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Tracking the Permafrost Line

From xkcd: http://www.xkcd.com/402/ The permafrost line is shifting.  It may be slow by tornado-chasing standards, but it’s shifting. A study earlier this year from Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada showed that the permafrost line has moved northward by 130 kilometers in the last 50 years.  While climate change is the most probable explanation for the […]

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U.S. Does Poorly in Math and Science. Again.

Today yet another international comparison reaffirmed that the United States is failing to prepare its students to compete successfully in the new flat world. PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment, was administered to 15-year-old students last year by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). This is a highly respected group whose conclusions […]

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Certainty

From xkcd: http://xkcd.com/263/ Question: How can we trust ourselves (or scientists) to know the truth about anything? Answer: We look at the evidence. Scientists back up their claims with evidence.  If the evidence doesn’t fit the claim, then the claim is rejected and revised.  New evidence can result in changes to long-held understandings about how the […]

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