate lab-like exercises into class time including the examination and classification of common marine invertebrate fossils). One of the lab exercises at the U of I had to do with the classification of caminalcules.

What are caminalcules, you may ask? They are imaginary "life forms" invented by the late Joseph Camin, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Kansas, and used to illustrate concepts in systematics (evolutionary relationships and classification).

After Camin's death, biologist Robert Sokal, a cofounder of the field of numerical taxonomy, published four detailed papers on caminalcules for the journal Systematic Zoology (now called Systematic Biology). See the references below but fair warning, I have these papers - don't bother getting them unless you're an academic, they will be unreadable.

The concept involved is actually easy to understand (even for children as we'll see in a minute). What Camin did was invent 29 recent "species" and 48 fossil "species" of caminalcules (most people use a dataset today of 14 living and 57 fossil specimens). The earliest fossil caminalcule was seen as the ancestor of all subsequent forms which evolved through a multi-branched evolutionary tree (with some lineages becoming extinct, etc.). At left is an animated gif illustrating one sequence of 13 evolving caminalcules (from Caminalcules, Snouters and Other Unusual Creatures).

There is an official "correct" version of the caminalcule phylogenetic tree showing the evolutionary relationships between the fossil and recent species. I would suggest ignoring it, however, since the purpose of the exercise isn't necessarily to get a correct answer but to think about the process (students absolutely hate it when I tell them for some exercises there's no "correct" answer, just a well-reasoned and supported answer).

So what exactly do you do with caminalcules? First you get the images of living and fossil caminalcules (here and here are good sources) and then cut them all out. Then you get some paper - preferably a roll of brown paper you can pick up at any office supply store - and roll out a couple of feet.

Note that the caminalcules are all numbered, this is so individual specimens can be referred to, but the fossil specimens also have a number in parentheses. This is the age of the fossil in millions of years ago. So specimen 74, for example, has the number 18 in parentheses so we can assume specimen 74 represents a fossil that was living some 18 million years ago.

On your long sheet of paper, draw 20 evenly spaced horizontal lines and label them 0-19. These represent time lines from 0 (present day) to 19 Ma (oldest fossil caminalcule). Then arrange your fossil caminalcules on the various time lines according to their ages.

By the way, geologists use the abbreviation Ma to denote millions of years ago (mega annum).

Now comes the fun part. Figure out the evolutionary relationships between the various species. The assumption, of course, in this hypothetical exercise, is that all caminalcules can trace their descent back to the original 19 Ma form. Caminalcules evolve (and perhaps lose) various anatomical traits as they evolve. Some become more specialized (or maybe more generalized). Some lineages become extinct. Some split into many branches. Some don't. Some persist through time as "living fossils". It's up to you to figure it out. When you believe you have a good phylogenetic tree, tape or glue down the caminalcules and draw lines indicating the relationships.

As I've mentioned before in this blog, my wife and I homeschool our two children. They recently did this exercise (along with a couple of other homeschooled kids) and below is my ten-year-old son's finished product (can't see the faint pencil lines, but they're drawn in as well).

It's pretty cool that the same exercise can be used in homeschooled 5th graders as well as freshman college students (it can even be used for graduate students in conjunction with Sokal's papers listed below). My wife reported that my 10-year-old son told her, after he did this exercise, that "This is like all life on Earth, only all of life would be more complicated." Warms my heart to hear that.

References:

Gendron, Robert P. 2000. The Classification and Evolution of Caminalcules. The American Biology Teacher 62 (8): 570–576.

On the Cutting Edge: Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty. Caminalcule Phylogenetic Exercise. Teaching Paleontology in the 21st Century.

Sokal, R.R. 1983. A phylogenetic analysis of the Caminalcules. I. The data base. Systematic Zoology 32 (2): 159–184.

Sokal, R.R. 1983. A phylogenetic analysis of the Caminalcules. II. Estimating the true cladogram. Systematic Zoology 32 (2): 185–201.

Sokal, R.R. 1983. A phylogenetic analysis of the Caminalcules. III. Fossils and Classification. Systematic Zoology 32 (3): 248–258.

Sokal, R.R. 1983). A phylogenetic analysis of the Caminalcules. IV. Congruence and Character Stability. Systematic Zoology 32 (3): 259–275.

Obama clueless about community colleges

2012-01-28T11:55:00.000-05:00

So Friday I heard that President Obama said the following at a speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

“You can’t assume you’ll just jack up tuition every single year. If you can’t stop tuition going up, your funding from taxpayers will go down. We should push colleges to do better; we should hold them accountable if they don’t.”

As a New York State community college professor, all I can say, with all due respect, is "Fuck you, Mr. President!"

Let me edumacate you...

We've ALREADY had our funding go down asshole! Over the past few years, public education funding has gone down by double-digit percentages! That's why tuition has increased. No wonder our economy is in shambles since the supposed leader of the free world fails to understand this simple fact.

This is from the New York State Faculty Council of Community Colleges Resolution #G1-2011-12 that our faculty recently vote unanimously to support.

"The State's base aid rate per FTE at the start of the 2009 - 2010 was $2675 and now currently stands at $2122, representing a 21% decrease in the State's support of community colleges, and ... this decrease places the State's contribution below what it was in 2009 - 2010 so that it now represents only 26.5% of operating costs, far short of the State's 40% statutory obligation..."

In other words, the State of New York is supposedly required, by LAW to provide 40% of our operating costs (the resolution, by the way, is an attempt to get the State to meet its funding obligations). It actually provides 26.5%. Where does the rest of our funding come from? It comes from the County and student tuition. County funding for New York State's community colleges have either decreased or remained flat. Ulster County, where I reside, is flat broke and doesn't meet its statutory funding obligations either.

So what does that leave? Tuition. If the citizens of New York want community colleges to exist, they have to realize that student tuition HAS TO GO UP because State and County funding has GONE DOWN SIGNIFICANTLY. We can't magically summon money from thin air (if you learn that trick, let me know!).

Wait, you may argue, can't community colleges cut costs? Of course costs can be cut. And they have been cut. Year and year of funding cuts have resulted in significant and deep cost cuts at our institution (call our Dean of Administration - I'm sure he'd be happy to give you a list). But, at some point, the cost cuts have real negative effects. Maintenance is deferred. Libraries don't buy books. Computer equipment is not updated. Labs work with out-of-date decrepit equipment. Full-time faculty retire and they're not replaced. That has happened in my department. We have to staff the classes with part-time (adjunct) instructors who are paid per course with no benefits. Over two-thirds of our faculty members are adjunct instructors.

If your child is at our community college, odds are that most of their classes are taught by part-time adjunct instructors. We're not unique.

What's the problem with adjunct instructors? We do try to get qualified people with appropriate degrees and experience after all. There are drawbacks, however. Ever try to get someone with the appropriate background to teach, for example, a lecture section on General Chemistry from 11 am - 12 pm on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for four months for $2,175 - $2,460 (our adjunct salary pay range before taxes)? While it's 45 hours of contact time (3 hours/week for 15 weeks), keep in mind that the instructor also has to prepare about 40 hour-long lectures (for non-teachers reading this, imagine putting together ONE hour-long lecture on a topic you're familiar with and then multiply that prep time by 40). Doesn't include writing quizzes, homework problems, and exams. Doesn't include time GRADING quizzes, homework problems, and exams. Doesn't include time coordinating with whomever is teaching the chemistry lab sections to make sure lecture and lab relate to each other. Doesn't include time meeting with students who "don't get it".

Adjunct instructors come in, teach a class, and leave. In the middle of the day, when a student wanders into our department office looking for their teacher, we often have to tell them their instructor is only on campus Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 - 1:00. Send them an email. Is that good for the student and their success in that particular course?

Adjunct instructors are not necessarily committed to the mission of the college. Many of them teach at numerous other colleges - they're only allowed to teach up to 3 classes at our school and that earns them less than $7500 a semester (before taxes). To make ends meet, many of them teach far more classes than they would as a full-time faculty member and also spend many hours in a car driving from one place to another throughout the day. How committed can you be to any one of those classes and institutions?

Adjunct instructors have no protections and can be non-renewed without any reasons given. How likely are they to enforce academic standards in their classroom when they live in fear of not being renewed. The temptation is to make your students all happy so no one complains and you get good student evaluations. The temptation is to have a high "success" rate where everyone passes with a good grade. A good department chair sees through that (but we're overloaded with work too and simply don't have time to keep a close eye on things most of the time) but it does happen and it's bad for the institution.

Adjunct instructors do not take part in administrative tasks necessary to run a college. Full-time faculty serve on numerous committees (some essential to the operation of the college, some a waste of time); periodically review and revise course syllabi (we're currently revising 70 different course syllabi in our department right now); assess student learning in classes (the latest MANDATE from our accrediting agency!); periodically review and revise programs; meet with and advise students; register students for classes; periodically evaluate adjunct and full-time faculty; provide endless bits of information to financial aide, the registrar's office, the dean's office, and others; maintain classrooms and labs; order lab equipment and supplies; develop class schedules (even though it's January, we're currently working on developing the fall course schedule); meet with reps and select textbooks; write common final exams; grade placement tests; oversee programs in local high schools; recruit students and participate in open houses; engage in professional development trainings, webinars, and conferences; do research; write papers; etc. etc. etc.

When the ratio of adjunct to full-time faculty goes up, all of those tasks are spread out among fewer and fewer faculty. In other words, we get to do FAR more work with no increase in compensation. How's that for morale?

By the way, at our institution, there have been NO salary increases for two years now (we don't even have a contract in place). I certainly don't see an increase next September either. Cost of living keeps rising dramatically here in the mid-Hudson Valley as well (my school and property taxes have both gone up, fuel costs are up, grocery costs are up - I have effectively been given a significant pay CUT these past few years). Our faculty make tens of thousands of dollars less than less-well educated teachers at the local high schools.

Community colleges are THE best value in education and we're getting fucked by county, state, and federal funding cuts. Community colleges contribute far, far more to the community than they cost in public funding. If you support the mission of community colleges, a chance for everyone to be educated, share your concerns with the president, your senators and congressional representative, your governor, and state and local elected officials.

If any one of those "public servants" wants to come and visit our community college, not just for a photo op with the college president and board of trustees, I'd be happy to show them around, introduce them to department chairs, full-time faculty, adjuncts, staff members, maintenance workers, and students. I dare you to ask them how things are going. Never happen, though, they prefer to legislate from a position of ignorance.

Random Friday Comments

2012-01-27T13:03:00.000-05:00

Sometime yesterday, I had my 100,000^th unique visitor to this blog according to StatCounter which I installed on the first day I set this up a couple of years ago. I started with only a few unique hits a day and now I have 500-600. I find that pleasantly surprising.

I don't want to be more specific since the course is currently in progress, but the other day, a student in my class asked the meaning of a term they came across on an online homework assignment. It's a term I wouldn't necessarily expect a student to know (although I did define it in class) but it denotes a very simple thing. After politely answering the question, the first thing that popped into my mind was "Ever hear of a dictionary?" (hell, it was an online assignment, the term could have been Googled too). But, then again, anything to get a student to actually have an interaction with me to see that I don't bite is a good thing.

In another class, a student missed lab and one of two classes this week. When he finally showed, without once contacting me regarding missed material (you know, things like 3-hour lab assignments, daily quizzes I've been giving on the geologic time scale, etc.), he spent much of my lecture looking down at his lap where his hands were resting. He was either playing with himself or texting - I'll assume the latter since I don't want to think about the former. Second week of classes and I already know who's likely to withdraw or fail - it's like I'm fucking Kreskin.

So I go to the gym three times a week to work out. At the gym, they provide little spray bottles of disinfectant and paper towels to clean off the machines you use. One thing I've noticed is while most men, like myself, clean machines after we're done using them (because we're usually disgustingly wet from sweat), a number of people, especially women, clean the machines BEFORE they use them (and not after). Seems rude to me.

So I was at the dentist yesterday for a cleaning and the hygienist, after probing my gums with a steel pick, said "Your gums are bleeding." Yeah, no kidding, Dr. Mengele, I have a feeling if you poke any part of my body with your pointy-tipped pick it would bleed. I bet dental hygienists are into BDSM (as sadists). Then they charged me $45 (without asking me first) for an "Irrigation with chlorhexidine." Yeah, I can buy a gallon of that shit for $10 and they charge me $45 for a shot glass worth of rinse.

So, since I spend a couple of hours at the dentist, I ended up going back to work until 8 pm to catch up. This is how my days feel lately...

Writing about a shot glass in the paragraph above reminds me that it's Friday. I will imbibe later (I bet ethanol is just as good as chlorhexidine in cleaning bacteria out of your mouth).

El Hierro

2012-01-26T07:16:00.000-05:00

El Hierro is the westernmost of the Canary Islands - an "Autonomous Community" (Comunidad Autónoma) of Spain located off the coast of northwestern Africa.

One interesting fact about El Hierro is that it was once known as the Meridian Island (Isla del Meridiano) because it was considered by some to be the westernmost part of the Old World and thus a logical place for the Prime Meridian (longitude 0°).

The British of course, disagreed placing the Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the location we use today.

The westernmost end of El Hierro

The western edge of the world prior to the 1400s.

The Canary Islands (Islas Canarias), by the way, have nothing to do with canaries. The name derives from the Latin Insula Canaria meaning "Island of the Dogs" due to either to numerous dogs on the islands or, some believe, seals (canis marinus or "sea dog" in Latin).

The islands had an indigenous population, since at least neolithic times, apparently related to the Berbers of North Africa. Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaganians, and Arabs all visited at various times. Starting around 1400, the islands came under the influence of Spain and ships later bound for the New World found it a convenient place to stop before catching the northwest tradewinds for the Caribbean.

The Canaries are volcanic islands which formed, like the Hawaiian Islands of the Pacific, by the passage of the African Plate over the Canary Hotspot - a deep plume of hot material in the mantle which apparently formed around 60 million years ago.

One of the volcanic islands, El Hierro, is currently active. With a triangular-shape, and rising 1,500 meters from the ocean surface, the island is pockmarked with hundreds of craters from volcanic activity. The island has also been affected by at least 3 massive landslides. The largest of these was the El Golfo landslide which shaped the nothern shore of the island around 15,000 years ago and dumped hundreds of cubic kilometers of debris into the ocean (almost certainly causing a tsunami). You can clearly see the scar of this event in the image of the island below.

Radiocarbon dating places the last large eruption on El Hierro at around 550 BCE. Last summer, however, thousands of tremors signalled the movement of magma in the subsurface. This led to the formation of a fissure on the seafloor 1 km south of the island with continuing volcanic activity.

Pretty cool. What we're basically seeing is the slow formation of a new island, or the growth of El Hierro into a larger island, in the Canary chain. The gases and lava erupted on the seafloor are killing fish ad causing some disruption in the lives of the islanders, but that's the price you pay for living around volcanoes.

Canary Island Volcano: A New Island in the Making

Will it get worse? There's always the possibility things will ratchet up a bit there (the islanders are apparently packed and ready to evacuate if need arises). Earthquake swarms are still occurring indicating the movement of magma but relatively small amounts and deep (about 12 km).

Minor Earthquake Swarm in El Hierro Volcano

It's certainly a place to watch and will likely remain active for years to come.

Class warfare

2012-01-25T09:25:00.000-05:00

I'm not an Obama supporter. Neither am I a supporter of the current crop of GOP candidates running for president. I think they're all assholes, if truth be told. I'm just a middle-class guy trying to support a family of four on my community college teaching salary (and having trouble paying my current property tax bill which I'll end up paying with my income tax refund. Sigh).

So after Obama's State of the Union address, the Republicans immediately came out with the predictable cries of "Class Warfare" because he had the temerity to suggest that tax rates should be a bit higher for people who earn more in one day than the yearly median household income in the United States.

Am I exaggerating? Not at all. The Romney's earned 21.7 million in 2010 (source), mostly from capital gains and dividends. That's an average income of ($21,700,000/365) = $59,452 per DAY. The real median household income in the United States in 2010 was $49,445 per year, $10,000 less than the Romney's earn in one day, according to the Census Bureau (source). The Census Bureau also reports that the nation's official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in 2009, and the number of people without health insurance coverage rose from 49.0 million in 2009 to 49.9 million in 2010 (things have gotten worse, not better, for many Americans).

So people who earn all that dough must pay a lot in taxes, right? Don't be ridiculous! Romney's 2010 effective tax rate was 13.9%. Guess what? If you're an average working stiff making more than $8,375 (single) or $16,750 (jointly filing with spouse), then your tax rate is 15% or more (source). Yes, yes, there are lots of complications (because we have a tax code that reads like it was written by monkeys), but the bottom line is that when billionaires like Warren Buffet are embarassed about how little wealthy people pay in taxes (source), something's fucking wrong.

So, the way I see it, wealthy people have pulled out their gilded dicks and have been pissing on the heads of poor and working class people in this country for quite some time now. When the poor and working class look up and say "Hey asshole, stop pissing on me!", the rich accuse us of fomenting class warfare. I guess it's only class warfare when we fight back.

Back to science-related posts tomorrow...

Beaten, Seared, and Sauced

2012-01-24T07:36:00.001-05:00

I read a lot. One of my favorite things to do is go to the local public library and just browse around until I find something interesting to read at the time. The most recent book I've read has nothing to do with geology but I suppose is somewhat connected to education.

Beaten, Seared, and Sauced: On Becoming a Chef at the Culinary Institute of America by Jonathan Dixon (2011, Clarkson Potter) is a recounting of a student's experience at the world-famous CIA here in the mid-Hudson Valley. Dixon, an almost 40-year-old writer and adjunct instructor at the time, made a mid-life decision to become a chef.

It wasn't a great book, but I enjoyed reading it (I finished it in one night). Dixon's a decent writer, as would be expected given his background, and I found the mentions of many places I know in the area interesting. It did give some insight into the CIA as well and how they train their students. (One part of me would love to be able to scream at some students the way chefs are allowed to do!).

Dixon's description of how he now views the produce quality at a local chain supermarket after taking a course on fruit and vegetables at the Culinary will make you realize how much we've settled for mediocrity over quality and will have you thinking of getting all your produce at the local farmer's market. His description of chicken killing will have you agreeing with him that it's a sin to poorly cook one and waste it (no, it didn't cause me to consider vegetarianism - I like animal flesh!).

Be nice to have more time on Earth to do things. I think I'd enjoy going to the CIA and learning how to cook well and a bit of the science behind it. Wouldn't want to be a chef though - I've worked around kitchens in my younger days (dishwasher, busboy, and waiter at various places) and I know there's no glamour in busting your ass in a hot kitchen for 12 hours a day.

The Chinese New Year

2012-01-23T21:56:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! Today, January 23, 2012 starts the year of the dragon in the traditional Chinese calendar. There are twelve animals (including the mythological dragon) associated with the Chinese calendar - rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.Like Western astrology, the ancient Chinese believed that the animal sign you were born under somehow influences your life. And, like Western astrology, some Chinese still believe it to be true even though it's complete nonsense (I've seen some news stories suggesting a lot of Chinese births this year because the dragon is an "auspicious" sign).

Any way, these animal "signs" are even more complicated (just as Western astrology is more complicated than the 12 Sun signs would suggest). It's actually a 60 year cycle. The first cycle is of the 5 "elements" - wood, fire, earth, metal, and water - from Chinese philosophy in their masculine (Yang) and feminine (Yin) forms.

As Wikipedia explains: "This combination creates the 60-year cycle due to the least amount of years (least common multiple) it would take to get from Yang Wood Rat to its next iteration, which always starts with Yang Wood Rat and ends with Yin Water Boar."

Two iterations of the 60-year cycle are shown below. We are currently in the cycle which began in 1984. Since the Chinese New Year always begins in late January / early February, it's not enough simply to know the year of your birth to determine your "sign". I wasn't just born in the year of the Ox, I'm a Yin Metal Ox, whatever the hell that means (according to this site, it means I'm confrontational and conceited - maybe there is something to this after all!).

Years (1924–1983)	Associated Element	Associated Animal	Years (1984–2043)
Feb 05 1924 – Jan 23 1925	Yang Wood	Rat	Feb 02 1984 – Feb 19 1985
Jan 24 1925 – Feb 12 1926	Yin Wood	Ox	Feb 20 1985 – Feb 08 1986
Feb 13 1926 – Feb 01 1927	Yang Fire	Tiger	Feb 01 1986 – Jan 28 1987
Feb 02 1927 – Jan 22 1928	Yin Fire	Rabbit	Jan 29 1987 – Feb 16 1988
Jan 23 1928 – Feb 09 1929	Yang Earth	Dragon	Feb 17 1988 – Feb 05 1989
Feb 10 1929 – Jan 29 1930	Yin Earth	Snake	Feb 06 1989 – Jan 26 1990
Jan 30 1930 – Feb 16 1931	Yang Metal	Horse	Jan 27 1990 – Feb 14 1991
Feb 17 1931 – Feb 05 1932	Yin Metal	Goat	Feb 15 1991 – Feb 03 1992
Feb 06 1932 – Jan 25 1933	Yang Water	Monkey	Feb 04 1992 – Jan 22 1993
Jan 26 1933 – Feb 13 1934	Yin Water	Rooster	Jan 23 1993 – Feb 09 1994
Feb 14 1934 – Feb 03 1935	Yang Wood	Dog	Feb 10 1994 – Jan 30 1995
Feb 04 1935 – Jan 23 1936	Yin Wood	Pig	Jan 31 1995 – Feb 18 1996
Jan 24 1936 – Feb 10 1937	Yang Fire	Rat	Feb 19 1996 – Feb 06 1997
Feb 11 1937 – Jan 30 1938	Yin Fire	Ox	Feb 07 1997 – Jan 27 1998
Jan 31 1938 – Feb 18 1939	Yang Earth	Tiger	Jan 28 1998 – Feb 15 1999
Feb 19 1939 – Feb 07 1940	Yin Earth	Rabbit	Feb 16 1999 – Feb 04 2000
Feb 08 1940 – Jan 26 1941	Yang Metal	Dragon	Feb 05 2000 – Jan 23 2001
Jan 27 1941 – Feb 14 1942	Yin Metal	Snake	Jan 24 2001 – Feb 11 2002
Feb 15 1942 – Feb 04 1943	Yang Water	Horse	Feb 12 2002 – Jan 31 2003
Feb 05 1943 – Jan 24 1944	Yin Water	Goat	Feb 01 2003 – Jan 21 2004
Jan 25 1944 – Feb 12 1945	Yang Wood	Monkey	Jan 22 2004 – Feb 08 2005
Feb 13 1945 – Feb 01 1946	Yin Wood	Rooster	Feb 09 2005 – Jan 28 2006
Feb 02 1946 – Jan 21 1947	Yang Fire	Dog	Jan 29 2006 – Feb 17 2007
Jan 22 1947 – Feb 09 1948	Yin Fire	Pig	Feb 18 2007 – Feb 06 2008
Feb 10 1948 – Jan 28 1949	Yang Earth	Rat	Feb 07 2008 – Jan 25 2009
Jan 29 1949 – Feb 16 1950	Yin Earth	Ox	Jan 26 2009 – Feb 13 2010
Feb 17 1950 – Feb 05 1951	Yang Metal	Tiger	Feb 14 2010 – Feb 02 2011
Feb 06 1951 – Jan 26 1952	Yin Metal	Rabbit	Feb 03 2011 – Jan 22 2012
Jan 27 1952 – Feb 13 1953	Yang Water	Dragon	Jan 23 2012 – Feb 09 2013
Feb 14 1953 – Feb 02 1954	Yin Water	Snake	Feb 10 2013 – Jan 30 2014
Feb 03 1954 – Jan 23 1955	Yang Wood	Horse	Jan 31 2014 – Feb 18 2015
Jan 24 1955 – Feb 11 1956	Yin Wood	Goat	Feb 19 2015 – Feb 07 2016
Feb 12 1956 – Jan 30 1957	Yang Fire	Monkey	Feb 08 2016 – Jan 27 2017
Jan 31 1957 – Feb 17 1958	Yin Fire	Rooster	Jan 28 2017 – Feb 18 2018
Feb 18 1958 – Feb 07 1959	Yang Earth	Dog	Feb 19 2018 – Feb 04 2019
Feb 08 1959 – Jan 27 1960	Yin Earth	Pig	Feb 05 2019 – Jan 24 2020
Jan 28 1960 – Feb 14 1961	Yang Metal	Rat	Jan 25 2020 – Feb. 11 2021
Feb 15 1961 – Feb 04 1962	Yin Metal	Ox	Feb 12 2021 – Jan 31 2022
Feb 05 1962 – Jan 24 1963	Yang Water	Tiger	Feb 01 2022 – Jan 21 2023
Jan 25 1963 – Feb 12 1964	Yin Water	Rabbit	Jan 22 2023 – Feb 09 2024
Feb 13 1964 – Feb 01 1965	Yang Wood	Dragon	Feb 10 2024 – Jan 28 2025
Feb 02 1965 – Jan 20 1966	Yin Wood	Snake	Jan 29 2025 – Feb 16 2026
Jan 21 1966 – Feb 08 1967	Yang Fire	Horse	Feb 17 2026 – Feb 05 2027
Feb 09 1967 – Jan 29 1968	Yin Fire	Goat	Feb 06 2027 – Jan 25 2028
Jan 30 1968 – Feb 16 1969	Yang Earth	Monkey	Jan 26 2028 – Feb 12 2029
Feb 17 1969 – Feb 05 1970	Yin Earth	Rooster	Feb 13 2029 – Feb 02 2030
Feb 06 1970 – Jan 26 1971	Yang Metal	Dog	Feb 03 2030 – Jan 22 2031
Jan 27 1971 – Feb 14 1972	Yin Metal	Pig	Jan 23 2031 – Feb 10 2032
Feb 15 1972 – Feb 02 1973	Yang Water	Rat	Feb 11 2032 – Jan 30 2033
Feb 03 1973 – Jan 22 1974	Yin Water	Ox	Jan 31 2033 – Feb 18 2034
Jan 23 1974 – Feb 10 1975	Yang Wood	Tiger	Feb 19 2034 – Feb 07 2035
Feb 11 1975 – Jan 30 1976	Yin Wood	Rabbit	Feb 08 2035 – Jan 27 2036
Jan 31 1976 – Feb 17 1977	Yang Fire	Dragon	Jan 28 2036 – Feb 14 2037
Feb 18 1977 – Feb 06 1978	Yin Fire	Snake	Feb 15 2037 – Feb 03 2038
Feb 07 1978 – Jan 27 1979	Yang Earth	Horse	Feb 04 2038 – Jan 23 2039
Jan 28 1979 – Feb 15 1980	Yin Earth	Goat	Jan 24 2039 – Feb 11 2040
Feb 16 1980 – Feb 04 1981	Yang Metal	Monkey	Feb 12 2040 – Jan 31 2041
Feb 05 1981 – Jan 24 1982	Yin Metal	Rooster	Feb 01 2041 – Jan 21 2042
Jan 25 1982 – Feb 12 1983	Yang Water	Dog	Jan 22 2042 – Feb 09 2043
Feb 13 1983 – Feb 01 1984	Yin Water	Pig	Feb 10 2043 – Jan 29 2044

Modified from Wikipedia's Chinese Astrology page

Why does the Chinese New Year start in January/February and why does it change each year? You may have noticed that today also happens to be the astronomical New Moon (0739 UTC). Not surprisingly, this ancient 60-year cycle is based on a lunar calendar (all ancient cultures basically used lunar calendars).

Technically, it's based on a lunisolar calendar - a lunar calendar that periodically has an extra month inserted (intercalary month) to keep it in sync with the solar year. Two basic rules of this calendar are that the first day of each month begins at midnight on the day of the full Moon and that a year normally has twelve lunar months.

As with all lunar calendars, this causes a problem because the synodic month, or cycle of lunar phases, is 29.53 days long while the tropical year, or time from solstice to solstice, is 365.24 days. Dividing one by the other gives (365.24 / 29.53) or 12.4 phases per year. This means that every 2.5 years, your calendar will be off by one month. This is where the intercalary month comes into play. Every 2-3 years, you insert another month into the calendar. Various rules (which we'll ignore) determine when to insert the extra month.

Generally, but not always for complicated reasons, the Chinese New Year will fall on the second new Moon after the Winter Solstice. Anyway, as one of my former colleagues always used to say, "It's a poor day you don't learn something new!"

So, best wishes for a happy and prosperous Yang Water Dragon year!

The Magic of Reality

2012-01-22T11:52:00.000-05:00

I recently read (from the library) The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True by Richard Dawkins (2011, Free Press). Dawkins, of course, is probably better known for his outspoken atheism and skepticism than he is for his scientific work as an evolutionary biologist and former professor at Oxford University.

The subtitle "How We Know What's Really True" best expresses the aim of this book. Dawkins begins the book with a discussion of the difference between reality and magic (the supernatural) and comes down, not surprisingly, on the side of naturalism - science is the only valid way to examine and learn about the natural world. As such, it's a very good introduction to how science operates and works but will obviously trouble those who would argue that there's more to the physical world since he doesn't shy away from including mainstream religion with other false ideas.

Throughout the book, Dawkins introduces a scientific question - Where did people come from? Why are there seasons? How do rainbows form? What causes earthquakes? - and then gives some culture's mythological explanation for the phenomenon (sometimes, the mythological explanation he provides is from the Bible). This is followed by the scientific explanation of the phenonomon showing, of course, how it's far more reasonable and useful than the myths.

While the book is described as for being of people of all ages, it's really written more like a book aimed for children. That's not to say adults would not get something from this book since most adults have no freaking idea why the Earth experiences seasons or how evolution works, but it does have the tone of a book for children. Given the vocabulary used and concepts discussed, the ideal age group for this book would probably be bright tweens. Assuming, of course, Dawkins saying stories about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden are myths on par with Quetzlcoatl, Zeus, and Ganesha doesn't offend you.

The thing I liked best about this book are the awesome illustrations on every page by Dave McKean. It would be worth getting the book just for these. Here are some examples (grabbed from the Amazon page for the book) below:

Geology Tattoos?

2012-01-21T12:49:00.003-05:00

On this snowy Saturday morning (first significant snow here since last Halloween!), I was listening to an archived version of NPR's Science Friday from January 13. They were interviewing Carl Zimmer about his Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed book.

Zimmer, a science writer, started collecting images of science-themed tattoos on his blog (The Loom). This eventually led to a book (that's how to write a book, ask people to submit all the material you need). Here are some examples. They're interesting to look at some are pretty neat.

Anyway, I'm mentioning this because when the host Ira Flatow asked Zimmer what types of tattoos he needed more images of, Zimmer answered geology related tattoos!

It seems to me there are a lot of possibilities there... Interesting extinct organisms like Anomalocaris. You could tattoo a globe showing Pangaea. A crystal form. Maybe a simple rock hammer (Zimmer mentioned an archaeologist who tattooed a trowel on themselves).

I don't have any tattoos (I'm not a very trendy person), but who knows. Maybe my current mid-life crisis will lead to a cool tattoo after a few beers some evening.

Teachers & SAT scores

2012-01-20T09:33:00.000-05:00

I obtained the following information from the interesting EducationRealist blog.

Facts like the following are sometimes used to claim K-12 teachers aren't too bright, on average:

Students who indicated that education was their intended major earned a combined math and verbal score of 967, about 0.31 standard deviations below the average of 1,017, meaning the 38th percentile in a standard normal distribution.

Of course, not all education majors become teachers (and shouldn't become teachers!). Less than half make it through to certification and landing a teaching job.

Here's something a little more telling - SAT verbal and math scores, compared to average scores, for different groups of actual teachers.

Teachers, on average, have pretty good verbal skills. Not so great in math unless you're a math or science teacher (not surprising). What is surprising is how poorly some groups score. Physical education majors don't do so well reinforcing the stereotype of the dumb gym teacher. Special education teachers don't do so well either. I know very little about special education so I can't comment one way or another.

What is sad is the low scores shown by elementary education teachers. These are the teachers that come into contact with every single kid in the school system when the children are at a very impressionable age and learning the fastest. It's not just babysitting. Too bad elementary education teachers aren't of a higher caliber.

Here's another tidbit from the Gene Expression blog expanding upon this data.

As a generalization, the SAT scores of whites who end up in K-12 teaching aren't much different from the larger population SAT scores of college-bound seniors. With Asians, the best seniors definitely don't go into K-12 teaching. With blacks, K-12 teachers are drawn from the highest-scoring seniors. Definite cultural differences at play here. No comments, just found it interesting.

Data's great. Too bad educational "reformers" typically ignore it (peruse the EducationRealist blog for many examples).

Blocked by SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-18T09:11:00.000-05:00

My take on the Republican primaries

2012-01-17T07:32:00.001-05:00

It's the same as the late George Carlin's...

And no, I'm not an Obama supporter either. They all suck.

Odd winter weather 2

2012-01-16T11:40:00.000-05:00

It's ironic that Friday, after I posted about how unseasonably warm it was, cold Canadian air was pulled down from the low pressure system that moved through our area with rain on Thursday and dropped the temperatures down for the holiday weekend.

Low pressure systems (red L over northern NY & VT) are

characterized by counterclockwise circulation of winds.

This brings cold Canadian air down into the Hudson Valley.

Just goes to illustrate the difference between weather and climate. Weather is the day-to-day set of conditions in the atmosphere, climate is the average over time. In other words, climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.

So, anyway, in Friday's post I talked about how it's been unseasonably warm in the Hudson Valley this winter (at least to date). Today I want about this in more detail.

Turns out it's just not unseasonably warm here, in the first week of January, more than 1,000 temperature records were broken across the country. There was also 19% snow cover in the U.S. versus a normal for early January of closer to 50% (see This Winter's Weirdly Warm Weather Explained). Some meteorologists have dubbed these conditions "Marchuary".

So what's going on? Well, to start, it's a La Niña year. The El Niño/La Niña weather phenomenon deserves a post of its own but is basically an oscillation of high and low pressure systems across the tropical Pacific Ocean (it's also know as ENSO for El Niño Southern Oscillation). During normal conditions, there's high pressure off the west coast of South America in our winter (their summer, since seasons are reversed south of the equator) and low pressure over by Indonesia and Australia (resulting in rains).

This high pressure drives the equatorial current westward across the tropical Pacific. Cold water is pulled up from the Southern Ocean off the coast of Chile and Peru. This cold current brings plankton rich waters and fishing is good.

During an El Niño year, however, these high and low pressure systems flip (hence the word "oscillation" in ENSO) and the equatorial current reverses direction. The cold current off South America shuts down and the fish go away (causing economic hardships for fishermen in Peru and Chile). In addition, now there's low air pressure off South America resulting in rains which cause flooding and mudslides in the Andes. Over in Indonesia, they're not getting the rains and drought ensues.

Note also, in looking at the two images, how the El Niño event affects the subtropical and polar jet streams crossing North America. Our winter weather is affected by the shifting of high and low pressure systems in the tropical Pacific Ocean. These types of effects are called teleconnections by meteorologists.

That's El Niño, what then is La Niña? La Niña is basically an intensification of normal conditions. Higher high pressure off South America. This allows the eastern Pacific (off the west coasts of North and South America) to get colder than normal. This cold water evaporates less thus leading to drier atmospheric conditions. As this drier air comes off the Pacific and is carried across North America, it drops less precipitation as snow.

When there's less snow on the ground, there's also less radiation from the Sun reflected back into space. The Sun is more effectively able to warm the ground resulting in slightly higher temperatures.

That's not the whole story, however. Last year we had La Niña conditions at it was very cold and snowy (remember the various "Snowmaggedon" stories?). There are other pressure system oscillations not as well know as ENSO. The Arctic Oscillation (AO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) also play a role in how the polar jet stream moves across North America affecting our weather.

Last year the AO and NAO were both in their negative phases and this year they're positive. This positive phase allows for a stronger, less "kinked" jet stream which is resulting in less precipitation and storms across the upper part of the country.

Bottom line is that our weather patterns are complex and interrelated. While it's tempting to look at anomalously warm weather and say "It's that damn global warming!" or look at anomalously cold weather and say "See, I told you global warming was a crock of shit!", the reality is that you can't say ANYTHING about global climate change from a single storm (e.g. Hurricane Katrina or Irene) or a couple of days or weeks of warm or cold weather. Climate is weather averaged over many years (and when you look at those records, it unquestionably supports a warming trend).

Odd winter weather 1

2012-01-13T11:37:00.000-05:00

If you live here in the Hudson Valley of New York, I'm sure you've noticed that we haven't had typical winter weather this year (at least not yet!).

Let's look at some data. Going to the National Weather Service's (NWS) list of Offices and Centers, we can get to the NWS Office in Albany, NY. Scrolling down, you'll see a catagory for Climate with a link for Local climate information.

From there, I'll grab the Preliminary Monthly Climate Data reports for Poughkeepsie (a mid-Hudson Valley city) for November and December of 2011.

Here's what we can extract from that report:

      Average November temperature = 46.0° F
      Departure from normal = 4.4° F higher

     Average December temperature = 37.1° F
     Departure from normal = 6.0° F higher

We can also look at January, to date (Jan 13):

      Average monthly temperature = 33.7° F
      Departure from normal = 8.0° F higher

No doubt about it, it has been a very warm winter. Since November, we've been 4° - 8° F higher in temperature than average (the "normal" temperatures these are compared to is a 30-year average calculated from data collected between 1981-2010).

If you're wondering, precipitation is about average in that same time span (we're only 0.3 inches lower this year since November 1).

It's been so warm that my family has been doing a lot of geocaching this winter (the subject of another post). Last weekend when we were out, bushwacking through some brush, we picked up a bunch of deer ticks on our legs. I've never had to worry about ticks in the middle of winter before!

So what's causing this mild winter? Can we identify any reason? Is it global warming? I'll discuss this in tomorrow's post.

Amateur physics

2012-01-11T23:07:00.001-05:00

Interesting, but completely bullshit article in Slate on Other Theories of Physics. The subtitle says it all: "Amateurs around the world take on the priesthood of mainstream science."

By the way, whenever someone talks about the "priesthood" of science, red flags should instantly pop up - it's a phrase almost exclusively used by cranks to support pseudoscientific ideas.

Anyway, the article talks about people who, without any background in mainstream science, develop alternative "theories" in physics. One such person profiled is "Jim Carter, a trailer-park owner in Enumclaw, Wash." who developed his own "theory of everything" based on the idea that all matter is composed of little donut-shaped particles (shown at left) called "circlons" (another characteristic of cranks, by the way, is that they invent their own terminology). His ideas are featured in a series of self-published books including The Other Theory of Physics (why yes, self-publishing is another sign of a crank).

So what's Carter's expertise? He took one semester of college and thought "that what was being taught in physics departments was an offense to common sense." Damn physicists with their fancy PhDs. What do they know?

The author then claims we shouldn't treat these people like cranks and dump the crazy ass letters they write to physics professors in the trash. Why? Well, one reason is that there's a lot of them and they have an organization - the Natural Philosophy Alliance, whose database lists more than 2,100 theorists, 5,800 papers, and more than 1,300 books worldwide.

Ahem... Couldn't we say the same about young-Earth creationists? Organizations like Answers in Genesis have pretty websites with lots of members too but they're batshit crazy.

Then the author states:

"They are unanimous in the view that mainstream physics has been hijacked by a kind of priestly caste who speak a secret language—in other words, mathematics—that is incomprehensible to most human beings. They claim that the natural world speaks a language which all of us can, or should be able to, understand."

So let me understand this... Just because most people can barely add two numbers together, and have no hope of understanding higher mathematics, physics is somewhow wrong. It's un-American. Un-democratic. Elitist. Like the scientific gibberish at left.

The article closed with:

While we may not agree with the answers outsiders give, none of us should be sanguine when some of the greatest fruits of science are unavailable to most of humankind.

I guess the author has never read Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Michio Kaku, and many other physicists who've written books attempting to translate concepts in physics into language accessible to average readers.

Here's a clue... When some dude in a trailer park with barely a high school diploma claims to have a "theory of everyhing" that will overturn hundreds of years of physics, he's probably full of shit.

They both have ideas about how the universe formed

Guns & Testosterone

2012-01-09T22:14:00.000-05:00

So some bloggers over at Discover Magazine put up a post titled NCBI ROFL: Study proves guns make you an a**hole. They quote the abstract from a research paper in Psychological Science titled Guns, testosterone, and aggression: an experimental test of a mediational hypothesis:

"We tested whether interacting with a gun increased testosterone levels and later aggressive behavior. Thirty male college students provided a saliva sample (for testosterone assay), interacted with either a gun or a children’s toy for 15 min, and then provided another saliva sample. Next, subjects added as much hot sauce as they wanted to a cup of water they believed another subject would have to drink. Males who interacted with the gun showed significantly greater increases in testosterone and added more hot sauce to the water than did those who interacted with the children’s toy. Moreover, increases in testosterone partially mediated the effects of interacting with the gun on this aggressive behavior."

As the owner of a .40 caliber Glock 22, I have to take exception to this article. As a man, I guess I fail to see how an increase in testosterone necessarily equates with making one an asshole. What not title the post "Study proves guns make you more manly"?

Of course the NCBI ROFL bloggers are women. What a surprise. Hey sweeties, testosterone does not automatically make you an asshole - there are plenty of metrosexual girlie men out there (example at right) who presumably have some testosterone running through their pretty little veins (or maybe not). Some of us are just assholes by choice.

Hey, how about this post by the same bloggers: NCBI ROFL: The presence of an attractive woman elevates testosterone and physical risk taking in young men. Alternative title - "Women turn men into assholes."

I'm afraid Hudson Valley Geologist will just remain an unrepentant male asshole. Don't ask me for water and hot sauce either.

Ghost in the Wires

2012-01-06T07:10:00.004-05:00

Just finished Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker by Kevin Mitnick (2011, Little, Brown and Company).

Kevin Mitnick is a well-known computer hacker, now making money as a computer security professional, who was once the subject of an intense manhunt from the FBI and US Marshals for his hacking activities against the phone ("phone phreaking") and computer companies. He spent several years in prison for his felony crimes.

On one level, I found the book to be an interesting read. I'm about the same age as Mitnick and if my parents had more money when I was growing up I probably would have made some forays into computer hacking myself. I was an avid electronics hobbyist and remember lusting after the Altair 8800 when I saw it in Popular Electronics as a teenager but couldn't afford it.

It wasn't until I went to college that I started using computers. I found myself hanging out with the computer geeks and learned the UNIX system (remember emacs?), C, and even did some simple hacking on the school's VAX/VMS system. I could have gone to the dark side if I had gotten into all of that a decade earlier.

Anyway, I do understand the appeal of hacking. The thrill of learning how to beat the system, snoop around where you shouldn't be, the adrenaline rush of risking getting caught. Most people outgrow it and go on to do something useful in life. Other people, however, seem to get addicted to it all and Mitnick was one of them.

While Mitnick undoubtedly had technical skills honed by hours on the computer, his real skill was what he called "social engineering" - something other people would call "lying" and "grifting". He would research a company and then call some poor low-level employee with access to their computer system and say something like "This is Bill in engineering and I'm having trouble with the xxx system. Can you help me by checking a few things on your machine?" Then he'd have the poor ~~sap~~ employee run a series of cryptic commands that would give Mitnick access to the system with administrative rights.

Most of Mitnick's virtual break-ins were the result of him conning people over the phone. Since he started his "career" by hacking the phone company, he was able to get callbacks to his cell phone with a phone number that looked as if it was an internal phone number for the company he was hacking.

Mitnick was clearly an addict when it came to hacking. He did it even knowing it hurt people close to him - he claimed to be close to his mother and grandmother but he was always calling and telling them the FBI was on to him, he had to run, or he had been arrested. I felt sorry for them - he must have really broken their hearts. He also persisted in his hacking even when he knew he was being investigated by multiple local and federal law enforcement agencies and even when he had to move from L.A. to Vegas to Denver to Rayleigh to try and keep one step ahead of them (even while on probation for hacking).

Mitnick also comes across in the book as being a complete sociopath. Besides the harm he was constantly doing to his loved ones by his illegal activities, he also had no qualms about his computer hacking activities. He claimed to just be doing it because he enjoyed the challenge. Problem is that he caused real harm to real people. He hacked phones to make thousands of hours of free calls that were then billed to random people. Real people getting real bills who then had to spend hours dealing with the phone company to get straightened out. He broke into companies and stole lists of credit card numbers which he thought was OK since he never used them for anything. Still a crime dude! Again, real people had their credit card numbers stolen and needed to go to their banks to get new cards, etc. He lied to people and tricked them into giving him access into corporate computer systems. No harm? Ask the people who were then talked to, disciplined, or perhaps fired to allowing Mitnick to trick them into getting into the company's computers. He broke into corporate computers and stole source code for operating systems for phones and computers. Proprietary corporate source code that cost millions to develop and that allowed Mitnick to exploit any weaknesses to hack even more. Then he wondered why they got so upset and got the Feds after him. He was upset that the Feds were tapping his mom's phone, his friend's phones, etc. yet used his phone hacking skills to tap and listed to other people's conversations and read their private email.

After all his years of serious hacking, stealing services from phone and computer companies, breaking into corporate computer systems, conning people, stealing proprietary source code, tapping people's phones, reading people's private emails, etc. etc. etc., he's mystified as to why the Feds spent so much time and energy tracking him down and why they wanted him in prison with no access to computers or phones. Quite frankly, if I had been the target of Mitnick's hacks, I'd probably want to beat the guy with a baseball bat. He's completely clueless for a smart guy - something's obviously a bit off in his brain wiring.

In sum, while an interesting book, Mitnick comes across as a real asshole. I would recommend this book not just to people interested in hacking but to any mental health professionals interested in addictive and sociopathic personalities.

Geology definition

2012-01-05T07:30:00.000-05:00

I love the Uncyclopedia entry on GEOLOGY. Favorite quotes:

"Geology (from Bushman - Geo meaning Rock and logy meaning masturbation)..."

"Geology was created so that drunks were able to get paid by universities to create fiction..."

"Geologists are most classically portrayed as larger than life figures in pop culture known for their often excessive and unwieldy hair and habits such as flatulence, promiscuity and acts of random violence. The lives of geologists are often even more fascinating than the rock(s) which they study."

I like the entry on GEOLOGIST too.

Perihelion

2012-01-04T18:10:00.000-05:00

Tonight, January 4 at 8:00 pm EST (0100 UTC July 5), the Earth will be at perihelion. The word is derived from the Greek words for "near" (peri) and "Sun" (helios). It's the closest we'll be to the Sun all year. As I write this, however, at 9:00 am, my outdoor thermometer says it's currently 12° F outside. If we're so close to the Sun, why is it so damn cold outside?

Well, first of all, it's only cold for us here in the Northern Hemisphere. It's early summer down in the Southern Hemisphere and quite warm. That's because the real reason the Earth has seasons is its 23.5° axial tilt. Right now, two weeks after the winter solstice, those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are tilted about as far away from the Sun as we can be. Those in the Southern Hemisphere are tilted toward the Sun. We get less hours of daylight, the Sun is lower in the sky all day, and the sunlight is spread out over a larger area - ergo, it's colder.

In the early 1600s, German mathematician/astronomer Johannes Kepler developed his Three Laws of Planetary Motion. He showed that as planets orbit the Sun, they actually move in ellipses, not perfect circles as was previously thought from the times of the ancient Greeks. This means that planets are sometimes closer to the Sun (perihelion as mentioned above) and sometimes further from the Sun (called aphelion). Therefore, when we talk about the distance of a planet from the Sun, we have to specify the average distance.

According to Wikipedia, the average distance from the Earth to the Sun, also known as an astronomical unit (1 A.U.) is 149,597,870.7 km (92,955,807.3 mi). We can also look up the values for perihelion and aphelion as 147,098,290 km (91,402,640 mi) and 152,098,232 km (94,509,460 mi) respectively.

In astronomy, the shape of an elliptical orbit is given by its eccentricity (e) which can be defined as:

     e= [(aphelion - perihelion) / (aphelion + perihelion)]
     e = [(152,098,232 km - 147,098,290 km) / (152,098,232 km + 147,098,290 km)]
     e = 0.01671123

An eccentricity of 0.0 would be a perfect circle. An eccentricity of 0.0167, like the Earth has, is pretty darn close to circular. Looking at the numerical difference between aphelion and perihelion, and comparing that to the average distance from the Sun gives us:

     (152,098,232 km - 147,098,290 km) / (149,597,870.7 km) * 100% = 3.34% difference

It's really not that much of a difference.

How much does this change in distance affect the amount of incoming solar radiation (insolation) from the Sun? Imagine the Sun radiating energy outward in all directions. As you move away from the Sun, the energy is distributed over larger and larger spherical areas as seen at left. Since the surface area of a sphere is 4πr², the total insolation decreases by the inverse square of the distance (r) (this is called the inverse square law).

Let's look at the difference between aphelion and perihelion distances.

     Aphelion Insolation = [(149,597,870.7 km) / (152,098,232 km)]² = 0.9674
     Perihelion Insolation = [(149,597,870.7 km) / (147,098,290 km)]² = 1.0343

That's about a 6.5% difference in insolation. Not really noticeable in our surface temperatures, but it is a difference you can see if you observe the Sun through an appropriately filtered telescope (here's where every blogger writes "Don't stare at the Sun with your naked eye!" Not me. If you're stupid enough to go outside and stare slack-jawed at the Sun, go right ahead. Hurts, don't it?).

So, yes we're closest to the Sun for the year today. And we still have two months of bitterly cold weather to live through here in the Hudson Valley. The Hudson Valley Geologist is not a fan of winter - the snow covers up all the beautiful rocks!

What is a Mineral? (Part 2)

2012-01-03T23:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I started talking about the geological definition of a mineral. I had gotten through 3 of the 5 characteristics a mineral must possess - minerals are naturally-occurring, inorganic, and solid. Today I'll cover the final two characteristics - minerals have an orderly crystalline structure and a well-defined chemical composition.

Look at the image below. On the left is a nice amethyst crystal. No one would deny that this is crystalline. On the right is a piece of kaolinite - a soft, powdery clay mineral. Is this crystalline? Turns out it is indeed crystalline.

Crystalline does not mean it only occurs as a crystal, crystalline means that the atoms which link together to form the mineral do so in an orderly, repeating, fashion. This mineral quartz and silica glass, for example, both can be denoted by the formula SiO₂ - the difference is that in quartz, the silicon and oxygen atoms are linked up in a hexagonal lattice. In glass, they're linked together, but not in a regular repeating fashion. Glass is therefore not crystalline.

Back to the lump of kaolinite clay (Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄) above. It actually has a crystalline structure as shown below (it's a bit complicated and difficult to see in 2-D).

The final characteristic of minerals, having a well-defined chemical composition, sound simple but also has some complications we can mention. Most common minerals have simple chemical formulas - gold (Au), halite (NaCl), quartz (SiO₂), calcite (CaCO₃), hematite (Fe₂O₃), and orthoclase feldspar (KAlSi₃O₈) are examples.

Other minerals, however, have formulas that are a bit more odd looking. One fairly common mineral, called hornblende, has a formula that may be written as:

(Ca,Na)_2–3(Mg,Fe,Al)₅(Al,Si)₈O₂₂(OH,F)₂
It's not an exact formula. It can have varying amounts of different elements. Is that really a well-defined chemical formula? I guess so since hornblende is a mineral.

So there it is. To a geologist, a mineral is "any naturally occurring inorganic solid that possesses an orderly crystalline structure and a well-defined chemical composition."

One oddity of this definition, by the way, is that ice should be considered a mineral. It's naturally-occurring, inorganic, solid (certainly tonight here in the Hudson Valley since it's 11° F out right now), has an orderly crystalline structure, and a well-defined chemical compositon (H₂O).

What is a mineral? (Part 1)

2012-01-02T22:01:00.000-05:00

What is a mineral? Ever play the game 20 Questions? In that guessing game, the first thing established is whether or not the mystery object is an animal, vegetable, or mineral. In this case, the term mineral refers to anything inorganic (a coin in my pocket, for example, would be a "mineral"). This is not, however, how a geologist would define a mineral.

Every morning I take a multivitamin with minerals. The "minerals" listed are things like iron (Fe), copper (Cu), magnesium (Mg), selenium (Se), zinc (Zn), and others. Geologists would call these things elements, since they're found on the Periodic Table of the Elements, not minerals.

If you've ever taken a geology course, you should already be aware that geologists have a very specific definition for the term "mineral". Let's look at that definition.

From Tarbuck & Lutgen's Earth Science (2012, 13^th ed., Prentice-Hall), a standard college-level earth science text for non-science majors, a mineral is defined as:

...any naturally occurring inorganic solid that possesses an orderly crystalline structure and a well-defined chemical composition.

Let's look at each part of this definition in a bit more detail.

Minerals are naturally-occurring. This means that anthropogenic ("man-made") materials, like synthetic gemstones for example, are not minerals. Diamonds (C) are naturally-occuring minerals while cubic zirconia (ZrO₂) are made in the laboratory and not considered to be true minerals. Can you tell which is which in the image below?

Which is which? (http://jcrs.com/newsletters/2008/2008_12.htm)

Some definitions, however, limit this a bit more. The International Mineralogical Association, for example, defines a mineral as:

...an element or chemical compound that is normally crystalline and that has been formed as a result of geological processes.

In this definition, biogenic compounds - those created by living things - are not minerals. Examples include things like the kidney stones (calcium oxalate - CaC₂O₄) shown at left and bivalve shells (aragonite - CaCO₃).

The textbook definition, however, would consider these thing to be minerals. Keep in mind that terms like "minerals" are defined by people (kind of like the term "planet" in astronomy) and people disagree about the definitions at times!

Minerals are inorganic. Here it gets all complicated too. Turns out there really isn't any formal chemical definition of the terms organic and inorganic. Generally speaking, however, inorganic compounds aren't organic compounds. OK, so what are organic compounds? Organic compounds are basically carbon atoms bonded together with attached hydrogen, oxygen, or nitrogen atoms.

As an example, both salt (left) and sugar (right) look crystalline under magnification. The difference is that salt is NaCl which is an inorganic molecule whereas table sugar (sucrose) is C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁ - an organic molecule.

Minerals are solid. The state of a material (solid, liquid, or gas) obviously depends on temperature and pressure conditions so, once again, we have to clarify things a bit more. Generally, we specify that a mineral must be solid at the range of temperatures and pressures found on the Earth's surface. We can even be more precise and specify 1 atmosphere of pressure at 0° C (STP) or 1 atm at 20° C for room temperature.

Minerals also have an orderly crystalline structure and a well-defined chemical composition. I'll come back to these tomorrow...

Unseasonably warm weekend ramble

2012-01-01T13:20:00.000-05:00

It's been unseasonably warm this New Year's weekend getting up to 50+ degrees yesterday and today. Went for a walk on Saturday - here's a few pictures and observations from my ramblings...

We've had so much rain this fall that the ground is completely saturated. Any rain falling now sits on the surface without even soaking into the ground - even several days later. Here's a view of Undivided Lot Trail on the Mohonk Preserve - a wet, mucky mess. This part of the trail is always bone dry. We only had about 0.7 inches of rain four days earlier on Tuesday.

Once we enter the deep freeze of January and February, all of this supersaturated ground will frost heave terribly. Expect badly broken up roads this winter (and a perpetually-broke County and State slow to repair them). Also expect flooding in the spring when the snow melts. Worst case scenario - heavy snow pack, warming in early March, and a heavy rainfall from a slow-moving nor'easter for a couple of days.

I've walked past the following beech tree hundreds of times before (the trail is one of my favorites in the local area). Never noticed how unhappy it looked.

The trail is also popular with crows, ravens, and vultures. The vultures are probably sunning themselves in Florida now but the crows were especially vocal and active (didn't hear any ravens - not sure if they winter here). Here's a flock of crows flying toward the south (probably just to roost somewhere since it was late afternoon).

Crow stopping to rest...

See the white dot above the center tree in the flock of crows picture? That's the first-quarter Moon rising in the east. Here's a close-up view. Ever since teaching Ancient Astronomy, I've become much more aware of the phase of the Moon.

I like cliffs and pitch pines. Don't you just want to walk out along that ledge?

It's a long way down. Ever stand on the edge of a cliff and wonder what it would feel like to launch yourself off? I'm envious of birds sometimes.

Here's a good place to sit and contemplate things.

I mostly like to sit where I can dangle my feet of the edge...

I feel fortunate I only live 5 minutes away from this trailhead (and have a yearly membership to the Mohonk Preserve) so I can hike there whenever I need to get out and commune with nature.

I'll close with a shot of the winter Sun, low in the southwestern sky. Since we've passed the solstice, every day that Sun will get a little higher and a little stronger!

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T00:43:00.000-05:00

It's officially 2012. Happy New Year everyone and may it be a better year than 2011!

I've been blogging for two years now - my first post was on December 29, 2009. In that time, I've had 502 posts (an average of one post every 1.5 days - not bad!). I've also had, as I write this, over 89,000 unique visitors and my stat counter says I generally have over 200 unique hits each day. Not bad for a blog I don't really advertise in any way.

It's funny keeping a blog because sometimes I love writing and have multiple posts I could do each day and other times I'll go for a week or more and can't really think of anything I want to write about. Usually, once I start writing, however, I can keep going - the trick is in starting!

Notice that I don't have any advertisements on my blog - it's entirely commercial free (other than occassional links to Amazon when I mention books). That's by intent. Sometimes people send me unsolicited requests to set up advertising on my blog. I delete those emails. I really despise how some very good blogs are completely cluttered up with intrusive advertising (including obnoxious pop-ups). I've even quit reading some blogs because they load so slowly with all the crap running on them.

I also generally write about only what I want to write about. Sometimes I get emails suggesting things to write about and I generally ignore those too. If you pay me, I'll write what you want me to write. Otherwise, I do what I want.

Guess I'll keep it up for a while longer...

The scale of atoms

2011-12-31T12:43:00.018-05:00

Saw this on Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog and loved it. Phycisist Brian Cox on a BBC show called "A Night With the Stars" talking about why atoms are mostly empty space. Watch it!

As Plait says "Post script: can you imagine a show like this running on American TV? No, I can’t either..." God forbid, with 100+ cable channels, there should be some intelligent program material (which I why I don't even subscribe to cable TV).

In my introductory science classes, I like to explain to students how atoms are really small, mostly empty space, and not at all like they commonly imagine.

Let's look at the size of a typical atom. Nothing is more typical than hydrogen - the most abundant element in the known universe. Hydrogen is simple - it's just one negatively charged electron orbiting a positively charged proton (let's ignore electrically-neutral neutrons for now).

Below left is a simple model of a hydrogen atom. This type of model is called the Bohr model after Danish physicist Niels Bohr. While this is how most people visualize atoms - as hard, little electrons orbiting a nucleus like planets around a star - it's completely incorrect as a physical model. We'll come back to that in a bit.

Above right is an image from Wikipedia showing the diameter of the proton in a hydrogen atom (1.7 x 10^-5 Å) and the diameter of the atom itself which is the orbital shell of the electron (1.1 Å).

For those of you unfamiliar with angstroms (Å), one angstrom is equivalent to 10^-10 meters.

Why no diameter for the electron? Well, it's complicated and physicists generally treat it as a point charge. We can say that the mass of the electron is 1,836 times smaller than the mass of a proton, however. That's like comparing my weight to something weighing 2 ounces.

Now, let's look at the relative sizes of the nucleus and orbital shell for a hydrogen atom.

(1.1 Å / 1.7 x 10^-5 Å) = 64,706

In other words, in a hydrogen atom, the electron orbital is 64,706 times the diameter of the proton in the nucleus. Let's make that easier to visualize. Image we blow up the proton to the size of a golf ball. Wikipedia gives the minimum diameter of a golf ball as 43 mm or 4.3 x 10^-2 m.

[(1.7 x 10^-5 Å) / (4.3 x 10^-2m)] = [(1.1 Å) / X]

X = [(1.1 Å) (4.3 x 10^-2m) / (1.7 x 10^-5 Å)]

X = 2,782 m

Divide diameter by 2 for the radius = 2,782 m / 2 = 1,391 m

That's 1.4 km or 0.9 miles. In other words, if the proton nucleus of a hydrogen atom were the size of a golf ball, the electron would be orbiting almost a mile away! That's why we say atoms are mostly empty space!

Atoms are also really, really small. How small? Let's compare the size of a hydrogen atom to the size of a penny. Once again, Wikipedia to the rescue telling us that a U.S. penny is 19.05 mm in diameter (1.9 x 10^-2m).

(1.9 x 10^-2 m / 1.1 x 10^-10 m) = 172,727,273

A penny is 173 million times the diameter of a hydrogen atom! How big is a penny if we blew it up 173 million times?

1.9 x 10^-2 m x 172,727,273 = 3,281,818 m = 3,281 km

For reference, the diameter of the Moon 3,475 km. Let's suppose a careless astronaut dropped a penny on the surface of the Moon. The size of that penny compared to the Moon is about the same as the size of a hydrogen atom compared to a penny!

Back now to the Bohr model of the atom. The image of electrons orbiting a nucleus like the image at left is useful for understanding how atoms bond, it really does give us the wrong idea.

The modern, quantum mechanical model of an atom has variously-shaped electron "clouds" around the nucleus with electrons essentially behaving as waves. Electrons can only occur in certain orbitals because they're essentially like standing waves as Brian Cox explains in the video. To really understand this, you have to understand the mathematics of the Schrödinger equation.

Reality gets very strange at the atomic scale!

The 1700 Cascadia Quake

2011-12-30T20:50:00.000-05:00

Since I just reviewed Jerry Thompson's Cascadia's Fault book, I thought I'd also say a few words about the massive earthquake which occurred on the Cascadia subduction zone back in 1700. Before we do that, let me just remind everyone what a magnitude 9.0 earthquake is like when it occurs on a subducting plate under the seafloor.

On March 11 of this year, an earthquake of this magnitude occurred beneath the ocean floor 43 miles east of the Oshika Peninsula of Japan. The quake and resultant tsunami killed over 15,000 people and resulted in an economic cost of over 200 billion US dollars.

On December 26, 2004, a similar type of earthquake occurred just off the west coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. The resultant tsunami killed over 200,000 people around the Indian Ocean and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage.

Similarly large earthquakes have occurred along offshore subduction zones in 1985 in Mexico, 1964 in Alaska, and 1960 in Chile. They're not especially uncommon.

Queule, Chile, before and after the 1960 earthquake and tsunami

http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/pp1707.pdf

In the late 1980s and through the 1990s, researchers like USGS geologist Brian Atwater started noticing evidence for a very large earthquake along the Pacific Northwest coast. Groves of trees were found submerged into salt water and killed when the land suddenly subsided. Radiocarbon dating and studies of growth rings in the trees narrowed the time of the earthquake to around 1700.

Submerged cedar forest - Willapa Bay, Washington

http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/pp1707.pdf

A connection was then made to historical records of a tsunami striking numerous villages in Japan on January 27, 1700 (leading to a date of the earthquake of January 26).

Painting of 1854 Hiro Village, Japan tsunami

http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/pp1707.pdf

Pacific Northwest native peoples also had legends of a large earthquake and tsunami (although not specifying a date). Many of the stories are wrapped in stories of battles between mythological creatures like Thunderbird and Whale.

Here's one matter-of-fact account from at 1864 diary entry by James Swan, the first schoolteacher on the Makah reservation at Neah Bay near the Straits of Juan de Fuca...

Billy also related an interesting tradition. He says that "ankarty" but not "Irias ankarty" that is at not a very remote period the water flowed from Neah Bay through the Waatch prairie, and Cape Flattery was an Island. That the water receded and left Neah Bay dry for four days and became very warm. It then rose again without any swell or waves and submerged the whole of the cape and in fact the whole country except the mountains back of Clyoquot. As the water rose those who had canoes put their effects into them and floated off with the current which set strong to the north. Some drifted one way and some another and when the waters again resumed their accustomed level a portion of the tribe found themselves beyond Noothu where their descendants now reside and are known by the same name as the Makah or Quinaitchechat. Many canoes came down in the trees and were destroyed and numerous lives were lost. The same thing happened at Quillehuyte and a portion of that tribe went off either in canoes or by land and found the Chimahcum tribe at Port Townsend.

Now let's review the following image from my previous post.

http://www.iris.edu/hq/ssn/events/special/3739

See that red dot labeled "Subduction zone earthquake (1700)"? Can a magnitude 9+ earthquake and resultant tsunami happen again along this subduction zone? Absolutely! Large sections of this megathrust fault have been basically locked for 300 years or so and there is a chance that it will let go in our lifetimes.

A piece of advice... If you're on a Pacific Northwestern beach or live in a low-lying area, and you feel a large quake with prolonged shaking, run, don't walk, to higher ground!

Cascadia's Fault - Part 2

2011-12-28T19:50:00.000-05:00

Finishing my review of Cascadia's Fault by Jerry Thompson. Read yesterday's post if you haven't already and then come back here...

My last post illustrates the biggest problem with the book - not one diagram of the Cascadia subductions zone. Not one map. Not one cross-section. The purpose of the book is to make the public “sit up, pay attention, and get ready” yet non-geologists will simply not understand the geological explanations Thompson provides. It would have been trivially easy to include these illustrations, and Thompson does provide a few pictures of historical earthquakes, like the 1964 Good Friday quake in Alaska, so it's puzzling why he didn't do so.

One strength of the book is the historical background but even this comes with a caveat. Geologists began recognizing the danger of the Cascadia subduction zone around the time the modern theory of plate tectonics was being developed. It was an exciting, and sometimes acrimonious, time in geology. Thompson covers this historical development in detail, almost too much detail at times, yet fails to capture this excitement. I honestly found much of the central part of this book to be tedious reading and started skimming even though I should have been interested.

Finally, the book was a bit sensationalistic (Thompson was trained as a journalist and he wants to sell documentaries). The subtitle "the coming earthquake and tsunami that could devastate North America" is a bit overblown and the last part of the book is an absolute worst-case scenario of what could happen if a major earthqauke occurred along this fault zone.

So, bottom line, I can't recommend this book that much but it is an important issue and an interesting geologic feature which could cause great devastation when it lets go some day. If you're still interested in reading it, borrow the book from the library like I did.

Cascadia's Fault

2011-12-27T16:47:00.000-05:00

I recently read Cascadia's Fault: The Coming Earthquake and Tsunami that Could Devastate North America by Jerry Thompson (Counterpoint, 2012).

Thompson is a documentary filmmaker living outside of Vancouver in British Columbia who's produced and narrated several television documentaries on the Cascadia fault for the CBC. Thompson's interest in the Cascadia subduction zone was due, in large part, to his home being located in an area that might be directly affected by a large earthquake along that fault zone.

I have to confess that I wanted to like this book, but I'm afraid I didn't. First a little background...

I don't believe regular readers of this blog need much of an introduction to plate tectonics. The Earth's rigid outer shell, called the lithosphere, is split into a number of tectonic plates which all move relative to one another. Virtually all of the continental United States and Canada, with the exception of a small sliver of southern California, is sitting on the North American Plate.

http://geomaps.wr.usgs.gov/parks/pltec/pltec2.html

Just offshore of the Pacific Northwest (Northern California, Oregon, and Washington) is a small plate of oceanic crust called the Juan de Fuca Plate.

Since I love tangential stories, I'll share the following. Juan de Fuca was a Greek navigator (Ioánnis Fokás) who sailed for Spain to look for the fabled Strait of Anián, a supposed Northwest Passage across the top of North America, and claimed to have discovered it in 1592. The English captain, Charles William Barkley named the Juan de Fuca Strait in 1787 in his honor believing that's what Juan de Fuca described from his voyage almost 200 years earlier.

Anyway, here's a closer view of the region. The north-south purple barbed line just off the coast of the Pacific Northwest is the Cascadia Subduction Zone - the trench down which the Juan de Fuca plate subducts as it pushes eastward, away from newly-forming ocean crust at the Juan de Fuca and Gorda Ridges, and as the North American Plate moves westward away from the distant mid-Atlantic Ridge on the opposite side of the continent.

http://ajdubre.tripod.com/Physics/CascadiaSubduction-Sci-52501.html

Here's an oblique-view of the region showing the subduction of the Juan de Fuca Plate down the Cascadia Subduction Zone beneath North America.

http://www.iris.edu/hq/ssn/events/special/3739

Melting of the subducting plate provides magma for the Pacific Northwest chain of volcanoes comprising the Cascades Range. Mount Lassen, Mount Shasta, Crater Lake, Mount Hood, Mount St Helens, Mount Rainier, and others have all erupted in historic times and will all erupt again (many people living in the shadows of these beautiful mountains are in a state of deep denial about that fact).

Subduction zones are also the locations of some of the largest and most destructive earthquakes on Earth. So, while the San Andreas Fault is the one in the public's consciousness, the Cascadia Fault is potentially just as deadly (if not more so).

Let me just add that if Thompson, the author of Cascadia's Fault, had given a background like I did above, with drawings of the plates and subduction zone, I would have reviewed his book much higher than I will tomorrow, when I finish this discussion!

Gastroenteritis for Christmas

2011-12-26T13:06:00.000-05:00

One of the downsides of being the parent of young children is that they occassionally get sick. Then they make you sick. My 10-year-old son picked up a stomach virus last week and gave it to me just in time to have a low-grade fever all day on Christmas Eve and unable to enjoy all the good food and beverages on Christmas Day (a turkey dinner with all the fixings at my house).

On the positive side, The worst of it is only 24 hours and it's mostly gone after a couple of days. I also lost a couple of pounds over Christmas weekend rather than gaining weight as I normally would have done!

I've been feeling bad about not keeping the blog active lately but really stressed over the last few weeks of the semester. Hopefully, things will be back to normal (relatively, at least) soon. I've been reading some interesting books lately on geology and hope to share some of that this week.

Ding, dong, the evil little dwarf is dead

2011-12-19T23:22:00.000-05:00

Kim Jong-il, the evil little dwarf that has enslaved North Koreans for several decades has assumed room temperature. The only sad part is that it wasn't the result of a bullet to the head.

The late Christopher Hitchens had an interesting article in Slate a while ago titled A Nation of Racist Dwarfs which is worth a read.

And here's the famous image from space of the Korean Peninsula at night. See South Korea all lit up (especially Seoul). North Korea is pretty much all as dark as the Gobi Desert (the one bright light in Pyongyang).

What I am completely unable to understand are the brainwashed North Koreans weeping and wailing because "Dear Leader" is dead.

Boys and girls, no one on this Earth ever deserves to be worshiped as a god. No one. Ever. Anyone who wants this is an egomaniac asshole. You'd think no one would have to say this. Evidently not. People are just naturally stupid and easily led, I suppose.

Japan tsunami dash cam footage

2011-12-10T22:55:00.000-05:00

Just saw this dash cam footage from a guy who survived the Japanese Tohoku earthquake and tsunami last March 11 in his car. Check out how quickly the water rose and the cars bobbing like corks...

Never underestimate the power of mother nature!

Selling science

2011-12-06T16:50:00.000-05:00

A colleague brought the following New Scientist article, Science in America: Selling the Truth, to my attention recently (unfortunately, you need to register to read this article).

From the start of the article:

JOHN HOLDREN, science adviser to President Barack Obama, is a clever man. But when it comes to the science of communication, he can say some dumb things. In January, Holdren welcomed the prospect of climatologists being called to testify before Congress: "I think we'll probably move the opinions of some of the members of Congress who currently call themselves sceptics, because I think a lot of good scientists are going to come in and explain very clearly what we know and how we know it and what it means, and it's a very persuasive case."

The article explains that this is the "deficit model" of science communication, which assumes that opposition to issues like climate change result from a lack of knowledge about the subject. In other words, we just need to "educate them" and the opposition will be convinced.

Well, of course it's not that simple. The article claims, and I concur, that all of us "filter and interpret knowledge through our cultural perspectives, and these perspectives are often more powerful than the facts." Obvious examples of this are the opposition to the concept of biological evolution from many Evangelical Christians and the misguided belief that vaccines cause autism by many on the other side of the political spectrum. There's even evidence that education may strengthen our cultural biases, not weaken them as you might expect.

The proposed solution? If you want to change someone's mind on a controversial issue, find someone they identify with to make the argument. In other words, don't expect Al Gore to change a Conservative's mind on climate change. An Inconvenient Truth, with its not-so-subtle digs at George Bush, would be rightly viewed as having an ideological bias (even if the overall message was scientifically-based). Don't expect an atheist will be able to convince Evangelical Christians that young-Earth creationism is not science. Of course they don't believe God created man, they would think, the don't even believe in God.

To convince political conservatives that climate change is real, one needs to first repect their ideological beliefs, even if you don't share them and find conservative scientists to discuss the issue (they do exist). Similary, Christian scientists (not the Mary Baker Eddy type!) are the ones best able to convince other Christians that young-Earth creationism is nonsense.

While I understand the necessity of talking about "selling science", it also makes me somewhat uncomfortable. Many people in this country already hold to a type of postmodernism that claims scientific ideas are purely human constructs with no objective reality. I mostly reject that idea as, I think, do most practicing scientists. Scientific "truth" does not belong to the person making the cleverest argument as you might see on a Fox News type scenario of two talking heads arguing climate change as if all opinions on the issue are equally valid. They're not. The opinion of an atmospheric scientist with 30 years of research experience and peer-reviewed publications does not have the same weight as that of a state senator with a degree in business when it comes to climate change.

I'm back (I think)

2011-12-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted anything for two weeks but needed a break. Thanksgiving was a busy time and we're now in the home stretch for the fall semester (today starts the last week of classes and final exams are next week).

I've also has a staff member abruptly resign and I have a lot of work to deal with that (forensic recreation of what the person was working on at the time, hiring and working with a temporary replacement, writing a new job ad, etc). We're also in the process of rewriting all department syllabi to make sure we have assessible student learning outcomes and assessment plans. Political bullshit - don't get me started on that topic.

I've been so stressed lately I've been having lots of dreams at night about working. Nothing interesting or exciting in the dreams - just me working. It sucks. I wake up exhausted. Also working on losing some weight and cutting back on some of life's pleasures - good food and good beer. Easy rule of thumb, if I like it and it gives me pleasure, it's bad for me. If there is a god - he's cruel that way.

To top it all off, it's the "Holiday Season." One of my wife's nicknames for me (she has many, few flattering) is Scrooge. Yes, I hate Christmas. Not Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, those are fine, it's nice to see the kids all excited about getting presents and the warm feelings associated with all of that (I'm not a monster). What I hate is the lead up. The raw, naked greed exhibited by retailers (and some people) in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Let's celebrate the birth of Christianity's Messiah by buying shit we can't afford (and often the gift recipients don't really want or need) on credit. If it was up to me, we would just celebrate the solstice at my house.

I totally avoid retail stores and malls in December (online shopping works just fine, thank you) but sometimes can't avoid the big increase in traffic (and holidays seem to bring out the worst drivers). I also DESPISE having to hear "Christmas music" EVERYWHERE!!! Do I really need to hear Jingle Bell Rock in fucking Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts or Panera when I want a cup of coffee? Really? It doesn't put me in the holiday spirit, it makes me even more grouchy than I already am since I'm usually in line behind people who appear to have all the time in the world (yes, I'm impatient too). Is "Fuck you!" an appropriate response to "Happy holidays!" from some cheery cashier. Probably not, but that's what I'm thinking. I'm a very, very bad man.

So, anyway, I'll try to start posting more regularly again. I'll even try to make the posts about science! Just needed to vent a bit.

Pet peeves vis-a-vis geology students & math

2011-11-21T21:24:00.000-05:00

A bit of a continuation of yesterday's post. Pretty self explanatory.

Example 1

: Student is told that to convert 12 kilometers to meters, all they need to do is multiply by 1,000 since there are 1,000 meters in a kilometer (something I thought they would have learned in 4^th grade, but oh well). Instead of just adding three zeros to 12 to obtain 12,000 meters, student whips out their $120+ TI-84 graphing calculator and enters 12 x 1,000!

Example 2

: Student measures the mass of a mineral on a triple balance beam and gets a value of 203.5 grams. The mineral displaces 29 ml of water and therefore has a volume of 29 cm³. The density of the mineral is (mass/volume) or (203.5 g / 29 cm³) or 7.0172413793 g/cm³ as reported by the student. Anyone see a problem with this answer? The student's initial measurements, at best, have one decimal place precision while the answer is given to 10 decimal places (because that's what the calculator reported back). The density should simply be reported as 7 g/cm³ (it was a hunk of galena - PbS). The ten decimal place answer is nonsensical and was marked incorrect to the student's amazement.

Example 3

: Student is trying to solve a problem. A groundwater contaminant is slowly moving in the subsurface at an average rate of 1 in/day. How many years will it take to move a mile (5,280 ft)? Student makes a mistake and divides 5,280 by 12 to get 440 in. Believes it will take a little over a year. I ask student why they divided by 12. Said it was because there are 12 inches in a foot. I said you divided 5,280 ft by 12 in/ft and got 440 ft²/in. The units are nonsensical. If, however, they paid attention to the way I taught them to do unit conversions (a method they should have learned 10 years ago in middle school), they would have multiplied 5,280 ft by 12 in/ft to obtain 63,360 in which is a much better unit than ft²/in and the contaminant will take over 173 years to travel that distance (big difference!). Student looks at me blankly.

Example 4

: In a similar type of conversion problem, student is off on their answer by several orders of magnitude because they multiplied instead of divided (e.g. answer is 4.3 km and student reports 430,000 km). No work is shown, I take off full credit. Student complains and wants partial credit. My rule is no work shown, no partial credit. I also ask them how a boss would respond to an error like this. Would you like your doctor to be off by orders of magnitude when calculating a dosage? An engineer when designing an aircraft? A CPA doing your taxes? Student hates me.

Example 5

: When having to do a lab that contains nothing more complex than 8^th grade math, student complains "I hate math!" and, despite my attempts at providing one-on-one extra help, declines and clearly copies the work from someone else. Fails lab final when forced to do the problems on their own without assistance.

These are all true examples from science majors in my Physical Geology laboratory course. Sigh.

Teaching math

2011-11-20T12:10:00.000-05:00

I was in the doctor's office the other day, getting blood drawn, and the phlebotomist asked me what I was reading since I was carrying a book (I'd rather read when sitting in an examination room waiting for the doctor than stare at those charts of nasty medical illustrations on the walls and wondering which disease is eventually going to kill me).

I told him it was a book about math (which I'll review in a couple of days when I finish reading it). He then asked if I taught math and I told him I was a geologist we talked for a bit. He told me he was never very good at math (as most people will tell you if they see you reading a book about math for fun), and one his memories from a high school math class was his teacher yelling at the class - "You know why you kids do so badly on the test? It's because you can't follow directions and that's what math is - following directions!"

He was done drawing my blood, so I didn't continue the conversation, but I was horrified that a math teacher would yell at his class like that. Not because he yelled at the students - good for him, they probably deserved it and never followed instructions - but because he told them something I think is totally false. Math, real math, is not simply "following directions". I would contend just the opposite - that teaching math this way is the worst possible way to do it (to be fair, of course, I'm just going by some one's memory of a long-ago math class, reality may have differed).

Also keep in mind, in what follows, is that I'm not a math teacher. I'm a geologist that likes math and think it's terribly interesting (I also find myself teaching elementary algebra to college students in my geology lab when they can't solve certain problems). Take what I say with a grain of salt (perhaps a math teacher could chime in if they're reading this).

To be fair, a large part of math is "following directions" in that math has rules. The plus sign + has a specific meaning in mathematics as an operation. When doing something to one side of an equals sign, you also have to do the exact same thing to the other side.

The problem is when students reach college and think of math as simply a system of mysterious rules and formulas with zero understanding of how it all works. That's why people always complain about "word problems" in math - if you don't understand the concepts, you can't apply them to solve a problem.

A concrete example. Most people are aware that the Earth's rigid outer shell (called the lithosphere by geologists) is split into plates which drift around over geologic time. This process is called plate tectonics and is central to modern science of geology. The Pacific Ocean is mostly underlain by a plate called, not surprisingly, the Pacific Plate.

The Hawaiian Islands are in the middle of the Pacific Plate and formed from volcanic activity. This is because that part of the plate is moving over a hot spot - a place where hot material is rising up through the mantle (a mantle plume) and generating magma at the base of the oceanic lithosphere (the "plate"). This magma erupts onto the seafloor and eventually builds up the volcanic islands we know as the tropical paradise of Hawaii.

The diagram below illustrates this. The hot spot is currently under the Big Island and Hawaii and that's why volcanoes like Kilauea are still erupting there. One million years ago, the Big Island didn't exist and Maui was over the hot spot. From 1.1 to 1.8 million years ago, Molokai was over the hot spot. From 2.2 to 3.3 million years ago, Oahu was over the hot spot. You get the idea. That's why old volcanoes on Oahu are extinct, they don't erupt anymore. Oahu moved off the hot spot over two million years ago - there's no more heat and magma to initiate volcanic eruptions.

So, after students have had lectures on plate tectonics, volcanism, etc., we have a lab where students are given a diagram similar to that below (red numbers are ages of volcanic features in millions of years) and asked to calculate the approximate rate of plate movement, in cm/yr (plate movements are almost always reported in centimeters per year) for the Pacific Plate over the past 5 million years.

The first thing many students ask is "What formula do I use?" This is like a word problem in math where all of the information is given, but some students have no idea what to do with that information because they don't really understand what they're doing. Then I explain that they need to calculate the velocity of the plate and ask them how velocity is defined. We finally get to the fact that it's distance divided by time (cm/yr in our plate movement example).

Then some students will proceed to measure the distance from Hawaii to Kauai using the scale bar shown on the map and get a distance of about 550 km or so. Then they'll divide that by 5,000,000 years and get an answer of 0.00011 cm/yr. Other students will divide 550 km by 5 million years and get an answer of 110 cm/yr. Nope, sorry to both, you completely ignored your units and got incorrect answers. Very common.

The answer, of course, requires you to convert 550 km into centimeters (55,000,000 cm) and 5 million years into 5,000,000 years and then divide to get 11 cm/yr. If I had simply posed the problem as "Find the distance in centimeters and the time in years and use the formula Rate = Distance / Time, they'd have no problem. But, when the problem is left more vague, and relies on the understanding that rate is distance over time and that you have to pay attention to your units, many supposedly college-level freshman science majors fall apart.

Why? Where's the disconnect? I don't know. I also get students who multiply instead of divide when working with map scales on topographic maps and tell me that the distance between features within Ulster County is millions of kilometers! No number sense at all.

Another advantage of home schooling compared to public schooling (my wife and I homeschool our kids). If they tell us "I don't understand word problems" we'll just concentrate on giving them word problem after word problem until they get it. In public schools, once you're lost it's likely you'll remain lost.

Auroras

2011-11-16T16:40:00.000-05:00

In this final post in my series on sunspots, I want to say a few words about auroras.

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from the Sun send out charged particles which interact with the Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere. When these charged particles come into the Earth's outer atmosphere - the ionosphere - they interact with molecules there to create light. Since the easiest ways for the particles to enter the Earth's atmosphere is near the magnetic north and south poles, those are the areas that most often experience auroras (auora borealis near the North Pole and aurora australis near the South Pole).

The Earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen gas (N₂) and 21% oxygen gas (O₂) with 1% everything else. It's in the ionosphere, also called the thermosphere, where the charged particles (ions) from the Sun first start coming into contact with these atmospheric gases.

As these charged particles come into the outer atmosphere some of them collide with electrons orbiting the oxygen or nitrogen atoms and knock them up to a higher orbital (energy state). This excitation of the electrons is temporary and the electrons quickly pop back down to a lower orbital giving off energy in the form of photons of visible light as they do so. The resultant glow from a myriad of these interactions is what forms the aurora.

The color depends on whether or not the molecule being excited in oxygen or nitrogen and it depends on the orbitals an electron is jumping between (from orbital 2 back to 1, from 3 to 2, from 3 to 1, etc.). Each of these jumps gives off a photon with a characteristic wavelength of visible light energy. Oxygen emissions tend to be green or brownish-red while nitrogen emissions tend to be blue or red (if both are occuring, a purple color can be seen). Below is a nice aurora picture showing green, red, and purple light.

Green, however, is the most common color seen in an aurora. Here's an amazing time-lapse view from National Geographic of mostly-green northern lights over Norway. Their curtain-like, shimmering shape is due to the charged particles moving along the lines of force of the Earth's magnetic field.

Below is an image of the aurora borealis from the International Space Station (ISS) on September 29 as it orbited over the midwestern U.S. at night. Note the prominant lights of Chicago and St. Louis near the center of the image (from NASA's Earth Observatory web site).

Under favorable conditions, auroras can be seen here in the Hudson Valley (I saw a red one during the last sunspot cycle). So, hw can you know if a CME erupts during this sunspot cycle and there's a chance to view auroras here in the Hudson Valley (or wherever you live)? I use SpaceWeather.com which has handy email elerts you can sign up for (in addition to having lots of other neat information).

Sunspots & the Earth

2011-11-15T16:23:00.000-05:00

In previous posts, I introduced sunspots, discussed sunspot cycles, and tried to explain why the Sun has sunspots. As a professor, I'm used to getting the "Why should we care?" argument from students. My stock answer, expressed a bit more eloquently, is that it's fucking interesting. But, in the case of sunspots, there are valid reasons why we, as a society, should be interested in them. Check out this video.

This is a coronal mass ejection (CME) - a massive release of electromagnetic energy and ionized (charged) particles, mostly electrons and protons. If the event occurs on the side of the Sun facing the Earth, electromagnetic energy from across the spectrum, long-wavelength radio waves to short-wavelength gamma rays, travel to Earth at the speed of light taking only 8.5 minutes or so to get here. The stream of charged particles takes a bit longer to reach the Earth traveling, on average, about 500 km/s although sometimes reaching speeds of 2000 km/s. Since the Sun is 150 million km away, it will take the charged particles anywhere from 1-4 days to arrive (depending on their speed).

These eruptions of energy on the Sun are associated with active regions - in other words sunspots. They're not well understood but are thought to occur when lines of magnetic force break and reconnect releasing stored energy. As much energy as a billion hydrogen bombs!

What are the consequences of this here on Earth?

Fortunately, here on Earth, we're shielded from much of the dangerous electromagnetic radiation (gamma rays and x-rays) and high-energy charged particles by the Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field. Future astronauts on the surface of the Moon, or traveling on a ship to Mars, could get radiation poisoning or even be killed by such events (astronauts aboard the International Space Station are in a low-Earth orbit and still somewhat shielded from such events).

OK, you're thinking, I'm not planning a trip to Mars anytime soon so what's the worry? The problem is that with a large enough CME, our atmosphere and magnetic field become a bit overwhelmed and there are effects here on Earth - some harmless and some more serious.

Our Earth has a magnetic field generated by the rotation of liquid iron in the outer core. This field normally deflects away the constant stream of charged particles from the Sun (the solar wind). This solar wind compresses the Earth's magnetic field on the side facing the Sun and stretches it out on the far side into a tail.

During a CME, so many charged particles (ions) interact with the magnetic field that some are able to leak down toward the Earth in the vicinity of the north and south magnetic poles. Some get trapped in a doughnut-shaped ring called the Van Allen radiation belt and others spiral into the upper atmosphere (called the ionosphere). These results in auroras.

More on auroras in a bit while we first take a short digression and talk about satellites and power grids...

Satellites are greatly affected by the charged particles released during a CME. Most satellites don't orbit in the vicinity of the Van Allen belt, but those that do need to have their electronic components radiation hardened to survive. Satellites in higher orbits are susceptible to damage from the high-energy particles from CMEs. High energy electrons can physically damage the electronics and solar cells of satellites and even scramble the data stored in computer chips.

Large CME events can also compress the magnetosphere (the magnetic field "bubble" around the Earth) leaving the satellite outside of the protection of the magnetic field and more vulnerable to damage. In addition, since satellites often use the Earth's magnetic field for guidance, this can disrupt their attitude control systems. In 1997 and 1998, during the last sunspot cycle, a number of satellites were damaged from CMEs including the AT&T Telstar 401, PanAmSat Galaxy IV, and several Motorola Iridium satellites. Almost a billion dollars in insurance claims were paid out in 1998 for satellite failures in orbit.

Low-Earth orbit satellites can also suffer from CMEs. During a CME, the added energy into the Earth's atmosphere causes it to expand. This creates increased frictional drag on these satellites reducing their orbital life-span.

There is another effect CMEs can have as well. Large CMEs can induce currents in electrical lines here on Earth. In March of 1989, two solar cycles ago, a large CME caused the power grid in Quebec to go down resulting in six million people losing power. Are we still vulnerable 20+ years later? More so than ever - check out these images from a recent study of this issue (click on the images to enlarge and read the captions).

It's theoretically possible for a large CME to knock out half of the U.S. power grid for weeks to years! Think about that when wondering if it's worthwhile funding scientific research of the Sun.

Next time I'll post about auroras but for now I'll leave you with some information about the solar "superstorm" or 1859 (thought to be a once in every 500 years event).

On September 1, British astronomer Richard Carrington observed a large CME erupt from the Sun which took only 18 hours to reach the Earth (a velocity for the particles of over 2,000 km/s). This triggered a massive geomagnetic storm on Earth resulting in auroras seen around the world (most notably down in the Caribbean!). There were reports of people here in the Northeast being able to read newspapers by the light of the auroras at night. Telegraph systems throughout the world failed. Sparks flew from wires, operators received electrical shocks, and telegraph paper even caught fire.

Such an event today, in our electrified, wired world, would be literally catastrophic.

Why do we have sunspots?

2011-11-13T12:48:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I talked about solar cycles and sunspots but I didn't explain what exactly sunspots were and how they formed.

First, to recap, we know that there is a roughly 11 year sunspot cycle where we go from essentially no sunspots on the surface of the Sun to a period of high sunspot activity and then back to essentially no sunspots again.

Large version here

It also turns out that sunspot position on the Sun is not random. Graphing where sunspots appear during the sunspot cycle yields the famous "Butterfly Diagram" showing that, at the start of the sunspot cycle, sunspots initially appear near ±30° of latitude and then, as the cycle progresses, sunspots appear closer and closer to the equator.

Large version here

Keep in mind that the sunspots themselves don't move (although they appear to from Earth during the rotation of the Sun) but form, typically exist for a couple of weeks or more, and then dissipate. Where they pop up on the surface of the Sun, however, is what changes during the sunspot cycle and is reflected on the butterfly diagram above.

What else have we learned about sunspots?

Well, a sunspot can be over 50,000 km across (for reference, the diameter of the Earth is about 12,750 km) and consists of two visible parts - the darker central umbra (Latin for shadow) and the lighter surrounding penumbra (the Latin prefix means almost or nearly). The image below shows a large sunspot group (AR 1339 from November 4) with a filtered telescope. Note the clearly visible umbra and penumbra for each sunspot.

Sunspots are darker than the surrounding Sun because they're cooler. The surface of the Sun is around 6000 K (over 10,000° F) and sunspots are 1500 K (~2250°) or more cooler. So, while they appear dark compared to the rest of the Sun, if you could somehow take a sunspot off the Sun and place it by itself in space, it would glow brightly in the sky!

The next image shows a sunspot a bit more dramatically. This image was taken in August of 2010 at the Big Bear Solar Observatory in the San Bernadino Mountains of California. This image was taken with a special filter called a hydrogen alpha (Ha) filter. It's a filter that only passes a narrow bandwidth of visible light at a wavelength of 656 nm (6.56 x 10^-7 m). This is the energy given off by electrons in a hydrogen atom falling from the 3^rd to the 2^nd orbital. The Sun, being a big ball of mostly hydrogen gas, gives off a lot of energy at this wavelength and these filters bring out a lot of detail on the "surface" (photosphere) of the Sun.

This image shows a granulation around the sunspot. Those are the tops of convection cells where hot gases are "bubbling" up from deeper in the Sun. Here's a neat animation of solar activity.

Click for image source

This convection of hot, ionized gas (plasma) generates the Sun's magnetic field. Because the Sun is a big ball of gas, it doesn't rotate at the same speed everywhere - it takes about a 9 days less to rotate at the equator (~25 days) than it does near the poles (~34 days). This differential rotation leads to magnetic flux tubes in the convection zone of the Sun getting twisted up (they actually behave much like rubber bands). This inhibits convection and leads to the development of a cooler sunspot (don't ask me to explain this any better since I'm not a solar physicist).

Magnetic lines of force also pop up above the photosphere often leading to the formation of two sunspots of opposite magnetic polarity (one where the magnetic field emerges from the photosphere, the other where it reenters the Sun). Sunspots have about 1000 times more magnetic energy than surrounding areas of the Sun.

Below is a magnetogram image of the Sun for today (November 13). Black indicates areas where the Sun's magnetic lines of force are coming toward us and white indicates areas where the Sun's magnetic lines of force are moving away from us. Compare this to the visible image of the Sun for today and you can see that major black and white areas correlate with the positions of sunspots.

Another interesting thing about the magnetic field of the Sun is that it has a 22-year cycle. Every 11 years it reverses its polarity (i.e. the north and south magnetic poles flip). Obviously closely tied into the 11-year sunspot cycle!

Anyway, models to explain this 22-year cycle are all based on the differential rotation of the Sun affecting the internal convection and thus changing the magnetic field over time. If the Sun rotated faster or slower, or the convection zone was thicker or thinner, or convection was faster or slower, this cycle would be different. The details are messy and I don't understand them myself (phrases like "...regeneration of the poloidal field by lifting and twisting a toroidal flux tube by helical turbulence..." follow by a page of equations are typical in the literature.

So, you may be thinking, sunspots are cool looking features on the surface of the Sun that we don't fully understand but do they have any significance for us here on Earth? Yes, as a matter of fact they do. That will be the topic of the next post.

Sunspot cycles

2011-11-12T18:59:00.000-05:00

In a previous post, I had discussed how Galileo had begun making systematic observations of sunspots with a telescope starting in 1610. Science has been observing sunspots ever since. This led to the discovery of a sunspot cycle in 1843 by German astronomy Samuel Heinrich Schwabe (1789-1875). This cycle averages 11 years (rounded off) but can range from 9 to 14 years in length.

Solar maximum Solar minimum

Each 11-year cycle goes from a solar minimum to a solar maximum and then back to a solar minimum again. At a solar maximum, there are a lot of sunspots on the surface of the Sun. At a solar minimum, there are few to no sunspots.

The numbering scheme for solar cycles was developed by Swiss astronomer Rudolph Wolf (1816-1893) who began with the cycle starting in March of 1755. The last solar cycle, number 23, peaked around April 2000 and we're currently in cycle 24, which began on January 8, 2008, and is expected to peak in May of 2013. The current solar cycle seemed to be slow getting started and has exhibited about 50% less sunspot activity than expected.

One of the interesting things about the sunspot cycle is that its intensity varies cycle to cycle - at least over the past few hundred years of observation. Keep in mind that the Sun has been around for four-and-a-half billion years. If sunspot cycles have always averaged 11-years (highly improbable), then there would have been over 400 million sunspot cycles (and we've only observed a couple of dozen!). Astronomers have been carefully observing, with satellites, only for the past couple of cycles.

Shortly after the earliest scientific studies of sunspots by Galileo, the Sun went quiet. From about 1645 to 1715, sunspots practically disappeared from the Sun (that's a span of six or so sunspot cycles). It's been named after English astronomy Edward Maunder (1851-1928). Other minimums include the Dalton Minimum (1790-1830) and the Spörer Minimum (1460-1550) named for an event identified by the radiocarbon (¹⁴C) concentration in tree rings (¹⁴C is produced in the atmosphere strongly correlates with solar activity).

In more modern times we seem to be in a period of increased solar activity (except for the current sunspot cycle). One of the most intense cycles was number 19 which peaked around 1960. Why the variations?

I'll save that for the next post...

11/11

2011-11-11T11:11:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's 11:11:11 on 11/11/11. Cool. Waiting for something wonderous to occur... Anything... No??? Just another banal moment on a Friday morning??? How disappointing.

Anyway, even though the magic of numerology didn't work for me today, I did want to say thanks to all those veterans and active duty military out there!

"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."

[Attributed to Winston Churchill]

While I don't always agree with what out government does with our military, there are a lot of people out there who wish us harm simply because we don't believe the way they do, and I certainly support the men and women in uniform who stand ready to risk their lives in our defense.

Sunspots & the Sun's Rotation

2011-11-10T23:41:00.000-05:00

As my previous post mentioned, I had a sunspot observation on campus Tuesday afternoon. It went well. Most of the students seemed to enjoy seeing the sunspots, some were blase about it, and others walked by with no interest whatsoever even when asked if they'd like to see the Sun through a telescope.

The right image is from today at 2100 UTC (4:00 pm EST) and the left image is 4 days earlier. Note how the sunspots move because the Sun is rotating on its axis. It takes about 25 days for a rotation (at the equator, it takes longer as you move toward the poles due to the fact that the Sun is a big ball of gas, not a rigid body). One can observe sunspots and easily work out this rotational period.

While there are scattered references to sunspot observations with the naked eye from ancient Chinese and Greek observers, Galileo was one of the first to observe them with a telescope starting in 1610 and he was able to show that they were actual features on the surface of the Sun and moved as the Sun rotated.

In the Aristotelian cosmology which still ruled in the early 1600s, and which was backed by the Roman Catholic Church, the Sun was a perfect and unblemished celestial body. In was inconceivable to some that it had darks spots on it. Christoph Scheiner (1573-1650), a Jesuit priest/astronomer, was one and he argued that these dark spots represented small satellites orbiting the Sun.

Careful observations by Galileo, however, showed that the sunspots moved more slowly when they were near the limb of the Sun and more quickly when they were in the center of the Sun. This was due to foreshortening as shown in the diagram below. A sunspot moving from A to D would travel the same distance as from D to C. From the Earth, however, the A-D distance looks shorter than the D-C distance. That makes it appear as if the sunspot was moving faster between D and C.

The idea that heavenly objects like the Sun were perfect and unblemished held sway for over 1,500 years because people philosophically liked the idea and it conformed to their religious beliefs. A few simple observations, however, was all that was needed to topple this incorrect view. No wonder the religious authorities of the day (and even some today) hated science.

Big Sunspots

2011-11-07T09:54:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow afternoon, I'll be looking at the Sun with my observational astronomy students.

We have a solar filter (it basically looks like the one at right) for our telescope which passes only a small fraction of the visible light and cuts the harmful infrared and ultraviolet radiation. Without it, looking at the Sun with a telescope will result in instant damage to your eyes.

The reason we're going to take a look at the Sun (other than the fact that it's interesting), is to observe a large group of sunspots that have been rotating into view. It's called Active Region (AR) 1339.

Below is a solar image from 2345 UTC (7:45 pm EDT) on November 5 showing the large active region around the 10 o'clock position on the face of the Sun.

Check out this image of AR 1339 from Mexican amateur astronomer César Cantú (click here for a higher resolution image on his website).

When looking at this sunspot group, keep in mind that each of those darker dots is about the size of the Earth! They're incredibly beautiful close up - almost looking like abstract art.

Sunspots often flare up, causing coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that send billions of tons of ionized gas screaming out into space. If the sunpot is facing toward the Earth, this ionized gas interacts with the Earth's magnetic field and outer atmosphere resulting in a geomagnetic storm and strong auroral activity.

Keep an eye on SpaceWeather.com which will issue alerts if there are any CMEs in the next few days and the possibility of seeing an aurora.

Sunspots are fascinating phenomenon, I think I'll write more about them later this week.

Oklahoma Earthquake

2011-11-06T10:56:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, November 5, at 2:12 am CDT, a 4.7 magnitude earthquake hit central Oklahoma (about 45 miles east of Oklahoma City between the towns of Prague and Sparks). It was a foreshock followed by 7 others ranging from magnitude 2.7 to 3.6 and then culminating in a 5.6 magnitude quake at 10:53 pm CDT. As of 8:00 am CST, there have been a dozen aftershocks ranging from 2.7 to 4.0 on this fault according the the National Earthquake Information Center (only quakes above magnitude 2.5 are reported).

From Oklahoma Geological Survey Observatory

On February 27, 2010, there was a magnitude 4.3 earthquake near this location as well. The largest earthquake in Oklahoma, previous to Saturday's, was a 5.5 magnitude quake near El Reno just west of Oklahoma City back in 1952. Moderate earthquakes, while not common, do occasionally occur in Oklahoma (as they do in other places in the continental interior - remember the 5.8 magnitude Virginia earthquake in August?).

From Oklahoma Geological Survey Observatory

All of these recent earthquakes were relatively shallow at 5 km (3 miles) or so of depth. According to the Oklahoma Geological Survey, these earthquakes appear to have occurred on the Wilzetta Fault (line with red squares in the above map). For those of you who know something about geology, the focal mechanism seems to indicate dextral strike-slip movement.

Not much information online regarding the Wilzetta Fault and associated Seminole Uplift (it's an area that's been studied, however, since there's oil and gas there). Looks to me like strike-slip reactivation of an older basement thrust fault associated with the Pennsylvanian/Permian Alleghanian-Ouachita Orogeny.

Professor or Hobo?

2011-11-02T16:34:00.000-04:00

Professor or Hobo? Take the quiz!

I dedicate this to the late Dr. Russell Waines of SUNY New Paltz, a former professor of mine who would have fit right into this quiz.

Never judge a book by its cover or a man by his clothes (or scraggly beard).

Stupid geologists

2011-10-31T12:56:00.000-04:00

This comment was recently submitted anonymously to my post Pretty all right, pretty stupid from last May.

When I googled "fuck geologists" this site came up. Not only do geologists have the most boring profession of any academic circle, they are terrible at organizing their information. They don't make any practical discoveries, they simply state the obvious and create names for things that are already named! They then proceed to categorize the information many times over just for the sake of having something to do. I think the world would be a better place if Geology was never studied or practiced ever again.

I had to laugh (and then wonder why this person hates geology so much). I'm guessing they're a high school or college kid taking an introductory geology course and hating it (not that I can understand why anyone would hate something as interesting as geology!).

Would "the world be a better place if geology were never studied or practiced ever again" as this poster claimed?

In my introductory classes, I always have the "Why study geology?" part of the lecture. Why is geology useful? Here are a few simple examples.

Ever use anything with metal in it? Copper, aluminum, steel (iron), zinc, etc? Guess where it came from... A mineral! Someone had to find the mineral deposit, it was mined or quarried, and turned into a hunk of metal and manufactured into some material. Like your computer, TV, cell phone, electric lines, indoor plumbing, etc. All made from minerals.

Nonmetallic Earth resources are important too. Gypsum wallboard (Sheetrock) in your home? A porcelain toilet (manufactured from clay). Like salt on the roads in the winter? Want to give a gold wedding band or diamond to your sweetheart (or rubies, emeralds, garnets, aquamarines, etc.)? Drive on roads? Sand, gravel, and petroleum are used to make asphalt. Concrete? Comes from limestone. Building stone like granite or marble? Directly from the Earth.

Ever use energy? Electricity, heating oil, gasoline, etc? Guess where it cam from... Coal, petroleum, natural gas that someone had to find, it was mined, quarried, or drilled, and turned into a product used for electricity generation, transport, heating, manufacturing, etc. All Earth materials. What to use green energy from solar cells and batteries? They're loaded with rare-earth elements all mined from the ground (and need plenty of copper wire).

Ever use anything made of plastics or wore synthetic fibers? Most of them are derived from petroleum.

Who studies and monitors earthquakes in California? Who studies and monitors volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest? Who studies coastal erosion along the east coast? Who studies landslide hazards? Flooding hazards? Good deal on a home in La Conchita, California? Google it - a geologist would never have bought a house there!

How do civil engineers know what soils and rocks are suitable or unsuitable for foundations of walls, bridges, dams, buildings, etc? Google "Vajont Dam" sometime to see what happens if civil engineers ignore geology.

Ever buy a house? When I was in the market for a home a number of years ago, we were shown places on the floodplain of the Esopus Creek here in Ulster County. I told my wife "No way" since I'm a geologist and a few years later we saw this house completely flood damaged. Knowing what kind of soil you have on your property can mean the difference between a simple or specially engineered septic system (a several thousand dollar difference). Knowing a bit about groundwater can clue you in on how deep your well has to be (and drillers charge by the foot - it makes a difference). Any potential that your groundwater may be contaminated? A little knowledge of groundwater geology will help you figure that out.

Who studies and helps remediate areas of contaminated soil or groundwater? Where is that plume in contaminated groundwater going? Better know something about the subsurface geology. Where do you place a landfill such that it will have the least risk of contaminating the surrounding area? Ask a geologist.

Global climate change is a big issue. Guess what? Climate's been changing on Earth from the time it formed. How do we know that? Geologists who've learned to decipher paleoclimate data from rocks and fossils. This knowledge allows us to separate natural rates of climate change from anthropogenic ("man made") contributions. The rock cycle, the carbon cycle, the hydrologic cycle are all directly relevant to our lives.

The Earth is four and a half billion years old. Many people in this country are dumb asses and don't care about things like that (or believe in the particular mythology of a particular group of bedouin Hebrews thousands of years) but I think it's a great thing to gain knowledge about the world around us. Think dinosaurs are cool? How the hell do you think we know about dinosaurs? Those damn geologists sitting in the hot Montana sun digging through layers of sandstone to expose those bones to the light of day and then patiently studying them in the laboratory to reconstruct them and their place in an ancient ecosystem.

Just about everything we know about the Earth is from geologists! If all you care about is who is fucking who on Jersey Shore, this information may not seem "relevant" to you but that's because you're a moron.

Geologists Rock!

Wisconsinites don't need none of that fancy book learnin'

2011-10-28T12:44:00.000-04:00

The Governor, Scott Walker (R), is systematically trying to destroy public and higher education in the formerly great state of Wisconsin because it evidently costs too much to educate people. The latest:

High schools would be allowed to drop math and English graduation requirements to set up vocational-only diplomas under a bill being backed by Gov. Scott Walker.

The plan in the governor's special session on jobs would let local school boards decide their own curricula and create vocational diplomas that carry the same weight as regular high school degrees. Oshkosh Assembly Republican Michelle Litjens supported the change at a public hearing. She says right now students don't always see a connection between the classes they're taking and the labor market, "And sometimes they're right. For the student who doesn't have the desire to pursue a higher education, who just doesn't want to sit still in an English class anymore, why are they there?"

Anyone see problems with this? While I support vocational education (there's certainly nothing wrong with being a skilled trades person), don't they need some minimal reading, writing, and math skills too? Unless you're just slinging fries in a fast food restaurant with picture buttons on the cash register, most jobs require some basic literacy and critical thinking skills (despite what most people think, math is not simply a set of non-relevant computational skills, it's about learning how to think logically to solve problems).

Do electricians ever use math? You got a string of outlets with so many 110 V appliances plugged into it each drawing so many watts of electricity and you have to figure out a proper amperage for your circuit breaker. No math there. Do office workers need English skills? No, joust type up those document any way u want and the spell checker will ketch any problemas, write? Do auto technicians need to read well? Nah, those repair manuals are mostly pictures anyway.

We all know that 16 year olds know exactly what they'll need for the rest of their life too, don't we? They're perfectly capable of deciding on a career track that will doom them to never be able to succeed in college without a couple of years of remedial coursework at the local community college (assuming we're still around because the state and county keep cutting our funding year after year after year).

I am becoming more and more convinced that the political upper class in this country does not want an educated electorate. It is easier, after all, to manipulate uneducated people with populist scaremongering.

Community-College Dropouts Cost Taxpayers $$$

2011-10-27T15:38:00.000-04:00

The Chronicle of Higher Education had this article on October 20 - "Community-College Dropouts Cost Taxpayers Nearly $1-Billion a Year, Report Says." The article references the report The Hidden Costs of Community Colleges from the American Institutes for Research.

The basic message of this report is summarized by the following:

Nearly $4 billion was spent by federal, state, and local governments over five years on full-time community college students who dropped out after their first year without completing their certificate or degree programs... About a fifth of full-time students who enroll at a community college do not return for a second year.

Sounds terrible, doesn't it? We're wasting all this money on students who drop out of community colleges. What can we do about it? None of the recommendations made in this report are anything new. It's all stuff we're trying to do at my institution.

It's no secret that I teach at a 2-year community college in the mid-Hudson Valley Region of New York. We are a part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system and, as our catalog states, we're "a full opportunity, open-door institution." What this means is that we accept virtually anyone who is able to pay the tuition (most of our students, as you might guess, receive State and Federal financial aid). All applicants for full-time study are given placement exams in English (reading and writing) and mathematics. If students have deficiencies in these areas, such that they would not be able to succeed in College English 1 or college level math course, we have a number of developmental (remedial) courses available and we're always looking at ways to assess these courses and make them more effective.

What about our close neighbor - a typical four-year state school (also part of the SUNY system)? They describe themselves (on their website) as a "Very selective 4-year co-ed residential regional university college" and examine the following as criteria for admission:

• The quality and strength of your high school academic program for 9th, 10th , and 11th grades.
• The results of either the SAT (Critical Reading and Mathematics sections) or ACT (Composite score).
• The quality of the personal essay you submit.
• One academic teacher or guidance counselor letter of recommendation.

Nothing wrong with that but think about how that affects our student bodies. We accept everyone. The four-year state schools are selective (and let's not even talk about the private colleges in the Hudson Valley). See a difference? We often get those rejected from everywhere else!   It makes no sense to compare our retention to four-year college retention. We have different missions and a different student population. In many ways our mission is more difficult because we have students that range from barely literate to top notch and we have to meet all of their needs.

So why don't so many students continue from the first year to the next at community colleges? If anyone ever figures it out, let us know because we rip our hair out over this issue. Our college certainly does not want students to leave prior to graduation - we expend a lot of time, effort, and money trying to improve retention.

Here's what I've learned simply by teaching here for the past 12 years or so...

   A. Some students simply flunk out with a low GPA.  Quite frankly, they don't have the academic ability to succeed in college and 100-level courses are too difficult for them to handle. Some of my colleagues disagree, and believe anyone and everyone has the ability to succeed in college, but I think they're living in a fantasy land.

    B. Some students leave because they've had something bad happen to them and can't continue attending school. A loss of income, a health issue, or a family issue. Some of these students have a good GPA and some don't. The college is limited in how much we can help students who tell us "My car died and I can't afford another one so I can't get to school" or "I've just been diagnosed with cancer." Some eventually return, others are never seen again.

   C. Some students are insufficiently motivated to succeed. They are not in college because they want to be here (usually because parents want them to be there). They invest more effort into a job or just going out and having fun. Some tell us point blank "I don't want to be here but my parents told me I have to go to school or they'll kick me out." Usually, these students have a poor GPA and end up flunking out. Sometimes, however, they simply have an epiphany and leave.

     D. Some students transfer to a different institution that they feel better meets their needs. Many of my advisees tell me that don't plan on getting a degree here, they just want to get their GPA up so they can transfer somewhere "better". It's very common for students to flunk out of a four-year school, come to our community college for a year, and then transfer back to the four-year school.

Many times we simply don't know why they leave and never return.

Some of these are success stories even though they're reported in our statistics as retention failures. The student who transfers to a four-year school before completing a degree at our institution isn't failing - they're succeeding! As far as I'm concerned, it may also be a good thing if a student realizes that they'd be better off going out into the workforce (especially if they have a useful skill) instead of getting a generic two-year degree. I know many people who have no college degree and who make far more money than PhDs teaching at your local community college!

What about a barely literate student who comes for a year, doesn't do well, and drops out? Well, we tried. Even if the student couldn't handle college-level work, I think the student probably benefited from the remedial reading and writing classes they would have had to take and that can only help them when they're out in the job market. Just counting it as a retention failure is short-sighted.

We can't guarantee that everyone who comes to our institution will succeed and leave with a degree. Any policy maker who believes that is possible is a moron (tell them I said so). What we provide, with our open-door policy, is for everyone to have a CHANCE to succeed. We do all we can here to facilitate that but the student also has to contribute. You can't just buy your degree, just as you can't pay to join a health club and automatically expect to lose weight and grow muscles. The student has to work to succeed. If that part of the equation is missing, no amount of money or policies is going to fix it.

There are many places around the world where most people don't have even a chance of higher education - especially if they were born to poor parents. What we provide, for virtually everyone, is that chance. If I had been born in many other places around the world, I would have NEVER received a college education (I almost didn't here!). But I went to a community college and succeeded. State and federal financial aid (as well as student loans) assisted in that. Was it worth it to society to provide me that opportunity even though I could have also blown it and flunked out? I'll leave that for others to answer.

Auroras!

2011-10-25T14:58:00.000-04:00

There were reports of widespread aurora activity visible throughout Canada and the U.S. last night due to a coronal mass ejection of ionized particles from the Sun. Did I see them? Of course not. It's been cloudy almost every single #*@#&* night here in the Hudson Valley this fall. Did I mention I'm teaching Observational Astronomy - a course that requires us to go outside and view the night sky. Did I mention it's been cloudy all the time? Anyway, visit Spaceweather.com for some neat aurora pictures from places where it wasn't cloudy.

Geologists are easy

2011-10-23T15:20:00.000-04:00

Geologists have a bit of a reputation when it comes to drinking - especially beer. I've shared this link before but I love the video - Why Geologists Like Beer. There's also this story from a few years back, in the New York Times no less, discussing a seminar on geology and beer at a Geological Society of American meeting (With Great Beer, It's All in the Rocks).

Things have changed a bit from the "good old days" when I was a student. In all of my undergraduate overnight field trips, the first stop at the end of the day was the beer stop where we picked up cases of beer for the evening around the campfire. When I was in graduate school, the department had Friday afternoon symposia and one rotating job among the teaching assistants was to collect money from the graduate students and faculty to make the beer and chips run for after the talk. It's a damn shame that these days young men and women are judged old enough to travel half-way round the world to kill people yet are deemed too immature to imbibe in a glass of beer or wine back home.

One of the good things about October, a time when one is reminded of the inevitable onset of winter, snow, and cold, is the appearance of good Oktoberfest beers from local breweries in the local tavern. By the way, for some of you who need edumacatin', beer looks like this...

Beer is never the color of well-hydrated piss boys and girls. Trust me, I'm a professor with many years of field research experience.

Anyway, on another blog, my attention was drawn to a dating trends blog from OkCupid, an online dating site. They had a post on the Best Questions for a First Date - in other words, what can you ask on a date that will give you the most useful information about that person?
What's the most important thing most guys want to know when they're on a date? OkCupid knows and they did some statistical analysis of their member's profiles and found a clear correlation.

What's the biggest predictor of being willing to sleep with someone on the first date? Liking the taste of beer! Geologists drink a lot of beer. Ergo, geologists are easy! Can't argue with logic.

Being married for 18+ years, such information is useless to me today but in the interest of science I thought I'd share it with my readers. If you want to get laid quickly, find a geologist. You have to be willing to be seen with someone who's sometimes a bit dirty (with real dirt) and wearing jeans, hiking boots, and flannel (and that's the women geologists!). But geologists really do know how to make the bedrock (ha, "bed rock", get it?).

Happy Birthday Earth!

2011-10-22T19:46:00.000-04:00

According to James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland (1581-1656), the world was created by God on the evening preceding October 23, 4004 BC.

The Earth is therefore 6,014 years old (there is no year 0 - the calendar goes from 1 BC to 1 AD). Of course those evil godless geologists say it's closer to 4,540,000,000 (4.54 billion) years old.

Quite honestly, one can forgive Archbishop Ussher his belief since, back around 1650, there was little in the way of scientific evidence to support an ancient age for the Earth. After the work of early geologists like James Hutton (1726-1797) and Charles Lyell (1797-1875), however, this view became more and more untenable as time went on.

The clincher, of course, was the development of radiometric dating in the 20th century which has conclusively shown the age of the Earth to within a few million years (± 1% or so). Since the environmentalists own Earth Day in April, I'd like to see the geologists take October 23 as their day to celebrate the scientific study of the Earth - an ancient, dynamic, and fascinating planet. Our home.

The world will end today!

2011-10-21T09:48:00.000-04:00

Remember the bat-shit crazy preacher Harold Camping? The one who predicted the rapture of all true believers on May 21 and the end of the world on October 21 (and encouraging followers to spend their life savings promoting this non-event)?

I don't remember seeing anyone, Christian or otherwise, floating up into the sky last May so Camping obviously screwed up. Did he admit that? Nope. He just said it was an "invisible judgement day" and that the world will still end on October 21. That's TODAY!

The Christian Science Monitor reported that Brother Camping is avoiding the press as his end of the world date is nigh. What a surprise! He apparently never learned the number 1 rule of end-times preaching - never offer a specific date (Mark 13:32) because you'll always end up looking like a fool.

Is it wrong of me to hope the ROSAT satellite will come down today on Brother Camping's house?

Public misunderstanding of science

2011-10-19T09:56:00.000-04:00

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

This is interesting. I got the following table from Callan Bentley's excellent Mountain Beltway blog and he got it from “Communicating the Science of Climate Change,” by Richard C. J. Somerville and Susan Joy Hassol (Physics Today, October 2011, p. 48).

The way scientists use terms when discussing climate change is different from the way the general public uses those same terms (we can say much the same thing about scientists discussing evolution and other "hot button" issues that people are skeptical about for ideological reasons).

I discuss global climate change in many of my geoscience courses and do try to explain the terminology used as well. Sometimes those of us who read the scientific literature become so used to the jargon used that we simply repeat it when discussing the topic without thinking about how people hear and perceive the terms. It's good to be reminded that we shouldn't take some things for granted.

National Fossil Day

2011-10-12T18:41:00.000-04:00

Just learned that today was National Fossil Day.

Happy National Fossil Day!

Growth of the ISS

2011-10-11T21:10:00.001-04:00

This is cool. USA Today had this neat animation on the growth of the International Space Station (ISS) since its intial launch in 1998. Go watch it here.

Here's an image of the ISS taken from the Space Shuttle (I assume). It looks like it's passing over the Straits of Gibralter.

All that surface area reflects a lot of light when the ISS passes overhead just after sunset or just before sunrise when the observer on the ground is in the dark and the ISS is still seeing sunlight. It's easy to spot the ISS if you know when and where to look. Here's a NASA website which gives quick and easy directions.

If I select New York and Kingston (the city closest to my house), I get a number of possible ISS sightings over the next few weeks. Since I don't like getting up before dawn, I might wait until Saturday, October 15 when I can see the ISS at 7:39 pm. It will be visible for a couple of minutes in the southern sky first appearing 10 degrees above the horizon in the south-southwest and then disappearing in the south-southwest around 26 degrees above the horizon.

ISS

Sat Oct 15/07:39 PM

10 above SSW

26 above SSE

A better choice, however, would be on Monday the 17th at 7:18 pm when it will be visible for 4 minutes and will be higher in the sky (reaching a maximum altitude of 56 degrees.

ISS

Mon Oct 17/07:18 PM

11 above SW

33 above E

By the way, the altitude varies from 0 degrees at the horizon to 90 degrees at the zenith - the point directly above your head. How do you estimate altitude? Hold out your fist at arm's length - it covers about 10 degrees of the sky.

A more precise ISS satellite prediction for my home's exact location (I'm about 10 miles southwest of Kingston) gives the time as 7:16:52 pm (about a minute earlier) so be aware that the time may not be exact if you're using a city that's a few miles away from your observing location.

The ISS that night will be brighter than any of the stars, even brighter than Jupiter - the brightest thing in the current night sky other than the Moon.

So, if you've never spotted the ISS, go out and try to do it. It will surprise you in its brightness and you can wave at the 3 astronauts currently on board! Here's NASA's ISS page.

Born in Africa

2011-10-10T10:58:00.000-04:00

Another book review. This weekend I read Born in Africa: The Quest for the Origins of Human Life by Martin Meredith (2011, Public Affairs). It was in the new books section of the library and I was hoping it would discuss some of the newer (past decade or so) hominid discoveries.

I found it to be mostly a review of what I already knew (or once knew and forgot) but it would be a good introductory book for those unfamiliar with the field of paleoanthropology (the study of ancient humans). It's a field I've read quiet a bit about in the past (my first interest in college was archaeology).

Martin Meredith is an historian and journalist. I'm always a bit skeptical of science books written by nonscientists but Meredith seems to do an OK job of summarizing the latest thinking on human evolution - his journalist side comes through, however, in his focus on the personalities of the people invovled, more than analysis of the specimens discovered and the significance of the finds.

Unfortunately, the field of paleoanthropology seems to attract people who develop emotional, and sometimes irrational, attachments to their pet hypotheses. In all accounts I've read, two of the best known leaders in the field, Richard Leakey and Donald Johanson, are both egotistical jerks. Many times, grand claims were made from discoveries that were little more than a few scraps of bone. Rivalries between researchers in the field and irrational attachment to preconceived ideas about hominid evolutionary relationships has probably kept the field from developing as fast as it could have otherwise.

Anyway, the book starts with Darwin's ideas on the origin of man and then moves on to early discoveries in South Africa by Raymond Dart (Taung Baby) and Robert Broom. Much of the book, quite reasonably, is devoted to the work of Louis and Mary Leaky in Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania and then the work of his son Richard and Donald Johanson (discoverer of "Lucy") in northern Kenya and Ethiopia (Koobi Fora; Turkana; Hadar). Most interesting to me were accounts of more recent discoveries (1990s and 2000s) at the classic sites of Sterkfontein and Swartkrans in South Africa, the discovery of Ardipithecus ("Ardi") in Hadar, and a description of other hominids I was unfamiliar with (Kenyanthropus platyops, Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Orrorin tugensis, etc.).

The field of paleoanthropology was really turned on its head in the 1970s and 1980s by the development of molecular dating and analysis of mitochondrial DNA. The genetic information of modern hominids (humans, chimps, gorillas, and orangutans) and other primates can be studied to show when they had a last common ancestor. Turns out that gibbons and humans had a last common ancestor around 20 million years ago, orangutans split off from us around 16 million years ago, gorillas around 10 million years ago, and humans and chimpanzees (with whom we share 98.6% of our DNA) had a last common ancestor only around 6 million years ago. Far more recent than paleoanthropologists had thought based solely on fossil evidence.

The big takeaway from this book is that human evolution is complicated. Many people still have the following image of "the evolution of man" (at least those who don't hold to the Adam and Eve literalism of the Bible!).

I put a big red X through it because it's completely incorrect. It's a 19th century idea rooted in the false concept of evolution working to produce the "crown of creation" - humans.

Evolution is like a many-branched bush and, during the last few million years, there were many hominids walking around and coexisting together. Some became evolutionary dead ends and others led eventually to us (judging by what we're doing to our world, it's hard not to believe that in a few million years, Homo sapiens will be an evolutionary dead end as well!). Below is one interpretation of our ancestors and possible evolutionary relationships.

From Lieberman, D.E. 2009. Nature 459:41-42

Just to be clear, in the diagram above, the fossils and the age ranges are facts. They are specimens that have been excavated and very well studied. The age ranges may be extended with new discoveries, of course. The interpretation comes in with the taxonomy - assigning the specimens to a particular genus and species (a man-made construct) - and the arrows showing inferred evolutionary relationships. These are also subject to change based on new discoveries (that's how science works!).

It's an interesting and still unfolding story.

The laryngeal nerve & evolution

2011-10-06T07:19:00.000-04:00

Saw this video on Phyrangula and found it very interesting. Its a dissection on the neck of a giraffe illustrating the laryngeal nerve. Warning: It's not for the squeamish!

The laryngeal nerve runs from the brainstem (it's a branch of the vagus or tenth cranial nerve) to the larynx (voicebox). It's a nerve that evolved early in the vertebrate line appearing in fish where it ran from the brain, past the heart, directly to the gills. With tetrapod evolution, the neck extended and the heart moved lower into the thorax. Natural selection resulted in the nerve gradually lengthening with these changes such that, in modern mammals, the nerve runs from the brain, down around the heart, and then back up to the voicebox. A totally circuitous route.

Biologists, like retired Oxford professor and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins above, have argued that the recurrent laryngeal nerve is a kludge and direct evidence against the religiously-motivated idea of intelligent design. Neil Shubin also makes this argument in his wonderful book Your Inner Fish.

There are a number of anatomical features like this that make absolutely no sense from a design standpoint but are perfectly understandable in an evolutionary context.

Sex on the Moon

2011-10-05T10:04:00.000-04:00

I was up late last night reading Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History by Ben Mezrich (2011, Doubleday). I couldn't put it down until I finished it.

It's the true story of Thad Roberts, a charismatic NASA geology intern at the Johnson Space Center in Houston who, along with fellow interns Tiffany Fowler and Shae Saur (they were given pseudonyms in the book of Rebecca and Sandra), stole moon rocks from a safe in a NASA lab in the summer of 2002. They then attempted to sell the rocks to Belgian mineral collector Axel Emmermann who tipped off the FBI. They were obviously caught (even the unauthorized possession of irreplaceable moon rocks is against the law) and these supposedly brilliant interns were dumb as stumps as criminals.

The title Sex on the Moon, by the way, came from Thad Roberts supposedly placing a stolen moon rock under the mattress before having sex with his girlfriend Tiffany.

The book was an easy read and suspenseful (like I said, I couldn't put it down until I finished it). It would make a good movie (the book was clearly written with that goal in mind). It is, however, full of hyperbole ("the most audacious heist in history", overly-inflated valuations of the moon rocks at "close to a trillion", all the interns are "brilliant", etc.).

More disturbing to me was the glamorization of Thad Roberts and his accomplices. Mezrich gives the impression Roberts was doing it for love, for adventure, to give his girlfriend the Moon (he was married to another woman while screwing Tiffany, by the way). Tiffany was blinded by his charisma (what, women love charismatic assholes and make bad decisions, who knew?). His "friend" Shae's participation is harder to understand, one gets the impression of an unrequited love triangle. Anyway, it seems to me that they were simply greedy bastards without an ounce of ethics - typically known as common thieves when they're not middle-class college kids. They were in it for the money, plain and simple. First thing they wanted to do was sell the rocks for a profit.

Mezrich also tries to make Thad a sympathetic character. He seemed to me to be a classic sociopath. He used people, he stole minerals and fossils while a student at the University of Utah before the moon rock theft, and he rationalized everything he did as a good thing or simply a prank. One doesn't meticulously plan a theft from a secure NASA lab, arrange an international buyer of contraband, enlist accomplices, and carry out a slew of felonies as a "prank". He betrayed the trust of NASA, of the scientists who worked with and mentored him in the opportunity of a lifetime, and destroyed one scientist's research (Dr. Everett Gibson who was working with those rocks). If I was the judge, I would have given him significantly more than 100 months in prison.

From all accounts I've read, Roberts still doesn't really appreciate the magnitude of his crime. One can Google his name and see pictures of him smiling and posing with the book's author for publicity photos. Doesn't seem to have much of a sense of remorse or shame about what he did barely 10 years ago. It bothers me that people like him can profit from their crimes (at least I borrowed the book from the public library and didn't purchase it myself).

Crocoduck

2011-10-04T19:47:00.001-04:00

Came home to this on our portable whiteboard. What are my ten-year old children mocking?

Why the infamous crocoduck, of course! Kirk Cameron, a teen actor in the series Growing Pains some 25 years ago, is currently an Evangelical Christian and friend of evangelist Ray "Banana Man" Comfort.

Kirk and Ray introduced the crocoduck to the world in 2007 during a televised debate on ABC's Nightline on the existence of God. They claim that since we don't see crocoducks, there is no such thing as transitional evolutionary forms, evolution is therefore wrong, and God exists. QED. Or something like that.

Here's a clip of the Bill O'Reilly Show where Cameron again references the crocoduck. You might want to fast forward up to 2:05 to see it if, like me, O'Reilly irritates you.

The crocoduck is now an Internet meme.

A meme denoting almost unbelievable stupidity on the part of young-Earth creationists who pontificate on evolution yet don't understand even the rudiments of high-school-level biology. I guess Kirk was on the set of Growing Pains while his peers were stuck in school learning about science.

Anyway, if I have any young-Earth creationist readers, trust me on this... Don't use the crocoduck as an argument against evolution - it truly makes you look like a dumb ass. Even intelligent ten-year-olds will mock you.

King of Infinite Space

2011-10-03T00:10:00.000-04:00

Picked up King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry by Siobhan Roberts (2006, Walker & Company) when I saw it in the new books area of my college library.

I had never heard of Harold Scott MacDonald "Donald" Coxeter (1907-2003), but he was evidently well known as a classical geometer in the mathematical community. Born and educated in England (Trinity College, Cambridge), he spent 60 years of his professional life at the University of Toronto in Canada.

Everyone is familiar (or should be) with the the classical geometry of Euclid developed around 300 BCE and which ruled for some 2,000 years in mathematical education.

Less familiar to most are the non-Euclidean geometries developed in the 19^th century by mathematicians such as János Bolyai, Nikolai Lobachevsky, and Bernhard Riemann. Geometries which grew out of playing with Euclid's parallel postulate. As a simple example, think of how geometry on the surface of a sphere would be different from planar geometry on a flat sheet of paper - on a plane the three interior angles of a triangle add up to 180° and on a sphere they add to more than 180°.

In the 20^th century, geometry fell out of fashion in mathematics, especially the more visual and intuitive forms of geometery that interested people like Donald Coxeter (and many amateur mathematicians). One group of influential French mathematicians, who published collectively under the pseudonym of Nicolas Bourbaki, argued against mathematical intuition, stressed rigor and formalism, and famously exclaimed "Death to triangles!" in reaction to the constructions of classical geometry.

Donald Coxeter swam against the mathematical tide and followed his passion, even when advised by colleagues to quit messing around with circles and triangles and move into more "important" mathematical areas. Turns out, however, that many of the things Coxeter was interested in are important and useful.

One topic that Coxeter found interesting are regular polytopes. These are generalization into higher dimensions of objects like the five Platonic solids known to the ancient Greeks (the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron). While mathematicians find such shapes irresistable to explore, there are useful applications when looking at symmetry in crystallography, molecular shapes, and dimensions in modern string theory.

While Coxeter was not all that exciting a personality, Siobhan Roberts does provide an interesting biography. Coxeter was a vegetarian (due to his poor digestive health) and pacifist (at a time such a view wasn't popular). He comes across as sympathetic even while being somewhat aloof and not a very good husband or father to his children (his wife commented that his mistress was mathematics).

One criticism I have of the book, however, is that the author doesn't seem to understand much of the mathematics she writes about (or, if she understands it, she isn't able to explain it well). There are many places where she discusses Coxeter's work, but in a very superficial way without the imagery I believe Coxeter himself would have included when explaining his research. I would like to have learned more about regular polytopes that I did reading this book. The book itself seems somewhat schizophrenic partly being a popular biography of an interesting character and partly attempting to be a scholarly work (with 60+ pages of footnotes).

Finally, the book does have one interesting Hudson Valley link. George Odom, an artist and long-time resident of the Hudson River Psychiatric Center in Poughkeepsie, corresponded frequently with Coxeter for decades and sent Coxeter amazing numbers of geometric models he created (he evidently had a lot of free time in the psychiatric institute).

Overall, worth reading. Some parts I did find myself skimming, however.

It's Greek to me...

2011-10-02T12:33:00.001-04:00

As some readers of this blog might know, my wife and I homeschool our two children (10-year old boy & girl fraternal twins).

I recently decided to teach them the Greek alphabet. I don't remember how it came up, but I explained to one of them what a Greek letter was we saw somewhere. Then I thought it would be fun to teach them some basic Greek (yes, that's what geeks like me think of as "fun"). It's a good review for me - I taught myself some basic Koine Greek years ago (Koine or Biblical Greek instead of Classical Greek since most of the self-teaching resources are for that purpose). Anyway, the kids seem to enjoy it so far.

Each night, at the dinner table, I've been introducing two new Greek letters and reviewing the ones we've learned to date. Even mom has joined in. Then we practice writing them on lined paper. That's a lot of what homeschooling is at our house. We of course do the basics in English and math, but we also pursue what we're interested in at the time. Greek is certainly not part of the NYS curriculum for 5th grade. It's not anything they would learn in public school. But it's fun to do.

Is it useful? I think it's nice to recognize Greek letters used as symbols in science and math. I think I'll also teach them some useful root words in Greek that crop up in many English words (especially in science). Words like liqoV (lithos, meaning "stone") which crop up in geology in words like lithosphere, lithification, lithology, etc. Words you can figure out the meaning of if you knew lithos meant stone. What's "orographic lifting of clouds" in meteorology? Well, if you knew the Greek word for mountain was oroV (oros), you could probably figure it out.

We can also have discussions on where the word alphabet came from (alpha-beta - yes, I know, which in turn derived from earlier Middle Eastern language roots). What the term "alpha dog" means. What the Biblical phrase τὸ Α καὶ τὸ Ω in Revelation 22:13 means. What I mean if I told them I wasn't going to change something by "one iota". Trivia perhaps, but isn't that the mark of what we consider to be an educated adult?

Record Amounts of Rain!

2011-09-30T12:30:00.000-04:00

I received the following data from the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Albany. The data was collected from the Dutchess County Airport near Poughkeepsie (41° 37' 28" N, 073° 52' 58" W) here in the mid-Hudson Valley.

A listing of rainfall, and departures from normal, for each month in 2011 to date:

	Month		Precipitation
	January		1.78 in.
	February		3.65 in.
	March		5.17 in.
	April		4.63 in.
	May		5.16 in.
	June		4.40 in.
	July		2.24 in.
	August		13.23 in.
	September		7.30 in.
	Total		47.56 in.

The National Weather Service (NWS) uses a 30-year average for "normal" climate values of temperature, rainfall, etc. They also compute them in 10-year intervals such that the last yearly report, for 2010, compared the year to an average of values from 1971-2000. When the NWS prepares the yearly report for 2011, however, it will use an average of values from 1981-2010.

Anyway, how does this year stack up to what a "normal" amount of rainfall is in the Hudson Valley? Well, according to the 1981-2010 data, "normal" rainfall for the year is 46.53 inches. We've already exceeded that by 1 inch and we're only 3/4 of the way through the year!

On August 28-29, courtesy of Hurricane Irene, we had a record 24-hour rainfall total of 7.07 inches!

Enough already!

Parents and Professors

2011-09-28T09:59:00.000-04:00

So, if you're the parent of a young-adult (notice I didn't say child) in college, should you even try to help out your son or daughter by giving their professor a call?

No, no, no, and no.

Here's an article from U.S. News & World Report on 10 Reasons Parents Should Never Contact College Professors.

There's another reason too. At my institution, we've been told we're not allowed to talk to parents, not even allowed to verify that their son or daughter are even registered in our classes, because of FERPA - the Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act. The only exception is if a student goes to our Registrar's Office and fills out and signs a waiver.

So, when a parent calls me to discuss their little darling, I just tell them "Sorry, due to federal privacy laws, I'm not allowed to talk to you about this." Many parents view this as horribly unfair, especially when they're the ones paying for the tuition and books.

But, to be honest, most parents who would call a professor are not the kind of parents who'd want to hear my honest appraisal of why little Jimmie or Katie is failing my course. It's a community college, virtually all the kids who attend are smart enough to pass the 100-level courses. If they're failing, it's because:

     1. They don't come to class
     2. They don't give a shit and aren't putting any effort into the course
     3. They don't turn stuff in

It's not rocket science.

Homeopathic ER

2011-09-27T07:51:00.001-04:00

I love this video! Why don't mainstream scientists believe in things like homeopathy (read my post here if you don't know what homeopathy is), crystal healing, reiki, etc.

Still support these "alternative" healing practices? Willing to be treated with them when wheeled into an ER in critical condition? Or maybe you'd prefer "Big Pharma" drugs, expensive medical equipment (x-rays, MRIs, and the like), and traditionally-trained MDs?

Banned Books Week

2011-09-26T00:10:00.001-04:00

It's Banned Books Week (September 24 - October 1). Here's a list from the American Library Association (ALA) of banned and/or challenged books from a Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century list.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

Ulysses, by James Joyce

Beloved, by Toni Morriso

The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding

1984, by George Orwell

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

Animal Farm, by George Orwell

The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway

As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner

A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison

Song of Solomon, by Toni Morriso

Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

Native Son, by Richard Wright

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey

Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway

The Call of the Wild, by Jack London

Go Tell It on the Mountain, by James Baldwin

All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren

The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair

Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence

A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

The Awakening, by Kate Chopin

In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie

Sophie's Choice, by William Styron

Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence

Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

A Separate Peace, by John Knowles

Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs

Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh

Women in Love, by DH Lawrence

The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer

Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller

An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser

Rabbit, Run, by John Updike

Here are some interesting statistics from the ALA:

Read one of these books today and celebrate your freedom to do so. Give one to your kids to read too!

Rain, rain go away...

2011-09-25T20:54:00.001-04:00

Seriously. Here's the weekly forecast from my area from the National Weather Service.

Did I mention I'm teaching Observational Astronomy this fall? You know, the kind of class where we want to go outside at night and look at the damn sky.

Here's the forecast from LAST week:

If I enjoyed gray skies and a moldy environment, I'd move to freakin' Seattle.

Since it's September, the leaves are starting to turn. We haven't had a frost yet (it's going to be 82 F tomorrow!) and I don't see too many shades of reds at yellow at my place - the damn leaves are just turning brown!

I hate Hudson Valley weather!

Flu shot

2011-09-25T00:05:00.000-04:00

Got my flu shot yesterday. Took all of 5 minutes.

Here's a good blog post discussing the effectiveness of flu shots.

I'm convinced they're effective and safe. And a good thing to do (you may be OK with risking a case of influenza, but you're then also a vector for spreading the virus - perhaps to one of the tens of thousands of people who die from flu-related complications each year).

Entering the dark half of the year...

2011-09-24T10:29:00.000-04:00

A day late, but happy Autumnal Equinox. Astronomically, it was Friday, September 23 at 0904 UTC which corresponds to 5:04 am EDT Friday morning.

The First day of autumn. We'll see days grow increasingly shorter as the Sun rises increasingly south of east and sets increasingly south of west moving lower into the southern sky each day until it all stops and turns around at the Winter Solstice on December 22.

While I enjoy the crisp, cool days of autumn and the changing of the leaves, the progressively earlier sunset and later sunrise each day does leave me a little depressed. It's not fun arriving for work in the dark and leaving work in the dark each weekday!

Here's a neat video I saw on Phil Plaitt's Bad Astronomy blog. It's composed of hundreds of images of the Earth, each taken at the same time, from the geostationary METEOSAT-9 satellite. The video runs from the 2010 Autumnal Equinox to the 2011 Autumnal Equinox.

Note how it starts with half the Earth lit. Tthe word "equinox" comes from the Latin for "equal night" because day and night are each 12 hours long everywhere on Earth at this time (the Sun is directly over the equator). Then watch more and more of the Southern Hemisphere lit as we move toward December. At the Winter Solstice (winter for us here in the Northern Hemisphere, not for those south of the equator), the Southern Hemisphere has maximum light and, here in the Hudson Valley, we only have about 9 hours of daylight each day. The Sun is directly over 23.5 degrees south latitude (the Tropic of Capricorn) at that time.

The terminator (boundary between light and dark) tilts back to the Vernal Equinox in March when we once again have 12 hours of day and night. Then it's the Northern Hemisphere's turn to have more and more daylight. At our Summer Solstice, in June, the Sun is directly over 23.5 degrees north latitude (the Tropic of Cancer). Now we have about 15 hours of daylight each day. Finally, we return to the Autumnal Equinox.

The reason for this, of course, is the 23.5 degree tilt of the Earth and the Earth's revolution around the Sun over the course of the year. This is why we have seasons here at mid-latitude locations.

The ever-turning wheel of the year. Read more about this in my Vernal Equinox post from March!

Sex at Dawn

2011-09-21T00:05:00.000-04:00

I've also recently read Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by husband and wife psychologists Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá (2010, Harper). Another readable and very interesting book (albeit with a few flaws).

Their basic argument is that our ancestors were sexually promiscuous, much like our close evolutionary relatives the bonobos (Pan paniscus). In hunter-gatherer societies, the connection between sex and the birth of babies was not clear and, they contend, children were seen as communal property shared by the entire tribe. Men and women both had multi-male and multi-female partners and sexual relations strengthened the ties between members of the community. Ryan and Jethá provide a number of anecdotes from still extent hunter-gatherer societies to bolster their arguments.

They argue that the concept of sexual monogamy only developed in the past few thousand years with the advent of agriculture. Why? Because with agriculture came settled life, ownership of land, and, with the domestication of animals, the awareness that babies have both a mother and a father (farmers learned to selectively breed animals). Paternity became important because land was left to offspring. Patriarchal monotheism arose in the same place the earliest cities and farmers developed (the Fertile Crescent) teaching that monogamy was God's will and that women were essentially the property of men.

This books thesis is in direct conflict to many who have argued that humans are "naturally" monogamous. The facts on the ground, however, don't seem to support our cultural concept of the idealized nuclear family - half of divorces occur because of infidelity, pornography has a strong appeal to men who spent, in 2006, an astounding $97 billion dollars on the industry, and an estimated 1 in 25 dads are raising children they did not father.

Ryan and Jethá try to make their case by comparing us to the other hominid apes (our closest ancestors) - talking about such scintillating topics as ape sex, penis and testicle size comparisons, sperm competition, copulation frequency, and others. Interesting stuff. Convincing? I'm not sure.

There are problems. One gets the impression reading this book that it's a polemic and contrary evidence is not presented or discussed in any meaningful way. Anecdotes are often presented in support of claims and the book is repetitive in places. It's not a scientific work.

It is, however, an interesting book and, I believe, mostly correct. As a species, we're not naturally monogamous. That doesn't neccesarily mean we need to give into our baser instincts to be horndogs, there are certainly benefits to a traditional nuclear family - especially when children are involved. But, perhaps it means that we need to be more forgiving of those who can't quite live up the the idealization.

How I Killed Pluto

2011-09-20T00:08:00.000-04:00

Well, no, not me. It's the title of an interesting book I just read by Caltech astronomer Dr. Michael Brown.

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming (Spiegel & Grau, 2010) is an easy read about the human side of astronomy and the events that lead up to the demotion of Pluto as a planet - an event in which Brown played a critical role.

Brown's passion as an astronomer is in hunting for trans-Neptunian Kuiper Belt objects. The Kuiper Belt is the region out beyond the orbit of Neptune, discovered in the early 1990s, where a large number (tens of thousands we believe) of icy bodies orbit the Sun.

Brown, along with his colleagues, have discovered numerous objects in this part of the solar system but the Holy Grail for them was to discover something larger than Pluto - a tenth planet. In 2005, Brown believed he did - an object nicknamed Xena (after the TV character). This discovery, however, created a problem. There was no formal definition for the word "planet" in astronomy. Was Xena a planet? What about other objects discovered which were slightly smaller than Pluto. Were they planets? Why or why not?

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) took up this question in 2006, muddled around for a bit, and then came up with this definition which settled the issue. A planet has three characteristics:

1. A planet orbits the Sun. Jupiter's moon Ganymede is larger than Mercury but it orbits Jupiter so it's not a planet, it's a natural satellite.

2. A planet is large enough (has sufficient mass) to have formed a spherical shape. That leaves off all those potato-shaped asteroids.

3. A planet has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. This omits Pluto as a planet. Objects which fail this condition are now called dwarf planets.

There are now five official dwarf planets - Pluto (some consider Pluto a binary dwarf planet because the center of mass with its moon Charon lies between the two bodies), Ceres (a spherical asteroid in the asteroid belt), Haumea (discovered by Mike Brown but with some controversy since a Spanish group of astronomers may have unethically tried to claim credit - an event Brown discusses in his book), Makemake (also discovered by Mike Brown), and of course Eris (Xena's official name - discovered by Mike Brown). Brown and his colleagues have also discovered other trans-Neptunian objects (Orcus, Quaoar, etc) that are likely to be dwarf planets (hard to tell their shape when they're so far away and relatively small). There are likely hundreds of dwarf planets out there.

Any astronomer will tell you that Pluto is fundamentally different from the four terrestrial, rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and the four Jovian, gas giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune). Pluto, as a small icy body with a highly elliptical, inclined orbit, is much more like the Kuiper Belt objects we've been discovering over the past two decades than it is like the traditional eight planets. I think most astronomers agree that Pluto deserved its demotion - it is a fundamentally different type of object. That's scientifically interesting and studying objects like Pluto will teach us much about the formation of the solar system.

Mike Brown interweaves all of this information with a personal account of his life and work. He spends a lot of time in the book talking about his wife and new daughter, born while he was making his important discoveries, but it works with his narrative. Reading this book will give you insight into the life of a planet-hunting astronomer - the long nights, hatred of the Moon's light and cloudy nights, and days and weeks of examining raw data and telescope images for little moving dots of light.

It's a great read and I highly recommend it. By the way, here's Mike Brown's Planets blog if you'd like to learn more.

What are those strange paper things...

2011-09-16T00:14:00.000-04:00

Interesting post by Rogue Columnist titled "Men Don't Read". I completely agree. Not only that, I'm always surprised when talking to my colleagues who are college professors that many of them don't read for pleasure either. I can't imagine - I always have 2 or 3 books on my nightstand and can't fall asleep without reading for a while every evening. I visit the library on a regular basis as well to support my habit.

Most of my college students don't read for pleasure either. They're also incredibly ignorant on a wide variety of topics. Wonder if there's a correlation?

I've also noticed that some parents who complain their kids don't read much have no books in the house and the parents watch TV all evening. My kids read too damn much, we have to threaten them every night to put their books down and go to sleep. Of course it helps that my wife and I both read a lot, our house is loaded with books, we go to library sales all the time, and at any one time have dozens of books checked out of the public library. We also no longer have cable TV.

I'm going to go read right now (a book called How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown). I'll post a review in a couple of days.

Irene & the Rondout Creek, Rosendale, NY

2011-09-14T21:52:00.002-04:00

I've been pretty busy lately, but I did want to post some more information about flooding on the Rondout Creek at Rosendale during the passage of hurricane Irene (actually extratropical storm Irene by the time it reached us).

Here are before and after pictures of the Rondout Creek from Sunday afternoon, August 28, just after the rain stopped from Irene, and Sunday, September 4, one week later. The pictures were taken from the Route 32 bridge over the Rondout looking westward toward the Village of Rosendale (click to enlarge).

Note how close the water was to the berm protecting the homes and businesses along Main Street. That evening, a voluntary evacuation recommendation was issued for Main Street because of fears the creek would overtop the berm (fortunately, it didn't). Note also the incredible difference between "normal" creek water levels and the level after Irene.

On the banks of the Rondout, next to the bridge and across the creek from St. Peter's Church, is a small wooden shed. This shed is a United States Geological Survey stream gaging station. USGS Streamflow data has been collected here sporadically between 1902 and 1927 and pretty much constantly since 1927.

In that century of data collection, the amount of water in the creek from Irene was the highest recorded at 36,500 cubic feet per second (cfs) of discharge! It was also the highest water level (26.94 feet) ever recorded there.

Here's the raw data since 1927. The columns are the water year (USGS defines this from October 1 through September 30), date of measurement, gage height in feet, and discharge in cubic feet per second (cfs).

The second (35,800 cfs / 26.80 ft) and third (30,900 cfs / 23.93 ft) highest flooding events occurred on October 16 and August 19 respectively in 1955. They're an interesting story. On August 12, the remnants of hurricane Connie dumped up to 15 inches of rain in parts of the Hudson Valley and this event was quickly followed by hurricane Diane which struck less than a week later on August 17 dumping another 7+ inches of rain into the Hudson Valley! The effects of these storms were somewhat reduced by the fact that the area had been suffering a drought prior to the rains.

To add insult to injury, a slow moving coastal storm struck the area two months later on October 16. This storm dumped up to 18 inches of rain in parts of the Hudson Valley. Both times, the Village of Rosendale flooded as the Rondout overtopped its banks.

It's not a surprise to geologists that the Village of Rosendale is susceptible to flooding from the Rondout because even a quick glance at the topography shows that the village is situated on a natural floodplain (the south side of the creek is significantly higher than the north side).

Here are some pictures from those two 1955 flooding events. This images are from the Town of Rosendale web site (click to enlarge).

After this flooding, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers came in, blasted some rock slightly downstream at Lefever Falls, dredged the creek, and built up the berm now protecting Main Street of Rosendale. If that had not been done, Main Street would have flooded this year and quite possibly on April 3, 2005 as well (anyone else remember those rains and flooding?).

There are some interesting things you can do with this stream data. You can, for example, rank it by discharge where 1 is the year with the highest discharge (2011) and 85 is the year with the lowest (1967) since there are 85 data points between 1927 and 2011 inclusive. Now we can use the following formula to calculate the recurrence interval in years for each discharge:

Recurrence Interval = (n + 1) / m

where n is the number of data points (85) and m is the rank of each data point. Then we can graph the recurrence interval in years (on a logarithmic scale) against the discharge in cubic feet per second (cfs), sketch a trendline through the points, and obtain the following:

According to the USGS, flood stage occurs around 15,000 cfs (a gage height of 18 ft or so) and we can see from this graph that such a condition occurs about once every 3 years (find 15,000 cfs, move over to blue trendline, and then down to the x-axis). The most recent flood has, of course, a recurrence interval of 85 years since it's the highest in 85 years of record (basically a 100-year flood event). This is a simplistic analysis, of course, because it's hard to talk about 100-year flood events with barely a century of data. I'd want at least 1,000 years of data to define 100-year flood events but we have to work with what we have.

Below is an interesting graph showing how the quickly the river rose. On Sunday, August 28, between midnight and noon (which is the time it was raining the heaviest), the river rose from about 10 feet to 27 feet. The red line is flood stage (hit around 6 am) meaning folks went to bed with a normal river and woke up to raging floodwaters.

Below is the discharge (amount of water in the Rondout flowing by each second) measured in cubic feet per second (cfs). The vertical scale is logarithmic. Discharge increased from around 500 cfs to 36,500 cfs in that same time period (a 73 fold increase in the volume of water!).

It was essentially a flash flood event - even more so for those poor folks in narrow stream valleys up in the Catskills.

Bee Tree

2011-09-13T17:06:00.001-04:00

Last weekend I was helping a friend cut up some trees which fell during hurricane Irene and came across this one...

I cut right through a bee's nest with my chainsaw. Yes, the bees were still in the nest and using it. Yes, the bees were angry. Turns out I can run pretty damn fast - even holding a running chainsaw.

Take two quartz crystals and call me in the morning...

2011-09-11T12:42:00.002-04:00

Well I'm obviously a geologist (at least that's what the degrees on my wall say). I'm also a professor of Earth sciences (and chair of the math/sciences department) at a mid-Hudson Valley community college. I'm always coy about mentioning the name of the college because I don't want anyone to think my opinions here have anything whatsoever to do with the college where I work - believe me, the administration would not want me to be an "official" spokesman for anything (you may not have noticed, but I have strong opinions about a number of things!).

Our college, like many others, has regular credit-bearing courses (like the ones I teach) as well as offering what are called "continuing and professional education" courses. These are non-credit, non-transferable, and are taken for personal and professional enrichment (there are even some programs that lead to certificates). There are hundreds of courses where you can learn a foreign language (or ESL), yoga, Microsoft Office, or even how to fly a helicopter among many, many other things. The Continuing and Professional Education courses are a good thing, they offer a service to the community and bring money into the college. I've taken a few of those courses myself.

There are, however, sometimes conflicts between the non-credit and credit-bearing sectors of the college. Credit courses have been adversely affected by non-credit course scheduling (there are cases of credit-bearing classes being bumped out of a classroom for a non-credit course), there are concerns that non-credit courses may siphon potential students away from credit-bearing classes (AutoCAD is offered in both credit and non-credit areas, for example), and some faculty have concerns about the types of courses being offered.

What do I mean by that last point? Let me provide a current example...

This fall, there's a new course being offered on Crystals. That caught my eye since I teach about crystals too. This fall, I'm teaching Physical Geology - a four-credit laboratory course on, obviously, physical geology. Physical geology is basically the study of Earth materials and processes. Earth materials include minerals and minerals are crystalline.

When I teach about crystals, it's in the context of lectures on atomic bonding, the geologic definition of a mineral, the different classes of non-silicate and silicate minerals, the physical properties used to identify minerals, Steno's law of the constancy of interfacial angles, different crystal habits, etc. In other words - what centuries of scientific investigation have revealed about minerals and their crystalline forms.

There are many amateur organizations interested in mineral crystals I whole-heartedly endorse as well. The Mid-Hudson Gem & Mineral Society is a good group of people in the mid-Hudson Valley who like nothing better than to get down and dirty searching for beautiful crystalline minerals.

So, you might be wondering, what is this Crystal course being offered by a local institution of higher education? The entire "course" description is as follows (or you can read it here on page 64):

Learn about crystals and how they affect your chakras as well as how to use a crystals grid for healing, a crystal pendulum for scrying, and programming crystals as gifts. Your instructor is ###.

The instructor, who goes by the title "Rev.", is a self-proclaimed psychic who also teaches Reiki (in those classes, you "see auras, track the chakras, [and] feel blocks in the auric field") and Tarot.

So, what's the problem Steve?

Well, I should start out by saying that I love minerals. I have many decorating my home, office, and even an agate slice hanging from the rear view mirror of my car. Crystals are a thing of beauty and there are a few I am especially attached to and which have meaning for me. Of course, when I'm not feeling well, I'll visit a doctor and take any prescription drugs he thinks would help. I don't place some hematite on a string around my neck magically hoping it will make my blood pressure go down (although I believe the placebo effect is much more powerful than most people give it credit for).

I also don't really have a problem with what people believe. I have many beliefs of my own which are not supported by science. I do, however, have a problem when such beliefs affect others - examples include people who don't vaccinate their children endangering the public health or religious cranks who insist on teaching, in public school classrooms, that our ancestors played with dinosaurs before the great flood of Noah.

I also don't think beliefs completely unsupported by evidence (crystal healing, for example), should be given stature by being offered as a course on our campus and listed in a catalog with the college's name and logo. It's one thing to say "I took a course in Italian cooking at SUNY ## County Community College" or "I took a course in Pilates at SUNY ## County Community College". It's a bit different, in my opinion, than saying "I took a course in crystal healing at SUNY ## County Community College". Community colleges already have image problems (some people believe we have lower academic standards and are where the dumb kids go - I don't agree with this assessment but let's acknowledge it's prevalent). We don't need to further hurt our image by offering courses, even non-credit ones, like this. There's plenty of other stuff we can teach people that isn't nonsense.

Although, since teaching at a community college means I'm significantly lower-paid than our local local high school teachers (by far), and can always use some extra money, maybe I should offer to teach a non-credit course (the old, "if you can't beat them, join them" strategy). Dowsing or Water Witching. I know where there are some nice witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) trees. I could take students there to cut a few forked branches and we can go dowse for water. Don't tell anyone, but here in New York (especially after this summer), you can drill anywhere and hit water!

Learn the ancient art of dowsing with geology professor Steven Schimmrich. Participants will make their own dowsing rods, charge them with psychic energy, and practice dowsing for water and mineral deposits at selected locations in Ulster County. Saturday, October 1, 8, and 15 from 9:00 am - 12:00 pm. $120.

Any interest?

Wait, wait, I have a better idea. Maybe I can do crystal healing too. I can have my clients lay down on a bed (maybe I can teach in the nursing lab) and then place crystals on them (judging by the picture below, I don't even have to pay much attention to where they're placed as long as it's symmetrical).

I won't use those New Age tumbled stones either, I'll be using real mineral crystals. Unmodified and powerful with Earth energy. Not too hard to make up stories - "I will place this magnetite crystal, which I collected from a sacred vortex in the Adirondacks, over your third eye chakra. Its magnetic energy will reinforce your psychic energy by clearing blockages in the flow of your chi." A little burning sage and a nature sounds CD will set the mood. Attractive women may need to fully undress to obtain the best benefit from crystal placement ("What, you've never heard of the yoni chakra? It's very important to clear the flow of your prana there with this tourmaline crystal...").

Sounds a hell of a lot easier than trying teaching a room full of young adults about the difference between amphiboles and pyroxenes, doing program reviews for SUNY, and writing assessment plans for the Dean of Academic Affairs' Office.

Sometimes I really wish I didn't have ethical standards.

The Fossil Hunter

2011-09-07T13:12:00.000-04:00

Recently read The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World by Shelley Emling (2009, Palgrave Macmillan).

It's the story of Mary Anning (1799-1847), a famous woman fossil collector from Lyme Regis, England. Lyme Regis, a small coastal town in West Dorset, is world famous for its Jurassic Period (~145 to 200 million years ago) fossils - especially ammonites and and large marine reptiles like ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs.

I have to confess to not knowing much about Mary Anning prior to reading this book. As a matter of fact, I had always assumed she was simply of woman who collected and sold fossils and only mentioned in textbooks because she was a woman doing something geological at a time when all geologists were men. In other words, not very important in the history of geology.

I was wrong.

Turns out Mary Anning was quite the woman and has not been given her due in many respects. She could have been much more too - if she wasn't living at a time when women were treated as 2nd class citizens and in a country where inbred, wealthy twits kept "lower-class" people away from educational opportunities. She was obviously much more intelligent than many of the male scientists she worked with at the time.

Mary was born poor, of low social class, and received virtually no formal education. Despite this, she taught herself paleontology and became one of the foremost experts on Jurassic fossils which she extensively collected outside her doorstep.

Fossil ichthyosaur collected by Mary Anning at Lyme Regis

Male geologists and paleontologist came from all over to go with Mary on local collecting trips, pick her brains and learn from her, buy her fossils, and then typically either resell them at much higher prices in London or publish what they learned without giving her any credit.

It's a great biography of an interesting, but tragic in many ways (she died relatively young of painful breast cancer), woman who lived during a fascinating time in the history of geology and who has not been given her due.

Screaming Tree

2011-09-05T22:20:00.000-04:00

Went for a hike recently and I could almost hear this tree with upraised arms screaming at me.

Probably pissed off about the hurricane. Then again, maybe I'm just strange.

Good quote on education

2011-08-31T21:19:00.012-04:00

From philosopher John Alexander Smith (1863–1939), who gave the following advice to Oxford University students in 1914:

Gentlemen, you are now about to embark on a course of studies which will occupy you for two years. Together, they form a noble adventure. But I would like to remind you of an important point. Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life, save only this, that if you work hard and intelligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education.

I wish more people in this society could distinguish when a man is talking rot.

Rondout Creek at Rosendale, NY

2011-08-30T17:24:00.000-04:00

I still don't have power at home this Tuesday evening (it went out Saturday night). Lots of communities here in Ulster County hard hit by Irene with flooding and loss of electric from tree limbs.

An initial look at the USGS stream gaging station data from the Rondout Creek at Rosendale, NY (right down the road from me) confirmed my initial suspicions when I saw it raging Sunday afternoon. The peak discharge on the 28th was recorded as 36,500 cfs or cubic feet per second (prior to the storm it was running a bit over 400 cfs). That beats the record back in 1955 (when the town flooded instigating the flood control measures taken shortly thereafter) of 35,800 cfs. I looked at continuous records back to 1927 (the record is spotty prior to then). This truly was a 100 year flood event.

More analysis to follow when I get better Internet access than Starbucks WiFi (I'd like to look at records for Esopus and Wallkill Rivers also).

Irene from Space

2011-08-27T19:48:00.000-04:00

Beautiful, isn't it?