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Started by Kai, July 30, 2008, 10:04:06 PM

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Iason Ouabache

Quote from: Kai on October 29, 2008, 01:56:10 AM
October 28, 2008

Seven of the Greatest Scientific Hoaxes
from New Scientist

For this week's issue, New Scientist includes a review of "The Sun and the Moon" by Matthew Goodman, which tells the story of the great moon hoax of 1835.

That got an editor there thinking about other great scientific hoaxes in the past. After doing a bit of digging, she was amazed by how many there were—and at the variety and creativity of the hoaxes. The result is a review of seven of the best.

Of course, there are serious cases of scientific fraud, such as the stem cell researchers recently found guilty of falsifying data and the South Korean cloning fraud. The stories included here, however, are not so serious.

http://snipurl.com/4r4qw

This prooves that all science is fake!!1!
  \
:mullet:

Also, Sokal = Discordian Saint.
QuoteQuantum Chaos
from Scientific American

In 1917 Albert Einstein wrote a paper that was completely ignored for 40 years. In it he raised a question that physicists have only recently begun asking themselves: What would classical chaos, which lurks everywhere in our world, do to quantum mechanics, the theory describing the atomic and subatomic worlds?

The effects of classical chaos, of course, have long been observed—Kepler knew about the motion of the moon around the earth and Newton complained bitterly about the phenomenon. At the end of the 19th century the American astronomer William Hill demonstrated that the irregularity is the result entirely of the gravitational pull of the sun.

So thereafter, the great French mathematician-astronomer-physicist Henri Poincaré surmised that the moon's motion is only mild case of a congenital disease affecting nearly everything. In the long run, Poincaré realized, most dynamic systems show no discernible regularity or repetitive pattern. The behavior of even a simple system can depend so sensitively on its initial conditions that the final outcome is uncertain.

http://snipurl.com/4r4iq
Awesome.  I still need to do more reading on Chaos Theory.  I have a bunch of e-books on it but I never have enough time.
You cannot fathom the immensity of the fuck i do not give.
    \
┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘

Kai

October 29, 2008

Copper Ruins in Jordan Bolster Biblical Record of King Solomon
from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

A massive copper smelting plant in the biblical land of Edom is at least three centuries older than researchers previously believed, placing it firmly in the traditional timeline of King Solomon, considered the greatest ruler of Israel, researchers reported Monday.

The existence of Solomon 3,000 years ago has been questioned by some scholars over the last two decades because of the paucity of archaeological evidence supporting the biblical record and the belief that there were no complex societies in Israel or Edom capable of building fortresses, monuments and other sophisticated public works, such as large mines, in the 10th century BC.

"This is the most hotly debated period in biblical archaeology today," said archaeologist Thomas E. Levy of UC San Diego, who reported the new radiocarbon dates for the copper smelting operation in modern-day Jordan in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

http://snipurl.com/4s2jh


The Mysterious Cough, Caught on Film
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

In Roald Dahl's novel "The B.F.G.," the title character, a big friendly giant, captures dreams in glass jars. At Pennsylvania State University, a professor of engineering has captured something less whimsical but no less ephemeral—a cough—on film.

The image, published online Oct. 9 by The New England Journal of Medicine, was created by schlieren photography, which "takes an invisible phenomenon and turns it into a visible picture," said the engineering professor, Gary Settles, who is the director of the university's gas dynamics laboratory.

Schlieren is German for "streaks"; in this case it refers to regions of different densities in a gas or a liquid, which can be photographed as shadows using a special technique.

http://snipurl.com/4s60g


Staph Germs Harder Than Ever to Treat, Studies Say
from USA Today

WASHINGTON (Associated Press)—Drug-resistant staph bacteria picked up in ordinary community settings are increasingly acquiring "superbug" powers and causing far more serious illnesses than they have in the past, doctors reported Monday. These widespread germs used to be easier to treat than the dangerous forms of staph found in hospitals and nursing homes.

"Until recently we rarely thought of it as a problem among healthy people in the community," said Dr. Rachel Gorwitz of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Now, the germs causing outbreaks in schools, on sports teams and in other social situations are posing a growing threat.

A CDC study found that at least 10% of cases involving the most common community strain were able to evade the antibiotics typically used to treat them.

http://snipurl.com/4s69a


Does Nature Break the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
from Scientific American

Science has given humanity more than its share of letdowns. It has set limits to our technology, such as the impossibility of reaching the speed of light; failed to overcome our vulnerabilities to cancer and other diseases; and confronted us with inconvenient truths, as with global climate change.

But of all the comedowns, the second law of thermodynamics might well be the biggest. It says we live in a universe that is becoming ever more disordered and that there is nothing we can do about it. The mere act of living contributes to the inexorable degeneration of the world.

No matter how advanced our machines become, they can never completely avoid wasting some energy and running down. Not only does the second law squash the dream of a perpetual-motion machine, it suggests that the cosmos will eventually exhaust its available energy and nod off into an eternal stasis known as heat death.

http://snipurl.com/4s6iq 


Solar Thermal Power May Make Sun-Powered Grid a Reality
from Popular Mechanics

Planted in the New Mexico desert near Albuquerque, the six solar dish engines of the Solar Thermal Test Facility at Sandia National Laboratories look a bit like giant, highly reflective satellite dishes. Each one is a mosaic of 82 mirrors that fit together to form a 38-ft-wide parabola. The mirrors' precise curvature focuses light onto a 7-in. area.

At its most intense spot, the heat is equivalent to a blistering 13,000 suns, producing a flux 13 times greater than the space shuttle experiences during re-entry. "That'll melt almost anything known to man," says Sandia engineer Chuck Andraka. "It's incredibly hot."

The heat is used to run a Stirling engine, an elegant 192-year-old technology that creates mechanical energy from an external heat source, as opposed to the internal fuel combustion that powers most auto­mobile engines. ... The configuration of the dish and engine represent the fruit of more than a decade of steady improvements, developed in collaboration with Arizona-based Stirling Energy Systems.

http://snipurl.com/4s6mz


Arctic Ice Thickness 'Plummets'
from BBC News Online

The thickness of Arctic sea ice "plummeted" last winter, thinning by as much as 49 centimetres (1.6ft) in some regions, satellite data has revealed.

A study by UK researchers showed that the ice thickness had been fairly constant for the previous five winters. The team from University College London added that the results provided the first definitive proof that the overall volume of Arctic ice was decreasing.

The findings have been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "The ice thickness was fairly constant for the five winters before this, but it plummeted in the winter after the 2007 minimum," lead author Katharine Giles told BBC News.

http://snipurl.com/4s6u3


Vitamin E, Selenium Don't Prevent Prostate Cancer
from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON (Associated Press)—The government is stopping part of a major study of whether vitamin E and selenium prevent prostate cancer—because the supplements aren't working and there's a hint of risk. More than 35,000 men age 50 and older have been taking one or both supplements or dummy pills as part of a study called the SELECT trial.

But the National Cancer Institute announced Monday that they will be getting letters in the next few days telling them to quit the pills. An early review of the data shows neither supplement, taken alone or together, is preventing prostate cancer.

Of more concern, slightly more users of vitamin E alone were getting prostate cancer—and slightly more selenium-only users were getting diabetes, the NCI said.

http://snipurl.com/4s75a 


Electricity Found on Saturn Moon—Could It Spark Life?
from National Geographic News

Recently identified electrical activity on Saturn's largest moon bolsters arguments that Titan is the kind of place that could harbor life. At a brisk -350 degrees Fahrenheit (-180 Celsius), Titan is currently much too cold to host anything close to life as we know it, scientists say.

But a new study reports faint signs of a natural electric field in Titan's thick cloud cover that are similar to the energy radiated by lightning on Earth. Lightning is thought to have sparked the chemical reactions that led to the origin of life on our planet.

"As of now, lightning activity has not been observed in Titan's atmosphere," said lead author Juan Antonio Morente of the University of Granada in Spain. But, he said, the signals that have been detected "are an irrefutable proof for the existence of electric activity."

http://snipurl.com/4s97d


Diabetes Drug Costs Are Soaring
from the Philadelphia Inquirer

CHICAGO (Associated Press)—Americans with diabetes nearly doubled their spending on drugs for the disease in just six years, with the bill last year climbing to an eye-popping $12.5 billion.

Newer, costlier drugs are driving the increase, said researchers, despite a lack of strong evidence for the new drugs' greater benefits and safety. And there are more people being treated for diabetes. The new study follows updated treatment advice for Type 2 diabetes, issued last week. In those recommendations, an expert panel told doctors to use older, cheaper drugs first.

And a second study, also out yesterday, adds to evidence that metformin—an inexpensive generic used reliably for decades—may prevent deaths from heart disease while the newer, more expensive Avandia didn't show that benefit.

http://snipurl.com/4s8o0


Surveillance Technology: If Looks Could Kill
from the Economist

Monitoring surveillance cameras is tedious work. Even if you are concentrating, identifying suspicious behaviour is hard. Suppose a nondescript man descends to a subway platform several times over the course of a few days without getting on a train. Is that suspicious? Possibly.

Is the average security guard going to notice? Probably not. A good example, then—if a fictional one—of why many people would like to develop intelligent computerised surveillance systems.

The perceived need for such systems is stimulating the development of devices that can both recognise people and objects and also detect suspicious behaviour. Much of this technology remains, for the moment, in laboratories. But Charles Cohen, the boss of Cybernet Systems, a firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, ... says behaviour-recognition systems are getting good, and are already deployed at some security checkpoints.

http://snipurl.com/4s9at

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Kai

October 30, 2008

BPA Ruling Flawed, Panel Says
from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

The Food and Drug Administration ignored scientific evidence and used flawed methods when it determined that a chemical widely used in baby bottles and in the lining of cans is not harmful, a scientific advisory panel has found.

In a highly critical report to be released yesterday, the panel of scientists from government and academia said the FDA did not take into consideration scores of studies that have linked bisphenol A (BPA) to prostate cancer, diabetes and other health problems in animals when it completed a draft risk assessment of the chemical last month.

The panel said the FDA didn't use enough infant formula samples and didn't adequately account for variations among the samples. Taking those studies into consideration, the panel concluded, the FDA's margin of safety is "inadequate."

http://snipurl.com/4tmy0


New Minerals Point to Wetter Mars
from BBC News Online

A Nasa space probe has discovered a new category of minerals spread across large regions of Mars. The find suggests liquid water remained on Mars' surface a billion years later than scientists had previously thought.

The US Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft found evidence of hydrated silica, better known as opal.

The discovery adds to the growing body of evidence that water played a crucial role in shaping the Martian landscape and—possibly—in sustaining life. Hydrated, or water-containing, minerals are telltale signs of when and where water was present on ancient Mars.

http://snipurl.com/4tn2q 


Older Donated Blood Is Linked to Infection Risk
from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Hospitalized patients who received blood that had been stored for more than four weeks were nearly three times as likely to develop infections as those who received fresher blood, researchers said Tuesday.

The blood itself was not infected, but the stored blood's release of chemical agents called cytokines may have affected the recipients' immune systems, rendering them more susceptible to infections, said Dr. Raquel Nahra of Sparks Regional Medical Center in Fort Smith, Ark.

The patients typically suffered an increase in urinary-tract infections, pneumonia and infections associated with intravenous lines, but those who were infected were no more likely to die, Nahra told a Philadelphia meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.

http://snipurl.com/4tmd9


Monitor Shifts from Print to Web-Based Strategy
from the Christian Science Monitor

The Christian Science Monitor plans major changes in April 2009 that are expected to make it the first newspaper with a national audience to shift from a daily print format to an online publication that is updated continuously each day.

The changes at the Monitor will include enhancing the content on CSMonitor.com, starting weekly print and daily e-mail editions, and discontinuing the current daily print format.

... While the Monitor's print circulation, which is primarily delivered by US mail, has trended downward for nearly 40 years, "looking forward, the Monitor's Web readership clearly shows promise," said Judy Wolff, chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society.

http://snipurl.com/4sc4m 


Danger Lurking in Your Bottle of Red
from the Times (London)

Wines from 13 different countries contain potentially hazardous levels of metals, according to a chemical analysis by British scientists.

The findings suggest that the health benefits of drinking red wine may often be counter-balanced by risks posed by excessive levels of metals such as copper, manganese and vanadium, researchers at Kingston University said.

Wines whould also be labelled with their ion metal content, and manufacturers need to introduce new methods to remove the potentially hazardous material from their products, they said. Metal ions are charged atoms, which play an important role in body biochemistry but which can also be hazardous in excess amounts.

http://snipurl.com/4u9em


Is Setting Clock Back Good for Your Ticker?
from the Seattle Times

Turning your clock back one hour Sunday for the end of daylight-saving time could do your own ticker some good.

Researchers have found a 5 percent drop in heart-attack deaths and hospitalizations the day after clocks are reset each year to standard time, according to a study in the new issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

The Swedish researchers also found that the onset of daylight-saving time in the spring appears to increase the risk of heart attacks. ... The risk also rises on holidays and anniversaries, although no one knows why ...

http://snipurl.com/4u9gv


Tiny Mercury Had Huge Volcanic Eruptions
from National Geographic News

Our solar system's smallest planet has seen an enormous amount of volcanic activity, according to scientists studying information from the latest Mercury flyby.

Images returned earlier this month from NASA's MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) spacecraft reveal about 3,600 cubic miles (15,000 cubic kilometers) of solidified lava inside a single crater on Mercury's western hemisphere.

That's enough lava to fill the entire Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area to a height 12 times that of the Washington Monument, according to Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is a co-investigator for the mission.

http://snipurl.com/4u9j4


Farm Chemicals Can Indirectly Hammer Frogs
from Science News

Atrazine, the second-most widely used agricultural pesticide in America, can pose a toxic double whammy to tadpoles.

The weed killer not only increases the likelihood that massive concentrations of flatworms will thrive in the amphibians' ponds, a new study reports, but also diminishes the ability of larval frogs to fight infection with these parasites.

Moreover, the new data show, runoff of phosphate fertilizer into pond water can amplify atrazine's toxicity. The fertilizer does this by boosting the production of algae on which snails feed. Those snails serve as a primary, if temporary, host for the parasitic flatworms, which can sicken frogs.

http://snipurl.com/4u9l0


Smart Amoebas Reveal Origins of Primitive Intelligence
from New Scientist

Amoebas are smarter than they look, and a team of US physicists think they know why. The group has built a simple electronic circuit that is capable of the same "intelligent" behaviour as Physarum, a unicellular organism—and say this could help us understand the origins of primitive intelligence.

In recent years, the humble amoeba has surprised researchers with its ability to behave in an "intelligent" way. Last year, Liang Li and Edward Cox at Princeton University reported that the Dictyostelium amoeba is twice as likely to turn left if its last turn was to the right and vice versa, which suggests the cells have a rudimentary memory.

... In the past, biologists have suggested that there are natural oscillators within the cells that can change their frequency in response to a changing environment. But that can't be the complete picture, say the researchers, because the amoeba's response is short-lived.

http://snipurl.com/4u9o4


Are You Evil? Profiling That Which Is Truly Wicked
from Scientific American

TROY, N.Y.—The hallowed halls of academia are not the place you would expect to find someone obsessed with evil (although some students might disagree). But it is indeed evil—or rather trying to get to the roots of evil—that fascinates Selmer Bringsjord, a logician, philosopher and chairman of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Department of Cognitive Science here.

He's so intrigued, in fact, that he has developed a sort of checklist for determining whether someone is demonic, and is working with a team of graduate students to create a computerized representation of a purely sinister person.

"I've been working on what is evil and how to formally define it," says Bringsjord, who is also director of the Rensselaer AI & Reasoning Lab (RAIR). "It's creepy, I know it is."

http://snipurl.com/4u9q2

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Golden Applesauce

Quote from: Iason Ouabache on October 29, 2008, 04:03:45 AM

Quote
Never Say Die: Why We Can't Imagine Death
from Scientific American

... After all, the brain is like any other organ: a part of our physical body. And the mind is what the brain does—it's more a verb than it is a noun. Why do we wonder where our mind goes when the body is dead? Shouldn't it be obvious that the mind is dead, too?

And yet people in every culture believe in an afterlife of some kind or, at the very least, are unsure about what happens to the mind at death.

... The common view of death as a great mystery usually is brushed aside as an emotionally fueled desire to believe that death isn't the end of the road. And indeed, a prominent school of research in social psychology called terror management theory contends that afterlife beliefs, as well as less obvious beliefs, behaviors and attitudes, exist to assuage what would otherwise be crippling anxiety about the ego's inexistence.

http://snipurl.com/4prhn
I can't remember if Dennett mentioned terror management theory in "Breaking the Spell" but he did talk about the idea that man is unable to cope with the fact that at some point our mind/soul/personality will cease to exist.  Many religions have been built up around this fear.

If you'd read the article, you'd notice that it's not about fear, but about it being really hard to imagine being not conscious.
Q: How regularly do you hire 8th graders?
A: We have hired a number of FORMER 8th graders.

Golden Applesauce

QuoteBringsjord acknowledges that the endeavor to create pure evil, even in a software program, does raise ethical questions, such as, how researchers could control an artificially intelligent character like E if "he" was placed in a virtual world such as Second Life, a Web-based program that allows people to create digital representations of themselves and have those avatars interact in a number of different ways.

"I wouldn't release E or anything like it, even in purely virtual environments, without engineered safeguards," Bringsjord says. These safeguards would be a set of ethics written into the software, something akin to author Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" that prevent a robot from harming humans, requires a robot to obey humans, and instructs a robot to protect itself—as long as that does not violate either or both of the first two laws.

"Because I have a lot of faith in this approach," he says, "E will be controlled."

:lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:

Ignoring for the moment that a glorified Eliza will not be able to do any real harm... this is what our AI developers need to do more of.
Q: How regularly do you hire 8th graders?
A: We have hired a number of FORMER 8th graders.

Cain

Yeah, I was reading about this on Technoccult.  Its a pretty brilliant idea.

Cramulus

Quote from: Dr. Gilbert Grissom on October 31, 2008, 04:01:18 AM
Diabetes Drug Costs Are Soaring
from the Philadelphia Inquirer

CHICAGO (Associated Press)—Americans with diabetes nearly doubled their spending on drugs for the disease in just six years, with the bill last year climbing to an eye-popping $12.5 billion.

this does not surprise me
fucking drug addicts
too lazy to make their own insulin
get a working pancreas, spags!  :argh!:

Kai

November 3, 2008

Ancient Iceman Has No Modern Kin
from the Scientist (Registration Required)

The 5,000-year-old mummy Öetzi, found in a glacier in the European alps 17 years ago and believed to be an ancestor of modern Europeans, actually belonged to a different genetic family and may have no living descendants, researchers report today in Current Biology.

The researchers sequenced mitochondrial DNA extracted from Öetzi's intestines, offering the oldest complete mtDNA sequence of modern humans.

"We sort of assume when we look at populations today we see representations of [ancient populations] as well," Joanna Mountain an anthropological geneticist at Stanford University who was not involved in the study, told The Scientist. The current study, she said, "counters that thinking."

http://snipurl.com/4ut9e


Conservation: Managed to Death
from the Economist

If ever there were a graphic illustration of the tragedy of the commons, it is the plummeting of the world's stocks of bluefin tuna. Because they live in the high seas, these fish belong to everyone, and are thus no one's responsibility. The result is that the bluefin has been doomed to decades of poor management.

Matters, though, appear to be reaching a crisis. In a study to be published soon in Conservation Letters, a group of scientists led by Brian MacKenzie, of the Technical University of Denmark, describe how they ran a computer model of the species's population dynamics.

Their conclusion is that even if fishing for bluefin were banned, the population in the north-east Atlantic and Mediterranean will probably collapse. The current management plan, to reduce quotas gradually over the next 15 years, will cause it to fall so far that bluefins in the area will qualify as critically endangered, the highest category of risk in the lexicon of conservation.

http://snipurl.com/4wfrm


Science Advice for the Next President
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Nearly 180 organizations representing the interdependent arenas of science, academia and business are urging the next president to appoint a White House science adviser by Inauguration Day and give the position cabinet-level rank.

In letters sent Thursday to Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama, the organizations said scientific and technical advice was needed now more than ever given the importance of the entwined issues of energy security and climate change, mounting issues and opportunities in medicine, and problems in science education and American innovation and competitiveness.

The letters reflect broadening concern that the White House has not been sufficiently stressing science.

http://snipurl.com/4wfyh


On Mars, Phoenix Lander's End Appears to Be Near
from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

The death watch is on for NASA's Phoenix lander, the first spacecraft to sample water on another planet.

Buffeted by dust storms and chilled by temperatures as low as minus-141 degrees Fahrenheit from the impending arrival of the Martian winter, Phoenix is clinging to life, but barely, NASA officials said Friday.

... Days earlier, Phoenix fell silent, going into safe mode to save battery power. ... The lander, however, failed to awaken from its latest sleep Friday, alerting NASA officials to the possibility that the end could be very near.

http://snipurl.com/4wg1k


FDA Panel Accepts Findings on BPA
from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

The Food and Drug Administration made mistakes when determining that a widely used chemical found in baby bottles and other plastics was harmless and the agency should redo its risk assessment, an FDA advisory panel ruled yesterday.

But the report's authors told the Science Board advisory panel that they could not say whether BPA was harmful or whether it should be banned in food and beverage containers. They left that to FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach to decide.

How von Eschenbach will respond is unclear, especially as the Bush administration winds down. The FDA said earlier this week that it plans to do more research, which will probably take years.

http://snipurl.com/4wg5c


Archaeologists Report Finding Oldest Hebrew Text
from the Boston Globe (Registration Required)

JERUSALEM (Reuters)—Archaeologists in Israel said on Thursday they had unearthed the oldest Hebrew text ever found, while excavating a fortress city overlooking a valley where the Bible says David slew Goliath.

The dig's uncovering of the past near the ancient battlefield in the Valley of Elah, now home to wineries and a satellite station, could have implications for the emotional debate over the future of Jerusalem, some 20 km (12 miles) away.

Archaeologists from the Hebrew University said they found five lines of text written in black ink on a shard of pottery dug up at a five-acre (two-hectare) site called Elah Fortress, or Khirbet Qeiyafa.

http://snipurl.com/4wgjx


Obesity Blamed for Doubling Rate of Diabetes Cases
from USA Today

ATLANTA (Associated Press)—The nation's obesity epidemic is exacting a heavy toll: The rate of new diabetes cases nearly doubled in the United States in the past 10 years, the government said Thursday. The highest rates were in the South, according to the first state-by-state review of new diagnoses.

The worst was in West Virginia, where about 13 in 1,000 adults were diagnosed with the disease in 2005-07. The lowest was in Minnesota, where the rate was 5 in 1,000. Nationally, the rate of new cases climbed from about 5 per 1,000 in the mid-1990s to 9 per 1,000 in the middle of this decade.

Roughly 90% of cases are Type 2 diabetes, the form linked to obesity. The findings dovetail with trends seen in obesity and lack of exercise—two health measures where Southern states also rank at the bottom.

http://snipurl.com/4wgm9


DNA Legacy of Ancient Seafarers
from BBC News Online

Scientists have used DNA to re-trace the migrations of a sea-faring civilisation which dominated the Mediterranean thousands of years ago.

The Phoenicians were an enterprising maritime people from the territory of modern-day Lebanon. They established a trading empire throughout the Mediterranean Sea in the first millennium BC.

A new study by an international team has now revealed the genetic legacy they imparted to modern populations. The researchers estimate that as many as one in 17 men from the Mediterranean may have Phoenician ancestry.

http://snipurl.com/4wgpk


NASA Defends Rocket to Moon
from the Times (London)

Ares is meant to be the rocket that will launch a new era of lunar exploration. Instead it is in danger of crashing into its own launch tower or of shaking its astronauts to death. Nasa has strongly defended the $20 billion back-to-the-Moon programme after claims from its own engineers that its rocket design could be dangerously flawed.

One senior engineer resigned from his post, complaining of "catastrophic-level risks," while others are moonlighting on a rival design project, codenamed Jupiter, convinced that they can get man to the Moon quicker, safer and more cheaply than the apparently troubled Ares.

"Nasa has a big reality check coming and I can't begin to guess how it will all turn out," Jeff Finckenor, a structural design engineer at the Nasa Marshall Space Flight Centre in Alabama, said in a memo to colleagues explaining his departure.

http://snipurl.com/4wgt9


Melamine Problem Widespread in China
from the Seattle Times

BEIJING (Associated Press)—First it was infant formula. Then, dairy-based products from yogurt to chocolate.

Now chicken eggs have been contaminated with melamine, and an admission by state-run media that the industrial chemical is regularly added to animal feed in China fueled fears Friday that the problem could be more widespread, affecting fish, meat and who knows what else.

Peter Dingle, a toxicity expert at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, said, however, that aside from the tainted baby formula that killed at least four Chinese infants and left 54,000 children hospitalized just over a month ago, it is unlikely humans will get sick from melamine.

http://snipurl.com/4wgx7

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Kai

October 31, 2008

Experts Identify Fungus Suspected in Bat Die-Off
from National Public Radio

In the northeastern United States, bats have been dying by the thousands, struck down by a strange ailment called "white-nose syndrome." A mysterious, fuzzy white fungus appears on the noses and skin of afflicted hibernating bats, which then often starve to death.

Alan Hicks, a bat specialist with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, alerted the world to white-nose syndrome in early 2007 after hearing reports of dead bats in caves near Albany.

Now, researchers have identified the mold they consider a possible cause of the disease, reporting their findings Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science. It's a fragile, unusual form of Geomyces fungi, which usually live in cold places such as Antarctica, says David Blehert, lead author of the study.

http://snipurl.com/4vgi2


Hubble Up and Running, With a Picture to Prove It
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

After an electrical malfunction caused it to go dormant a month ago, the Hubble Space Telescope is back in business.

To show that the orbiting eye still has the same chops as ever, astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore used Hubble's wide-field planetary camera 2 to record an image of a pair of smoke-rings galaxies known as Arp 147.

The galaxies, about 450 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus, apparently collided in the recent cosmic past. According to Mario Livio, of the space telescope institute, one of the galaxies passed through the other, causing a circular wave, like a pebble tossed into a pond, that has now coalesced into a ring of new blue stars.

http://snipurl.com/4urmp


Radiation Detectors' Value Is Questioned
from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security have overstated the performance of costly new radiation detectors designed to prevent the importation of radiological materials that could be used in bombs, according to an unreleased government report.

The department's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office has claimed in a recent report that new tests show the detection machines, known as Advanced Spectroscopic Portal monitors, can more accurately detect and identify radioactive materials than existing equipment in use across the country, the Government Accountability Office said in its report.

... But auditors who have examined the test results said the office's claims cannot be backed up by statistical evidence. That's because the data collected from what is called the Phase 3 test was too limited, according to the report by the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.

http://snipurl.com/4urys


2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Biggest in 600 Years
from the Boston Globe (Registration Required)

NEW YORK (Associated Press)—The tsunami that killed 230,000 people in 2004 was the biggest in the Indian Ocean in some 600 years, two new geological studies suggest.

That long gap might explain how enough geological stress built up to power the huge undersea earthquake that launched the killer waves four years ago, researchers said.

The work appears in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Two research teams report that by digging pits and taking core samples in Thailand and northern Sumatra, they found evidence that the last comparably large tsunami struck between the years 1300 and 1400.

http://snipurl.com/4us3a


New NASA Capsule Orion Resembles Apollo
from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Reporting from Edwards Air Force Base—NASA rolled out its next-generation space capsule here Wednesday, revealing a bulbous module that is scheduled to carry humans back to the moon in 2020 and eventually onward to Mars.

Unlike the space-plane shape of the shuttles, the new Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle looks strikingly similar to the old Apollo space capsule that carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon and back in 1969, with Armstrong and Aldrin becoming the first humans to walk on the lunar surface.

There is one key difference, however. The test module, unveiled at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, is substantially bigger—16.5 feet in diameter compared with Apollo 11's 12.8 feet.

http://snipurl.com/4urrg


Stone Age Innovation Out of Africa
from Science News

Technological revolutions rocked our world long before the information age. Between 80,000 and 60,000 years ago, it was spurts of innovative toolmaking, rather than extreme climate changes, in southern Africa's Stone Age cultures that heralded a human exodus out of Africa, a new investigation suggests.

Environmental changes in southern Africa, including those brought on by a massive volcanic eruption in Sumatra around 74,000 years ago, played a secondary role at best in instigating ancient cultural advances and intercontinental migrations, say geologist Zenobia Jacobs of the University of Wollongong, Australia, and her colleagues.

Other researchers regard ancient climate fluctuations as key motivators of human movement out of Africa. Jacobs' team dated sediment at nine sites that have yielded remains of either of two key toolmaking traditions in southern Africa, known as the Still Bay and Howieson's Poort industries.

http://snipurl.com/4utea


Polar Warming 'Caused by Humans'
from BBC News Online

The rise in temperatures at Earth's poles has for the first time been attributed directly to human activities, according to a study. The work, by an international team, is published in Nature Geoscience journal.

In 2007, the UN's climate change body presented strong scientific evidence the rise in average global temperature is mostly due to human activities. ... At the time, there was not sufficient evidence to say this for sure about the Arctic and Antarctic.

Now that gap in research has been plugged, according to scientists who carried out a detailed analysis of temperature variations at both poles. Their study indicates that humans have indeed contributed to warming in both regions.

http://snipurl.com/4uscw


Sporting Champions Pass on Mental Toughness to Their Children
from the Telegraph (UK)

Sporting champions are more likely to have children who go on to succeed in their own right because mental toughness is inherited, new research suggests.

... In study published Wednesday, scientists studied 219 sets of twins to work out the influence of genetics and environment on four character traits associated with mental toughness. They were control over life, commitment, confidence and the ability to face new challenges.

Author Dr Tony Vernon at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, concluded that genetics played a more important role—52 per cent—than environmental factors—48 per cent.

http://snipurl.com/4usl0


Fighting With Photons
from the Economist

Like so much else in science fiction, the ray gun was invented by H.G. Wells. ... Science fiction, though, it has remained. Neither hand-held pistols nor giant, orbiting anti-missile versions of the weapon have worked.

But that is about to change. The first serious battlefield ray gun is now being deployed. And the next generation, now in the laboratory, is coming soon.

The deployed ray gun (or "directed-energy weapon" ... ) is known as Zeus. It is not designed to kill. Rather, its purpose is to allow you to remain at a safe distance when you detonate unexploded ordnance, such as the homemade roadside bombs that plague foreign troops in Iraq.

http://snipurl.com/4uspq


"Spider God" Temple Found in Peru
from National Geographic News

A 3,000-year-old temple featuring an image of a spider god may hold clues to little-known cultures in ancient Peru.

People of the Cupisnique culture, which thrived from roughly 1500 to 1000 B.C., built the temple in the Lambayeque valley on Peru's north coast.

The adobe temple, found this summer and called Collud, is the third discovered in the area in recent years. The finds suggest that the three valley sites may have been part of a large capital for divine worship, said archaeologist Walter Alva, director of the Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum.

http://snipurl.com/4usw0

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Iason Ouabache

Quote from: Kai on November 03, 2008, 06:30:59 PM
Science Advice for the Next President
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Nearly 180 organizations representing the interdependent arenas of science, academia and business are urging the next president to appoint a White House science adviser by Inauguration Day and give the position cabinet-level rank.

In letters sent Thursday to Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama, the organizations said scientific and technical advice was needed now more than ever given the importance of the entwined issues of energy security and climate change, mounting issues and opportunities in medicine, and problems in science education and American innovation and competitiveness.

The letters reflect broadening concern that the White House has not been sufficiently stressing science.

http://snipurl.com/4wfyh
I like this idea, but I thought that every Cabinet member had a department directly under them.  How would that work with a science advisor? Would the Executive branch have to be rearranged with the "Secretary of Science" being over things like NASA, EPA, FDA, etc? 
You cannot fathom the immensity of the fuck i do not give.
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Kai

Quote from: Iason Ouabache on November 03, 2008, 08:35:07 PM
Quote from: Kai on November 03, 2008, 06:30:59 PM
Science Advice for the Next President
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Nearly 180 organizations representing the interdependent arenas of science, academia and business are urging the next president to appoint a White House science adviser by Inauguration Day and give the position cabinet-level rank.

In letters sent Thursday to Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama, the organizations said scientific and technical advice was needed now more than ever given the importance of the entwined issues of energy security and climate change, mounting issues and opportunities in medicine, and problems in science education and American innovation and competitiveness.

The letters reflect broadening concern that the White House has not been sufficiently stressing science.

http://snipurl.com/4wfyh
I like this idea, but I thought that every Cabinet member had a department directly under them.  How would that work with a science advisor? Would the Executive branch have to be rearranged with the "Secretary of Science" being over things like NASA, EPA, FDA, etc? 

Theres a Press secretary, but there isn't a department of press.
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Vene

Quote from: Iason Ouabache on November 03, 2008, 08:35:07 PM
Quote from: Kai on November 03, 2008, 06:30:59 PM
Science Advice for the Next President
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Nearly 180 organizations representing the interdependent arenas of science, academia and business are urging the next president to appoint a White House science adviser by Inauguration Day and give the position cabinet-level rank.

In letters sent Thursday to Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama, the organizations said scientific and technical advice was needed now more than ever given the importance of the entwined issues of energy security and climate change, mounting issues and opportunities in medicine, and problems in science education and American innovation and competitiveness.

The letters reflect broadening concern that the White House has not been sufficiently stressing science.

http://snipurl.com/4wfyh
I like this idea, but I thought that every Cabinet member had a department directly under them.  How would that work with a science advisor? Would the Executive branch have to be rearranged with the "Secretary of Science" being over things like NASA, EPA, FDA, etc? 
Would that be a bad thing?  Who better to run scientific departments than a scientist?

Iason Ouabache

#207
Quote from: Kai on November 03, 2008, 09:37:37 PM
Theres a Press secretary, but there isn't a department of press.
True, but that's not a Cabinet position either.

After actually doing some reasearch I found that Bush does have a science advisor (that he never listens to) who is the head of the Office of Science & Technology Policy.  I would assume what these people in the article are wanting an expansion of OSTP with the head being promoted to Cabinet level.  Like I said, not a horrible idea but I have no idea what this person would actually do or even have the power to do.
You cannot fathom the immensity of the fuck i do not give.
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Golden Applesauce

Quote from: Iason Ouabache on November 03, 2008, 11:05:38 PM
Quote from: Kai on November 03, 2008, 09:37:37 PM
Theres a Press secretary, but there isn't a department of press.
True, but that's not a Cabinet position either.

After actually doing some reasearch I found that Bush does have a science advisor (that he never listens to) who is the head of the Office of Science & Technology Policy.  I would assume what these people in the article are wanting an expansion of OSTP with the head being promoted to Cabinet level.  Like I said, not a horrible idea but I have no idea what this person would actually do or even have the power to do.

Anybody who can tell the president "You're a fucking moron, eliminating Drosophila research is fucking retarded" is a good idea.  It would be nice to have issues like endangered species, global warming, etc. be decided by scientists, rather than senators and their horde of lobbyists.
Q: How regularly do you hire 8th graders?
A: We have hired a number of FORMER 8th graders.

Vene

Yes, listen to us scientists.
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