This trend reaches back further than a couple of years. There have been exactly zero months, since February 1985, with average temperatures below those for the entire 20th century. (And those numbers are not as dramatic as they could be, because the last 15 years of the 20th century included in this period raised its average temperature, thereby lessening the century-long heat differential.) That streak—304 months and counting—was certainly not broken in June 2010, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Last month saw average global surface temperatures 0.68 degree Celsius warmer than the 20th-century average of 15.5 degrees C for June—making it the warmest June at ground level since record-keeping began in 1880.

via Scientific American – The New Normal? Average Global Temperatures Continue to Rise. But of course climate change is a made up fiction of scientists bent on ridding the world of oil, or something?

Beyond such mundane geopolitical rivalries, the US has a more profound reason to conserve its helium: Every balloon inevitably deflates. Optimistically assuming that demand for the substance continues to grow only a few percent each year, and that the entirety of the globe’s remaining natural gas reserves will be processed for their helium, the NRC report estimates there will only be enough to last another 40 years. It stands to reason that as supplies diminish, helium will be used more efficiently and investments in recycling technologies will grow. But the fact that the Earth’s four-billion year bounty has been so reduced in scarcely a century suggests that helium is sadly not long for this world.

via Going, Going, Gone § SeedMagazine.com. Scary idea, and makes conservatism as an economic and governmental policy even more important.

The food portions depicted in paintings of the Last Supper have grown larger – in line with our own super-sizing of meals, say obesity experts.

The Cornell University team studied 52 of the most famous paintings of the Biblical scene over the millennium and scrutinised the size of the feast.

They found the main courses, bread and plates put before Jesus and his disciples have progressively grown by up to two-thirds.

via BBC News – Last supper ‘has been super-sized’, say obesity experts. Not really surprising but interesting.

I'll admit that the rest of the paper has some harder concepts (standard deviation, anyone?). But I'll wager that the real reason that people don't understand science is not because it's too hard to understand, but because they aren't motivated.

via John Graham-Cumming: Did Monbiot try to understand climate science? Science can be hard but sometimes it can be really easy to at least follow along.

The agency also found that 2009 was the second warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began. The warmest year was 2005. The other hottest recorded years have all occurred since 1998, NASA said.

via Past Decade Warmest on Record, NASA Data Shows – NYTimes.com. Just saying.

What I started to notice was that the anti-VAX “movement” didn’t have any real evidence backing its reasoning. There were many sad stories (and many of them were truly heartbreaking) correlating autism and other diseases with vaccines. There were a lot of anecdotes. Yet no evidence. And I was looking for evidence. Facts.

via Skeparent – Posts – Why we changed our minds and started to vaccinate.. Something to consider with regards to the earlier post on vaccines.

The doctor who first suggested a link between MMR vaccinations and autism acted unethically, the official medical regulator has found.

via BBC News – MMR scare doctor ‘acted unethically’, panel finds.

The book essentially tells us to forget the notion that “genius”, “talent” or any other innate qualities create the greats we call geniuses. Instead, as the American inventor Thomas Edison said, genius is 99 per cent perspiration – or, to be truer to the data, perhaps 1 per cent inspiration, 29 per cent good instruction and encouragement, and 70 per cent perspiration. Examine closely even the most extreme examples – Mozart, Newton, Einstein, Stravinsky – and you find more hard-won mastery than gift. Geniuses are made, not born.

via How to be a genius – life – 15 September 2006 – New Scientist.

Dolphins have long been recognised as among the most intelligent of animals but many researchers had placed them below chimps, which some studies have found can reach the intelligence levels of three-year-old children. Recently, however, a series of behavioural studies has suggested that dolphins, especially species such as the bottlenose, could be the brighter of the two. The studies show how dolphins have distinct personalities, a strong sense of self and can think about the future.

via Scientists say dolphins should be treated as ‘non-human persons’ – Times Online.

So, to summarize, whether one becomes popular in middle school is largely out of one's conscious control because it is mostly based on one's physical appearance during the early middle school months. If you just don't have the right look, there is very little you can do to overcome it, except if you have amazing communications skills. If you are able to be so charismatic and engaging that people think you are cool even though you look like a 12-year-old Danny DeVito, then you can join student council and crack everyone up with your humor and get people to like you and accept you into the social elite. Often times, though, you'll notice that the people with great inter-personal skills are usually better-looking, because the two complement and reinforce one another in a positive cycle: Good-looking kids get more attention and have more opportunities and incentives to develop their inter-personal skills because they receive even more rewards in terms of positive attention, and repeat …

via Philip Guo – On Popularity.