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Magnificent Science

As my one demented reader will know, I have a thing for science. I don't think that there is any human endeavour that is such an exciting combination of rigour, curiosity and utility. I wanted to direct people to a few stories that I though may be well worth wasting time with.

The first is Anthony Watt's magnificent achievement of analysing and recording surface temperature stations across the United States. Over the past few years, wattsupwiththat.comhas actually investigated the machines that, in theory, record 'global warming'. They have been found to be almost completely unreliable, which, in combination with some of the satellite data and analysis of other measures of polar ice, global temperatures, and cloud cover, exposes the silliness of our faith-based investment in a theory of warming. I admire that. Science doesn't work by consensus, it works by people being awkward.

The second story I'd suggest for you is the ongoing controversy over the 'little people' or 'hobbits' of Flores. How mad is this story? A large group of scientists believe that human beings were, because of their environment, 'shrunk', as pygmy elephants elsewhere, to an optimum size over a few generations on Flores. Others, however--and they seem to have the momentum--believe that an entirely different species of human evolved on that island. Argument is raging, over, well, leprechauns.

Thirdly, CERN seems to be climbing back. The Large Hadron Collider is being fixed and may be back on, as far as I can tell, between June and September. Though I've blogged about it before, it seems this time to be at the heart of a set of unconnected but parallel global physics projects such as ITER, the polywell fusion project, and the lasers of the Livermore laboratory which hint that this century will be hope-filled indeed.

And, of course, people are waking up to a story I have been following for a time--the lack of sunspots and the connection of solar minima with low global temperatures. Some seem to believe that we are approaching a level of solar inactivity comparable to the Dalton minimum. The last time, this was associated with a very cold northern hemisphere, so, well, enjoy the summer....

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