Morning Briefing: 8 November 2010

Climate scientists plan campaign against global-warming skeptics [via The Los Angeles Times]

Some 700 members of the American Geophysical Union have agreed to form a rapid-response team to speak out about the realities of climate change, a topic with virtually universal support in scientific circles but with a growing number of skeptics in and out of politics. The move is in no small part due to Republicans’ takeover of the House Tuesday and subsequent vows to investigate the EPA and climate change researchers. “This group feels strongly that science and politics can’t be divorced and that we need to take bold measures to not only communicate science but also to aggressively engage the denialists and politicians who attack climate science and its scientists,” said Scott Mandia, professor of physical sciences at Suffolk County Community College in New York.

Pompeii ruin collapses amid claims site mismanaged [via The Daily Telegraph]

A house once used by gladiators before fights almost 2,000 years ago in Pompeii collapsed Saturday morning, realizing fears of mismanagement and creeping decrepitude of the UNESCO World Heritage site. Culture Minister Sandro Bondi said the cause appeared to be “rain water that had infiltrated the House of the Gladiators when it was restored with cement at the end of the Second World War after suffering bomb damage.” Funding for conserving Pompeii, which is visited annually by more than 2 million people, has been slashed in recent years, and archaeologists are concerned about continuing degradation if preventive measures are not enacted quickly.

The Queen joins Facebook [via The Guardian]

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II joined Facebook today, Buckingham Palace announced this weekend, but there’s no way to friend or poke her. Technically, the monarchy now has a fan page where news and photos about the Queen and the royal family will be posted. “Facebook is probably the last bastion of social media the Royal Household had not yet entered, and the Queen is keen to be fully signed up to the 21st century,” an anonymous royal aid said. “All plans for the Facebook page have been sent to the top, and the Queen has very much taken the lead on this.” A Royal Twitter account was launched in 2009.

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Morning Briefing: 11 October 2010

‘Mini-Pompeii’ Found in Norway [via Discovery News]

Norwegian archaeologists announced last week that they have uncovered a well-preserved Neolithic campsite in Hamresanden in southern Norway. Unlike the Italian city buried under ash in 79 CE, the Norwegian site, dating back approximately 5,500 years, was buried under three feet of sand. Researchers said the site, located a few hundred feet from the North Sea, appeared to have been seasonally occupied; the pottery appears to have been left with the intention of returning. The archaeologists theorized a sudden flood covered the settlement in sand, preserving the artifacts.

Google cars drive themselves, in traffic [via The New York Times]

The interwebs were abuzz yesterday with the Times’ front-page story on Google’s small fleet of auto-piloted automobiles. The cars “artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver.” The Google cars have so far driven thousands of miles without human intervention (although there is a live operator behind the wheel just in case), and has so far had only one accident—being rear-ended by another car. While developers are years away from a mass-produced self-driving auto, they hope that the increased safety brought by computers driving will prevent possibly tens of thousands of deaths per year.

Philippa Foot, Renowned Philosopher, Dies at 90 [via The New York Times]

Oxford philosopher Philppa Foot died Oct. 3 on her 90th birthday. Foot was renowned for her work in morality and rationality and was best known for a thought experiment known as the Trolly Problem, “the ethical dilemma faced by the driver of a runaway trolley hurtling toward five track workers. By diverting the trolley to a spur where just one worker is on the track, the driver can save five lives. Clearly, the driver should divert the trolley and kill one worker rather than five. But what about a surgeon who could also save five lives — by killing a patient and distributing the patient’s organs to five other patients who would otherwise die? The math is the same, but here, instead of having to choose between two negative duties — the imperative not to inflict harm — as the driver does, the doctor weighs a negative duty against the positive duty of rendering aid.”

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