NotesTo me, index fingers portray a hideous personality reflecting conceit and pantywaist attitudes. In essence, they are smart-ass digits we can often do without. If I had to lose a finger and had my choice, I would choose first my nondominant hand index ray and next the other index. I find index digits easy to hate and sometimes hard to love.Unfurl
NotesSo the anti-vaccine advocatesâ fears of having the ânatural immunity sterilized out of usâ just doesnât cut it for me. How could I, with my idyllic childhood and my amazing health food, get so freaking ill all the time?Unfurl
NotesEVERY year around this time, with the college year starting, I give my students The Talk. It isnât, as you might expect, about sex, but about evolution and religion, and how they get along. More to the point, how they donât.Unfurl
NotesThe conflation of faith as âunevidenced beliefâ with faith as âjustified confidenceâ is simply a word trick used to buttress religion.Unfurl
NotesDouglas Hofstadter, the Pulitzer Prizeâwinning author of Gödel, Escher, Bach, thinks we've lost sight of what artificial intelligence really means. His stubborn quest to replicate the human mind. FeedUnfurl
NotesAs we recall from bitter memory, the Hubble and the space station are in vastly different orbits. Getting from one to the other requires so much energy that not even space shuttles had enough fuel to do it. The telescope is 353 miles high, in an orbit that keeps it near the Equator; the space station is about 100 miles lower, in an orbit that takes it far north, over Russia.
To have the movie astronauts Matt Kowalski (Mr. Clooney) and Ryan Stone (Ms. Bullock) zip over to the space station would be like having a pirate tossed overboard in the Caribbean swim to London. Unfurl
NotesIn a study published in The Lancet, about twenty-nine percent of patients who recovered from Russell's Viper venom had signs of hypopituitarism or Sheehan's Syndrome. Both conditions have unremarkable symptoms, like a constant feeling of cold and an unusual amount of fatigue. What distinguishes them is a sort of reverse-puberty in adults. They lose their sex drive. They lose fertility. They lose their body hair, especially pubic hair. Men lose facial hair and muscles. Women lose curves as the condition causes them to lose weight. Some doctors even report loss of mental faculties as the condition progresses.Unfurl
NotesEngineers at Harvard University have figured out a way to make microscopic sculptures of roses, tulips and violets, each smaller than a strand of hair.FeedUnfurl
NotesJoe Henrich and his colleagues are shaking the foundations of psychology and economicsâand hoping to change the way social scientists think about human behavior and culture.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesOur results show that the average temperature of the earthâs land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.Unfurl
NotesâThere are a couple of things that you canât really dispute,â Nye explained to CNNâs Carol Costello. âSixteen of the last 17 years have been the hottest years on record. Thatâs just how it is.â
âI appreciate that we want to show two sides of the stories â thereâs a tradition in journalism that goes back quite a ways, I guess â but the two sides arenât equal here. You have tens of thousands of scientists who are very concerned and you have a few people who are in business of equating or drawing attention to the idea that uncertainty is the same as doubt. When you have a plus or minus percentage, thatâs not the same thing as not believing the whole thing at all.âUnfurl
NotesNow maybe you can see how science could have a successor: thalience would use objective truth as an artistic medium and merge subjectivity and objectivity in a creative activity whose purpose is the re-sanctification of the natural world. To believe in an uplifting and satisfying vision of your place in the universe, and to know that this vision is true (or as true as anything can be) would be sublime. Thalience would be an activity worthy of post-scientific humanity, or our own biological or post-biological successors.Unfurl
Notesthe only way for the compound to be more soluble than it already was would be if it dissolved before it came in contact with the water. He decided this would be a good basis for another short story, and then realized this represented the perfect way to deal with his concerns about scientific writingUnfurl
NotesWhen Occupy Wall Street and similar protests played out over the past year, the phenomenon looked familiar to Emory University primatologist Frans de Waal: He's seen similar moral outrage over economic inequity expressed by monkeys and chimps. And he thinks we could learn a lesson or two from our fellow primates.Unfurl
NotesWhen he arrived at the warehouse, the first thing he noticed (after âthe beautiful, sweet, mellow smell of aging Canadian whiskey,â he says) was the black stuff. It was everywhereâon the walls of buildings, on chain-link fences, on metal street signs, as if a battalion of Dickensian chimney sweeps had careened through town. âIn the back of the property, there was an old stainless steel fermenter tank,â Scott says. âIt was lying on its side, and it had this fungus growing all over it. Stainless steel!â The whole point of stainless steel is that things donât grow on it.Unfurl
NotesA BBC team have been working closely with Dr Venn's team to help recover the signals. BBC Television historian Peter Wells, explained "We now know these are original broadcasts. So far we have recovered about 7 weeks of old television signals from space. Every day in our lab is like traveling back in time. And speaking of which we have just started the digital recovery of signals that contain lost Doctor Who episodes.FeedUnfurl
NotesThe development of general anaesthesia has transformed surgery from a horrific ordeal into a gentle slumber. It is one of the commonest medical procedures in the world, yet we still don't know how the drugs work. Perhaps this isn't surprising: we still don't understand consciousness, so how can we comprehend its disappearance?FeedUnfurl
NotesPhysicists have replicated the finding that the subatomic particles called neutrinos seem to travel faster than light. It is a remarkable confirmation of a stunning result, yet most in the field remain sceptical that the ultimate cosmic speed limit has truly been broken.FeedUnfurl
NotesThe video, originally shot back in July at TAM 2011 Las Vegas, is of a panel featuring Bill Nye, astronomers Neil DeGrasse Tyson & Pamela Gay, and theoretical physicist Lawrence Kraussâand the entire discussion is moderated by Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait. The subjects raised are consequential, the discussions thought provoking, and the opinions of the panelists refreshingly diverse (and often conflicting).Unfurl
NotesUtilizing a technology known as time domain reflectometry, a pulse is sent through a wire every time it's touched until it hits a detector, which reflects the pulse back. Based on the speed of the pulse and the time it takes to return, software can pinpoint the starting point of the pulse. The touch-sensitive wire can be placed onto any regular item â the wire can even take the place of a guitar string, while a wire pattern can be embedded inside deformable objects like clothes.FeedUnfurl
NotesNew research conducted by Abraham Loeb from Harvard and Edwin Turner from Princeton shows that electric, artificial lights on remote planets could be detected using next-generation ground and space telescopes. The basic approach is simple: planets that are exclusively illuminated by a local sun will have one âlight signature,â while a planet with artificial lights will have another. Loeb and Turner say that this technique, with our current telescopes, would be able to pick out a major terrestrial city on the edge of the Solar System, in the Kuiper belt (50 AU) â but future telescopes, or the telescopes belonging to advanced, alien races, could see farther. Unfurl
NotesI have an unwritten blog post in my head about this, re: religion & faith vs science & doubt. If you have faith in a bunch of answers, the universe is boring. If you have doubt about many things, you have room for adventure.Unfurl
NotesMerlin Donald is a Emeritus Professor in the Department of Psychology and Faculty of Education, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. A cognitive neuroscientist with a background in philosophy, he is the author of many scientific papers, and two influential books: Origins of the Modern Mind: Three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition (Harvard, 1991), and A Mind So Rare: The evolution of human consciousness (Norton, 2001). Unfurl
Notes"The great-principles framework reveals a rich set of rules on which all computation is based. These principles interact with the domains of the physical, life and social sciences, as well as with computing technology itself."Unfurl
Notes"Scientists in the US have succeeded in developing the first synthetic living cell.<br />
<br />
The researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell. "Unfurl
Notes"Beer bottles are often used in physical disputes. If the bottles break, they may give rise to sharp trauma. However, if the bottles remain intact, they may cause blunt injuries. In order to investigate whether full or empty standard half-litre beer bottles are sturdier and if the necessary breaking energy surpasses the minimum fracture-threshold of the human skull, we tested the fracture properties of such beer bottles in a drop-tower."Unfurl
Notes"Perhaps you have wondered how predictable machines like computers can generate randomness. In reality, most random numbers used in computer programs are pseudo-random, which means they are a generated in a predictable fashion using a mathematical formula. This is fine for many purposes, but it may not be random in the way you expect if you're used to dice rolls and lottery drawings."Unfurl
Notes"This has three odd consequences. The first is that, by the end of sex, the two individuals have become genetically identical. Itâs as if you and your mate began coitus as yourselves and finished as identical twins. The second odd consequence is that, partway through its life, a ciliate can radically alter its genetic make-up; genetically speaking, the transformation is so extreme that itâs as if you changed into one of your children. Talk about being reborn."Unfurl
Notes"The fact that microwaves are now readily available to most of us in the western world and they are only a few centimetres in length, means that you can measure the speed of light in your very own home.The quickest and tastiest way to perform this little experiment is with marshmallows, but chocolate chips also work. Youâll obviously need a microwave oven as well, and a large, microwaveable dish. You will need a ruler, too."Unfurl
Notes"Standing on the hill at dawn, overseeing a team of 40 Kurdish diggers, the German-born archeologist waves a hand over his discovery here, a revolution in the story of human origins. Schmidt has uncovered a vast and beautiful temple complex, a structure so ancient that it may be the very first thing human beings ever built. The site isn't just old, it redefines old: the temple was built 11,500 years agoâa staggering 7,000 years before the Great Pyramid, and more than 6,000 years before Stonehenge first took shape. The ruins are so early that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals, and even agricultureâthe first embers of civilization. In fact, Schmidt thinks the temple itself, built after the end of the last Ice Age by hunter-gatherers, became that emberâthe spark that launched mankind toward farming, urban life, and all that followed."Unfurl
Notes"Of course, to typify any lawful profession as across-the-board corrupt or cowardly is absurd, but to so besmirch the one professional cohort that is unambiguously the most brave, individualistic, honest, curious and smart of all, well, there has to be an agenda behind such drivel -- and there is one. The good old Boffin Effect. "Unfurl
Notes"Carbonating tap water to make seltzer is easy, fast, and absurdly inexpensive with my improvised apparatus. All that is required is to place CO2 (carbon dioxide) gas in agitated contact with chilled water for a few seconds. In this essay, I'll show you how it is done with easy-to-find parts and common PET (polyethylene terephthalate, sometimes called PETE) soda bottles. I'll also explain the kinetic chemistry of why it works so well. And in the second half of this essay, I'll explain how I progressed from this improvised apparatus to installing a complete soda fountain in my home.
"Unfurl
Why I hate the index finger - PMC
Scientists are trying to understand cephalopodsâ behavior and molecular makeup.
Growing up unvaccinated: A healthy lifestyle couldnât prevent many childhood illnesses.
Faith in science and religion: Truth, authority, and the orderliness of nature.
The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think - James Somers - The Atlantic
'Nanogardens' Sprout Up On The Surface Of A Penny : The Picture Show : NPR
Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World
Thalience â KarlSchroeder.com
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | 47 year old television signals bouncing back to Earth
Banishing consciousness: the mystery of anaesthesia - health - 29 November 2011 - New Scientist
BBC News - Neutrino experiment repeat at Cern finds same result
Neutrino experiment replicates faster-than-light finding : Nature News & Comment
BBC drops Frozen Planet's climate change episode to sell show better abroad - Telegraph/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13876082/TDR.1419962681.jpg)
Radar-like sensors bring touch sensitivity to everyday items | The Verge
Climate Skeptics Take Another Hit (Kevin Drum/Mother Jones)
S#*@ scientists say
Researchers find that tiny tubes of carbon bound together in a "yarn" rotate like muscles - but with a thousands of times more twist than ever seen before.
In breakthrough, nerve connections are regenerated after spinal cord injury
RANDOM.ORG - True Random Number Service
Carbonating at Home with Improvised Equipment and Soda Fountains