This week in science

Hurricane Sandy isn't the latest Atlantic hurricane, she's no freak: the record breaking 2005 season included a named storm as late as Janurary 2006! But Sandy may well deliver a soaked wallop to the eastern seaboard residents of New England will not soon forget:

Wind shear is expected to remain a high 30 - 55 knots for the next four days, as Sandy interacts with a trough of low pressure to its west. ... This large wind field will likely drive a storm surge of 3 - 6 feet on Monday and Tuesday to the right of where the center makes landfall, on the mid-Atlantic or New York coasts. These storm surge heights will be among the highest ever recorded along the affected coasts, and will have the potential to cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

The latest set of 00Z (8 pm EDT) and 06Z (2 am EDT) computer model runs still have wide differences in the timing and landfall location for Sandy. The ECMWF has been very consistent in its handling of Sandy, and continues to predict that Sandy will hit Delaware or Maryland on Monday afternoon--basically the same forecast it has had for three days. Our other top model for forecasting hurricane tracks, the GFS, has been more inconsistent, and predicts a landfall on Long Island, New York on Tuesday afternoon.

 

• If we connect the dots from wingnuttia central, women who are raped have magic spermicide, there is no such thing as fatal complications from pregnancy, and being forced to carry a rapists baby to term is all part of God's plan (The medical and child rearing costs on the other hand are the victim's repsonsibility). These guys aren't just funny, they're not just zany, they are a direct threat to the lives and well being of millions of women in the US.
• I asked a conservative friend why they're opposed to equal pay and so forth for women. His response was "there is no inequity anymore and there are studies proving it". So, just like these jokers have cooked up bullshit "science" on reproduction and climate change, they've apparently cooked up bullshit data on equal pay.  
• A few of the top micrographic photos of the year courtesy of 80 beats!
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