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Submission + - Climategate's final days (discovermagazine.com)

Submitted by
The Bad Astronomer
The Bad Astronomer writes: "Climategate may be on its way out. An investigatory committee at the Pennsylvania State University has formally cleared climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann of any scientific misconduct. Mann was central in the so-called Climategate scandal, where illegally leaked emails were purported to indicate examples of scientists trying to cover up any lack of global warming in their data. This finding by the committee is another in a series of independent investigtions which have all concluded that no misconduct has occurred."
Moon

Citizen Scientists Help Explore the Moon 60

Posted by kdawson from the given-enough-eyeballs-all-craters-are-shallow dept.
Pickens writes "NPR reports that NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is doing such a good job photographing every bit of the moon's surface that scientists can't keep up, so Oxford astrophysicist Chris Lintott is asking amateur astronomers to help review, measure, and classify tens of thousands of moon photos streaming to Earth using the website Moon Zoo, where anyone can log on, get trained, and become a space explorer. 'We ask people to count the craters that they can see ... and that tells us all sorts of things about the history and the age of that bit of surface,' says Lintott. Volunteers are also asked to identify boulders, measure the craters, and generally classify what is found in the images. If one person does the classification — even if they're an expert — then anything odd or interesting can be blamed on them. But with multiple independent classifications, the team can statistically calculate the confidence in the classification. That's a large part of the power of Moon Zoo. Lintott adds the British and American scientists heading up the LRO project have been randomly checking the amateur research being sent in and find it as good as you would get from an expert. 'There are a whole host of scientists ... who are waiting for these results, who've already committed to using them in their own research.'"
Image

The Parking Meter Turns 75 Today 126

Posted by samzenpus from the thanks-a@#hole dept.
nj_peeps writes "75 years ago Carl Magee filed a patent application for what would become one of the most hated inventions in history: the parking meter. From the article: 'Magee's brainwave was to install a device that had a coin acceptor and a dial to engage a timing mechanism. A visible pointer and flag indicated the expiration of the paid period, meaning you either had to move, put in more money, or face the wrath of the local constabulary. The design continued largely unchanged for more than 40 years.'"

Comment Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score 1) 720

by theedud (#30054352) Attached to: Whistleblower Claims IEA Is Downplaying Peak Oil
Exploiting the oil shales of the US will take a huge amount of water, even with Shell's theoretically less thirsty in situ process; read this report to get an idea of what will be involved: Water on the Rocks: Oil Shale Water Rights in Colorado. Meanwhile Lakes Powell and Mead slink further towards evaporating completely, meaning loss of water supply and electricity generation to the SW; oil shale projects would hasten this end, which is not far off in any case - one study postulated a 50% chance by 2021 of Lake Mead drying up past the point where the Hoover Dam could effectively operate; in this light I seriously doubt kerogen will be processed, without a states' rights war being involved that is. We'd do much better to save fuel with simple measures such as keepin our tires properly inflated.

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