ScienceBlogs

What We're Talking About Friday, May 11, 2012

Sunny Life and Death

Day and night, the sun is something most of us take for granted. But on Respectful Insolence, disciples stare at it intently in order to gain its energy. Orac writes "sun gazers seem to think that mammals are like plants in possessing an ability to absorb energy directly from the sun"—and diehard gurus claim to have lived for years without food or water. Earnest practitioners risk blindness, dehydration, starvation and death. Orac says "Sun gazing also leaves out the fact that plants get the organic building blocks they use to produce their actual structures from the ground in which they grow. Humans have no such capacity." As the sun grows to a red giant it will boil our oceans and strip off the atmosphere; later it "will die in a fiery, catastrophic explosion, one which will quite possibly obliterate our entire planet, and then eventually cease to shine at all." But as Ethan Siegel reveals on Starts With a Bang, there's a silver lining to that future planetary nebula. He says "everything that makes up you, me, and the entire planet—the tiniest parts of everything we've ever known—they were all made inside a star." Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and solar system to solar system.

"Eat the Sun": Sun-worshiping fantasy versus reality

Respectful InsolenceApril 27, 2012

"The result was not what I would exactly call supportive of her claims. After 48 hours, she developed signs of acute dehydration, which Jasmuheen claimed to be the result of "polluted air." So the producers moved her to a nice, clean, mountainside retreat well away from the city, where the air was clean. It didn't help. As the test went on, Jasmuheen showed more and more signs of dangerous levels of dehydration, although she kept telling producers she "felt fine." Ultimately, the doctor charged with supervising Jasmuheen urged the producers to stop the test because he was concerned about kidney failure due to dehydration and warned that the experiment could prove fatal."

So, you've learned that the Sun is going to explode...

Starts With a Bang!April 20, 2012

"Being faced with not only our own mortality, but the demise of literally everything we've ever encountered throughout the entire history of our world is a philosophical and existential challenge for even well-adjusted adults. [...]

"So yes, the Sun will blow up, someday, but when it does, that's the greatest gift any star can ever hope to give to the Universe. After all, it took billions of stars giving that gift already in order to make you. And you know what?

"It was worth it."

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Jill and Cinnamon demonstrate goat milking 101 on Casaubon's Book.

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Divers get nose to nose with a sperm whale on Pharyngula.

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Many of the moon's craters were formed 4 billion years ago on Greg Laden's Blog.

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In Conversation

“Instead of cows and chickens and pigs serving roles as producers of fertilizer and eaters of waste, they've turned them into producers of waste and eaters of oil.”

The Ethics of Eating Meat - the New York Times finalists are in
Denialism Blog