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I'll give you that you finally turned up your claims of additional tests. Now here's what's wrong with them. The Punjab University study (the full, original, published study, not some digested article from the mainstream news) mentions but gives no statistics for its blank group. This is highly suspicious, because it was subjected to all of the physical stress save the EM radiation of the phones. If the EM radiation were so significantly responsible, they would be shouting from the rooftops that even in the colony where they ripped shit up and dumped dead phones in, nothing significant happened. Instead, that they did a blank study is barely mentioned, and all the statistics are compared between the aggregates of the active tests with the absolute control group that had nothing done to it whatsoever. That is bad, bad science. What's the point of having a blank group if you're not going to report your findings? Because that would have undermined their bullshit, as apiologists already know that just sticking things in hives damages them.

The link I provided earlier already debunks the Favre study, so I see no need in rehashing it. The full, original, and published study is here, for those who want to assess it for the lacking elements discussed by Skepchick.

I forget who said it, some professor of a graduate program somewhere I roughly recall, but there is a fitting insight for this contrast. To paraphrase, undergraduate students tend not to question. They do research and when they find information in papers they take it as some kind of divine inspiration handed down from on high. When a person with a PhD does research and finds information in a study, they immediately pick up a hammer and start whacking to see what breaks.

If you want a true scientific perspective, you need to ask questions about what you're being told. If somebody came in here and started saying that bees are absolutely not impacted in any way by EM radiation, I would say that current studies are not conclusive, that there are flaws in their methodology that should be fixed and the studies run again before any verdict can *usefully* be reached. You want to believe that bees are detrimentally impacted because you have a green agenda. I am not arguing for or against an agenda, I am simply pointing at the flaws of these studies. When one is done that is completely transparent, properly controlled and documented included all times and statistics for all groups, then I will be satisfied.

The original paper is published in an open access journal and the authors have covered the issues you mention.
Their citations 2-8 are other papers which discuss the possibility of using caves like this for human habitation. The paper also includes spectroscopic studies of the composition of the roof -- seems like lots of Iron and Titanium.This seems to indicate Basalts (volcanic) according to the paper.If it withstood a lava flow, presumably it will survive an atmospheric re-pressurisation/ bunch of construction crews drilling away.

I wouldn't be so dismissive. You can readthis report

Basically, what happens when you make the base of the mountains unable to trap moisture. You get less snow, which is undoubtedly less protection for the glacier. It may even manifest as increased melt, but it is not a temperature-induced melt. It all stems from environment becoming drier, and less water product deposited and even more transported away.

To say the glaciers are shrinking because of temperature increase (melt) is to completely ignore the nature of glaciers and reduce it to one thing: temperature. Glaciers are also made of water.

Also see this, not pay-walled

That's what I assumed as well until i saw their picture of an example in the paper.

I dunno if anyone else has posted this... but its one of the worst studies I've ever seen. Theyve even got a picture as part of the article showing how they failed to blind themselves, not to mention the data doesnt make sense, (means outside of the range reported..at least I think, its not clear). "Current Science" appears to be a terrible journal, there should be a separate word for that kind of journal so as not to confuse the general public.

http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/25may2010/1376.pdf

It is unfortunate to see that the paper -- http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/25may2010/1376.pdf -- does not include a statistical test to evaluate that the results are due to chance, but it seems significant ... anyone care to do a ANOVA?

On what? The numbers '9' and '5'?
Umm....they're different.

Don't waste your time thinking about this paper; it's garbage.

They only had 2 hives in their experiment?

No, they had four. Two treatment (T1 and T2), one placebo (B, a dummy phone), one control (C). You wouldn't know it though, the data sheet in the paper shows only two columns, one titled control and one titled treatment. No mention of the placebo, no indication that there are two treatment groups, no test statistic (or it's power) is reported, no model is ever described.

(Direct link to paper: http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/25may2010/1376.pdf)

You both are wrong:
1. they actually used 4 hives
2. the control group had phone dummies installed. So the "proximity effect" was controlled.

It is unfortunate to see that the paper -- http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/25may2010/1376.pdf -- does not include a statistical test to evaluate that the results are due to chance, but it seems significant ... anyone care to do a ANOVA?

And as another poster mentioned, Current Science Online isn't peer reviewed, it's meant as a means of communication and is fairly open.

I like the conclusion of the article: "We are fortunate that the warning bells have been sounded and it is for us to timely plan strategies to save not only the bees but life from the ill effects of such EMR."

They are taking those Nokia GSM cellphones seriously! Set those phasers to stun...

http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/index.html

And as another poster mentioned, Current Science Online isn't peer reviewed, it's meant as a means of communication and is fairly open.

I like the conclusion of the article: "We are fortunate that the warning bells have been sounded and it is for us to timely plan strategies to save not only the bees but life from the ill effects of such EMR."

They are taking those Nokia GSM cellphones seriously! Set those phasers to stun...

http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/index.html

Four actually, but yeah. Paper.

Yeah, but the first time, it was their own fault.

The extra-terrestial impactor (i.e. asteroid/comet) hypothesis has been around for a long time. It has been questioned for several reasons. In particular, (i) there were bright/white nights before the event, and (ii) debris has been found in crash sites from meteorites 10000 times lighter, whereas there is none at Tunguska.

For more details and an alternative explanation, see the following.
W. Kundt (2001), "The 1908 Tunguska catastrophe", Current Science, 81: 399-407.

Dr. Kundt is at the University of Bonn. Briefly, his hypothesis is that there was a days-long leakage of natural gas, from Earth; the gas rose up and was eventually ignited by lightning. This seems to fit the evidence better.

In an earlier discussion on Slashdot, someone posted a comment claiming that there was a similar explosion of natural gas in Texas in 1992. (I googled, but could find no evidence.)

I do not understand the geology well, but it does not seem that the Italian researchers (cited in TFA) have found evidence against Kundt's hypothesis.

I wonder whether this observation gives any more credibility to the theory that the center of the Earth might have a nuclear reactor. The following article describes the theory:

http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/jan252002/126.pdf

The computer simulation is interesting, but the Tunguska event is unlikely to be an asteroid. There were strange events reported in the area for days prior to the explosion, there were odd lights, etc.

An alternative explanation was proposed by Wolfgang Kundt, a researcher at the Institut für Astrophysik, University of Bonn:

Kundt W. (2001),
“The 1908 Tunguska catastrophe: An alternative explanation”,
Current Science, 81: 399–407.

The basic proposal is that there was a natural gas leak, from the Earth. The gas rose to a certain height, then drifted downwind. After several days, a lightning strike ignited the airborne gas, and the flame then traveled along line (of drifted gas), to the ground source.

It is worth reading the article. An asteroid impact is sexy, but the alternative explanation fits with the data much better.

Oh c'mon, that's not the reason why the dinosaurs disappeared.

Here's the real reason

http://www.ias.ac.in/meetings/myrmeet/14mym_talks/asahni/img34.html

The longer we wait if you are wrong the greater the suffering will be when the crash comes. Hint the the "green revolution" failed in many parts of the third world due to salinization of the soil.

http://www.montysplantfood.com/docs/salinization.h tm
http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/feb25/articles16.htm

This is just one problem, once fossil fuels get scarcer and scarcer in the next 20 years we are in real trouble for hey are the basis of fertilizers that allow for a temporary increase in agricultural productive of the soil at the expense of it's natural fertility. Once the fossil fuels are gone or are too expensive to use as fertilizers we face the trifecta of increasing population, degraded soil, and no easy way to build soil fertility up above it's natural levels that would be required to support "green revolution" expanded populations. And no we won't be able to eat Eric Drexler's nanotech, brain uploads, or other other inventions imagined by techno optimists.

So sorry I don't share your pie in the sky faith I prefer empirical realism, thanks.

In 1981 a new epidemic of about two-dozen heterogeneous diseases began to strike non-randomly growing numbers of male homosexuals and mostly male intravenous drug users in the US and Europe. Assuming immunodeficiency as the common denominator the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) termed the epidemic, AIDS, for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. From 1981-1984 leading researchers including those from the CDC proposed that recreational drug use was the cause of AIDS, because of exact correlations and of drugspecific diseases. However, in 1984 US government researchers proposed that a virus, now termed human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), is the cause of the non-random epidemics of the US and Europe but also of a new, sexually random epidemic in Africa. The virus-AIDS hypothesis was instantly accepted, but it is burdened with numerous paradoxes, none of which could be resolved by 2003: Why is there no HIV in most AIDS patients, only antibodies against it? Why would HIV take 10 years from infection to AIDS? Why is AIDS not self-limiting via antiviral immunity? Why is there no vaccine against AIDS? Why is AIDS in the US and Europe not random like other viral epidemics? Why did AIDS not rise and then decline exponentially owing to antiviral immunity like all other viral epidemics? Why is AIDS not contagious? Why would only HIV carriers get AIDS who use either recreational or anti-HIV drugs or are subject to malnutrition? Why is the mortality of HIV-antibody-positives treated with anti-HIV drugs 7-9%, but that of all (mostly untreated) HIV-positives globally is only 1×4%? Here we propose that AIDS is a collection of chemical epidemics, caused by recreational drugs, anti-HIV drugs, and malnutrition. According to this hypothesis AIDS is not contagious, not immunogenic, not treatable by vaccines or antiviral drugs, and HIV is just a passenger virus. The hypothesis explains why AIDS epidemics strike non-randomly if caused by drugs and randomly if caused by malnutrition, why they manifest in drug- and malnutrition-specific diseases, and why they are not self-limiting via anti-viral immunity. The hypothesis predicts AIDS prevention by adequate nutrition and abstaining from drugs, and even cures by treating AIDS diseases with proven medications.

NASA seems to be interested in sending their payload on the mission. Also http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.p l?file=2006051307181100.htm&date=2006/05/13/&prd=t h& Read current science article for scientific need and international collaboration (there seem to be countries other than US, Russia, and iRaq) on unmanned mission.

Most points on the debate (poverty, public (though not scientific) infrastructure) have all been beaten to death for the unmanned mission itself. Stop being cynical and think of something interesting.

Yours truly,
a fellow snake charmer.

Here is a link for my post:
Hydrogren light emission for bandwidth enhancement.

:

In 1927, Szent-Györgyi, a Hungarian scientist, came to work in Hopkins' laboratory for a short period on a problem with quite a different objective: isolation of a redox substance present in animal and plant tissues. The discovery of vitamin C by Szent-Györgyi was accidental. While extracting and concentrating some redox compound from ox adrenal glands, he isolated some sugar-like crystals about which he was quite ignorant. One would realize this from the title of his paper: 'Observation on the function of peroxidase systems and the chemistry of the adrenal cortex: Description of a new carbohydrate derivative', published in Biochem. J. 14. He was so ignorant of the nature of the carbohydrate derivative that he first named it ignose (ign for ignorance and ose for sugar) and later godnose (God knows). But the editor of the Biochemical Journal objected. Very quickly the structure of the carbohydrate was elucidated in collaboration with Haworth at Birmingham (arranged by Hopkins) and the alternative name given was hexuronic acid (hex = six). During the same period (1928-1931), Charles Glen King of the Columbia University of USA isolated vitamin C from lemon juice and it was observed that hexuronic acid and vitamin C were identical. Szent-Györgyi had no idea that hexuronic acid might turn out to be a vitamin. It is ironical that Szent-Györgyi isolated vitamin C without doing a single animal experiment. In the words of Szent-Györgyi himself: 'I was not acquainted with animal tests in this field and the whole problem was, for me too glamorous, and vitamins were, to my mind, theoretically uninteresting. Vitamin means that one has to eat it. What one has to eat is the first concern of the chef, not the scientist'. In any case, Szent-Györgyi received the Nobel Prize in 1937 for his discoveries concerning biological oxidation processes with reference to vitamin C.