[url]http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/02/chick-food-hunting-hints-at-possible-human-like-number-organization/[/url]

[url]http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/02/the-powerful-cheat-for-themselves-the-powerless-cheat-for-others/[/url]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;394965][URL]http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/02/the-powerful-cheat-for-themselves-the-powerless-cheat-for-others/[/URL][/QUOTE]

So the rich and powerful are more likely to be selfish jerks. What a surprise!

[URL="http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html"]No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning[/URL]


[QUOTE](Phys.org) —The universe may have existed forever, according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement Einstein's theory of general relativity. The model may also account for dark matter and dark energy, resolving multiple problems at once.

Read more at: [url]http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html#jCp[/url][/QUOTE]

From what I understood, the Big Bang Theory stated not that before the Big Bang was a singularity, but rather, before the Big Bang was a quantum vacuum (space where particles came into existence and then were instantaneously destroyed by their relative anti-particle), which means a lot of what is said about the Big Bang Theory is wrong.

That being said, I've misunderstood many things before, so please correct me if it's me that's wrong :razz:

There is a pretty good comment there, in discussion:
[QUOTE]orti: You're missing the idea that the new theories or models do not automatically make it factual and "the word" of science, and other model is wrong. When we don't know how something works with an extremely high confidence level, all we can do is keep building models, proposing theories, etc. The authors of this study likely would not make the claim that their model is "right" and singularity models are "wrong" but instead they present it as a POSSIBLE explanation.[/QUOTE]

[URL]http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-eat-less-more-obesity-20150212-story.html[/URL]

[URL="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587%2815%2900009-1/abstract"]The full paper is available here for free.[/URL] (Registration required.)
[QUOTE]Many clinicians are not adequately aware of the reasons that individuals with obesity struggle to achieve and maintain weight loss, and this poor awareness precludes the provision of effective intervention. Irrespective of starting weight, caloric restriction triggers several biological adaptations designed to prevent starvation. These adaptations might be potent enough to undermine the long-term effectiveness of lifestyle modification in most individuals with obesity, particularly in an environment that promotes energy overconsumption.[/QUOTE]

More hide'n seek.
 

[URL]http://hothardware.com/news/kaspersky-massive-equation-group-hdd-firmware-spying-ring[/URL]

[URL]http://25zbkz3k00wn2tp5092n6di7b5k.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2015/02/Equation_group_questions_and_answers.pdf[/URL]

Surprise!?

[url]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11419180/Strongest-material-known-to-man-A-limpets-tooth.html[/url]

I have a soft spot for material science and the industrial processes that let us make things, so in honor of National Engineers Week (U.S.),
[QUOTE]In the United States, National Engineers Week is always the week in February which encompasses George Washington's actual birthday, February 22. It is observed by more than 70 engineering, education, and cultural societies, and more than 50 corporations and government agencies. The purpose of National Engineers Week is to call attention to the contributions to society that engineers make. It is also a time for engineers to emphasize the importance of learning math, science, and technical skills.
The celebration of National Engineers Week was started in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers in conjunction with President George Washington's birthday. President Washington is considered as the nation's first engineer, notably for his survey work.
The results of the Federal Engineer of the Year Award are announced during the week.
...
2015 — February 22–28[/QUOTE]
I offer up a couple of results that recently caught my eye:
[QUOTE][URL="http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/news/a13919/new-steel-alloy-titanium/"]Scientists Invent a New Steel as Strong as Titanium[/URL]
South Korean researchers have solved a longstanding problem that stopped them from creating ultra-strong, lightweight aluminum-steel alloys.[QUOTE]The key to creating this new super-steel was overcoming a challenge that had plagued materials scientists for decades. In the 1970's, Soviet researchers discovered that adding aluminum to the mix when creating steel can make an incredibly strong and lightweight metal, but this new steel was unavoidably brittle. You'd have to exert lots of force to reach the limit of its strength, but once you did, the steel would break rather than bend.

Scientists soon realized the problem: When creating the aluminum-steel alloy, they were occasionally fusing atoms of aluminum and iron together to form tough, crystalline structures called B2. These veins and nuggets of B2 were strong but brittle—until Kim and his colleges devised a solution.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]Kim and colleagues spent years devising and altering a method of heat-treating and then thinly rolling their steel to control when and where B2 crystals were formed. The team also discovered that adding a small percentage of nickel offered even more control over B2 formation, as nickel made the crystals form at a much higher temperature.

More Super-Materials to Come?
Kim's team has created the new metal on a small scale. But before it can be mass-produced, researchers must confront a tricky production issue.

Currently, steelmakers use a silicate layer to cover and protect mass-produced steel from oxidation with the air and contamination from the foundry. This silicate can't be used for Kim's steel because it has a tendency to react with the cooling aluminum, compromising the final product. Before we starting building skyscrapers out of super-steel, they'll have to figure out a way to protect the material out in the real world.

It'll be worth it. The final product of all this tinkering "is 13 percent less dense compared to normal steel, and has almost the same strength-to-weight ratio compared to titanium alloys," Kim says. That's remarkable, but Kim insists that the method is actually more important than the result. Now that his results are published, he expects scientists to cook up a multitude of new alloys based on the B2-dispersion method. [/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

[URL="http://phys.org/news/2015-02-cheap-abundant-chemical-outperforms-precious.html"]Cheap and abundant chemical outperforms precious metals as a catalyst[/URL][QUOTE]A team of Caltech chemists has discovered a method for producing a group of silicon-containing organic chemicals without relying on expensive precious metal catalysts. Instead, the new technique uses as a catalyst a cheap, abundant chemical that is commonly found in chemistry labs around the world—potassium tert-butoxide—to help create a host of products ranging from new medicines to advanced materials. And it turns out that the potassium salt is more effective than state-of-the-art precious metal complexes at running very challenging chemical reactions.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]"We have shown for the first time that you can efficiently make carbon-silicon bonds with a safe and inexpensive catalyst based on potassium rather than ultrarare precious metals like platinum, palladium, and iridium," says Anton Toutov, a graduate student working in the laboratory of Bob Grubbs, Caltech's Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry. "We're very excited because this new method is not only 'greener' and more efficient, but it is also thousands of times less expensive than what's currently out there for making useful chemical building blocks. This is a technology that the chemical industry could readily adopt."

The finding marks one of the first cases in which catalysis—the use of catalysts to make certain reactions occur faster, more readily, or at all—moves away from being a practice that is fundamentally unsustainable. While the precious metals in most catalysts are rare and could eventually run out, potassium is an abundant element on Earth.

The team describes its new "green" chemistry technique in the February 5 issue of the journal Nature.
...[/QUOTE]
I don't feel comfortable directly quoting more of this article but this reaction was found by running a control experiment to test the results if the usual expensive metal catalysts were removed. In this case they found that a reaction was still occurring and then followed up on that.

[url=www.theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/18/haruko-obokata-stap-cells-controversy-scientists-lie]What pushes scientists to lie? The disturbing but familiar story of Haruko Obokata[/url] | Science | The Guardian
[quote]Reproducibility is one of the cornerstones of modern science. Unless an experiment can be repeated again and again by different researchers, each time yielding similar results, it can’t be said to prove anything much. At least that’s the theory. [Early-1900s Nobel laureate Alexis] Carrel’s chicken heart experiment shows how far science can stray from the scientific method. And the fault doesn’t just lie with Carrel and his laboratory. The entire scientific community shares some of the blame because it upheld the dogma of cell immortality for more than 50 years despite the fact that it was based on a single, sensational, irreproducible experiment.

By contrast, the speed of Obokata’s undoing should make us feel more confident about the ability of science to correct itself. As soon as she announced the creation of Stap cells, other researchers tried to make their own and, when they failed, wanted to know why. Without doubt, the standards of cell science have improved since Carrel’s day. Biomedical research is more strictly regulated, and wet lab procedures better established. The internet has also played its part, making it faster and easier for scientists to compare notes and spot errors.

But before we start to congratulate ourselves on the ever-upwards path of science, we should bear in mind that most experiments are never reproduced. There are simply too many of them. Besides which, researchers often don’t have much interest in repeating the work of others. Scientists may be truth-seekers, but they generally prefer new truths. They want to be the first to make a discovery. That’s where all the glory lies; that’s how to get a name for yourself, attract more funding and advance your career. Confirming – or failing to confirm – someone else’s discovery is unlikely to get you very far. It’s unlikely to even get you into print since science journals tend to favour novel research.

[b]Not only are most experiments not reproduced, most are probably not reproducible[/b]. This statement will shock only those who have never worked in a wet lab. Those who have will already suspect as much.

A few years ago, Glenn Begley put this suspicion to the test. As head of cancer research for pharmaceutical giant Amgen, he attempted to repeat 53 landmark experiments in that field, important work published in some of the world’s top science journals. To his horror, he and his team managed to confirm only six of them. That’s a meagre 11%. Researchers at Bayer set up a similar trial and were similarly depressed by the results. Out of 67 published studies into the therapeutic potential of various drugs (mostly for the treatment of cancer), they were able to reproduce less than a quarter.

The Amgen and Bayer studies were too small to tell us how bad the problem really is, but they do illustrate something that biomedical researchers already know in their heart of hearts: reproducibility is the exception rather than the rule. There are probably many reasons for this. Apart from outright fraud, there are all those “benevolent mistakes” that scientists make more or less unwittingly: poor experiment design, sloppy data management, bias in the interpretation of facts and inadequate communication of results and methods. Then, of course, there is the devilish complexity of reality itself, which withholds more than it reveals to the prying eyes of science. [/quote]