science

Pathetic Post Pimps Palin Propaganda As if regularly publishing George Will's anti-scientific ravings weren't enough, the WaPo sinks to a new level today by attempting to become the high-fiber Facebook. Sarah Palin's anti-climate-science recycled Facebook page is given prominent placement as an "opinion" piece. ThingsBreak has links to reactions. Here are a few more: AtlanticWire: Washington Post Gets Burned for Publishing Palin's Op-EdDiscover/The Intersection (Chris Mooney): Sarah Palin?s Bogus Climate Arguments Graduate From Facebook to the Washington PostChicago Tribune/The Swamp: Sarah Palin: Obama, boycott CopenhagenNewser: Post, Palin Skewered for Climate Op-EdFirstPost (UK): Washington Post slated over Palin?s climate rant Gawker: Sarah Palin's Washington Post Op-Ed DebunkedPolitico: Palin's climate changeL.A. Times/The Ticket: Washington Post is booed for giving Palin op-ed platformKansas City Star/Midwest Voices: Surprise: Palin calls Copenhagen conference a shamImage (click to enlarge): Today's Daily Dose fr
Post Date:12/09/2009 12:13:00
capitalclimate.blogspot.com

Oh Yes! Mystery Science Theater 3000 Now Available in Hulu [Movies] You can get them in Torrent and pirated VHS tapes, but Hulu is playing Mystery Science Theater 3000 online now. Only five full episodes—from seasons 4, 5, and 6—are available, however:...
Post Date:12/08/2009 17:03:00
gizmodo.com

?????????? ??????????????????????????????Cryogenic Dark Matter Search???CDMS???????? CDMS?????????????????????????????????????????????????Soudan?????????????40 mK??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????CDMS????????2008???????????2006??2007?????????????????????CDMS??????????????????????2009?12?18?????????CDMS???18?????????????????CDMS????????????
Post Date:12/08/2009 03:10:00
feeds.feedburner.com

Natural vs Artificial (via)
Post Date:12/07/2009 09:00:36
unreasonablefaith.com

Scientist Tries to Find Man Who Has Never Watched Porn: Can't [Science] One of the basic components of a scientific study is the control group. For a study about the effects of pornography on men's sexuality, the control group would be composed of men who haven't consumed porn. These men don't exist. So this researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Family Violence and Violence Against Women in Montreal was trying to study "the impact of pornography on the sexuality of men, and how it shapes their perception of men and women." But they couldn't find any non-porn-addled guys to use as a control group. Said the researcher in a press release. We started our research seeking men in their twenties who had never consumed pornography. We couldn't find any. He did find some interesting things from interviewing 20 straight, porn-consuming men: The research concluded that 90 percent of pornography is consumed on the Internet, while 10 percent comes from video stores. On average, single men watch pornography three times a week for 40 minutes. Those wh
Post Date:12/06/2009 18:16:21
gawker.com

British researchers say alcoholic mouthwashes may cause cancer According to research published in the British Dental Journal, mouthwashes that contain alcohol have a 'hypothetical' chance of causing oral cancer.
Post Date:12/06/2009 09:49:24
www.itwire.com

SpaceShipTwo is ready for its Virgin rollout Virgin Galactic will formally unveil its new SpaceShipTwo spacecraft on Monday afternoon, December 7, 2009, at the Mojave Spaceport in California, as one of the important steps toward eventually providing...
Post Date:12/06/2009 08:45:53
www.itwire.com

Satellite Data Confirms November Warmth over the U.S. Remote Sensing Systems has released their satellite measured, lower tropospheric temperature anomaly data for the month of November across the globe. A global look at the lower tropospheric temperature anomalies across most of the globe, courtesy of RSS. Overall, November ended up slightly warmer compared to normal globally, but the bigger story is how warm November was compared to normal from central to northeastern North America. Other "warm" pockets can be seen over southeastern Australia, Scandinavia and out over the central Pacific, which is a reflection of the slowly strengthening El Nino. Notable "cool" spots showed up over southern South America, Asia and Alaska. Let's look at the actual numbers (temperature anomalies)............ Global (70 S to 82.5 N): +.328 C Continental U.S.: +1.242 C, which makes this the warmest month compared to normal since March of 2007 and the warmest November since 2001. Based on the RSS temperature record going back to 1979. Here is an
Post Date:12/06/2009 08:41:29
global-warming.accuweather.com

Genetics win out It is obvious that life experiences have some influences on us. Chinese kids grow up speaking Chinese, for instance. But genetics are also powerful and the latest research indicates that they do to a remarkable extent overwhelm environmental influences. Environmental handicaps tend to fade in importance as we get older. Abstract of the latest paper on the heritability of IQ below: The heritability of general cognitive ability increases linearly from childhood to young adulthood By C M A Haworth et al. Although common sense suggests that environmental influences increasingly account for individual differences in behavior as experiences accumulate during the course of life, this hypothesis has not previously been tested, in part because of the large sample sizes needed for an adequately powered analysis. Here we show for general cognitive ability that, to the contrary, genetic influence increases with age. The heritability of general cognitive ability increases significantly and lin
Post Date:12/06/2009 05:58:08
www.stoptheaclu.com

Do deaf people hear voices when they hallucinate? Summary: we’re not sure. After a post we featured earlier this year on whether deaf people can hear hallucinated voices, I was sent an amazing study that attempted to distil the variety of ‘hearing voices’ experiences in deaf people. It was published in the journal Cognitive Neuropsychiatry in 2007 (there’s a full text copy available online as a pdf) and attempted to avoid some of the pitfalls of studying auditory hallucinations in people with absent or limited hearing. Some of the earlier research on deaf people who hear voices has been criticised for assuming that when a deaf person describes a ‘voice’ it automatically means they are having a similar experience to hearing people. For example, when a deaf person describes the experience as ‘loud’ they may just mean it is particularly intrusive, rather than that it has specific auditory properties. This later study used a sorting method, were a number of statements about what the experien
Post Date:12/05/2009 15:07:36
www.technoccult.com

Nano Materials: A Health Hazard Nano materials are now very commonly used in hundreds of products, and it is likely that in the future their usage will increase even further. Though they are extremely useful, and take technology to a new level, like any other thing, they also have their pros and cons. Health hazards may be caused either due to direct use of products containing Nano materials, or in the process of production or even accidentally. In any of these cases, human health, as well as the environment will be adversely affected. The unique properties that are being exploited by these Nano materials (e.g. high surface reactivity and ability to cross cell membranes) might have negative health impacts. A big disadvantage for us is that the research on the toxicity of Nano materials is not taking place as fast as the materials themselves are being developed and put to use. For example Lux, has conducted a research based on how Nano materials currently used in day-to-day items like soap, sun-screen lotions, cosmet
Post Date:12/05/2009 09:26:31
theviewspaper.net

Study finds angry men and happy women easy to identify A study by American, Canadian, and Austrian researchers has shown that it is easier to identify emotions of happiness and fear in the faces of women and easier to identify...
Post Date:12/05/2009 07:18:13
www.itwire.com

An Anti-Marxian Effect of Labor Unions I remember reading an interview with J.J. Abrams during the writers' strike, when he was supposed to be working on Star Trek XI. Abrams said he was coming up with great lines every day that he couldn't use in the film, because the union was on strike, and that would count as working. One of Marx's underlying principles for thinking capitalism is bad is that capitalism alienates workers from the product of their labor. They work for someone else on a project that belongs to someone else and don't own anything to do with their project. One of the nice features of some jobs in a capitalist system is that you can identify with your project. Moviemaking is one of those jobs. J.J. Abrams has written, produced, and directed quite a number of successful productions, including Mission Impossible III, Lost, and Star Trek XI. Sometimes a writer doesn't own the characters or the story, but the writer gets credited and gets royalties from how many copies sell. There's a kind of ownership that's th
Post Date:12/05/2009 06:47:32
parablemania.ektopos.com

Gordon resorts to bulling and is clearly wrong on the science Gordon Brown is trying to add his own special style of magic to the #climategate scandal.He's claiming that those who ask questions and demand evidence ( in the old pre-1997 parlance called scientists - now called Climate Change Deniers ) are flat earthers and anti-science.He's wrong. Even the IPCC says he's wrong as they say the CRU leak is a serious issue and requires a thorough review.The UK Met Office is getting ready to release and rework the original data, and denied rumours (remember this current govt denies everything and causally lies as other draw breath ) suggest Labour government ministers have tried to stop the scientific activity in case it provides evidence to other scientists.Brown just shows the staggering depth of his own personal ignorance with the rant recorded in today's Daily Telegraph. He calls those who demand to see the evidence and working as "flat earthers". He's a very stupid man indeed.What this shows is the spectacular level of ignorance of scientific meth
Post Date:12/05/2009 04:05:00
atoryblog.blogspot.com

Korea?ski Instytut Nauki i Technologii prezentuje prototypowych Surogat Czy ogl?daj?c Surogatów te? mieli?cie wra?enie, ?e koncepcje przedstawione w filmie nie s? specjalnie odleg?e? Mo?na by?o przekona? si? o tym podczas Wystawy Technologicznej zorganizowanej przez Korea?ski Instytut Nauki i Technologii. Zaprezentowano na niej Mahru III -- humanoida zaprojektowanego przy wspó?pracy z firm? Samsung. Dzi?ki specjalnemu kostiumowi wykrywaj?cemu ruch mi??ni, robot dok?adnie powtarza ruchy swojego ludzkiego operatora. Bior?c pod uwag? rozwój implantów do sterowania my?lami i coraz milsz? dla oka aparycj? robotów, wyprawa na ta?ce w wykonaniu naszych wnuków mo?e wygl?da? nieco inaczej ni? za naszych czasów. Prototypy korea?skich surogatów mo?ecie obejrze? na filmiku, który zamie?cili?my w dalszej cz??ci posta. [Za: Gizmodo] Czytaj dalej Korea?ski Instytut Nauki i Technologii prezentuje prototypowych Surogat
Post Date:12/05/2009 03:00:00
pl.engadget.com

So brillliantly you?ve presented a really transgressive case through the mainstream media Ben Goldacre, Saturday 5 December 2009, The Guardian Here is a mystery. Rom Houben, a Belgian man, was diagnosed as being in a coma for 23 years, and he has now made a partial recovery. This has been demonstrated with a series of recently developed brain scanning techniques (whose predictive value is not entirely known, but [...]
Post Date:12/04/2009 18:12:19
www.badscience.net

Barack Obama gets it By Edward Harrison This quote from President Obama comes via Brad DeLong: We’ve got a long- term structural deficit that is primarily being driven by health care costs, and our long-term entitlement programs. All right? So that’s the baseline. Now, if we can’t grow our economy, then it is going to be that much harder for us to reduce the deficit. The single most important thing we could do right now for deficit reduction is to spark strong economic growth, which means that people who’ve got jobs are paying taxes and businesses that are making profits have taxes — are paying taxes. That’s the most important thing we can do. We understand that in this administration. That’s not always the dialogue that’s going on out there in public and we’re going to have to do a better job of educating the public on that. The last thing we would want to do in the midst of what is a weak recovery is us to essentially take more money out of the syste
Post Date:12/04/2009 17:13:18
www.nakedcapitalism.com

Robot School Girl Horror Japan has finally done it. They've created a dancing, skirt wearing, robot school girl. I weep for the world.Posted by WideIslandView in Science & Tech | Socs: 12
Post Date:12/04/2009 15:06:06
feeds.feedburner.com

Defining Evolution in Anthropology Textbooks Here's one of the most interesting articles in the current edition of Evolution: Education and Outreach. White, J., Tollini, C.D., Collie, W.A., Strueber, M.B., Strueber, L.H., and Ward, J.W. (2009) Evolution and University-level Anthropology Textbooks: The ?Missing Link?? Evo. Edu. Outreach 2:722?737 [doi: 10.1007/s12052-009-0176-6] Abstract: Although studies analyzing the content of evolution curriculum usually focus on courses within the context of a biological sciences department or program, research must also address students and courses outside of the biological sciences. For example, using data solely from biological courses will not fully represent the scope of coverage of evolution in university education, as other fields, like anthropology, also utilize evolutionary principles. We analyzed the content of 31 university-level anthropology textbooks for the following: (1) presence of a definition of evolution in various sections of the textbooks, (2) accuracy and consistency
Post Date:12/04/2009 14:44:00
sandwalk.blogspot.com

?What?? Said the Chinchilla The Daily WTF is a site that collects programmers’ horror stories. I thought the following horror story [it's the second story on the page] provides a good example of why it’s important to double-check the code of scientific software. Long ago, I worked as a programmer at a university?s hearing research lab. They were awarded a large government grant to study the effects of different kinds of noise on hearing. For the really loud and really faint noises, the researchers used animal subjects with ears that are similar to human ears. Specifically, chinchillas.   The chinchillas would be put in to a special chamber for several hours at a time to have their hearing tested. Since the little rodents don?t respond so well to questions like, ?which sound is louder?,? a good amount of time had to be spent training them to jump over a little bar in their chamber whenever they heard a beep.   Because a large part of the research project was to study the long term effects o
Post Date:12/04/2009 11:00:07
chicagoboyz.net