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What's New | 6 Jan 2006 21:12

What's New Friday January 6, 2006

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 6 Jan 06   Washington, DC

1. POLITICAL RETRIBUTION: DEEP SPACE CLIMATE OBSERVATORY KILLED.
Triana was never able to overcome its roots.  NASA has quietly
terminated what may have been its most important science mission. 
Critics of programs to limit emissions argue that climate change
is caused by solar variation, not by atmospheric changes.  There
is one unambiguous way to tell: locate an observatory at L-1, the
neutral-gravity point between Earth and Sun.  It would have a
continuous view of the sunlit face of Earth in one direction, and
the Sun in the other, thus constantly monitoring Earth's albedo. 
Al Gore initiated the observatory project in 1998 to inspire
school children with a continuous view of climate unfolding on
our fragile planet.  It was even given a poetic name, Triana, the
sailor on the Santa Maria who was first to sight the New World
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN98/wn072498.html .  But Triana's
importance to climate research, perhaps Earths biggest challenge,
was not recognized until later.  With urging from the National
Academy, it was finished in 2001 and given a new name.  It was
still waiting to be launched when Columbia crashed.  By then we
had a new President and a new "vision."  It was put on hold.  The
official reason for killing it is "competing priorities."  The
priority is to replace Gore's vision of the world with the Bush
vision of sending people back to the moon.  We should all weep.

2. DIVINE RETRIBUTION: WHICH GOD IS BEHIND SHARON'S STROKE? 
Television evangelist Pat Robertson had previously called for
hurricanes to be unleashed on sinful Florida, and told residents
of Dover, after they voted out the school board, not to bother
turning to God if disaster strikes, because "you just ejected him
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What's New | 13 Jan 2006 22:45

What's New Friday January 13, 2006

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 13 Jan 06   Washington, DC

1. OIL: ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, ALASKAN WILDLIFE PAYS THE PRICE. 
Congress said no to ANWAR, not much is flowing out of Iraq, and
we're not doing business with Iran.  The solution is to open up
389,000 acres in Alaska that had been off-limits to energy
development.  This time it's migratory birds that will suffer. 
But energy problems are great for zero-point energy scams.

2. BLACKLIGHT POWER: SOME IDEAS ARE SIMPLY TOO DUMB TO DIE! 
Since 1991, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN91/wn042691.html ,
WN has followed the strange case of the "hydrino," tiny hydrogen
atoms in a "state below the ground state," according to Randell
Mills, M.D., author of The Grand Unified Theory of Classical
Quantum Mechanics.  We haven't heard much about Mills and his
company, BlackLight Power, since they lost a patent appeal three 
years ago http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN02/wn090602.html . But
with the start of the new year, Dow Jones Newswires ran a story
about deep-pocket financial gurus that are backing BlackLight.  A
retired head of energy banking at Morgan Stanley commented that
physicists are "hostile" to Mills ideas.  Bob Park, was the only
physicist quoted.  Sure enough, he was hostile.  "Park represents
an entrenched physics establishment that fears losing billions in
funding and having its work discredited,"  Mills explained.

3. CREATIONISM: KITZMILLER V. DOVER SCHOOL BOARD DIDN'T END IT. 
Who thought it would?  In Dover, the issue was that intelligent
design was misrepresented as science.  So why not misrepresent it
as something else?  In Lebec, CA, a course on the Origins of Life
is listed as Philosophy, but it's still intelligent design.  The
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What's New | 20 Jan 2006 22:30

What's New Friday January 20, 2006

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 20 Jan 06   Washington, DC

1. SHAMIFLU: CAN THE ANTIVIRAL DRUG HALT AN EPIDEMIC OF BIRD FLU? 
We said earlier that there is little evidence that Tamiflu can
stop a pandemic http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn112505.html
A study published yesterday in the medical journal Lancet comes
to the same conclusion.  However, according to the Wall Street
Journal, demand continues to soar as nations stockpile the drug. 
The Defense Department has also stockpiled Tamiflu.  Among those
profiting is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former
Chairman of Gilead Sciences, which owns the rights to Tamiflu.

2. INFORMERS NEEDED: FINANCIAL HELP FOR STUDENTS WITH AN ATTITUDE
A UCLA alumni group headed by a former campus Republican leader
is offering students up to $100 per class to keep tabs on radical
professors.  It's not clear how the information is to be used.

3. RHIC: BROOKHAVEN COLLIDER WILL OPERATE ON PRIVATE DONATION. 
When the new budget failed to meet soaring energy costs, the lab
planned to turn off the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider for 2006. 
That's when James Simons, who is a board member of the
organization that operates Brookhaven, spearheaded an effort that
raised $13M privately to keep RHIC operating.  Simons happens to
also be the billionaire founder of Renaissance Technologies, a
private investment firm.  It's nice that there are rich people
willing to spend their money that way, but basic physics research
shouldn't have to rely on charity. 

4. THE DOVER EFFECT: 2006 IS STARTING OUT THE WAY 2005 ENDED. 
The Christmas Miracle in 2005 was Kitzmiller v. Dover School
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What's New | 27 Jan 2006 21:36

What's New Friday January 27, 2006

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 27 Jan 06   Washington, DC

1. ALTERNATE WORLD: A LEAP INTO HYPERDRIVE?  OR MAYBE JUST HYPE? 
New Horizons, which is on its way to Pluto, is the fastest
spacecraft ever built.  Even so, the trip will take nine years. 
At the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics meeting
last year, an award was given for a paper about a new propulsion
system that could do it in a day.  So why are we doing it the
old-fashioned way?  Because it works.  There are two worlds. 
There is the world that sends robots to explore Mars, finds a
vaccine for cervical cancer, unravels the structure of DNA,
invents Global Positioning, etc.  And then there is an alternate
world that discovers cold fusion, homeopathy, the Podkletnov
gravity shield, hydrinos, and the Heim space drive.  Inhabitants
of both worlds speak similar languages, look alike, even have
identical DNA.  It's not just that things don't work in the
alternate world, that can happen even in the real world.  But in
the alternate world it doesn't seem to make any difference.

2. EARTH IS GETTING WARMER: LAST YEAR WAS WARMEST IN A CENTURY. 
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies reports the highest
annual average surface temperature since instrument recordings
began.  1998 was about as warm, but for the two warmest years to
be that close together is even more troubling.  Warming is no
longer the question.  What is causing the increase?  Is it simply
natural solar variation, as the polluters prefer to believe, or a
build up of greenhouse gases?  The administration would rather
not know http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN06/wn010606.html .  The
Deep Space Climate observatory, already built and waiting five
years for launch, would provide an unambiguous answer.  This
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