systematic is Hunting for Planet Nine

A year ago, last January, Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown lit up the Internet with their dossier of evidence for Planet Nine. Their conclusion was electrifying: An as-yet undetected super-Earth may be lurking a light week away in an eccentric orbit far beyond Neptune. Their article in the Astronomical Journal generated intense interest, including 311,371 (and counting) downloads of a .pdf containing a bracing dose of secular perturbation theory, along with push notifications from the likes of the New York Times and NPR to devices worldwide.

link.

Mark Witton Reexamines Pteranodon

Writing about pterosaurs can be difficult because so much of their classification is disputed. The number of pterosaur species, their assignment to different groups, appropriate clade nomenclature and the arrangement of branches in the pterosaur tree are all contested, sometimes to polarising extents.

A bastion of taxonomic stability in all this is Pteranodon, everyone's favourite giant, toothless Late Cretceous ornithocheiroid (or pteranodontoid) from interior regions of the United States. Known since the late 1860s, Pteranodon is one of the most substantially sampled of all pterosaurs and we now have well over 1100 specimens in museums around the world. This record stems from a relatively limited geographical area and is constrained stratigraphically to the Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara Formation, with a smattering of fossils from the overlying Pierre Shale Group.

A series of papers documenting Pteranodon anatomy, variation and stratigraphy, all penned by pterosaur expert S. Christopher Bennett during the 1980s-2000s, have made this pterosaur one of the best understood of all flying reptiles (perhaps the most important entries in this series are Bennett 1992, 1993, 1994, 2001a, 2001b). These publications are the result of examining several hundred Pteranodon specimens and are among the most significant and comprehensive contributions to pterosaur literature in modern times. I recommend them to any students of vertebrate palaeontology: even if you don't agree with their conclusions, they're great examples of clear writing, of hypotheses being established and tested, and of large amounts of data being presented clearly and logically.

link.

Vogworks: Click on Through the Vog

A friend of mine, Cary, has his own blog called Vogworks.  I have known Cary for 15 years now, ever since I took that crazy job at LBNL/NERSC.  I wanted to get the word out about his blog.  His is devoted to his passion for photography and he's quite good.  

I thought I'd try to help boost his readership and so, click on through!

When China's J-20 Stealth Fighter Prototypes Took Flight

China Defense Blog has a post up about when the different J-20 stealth fighter prototypes took flight.

Noel Maurer Asks: Could Bernie Saunders Win the Presidential Election?

Yes. It would be hard, but it is not science fiction.

An earlier post showed how many states Bernie Sanders would win in an absolute general election wipeout. In reality, such a wipeout is impossible. Consider the strongest post-1980 Republican candidacies in each major demographic group. In 1984, Ronald Reagan won 66% of the white vote. Robert Dole won 12% of the black vote. (Actually, Ford won 17% in 1976 and Reagan got 14% in 1980, but no Republican has come that close since.) George W. Bush won 44% of the Latino vote and 43% of Asian-Americans. If our hypothetical Rubio campaign managed to match all those numbers against Sanders, he would get only 55% of the vote. If he matched all those numbers and managed to get minority turnout back to 2004 levels he would get 56%. Now that is a big margin, but it is not 59%.

Moreover, no Republican is going to get 44% of the Latino vote in 2016. Maybe if immigration reform has passed, but that ship has sailed. Even Rubio would do well to match John McCain, which would give him an eight-point margin against Sanders; ten points if minority turnout collapses.

link.

I Hate Self Referencing, but! Worlds Made of Dark Matter Theorized

img src here.

However, the image is NOT mine, but rather a cool picture to add some visual for this.   There are no, theorized, worlds made of neutron- and white dwarf star stuff and...dark matter.  Take a look.

United States of North America: a Comic for the Jade Helmers of Canada

I live in Texas and hear a lot of conspiracy theories. The one about a North American Union is popular. Radio demagogues such as Alex Jones and the recent Jade Helm military exercises keep it alive and the public afraid.

The entire continent of North America — so the tale goes — will soon be one giant country. Washington will force Mexico and Canada, at the point of a double-bladed economic spear, to join their land masses with the United States and create a super country.

This merging will make it easier for the powers that be — the Illuminati, the Bilderberg group, take your pick — to control humanity and impose authoritarian rule. The NAU leaders will put checkpoints on highways, require GPS trackers in all newborns, eliminate personal firearms and outlaw dissent.

It’s a fanciful tale, easily traded over drinks at a bar and rife for exploitation as an adventure comic or action-oriented T.V. series. That’s just what the authors of the comic book The United States of North America aimed to do.

link.

Oops! Another Guest Blog Post at the Power and the Money: The Calm Before the Storm

I have had another guest blog post on the situation in Ukraine up for a few days at Noel's The Power and the Money.  The post is entitled 'The Calm Before the Storm.'

In Honor of St Patty's: Restoring Marberry

Restoring Marberry is a blog by an American gentleman, Brian Kaller, who has moved to rural Ireland and is raising a family.  I found the blog because he periodically comes to heck out the science bits I post or write.  He has a daughter who, while not exactly like mine, reminds me of my interactions with my precocious girl.  Today, though, he has a post on what Saint Patrick's Day is like in Ireland and given what today is...you ought to take a look.

Hey! Over There: On the incredible futility of the Minsk accord

I have a guest post over at Noel Maurer's The Power and the Money about my great confusion as to what the Europeans are attempting to do with the Minsk Accords.

Noel Beat me to Putting it up: UFO Sightings Caused by CIA Spy Planes

There was a giant upsurge in UFO sightings in the 1950s. It would not be unreasonable to blame that on the zeitgeist. Russians and rockets and Russians with rockets, coming right after the Germans aimed for the Moon but hit London. Mass psychology is a plausible explanation.

But such logic would be wrong!

link.

Catalog of Organisms on Bobble-nosed Trilobites

While most fossil invertebrates manage to completely fly under the radar when it comes to popular culture (it's not as if we're drowning under cartoon depictions of euthycarcinoids or eldoniids), one group that will often get a passing nod is the trilobites. Any depiction of early animal life worth its salt is going to feature a couple of these crunchy bugs scurrying about. Nevertheless, the range of varieties of trilobite shown will generally be low, and will usually be something similar to Olenellus or Elrathia. Seeing as trilobites persisted for hundreds of millions of years, it should be no surprise that their actual diversity was much higher.

link.

Reptilian Rants on Biological Sails Through Deep Time

One of the quintessential depictions of prehistoric times is that of an ancient, often volcano ridden, landscape full of animals bearing large showy sails of skin stretched over their backs. Sailbacked animals are rather rare in our modern day and age, but back in the Mesozoic and Paleozoic there were sails a plenty.

link.

Dmitry Gorenburg @ Moscow Conference on International Security 2014: Russians on MENA

In addition to the plenary panel, the MCIS conference included two panel discussions, one on the Middle East and North Africa and the second on Afghanistan.

The panel entitled “Finding Ways of Stabilization in the Middle East and North Africa” was moderated by Vitaly Naumkin of the Institute of Oriental Studies. Participants included Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, General Vladimir Zarudnitsky — the head of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, Deputy Syrian General Staff Chief Mahmoud Abdul Wahab Shawa. Deputy Director of the Israeli Institute for National Security Udi Dekel, Director of the Iranian Institute for Middle East Strategic Studies Kayhan Barzegar, Chief of Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence of the Lebanese Army Fadel Edmond, and CIS Executive Secretary Sergey Burutin.

Since I am not a MENA specialist, I was primarily interested in how the region influenced Russian foreign policy.

link.

Dmitry Gorenbuerg's Notes on the Moscow Conference on International Security 2014

Last week, I attended the Russian MOD’s Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS). Over the next few days, I plan to share my impressions of the event. First up, the keynote speeches. The lineup of presenters at the plenary session could not have been more prominent. The key Russian speakers included Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. The other speakers included Belarusian Defense Minister Yuri Zhadobin, Pakistan Defense Minister Asif Khawaja, Iranian Defense Minister Hossien Dehghan, CSTO Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha, the political commissioner of China’s Lanzhou Military District General Li Changcai, Egyptian Deputy Defense Minister Mohamed Said Elassar, and Indian Deputy Defense Minister Anuj Kumar Bishnoi. So quite an all-star cast. The links above go to videos of the speeches (with audio in Russian) whenever they are available. Text summaries of the Shoigu and Gerasimov speeches have been posted online in Russian.

For those who don’t understand Russian, here are some highlights. I didn’t take verbatim notes, so consider these the key points — what seemed to me to be most significant from what was said.

link.

Link: India's Astra Missile Test

link.

Darren Naish @ Tetrapod Zoology Interviews Dougal Dixon of After Man Fame

Mounds of speculative awesome.

Go read.

Reminder: The Dragon's Gaze

My exoplanet posts have moved over to the new blog: The Dragon's Gaze.

Cloud Map of Brown Dwarf Luhman 16B on The Dragon's Gaze

Reminder.  The Dragon's Gaze is where I have all my exoplanet posts.  Luhman 16B has had its clouds(!!!) mapped.  Go see the paper!

Reminder: The Dragon's Gaze

I have moved my exoplanet posts to The Dragon's Gaze.  Please look there.