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By George B. Kauffman
George Kauffman
We humans love to make lists: the best or worst—of the year, decade or century.
In the Dec. 21, 2012, issue of Science magazine, flagship journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), editor Bruce Alberts (www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6114/1511.full) listed and summarized the top 10 scientific accomplishments of the year, which are discussed in detail on pages 1524–1532 of that issue. I’ll highlight these breakthroughs for Community Alliance readers.
Breakthrough No. 1: The Higgs Boson
Since the 1960s, international teams of scientists have been smashing atomic …[Read the details]
By George B. Kauffman
Superstorm Sandy
The scientific debate is over! Of 13,950 peer-reviewed climate change articles, only 24 deny it’s happening. That’s 0.17% for those of you keeping score. Check out “The Most Devastatingly Convincing Pie Chart You’ve Ever Seen” (www.upworthy.com/the-most-devastatingly-convincing-pie-chart-youve-ever-seen). This eye-popping chart is based on a guest post of Nov. 15 by James Lawrence Powell, “Why Climate Deniers Have No Scientific Credibility—In One Pie Chart” (www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart”).
According to Powell, author of The Inquisition of Climate Science, “Modern science is under the greatest and most successful attack in recent …[Read the details]
By Alexey V. Byalko and George B. Kauffman
(Click here to read Part 1, published in the September 2012 Community Alliance.)
The Future Climate
The greenhouse effect was first proposed in the 19th century by prominent physicists, on the basis of considerable scientific evidence. In this process, thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases and is re-radiated in all directions. Because part of this re-radiation is back toward the surface and lower atmosphere of the planet, it results in an elevation of the …[Read the details]
By Alexey V. Byalko and George B. Kauffman
George B. Kauffman, Ph.D.
Alexey V. Byalko, Ph.D.
The humorous statement, “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future,” including its numerous variants, has been ascribed not only to Yogi Berra but also to persons as disparate as Casey Stengel, Niels Bohr, Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw, Sam Goldwyn, Will Rogers, Winston Churchill, Benjamin Disraeli, Dan Quayle, Albert Einstein, Victor Borge, Groucho Marx, Enrico Fermi, Woody Allen, Freeman Dyson, Confucius and Cecil B. De Mille (http://larry.denenberg.com/predictions.html).
However, …[Read the details]
George Kauffman
By George B. Kauffman
Frank Sherwood Rowland, the David Bren Research Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Irvine, died at the age of 84 from complications of Parkinson’s disease on March 10 at his home in Corona Del Mar. His death provides Community Alliance readers with an opportunity to revisit his contributions to environmental science that we now take for granted but which were groundbreaking and controversial not too long ago.
Together with Dutch scientist Paul J. Crutzen (b. 1933), “Sherry” Rowland (b. 1927) and his research associate Mario Molina (b. …[Read the details]
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