Here are three articles I've come across about recycling which kind of boil down to the same central points:

1) Can recycling is good
2) Glass recycling is generally bad
3) Paper is iffy (especially since newsprint has diminished as part of the waste stream)

Here's the newest:

American recycling is stalling, and the big blue bin is one reason why

From the start, it was hard to argue that glass should have been allowed in the curbside mix. It’s the heaviest of recyclables but has always been of marginal value as a commodity. In the rough-and-tumble sorting facilities, a large share of it breaks and contaminates valuable bales of paper, plastic and other materials.

Today, more than a third of all glass sent to recycling facilities ends up crushed. It is trucked to landfills as daily cover to bury the smell and trap gases. The rest has almost no value to recyclers and can often cost them to haul away.

Here's another one:

Recycle Smarter than a Third Grader!

As Professor Benjamin explains, making an unused tissue out of a used one wastes resources and hardly benefits the environment. Melting and casting aluminum cans, though, both saves resources and benefits the environment. But you don’t need to exhort the aluminum company to save those resources: saving scraps is in its own interest.

Penn and Teller: Recycling is Bullshit!

And the always entertaining Penn and Teller. The best is the multiple bins scene, where they add 6 bins to the usual three, including red for biohazardous waste like diapers and feminine products, and a brown bin for "lightly soiled toilet paper" which tested really well in Japan last year! The suckers they presented these bins to blithely said that they could follow that regime and that it made sense.

* The title comes from the stencil used at my college on all the aluminum-can recycling bins. A whole campus of misused apostrophes.

As Professor Benjamin explains, making an unused tissue out of a used one wastes resources and hardly benefits the environment. Melting and casting aluminum cans, though, both saves resources and benefits the environment. But you don’t need to exhort the aluminum company to save those resources: saving scraps is in its own interest. - See more at: http://www.perc.org/articles/recycle-smarter-third-grader-learn-liberty#sthash.xc5zWrrj.dpuf

You didn't stop me. Too late. This went out around 9:30 this morning...just over 2 hours after the last one.

The last link is one of my favorites, linking anti-GMO hysteria to climate science deniers. Nothing like having a petard and a length of rope handy.

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Food and Drug Administration [FDA]

3. Are foods from genetically engineered plants safe?

Foods from genetically engineered plants must meet the same requirements, including safety requirements, as foods from traditionally bred plants

[That's a "yes", by the way.]

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American Medical Association [AMA] 

The American Medical Association announced in a statement this week that they saw no health purpose for labeling genetically modified foods -- those made with GMOs (or genetically modified organisms) -- as such.

"There is no scientific justification for special labeling of bioengineered foods, as a class, and that voluntary labeling is without value unless it is accompanied by focused consumer education," the statement read in part.

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World Health Organization

Q8. Are GM foods safe?

Different GM organisms include different genes inserted in different ways. This means that individual GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods.

GM foods currently available on the international market have passed risk assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved. Continuous use of risk assessments based on the Codex principles and, where appropriate, including post market monitoring, should form the basis for evaluating the safety of GM foods.

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Institute of Medicine and National Research Council of the National Adacamies

All new crop varieties, animal breeds (see the cloning subreport), and microbial strains carry modified DNA that differs from parental strains. Methods to genetically modify plants, animals, and microbes are mechanistically diverse and include both natural and human-mediated activities. Health outcomes could be associated with the presence or absence of specific substances added or deleted using genetic modification techniques, including genetic engineering, and with unintended compositional changes.

... All evidence evaluated to date indicates that unexpected and unintended compositional changes arise with all forms of genetic modification, including genetic engineering. Whether such compositional changes result in unintended health effects is dependent upon the nature of the substances altered and the biological consequences of the compounds. To date, no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population.

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Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine  (article)

Are GM foods safe to eat?

GM crops are tightly regulated by several government bodies. The European Food Safety Authority and each individual member state have detailed the requirements for a full risk assessment of GM plants and derived food and feed.34 In the USA, the Food and Drug Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service are all involved in the regulatory process for GM crop approval.35 Consequently, GM plants undergo extensive safety testing prior to commercialization (for an example see http://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/KeyTopics/efsa_locale-1178620753812_GMO.htm).

Foods derived from GM crops have been consumed by hundreds of millions of people across the world for more than 15 years, with no reported ill effects (or legal cases related to human health), despite many of the consumers coming from that most litigious of countries, the USA.

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Scientific American (article )

There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have resulted from commercialization of genetically engineered crops (Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Committee on Environmental Impacts Associated with Commercialization of Transgenic Plants, National Research Council and Division on Earth and Life Studies 2002). Both the U.S. National Research Council and the Joint Research Centre (the European Union’s scientific and technical research laboratory and an integral part of the European Commission) have concluded that there is a comprehensive body of knowledge that adequately addresses the food safety issue of genetically engineered crops (Committee on Identifying and Assessing Unintended Effects of Genetically Engineered Foods on Human Health and National Research Council 2004; European Commission Joint Research Centre 2008).

These and other recent reports conclude that the processes of genetic engineering and conventional breeding are no different in terms of unintended consequences to human health and the environment (European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation 2010). This is not to say that every new variety will be as benign as the crops currently on the market. This is because each new plant variety (whether it is developed through genetic engineering or conventional approaches of genetic modification) carries a risk of unintended consequences. Whereas each new genetically engineered crop variety is assessed on a case-bycase basis by three governmental agencies, conventional crops are not regulated by these agencies.

Still, to date, compounds with harmful effects on humans or animals have been documented only in foods developed through conventional breeding approaches. For example, conventional breeders selected a celery variety with relatively high amounts of psoralens to deter insect predators that damage the plant. Some farm workers who harvested such celery developed a severe skin rash—an unintended consequence of this breeding strategy (Committee on Identifying and Assessing Unintended Effects of Genetically Engineered Foods on Human Health and National Research Council 2004)

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MIT Technology Review (article)

One advantage of using genetic engineering to help crops adapt to these sudden [climate] changes is that new varieties can be created quickly. Creating a potato variety through conventional breeding, for example, takes at least 15 years; producing a genetically modified one takes less than six months. Genetic modification also allows plant breeders to make more precise changes and draw from a far greater variety of genes, gleaned from the plants’ wild relatives or from different types of organisms. Plant scientists are careful to note that no magical gene can be inserted into a crop to make it drought tolerant or to increase its yield—even resistance to a disease typically requires multiple genetic changes. But many of them say genetic engineering is a versatile and essential technique.

“It’s an overwhelmingly logical thing to do,” says Jonathan Jones, a scientist at the Sainsbury Laboratory in the U.K. and one of the world’s leading experts on plant diseases. The upcoming pressures on agricultural production, he says, “[are] real and will affect millions of people in poor countries.” He adds that it would be “perverse to spurn using genetic modification as a tool.”

It’s a view that is widely shared by those responsible for developing tomorrow’s crop varieties. At the current level of agricultural production, there’s enough food to feed the world, says Eduardo Blumwald, a plant scientist at the University of California, Davis. But “when the population reaches nine billion?” he says. “No way, José.”

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France's High Court

France's highest court on Monday overturned France's ban on growing a strain of genetically modified maize (corn) developed by U.S. biotech firm Monsanto, saying it was not sufficiently justified.

The decision follows a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in early September saying France had based its decision to impose a moratorium on the growing of Monsanto's insect-resistant MON810 maize on the wrong EU legislation.

Suspension or banning measures ought to be taken at European Union level unless a member state can demonstrate a potentially serious risk to human or animal health or the environment, the courts said.

"Drawing on the consequences of the ECJ's ruling, the State Council finds that the agriculture ministry could not justify its authority to issue the decrees, failing to give proof of the existence of a particularly high level of risk for the health and the environment," the highest French court said.

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Committee on the Impact of Biotechnology on Farm-Level Economics and Sustainability Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Division of Earth and Live Sciences National Research Council

[T]he effects of agricultural biotechnology at the farm level—that is, from the point of view of the farmer—have received much less attention. To fill that information gap, the National Research Council initiated a study, supported by its own funds, of how GE crops have affected U.S. farmers—their incomes, agronomic practices, production decisions, environmental resources, and personal well-being....

In general, the committee finds that genetic-engineering technology has produced substantial net environmental and economic benefits to U.S. farmers compared with non-GE crops in conventional agriculture....

Generally, GE crops have had fewer adverse effects on the environment than non-GE crops produced conventionally. The use of pesticides with toxicity to nontarget organisms or with greater persistence in soil and waterways has typically been lower in GE fields than in non-GE, nonorganic fields.

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Meta Study on long-term multi-generational consumption of GMO food: "Assessment of the health impact of GM plant diets in long-term and multigenerational animal feeding trials: A literature review "

Results from all the 24 studies do not suggest any health hazards and, in general, there were no statistically significant differences within parameters observed. However, some small differences were observed, though these fell within the normal variation range of the considered parameter and thus had no biological or toxicological significance. If required, a 90-day feeding study performed in rodents, according to the OECD Test Guideline, is generally considered sufficient in order to evaluate the health effects of GM feed. The studies reviewed present evidence to show that GM plants are nutritionally equivalent to their non-GM counterparts and can be safely used in food and feed.

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Keith Kloor, Slate

I used to think that nothing rivaled the misinformation spewed by climate change skeptics and spinmeisters.

Then I started paying attention to how anti-GMO campaigners have distorted the science on genetically modified foods. You might be surprised at how successful they've been and who has helped them pull it off.

I’ve found that fears are stoked by prominent environmental groups, supposed food-safety watchdogs, and influential food columnists; that dodgy science is laundered by well-respected scholars and propaganda is treated credulously by legendary journalists; and that progressive media outlets, which often decry the scurrilous rhetoric that warps the climate debate, serve up a comparable agitprop when it comes to GMOs.

In short, I’ve learned that the emotionally charged, politicized discourse on GMOs is mired in the kind of fever swamps that have polluted climate science beyond recognition.

(Stop me before I e-mail again!! )

This e-mail went out early this morning to the same teacher...

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Just Yesterday in The Atlantic

No widely accepted science supports the idea that GMOs are inherently dangerous to people’s health or the environment. To proponents, including many in the agribusiness industry, opposition to GMOs is nothing more than a dangerous mania, and the people in the grip of it are akin to those who refuse to vaccinate their children or who deny that human activity is changing the Earth’s climate.Yet the grassroots fervor around the topic—driven by Internet rumors, liberal anti-corporatism, and mothers concerned about their children—is undeniable.

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The link above goes to this, by the American Association for the Advancement of Science:

There are several current efforts to require labeling of foods containing products derived from genetically modified crop plants, commonly known as GM crops or GMOs. These efforts are not driven by evidence that GM foods are actually dangerous. Indeed, the science is quite clear: crop improvement by the modern molecular techniques of biotechnology is safe. Rather, these initiatives are driven by a variety of factors, ranging from the persistent perception that such foods are somehow “unnatural” and potentially dangerous to the desire to gain competitive advantage by legislating attachment of a label meant to alarm. Another misconception used as a rationale for labeling is that GM crops are untested.

The EU, for example, has invested more than €300 million in research on the biosafety of GMOs. Its recent report1 states: “The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than e.g. conventional plant breed-ing technologies.” The World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society, and every other respected organization that has examined the evidence has come to the same conclusion: consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques.

Once again, the teachers at school are propagandizing against GMO's. I just knocked out this e-mail in response. Note, this needed to be sent to our 6th grader's science teacher. I would have hoped she'd know better:

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The one-sided discussion of GMO crops, always taking the negative position, frustrates and angers me. This is why (all bolds and italics are mine):

Golden Rice is being developed by a nonprofit group called the International Rice Research Institute with the aim of providing a new source of vitamin A to people both in the Philippines, where most households get most of their calories from rice, and eventually in many other places in a world where rice is eaten every day by half the population. Lack of the vital nutrient causes blindness in a quarter-million to a half-million children each year. It affects millions of people in Asia and Africa and so weakens the immune system that some two million die each year of diseases they would otherwise survive. [ Amy Harmon, New York Times, "Golden Rice: Lifesaver?" ]

TWO MILLION DIE!! And another quarter to half a million children go blind because people living in the developed world, in air conditioning, with well stocked refrigerators and pantries, and where the biggest problem related to food is obesity, sit around and decide that their knee-jerk feelings about something count more that the lives of the poor, malnourished, sick and starving of the world.

On a petition supporting Golden Rice circulated among scientists and signed by several thousand, many vented a simmering frustration with activist organizations like Greenpeace, which they see as playing on misplaced fears of genetic engineering in both the developing and the developed worlds....

At stake, they say, is not just the future of biofortified rice but also a rational means to evaluate a technology whose potential to improve nutrition in developing countries, and developed ones, may otherwise go unrealized.

“There’s so much misinformation floating around about G.M.O.’s that is taken as fact by people,” said Michael D. Purugganan, a professor of genomics and biology and the dean for science at New York University, who sought to calm health-risk concerns in a primer on GMA News Online, a media outlet in the Philippines: “The genes they inserted to make the vitamin are not some weird manufactured material,” he wrote, “but are also found in squash, carrots and melons.”

Mr. Purugganan, who studies plant evolution, does not work on genetically engineered crops, and until recently had not participated in the public debates over the risks and benefits of G.M.O.’s. But having been raised in a middle-class family in Manila, he felt compelled to weigh in on Golden Rice. “A lot of the criticism of G.M.O.’s in the Western world suffers from a lack of understanding of how really dire the situation is in developing countries,” he said. [ from same NYT's article]

Dire.

And not just Golden Rice:

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is supporting the final testing of Golden Rice, is also underwriting the development of crops tailored for sub-Saharan Africa, like cassava that can resist the viruses that routinely wipe out a third of the harvest, bananas that contain higher levels of iron and corn that uses nitrogen more efficiently. Other groups are developing a pest-resistant black-eyed pea and a “Golden Banana” that would also deliver vitamin A. [ibid]

The EU has been no friend of GMO's, yet here are excerpts from an EU funded study of 10 years worth research:

[ Excerpts from "A Decade of EU-funded GMO Research", Introduction by: Marc Van Montagu, Chairman, Institute of Plant Biotechnology for Developing Countries (IPBO,) Ghent University, Belgium ]:

Undeniably GM technology is an important tool in the fight against global poverty and food insecurity. Farmers all over the world face the challenge of doubling food production to meet the needs of a population that is expected to reach nine billion by mid-century – and all this while maintaining soil and water quality and conserving biodiversity.

The challenge is particularly daunting as it has to be accomplished with decreasing amounts of agricultural land and the unpredictable effects of climate change: mitigation and crop adaptation strategies to prepare today’s agriculture for climate change are a pressing issue. Our evolving environment requires the prompt and widespread adoption of more efficient and sustainable agricultural practices to improve food security and, at the same time, reduce the negative effects of intensive agriculture.

The task of enhancing productivity calls for greater innovation, not only in the dissemination of know-how and the development of infrastructure, but also in generating new crop varieties better adapted to specific local environments. Yet the possibilities offered by biotechnology are limitless. GM crops not only have the potential to ensure sufficient availability of food, they can also help domesticate many fast-growing high-biomass crops. [page 20]

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Now, after 25 years of field trials without evidence of harm, fears continue to trigger the Precautionary Principle. But Europeans [and Americans--Ann] need to abandon this knowingly one-sided stance and strike a balance between the advantages and disadvantages of the technology on the basis of scientifically sound risk assessment analysis. [ Page 22 ]

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Only science, using robust data, can disarm the detractors of this powerful and invaluable technology, demonstrating that GM crops are no more harmful for the environment than any other crop. On the contrary, there are clear ecological benefits when viewed within the framework of the role of agricultural systems in maintaining biodiversity.

The current focus on assessing the environmental risks of GMOs in isolation from other agricultural practices defies logic. Only balanced risk-benefit analyses and pro-active strategies for risk mitigation, if required, can lead to constructive decision-making. [Page 23.]

This from the abstract of another 10 year meta-study: "The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of GE crops."

GMO's offer the hope of growing more food on less land, in lower-quality soils, with more nutritious content, and with less use of polluting pesticides and fertilizers, and while preserving biodiversity. Decades of research--SCIENCE--says that they are not or need not be a hazard.

Luddite opponents need to answer the desperate calls of the poverty-stricken of the world.

This one's too good not to share. 

This is science!

From Watts Up With That:

Claim: simulated satellite data back to 1860 proves global warming caused by humans

This is just nuts, sorry, I just don’t have any other words for it. 

The study took three decades of satellite data and used that to fake data going back to 1860, then used the fake data to show the alarming increase in temperature today when compared to their old, made-up data.

Wow, this is amazing.  James Cameron went down alone to the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean.

(National Geographic pic)

I have long marveled at the feat of the Trieste team, who went there 50 years ago.  Nobody went back, until now.  The Trieste adventure was way ahead of its time.

Is it possible that in 7 years, a person may take it upon himself to go back to the moon, 50 years after the Apollo landing?  How cool would that be!

My belief that this is fake is exceeded by my wish that it were real.



Ann says: The video in this link has died, but the Huffer Post is reporting that the guy that made the film is admitting it was a hoax.

The woolly mammoth video from a couple weeks ago really had me wishing it were true too...even when it was a much more obvious fake than this video.

Jetman's latest



Awesome!

Quote of the Day, by Lubos Motl:

This sequence of sentences sounds just like this: "If an elephant is a bird, then a cactus must need water at least sometimes to survive. Let's try a thought experiment. Using a cactus, we can create a baby that is a boy exactly when it is not a boy. Therefore, an elephant is a dinosaur. It follows that Obama was born in Kenya."

Giant kraken lair discovered

The arranged vertebrae resemble the pattern of sucker discs on a cephalopod tentacle, with each vertebra strongly resembling a coleoid sucker. In other words, the vertebral disc "pavement" seen at the state park may represent the earliest known self portrait.

Long ago a Greek got into his bath, and noticed that the water level rose as his body entered the water. Thus the simple physics of displacement was discovered. The great Archimedes is said to have uttered the phrase: "Eureka!" (which should be pronounced something like: heh'-ur-eeka.)

Today, with less fanfare and with less import, the National Science Foundation rediscovers that piece of basic science:

From Watts Up With That:

Just like Archimedes discovered millennia ago, it is well known today that the Arctic ice cap displaces it’s own weight in the water so that when it melts it will not cause a rise in global sea level.

Not well known at the National Science Foundation, apparently. They formerly wrote:

In addition to altering salinity, melting sea ice also raises worldwide sea levels, with potentially significant effects for coastal cities and towns

This has now been corrected to:

[Editor's note: An inaccurate statement about sea ice and rising seal levels has been deleted. We regret the error.]

I'd just like to point out that this is grade-school level science.

Gone in 60 nanoseconds - The Washington Post

Charles Krauthammer (yes, that Charles Krauthammer--he is an MD after all) writes of the neutrino experiment that might shake the world. In short, a group of serious and experienced physicists have recorded neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light--which according to all our modern physics should be impossible.

Steve Says: Some skeptical analysis here. I have very little understanding of what they are saying, but the general buzz about this seems to be pretty negative. Fun to follow though.

How can a baby, born in the northern hemisphere, have a spiral of hair that goes clockwise?



It's simple, really. Babies develop head-down in the womb!

Just swatted a bug that was on my kitchen wall, and was surprised by the resulting bright green flash of light.

A firefly! There are a lot of them around our house.

The cicadas are pretty much gone now though.

Well, cicada time is in full swing down here. In the early evening, when it's hot, humid and still sunny, they are at their loudest. You don't want to be out on the front porch for long. It's so loud your ears start to bother you. Going inside you feel a relief and a slight ringing in your ears. The sound rises and falls as they sing out in unison, creating a wave-of-sound effect. It's pretty impressive.

If you shake a tree or bush, hundreds will take off into the air. There can be several thousand in a tree. Looking out across the street, you can see them flying around, as you might see bugs over a lake when the light is right. I have to shake myself off getting into our car, as it is quite likely that one or more will land on me on the walk from my door.

In general though, most of them seem to be pretty sedentary, and they are quite clumsy flyers and crawlers.

I wouldn't want it every year, but I am glad to have seen it.

No, not that large family down the street. Brood XIX of 13-year cicadas:

Brood XIX (also known as Brood 19 and The Great Southern Brood) is one of 15 separate broods of periodical cicadas that appear regularly throughout the southeastern United States. Every 13 years, Brood XIX tunnels en masse to the surface of the ground, lays eggs, and then dies off in several weeks.

We are in the midst of their emergence now. Every morning on the trees you can see them, having crawled up out of the ground during the night. They molt, then fly up into the trees later in the day.

So far, it doesn't really seem all that bad. I had visions of swarms of these things everywhere, but in reality I haven't noticed them very much. You see them on cars and sidewalks, but you could walk for miles without stepping on more than one or two. They aren't all that loud now either. Perhaps that will change. They should be around for six weeks or so.

(source Wikipedia)
Here is a nice video from Nashville that gives you the idea of what's going on:


Here is David Attenborough (always great!) talking about 17-year cicadas. These look very similar to the ones we have, but seem to have a creepier whooping sound.

A commenter on Instapundit:

Any other city in the world would have seen buildings flattened and the deaths of tens of thousands. To the best of my knowledge not one person in Tokyo died, although I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that some poor soul fell off a ladder.

Sound engineering, preparation, precaution, and technology saved the day. I could walk home last night secure in the knowledge that my kids, wife, and mother-in-law were completely safe despite experiencing the worst earthquake in Japanese history and the fifth-worst in the world ever.

He's absolutely right. If this quake had struck Los Angeles, much of the city would have been destroyed. Why? First this was one h&^% of an earthquake, but also because American engineering codes are not designed for the preservation of structures at all. As I was told when I was studying structural engineering, American codes are designed so that in a major earthquake the buildings fall down slowly.

Does that sound stupid? It isn't really as stupid as it sounds. Buildings in the US are designed for the preservation of life. If a building falls down slowly, the thinking is, then people will have a chance to escape. People live, the building doesn't. Billions of dollars in damage, but a low casualty and death count.

Japan has a much higher standard, both life and structures are supposed to survive.

Because a strong earthquake can be so expensive with the loss of so many structures here, there has been some discussion as to whether the US should adopt Japan's philosophy. But most of the country's earthquake zone buildings were built to the life-only standard.

As with any talk about US, earthquakes, and death and destruction, we must not only consider California, but the bigger fault line: New Madrid--sleeping soundly in the middle of the country. Let's hope it doesn't wake up.

This from the USGS website:

The earthquake locations and magnitudes cited in NOAA tsunami statements and bulletins are preliminary and are superseded by USGS locations and magnitudes computed using more extensive data sets.

Do I detect a hint of friendly competition? Or something more?

How stupid are science reporters? How about this from MSNBC:

"The images show that refrozen ice makes up 24 percent of an area known as Dome A, a 13,800-foot-high plateau roughly the size of California. Much of the sheet and refrozen ice lies atop an underground mountain range."

What is this, Jules Verne? Journey to the Center of the Earth? How can you have an UNDERGROUND mountain range???

President Obama will be on Mythbusters this evening. He will be asking the show's hosts to once again investigate the possibility of "Archimedes' Death Ray." This is the legend that Archimedes was able to destroy ships at sea by having soldiers reflect enough sunlight off their shields to set the ships on fire. The Mythbusters have investigated this twice before, and each time it was "busted."


Really, it's preposterous, unless by "ships at sea" you mean ships a hundred feet from shore, sitting motionless in absolutely still water, and if by "shields" you mean parabolic mirrors. I found the whole process of testing this myth pretty boring. Both times. The myths that I think work best for testing are the ones that have some degree of believability from the start. I wasn't buying this one.

On the other hand, part of me thinks that they must have come up with some contrived way to make this work, or they wouldn't bother testing it a third time. I doubt President Obama came to them with this problem. They probably already had a plan to retest it and suggested it to him.

I think having the President on the show is a fun idea. It might get kids interested in science. I just wish they would have chosen a better myth.

Archimedes was a genius. I am awestruck by some of the mathematics he was able to do over two thousand years ago. With his towering achievements, it would be a shame to associate him mainly with this mythical "Death Ray."

Update: Busted again.