Six US scientists have issued a warning: civilization is threatened by global warming. These NASA researchers claim that the UN panel on climate change (the IPCC) is UNDERESTIMATING the upcoming sea level rise.
In the Independent, Steve Connor quotes NASA’s James Hansen as saying, “?The Earth is getting perilously close to climate changes that could run out of our control.”
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We’ve reported before about how artists’ diseases may have influenced their art. Now researchers think that Monet?s blurred vision, caused by cataracts, may have influenced his famous paintings of water lilies.
In the Independent, Jonathan Brown reports that US ophthalmologist Michael Marmor says that Monet’s cataracts would have made the world seem blurry and yellow-tinted?two characteristics of his later “water lily” series of paintings.
Monet finally had cataract surgery in 1923, at the age of 86. But Brown quotes art historian Chris Riopelle as saying, “[Monet’s eye condition] does not entirely answer the questions?after surgery, Monet’s style did not alter radically.”
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There was a moment of panic down here on earth last week, when the computers aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that control the supply of oxygen and water crashed. As scientists and engineers struggle to get the computers working again, a physicist declares that the ISS is a waste of time and money.
Robert L. Park, author of Voodoo Science, thinks we should not be sending astronauts in space, and has even testified before Congress on this subject. He says, “This is yet another example of why the station is not worth all the trouble.” He says his views are shared by a large part of the scientific community, although many feel constrained about publicly discussing their views.
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Scientists say that our oil reserves are disappearing at a faster rate than our governments and the oil companies are willing to admit. A new report from British Petroleum (BP) says that there are enough “proven” oil reserves to keep us going, at current usage rates, for another 40 years. But researchers say that oil production will peak in the next 4 years and decline steadily from then on. Which side is right?
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