Author: Tim

Noctilucent clouds

Noctilucent clouds are a rare type of cloud that comprise ice crystals so high up in the atmosphere that they reflect sunlight to the surface of the Earth long after sunset. It seems that noctilucent-like clouds are sometimes observed a few days after space shuttle launches – the shuttle launch creates eddies that carry water into the thermosphere (90-500km altitude). Similar clouds were also recorded as being observed in the days following the Tunguska blast (in Siberia) in 1908. The similarity between the two sets of observations has led to a suggestion that the Tunguska blast was caused by a wet, icy comet crashing to Earth rather than a dry, stone asteroid as had previously been thought. The story is described in New Scientist, Issue 2715 [04 July 2009]

A Spot of Bother

I’ve just finished reading Mark Haddon’s second novel “A Spot of Bother”. Mark Haddon (he’s got a fairly odd website here) came to prominence a few years ago when his book “The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-Time” which, if my memory serves me right is about a boy with Asperger’s Syndrome who wakes up to find a (dead) dog in his garden pinned to the ground with a garden fork. It was a much lauded book because of the nature of its central character and the way that it was written to capture his thoughts. It was a children’s book – but only sort of. Anyway, “A Spot of Bother” is about the mental breakdown of a retired man (George) who finds some eczema on his leg, thinks it is cancer and proceeds to enter a downward spiral of panic, and irrationality. His situation is not helped by the fact that his daughter is getting married for a second time to a man who everyone thinks is unsuitable and his son has broken up with his boyfriend but the final straw occurs when he returns home unexpectedly to find… well, I won’t tell you what he comes home to find because that might spoil the story.

I did enjoy reading this book, but I also didn’t enjoy it. George’s descent does not make pleasant reading – it’s just too plausible in some ways and whilst the book is funny in places it is also rather dark in places. One thing is for sure though, DO NOT do what I did. DO NOT read the section just about halfway through (leading up to page 250) just before you go to sleep. That section is NOT for the faint-hearted.

New Moon?

There was a peculiar letter in the local paper (The Herald – The Voice of Plymouth) last night. If I could provide a link to it I would do, but it’s not online so I’m going to be cheeky and quote it here in full:

“Lately, as there is a renewed interest in the Moon, may I suggest that next time the astronauts pack their picnic in preparation to jet off to the moon, to also pack some tins of silver paint and paint the damn thing”

That’s it – word for word. It’s a worry to think that not only did someone have that idea but that they actually bothered to send it in to the paper. Mind you, it’s even more worrying to think that the newspaper published it (but now I am wondering where that leaves me for quoting it here…)

Cricket, Lovely Cricket?

Having found myself needing to start reading a new book a few days before the start of the first Ashes Test Match, it seemed appropriate to pick up Lawrence Booth’s “Cricket, Lovely Cricket?”. Booth is a cricket write for The Guardian newspaper and Wisden Cricket Monthly and so well placed to write a series of chapters exploring various aspects of the game of cricket, including the personalities of the different cricket nations, the role of fans in the game, the England v Australia rivalry. I enjoyed the book – it satisfied the requirement of getting me into a cricket mood for the summer without being too obsessive and it left me intrigued about some of the stories told. It’s just a pity that as I write this, on the last day of the First Test, Australia are pummelling England towards defeat as usual…

From World War II to surf forecasts

My favourite reference in my PhD thesis (1992) was to a paper from the 1940s which was titled “On determining the gradient of enemy held beaches”. I liked the way that the title gives an explicit description of what the paper is about and I also liked the way that it seemed so far removed from the time and purpose of my own study.

In reality though, a great deal of the modern-day research done on waves and beach processes has its roots in the work of scientists in the 1940s associated with predicting wave and beach conditions for Allied Forces landings in north Africa and Normandy. One such piece of work that anyone who studies waves to a reasonable level will come across is the SMB-method for predicting waves. The abbreviation SMB represents the names of the three protaganists in the development of the method – Sverdrup, Munk and Bretschneider – and the method uses a knowledge of three parameters, wind speed, duration for which the wind has been blowing and the fetch (distance) over which the waves are being built up by the wind to predict the significant wave height and peak wave period. It is based on a special diagram which cleverly combines all of the variables and presents the outputs in a graphical form called a nonogram.

So, given my own use of research originating from the World War II era, it was interesting to read an historical piece in New Scientist, No 2714 [27 June 2009] about how Walter Munk (now aged 91) became involved in wave prediction in relation to Allied Forces landings and how this work subsequently spawned the surf prediction industry. It’s a good example of how widely applicable research can be triggered by a specific requirement and how it is not always possible to spot the full value of research (Munk missed out on making money from surf prediction).

Bad Science

Time for another book-related entry (I seem to be on a good run with my reading at the moment). I’ve just finished reading Ben Goldacre’s book “Bad Science”. Goldacre is a medical doctor and writer/journalist who has written the “Bad Science” column in The Guardian newspaper for several years (and also maintains the Bad Science blog where you can find out more about Goldacre and the book). I first became aware of his work a few months ago when a fellow user of a Plymouth Argyle (football club) fans website drew my attention to his writing (yes, football fans come in all shapes and sizes and, on PASOTI, the discussions can roam towards absolutely any topic you could think of from time to time). Intrigued by what I had heard, I bought “Bad Science” (the book) and so had a thoroughly enjoyable week’s worth of reading about how the media often twist scientific studies and findings when they report them (usually because of ignorance) and, more importantly, how this scientific naivity is utilised by unscrupulous pseudo-scientific practitioners to promote personal agendas and, ultimately, sell products (pills, diets, alternative therapies etc). The book does a brilliant job of dissecting lots of examples, in some cases revealing that what most of us take to be the case is actually more likely to be the reverse. One example of this is that most people think that increased intake of antioxidants provides some measure of protection against various forms of cancer; in fact, the scientific evidence suggests that the opposite might be true. Goldacre doesn’t simply rant though, he carefully explains the importance and uncertainties associated with various types of clinical trial, statistical procedure and outlines at some length the placebo effect such that the reader is left able to make up their own mind about the arguments he presents. However, it must also be said that if it’s a good rant that you want then Goldacre does do good rant…

In my opinion, anyone who is interested in science in general and health, nutrition and alternative therapies in particular, should read “Bad Science”.

Clathrates good, clathrates bad?

There have been quite a few articles and news items over recent months describing the climate change danger posed by methane clathrate. Methane clathrate is a special combination of methane molecules trapped within ice crystals – apparently it looks like dirty ice, feels like sorbet and bursts into flames when touched with a flame. Methane clathrate forms when organic matter decays and releases methane which permeates through rocks and ends up somewhere where the temperature is approximately 0 °C and the pressure is ~50 atmospheres. When this happens ice crystals form that trap the methane molecules. The required conditions occur underneath permafrost and on the seabed at depths of 200-400 metres.

Most of the articles I have read about methane clathrates focus on the concern that if permafrost warms up, the ice crystals may melt and huge amounts of methane (a very potent Greenhouse gas) may suddenly be released. That’s bad news for climate change, really bad news…

However, a recent article in New Scientist, Issue 2714 [27 June 2009] (and Editorial) suggests that it may be possible to extract the methane from methane clathrate fields and then use this as an energy source. So, we can replace our dependence on the fossil fuels of coal, oil and natural gas with a new dependence on a new fossil fuel – methane. I guess that it is better to use the methane productively than to simply warm up the world until it burps out into the atmosphere and, intriguingly, one of the methods being explored for extracting methane from clathrates is to pump carbon dioxide into the clathrate field where it displaces the methane. This means that we may be able to store carbon dioxide safely out of harms way (thereby limiting Greenhouse gas emissions) and at the same time produce a source of energy. Neat.

Actually, for some time I have been wondering (not seriously) whether methane clathrates were made by humans at some past time when we had a problem needing to dispose of Greenhouse gases such as methane in a safe and secure way. Back then, someone might have had a neat idea to pump methane into the permafrost and encourage clathrate formation, thereby removing the methane and helping to prevent past global warming… well, it’s not impossible.

UK weather in the 2080s – or maybe not

Last week, New Scientist, Issue 2714 [27 June 2009] ran a short news item highlighting a new set of climate projections from the UK Met Office for the 2080s (oddly defined as the years 2070-2099). These are presented as a series of maps showing changes in summer mean temperature and summer and winter mean precipitation across the UK based on a 5km grid. The Met Office website also introduces the material and provides a link to the dedicated UK Climate Projections 09 website where the maps can be found. The New Scientist piece points out that some climate scientists feel that the projections are useless, and or misleading, because such fine resolution projections are bound to be upset by processes occuring at the local scale. There is also doubt that the climate models used to make the projections can handle areas of blocking high pressure well enough to make them useful.

So, the projections may or may not be useful or useless depending on who you believe! Nevertheless, I thought I would take a look at the maps and see what they tell me about the likely conditions in Plymouth in the 2080s (I have only just done the mental arithmetic, but I’ll (probably not) be 115 years old in 2080 which has depressed me a little). Anyway, for what it is worth, it looks like it’s going to be 3-4 degrees Celsius warmer and about 40% less wet in the summer and about 10% wettter in the winter…

Wolf of the Plains

If you read my last entry you will probably have guessed that I have been reading a historical novel based on the life of Genghis Khan – you wouldn’t be wrong. Last night I finished reading Conn Iggledun ‘s “Wolf of the Plains”. This is the first book in a series following the life of Genghis Khan and at over 500 pages is a fairly meaty read. The book has been out for a couple of years but I only picked it up after buying the third book in the series at less than half price via an offer linked to The Times newspaper (which I buy on Saturday’s). Having bought the third one to read in the future I thought I should get hold of the first and second titles and was lucky enough to pick up Wolf of the Plains almost instantly in one of the local charity shops on Mutley Plain where I often buy books. I’m glad I did, because I really enjoyed Wolf of the Plains and thought that Iggledun did a great job of weaving together the factual stuff with a story that zipped along nicely with lots of suspense and exciting set pieces (bloody battles etc). I have been reading the historical novels of Bernard Cornwell for some time and have dipped into one or two other authors of this genre but I have to say that Iggledun runs Cornwell close and perhaps even beats him when it comes to producing a good page-turner. The only problem now that I have finished Wolf of the Plains and left Genghis Khan having defeated the Tartar hordes and in charge of a set of newly united tribes is that I’m going to have to get hold of the second title “Lords of the Bow” – I’ll be making plenty of trips to the charity shops over the coming weeks!