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tspears 4 days ago
Polio. Smallpox. Diphtheria. Measles. All massive global killers, all either eradicated completely (smallpox) or very close to it. And yes, measles belongs in that list; people sometimes think of it as a disease of itchy spots, but it does kill children. The reason we forget these things (quick, do you even remember what diphtheria is?) is that vaccines wiped them out. The world without these vaccines would be a much more frightening place. And if I were writing in a tropical country I would be adding some mention of vaccines for yellow fever and other diseases that Canadians don't see unless we travel south. And yet we have people telling us not to take flu vaccine. Why? This latest flu, like all flus, has killed thousands of people around the world, and made many people absolutely miserable for a week or so. The vaccine? I can remember one death reported in Britain. There have been a few dozen bad reactions in Canada, but not deaths, as far as we know. Sure, the H1N1 vaccine lacks ...
tspears 6 days ago
A reader asks if it's possible to look up International Space Station viewing opportunities. Nothing easier! NASA has it all laid out by city, and here's Ottawa: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/view.cgi?country=Canada®ion=Ontario&city=Ottawa ... which more or less doubles for Montreal too. (The station is that fast.) To look up sightings from ANY city, go here: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/index.html
tspears 7 days ago
After several days of forecasts that said today (Sunday) would be sunny, suddenly the weather office says it's going to be cloudy, with some sunny periods. Which makes the chance of seeing the International Space Station much more iffy. Oh well, it'll be back.
tspears 10 days ago
Sunday evening brings one of the best chances in quite a while to see the International Space Station fly overhead. Much like this past Wednesday, if you happened to catch that. And the kids can catch the show without even missing bedtime, thanks to the early sunset at this time of year. The station, with six astronauts aboard - including Canadian Bob Thirsk - flies over fairly often. But it can only be seen if it passes overhead just before sunrise or a little after sunset. That lights up the station at the same time as viewers on Earth's surface are in the dark. The station will appear at 5:10 p.m. Sunday in the northwest. It will start low in the sky. It will cross the whole northern sky, taking about five minutes, and fade out in the northeast as it enters Earth's shadow. That last part is always a bit spooky, as it disappears before reaching the far horizon. And that's what 28,000 kilometres an hour looks like. The station looks like a very bright star, but moving. It doesn't ...
tspears 10 days ago
The latest round of climate talks in Denmark was pretty ho-hum. It occurs to me, none of these people are actually trying to have any effect on the climate. Talks become a self-perpetuating industry. Pretty good gig, too. Nice flights around the globe, swanky hotels, good restaurants. You sit and go over some documents, shuffling papers and analysing, line by line, like the worst Shakespeare class from your high school days. Maybe Shakespeare isn't taught that way any more. But that's what climate talks are like. And any connection to the real world is imaginary. Look, if you want to change the amount of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere from man-made sources, it's pretty simple. You have to turn everyone's thermostats way down and leave them down all winter, limit the distance they can drive a car or truck, and shut down coal-burning electrical plants, closing factories and killing jobs. OK, can't do that in a democracy, not if you want to stay in power. (Try it. Go to a gas ...
