KARL SHUKER - A ROUND-UP OF RECENT SHUKERNATURE POSTS

Due to continuing family concerns, Karl hasn't been blogging on ShukerNature as frequently as usual, but here is a clickable list of links to his most recent posts in case you may not have seen all of them:

'Ape-Man' Oliver - The Chimp That Made a Chump Out of Science (26 January 2013)

From Black Lions To Living Sabre-Tooths - My Top Ten Mystery Cats (30 January 2013)

The Bili (Bondo) Apes - Unmasking the Congo's Giant Chimpanzees (8 February 2013)

The Aziwugum - An Inuit Dog With Scales, From 'The Book That Got Away' (11 February 2013)

The Black Puma That Never Was - A Case of Melanistic Misidentification (12 February 2013)

Fawcett's Double-Nosed Andean Tiger Hound - A Canine Anomaly Not To Be Sniffed At! (20 February 2013)

Trailing the Mitla - A Dog-Like Cat, or a Cat-Like Dog? (21 February 2013)

The Tailed Slow Lorises of Assam's Lushai Hills - An Enduring Primatological Mystery (24 February 2013)

The Lost Phoenix of Little Tobago (17 March 2013)

The Spiny-Backed Chimpanzee - A Very Anomalous Anthropoid? (18 March 2013)

LINK: Why Climate Change Denial Is Just Hot Air

I was thinking of writing a lengthy post about climate change denial being completely unscientific nonsense, but then geochemist and National Science Board member James Lawrence Powell wrote a post that is basically a slam-dunk of debunking. His premise was simple: If global warming isn’t real and there’s an actual scientific debate about it, that should be reflected in the scientific journals.

He looked up how many peer-reviewed scientific papers were published in professional journals about global warming, and compared the ones supporting the idea that we’re heating up compared to those that don’t. What did he find? This:

The thin red wedge. 

Image credit: James Lawrence Powell

Oh my. Powell looked at 13,950 articles. Out of all those reams of scientific results, how many disputed the reality of climate change?

Twenty-four. Yup. Two dozen. Out of nearly 14,000.

Now I know some people will just say that this is due to mainstream scientists suppressing controversy and all that, but let me be succinct: That’s bull. Science thrives on dissenting ideas, it grows and learns from them. If there is actual evidence to support an idea, it gets published. I can point out copious examples in my own field of astronomy where papers get published about all manners of against-the-mainstream thinking, some of which come to conclusions that, in my opinion, are clearly wrong.

So let this be clear: There is no scientific controversy over this. Climate change denial is purely, 100 percent made-up political and corporate-sponsored crap. When the loudest voices are fossil-fuel funded think tanks, when they don’t publish in journals but insteadwrite error-laden op-eds in partisan venues, when they have to manipulate the data to support their point, then what they’re doing isn’t science.

It’s nonsense. And worse, it’s dangerous nonsense. Because they’re fiddling with the data while the world burns.

Read on...

ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

News and stories from the remoter fringes of the CFZ blogosphere...

From Nick Redfern's World of Whatever:

• Ken Gerhard's Flying Humanoids — A book to look out for in September...
• Saturday and Bigfoot — The Texas Bigfoot Conference in Fort Worth...
• Top 5 Movie Monsters — From The Abominable Snowman to The Hound of the Baskervilles...

From CFZ Canada:

• What is Normal? — How unusual does a sighting have to be before it ranks as cryptozoological?

DALE DRINNON: Boggy Creek Demonstration/Frontiers of Anthropology/Benny's Blogs/Cedar & Willow

New at the Frontiers of Zoology:

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2013/03/boggy-creek-demonstration.html

New at the Frontiers of Anthropology:

http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2013/03/11000-yr-old-star-chart-in-egypt.html

New at Cedar and Willow:

http://cedar-and-willow.blogspot.com/2013/03/my-one-piece-recast.html

New at Benny's blog for Thelma Todd:

http://benny-drinnon.blogspot.com/2013/03/photos-for-fan.html

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES (C...

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out of place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna has taken the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.

Rare bird sighted in Pallikarnai

•    After eye surgery on blind bird, hopes soar
•    Some Primitive Birds Flew With 4 Wings, Study Says...
•    Two Fossil Bird Finds Raise Questions

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN HOPS UP AND DOWN

Another jolly, if rather chilly day. Everyone (well, Corinna and to a lesser extent me) has been bitten by the spring cleaning bug.  Next week our visitors start to arrive, and we shall have a steady stream of Forteans, musicians, artists, and general weirdos coming through for the next few months. When I was young 'My Family and Other Animals' was one of my favourite books (it still is), but I always aspired to be the arty and acerbic Larry with his constant stream of peculiar intellectual friends and his bitchy sense of humour rather than the young Gerald Durrell with his matchboxes full of scorpions. I am slowly getting back to normal, but a lot of my time is being spent just learning how to use my new Windows 8 computer. I have new hardware and software with which to get to grips and a selection of hard taskmasters bullying me into getting things done. Ho Hum...

 

Today's Gonzo Track of the Day is from the Atkins/May Project
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-gonzo-track-of-day-atkins-may.html

 

Once again we repair to Austin for our daily audience with Thom the World Poet
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/03/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_19.html

 

A eulogistic review of the lovely Judy Dyble
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/03/judy-dyble-review_19.html

 

An italian review of the new album by 'The Green Violinist'
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/03/italian-review-of-green-violinist.html

 

A nice article about Dan Wooding
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/03/lake-forest-authors-uk-rock-profiles-re.html

 

A great review of Zenit
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/03/someone-else-likes-zenit-as-much-as-i-do.html

 

*  The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at  jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...

*  The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html

 

* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!

*  Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 53 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and a not very small orange kitten (who isn't) puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the orange cats?

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

Yesterday’s News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1813 the David Livingstone was born and in 1821 Richard Francis Burton (not to be confused with the other Richard Burton) was born. Both men were explorers who searched for the source of the River Nile.

Gulf Coast terrapin claimed national limelight- vi...

Otter attacks leave villagers tottering between fe...

Wild animal attacks claim two lives

Is this the world's most aMOOsing beauty competito...

Is your dog psychic?

Inability to catch rabbits may have led to demise ...

Extraterresterial Life Exists, Scientist Chandra W...

'Climate-Smart Strategies' Proposed for Spectacula...

Ok, so this is both pants-wettingly scary and stupid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVFsiJBSQps