Second inquiry clears Climategate scientists

Another inquiry has cleared British climate researchers of wrongdoing after their emails were hacked, leaked and held up by sceptics as evidence they had exaggerated the case for man-made global warming.

Former government adviser Ronald Oxburgh, who chaired the panel, said he had found no evidence of scientific malpractice or attempts to distort the facts to support the mainstream view that man-made CO2 emissions contribute to rising temperatures.

The affair stoked the global debate on climate change and put pressure on scientists and politicians to defend the case for spending trillions of dollars to cut emissions and help cope with rising temperatures.

Thousands of emails sent between scientists were published on the internet just before the United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen last December.

Campaigners who doubt the scientific basis for saying global warming is man made said the leaked messages showed the research unit at East Anglia University had taken part in a conspiracy to distort or exaggerate the evidence.

The university, in eastern England, appointed Lord Oxburgh to investigate the Climatic Research Unit’s methods.

“We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice,” Lord Oxburgh’s inquiry concluded. “Rather, we found a small group of dedicated, if slightly disorganised, researchers.

“We found them to be objective and dispassionate and there was no hint of tailoring results to a particular agenda.”

Its strongest criticism was aimed at the unit’s handling of statistics. It recommended the researchers work more closely with professional statisticians in future.

Lord Oxburgh’s was the second of three inquiries into the episode to report its findings. Police are also investigating the leak.

via Second inquiry clears Climategate scientists – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

Argentina criminals ‘evade capture by dressing up as sheep’

Maximiliano Pereyra and Ariel Diaz, who were jailed for robbery offences, dressed up as the animals after escaping from a maximum security jail in Argentina more than a week ago.

Pereyra, 25, and Diaz, 28, dressed in full sheepskin fleeces with realistic looking heads as they tried to evade capture, The Sun reported.

They had stolen the sheep hides from a local ranch, it was claimed.

They used their disguises to fool officials for more than a week despite more than 300 members of the local constabulary searching for them.

The local police have been left embarrassed by the episode after locals reported seeing the pair running through local fields at night.

“They were wearing grey clothes but had full sheepskins, including the sheeps’ heads, over their heads and backs,” said a farmworker at La Almeda.

Details of what the prisoners were behind bars remain unclear.

Police sources said it appeared that identifying the pair among thousands of other sheep was “almost impossible”.

“They can’t pull the wool over our eyes forever,” one officer deadpanned.

A spokesman for the jail was unavailable for comment.

A spokesman for the local police force was also not available for comment.

via Argentina criminals ‘evade capture by dressing up as sheep’ – Telegraph.

Suicide helpline priest nods off during call… so depressed man decides to live on so he can complain

A suicidal man connected to a Samaritans-style helpline in Sweden was left pondering his options when the priest at the other end fell asleep and started snoring down the line.

The tired-out cleric passed out five minutes into the depressed man’s phone call as he spoke about ending it all.

But the response of the clergyman to his woes made him angry rather than depressed and he decided to live on.

This week he told a local newspaper in Kalmar; ‘It’s not acceptable for a priest to fall asleep in the middle of a call; this should not happen when you call up in search of help.

‘I felt bad and wanted to kill myself, but I pulled myself together and made the call. I am very disappointed.’

The man was routed automatically to the pastor on a helpline after he dialled emergency services at 2.00am Friday morning saying he was feeling ‘psychologically unstable’.

Swedish news website The Local.Se reported; ‘After having talked to the pastor for a while, the troubled soul began to get the feeling that he was talking to himself.’

‘I thought maybe he was taking notes,’ the man said. ‘So I asked: “Are you taking notes?”

‘I could hear his heavy breathing before he woke up. He stayed awake for just a few more minutes before slipping off again into slumber.’

The desperate man then made one more try to speak with a counsellor but was placed on hold for ten minutes so rang off.

According to Monica Eckerdal Kjellstroem, responsible for Church of Sweden duty pastors, it is not the first time this has happened.

‘This sort of thing should really not occur, but it does sometimes happen that people call and report that the pastors have fallen asleep,’ she told The Local.se.

She promised to fire anyone in future who could not stay awake long enough to help callers.

via Suicide helpline priest nods off during call… so depressed man decides to live on so he can complain | Mail Online.

Millions dip in Ganges at world’s biggest festival

Ten million Hindu pilgrims led by hundreds of ash-covered, naked holy men streamed into the sacred waters of the river Ganges on Wednesday at the world’s biggest religious festival.

The date, chosen by astrologers, is the “main royal bathing day” of the Kumbh Mela, a 104-day event held in India every three years that is a riot of colour and noise as well as a gigantic spectacle of religious piety.

Devotees assembled along a 15-kilometre (nine-mile) stretch of the Ganges for a dip in the river that they believe cleanses them of sin and frees them from the cycle of life and rebirth.

The highest-ranking holy men, the naked “naga sadhus”, consider themselves spiritual guardians of the Hindu faith and fiercely defend their right to bathe at the most auspicious moment.

Arriving at the riverside in Haridwar city at a jog, they chanted joyfully and brandished golden tridents, swords and sticks before throwing marigold garlands in the river and then plunging in themselves.

Sadhus are ascetics or wandering monks who renounce normal life and often live alone in remote mountains and forests devoting themselves to meditation, but emerge to lead the Kumbh Mela bathing sessions.

“Everything is going very smoothly and there has been no problem with any unruly mobs,” Ashok Sharma, a press spokesman for the event, told AFP. “More than one crore (10 million) people are bathing today.”

But in one reported accident, two women pilgrims were killed after being run over by a speeding car carrying naga sadhus, the Press Trust of India news agency said, citing police.

Dozens of one-way footbridges criss-cross the Ganges around Haridwar and a massive police presence of 16,000 personnel was on hand to prevent crowd congestion that has triggered deadly stampedes in the past.

Hundreds were crushed to death underfoot in 1954 and dozens also died in 2003. …

via AFP: Millions dip in Ganges at world’s biggest festival.

Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again

As a retired clinical psychologist, Clark Martin was well acquainted with traditional treatments for depression, but his own case seemed untreatable as he struggled through chemotherapy and other grueling regimens for kidney cancer. Counseling seemed futile to him. So did the antidepressant pills he tried.

Nothing had any lasting effect until, at the age of 65, he had his first psychedelic experience. He left his home in Vancouver, Wash., to take part in an experiment at Johns Hopkins medical school involving psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient found in certain mushrooms.

Scientists are taking a new look at hallucinogens, which became taboo among regulators after enthusiasts like Timothy Leary promoted them in the 1960s with the slogan “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Now, using rigorous protocols and safeguards, scientists have won permission to study once again the drugs’ potential for treating mental problems and illuminating the nature of consciousness.

After taking the hallucinogen, Dr. Martin put on an eye mask and headphones, and lay on a couch listening to classical music as he contemplated the universe.

“All of a sudden, everything familiar started evaporating,” he recalled. “Imagine you fall off a boat out in the open ocean, and you turn around, and the boat is gone. And then the water’s gone. And then you’re gone.”

Today, more than a year later, Dr. Martin credits that six-hour experience with helping him overcome his depression and profoundly transforming his relationships with his daughter and friends. He ranks it among the most meaningful events of his life, which makes him a fairly typical member of a growing club of experimental subjects.

…Although federal regulators have resumed granting approval for controlled experiments with psychedelics, there has been little public money granted for the research, which is being conducted at Hopkins, the University of Arizona; Harvard; New York University; the University of California, Los Angeles; and other places. …

Researchers are reporting preliminary success in using psilocybin to ease the anxiety of patients with terminal illnesses. Dr. Charles S. Grob, a psychiatrist who is involved in an experiment at U.C.L.A., describes it as “existential medicine” that helps dying people overcome fear, panic and depression.

“Under the influences of hallucinogens,” Dr. Grob writes, “individuals transcend their primary identification with their bodies and experience ego-free states before the time of their actual physical demise, and return with a new perspective and profound acceptance of the life constant: change.”

via Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again – NYTimes.com.

Every Black Hole Contains Another Universe?

Like part of a cosmic Russian doll, our universe may be nested inside a black hole that is itself part of a larger universe.

In turn, all the black holes found so far in our universe—from the microscopic to the supermassive—may be doorways into alternate realities.

According to a mind-bending new theory, a black hole is actually a tunnel between universes—a type of wormhole. The matter the black hole attracts doesn’t collapse into a single point, as has been predicted, but rather gushes out a “white hole” at the other end of the black one, the theory goes.

In a recent paper published in the journal Physics Letters B, Indiana University physicist Nikodem Poplawski presents new mathematical models of the spiraling motion of matter falling into a black hole. His equations suggest such wormholes are viable alternatives to the “space-time singularities” that Albert Einstein predicted to be at the centers of black holes.

According to Einstein’s equations for general relativity, singularities are created whenever matter in a given region gets too dense, as would happen at the ultradense heart of a black hole.

Einstein’s theory suggests singularities take up no space, are infinitely dense, and are infinitely hot—a concept supported by numerous lines of indirect evidence but still so outlandish that many scientists find it hard to accept.

If Poplawski is correct, they may no longer have to.

According to the new equations, the matter black holes absorb and seemingly destroy is actually expelled and becomes the building blocks for galaxies, stars, and planets in another reality.

Wormholes Solve Big Bang Mystery?

The notion of black holes as wormholes could explain certain mysteries in modern cosmology, Poplawski said.

For example, the big bang theory says the universe started as a singularity. But scientists have no satisfying explanation for how such a singularity might have formed in the first place.

If our universe was birthed by a white hole instead of a singularity, Poplawski said, “it would solve this problem of black hole singularities and also the big bang singularity.”

Wormholes might also explain gamma ray bursts, the second most powerful explosions in the universe after the big bang.

Gamma ray bursts occur at the fringes of the known universe. They appear to be associated with supernovae, or star explosions, in faraway galaxies, but their exact sources are a mystery.

Poplawski proposes that the bursts may be discharges of matter from alternate universes. The matter, he says, might be escaping into our universe through supermassive black holes—wormholes—at the hearts of those galaxies, though it’s not clear how that would be possible.

“It’s kind of a crazy idea, but who knows?” …

via Every Black Hole Contains Another Universe?.

‘Climategate’ panel set to report

The second of three reviews into hacked climate e-mails from the University of East Anglia (UEA) is set to be released later.

It has examined scientific papers published over 20 years by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the heart of the e-mail controversy.

The panel was nominated by the Royal Society, and climate sceptics forecast it would defend establishment science.

But the BBC understands the panel has taken a hard look at CRU methodology.

It is thought to have focued on statistical methods used by the CRU and the way uncertainties inherent in climate science may have been down-played by government bodies.

Global picture

The review has been funded by UEA and chaired by Lord Oxburgh, a former academic and industry scientist.

The chair has been challenged over his other interests. Lord Oxburgh is currently president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and chairman of wind energy firm Falck Renewables.

Critics say clean energy companies would benefit from policies to tackle climate change. But Lord Oxburgh insists the panel did not have a pre-conceived view.

The panel includes Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society, who has been examining the way CRU used statistical methodology to develop an average annual global temperature.

It is easy to get a measurement precise in space and time from an individual weather station – albeit with uncertainties attached.

But some countries have many weather stations while others have very few, and there are large areas of the Earth with no surface measurements at all.

So to build up a global picture by assigning a proper statistical weighting to the importance of the various measurements is a notoriously challenging task. …

via BBC News – ‘Climategate’ panel set to report.

Iran complains to U.N. over U.S. nuclear threat

Iran complained to the United Nations on Tuesday over what it called a U.S. threat to attack it with atomic weapons, accusing Washington of nuclear blackmail in violation of the U.N. charter.

President Barack Obama made clear last week that Iran and North Korea, both involved in nuclear disputes with the West, were excluded from new limits on the use of U.S. atomic weapons.

A letter from Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council and General Assembly presidents called on the United Nations to “strongly oppose the threat of use of nuclear weapons and to reject it.”

Statements by Obama and other U.S. officials were “tantamount to nuclear blackmail against a non-nuclear-weapon state” and breached U.S. obligations under the U.N. charter to refrain from the threat or use of force, Khazaee said.

“Such remarks by the U.S. officials display once again the reliance of the U.S. government on (a) militarized approach to various issues, to which the threats of use of nuclear weapons are not a solution at all,” he added.

They also posed “a real threat to international peace and security and undermine the credibility” of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the envoy said.

Obama is urging other global powers to agree to a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt nuclear work that the West suspects is aimed at making bombs, a charge Iran denies.

He pressed the case for sanctions at a 47-nation nuclear summit in Washington on Tuesday, at which he won pledges from world leaders to take joint action to prevent terrorist groups from getting nuclear weapons.

But Khazaee said that Iran, as a victim of weapons of mass destruction — a reference to Iraq’s use of poison gas against it in a 1980-88 war — was firmly committed to a world free from such weapons.

The United States, the only country to have used nuclear weapons — against Japan in World War Two — “continues to illegitimately designate a non-nuclear weapon state as target of its nuclear weapons and contemplates military plans accordingly,” he said.

U.N. members “should not condone or tolerate such nuclear blackmail in (the) 21st century,” the Iranian envoy said.

via Yahoo

Related:

The leaders of almost 50 countries have pledged to safeguard nuclear stocks and keep material out of terrorists’ hands. Will this contribute to a safer world?

Earlier, Russia and the US signed an agreement to dispose of 68 tonnes of surplus weapons-grade plutonium. The combined stockpiles – 34 tonnes from each country – are said to be enough to make 17,000 nuclear warheads.

The summit took place without representatives of Iran and North Korea, who were not invited by the US due to disputes over their nuclear programmes. – bbcblog

The USA is the only country ever to have nuked another country, but Japan was a long time ago… Few people think of  DU weapons in use in Iraq as nuclear weapons.  They should, but they don’t.

Diet alone will not likely lead to significant weight loss

Newly-published research by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University demonstrates that simply reducing caloric intake is not enough to promote significant weight loss. This appears to be due to a natural compensatory mechanism that reduces a person’s physical activity in response to a reduction in calories. The research is published in the April edition of the American Journal of Physiology – Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

“In the midst of America’s obesity epidemic, physicians frequently advise their patients to reduce the number of calories they are consuming on a daily basis. This research shows that simply dieting will not likely cause substantial weight loss. Instead, diet and exercise must be combined to achieve this goal,” explained Judy Cameron Ph.D., a senior scientist at OHSU’s Oregon National Primate Research Center, and a professor of behavioral neuroscience and obstetrics & gynecology in the OHSU School of Medicine, as well as a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh.

To conduct the research, Cameron and OHSU post-doctoral fellow Elinor Sullivan, Ph.D., studied 18 female rhesus macaque monkeys at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. The monkeys were placed on a high-fat diet for several years. They were then returned to a lower-fat diet (standard monkey food) with a 30 percent reduction in calories. For a one-month period, the monkeys’ weight and activity levels were closely tracked. Activity was tracked through the use of an activity monitor worn on a collar.

“Surprisingly, there was no significant weight loss at the end of the month,” explained Sullivan. “However, there was a significant change in the activity levels for these monkeys. Naturally occurring levels of physical activity for the animals began to diminish soon after the reduced-calorie diet began. When caloric intake was further reduced in a second month, physical activity in the monkeys diminished even further.”

A comparison group of three monkeys was fed a normal monkey diet and was trained to exercise for one hour daily on a treadmill. This comparison group did lose weight.

“This study demonstrates that there is a natural body mechanism which conserves energy in response to a reduction in calories. Food is not always plentiful for humans and animals and the body seems to have developed a strategy for responding to these fluctuations,” added Cameron. “These findings will assist medical professionals in advising their patients. It may also impact the development of community interventions to battle the childhood obesity epidemic and lead to programs that emphasize both diet and exercise.”

via Diet alone will not likely lead to significant weight loss.

World’s deepest known undersea volcanic vent found

This undated photo released by the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, England, Monday April 12, 2010, shows a cloud of smoky water billowing from the top of a tower of metal ore at a volcanic vent five kilometers (more than three miles) beneath the surface of the Caribbean. The vent, located in the Cayman Trough, is the deepest ever discovered, a British scientific expedition says. Experts hope that studies of the vent and the exotic creatures which bask in its warmth will yield insight into how life formed on earth, and perhaps elsewhere too

Scientists using a remote-controlled submarine have discovered the deepest known volcanic vent and say the superheated waters inside could contain undiscovered marine species and perhaps even clues to the origin of life on earth.

Experts aboard the RRS James Cook said they found the underwater volcanic vent more than three miles (five kilometers) beneath the surface of the Caribbean in an area known as the Cayman Trough, a deep-sea canyon that served as the setting for James Cameron’s underwater thriller “The Abyss.”

Geologist Bramley Murton, the submersible’s pilot, said exploring the area was “like wandering across the surface of another world,” complete with spires of multicolored mineral deposits and thick collections of fluorescent blue microorganisms thriving in the slightly cooler waters around the chimneys.

The scenes “were like nothing I had ever seen before,” Murton said.

via World’s deepest known undersea volcanic vent found – Yahoo! News.