May 14, 2024: Today we're covering the summer hurricane forecast, fiscal oversight of the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal and the value of solar weather reports. Enjoy! —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | | • Medical "digital twins" will lead the way to personalized medicine. | 5 min read | | | How to Quell Conspiracy Theories | Misleading narratives abound these days, for many reasons, making it difficult sometimes to figure out what is really going on. While it's true that some elaborate cover-up plots are real (e.g. efforts by Sackler family members to profit by concealing oxycontin's high risk for addiction), the way to separate a bonkers theory from a true conspiracy is to look for credible evidence, writes H. Colleen Sinclair, a social psychologist who studies misinformation and its links to extremism. Investigative journalism and releases of corporate documents unearthed during court cases can nail down a true conspiracy, she writes. Sinclair's essay lists several ways to vet a conspiratorial claim you've seen or heard, as well as "red flags" for a questionable or false claim.
Key lessons: Red flags include "tangled webs" of large groups of people advancing a conspiracy over a long period of time as well as statements that traditional sources of evidence are "in on the plot." Also look for claims of supernatural or demonic forces, anecdotes masquerading as facts, attacks on inconsistencies that label them as evidence of lies (in fact, humans are often inconsistent), and claims that evidence is missing because authorities are hiding it (rather than acknowledgements that fact-finding takes time).
What the experts say: "Often, a conspiracy theorist presents only evidence that confirms their idea," Sinclair writes. "Rarely do they put their idea to the tests of logic, reasoning and critical thinking. While they may say they do research, they typically do not apply the scientific method. Specifically they don't actually try to prove themselves wrong." | | | Conspiracy theories can muddle people's thinking. erhui1979/Getty Images | | | Hurricane Season Forecast | A 421-day marine heat wave in the North Atlantic Ocean that ended two weeks ago is foreshadowing a dangerous upcoming hurricane season (June 1 through November 30). The seawater engine will get a boost from the planet's current cyclical transition out of an El Ni├▒o weather pattern and into La Ni├▒a, as the latter typically is associated with wind conditions that favor hurricane formation in the Atlantic Ocean. Other oceans on our planet also have heated up in the past year, setting new records for enduring sea-surface temperatures, reports climate-science journalist Chelsea Harvey. The warmer seawater fuels increased humidity over land and the formation of tropical storms, tropical cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons and the like.
Why this matters: Beyond the destruction that hurricanes can wreak on humans, ecosystems and property, the recent marine heat waves are prompting climate scientists to consider whether Earth has entered a new climate regime.
What the experts say: "We've never had La Ni├▒a combined with an ocean this warm," said ocean scientist Brian McNoldy. "There's just no historical year that looks like this, which is a little intimidating."
| | | • Members of Congress should improve and be held accountable for fiscal oversight of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, for which costs are exploding, writes Sharon K. Weiner, an associate professor in the School of International Service at American University. For starters, politicians and analysts should examine the price tag for the Air Force's new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which increased by more than 37 percent in January, she writes. Cost inflation also is plaguing the production of plutonium pits, the core of a nuclear weapon. Congress should require independent cost estimates of these programs and other major modernization programs "where the estimated cost exceeds the original baseline by 50 percent or more," Weiner proposes. And budgets should be linked to our strategy of deterrence. As she puts it, "Is a $118 million Sentinel missile more effective at preventing nuclear war than an existing ICBM that costs half as much?" | 5 min read | | | Aurora at Mt. Adams, in Trout Lake, Wash. Photo by Lora Melkonian | | | Duties at a past job involved writing a brief, daily "space weather" report. It was primarily a sketch of current solar activity, giving readers a broader sense of the concept of weather. As readers throughout the Americas learned this past weekend, such forecasts come in handy if you want to experience the awe of auroras firsthand. Indeed, a story that Scientific American published Friday, by freelance science journalist Stephanie Pappas, forecast "colorful auroras that would be visible from the northern part of the continental U.S.—and possibly in southern states, depending on the storm's strength." Her piece also included a detailed account of the event's physical mechanism, a sunspot cluster that ultimately threw off coronal mass ejections. We're nearing the peak of the sun's 11-year activity cycle, which means more epic solar storms—and with them, perhaps more magnificent auroral displays and other potentially less benign effects—could be on the horizon.
| Send thoughts, comments and sky photos to: newsletters@sciam.com. We hope to publish more of the latter here soon.
| —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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