Weekly Science Headlines

[Salty]

http://m.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/new_method_to_restore_skull_after_brain_surgery_appears_to_reduce_complication_rates

120 years later, a better way.

[Telarus]

Here's an interesting story:
Anti-gay communities linked to shorter lives: study
By Andrew M. Seaman
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/24/us-anti-gay-communities-shorter-lives-idUSBREA1N1EV20140224

[Junkenstein]

Nice find, wasn't what I expected from the title but is certainly worth a read.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Here's an interesting story:
Anti-gay communities linked to shorter lives: study
By Andrew M. Seaman
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/24/us-anti-gay-communities-shorter-lives-idUSBREA1N1EV20140224

It is interesting, but I'd really like to see how/whether they controlled for socioeconomic status.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Thanks, man. I mean, the implications of what it might mean for life forms like ours developing much later on the edge of a cooling universe are pretty staggering.

I have no envy for such creatures. Imagine that, evolving in a universe made up of red dwarves and dead stars. Most stars are red dwarves now but you can't really see them with the naked eye, but imagine that kind of sky at night. Black, solid black, because everything else is too dim. Unless for obvious planets that reflect enough of your star's light, you might never think that there's anything beyond your world. You would assume you were alone because as far as you could tell the universe was an empty, lonely place with one star and one planet with life.

[MMIX]

Here's an interesting story:
Anti-gay communities linked to shorter lives: study
By Andrew M. Seaman
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/24/us-anti-gay-communities-shorter-lives-idUSBREA1N1EV20140224

It is interesting, but I'd really like to see how/whether they controlled for socioeconomic status.

http://www.advocate.com/health/2014/02/16/study-antigay-communities-lead-early-lgb-death

also a secondary study by the same team
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24328664
which also looks interesting

[Junkenstein]

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/03/02/6201494/california-farmers-hire-dowsers.html

ST. HELENA, Calif. -- With California in the grips of drought, farmers throughout the state are using a mysterious and some say foolhardy tool for locating underground water: dowsers, or water witches.

Practitioners of dowsing use rudimentary tools — usually copper sticks or wooden "divining rods" that resemble large wishbones — and what they describe as a natural energy to find water or minerals hidden deep underground.

While both state and federal water scientists disapprove of dowsing, California "witchers" are busy as farmers seek to drill more groundwater wells due to the state's record drought that persists despite recent rain.

After the valley's most popular dowser died in recent years, Mondavi has become the go-to water witch in Napa Valley. He charges about $500 per site visit, and more, if a well he discovers ends up pumping more than 50 gallons per minute.

For $500, you could probably have some actual geological survey works completed which would give you actual facts.

Hells, I'd be inclined to give a geologist $50 for his best guess. It'd probably have similar success. There's probably something more about human nature and how people act in times of desperation but dowsing still makes it in to my top 5 idiot practices.

[Telarus]

NEAT

http://www.timesofisrael.com/nine-tiny-new-dead-sea-scrolls-come-to-light/

[P3nT4gR4m]

Well piss in my mouth and call me King Canute!

I for one would like to welcome our Lego overlords!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Well piss in my mouth and call me King Canute!

I for one would like to welcome our Lego overlords!

Kill it with fire, while there's still time.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

NEAT

http://www.timesofisrael.com/nine-tiny-new-dead-sea-scrolls-come-to-light/

"HAW HAW, JUST KIDDING.  YOUR PAL, MOSES"

[minuspace]

Time from quantum entanglement: an experimental illustration
http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.4691

From Torino, It...  What comes out of bulls and also rhymes?

[P3nT4gR4m]

Neural net boards hit 1,000,000 neurons

"The human brain, with 80,000 times more neurons than Neurogrid, consumes only three times as much power," Boahen et al write in the Stanford paper. "Achieving this level of energy efficiency while offering greater configurability and scale is the ultimate challenge neuromorphic engineers face."

80,000 times. If Moores law doesn't break soon, we're 25 years away from neural nets with twice as many neurons as humans, using 0.00002 times as much juice.

[Junkenstein]

Worth watching closely. I can see this meshing well with all sorts of other emerging tech, probably in ways I can't even conceive. I'd place a reasonable sum on Moores law being FUBAR in the next 5/10 years. The sheer number of people working in the field today combined with things like Kickstarter would make me pretty confident that this won't slow down, if anything, quite the opposite. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Neural net boards hit 1,000,000 neurons

"The human brain, with 80,000 times more neurons than Neurogrid, consumes only three times as much power," Boahen et al write in the Stanford paper. "Achieving this level of energy efficiency while offering greater configurability and scale is the ultimate challenge neuromorphic engineers face."

80,000 times. If Moores law doesn't break soon, we're 25 years away from neural nets with twice as many neurons as humans, using 0.00002 times as much juice.

Neuronal connections are just a tiny part of the not-very-well-understood mechanism of cognitive processing, so don't read too much into that.