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I certainly agree that some of the surface measurement sites are situated poorly. However, given that "changes in borehole temperatures (Section 2.3.2), the recession of the glaciers (Section 2.2.5.4), and changes in marine temperature (Section 2.2.2.2), which are not subject to urbanisation, agree well with the instrumental estimates of surface warming over the last century" and that there is no statistically significant difference between the records from rural and urban surface temperature stations ("While there is little difference in the long-term (1880 to 1998) rural (0.70C/century) and full set of station temperature trends (actually less at 0.65C/century), more recent data (1951 to 1989), as cited in Peterson et al. (1999), do suggest a slight divergence in the rural (0.80C/century) and full set of station trends (0.92C/century) However, neither pair of differences is statistically significant.", as detailed in the IPCC report, it doesn't, well, appear to be statistically significant. Oh, and could we omit the petty attempts at vulgar "humor"?

We're now glossing over point 2 and making broad assumptions. Nevermind that "To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming." [Source] Hmmm... what's the phrase I'm looking for here... something about correlation and causation.

Perhaps you ought to take a look at this study. I quote: "The answer: This particular ice age didn't begin when CO2 was at its peak -- it began 10 million years earlier, when CO2 levels were at a low." "Taken together, the evidence suggests that the ice began to build up some 10 million years earlier than when volcanoes began pumping the atmosphere full of the CO2 that ended the Ordovician ice age." "Our results are consistent with the notion that CO2 concentrations drive climate."

May want to update your talking points...though I rather suspect you'll regurtitate the same set the next time a climate change discussion comes up here.

" This last one brings us to the ultimate death blow to the global warmers' argument. The warming we've experienced since the last glacial period has brought us grasslands, forests, jungles.... When the next glacial period comes, the planet will be covered mostly by icy tundra and extreme deserts again. Warming has only made this planet MORE habitable to us. I've got 12000 years of proof that warming is good. What do you have to the contrary?"

Dude...are you being deliberately obtuse? It's not just sea levels rising due to glacial melt, though that alone is problematic (though there's this thing called empathy where some humans sympathise with the plights of other humans...something you apparently lack). Potential consequences also include droughts, heat waves, disruption of various ecosystems, increased oceanic acidification due to greater CO2 absorption (up to a limit) and so many others. If you were genuinely interested, I could go into the details.

1. The burning of Christian martyrs by Nero
2. The burning of Rome itself under Nero
3. The Government of Pompeii for failing to properly mitigate the greenhouse gas footprint of Mount Vesuvius.

No. When we try to predict the large scale distribution of matter using simulations we get filaments.

The rest are going to SETI@home

... as long as its not using SETI@home so it can "phone home".

How come nobody's pointed out how many PlayStation 3 computer clusters this is?

Below the tags, there is a genuine, old fashioned, read link in the summary of TFA, which points to the actual article: http://www.physorg.com/news122534699.html

http://www.physorg.com/news95605211.html dives into how plants achieve almost 100% efficiency.

Link. also google for magnesium hydrogen car and you'll also find other companies.

Well, another article is entitled "Inventor Doesn't Dare Say 'Perpetual Motion Machine'", but then quotes him as saying: "What I can say with full confidence is that our system violates the law of conservation of energy". So it's just as much bollocks as any other "free energy device", it's just that he hasn't claimed that the "free energy" is sufficient to run the machine forever.

What I want to know is: why not? If you're going to try to break the laws of thermodynamics, at least try to break them properly!

In Heins' machine, he explains that magnetic friction somehow gets turned into a magnetic boost. Working with an electric motor, he attached the drive shaft to a steel rotor with small round magnets lining its outer edges. In this set-up of a simple generator, the rotor would spin so that the magnets passed by a wire coil just in front of them, generating electrical energy.

Then Heins did an experiment: he overloaded the generator to get a current, which typically causes the wire coil to build up a large electromagnetic field. Usually, this kind of electromagnetic field creates an effect called "Back EMF" due to the so-called Lenz's law. The effect should repel the spinning magnets on the rotor, and slow them down until the motor stops completely, in accordance with the law of conservation.

But instead of stopping, the rotor began to accelerate. Heins recounts that the first time it happened, the magnets starting flying off and hitting the walls, as he ducked for cover.

The magnetic friction wasn't repelling the magnets and wire coil. Instead, as Heins explains, the steel rotor and driveshaft had conducted the magnetic resistance away from the coil and back into the electric motor. In effect, the Back EMF was boosting the magnetic fields used by the motor to generate electrical energy and cause acceleration.

I remember reading about it somewhere else, but just to cite a source...

from here http://www.physorg.com/news121022065.html

or here http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/02/stories/2008020260031800.htm

I know you can't believe everything you read, but there's a ton of places that describe the cables as passing through the Suez just as ships do. I agree with you though that some cables undoubtedly must pass over land to be distributed. I'm sure if we wait long enough we'll find someone on /. that actually laid the cable. Until then, I'll just have to disagree with you.

While this does happen naturally (as in this story), scientists have also found a way to "force" this to occur by also transferring bone marrow of the donor to the recipient at the same time as the organ:

http://www.physorg.com/news120335571.html

This was reported on digg.com previously, and also again today.

"Lakes Found Under Antarctic Ice Using Space Lasers"
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/19/1319228&from=rss
"Exploration of lake hidden beneath Antarctica's ice sheet begins"
http://www.physorg.com/news119682885.html

0.0450% of light is reflected,
99.955% of light is not reflected.

http://www.physorg.com/news119554586.html

According to this article from April, they'd need much more area for the solar energy, or wind energy, than for the CO2 harvesting.

As for "relatively complex molecular structures", I've researched some sorbents, and one is a solution of NaOH, sodium hydroxide, or "lye". It happens that it is produced by the electrolysis of seawater, which also produces...hydrogen.

OTOH, it will generate 30TB per day.

According to http://www.lsst.org/About/Tour/software.shtml
"Current projects show that approximately 5000 mathematical operations are required per pixel of the image to process and classify survey data. Scaling this to the size of the LSST data stream shows that approximately a thousand of today's high-end processors will be required a feasible proposition. Advances in processor power over the next five years will reduce this number to a few hundred, by which time the required LSST computer system will seem quite pedestrian. Storing this data is also well within even today's technology. At current prices, a one-petabyte disk storage system costs less than $1 million; in five years this price should drop to well below $100,000. Keeping all of the LSST data online will certainly be affordable."

Windows may not play a central data reduction role, unless Microsoft can support 100 CPUs within the next six years. Of course six calendar years is a long time in techo-years. By then, perhaps the data analysis would be done on game consoles.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2007/10/ps3_supercomputer
http://www.physorg.com/news92674403.html

I'd guess that much will depend upon how much can run on a cluster, vice how how much must run on a SMP machine.

If we're talking about publicly-ranked search results, the results may expose more than we're comfortable with.

Wikipedia content is either right or wrong. It's not meant to be subjective, hence it can be patrolled and corrected. Now they want to apply it to subjective content; I don't see that making sense, albeit at first glance. User A is a technocrat who loves Monty Python. Hardly an isolated case. Use B is a 15yr old who likes whatever he/she likes this week. There's no "patrolling" this, except to address systematic abuse.

The concept is fine for slashdot, or any "closed" system, where the users generally share a common set of expectations. At /., I find all +5 content to be generally insightful, interesting, funny, etc. At least it seems so to me. Either I'm new here, or we've all seen Life of Brian. Whether that's utopia or not is another question altogether.

Expand this out to the general internet user, and the result will, of course, reflect the general focus of human society. That will be interesting, to say the least, though I'll bet $5 that anything entertainment- and religion-based will always be at the top of the results. Is that what people want? Ipso facto perhaps, but sure as hell not I.

Let's keep in mind that (no offence to anyone specific) ~80% of Americans believe in God, less than 50% subscribe to Darwin, ~30% believe in "UFOs, witches and astrology" (if you can believe this poll that is). Of course, smart people believe weird things too.

Add to this, that 81% of those who have seen two or more "Police Academy" movies believe that O.J. is innocent, and you have a recipe for disaster.

You're wrong.

One of many references if you'd bothered to look: http://www.physorg.com/news819.html

Pertinent section:

Expeditions sent to the area in the 1950s and 1960s did find microscopic glass spheres in siftings of the soil. Chemical analysis showed that the spheres contained high proportions of nickel and iridium, which are found in high concentrations in meteorites, and indicated that they were of extraterrestrial origin.

I've seen the 'natural gas' theory before. It's so contrived that it's almost like science-comedy.

Here is a nice article:

http://www.physorg.com/news6341.html

Here is a quote:
""Where is the sexy new stuff?" they ask. "For that matter, where is the sexy old stuff? Why isn't Mike Griffin pulling out the blueprints for X-30/NASP, DC-X/Delta Clipper, or X-33/VentureStar? Billions of dollars were spent on these programs before they were cancelled. Why aren't we using all that research to design a cheap, reusable, Single-Stage-To-Orbit vehicle that operates just like an airplane and doesn't fall in the ocean after one flight?"

The answer to this question is: All of these vehicles were fantasy projects. They violated basic laws of physics and engineering. They were impossible with current technology, or any technology we can afford to develop on the timescale and budgets available to NASA. They were doomed attempts to avoid the Cold Equations of Spaceflight. "

He goes on to explain why SSTOs won't work and so on. I found Dr. Bells articles depressing and insightful. In the end I would rather settle for something that works rather than some space cadets wet dream that hasn't a chance of taking off.

Well and then there is the first project Orion which would have to suffer from not-on-my-planet syndrome but it might have worked.

bizarro world

OP has a point re the time frame. Look at stuff humans have built a few hundred years ago, from governments to whole cities. Most are not there anymore. And you believe in humanity's ability to protect and maintain stuff for 100,000 (!) years. Also: http://www.physorg.com/news116329421.html

To just buy a cluster of Playstation 3s, especially since they do have Gigabit ethernet and Linux toolflows.

According to AP via http://www.physorg.com/news115555494.html the "National Institute of Scientific Investigation" says the cell phone couldn't have caused the injuries.

I'm currently taking a nanophysics module as part of my physics degree, and we have been required to read a UK government report on the development of nanotechnology, and there is plenty in there to worry me even as an unqualified scientist.

Public awareness of nanotechnology is low. 29% of Britons (who, no offense, are likely to be more informed than Americans) have heard of the term and only 19% could offer a definition. Of those who knew what it was, 68% thought it would improve life whilst 4% thought it would make life worse

I've read stuff in this report though, that if it were widely known could well cause widespread panic, and leave nanotechnology about as trusted as GM crops. Nanoparticles, by virtue of their vastly increased surface area and the beginnings of quantum effects, can have very different properties than their bulk material counterparts. Bulk copper, for example, is soft and malleable. Copper particles less than 50nm or so across are very hard crystals.

Toxicity can change too - http://www.physorg.com/news63466994.html - there are some indications that substances which are benign in bulk are dangerous as nanoparticles. Of course, nobody knows because the people using these nanoparticles in products like suncreen haven't bothered to test them properly. They haven't bothered because its expensive, and the legislation hasn't caught up with the technology yet. Bulk and nanoparticles are for the most part treated as identical.

When the oh so trusting public I mentioned before find out about this, and find out that the people who knew about it didn't do enough to inform them, and the people using these substances in products didn't bother to do any real testing on them, they are going to be really pissed off. People will tolerate greedy corporations, corrupt politicians and idiotic media - but they have been known to get off their arses and complain when they discover they could've been rubbing carcinogens on their children's skin.

Its long, but its nicely bulletpointed so it isn't difficult to get through

Shit, I should have previewed. My links got lost.
http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/blog/2007/10/alternative-methods-for-producing.html
http://www.physorg.com/news114172068.html

Telecommuting is a win-win for employees and employers, resulting in higher morale and job satisfaction and lower employee stress and turnover. These were among the conclusions of psychologists who examined 20 years of research on flexible work arrangements.

http://www.physorg.com/news114771482.html

When I submitted this story, I submitted the story from PhysOrg and I'm not sure why they changed the link. That poor blog didn't stand a chance. I guess they must do that to more randomly distribute their news sources or make it look like they aren't playing host to some PhysOrg worker trying to generate more traffic. Oh well, enjoy a usable link anyhow.

The polar bears should swim to the South pole, there's plenty of ice down there.

http://www.physorg.com/news4180.html

Qwest is the only carrier who refused. If I could switch from Verizon to Qwest I would for this reason alone.

Either your first sentence is wrong or your third sentence is wrong. Because everything I can find says that the first computer to reach a teraflop wasn't until 1996. So there were no supercomputers until 1996?

Also, the Wikipedia article makes no mention of an official government definition at all, and states that the term was first used by a newspaper in 1929.

~10000 would be a good guess.

Quote: "Mueller, an associate professor of computer science, has built a supercomputing cluster capable of both high-performance computing and running the latest in computer gaming. His cluster of eight PS3 machines - the first such academic cluster in the world - packs the power of a small supercomputer, but at a total cost of about $5,000, it costs less than some desktop computers that have only a fraction of the computing power.
...
Mueller estimates that with approximately 10,000 PS3 machines anyone could create the fastest computer in the world - albeit with limited single-precision capabilities and networking constraints."

CC.

1. EHT (Extended Heim Theory) allows to easily calculate particle masses using only some physical constants. You can check this Heim Mass Calculator: http://www.daimi.au.dk/~spony/HeimMassFormula/HeimCalculator
2. Succesful prediction of masses of neutrinos.
3. Prediction of Heim-Lorentz force which most likely is being observed in ESA experiments performed by Dr. Martin Tajmar. During these experiments artificial gravity is being created.
   • ESA news about Tajmar experiments http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/GSP/SEM0L6OVGJE_0.html and some other news.
   • M.Tajmar recent papper which references EHT (Droscher&Hausner): http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.3806
   • Theoretical explanation of Tajmar Gravito-Magnetic experiments by Droscher&Hausner: http://www.hpcc-space.de/publications/documents/LauncherSymPaper2007-0-42JHCorrected22April.pdf
     This paper also contains proposal of modified experiment which will allow to verify if EHT is true and also allow to build very effective propulsion engine for spaceships. See this article: http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/mg18925331.200
4. Reasonable explanation why CMB Cold Spot appears to be cold without mumbling about Dark Matter/Dark Energy, thanks to Heim's corrected gravitional law.
5. EHT explains why it appears that there is not enough mass observable in the Universe without using Dark Matter concept.
6. EHT most likely explains weird effects measured during Gravity Probe B experiment, see: http://www.hpcc-space.de/publications/documents/FieldPropulsion.pdf.
   These effects are in agreement with Martin Tajmar findings, see: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.3806
7. Droscher&Hausner paper about space propulsion based on Heim theory http://www.hpcc-space.de/publications/documents/aiaa2004-3700-a4.pdf was awarded by AIAA in 2004.

Let me guess, you are a republican. Nucs are starting to be built again. While wind is not a reliable power source all over, there are loads of places throughout the world where the wind will blow about 90% of the time.

Finally, saying that we should turn off coal plants is obviously a joke. You know that will never happen. But what is happening is where coal plants were planned, those are being stopped. For example, Texas power had plans for MAJOR coal plant expansions. They were going to quadruple their plants, and it was going to be all coal. But they were bought by new yorkers who has stopped that. Now, they are expanding with alternative and they are on the fast track for a nuke (and I believe that they are looking at doing a buynch of nukes).

because a soyuz costs a great deal more than 25 million. it WAS ~20 million per person. For example, see here. THe funny thing is that every runs around thinking that the soyuz costs that little, but it never has.

First thing - using a mirror film to concentrate the light onto each single PVC allows for very lightweight high efficiency solar power conversion, about 40%. Since the light in space is more intense that that which reaches earth filtered by miles of atmosphere, and the 100+:1 ratio, that 150 acres will be well under 1 actual acre of PVCs. That's still a lot of PVCs, but far less than you were thinking.

The Shuttle cannot get anywhere near geosynchronous orbit. They'd be far far better off using a new Delta IV rocket.

But then, you're assuming that they're going to be sending up PVCs.... Why not just the mirror framework and send a nice 5-10MW down as... sunlight? Not only could it be a nice power source, but also a really nice weapon, just turn up your enemies to "sunny side up".

Well, even if "going apeshit" was the right response, it'll still take decades to repair the ozone layer completely....

Fleming is the Deputy Director of Berkeley Lab, a professor of chemistry at UC Berkeley, and an internationally acclaimed leader in spectroscopic studies of the photosynthetic process. In a paper entitled, Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems, he and his collaborators report the detection of quantum beating signals, coherent electronic oscillations in both donor and acceptor molecules, generated by light-induced energy excitations, like the ripples formed when stones are tossed into a pond.

Electronic spectroscopy measurements made on a femtosecond (millionths of a billionth of a second) time-scale showed these oscillations meeting and interfering constructively, forming wavelike motions of energy (superposition states) that can explore all potential energy pathways simultaneously and reversibly, meaning they can retreat from wrong pathways with no penalty. This finding contradicts the classical description of the photosynthetic energy transfer process as one in which excitation energy hops from light-capturing pigment molecules to reaction center molecules step-by-step down the molecular energy ladder.

"The classical hopping description of the energy transfer process is both inadequate and inaccurate," said Fleming. "It gives the wrong picture of how the process actually works, and misses a crucial aspect of the reason for the wonderful efficiency."

I do recall someone telling me that no CPU would ever run at more than 2GHz, as it would then start emitting microwave radiation...

I remember having / making a similar claim myself way back when -- with the 486/33 and 486/66 being the hot system in the day. I predicted they'd have a hard time getting above ~80Mhz because of FM radio interference / shielding problems. Boy was I wrong.... :*)

Today I predict "Moore's Law" to hold pretty true -- even in 10 or 15 years. IBM has been playing with using atoms as the gate / switch which will make today's CPU's look like Model T's.

In the 90's they had http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/vintage/vintage_4506VV1003.html
Not too long ago they've done http://domino.watson.ibm.com/comm/pr.nsf/pages/news.20040909_samm.html
And recently it has been http://www.physorg.com/news107703707.html

This will both be a boom for storage and the chips themselves IMHO (not to mention my stock :).

I could be off here but this article talks about cooling lasers. ('Radio Wave Cooling' Offers New Twist on Laser Cooling) IANAP but they could have something done locally on the blast plate to act as a buffer between the laser itself and the drive plate. Depending on how much energy is isolated on the plate and depending on whether such a cooling technique can handle high temperatures or even use the laser a source of energy it might be possible to do it. It's bad logic but I thought it was interesting two stories about lasers came out about the same time on two different sites.

If scientists can construct a neural network that can simulate the infra-red vision of snake, then doing the same with the display of a LCD shouldn't be that difficult. Each light sensor element will pick up a sample of light in a conical or rectangular shape. It would just be a matter of deblurring the image.

If scientists can construct a neural network that can simulate the infra-red vision of snake, then doing the same with the display of a LCD shouldn't be that difficult. Each light sensor element will pick up a sample of light in a conical or rectangular shape. It would just be a matter of deblurring the image.

Oh, that's right. one of the worst factories ever with regard to the environment; an Integrated Circuit Fab. I like it when hippies talk about how perfect solar is. Let's not forget that we need nasty chemicals like Arsenic to make solar cells.

*ahem ahem*

Berkeley Scientists Synthesize Cheap, Easy-to-Make Ultra-thin Photovoltaic Films
40% efficient solar cells to be used for solar electricity
Titania nanotubes could boost solar cell efficiency
Pink solar cells provide green power on the cheap
Carbon nanotubes could help make nanoparticle-based solar cells more efficient and practical.
Quantum Dots Enables New Advances in Solar Cell Industry

Green and cheap enough for ya?

Do these findings at all bring new life to the Nuke at the Center of the Earth theory?

The Borexino results do not, but a similar experiment in Japan called Kamland has seen these geo-neutrinos:

http://www.physorg.com/news5491.html

Borexino should also be sensitive to them, but I don't think they've put out a paper on them yet, as the real-time 7Be neutrino detection was the New News.

There is a suspected but yet unproven relation between cosmic rays and lightning. The theory is that when a cosmic particle strikes the atmophere, it ionises a path though the atmophere. This then provides a conduit for lightning.
This is currently a hot research topic in particle physics and meteorology.

A professor in Nijmegen and a collegue of mine are studying this phenomena (Heino Falcke and Lars Bähren)
http://www.physorg.com/news4162.html
http://www.lofar.org/workshop/23Apr07_Monday02/LOF ARWorkshop_Apr07_HeinoFalcke.pdf

This results follows from Aether Wave Theory, which has predicted it before year.
http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=9309& st=180

The normal dispersion is the classical phenomena in multiparticle systems, where transversal wave prevails.
http://superstruny.aspweb.cz/images/fyzika/waveequ ation/wavcvslength.gif

Concerning the other theories, no cusual theory based on the special relativity postulates (most of QFT, including the string theories) can predict the opposite by rigorous way

"This isn't really that new. . . "

The article is extremely short on details, but it sounds very similar to what IBM has done in the area of "statistical timing" over the last couple of years.

http://www.physorg.com/news4385.html

Physorg.org, an organization that apparently exercises little oversight over the articles it runs.

Got any references to back this up?

Poker is a special challenge for computers -- which can already consistently beat humans at chess, checkers and backgammon -- because the gambling game includes deliberate deception, unpredictable emotions of opponents and elements of chance as well as mathematics.

1. All higher elements such as carbon an Oxygen had to be formed in the core of a star. These could only have been released in a super Nova.

2. Our planet, sun and solar system much have been formed from the remains of such a super Nova.

3. Within a star must be strata of gases, liquids and light solids like rocky material and heavy iron solids. These were created in the nuclear reactions and precipitate down withing the star and eventually settle into there own strata.

( I have since been told only plasma can exist, but I am not completely convinced. Either way there would still be strata, and now we learned that inorganic DNA like molecules can form within plasma )

4. All objects such as comets and asteroids must be composed of super nova debris. I would think each of the three types of objects comets *water" and smaller "water" asteroids are from similar strata while stony asteroids are from silicon rich layers and then heavy ones from Iron rich layers.

5. With in a star, nothing is really solid at such fantastic temperatures and pressure but everything must seem like a super heated ocean environment.

6. Like in the oceans we have solid methane gas that only stays solid because of the pressure. And we also have super heated water that stays liquid at +700C, and supports life at these temperatures.

7. Below the earth crust is far more life then at the surface, these are all extreme-o-files living off of other chemical processes such as sulfur reactions. These single celled organisms also live in very high temperatures and pressures.

8. Comets are full of amino acids. How did they get there? They must have been formed within the star itself?

9 The chemistry of a Red giant star and regular stars must contain oceans of liquid Hydrogen, methane and water at different strata. All at somewhere near 4000C (measured within a sunspot) possibly lower and at enormous pressure.

10. For the most part much of the chemistry at 0 to 50 C on at 1 atmosphere of pressure can work at much higher temperatures when under higher pressure.

11. The Volume of high temperature oceans within a sun are much much larger then can be found on any planet.

12. With increased volume this increases the probability of interesting rare chemistry occurring such as the type that created DNA. Also the stability over a very like time, 5 Billion years, would allow such reactions to occur and evolve.

13. The creation of DNA / and it's protein molecular engine, the single celled organism) is the only think I find incredible to have evolved on earth. That engine It's the most complex thing on this planet.

14 Like on earth appeared almost immediately after the surface cooled. This seems like life was trapped in