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Top 25 Science Stories of 2002
1.Nc3 writes "Scientific American has released a list of their top 25 featured science stories of 2002. From Cryptography to Entomology to Astronomy, a lot of neat stuff happened this year."
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Slashdot releases its top 10 "top 10" stories for dec 31st.
This replaces all the "top 10" stories released on Dec 25,26,27,28,29 & 30th.
ok, so it's not technically a dupe since the previous story referred to an article referring to the article instead of referring to the article itself. It's just an inferior clone. The editors must be having an off day.
How many more superheavy elements will be born only to die in their first milliseconds of life before we realize we CAN'T PLAY GOD?! Poor Ununoctium never even had a chance at a normal life. :)
Some movies are so bad that even Natalie Portman can't save them. Even with a Beowulf cluster....
"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone."
~Epictetus
How could they forget the story that some sexy French UFO babe claims she cloned the first human? Must have been too late for the presses...
In Soviet Russia Hondas that cost $13999 with no money down buy a beowulf cluster of 1.99 BIC pens and draw picture of Natalie Portman. Profit!
Who says 10 other incdeible things couldn't happen in the next 11 hours and 51 minutes (by my clock, EST)?
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
Sexy?
Man, you need to get out more often. Or stay in more often. Something. All I know is that whatever you're doing, you're doing it wrong.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Article Link Here
It says that Yet pound for pound, the sturdiest spider silks are stronger than steel and stretchier than nylon.
I heard that while back the Army made a vest out of Spider Silk rather than Kevlar and it was able to stop even small rifle bullets O_o.
This could be very revolutionary. I wonder how it compares to silk?
I really think the winner is the SCIENTIFIC METHOD, and in such, that no matter how much you falsify and market your claims, i.e. fusion in coca-cola, cloned humans, flying pigs, altering gravity, you eventually have to publish and MORE IMPORTANTLY you have to have someone be able to REPRODUCE your results.
To wit, I think those good-old boys who spent many a Saturday night figuring out how to get atoms to realize "damn it's cold" and stop and all huddle together at the bottom of a beaker -- well that takes the prize for me. Because it's little breakthroughs like this which fork into other areas of research and discovery. You take all the others and rip up the Noble Prize submission form, this one takes the cake.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
All these advancements in technology and supermans still cant walk, i mean its fricking superman. I say they need to get more people dedicated to getting superman to be able to walk again.
This sig was generated by a barrel of trained kittens for SeXy_Red (550409).
No Segway?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
The managed to spell most of the words the correct way!
I thought it was called Unobtainium?
Sequencing of genome this or DNA that: A
Detection of ice and dirt way out in space: B+
Detection and fanciful naming of really old bones: A
Armies of telekinesis-powered robots: B
Detection of life-ending asteroids: F
Thinking one thing, then thinking the opposite thing: A
Faster porn delivery: B
Flying cars: F
Teledildonics: F
Collies that can cook, play poker, and/or defend you with mouth-mounted lasers: F
A laptop that feels like a desktop: D-
FINAL GRADE: C-
Wow!
Hehe..Your two for two..Wanna try three.
Can this be used to create a new high capacity DVD-clone? I mean creating bumbs and tides that can do various OAM (orbital angular momentum) of the reflected beam.
Yes, once again, theoretical chemistry is left out. It was a good year, though, and some day we will make the list!
Fortran programmer...oh yeah. Array math for life!
Here are some original opinions (hopefully ou agree) about the so called "Top 25 stories" of the scientific community:
... but I think they have a bigger problem ... its called AIDS!
... raditation old enough to collect social security!
.... how are they gonna pick up a mouse chick if they don't even have their hair when they are young? Considering m own personal situation, I can say I feel for them ('m loosing my hair!)
.... *yea*
...
... this helps to further prove that you and I are nothing more than a chimp!
... nothing neat hear ... move on
.... face it fokes, its a fake :)
... people!! wake up! We need to defend ourselves as a race, as a planet, from this kind of ,really bad shit! This should be in the top 3!!!
... again, nice to see how "real" some of these so called findings are, but even better to see that someone was honest enough to retract their false findings! Way to embarass the community!!
... great!
.... right ... nothing here .. move on!
.. yet
... Moo!!!!)
... and finally ...
... and that is about all that I agree with when it comes to their rankings.
... don't moderate!
25.) Controlling Robots with the Mind - Are these in stores yet? When do I get to do this? Did anyone else hear about this?
24.) Scientists Sequence Genomes of Malarial Parasite and Mosquito - Big news for people in Africa
23.) Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation's Polarization Detected at Last - Oh goody
22.) Mouse Genome Sequenced - those poor hairless mice
21.) Astronomers Discover Icy World Far Past Pluto - 'bout time all that investment into telescopes got us something! We now have 10 planets!!!
20.) Stamp-Size Plastic Chip Provides New Approach to Cryptography - A new mountain for te hackers to climb! Sounds pretty cool though
19.) Meet the Oldest Member of the Human Family - This is depressing
18.) Attacking Anthrax - Yea! Eat that bin Laden!! That idea won't work on the U.S.!
17.) Crafty Crow Rivals Primates in Toolmaking - Proves you can teach an old bird new tricks
16.) New Findings Fan Debate over Origin of Vinland Map - Just sell the damn thing on Ebay and debate this later
15.) Avoiding the Impact - Ok, this is news
14.) Element 118 Dropped from Periodic Table - I needed some of this stuff next week
13.) First Humans to Leave Africa Weren't Necessarily a Brainy Bunch - I disagree! They won't get infected with AIDS!
12.) Study Casts Doubt on Cell from Hell's Role in Fish Kills - *yawn*
11.) Light's Information-Carrying Capacity Doubles - So now more senceless data from Microshaft can travel at "the speed of light"
10.) Study Shows How Far GM Pollen Spreads - and three eyed fish will roan the seven seas
9.) Gladiators: A New Order of Insect - They're going to get us, just like in Starship Troopers!! We're all gonna die!!! Seriously, this is worthy of its position in the top stories of the year.
8.) Scientists Sequence Rice Genome - Don't need the Chineese anymore!
7.) Climate Warming Causes Collapse of Antarctic Ice Shelf - So put less stuff on it! (end bad joke) This is VERY serious! However, this may be a natural phenomenon. No need to panic
6.) Chinese Fossil May Be Mother of All Placental Mammals - Grandma!
5.) Scientists Spin Spidery Silk - in other news, silk prices bottom out! New silk that doesn't have to be washed in the "gental" cycle is now available!
4.) Physicists Create a New State of Matter - Sorry, call me short sighted, but I just don't see how this is useful
3.) T. rex Not Fleet of Foot, Study Shows - Time to remake Jurasic Park!
2.) Scientists Succeed in Transplanting Cloned Cow Tissue Moo! Moo! (in sync
1.) Mars Odyssey's Measurements Reveal a Wet, Red Planet - This is huge! See #15!! If we get hit by a large rock from space, the ability to have the human race move forward would be nice. However, in order for humans to live, we need water! Also, if we get too stupid and nuke most of the planet, we still might have a second chance! I agree that this is the #1 story
The end.
If you don't agree, please post
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
To sum up the performance of Slashdot's 2002 trolls... (*wink* you know who you are)
Natalie Portman. C-
In Soviet Russia. A+
First post! B
All your base. D
Stephen King dead. F
Goatsex man. F
#3 Profit! B
Overall summary:
Trolls, your quest has only become more challenging, with more lameness filtering, competition from thousands of troll wannabees, and PR smearing you as juvenile retards with no sense of humor and vandalous personality. Even so, I'm afraid I can't give you a passing grade, when dozens of articles go by with not even one goatsex link or poorly written "all your base" parody. You keep chasing ancient Yakov Smirnoff jokes, which can only lead to trouble. You need to work harder so you can be accepted into either Comedy University or your local mental health facility.
The top story in 2004 will be about the DARPA Grand Challenge! Imagine a Beowulf cluster of autonomous ground vehicles...
DARPA intends to conduct a race of autonomous ground vehicles from the vicinity of Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 2004. A cash prize will be awarded to the winner. The purpose of the race is to encourage the accelerated development of autonomous vehicle technologies that could be applied to military requirements. Many of the details of the race are being developed. New details will be posted to this web site as soon as possible.
Mods have no humor... i was showing a good story and making a continuation of an alreayd running joke.
Unless he's had a banner day on other stories, getting modded from 1 to -1 twice in one day has probably gotten him IP banned for the next 72 hours.
Happy New Year indeed.
is actually quite tasty.
I noticed that they got two separate returns on their investigations. It got me to thinking....
Maybe someone in the early 1900s got hold of some parchment from the 1400s and inked the map using ink from the 1900s. It would explain the two contradictory reports and would, as the article states - be one heck of a forgery.
Makes me wonder if they could lift fingerprints off of the map and try matching them to those of known forgers. Probably wouldn't make a lot of difference since fingerprinting wasn't always done in forgery cases until after the great depression (when forgery really took off as a method to make money) but you never know. They might actually get the original artist's fingerprints. Which would be neat if nothing else.
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
topX lists. I am SICK of these @#$@#ing lists.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
The biggest story is obviously the sad tale of Jan-Hendrik Schon, and his falsified data. This one really rocked the science world because it calls into question the whole peer-review process.
I think it's amusing that Science magazine's top discovery of the year (RNA interference / Post Transcriptional Gene Silencing, RNAi / PTGS) did not even make it into Scientific American's top 25.
Sadly, this pretty much confirms my opinion of Scientific American.
Check out http://www.ensembl.org/ too see the mouse or mosquito genomes. These guys rely heavily on open source software.
bullshipping storIE.
somewhere around 40.
happy happy gnu year.
My parents have subscribed to Scientific American for almost 30 years. We still have copies from the 70's and 80's lying around in various rooms. When I look at the Scientific American of "then" vs. "now", I can only shake my head at how far Scientific American has dropped.
Back "then", Scientific American was more like a research journal, where respectable scientists doing pure research in geology, mathematics, and biology would publish articles. It was a journal by scientists for other scientists-outside-that- field-of-interest.
Today's Scientific American has articles that seem to be written on lowball subjects that might be suitable for Discovery Magazine. The articles seem specifically chosen to sell magazines. You can just see the marketing focus groups dominating the editor's chair.
The purpose of the articles seems to be the following:
1) To generate interest in some high tech outfit that has a new "invention." This makes Sci. Am. a glorified press release outlet for that company, especially if it is seeking investors. Example: In June 2001 (which happens to be lying on my parent's coffee table), the cover advertises articles on "A Low-Pollution Engine" (maybe you want to invest?) and an article about baldness on "Controlling Hair Growth" (a cure for baldness?). Inside there is an article about the Aibo robotic dog -- essentially a free commercial for a commercial product. Where's the articles on slime molds, an unsexy yet fascinating subject? Or ant colonies?
2) To explain long understood things to Joe Layman, eg an article on "The Evolution of Golf Balls". That may be interesting, and educational, but you can find that kind of junk on the Web. In the same column in January, there's information on the anatomy of a gun!
3) To become the "People Magazine" of science. There are two pages devoted to profiling the head of the Monteray Bay Research Insitute posing barefoot (sex appeal?)-- which seems a veiled attempt at generating interest for potential financial contributors to MBRI. We're not learning about SCIENCE, we're learning about a frickin' administrator!
I enjoy Scientific American Frontiers on PBS because that's clearly written for the whole family and Alan Alda does a fantastic job asking excellent and intelligest questions as Mr. Everyman (or Everyperson).
But the magazine sucks relative to its old self.
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Actually it kind of amazes me that Mars having water didn't make a bigger.. errah Splash. Thats huge. Water being present on the planet in significant qualities makes establishing permanet setelments a realistic proposition.
As for T-Rex I have one question. If the modle is accurate and the T-rex sized Chicken can't even walk then HTF did T-Rex walk ? Damn people, get with it, either the Model is wrong or T-Rex couldn't lift its own weight. Sheesh. This all gets back to the question of the Brontasaur and its neck. If T-Rex could barely move the Brontasaur must have been damn near imobile and yet it had to ingest craploads of food to sustain its incredible mass. But now they barely move and they lived in herds... how did they sustain themselves ?
I look for more on the issue of the dinosaurs size in the future. Right now it is more or less a given that we do not understand the phsyology of the Dinosaurs for the simple reason that if they worked by the rules we understand today they could not have existed. There is something we don't know. Either they possesed a more capable biomass system than any current known life form on earth or they lived in a weaker gravity field.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
in Montreal
A post claiming 9/11 was "Americans killing Americans" doesn't get moderated as a troll. What a bunch of freaks!
With this many fans I would imagine we might be friends ?