Episode #898
News Items
- 2022 Ig Nobels
- It’s OK to Ask for Help
- Bitcoin and Fedimints
- Multivitamins for Memory
- Refreezing the Poles
- Neuro Emotional Technique
Who's That Noisy
- Answer to last week: sea organ
Question #1: Chess Cheating Follow Up
- Follow up to various questions about chess cheating.
Science or Fiction
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Item #1
Science
A survey of 48 coastal cities finds that they are sinking at an average rate of 16.2 mm per year, with the fastest at 43 mm per year. (For reference, average global sea level rise is 3.7 mm per year.) https://www.ntu.edu.sg/news/detail/rapid-land-sinking-leaves-global-cities-vulnerable-to-rising-seas
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Item #2
Science
A recent study estimates the total social cost of releasing carbon into the atmosphere at $185 per tonne, which is triple the current US government estimate. (For reference, the world emits >34 billion tonnes of CO2 each year.) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05224-9
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Item #3
Fiction
The latest climate models indicate that even with rapid decarbonization it is too late to prevent eventual warming >1.5 C.https://www.oneearth.org/apcag-executive-briefing/
Skeptical Quote of the Week.
‘In the field of thinking, the whole history of science – from geocentrism to the Copernican revolution, from the false absolutes of Aristotle’s physics to the relativity of Galileo’s principle of inertia and to Einstein’s theory of relativity – shows that it has taken centuries to liberate us from the systematic errors, from the illusions caused by the immediate point of view as opposed to “decentered” systematic thinking.’ — Jean Piaget