Domain: eurekalert.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to eurekalert.org.
Comments · 334
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Re:The exact area?
Are you saying that when NASA posted the numbers that they stated were corrected due to the anomaly reported by McIntyre, they got it wrong a second time? If so, I'd like to see some evidence of that.
Lol.. No, I'm saying they haven't corrected all the pages that use the numbers and they aren't reflective of the new data set. Also, as it is, Hansen seems to think that the Switching from US reported global temperatures to locality reported temperatures which likely make the same mistakes means that the adjustments only account for a 1-2 % or the global variance. While this is probably an honest move, we have no reassurances that the corrected data is represented properly with the different sources being applied. We also have no assurances of the accuracy which respect to adjustments done by the individual data sources.
Now, there is a known discrepency between the Satellite records and the land based records. Not to mention that we changed the way the oceanic temperatures are recorded when we found records ships to be in contrast with oceanic Buoy so now we use primarily satellite data which shows an increase by the means of the type of data it is.
In short, Yes, NASA's data if off and seeing how they just updated most of their linked data September 10th, it would be a while before they get it straightened around. As of now, it isn't reliable in my opinion and probably won't be for a while.hat exact same area? Then why didn't we know about the ridge that was recently discovered there? Top secret?
Well, much of our sub fleet's operations in the arctic circle is classified. We do know from FOI requests and declassifications that we were using it as a shortcut to Russia for espionage and monitoring. We also know that it took the Russians 3 tries to go places we have gone because of the ice.No, despite the fact that you'll hear this reported on many right-wing blog sites, it's not. Antarctica is losing ice mass -- unless you think that the NASA satellite people are in cahoots with Hansen..
Maybe they should update their pages., What.. that is what I have been saying. It seems that David Bromwich who has been studying the situation has something different to say about it. But seeing how your release was dates in 2006 and studied 2002-2005, maybe they are both correct and what was, isn't any more. As a matter of fact, it appears that the antarctic is cooler then it was in the 50's and is building more ice too. -
Re:Wow! What an innovative idea!If it gets punctured or the control valve goes wonky, you lose all the fuel.
If you have four fuel tanks, you still have at least three other tanks. So any reasonble person would suspect. But in the design that they used, according to a more informative article at http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/pu- era090507.php, "The tanks are pressurized with the helium. If one tank runs out of fuel, the next time the valve in that tank is opened to ignite the rocket thrusters, the helium from that tank mixes with fuel going to the thrusters from the other tanks, preventing the thrusters from firing and shutting down the propulsion system." In other words, in this design, if one tank empties completely, it screws up the other three thrusters. The way they did it, four tanks do not increase reliability, they actually increase the likelyhood of failure. -
Re:Wow! What an innovative idea!
Pretty close yeah. Here is an article with a more detailed explanation.
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Re:ContradictionYes, I know it sounds contradictory. It's a subtle point. We humans would define the pulse envelope by it's shape: let's say it looks like a bell curve. So you send a normal pulse of photons and the peak of the bell curve travels from left to right at the speed of light. No contradiction.
Now, some researchers have figured out a way to send photons whose phases add up in such a way that the peak of the bell curve actually travels from left to right faster than the speed of light. So the peak arrives sooner than a light-speed photon could have traveled the same distance. So, at first glance, it appears obvious that the pulse was traveling faster than light! However if you look into the details, you'll see that the pulse is made up of photons with a variety of arrival times. All the photons are traveling at light-speed. At the beginning, the peak of the pulse envelope is, say, in the center of the distribution of photons... but at the end, the peak of the pulse envelope is closer to the front of the distribution of photons. The point is that the photons on the leading edge of the pulse contain "the information" necessary to encode the full pulse envelope, so when they arrive they can relay that information. But they traveled at light speed the whole time, and the "pulse envelope" (as described by us) was merely "catching up" to them.
The reason I keep emphasizing "you can't transmit information faster than c" is because this is what you see in experiment. Let's say you have a laser that is phase-matched so that it is sending these "superluminal" pulse envelopes through some special material. At some specific moment, you shut the laser off. Does this "disturbance" (a.k.a. signal) travel faster than light through the material? The answer (from experiment and theory, though it's not intuitive) is no. In fact, the barrier of "laser off" travels forward at light speed... so actually you will continue to observe "superluminal" envelopes appearing and traveling through the material in front of this "laser off" wall. The end result is that any disturbance/signal is limited to light speed. The fact that we identify an envelope traveling faster than c is a trick that arises from the interference among the wave nature of the individual photons.
The article offers this rebuttal analogy, from Aephraim Steinberg:Steinberg explains Nimtz and Stahlhofen's observations by way of analogy with a 20-car bullet train departing Chicago for New York. The stopwatch starts when the centre of the train leaves the station, but the train leaves cars behind at each stop. So when the train arrives in New York, now comprising only two cars, its centre has moved ahead, although the train itself hasn't exceeded its reported speed.
Again, the "superluminal" only comes in when we chose to define the entity in question as "pulse envelope" instead of "constituent photons." Since it's the photons actually carrying the energy (hence information), the fact that the envelope can travel faster than light (or slower than light, or even backwards) doesn't matter.
"If you're standing at the two stations, looking at your watch, it seems to you these people have broken the speed limit," Steinberg says. "They've got there faster than they should have, but it just happens that the only ones you see arrive are in the front car. So they had that head start, but they were never travelling especially fast." -
Re:I would volunteer, except
I would volunteer, except there's no way I am going to be in confined quarters with 4 rude, psychopathic, depressed, suicidal Russian alcoholics for 17 months!
catchpa:tautness
Hazardous alcohol drinking causes 43% of deaths in Russian men aged 25-54...not that I think they are going to load the thing up with alcoholics, but it is sad. -
Re:I am scared of global warming fanatics
(Please ignore previous post - accidental hit of submit instead of preview)
However, if I have to choose between siding with scientists from MIT or Oxford - or "scientists" that got project grants or paid jobs because they mentioned "Global Warming" in their project name - guess what I'll choose... This whole silly thing reminds me of Y2K panic.
FYI, your heroes at MIT/ Oxford seem to agree with global warming and are trying to educate you, but perhaps the real problem is that you don't understand it.
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Re:I am scared of global warming fanatics
However, if I have to choose between siding with scientists from MIT or Oxford - or "scientists" that got project grants or paid jobs because they mentioned "Global Warming" in their project name - guess what I'll choose... This whole silly thing reminds me of Y2K panic.
FYI, your heroes at MIT/ Oxford seem to agree with global warming and are trying to educate you, but
perhaps the real problem is that you don't understand it.
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Re:Somebody saw this coming
http://www.eurekalert.org/images/
may contain what you're looking for :)
http://visservices.sdsc.edu/projects/nees/article. php
is better though
free porn -
Geez I am stupid
I am laughing really hard now
:). 1) hit submit instead of preview 2) forgot to click anom coward 3) link is not even working. 4) anyway other had already posted a corrected link.
At least with that amount of self ridicule i can't stoop lower :P.
Anyway here it is as promised : linky -
Real link for those which want a clickable link
Posted as Anonymous coward for obvious reason
Link corrected -
Re:Somebody saw this coming
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-04/uo
c --ei041107.php should be the article ... no images though. -
Here's the Correct Link
Link!
Two little dashes in the url became one superdash! -
Re:energy payback, sw, the monetary payback....
Nuclear power is around 2 cents/kwh at wholesale.
Not even close. Nuclear is around 6 cents/kWh for current facilities (ranging from 3 to 14 cents/kWh), and that is with completely depreciated capital costs and counting no external costs! Future plants? Please all theory, no reality. The mantra of nuclear is always been "too cheap to meter", yet it has fallen famously short of this for 50 years... why should we subsidize it further? What is the benefit? Causes its super geeky cool? Not enough.US nuclear reactors average something around 98-99%
That would be nice. Nuclear plants have historically averaged only 80% up time - in fact in the 1980s is was 65%. Less availability than wind power: 95+% for a good wind farm (surprised? of course capacity factor is a different story). But your point about solar is indeed true, i left it out of my post for simplicity, it averages 30-40%. In fact 85% of the country has 1800-2000 kWh/m^2/year isolation for fixed panels. Around 80% of the best location in Arizona, so no desert needed.As for the waste - build breeder and integral fast reactors. They're more expensive to build, but cheaper to run, as their fuel can be all the 'waste' fuel rods sitting around. Eliminate two birds with one stone.
You can't have everything with Nuclear, you either get less efficient use of fuel, OR nuclear proliferation problems. The designers of light water reactor weren't stupid, they designed them to be a nuclear proliferation resistant design. Now, when we are concerned with terrorism, building breeder or fast reactors is insane. Remember is only takes 5-25 kg of material (a softball size) to made a viable nuclear weapon. Its the nuclear materials that are hard, the rest is a glorified pipe bomb - literally garage science.
The main point is with comparatively less subsidy than nuclear, solar and other renewables are kicking nuclears butt in the marketplace already. Next year solar will surpass new nuclear capacity, wind already did it 3 years ago. even with all of the hidden economic subsidies for nuclear. If you add those externalities back in, Nuclear doesn't make any sense. Yes it is cool technology. And it makes sense in a few situations (nuclear subs for example). But that doesn't win one any point: Pollution, scale, distribution, safety (the murphy factor), security, EROI, construction time, cost, etc.
The one flag that nuclear advocates wave is CO2. That is the only benefit, That alone is not enough. Trading 1 waste for another is not a big win - when there are renewable resources that do better, faster, cheaper. -
Re:Science.
First, could you qualify what you mean by 100% human DNA? Specifically what markers define human, does someone with Down Syndrome have human DNA and does someone who has undergone gene therapy have 100% human DNA?
Second a life isn't the same as alive. People, dogs, bacteria, tumors, and cell cultures are all alive, which ones contain a life?
Tell me in scientific terms how I would distinguish between uterine cancer and a fetus. Pointing to structures is cheating - if a bone/organ makes me human am I less human if I have it removed? Oh, and there was this recent study that showed a transmissible carcinoma that maintains the DNA of the original carrier. Yes it is with dogs, but in principle the same could happen to humans. The only thing I can think of that would distinguish them is that we know that the fetus should come to term, but that is the argument of potentials. Just because it is a potential human life, does not make it a human life today. (Please don't flame me for comparing fetuses to cancer - just making an illustration.)
I don't have a particular issue with people taking either side, but I'm on a campaign for logical consistency and simplicity in arguments. Science can't say what is a life because ultimately it is a philosophical question. If you are making an argument with regards to abortion the simple question is, is it a life? -
Re:Very old newsI read about this back in November, and it was known even in 2005. How many people's lives were affected in the interim due to slow news sources?
Did you ever think the red cross was deciding whether or not this study had merit. The people that take CPR have a minimal of medical training. Literally, a couple of hours. They,including myself, should probably due as their training said and stick to the 15 to 1 comporession to breathing ratio or the 30 to 1 that apparently is taught these days. Personally, if someone next to me went into cardiac arrest right now, I would do as my training said and do the 15 to 1 ratio. If I could verify that the American Red Cross teaches otherwise in the Adult CPR course, I would follow those new procedures. However, if the adult CPR course said 15 to one and the CPR for the professional rescuer said 30 to one I would do 15 to mone because I never took a CPR for the professional rescuer course. -
Re:Very old newsI read about this back in November, and it was known even in 2005. How many people's lives were affected in the interim due to slow news sources?
Did you ever think the red cross was deciding whether or not this study had merit. The people that take CPR have a minimal of medical training. Literally, a couple of hours. They,including myself, should probably due as their training said and stick to the 15 to 1 comporession to breathing ratio or the 30 to 1 that apparently is taught these days. Personally, if someone next to me went into cardiac arrest right now, I would do as my training said and do the 15 to 1 ratio. If I could verify that the American Red Cross teaches otherwise in the Adult CPR course, I would follow those new procedures. However, if the adult CPR course said 15 to one and the CPR for the professional rescuer said 30 to one I would do 15 to mone because I never took a CPR for the professional rescuer course. -
Very old news
I read about this back in November, and it was known even in 2005. How many people's lives were affected in the interim due to slow news sources?
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Very old news
I read about this back in November, and it was known even in 2005. How many people's lives were affected in the interim due to slow news sources?
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Re:The next boogeyman?Plus from what I understand, there is no warming in Antarctica. A new report on climate over the world's southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models.
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That's nothing
Look at what else "they" don't want you to see. Astrology is real and science can prove it "Virgos have an increased risk of vomiting during pregnancy". http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/ns
a e-coh021507.php Either that or CORRELATION != CAUSATION -
Re:Those cursed oil companies, setting off volcano
Ok, I'll bite. The oil company drilled a borehole next to the volcano. When the borehole exploded it provided a vent for the mud to flow out of. According to This site the oil company was not following standard operating procedure designed to minimize the risk of this kind of event.
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Re:Obvious
Yeah, fat genes. Good one. There is no such thing. If there were such a thing, we could breed a race of superfat humans who can exercise constantly and still gain weight. Second law, eat your heart out!
Yea! What he said! There's no such thing as fat genes! ... ,,,,,Oh, wait. Yes there is:
Here's one link-
http://www.eurekalert.org/features/doe/2001-06/drn l-ogi061802.php
Here's another-
http://www.hhmi.org/genesweshare/d130.html
OMG! Google-osity:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=obesity+gene+ in+mice&btnG=Google+Search
...I'm sorry to hear that you hate real cities. I know that culture and the arts can be a pain in the ass and are best eradicated. And I hate having to see all those interesting people all over the place. Man, I wish I could move back to Midwest City so I could drive everywhere and never interact with anybody.
...
Firstly you need to keep in mind the fact that different people desire different surroundings, and that the sort of people who would be very happy living in a remote location would be horribly unhappy forced to live in a city. There is a matter of personal choice here, and although you may wish to assign blame for all the world's problems on people who don't think like you, that doesn't make it true.
Secondly there are lots of people who view big cities with a fair amount of disdain.
When they think of "big city arts" they think of things like murder, assault, muggings and auto theft.
When they think of big-city culture they think of street gangs, and news images of the anarchic mess of New Orleans as the waters rose and the police fled.
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Men are wired for engineering, women aren't.
Recently, some scientists gave a group of young boys access to a chest full of dolls and toy cars and balls and pots. In another room, a group of girls got access to an identical chest.
The boys eschewed the dolls and pots in favor of the cars and balls, and vice versa for the girls.
Now, as the feminists screech about "gender bias" and "socialization" and "male patriarchy"... ...the boys and girls were both young vervet monkeys. Oops.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-12/tau -tca121002.php
Sorry feminists. Guess men and women ARE wired differently, after all. Men are drawn to engineering and science, women aren't. Women are drawn to hearth and home. It's in our wiring. Nothing wrong with that, just don't try to say that the lack of women in engineering is because of some "male patriarchy". -
MRI lied detector
Nobody know about the new MRI based lie detectors?
They are scientifically validated (polygraph are not) to be able to catch 90%+ liers when they lie.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-11/rso n-biw112204.php -
Re:A river in Eygpt
Why does everybody forget the SUN? The source of 99.999% of the heat on earth varying in its output by a teeny tiny fraction of a percentage of it's output couldn't possibly make the earth warmer or colder could it?
So, your hypothesis is that the sun, which has been massively consistent in heat output for the past 60,000 years according to core samples, waited to turn up the heat until the precise moment in geological history that human beings started putting 70 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere?
Actually, the variation in the sun's output is estimated at 0.7% (source) However, this study fails to take into account the experimentally demonstrated effect discovered by Svensmark at the Danish National Science Center.
The "Svensmark Effect" is that cosmic rays penetrate to the troposphere. Here they create ions that help induce cloud formation. The cloud formation directly reflects some radiation back into space cooling the earth. During periods of high solar activity, substantially less cosmic ray radiation penetrates to troposphere, increasing the amount of water vapor in the air. Water vapor is, of course, a much more effective greenhouse gas than CO2.
So this is a positive feedback effect. Small variations is solar output create small changes in energy absorption, but they also create larger changes in cloud cover and water vapor. 85% of the warming blamed on industrialization can be explained by small solar variation similar to that measured, in combination with cloud cover changes similar to those observed.
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Re:Robust policy needed
Yea, because we all know 'race' is genetic. Please look up the word "Race" before you embarass yourself any further.
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Mistaken premisesFirst of all, I don't think it's the "pro-choice people" who are pushing the stem cell agenda. If anything, I think it's the pro-life crowd who made it an issue when they went after it a few years ago. It wasn't even on the radar screen before then. There's no giant pro-choice conspiracy here, trying to show the benefits of abortion; that's ridiculous. The benefits of abortion are obvious -- not being pregnant. There's no huge conspiracy afoot there.
On the contrary, I think the arguments against stem cell research are mostly being pushed by pro-life people, in order to be consistent with their stated basis, where any fertilized ovum is the moral equivalent of a 'human life.' I think the argument is pretty clear; if you accept that a blastocyst is alive and equivalent to a sentient being, then you must oppose stem cell research. If you're convinced enough of that that so you're willing to limit others' personal choices (as in banning or limiting abortion), then it's not hard to see going from there to being in favor of a ban on research. It's pretty much QED: if you're really pro-life on a religious/moral basis, which the overwhelming number of pro-life people I've met are, then you almost have to take issue with embryonic stem cell research; there's no necessity in the pro-choice position, because it's not driven by any single fundamental theological or moral argument (I know people who are pro-choice for a huge variety of different reasons).
In terms of your specific questions, I think all of them have been answered elsewhere, but I will attempt to respond to them and give references where I can.What's wrong with the stem cell lines we already have?
A number of things. First of all, many of them are contaminated. Some sources seem to claim that it's mouse cells that have gotten into the lines, others just describe it as "non human." (cite, cite) All or at least many of the approved lines in the U.S. are contaminated.
Why the push to create endless stem cell lines when a stem cell will reproduce to more and more stem cells forever?
Cells in lines mutate with increased generations. It's not exactly like duplicating a digital file; it's a little more 'analog' than that. This is pretty basic biology; as you keep replicating an organism over and over, minor (random, environmentally-induced, etc.) variations are going to happen, and build up over time. In order to maintain high quality, new lines need to be periodically introduced. Anything that begins with a hard limit on the number of lines that can be used is inherently flawed -- what if there are problems in those lines? You're possibly compromising research by forcing scientists to use cell specimens that may not be optimal. That's like saying that scientists can only use one species of mouse or rat as specimens for research, even though it's known that some are better for some types of research than others.
Why are we wasting money, time and energy creating more stem cell lines when those resources could be spent on the actual research?
Because it's not a waste? Because more cell lines are needed for research. Scientists aren't just coming up with new cell lines for fun, or because they get a huge rush out of destroying blastocysts. Plus, the knowledge gained during the development of the cell lines can be put directly towards other goals. It's not an either/or tradeoff. In order to do the research, a steady supply and wide variety of stem cells are needed; the research can't be done well otherwise. Since the research is in its early stages, a lot of the focus now is on producing a variety of lines that can be worked with. I think this answers your next question as well. It's not as if money for 'research' is being diverted so that evil scientists in their underground la
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Re:First paragraph
You could read the press release.
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Re:I really don't understand how people ...
You miss my point entirely. A genetic change to one organism is not going to feedback into the rest.
I just finished giving you examples of where such changes have spread to a population, and they create a combined effect that no individual organism is capable of creating. Please address the evidence presented rather than simply making unsupported assertions about why it can't happen.
An adaptation which makes a half square mile of ocean a temperature more favorable to life may do the same to the a portion of the world's climate.
You think a single mutation in one organism competing within a population will change an entire square mile of area?
I've given an example where a population (Did you even read my previous comment?!) has done exactly this re: the production of DMS creating cloud cover. Please address it.
Again, you miss the point. There are various competing forces in the environment and they change over time in a given location.
I've given evidence on how some of these adaptations can function as attractors in a stochastic system. Instead of providing counterexamples you just keep saying "that can't happen" and misrepresenting my argument.
None of this explains why anyone would assert the planet is such a system or why the Earth being 500 degrees warmer is likely to be promoted or stopped by local organisms by any mechanism other than intelligence.
I've given examples where individual adaptations have a beneficial effect on the individual and also have a homeostatic effect on the environment. If you'd like to argue with those examples, go right ahead.
If you'd like to ignore them, you're taking to youself.
We're not arguing if the environment was changed by this genetic development of these creatures.
Why not? What do you mean by 'genetic development' here?
If you read the rest of that paragraph it explains why
Your statement made no sense especially with context included. Evolutionary adaptations having an impact on the environment is precisely what we were discussing. Your denial of even the subject of our conversation reinforces the fact that you aren't reading what I've said.
No you haven't. You've cited possible examples of an organism changing the environment,
They aren't 'possible examples.' DMS does alter cloud cover in an area and bacteria do produce it.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-11/gio t-rlo110606.php
I've given evidence to support my point. You've given no evidence whatsoever to support yours, nor have you addressed the evidence that I've given. You simply insist that it can't possibly happen even as I demonstrate that it has. Organisms do alter their environment. Those alterations do impact global climate. The impact to global climate is typically similar to the impact to local climate. ie. An adaption to excessive sunlight is to increase reflectivity, which has a local and global effect.
but no mechanism why such changes should promote life rather than randomly promote or endanger life, in general.
You do know what a mechanism is, right? In this case, DMS is the mechanism by which cloud cover is altered. It is not the only mechanism by which homeostasis is maintained. To give an analogy "evolution" is not a mechansim, it is a process. The genetic code is a mechanism by which traits are propagated and viruses, mutations, etc. are the mechanism by which diversity is maintained. That I've given you several mecahnisms that underly the process I'm describing and you're still asking for a 'mechansim.' This leads me to believe that you don't realy want a mechanism at all. Or else you aren't willing to change your views in the face of evidence which contradicts them. Or both.
This is a strawman. You seem to have no understanding whatsoever of what Lovelock is proposing nor have you acknowledged what I've wr -
Re:That would be really cool to see...
The body's pretty good at thermoregulating, although there is evidence that chemically induced reduced body temperature increases lifespan. (note actually being cold doesn't do a bit of good: this requires making the hypothalamus mistakenly believe the body is cold.)
I'm guessing that reducing the body's rest metabolism reduces free radical damage (because free radicals are formed during metabolism.) People have observed that most animals die after about a billion heartbeats, give or take a few (except for humans, presumably as the result of better medical care.) It's likely that oxidative damage over time is responsible for much of aging, and oxidative damage is linear with metabolism (as is heart rate.)
So it's not as simple as just moving to Sweden, although living somewhere full of Swedish women is not too bad a way to spend the rest of your life. -
Re:This is probably not wise.
Actually, a recent study has shown that the simple act of testing increases long-term knowledge retention.
It's really simple: give the kids all the material you want them to learn, and then test them on all that material constantly. You don't have to 'teach to the test', either. Just focus on the material, do your normal teaching (discussions, assignments, homework, practicals, whatever), and test them on the material frequently.
In fact, cumulative sectional testing is the most effective process for actual retention (ie you actually learned something, you didn't just memorize it for the test and then forget it afterwards) out there.
Every test should include questions on the previous material learned. And ideally questions on the material that's been handed out but not yet taught in class. These questions should be for bonus points only, but they reward students who take a holistic approach to the material.
It's a great system, and the only perceptible flaw is it can sometimes be difficult to administer in classes with softer concepts (literature and art classes, for example.) But "teaching to the test" is actually a very poor strategy compared to the alternatives. And you know what? The good teachers that recognize that will end up with "More A's, More Pay" anyway. -
Not just in the cold..
You'd be amazed at where life can exist. Coincidentally, just a week ago they found bacteria living 2.8km down in a mine, that also fueled speculation of 'life on Mars'.
Some really cool critters we've known about for a while exist in the Deep Sea ocean vents, and subsist off the chemicals coming through the cracks in the Earth's crust. Another one people didn't hear too much about were bacteria that lived on top of the Surveyor 3 craft that went to the moon and back with the Apollo 11 crew, and basically survived for 3 years in space on nothing. (I remember this stuff because I wrote a paper on the feasibility of life on a planet without a Sun.)
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Re:Ireland is not the happiest place on earth
Actually, Denmark is the happiest place to live with the happiest people so bollocks to Ireland at #11.
http://www.le.ac.uk/pc/aw57/world/sample.htm
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-07/uol -uol072706.php
And that's completely false what you're saying about Germans, Dutch, and Scandinavian people having no sense of humour. The Dutch are pioneers of hilarious commercials and when you go out in the evening anywhere in Scandinavia all people are doing are telling jokes, funny stories, and laughing. Germans might not laugh very much, or smile very much at that, but it doesn't mean they don't have a sense of humour. They laugh at the fact that so many people in Ireland died of starvation during the "potato famine" of 1845-1849 when Ireland is completely surrounded by water. All they had to do was go fishing. -
Re:The rules of evolution...
Isolation by hybridization. Check it out:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-06/str i-bse061206.php
Wacky stuff. The parallels between butterfly attraction and pretty people are at least amusing. -
Yeah, and Homeland Security's Computers Do TooCornell University News Service reports that:
A new research program by a Cornell computer scientist, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh and University of Utah, aims to teach computers to scan through text and sort opinion from fact. The research is funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has designated the consortium of three universities as one of four University Affiliate Centers (UAC) to conduct research on advanced methods for information analysis and to develop computational technologies that contribute to national security. Cornell will receive $850,000 of $2.4 million in funding provided for the consortium over three years...
The new research will use machine-learning algorithms to give computers examples of text expressing both fact and opinion and teach them to tell the difference. A simplified example might be to look for phrases like "according to" or "it is believed." Ironically, Cardie said, one of the phrases most likely to indicate opinion is "It is a fact that
..."
It could be the Google guys re going to try something like the Homeland Security guys are tryng to do. All they have done is ask some humans to use their judgement to classify some writings as "fact" and others as "opinion" and then used pretty standard data mining techniques to train a computer program to mimic that judgement against a much larger sample of texts.The best the computer can do under these circumstances is no better than the selected human consensus can do.
However, as in word sense disambiguation and its application to creation of coherent lexicons, the use of humans as the standard is precisely where these approaches are failing to realize the potential of computer algorithms. There is a battle brewing within the philosophy of science over precisely this sort of standard and it is going to erupt throughout all of academia, the humanities as well as sciences.
The trigger of this eruption is the termination of the long hiatus--now nearly 50 years--of rational research into artificial intelligence. I won't go into all of the dimensions of the abominable history of artificial intelligence research, but suffice to say that with the resurgence of algorithmic information theory, things are being reformulated rapidly.
The bottom line is this:
Information and knowledge are inseparable. If you can formulate information theory consilient with computer technology you have a rational basis for artificial intelligence. Algorithmic information theory is that consilience and it has been in hibernation for decades.
The principle result of algorithmic information theory is that the shortest program that can output a text string represents the true information content of that text string. It is Ockham's Razor on steroids.
This doesn't mean that a computer program can be written that will find that shortest program--indeed it has been proven that such a metaprogram cannot exist in the general sense. But what it does mean is that we have an objective test of the relative truthfulness of two discriptive frameworks. The one which results in the shortest description of the world--the one that is most coherent--most consilient--that "hangs together' the best--is also the most truthful. We can still have human judgement play a part of course--but that part is put to the emperical test of now rigorously defined epistemology.
Perhaps Google is going to pursue this route. If so, they should take a clue from Netflix's million dollar prize for a better prediction algorithm and put even more serious funding behind the Hutter Prize for Lossless Compression of Human Knowledge. It is the future of knowledge representation.
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Re:Hurricane season
Not Global Warming - Global Climate Change!
Get with the program...
That way no matter what happpens, the research scientists (and politicians) are going to right, and we know how important that is.
Did I hear that the Ozone Hole got bigger this year even with CFCs being outlawed?
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7005070041
Revised estimates are that ozone levels won't be back to "normal" over Antartica until 2065.
The reason the hole appears to have grown to a record size this season was unusually *cold* tempereratures in the stratosphere this winter (winter in the Southern Hemisphere, that is). Surely a cold stratosphere is proof of the existance of man made global warming!
http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/MSU/msusci.html
Now this information puts forth the idea that cooler strophosphere temperatures are *due* to ozone depletion, not caused by it... and that CO2 levels are also responsible. Ignore the two big red spikes when major volcanic eruptions occurred. Data points like that are not relevant to computing average values or trends - they just tend to make computer models produce strange predictions.
Or try this reasearch:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-11/uow -std112904.php
That the esimates in the models were off by 40 to 70% of what would happen to the temperature of the trophosphere because of "contamination" of the data from the strophosphere data.
Can I go back to eating my transfats now? -
Re:Nobel equivalent? I don't think so.
Seems that crop development continues, and that maize and rice each have more world tonnage than wheat now. You might notice here at this page link that there are now databases involved, and collaboration, maybe even HTML is involved as a part of a key communication tool, to interrogate and update the database. Do you think?
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-01/irr i-cde012406.php -
Story reads like a press release
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2 sites I can recommendI subscribe to their news feeds, too (can't recall if their RSS or Atom): Enjoy!
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EurekAlert!
I usually check out EurekAlert! every once in a while. I find it decent and think it might be the thing you're looking for.
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Do you think telepathy exists?
A thought provoking blog I read at times recently linked to a research thesis on programming with thought.
While we're on the subject, I'll toss out some informal guiding questions and share a thought or two:
If you knew telepathy existed, how exactly would that change your life? What would you be willing to give [up] for that ability? If you were told that the only way you could have an ability such as telapthy would be to eliminate your attachments and improve your moral quality (given a moral standard of course), would you set out in achieving it?
The way I see it, the interesting part of giving up attachments is that, in the process, you wouldn't care anymore if you had an ability such as telepathy. Now consider that you would have transcended a certain part of humanness and would have gained telepathy and much greater abilities and be well on your way to a better you.
Eh, just some thoughts. At any rate, I invite you to point out anything you see wrong with my thoughts and share your own as well, as this sort of stuff interests me.
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It's got nothing to do with Slavery...
It has to do with genetics. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-04/cd
r i-bai042505.php Sorry, I just don't bury my head in the sand. Eugenics will come - it's just a matter of time, and how it happens depends on whether the people with the ability to actually accomplish it have WMDs. It's not racism...it's realism. And I'm not cream of the crop, so it's not like I'm self-promoting. -
Re:Ummm
Your anecdotal evidence is contradicted by studies that have shown automobile drivers talking on cellphones are as accident prone and unsafe as drunk drivers. Some countries ban cell phones and driving at the same time and make it an arrestable offense.
Studies have also shown that sleep deprivation is as bad as or worse than being legally drunk: "The most severe effects of sleep inertia generally dissipated within the first 10 minutes, although its effects are often detectable for up to two hours, according to the study authors."
Do we next arrest people for not having enough sleep?
I think it's reasonable to ticket people for talking on the cellular phone. In my experience, a large percentage of the people who are driving like idiots are on cellphones. However, there's a problem with that logic - in my experience, the vast majority of people who do something really amazingly stupid in the car are females. KEEP IN MIND that this is entirely based on MY personal experience, which does not guarantee a good distribution, I'm not claiming that women are worse drivers... But, based on the same logic, do we take away their keys?
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Re:Some additional info
The chart at this site's page http://carto.eu.org/article2481.html , which is becoming a bit more frequently seen, shows the graph of C02 content in the atmosphere and temperature ranges over the last 400,000 years as derived from examining core samples, up to 1950.
Looking at the graph, it's interesting to note that temperature increases seem to have preceded CO2 increases, and that temperatures declined before CO2 levels dropped. Of course, examining graphs without error bars is meaningless anyway.
I find it really difficult to think that the human activities known to increase C02 emissions we've increasingly engaged in over the last 150 years have had little to nothing to do with the obvious increase in both C02 atmospheric content and resulting temperature/climate changes.
I think few people dispute that humans haven't affected CO2 levels; it's the presumption of a causal link between rising CO2 and "resulting temperature/climate changes" which has everyone's panties in a twist.
I'd sincerely like to hear other viable explanations for the facts, but there haven't been any
There are many in fact, many of which are just nonsense. It's been awhile since I did in-depth analysis on this debate, but I'll just leave you with a little tidbit from my last foray: you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone that will agree that we have reliable readings on solar activity for more than 40-50 years (I'm talking a large portion of the spectrum here, not just visible light). Coupled with the fact that the sun is the energy source driving the entire climate, doesn't that call the entire foundation of anthropogenic warming into question?
Just this morning in fact, I read of a publication which provided an alternative model to explain the growth and shrinkage of our ice volumes based on variations in Earth's orbital patterns (that darn sun thing again...).
the most well supported hypothisis remains that humans burning fossil fuels (in ever increasing numbers do to an also alarming rate of population growth) are truly affecting the climate.
The most well researched hypothesis is anthropogenic warming. Let's not confuse attention (which is politics and fads), with justification (which is science). -
Possible Hydrogen source: Integral Fast Reactor
Why not build an Integral Fast Reactor (FAQ), and use the electrical output to electrolyze water, or use the thermal output of a Lead Cooled Fast Reactor to thermochemically crack water into oxygen and hydrogen.
As far as waste is concerned, the Integral Fast Reactor waste products have a relatively short half life. From the Wikipedia article: "The result is that within 300 years, such wastes are no more radioactive than the ores of natural radioactive elements." -
Curse of the Blue GoldFirst off, this isn't really 'news' as it is an alarm. When a new coral reef is discovered, we aren't sending people to look for new species or attempting to preserve it
... instead we're sending people to take samples to see if we can benefit medically from the reef.
Modern man has an impeccable record for destroying the natural environment that produces his fruits & resources. Then we sit and bitch about how it went away. Reefs are probably going to be no different. They're harder to get at, but if the run-off doesn't destroy them, I'm sure our medical companies will.
There's a report written by the UN University that details the problems being raised by this treasure of "blue gold."Significantly, the ratio of potentially useful natural compounds to compounds screened is higher in marinesourced materials than with terrestrial organisms. There is, therefore, a higher probability of commercial success. Potential applications for marine organisms include: pharmaceuticals; enzymes; cryoprotectants; cosmaceuticals; agrichemicals; bioremediators; nutraceuticals; and fine chemicals. All the major pharmaceutical firms, including Merck, Lilly, Pfizer, Hoffman-Laroche and Bristol-Myers Squibb, have marine biology departments. Estimates put worldwide sales of marine biotechnology-related products at US$ 100 billion for the year 2000. Profits from a compound derived from a sea sponge to treat herpes were estimated to be worth US$ 50 million to US$ 100 million annually, and estimates of the value of anti-cancer agents from marine organisms are up to US$ 1 billion a year.
One of the interesting sources it cites is Blue Genes: Sharing and Conserving the World's Aquatic Biodiversity (another interesting document on the global problem of sharing the world's oceans).
Hypothetical scenario time! So, Pfizer's scientists find that a fairly common sponge produces a natural chemical that slows the growth of cancer. Unfortunately, each sponge only produces an ounce of this chemical when refined and there is no way to naturally synthesize it on a mass scale. Pfizer tries to buy the rights to harvest the sponge at a restricted rate in Florida. But they have to get permits from the local, state & federal governments and it costs them a lot of money because they send people down to the reef to hand pick the sponges. Instead, they find a supplier in a third world country (possibly around Indonesia) that promises them mass quantities of the sponge at a reduced rate. Now, the government there forbids it too but an official receives a large sum from this company and suddenly Pfizer has got incoming shipments of the sponge. The problem is that the company working for Pfizer is doing so with total blatant disregard for the ecosystem & probably its workers.
A farfetched scenario? Or something that's happened so often in the past, we'd be naïve to imagine it to stop here? -
Ask and ye shall receive
the immunity to the negative effects of LDH cholesterol developed in a single man in Italy (creating descendants among whom heart disease and strokes are vanishingly shockingly rare).
Can someone provide a reference for this? Googling for "LDH cholesterol Italy" doesn't turn up anything useful.
Cholesterol is either LDL or HDL, so I believe the parent is referring to the Milano mutation [apoA-I(Milano) for the science geeks] that renders the person resistant to HDL deficiencies. Pick your poison for more reading:
Press release
PubMed
Article itself (If you are at a place that would have a site license for Biochemistry) -
Re:Extremely Cost-prohibitive to use - 100x off
Thanks to the posters who pointed out the mistake in my previous post. Indeed power is typically on the order of 5 cents/kWhr. I also confused the discussion by mentioning the 1.4 MW that the SNS is rated for. The 1.4 MW is the power delivered to the target. It requires about 42 MW to generate that 1.4 MW proton beam. So we're talking about:
42,000 kW * 0.05 $/(kW hour) * 24 hours/day = 50,400 $/day
(Hopefully I haven't made a mistake this time.) This is a lot of money, but really not such a big deal for a facility this size. -
Re:Haw! Where's the Skeptical Environmentalist now
No it doesn't. This study only measured iceloss by looking at glacier thickness and velocity around the coast line.
Inland the ice sheet is actually gaining thickness. There is always a different side to the story. The geophysics department at Copenhagen University, where I have studied (astrophysics though) has thoroughly confirmed this.
Reference:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-11/esa -eas110405.php
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That Old Volcano Argument
Quick fact that average volcano spews more polution in an eruption than LA does in a year.
I'd love to know where you got the statistics for the amount of CO2 that LA (a single city) produces in a year. It sounds like a conjured statistic. Even if you're right, that's tiny compared to the total output of the US or the World.
Volcanoes do have an effect on global temperatures. However, volcanoes cause global cooling instead due to aerosols that may have been responsible for the difference in surface and atmosphere temperatures for the past 20 years. Actually, it turns out that the effect could've lasted even longer from the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 which caused "the year with no summer." Furthermore, the amount of CO2 released each year by volcanoes is miniscule according to this article by the USGS:
Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1999, 1992). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 22 billion tonnes per year (24 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 1998) - The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2.]. Human activities release more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of nearly 17,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 13.2 million tonnes/year)!