Golden Fleece

This post will also be found in Tehachapi's The Loop Newspaper. 

 

Back in the 70s and 80s Senator William Proxmire (Democrat from Wisconsin) gave out Golden Fleece awards to organizations that he felt were wasting taxpayer money. That is, they were fleecing the taxpayers. Often the awards would go to groups doing research he couldn't see the point in. And there are politicians and pundits (and their followers) today that still try to denigrate science research that sounds like a waste of time and money. Like calling volcano monitoring “wasteful spending”. At least Proxmire was capable of backing down. At least when confronted by a scientist with much more popularity than he had. (That was Carl Sagan.)

Getaway

Now I like spending time here in Tehachapi, but sometimes, when it's just too hot here, I'll make a break for cooler climes. And just recently I spent a day up in the Sequoia National Monument. This is a section of the Sequoia National Forest that has been set aside to protect several small groves of Sequoias. 

Panorama Experiment

On Saturday I was at the Trail of 100 Giants in the Sequoia Monument. And I decided to try an experiment with doing a vertical panorama to give a better image of one of these big red trees. The experiment shows some success, but clearly needs more work before a good picture is created. But here's what I was able to get this time.

A More Perfect Union

The Fourth of July is coming up soon. And despite the differences we have, on that day we come together and celebrate our independence. Over 230 years ago, several brave men, sent the King of England one of the best breakup letters ever written. 

Shrews

The shrew (true shrews that is) is a small, mouse-like animal. Though they are not rodents and are more closely related to moles. We do not have a huge number of shrew species here in California (only 13). And several of these are pretty limited in range. However around the world shrews are a common small mammal. Though not seen very often. Like their relatives the moles, they have small eyes and poor vision. They make up for this by having good hearing and sense of smell. 

Natural History

 This post will also be found in Tehachapi's The Loop Newspaper. 

There are many different ways that science can be done. But basically the idea is that you compare theories of how the world works to observations of the world itself. When the observations do not match the theory, and the observations are confirmed to be true, you have to change the theory.

Diary of a WIMPy Particle

This post will also be found in Tehachapi's The Loop Newspaper. 

The Universe is filled with stuff we cannot see. And humans have been coming to grips with these things and forces since, well, basically since we've been human. 

We see the effects of the wind, but we cannot see the wind itself. So we come up with hypotheses about how winds come about. By using our lungs and mouths we can generate small scale effects that are like wind. We do it when we blow up balloons, or blow out candles. So we can hypothesize that there exist large creatures that cause the winds. Some kind of wind spirit, perhaps.