We are celebrating five years of Jeff Danner and Common Science at Chapelboro!
Jeff Danner: Common Science
For the past five years, Chapelboro readers have been treated to Jeff Danner’s Common Science column. Danner takes the wonderful, yet complicated world of science and distills it into something we can all understand. Jeff has worked in both the chemical and biotech industries and is the veteran of thousands of science debates at cocktail parties and holiday dinners across the nation.
To celebrate Jeff Danner’s five years with Chapelboro, we are taking a look back five of his most popular Common Science columns.
A World Without Fossil Fuels
Our world is dominated by fossil fuels. They make our electricity, heat our homes, power our cars, and are changing our climate. As a student of both science and history, I sometimes wonder what the world would be like today if there were no fossil fuels; no coal, no petroleum, and no natural gas. One thing is for sure, the earth would be a far, far different place.
Let’s start our journey in the year 1750, human population is approximately 800 million, Europeans are sailing the world’s oceans, and it is 31 years before James Watt would have invented the steam engine if there were coal. The Americas have been depopulated by European based epidemic diseases and world’s oceans are teaming with fish. The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is bouncing around in the 180 to 300 parts per million range – it’s over 400 parts per million now – as it had been for the previous half a million years, resulting in a favorable and stable climate…
Meanwhile in the Arctic
As you may know, the world is about 1 ºC warmer now than it was when the Industrial Revolution started in 1850. One degree may not sound like much, but the difference between the temperate climate of 1850 and the most recent ice age 15,000 years ago during which most of the Northern Hemisphere was covered in massive glaciers was only 4 °C. So 1 ºC really is sort of a big deal, and most climate scientists suggest that we will have added another degree by the end of this century.
The warming of the Earth has not been uniform, with the temperatures increasing to a greater degree in the far north and far south portions of the planet. This extra warming of the Arctic and Antarctic regions of the Earth is of great concern, since these regions of the world are home to many of the potentially self-reinforcing feedback loops which could accelerate global warming…
Cold Fusion
Italian inventor Andrea Rossi was granted a U.S. patent for a fluid heater. At first glance, that’s not a particularly gripping opening sentence for a lively or interesting science column. But there is more to the story, a lot more. First off, the heat source in Rossi’s invention is purported to cold fusion. If Rossi really has mastered cold fusion, the world is about to become a very different place. There is also a local angle. Rossi is a partner in the Raleigh-based Industrial Heat, LLC who have been operating one of the patented fluid heaters at an undisclosed location for the last six months.
There are several aspects of this story that intrigue me, so I’ve laid out a three-part exploration. This week I’ll cover the science of cold fusion. Next week I’ll discuss the history of efforts to achieve cold fusion and then conclude the following week with the potentially world-changing implications. So on to the science…Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3
Chikungunya
Chikungunya was first identified in Tanzania in the early 1950s; however, historical records as well as a review of virus’ genetic markers suggest that it first evolved around the year 1700. The virus circulates among humans, monkeys, rodents, bats and some birds. Chikungunya is transferred from one animal to another via the bite of two species of mosquitoes, aedes agypti and aedes albopictus. The incubation period in humans is typically 2-3 days and the symptoms include fever of up to 104 ºF, rashes, swelling of the legs and, in particular, severe joint pain. While the fatality rate for chikungunya is low, at 0.4%, this is not a disease you want to get.
Like many other viruses, you can only get chikungunya once, since surviving the disease gives you immunity to future infections. When the virus is introduced to an area where no one has immunity and the mosquitoes required to spread it are present, an epidemic can spread with frightening speed. When an epidemic strikes, the rate of infection grows rapidly until approximately 30-50% of the population develops immunity. And while the news media in the U.S. has been focused on whether Sarah Palin will join The View, chikungunya has been on the move in the Caribbean…Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3
Checking in on Peak Oil
The graph below was the key feature of Peak Oil in Five Paragraphs or Less. This graph is pivotal to understanding both the history and economics of the last century as well as the challenges coming in the next; everyone should be familiar with it. Its peaks and valleys tell stories as varied and interesting as the growth of suburbia in the U.S. and the role of Saudi Arabia in the post World War II era. But I never see this graph in the papers. It’s not hard to understand. As you can see from the bars, the peak year for global oil discovery occurred in 1965, the year before I was born, and has been generally declining ever since. Due to extraordinary efforts by the oil companies, the rate of production has yet to start declining, but as those old fields continue to be exhausted, it will…
Check out all of the 240 Common Science articles written by Jeff Danner.
Thanks for reading!
And to Jeff – thanks for writing!
Jeff, Congratulations on this Award.