Science Archives - Donald Erik Schneider

On Legislating Our Bodies

May 5, 2019July 3, 2020dondoLeave a comment 876 views

If you’ve ever said “never again” or quoted that poem that starts, “first they came for,” you should be looking with deep concern at the recent decisions about Caster Semenya (a woman who can run really fast). She was told that if she wants to be called a woman, she needs to harm herself with…

Quick hit: How America Uses Its Land

August 31, 2018July 3, 2020dondoLeave a comment 601 views

Bloomburg created a fascinating graphic explorating how America uses the land within its borders. Definitely worth a look. Overview (but this really doesn’t do it justice): Type Acreage (millions) Percentage Pasture/range 654M 35% Forest 539M 28% Cropland 392M 21% Special Use 169M 9% Urban 69M 4% Miscellaneous 69M 4% And 80% of the American population…

But who caused the CO2 levels 50 million years ago?

April 29, 2018July 3, 2020dondoLeave a comment 692 views

My friend Jerry Hoffmeister posted an article from Scientific American on Facebook: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2 Carbon dioxide has not reached this height in millions of years… Right now we’re on track to create a climate unseen in 50 million years by mid-century. This is quite terrifying, if you understand…

Only 4 scientists out of 69,406 don’t believe in man-made global warming.

April 28, 2018July 3, 2020dondo 845 views

That’s about one in 20,000. So 99.9942% of climate scientists agree that man is changing the climate. How, then, has nearly everyone from President Obama on down come to buy the claim of a 97 percent consensus? The figure comes from a 2013 article in Environmental Research Letters by Cook et al. titled “Quantifying the…

Lymphatic system of the brain

May 21, 2017May 21, 2017dondoLeave a comment 848 views

This is pretty fascinating. Until recently, scientists thought the lymphatic system (the body’s sewage system) did not extend into the brain. They’ve discovered that it does, and in addition that it’s far more active and effective at night during sleep. Really evocative.

Genetics as information

May 3, 2017September 24, 2017dondoLeave a comment 1338 views

This is ridiculously fascinating. I mean, just the basic premise is astonishing: no two cells in anybody’s brain have the same genetic code. We are not made up of a single genetic encoding; our bodies carry around literally billions of unique combinations of our genetic code. That’s a bit world-altering, at least for me. Also,…