41

The Environment / Re: Could this be a landmark?

« on: 30/06/2018 08:34:31 »

To: "Global Moderator - Naked Science Forum King!"

The same EPA who spent $˝ billion on science trying to frame PM 2.5 as an instant killer?  Despite their science telling them PM 2.5 was innocent, they still could not admit it was pretty harmless. Obama era EPA weren't really big on science were they?

42

Marine Science / Re: How can climate scientists claim 30% acidification of the ocean due to CO2?

« on: 13/05/2018 11:05:39 »

" In the past 200 years alone, ocean water has become 30 percent more acidic" That's journalism.

No. That is settled science according to the climate Stasi. It is on the NOAA website. The important point I made was NOAA's claim that ocean pH has risen by 30% is junk science. This is why people are laughing at the settled science of climate change. Why so many people voted for Trump.  You can blame it on journalists. I will blame it on the Royal Society. They are the people who wrote to journalists telling them not to criticise official climate science, whom NOAA certainly are.

PS: Redone calculations using the Henderson/Hasselbalch equation is no more favourable to NOAA than my back-of-envelope calculation. Thanks for that.

43

Marine Science / Re: How can climate scientists claim 30% acidification of the ocean due to CO2?

« on: 06/05/2018 22:49:31 »

I am sorry. I missed the wikipedia Henderson/Hasselbalch equation before. I will use their equation, but not their pKa because their equation is for blood, and pKa in seawater is slightly less than they give. I can use this for an alternative back-of-envelope equation, which I'm confident refutes NOAA too. I'll eat my hat if it does not.

44

Marine Science / Re: How can climate scientists claim 30% acidification of the ocean due to CO2?

« on: 06/05/2018 21:08:10 »

That you do not accept my answer

What answer?  You gave no alternative explanation beyond: 1) this is too complex to discuss therefore 2) acidification must be 30% just like NOAA said. I do not think that's an explanation.

45

Marine Science / Re: How can climate scientists claim 30% acidification of the ocean due to CO2?

« on: 06/05/2018 21:03:57 »

1)

The graph as a best line fit on it which says the pH is falling by 0.00186 pH units per year.

Where did that come from?  Out of the blue. No graph. No way to make such a graph when one considers the variation in ocean pH and ocean currents.

2) Read what?  Lecture slides written using a program I don't have on my computer. Talk about 'obfuscation', you are second to none.  Accusing you of obfuscation is certainly not 'ranting'.

46

Marine Science / Re: How can climate scientists claim 30% acidification of the ocean due to CO2?

« on: 06/05/2018 18:55:34 »

Thankyou for your reply chiralSPO. Consider this:

Feynman was a truly great teacher. He prided himself on being able to devise ways to explain even the most profound ideas to beginning students. Once, I said to him, "Dick, explain to me, so that I can understand it, why spin one-half particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics." Sizing up his audience perfectly, Feynman said, "I'll prepare a freshman lecture on it." But he came back a few days later to say, "I couldn't do it. I couldn't reduce it to the freshman level. That means we don't really understand it."

-- Goodstein and Goodstein

Feynman understood that if he could not explain something simply, he did not understand it. That bothered him. I think it should bother us all.

If you can't give me an alternative, simplified, explanation how ocean pH could've become "30% more acidic", then I'm not going to take you seriously. Everything I know and wrote about the behaviour of CO2 dissolving in ocean refutes this 30% claim.

When one gets right down to it, all is obfuscation: NOAA, National Geographic, you. None of you even attempt to justify your beliefs.

I'll stick with my back-of-envelope calculation until I read a better one.

47

Marine Science / Re: How can climate scientists claim 30% acidification of the ocean due to CO2?

« on: 06/05/2018 11:20:13 »

The current ocean pH is due to many ions: anions and cations. One of my critics (Bored Chemist) seems to assume ocean pH is all down to carbonic acid! I don't see how he works that out. Oceans are a soup of ions. For example: Salt is 35000ppm. Carbon is 27ppm. 1300 times more salt than carbon! I prefer my method. Calculate the number [H+]. Calculate the addition of [H+] due to more CO2. Compare the two. I blogged it.

48

Marine Science / Re: How can climate scientists claim 30% acidification of the ocean due to CO2?

« on: 06/05/2018 08:49:17 »

I did back of the envelope calculations, and found that NOAA exaggerate the acidity increase by more than 3 orders of magnitude. They exaggerate 5560 times.  Or 556000%. Now that's a big number, but NOAA like big numbers.

49

Marine Science / How can climate scientists claim 30% acidification of the ocean due to CO2?

« on: 05/05/2018 19:12:33 »

Ocean Acidification
by The Ocean Portal Team; Reviewed by Jennifer Bennett (NOAA)

Even though the ocean is immense, enough carbon dioxide can have a major impact. In the past 200 years alone, ocean water has become 30 percent more acidic

<-- This is a massive blunder by NOAA. It shatters my confidence in "climate scientists".

I think she meant to say that there is 30% more CO2 in the ocean than pre-industrial times.

The statement "30% more acidic" is wrong for 2 reasons:
1) When CO2 (carbon dioxide) dissolves in water only 0.3% of it becomes carbonic acid according to the equation:

CO2(aq)  +  H2O(aq)  <=>  H2CO3(aq)

Most of the CO2 simply dissolves in water without making carbonic acid.

2) Carbonic acid is a weak acid with a Ka = 4.2E-04. Meaning less than 1% of that dissociates according to the formula:

H2CO3(aq) + H2O(aq) <=> H3O+(aq) + HCO3-(aq)

50

Chemistry / Lithium: does it make any gaseous or low boiling point compounds?

« on: 12/11/2016 11:07:15 »

Does lithium form a compound which is reasonably stable, and gaseous at an easy to work with vacuum / temperature?

PS: I almost feel embarrassed to ask this as I know quite a lot of chemistry, and I'm competent with google!

51

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Antibiotics. A question about ethics of journalism, not the science.

« on: 24/10/2016 12:14:08 »

evan_au is unduly pessimistic. S/he only looks at the downsides.  We should be able to develop new antibiotics faster than evolution can ambush us.  Biotech is more advanced than ever before, advancing more by the minute. Everything s/he says may be right in a world with no technological developments. Not in our world.

Vaccination refusal is fast becoming socially unacceptable and the lies told by Luddites against vaccination are fully exposed.
diseases that normally infect humans becoming endemic - only if we let them by not developing new antibiotics

Why am I not surprised to find evan_au justifying what seems to be epistemological relativism and ends-means justification?

My life experience of other people leads me to conclude that pessimism over the human condition goes hand in hand with epistemological relativism and ends-means justification.

52

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Antibiotics. A question about ethics of journalism, not the science.

« on: 24/10/2016 11:57:40 »

thalidomide!!

Is a fallacy. A false dilemma. There's a cost benefit equation with new drugs. Do we keep them away from the public and potentially save 10 lives with better trials, or do we distribute them to save hundreds of thousands of lives now?  When a drug is transformative and life saving on a massive scale it should be made available ASAP. When it was released, medicine had never seen anything like penicillin. It saved countless lives.

The issues is not no clinical trial vs. decade long trials. It's what is the best way to treat a sick person who is dying?  It might be 2 years of clinical trials vs decade long trials.

I actually implied this in my OP. I said there is a one size fits all approach to regulating clinical trials.

53

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Antibiotics. A question about ethics of journalism, not the science.

« on: 24/10/2016 11:44:56 »

Thanks for the clarification on the meaning of evolve. I consider gene transfer an evolution when the organism with it survives, prospers and is fitter for its environment.  Mutation and gene transfer may be entirely different mechanisms but the net result - changed DNA - when it improves the progeny's fitness - drives evolution.

Anyhow. It was that statement no new class of antibiotics has been discovered which upset me. That's what I want to talk about. Is it acceptable?

Is it OK to hoodwink the public if you believe it drives a good policy forward?

Is it sustainable to hoodwink the public?  Once they lose confidence in experts and scientists, how do you get that confidence back?

54

Physiology & Medicine / Is it acceptable to lie, to over-egg the issue of antibiotic resistance?

« on: 23/10/2016 06:22:48 »

Antibiotics - lie or tell the truth?

This morning, on BBC World Service, I was listening to a radio review programme which ran a short story on antibiotics.

The radio announcer asked why there were no new antibiotics and rhetorically answered her own question. She said there were 3 reasons:
1. No new class of antibiotics has been discovered.
2. Drug companies are not interested in developing new antibiotics. No money there for them.
3. Clinical trials take too long. 3 decades ago there were 30 companies developing antibiotics. Today there are none.

Reading the history of penicillin, it seems the original 'clinical trials' took months and consisted of individual medical cases!  It takes years today and every trial proceeds a laborious route.

As we all know, bacteria evolve resistance to the antibiotics we currently have. Several non-scientifically inclined friends of mine regard disease with terror. Especially after the last Ebola outbreak. It was put to me, by a well educated finance journalist, editor, and analyst (PhD) that up to half the population of the planet could be wiped out by a new disease. I'm personally more worried about harm caused by paranoia in the population. In my view, pessimism like this more often leads to a despair and cynicism about the human condition. Panic is not conducive to rational action.

I know there are several small groups working on new antibiotics who are prepared to by-pass drug companies to get them developed. I put the current antibiotic situation entirely down to the length and expense of clinical trials. The one size fits all approach.

The question I have : is it acceptable to lie, to over-egg the issue of antibiotic resistance?, perhaps to raise awareness  [ As this radio announcer did when she said "No new class of antibiotics has been discovered" ]

I know for a fact that new classes of antibiotics have been discovered. They have not gone through clinical trials. Many of them discovered in the last 2 years.

55

The Environment / Re: Climate, Energiewende, Anti-nukes and fake climate campaigners

« on: 10/01/2016 02:32:18 »

More CO2 going into the oceans will accelerate ocean acidification putting many carboniferous shelled creatures at risk of extinction. Even if you reject the risk of global warming, you must accept the more CO2 will cause more ocean acidification.

To: syhprum : Here's my explanation why environmentalists campaign so avidly against nuclear power and GMOs: https://theconversation.com/gm-foods-big-biotech-is-quietly-winning-the-war-52715#comment_866660 (the same reason in both cases!)

56

The Environment / Will Germany meet its emission reduction obligations?

« on: 08/01/2016 11:46:34 »

Blogger Oscar Archer wistfully said: "Surely we'll see some [German] emissions reductions"[1]

Not in 2015. Energy market research group AB Energiebilanzen report German energy-related CO2 emissions up 0.9% in 2015[2]. The mainstream green movement such as Guardian, Greenpeace, The Ecologist, Climate Progress continue to boost Germany's Energiewende as a model for Europe to copy. They celebrate the closure of zero-CO2 emitting nuclear power such as Grafenrheinfeld in Bavaria last June[4]. They ignore the opening of another CO2-emitting coal plant in Mooburg, Hamburg this November[3]. We already know that Germany will not meet its 2020 emission reduction targets and that there's been no fall in emissions from 2009 through to 2014.[5]

Links:
1. Oscar Archer's blog: http://actinideage.com/2015/12/31/the-lightbulb-moment/
2. German energy-related CO2 emissions up 0.9% in 2015 http://carbon-pulse.com/13587/
3. New 1600 MWe coal-fired plant opens at Mooburg, Hamburg: http://www.dw.com/en/german-co2-emissions-targets-at-risk/a-18862708
4. Grafenrheinfeld NPP closes and Germany loses 1345 MWe of zero-emission electricity: http://energytransition.de/2015/06/germanys-next-nuclear-plant-closes-for-good/
5. Germany’s 2020 greenhouse gas target is no longer feasible https://carboncounter.wordpress.com/2015/05/21/germanys-2020-greenhouse-gas-target-is-no-longer-feasible/

57

Radio Show & Podcast Feedback / None

« on: 12/10/2014 21:29:37 »

In reply to the podcast:

The general view now is that wind power, on land is the cheapest form of [electricity] generation.

- Not true at all. That's the view of  greens.  It's not a scientific view but a political one.

Roger:
Nuclear fusion has never been demonstrated for energy creation. It's only been done for tiny periods of time. We must put far more energy into fusion than we get back. I'd be shocked if we get fusion working within this century, as a source of usable energy.

Compared to fusion, nuclear fission is easy, cheap and safe. Many new fission reactor designs are planned such as molten salt reactors [MSR]. These can easily close the fuel cycle, so producing the least possible waste. Because MSRs run at normal pressure they are intrinsically safer than current reactors using a pressurized reactor cooled by water. MSRs can also be designed to be passively safe by manipulating reactor physics. These improvements offer orders-of-magnitude safety improvements over current fission reactors, and current fission is already the safest form of energy [and electricity] generation.  [safety is specified here in terms of the number of accidents and fatalities per unit of energy created. E.g. For accidents, working at a nuclear power plant is 4 times safer than working in an average office.]

58

Physiology & Medicine / Re: 98% of all variation in our educational attainment is non-genetic?

« on: 20/09/2014 14:09:37 »

Childhood intelligence is heritable, highly polygenic and associated with FNBP1L
Mol Psychiatry. 2014 Feb;19(2):253-8. doi: 10.1038/mp.2012.184. Epub 2013 Jan 29.

aggregate effects of common SNPs explain 22-46% of phenotypic variation in childhood intelligence

But also ... IQ tests used may have major problems with their design:
The Heritability of Intelligence: Not What You Think

On the Nature and Nurture of Intelligence and Specific Cognitive Abilities: The More Heritable, the More Culture Dependent
DOI: 10.1177/0956797613493292
Psychological Science published online 8 October 2013
Kees-Jan Kan, Jelte M. Wicherts, Conor V. Dolan and Han L. J. van der Maas

59

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: In response to the nuclear fusion interview today

« on: 01/09/2014 07:38:28 »

to: PmbPhy

None of your points are unanswerable:

• waste from fission is dangerous
  answer: Low level waste is not nearly as dangerous as I've been led to believe. Risk is exaggerated 1000 to 10000 times. I was taught LNT in physics class as if it were gospel (and taught no alternative). There's no evidence for radiation harm at low levels : LNT is unfounded. (listen to this long interview with Dr Ed. Calabrese)
• catastrophic accidents ... resulting in major release of radioactivity to the environment
  answer: stop building pressurised fission reactors. Alternative, non-pressurised, molten salt reactors (MSR) have no danger of such release under any reasonable scenario (and any possible release is, by nature, contained locally).
• melt-down
  answer: By definition, there's no danger of a MSR melt-down.
• half-lifes of radioisotopes produced by fission
  answer: build only reactors leaving no long-lived radionuclides (e.g. IFR, WAMSR, ...). Reactors should be designed to burn up radionuclides with long half-lives (actinides) leaving only fission products (having half-lives no more than 30 years : Cs-137 and Sr-90).  Such spent fuel will be safe from radioactivity after 300 years

60

General Science / Forum bug?

« on: 01/09/2014 07:34:48 »

I can't find the sub-forum for this. When I post my message I get an error and I'm not allowed to post.

The following error or errors occurred while posting this message:
Error - you have used a blacklisted term

The issue is not shown in the preview. The specific 'blacklisted term' is not indicated. Nothing is my post is anything other than polite English or a technical, scientific, term.

Would it be a better idea to

• indicate the error in preview?
• tell a poster which precise term offends the new scientists?

PS: After editing my post I discovered that the source of my blacklisted term was the {at} symbol.