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Oh, it gets even better. Here's another nasty feedback loop.

Many people are unaware that fully one third of the world's biomass is taken up by methane-metabolizing microbes of the Arcaea family -- close ancestors to the lifeforms that dominated the Earth before the evolution of plant species forever changed us from a primarily methane atmosphere to one of oxygen, CO2, and nitrogen. Marine biologists have only become fully aware of their existence in the past few decades. Buy this month's Discover magazine for more info.

To sum up some of the info there, these Archaea produce methane from decomposing plankton that falls from above. These methane molecules gets trapped in a cage of water molecules and create an ice-like substance called methane hydrate, which forms underthe high pressure and low temperatures of the ocean depths. This frozen material is considered to be the largest store of organic carbon on the planet.

For decades, global warming researches have noticed that the geological record shows massive increases of methane in times of global warming. Slow warming of the waters at the depths of the ocean (which normally happens over thousands of years) leads to a melting of the methane and a worldwide release of methane -- an extremely potent greenhouse gas which will only make global warming worse. This happens every now and then in the geological record, and it coincides with some levels of global warming and usually with some level of mass extinction. In fact, the Earth's greatest mass extiction event may have been caused by a huge methane eruption that wiped out 95% of all sea life and 70% of all land life.

I saw another /. article with this link to a joke article about so-called "Basilisk images" that kill you if you look at them by inducing a buffer overflow-like condition in your brain. Of course, this whole idea depends on the brain being thought of as a deterministic computer, a concept with which a Mr. Penrose would beg to differ. ;)

Sure, sooner or later hotmail will stop showing bmps in messages and issue a warning like "if you get a message, do not open it, but delete immediatly"

I don't claim to know whether this is a net gain when all energy costs and byproducts (chiefly carbon dioxide) are taken into account, but don't dismiss the idea out of hand by spuriously equating it to the burning of purified ethanol.

Here's an article with a bit more information.. I found this link elsewhere in this discussion.

The reactor pushes a mixture of watery ethanol and air over a rhodium-based catalyst heated to about 700 ?C. It takes only five seconds to start up, and produces a steady stream of hydrogen and carbon dioxide with very few other waste products.

That article is pretty damn skimpy on the details. Check out this one which I found at ArsTechnica. Perhaps the most important detail is that a rhodium-based catalyst needs to be heated to 700 celsius for the reaction to have any efficiency.

In 1916, James Leuba sent a survey to 1000 scientists (500 biologists, 250 mathematicians, and 250 physicists/astronomers) drawn randomly from the appropriate sections of the 1910 edition of American Men of Science. Leuba broke his data up between all scientists and "greater" scientists, based on labels of "greater" as listed in his edition of American Men of Science.

Section A had three options, requesting the responder to choose one:
1. I believe in a God in intellectual and affective communication with humankind, i.e. a God to whom one may pray in the expectation of receiving an answer. By "answer" I mean more than just the subjective, psychological effect of prayer.
2. I do not believe in God as defined above
3. I have no definite belief regarding this question.
(There was a B question regarding beliefs in "Personal Immortality" or afterlife I'm not going to elaborate on)
Leuba found 41.8% of all scientists responding answered 1 (belief), 41.5% answered 2 (disbelief), and 16.7% answered 3 (doubt)
Leuba found 27.7% of the "greater scientist" group answered 1, 52.7% answered 2, and 20.9% answered 3.

In 1997, Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham published in Nature ("Scientists are still keeping the faith") a survey of scientists intended to be similar to Leuba's- a survey of 1000 people drawn randomly from American Men and Women of Science in similar disciplinary proportions using the same question that Leuba used.

Larson & Witham found 39.3% of the 'scientist' group answered 1 (belief), 45.3% answered 2 (disbelief), and 14.5% answered 3 (doubt)

In 1998, Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham published in Nature ("Leading scientists still reject God") a followup survey of "leading" scientists- in this case, all 517 members of the (US) National Academy of Sciences at the time were sent the survey.

Larson & Witham found 7.0% of the NAS respondants answered 1, 72.2% answered 2, and 20.8% answered 3.

I don't expect a particular bias either way (either of believers being less likely to respond or of nonbelievers being less likely) but it's possible. An argument could be made for either bias.

The 7% figure of the parent post is taken from the second survey, but its description of the body being surveyed as "scientists" would be more valid to use 1997 study. Larson and Witham's estimate for the percentage of scientists(given the limits of their study) who are believers was 39.3%, not 7%. This, however, is still not the "most" claimed by the grandparent.

In 1916, James Leuba sent a survey to 1000 scientists (500 biologists, 250 mathematicians, and 250 physicists/astronomers) drawn randomly from the appropriate sections of the 1910 edition of American Men of Science. Leuba broke his data up between all scientists and "greater" scientists, based on labels of "greater" as listed in his edition of American Men of Science.

Section A had three options, requesting the responder to choose one:
1. I believe in a God in intellectual and affective communication with humankind, i.e. a God to whom one may pray in the expectation of receiving an answer. By "answer" I mean more than just the subjective, psychological effect of prayer.
2. I do not believe in God as defined above
3. I have no definite belief regarding this question.
(There was a B question regarding beliefs in "Personal Immortality" or afterlife I'm not going to elaborate on)
Leuba found 41.8% of all scientists responding answered 1 (belief), 41.5% answered 2 (disbelief), and 16.7% answered 3 (doubt)
Leuba found 27.7% of the "greater scientist" group answered 1, 52.7% answered 2, and 20.9% answered 3.

In 1997, Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham published in Nature ("Scientists are still keeping the faith") a survey of scientists intended to be similar to Leuba's- a survey of 1000 people drawn randomly from American Men and Women of Science in similar disciplinary proportions using the same question that Leuba used.

Larson & Witham found 39.3% of the 'scientist' group answered 1 (belief), 45.3% answered 2 (disbelief), and 14.5% answered 3 (doubt)

In 1998, Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham published in Nature ("Leading scientists still reject God") a followup survey of "leading" scientists- in this case, all 517 members of the (US) National Academy of Sciences at the time were sent the survey.

Larson & Witham found 7.0% of the NAS respondants answered 1, 72.2% answered 2, and 20.8% answered 3.

I don't expect a particular bias either way (either of believers being less likely to respond or of nonbelievers being less likely) but it's possible. An argument could be made for either bias.

The 7% figure of the parent post is taken from the second survey, but its description of the body being surveyed as "scientists" would be more valid to use 1997 study. Larson and Witham's estimate for the percentage of scientists(given the limits of their study) who are believers was 39.3%, not 7%. This, however, is still not the "most" claimed by the grandparent.

I read this article on BBC a last week. If you would like to, you can read it here.

CNN also carried a story on this.

Some more news sites that carried this news are
How do homing pigeons navigate ?

Pigeons navigate 'by following roads'

Pigeons take the highway

The homing pigeon's ploy: follow that road

Pigeons home in on the roads

I was a little surprised that out of all the news sites, someone picked it up on Al jazeera... Not that I have anything against any news channel....

They can't even land a small craft on Mars and they're already thinking about sending humans? Christ, I'd hate to be involved in that mission.

"What happened to Jim?"

"Well, we know he landed somewhere, but we can't really figure out where. It's a big place, you know."

"That's OK, I never really liked him anyway."

Hitlers Genocide was based on his idea of race. If it was just religion then Jews that converted would not have been put into the camps.

Sounds unambiguously religious to me. Hitler campaigned against athiests as godless communists to appeal to his Catholic constituents in the early 1930s. Whatever his personal beliefs were (or were not), he consistently claimed to be catholic and he used religion to gain and hold power.

To reject everyone who does evil in the name of a religion as having 'BAD FAITH' and discounting them makes no sense. If we consider the goodness of, say, everyone with facial hair- but then disqualify everyone with facial hair who does evil as falsely claiming to have facial hair, or of having "BAD FACIAL HAIR", then we can conclude that the remaining people with facial hair are much better people than average and that having facial hair therefore inspires goodness. This is nonsense- in the same way, dismissing evil religious people as 'not really religious' and then concluding that religious people are good is assuming your own conclusion.

you have a a duble blind experiment to prove that?

My claim was correlation, not causation. A survey of members of the (US) National Academy of Science was published in the journal Nature on 23 July 1998, page 303: "Leading scientists still reject God" (I link to the table of contents, which I think are accesable without a subscription... but I could be wrong about that.) In it, all 517 members of the National Academy of Sciences were sent a survey and slightly over 50% responded. Of those, 7% responded that they had a personal belief in God, 72% that they had a personal disbelief, and 21% responded with doubt or agnosticism. This belief appears to be down from historical surveys of 'distinguished natural scientists', 28% of whom reported belief in God in a survey in 1914, and 15% reporting belief in 1933.

Furthermore, a model is exactly what it is-- an approximation of your actual complex system. There would be some details that would be left out to simplify the model while keeping the interesting phenomena intact.

Using an actual system like the ping-pong experiment would still be an approximation to an actual avalanche but it provides a reasonably controllable situation and a level of detail that would be accessible to the investigators. And it generally would proceed much faster than simulating it in a computer.

We were in a similar situation in a research involving escape panic dynamics where the behaviour of agents (read: people) moving out of an enclosure were looked into. This would be akin to looking at the exit dynamics of people in a fire or in a football stadium in a a riot.

We did simulate escape panic but later on we used mice to look at the models in a real system. It turns out that the model reasonably gets some of the features of the dynamics but would miss out on things not explicitly included in the model, like herding behavior.

= 9J =

All these stories are based on an article published in Nature 427, 352 - 355 (http://www.nature.com).

A direct link to the abstract (summary) and, if you can, the full-text article

A comment on this article (in the same issue of Nature).

And the table of content of this Nature issue is here.

All these stories are based on an article published in Nature 427, 352 - 355 (http://www.nature.com).

A direct link to the abstract (summary) and, if you can, the full-text article

A comment on this article (in the same issue of Nature).

And the table of content of this Nature issue is here.

All these stories are based on an article published in Nature 427, 352 - 355 (http://www.nature.com).

A direct link to the abstract (summary) and, if you can, the full-text article

A comment on this article (in the same issue of Nature).

And the table of content of this Nature issue is here.

All these stories are based on an article published in Nature 427, 352 - 355 (http://www.nature.com).

A direct link to the abstract (summary) and, if you can, the full-text article

A comment on this article (in the same issue of Nature).

And the table of content of this Nature issue is here.

All these stories are based on an article published in Nature 427, 352 - 355 (http://www.nature.com).

A direct link to the abstract (summary) and, if you can, the full-text article

A comment on this article (in the same issue of Nature).

And the table of content of this Nature issue is here.

All these stories are based on an article published in Nature 427, 352 - 355 (http://www.nature.com).

A direct link to the abstract (summary) and, if you can, the full-text article

A comment on this article (in the same issue of Nature).

And the table of content of this Nature issue is here.

I don't know where O'Keefe got that $41 million number from. Maybe that's the cost to finish the instruments but doesn't account for the actual shuttle launch and servicing.

Anyway, I still believe $700 million would be greatly worth it to fix up Hubble to keep it running for a few more years. I can only hope some other bigwigs at NASA think this too, and can convince the policy makers.

O'Keefe (NASA's administrator) supposedly made the decision entirely on his own this morning regarding Hubble. That's one hell of a profound decision, affecting significant research project as well as jobs, for a single person to make on their own.

Interesting. I found a 1991 study in Nature that discusses this, but nothing since then to support or undermine it.

Have you seen anything about this subject since then?

Here is the paper coverring this topic. It appears in this weeks Nature.

courtesy of our friend Google

A superfluid is a fluid that flows without viscosity, meaning that if you were to stir a spoon in a superfluid soup, you could take out the spoon and the soup would keep swirling forever on, since there is no mechanism there (i. e. no friction) to make the vortex you just made disappear. Now if you were to cool a 4He crystal, there would be eventually be no more movement of atoms and the whole thing froze out. But in quantum mechanics, there is the Heisenberg uncertainty Principle which basically states that you are not to now the position of any particle along with its velocity with the same accuracy. There will always be a trade off. The better you know the position, the worse you know the velocity. This accounts for the fact that even at absolute zero, there are some fluctuations of particles, called quantum fluctuations wich do never freeze out. When a superfluid appears this means that the atoms in it move all together. As the Nature article suggests, you can compare this to soldiers on a parade. They all move alike. In a supersolid then, you have vacancies, places where atoms are absent. Think of holes in a semiconductor if you like. There, holes are just non-electrons. Here we deal with non-atoms, and they are the ones behaving like soldiers in the case of a supersolid. Meaning the propagate through the whole thing as if they were on a parade, which makes them great for sending any wave (electromagnetic or other) through the crystal, and since these vacancies move in order, they propagate the wave without damping it. This would make a hell of an amplifier. Compare the situation to a superconductor, where you can propagate electric current without damping (i. e. having no resistance at all). To electric current, a superconductor behaves like a supersolid to waves of any kind.

Actually...I believe both are C02

Inhalation Toxicology, the journal referenced at the bottom of the article, has some other interesting articles on nanoparticles. I searched for all the cancer-related articles that mention nanoparticles, and they do have several articles discussing nanoparticles being used in immunizations and various 'cures', which is kind of encouraging. It seems to me that any medication that we could just shoot through the brain/blood barrier, would be quicker and possibly more effective.

Unfortunately, the archived articles require a membership, that I'm too lazy to get, to read.

there are things out there in space with radii of 10-20 km completing approximately 45 rotations per second?

that's simply amazing. or, as the dude would say, "far out. far fucking out!"

Article 1, Article 2.

Some scientists that have inspected the calculations believe the experiment is flawed and that they instead measured the speed of light itself (ie: they probably measured the speed of the light they were using to make their observations with, not the speed of the Jupiter distortion).

Correct answer: The speed of gravity is not (yet) a scientifically proved and universally accepted fact. Saying anything else is bad science.

Here is a news article in the science journal which has the original report.

"Climate change over the past 30 years has produced numerous shifts in the distributions and abundances of species and has been implicated in one species-level extinction."

This suggests that there is something implausible going on. There seem to be five possibilities at least:
* The input data for the paper is overly negative
* The mathematical model used is dubious
* The extrapolation from the 1000 species studied to the whole planet is unjustified
* When the headlines talk about extinction, they mean a reduction in population size
* Climate change has not really happened yet.

In 2003 this story was reported in nature.

And here the link to the pre print.

Memory storage in the brain is believed by pretty much everyone in the field to be stored in the "strength" of synapses that connect neurons to each other. The connection between synaptic plasticity and "memory" depends on what one means by memory. There are multiple types of memory, and the mechanisms likely differ, but all of them probably involve synaptic plasticity. It's certainly possible that certain types of memory (such as pavlovian conditioning) would be more likely to involve more localized grandmother-cell-esque connectivity changes, while memories of a movie you saw would be more likely to involve widely-distributed connectivity changes that alter what attractor a big complicated dynamical system is going to settle into.

Anyway, the brain is extremely complex, but neuroscientists know much more about it than is generally recognized. In any case, there is experimental evidence that one can selectively erase memories from a human brain from as long ago as the late 1960s. I read a review article about it fairly recently, but I can't remember where. The basic idea is that retrieval of a memory renders that memory unstable, and if you electrically shock the head after getting the patient to retrieve the memory, you can selectively erase it. Given the obvious connection to the movie, I was surprised that McGaugh didn't mention it. This is the first reference to the phenomenon I can find. Here is a more recent review, for those with access to Nature Reviews Neuroscience. The review I read recently said that people were starting to consider using this for patients who had undergone extremely traumatic experiences.

Are online papers free? A few are, but the vast majority are not, like Nature, which makes you pay directly, or Science , that makes you pay indirectly through society memberships.

This is from the article in Nature about this (emphasis mine):

Originally approved by one reviewer, the paper has now been sent to two more mathematicians for further round of review, along with a defence by Oxenhielm, who says that the critics do not understand her methods.

Most people who want restrictions in place are opposed to using _embrios_ or _fetuses_ as the source of the cells; getting stem cells from other sources is OK with most people.

If scientists can change the way they do experiments on animals because of groups like PETA, why can't they just choose a less controversial source of stem cells?

Note the problems with embrionic cells vs adult cells here

I also am a Christian. Interesting how many 'rational Christians' can have differing viewpoints, no? Anyway... I won't get into the 'God used evolution' debate, as that has theological flaws in itself...

As for stem cell research, as Christians, all we are against is abortion. The killing of a living human being. This does not mean that embrios are equivalent to a thinking, intelligent, human shaped person. But the point that the egg is fertilized is the point that the 'human being' is formed; at that point they continue to grow, whether it be in the womb or out, into the person who's foundation was formed when the egg and seed joined. Therefore, as Christians we are against abortion because it is the killing of a human being.

It's not about the ethics of stem cell research. It's not just about the issue of 'playing God'. You are right, there is so much more to God than creating life. However, also remember that 'cloning' isn't creating life, cloning is manually taking a step to jumpstart life, from existing life. Cloning doesn't make us essentually 'Gods', but as was said, the process is flawed, and it becomes a matter of 'birthing' twins which have high percentages of deaths - essentially we create our own mass murder. If morally we agree murder is wrong, then abortion, and the current process of cloning is wrong.

Now if you say that well, eventually cloning could be perfected, then you are trying to rationalize the killing of who knows how many human beings to get there... 'the ends justifies the means'? Sorry, no.

From the real Christian standpoint, it always comes down to the taking of a life, whether it be in regards to abortion or cloning. Stem cells can also be found in other places than embryos as discussed here after a quick google search. If it's a matter of which method to use - use the one that does not include murder. /rant :P

[...]and there is no concrete evidence to support the claim that such experiements will result in these cures

Yes there is. Take for example multiple sclerosis, a neurological disease where your own body attacks the myelin sheath covering your nerves. As the disease progress this results in paralysis, severe pain, fatigue, loss of vision and many other symptoms that create a lot of suffering for those affected by the disease. There is currently no cure.

Here are some promising results from stem cell research that shows some of the potential for stem cell based therapies:

Curing paralysis in a a mouse model of MS

Stem cell transplants are being tried on humans as we speak.

They can also be pulled from Liposuction waste. Which avoids the less savoury sources.

Perhaps they should do a study based on scent.

-

Synopsis:
Major Tom goes to the bathroom and shoves a Yoda doll up his ass, and then gimps back to his desk to post AC Trolls on Slashdot.

Soddity

Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Take your ex-lax bars and put my do-rag on.
Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Commencing countdown, rope is on.
Begin insertion and may Goatse's love be with you.

This is Yoda Doll to Major Tom,
You've rectally been flayed!
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear.
Now it's time to leave the crapper if you dare.

This is Major Tom to Yoda Doll,
I'm stepping through the door.
And I'm farting in a most peculiar way!
And my ass looks very different today.
For here...
Am I shitting in the tincan?
Far...too busy posting trolls.

Slashdot censors you and there's nothing I can do.

Uploading one hundred thousand files,
I'm feeling very ill.
I don't think my feces know which way to go.
I can't tell my intestines from spaghetti-
code.

Yoda Doll to Major Tom, your prostrate's dead, there's something wrong,
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear...

Am I shitting in the tincan?

My ass like a baboon's

Slashdot censors you and there's nothing I can do.

Suspendisse viverra, metus eget dapibus vestibulum, mauris ipsum porta diam, sit amet congue sem augue et pede. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nullam eu massa sed leo malesuada pellentesque. Nunc luctus hendrerit sem. Suspendisse tincidunt convallis nunc. In id justo et tortor malesuada hendrerit. Proin ac augue vitae lectus sagittis vulputate. Integer a magna. Aliquam erat volutpat. Suspendisse in velit. Duis eleifend congue odio. Maecenas at est. Suspendisse porta, mauris sit amet blandit suscipit, sem leo faucibus mi, sit amet molestie sem velit vel nulla. Aenean neque velit, faucibus vel, luctus sed, vulputate sit amet, eros. Integer tincidunt interdum mauris. Phasellus augue. Nam luctus, massa ac hendrerit gravida, nibh ante vestibulum leo, sit amet dapibus pede purus at nisl. Sed est libero, gravida sed, vulputate sed, semper quis, lorem. Ut tincidunt. Vestibulum mauris turpis, consectetuer non, scelerisque et, vestibulum eget, felis.

Synopsis:
Major Tom goes to the bathroom and shoves a Yoda doll up his ass, and then gimps back to his desk to post AC Trolls on Slashdot.

Soddity

Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Take your ex-lax bars and put my do-rag on.
Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Commencing countdown, rope is on.
Begin insertion and may Goatse's love be with you.

This is Yoda Doll to Major Tom,
You've rectally been flayed!
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear.
Now it's time to leave the crapper if you dare.

This is Major Tom to Yoda Doll,
I'm stepping through the door.
And I'm farting in a most peculiar way!
And my ass looks very different today.
For here...
Am I shitting in the tincan?
Far...too busy posting trolls.

Slashdot censors you and there's nothing I can do.

Uploading one hundred thousand files,
I'm feeling very ill.
I don't think my feces know which way to go.
I can't tell my intestines from spaghetti-
code.

Yoda Doll to Major Tom, your prostate's dead, there's something wrong,
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear...

Am I shitting in the tincan?

My ass like a baboon's

Slashdot censors you and there's nothing I can do.

Suspendisse viverra, metus eget dapibus vestibulum, mauris ipsum porta diam, sit amet congue sem augue et pede. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nullam eu massa sed leo malesuada pellentesque. Nunc luctus hendrerit sem. Suspendisse tincidunt convallis nunc. In id justo et tortor malesuada hendrerit. Proin ac augue vitae lectus sagittis vulputate. Integer a magna. Aliquam erat volutpat. Suspendisse in velit. Duis eleifend congue odio. Maecenas at est. Suspendisse porta, mauris sit amet blandit suscipit, sem leo faucibus mi, sit amet molestie sem velit vel nulla. Aenean neque velit, faucibus vel, luctus sed, vulputate sit amet, eros. Integer tincidunt interdum mauris. Phasellus augue. Nam luctus, massa ac hendrerit gravida, nibh ante vestibulum leo, sit amet dapibus pede purus at nisl. Sed est libero, gravida sed, vulputate sed, semper quis, lorem. Ut tincidunt. Vestibulum mauris turpis, consectetuer non, scelerisque et, vestibulum eget, felis.

Synopsis:
Major Tom goes to the bathroom and shoves a Yoda doll up his ass, and then gimps back to his desk to post AC Trolls on Slashdot.

Soddity

Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Take your ex-lax bars and put my do-rag on.
Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Commencing countdown, rope is on.
Begin insertion and may Goatse's love be with you.

This is Yoda Doll to Major Tom,
You've rectally been flayed!
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear.
Now it's time to leave the crapper if you dare.

This is Major Tom to Yoda Doll,
I'm stepping through the door.
And I'm farting in a most peculiar way!
And my ass looks very different today.
For here...
Am I shitting in the tincan?
Far...too busy posting trolls.

Slashdot censors you and there's nothing I can do.

Uploading one hundred thousand files,
I'm feeling very ill.
I don't think my feces know which way to go.
I can't tell my intestines from spaghetti-
code.

Yoda Doll to Major Tom, your prostate's dead, there's something wrong,
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear...

Am I shitting in the tincan?

My ass like a baboon's

Slashdot censors you and there's nothing I can do. Suspendisse viverra, metus eget dapibus vestibulum, mauris ipsum porta diam, sit amet congue sem augue et pede. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nullam eu massa sed leo malesuada pellentesque. Nunc luctus hendrerit sem. Suspendisse tincidunt convallis nunc. In id justo et tortor malesuada hendrerit. Proin ac augue vitae lectus sagittis vulputate. Integer a magna. Aliquam erat volutpat. Suspendisse in velit. Duis eleifend congue odio. Maecenas at est. Suspendisse porta, mauris sit amet blandit suscipit, sem leo faucibus mi, sit amet molestie sem velit vel nulla. Aenean neque velit, faucibus vel, luctus sed, vulputate sit amet, eros. Integer tincidunt interdum mauris. Phasellus augue. Nam luctus, massa ac hendrerit gravida, nibh ante vestibulum leo, sit amet dapibus pede purus at nisl. Sed est libero, gravida sed, vulputate sed, semper quis, lorem. Ut tincidunt. Vestibulum mauris turpis, consectetuer non, scelerisque et, vestibulum eget, felis.

Synopsis:
Major Tom goes to the bathroom and shoves a Yoda doll up his ass, and then gimps back to his desk to post AC Trolls on Slashdot.

Soddity

Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Take your ex-lax bars and put my do-rag on.
Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Commencing countdown, rope is on.
Begin insertion and may Goatse's love be with you.

This is Yoda Doll to Major Tom,
You've rectally been flayed!
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear.
Now it's time to leave the crapper if you dare.

This is Major Tom to Yoda Doll,
I'm stepping through the door.
And I'm farting in a most peculiar way!
And my ass looks very different today.
For here...
Am I shitting in the tincan?
Far...too busy posting trolls.

Slashdot censors you and there's nothing I can do.

Uploading one hundred thousand files,
I'm feeling very ill.
I don't think my feces know which way to go.
I can't tell my intestines from spaghetti-
code.

Yoda Doll to Major Tom, your prostrate's dead, there's something wrong,
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear...

Am I shitting in the tincan?

My ass like a baboon's

Slashdot censors you and there's nothing I can do.

Suspendisse viverra, metus eget dapibus vestibulum, mauris ipsum porta diam, sit amet congue sem augue et pede. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nullam eu massa sed leo malesuada pellentesque. Nunc luctus hendrerit sem. Suspendisse tincidunt convallis nunc. In id justo et tortor malesuada hendrerit. Proin ac augue vitae lectus sagittis vulputate. Integer a magna. Aliquam erat volutpat. Suspendisse in velit. Duis eleifend congue odio. Maecenas at est. Suspendisse porta, mauris sit amet blandit suscipit, sem leo faucibus mi, sit amet molestie sem velit vel nulla. Aenean neque velit, faucibus vel, luctus sed, vulputate sit amet, eros. Integer tincidunt interdum mauris. Phasellus augue. Nam luctus, massa ac hendrerit gravida, nibh ante vestibulum leo, sit amet dapibus pede purus at nisl. Sed est libero, gravida sed, vulputate sed, semper quis, lorem. Ut tincidunt. Vestibulum mauris turpis, consectetuer non, scelerisque et, vestibulum eget, felis.

Synopsis:
Major Tom goes to the bathroom and shoves a Yoda doll up his ass, and then gimps back to his desk to post AC Trolls on Slashdot.

Soddity

Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Take your ex-lax bars and put my do-rag on.
Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Commencing countdown, rope is on.
Begin insertion and may Goatse's love be with you.

This is Yoda Doll to Major Tom,
You've rectally been flayed!
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear.
Now it's time to leave the crapper if you dare.

This is Major Tom to Yoda Doll,
I'm stepping through the door.
And I'm farting in a most peculiar way!
And my ass looks very different today.
For here...
Am I shitting in the tincan?
Far...too busy posting trolls.

Slashdot censors you and there's nothing I can do.

Uploading one hundred thousand files,
I'm feeling very ill.
I don't think my feces know which way to go.
I can't tell my intestines from spaghetti-
code.

Yoda Doll to Major Tom, your prostrate's dead, there's something wrong,
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear...

Am I shitting in the tincan?

My ass like a baboon's

Slashdot censors you and there's nothing I can do.
Suspendisse viverra, metus eget dapibus vestibulum, mauris ipsum porta diam, sit amet congue sem augue et pede. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nullam eu massa sed leo malesuada pellentesque. Nunc luctus hendrerit sem. Suspendisse tincidunt convallis nunc. In id justo et tortor malesuada hendrerit. Proin ac augue vitae lectus sagittis vulputate. Integer a magna. Aliquam erat volutpat. Suspendisse in velit. Duis eleifend congue odio. Maecenas at est. Suspendisse porta, mauris sit amet blandit suscipit, sem leo faucibus mi, sit amet molestie sem velit vel nulla. Aenean neque velit, faucibus vel, luctus sed, vulputate sit amet, eros. Integer tincidunt interdum mauris. Phasellus augue. Nam luctus, massa ac hendrerit gravida, nibh ante vestibulum leo, sit amet dapibus pede purus at nisl. Sed est libero, gravida sed, vulputate sed, semper quis, lorem. Ut tincidunt. Vestibulum mauris turpis, consectetuer non, scelerisque et, vestibulum eget, felis.

Synopsis:
Major Tom goes to the bathroom and shoves a Yoda doll up his ass, and then gimps back to his desk to post AC Trolls on Slashdot.

Soddity

Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Take your ex-lax bars and put my do-rag on.
Yoda Doll to Major Tom.
Commencing countdown, rope is on.
Begin insertion and may Goatse's love be with you.

This is Yoda Doll to Major Tom,
You've rectally been flayed!
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear.
Now it's time to leave the crapper if you dare.

This is Major Tom to Yoda Doll,
I'm stepping through the door.
And I'm farting in a most peculiar way!
And my ass looks very different today.
For here...
Am I shitting in the tincan?
Far...too busy posting trolls.

Slashdot censors you and there's nothing I can do.

Uploading one hundred thousand files,
I'm feeling very ill.
I don't think my feces know which way to go.
I can't tell my intestines from spaghetti-
code.

Yoda Doll to Major Tom, your prostrate's dead, there's something wrong,
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear...

Am I shitting in the tincan?

My ass like a baboon's

Slashdot censors you and there's nothing I can do.
Nam porta blandit enim. Sed pulvinar nisl non enim posuere rutrum. Donec pede. Etiam at nisl. Aenean odio metus, bibendum sit amet, sollicitudin eu, commodo et, turpis. Proin quis massa. Sed elit nibh, pharetra et, egestas non, lobortis ac, risus. Donec diam massa, malesuada ac, ultrices ac, vehicula non, nulla. Ut enim augue, consequat vitae, ultricies ac, dictum eu, metus. Aliquam condimentum. Suspendisse lorem sapien, egestas ut, sodales eget, varius at, velit. Aenean et sapien sit amet orci eleifend dignissim. Mauris rhoncus ultrices augue. Aliquam feugiat tincidunt diam. Curabitur elit massa, hendrerit sit amet, molestie eu, ultrices vitae, velit. Proin eu neque. Vestibulum nulla.

water would be required not only for drinking, but for many fundemental functions of a colony (we would need to bring a lot of water).

back in march they thought there was lots of water on the moon, but new data shows that this is very unlikely.

Note: I'm a mathematician (not a scientist, say), and I was remarking on the webpage, not the Nature article.

That is, the webpage has lots of pretty pictures to explain the Strouhal number, but doesn't provide a concise description: he essentially says as much (as another poster notes), but I clearly helped some other readers understand -- and by writing a paragraph, not drawing 200 pictures. This (that the webpage, while flashy, didn't communicate terribly well) was my implicit message; my explicit message was that the Strouhal number is easy to understand, and has a pretty obvious connection with "propulsive efficiency".

The exact connection between the Strouhal number and efficiency is commented on in the abstract :

Propulsive efficiency is high over a narrow range of St and usually peaks within the interval 0.2 < St < 0.4 (refs 3-8). Because natural selection is likely to tune animals for high propulsive efficiency, we expect it to constrain the range of St that animals use.

This is what I meant by "not too surprising". Note however that the authors also write:

This [range] seems to be true for dolphins, sharks and bony fish, which swim at 0.2 < St < 0.4. Here we show that birds, bats and insects also converge on the same narrow range of St, but only when cruising.

In other words, this was know for swimmers, and here they've shown it for fliers, but only when cruising. As others have noted, birds have other types of flight that are not so tuned: soaring birds of prey, or hovering humming birds, for instance.

So: the Nature article is fine: saying that a result is "not surprising" is not a criticism in science (that's how you form a hypothesis). I do not presume to dispense with data, simply provide insight. Further, just because something is plausible doesn't make it true -- hence the need (and value) of experiments in science. OTOH, just because something is true doesn't mean we understand it -- hence the need for theory and intuition, which I was trying to provide.

The webpage, OTOH, while pretty, does a poor job of communicating. One paragraph and two pictures (implicit in my description) could have given insight into why Strouhal numbers fall in a narrow range.

To imply similarity, make the graph larger than it needs to be. Then all of your points will fall in a narrow range and appear closer together.

For this and other presentation crocks, read How to Lie with Charts, and its fore-runners, How to Lie with Statistics and How to Lie with Maps.

Well, here's hoping that something like CERN's black holes will eventually help us build a time machine.

*fingers crossed*

Ventner's new virus is artificial in the sense that it was created from chemicals- but it is identical to a known natural virus.

Venter's team cobbled together the virus, called phi-X174, following its published genetic sequence.