Ohmygoddard!... It's Science

( Air pollution in Asia may be changing weather patterns in the United States)

(via Richard Alley Dances to Explain Ice Ages, CO2 and Global Warming - YouTube)

This is a really fascinating overview of the controversy surrounding a new climate change paper, open-source scientific publishing and the nature of scientific progress.

Science is messy..... very very messy

This is a super cool, and relaxing, visualization of global ocean surface currents. OCE2001 students take note - gyres are not as simple and defined as the red and blue arrows in the text book figure re: gyre circulation suggests.  There is  some relatively small scale variation in the exact path of ocean currents (which is what makes this visualization so strikingly beautiful) BUT generally speaking the overall pathway of ocean currents does follow the simplified graphic in your text. Viewed together, the NASA ”perpetual ocean” visualization and your text book figure showing gyre circulation should catalyze a deeper understanding of the ocean circulation system, and the earth system in general - that a phenomenon that seems chaotic and unpredictable on a small scale can in fact be quite predictable and and systematic from a much broader perspective in space (“spatial”) and/or time (”temporal”). 

This animated documentary tells the story of polar explorer Alfred Wegener, the unlikely scientist behind continental drift theory.

After six years of planetary observations, scientists at NASA say they have found convincing new evidence that ancient Mars had an ocean.

In an El Niño, prevailing winds slacken, allowing a buildup of warm water in the eastern Pacific that can disrupt high-atmosphere winds and other elements that affect weather. Researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had suggested last year that an El Niño was likely but that it would probably be weak.

http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140904/srep06196/fig_tab/srep06196_F2.html

Actual PLOSONE article here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0105948

A little "growth-mindset" inspiration

David Levin from Mind Open Media talks to C-IMAGE post-doc Patrick Schwing about his research, and a couple of his other obsessions!

For more than half a century, the moon had been mocking the best minds in science, and for Erik Asphaug enough was enough. The taunting…

This blog post should be of particular interest to GLY2100 students.  The article describes some pretty savvy paleontological detective work that overturns a long held assumption about Gastornis - a flightless monster bird!  Note the use of trace fossils to support the argument.