The science dork DarkSyde over at Daily Kos writes,

In this week’s Research 2000 poll we asked several questions about science and science policy that I’ll have more on later. But here’s one I thought you might find interesting:

QUESTION: Most astronomers believe the universe formed about 13.7 billion years ago in a massive event called the Big Bang. Do you think that’s about right or do think the universe was created much more recently?

Suffice it to say, besides the Gonzo Science option being so in the extreme scientific minority that it is not represented in this poll, it’s nice to see Dems and Independents remain scientifically minded. Whereas the GOP largely believes science is not a valid method of knowing the universe.  The Gonzo Science answer to this poll - the one that outrages both mainstream science enthusiasts and religious whackjobs - is that the Big Bang never happened because the universe has always existed. So: not enough options in your little poll.

A Gonzo Science maxim: if you don’t like science, the solution is better science, not defaulting to religion. I had a religious whackjob argue to me once that since the Big Bang theory was full of anomalies it proved the Bible. Probably a lockstep GOP base voter. But the answer to a theory full of anomalies is a better theory, not a worse one.    At any rate, down with the Big Bang, which mirrors the Biblical creation in large measure because the father of the Big Bang was a Catholic priest who “concluded that an initial ‘creation-like’ event must have occurred.” Yeah right.

Sam Seder on why fears of America turning into Greece are bullshit.

Fucking deficit hawks. I agree 110% with Seder about the GOP playbook: run up huge debt during GOP administrations, wait, then during Dem administrations start screaming “WE’VE GOT TO CUT THIS DEBT!” Where I come from that’s called transparent bullshit. Not sure why the press doesn’t get it, but on the other hand, you just have to look at Chuck Todd to see Walter Cronkite throw up a little bit in his mouth.

Michelangelo, guerilla anatomist:

It is reported that Michelangelo concealed an image of the brain in the first of these last 4 panels, namely, the Creation of Adam. Here we present evidence that he concealed another neuronanatomic structure in the final panel of this series, the Separation of Light From Darkness, specifically a ventral view of the brainstem.

Some calmer perspective here:

It’s tough being an Obama supporter in the oilfield, especially in Houston.

First, BP is not tackling this mess alone. The entire drilling industry is involved, including Exxon (who has a great record when it comes to offshore drilling, not oil shipping). It’s not like only BP engineers are calling the shots, all sorts of experts are involved.

…. All these efforts are reported heavily in the Houston Chronicle and nola.com, but doesn’t seem to get much for national coverage. If you only monitor the national coverage, you’d think BP is going it alone while we all sit by, but the reality is this is an industry-wide effort because we all know what’s at stake.

On having Obama “do more,” WTF is he supposed to do? Everybody seems to be calling for more fire in his belly and scary, threatening speeches. What does that accomplish? It’s like people want him to do a dramatic speech like post-9/11 about bringing the criminals to justice. It does nothing to actually plug the damn well. The government does not have the expertise to do more to stop this gusher. It’s in BPs interest to stop the gusher. All the conspiracy theories about wanting to preserve the well for future production are technically wrong and ignore that NOBODY in the industry benefits from this gusher continuing. BP wants what everybody else wants, though I’ll concede that I suspect dispersants are about killing life where it’s less easily photographed. Dispersants aside, the only conflict of interest is regarding the causes of the blowout, not the capping of the well. Fed investigations are already taking care of that part.

On the pace, I’m pissed because I thought top kill should have been the first thing they tried after the ROVs failed to close the BOP. The reason for delay was partly because it looked like a war zone down there initially due to all the debris from a mile long riser coming down with the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon. So there was cleanup to make everything accessible. Also, one issue with the top kill is that it does have some risk of making the leak worse by eroding whatever blockages exist to limit the blowout rate. It could also overpressure the wellhead to open up new leaks upstream of the current ones. My guess is they wanted a better understanding on the chance of success before taking those risks.

All this talk of “push BP out of the way” is uninformed.

Money quote of this article:

Obama’s document enshrines principles and policies that he has advocated since his election campaign.

Cue outrage.

The brave psychonaught reportedly drank 5 table spoons of root made into a light tea by itself, no betacarbolines added. He was then thrust into a very difficult and high dosage DMT journey. The roots of the plant are active and very powerful. Remarkably Acacia Confusa has one of the highest yeilds of DMT discovered in nature. That it is active with out the addition of a harmala alkaloid is amazing, and reminiscent of reports of cold water extracted Jurema or mimosa hostilus root bark, which has been a real hit or miss in bioassays.

There are also reports that Confusa may have a traditional history of use as an entheogen by the original peoples of Taiwan. Today it is currently used in Chinese medicine with whispers that the old herbalists know that it can take one to another world.

DMT is everywhere.

This guy:

Whether (strong growth in the organic sector is) a good or a bad thing depends on whether you think the environmental benefits of organic farming outweigh the long-term downsides of defining good farming not with science, but with what feels natural.

Hey asshole - there is a science of organic farming, and a science of anti-gmo sentiment. You might want to get your head out of your ass before making love to your own strawman. Here’s where to start:

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/index.php

http://organic-center.org/science.environment.php

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/GeneticRoulette/HealthRisksofGMFoodsSummaryDebate/index.cfm

http://natureinstitute.org/nontarget/report_class.php

http://organic-center.org/science.nutri.php

http://www.gmcontaminationregister.org/

http://www.responsibletechnology.org/GMFree/Home/index.cfm

http://www.zenithcitynews.com/092909/gonzo.htm

http://gonzoscience.com/?s=soil+biologist

http://www.gonzoscience.com/?p=848

You want to side with the soil chemists over the soil biologists that’s fine with me, but don’t go saying this is all about feeling natural. This is a science vs. science story, and as usual, idiots like you are labeling the opposing side unscientific while supporting your own POV with logical fallacies. Real scientific of you. I guess being an asshat just feels natural to you.

The cell was created by stitching together the genome of a goat pathogen called Mycoplasma mycoides from smaller stretches of DNA synthesised in the lab, and inserting the genome into the empty cytoplasm of a related bacterium. The transplanted genome booted up in its host cell, and then divided over and over to make billions of M. mycoides cells.

Venter and his team have previously accomplished both feats – creating a synthetic genome and transplanting a genome from one bacterium into another – but this time they have combined the two.

Exciting as long as it’s contained. ETC Group gives the counterpoint.

From Kos:

Interesting, this points out what many believe, that having just been in office for less than a year and a half, the Obama administration should have corrected decades of ill-preparedness and, within a month, instituted technologies and whip the Navy and Coast Guard into shape so they would be better equipped to deal with this matter.

Matthews speculated that perhaps we could send divers 5,000 feet below the surface of the water, with torches, to shut off the leak. He has been criticizing the administration for days, yet he knows so little regarding the mechanics, the existing technology, and the hardship involved in undertaking such an enterprise.  

MATTHEWS: Well, that‘s what I‘m asking about. Is the problem getting a submarine to get—can we use our fleet of submarines to go down there and get men, frogmen, down there with torches and begin to close up that—that hole in that pipe? What is the problem, getting there?  Is it the transportation to the bottom of the sea, a mile down, or is it the technology of closing that hole?

EARLE: We don‘t have submersibles that can go to 5,000 feet, except for the Alvin, a few systems that exist in the whole world.  There are only four submersibles that can go to half the ocean‘s depth.  And this country doesn‘t have any of those.  It‘s Japan, China, France.  We‘re not—and Russia—we‘re not in the game to go really deep with manned systems.

MATTHEWS: How did we drill—how did we drill this pipeline?  How did we create this oil well down there, if we couldn‘t get down there?

EARLE: We have got the technology to actually accomplish that kind of work in the deep sea, even essentially nearly twice as deep, and the robots that are developed to be able to go down for maintenance, inspection and repair. But that‘s under normal circumstances.

To deal with something of this sort is a major challenge that I think nobody anticipated that we would ever have to do this.  There are some unique problems with dealing in deep water and dealing with the oil that comes out of such an area, as compared to what is released at the surface. For one thing, of course, it‘s cold.  And then there‘s the pressure.  These are factors that we‘re just not prepared to have to—to deal with.  And we have to get up to speed fast.  The technologies arguably do exist.  I mean, the capability is there.

MATTHEWS:  Yes.

EARLE:  But we haven‘t made the investment to have a garage filled with submarines, a garage filled with remotely-operated systems, and the talent to be able to go down independently of industry and respond.

MATTHEWS:  Well that was an exquisite description of a horror. Thank you so much, Sylvia Earle of the National Geographic, terrible horror, nonetheless.

This is not Hurricane Katrina. I know there are many salivating at the prospect of comparing Barack Obama to George W. Bush in terms of his response to this man-made crisis, but this case does not provide a realistic comparison.

The issue of stopping the flow of oil into the gulf, following the destruction of the Deep Water Horizon oil rig, is an issue of operational and technological inadequacy, of decades of neglect, and industry shortsightedness, this new administration is working diligently with the tools in its possession, unfortunately the tools are not good enough. I know some might expect Barack Obama to go down to the bottom of the ocean and wrestle this beast into submission, but realistically speaking, it is not feasible.

National Geographic video here.

via Atrios:

BP has told the Environmental Protection Agency that it cannot find a safe, effective and available dispersant to use instead of Corexit, and will continue to use that chemical application to help break up the growing spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Another way to follow the world of Gonzo Science.

Is there a new type of supernova or not? In this corner:

Dr Hagai Perets, who led the study, began his examination of the strange supernova whilst working at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

He is now based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts, US, and said: “It was clear that we were seeing a new type of supernova.”

And in this corner:

But another research team, led by Professor Koji Kawabata from Hiroshima University in Japan examined a supernova called SN 2005cz, which had very similar properties.

Professor Kawabata and his team argued that this event was in fact a collapsing giant.

“These properties are best explained by a core-collapse supernova at the low-mass end of the range of massive stars that explode,” he and his colleagues wrote in their paper.

They say that this star represents a boundary between stars that end their lives with a gigantic supernova explosion and those that do not explode.

“Our study has rescued the standard theory of stellar evolution,” said Professor Kawabata.

A statement of dubious value.

Twitter is now another easy way to follow Gonzo Science.

At last, an algorithm that recognizes sarcasm (pdf file), making certain emoticons obsolete.

I like the take on this over at Bayblab: “Next Up: An Irony Meter.”

Now available here as a Google Doc.

And when you’re done reading it you can have a nice hot cup of this:

A close shave on the Deepwater Horizon.

Mysterious floating blobs of light known as ball lightning might simply be hallucinations caused by overstimulated brains, a new study suggests.

For hundreds of years eyewitnesses have reported brief encounters with the golf ball- to tennis ball-size orbs of electricity. But scientists have been unable to agree on how and why ball lightning forms, since the phenomenon is rare and very short-lived. (See “Ball Lightning: A Shocking Scientific Mystery.”)

Ball lightning is often reported during thunderstorms, and it’s known that multiple consecutive lightning strikes can create strong magnetic fields. So Joseph Peer and Alexander Kendl at the University of Innsbruck in Austria wondered whether ball lightning is really a hallucination induced by magnetic stimulation of the brain’s visual cortex or the eye’s retina.

Hallucinations caused by lightning-induced magnetic fields? This whole phenomenon just got weirder.

Amateur video of Gulf oil slick

This is awesome:

As BP’s high-priced industry experts flail, the president has turned to a rag-tag band of big-think scientific renegades, and sent them on a mission to somehow MacGyver a way to stop up the leak — before it’s too late.

…except I don’t see Bruce Willis on the team.

Kind of a niche market for these, but if you dig on heretical astronomer Tom Van Flandern, then you’re going to want to look into these fine items from the Gonzo Science Gift Emporium.

Basically, to suggest that Tom Van Flandern is right is to question the Big Bang, and/or to question the nature of gravity, and/or to support an “exploded planet” origin of the asteroid belt and comets. So, just send a case of these to your local observatory, and then sit back and watch the paradigms collapse. Mwah ha ha ha ha!

In case you were uncertain about the length and breadth of the Gonzo Science Web Empire, you may use this handy portal to access every corner of our vast holdings. The power is driving us mad!!!

Seymour Hersh alleges U.S. troops are conducting battlefield executions in Afghanistan

ScienceDaily (May 12, 2010) — A flyover of Belize’s thick jungles has revolutionized archaeology worldwide and vividly illustrated the complex urban centers developed by one of the most-studied ancient civilizations — the Maya.

Until now, Maya archeologists have been limited in exploring large sites and understanding the full nature of ancient Maya landscape modifications because most of those features are hidden within heavily forested and hilly terrain and are difficult to record. LiDAR effectively removes these obstacles.

..”It’s very exciting,” said Arlen Chase. “The images not only reveal topography and built features, but also demonstrate the integration of residential groups, monumental architecture, roadways and agricultural terraces, vividly illustrating a complete communication, transportation and subsistence system.”

Here’s the punch at the end of the article-

The team’s results also give him a snapshot of forest vegetation in that part of the world and how it was influenced by land-use practices 1,000 years ago. This may help scientists understand past human-environment interactions and changes that should be made today.

These brief animations just got sent to me, after I found original Gonzo Science contributor Chris Larsen on Facebook after several lifetimes. Anyway Chris might be mortified that I’m just posting these here without asking - they are several years old - but I really think they’re imaginative and fun on the sci-fi tip. Back in the day, the very first Gonzo Science publication was an ensemble ‘zine I put together in Santa Cruz, CA. circa 1996. Chris is O.G. because he contributed an article about anomalous archaeology. We also published a handful of handmade comic books, and he is the artist on our collaborative comix story “I Shot JFK”. Anyway, he’s been in school for programming so look out.

http://ubiknik.com/swf/kite.html

http://ubiknik.com/swf/machinist.html 

Here is our new “Gonzo Science Recommends” page at Amazon, where you can essentially browse the virtual contents of the Gonzo Science library, and if you find you want to buy one of these anomalous tomes, we get a small finder’s fee. Keep checking back as we fill out the ranks with heretical tome after heretical tome. Thank you.

UVA: We’re intending to comply with your ass-hatty subpeona but let’s just look at some other options too.

I like this comment from TPM’s coverage of the story (1st link):

I think tenure is important, but I think this case illustrates the power of a robust peer review process. Mann has a very strong publication record in excellent journals including Science, Nature, and Proceeding of the National Academy of Science. It is his track record of publication and funding (again, peer reviewed) that led him to his post at UPenn. The reason climate change deniers are pissed is because they can’t seem to publish their nonsense (non-science?).

Good scientists should welcome, not fear, scrutiny of their taxpayer-funded work. It’s in everybody’s interest that the nation understands climate change. One potential up side is that maybe a little more light will shine on good science.

Word.

Our web empire has expanded to include the fledgling Gonzo Science Flickr page.

Gonzo Science merchandise now for sale at the Gonzo Science Gift Emporium at CafePress. We got your mugs, organic t-shirts, hats, stickers, and of course, teddy bears and made-in-the-USA thongs. And so much more! Thank you for shopping Gonzo Science.

The verdict is in and: humans and Neanderthals interbred.

The new data indicate that humans may not have replaced Neandertals, but assimilated them into the human gene pool.

“Neandertals are not totally extinct; they live on in some of us,” says Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and leader of the Neandertal genome project.

This has long been the Gonzo Science position.