Weekly Science Headlines

[Cain]

Yes. If people are too stupid to realize that, they should not be on the internet, or go outside without adult supervision.

...and yet... there they are.... all the time, looking for their little nitpicky points to score so they can start a 'lamewar' in order to feel somehow superior.  Hence the pre-emptive linguistic "I already SAID "not all" so that maybe a conversational concept could be furthered without the need for everyone to stop and wet their pance at the incredible unique special specialness of whoever is gonna jump in first and say "I'm not most people".

Meh.  I blame it on the text message generation.

(edit=typo)

They'll do it anyway.

[LMNO]

You know, not as a criticism of you specifically, but just in general, "Some" already does not mean "all", and neither does "Most". I have always thought those were the lamest attempts at new vocabulary.

The redundancy, I feel, is there to underscore the fact that the following will be conditional.  Many people (but not all of them, lol) glaze over standard conditional phrases and jump to the assumption that a blanket statement is being made.  Sombunal and Mosbunal are, to me, good ways of clarifying.

But don't use it if you don't want to.  I don't care.

[Kai]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/world/asia/01algae.html

Story about the huge algal bloom in China. I can't find the species name but it seems to be one of the more prolific marine greens (Division: Chlorophyta). If it was a bluegreen (Division: Cyanophyta), the other group that tends to have these massive filamentous blooms, the toxins coming off this bloom would have been highly destructive, kinda like dinoflagellates can do (Division: Dinophyta). The only recorded people ever killed by algae were two kids done in by bluegreen toxins.

[Triple Zero]

Meh.  I blame it on the text message generation.

what?

- triplezero,
text message generation

If you were a real thumbtyper that would have been "wht".... or just "?"  (ok.. maybe "???")

stop playing dumb. there is no significant character limit on forum posts. you're generalizing retardedness and laziness over an entire generation.

[Daruko]

Meh.  I blame it on the text message generation.

what?

- triplezero,
text message generation

If you were a real thumbtyper that would have been "wht".... or just "?"  (ok.. maybe "???")

stop playing dumb. there is no significant character limit on forum posts. you're generalizing retardedness and laziness over an entire generation.

 

[singer]

Meh.  I blame it on the text message generation.

what?

- triplezero,
text message generation

If you were a real thumbtyper that would have been "wht".... or just "?"  (ok.. maybe "???")

stop playing dumb. there is no significant character limit on forum posts. you're generalizing retardedness and laziness over an entire generation.

I don't think I am.  What I am saying is that the habit of reducing full sentences to acronymic representation is a function of a habit promulgated through the use of certain technologies, and you will find this habit adopted most readily by the grouping of individuals employing said technologies.

I'm pretty sure there are ample examples of laziness and retardation throughout a broad cross section of all generations.

(edited for clarity)

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You know, not as a criticism of you specifically, but just in general, "Some" already does not mean "all", and neither does "Most". I have always thought those were the lamest attempts at new vocabulary.

Yes. If people are too stupid to realize that, they should not be on the internet, or go outside without adult supervision.

Yeah, I just feel like it just encourages lazy reading and degenerating reading comprehension levels when the writer uses made-up words as replacements for already-existing words that mean the same thing, just because many people are too lazy to learn to read carefully and thoroughly.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You know, not as a criticism of you specifically, but just in general, "Some" already does not mean "all", and neither does "Most". I have always thought those were the lamest attempts at new vocabulary.

The redundancy, I feel, is there to underscore the fact that the following will be conditional.  Many people (but not all of them, lol) glaze over standard conditional phrases and jump to the assumption that a blanket statement is being made.  Sombunal and Mosbunal are, to me, good ways of clarifying.

But don't use it if you don't want to.  I don't care.

It's just been a peeve that's been stewing for a while, since I first encountered the terms in November. I just finally had to let it out. I'm done now.

[LMNO]

You know, not as a criticism of you specifically, but just in general, "Some" already does not mean "all", and neither does "Most". I have always thought those were the lamest attempts at new vocabulary.

Yes. If people are too stupid to realize that, they should not be on the internet, or go outside without adult supervision.

Yeah, I just feel like it just encourages lazy reading and degenerating reading comprehension levels when the writer uses made-up words as replacements for already-existing words that mean the same thing, just because many people are too lazy to learn to read carefully and thoroughly.

But the thing is, usually those words are used because people are too lazy to learn to read carefully and thoroughly.  Using an unusual word pokes the reader into acknowledging the specific meaning of the sentence.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You know, not as a criticism of you specifically, but just in general, "Some" already does not mean "all", and neither does "Most". I have always thought those were the lamest attempts at new vocabulary.

Yes. If people are too stupid to realize that, they should not be on the internet, or go outside without adult supervision.

Yeah, I just feel like it just encourages lazy reading and degenerating reading comprehension levels when the writer uses made-up words as replacements for already-existing words that mean the same thing, just because many people are too lazy to learn to read carefully and thoroughly.

But the thing is, usually those words are used because people are too lazy to learn to read carefully and thoroughly.  Using an unusual word pokes the reader into acknowledging the specific meaning of the sentence.

...creating an endless self-perpetuating cycle of laziness and words designed to stimulate the lazy...

[Kai]

August 1, 2008
Test of Mars Soil Sample Confirms Presence of Ice

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Heated to 32 degrees Fahrenheit, a sample of soil being analyzed by NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander let out a puff of vapor, providing final confirmation that the lander is sitting over a large chunk of ice.

“We’ve now finally touched it and tasted it,” William V. Boynton, a professor at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona and the lead scientist for the instrument that detected the water, said at a news conference on Thursday. “And I’d like to say, from my standpoint, it tastes very fine.”

The main goal of the lander is to analyze ice in the northern arctic plains. Since it arrived on the planet on May 25, scientists have visually seen what they were almost certain was ice: a flat, shiny patch beneath the lander and tiny white chunks in a trench dug by the lander’s robotic arm.

http://snipurl.com/38uhg

Alarm Raised on Security Flaw in Internet's Basic Structure

from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

Since a secret emergency meeting of computer security experts at Microsoft's headquarters in March, Dan Kaminsky has been urging companies around the world to fix a potentially dangerous flaw in the basic plumbing of the Internet.

While Internet service providers are racing to fix the problem, which makes it possible for criminals to divert computer users to fake Web sites where personal and financial information can be stolen, Kaminsky worries that they have not moved quickly enough.

By his estimate, roughly 41 percent of the Internet is still vulnerable. Now Kaminsky, a technical consultant who first discovered the problem, has been ramping up the pressure on companies and organizations to make the necessary software changes before criminal hackers take advantage of the flaw. Next week, he will take another step by publicly laying out the details of the flaw at a security conference in Las Vegas.

http://snipurl.com/37u6i

Ancient T. Rex Tissue, or Just Old Slime?

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Soft, organic material discovered inside a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil that scientists believed was 70-million-year-old dinosaur tissue may have been nothing more than ordinary slime, scientists said in a study published Wednesday.

Researchers reported in the online journal PLoS ONE that bacterial colonies infiltrating tiny cavities in the bones long after the dinosaurs died may have naturally molded into shapes resembling the tissues they replaced. Carbon dating performed on one sample showed that the tissue-like material was modern, circa 1960.

After further examination with light and electron microscopy, researchers concluded that the substances were most likely remnants of biofilms, or layers of bacterial cells and the sticky molecules they secrete. The finding sparked a strong response from the researchers who originally said they had found ancient dinosaur tissue.

http://snipurl.com/38fzx

Drug Gives Couch Potato Mice Benefits of a Workout

from the San Francisco Examiner

NEW YORK (Associated Press) - Here's a couch potato's dream: What if a drug could help you gain some of the benefits of exercise without working up a sweat? Scientists reported Thursday that there is such a drug - if you happen to be a mouse.

Sedentary mice that took the drug for four weeks burned more calories and had less fat than untreated mice. And when tested on a treadmill, they could run about 44 percent farther and 23 percent longer than untreated mice.

Just how well those results might translate to people is an open question. But someday, researchers say, such a drug might help treat obesity, diabetes and people with medical conditions that keep them from exercising.

http://snipurl.com/38g1e

Geological Mapping Gets Joined Up

from BBC News Online

The world's geologists have dug out their maps and are sticking them together produce the first truly global resource of the world's rocks.

The OneGeology project pools existing data about what lies under our feet and has made it available on the web. Led by the British Geological Survey (BGS), the project involved geologists from 80 nations.

Between 60 percent and 70 percent of the Earth's surface is now available down to the scale of 1:1,000,000. "That's 1cm for every 10km of the Earth's surface," explained Ian Jackson from the BGS and leader of the OneGeology Project. "With that resolution, people can focus in on a small part of their city."

http://snipurl.com/38g5w

FDA Finds Salmonella Strain on Mexican Pepper Farm

from USA Today

The Food and Drug Administration came closer Wednesday to cracking the mystery of a massive salmonella outbreak with a finding of contaminated serrano peppers and irrigation water on a farm in Mexico.

The FDA said consumers should avoid fresh serrano peppers from Mexico and products containing them. It also reiterated its earlier warning that consumers avoid fresh jalapeno peppers from Mexico.

The new findings lend weight to the FDA's theory that several foods may be causing the outbreak, which has sickened more than 1,300 people nationwide since April. They also are the case's first positive samples of the rare salmonella saintpaul strain found in Mexico, a major chile pepper supplier to the USA.

http://snipurl.com/38g4j

Stem Cell Advance Turns Skin Cells into Nerve Cells

from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Researchers are one step closer to reprogramming skin cells into tailor-made, healthy replacements for diseased cells.

Applying the technique first developed by James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, scientists at Harvard and Columbia universities reported online Thursday in the journal Science that they had turned skin cells from two elderly patients with the neurodegenerative disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) into motor neurons, the nerve cells that become damaged in ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

This is the first time that scientists have coaxed embryonic-like cells from adult patients suffering from a genetic-based disease, then induced the cells to form the specific cell types that would be needed to study and treat the disease.

http://snipurl.com/38ujo

Big Bang Ripples Formed Universe's First Stars

from National Geographic News

Ripples in the early universe following the big bang 13.7 billion years ago caused gases to coalesce into the luminous seeds of the first stars, a new computer simulation reveals.

Such stellar embryos, or protostars, were the universe's first astronomical objects and its first sources of light.

Previous telescope observations have shown that very distant—and thus very old—cosmic objects contain heavy elements such as carbon and iron, which are formed only by the nuclear reactions inside full-grown stars. This suggests that massive stars must have existed even earlier in the universe's history than telescopes can see. Until now, the earliest stages of primordial star formation had not been modeled in detail.

http://snipurl.com/38ghn

Wake-Up Call for Sleep Apnea

from Science News

A common breathing disorder that disrupts sleep also, over time, increases the risk of death, a study in the August Sleep suggests. But people who use a nighttime breathing apparatus face less risk, the research shows.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a disorder marked by gaps in breathing during sleep that rob the blood of oxygen until a person gasps for air. People with apnea stop breathing many times in an hour, which can jar them out of restful sleep and wreak havoc with blood pressure, heart rate and internal stress responses.

In the United States, about one in six people may have sleep apnea, with one-fourth of those cases severe, Terry Young, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, estimates.

http://snipurl.com/38ull

Anthrax Scientist Commits Suicide as FBI Closes In

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON (Associated Press) -- A top U.S. biodefense researcher apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a published report.

The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who worked for the past 18 years at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., had been told about the impending prosecution, the Los Angeles Times reported for Friday editions. The laboratory has been at the center of the FBI's investigation of the anthrax attacks, which killed five people.

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. The Times, quoting an unidentified colleague, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine. Tom Ivins, a brother of the scientist, told The Associated Press that another of his brothers, Charles, told him Bruce had committed suicide.

http://snipurl.com/38une

Also, whatever to the current discussion.

[fomenter]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/31/energyefficiency.energy

Scientists have found an inexpensive way to produce hydrogen from water, a discovery that could lead to a plentiful source of environmentally friendly fuel to power homes and cars.

The technique, which mimics the way photosynthesis works in plants, also provides a highly efficient way to store energy, potentially paving the way to making solar power more economically viable.

[Triple Zero]

for those wondering about the security vuln in "the internet's basic structure":

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/07/the_dns_vulnera.html

gives a bit more detailed and interesting writeup about the event.

[Kai]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/31/energyefficiency.energy

Scientists have found an inexpensive way to produce hydrogen from water, a discovery that could lead to a plentiful source of environmentally friendly fuel to power homes and cars.

The technique, which mimics the way photosynthesis works in plants, also provides a highly efficient way to store energy, potentially paving the way to making solar power more economically viable.

Thats actually really cool. Biologically inspired technology is the way of the future.

[rong]

I don't think I am.  What I am saying is that the habit of reducing full sentences to acronymic representation is a function of a habit promulgated through the use of certain technologies, and you will find this habit adopted most readily by the grouping of individuals employing said technologies.

I'm pretty sure there are ample examples of laziness and retardation throughout a broad cross section of all generations.

(edited for clarity)

man, when i first discovered horseradish mustard, i put it on EVERYTHING.  after a while, i got tired of it.