Consensus on human knee ligaments was wrong – new ligament found

How much don’t we know? This week doctors announce that yes, really, there is a whole ligament in the human knee that we didn’t know about, and it’s not a small one tucked away but a mid-size one and “hidden” on the outside of the knee. They’ve named it the anterolateral ligament (ALL), and it does matter if it fails, people’s knees collapse suddenly. “Only” 97% of people have one. But how is this, it was first postulated by a surgeon in 1879, and took 134 years to find. For much of that time you might have been told there was a consensus on knee anatomy, and because thousands of doctors have done knee surgery and knee replacements are now de rigeur, you might have thought the science was settled.

Sorry about the graphic photo, but when I saw that headline, I thought this would be a tiny artifact. You need to see it to appreciate just how remarkable it is that this has been missed for so long. UPDATE: It’s so remarkable, I find Chrism comments below are useful #5, #8, #12, and quite possibly the ligament was known by another name, or associated with a different malady. Is […]

Australia is either Green genius or Kyoto-criminal depending on fires and forests: Tom Quirk

Tom Quirk has taken look at the numbers for the Australian Government’s direct action plan (someone had to do it). Not surprisingly in a vast nation with hardly any people, the numbers that matter are the ones about “land-use” — which means anthropogenic changes to farms and forests. Electricity is our largest emitter of CO2, but without shutting down the nation there are no easy gains to be had. Demand is inelastic. Cuts are expensive. Renewables are pathetic. Ditto for industry and agriculture. Whether we meet our targets and whether there is P-A-I-N all depends on whether we count the CO2 molecules that come and go from agricultural land and managed forests.

The big question then is do we pretend those CO2 molecules coming and going from plants, soils, lakes and animals are irrelevant? (Greenpeace and the EU seem to think that’s a good plan). It’s a make or break thing in the carbon accounting world. But if carbon is causing global warming, surely all CO2 molecules are equally to blame. However only net emissions caused by humans (and which wouldn’t have been emitted naturally) count towards the national tallies and targets.

If we […]

Ocean heat content around Indonesia shows Medieval Warm Period and 2C warmth in holocene

Rosenthal et al have put out quite a humdinger of a paper. They’ve reconstructed the temperature of the water flowing out of the Pacific to the Indian Ocean over the last 10,000 years and as deep as 900m. The Indonesian Throughflow is pretty significant in global ocean currents. There’s narrow routes for Pacific upper waters to squeeze through to the Indian Ocean through the Makassar and Lombok Straits, and via the Lifamatola Passage through the Banda Sea, and water comes in from both the North and South Pacific.

An important point in global ocean currents where the Pacific flows through to the Indian Ocean.

Points to note (assuming the study is right):

Temperatures started rising around 1700AD — long before our carbon emissions. That temperatures were much warmer (0.65C) in 1100AD than they were in 1950. 8,000 years ago water was 1.5 to 2 degrees warmer — isn’t that meant to be a global catastrophe? Apparently coral reefs, fish, and turtles survived.

 

Figure 4. Holocene changes in Pacific Ocean heat content. (A) Reconstructed anomalies in Pacific OHC in the 0- to 700-m depth interval for the early Holocene, mid-Holocene, MWP, and LIA periods. Reconstructed anomalies are calculated […]

Weekend Unthreaded (with 200,000 mile chasm of fire on the sun)

Photograph by NASA/SDO

Read about it, and watch the video below:

8.8 out of 10 based on 36 ratings […]

Terry McCrann – Fantasists try to scare us with cultural cringe

Terry McCrann pretty neatly shows the vacuity of our Climate Change Authority. We need to reduce our quality of living, change the main source of energy our civilization was built on, in order to reduce our emissions by an amount so small, that others have already undone it by a factor of 120, (and that’s just since 2009). The Climate Change Authority say that our efforts are not good enough and it would be much more realistic if the rest of the world had only undone our “achievements” by a factor of 40. Their main argument (if you could call it that) is that “the world” would not think less of us? (Like we care.) It’s an idea so silly, it barks. This is our national conversation. MEET the fantasists of the Climate Change Authority – an institution spawned by the deal between former prime minister Julia Gillard and her climate change minister Greg Combet with former Greens leader Bob Brown; and, hopefully, to be as short-lived as its fellow blot on the public policy landscape, the already terminated Climate Commission. – 9.2 out of 10 based on 91 ratings […]

Inflation anyone? Christmas Cards to US and EU rise by *50%* in one year

From Australia Christmas Cards to Europe and the US were $1.60 last year. In 2013 it’s $2.55. I have never seen a rise like it. Back in 2000, it was just 80c each card. Normally postage stamp prices creep up with inflation. The fit is so good, historians often track inflation through stamp prices — see here for Germany in 1923. When I wanted a monotonic rising line to “correlate” with temperatures, US stamp prices were the obvious first choice. To give you some idea of just how well stamps and inflation go together, consider that US post is contemplating raising prices faster than inflation, and that is so unthinkable it made the news in the Wall St Journal last month. But here in Australia, this monster leap has appeared virtually without a comment…

2010 stamp compared to 2013

7.9 out of 10 based on 31 ratings […]

US Schools teach kids high tech ways to waste money

Steve Goreham highlights a school program which spends 30,000 dollars to save 300. The program is called “Wise” and hopes to change global weather.

Presumably with such profligate wastage, delusional ambition, and little practical purpose, it will breed future political leaders. — Jo

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US citizens pay for “solar school” foolishness

By Steve Goreham

Originally published in The Washington Times

Solar systems are being installed at hundreds of schools across the United States. Educators use solar panels to teach students about the “miracle” of energy sourced from the sun. But a closer look at these projects shows poor economics and a big bill for citizens.

Earlier this month, the National Resources Defense Fund (NRDC) launched its “Solar Schools” campaign, an effort to raise $54,000 to help “three to five to-be-determined schools move forward with solar rooftop projects.” The NRDC wants to “help every school in the country go solar.” The campaign uses a cute video featuring kids talking about how we’re “polluting the Earth with gas and coal” and how we can save the planet with solar.

8.9 out of 10 based on 66 ratings […]