Very Top Five… Newspaper Comments (Day 2 of 5): Daily Express

Global warming; it’s a hot topic. Scientists are trying to dredge the lake of impartiality to get to the sunken boat of truth, but the politicians are jumping all over the scientists’ ship and fiddling with the controls, trying to sink that as well.

Anyway, the Daily Express has published an article called “100 reasons why global warming is natural” and as you might expect some of their readers are getting hot under the collar. So hot, in fact, that they feel compelled to share it with the rest of us. http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/146139

By the way, the paper struggled a bit to get to 100 reasons. These include 36. “There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.”

Regardless of whether that’s true or not, it’s not a reason why global warming is natural.

And the brilliant non-point 34. “It is a myth that CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas because greenhouse gases form about 3% of the atmosphere by volume, and CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere.”

So? Why can’t it be the commonest greenhouse gas? Even by those statistics, CO2 makes up 10% of the greenhouse gases, which is a pretty big chunk considering all the other gases swirling around up there. And why does that mean global warming is natural, as they are attempting to prove? Just because the numbers look small?

But anyway, I’ve been sidetracked, and that’s not why we’re here: Here’s what the readers think:

5. GLOBAL WARMING
15.12.09, 9:10am by OLCROM
"If the right wing try to pour scorn on anything like global warming then I know for sure that it is man made.Also it is in the interests of the press to stir it up and try and improve circulation,and some people are swallowing the bait."

Ah, the old “if THEY believe it then it must be untrue” rule, where THEY are the political party, religious faith or football team of choice.

Look, though, at the brilliance of OLCROM’s extended water and fishing metaphor. “Pour scorn,” “stir it up,” “circulation,” and “swallowing the bait.” That’s some nice use of metaphor.

4. SOME ESNSE AT LAST
15.12.09, 7:24am by BobBull
"I applaud the Daily Express for showing the other side of the argument. It is essential that a full debate takes place before we are taxed to oblivion for no good reason."

Well done indeed, for showing some esnse. I don’t know where we’d be without your common esnse. Sorry if you think me poking fun at someone for a simple spelling mistake is esnseless.

3. ACID RAIN IS NOT A PROBLEM ANYMORE
15.12.09, 9:58am by Deldongo
"We don't talk about acid rain anymore because the problem has partly been solved. Via drastic measures we have reduced the amount of sulfate aerosols going into the atmosphere reducing acid rains. Also with regards to this article, I don't have time yet to reat the 100 reasons, but I would like to understand how the CO2 emitted from my car, or from burning fossil fuel or from a plane's engines is natural... I must admit I am scratching my head at the moment. "

Fantastic! A climate change believer come to save the day. And in what manner does he logically demolish the Expresses opinions?

“I don't have time yet to reat the 100 reasons”

Oh… but then, surely your second-guessing of the content and subsequent dismissal of it looks rather as if you’ve already made your mind up. Why would any of the climate change sceptics that read the Express care what you think if you don’t care what they think?

“I must admit I am scratching my head at the moment.”

Right, because you are confused. Confusion is the best stance from which to offer opinions.

2. ALL TO DO WITH TAX!
15.12.09, 8:57am by Jac16
"If TAX wasn't involved I might just believe some of it."

You’ve hit the nail on the head there, Jac16. Whenever tax is involved, the best thing to do is completely disbelieve every justification offered.

1. HALLELUJAH
15.12.09, 10:01am by Mr Sitter
“ – “

I’m not going to print this massive comment, because it would take up too much space which could instead be taken up with me referring to it and having a jolly good sneer. I’ll talk you through it:

Initially Mr Sitter casually compares climate change to the Tiger Woods scandal, before settling into a series of rhetorical questions suggesting that journalists are making the story “juicier” and “scandalous” so they will get paid more.

Then the BBC “propaganda machine” is accused of “brainwashing” (It must be a washing machine) and then Al Gore’s film gets a kicking as well. Finally, after setting up all of these concerns he suspends a single “Why?” in lone supplication between two large paragraphs, and Mr Sitter shares his conclusions…

Which turns out to be that if the internet didn’t exist, we would not have heard of the leaked “climategate” emails. This has little to do with his developing thesis, but this doesn’t stop Mr Sitter from ending by offering his congratulations to the Express for the candour of their article.

Very Top Five... Ways to name a chemical element

So you’ve discovered a new chemical element and are trying to think of a good name for it? Well, it isn’t all laughs and fun, despite what you might think of the occasional joke names like ‘Uranium’.

You might want to pick a name which says something about the properties of the element, like the greenish-yellow gas chlorine, which unsurprisingly means “greenish-yellow” in Greek. The same logic of “give-it-a-name-that-describes-what-it-is” cannot be applied to either bohrium or boron, both of which only encourage proletarian anti-chemistry sniggering.

Oh, and the general rule is to whack a classical languages suffix on the end, usually ‘–ium’ but sometimes ‘–us,’ or ‘-on’. This makes it sound instantly pompous, complicated and alien to the layman’s sensibilities, which scientists like to encourage. Otherwise you might think science was accessible, which just won’t do at all.

Anyway, there are broadly five main ways for coming up with a name for a chemical element. Let’s get elemental:

5. After a place.

There are 25 elements named after places on Earth, and this has been a popular choice particularly in recent years. This is because scientists like almost nothing better than making a big fuss over whose right it is to name a new element, so it is generally easier to try and get people on side to name it after the city, country or continent where it was discovered rather than really push that campaign to name it after your favourite 80’s pop group. For example, europium is almost certainly named after the continent and not the band.

More examples in this place names category include Ytterbium, which is named after the Swedish village Ytterby; Yttrium, named after Ytterby; Terbium, named after Ytterby; And Erbium, also named after Ytterby. It’s a popular choice. Because obviously who doesn’t first think of little Ytterby when they come to name a new element?

4. From Mythology

Is there anything a scientist loves more than lording it over the proles with his fancy know-how and learnedness? I checked; there isn’t.

So, your typical scientist, when faced with the challenge of naming something very important, will reach for his big book of difficult and old words and try to come up with an obscure little joke that his colleagues can snigger at sycophantically, ‘cos they get the reference, partnered with the internal warmth that comes from knowing that you don’t.

Hence promethium, named after Promethius, who stole fire from the gods. Because promethium glows in the dark, this is very funny and clever.

Mercury is named after the eponymous messenger of the gods. He was jolly fast, and elemental mercury, since it is a liquid at room temperature, runs. Get it?

And Tantalum, named after Tantalus, who was condemned by the gods to stand in water that would sink out of reach when he tried to drink. Now, if you also know that tantalum does not react with water, I’m sure you can start to see how hilarity may ensue.

And so it goes…

3. From deconstruction.

Just give it a name that says what the element does, or describes a fundamental property of it. Obviously put it in Greek, Latin or even Arabic (sulfra means yellow, and sulfur is yellow), otherwise people will think that chemistry is easy, which is to be actively discouraged, as was discussed above. Calling an element ‘Yellow,’ simply because it is yellow, makes you sound about five years old. So sulfur it is.

Oxygen and hydrogen were named in this way. They respectively mean ‘to beget acid’ and ‘to beget water’. Retrospectively, it is rather hilarious to notice that the science guys got it wrong, and hydrogen is actually the component common to all acids, not oxygen, so they should really be named the other way round. Woops. You dropped the ball there, science guys.

Radium is named this way too; ray, from ray as in death-ray, and –ium, meaning complicated and sciency, with a cheeky wee ‘d’ sandwiched in the middle to give it that hard vowel sound to add more badassery than it would have if it were just rayium. (Radon was named in exactly the same way (with –on as the second most sciency suffix they could come up with), and Actinium is also from the Greek word for ray, so sometimes scientists can be really unoriginal.)

2. From how it was found.

Is your classical education so lacking that your attempt to deliver classy classical allusion would surely lead to a nomen nudum? Can’t you tell your Ares from your arse?

Don’t fear, there is a simpler way to come up with a name. Just name it after the types of place it was first found, or even the apparatus you used to find it. Did you find the element in the sun? Then call it Helium, after the Greek god of the sun Helios. If you first saw it as a band of colour in a spectroscope, then name it after the colour. Was it red? Call it Rubidium. Was it Indigo? Call it Indium. Was it a pleasant sky blue? Call it Caesium. Easy peasy.

1. After a person.

11 elements are named after people (More if you count mythological people), and it is the most popular choice in these days of international scientific squabbling and backstabbing co-operation. Naming stalemates are partially resolved by different research groups simply ignoring each other and proclaiming their choice of name as loudly as possible, but everyone gets hoarse sooner or later, and universal names have to be agreed.

So for example, most everyone can agree that Einstein was a jolly good chap, and so we ended up with an element called Einsteinium, (using the old rule of add –ium for instant elementality, and just when you thought “Einstein” was as sciency a name as you could get.)

Curium is named after two people; fortunately both called Curie (Pierre and Marie).

And good old mendelevium, named after Dmitiri Mendelev, who came up with the idea of a periodic table in the first place, but had to wait ‘til after he was dead for one of the elements to be named after him, number 101. That showed some restraint on his part, I think. After all, he could easily have ‘done a Ytterby,’ and left us with a legacy of Mendeliums, Mendeleviums and Dmitriums. So thanks Mendelev, for your restraint, for your humility, and for your periodic table of elements.

Very Top Five… Things to know before starting a Science degree.

First things first; you don’t need to know any actual Science yet. They’ll teach you that while you’re there. That’s the point of the course, innit?

The things you need to know now are the most important things; the things the University won't tell you. Things like how to sleep surreptitiously in lectures should you feel momentarily overcome by fatigue brought on by the recommended student diet of one-part studying to twenty-seven parts partying, for example.

5. The pictures in the prospectus are all lies.

You know those laboratories in the adverts? The white walled, white desked, neat and tidy Mansions-o’-Science, a-glitter with X-Ray Synchrotrons and Atomic Force Microscopes? What do you think the chances are that these sleek Temples of Knowledge would stay quite so white and shiny with a bunch of manky students fiddling about with them with their horrid fingers (which are all sticky from rolling joints and fumbling with each other’s privates at late-night parties?

Nil. But these labs do exist; only they are locked tantalisingly away in the serious research sections of the University, away from the slime-caked undergrads.

The actual teaching laboratories are a different matter altogether. You won’t find pictures of them in any prospectus, or on the Universities website. Why is this? Because it’s difficult to take good photographs of scorched, graffiti’d desks, melted circuitry, piles of broken 1970’s LASERs and a technician having a violent mental breakdown in the corner.

4. Which adjectives to avoid in course selection.

For example, obviously the word “Advanced” is a dead giveaway that a course is going to be brain meltingly awful and require hours of toil to grasp. And you didn’t go to University to toil like some sweaty navvy.

Some courses just sound difficult, and should clearly be avoided (How else will you fit in all the partying?) All subjects have courses like these; I shall use Physics as an example, because Physics has many adjectives you must avoid; for example;
Statistical, Mathematical, Quantum, Nuclear, Particle, Computational. Unfortunately, most Physics courses include at least one of the above. It’s a tough subject.

However, there is one counter intuitive adjective which you must avoid at all costs; “General.” It sounds innocuous enough, doesn’t it, and that’s how they trick you into studying General Relativity - which is as bad as regular Physics, but with all the dials turned up to “Whoah!”

Try and picture a 4-dimensional space being warped by planets. Can’t? General Relativity’s not for you.

3. How to interpret data.

Wouldn’t it be terrible if you were to do an experiment and collected some data, and then it turned out that you’re data was terrible. What would you do?

Well, you’d have to collect it all over again. What a bore.

Or… you could do this (Which is bad and wrong), and (here it gets technical) adjust all of the data points by, say, 5%, so that they fit the line or curve of best fit more accurately, and delete the poorest data points which are skewing your results. Don’t edit the data to be too accurate, because then your cheating will be obvious. In fact, don’t do it anyway; it’s bad and wrong. Wink.
But if you do decide to cheat, you can always console yourself in knowing that these are the results you should have seen, if it wasn’t for the terrible equipment, which was beyond your control... Wink.

2. You’ll fit right in, just as you are.

Everyone will totally respect your personal beliefs. You’ll notice everyone making a huge effort to make you feel like one of them. University's are a melting pot of cultures.

Now you might wonder whether that last paragraph implies that A.) They will accept your beliefs as they are; or B.) You will be offered the chance to conform to a belief system held by the majority. It could mean either, couldn’t it?

Don’t worry, if you think option A.) is correct, your peers will be particularly understanding, and won’t subtly distance themselves from you at all.

So the following hastily drawn sketch bears no relevance to the truth whatsoever. Promise.

Because, yeah, diversity is super. So long as you don’t mind getting steamrollered in the face by the status quo of secularism and science, a system made invincible by an unshakeable sense of rightness and security. Not like in the dark ages of years gone by, where diversity wasn’t super, and you’d get steamrollered in the face by conservative values and religion, a system made invincible by an unshakeable sense of righteousness and security. Not like that at all.

You certainly won’t find a community propelled by a viciously narrow-minded arrogance borne from the knowledge that hundreds of years of scientific advancement stands behind it. So that’s good.

1. It’s a great opportunity for a life-enhancing experience.

And so it is, just check out this statistic:

“98% of students think that University life is worthwhile.” – University College London website, University Life section.

And right they are. Just feast your peepers on these key benefits, and then tell me whether Univeristy isn't the most awesomest invention ever.

Some places do ten vodka shots for a fiver. (It’s not going to be a well-known brand of vodka, and certainly won’t taste nice. But then again, vodka isn’t supposed to, is it? It’s purely intended to be a substantial alcoholic hit, so you can hardly complain. Besides, you wouldn’t buy 10 shots of anything for the taste, would you? After the first few you can’t taste anything anyway, so it doesn’t matter.)

You can delay getting a dead end supermarket job by 3 or 4 years, and get a dead end office job instead.

You can lord it over people who didn’t go to University, giving them a massive, crushing feeling of worthlessness to fuel your own superiority complex. Like as if it’s a secret club that only the cool kids got to go to.

You can get a Latin scroll at the end of it, as if you were in Harry Potter or whatever. You can even get it on vellum if you like. Which is like paper, but made out of a baby cow’s skin. But don’t worry, the cow is alright afterwards. Wait… what…? Doesn’t it grow back? Oh, actually the cow does have to die. But it was probably going to die anyway, and feel how silky the scroll is. It’s worth it, isn’t it?

Jobs are 40 hours a week. University is, like, six lectures, a lab session and a tutorial. And nobody even minds if you don’t turn up. Ergo, you get to chill at home and watch daytime television.