All Blog Posts from Tech Talk

Perhaps not surprisingly, as we observe the 100th anniversary of Robert Peary's claim to have reached the North Pole the controversy attached to it remains. It's a tale complete with courage, intrigue, and possibly even deception. There are countless stories, articles and books about it, and there's not nearly enough room in this blog to get into all the details. Suffice to say, there may always be a differing of opinion when it comes to whether Peary or Frederick Cook reached the Pole first -- or whether either man ever reached it at all. But that's all sort of missing the point.

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A short posting today about a story airing this weekend on CBS Sunday Morning. It's another take on ice (you might remember I did a story in early February pegged to ice in a culinary sense), and this time it's tied to a new Nova/National Geographic special airing next week entitled "Extreme Ice." Photographer James Balog has spent the past two years capturing climate change in "real time" via 27 time-lapse cameras in places like Greenland, Iceland, Alaska and Montana. We also talk to Jim White from the University of Colorado as he analyzes ice core samples and explains how Balog's dramatic photos can provide illumination even for a science community that often gets too fixated on numbers. I hope you'll be watching.

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Working late tonight to finish a story for tomorrow's Early Show about a new warning from scientists about the pace of global warming. The AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) met in Chicago over the weekend and released a dire warning: previous models of industrial greenhouse gas emissions were low, and the feedback loop associated with warming temperatures will only escalate. What does this mean for the planet? You can read more here, and be sure to watch Monday morning.

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Scientists across the country have heralded the Obama administration's approach to research and development. Already it’s a stark contrast to the Bush years. But what exactly will be done for areas like stem cells, global warming, and space exploration?

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NEAR THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE – Overcast today but lots of sizable ice floes to brighten the atmosphere. It’s Sunday, so the Coast Guard crew is wearing their dress whites, and there’ll likely be something special on the menu tonight. Mark and I have been invited to the captain’s supper, so we’ll see how that goes. I hope my dad will be there, too. I’ll have to find him this afternoon when he’s finished working to see if he got the secret summons. I also managed to get a decent sleep last night, mainly because we weren’t carving through nearly as much ice. Plenty more ahead though.

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