I guess you are asserting that dark matter doesn't form into quasi-stable clumps that occasionally decay into other clumps releasing (radiating) some particles in the process.
Correct. Almost no theoretical models allow for this because it is very hard to allow DM decay emitting radiation without us having already detected it. Co-annihilation is a possibility but this is not decay but a reaction and hence not radioactivity. Given that the vast majority of physicists already know this I doubt this will earn me a Nobel prize unless there is one for stating the obvious.
All the known unstable subatomic particles have lifetimes so small on the scale of the universe that there will be none left unless you have continuous production somehow which will have to be under very special circumstances.
Some Dark Matter (I would dispute most) candidates have an annihilation possibility (not decay then annihilate, just annihilate) but this does not mean that they are radioactive any more than a proton is radioactive because it can annihilate with an anti-proton.
They are using Argon which is a noble gas so, other than the pressure they keep it at, there is no chance of an explosion. In fact if there was a fire and the gas was released it would probably put out the fire.
I think the whole thing is a joke by the developers. I mean look at the table of evaluation criteria in one of the linked articles: '**' is easier to type than '^^'? Using '\' has the best parse-ability? Plus they did not even evaluate '::'.
Come on - when things are this crazy it's usually a joke...I hope!
What is the ratio of the number of heroine/morphine addicts to tobacco addicts? If there are 500 times more people that are addicted to tobacco than heroin then heroin is more dangerous.
In addition what about the crime rate caused by heroine addicts acquiring the necessary money to satisfy their addiction? I'm also guessing that at least some of that murder rate is directly related to drugs as well.
I'm not saying that your point is wrong its just that the data you give do not back it up.
...EVERYTHING in the universe is radioactive to some degree. Except for iron.
To be radioactive you have to have nuclei. 96% of the Universe is Dark Matter and Dark Energy that does not contain any nuclei. Of the remaining 4% the vast majority is in stable isotopes of hydrogen and helium and so is not radioactive. Additionally there are radioactive isotopes of iron. Iron-56 may be the most stable atomic nucleus but there are many other isotopes of iron some of which are radioactive.
"Study A finds that lipitor increases your chance of heart attacks."
The actual problem is that high cholesterol causes more heart attacks, and more people with higher cholesterol happen also to be taking lipitor.
My apologies if this is a naive question...but what on earth is the value of doing such a study then? If there is no way to correctly account for the statistical bias how is this is useful thing to do? If there is a way (and presumably there must be) to correct the bias then why is the study's conclusion not "no significant increase in heart attack risk taking lipitor was detected within errors"? OF course if you state it that way the media will probably ignore your study...
I'm not saying the media is entirely blameless but no other scientific field seems to have this problem so what is so special about medicine? You are not the only field which does studies.
Dr Ioannidis' largest problem is that he thinks he has identified a problem. There isn't one. This is how science is supposed to work! We publish methodologies so that the work can be replicated by other teams.
Yes the purpose of publishing is so others can reproduce your work...but if you have 66% of published results being found to be wrong you have a huge problem! The point of publishing is to allow for verification but you should expect that a good majority of published results are correct because it is assumed that some care and thought has gone into the work before it is published. Journals are not supposed to be a running brain dump of researchers in the field. Or, put another way, why is it that no other branch of science has such a huge error rate in its publications? I'm not ruling out that there is a very good reason for this but so far I have not heard it.
Fair enough - I was probably being a little unfair with that comment. However I don't agree that the problem is entirely the media. Yes, they dumb it down and join a few more dots than is warranted but then why is it so rare to hear medical researchers urging caution? If this is not a fair impression of the field then you guys have a heck of an image problem that you need to sort out, and again the media is not entirely to blame for it since the rest of science does not seem to share this problem.
How long until some researcher releases a study showing that Dr. Ioannidis' research findings are themselves wrong?
Who needs a study? Simply reading the article shows that he has fallen precisely into the trap that he is complaining about i.e. overstating his results. He forgets one very simple point: not all science is medicine/biology.
As a particle physicist I would strongly disagree with his conclusions, at least as applied to experimental particle physics. It is certainly true that some papers turn out to be wrong but this is rare and usually ends up as a 'big thing' in the field. Outside my field I'd be very surprised if the majority of physics or even chemistry papers turn out to be wrong (but I certainly not a chemist so this is just my impression).
As for medicine I can certainly see that they have a problem. Afterall how many times have we been told "don't eat X/do Y it is bad for you" only later to find out that actually it isn't half as bad as they thought and may even have benefits? Just because a lot of medical research is often flawed does not mean that all of science has the problem on the same scale.
So, Dr. Ioannidis either show us some data from chemistry, maths and physics or stop complaining that all of science has a problem on this scale. From where I stand your evidence points to a problem with bioscience/medical research only.
You'll get no argument from me. As a user I've found Firewire devices to be faster and far more reliable than USB (which I find extremely flaky). I just had not realized that the advantages extended as far as they do! Fortunately I'm a MacBookPro user so I just have to find a 800-400 adapter.
You might want to rethink your priorities. Slaughtering children, babies and people warrants no comment but "hamstring their horses" gets 'exceedingly cruel'?
It's also worth pointing out that all these are from the Old Testament. By the New Testament God has mellowed somewhat...or, more to the point, the people writing the books have. Unlike the Koran I don't think that anyone believes that the bible is, verbatim, the word of God (certainly not mainstream christianity) but rather the word as interpreted by humans who were around at the time.
But you're missing the most important aspect, which is the Target Mode which (currently) only works via Firewire.
Is there any good reason why it could not be made to work over USB? Naively it would seem that a rewrite of the firmware is all that would be required. Has any one asked Apple about it?
Well the OP mentioned aeronautics so satellites seemed like a natural tie-in to both. Plus you can then show them how things like physics, engineering and IT can lead to really useful and fun ideas like Google Earth.
This is the "selling the product" school of career promotion, otherwise known as outright lying.
Who's talking about career promotion? I thought the idea was to educate them? I'm not sure that many 4th graders are sitting there and evaluating their career prospects! Since the poster's field was in aeronautics he should know something about satellites and Google Earth is a great way to show them the benefits of physics, engineering and IT combined.
There's a lot of angles you could approach your job from but if I can give you any advice, keep it entertaining.
I'd suggest a brief talk on satellites and then show them Google Earth. I give a presentation for my daughters 1st grade class on the solar system and ended on Google Earth. One flight to the Grand Canyon overlook and they were all clamouring to see various things (mainly local stuff like the school, where the teacher live, where they lived etc.) but I'm sure 4th graders would be far more imaginative.
There is also no far right wing. Listen to the European far right wingers speak and you will be glad that those far right wing people are nowhere near the capitol hill.
Nowhere near capitol hill? Given at least one of your past senators I beg to differ.
I have no idea - why did they trademark "with glowing hearts"? I can at least see how the French version is a phrase you might use in conjunction with the Olympics.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess you are asserting that dark matter doesn't form into quasi-stable clumps that occasionally decay into other clumps releasing (radiating) some particles in the process.
Correct. Almost no theoretical models allow for this because it is very hard to allow DM decay emitting radiation without us having already detected it. Co-annihilation is a possibility but this is not decay but a reaction and hence not radioactivity. Given that the vast majority of physicists already know this I doubt this will earn me a Nobel prize unless there is one for stating the obvious.
All the known unstable subatomic particles have lifetimes so small on the scale of the universe that there will be none left unless you have continuous production somehow which will have to be under very special circumstances. Some Dark Matter (I would dispute most) candidates have an annihilation possibility (not decay then annihilate, just annihilate) but this does not mean that they are radioactive any more than a proton is radioactive because it can annihilate with an anti-proton.
They are using Argon which is a noble gas so, other than the pressure they keep it at, there is no chance of an explosion. In fact if there was a fire and the gas was released it would probably put out the fire.
I think the whole thing is a joke by the developers. I mean look at the table of evaluation criteria in one of the linked articles: '**' is easier to type than '^^'? Using '\' has the best parse-ability? Plus they did not even evaluate '::'. Come on - when things are this crazy it's usually a joke...I hope!
Just be thankful we have SSDs now - I'm not sure HDs would be compatible with such a system!
What is the ratio of the number of heroine/morphine addicts to tobacco addicts? If there are 500 times more people that are addicted to tobacco than heroin then heroin is more dangerous.
In addition what about the crime rate caused by heroine addicts acquiring the necessary money to satisfy their addiction? I'm also guessing that at least some of that murder rate is directly related to drugs as well.
I'm not saying that your point is wrong its just that the data you give do not back it up.
...EVERYTHING in the universe is radioactive to some degree. Except for iron.
To be radioactive you have to have nuclei. 96% of the Universe is Dark Matter and Dark Energy that does not contain any nuclei. Of the remaining 4% the vast majority is in stable isotopes of hydrogen and helium and so is not radioactive. Additionally there are radioactive isotopes of iron. Iron-56 may be the most stable atomic nucleus but there are many other isotopes of iron some of which are radioactive.
"Study A finds that lipitor increases your chance of heart attacks." The actual problem is that high cholesterol causes more heart attacks, and more people with higher cholesterol happen also to be taking lipitor.
My apologies if this is a naive question...but what on earth is the value of doing such a study then? If there is no way to correctly account for the statistical bias how is this is useful thing to do? If there is a way (and presumably there must be) to correct the bias then why is the study's conclusion not "no significant increase in heart attack risk taking lipitor was detected within errors"? OF course if you state it that way the media will probably ignore your study...
I'm not saying the media is entirely blameless but no other scientific field seems to have this problem so what is so special about medicine? You are not the only field which does studies.
Dr Ioannidis' largest problem is that he thinks he has identified a problem. There isn't one. This is how science is supposed to work! We publish methodologies so that the work can be replicated by other teams.
Yes the purpose of publishing is so others can reproduce your work...but if you have 66% of published results being found to be wrong you have a huge problem! The point of publishing is to allow for verification but you should expect that a good majority of published results are correct because it is assumed that some care and thought has gone into the work before it is published. Journals are not supposed to be a running brain dump of researchers in the field. Or, put another way, why is it that no other branch of science has such a huge error rate in its publications? I'm not ruling out that there is a very good reason for this but so far I have not heard it.
Fair enough - I was probably being a little unfair with that comment. However I don't agree that the problem is entirely the media. Yes, they dumb it down and join a few more dots than is warranted but then why is it so rare to hear medical researchers urging caution? If this is not a fair impression of the field then you guys have a heck of an image problem that you need to sort out, and again the media is not entirely to blame for it since the rest of science does not seem to share this problem.
It is certainly true that some papers turn out to be wrong but this is rare and usually ends up as a 'big thing' in the field.
I would argue that all are 'big things'. There was also the 17keV neutrino but that was probably bigger for particle physicists than everyone else!
...what happens when you want to give an honest opinion about a corporation's products?
How long until some researcher releases a study showing that Dr. Ioannidis' research findings are themselves wrong?
Who needs a study? Simply reading the article shows that he has fallen precisely into the trap that he is complaining about i.e. overstating his results. He forgets one very simple point: not all science is medicine/biology.
As a particle physicist I would strongly disagree with his conclusions, at least as applied to experimental particle physics. It is certainly true that some papers turn out to be wrong but this is rare and usually ends up as a 'big thing' in the field. Outside my field I'd be very surprised if the majority of physics or even chemistry papers turn out to be wrong (but I certainly not a chemist so this is just my impression).
As for medicine I can certainly see that they have a problem. Afterall how many times have we been told "don't eat X/do Y it is bad for you" only later to find out that actually it isn't half as bad as they thought and may even have benefits? Just because a lot of medical research is often flawed does not mean that all of science has the problem on the same scale.
So, Dr. Ioannidis either show us some data from chemistry, maths and physics or stop complaining that all of science has a problem on this scale. From where I stand your evidence points to a problem with bioscience/medical research only.
You'll get no argument from me. As a user I've found Firewire devices to be faster and far more reliable than USB (which I find extremely flaky). I just had not realized that the advantages extended as far as they do! Fortunately I'm a MacBookPro user so I just have to find a 800-400 adapter.
You might want to rethink your priorities. Slaughtering children, babies and people warrants no comment but "hamstring their horses" gets 'exceedingly cruel'?
It's also worth pointing out that all these are from the Old Testament. By the New Testament God has mellowed somewhat...or, more to the point, the people writing the books have. Unlike the Koran I don't think that anyone believes that the bible is, verbatim, the word of God (certainly not mainstream christianity) but rather the word as interpreted by humans who were around at the time.
Indeed, and recent research has thrown doubt on the theory that inanimate objects have any sort of sexuality.
Just try explaining that to the French...
But you're missing the most important aspect, which is the Target Mode which (currently) only works via Firewire.
Is there any good reason why it could not be made to work over USB? Naively it would seem that a rewrite of the firmware is all that would be required. Has any one asked Apple about it?
True, but this is a very recent development and most people have bought their DV camcorders before when Firewire was the standard.
I am not sure the satellites are essential
Well the OP mentioned aeronautics so satellites seemed like a natural tie-in to both. Plus you can then show them how things like physics, engineering and IT can lead to really useful and fun ideas like Google Earth.
This is the "selling the product" school of career promotion, otherwise known as outright lying.
Who's talking about career promotion? I thought the idea was to educate them? I'm not sure that many 4th graders are sitting there and evaluating their career prospects! Since the poster's field was in aeronautics he should know something about satellites and Google Earth is a great way to show them the benefits of physics, engineering and IT combined.
There's a lot of angles you could approach your job from but if I can give you any advice, keep it entertaining.
I'd suggest a brief talk on satellites and then show them Google Earth. I give a presentation for my daughters 1st grade class on the solar system and ended on Google Earth. One flight to the Grand Canyon overlook and they were all clamouring to see various things (mainly local stuff like the school, where the teacher live, where they lived etc.) but I'm sure 4th graders would be far more imaginative.
There is also no far right wing. Listen to the European far right wingers speak and you will be glad that those far right wing people are nowhere near the capitol hill.
Nowhere near capitol hill? Given at least one of your past senators I beg to differ.
True. Thanks to parity violation a majority of the electrons will be left-handed so presumably they voted for the left wing candidate?
You forgot the kinesthetic senses, like acceleration, and the primary vestibular sense organ, the cochlea. Everybody forgets that one.
You forgot common sense, the primary sense function of the brain. Everybody forgets that one...well at least bankers on Wall Street seem to.
I have no idea - why did they trademark "with glowing hearts"? I can at least see how the French version is a phrase you might use in conjunction with the Olympics.