How the media is harming science: Thwaites Glacier example

One thing I have noticed over the years is that science often gets misrepresented in the media. A study is done, results are published, and the media will often take the results, sensationalize them, and completely misrepresent the study. This, of course, gets them better clicks, with their exciting headline, but the problem is that when people find out that the headline is false, they blame the scientists instead of the media. People then draw the inevitable conclusion that you can’t believe a word scientists say.

Case in point is the slow melting of Thwaites Glacier, a huge glacier that, when fully melted, will raise sea levels by around 65 cm (just over two feet).

Here are some of the completely false headlines recently published:

FALSE by Forbes: ‘Doomsday Glacier’ The Size Of Florida Could Collapse This Decade, Remaking Coastlines Worldwide

FALSE by NBC News: Antarctic ice shelf could crack, raise seas by feet within decade, scientists warn

FALSE by USA Today: Collapse of Florida-sized glacier may happen soon, raising sea levels and threatening coastal cities

FALSE by Space.com: Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier’ could meet its doom within 3 years

All of the above are just plain false.

What scientists have actually recently reported is that a floating portion of the Thwaites Glacier, known as the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf, is in danger of collapsing in the next 5 to 10 years. Since this is already floating, its collapse won’t affect ocean levels much at all. The bigger story here is that this ice shelf is helping to slow the advance of the Thwaites Glacier, and if it does collapse, Thwaites Glacier will probably advance at a faster rate. Like, maybe 25% faster. It will still take many decades, and probably centuries, for Thwaites Glacier to actually merge into the sea and raise ocean levels by the predicted 65 cm.

Here is an actual sensible article that accurately reports the facts:

TRUE by BBC: Thwaites: Antarctic glacier heading for dramatic change

The overall problem here is that a decade from now denialists will tout the above FALSE headlines as yet more things scientists said that didn’t come true. There are already lists circulating on social media of things that “alarmist” scientists have allegedly predicted that never came true. A close look at these lists shows that none of the headlines represent the scientific consensus and many don’t represent something that any scientist said at all.

Almost All Covid-19 Deaths Are Unvaccinated

I realized something rather shocking recently: almost every person currently dying in the United States from covid-19 decided not to get vaccinated. There are still over 500 people dying each day of covid-19 in the US. We are talking thousands of people each week dying preventable deaths. Why is this fact not being publicized?

Here is some data on breakthrough deaths from the US CDC website:

• Total breakthrough deaths as of April 26, 2021: 132

• Total breakthrough deaths as of May 10, 2021: 223

As we can see, for the two week period from April 26 to May 10 there were just 91 breakthrough deaths recorded. Total US deaths from covid-19 during that period were around 700 per day, for approximately 9,800 deaths. Just 91 out of 9,800 deaths were fully vaccinated. That’s amazing. 9,700 of those deaths could have been prevented if the person had been vaccinated. The CDC website does mention that the breakthroughs are probably being undercounted, so maybe the vaccine effectiveness isn’t quite as high as the 99% that these numbers show, but it is certainly up there. (In fact Pfizer claims 97% and numerous studies have shown very high effectiveness.)

It should also be noted that 93% of those who recently died from covid-19 were 50+ years of age, so they have had access to vaccine for quite a while now. They actually decided not to get vaccinated and most likely died as a result of their decision.

Vaccination Update #1

I’ve been following the vaccine rollout and wanted to record some of my observations. The following graph shows the vaccination status for various countries in terms of first doses.

First Doses by Country

So let’s talk about each country. I am particularly interested in where each country will get in terms of what percentage of the population will actually accept the vaccine. Going forward, how well each country does in terms of breakouts will depend heavily on their vaccine acceptance level.

ISRAEL: Israel struck a special deal with Pfizer to get themselves early access to the vaccine. Their rollout has been great and they are doing amazingly well when you consider how young their population is. Only about 69% of their population is in the 17+ age rage currently receiving vaccinations. They are currently 63% vaccinated overall which puts their take-up among eligible persons at 91%. They do have plans to start vaccinating 12-16 year olds soon since FDA has now approved the Pfizer vaccine for that age group.

UNITED KINGDOM: UK is at 53% and showing no signs yet of slowing down. Their curve did flatten out some around the end of March but that is because they started doing second doses.

UNITED STATES: You just have to shake your head at the US. They are at 46% and already showing vaccine hesitancy is going to be a major factor for them. Take-up is currently under 1.5% per week and at the current rate it will take 3 weeks just to hit 50%, assuming no further slowdowns. It will be interesting to see how they progress in the long term but it looks like getting much over 50 is going to be a big challenge for them.

CANADA: Yay Canada! We are doing great; currently at 42% but rising rapidly. US hesitancy has played in our favor as manufacturers based in the US now have supply available for export. (Our major vaccine is the Pfizer which was previously coming out of Belgium. As of the beginning of May it is now being shipped from the US at 2 million doses per week, which is double what we were getting in March.) We are giving first doses to over 5% per week and within the next week will rocket past the US with no sign of slowing down. My expectation is that we will easily hit 60 and perhaps start to slow down in the 65-70 range. Our leaders have set a target of 75%.

GERMANY/SPAIN/FRANCE: These 3 are doing great. They are not going quite a fast as Canada in terms of first doses because they are giving second doses within 3-4 weeks of the first, as specified by the manufacturers. Canada has decided to go up to 4 months before giving the 2nd dose in order to get as many first doses as possible. (Which was absolutely the correct call, by the way, given the lack of supply and high effectiveness of the first dose.)

MEXICO: Mexico is only at 12% but the US recently began exporting vaccine to Mexico so I hope they can ramp up their vaccinations considerably. It is in the US’s own best interests to get Mexico vaccinated as quickly as possible, given their shared border.

the wrong climate stuff

I dropped by “The Right Climate Stuff” today, a climate denial website that claims to be authored by former NASA employees, and couldn’t believe what I found. It has been a number of years since I last visited this website, so I’m a little late on this one, but better late than never, right?

I found this website back in 2013, not long after it was first established. They claimed back then that “natural variations account for most, if not all, of changes in climate.” It has been fun to visit there every now and again and see how they cope with the ever-accumulating overwhelming evidence that they are massively wrong.

My latest discovery is this: Back in 2017 they wrote a letter to President Trump urging him to pull the US out of the Paris agreement and in it they made the following claim:

We have concluded that the computer model analyses used in the IPCC reports, estimating global warming increases up to 4.5 degrees C for doubling atmospheric CO2 concentration, are in error because the models do not agree with empirical data as required by the principles of the Scientific Method. Our analysis, based on principles of conservation of energy, uses well-known, measured data and predicts no more than 1.2 degrees C increase in global warming due to burning all currently known world-wide reserves of fossil fuels.

That is just incredible. They are actually claiming that if we burn every bit of oil, gas, and coal that we currently know about it will only increase the earth’s temperature by 1.2C. At the time they wrote that we were at about 0.9C. Now, some 3.5 years later we are already at 1.0C. It won’t be long until we are already at 1.2C. What will they say then?

You just have to wonder what motivates these people to make such obviously absurd claims. They then go on to let us know just why we should believe them:

Our simple model is validated by the rigor of its derivation and agreement with 167 years of empirical data since 1850. This analysis was completed with the same rigor and attention to detail used in our manned space program, where the lives of astronauts depended on our accuracy.

I’m sorry, but that’s hilarious. If only they were joking. These folks should stop embarrassing themselves already.

2001 Ford Escape bad splice

I had a bit of an incredible car repair experience recently. It’s a bit of a long story, but the short version is that my 2001 Ford Escape was experiencing no spark on cylinder #1 and the problem turned out to be a bad splice in the wiring harness. The splice looked like it had been done in the factory, but the stranded wires were simply twisted together, and they had corroded over time. I’m pretty amazed that I actually found it.

This all started quite some time ago when I purchased a 2001 Ford Escape that was barely running. The main problem turned out to be several vacuum leaks, including the lower intake manifold gasket, which is a common problem with older Ford Escapes. However, even after fixing 3 different vacuum leaks, the car just wasn’t running quite right. There was an uneven idle, with a ‘huffing,’ as I described it. The engine made a rapid ‘huff-huff-huff’ sound as it was idling. It also ran the same way while driving, whenever the revs were low.

I eventually decided to check that every cylinder was working properly, by pulling each spark plug wire off and putting it back on with the engine running. This led me to discover that cylinder #1 was not doing anything. Luckily I had a spare coil and spark plug on hand, so I hooked them up and observed that there was no spark with the engine running. Clearly, I had an electrical problem.

I happen to own an oscilloscope, so I used it to compare the waveform for the bad cylinder with one of the good ones. What I found was quite perplexing. The waveforms were exactly the same. How could this be? The coils do draw quite a bit of current, so I took this to mean that the engine computer was operating normally, but there was some kind of connection issue along the way. Could it be a bad connector?

There were two wires to check, a white/purple that supplies a constant +12 volts, and a green/white that pulls the coil to ground for each spark. I used a light bulb to check that the +12 was working fine. This meant my problem was the green/white signal wire.

There were only two connectors to check, a midpoint wiring harness connector, and the huge connector to the engine computer (PCM). I disconnected the battery (both terminals!) and PCM, to avoid any potential damage and supplied +12 volts to the green/white wire at the spark plug connector, by shoving a small wire into the connector. Using a 12 volt light bulb connected to ground on the battery as a load, I used a safety pin to check for voltage on the far side of the midpoint connector. The light glowed brightly. So far so good.

At the PCM connector I ran into a problem. I couldn’t find the green/white wire. There’s a lot of wires, and you can’t clearly see them all, so I decided to probe every socket on the connector with my pin. None of them would light the light bulb. I went through every hole on the connector three times, but every single pin was dead. So what was up with that? Did the green/white wire go somewhere else?

Something I had noticed right away was that there was a strange wire splice near the connector, so I decided to have a closer look. I removed some black tape, pulled the wire out of the harness and, lo and behold, I found it was a different color at the connector, but it was connected to my green/white wire! Yes! Success! This had to be the problem. The tape was old, and there was heat shrink tubing over the splice, so it looked to me like this splice had been applied during manufacturing. Probably the socket for that pin on the connector was bad so they had to replace it.

I removed the heat shrink tubing and found the wires were simply twisted together and there was some green corrosion visible on the copper strands. I cleaned it up and applied some solder. After everything was put back together my engine finally ran smooth and even.

Anyway, I’m still amazed at this little find. It’s just not the kind of problem you’re expecting to find. I’m a little puzzled at the corrosion in the connection under the heat shrink tubing. Could this have been caused by electrical current? In any case, it would seem that simply twisting stranded wires together and applying heat shrink tubing is a bad practice. I always apply solder when doing this type of repair. It seems Ford might want to consider doing the same.

Trump’s Reckless Hydroxychloroquine Claims

It has always amazed me how people believe things they hear that just “sound good” and then refuse to let them go. One area, in particular, where this is quite common is when it comes to flu remedies. Most people, it seems, have beliefs that are not based on science. One such example would be Cold-FX, which is basically a scam product that some people absolutely swear by. Another would be vitamin C, which has been proven by many studies to have no benefit against colds, but many people swear by it.

We now have hydroxychloroquine as a remedy for covid-19, touted by none other than the president of the United States as a “game changer.” He actually suggested that people try it, because “what have you got to lose?” It is actually incredible just how irresponsible Mr. Trump’s statements are, for a variety of reasons.

First and foremost, Trump’s claims are false. The drug is clearly not a “game changer.” If it was, we would know it by now. There is no reliable evidence that this drug actually works to cure covid-19. What we have is just biased studies and testimonials. Real scientists are actually studying the drug, and if they were getting “game changing” results we would surely have heard about it by now. The reality is that most people who contract covid-19 get better all on their own. Give them hydroxychloroquine and they still get better. That’s basically the selling point of all false flu remedies: people get better whether they take them or not.

Secondly, Trump has single-handedly caused a severe shortage of hydroxychloroquine for those who actually need it. This is an important drug for people suffering from a variety of illnesses.

I find myself wondering just what Trump hopes to accomplish in touting this quackery. I can’t come up with a reason. I have to believe that he genuinely believes what he is saying. Which, of course, just proves he is nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is.

I can only hope that Trump supporters can see just how completely inept Trump’s handling of the covid-19 pandemic has been. I doubt it, though. People believe what they want to believe. Some how, some way, they always find a way to support their beliefs no matter what.

MEC Langley Race 2, Trans Canada Trail 2018

I ran a 5k race today and have a couple of interesting stories to tell

The race was MEC Langley’s second race of 2018, the “Trans Canada Trail 5K/10K/Half and Full Marathon.” This race is held mainly on the Trans Canada Trail where it runs along the Fraser River in Fort Langley.

This is the first race I have ever run where it was fully raining, believe it or not. It wasn’t bad at all. I do my regular runs in the rain sometimes. It’s no big deal.

At the start of the race, a group of about 5 runners took off into the distance. A single runner ran just ahead of me slowly pulling away, but they made a wrong turn about 1k into the race. By the time the runner realized it and got back on course, I was right with them again. Once again they pulled slowly away. as we ran Then something very strange happened.

The race is an “out and back.” You run out for 2.5 kms, turn around at an orange pilon, and run 2.5k back. There are also orange pilons marking the course. The runner in front of me decided to just pick a random pilon and turn around! I yelled at them, “that’s not the turnaround,” but they just smiled broadly and kept going. I counted seconds until I reached the actual turnaround, which is clearly marked and has a worker at it to make sure people turn around, and it was about 60 seconds. So this runner shaved about 2 minutes off their time. I have no idea if it was on purpose or not.

So that was strange.

Then, shortly after I turned around a guy still running the other way pointed at me and told his son, who was running with him, “there’s the leader. That’s the guy we have to pass.”

Sure enough, about a half kilometer from the finish, this guy and his son, who looked to be 8-10 years old, slowly passed me. “He’s got a good kick,” the father said proudly.

“He sure does,” I replied. “I’m not the leader, though. There are about 6 runners in front of me.”

He didn’t reply. He just kept running.

As we got closer to the finish line, the boy slowed. He didn’t have such a good kick after all. I was going to easily pass him but decided to slow down and let the kid finish ahead of me. The kid continued to slow down, though, and I had to slow almost to a walk to stay behind him. Another kid got ahead of me as well.

I have to admit, if I had known how much time it would end up costing me I would not have done it. I don’t mind losing positions to a couple of children at all, but now I don’t really know what my time would have been. I easily could have passed the dad, who was right with his son when I first slowed up. Dad’s time was 24:37. So I probably could have done something similar or perhaps even better.

My official time was 24:53.

Oh well, the next race is July 8. I’ll just have to set a better time then. I’m very much looking forward to it. These MEC races are great fun.

MEC Langley Race 1: Langley City Park

MEC Langley held a race day in Langley City Park this morning and I was there. They offered a 5k or 10k distance and I chose the 5k.

Race course for MEC’s Langley City Park race.

It was a beautiful day for a race. We did get a little hail just before the 5k started, but it was no big deal. It was cold but not too cold, and the precipitation more or less held off.

There was a fairly big turnout for the race, with 94 10k runners, and 150 5k runners.

They started the race a little differently this time out. Instead of having everybody cross the start/finish line to start their time individually, they started us all in one big bunch. I was a little worried about this, as I would hate to lose time at the start, but, as it turned out, it worked very well. The start took place in a largish parking lot and by the time we got to the far side, where there was a sharp corner, we were more or less sorted. When I rounded the first corner, a mob of about 10 runners took off ahead of me. During the race I ran a fairly lonely race, being passed by only 2 runners.

There was a bit of a funny incident at the finish line. Two funny incidents, actually.

As I approached the finish line I heard a runner closing in behind me. I figured what the heck, I might as well defend my position, so I sprinted for the finish line, finishing just ahead of the other runner. As it turned out, though, the other runner was the 2nd place runner for the 10k run, which started 15 minutes before the 5k, so I had defended my position for nothing.

At the finish they put a ribboned medal around my neck and I thought nothing of it. It is perfectly normal at many of the races (like the last one I ran, way back in October) to award finishing medals to all participants. It wasn’t until quite a few minutes later that I decided to check out my finishing medal and discovered it had a “2” on it. Uh, what? It was then I realized they had given me the 10k runner’s 2nd place medal by mistake. I had memorized the guy’s number (so I could verify my time), and thus knew who to look for. I spent quite a few minutes trying to locate him, but he was nowhere to be found. I finally went to the scoring tent and handed in the medal. “I think this was given to me by mistake,” I said.

“Yes, it was,” said the scoring official with a grin, “she didn’t want to ask for it back.”

My time for the race was 24:10. I came in 12th out of the 47 male 5k runners. I’m pretty happy with that time.

All in all a great race. I really love these MEC events and am looking forward to the next one on April 29. Just 8 weeks to prepare.

 

MEC Central Park 5k Race 2017

I ran another 5k race today, this one at Central Park in Burnaby. The official race title was “MEC LOWER MAINLAND: TRAIL RACE FIVE, CENTRAL PARK 5K / 10K.” It was a great venue. Lots of parking, lots of washrooms, and I enjoyed running on the wide trails of Central Park.

My time was 22:39 for the 5k. Where did that come from? That is over a minute faster than the last 5k I ran.

MEC GARRY POINT PARK RACE 2017

I ran a 5k race today. The official event title was “MEC LOWER MAINLAND: ROAD RACE SIX, GARRY POINT PARK 5K / 10K / 21.1K.”

I had a bit of a bad race at Garry Point Park last year and swore I would never do it again. The race route runs alongside the ocean and last year there was a very strong wind blowing that was tough to run into on the way out and then robbed me of cooling on the way back. I ran a miserable race. I changed my mind about never doing it again, though, and decided I would enjoy the challenge.

As it turns out, there was no wind challenge. Surprisingly, there was only a light breeze this year. I ran an excellent race, pushing very hard the whole way. My time was actually a little worse than last year’s, though. I was in better shape last year and a few pounds lighter, so it was to be expected. I was pretty happy to do the 5k in 24:10.