science

Obama's speech disappoints and fuels frustration at Copenhagen The lacklustre speech proved a huge frustration to a summit that had been looking to Obama to use his stature on the world stage ? and his special following among African leaders ? to try to come to an ambitious deal. Many reactions were strongly critical of Obama. Hugo Ch
Post Date:12/18/2009 09:11:30
www.buzzflash.net

Center for Biological Diversity: Statement on President Obama?s Climate Speech ?Given Obama reaffirmed his position that the U.S. would commit to cutting carbon dioxide emissions by only 3% below 1990 levels by 2020, any deal announced in Copenhagen can not in any rational sense of the word be deemed a ?success.? The IPCC estimates that CO2 reductions of 25-40% below 1990 levels are needed by 2020 to avoid greater than 2 degrees of warming, while cuts of over 45% are likely needed to get on a trajectory for the only scientifically and ethically credible target of 350 ppm.? 
Post Date:12/18/2009 09:05:41
www.buzzflash.net

LHC adds to record as world The Swiss organization CERN announced on December 18, 2009, that the Large Hadron Collider ended its first full period of operations, in 2009, with a record-setting 2.36 tera-electron volts of...
Post Date:12/18/2009 08:19:00
www.itwire.com

????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????CDMS???????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????II (CDMSII)????????????????LHC????????????????CDMSII??2007????????????????????WIMP???????????????????????????????????????????????????85%?
Post Date:12/17/2009 23:20:00
feeds.feedburner.com

A mysterious crime in Peru revives a vampire legend that's more than 400 years old. The first bottle?the one with the Inca Kola label still affixed?was filled with something thick and yellow-brown. The other bottle contained a dark fluid and some grainy bits. An evidence table had been carefully arranged for the cameras by the Peruvian National Police: The pair of one-liter soda bottles, a half-dozen small canisters, some coils of safety fuse, and a few sticks of dynamite?each labeled with display cards in block print. Gen. Eusebio F
Post Date:12/17/2009 18:52:21
www.slate.com

The Physics of Space Battles We have the fighter-plane engagements of Star Wars, the subdued, two-dimensional naval combat in Star Trek, the Newtonian planes of Battlestar Galactica, the staggeringly furious energy exchanges of the combat wasps in Peter Hamilton's books, and the use of antimatter rocket engines themselves as3 Vote(s)
Post Date:12/17/2009 15:18:02
solinkable.com

???????????????????????? ? ???????????????????????? ????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????????Shimon Gibson????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????Field of Blood???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Post Date:12/17/2009 12:01:57
10e.org

"Every Physicist Wants Two Things: Glory and Money" (p. 54) . . . in 1950, Shockley published his book Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors, which stood for many years as the definitive work in the field and confirmed his credentials for the Nobel Prize that he shared with Brattain and Bardeen in 1956. The fact was that for his theory of the field effect transistor that later dominated the industry and for the junction transistor that was dominating it at the time, Shockley deserved the prize alone. He had at last made his point. Yet Shockley was not satisfied. "Every physicist," he said at the time, "wants two things: glory and money. I have won the glory. Now I want the money." Source: Gilder, George. Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology. Paperback ed. New York: Touchstone, 1990. (Note: ellipsis added.)
Post Date:12/17/2009 00:01:19
www.artdiamondblog.com

De kleinste sneeuwman ter wereld Vroeger was je de bom als je de grootste sneeuwpop van de straat maakte. Deze sneeuwman scoort als de kleinste. Zijn doorsnede is een honderdste millimeter, ofwel er kunnen vijf sneeuwmannen in de dikte van een menselijke haar. De sneeuwpop van de medewerkers van het National Physical Laboratory is gemaakt van twee tinnen kralen die normaal gebruikt worden om de lens van een elektronenmicroscoop te callibreren. Zo maak je een nanosneeuwman.Het Britse bedrijf maakte de sneeuwpop ter vermaak en promotie. In het bedrijfsfilmpje vloeken de serieuze beelden nogal met de gevoelige kerstmuziek. De website geeft een coole feature: als je klikt op het plaatje van het blauwe mannetje kun je hem zelf bestuderen alsof je door de lens van een microscoop kijkt. Leuk gedaan. 3 reacties
Post Date:12/16/2009 06:27:58
www.bright.nl

Wiimote as Scientific Sensor Researchers from Delft University of Technology have assembled inexpensive alternatives to costly scientific sensors using the Nintendo Wiimote. Luxemburg's team aimed the Wiimote at a problem that can be very tricky for hydrologists: measuring evaporation on a body of water. The easiest way to measure evaporation is to place pans of water near the lake, or whatever water is being studied, and put pressure sensors in them. The sensors record the drop in pressure as more and more water disappears. But this equipment can run $500 or more, and still the measurements aren't accurate because the water in the pan gets warmer on land than it would in the lake. Alternatively, measuring the level of water in a pan that is floating in a lake is also tricky because the pan will inevitably be moving. Hacked Wiimote Makes Super Scientific Sensor [via Slashdot] Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Science | Digg this!
Post Date:12/16/2009 05:55:00
www.hackszine.com

nice democracy theory A
Post Date:12/14/2009 17:10:33
orgtheory.wordpress.com

congratulations: hoosier style! A
Post Date:12/11/2009 20:40:27
orgtheory.wordpress.com

Objects in the Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear Last Friday?s IEET seminar on Biopolitics and Popular Culture has come and gone. What were the take-aways? Almost everyone there seemed to believe that the future will either be ?Transhuman,? Transhuman-like, or Transhuman-lite.  But the process of getting there?which people say is ?half the fun??is anything but clear. There seemed to be at least two identifiable groups at the conference. Members of the first group identify as ?Transhumanists? and embrace a comprehensive agenda for radical human change. (They were probably the majority.) Then there were those who are either agnostic on the topic (particularly regarding the often-predicted Singularity) or are reluctant to identify with the term itself. There was certainly consensus, however, that radical physical and cognitive enhancement is coming?and that we?re not socially or culturally ready for it yet.  Mike Treder provided a comprehensive summary of the seminar, which?as he observes??totally rocked.? Overa
Post Date:12/08/2009 10:56:41
nightlight.typepad.com

orgtheory quiz #1: american uniformed services A
Post Date:12/07/2009 20:03:22
orgtheory.wordpress.com

Number 645Death FlowerEvery once in a while someone writes me asking to help them identify a comic book story they remember from their past. I'm usually not much help. Sorry. There was a story from my own past I looked for, and no one could help me, either. In the early 1950s my best friend had a box of coverless comic books, and every once in a while I was allowed to look at them. I was just old enough to read, and I remember a strange story of a creature turning into a flower, and vice versa.Thirty years later I ran into the story in Captain Science #5, from 1951. I instantly recognized it from the panels with the sequence of flower to monster, then monster to flower. I can see why no one could help me with the story, because it was in a comic book with two Wally Wood/Joe Orlando Captain Science stories, and this story didn't even register on anyone else's memory meter. The Grand Comics Database lists the artists for "The Flower of Death" as Bill Fraccio? and Vince Napoli? The questi
Post Date:12/07/2009 02:31:00
pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com

Let it. . . ??? Check out tomorrow's forecast--I've never seen the snow icon on my Mac's dashboard. Too bad it's mixed with rain. I don't want sleet. . .The last time I remember it snowing here was in January 2002, and it was a pretty little dusting, though I must admit I was unprepared to ride my bike through it. Brrrrrr!
Post Date:12/06/2009 21:45:00
cluttermuseum.blogspot.com

Teaching while Mentally Ill (Cross-posted at BlogHer)Imagine trying to teach while voices in your head are telling you your students are trying to kill you. That has been a reality for Elyn Saks, a professor of law, psychology, and psychiatry and the behavioral sciences at the University of Southern California's law school. This week Saks published an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education documenting her personal experiences with mental illness in academia.Over the past few days, links to the article have been moving through academics' e-mail inboxes like wildfire. There's good reason why. Not only does Saks share some pretty startling experiences and talk about how she has overcome these challenges, but she also opens an interesting discussion on whether, when, and to whom an academic with mental illness might disclose her illness. Here's an excerpt:The first question you must ask yourself is whether to tell your chair and dean. I can think of arguments both in favor of that, and against.One of the p
Post Date:12/04/2009 08:07:00
cluttermuseum.blogspot.com

did obama cross the johnson line? A
Post Date:12/02/2009 17:23:53
orgtheory.wordpress.com

Market Street Revitalization Begins
Post Date:12/01/2009 13:55:39
www.luminogenics.com/blog

An example of scripture where concordism doesn't fit Psalm 119:89 Forever, O Lord, your wordis firmly fixed in the heavens.90 Your faithfulness endures to all generations;you have established the earth, and it stands fast. (ESV. See here for ESV copyright information. See here for the Blueletter Bible's display of how other versions treat verse 90.)(See yesterday's post for a discussion of concordism.)Few people would say that this passage means that the earth doesn't rotate on its axis, or revolve about the sun, or that the sun itself doesn't move as the galaxy rotates, in spite of the literal interpretation of verse 90, which seems to say all of those things. Presumably, the Psalmist wrote in accord with the science of the time, which didn't know as much about astronomy as we think we know now. The passage is poetic, not scientific, and it still speaks to us about God's sustaining power. God established the earth, and preserves it, wherever it may go through space.Thanks for reading.
Post Date:11/28/2009 01:16:00
sunandshield.blogspot.com