8 December 2025
Hello there, friend of science
こんにちは、科学の友よ
[It is estimated that 30,000 Bay Area residents speak Japanese.]
The federal government’s ‘war on meritocracy’ sidelines those who achieved their merits via formal education. They are being replaced by those who have instead achieved wealth and renown: the elements of a Plutocracy.
The Federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices – ACIP – was stripped of its members who were well regarded in academia. Last week the committee moved the recommended time for the Hepatitis B vaccine from birth to ‘at least’ two months later if the mother tests negative for Hepatitis B. Scientists expect an uptick in Hep B infections as a result.
Also last week, the federal government announced it is lowering the mileage requirement for auto manufacturers that encouraged more EVs. Before last week, the cars and light trucks of each auto manufacturer were to average 50.4 mpg equivalent by 2031. [Our personal Kia EV is rated at 113 mpg equivalent.] The new requirement of 34.5 mpg can be reached by auto manufacturers without building a single EV. This will benefit the fossil fuel industry and may put U.S. auto manufacturers at a global disadvantage as the rest of the world transitions to EVs.
GEOLOGY
Nearly all EVs have batteries with Lithium, the third element in the Periodic Table. It is thought that Chile is the country with the greatest amount of lithium available for mining, with China coming in second. However, it may be that the U.S. has even more than Chile. The U.S. has significant lithium deposits in North Carolina, California, and Nevada, but recent studies suggest that the McDermitt Caldera – which spans the Oregon-Nevada border – could contain enough lithium to put the U.S. first in the amount of lithium.
Another often-ignored woman who made large contributions to science: Inge Lehmann. While studying the S-waves (shear) and P-waves (pressure), of the 1929 New Zealand Murchison Earthquake, she calculated that the core of the Earth was not totally liquid as was believed. She concluded that deeper than about 6,000 km, Earth’s very center was solid. She named this the Earth’s Inner Core. Later on she discovered another ‘discontinuity’ at 200 km that exists below continents but not generally below oceans. This is known as the Lehmann Discontinuity.
The hilly terrain near Zhaoqing City in Guangdong Province of China has been hiding a 900m-wide impact crater in plain sight. Studies at the site reveal that an asteroid hit there a mere 11,700 years ago. It is the largest “modern” impact crater and is named the Jinlin Crater.
Earthquake ‘Fault’: “On December 4, 2025, at 8:06am PT, the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system was activated for a magnitude 5.9 earthquake near Reno and Carson City, Nevada. … [T]he warning was issued to a broad region of California, including the Bay Area, the Eastern Sierra, and parts of South-Central California.” Only one problem: there was no earthquake. It was a system error.
RAFFLE
Our raffle prize is a 30.5 cm Wall Clock with the first 12 elements of the periodic table. Your choice of Blue, Pink, Purple, or Black. Get it for yourself or as a gift. Just send an email before noon Friday to david.almandsmith <at> gmail <dot> com with your guess of an integer from 1 to 1,000. Last time, the random number generator generated “13”. Mike won a Newton’s Cradle with his guess of 1. Thirty-three people played.
PALEONTOLOGY
¿Rhinos in Canada’s High Arctic? Epiatheracerium itjilik lived 23 million years ago high in the Canadian Arctic where it survived months without sunshine each year but during a time when temperate forests existed there. ¿And how did it get there? The North Atlantic Land Bridge connected Europe with North America until perhaps 30 million years ago.
Flamingos filter-feed by forcing water out of their mouths through brush-like bristles lining their beaks called lamellae. Some ducks do likewise: e.g. mallards & shovelers. Now we know there was a pterosaur (Bakiribu waridza) 110 million years ago that also had lamellae and was likely a filter-feeder, although pterosaurs are not related to birds. But then, neither are filter-feeding whales.
SCIENCE-BASED SKEPTICISM
To elucidate the process whereby people can be misled into believing that vaccines cause autism, Kristin Panthagani MD, PhD explains the fallacies that lead to that belief, She makes an equally invalid claim that dogs cause autism. Absurd, of course, but it’s a fun journey into logic and science-based skepticism. Read it here.
SPACE
The best meteor shower of the year is ramping up and will hit a peak Saturday night. The Chabot Space & Science Center is having a watch party beginning at 11pm Saturday.
Two years ago, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned samples of the Bennu asteroid back to Earth. This week NASA revealed they found amazing organic compounds in the samples along with others seen before: ribose, glucose, amino acids, all five nucleobases (adenine guanine cytosine, uracil, & thymine), carboxylic acids, and a gummy polymer rich in oxygen and nitrogen. These findings have implications for the existence of life elsewhere in the cosmos.
FUN NERDY VIDEOS
Redesigned Moon Suit – Cleo Abram – 1 min
Sulfur – Show & Tell – Joe Schwarcz – 3.5 mins
Venus and its Killer Asteroids – Neil deGrasse Tyson – 9 mins
Ancient Ecosystem DNA – PBS Eons – Gabriel Santos – 9 mins
Sugary Asteroid – NASA – Danny Glavin – 11.5 mins
“Event” Captured by the KM3NeT – SciShow – Hank Green – 13.5 mins
SPARC: MIT’s Attempt at Fusion – Megaprojects – Simon Whistler – 18.5 mins
¿Life on Mars? – vlogbrothers – Hank Green – 20 mins
¿Wooden Wind Turbine Towers? – Rosemary Barnes – Engineering with Rosie – 20 mins
Lithium – Tales from the Periodic Table – Ron Hipschman – 30 mins
¿Why Don’t Jet Engines Melt? – Veratasium – Derek Muller – 38 mins
Neolithic Industrial-Scale Hunting – PBS NOVA – 50 mins
Fission Power Prospects – Star Talk – Kathryn Huff, Neil deGrasse Tyson et al. – 51 mins
The holidays remind me to appreciate kinships and friendships. I wish the same for you,
David Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics
“Wäre bei allen Menschen Verstand und Tugend, so würde ein jeder aufrichtig und freiwillig zur gemeinen Wohlfahrt beitragen.
[“If all people had intelligence and virtue, everyone would sincerely and voluntarily contribute to the common welfare.”]
—Christian Wolff [1679 – 1754] German philosopher
You write: “Last week the committee moved the recommended time for the Hepatitis B vaccine from birth to ‘at least’ two months later if the mother tests negative for Hepatitis B. Scientists expect an uptick in Hep B infections as a result.
Here’s the comment/question to the above comment that was inadvertently posted when I temporarily left the page: 1. I suppose we should be grateful that the anti-vaccers didn’t recommend total elimination of the Hep B vaccination. 2. But why only a possibly 2-month delay–how does that help their position — do they think parents will forget about it after two months? 3. What evidence is there that there would be an uptick in Hep B infections if there is only a 2 month delay — or do pro vacc scientists also expect that parents will forget about the vaccination after two months?