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Scientific American (warning: loaded with ads etc)

Not for the light-hearted, a thorough review in Reviews of Modern Physics (subscription required, if you cannot access the article, drop me an email at karvind@NOSPAM.gmail.com)

On Ferroelectric spintronics from Colossal Storage.

Spintronics and Quantum Dots. Discussion about one possible implementation.

Another good introduction.

Hope it helps.

I would argue that you are simply choosing to ignore all of the evidence. At the risk of giving you more arguments to twist and mutilate take a look at this Scientific American article. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D4FE C-7D5B-1D07-8E49809EC588EEDF

continues to be completely out to lunch. What a waste of everyones time. Someone really has to sort them out. The patents they issue are neither novel (the 'prior art' condition, for one is a farce) nor enforceable. And what about when a couple of companies gang up to extend a patent well beyond it's expiration date (see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000AF01 8-31CA-1FFB-B1CA83414B7F0000) I mean either issue meaningful, enforceable patents that are less specious (and hence harder targets for legal challenges) or just call a spade a spade: the bigger guys get to keep their ideas while the new kids are S.O.L. I urge anyone who thinks I'm exagerating to take a look periodically at the "Staking Claims" columns in SciAm. Better yet, talk to someone who works at the USPO.

In the 90s, he had this column in Scientific American that was really informative and entertaining. It also sought connection between people and events that brought us what we have in terms of inventions, technology, ...etc.

Here are previews of some examples:

• Article 1
• Article 2

Here also has an informative web site Knowledge Web.

Scientific America Article giving up on evolution. [www.sciam.com]

This one is called the Fossil Fallacy [www.sciam.com] and has a very interesting viewpoint on the debate.

Scientific America Article giving up on evolution. [www.sciam.com]

This one is called the Fossil Fallacy [www.sciam.com] and has a very interesting viewpoint on the debate.

Here's a link to the online version of the article I mentioned. It doesn't have the pretty pictures that the hard copy has.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colI D=1&articleID=000479CD-F58C-11BE-AD0683414B7F0000

There was an article on similar technology in the May 2004 edition of Scientific American. More info here: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0009FCA 4-1A8F-1085-94F483414B7F0000&sc=I100322/.

As an aside, superconductivity is now very well understood.

Not according to the April 2005 issue of Scientific American. In an article entitled Low-Temperature Superconductivity Is Warming Up, it says that magnesium diboride defies traditional theories about superconductivity. From reading the article, it seems that superconductivity isn't really well understood at all.

Physicists could soon be creating black holes in the laboratory

When shall we get pet dark holes?
Imagine cleaning the house with one of these around!

• Why? There already is one, it's called the ESRB. Most stores are getting much better about enforcing it in fact. Still it doesn't matter, I worked a few years at Wal-mart after the dotcom collapse and can't even begin to tell you how many parents would still buy a M rated game for their 8yo even after it was pointed out to them that the game was for 17+. Is that the store's fault? Looks like a bad parent to me. I was always quite impressed by the parents who would go "oh, I didn't know that, thanks." then tell their kids they'd have to pick something else out. Even more impressive was the parents who would take the time to read the back and see what the game was about and decide based on that if they thought their kid could handle it even if they were under the recommended age. That looks like good parenting to me. Do you do the same? Or do you buy your kids whatever games they want and get mad when the store employee tells you it's rated M for Mature, ages 17+ and still buy it for your 8yo?

• There's a most
• amusing article in Scientific American addressing the issues with the infamous Janet Jackson boob episode and Randy Moss' mooning incident. It seems that while everyone was outraged about those, they forgot to pay attention to the carnage on field. But yeah, it's so much worse to see a nipple or someone pretend to moon someone than guys getting concussions bashing into each other. Yep, certainly censoring the important stuff there.

• Bullshit. My parents couldn't watch me 24/7, yet as a teen I managed to not smoke, drink or do any drugs. (And frankly, by choice, I've yet to smoke or do drugs, and I drink very rarely. In fact I've never been drunk once in my life.) Sure I could have if I wanted to, but I knew it was wrong and made a decision on my own to not take the opportunity. All of my values came from my parents, and they did a great job in instilling them in me. I'm 33 now so that you know I'm not some underage brat (as you seem to think most of /. is). And yes I am single, but most of my friends are married and have kids. You know what? All of them aren't relying one bit on government-imposed censoring or other things to keep their kids safe. They take responsibility for them themselves and seem to be doing a great job.

• By the time your kids are 15-16 or so if they don't have values instilled in them by their parents it's too late. It doesn't matter what censoring or laws you pass, they're going to make the wrong choices.

  So perhaps the better question (especially in this case) is WHERE WERE THE PARENTS the first 14 years of this girl's life? Why did she think it was OK to meet a stranger she met online for sex? You know my parents never told me directly I shouldn't meet a stranger for sex but I was quite capable of working that one out on my own, even at 15, much less 17. It's not a major stumper after all.

  But yeah, parents can't be everywhere so all of us should suffer censorship because they decided to have kids right?

• Why? There already is one, it's called the ESRB. Most stores are getting much better about enforcing it in fact. Still it doesn't matter, I worked a few years at Wal-mart after the dotcom collapse and can't even begin to tell you how many parents would still buy a M rated game for their 8yo even after it was pointed out to them that the game was for 17+. Is that the store's fault? Looks like a bad parent to me. I was always quite impressed by the parents who would go "oh, I didn't know that, thanks." then tell their kids they'd have to pick something else out. Even more impressive was the parents who would take the time to read the back and see what the game was about and decide based on that if they thought their kid could handle it even if they were under the recommended age. That looks like good parenting to me. Do you do the same? Or do you buy your kids whatever games they want and get mad when the store employee tells you it's rated M for Mature, ages 17+ and still buy it for your 8yo?

• There's a most
• amusing article in Scientific American addressing the issues with the infamous Janet Jackson boob episode and Randy Moss' mooning incident. It seems that while everyone was outraged about those, they forgot to pay attention to the carnage on field. But yeah, it's so much worse to see a nipple or someone pretend to moon someone than guys getting concussions bashing into each other. Yep, certainly censoring the important stuff there.

• Bullshit. My parents couldn't watch me 24/7, yet as a teen I managed to not smoke, drink or do any drugs. (And frankly, by choice, I've yet to smoke or do drugs, and I drink very rarely. In fact I've never been drunk once in my life.) Sure I could have if I wanted to, but I knew it was wrong and made a decision on my own to not take the opportunity. All of my values came from my parents, and they did a great job in instilling them in me. I'm 33 now so that you know I'm not some underage brat (as you seem to think most of /. is). And yes I am single, but most of my friends are married and have kids. You know what? All of them aren't relying one bit on government-imposed censoring or other things to keep their kids safe. They take responsibility for them themselves and seem to be doing a great job.

• By the time your kids are 15-16 or so if they don't have values instilled in them by their parents it's too late. It doesn't matter what censoring or laws you pass, they're going to make the wrong choices.

  So perhaps the better question (especially in this case) is WHERE WERE THE PARENTS the first 14 years of this girl's life? Why did she think it was OK to meet a stranger she met online for sex? You know my parents never told me directly I shouldn't meet a stranger for sex but I was quite capable of working that one out on my own, even at 15, much less 17. It's not a major stumper after all.

  But yeah, parents can't be everywhere so all of us should suffer censorship because they decided to have kids right?

Sounds like some people need to read 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense.

Sorry, spaces in link. Here is a good one.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0007C55 D-FA8F-1C5F-B882809EC588ED9F>

No... There are pens made specifically for detecting starch, NOT for seeing if bills are real or not...

James Randi and Michael Shermer have been debunking this particular myth for years (I remember seeing it about 4 years ago in "Skeptic" magazine), but obviously people are still buying them...

A few years back there was some fuss about asynchronous chips. Looks to me like this is the solution to the distance problem.

exactly:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000A45A 2-E044-115D-A04483414B7F0000

now, can we trust those whackos over at sciam?

oops, forgot the link: SCIAM.

Here is a good article ont he self-esteem myth: Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth

"Boosting people's sense of self-worth has become a national preoccupation. Yet surprisingly, researchshows that such efforts are of little value in fostering academic progress or preventing undesirable behavior"

I have always been interested in applying evolution to computer chips

I don't know about computer chips, but I seem to recall a Scientific American article sometime within the past 3 years (sorry can't be more specific, I only skimmed the issue and it was when I was working in a bookstore so we saw the magazines in and out all the time).

The article was about evolutionary techniques applied to electrical circuit design. Apparently, by providing a pool of sample circuit elements and some basic rules, researches can actually arrive at final circuits which can be as efficient, if not more efficient, than their human-designed variants.

Some googling found me This Article which is the one I seem to recall reading. Enjoy.

The only people who can logically believe there exists non-manmade concepts are theists believing in divine revelation.

I read a related article at Scientific American.com, (found linked from a Slashbox, no less) about an hour ago, and wondered, "Why haven't I seen this on Slashdot referencing Hobbits yet?" I guess I was just a bit ahead of the curve. :-)

Scientific American

(I didn't have to subscribe, YMMV.)

You would find an article in the latest Scientific American interesting:

How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate?. It's a controversial theory how humans have been altering the global climate for thousands of years, since the invention of clear-cutting forests for agricultural purposes. I found it a very interesting read, especially the theory presented by the author (here comes a troll modding for even parroting this theory) that early humans have actually caused us to avoid an ice age because of their global warming activities.

Ah, I should have checked the comments before posting my own comment. My bad.

Anyways, you may be interested to read this.

Uhm - does he have auto pilot on or anything during that time?

The site is dying on me at the moment, but wouldn't he lose focus during that time? (Search on google for "How long can the human body stay awake" leads to this SciAm article.)

Actually there's an article in Scientific American this month, which refutes this claim using analysis of long-term climate data. (Full article text requires subscription, etc.)

The gist of the article was that when humans started agriculture 8,000 years ago, the resulting changes in planetary conditions (deforestation, increased population of humans and cultivated livestock, etc.) actually contributed a greater increase in global temperatures than everything that has been contributed by fossil fuel production in the last 150 years. Even more interesting, without these 8,000 years of climate forcing, we would probably be well on our way to the planet's next natural ice age by now.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that burning off the planet's store of fossil fuels as fast as we can is a good idea! Or even that we are in any less climatic peril in this interpretation than we would be any other way, not to mention the peril we face from an imminent decline in production of those fossil fuels...

I'm glad the gamma-ray bursts are directed into space.

Although the outward going flashes (first detected by CGRO a decade ago) are much stronger, there are also lighting-generated X-rays seen on the ground.

Essentially the same thing was reported in the October 2002 issue of Scientific American. Time picked up on it the following year, as schmobag pointed out earlier.

This is certainly an admirable refinement of the experiment, but it is certainly not exactly new, either. It's a better robotic arm, a different monkey, and a different university (the original experiment was at Duke University, this one's at U. of Pittsburgh), but monkey robot arms are not a new phenomenon at all.

We've had conclusive evidence for several years that human activity causes immediate direct changes in the weather. People who continue to deny the cumulative effect, or its larger impact in longer timeframes, are desperate to deny our responsibility for our own destiny, our survival. And have to get out of our way as we work to do something about it, to save ourselves before it's too late.

I accidentally linked to where the article should have been found (given its February publication date); its original version published 11/2004 by the AGU is still available.

I guess we're not going to get to any agreement on my contention that this research is irresponsible - I don't expect that kind of change in attitude on anyone's part on Slashdot. I don't even expect the level of respect we've maintained in our disagreement - it hasn't remained very high in other subthreads with other disagreers :). But I want to be clear that I don't even disagree with your assessment of my position - just your devaluing it on that basis. I consider my understanding of science, and its community, and pollution, and its community, and politics, and its community. I find a compelling degree of agreement among scientists that we're accelerating the Greenhouse, and the degree of denial of even its possibility by polluters, and the alliance of politicians with the generous polluters against the not-so-generous scientists. I look at the warming trends so obvious everywhere, the compelling evidence of controlling human influence in even immediate weather patterns, the surprising melting of North Pole ice, the impending melt of the Western Antarctic iceshelf. I'm emotional, because this is a matter of my civilization's survival, and we're getting past the point when it will be too late to stop causing the damage, and maybe too late to survive. Ultimately, our discussion might end inconclusively, though respectful. But the subject will be resolved with stakes much higer than that. As a person, I'd rather be wrong anticipating catastrophe, than wrong ignoring it. I hope I'm wrong, and I can congratulate you on your skepticism.

Human activity has a direct effect on our climate and weather. That's the entire point of this research. We are a part of the natural climate change process, but we can choose to accelerate it or not. So far, by pretending we're just bystanders, we've chosen to accelerate it by default.

"Scientific American has an interesting article about how a pair of students at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology registered "microsoft.com" with Verisign, using the Russian Cyrillic letters "c" and "o". Even though it is a completely different domain, the two display identically (the article uses the term "homograph"). The work was done for a paper in the Communications of the ACM (the paper itself is not online). The article characterizes attacks using this spoof as "scary, if not entirely probable," assuming that a hacker would have to first take over a page at another site. I disagree: sending out a mail message with the URL waiting to be clicked ("Bill Gates will send you ten dollars!") is just one alternate technique. While security problems with Unicode have been noted here before, this might be a new twist."

Incidentally, it seems that Slashdot's ASCII-only URL reporting system successfully deflects such spoofing here: Go to paypal.com

Yeah, and we'll only get excited about the new models when the one we've got actually dies or when someone comes out with something as fundamentally pleasing and necessary as intermittent wipers or antilock brakes. Until then, I like what I'm driving.

Looks like the "commodity" thing is really coming true.

(Actually I would get excited about GM's 'skateboard' concept cars with the electronic controls. About as likely to erally come out in 2006 as the aforementioned Longhorn, though. And a new Msoft OS? Shrug...)

Because it's patently false:

There is no doubt that volcanic eruptions add CO2 to the atmosphere, but compared to the quantity produced by human activities, their impact is virtually trivial: volcanic eruptions produce about 110 million tons of CO2 each year, whereas human activities contribute almost 10,000 times that quantity.

Another day, another Slashdot scare item on global warming/climate change.

If you want a bit of history on the inherent bias, perversions of logic and ad hominem attacks preferred by global warmists everywhere, check out Scientific Americans "story" on "The Skeptical Environmentalist" (Bjorn Lomborg) :
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00000B9 6-9517-1CDA-B4A8809EC588EEDF

Note how even the title of SciAm's article was biased - "Science defends itself against The Skeptical Environmentalist". The SciAm's editor later admitted to purposely choosing the most outspoken environmentalists to write the piece - thereby voiding any claim to represent science (if such a thing is possible!).

Lomborgs rebuttal is also available from SciAm:
http://www.sciam.com/media/pdf/lomborgrebuttal.pdf

Another day, another Slashdot scare item on global warming/climate change.

If you want a bit of history on the inherent bias, perversions of logic and ad hominem attacks preferred by global warmists everywhere, check out Scientific Americans "story" on "The Skeptical Environmentalist" (Bjorn Lomborg) :
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00000B9 6-9517-1CDA-B4A8809EC588EEDF

Note how even the title of SciAm's article was biased - "Science defends itself against The Skeptical Environmentalist". The SciAm's editor later admitted to purposely choosing the most outspoken environmentalists to write the piece - thereby voiding any claim to represent science (if such a thing is possible!).

Lomborgs rebuttal is also available from SciAm:
http://www.sciam.com/media/pdf/lomborgrebuttal.pdf

I haven't seen anybody mention this, so I'll throw it out:

Rather than flee a dying universe, pump more usable energy into it. The article states the second law of thermodynamics as an "iron law." This really isn't the case. It doesn't apply in specialized cases (see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00003AE F-D7A6-1D3D-90FB809EC5880000), and furthermore, due to quantum mechanics the usable energy and/or entropy of a system can randomly increase or decrease. The second law of thermodynamics is an extrapolation of statistics, but it is very accurate on the human scale.

If we have a chance at surviving the heat death of the universe, I'd place my bets on utilizing vacuum energy with the Casimir effect, or some similar phenomena. As far as we know vacuum energy is limitless, undepletable. It may be perfectly possible for nanomachines to draw out small amounts of usable energy from this infinite source, by exploiting geometry and the properties of the Casimir effect (I have some mechanisms in mind, but I'd need to get them verified by real physicists with simulations). If it is indeed possible, then there you go, you've got an everlasting energy source that doesn't rely on temperature difference.

I personally find a lot of the travelling to parallel universes bit hokey. Travelling to parallel planes of our universe I could buy, and I can (and do) accept the existence of other universes, but I think a universe is by nature self contained. It'd be really cool if there was a whole 'nother reality with it's own civilizations a millimeter away through a higher dimension (think near the ending of Alastair Reynold's Redemption Ark), but I wouldn't call that a parallel universe, rather a highly inaccesible part of our universe.

The printer-friendly version puts it all on one nice and image free page.
Article here

Damn, I never thought a Noahs flood a the cause of sea fossils. Of course this it the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Coral doesn't wash around. Especally not up hill. Also, the flood wasn't supposted to have lasted long enough for the coral to grow there(thounsands of years at a min).

If people with your belief system would just admit that "it doesn't make since, but that is what I believe" I could have some respect for your beliefs. The bible is not a science book, it is a book of philosophy. The science in the bible is all that the people of the time could understand.

If you dare, read the following.

Ring Species


15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

Will Scientific American do for starters?

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0001762 D-755C-1D51-90FB809EC5880000&catID=1

IMHO even over 50 years, we should be able to spot trends of that order of magnitude in our food crops.

As to the special properties of certain atoms, molecules, and universal constants that permit life as we know it to exist, that argument is cyclical. We're here, so life exists; hence there must be some way for it to exist. Perhaps one day we'll find out how the universal constants got that way, until then you can merrily claim that a God did it for all I care.

Finally, as to the Ten Plagues, the only evidence of them I could turn up after some Googling are the "Admonitions of Ipuwer," which describe political turmoil in Egypt and a foreign invasion. The colorful language used in the papyrus does suggest rivers of blood, apparently, but then again wars are pretty bloody.

You equate "evolution" with "anticipatory change," revealing a lack of understanding of the principles of evolution as laid out by Charles Darwin. The principles are random mutations and gradual spread of beneficial mutations due to the increased viability of individuals possessing them.

There is only an annecdotal [sic] collection of hypotheses with an attendant philosophical belief.

If William Shakespeare were working today on Broadway or in London's West End, he would be spending a lot of time with lawyers. The Bard adapted Romeo and Juliet from Arthur Brooke's poem The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, which Brooke, in his turn, had based on a French translation by Pierre Boaistuau of various Italian stories. The history of creative works, whether Romeo and Juliet or the Beastie Boys' "Pass the Mic," is a chronicle of "borrowing" from others. Intellectual property lawyers might use a harsher word. But the framers of the Constitution always intended to provide owners of creative works with only limited monopolies, ensuring that the public gets the right to fashion new works from old..

You get a crater from a really powerful hit from straight above, when a fast moving body (be it accelerated by gravity or just floating through space at high speed) hits the surface. Not from a satellite of atmosphere-less planet, hitting the surface horizontally.

For grazing impacts you get parallel grooves as displayed by the moons of mars. For almost any other angle of impact, the released kinetic energy dominates and you get a more or less circular crater: elliptical craters are rare, but they're still craters rather than mountains.

According to the laws of aerodynamics, the bumblebee should not be able to fly. Yet fly it manifestly does, albeit in a stately fashion. So much for the laws of aerodynamics.

Erm, whoops, yes they should be able to fly. Their cliché is outdated.

Why the hell do they need 9-12 interviews?!?! It must be "The Tyranny of Choice"

I drink bottled water because it tastes better.

A few years ago, I read about some blinded taste tests of popular bottled waters and water from other sources. The results? The number one best tasting water...New York City tap water. ;)

Also, studies by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) found that bottled waters tended to be less safe from a microbiological-purity standpoint. You can read more in a Scientific Amierican artlcle here

1. Commitment to something greater than oneself
2. Self-respect, but with humility, self-discipline, and acceptance of personal responsibility
3. Respect and caring for others
4. Caring for other living things and the environment