science

NYTimes, PopMech, more: Spirit the Rover now Spirit Station. Not dead ? just stuck. It’s official. NASA says its Mars Rover Spirit is so bogged down in Martian sand that there’s no point calling it, or her as some would prefer, a rover. It is a stationary science platform. The machine has been in the Columbia Hills of Mars’s Gusev Crater for most of the six years since it landed. It busted one of six wheels not long after it got there and, after covering miles of terrain while gimpy, another wheel went kaput late last year in its sand trap. It apparently has no chance of ever regaining the mobility of a rover worth that title. Six years, 12 miles done and none left to go. Just a couple of days after detailing how Spirit might eventually climb from its deep, soft rut, the NYTimes’s Kenneth Chang this morning reports it with a simple lede: The Martian rover Spirit will rove no more. At Popular Mechanics, in a more adventuresome piece, Daniel H. Wilson (styled at PM’s resident roboticist) writes it in the style of an obituary. It works well
Post Date:01/27/2010 10:50:42
ksjtracker.mit.edu

30 Minutes to Detect Cancer: A Revolutionary Technology What would you say if someone told you that cancer could now be detected in 30 minutes flat? What if someone told you that one needn?t go through a biopsy to detect cancer? Your fears would cut to some extent, wouldn?t it? That?s exactly what scientists and engineers at the University of Toronto have sought to do. Developing a prototype microchip that uses nano materials, the Canadian researchers prove that it could detect the presence of
Post Date:01/27/2010 05:38:04
theviewspaper.net

????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????Carl Woese?????Nigel Goldenfeld????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Woese?Goldenfeld??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Post Date:01/27/2010 04:20:00
feeds.feedburner.com

Climatism! Is Mankind Destroying Earth’s climate? Why have we had eight years of global cooling when all the global climate models projected eight years of warming? If polar bears are endangered by global warming, why have bear populations more than doubled in the last 50 years? Minimum Arctic ice in 2007 was trumpeted by the press, but why was maximum Antarctic ice in 2007 hardly mentioned? After building more than 20,000 wind turbine towers, why have Germany and Denmark been unable to close a single coal-fired power plant? “This is a serious book that carefully examines the issues that have been used to create the current climate change/global warming crisis… I endorse Climatism! for its easy-to-read, well-illustrated presentation of complex science.” -John Coleman, Meteorologist Advance orders of Climatism! Science, Common Sense and the 21st Century’s Hottest Topic by Steve Goreham here: http://www.climatism.net/
Post Date:01/26/2010 15:00:13
www.globalclimatescam.com

Compare Google Auto-Complete Results Web Seer lets you compare Google auto-complete results like this, but easier! Great, now I won't get any work done today. (HT: Lifehacker.)
Post Date:01/26/2010 08:08:58
www.mwilliams.info

GeoGebra 3.2.40 Cr
Post Date:01/25/2010 08:13:25
www.clubic.com

Forensic commission meeting in Harlingen, but Willingham off the agenda The Texas Forensic Science Commission will meet on Friday in Harlingen, about as far away from the capitol press corps as the new chairman could set the meeting. As described by the Washington Post ("Texas panel to meet, but Willingham not on the agenda," Jan. 22): The meeting is the first since July. In September, Perry dismissed three members of the commission, two days before it was to consider a report critical of the arson finding that led to the execution. Bradley canceled the subsequent meeting.The Willingham case is not on the agenda for the upcoming meeting. Nor is Craig Beyler, the renowned fire expert who authored the report in question. Bradley said he isn't ignoring Willingham, and that the board's investigation of the case could conclude this summer. He said he will assign pending cases, including Willingham, to the nine-member body, which includes a defense attorney and several medical examiners. He said his top priority is bringing structure to the commission, which h
Post Date:01/25/2010 06:33:00
gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com

Spence on Growth Nobel Laureate Michael Spence of Stanford University's Hoover Institution and the Commission on Growth and Development talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the determinants of economic growth. Spence discusses the findings of the Commission's recent report and how it compares to earlier attempts to uncover the sources of growth and the lack of growth such as the Washington Consensus. Spence makes the case for government provision of infrastructure including education and the problems of corruption and governance. The conversation closes with a look at Spence's career and the lessons of that experience. Play Time: 1:07:09 How do I listen to a podcast? Download Size: 30.8 MB Right-click or O
Post Date:01/25/2010 04:30:00
www.econtalk.org

Honda, Lamborghini selected as cleanest, dirtiest cars by `Green` environmental non-profit agency The Honda Civic GX and Lamborghini Murcielago are the cleanest and least clean cars, according to a new report on Greenercars.org, part of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). more...
Post Date:01/25/2010 02:01:00
rss.mathaba.net

About Your Nice Lawn New research from UC Irvine suggests that turfgrass management (fertilizer production, mowing, leaf blowing and other lawn care practices) counteracts the carbon-storing benefits of our beautiful lawns. Turfgrass lawns help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and store it as organic carbon in soil, making them important "carbon sinks." However, greenhouse gas emissions from turfgrass management, including nitrous oxide, which is 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, are four times greater than the amount of carbon stored by ornamental grass in parks, the UC Irvine study shows. Turfgrass is increasingly widespread in urban areas and covers 1.9 percent of land in the continental U.S., making it the most common irrigated crop, according to the UC Irvine report. "Lawns look great - they?re nice and green and healthy, and they?re photosynthesizing a lot of organic carbon. But the carbon-storing benefits of lawns are counteracted by fuel consumption
Post Date:01/24/2010 22:48:12
global-warming.accuweather.com

12 Monkeys. No? 8. Wait, sorry, I meant 14. Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 23 January 2010 Like many people, you’re possibly afraid to share your views on animal experiments, because you don’t want anyone digging up your grandmother’s grave, or setting fire to your house, or stuff like that. Animal experiments are necessary, they need to be properly regulated, and we have some of [...]
Post Date:01/22/2010 18:07:05
www.badscience.net

Scientists Using Selective Temperature Data, Skeptics Say By Richard Foot Call it the mystery of the missing thermometers. Two months after “climategate” cast doubt on some of the science behind global warming, new questions are being raised about the reliability of a key temperature database, used by the United Nations and climate change scientists as proof of recent planetary warming. Two American researchers allege that U.S. government scientists have skewed global temperature trends by ignoring readings from thousands of local weather stations around the world, particularly those in colder altitudes and more northerly latitudes, such as Canada. In the 1970s, nearly 600 Canadian weather stations fed surface temperature readings into a global database assembled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Today, NOAA only collects data from 35 stations across Canada. Worse, only one station — at Eureka on Ellesmere Island — is now used by NOAA as a temperature gauge for all Canadian territory a
Post Date:01/21/2010 13:56:25
www.globalclimatescam.com

FALSIFIABILITY & SCIENCE - EXTENDING POPPER Falsifiability, as defined by the philosopher, Karl Popper, defines the inherent testability of any scientific hypothesis...One of the tenets behind science is that any scientific hypothesis and resultant experimental design must be inherently falsifiable. Although falsifiability is not universally accepted, it is still the foundation of the majority of scientific experiments. WHAT IS FALSIFIABILITY?In its basic form, falsifiability is the belief that for any hypothesis to have credence, it must be inherently disprovable before it can become accepted scientific proof. For example, if a scientist asks, ?Does God exist?? then this can never be science because it is a theory that cannot be disproved.From http://www.experiment-resources.com/falsifiability.htmlHowever I would like to go a bit further & suggest that very few, if any, theories are innately unfalsifiable.Taking the God one - this is a theory which has probably been around for as long as humans have had abstract thoughts. We ha
Post Date:01/21/2010 06:37:00
a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com

The open mind WPvideo 1.10
Post Date:01/19/2010 15:39:48
www.ptarmigannest.net

KURZWEIL'S PREDICTIONS - 2010 ON There is an item on Next Big Future about Ray Kurzweil's predictions - the argument being about how many of his previous predictions for today have been right - he says 107 0f 108 have been on or close to the money. His blog advertises as having over a million subscribers. Ray is a computer geek described by uber computer geek Bill Gates as a "visionary thinker and futurist."So I have lifted these further ones from Wikipedia & rearanged them in date order. I'm glad he works on very small engineering stuff so there is not much overlap with my prediction series or I fear I would suffer greatly by comparison.The Age of Intelligent Machines (1990)The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999)The Singularity is Near (2005)2010Supercomputers will have the same raw computing power as human brains (though not yet the software to emulate human thinking). Computers will start to disappear as distinct physical objects, meaning many will have nontraditional shapes or will be embedded in clothing and everyda
Post Date:01/19/2010 03:53:00
a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com

In 15 Years Work Will Look Like Modern Online Games Eric Schmidt believes that in the future work will look like play. Google CEO Eric Schmidt made news at the recent G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, suggesting that multiplayer video games provide good career training ? particularly in technology ? where workplace collaboration stimulates innovation. ?The game world is good training for a career in tech,? he said. ?It teaches players to build a network, to use interactive skills and thinking.? ?Everything in the future online is going to look like a multiplayer game,? said Schmidt to this international audience. ?If I were 15 years old, that?s what I would be doing right now.? What is it about online games that makes leaders? For one thing, there are many opportunities to lead. ?Online games are very iterative,? states a recent IBM report entitled ?Virtual Worlds, Real Leaders.? ?Leadership happens quickly and easily in online games, often undertaken by otherwise reserved players, who surprise even themselves with their capabilities.? Onl
Post Date:01/18/2010 08:35:50
www.mwilliams.info

Pragmatism, uncertainty and ethical principles. The essential feature of ethical pragmatism is that actions and conditions (objective (non-minded) states of affairs) do not have direct, intrinsic (deontic) ethical value. Actions and conditions (and the potential for actions and conditions) have effects on our subjective feelings; they therefore have indirect, instrumental (pragmatic) ethical value. Similarly, ethical principles have no objective ethical truth: it is neither objectively true nor false that "we should not kill innocent people". These observations are actually true, whether we like them or not.A naive view of pragmatism, Bentham's utilitarianism, says that we should predict the effects of various actions and conditions and choose the alternative that maximizes the pragmatic outcome. Obviously true, because, what's the alternative? Should we choose an alternative that we know is worse? But we should always be suspicious of the obvious: it's often an indication that we're missing something important*. *Astute readers of
Post Date:01/16/2010 07:48:00
barefootbum.blogspot.com

Curb Mining: Looting Designer Chairs in NYC?
Post Date:01/15/2010 01:36:00
bigsole.blogspot.com

THIS DOES NOT NECESARILY CONNOTE THE ENTIRE DESTRUCTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM An article at Next Big Future on the risk of the Sun producing anything from a large enough flare to wipe us out to a full blown Nova. This could be natural but since it hasn't happened so far looks infinitely more likely to occur by human intervention. I am credits by the author Joseph Friedlander with giving a name to this regrettable possibility This is your occasional guest correspondent, Joseph Friedlander, writing about the possibility of the least welcome kind of ?anthropogenic global warming? imaginable?a human caused detonation of the Sun we all depend upon.At the request of Professor Alexander A. Bolonkin, I have compiled a re-translation of the Russian-language interview concerning the Professor?s 2007 investigation of the danger of a man-triggered detonation of the Sun. As Next Big Future is an alert mechanism of the Lifeboat Society, we should appreciate that a solar detonation of any magnitude could destroy any free-flying colony buildable soon in the inner Solar System?a
Post Date:01/14/2010 08:22:00
a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com

Get Fed Up: Report Medical Quackery to the FDA Here is a link that you’re all going to want to bookmark: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/email/oc/buyonline/buyonlineform.cfm Selling crap online, and claiming that it has medical value, is illegal. This is just and proper, because it’s wrong to con sick people out of money. Yet it’s so profitable to do so that it remains a flourishing business. And those sellers who may genuinely believe their product helps people also deserve to be turned in and prosecuted. They’ve heard the research already, they’ve just chosen to ignore it. Well, they may find it a little harder to ignore a warning letter from the Food & Drug Administration. This online form can be filled out to report online sales of fraudulent products that make specific health claims. If you claim that your product diagnoses, treats, prevents, or cures any disease, then your product is classified as a drug; and it’s illegal to sell unapproved drugs in the United States. Therefore, a
Post Date:01/14/2010 03:00:46
skepticblog.org