Largest number of scientists in modern history are running for office in 2018.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

More than 60 researchers and technologists are running for federal office in 2018 as part of a historic wave of candidates with science backgrounds launching campaigns. 

At least 200 candidates with previous careers in science, technology, engineering and math announced bids for some of the nation’s roughly 7,000 state legislature seats as of Jan. 31, according to data that 314 Action, a political action committee, shared exclusively with HuffPost. 

The group, which launched in 2014 to help scientists run for office, said it is talking with 500 more people and is pressing about half of them to run. An additional 200 such candidates are running for school boards. 

“The sheer number is really astonishing,” 314 Action founder Shaughnessy Naughton told HuffPost. “We’ve never seen anything like this.”

There is currently only one scientist in Congress, imagine what having even a dozen more could do to change how Congress deals with anti-abortion legislation, bills on climate change, and even military spending.

Intelligent discourse on those subjects could not only change how money is being spent, but also how the public comes to view them in their every day lives.

More smart people running the government.

That simply cannot be a bad thing.

Donald Trump will break tradition and NOT meet with American Noble prize winners.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

President Trump will not meet with the American Nobel laureates this year, Stat News reported. 

The decision breaks with that of past presidents, who have met with the American Nobel Prize winners nearly every year since 2001. 

Two American Nobel Prize winners told Stat News they didn't plan to go to the White House if there was an event. 

Columbia biophysicist Joachim Frank said he was "relieved" he wouldn't see the president. 

“I will not put my foot into the White House as long as Trump, [Vice President] Pence, or [Speaker Paul] Ryan (i.e., the possible succession of impeachments) will occupy it,” Frank told Stat. 

“I cannot speak for the others; don’t know them personally yet, but I strongly believe that as thinking intelligent people they will have a similar attitude as I.” 

The White House said Trump wouldn't meet with the recipients in person because of foreign travel. Trump has been traveling through Asia and is expected to return late Tuesday.

Yeah, okay.

Both Barack Obama and George W. Bush met with the American Nobel prize winners during their presidencies, but then again they were not quite as terrified of intelligence as Tangerine Hitler.

You know you really cannot blame the two scientists quoted in this article for not wanting to meet Trump.

It would be akin to Jane Goodall attempting to sit down to tea with one of the chimpanzees she was studying.

EPA gagged agency scientists who were scheduled to speak at Rhode Island climate change conference yesterday.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

The Environmental Protection Agency has canceled the speaking appearance of three agency scientists who were scheduled to discuss climate change at a conference on Monday in Rhode Island, according to the agency and several people involved. 

John Konkus, an E.P.A. spokesman and a former Trump campaign operative in Florida, confirmed that agency scientists would not speak at the State of the Narragansett Bay and Watershed program in Providence. He provided no further explanation. 

Scientists involved in the program said that much of the discussion at the event centers on climate change. Many said they were surprised by the E.P.A.’s last-minute cancellation, particularly since the agency helps to fund the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, which is hosting the conference. 

The scientists who have been barred from speaking contributed substantial material to a 400-page report to be issued on Monday. The move highlights widespread concern that the E.P.A. will silence government scientists from speaking publicly or conducting work on climate change. Scott Pruitt, the agency administrator, has said that he does not believe human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are primarily responsible for the warming of the planet. 

This is how dictatorships work.

Attack the media, silence the intellectuals, and spread fear among the people. 

In the meantime they implement policies which allow them to grow their wealth, while endangering the population.

They always say that elections have consequences, and in this case that is quite the understatement.

Scientists leak climate change report before Donald Trump gets chance to kill it.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration. 

The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited. 

“Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” a draft of the report states. A copy of it was obtained by The New York Times. 

The authors note that thousands of studies, conducted by tens of thousands of scientists, have documented climate changes on land and in the air. “Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate change,” they wrote. 

The report was completed this year and is a special science section of the National Climate Assessment, which is congressionally mandated every four years. The National Academy of Sciences has signed off on the draft report, and the authors are awaiting permission from the Trump administration to release it.

The reason we are reading the report courtesy of the New York Times instead of on a government website is because he scientists fear it will never make it that far.

Scientists say they fear that the Trump administration could change or suppress the report. 

That's right we now live in a country where important scientific information has to be leaked to the public before the current administration can block it from reaching us.

Thanks to Donald Trump a growing number of scientists are now entering politics.

Courtesy of Politico:  

The lab-coat liberals are marching on Washington. 

Dismayed by President Donald Trump’s perceived hostility to climate science and other areas of research, a surge of scientists is entering the public arena and running for political office for the first time.

They represent an evolving brand of Democrat that has been gaining steam for months. What began with rogue Twitter accounts and protest marches has graduated into candidacies in House races in places as varied as California, Texas, Pennsylvania and New York. 

The handful of scientists who have formally announced their candidacies so far — and the others who are preparing to join them — have cast themselves as a counterforce to the Trump administration’s dismissal of climate science and de-prioritization of innovation funding.

Well that ought to make the debates over climate change more interesting on the House floor.

What's more Trump's election has also inspired a rather large number of women to also enter politics.

I guess this can be seen as a sort of accidental positive side effect of Trump winning the presidency.

And at this point I will take any positive news that I can find.

French President Emmanuel Macron has a message for the United States.

To all scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, responsible citizens who were disappointed by the decision of the US: pic.twitter.com/qxjPX8MhKt

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) June 1, 2017

Courtesy of Share Blue:  

Tonight, I wish to tell the United States: France believes in you. The world believes in you. I know that you are a great nation. I know your history – our common history. 

To all scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, responsible citizens who were disappointed by the decision of the President of the United States, I want to say that they will find in France a second homeland. I call on them: Come and work here with us, to work together on concrete solutions for our climate, our environment. 

I can assure you: France will not give up the fight.

First thing I notice is that the President of France has a much better command of the English language than does our current American president.

And secondly I once again find myself green with envy toward the people of France. 

I'm REALLY getting tired of that.

Trump EPA fires at least five scientists on review board, considers replacing them with representatives of industries impacted by board's decisions.

Would be the perfect organization if it only had fewer smart people.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

The Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed at least five members of a major scientific review board, the latest signal of what critics call a campaign by the Trump administration to shrink the agency’s regulatory reach by reducing the role of academic research. 

A spokesman for the E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, said he would consider replacing the academic scientists with representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate, as part of the wide net it plans to cast. “The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community,” said the spokesman, J. P. Freire.

Gee, what a great idea.

Perhaps next they should have known terrorists advising Homeland Security on how to keep this country safe.

Or perhaps we should make sure that there are criminals seated on every jury to ensure that the individual on trial is being adequately represented.

And while we are at it perhaps we should allow folks who have colluded with foreign governments to undermine our democracy to be seated in the president's admini.....oh....that's right.

Well then, I guess a precedent has been set.

It's Earth Day, do you know where your scientists are marching today?

Daisy the Science Pup leading #ScienceMarchLdn! #MarchForScience #ScienceMarch pic.twitter.com/lGx4xQdAAt

— March for ScienceLDN (@LDNsciencemarch) April 22, 2017

Courtesy of USA Today: 

Thousands of people — scientists and their champions — are expected to descend on Washington Saturday and turn out in hundreds of cities worldwide to use Earth Day as a vehicle to show public support for what they feel is a trend against using scientific evidence for govrnment policymaking. 

While billing itself as nonpartisan, the March for Science movement, including rallies and marches in more than 600 communities, clearly sees the Trump administration, which has expressed skepticism of man's role in climate change and has eased regulations on coal and oil production, as a threat to science.

Of particular concern to critics is the Trump administration's budget that calls for sizable cuts in funding for the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy's Office of Science.

Organizers of the march encouraged scientists in their ranks to wear their lab coats, goggles, stethoscopes, field gear and other work clothes to make their presence known among a group that frequently shies away from public political displays.

Much like the Women's March the day after the inauguration this will be yet another demonstration of the public's concern about the danger posed by the Trump Administration, and the Republican party in general, to our civil rights and our ability to be informed.

There are literally marches all over the world, so if you want to participate take a look here to find one in your area.

If, like me, you are unable to attend due to work responsibilities or other considerations you can follow the marches on Facebook by clicking here.

Viva la Resistance!

New poll shows who America trusts. Spoiler alert: It ain't the politicians.

Americans' confidence in the military relatively high, and low for the press, elected officials & business leaders https://t.co/44FEtWPO2R pic.twitter.com/htnmuCfJ6V

— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) April 6, 2017

Interesting that the the only folks that Americans distrust as much, or more, than the media are business leaders and elected officials.

Now who is it that falls into both categories?

Wait, don't tell me I've almost got it. 

You can read the entire report here.

The attack on climate science is ratcheting up.

Courtesy of Frontline: 

Twenty-five thousand science teachers opened their mailboxes this month and found a package from the Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank that rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. 

It contained the organization’s book “Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming,” as well as a DVD rejecting the human role in climate change and arguing instead that rising temperatures have been caused primarily by natural phenomena. The material will be sent to an additional 25,000 teachers every two weeks until every public-school science teacher in the nation has a copy, Heartland president and CEO Joseph Bast said in an interview last week. If so, the campaign would reach more than 200,000 K-12 science teachers. 

Accompanying the materials is a cover letter from Lennie Jarratt, project manager of Heartland’s Center for Transforming Education. He asks teachers to “consider the possibility” that the science is not settled. “If that’s the case, then students would be better served by letting them know a vibrant debate is taking place among scientists,” he writes. The letter also points teachers to an online guide to using the DVD in their classrooms.

I would bet my house that this group is heavily funded by folks with ties to the fossil fuel industry.

That is one front on this war on science, convincing educators to question the facts.

This is yet another front.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Prominent scientists operating outside the scientific consensus on climate change urged Congress on Wednesday to fund “red teams” to investigate “natural” causes of global warming and challenge the findings of the United Nations’ climate science panel. 

The suggestion for a counter-investigative science force — or red team approach — was presented in prepared testimony by scientists known for questioning the influence of human activity on global warming. It comes at a time when President Trump and other members of the administration have expressed doubt about the accepted science of climate change, and are considering drastic cuts to federal funding for scientific research. 

A main mission of red teams would be to challenge the scientific consensus on climate change, including the work of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose reports are widely considered the authority on climate science.

So convince public school teachers to question science, while attempting to obfuscate the facts at their source.

And all of this while Donald Trump guts the EPA.

They are not even trying to cover up their agenda for destroying this planet are they?

I guess it is up to us to expose all of this as often as possible and to elect politicians who understand science and will work to preserve this planet for our children, and our children's children.

Remember, all we have to lose is the water that we drink, the air that we breathe, and the planet on which we make our homes.

The strange case of the Trump Organization computer. Another piece in the Trump/Russia collusion puzzle? Perhaps.

Courtesy of CNN:

Last year, a small group of computer scientists obtained internet traffic records from the complex system that serves as the internet's phone book. Access to these records is reserved for highly trusted cybersecurity firms and companies that provide this lookup service. 

These signals were captured as they traveled along the internet's Domain Name System (DNS). 

These leaked records show that Alfa Bank servers repeatedly looked up the unique internet address of a particular Trump Organization computer server in the United States.

Alfa Bank is of course a Russian bank, but I bet you figured that out all on your own.

And what did this small group of computer scientists find that troubles them so?

From May 4 until September 23, the Russian bank looked up the address to this Trump corporate server 2,820 times -- more lookups than the Trump server received from any other source. 

As noted, Alfa Bank alone represents 80% of the lookups, according to these leaked internet records.

Well, isn't THAT interesting?

That is a hell of a lot of lookups just to be a coincidence, but that is exactly how the Alfa Bank characterized them:  

Alfa Bank has maintained that the most likely explanation is that the server communication was the result of spam marketing. Bank executives have stayed at Trump hotels, so it's possible they got subsequent spam marketing emails from the Trump Organization. Those emails might have set off defensive cybersecurity measures at the bank, whose servers would respond with a cautious DNS lookup. Alfa Bank said it used antispam software from Trend Micro, whose tools would do a DNS lookup to know the source of the spam.

2,820 responses to spam in less than five months?  That really does not pass the smell test:  

"If it were spam, then a lot of other organizations would be doing DNS lookups. There would be evidence of widespread connectivity with devices," said L. Jean Camp, a computer scientist at Indiana University who has studied the data.

Now here is the other suspicious puzzle piece:  

Far back in second place, with 714 such lookups, was a company called Spectrum Health. 

Spectrum is a medical facility chain led by Dick DeVos, the husband of Betsy DeVos, who was appointed by Trump as U.S. education secretary. 

Together, Alfa and Spectrum accounted for 99% of the lookups.

Spectrum Health joined with Alfa Bank in claiming that it was all spam related. 

Nothing to see here, just move along.

Not so fast.

I am not sure what this means exactly, but if you developed a spam program to increase business and it only targeted two businesses, that would seem like a real waste of money in my book.

So I would agree with these computer scientists that this deserves a lot more scrutiny.

And it might very well have been receiving it since it was this server that Louise Mensch identified as the trigger which caused the FBI to seek a FISA warrant.

Thousands of scientists to take to the streets and march in the name of science.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

Just hours after the Women's March on Washington ended on Saturday, scientists began to discuss organizing a march of their own. Now that idea has rapidly begun to take shape, with the official Facebook group gathering hundreds of thousands of online adherents in just the past day and the #ScienceMarch hashtag trending on Twitter. 

Prospective attendees and organizers have been coordinating on a closed Facebook group with over 220,000 members, along with conversations happening on Twitter and Reddit. According to a post in the group from Jonathan Berman, a University of Texas Health Science Center postdoctoral fellow, the march had attracted multiple sponsorship offers and nearly 2,500 volunteers. And the initiative already has its T-shirts on sale. 

"Our motivation is pretty straightforward," Dr. Caroline Weinberg, a science writer and public health researcher who is co-chairing the organizing group, said by email. "Scientists worldwide have been alarmed by the clear anti-science actions taken by the Trump administration. It has been less than a week and there have already been funding freezes and efforts to restrict scientists from communicating their findings (from tax-funded research!) with the public."

The date for the march has not yet been decided (Probably in the spring or summer.) however their certainly is no a lack of motivation.

In fact scientists with the EPA just recently learned this:

The Trump administration is requiring that political appointees review all Environmental Protection Agency studies and data prior to public release, according to a report from the Associated Press. The controversial new rules, which will also apply to information displayed on the EPA's website, have sparked outrage from scientists and journalists.

"We're taking a look at everything on a case-by-case basis, including the web page and whether climate stuff will be taken down," said Doug Ericksen, the communications director for the EPA transition team, in an interview with the AP. "Obviously with a new administration coming in, the transition time, we'll be taking a look at the web pages and the Facebook pages and everything else involved here at EPA."

And this is on top of the gag order already placed on the EPA.

Let's face it, how do we not expect an administration that disregards and even fears facts, to allow them to sway public opinion against their policy decisions?

Currently we are at war with people who are attacking our very sense of reality.

So we need scientists and educators now more than ever.

Climate change is causing polar bears to become long distance swimmers.

Courtesy of CBC News:

Scientists are concerned about the discovery that many polar bears in the Canadian Arctic are making marathon swims of several days in search of stable ice as the Beaufort Sea melts with climate change. 

Between 2007 and 2012, Canadian researchers tracked 58 adult female polar bears and 18 young bears of both genders in the Beaufort Sea and 59 adult females in the Hudson Bay region. (Adult males weren't tracked because they often remove their collars and their necks are typically too wide to keep their collars on.) 

They found the Hudson Bay bears rarely made long-distance swims. 

But in the Beaufort Sea, when there was less sea ice, most bears made at least one swim of 50 kilometres or more (a marathon is 42.2 kilometres) – 69 per cent did so in 2012, when sea ice coverage hit a record low. 

In fact, the researchers identified 115 long-distance swims in total during the study, 100 of them in the Beaufort Sea, with a median length of 92 kilometres or 3.4 days. On average, polar bears can swim at about two km/h. 

While swimming, the bears rarely rest, said Nicholas Pilfold, lead author of the study. 

"These bears are going for days without stopping."

You know it appears that somebody owes Charles Monnett an apology. 

Oh and fuck you Sarah Palin!

Did you feel a seismic shift in the internet the other day? Well this picture may have been the reason why.

Apparently you will either see a blue and black dress when you look at this picture, or a white and gold dress.

Arguments became so animated the it even threatened some marriages.

For the record I see a blue and black dress, which as it turns out is exactly what it is.

However scientists have weighed in as to why some people's eyes have played them for a fool.

Leading climate change denying scientist has been paid in excess of 1.2 million by fossil fuel companies over the last decade. Can you say "conflict of interest?"

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

For years, politicians wanting to block legislation on climate change have bolstered their arguments by pointing to the work of a handful of scientists who claim that greenhouse gases pose little risk to humanity. 

One of the names they invoke most often is Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who claims that variations in the sun’s energy can largely explain recent global warming. He has often appeared on conservative news programs, testified before Congress and in state capitals, and starred at conferences of people who deny the risks of global warming. 

But newly released documents show the extent to which Dr. Soon’s work has been tied to funding he received from corporate interests. 

He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. At least 11 papers he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least eight of those cases, he appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work. 

The documents show that Dr. Soon, in correspondence with his corporate funders, described many of his scientific papers as “deliverables” that he completed in exchange for their money. He used the same term to describe testimony he prepared for Congress. 

Though Dr. Soon did not respond to questions about the documents, he has long stated that his corporate funding has not influenced his scientific findings.

Well of course they didn't. Why would we think otherwise?

Apparently this guy's "work" has been cited by climate change denying politicians as well: 

Politicians who repeatedly cite Soon’s work include Republican Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahama, who in a Senate debate in January pointed to photos of scientists who doubt climate change. One of them was Soon. 

“These are scientists that cannot be challenged,” Inhofe said.

Yeah I'm going to disagree with that last statement. 

This is why it is always important to take notice of the consensus reached by the majority of scientists in any given field.

Because you can always find some unethical scientist to deny the facts of evolution, or suggest that vaccinations cause Autism, or claim that man is not responsible for climate change.

But when that person stands alone, or has only handful that agree with them, more often than not somebody is stuffing their pockets full of cash and pulling their strings to get them to say whatever the hell they want them to say.

In my opinion this guy is a traitor to his profession, and should excommunicated from the brotherhood of scientists.

Climate scientists release study saying that in order to save the planet fossil fuels need to stay right where they are. In other words, for God sakes stop drilling!

Courtesy of National Geographic:  

Canada's tar sands need to stay in the ground, the oil beneath the Arctic has to remain under the sea, and most of the world's coal must be left untouched in order to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2°C, a study released Wednesday says. 

The research, unlike other bleak assessments of the world's climate predicament, zeroes in on which regions should halt their production of coal, oil, and gas—and by how much. It comes ahead of climate talks in Paris later this year that aim to broker a new global accord to cut greenhouse gas emissions. 

.....

In addition to abandoning more than 80 percent of current global coal reserves, the researchers say, the world should forego extracting a third of its oil and half of its gas reserves before 2050.

And that my friends is why the "Drill Baby, Drill" philosophy should be shoved out onto the same iceberg of irrelevancy that Sarah Palin currently occupies.

By the way Climate Scientists are not the only scientists pushing the panic button: 

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced Jan. 22 that it is moving the hand of the “Doomsday Clock” two minutes closer to midnight. Through a combination of nuclear weapons and increasing global warming, the Bulletin’s executive director Kennette Benedict said that there were some “truly terrible prospects” for the fate of humanity on the horizon, and implored “the citizens of the world to think clearly” about its future.

The threat of nuclear war was also mentioned, though the panel suggested that the global inclination to replace carbon-based power plants with nuclear power was more of an issue. The panel was concerned with the Russian incursion into Crimea, but was less concerned that someone was “going to press the button” on a nuclear weapon, and more concerned that about having to maintain nuclear material at all, which increases “the prospect for nuclear accidents,” Benedict said. 

Great so now we are less in danger of being blown up by enemies then we are of killing ourselves due to ignorance.

How comforting.

Yes how dare he!

Yes how dare the President attempt to save the planet that we call home.

It's like he simply doesn't care that it might keep the corporate backers of the Republican party from continuing to enjoy obscene profits.

By the way the climate problem is even worse than we thought.

Just a question.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is at the end of his patience: "Don't tell me 'Oh let's fix the kids and everything will be fine.' Fix the adults then the kids will be fine."

This is from an interview with the National Geographic Daily News.

This may be the most frustrated that I have ever seen Professor Tyson,

And really who can blame him?

He is watching the thing he loves, science, under constant attack by politicians and religious leaders, while also seeing that one of the attacks comes in the form of the dumbing down of education in this country.

If I were him I would be yelling about this everyday.

Hell I'm not him, and I still do my fair share of yelling about it.

Scientists speak out in effort to keep Texas from becoming a national embarrassment due to Creationist science books. Yeah I think that ship has already sailed.

Courtesy of Alternet: 

Dozens of scientists spoke out against creationist biology textbooks at the Texas State Board of Education's public hearing in Austin, pleading for the state not to continue its anti-science stance. 

“I ask you not to let Texas once again become a national embarrassment,” said Ron Wetheringon, Anthropology professor at Southern Methodist University. 

Most of the debate centered on evolution coverage in high school biology books and whether students should be able to question Charles Darwin’s basic biology theories, Dallas News reported. Social and religious conservatives on the board have fought for years for textbooks which teach all sides of evolution, watering down evolutionary science to make room for creationism – many even questioning the validity of teaching climate change. 

Former board chair and Youth Earth Creationist Don McLeroy, said it was important to support biblical teachings in whatever decision they make. “What we see in the world around us supports what the Bible says but what we see in these books supports what the Bible says too,” he said. 

On the other hand, scientists who reviewed the textbooks couldn’t disagree more, arguing that education official should not be using books that question evolution. The hearing prompted public rallies which included 200 or so activists holding signs with messages including, “Public schools, not Sunday schools.”

While I totally support the attempt to rescue the state's reputation and keep it from being identified as a "national embarrassment," I kind of think Texas should have thought about that before electing this guy.

However since many of these Texas textbooks find their way into public schools all around the nation I certainly hope that SOMEBODY listens to these scientists and make the decision to keep religion out of the public schools and more science in them.

If that does not happen, and they are allowed to dumb down the younger generation, we can expect more idiots like Rick Perry to be elected to public office.