Domain: royalsoc.ac.uk
Stories and comments across the archive that link to royalsoc.ac.uk.
Comments · 69
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Re:Nothing New
Clearly we're not. It's bullshit speculation like this (and that is all this is) that leads to kneejerk legislation like ban incandescent bulbs despite the MULTIPLE hazards and health issues with the only viable replacement.
Multiple hazards? I don't know any. Sure, clumsy people may drop a bulb or two in a time period of several years if they're not paying attention. And release a "horrible" 4mg of mercury (or less). But that's what warning signs are for. Please don't make me "discuss" people who are to dumb or lazy to get rid of used bulbs the proper way.
For every scientist that says "WE'RE ALL DOOMED!" another one says "Erm... No we're not." Just like "video games causes violent behaviour" and "video games don't cause violent behaviour".
"In the journal Science in 2004, Oreskes published the results of a survey of 928 papers on climate change published in peer-reviewed journals between 1993 and 2003. She found that three-quarters of the papers either explicitly or implicitly accepted the view expressed in the IPCC 2001 report that human activities have had a major impact on climate change in the last 50 years, and none rejected it."
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/downloaddoc.asp?id=1630
It's also very hard to take to any talk of global warming that seriously when a large chunk of the northern hemisphere is freezing its ass off.
Maybe the Gulf Stream is slowing down already.
Purely for my own edification I pulled together weather records for where I live. I realise there's nothing scientific to it, but I was curious, since you'd assume if things are as bad as some claim, there's be some sign. Some indication that there was an increase in temperatures, even if only a degree or two.
"Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. (...) Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 C (1.33 ± 0.32 F) during the 100 years ending in 2005." (accentuation by me)
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Re:Amazing
I'm in between grad degrees right now, mostly teaching geology. But, I never cease to be amazed at how many old theories and downright myths from paleontology and geology are still circulating. If you look up "north american megafauna" you'll find a number of articles and studies a bit more scholarly than sciencedaily.com. Like this abstract: http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/1dxw1577mlad9wl1/
People forget that as recently as 10,000 years ago, humans were just about on equal footing with the other animals in their environment. What we lacked in strength and speed, we just barely made up for in the ability to communicate and plan ahead. The ability to dramatically impact nature is a talent we picked up much later on.
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Re:Journal grants
The journals may not give out grants, but the learned societies that publish and derive income from some major journals do, e.g.:
http://www.aacr.org/
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/
Even so, unrestricted Open Access publication seems (to me) to be the best model by far for the distribution of new research. -
Re:The Environment?a recent study showing that the ozone holes at the north pole are getting smaller (did we do that? doubtful. Yes - we did that. That's what reducing CFCs was all about. Look up the Montreal Protocol. I'll wait. There are plenty of studies showing that the global warming issue is caused by the sun getting hotter There are studies like this one showing that variability in the sun's output isn't to blame.
I'm not a global warming catastrophist but that doesn't mean we should stick our heads in the sand. -
Re:faster metabolism means...
Hmm R-ingTFA is highly recommended in these environs.
In fact, this particular topic isn't at all settled. It has been a very active area of research for decades, and questions related to this have spawned field changing debates. In a nutshell, before molecular biology, people thought all change was bad or adaptive. Then a dude named Kimura suggested that a lot of DNA change has very little consequence to survival. If most DNA changes are largely irrelevant to survival, then mutation rates largely dictate evolution. If mutation is dependent on metabolism, the voila! You get the result you see in the article.
However, another unrelated explanation with the very same prediction was made 34 years ago by a Tomoko Ohta, a student of Kimura's. If a lot of mutations have very small effects, then these very small effects can only be fully realized in large populations because of genetic drift. Thus, these small changes can be seen easiest in the larger population, which incidentally tend to be smaller and have higher metabolisms. Again, voila, you get the result you see in the article. In fact, the authors even admit as much:
...larger organisms generally have smaller effective population sizes (Lynch & Conery 2003), we cannot rule out the possible influence of effective population size, as predicted by the 'nearly neutral' theory (Ohta 1973).
Ultimately, the authors have added to the debate and have by no means closed it. But that's what's fun, isn't it?
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Re:Location, Location, Location
I guess you might want the customers to be underwater too
;-)? You can see from the cover of this Brochure that the land is pretty flat there: http://etidweb.tamu.edu/classes/entc359/STP%20Brochure%20June%2006.pdf. Here is how close 5 meters of sea level rise gets to the resevior: http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=28.6942,-96.0603&z=6&m=5. I doubt the resevior will avoid being breached in this situation. You can run the level up to 14 meters which we might see by 2200. 25 meters is not available but this is what a 3 C warming would likely cause. The interesting thing is that this seems to happen in centuries rather than millennia: http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/l3h462k7p4068780/?p=0f73dea5b8974dfa837377d459559a91&pi=1. -
Re:Yup.
And for those of you who don't know, TGGWS is just BS. Start to finish, pure crap. Just about every scientist in it has said that they were misrepresented, the director is known for being a fabricator. It's the "Dinosaurs lived with adam and eve" version of science. Utter shit. And you are below contempt for spreading it. See:
http://flet.org/node/20
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_bas/news/news_story.php?id=178
http://folk.uio.no/nathan/web/statement.html
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/news.asp?id=6089
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2119695,00.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2368999.ece
and TONS of others. The data are misrepresented, words taken out of context etc etc. Wall to wall shit from someone with a vested interest in spreading FUD. I know some of you still don't think global climate change happens, and some of you think the earth is flat too, but the HUGE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS is that the climate is changing, to some degree it's man made and we need to do something about it. -
Re:The planet warms up. The planet cools down...
CO2 levels are not linked to climate change in the geological record. One would think they would be if CO2 is a significant factor.
I'd like to know where you're getting this information. My search for papers on this subject shows a strong correlation (see, especially, the graphs on p4 of the full text pdf). -
Sea level rise and nuclear power
The IPCC is saying no more than a meter, more like 0.4 meters. Hansen has been misquoted in a few places saying 25 meters, but this is a misinterpretaion of this paper: http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/l3h462
k 7p4068780/?p=0f73dea5b8974dfa837377d459559a91&pi=1 . There the authors point out that 25 meters is where sea level got to the last time the Earth was as warm as we expect it to be. In that paper they discuss a few meters of sea level rise by the end of this century, and Hansen, in his paper on scientific reticents discussed 5 meters, but that group has not predicted 25 meters that quickly. They do make a persuasive case that ice sheets are lost in centuries rather than millenia.
A big problem for plants in tidal areas is that the London Dumping Convention does not allow nuclear waste to be dumped in the ocean, so existing waste, such as that stored at the decommissioned Humbolt 3 reactor will likely need to be moved. Humbolt 3 had a fairly quick decommissioning because it did not run all that long. Plants that have run longer may need a longer cool down time so getting a handle on how soon thier cores need to be moved to higher ground is something that needs to be done now so that their shut down can be scheduled. Building new plants in tidal regions seems pretty silly. I blogged on this not too long ago here: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/cliffhanger.ht ml. -
Caucauios optimisimThe procedure is still untested in animal experiments, meaning they don't know if transplanted it will work at all but this is certainly encouraging. Best of luck to Dr. Yacoub and his team.
Also I couldn't find a link to the paper by Dr. Yacoub which should have been here
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Re:The bigger issueIf, as you said, "The evidence is overwhelming", then how come it is easily refutable as an increase in solar activity? Solar activity is not responsible for any significant portion of the post-1970 warming, although it is responsible for some of the early 20th century warming. See here and here and here among many others. There is evidence to suggest carbon dioxide increase is directly correlated to the increase in temperature I assume you're referring to this misleading argument. This completely demolishes the Al Gore and NOAA argument that increased CO2 levels are increasing the average temperature of the Earth. Guess again. Sometimes an "open mind" means an "overly suggestive" mind. Tell me about it .
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Re:Carbon Free?
This whole carbon thing is utter nonsense anyway. The ocean heats up, it releases CO2. End of. Cause and effect not effect and cause.
Do you believe everything you hear that has some plausible ring to it, or do you also require evidence? I suggest you read some facts before making statements like this. Here are some: http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=4761
It's you against thousands of scientists, I know who I'd put my money on. -
Re:Even slashdot is in on the act
Take a look at this: http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_
a /rspa20071880.pdf The contributions of the sun to earth's warmth has been decreasing since 1985. The sun does not account for the current (incredibly rapid) increase in global temperatures. -
Re:um...
"the study shows plants are capable of complex social behaviours such as altruism towards relatives"
Complex? I'm pretty sure that could be defined as the most simple social behavor possible.
The author adapted the scope for Royal Britisch publication. -
Roots - of all sorts.The paper is short, but gets to the point:
We found that kin groups allocated less to their fine root mass than did stranger groups when they competed below ground, indicating that these plants could discriminate relatives. Root allocation did not differ between kin and stranger groups grown in isolated pots, indicating that the cues for kin recognition lie in root interactions. Siblings were less competitive than strangers, which is consistent with kin selection.
I'm not a botanist, but that sounds like a rather profound change in growth behavior just because a nearby root system "looks familiar". Then again, on a biochemical level, maybe that's all there is to it.
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/biology_lette rs/RSBL20070232.pdf -
Link to Actual Paper
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Re:CMYK ... hardly a must-have?
Some journals are certainly still geared up to use CMYK. See for example:
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/index.cfm?page=1078
If they request CMYK and you send them RGB they'll probably just do a 'one click conversion' to CMYK, so it's better to sort this out yourself in advance if the colour is critical. On the other hand, some journals do indeed specify RGB, especially now that most people read the online editions:
http://www.jhc.org/misc/guidelines_figs.shtml
Academic licenses for PS are pretty reasonably priced in any case, while the 16-bit support, colour management and (for many scientists) familiar interface are significant advantages of PS over GIMP. -
Re:Judge a scientist by his achievementsThere actually was an acknowledgment in the paper:
"We have also been stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished results and ideas of Dr. M.H.F. Wilkins, Dr. R.E. Franklin, and their co-workers at King's College London"
http://www.nature.com/physics/looking-back/crick/i ndex.html
From their paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Academy:The information reported in this section was very kindly reported to us prior to its publication by Drs Wilkins and Frankilin. We are most heavily indebted in this respect to the King's College Group, and we wish to point out that without this data the formulation of our structure would have been most unlikely, if not impossible"
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/h2p6126 43886l61q/fulltext.pdf
She probably deserved a full authorship, but as a graduate student that is a crapshoot depending on your advisor and who is writing the paper. Plus that's not bad considering she basically told them to fsck off. -
Yawning *is* contagious
At least, it can be. A quick search at Pubmed brings up eight studies that examine the phenomenon of 'contagious yawning,' including in macaques and chimps. So even if the mythbusters experimental setup was pretty crappy, and their sample was too small to have enough power to find an effect, at least their conclusion agreed with the literature.
-Ted -
Re:Believe it.
Wrong.
This is why those of us with background in earth science find this so frustrating. The vast majority of the climate science community believes that humans are nearly certainly the most important contributor to current warming trends. Read the statement from the American Meteorological Society on climate change, or that of the National Academy of Sciences and other G8 nations' academies of science, or that of the American Geophysical Union. Or for the most recent views, read the IPCC 4th Asssessment Report. All of these groups and documents say the same thing: the Earth is complex and nonlinear, so while natural variability cannot be absolutely and totally ruled out, it is highly likely (90%+ likely, in the IPCC 4AR's own words) that human influence is the main contributor to climate change. That same sentence is in the first couple paragraphs of every one of these statements. So not only do a strong majority of practicing climate scientists believe climate change is happening, they also attribute recent changes to human activity. That's the consensus. There's room for improvement in a number of areas, but the basic diagnosis is agreed upon. Claims to the contrary are simply not factual, and those contrary claims causes people like me great frustration and on occasion I'll confess cause my to be a little vitriolic. Where there is less agreement is in predictions of the speed, magnitude and spatial variability of changes. The IPCC 4AR itself allows nearly an order of magnitude of total warming (2C to 10C). Even the best modelers aren't willing to say unequivocally the exact path warming will take. But the message is clear that it is happening, it is very likely to due to human influence, and it will have moderately severe to catastrophic consequences. All of the documents I mention also state that policy actions are needed immediately. These being academies of natural science, they generally leave to governments how best to balance economic and social concerns with the imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Most scientists (as far as I can tell, and leaving out the Al Gores and Michael Crichton's) seem to agree that the globe is warming.
Many of them believe that humans are contributing, mainly to an acceleration of a natural increase.
Al Gore is not a climate scientist, but he does not make claims that contradict statements by major scientific societies (he does present claims such as projected sea level increases that themselves have not been endorsed by those societies - note again the difference between diagnostic and predictive claims). But Tim Ball repeatedly makes claims that contradict the statements of the professional societies of experts - without having done any research to substantiate his position! And the fact that he does this over and over, with nothign new to back up what he's saying, strongly suggests that - whatever his motivations are- he is not really evaluating the claims he's speaking against. So when people tell you he's not credible, they're totally right. -
Re:cult of global warmingAll RealClimate did was claim that the cloud condensation "building blocks" weren't necessarily large enough and that further research was required. They pointed out about five or six major gaps in the chain of reasoning necessary to conclude that cosmic rays are responsible for global warming, as well as reasons to believe that they are not. That's hard to do when nobody will publish your work Well, except for the ones who publish your work (link).
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Re:cult of global warmingThose 5 sentences say soooo much that so many people would like to ignore. That there is a very major factor involved in cloud formation that, if anything, the IPCC is paying less attention to. Those 5 sentences do not actually establish that cosmic rays are a "very major factor" involved in cloud formation, let alone climate change. Others have already referred you to disputes of that claim; I can dig up journal references too if you like. 2) That the "peer reviewed" journals are indeed rejecting valid research that contradicts the herd mentality of human-induced global warming. It is actually possible for a paper to be rejected from a journal for legitimate reasons, you know. Pretty much every scientist has had a paper rejected at one point or another. We don't know what the drafts looked like, or what the rejection letters said. It could be, for instance, that the original version of the paper made speculative claims that were broader than what could be supported by the evidence. Or perhaps it was submitted to journals that specialize in different topics; sometimes you have to guess which topics the editors of a particular journal are most interested in, and resubmit to a different journal when you guess wrong. 3) Contrary to what some people would like to believe, not all real scientists agree with the IPCC version of global warming. That's true, but that also doesn't imply that the IPCC version is wrong. 4) These three things combined really DO undermine a heck of a lot of what the IPCC and their ilk is campaigning behind. By "a heck of a lot" you mean "very little", right? All that Svensmark et al. claimed in their paper was an effect studied in a laboratory. They did not provide evidence supporting the important of this mechanism in actual cloud formation in the atmosphere, nor did they provide evidence that this mechanism is is influencing climate change. (Or at least, they didn't in their paper. What they claimed in their press releases is a different matter.)
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Re:Too late..
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere before the industrial revolution was 280 ppm, while it's more than 380 ppm nowadays. This is the highest concentration since at least 600.000 years (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/310/
5 752/1313/).
According to http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/displaypagedoc.asp?id=20 742, our emission of carbon dioxide is likely a main factor for global warming. -
Ahh Toxoplasma gondii
I believe this is one of those news stories that sits around waiting for a slow news day. The original paper was released in November. It's written by Kevin Lafferty and was published in Proc. Roy. Soc. B.
It's a really quite fascinating paper - I recommend tracking it down if you can get access. Here's how it goes: Toxoplasmia gondii is adapated to live in cats and reproduces in felid intestinal cells & is shed, encysted, in their feaces. Then it can directly infect cats who come into contact with the cysts, or it encysts in brains of smaller mammals, and moves up the food chain as they get eaten until it hits a cat, and can reproduce again.
Fascinatingly, T.g. appears to affect rodent behavior to increase predation risk - i.e. the rodents become more active, less fearful of cat/cat smells, and have increased dopamine levels (which supposedly leads to novelty seeking behavior and neuroticism-type behaviors, or at least, they do in humans).
Despite humans not having any major cat predators, it could still affect us as a byproduct type of thing. Particularly that whole dopamine increase - this is should increase neuroticism levels.
So - the big question - does prevalence of T.g. correlate with cultural variation in neuroticism in humans? Lafferty finds a fairly strong correlation ( r2 of 0.38 ) between population aggregate neuroticism (as measured by the fairly standard NEO PI-R personality inventory ).
Unfortunately I think the populations he uses for his stats are a little bit suspect (always the problem with worldwide analyses though), but it's definitely worth a read. You should also keep in mind that so far it's only an interesting correlation and not a direct demonstration that T.g. causes large scale cultural differences. -
More insight into this research at...
This special kind of biomimetics is also being researched elsewhere, for example at the Max-Planck-Institute in Stuttgart, Germany. An insightful article can be downloaded from here.
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memory in partA lot of knowledge about the working of memory comes from a snail called Aplysia californica. Surprisingly maybe, these snails already have the neural mechanism that works - allthough on a much larger scale - in our brains:
Nobel-prize winner Kandel elucidated a mechanism of memory with the gill reflex in Aplysia: the response to a water jet on the gill which could lead to long term- and short term memory. Two possible 'directions' of memory are habituation and sensitization.
Habituation is a downregulation of the response to a signal. In snails the response of the gill reflex will decrease over time, just like you forget a source of noise if you hear it long enough.
Sensitization is a mechanism in which the response to a signal is increased. The response of the gill reflex can be increased when it is coupled by another stimulation. For instance a small electrical shock on the head. This model was already known from Pavlov's studies on dogs: a bell can induce a 'food' response when previously associated with food. The aplysia model was more suitable for study on a cellular scale, however.
to quote the article this is how communication between neurons work:
The synapse allows two neurons to communicate with one another. Each synapse involves a transmission point that sends a signal across a small gap to a receiving area.
Here I should mention the transmission at a synapse involves many signals, not just one. The synapse is a location that is carefully regulated. Sensitization and habituation occur at the synapse. The synapse changes physiologically in these events.
Signals are sent in the form of a chemical substance, known as a neurotransmitter. These chemicals move across the gap and bind to receptors embedded in the receiving area.
This AMPA receptor is one of the receptors that is associated with the learning response. It isn't the only receptor, though, and signals in the synapse are very complex and regulated through many signaling pathways.
Here's more about memory:
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/(vzapqd45k3ktbt qvphyzfm2y)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=par ent&backto=issue,22,30;journal,46,226;linkingpubli cationresults,1:102022,1
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/25/23/56 23 -
Royal Society lectures also available online
For the last couple of weeks, I have been going through these extremely good scientific lectures at the Royal Society here: Archive - complete list of webstreams. They are available in Real and Microsoft Media Player formats.
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Discovery of the atomic nucleus
This is the experiment that led Rutherford to propose the nuclear model of the atom: http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/link.asp?id=u3
1 8373867x2v351 -
Halley's description of his comet' in 1705
Edmundo Halleio, Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis, Autore Edmundo Halleio apud Oxonienses. Geometriae Professore Saviliano, & Reg. Soc. S., Philosophical Transactions (1683-1775), Volume 24, 01 Jan 1753, Pages 1882 - 1899
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/openurl.asp?gen re=article&issn=0260-7085&volume=24&spage=1882
Wonderful.
A nice discussion can be found here:
D. W. Hughes, P. H. Fowler, Bernard Lovell, D. Lynden-Bell, P. J. Message, J. E. Wilkinson, The History of Halley's Comet [and Discussion], Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences (1934-1990), Volume 323, Issue 1572, 30 Sep 1987, Pages 349 - 367
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/openurl.asp?gen re=article&issn=0080-4614&volume=323&issue=1572&sp age=349 -
Halley's description of his comet' in 1705
Edmundo Halleio, Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis, Autore Edmundo Halleio apud Oxonienses. Geometriae Professore Saviliano, & Reg. Soc. S., Philosophical Transactions (1683-1775), Volume 24, 01 Jan 1753, Pages 1882 - 1899
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/openurl.asp?gen re=article&issn=0260-7085&volume=24&spage=1882
Wonderful.
A nice discussion can be found here:
D. W. Hughes, P. H. Fowler, Bernard Lovell, D. Lynden-Bell, P. J. Message, J. E. Wilkinson, The History of Halley's Comet [and Discussion], Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences (1934-1990), Volume 323, Issue 1572, 30 Sep 1987, Pages 349 - 367
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/openurl.asp?gen re=article&issn=0080-4614&volume=323&issue=1572&sp age=349 -
This is pretty great
Now I know of a good way to kill a rattlesnake [.pdf]!
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Edmund Stone Work NOT the Discovery of Aspirin
Small correction: Edmund Stone's work described in this article is not the discovery of aspirin (acetylsalycilic acid), but salycilic acid. Salycilic acid has about the same therapeutic effects as aspirin, but is much harder on the stomach. Aspirin was first synthesized by Bayer chemists in the late 1800s.
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DNA
If you're bored at work, read this.
Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA (1954) - requires no introduction really -
Re:There's a gene that confers some resistance...
There is a tiny group in europe that has a mutation of a cell recptor the makes them getting HIV/AIDS more difficult.
I don't think this can be the same thing as what Steve Jones was discussing in the podcast. He was specifically interested in discussing the coevolution of humans and HIV and he gave the impression that the group of resistant humans wasn't all that small. It's a great podcast BTW. -
There's a gene that confers some resistance......to HIV. Chimps have more of them than humans. It seems likely that SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) has existed in chimps much longer than HIV in humans. As a result, Chimps with more copies of the gene have outlived their less well endowed relatives and now almost all chimps can coexist with SIV without showing symptoms of immunodeficiency. Apparently humans have started making similar adaptations and in some areas of the world there is now a generation of humans who seem to do a fairly good job of coexisting with HIV. But all humans still have many fewer of these genes than chimps.
But nobody would make the mistake of saying that this gene is the gene for 'chimpness'. It's just an accident of history that SIV arose before HIV.
I learned all of this from an excellent podcast whose name I dare not write for fear of offence...
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Re:Sort of ironic.
Perhaps it would be more productive to consider awards in math and science for people who do an excellent job of popularising or explaining existing material
Such prizes already exist (though are not well known outside the mathematical/scientific community). Most famous is probably the Kalinga prize. Other examples include the Michael Faraday medal, the Peano prize, and at a undergraduate level the AMS Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition. There are almost certainly many others I don't know. -
The really scary part is yet to come . . .
From the British Royal Society:
"Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide"
One possible consequence, down the road: Ocean waters become acid enough to prevent phytoplankton from forming exoskeletons.
Which means the entire marine ecosystem collapses, and Red Lobster is reduced to offering All You Can Eat Guppy Fry-Days. (Oxygen fee waived for parties over ten.) -
Re:Could someone update the Wiki?
I think we have different points. My main point is I want verifiable facts. Scientists who do not stand up and voice their disagreements are useless, and history has suggested they are also in error (where's my cold fusion and don't even get me started on that Fermat joker). The vast majority of people voicing doubts about global warming are uninformed people who are not aware of all the currently known facts tossing out FUD. The people I have found who offer scientific opposition with a factual basis they are willing to share and defend are listed in that wikipedia article. He's not the only one. In fact, back in 2001, some 18,000 scientists signed a petition against global warming, including some 2,000+ climate scientists. On the other side, less than 50 climate scientists sided with the IPCC 2000 report. This is interesting - could you cite it? Although I can't help but notice that this petition is prior to the last half-decade of intensive study that has only supported global warming and found that opposing theories to not match the observed facts, for example the discovery of the incorrectly tabulated satellite data (lousy source but I don't have time to find the tech journals online - feel free to do so yourself if you're interested in more than a really simple summary of the facts) suddenly made climatic models look significantly better (they were closer to correct than the 'observed' data was). Without the citation, I have no choice but to dismiss the petition you mentioned as at best a false recollection and at worst a lie at some level (which would include if the petition asked scientists something like, "It is a 100% certain fact that man is causing massive global warming, yes or no?"). As an example of what I am looking for, saying that the National Academies of Scientists for the G8 nations plus Brazil, China and India, who comprise far more than 50 climate scientists, support global warming is a fact with citation. I would further say that these Academies contain reputable professionals. I do not have the time to cite the 1,000s of papers detailing facts that support this position, but I trust the thousands of scientists who have. When I heard a climate scientist at a seminar back in college around 2000, he stated that they did not really know what was going on with global warming - could be man caused, could be a natural variation, could be some sort of pervasive observational error (heat islands, atmospheric effects, misinterpretation of secondary data sources like ice cores and geographical sources, etc.). Now, after years of research and collecting facts, he supports the current theory of global warming. Arguing that consensus doesn't mean anything is cute, but I am talking about facts. Gravity, evolution, relativity theory and global warming have quite a consensus because one scientist has not come forward with facts that defeat them. OK, maybe gravity but take pity on my non-physicist education - its part of the reason I tend to believe the massive consensus of reputable professionals in their fields. Particularly when massive dollars from industry and the potential of a Nobel prize tempts the first person to defeat global warming theory with facts rather than spin. And opposing global warming because the climate modeling tools being developed to better understand it are not perfect - I honestly don't know where to begin on that one. The facts, thousands of them, point to global warming. Are you honestly saying we should toss all those facts and the theory developed to explain them based on the un-reviewed, un-researched, and untested opinion of a single person? What is your competing theory that better explains all the research discovered information? If you do not have a theory that is equally well shown to explain all the facts d
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Research abstract and article
How about using a proper source for this study?
The summary (and the linked articles) are so sensationalised it is ridiculous.
The BBC have a slightly better written article
Better yet, here's the actual research abstract and article published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The article seems to be accessible without an institutional subscription, but just in case, here's the abstract text:
Reading men's faces: women's mate attractiveness judgments track men's testosterone and interest in infants
James R. Roney, Katherine N. Hanson, Kristina M. Durante, Dario Maestripieri
This study investigated whether women track possible cues of paternal and genetic quality in men's faces and then map perception of those cues onto mate attractiveness judgments. Men's testosterone concentrations served as a proxy for genetic quality given evidence that this hormone signals immunocompetence, and men's scores on an interest in infants test were chosen as prima facie markers of paternal quality. Women's perceptions of facial photographs of these men were in fact sensitive to these two variables: men's scores on the interest in infants test significantly predicted women's ratings of the photos for how much the men like children, and men's testosterone concentrations significantly predicted women's ratings of the men's faces for masculinity. Furthermore, men's actual and perceived affinity for children predicted women's long-term mate attractiveness judgments, while men's testosterone and perceived masculinity predicted women's short-term mate attractiveness judgments. These results suggest that women can detect facial cues of men's hormone concentrations and affinity for children, and that women use perception of these cues to form mate attractiveness judgments.
On a related note, this reminds me of research previously done linking finger-length ratios with things like testosterone levels, sexual orientation, and male aggressiveness. -
Research abstract and article
How about using a proper source for this study?
The summary (and the linked articles) are so sensationalised it is ridiculous.
The BBC have a slightly better written article
Better yet, here's the actual research abstract and article published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The article seems to be accessible without an institutional subscription, but just in case, here's the abstract text:
Reading men's faces: women's mate attractiveness judgments track men's testosterone and interest in infants
James R. Roney, Katherine N. Hanson, Kristina M. Durante, Dario Maestripieri
This study investigated whether women track possible cues of paternal and genetic quality in men's faces and then map perception of those cues onto mate attractiveness judgments. Men's testosterone concentrations served as a proxy for genetic quality given evidence that this hormone signals immunocompetence, and men's scores on an interest in infants test were chosen as prima facie markers of paternal quality. Women's perceptions of facial photographs of these men were in fact sensitive to these two variables: men's scores on the interest in infants test significantly predicted women's ratings of the photos for how much the men like children, and men's testosterone concentrations significantly predicted women's ratings of the men's faces for masculinity. Furthermore, men's actual and perceived affinity for children predicted women's long-term mate attractiveness judgments, while men's testosterone and perceived masculinity predicted women's short-term mate attractiveness judgments. These results suggest that women can detect facial cues of men's hormone concentrations and affinity for children, and that women use perception of these cues to form mate attractiveness judgments.
On a related note, this reminds me of research previously done linking finger-length ratios with things like testosterone levels, sexual orientation, and male aggressiveness. -
Get the paper here
Here is the paper in question, although I don't know if it requires an institutional subscription to download. Partial citation: G. W. Milton & N. A. Nicorovici, "On the cloaking effects associated with anomalous localized resonance", Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A (2006).
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Re:Greenhouse Denial IndustryWhat a lot of accusations both ways! Unfortunately none of this name calling gets us anywhere.
However, there is a genuine point in the parent post, which is that we need to evaluate the credibility of sources. You can find sources stating every possible point of view on global warming. How do we evaluate them? Or do we just say that the cacaphony is proof that there is no consensus?
The latter approach is intellectual cowardice. The correct approach is a systematic evaluation of the sources. For each source, a whole range of factors need to be taken into account, including, off the top of my head:
1. What is the expertise of the source?
2. How is the source regarded by other respected sources in the field?
3. What data does the source make use of?
4. How reliable and complete is that data?
5. What models are used by the source?
6. What is the explanatory and predictive power of those models?
7. Are there other factors which may have influenced the source, apart from the data?I'm not a climatologist, and I suspect neither are most of the posters here, so we're not in a position to do most of this evaluation. So for my opinions, I must seek out meta-sources which I trust to do the evaluation for me.
For me, the most plausible sources are national scientific academies. These organisations have diverse roles, but one of them often includes evaluating scientific opinions to inform government policy.
The most convincing source I have therefore is this report, from the scietific academies of the US, UK, France, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada, Brazil, China and India. Note that this includes at least one country whose government is not exactly sympathetic to the climate change viewpoint.
I am prepared to be convinced that I am wrong. But I need a more credible source than the one above. So far, nothing has come close.
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Or read the abstract?
See online journals of the Royal Society -- it can be found under Proceedings of the Royal Society B:Biological Sciences titled "The absence of sharks from abyssal regions of the world's oceans".
We propose that they are excluded from the abyss by high-energy demand, including an oil-rich liver for buoyancy, which cannot be sustained in extreme oligotrophic conditions. . . . All populations are therefore within reach of human fisheries, and there is no hidden reserve of chondrichthyan biomass or biodiversity in the deep sea.
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Recent Articles on the Origin of LifeThe Royal Society is holding a symposium on the origins of life...
Life on Earth 'unlikely to have emerged in volcanic springs'
13 Feb 2006
"The latest findings of experiments to re-create the conditions under which life could emerge from chemical reactions suggest that volcanic springs and marine hydrothermal events are unlikely to have provided the right environment, a leading researcher from the United States will tell an international meeting tomorrow (14 February 2006) at the Royal Society, the UK national academy of science."
In the alternative Plos ran an interestin article titled Jump-Starting a Cellular World: Investigating the Origin of Life, from Soup to Networks which touches on the front running theories on the origin of life.
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A position for both parties to consider.
The main point of this article that tends to be overlooked/ignored, even by the OP, is this:
The Royal Society fears it could lead to the demise of journals published by not-for-profit societies, which put out about a third of all journals. "Funders should remember that the primary aims should be to improve the exchange of knowledge between researchers and wider society," The Royal Society said.
Also, its worth linking the entire Royal Society position on open access, so those who read it would realize the OP is presenting a very selective view of the Royal Society's position.
The Royal Society's point is that free stuff might make non-profit/commercial organizations lose big money, possibly forcing them to stop producing their peer-reviewed journal. This is obviously bad for a scientific community trying to reach a larger audience, and thusly the above quote on exchanging knowledge and what-not. As scientists/free-as-in-beer advocates, this is the sort of concern/fear that we need to squash, and pronto.
What I believe the Research Council UK and the Royal Society should consider is a position put forth by Paul Ginsparg, who helps run arxiv.org (an open access system primarily for math/physics based papers). His idea, contrary to the Research Council UK plan of concurrently publishing research on the web at the same time as in such journals as Philosophical Transactions, is to publish research of refereeable quality immediately in a "standard tier" system primarily interested in dissemenation, rather than review of, the information - similar to that provided by arxiv.org. That way, experts in the field have immediate access to the work, can review/comment on the work so that the authors can improve upon it, respond to comments, post updates, etc. Upon meeting some guidelines put forth by an "upper tier", the work could then be submitted for peer review knowing it had met the standards for that tier. Only upon acceptance through peer review would the article reach the larger audience via publication, thereby fulfilling both the needs of open-access advocates and commercial/non-profit societies.
As an aside, Paul Ginsparg makes the interesting note that this system would also put the power of publication back in the non-profit sector: commercial entities only got involved due to the enormous costs associated with mass-production quality control of submissions. However, the dissemination of information and communication across the 'net essentially eliminates this requirement.
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Re:Optimism
For one thing, the Royal Society have considerable prestige.
The Royal Society do have considerable prestige, but we're talking about the The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce - commonly known as the RSA. As far as I know the two organisations are not connected. You may know this already but plenty of people wont.
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That's not *THE* Royal Society
Britain - and other nations - have lots of Royal Societies for all sorts of things. Convention has it that the only one called `The Royal Society' is this one:
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/
Lots of Royal Societies? Yep - look here:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=royal+society&sou rceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=u tf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:offici al
You can't get away from Royal stuff in the British Isles - I mean, even the definitely very anti-British-rule and entirely republican Republic (i.e., we have no royalty here, matey[1]) of Ireland has this:
http://www.rsgyc.ie/ - founded in 1838, so that `Royal' was a definite reference to the British monarch - Queen Victoria at that time (reigned 1837-1901).
[1] Aside from the point that all of Irish descent are the descendents of kings. Nothing's straightforward. -
Re:The Economist Brings Up A Good PointHas anyone submitted "thou shalt not murder" to a rigorous economic analysis? Why not? Maybe we could show that in some circumstances murder has a net positive economic benefit. Should it then be allowed?
A while ago in an article in the Economist they picked out the phrase
just because it's a market-based solution doesn't mean it's a socially desirable one.
Economics is not the be-all and end-all of everything.(Also, the subject line is slightly misleading. The Royal Society is the UK's equivalent of a National Academy of Sciences.)
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Misleading Title (as ever)
The Royal Society* is an organisation that promotes UK science, The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce is different.
*Yes, they should call themselves The Royal Society of Britain or something else a bit more specific to prevent confusion like this. -
Re:Why not?
Well, I didn't do the calculations myself:
"However, kinetic calculations predict that
small fragments of DNA (100-500 bp) will survive for no
more than 10 kyr in temperate regions and for a maximum
of 100 kyr at colder latitudes owing to hydrolytic damage
(Poinar et al. 1996; Smith et al. 2001). Even under ideal
conditions, amplifiable DNA is not thought to survive for
longer than 1 Myr." - see reference below
As to your proposal, if I make enough random DNA out of monomers, eventually one of those artificial chains will form a complete dinosaur chromosome. How, exactly, do you propose that I identify this perfect chromosome from among the population in my (absolutely enormous) sample?
Reference:
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/openurl.asp?gen re=article&eissn=1471-2954&volume=272&issue=1558&s page=3
For what you *can* do with fossil DNA, read this:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/39/13783