the memory wasn't just blocked, it appeared fully erased
I'd like to know how how they could tell the difference.
So they did something to the brain of the mouse and it didn't remember something subsequently.
Do they know what else the mouse didn't remember? No.
Do they understand this effect? No.
Hitting the mouse over the head with a rock might induce the same effect, is there a meaningful way to tell
these two procedures apart? No.
Did they find a nice hook to get publicity for their research by talking of selectively removing distinct memories? Yes.
Would we be somewhat fuzzy-brained ourselves if we bought into this? Yes.
There's also the possibility that the vast majority of "intelligent" civilisations doesn't bother with space travel and radio waves. They may take for granted that it's probable that there are more worlds more or less like theirs and leave it at that, especially since these worlds are far too distant to ever be contacted in a meaningful way.
Maybe one day we will pick something up, from, let's say, 356 light years away. All we'll be able to say about it will be: Ok, that's not really that surprising, that there's others out there. Then we may send something back if we like and who knows, perhaps 712 years further down the road we'll receive the first 10000 digits of the number pi back. For, if you think about it, what else could such a contact ever entail?
Personally I know there's life out there, I don't need any empirical evidence for it. To me it seems so logical I can't be bothered with the question.
But the long intervals between generations mean that even if the project does start, it will not be concluding any time soon. A century ahead would be a fair bet.
..it's usually fruit flies with them biologists.
Sounds like a tight schedule, they better get a move on.
As long as not every mind is soundly defeated by life's complexity and every illusion of control and knowledge has been duely shattered, there will be people who think they know how it should be done.br What the article shows is two fundamentally different vantage points regarding government. Although an individual from one side may find smarter things to say, these things don't touch the essence that lies behind either vantage point. These endless discussions don't even begin to touch the humongous question that lies beyond either side. One side always wins, because the other side said something silly, or did something wrong, but again, this has nothing to do with the big question that lies behind these two ideological genders. Usually it amounts to little more than base mud slinging, skull bashing and childish glee at the slightest sign of weakness on the other side. It may be many things, but civilized it is seldom. I don't pretend to be above all this, but let's face it, it's all pretty pathetic, human political debate.
A. It's not going to work well enough to handle something as delicate as military operations without ludicrous risks.
B. What it will be able to do, will require stupendous costs in training and equipment, with little or no practical gain.
C. It's almost taboo to say it maybe, but isn't this just plainly and nauseatingly hideous? To me, for one, it is.
D. The only thing behind all this is someone trying to sell something. Successfully, apparently. Yuck.
I merely meant to show the other approach to avoiding collision.
Either it moves, or we move. I don't claim to know how to change earth's trajectory
in a way that's easier than moving a let's say 200 mile wide piece of rock that's
a 100 million miles away. It's easy to see how this does not seem all too likely.
But dismissing the thought offhand must surely be questionable.
Sometimes great ideas stem from assuming a seemingly unlikely vantage point.
That's why I mentioned it, not to claim to know how.
Yet..:-)
Once we've discovered an asteroid on a collision course with earth that's far too large to deflect,
we might always consider ways of altering earth's trajectory.
Although the earth would be a much harder thing to move around, it's far easier to access
and the amount of resources to do so far exceed those of a tiny spacecraft.
In certain scenarios this might be a viable approach, that warrants some thought in any case.
All we really see is a group of stars closely circling a massive black hole emitting blue light.
Blue stars tend to be hotter and younger than red ones. They have a shorter life span being blue we figure, since they are burning up fuel at a much higher rate than red stars do.
Hence the idea that they must be young.
However, it may be a plausible idea that these stars, being under such extreme circumstances, within 1 lightyear of a 140 million solar mass black hole, emit blue light not because
of their high internal fuel consumption, but because of external influences.
Being bombarded by highly energetic particles, exposed to immense gravitational and/or magnetic effects, speeds, etc..
The thought would be that the disc of stars around the black hole is actually more or less uniform where age is concerned, but that the ones closest to the black hole undergo some effects that make them turn blue.
The only organ that did not grow back was the brain.
So if you have your brain scooped out and put on a dish, it would grow back a skull, a neck and a torso with limbs.
Quite thrilling I would say, think about it.
The reasoning being utterly flawless, one may nevertheless experience a few unreasonable hesitations, but that's only normal
with forms of amusement as innovative as this.
Don't worry about that. It'll pass.
Although it also has the property of being able to share four electrons with adjacent molecules, I believe (not entirely sure) it's the size of a silicon atom that prevents structures entirely similar to those possible with carbon.
Carbon seems to be truly unique this way, making it difficult to imagine
that harder materials could be found that are not carbon based.
Neither is the past, in fact.
Must have something to do with the ever changing present,
in which any notion of 'past' or 'future' necessarily is rooted.
No one knows, but I think it's very likely there's life somewhere in our universe in a form we cannot comprehend.
Perhaps we would not comprehend it when we saw it,
but we would have to be able to recognize it as a life form at least,
for it to become part of our universe as something being "alive" out there.
The conjecture that there are forms of life we will never recognize
as such may be plausible, but we'll obviously never know the truth to that.
Nice for the man that he has a new job. Hope he likes it.
But this isn't scientific news if you ask me.
Whatever NASA does in projects may be science news, but the name of a new whomever who decides what they do or how they do it certainly isn't.
All it can lead to is speculation regarding how this may impact NASA's general policy and decision making style. Sounds more like corporate analysis to me.
I agree that whatever science yields can not be justifiably rejected on non-scientific grounds. I also believe that, as you put it:
there are whole huge branches of science to be discovered yet, hardly related to anything we know now.
I also believe however, that the inverse goes as well: The spiritual (subjective) experience of reality can not be justifiably dispelled on grounds that are not spiritual(subjective) themselves. Science can give its scientific (causal) interpretation of a spiritual experience easily enough, but that, in essence, has no bearing on the content of that experience.
However, the practice or contemplation of science can produce spiritual insights and likewise a spiritual experience can induce scientific discoveries. The means with which Einstein arrived at his theory of relativity can hardly be called scientific in nature, for instance.
Finally, it is a fact that amongs the greatest scientists humanity has produced, the proportion of spiritually sensitive people, if anything, turns out to be above average rather than below.
All the old "higher values" can be reduced to some formulas and equations. That's the ultimate truth. I know it's not comfortable, but lying to yourself isn't the solution.
And all the formulas and equations can be inflated to higher values. Which is exactly what you do here. You proclaim the ultimate truth and call all who see something besides what meets your eye a liar.
I don't think the chemical/mathematical view is uncomfortable at all. But I do think it is an invalid reduction of a reality which we understand a lot less exhaustively than you seem to think
In this image the stars are seen to rotate in the opposite direction, but the comet looks more or less the same. The trajectory of the comet seems to compensate somewhat for the earth's rotation.
The picture we're discussing was taken in Colorado US, this second one in Chili, which explains the opposite rotation of the stars we observe in the two pictures. In this second picture the stars are clearly only smeared in the direction of the earth's rotation, where in the one we discuss here they are more or less all over the place.
I'm not sure about the drive motor theory, since it would seem that this astronomer would have corkscrews show up in every picture that he would take. Something would probably have dawned on him then. Perhaps it were simply tiny earth tremors that he was unable to detect at the time and are we looking at a seismograph.
Since the non-sphericalness is supposed to be caused by a magnetic field, it can be inferred that the involved star's magnetic field isn't particularly strong in the case of "The other 20%". As the article mentions, it turns out that the observed stars had magnetic fields many times stronger than our sun's. Whether the 80-20 ratio is realistic remains to be seen, but in essence it would simply depend on the strength of a particular star's magnetic field.
It will probably will not be critical to have this warning system in place, where half of La Palma plunging into the ocean is concerned.
People might draw their conclusions right there and then. All geologists in the world will be bouncing up and down about it and since it's the geologists that are to alert the authorities in the first place, it may actually be quicker to just start evacuating on the sight of La Palma sliding off into the ocean then to wait for the first tsunami warning - buoy to go off.
Re:how about "creationism" crap?
on
Bad Science Awards
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
have you ever considered the idea that your 'religious experiences' are little more than a firing of neurotransmitters in a particular way, caused by perhaps a particular mental and physical state?
Have you ever considered the idea that your 'neurotransmitters' are little more than manifestations of THAT which can be considered to be god's creation?
Stating that religious experience is linked to neurotransmitter activity doesn't explain anything. In fact, if we agree that neurotransmitter activity is linked to awareness, it is quite obvious.
Neurotransmitters and their firing are little more than the interplay between proteins and ions, which are little more than the laws of quantum mechanics put into effect, which are little more...
Surely it doesn't follow that a thorough and consistent book on science or philosophy is little more than a bunch of inkblots on a piece of paper..
"It may be possible to observe the radio effects of the meteor shower without being a ham or having an extensive station."
I am pretty certain that not being a ham will not reduce your chances of observing the radio effects of the meteor shower in the slightest.
In fact, dare I say, it will drastically increase those chances.
For although hams are known for their numerous pleasant qualities,
a nack for the detection of radiowaves does not appear to be among them.
But in all fairness it needs to be said that rumours circulate of Q smoking exactly such a ham for 007 only recently.
This story, obviously, has proven near impossible to confirm.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like to know how how they could tell the difference.
So they did something to the brain of the mouse and it didn't remember something subsequently.
Do they know what else the mouse didn't remember? No.
Do they understand this effect? No.
Hitting the mouse over the head with a rock might induce the same effect, is there a meaningful way to tell these two procedures apart? No.
Did they find a nice hook to get publicity for their research by talking of selectively removing distinct memories? Yes.
Would we be somewhat fuzzy-brained ourselves if we bought into this? Yes.
Maybe one day we will pick something up, from, let's say, 356 light years away. All we'll be able to say about it will be: Ok, that's not really that surprising, that there's others out there. Then we may send something back if we like and who knows, perhaps 712 years further down the road we'll receive the first 10000 digits of the number pi back. For, if you think about it, what else could such a contact ever entail?
Personally I know there's life out there, I don't need any empirical evidence for it. To me it seems so logical I can't be bothered with the question.
I sure that Slashdot would report it at least twice.
With the customary 95% chance of the first comment being modded "(Score:5, Funny)".
But the long intervals between generations mean that even if the project does start,
..it's usually fruit flies with them biologists.
Sounds like a tight schedule, they better get a move on.
it will not be concluding any time soon. A century ahead would be a fair bet.
As long as not every mind is soundly defeated by life's complexity and every illusion of control and knowledge has been duely shattered, there will be people who think they know how it should be done.br What the article shows is two fundamentally different vantage points regarding government. Although an individual from one side may find smarter things to say, these things don't touch the essence that lies behind either vantage point. These endless discussions don't even begin to touch the humongous question that lies beyond either side. One side always wins, because the other side said something silly, or did something wrong, but again, this has nothing to do with the big question that lies behind these two ideological genders. Usually it amounts to little more than base mud slinging, skull bashing and childish glee at the slightest sign of weakness on the other side. It may be many things, but civilized it is seldom. I don't pretend to be above all this, but let's face it, it's all pretty pathetic, human political debate.
A. It's not going to work well enough to handle something as delicate as military operations without ludicrous risks.
B. What it will be able to do, will require stupendous costs in training and equipment, with little or no practical gain.
C. It's almost taboo to say it maybe, but isn't this just plainly and nauseatingly hideous? To me, for one, it is.
D. The only thing behind all this is someone trying to sell something. Successfully, apparently. Yuck.
Sorry, but I think you should.
If science is nothing but the study of the disprovable,
what would happen should you stumble upon the ultimate descriptive theory?
You would not be able to disprove that.
Shame, the ultimate theory will be unscientific..
Either it moves, or we move. I don't claim to know how to change earth's trajectory
in a way that's easier than moving a let's say 200 mile wide piece of rock that's
a 100 million miles away. It's easy to see how this does not seem all too likely.
But dismissing the thought offhand must surely be questionable. :-)
Sometimes great ideas stem from assuming a seemingly unlikely vantage point.
That's why I mentioned it, not to claim to know how.
Yet..
we might always consider ways of altering earth's trajectory.
Although the earth would be a much harder thing to move around, it's far easier to access
and the amount of resources to do so far exceed those of a tiny spacecraft.
In certain scenarios this might be a viable approach, that warrants some thought in any case.
I hereby lay claim to the universe,
except for the earth and the moon.
So there..
Blue stars tend to be hotter and younger than red ones. They have a shorter life span being blue
we figure, since they are burning up fuel at a much higher rate than red stars do.
Hence the idea that they must be young.
However, it may be a plausible idea that these stars, being under such extreme circumstances,
within 1 lightyear of a 140 million solar mass black hole, emit blue light not because
of their high internal fuel consumption, but because of external influences.
Being bombarded by highly energetic particles, exposed to immense gravitational and/or magnetic
effects, speeds, etc..
The thought would be that the disc of stars around the black hole is actually more or less uniform where age is concerned, but that the ones closest to the black hole undergo some effects that make them turn blue.
Maybe we can just make them look pretty on the satelite pictures,
like those hedges they trim in the shape of poodles.
So if you have your brain scooped out and put on a dish,
it would grow back a skull, a neck and a torso with limbs.
Quite thrilling I would say, think about it.
The reasoning being utterly flawless, one may nevertheless experience
a few unreasonable hesitations, but that's only normal
with forms of amusement as innovative as this. Don't worry about that. It'll pass.
Googling "silicon buckyballs" yielded this:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000C97
Although it also has the property of being able to share four electrons with adjacent molecules,
I believe (not entirely sure) it's the size of a silicon atom that prevents
structures entirely similar to those possible with carbon.
Carbon seems to be truly unique this way, making it difficult to imagine
that harder materials could be found that are not carbon based.
Must have something to do with the ever changing present,
in which any notion of 'past' or 'future' necessarily is rooted.
P.S. As to your sig: Interesting theory ;-)
Perhaps we would not comprehend it when we saw it,
but we would have to be able to recognize it as a life form at least,
for it to become part of our universe as something being "alive" out there.
The conjecture that there are forms of life we will never recognize
as such may be plausible, but we'll obviously never know the truth to that.
But this isn't scientific news if you ask me.
Whatever NASA does in projects may be science news, but the name of a new whomever who decides what they do or how they do it certainly isn't.
All it can lead to is speculation regarding how this may impact NASA's general policy and decision making style. Sounds more like corporate analysis to me.
there are whole huge branches of science to be discovered yet, hardly related to anything we know now.
I also believe however, that the inverse goes as well: The spiritual (subjective) experience of reality can not be justifiably dispelled on grounds that are not spiritual(subjective) themselves.
Science can give its scientific (causal) interpretation of a spiritual experience easily enough, but that, in essence, has no bearing on the content of that experience.
However, the practice or contemplation of science can produce spiritual insights and likewise a spiritual experience can induce scientific discoveries. The means with which Einstein arrived at his theory of relativity can hardly be called scientific in nature, for instance.
Finally, it is a fact that amongs the greatest scientists humanity has produced, the proportion of spiritually sensitive people, if anything, turns out to be above average rather than below.
I don't think the chemical/mathematical view is uncomfortable at all. But I do think it is an invalid reduction of a reality which we understand a lot less exhaustively than you seem to think
The picture we're discussing was taken in Colorado US, this second one in Chili, which explains the opposite rotation of the stars we observe in the two pictures.
In this second picture the stars are clearly only smeared in the direction of the earth's rotation, where in the one we discuss here they are more or less all over the place.
I'm not sure about the drive motor theory, since it would seem that this astronomer would have corkscrews show up in every picture that he would take. Something would probably have dawned on him then.
Perhaps it were simply tiny earth tremors that he was unable to detect at the time and are we looking at a seismograph.
One can only conjecture as to the smell of that place.
Since the non-sphericalness is supposed to be caused by a magnetic field, it can be inferred that the involved star's magnetic field isn't particularly strong in the case of "The other 20%".
As the article mentions, it turns out that the observed stars had magnetic fields many times stronger than our sun's.
Whether the 80-20 ratio is realistic remains to be seen, but in essence it would simply depend on the strength of a particular star's magnetic field.
People might draw their conclusions right there and then. All geologists in the world will be bouncing up and down about it and since it's the geologists that are to alert the authorities in the first place, it may actually be quicker to just start evacuating on the sight of La Palma sliding off into the ocean then to wait for the first tsunami warning - buoy to go off.
Have you ever considered the idea that your 'neurotransmitters' are little more than manifestations of THAT which can be considered to be god's creation?
Stating that religious experience is linked to neurotransmitter activity doesn't explain anything. In fact, if we agree that neurotransmitter activity is linked to awareness, it is quite obvious.
Neurotransmitters and their firing are little more than the interplay between proteins and ions, which are little more than the laws of quantum mechanics put into effect, which are little more... Surely it doesn't follow that a thorough and consistent book on science or philosophy is little more than a bunch of inkblots on a piece of paper..
I am pretty certain that not being a ham will not reduce your chances of observing the radio effects of the meteor shower in the slightest.
In fact, dare I say, it will drastically increase those chances.
For although hams are known for their numerous pleasant qualities,
a nack for the detection of radiowaves does not appear to be among them.
But in all fairness it needs to be said that rumours circulate of Q smoking exactly such a ham for 007 only recently.
This story, obviously, has proven near impossible to confirm.