Messages

Its the honest truth. People are deathly afraid of being embarrassed in public. Some cultures took it so far as to kill themselves to leave the pain of being "dishonoured" or loosing face (i.e. the Japanese). As social creatures we subconsciously worry what our peers think of us and where we stand in relation to other people hierarchically because our standing, at least classically, determined the resources that were available for us. That isn't as boldly true anymore, but it still resonates within some aspects of society.

I know I feel it. I don't feel its the worst thing ever but I still have difficulty getting up and speaking to a group of my peers.

Also: PEOPLE ARE VERY AFRAID OF MAKING MISTAKES.

This.  What is so terrifying about a complete and total fuck up?  That's the best way to learn.  I love being proven wrong.

Its less about the mistake itself and more about not wanting to be embarrassed or humiliated.

Fact: many people fear public speaking first above even death. Why? Because they fear public embarrassment or humiliation more than anything.

Haven't most humans almost always thought that their generation reached the end of knowledge?

It seems almost an inborn trait.

I think it has to do something with both the human complacency when they are in comfort (or comfortable fear) of their environment, and technological plateau which makes them believe that everything to be learned has been.

When people feel uncomfortable with their surroundings, when they want change, and when new technology is challenging the status quo, I think you see less and less of this. Education plays a role because, at least in biology, you have a tendency to be bombarded with the great achievements of the past as the basis for current knowlege and the process tends to be very slow at incorporating new knowlege, which seems to be old, been done, has been by the time its taught.

Also: PEOPLE ARE VERY AFRAID OF MAKING MISTAKES.

I wonder where these kids get this idea that everything has been discovered and understood? Maybe their science focuses too much on the things that the scientific communities understand and very little on the massive amount of things that we still lack information of.

Yesterday I was attending a lecture by a rather renowned entomologist. He just recently finished a count of all the known described names of species that were still valid, species of insects I mean. The count came just over 1 million. However, he said, the number of insect species still undescribed is likely 20-50 times what we know now. Even in my own field of study, Trichopterology, we have just over 11,000 described species but the estimate is somewhere around 5 times that.

And thats just species unknowns. That doesn't quantify all the lack of information we have about physiology or ecology, or evolutionary biology, or genetic, etc.

It is interesting.  As our technology has advanced, allowing us to gather in more visual and scientific information about our Solar System, we discover more and more that we have to redefine our models.  It was easy with just the handheld telescopes of yesteryear, when you could just make out the planets. 

Kind of a nice BIP corrolary really.  The more information you allow to come into focus, the more you realize you didn't know as much as you thought you did before. 

And that ties into a nice law of fives corrolary: the more you focus on this information, the more examples and discoveries become apparent to you.

Considering that I think Net and I are pretty much done with our conversation, I don't really care what happens to this thread. However, it was hell trying to scroll through it to figure out if there was anything relevant left, time I could have spent reading my insect morphology textbook.

Thanks for wasting my time.

~Kai

If you take a couple of minutes and block every image in the imagebomb, it will save you future wasted time. I did that a while ago and have already several times been glad I did.

Thank you. I shall.

The problem is that there are many many objects circling the sun, from the Jovian planets being the largest, to the inner terrestrial planets, to the smaller Kuiper belt objects and other "dwarf planets" like Eris, to even smaller asteroids, comets, and then the countless meteors.

Theres no simple system to separate these out, but the easiest way, I think, would be by size, location and composition. There's also the issue of hydrostatic equilibrium, that is, the amount of mass needed to cause a planet or planetoid to have a spherical shape. Even some asteroids, such as Ceres, may qualify in that category.

If we really looked hard at this too, we could reclassify the moon as a planet, dwarf planet anyway, and the earth moon as a binary planet system. Both rotate around a center of gravity that is near the earths crust, and not at the center of the earth.

Interesting. Its all interesting.

Considering that I think Net and I are pretty much done with our conversation, I don't really care what happens to this thread. However, it was hell trying to scroll through it to figure out if there was anything relevant left, time I could have spent reading my insect morphology textbook.

Thanks for wasting my time.

~Kai

Yeah, you could easily find out who I am, where I live, what classes I take, and a thousand other little but revealing things about my identity with only a little digging, assuming you knew where to look.

Thats a risk I'm willing to take.

Made my potato soup (same as the recipie mentioned somewhere in this forum) today. It was good, but not as good as in the past. I don't know why. :/

Technology's Toll on Privacy and Security

from Scientific American

Computers, databases and networks have connected us like never before, but at what cost?

Scientific American presents a series of reports. Protesters, terrorists and warmongers have found the Internet to be a useful tool to achieve their goals. Our jittery state since 9/11, coupled with the Internet revolution, is shifting the boundaries between public interest and "the right to be let alone."

A little digging on social networks, blogs and Internet search engines lets you put together information about people like pieces of a puzzle. It's not a pretty picture for security or privacy. And with less than three months before the presidential election, the hotly contested state, Ohio, along with others, continue to have problems with E-voting technology.

http://snipurl.com/3hi41

This is a big one.  Some retarded faculty member at my college decided it would be a good idea to post a searchable directory with students name, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses online.  At the moment some faculty members have photos as well; I'm hoping they aren't going to apply that to students as well.

We have that here, but you actually have to be a student or staff/faculty to access it, requiring a logon.

if you wont blast them  i will - NSFW - http://www.sissykiss.com/  don't blame me if you look

Ugh. Especially the feminization articles.

August 20, 2008
Statins: From Fungus to Pharma

from American Scientist

In 1966, Akira Endo, a young Japanese biochemist, started an adventure that would ultimately save thousands, if not millions, of lives.

Only 33 years old at the time, Endo was a research scientist at Sankyo—a pharmaceutical company, later known as Daiichi Sankyo, in Tokyo—where he was looking for enzymes in fungal extracts for improving the quality of certain foodstuffs. But his research was soon to enter a new realm.

As he would write years later: "In the mid-1960s, fascinated by several excellent reviews on cholesterol biosynthesis by Konrad Bloch of Harvard University, who received the Nobel Prize in 1964, I became interested in the biochemistry of cholesterol and other lipids." Endo's curiosity triggered research that eventually spawned one of today's most widely used families of drugs.

http://snipurl.com/3hpjt

China's Olympic Pollution Efforts Paid Off, Expert Says

from National Geographic News

Beijing's air for the opening track-and-field events at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games is "better than expected," said U.S. Olympic distance runner Amy Yoder Begley.

"When I came to China to race in 2002," Yoder Begly said in an e-mail earlier this week, "the air caused my lungs and nasal passages to burn." She also described the sensation as "swallowing glass."

Although air pollution in China's capital city is almost always worse than anywhere in the United States, Chinese efforts to clean up the air before the Games have paid off. The country shut down all nearby factories and ordered half the cars off the road, creating tangible improvements, scientists say.

http://snipurl.com/3hi1n

Methadone Rises as a Painkiller With Big Risks

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Suffering from excruciating spinal deterioration, Robby Garvin, 24, of South Carolina, tried many painkillers before his doctor prescribed methadone in June 2006, just before Mr. Garvin and his friend Joey Sutton set off for a weekend at an amusement park.

On Saturday night Mr. Garvin called his mother to say, "Mama, this is the first time I have been pain free, this medicine just might really help me." The next day, though, he felt bad. As directed, he took two more tablets and then he lay down for a nap. It was after 2 p.m. that Joey said he heard a strange sound that must have been Robby's last breath.

Methadone, once used mainly in addiction treatment centers to replace heroin, is today being given out by family doctors, osteopaths and nurse practitioners for throbbing backs, joint injuries and a host of other severe pains.

http://snipurl.com/3hhtd

Cybercrime: 'A Lot of People Just Don't Take the Basic Precautions'

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

At the end of the Black Hat hacker convention in Las Vegas this month, James Finch, head of the FBI's Cyber Division, sat down for an interview about crime and the Internet. About 4,000 people gathered at the annual convention to hear about research on the latest network and computer or electronic-device security vulnerabilities.

The FBI's Cyber Division is responsible for investigating high-tech crimes, including computer and network intrusions and child pornography cases. Each of the FBI's 56 field offices has a cyber squad, which pulls from a pool of 500 to 600 agents specializing in the area.

According to an FBI spokesman, there are currently about 50 FBI-led cybercrime task forces across the country working cases with state and local authorities and with investigators from other law enforcement agencies. The Washington Post presents excerpts from aninterview with James Finch.

http://snipurl.com/3htsm

Researchers Produce Blood in Lab from Stem Cells

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Scientists said [yesterday] that they have devised a way to grow large quantities of blood in the lab using human embryonic stem cells, potentially making blood drives a relic of the past.

But experts cautioned that although it represented a significant technical advance, the new approach required several key improvements before it could be considered a realistic alternative to donor blood.

The research team outlined a four-step process for turning embryonic stem cells into red blood cells capable of carrying as much oxygen as normal blood. The procedure was published online in the journal Blood. The ability to make blood in the lab would guarantee that hospitals and blood banks have access to an ample supply of all types of blood, including the rare AB-negative and O-negative, the universal donor.

http://snipurl.com/3htqv

Bird Flu Hopes from 1918 Victims

from BBC News Online

Survivors of the devastating 1918 influenza pandemic are still protected from the virus, according to researchers in the US.

American scientists found that people who lived through the outbreak can still produce antibodies that kill the deadly strain of the H1N1 flu. The study, published in the journal Nature, could help develop emergency treatments for future outbreaks.

The Spanish flu outbreak of 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people. Some experts say it was the most devastating epidemic in history, affecting even healthy adults.

http://snipurl.com/3htup

Bloating Galaxies Confound Astronomers

from New Scientist

Astronomers continue to puzzle over the recent discovery of a strange population of dense, compact galaxies that existed in the early universe but are nowhere to be seen today.

They suspect the galaxies somehow puffed up into the bloated behemoths we see around us, but new research shortens the timescale during which this mysterious swelling could have happened.

In April, astronomers reported finding extremely compact galaxies as far back as 10 billion years ago, or 3.7 billion years after the big bang. The galaxies contained the same number of stars as modern, blob-shaped galaxies known as ellipticals—but were two to three times smaller on average. Now, observations have turned up compact galaxies roughly a billion years later, when the universe was almost 5 billion years old.

http://snipurl.com/3htvz

Songbirds Show Signs of Recognizing Their Own Bodies in Mirrors

from Science News

Magpies sing a self-reflective tune to themselves that until now has gone unheard. When placed in front of a mirror, these songbirds realize that they're looking at themselves, raising the possibility that they have independently evolved the brain power to support a basic form of self-recognition, a new study suggests.

Magpies are the first non-mammal to demonstrate a rudimentary affinity for self-recognition, psychologist Helmut Prior of Goethe University in Frankfurt on Main, Germany and his colleagues report in the Aug. 19 PLoS Biology.

Members of the corvid family, which includes crows and ravens, magpies join apes, bottlenose dolphins and elephants as the only animals other than humans that have been observed to understand that a mirror image belongs to their own body.

http://snipurl.com/3htwy

A Monster Discovery? It Was Just a Costume

from ABC News

In the end, it seems Bigfoot was nothing more than a frozen Halloween costume. Last Friday, two men, Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, announced they had found the remains of the elusive legend, Sasquatch, better known as Bigfoot.

The two men had teamed up with self-proclaimed Bigfoot hunter Tom Biscardi, creating a media bonanza replete with claims that they had a real half-human, half-ape body in their possession.

Biscardi, who himself has a history of dubious Bigfoot sightings, claims the story started to unravel over the weekend. And he apparently tried to shift responsibility to Whitton and Dyer claiming the pair "deceived him." But several Bigfoot academics say all three men appear to have been perpetrating a hoax.

http://snipurl.com/3i0r1

Researchers Say Numbers Aren't Needed to Count

from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON (Associated Press)—Answer this without counting: Are there more X's here XXXXXX, or here XXXXX? That's a problem facing people whose languages don't include words for more than one or two. Yet researchers say children who speak those languages are still able to compare quantities.

"We argue that humans possess an innate system for enumeration that doesn't rely on words," says Brian Butterworth of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London.

In an attempt to prove it, Butterworth compared the numerical skills of children from two indigenous Australian groups whose languages don't contain many number words with similar children who speak English. All the groups performed equally well, his research team reports in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

http://snipurl.com/3i0sr

Also, Kai is more than capable of defending his position if he chooses.

And HOW~!

August 19, 2008
F.B.I. Details Anthrax Case, but Doubts Remain

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON—Federal Bureau of Investigation officials on Monday laid out their most detailed scientific case to date against Bruce E. Ivins, the military scientist accused of being the anthrax killer, but they acknowledged that the many mysteries of the case meant an air of uncertainty would always surround it.

"I don't think we're ever going to put the suspicions to bed," said Vahid Majidi, head of the F.B.I.'s weapons of mass destruction division. "There's always going to be a spore on a grassy knoll."

At a two-hour briefing for reporters, Dr. Majidi was joined by seven other leading scientists from inside and outside the bureau. They discussed in intricate detail the halting scientific path that led them from two main samples of anthrax used in the 2001 attacks, to four genetic mutations unique to the samples, to 100 scientists in the United States who had access to that particular strain, and ultimately to Dr. Ivins.

http://snipurl.com/3hozp

Spanish Fear Day When Tap Will Run Dry

from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

BARCELONA, Spain—Water woes spiraled to such depths this year that the top regional environment minister here—a confirmed agnostic—confessed to climbing the stony shrine of the Virgin of Montserrat for a bit of solace.

Winter rains refused to fall, shriveling reserves to severe drought levels and prompting a water shipment from France. ... A monthlong downpour rescued Spain a couple of months later, ending the drought and adding yet another twist to Spain's unease over its water resource: The unrelenting rain marooned a section of a long-awaited world's fair in Zaragoza that, as luck would have it, touted water conservation.

Expo2008 rebounded to draw thousands of tourists for high-minded talk on sustainable development, but anxieties over water and market pressures now bedevil Spain's most development-hungry regions.

http://snipurl.com/3hi7j

Technology's Toll on Privacy and Security

from Scientific American

Computers, databases and networks have connected us like never before, but at what cost?

Scientific American presents a series of reports. Protesters, terrorists and warmongers have found the Internet to be a useful tool to achieve their goals. Our jittery state since 9/11, coupled with the Internet revolution, is shifting the boundaries between public interest and "the right to be let alone."

A little digging on social networks, blogs and Internet search engines lets you put together information about people like pieces of a puzzle. It's not a pretty picture for security or privacy. And with less than three months before the presidential election, the hotly contested state, Ohio, along with others, continue to have problems with E-voting technology.

http://snipurl.com/3hi41

FDA Approves 1st Drug for Huntington's Disease

from Newsday

Federal drug regulators Friday approved a medication to treat a major symptom of Huntington's disease, marking the first time since the disorder was first described in a Long Island family 136 years ago that any kind of treatment has been available in the United States.

In Huntington's, a rare, devastating condition, brain cells degenerate because of a genetic miscue easily passed from one generation to the next. The disorder results in jerky, involuntary movements known as chorea.

The drug tetrabenazine controls the chorea, which affects about 90 percent of people with the disease. It was approved under the Food and Drug Administration's orphan products program, which is aimed at developing treatments for conditions affecting fewer than 200,000 people. Huntington's disease affects 30,000 people nationwide.

http://snipurl.com/3hhxr

The Winners' Body Language—It's Biological

from the Boston Globe (Registration Required)

Throwing their heads back, thrusting their arms in the air, puffing out their chests, and flashing big grins, Olympic athletes from across the world follow the same triumphant choreography each night.

They aren't just gold medal-clad copycats; a study released last week says that such displays of pride seem to have biological underpinnings, shared with chest-beating mountain gorillas and strutting monkeys.

For insight into pride and shame, scientists studied the aftermath of judo matches from the 2004 Olympic and Paralympic Games, comparing the behavior of winning and losing judo players. They found that victory looked the same across cultures, and even among athletes who were born blind, and could never have learned the behavior from watching their peers celebrate victory.

http://snipurl.com/3hhww

Bacteria Played a Role in 1918 Pandemic Flu Deaths, Scientists Say

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Most deaths in the 1918 influenza pandemic were due not to the virus alone but to common bacterial infections that took advantage of victims' weakened immune systems, according to two new studies that could change the nation's strategy against the next pandemic.

"We have to realize that it isn't just antivirals that we need," said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and coauthor of one study. "We need to make sure that we're prepared to treat people with antibiotics," said Fauci, whose study will be released online this month by the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

In both studies, scientists analyzed a trove of historical documents from around the world, examining firsthand accounts, medical records and autopsy reports.

http://snipurl.com/3hhtr

'Big Pig Dig' Was Treasure Trove of Fossils

from the San Francisco Chronicle

(Associated Press)—The fossil field formally known as the Pig Wallow Site at Badlands National Park will close for good at the end of this summer, 15 years after student paleontologists started unearthing prehistoric remains.

"The main research of the site is to better understand how fossils are preserved and how bones accumulate in a particular setting. And the site is very unique here at the Badlands. We've never found a site like it in the White River Badlands," said Rachel Benton, park paleontologist.

Excavation started in June 1993 after two visitors found a large backbone sticking out of the ground near the Conata Picnic Area in what researchers think was a watering hole that trapped animals in mud.

http://snipurl.com/3hhup

Mummified Remains from 1948 Plane Crash Identified

from the San Francisco Examiner

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Associated Press)—Nine years of sleuthing, advanced DNA science and cutting-edge forensic techniques have finally put a name to a mummified hand and arm found in an Alaska glacier.

The remains belong to Francis Joseph Van Zandt, a 36-year-old merchant marine from Roanoke, Va., who was on a plane rumored to contain a cargo of gold when it smashed into the side of a mountain 60 years ago. Thirty people died in the crash.

"This is the oldest identification of fingerprints by post-mortem remains," said latent fingerprint expert Mike Grimm Sr., during a teleconference Friday, during which the two pilots who found the remains, genetic scientists and genealogists talked about the discovery.

http://snipurl.com/3hhvo

More than 50 Percent of College Students Felt Suicidal

from USA Today

BOSTON—A comprehensive study of suicidal thinking among college students found more than half of the 26,000 surveyed had suicidal thoughts at some point during their lifetime.

The web-based survey conducted in spring 2006 used separate samples of undergraduate and graduate students from 70 colleges and universities across the country.

Of the 15,010 undergraduates, average age 22: 55 percent had ever thought of suicide; 18 percent seriously considered it; and 8 percent made an attempt. Among 11,441 graduate students, average age 30: Exactly half had such thoughts; 15 percent seriously considered it and 6 percent made an attempt.

http://snipurl.com/3hhyu

Mexican Peppers Posed Health Risks Long Before Salmonella Outbreak

from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

FRESNO, Calif. (Associated Press)—Federal inspectors at U.S. border crossings repeatedly turned back filthy, disease-ridden shipments of peppers from Mexico in the months before a salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,400 people was finally traced to Mexican chilies.

Yet no larger action was taken. Food and Drug Administration officials insisted as recently as last week that they were surprised by the outbreak because Mexican peppers had not been spotted as a problem before.

But an Associated Press analysis of FDA records found that peppers and chilies were consistently the top Mexican crop rejected by border inspectors for the last year. Since January alone, 88 shipments of fresh and dried chilies were turned away. Ten percent were contaminated with salmonella. In the last year, 8 percent of the 158 intercepted shipments of fresh and dried chilies had salmonella.

http://snipurl.com/3hp1w