Domain: physorg.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to physorg.com.
Comments · 719
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Re:And why is this important?
Or the next one :
“The next island is located very far from the first one,” said Oganessian. How far away might that next island be" In terms of numbers on the periodic table, it could lie around atomic number 164, as some theorists predicted, certainly a long way from where researchers are exploring today in hopes of discovering element 120. (from here)
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Also news fromYou can also find the story on Physorg News and Space.com. The discoveries where not all at once BTW, the HARPS telescopes been running since 2004, and found the 32 planets over that period, using just 100 nights observing time per year.
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Rotten eggs and laughing gas
Reminds me of the same business with Hydrogen Sulfide and Nitric Oxide... The former being found to increase the lifespan and health of nematodes and also to prevent organ rejection and cell death after traumatic injury. The latter was developed into non-inhaled treatments that act on the vascular system... Viagra for instance. That's a long way from rotten eggs and laughing gas. http://www.physorg.com/news115924695.html http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ars.2009.2882
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Re:This site looks suspicious
A quick Google Search reveals a reputable site reporting that the superconductivity record as of 18 Aug 2005 was -113'C. In Kelvins, that's about 160K, more than 20 Kelvins higher than Wikipedia claims. It's entirely possible, and in fact likely (given the amount of research happening in the field), that the record superconductivity temperature will have increased in the last 4 years.
While I agree that the site looks like it was designed by a 3-year old, I can't discount it simply because Wikipedia claims that it's wrong. In this case, I know that Wikipedia's claim is, itself, wrong. That doesn't mean that TFA is correct, mind you, just that you can't claim it's automatically wrong because it disagrees with Wiki. I'll look on it with my normal scepticism until I see it reported and backed up in another publication.
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Maybe.
British, working in the gambling industry, and possibly wanting to visit the US in the future? Why don't you ask David Carruthers, Gary Kaplan how that worked out for them?
(To be fair, they were the guys at the top and I haven't heard of any lower level staff being arrested, but still, I doubt US immigration would look too kindly on it if you ever were to apply for a green card.)
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DRAM errors?
Or entropy? We just discovered the same about autism and climate change. What's up? We've been working with one eye closed all this time?
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Re:If there is another strikeYou may want to welcome them already. Recent research shows now that phytoplankton were/are consumers of poisonous ammonia in our oceans. And they produced out of it what plants crave. 'Lytes! No wait, I mean Nitrogen. I'm not a biologist but this latest research seems to imply that our designation of bacterial nitrifiers as most important to the nitrogen cycle is wrong and should be given to Archaea. From that research:
The new experiments show that the organism can survive on a mere whiff of ammonia - 10 nanomolar concentration, equivalent to a teaspoon of ammonia salt in 10 million gallons of water. In the deep ocean there is no light and little carbon, so this trace amount of ammonia is the organism's only source of energy.
So I wouldn't be surprised that phytoplankton would be the first to recover after an asteroid strike. Not much needed for them to survive. Apparently if all of this is true, a lot of ecology is going to be rewritten. Exciting times if you're in that field I guess.
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interestingly...
This will have the interesting side effect of removing older kids from the job market, theoretically creating more opportunities for unskilled adults to occupy those slots. Of course, this means employers will likely have to pay more to fill those positions, which they won't be happy about.
I'm not opposed to lengthening the school year if we also reduce the hours spent per day. Both in classroom and at home in the form of homework:
"The United States is among the most homework-intensive countries in the world for seventh- and eighth-grade math classes. U.S. math teachers on average assigned more than two hours of mathematics homework per week in 1994-95," said LeTendre. "Contrary to our expectations, one of the lowest levels was recorded in Japan -- about one hour a week. These figures challenge previous stereotypes about the lackadaisical American teenager and his diligent peer in Japan."
From here
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Re:And...
You don't believe in evidence. There either is evidence supporting your claim, or there isn't.
I said "I believe there is evidence". I'm'a assume English isn't your first language (for now; more on that below) and explain that the phrase means "I'm not certain, but I think evidence has been found".
But since you're calling me out on it, I'll look at your links. Link the first:
This powerful combination of two studies presents persuasive evidence that violent video games do indeed increase aggression in some players.
Playing violent video games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D or Mortal Kombat can increase a person's aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior both in laboratory settings and in actual life, according to two studies appearing in the April issue of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Furthermore, violent video games may be more harmful than violent television and movies because they are interactive, very engrossing and require the player to identify with the aggressor, say the researchers.
After 40+ years of research, one might think that debate about media violence effects would be over. An historical examination of the research reveals that debate concerning whether such exposure is a significant risk factor for aggressive and violent behavior should have been over years ago (Bushman & Anderson, 2001). Four types of media violence studies provide converging evidence of such effects: laboratory experiments, field experiments, cross-sectional correlation studies, and longitudinal studies (Anderson & Bushman, 2002a; Bushman & Huesmann, 2000).
The link between anger and aggression is far from clear, and they would like to see similar results reproduced with other test groups and using different games and experimental setups. It's also worth noting that they attempted to measure a wide range of additional factors during their study, but many of these measurements produced statistically insignificant or contradictory results.
This is the first one that doesn't claim the connection is well-established, but it does find a causative link between aggressive behavior and violent media. It attempts to establish that there is an additional factor. Link the fifth:
After an average playtime of 56 hours over the course of a month with âoeAsheronâ(TM)s Call 2,â a popular MMRPG, or âoemassively multi-layer online role-playing game,â researchers found âoeno strong effects associated with aggression caused by this violent game,â said Dmitri Williams, the lead author of the study.
Teenagers experiencing 56 hours of fantasy violence over one month and then self-assessing their feelings. 'Nuff said, I hope. Link the sixth:
A brain mechanism that may link violent computer games with aggression has been discovered by researchers in the US. The work goes some way towards demonstrating a causal link between the two - rather than a simple association.
After an average playtime of 56 hours over the course of a month...
Same as five.
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Re:Blind Sound Test.
Compared to a virtuoso, its rendition was a trifle stilted and, well, robotic.
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A link to a better story, posted amid the nonsense
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Better story:
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Re:Science =! Public Policy
Grow up.
http://www.physorg.com/news162795064.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/06/james_hansen_abusing_the_publi.html
http://www.geotimes.org/aug07/article.html?id=WebExtra081607_2.html
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/09/hansen_frees_the_code.htmlBut since you're convinced Hansen is on the up-and-up (or simply preprogrammed to agree with him because of which political side you're on), I doubt the truth will change your mind.
After all, you're one of the same greenpeace retards who stops us from having a sane Nuclear power policy (and thus forces us to burn coal and oil).
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From this TFA:
http://www.physorg.com/news170614813.html
As for the Pacific Science Center shindig, he said, "It's actually a fairly low-budget effort because of our relationships with the studios and that kind of thing." He said the police escort "is a nice story for the students. The truth of the matter is we just try to cooperate with the police when we're trying to move a dozen buses across town at rush hour."
(A State Patrol spokesman said police escorts are contracted privately and paid for by the person or company that hires them.)
Apparently, it is perfectly legal.
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Re:Escort
This version of the story has some more defensiveness that elaborates more on that:
As for the Pacific Science Center shindig, [Kerry Olin, general manager for university recruiting] said, "It's actually a fairly low-budget effort because of our relationships with the studios and that kind of thing." He said the police escort "is a nice story for the students. The truth of the matter is we just try to cooperate with the police when we're trying to move a dozen buses across town at rush hour."
(A State Patrol spokesman said police escorts are contracted privately and paid for by the person or company that hires them.)
The free Xboxes are an investment, too, Olin said. "We also get some of our technology on campuses in the hands of thought leaders.
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Re:The cool kids don't care
Please let me know of any bigger claimed value.
I know it's pointless to read the thread you're posting in, but the previously mentioned cystorm unveiled at ISU earlier this year has 3200 cores.
The reason you probably don't see Sun boasting about a lot of its HPC stuff is because it doesn't need to. You don't pick up HPC clients like Cedars-Sinai Hospital, UCLA Neuro Imaging, Wolfram Research, and Sandia National Labs by word of mouth, exactly.
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P.R. Alert. Misleading Slashdot summary.
P.R. Alert: This Slashdot story is a public relations release. The misleading Slashdot summary says, "Other sources have picked up the story...". In reality, they are inserting press releases everywhere they can, and the kind of work being done is not new.
It was proven long ago that dogs can smell chemicals associated with cancer. For example, see this 2006 article in National Geographic News, Dogs Smell Cancer in Patients' Breath, Study Shows. That's part of what started the present interest in making a machine to detect cancer.
This February 2007 article is more interesting: Compact lung-cancer breath test may be possible. Quote: "The test uses 36 chemical dots that react to telltale compounds in a person's breath. The dots change colour when exposed to compounds that signify the presence of lung cancer."
This February 2007 article gives more information about how it is done: US Scientists Prototype Breath Test For Lung Cancer
Even Oprah's magazine had article in June 2009 about dogs sniffing cancer and making machines to imitate dogs: Sniffing Out Cancer. Quote: "The researchers are collaborating with scientists at the University of Maine, who are trying to mimic the dogs' cancer-sniffing abilities with laboratory machines." Another quote: "So far, the Pine Street Foundation dogs have done 25,000 scent trials for ovarian cancer."
Slashdot: Not quite as current as Oprah? Old news for nerds who were playing video games and wouldn't know the difference?
Many researchers are doing similar work. For example, see the February 2008 article, The Cancer Breathalyzer. Quote: "Dr Yousef ... believes that the breath test will provide a more convenient and rapid method for diagnosing serious diseases than blood or urine analysis, and will require minimal medical intervention."
Other researchers are studying the possibility of using blood tests to detect cancer. See the December 2007 article, Study points to possibility of blood test to detect lung cancer.
Here is a November 2005 research paper that surveys some of the issues of early detection of cancer: The Progress and Promise of Molecular Imaging Probes in Oncologic Drug Development. -
Re:that sounds like
I read the first paragraph of the wikipedia article which gives me the impression that it's still requires faith which I'd would be in direct conflict with the scientific method.
NO it wouldn't be in conflict. It can be but that doesn't make it a constant problem. The only time it would be in conflict is when it is replacing the scientific method when the scientific method was claimed to of been deployed. Both faith and the scientific method have places in society but neither is a full time requirement.
Religion is notorious for disregarding scientific fact and crushing all opposition. From my point of view it has a very bad track record.
The disregards are small and limited in regards to science and the base of knowledge around it. It's also small in the amounts of people in religion who do it. Science actually started in religious universities. They are not incompatible.
I merely was stating that the 'Christian Science Monitor' makes me disinclined to believe that the article has anything to with with
/real/ science.And I;m merely stating that your concerns are unfounded and shooting or ignoring the messenger instead of the message is not a valid point of debate. You are being blinded by your extreme views which is allowing your ignorance to triumph. You can be skeptical of the claims but there is nothing to suggest the source is biased and lying or anything. IF the facts don't pan out, then you will have a valid concern over the content instead of bashing it for the messenger.
I have no doubt that it is possible for someone with religious belief to appropriately use the scientific method. I just don't think it's very likely.
It happens all the time. Your lack of knowledge or ignorance is proving your own bias. About 40% of scientist do believe in god and Only 52 percent of scientists identified themselves as having no current religious affiliation. That is something completely counter to your opinion.
Science isn't a belief as much as it is analytical method for approaching a problem. I really don't care what any other people want to believe as long as they keep their nonsense out of my life. I'm particularly annoyed with a city bylaw regulating business hours on Sundays.
Science is a belief for some. Take a look at the people claiming biological evolution theory as a whole is fact. Obviously this violates the scientific method in several places because it doesn't allow us to increase our knowledge or the possibility of falsification. It's even more problematic considering that when you separate evolution into adaptation and speciation, we have no no empirical evidence of it's existence without mucking with the definition of species in order to show it. Now it's likely that it's close enough to one day be proven right, but as of now, these people claiming it is fact instead of probable or likely are employing the very same belief system and mental processing as with the any religion and faith.
I also do not agree with codifying religion into laws. But I have no disagreement with someone taking time off to attend church or a business coming to it's own conclusion to shut down on Sunday. The Idea of closing business on sunday is derived from religion but is also derived from many other customs including long distance traveling. Animals like horses and such will not cover as much distance without a full day of rest. Humans marching in the military seem to operate better with at least one full day of rest too. Picking Sunday could be conveniently tied to religions (although the Seventh-day Adventist would probably disagree), it does have roots in practical measures to take at least
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seen something similar to this before
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Graphite
The future is in a completely different molecular organization of carbon: graphite.
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Re:Devil's Advocate
I'm not surprised this happened and, as much as I'll probably be modded "Troll" for this, I'm not really outraged by it. Everyone responding to this article is fixated on the fact that he got arrested because he was modifying consoles. What I think most people are missing is that he modified them for personal profit, charging people money to have their consoles hacked. IANAL, but it seems to me that had Mr. Crippen provided his hacking services at no charge, he would have probably received (at worst) a simple cease and desist letter or a minor slap on the wrist.
For the record, I'm not against modifying devices to allow them to do things that would fall outside manufacturer specifications. In fact, there's some pretty neat stuff that can be accomplished by using consoles as something other than a video game system.
In short, I don't see anything wrong with Mr. Crippen hacking the XBox, Wii, PS3, or any other console. However, charging money for the "service", knowing full well that content developers would wind up losing out on profits from the sale of games, probably wasn't a smart choice.
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Re:Wait a minute...
Some here have pointed out the synergies eBay expected to get, like sellers adding Skype to their auction pages (as if non-paying bidders and people asking for international shipping on an auction that specifically says no are not annoying enough without giving them a way to call you), or how companies expand into unrelated markets all the time. But those arguments miss the real driving force in deals of this sort: brand-name CEOs, like Meg Whitman or Jack Welch, are all narcissistic empire builders(sorry its just a summary/announcement of the actual paper). It is not about the good of the company, or even the stockholders, but it is all about them.
Why else would eBay really need to own Skype? Or a manufacturer of jet engines and electric generators get into the movie/TV business? Because it puts the CEO in the news and puts the CEO's stamp on the company. And if you view deals like eBay/Skype through the prism of a CEO's ego, then the fact that 'They paid an outrageous sum, didn't get full rights, and failed to leverage that technology in any way useful to the company' becomes disturbingly understandable. -
A not-so-horrible idea?
Don't knock it until it's been shown to not work. There's probably some UI that'll make it work some day.
The first thing that comes to mind is a modified laser range finder (that can move the laser in two dimensions instead of one) and convert it into an overhead map of obstacles, reflectors, etc. Then, convert it to a tactile graphic on the fly. Assuming the resolution of touch can be overcome (it's fairly bad), with enough training, a blind driver might be able to constantly feel a map of their surroundings and control the car accordingly.
Or, a pair of cameras could produce a 3D tactile graphic (either by raising the bumps at various heights, or showing two graphics and train the brain to merge them as a 3D image) or audio.
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Re:and yet NYC still has traffic jams
You most probably think you are a better driver than average: "Swenson (1981) surveyed students the US, asking them to compare their driving safety and skill to the other people in the experiment. For driving skill, almost all of the US sample (93%) put themselves in the top 50%. For safety, 88% put themselves in the top 50%."
perfectly safe
: Higher speed limit leads to deaths and declining accident rates are due to safer cars.
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Re:World improves
Not many people get sick eating poison-sprayed foods. Think about how many millions of people in the US eat processed food. We're talking several hundred million people, yet the danger footprint is so small. That's almost better than a study.
How many get cancer now? I've heard 1/3 will get it in their lifetime, this article concurs (I didn't read the whole thing, just the first couple of paragraphs http://www.physorg.com/news151840958.html I know, I know correlation is not causation but something is going wrong. Surely our food is an obvious (though possibly wrong) place to look.
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Re:And they said that GW would be a bad thingThe rain in Spain plainly stopped falling - well, less at least.
Scientists have recorded a decline in winter precipitation over the past 60 years in Spain, and they now forecast that precipitation will also decrease in spring and summer. A team from the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (CSIC) has studied rainfall data from 1950 to 2006 and the climate projections for coming decades, showing that less rain will fall in future over the Iberian Peninsula. However, precipitation will continue to be more frequent in winter than in spring-summer.
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Re:The perfect way to minimize our carbon footprin
People keep claiming that melting sea-ice won't raise the sea level -this simply is not true. http://www.physorg.com/news5619.html (physorg.com)
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Viking sun dial and sun
From http://www.physorg.com/news91798327.html "Viking navigation hypothesis under foggy and cloudy skies requires more light" This article speaks of the Viking sun-dial for sunny days and a less-known sunstone for the foggy ones. Interesting theory, if anything.
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Only the original Apollo 11 tapes are lost!
NASA still has the originals for Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16, & 17. (13 of course didn't get to land on the moon). They're at the Johnson Space Center's Informational Resources Directorate's video vault in Houston. http://www.physorg.com/news74962441.html/
...I don't see any conspiracy theorists tryng to discredit the other five landings. -
Re:Your school is right
"There are two kinds of CS degrees, one tends to be more like a MSCE type degree aimed at getting you employed in a job shop. Typically you'll find these at ITT or University of Phoenix. Frankly, as an employer of CS folks, I can tell you these degrees are not worth the paper they are written on, and they rarely offer job security, they teach you to be a 'cog' instead of an independent thinker."
Don't let your bias and elitism hit you in the ass on the way out. You're making decisions based on ignorance and habit, not information and truth.
My IT degree at University of Phoenix taught no less than 4 languages (C, C++, Java, PHP, JavaScript) but also taught things such as databases, telecommunications, networking, usability and project management. The CS program at a traditional university taught programming and nothing else. Both taught the same programming concepts, but the traditional degree left out all the other things that go in to a modern programming and computing environment, rather spending 6 semesters teaching mathematics. Additionally, they not only emphasized independent thinking, they also taught the skills necessary to work in a modern team-based work environment as well as critical thinking skills. Something you appear to be lacking.
I see programmers every day that don't understand network communication, database optimization, interface design or other things that, in my opinion, would allow them to make better applications. These skills have been lacking in the computer industry to the point that traditional universities now have degree emphasis' that are closer to what I got from UoP than what you are claiming is a good degree.
Maybe you should try some of those University of Phoenix folks. They are going to be more knowledgeable than you think. If they weren't, why would the slow moving traditional universities be emulating their degrees?
Here's some information that you can read to bring your hiring practices out of the dark ages.
Engineering stereotypes drive counterproductive practices
Using Team-Based Learning to Teach Teaching Critical Thinking in Undergraduate CoursesAs for the parent post, learning the concepts of how to build and debug a program is more important that what language you learn in school. A wider breadth of languages will give you more insight in to the concepts, which actually is the high level techniques you seem to be looking for. Understanding of how things work will serve you better than being an expert at a programming language that will change in a year or 3. Languages are fluid, concepts are fairly static and built upon. Being able to learn on an on-going basis is a skill you will need to master.
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Re:Good.
Here's a crazy idea: how about nuclear power? Oh, that's right, the word "nuclear" is too super-scary for the science-based environmentalists. Never mind that they actually are better for the environment than anything else.
I would agree with you if, by "actually," you really mean "not actually." Many opponents of nuclear power, myself included, are not so much bothered by radioactive waste disposal issues. We are much more concerned about the high cost of system failures.
Everyone here is familiar with how difficult it is to keep defect rates in the 5 sigma region, let alone the 6 sigma region. Even with a spectacular 6 sigma failure rate, that means some failures _will_still_happen_. The longer a plant operates, the more likely a problem with occur. The more plants the operate, the greater the number of towns and cities that will be contaminated.
No control system is fool-proof, as students of the nuclear power industry know. What is most dangerous to safe reactor operation is the idea that a system, or one (or more) engineer(s), is fool-proof. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island should cure anyone of that attitude. The reality is, reactor contamination "events" are much more common that industry advocates would like you to believe (see below).
Remember, nuclear power in some places is a for-profit industry. Nuclear power industry CEO's have the same short-term incentives to minimize labor costs, keeping reactors online, and minimizing maintenance costs that AIG, Comcast, AOL, Best Buy, McDonalds, and every other for-profit company has. In other places, it's run by the incumbent utility company. With threats of budget reductions due to economic trends, political decisions (tax cuts anyone?), etc., event public and quasi-public utilities experience many of these pressures.
So, before portraying opponents of the nuclear power industry as milksops (or whatever you were insinuating), educate yourself a bit.
I prefer no to have a few hundred MBA's riding shotgun on doomsday machines. It's bad enough as it is already.
See also:
- http://news.google.com/news?q=nuclear%20reactor%20leak (way too many results show up)
- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/national/17nuke.html
- http://www.miamiherald.com/982/story/1035992.html
- http://www.physorg.com/news162708897.html
- http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/18446
- https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/The_Monju_nuclear_reactor_leak
- http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/nucene/nucacc.html
You get the point. You don't want one of these in your backyard. Nobody does. So let's not build any more of 'em.
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Re:One big problem, not a zillion.
I wouldn't say 'about a zillion to go.' I would say one big problem to go. That problem is platinum. We simply have not been able to eliminate the need for platinum in fuel cells to extract the electricity from the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen. Platinum is a huge factor in the cost of the fuel cell and the larger problem is that we simply don't have the amount of it necessary to convert all of the vehicles of the world. I spent a few weeks at Los Alamos with a research group that had been given a hefty grant for finding a solution and all they were doing was shrugging their shoulders at it. It seems nearly hopeless.
I thought Argonne (sister DoE lab) came up with a breakthrough for reducing the amount of platinum needed (over 2 years ago)? I haven't heard much about that since, though.
I swear, if I had nickel for every alternative energy breakthrough that was announced with great fanfare but went nowhere, I could fund the infrastructure change myself. Do these things just end up fizzling? Are they hoaxes? Is some evil petroleum magnate in a bunker inside a volcano buying them all up and tossing the secrets into the magma? I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but boy, I'd love a good investigative look back at all the alternative energy ideas of the last 30 years, just so we could present it to the media as a guide for what to look for.
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not so promising (again...)
Their surface areas per unit mass (smaller than 1,000 m^2/g) are not too impressive (since storage is done by physisorption on the surface). This will not produce sufficient adsorption. Activated carbon from corn-cobs appear to offer more promise (migger than 3,000 m^2/g) and are also quite cheap. See, for example from my home state: http://www.physorg.com/news162195986.html
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not so promising
Their surface areas per unit mass ( 3,000 m^2/g) and are also quite cheap. See, for example from my home state: http://www.physorg.com/news162195986.html
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Block Google Since Bing Will Play Ball
I find it interesting that their little "trial run" of blocking Google comes so soon after Bing decides to filter out anything sensitive (you know porn, skeletons, pandas) to China. So if we've got on big player playing ball, let the other one know what will happen to them if they don't. Another motive could be a a display of defiance to the West's requests to stop with all the blocking and blocking software? Maybe it's coincidence, maybe it's many factors.
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Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!
we need to be able to do it from space..
Does "from quite high up in the atmosphere" count?
http://www.physorg.com/news163859251.html
(OK, so starting typhoons isn't easy either, but do I have to solve all the problems around here?)
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Re:Not many choices...
There is a theory that geothermal energy is not from the sun, but from the earth's core, which is radioactive.
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Re:Get a pringles can and go to Iraq
This was my first thought too: just find a building that's relatively secure (any will do, just needs to be tall for line-of-sight purposes), put a (very?) high-gain directional antenna on it and link it to a base station in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. You could do the satellite way, but it's likely to be a hell of a lot more expensive, and you can't break it down and hide it in the case of an emergency evacuation, etc.
Might not be broadband, but it's the best you're going to do on such a short notice. Besides, Twitter messages are only 140 bytes. It's not like you have to send them over the cellular network where that would cost approximately a trillion dollars... -
Re:first image
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Less intrusive link
The link posted by the submitter is too annoying to read (who uses over content ads?) Here is a link to a much less ad encumbered article on the same subject: http://www.physorg.com/news164424219.html
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Re:Been done.
Actually, it is real - Sharp made them years ago - no glasses required, so if Acer indeed comes out with a 3D laptop then it'll be the world's second manufacturer to do so. Sharp even got to a second generation of them. Here's a link: http://www.physorg.com/news3296.html. It was so successful you can't buy them anymore. The problem was lack of content and you needed to hold you head in the hot-zone of 3D-ness. Even if Acer manages to release a decent 3D screen, and we start watching the latest 3D movies on it, I think they'll have a tough time overcoming the puppet theater effect on such a small screen. It's not such a problem in a huge cinema, but would be in this case.
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Research, medical
I know eye-tracking is already used extensively in research, and don't quote me on this but I think there has been some R&D going into making an eye-control system for those without the use of their arms or hands.
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Re:Wow
For me, I came out of my physics education with a realization that the world is far far far stranger than anything our everyday experience would lead us to believe. It has also left me with a strong sense that none of our knowledge is absolutely certain. That doesn't mean that I believe that our scientific theories are necessarily completely wrong, but rather that our current theories may very well be incomplete.
String theory is definitely interesting. Gaining even a glimpse into it is far more humbling than learning quantum mechanics, and that is saying something! Where it will lead is completely unknown. For all we know, string theory may turn into a dead end (or into a massively complicated labyrinth with nothing but dead ends). Or it may turn into an immensely powerful predictive tool. Who can tell?
There are alternatives to string theory that show promise in uniting quantum mechanics and gravity. I haven't fully digested this yet, but this paper summary argues that space-time may have fractal elements that have the potential to predict both quantum mechanics and gravity.
The bottom line is that the universe is immense, and immensely complicated, and we are small. In such a universe, certainty becomes an absurdity.
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Re:I wonder if my great^8 grandkids
So much for progress.
Depends - Quote:"By mimicking a brick-and-mortar molecular structure found in seashells, University of Michigan researchers created a composite plastic that's as strong as steel but lighter and transparent."
CC. -
Re:All I have to say is...
http://www.physorg.com/news133455659.html
https://shop.sae.org/technical/papers/960439
Learn to google. Googling speed limits interstates accident rates got me the first one, and variations thereof, Adding -purdue got me the second. It would also have eventually produced contrary results if any existed. Of course, I'm not going to sit at google adding fifteen hundred -words just to reinforce or refute those articles. I don't even drive. -
Re:10 mbit/s ought to be enough for anybody
My body needs a lot more than 10 MBit/s:
http://www.physorg.com/news73156830.html -
Re:You gotta be able to hold it
There is actually a lot of evidence that humans are the greatest runners of the animal kingdom in terms of endurance, efficiency, and ruggedness. We consume less energy in increasing the intensity of our running speed (compared to 4 legged animals) and we dissipate heat more efficiently.
We did make tradeoffs, but that lead to us being able to track our prey for days, exhausting it and out-enduring it to eventually kill and consume it. We did this long before our big brains gave us bows and projectile weapons that allowed us to defeat our meals at range.
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Re:Hmmm
This reminds me of something I read a couple years back, about some project to produce ethanol that was subsidized by the Feds. Someone went back and did the numbers and it turned out, not only was it not economically sustainable without the subsidy, it was actually using more fuel then it was producing. (I found a link that seems to reference the same study: Turning plants such as corn, soybeans and sunflowers into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates, according to a new Cornell University and University of California-Berkeley study.)
Same situation, the subsidy was masking the complete inefficiency of the project. -
Re:why
linky to what I quoted.
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Re:Not that it matters ...