[QUOTE=xilman;410753]I've found my MRI scans rather pleasant, which it seems, is not normal.
[/QUOTE]


I had a head scan the other week. I found the experience of having your head in a giant square wave generator was rather pleasant. At some point when it felt like my head was in resonance that felt weird, but it was an awesome sensory experience overall. I've never 'felt' noises like that.

[QUOTE=flagrantflowers;410914]I had a head scan the other week. I found the experience of having your head in a giant square wave generator was rather pleasant. At some point when it felt like my head was in resonance that felt weird, but it was an awesome sensory experience overall. I've never 'felt' noises like that.[/QUOTE]

I was lucky enough to have two scans of my head in the past month. The first was an MRA, which the doctor accidentally ordered. I had to go back to get the MRI. In my case I was sent due to headaches + tinnitus. Fortunately they didn't find any problems. Hopefully the same could be said for the two of you.

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;410854][URL]http://www.techtimes.com/articles/86266/20150919/supermoon-lunar-eclipse-to-occur-on-sept-27-what-makes-this-celestial-event-special.htm[/URL][/QUOTE]

I hope I can remember to go out and look!

[QUOTE=rogue;410922]I was lucky enough to have two scans of my head in the past month. The first was an MRA, which the doctor accidentally ordered. I had to go back to get the MRI. In my case I was sent due to headaches + tinnitus. Fortunately they didn't find any problems. Hopefully the same could be said for the two of you.[/QUOTE]My most recent was to see whether there was any mechanical problem which might be the cause of my trigeminal neuralgia. The TGN started up again 3 weeks ago and I'm now back on gabapentin. Fortunately the attack isn't too severe and the drug has it well under control.

Tinnitus is a different problem with a different cause for me. Too many years spent in machine rooms and riding bikes at ~70mph has buggered my hearing.

[QUOTE=kladner;410946]I hope I can remember to go out and look![/QUOTE][url]http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-to-see-supermoon-eclipse-september-2015/[/url]

[url]http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4720[/url]

Re. Mars: Lemme guess, 'One of our rovers found what appears to be the shallow grave of Jimmy Hoffa.'

Re. lunar eclipse: Perfect hour-after-sunset totality timing for us US left coasters, but looks like much of the world will have good viewing - weather permitting - even if less spectacular in daylight. BTW, was watching a cheesily-fun 50s 'Hot Lunar Vampire Vixens (ok, they're really supposed to be cat women, but I saw it under a non-catty alternate title) Need Earth Men For Breeding Purposes and Light Housework' [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045609/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_117]SciFi flick[/url] on late-nite retro-TV last night, and the earth space crew kept talking about 'the dark side of the moon', rather than the correct 'far side of the moon.' The moon has a roughly-28-earth-day-long day, whose high noon is what we earthlings call 'new moon.' Alas, I have no further information on the alleged presence there of hot lunar vampire vixens with furniture-clawing tendencies and lesbian overtones (but only when there are no manly earth-o-nauts around, just like the classic set-up in the men's mags describes.)

Oh, the aforementioned film stars the 50s/60s hottie pictured below as the sole female on the earth crew, whose IMDB bio includes the following factoid:
[quote]Often cast as an adulterous wife, slutty girlfriend, female gang leader or gun moll, she proved so convincing in those roles that she often received Bibles in the mail with passages underlined that covered the "sins" she had committed onscreen, warning her that she would go to hell if she didn't reform. Several of those types of letters dwelt so much on her "immorality" and "evil ways" that, unnerved, she turned them over to the police.[/quote]
Best line is by stereotypical 50s male chauvinist crewman Walt, to his new lunar-catty g/f: "You're too smart for me, baby. I like 'em stupid."
And believe it or not, the musical score for this SciFi cheeseball is by none other Elmer Bernstein.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;411298]and the earth space crew kept talking about 'the dark side of the moon', rather than the correct 'far side of the moon.' [/QUOTE]Presumably you've never traveled to the Dark Continent.

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="White"]There's no dark side of the moon really. As a matter of fact, it's all dark.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[QUOTE=xilman;411321]

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="Silver"]There's no dark side of the moon really. As a matter of fact, it's all dark.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/QUOTE]

I'm glad I recognize that quote :smile:

[QUOTE=xilman;411321]Presumably you've never traveled to the Dark Continent.[/QUOTE]

No, but my Pa was born there.

Which is funny, because I never thought of him as looking very Cameroonian, if there is such a thing.

[URL="http://aeon.co/magazine/science/what-can-paleogenetics-tell-us-about-prehistory/"]Paleogenetics is helping to solve the great mystery of prehistory: how did humans spread out over the earth?[/URL]

[URL="http://www.fastcoexist.com/3050712/a-record-breaking-new-artificial-leaf-makes-power-from-sun-and-water"]A Record-Breaking New Artificial Leaf Makes Power From Sun And Water[/URL]

[URL="http://time.com/4042506/invisibility-cloak/?xid=homepage"]Scientists Are Getting Closer to an Invisibility Cloak[/URL]

[URL="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/18/441400933/planets-transit-the-desert-in-7-mile-scale-model-of-the-solar-system"]Planets Transit The Desert In 7-Mile Scale Model Of The Solar System[/URL]

[URL="http://bookriot.com/2015/09/02/making-maps-books-two-cartographers-tell-us-done/"]Making Maps for Books: Two Cartographers Tell Us How It’s Done[/URL]

[URL="http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/09/10/pluto_new_images_from_new_horizons.html"]New, Gorgeous, Pictures of Pluto[/URL]

[URL="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/540996/sticky-dna-could-be-the-key-to-making-organs-in-a-lab/"]Sticky DNA Could be the Key to Making Organs in a Lab[/URL]

[URL="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34192447"]New human-like species discovered in S Africa[/URL]

[URL="http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/09/11/the-most-misread-poem-in-america/"]The Most Misread Poem in America[/URL]

[URL="http://www.citymetric.com/horizons/how-measuring-brainwaves-could-improve-cities-958"]How measuring brainwaves could improve cities[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wired.com/2015/09/reuben-wu-blue-fire-crater/"]Inside the Crater That Leaks Neon Blue ‘Lava’[/URL]

[URL="http://physics.aps.org/articles/v8/85"]Focus: How Anesthesia Switches Off Consciousness[/URL]

[URL="http://nautil.us/issue/25/water/five-things-we-still-dont-know-about-water"]Five Things We Still Don’t Know About Water[/URL]

[URL="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/540891/new-instrument-captures-the-secret-lives-of-cells/"]New Instrument Captures the Secret Lives of Cells[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150902112006.htm"]Feeling blue and seeing blue: Sadness may impair color perception[/URL]

[URL="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/540926/3-d-printing-breaks-the-glass-barrier/"]3-D Printing Breaks the Glass Barrier[/URL]

[QUOTE=rogue;411361][URL="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/18/441400933/planets-transit-the-desert-in-7-mile-scale-model-of-the-solar-system"]Planets Transit The Desert In 7-Mile Scale Model Of The Solar System[/URL][/QUOTE]
From 2001:
[url]http://cjonline.com/stories/051401/kan_solarsystem.shtml[/url]
I thought that it would be complete.
I was once looking at what ti would take to do this in my "hometown". It would be bigger that 7 miles if it used all the available.

This one is the biggest though: [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System[/url]

nasa comfirm liquid water on today 's mars
[url]http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars/[/url]

[url=www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/09/24/why-some-scientists-are-worried-about-a-cold-blob-in-the-north-atlantic-ocean/]Why some scientists are worried about a surprisingly cold 'blob' in the North Atlantic Ocean[/url] - The Washington Post

Foretaste of what happens when one's thermohaline conveyor belt breaks down.

[url]http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/1004/Scientists-discover-huge-tsunami-73-000-years-ago.-Could-it-happen-again[/url]

[url]http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/09/us-health-ebola-persistence-idUSKCN0S316Q20151009[/url]

[QUOTE]A growing awareness of how the Ebola virus can hide in parts of the body such as eyes, breasts and testicles long after leaving the bloodstream raises questions about whether the disease can ever be beaten.[/QUOTE]

[url]http://mashable.com/2015/10/14/pauline-cafferkey-ebola-critically-ill/#6MxYWZ0G0uq7[/url]

[QUOTE]A Scottish nurse re-admitted to hospital on Friday with a complication related to the Ebola virus, which she contracted as an aid worker in Sierra Leone last year, is now in a "critical condition."[/QUOTE]

[URL="http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/?"]The most mysterious star in our galaxy[/URL] is the hyperbolic title of an article I came across via Twitter today. Well worth reading the paper (linked within) of which it is a report.

[QUOTE=xilman;412651][URL="http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/?"]The most mysterious star in our galaxy[/URL] is the hyperbolic title of an article I came across via Twitter today. Well worth reading the paper (linked within) of which it is a report.[/QUOTE]A shame that the last sentence is lacking in rigour:[quote]In the meantime, Boyajian, Siemion, Wright, the citizen scientists, and the rest of us, will have to content ourselves with longing looks at the sky, aimed between the swan and the lyre, where maybe, just maybe, someone is looking back, and seeing the sun dim ever so slightly, every 365 days.[/quote]Since we are looking towards the North to see this then there is no way "they" could look back and see our sun dimming from any planet, the angles are all wrong.

[QUOTE=retina;412656]A shame that the last sentence is lacking in rigour:Since we are looking towards the North to see this then there is no way "they" could look back and see our sun dimming from any planet, the angles are all wrong.[/QUOTE]
Indeed.

They could, perhaps, see Jupiter and Saturn by direct imaging. They might be able to find either or both by astrometry. They are too far away to pick up our military radar transmissions. All these are based on the assumption that they have present-day or near-future human technology. More than that and all bets are off. There are all sorts of ways in which insufficiently advanced magic could allow them to know of our existence.

CRISPR Bacon
 

[URL="http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2015/10/12/Genetic-changes-could-make-pig-organs-usable-for-human-transplant/4321444675896/"]Genetic changes could make pig organs usable for human transplant[/URL]
[QUOTE]The CRISPR gene-editing technology uses the Cas9 protein to guide RNA into a cell, allowing scientists to alter genes.

In the new study, researchers at Harvard describe disrupting 62 copies of the PERV gene in an pig's kidney epithelial cell line. When these cells were then introduced to human cells in the lab, a nearly 1000-fold decrease in PERV transmission was seen. This, the researchers wrote, shows that the virus can be inactivated for clinical application to pig-to-human transplants.

Church told Nature that his research team also changed more than 20 other pig genes that cause an immune response in human cells. The research has yet to be published, but Church said that for pig organs to be a viable option for human transplant, both sets of modifications would need to be made.[/QUOTE]
[URL="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bugs-protein-healthy_561be438e4b0082030a3476c"]Offal isn't awful protein and bugs are the other other-white-meat.[/URL]
[QUOTE]Researchers at the University of Oxford used two different metrics of nutritiousness: The first, the Ofcom model, appoints a score from one to 100 based on a food's calorie, sodium, sugar and saturated fat content per 100 grams of weight. The second, Nutrient Value Scores, offers a similar score to Ofcom, but includes vitamin and mineral values.

The Ofcom test didn't show any significant differences between bugs and livestock. But when vitamins and minerals were taken into account for the NVS evaluation, crickets, palm weevils (beetles), honeybees and larvae scored much higher than chicken and beef in particular.[/QUOTE]
[CENTER]no bees
no honey
no work
no money[/CENTER]
[URL="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/14/448725988/backyard-beekeping-approved-in-los-angeles"]Backyard Beekeeping Approved In Los Angeles[/URL]
[QUOTE]According to an op-ed in The Los Angeles Times by Noah Wilson-Rich, author of [I]The Bee: A Natural History[/I], the repeal of the beekeeping regulation is long overdue:

"On June 10, 1879, Los Angeles lawmakers banned beekeeping within city limits. According to Mark Vallianatos, who teaches environmental policy at Occidental College, their rationale was frankly preposterous. Having noted the affinity between bees and fruit trees, they reasoned that bees attacked and damaged fruit, and concluded that outlawing bees was the best way to preserve crops.
[QUOTE]"Soon enough scientists debunked this ridiculous theory — bees are vitally important pollinators — and by 1917, the Los Angeles Times was calling the no-beekeeping policy 'an ancient and still-unrepealed city ordinance.'"[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
[URL="http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2015/0903/Los-Angeles-buzzing-over-backyard-beehives"]Los Angeles buzzing over backyard beehives[/URL]
[QUOTE]In New York, which legalized beekeeping in 2010, some beekeepers have worried that bees might run out of food, leading to weaker bees when more hives are being kept.

“It takes one million flowers to produce enough nectar for one pound of honey,” said Andrew Cote, founder of the New York City Beekeepers Association, in a July 2013 interview with Live Science. “We have the same amount of flowers and trees, but more bees.”

Denver legalized beekeeping in 2008, but regulations can differ from neighborhood to neighborhood, according to David Baker, owner of To Bee or Not to Bee, a store in Littleton, Colo., that sells beekeeping equipment and teaches classes.

Beekeeping is legal in downtown Denver and has been successful, he adds – to the point where the Brown Palace Hotel, one of the city’s most luxurious buildings, has installed beehives on the roof.[/QUOTE]

[url]http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/2015-nikon-microscopy-contest-winners-science-is-art/[/url]

[url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/12/a-scientist-found-a-bird-that-hadnt-been-seen-in-half-a-century-then-killed-it-heres-why/[/url]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;413004][url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/12/a-scientist-found-a-bird-that-hadnt-been-seen-in-half-a-century-then-killed-it-heres-why/[/url][/QUOTE]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(tree[/url])
[QUOTE]Prometheus (recorded as WPN-114) was the oldest known non-clonal organism, a Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) tree growing near the tree line on Wheeler Peak in eastern Nevada, United States. The tree, which was at least 4862 years old and possibly more than 5000, was cut down in 1964 by a graduate student and United States Forest Service personnel for research purposes.[1] The people involved did not know of its world-record age before the cutting (see below), but the circumstances and decision-making process remain controversial; not all the facts are agreed upon by all involved.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=only_human;413022][URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_%28tree%29"]Prometheus (tree)[/URL][/QUOTE]
Fixed the link for you. Thrilling story! Brrr... Thanks for sharing it.

[URL="http://www.nature.com/news/brain-scans-pinpoint-individuals-from-a-crowd-1.18541"]Brain scans pinpoint individuals from a crowd[/URL]

[URL="http://phys.org/news/2015-10-human-intuition-algorithms-outperforms-teams.html"]System that replaces human intuition with algorithms outperforms human teams[/URL]

[URL="http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/542176/a-shocking-way-to-fix-the-brain/"]A Shocking Way to Fix the Brain[/URL]

[URL="http://www.news.virginia.edu/content/jeffersonian-era-chemistry-hearth-preserved-rotunda-wall"]Jeffersonian-Era Chemistry Hearth Preserved in Rotunda Wall[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wired.com/2015/10/margaret-hamilton-nasa-apollo/"]Her Code Got Humans on the Moon—And Invented Software Itself[/URL]

[URL="http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/09/introverts-at-school-overlook/407467/?single_page=true"]When Schools Overlook Introverts[/URL]

[URL="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/stark-beauty-of-supersonic-shock-waves"]Stark Beauty of Supersonic Shock Waves[/URL]

[URL="https://digg.com/2015/myers-briggs-secret-history"]Uncovering The Secret History Of Myers-Briggs[/URL]

[URL="http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/how-rivalry-propels-creativity/"]Does every creative genius need a bitter rival?[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151005151202.htm"]Are fish the greatest athletes on the planet?[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wired.com/2015/10/pluto-skies-blue-frozen-water/"]New Horizons Discovers Pluto Has Blue Skies and Frozen Water[/URL]

[URL="http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/why-cant-we-unite-neuroscience-and-psychiatry/"]Why can’t we treat mental illness by simply fixing the brain?[/URL]

[URL="http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/74324/this-is-brain-that-shot-president-james-garfield"]This Is the Brain that Shot President James Garfield[/URL]

[URL="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122918/wonder-drug"]THE WONDER DRUG[/URL]

[URL="http://qz.com/511920/a-tumor-stole-every-memory-i-had-this-is-what-happened-when-it-all-came-back/"]A tumor stole every memory I had. This is what happened when it all came back[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wired.com/2015/09/nasa-salty-liquid-water-on-mars/"]NASA Discovers Evidence for Liquid Water on Mars[/URL]

[URL="http://phys.org/news/2015-10-languages-arbitrary-assumed.html"]Languages less arbitrary than long assumed[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-facelift-for-shakespeare-1443194924"]A Facelift for Shakespeare[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wired.com/2011/02/internet-addresses/?mbid=social_twitter"]No Easy Fixes as Internet Runs Out of Addresses[/URL]

[URL="http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/09/10/pluto_new_images_from_new_horizons.html"]New, Gorgeous, Pictures of Pluto[/URL]

[URL="http://www.astronomy.com/news/2015/09/oxygen-in-earths-core-gives-new-view-of-planetary-formation"]Oxygen in Earth’s core gives new view of planetary formation[/URL]

[URL="http://www.rdmag.com/news/2015/09/designed-defects-liquid-crystals-guide-construction-nanomaterials"]Designed defects in liquid crystals guide construction of nanomaterials[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150924151403.htm"]Flower declines shrink bee tongues[/URL]

[URL="http://aeon.co/magazine/science/the-universal-constants-that-drive-physicists-mad/"]Light travels at around 300,000 km per second. Why not faster? Why not slower? A new theory inches us closer to an answer[/URL]

Sandisk negotiating sale to Western Digital
 

[URL="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-19/sandisk-said-to-be-in-advanced-talks-to-sell-to-western-digital"]Potential storage merger[/URL]
[QUOTE]
SanDisk Corp. is in advanced talks to sell itself to Western Digital Corp., and the two storage makers could reach a deal as soon as this week, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Western Digital is discussing a price of between $80 and $90 per SanDisk share, according to two of the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The company is leaning toward an all-cash offer, three people said. SanDisk closed at $72 in New York trading on Monday. While no agreement has been signed and talks could still fall apart, negotiations accelerated over the weekend, the people said.
[/QUOTE]

Re. "Stark Beauty of Supersonic Shock Waves" - well, a subsonic shock wave, that would *really* be a novelty.

But yeah, Schlieren photos of shocks and animated computer simulations of shock/solid-object interactions ... very cool.

[QUOTE=rogue;413161][URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150924151403.htm"]Flower declines shrink bee tongues[/URL]

[URL="http://aeon.co/magazine/science/the-universal-constants-that-drive-physicists-mad/"]Light travels at around 300,000 km per second. Why not faster? Why not slower? A new theory inches us closer to an answer[/URL][/QUOTE]

I only looked to the last 2, no free time, but I promise I will visit the others.
The one about bees is stupid, the conclusion is forced, and "political". Bumble bees are niche feeders, they feed from deep flowers because there is less competition there, the shallow flowers have many other "predators" feeding on them. And feeding from deep flowers makes their tongue longer, their body stronger (to get inside of flowers). In fact the article [U]does[/U] point about species which evolved in tandem, like that. But now, if their tongue became shorter in the last years (and I don't contest the results and work of the authors, I only contest the conclusion, nowadays even when I go pee on the urinal, that is an effect of "global warning") it is because they find plenty of easy to pick food, exactly contrary to what the article says, and they don't need to dig hard into the deepest flowers to get their nectar. Why they find plenty of food, that is a different story, it can be that there are more flowers, or that the competitors died (well... effect or not, of the climate change, etc.). But the conclusion the article draw shows that the biologists who wrote the study didn't really understand how evolution works (adaptation, more exactly), or they got some material support to write that conclusion.

OTOH, the last essay about the speed of light is very nice, I liked that.

[url]http://time.com/4080985/sunscreen-coral-reefs/[/url]

[QUOTE]The effects of a chemical in sunscreen are toxic at the concentration equivalent to a drop of water in an Olympic pool.[/QUOTE]

[url]http://www.universityherald.com/articles/25396/20151028/reducing-sugar-intake-improves-childrens-health-in-10-days.htm[/url]

Check out the picture in the article!

Man died with 'tapeworm tumours'
 

[URL="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34721419"]This is the second tapeworm story[/URL] I have encountered today. :ick:

[QUOTE]A man has died with tumours made of cancerous parasitic worm tissue growing in his organs, doctors report.
The patient had HIV and his weakened immune system allowed the worm-cancer to flourish.
The unusual case was diagnosed through a collaboration between the US Centers for Disease Control and the UK's Natural History Museum.
Doctors said the case, detailed [URL="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1505892"]in the New England Journal of Medicine[/URL], was "crazy" and unusual.
[/QUOTE][URL="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/04/california-man-tapeworm-brain"]This is the first[/URL].
[QUOTE]When the headaches first started in late August, Luís Ortíz tried to ignore them.
But after a day spent skateboarding in early September, the 26-year-old university student found the pain had become too much to bear.
Ortíz became disoriented, and when he started vomiting his mother rushed him to the hospital, where neurosurgeon Soren Singel found the real culprit: a tapeworm larva lodged in his brain. Worse, it had embedded itself in a cyst that was stemming the flow of water to his brain, Singel told the [URL="http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/napa-man-survives-brain-worm/article_cbb075b1-e1f6-550f-97fc-f61645eedd6d.html"]Napa Valley Register[/URL].
Singel drilled a hole above Ortiz’s eyebrow and fished out the worm and the cyst with a neuroendoscope equipped with a grasping tool. “The worm was still wiggling when we pulled it out,” Singel told the Register.
[/QUOTE]

NASA releases HD solar video -Reuters
 

[url]http://www.reuters.com/video/2015/11/05/nasa-releases-hd-sun-video?videoId=366196450&videoChannel=1[/url]

Hubble spies Big Bang frontiers
 

Major Hat Tip to Rogue- Thanks for the link to another story at astronomy.com. Fascinating site!
[URL="http://www.astronomy.com/news/2015/10/hubble-spies-big-bang-frontiers"]Hubble focuses on gravitational lensing of galactic clusters.[/URL]....
Finds extremely early dwarf galaxies.

[QUOTE=kladner;414992][url]http://www.reuters.com/video/2015/11/05/nasa-releases-hd-sun-video?videoId=366196450&videoChannel=1[/url][/QUOTE]

It's quite a shame that there isn't any time scale included in the video.

[QUOTE=Dubslow;415018]It's quite a shame that there isn't any time scale included in the video.[/QUOTE]

Yes. It would really help in grasping the video. Some sense of physical scale would be good, too, as in, "How many earths could fit in a particular little whirlpool?"

WTF?!?!
 

[URL="http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/11/failed-windows-3-1-system-blamed-for-taking-out-paris-airport/"]Failed Windows 3.1 system blamed for shutting down Paris airport[/URL]
And the people who understand the old operating system are all retiring.
O Rly? Ya Rly!
(I put in the cat ping pong animation, but I couldn't stand it in seconds.)

How Do Transistors Work?
 

A nice explanation for those that have been mis-taught in their schooling that BJTs are current controlled devices (or current amplifiers).

[url]http://amasci.com/amateur/transis.html[/url]

[QUOTE=kladner;416131]O Rly? Ya Rly![/QUOTE]
:davar55: I have a small collection of photos from airports around the world, showing blue screens and crashed terminals (different errors), all "personal", i.e. the photos taken by myself. The last one is a 20 meter screen in one of the road intersections in Chiang Mai, showing a beautiful blue screen, but it is a bit unclear due to the fact that it was in the night (lot of "wrong" ambient lights) and I took it "in traffic", i.e. I tried not to stop (too long), and through the car's window, which wasn't extremely clear. But I may look for it and attached it to "post whoring" thread.

[QUOTE=retina;416145]A nice explanation for those that have been mis-taught in their schooling that BJTs are current controlled devices (or current amplifiers).

[URL]http://amasci.com/amateur/transis.html[/URL][/QUOTE]

Excellent! Thank you, Your Evilness! :smile:

[URL="http://gizmodo.com/this-is-the-first-time-weve-witnessed-a-planet-forming-1743339171"]This is the First Time We've Witnessed a Planet Forming[/URL]

[QUOTE]Four and a half billion years ago, a whirling cloud of cosmic dust condensed into the lump of rock we call home. For the first time, astronomers are now watching that same planet-forming process playing out around a distant star.[/QUOTE]

Interesting anti-conventional wisdom w.r.to annual flu shots:

[url=http://www.statnews.com/2015/11/11/flu-shots-reduce-effectiveness/]Getting a flu shot every year? More may not be better[/url]: [i]The evidence, which is confounding some researchers, suggests that getting flu shots repeatedly can gradually reduce the effectiveness of the vaccines under some circumstances.[/i]
[quote]Then in 1999, a leading influenza researcher, Derek Smith, suggested that in years when a component of the vaccine — say the part that protects against the influenza A family called H3N2 — had changed little or not at all from the previous year’s vaccine, the second year’s vaccine would induce less protection. Smith, now based at Britain’s University of Cambridge, called it negative interference.

The idea is that the antibodies produced in year one may neutralize some of the vaccine in year two’s shot before it can trigger a full immune response, explained Dr. John Treanor, a vaccine expert at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

Smith also argued that when the vaccine viruses were quite different from one year to the next the recipient would actually get enhanced protection. Positive interference, he called it.[/quote]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;390136][URL]http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/12/15/a-northern-white-rhino-has-died-there-are-now-five-left-in-the-entire-world/[/URL][/QUOTE][url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/11/23/one-of-last-four-northern-white-rhinos-on-earth-is-euthanized/[/url]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;416975][url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/11/23/one-of-last-four-northern-white-rhinos-on-earth-is-euthanized/[/url][/QUOTE]I know some one that works/worked there. There is much grief and mourning going on.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;416983]I know some one that works/worked there. There is much grief and mourning going on.[/QUOTE]I sincerely hope they are storing genetic samples in widely separated locations. Should be possible to reboot the species within a few decades.

[QUOTE=xilman;417002]I sincerely hope they are storing genetic samples in widely separated locations. Should be possible to reboot the species within a few decades.[/QUOTE]The San Diego Zoo (which the Safari Park is part of) has been involved in a number of conservation programs. I think that they take samples of all rare animal and also try to obtain germ cells if possible. My contact is not involved in that part of their work (they do public outreach/education), but they know a vast amount about what is going on.

[QUOTE=xilman;417002]I sincerely hope they are storing genetic samples in widely separated locations. Should be possible to reboot the species within a few decades.[/QUOTE]

You expecting humankind to disappear within that timeframe?

That is an actual scientific article, right here --
 

[I]On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit. [/I]
G. Pennycook, et al. [URL="http://journal.sjdm.org/vol10.6.html"]Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 10, No. 6[/URL], Nov. 2015, pp. 549-563 [[URL="http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf"]PDF[/URL]]
[QUOTE][U]Abstract[/U]: Although bullshit is common in everyday life and has attracted attention from philosophers, its reception has not, to our knowledge, been subject to empirical investigation. Here we focus on pseudo-profound bullshit, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous. We presented participants with bullshit statements consisting of buzzwords randomly organized into statements with syntactic structure but no discernible meaning (e.g., “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). Across multiple studies, the propensity to judge bullshit statements as profound was associated with a variety of conceptually relevant variables (e.g., intuitive cognitive style, supernatural belief).

What might cause someone to erroneously rate pseudo-profound bullshit as profound? In our view, there are two candidate mechanisms that might explain a general “receptivity” to bullshit. The first mechanism relates to the possibility that some people may have a stronger bias toward accepting things as true or meaningful from the outset. <...>

The second mechanism relates to a potential inability to [I]detect[/I] bullshit, which may cause one to confuse vagueness for profundity. In the words of Sperber (2010): “All too often, what readers do is judge profound what they have failed to grasp”.
[U]
Conclusions[/U]: <...> Those more receptive to bullshit are less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.
[/QUOTE][SIZE=1](Excerpts will not serve as a substitute to reading the whole article.)[/SIZE]

There is at least a third reason for accepting pseudo profound bullshit : I had the problem with sociology as published by some people from the French "school". I was unsure of my ground : not having enough knowledge of a domain makes one more credulous.

I never had the problem with marketing : I always saw that as "statements consisting of buzzwords randomly organized into statements with syntactic structure but no discernible meaning".

Jacob

[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/arts/a-virtual-reality-revolution-coming-to-a-headset-near-you.html?"]A Virtual Reality Revolution, Coming to a Headset Near You[/URL]

[URL="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/20/half-tree-species-amazon-risk-extinction-study"]Half of tree species in the Amazon at risk of extinction, say scientists[/URL]

[URL="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-case-of-the-disappearing-quasars/"]The Case of the Disappearing Quasars[/URL]

[URL="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-surgery-music-idUSKCN0T92HM20151120"]Music not just good for the soul, it's also good for the body[/URL]

[URL="http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/art-architecture/2015/11/08/Data-of-the-art-Carnegie-Museum-computer-program-Elysa-collects-every-detail-on-its-30-098-artworks/stories/201511080038"]Data of the art: Carnegie Museum computer program collects every detail on its 30,098 artworks[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151119095748.htm"]How a raisin can predict a toddler's future academic ability[/URL]

[URL="http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a17822/the-asteroid-hunters/"]The Asteroid Hunters[/URL]

[URL="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/microsleep-brain-fall-asleep-seconds-noticing/story?id=35304495"]Microsleep: How Your Brain Can Fall Asleep for Seconds Without You Noticing[/URL]

[URL="https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-english-so-weirdly-different-from-other-languages"]English is not Normal[/URL]

[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/science/nasa-adds-to-evidence-of-mysterious-ancient-earthworks.html"]NASA Adds to Evidence of Mysterious Ancient Earthworks[/URL]

[URL="http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/10/this-11-year-old-is-selling-cryptographically-secure-passwords-for-2-each/"]This 11-year-old is selling cryptographically secure passwords for $2 each[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wired.com/2015/11/facebook-is-aiming-its-ai-at-go-the-game-no-computer-can-crack"]Facebook Aims Its AI at the Game No Computer Can Crack[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=012000OFHETC#"]Deep Earth Is Likely Filled with Diamonds, Scientists Say[/URL]

[URL="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-schizophrenia-exist-on-an-autism-like-spectrum/"]Does Schizophrenia Exist on an Autism-Like Spectrum?[/URL]

[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/us/harvard-law-library-sacrifices-a-trove-for-the-sake-of-a-free-database.html?_r=2"]Harvard Law Library Readies Trove of Decisions for Digital Age[/URL]

DA approves civilian use of syringe-like device designed to plug war wounds
 

[URL="http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/sponge-injection-could-save-the-lives-of-domestic-gunshot-victims/"]Sponge injection could save the lives of domestic gunshot victims[/URL]

[QUOTE]As mass shootings continue to make headlines and[URL="http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Gun-shops-reporting-robust-sales-amid-mass-6685193.php?t=3c0122a5b2438d9cbb&cmpid=twitter-premium"] gun sales surge nationwide[/URL], a sponge-injecting device designed to patch life-threatening bullet wounds in war is making a domestic debut.


The device, called [URL="http://www.revmedx.com/#%21xstat-dressing/c2500"]XSTAT 30[/URL], acts like a syringe that squirts out 92 tiny, compressed cellulose sponges coated with a blood-sopping absorbent. Together, the sponges can take in about a pint of blood and swell enough to completely fill-in a wound, creating a physical barrier for blood flow. That plugging-power may be enough to prevent life-threatening blood loss as a patient is rushed to an emergency medical facility, according to the Food and Drug Administration.


On Tuesday, the agency [URL="http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm475810.htm"]approved the use of XSTAT[/URL] in civilian adults and adolescents.
[/QUOTE]

[url=www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/world/mona-lisa-hidden-portrait/index.html]'Mona Lisa': Hidden portraits 'found underneath'[/url] | CNN

[Talk about [url=http://grammarist.com/usage/lead-lede/]burying the lede[/url] - the actual title article is way down at the bottom of the page, under a lengthy gallery of 'famous art heists'.]

Ooh! Ooh! I think I know this one - lemme guess, it was really a paint-by-number kit?

[URL="http://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/the-atir-rosenzweig-dunning-effect-when-experts-claim-to-know-the-unknowable"]The Atir-Rosenzweig-Dunning Effect: When Experts Claim to Know the Unknowable[/URL]
[QUOTE]Dunning has now conducted a new study with colleagues Stav Atir and Emily Rosenzweig, finding that expertise has its own pitfalls. In a series of experiments conducted at Cornell University, the researchers found that people with greater knowledge in a particular domain were more likely to claim knowledge that they could not possibly know.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]But before you begin to gloat in the benefits of ignorance, you should be aware that it seems most of us are actually vulnerable to this phenomenon. A stunning 92 percent of people claimed to be familiar with the nonexistent biological subjects of "meta-toxins," "bio-sexual," and "retroplex." This research doesn’t necessarily challenge the original Dunning-Kruger Effect, but it does add the caveat that when it comes to knowing what we don't know, in some specific circumstances expertise can be even more blinding than ignorance itself.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=rogue;418353]
[URL="https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-english-so-weirdly-different-from-other-languages"]English is not Normal[/URL]
[/QUOTE]

I recommend this article! :cool:

[URL="http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/scientists-may-have-found-formula-for-a-painless-existence/"][SIZE=3]Scientists may have found formula for a painless existence[/SIZE][/URL]

As the article states, there are people who do not experience pain. For them, unnoticed injury is a hazard. On the bright side, the research indicates that it may be possible to greatly reduce opioid dosage to achieve the same effect in people who are experiencing pain.

[URL="http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/12/hackers-actively-exploit-critical-vulnerability-in-sites-running-joomla/"]Hackers actively exploit critical vulnerability in sites running Joomla[/URL]

[QUOTE]Attackers are actively exploiting a critical remote command-execution vulnerability that has plagued the Joomla content management system for almost eight years, security researchers said.


A patch for the vulnerability, which affects versions 1.5 through 3.4.5, was [URL="https://developer.joomla.org/security-centre/630-20151214-core-remote-code-execution-vulnerability.html"]released Monday morning[/URL]. It was too late: the bug was already being exploited in the wild, researchers from security firm Sucuri warned in a [URL="https://blog.sucuri.net/2015/12/remote-command-execution-vulnerability-in-joomla.html"]blog post[/URL]. The attacks started on Saturday from a handful of IP addresses and by Sunday included hundreds of exploit attempts to sites monitored by Sucuri.


"Today (Dec 14th), the wave of attacks is even bigger, with basically every site and honeypot we have being attacked," the blog post reported. "That means that probably every other Joomla site out there is being targeted as well."
[/QUOTE]

[url]http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/18799/20151216/greater-vasa-parrots-make-tools-grind-seashells-nutritious-calcium-powder.htm[/url]

[QUOTE]In a recent study of ten captive parrots, psychologists from the Universities of York and St. Andrews discovered these resourceful birds can make grinding tools to acquire calcium from seashells.[/QUOTE]

[url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/12/24/cameras-capture-never-before-seen-footage-of-wild-crows-building-tools/[/url]

[QUOTE]Tiny cameras attached to wild New Caledonian crows capture, for the first time, video footage of these elusive birds fashioning hooked stick tools, according to researchers.[/QUOTE]

SpaceX manage to land a first stage rocket on land (aat the 4th minute beware it id loud)
[youtube]BZ6yKSpi2ks[/youtube]

[URL="http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a18573/closest-habitable-planet-wolf-1061/"]Astronomers Discover a Potentially Habitable Planet Just 14 Light Years Away[/URL]

[URL="http://www.futurity.org/correlated-metals-screens-1071452-2/"]New Transparent Metal Could Make Screens Cheaper[/URL]

[URL="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/42a2c410305141328781913724c3b742/made-just-his-kids-profs-board-game-now-taking"]Made just for his kids, prof's card game is now taking off[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151216082154.htm"]n US, poverty dampens genetic influence on IQ[/URL]

[URL="http://phys.org/news/2015-11-phase-carbon-diamond-room-temperature.html"]Researchers find new phase of carbon, make diamond at room temperature[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151203160142.htm"]Interventions may temporarily raise kids' IQs, but there is fadeout over time[/URL]

[URL="http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/the-man-who-used-facebook-to-find-an-extinct-human-species"]The Man Who Used Facebook to Find an Extinct Human Species[/URL]

Reusable, sugar-based polymer purifies water fast
 

[URL="http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/reusable-sugar-based-polymer-purifies-water-fast/"]"Clean water is essentia[/URL]l, yet in certain parts of the world, it's very difficult to obtain. Unfortunately, our limited water resources are being polluted by chemicals from industrial plants, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and more.

Adsorbant materials composed of carbon are often used to remove many of these organic pollutants. However, they act slowly, typically miss hydrophilic micropollutants, and can be difficult to reuse.

Scientists working on developing inexpensive materials that can purify water quickly have been working with an insoluble polymer called β-cyclodextrin (β-CD)—a big loop of linked sugar molecules. Recently, they've discovered a way to cross-link β-CD using aromatic groups forming a porous, cross-linked complex. The porous, cross-linked β-CD has an increased surface area that significantly speeds the removal of pollutants."

Quick humorous hits:
[QUOTE=rogue;420434][URL="http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a18573/closest-habitable-planet-wolf-1061/"]Astronomers Discover a Potentially Habitable Planet Just 14 Light Years Away[/URL][/quote]
"...Virgin Galactic hopes to initiate one-way shuttle service for Earth's oligarchs before next global economic bust brings the torches and pitchforks out in earnest."

[quote][URL="http://www.futurity.org/correlated-metals-screens-1071452-2/"]New Transparent Metal Could Make Screens Cheaper[/URL][/quote]
Hopefully with suitable royalties to the estate of the late Star Trek Enterprise chief engineer Montgomery Scott, famed as the discoverer of transparent Aluminum.

[quote][URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151216082154.htm"]In US, poverty dampens genetic influence on IQ[/URL][/quote]
Cynical oligarchic PR-spin-to-the-poor: "See? We're doing you a favor by keeping your poor, by leveling the playing field for your kids!"

[quote][URL="http://phys.org/news/2015-11-phase-carbon-diamond-room-temperature.html"]Researchers find new phase of carbon, make diamond at room temperature[/URL][/quote]
How to make a diamond disappear at room temperature has of course been a staple of crime lore for centuries.

[quote][URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151203160142.htm"]Interventions may temporarily raise kids' IQs, but there is fadeout over time[/URL][/quote]
Thus reinforcing our claim above that impoverishment is the better way to go here.

[quote][URL="http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/the-man-who-used-facebook-to-find-an-extinct-human-species"]The Man Who Used Facebook to Find an Extinct Human Species[/URL][/QUOTE]
Homo Sapiens Attentionspanlongerthan15secundicus?

=====================

[url=https://www.sciencenews.org/article/four-elements-earn-permanent-seats-periodic-table]Four elements earn permanent seats on the periodic table[/url] | Science News

Ooh, I know this one! Earth, Wind, Air and Fire, right?

[QUOTE=ewmayer;421164]Ooh, I know this one! Earth, Wind, Air and Fire, right?[/QUOTE]Nope.

Earth, Water, Air, and Fire.

Three out of four aint too bad.

How far are we from the expected island of stability?

[QUOTE=xilman;421180]Nope.

Earth, Water, Air, and Fire.

Three out of four aint too bad.[/QUOTE]

I plead the 'victim of Motown group name'-mind-addlement defense, yer honor, and throw myself on the mercy of yer courtship.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;421244]I plead the 'victim of Motown group name'-mind-addlement defense, yer honor, and throw myself on the mercy of yer courtship.[/QUOTE]In modern terminology they are, of course, solid, liquid, gas and plasma.

[url=www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/01/qa-ancient-remedies-head-super-bug-crisis-160106155521967.html]Q&A: Can ancient remedies head off super-bug crisis?[/url] - Al Jazeera English
[quote]Scientists at the University of Nottingham say they have discovered that a 1,000-year-old Anglo-Saxon treatment - used for eye infections and recorded in the medieval Bald's Leechbook - has an extraordinary ability to kill MRSA, a drug-resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus.The 10th century remedy - which includes garlic, wine, and cow bile - has yet to be tested on humans, but it has showed promising signs that it could contribute significantly to the fight against the deadly bacterial infection, researchers say.[/quote]
Hopefully will not literally require "eye of newt" - think of the poor innocent newts!

(Aside: some witch with a huge facial mole and a nose long as a carrot turned me into a newt once ... I got better on my own, though. I subsequently tried to get even with the wicked witch by building a bridge out of her, but ended being cited by local authorities for unlicensed construction using unapproved materials.)

Comet Wild 2 dust 'ballistics' probed in 3D
 

Scientists in the US are making [URL="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35268807"]detailed 3D maps of the cavities carved by comet dust[/URL] in blocks of foam carried by Nasa's Stardust spacecraft.

[QUOTE]Stardust visited Comet Wild 2 in 2004, catching samples from its dusty tail in specially made slabs of "aerogel".

By studying the tracks with microscopes and synchrotron X-rays, researchers aim to reconstruct exactly what kind of particles first hit the gel.

They are also identifying extra, tiny grains to be extracted and tested.

"We want to tell people where the interesting grains are," said Amanda White, a student working on the project at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
[/QUOTE]

Analysis confirms [URL="http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/analysis-confirms-coordinated-hack-attack-caused-ukrainian-power-outage/"]coordinated hack attack[/URL] caused Ukrainian power outage

The people who carried out [URL="http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/first-known-hacker-caused-power-outage-signals-troubling-escalation/"]last month's first known hacker-caused power outage[/URL] used highly destructive malware to gain a foothold into multiple regional distribution power companies in Ukraine and delay restoration efforts once electricity had been shut off, a newly published analysis confirms.

[URL]http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-pandemics-idUSKCN0UR20C20160113[/URL]

[QUOTE]Investing less than \$0.72 a year for each person would make the world far more resilient to potentially devastating pandemics, according to a global health expert group convened in the wake of the Ebola crisis.[/QUOTE]

[url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/01/14/this-suspected-supernova-is-570-billion-times-brighter-than-our-sun/]This suspected supernova is 570 billion times as bright as our sun[/url] - The Washington Post

[Aside: Oh gawd, not with the whoring-for-eyeballs 'This' headline trope again. 'This article title vying to be most clickbaity ever!']

Caltech Researchers Find Evidence of a Real Ninth Planet:

[URL]http://www.gps.caltech.edu/content/caltech-researchers-find-evidence-real-ninth-planet[/URL]

[QUOTE=Nick;423235]Caltech Researchers Find Evidence of a Real Ninth Planet:

[URL]http://www.gps.caltech.edu/content/caltech-researchers-find-evidence-real-ninth-planet[/URL][/QUOTE]

That's incredible. It's an extraordinary claim, but they seem to be well on their way to extraordinary evidence.

Number 9, number 9, number 9.........
 

[URL="http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/scientist-who-killed-pluto-now-concludes-there-is-a-ninth-major-planet/"]Ars Technica on the research[/URL] suggesting another distant planet.
[QUOTE]The demotion of Pluto to dwarf planet didn't come about because of any discovery about Pluto itself. Rather, it was triggered by the discovery that Pluto was one of what's likely to be a large number of bodies that orbit well beyond Neptune. These Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs), some of which are larger than Pluto, tend to have unusual orbits, passing outside of the plane of the Solar System, with their ellipses stretched out on one side, while passing closer to the Sun on the other.

But in recent years, scientists have been noting some odd patterns in the orbits of KBOs. For many of them, their closest approach to the Sun comes as they cross the orbital plane of the inner planets. Now, the researcher who helped identify some of the first KBOs has published a paper in which he identifies a possible cause of these patterns: a distant, Neptune-sized body that would restore our Solar System's planetary total to nine.
[/QUOTE]

Spotted on the interwebs: "Ed Wood was right in his famous movie Plan 9 from Outer Space ... he just missed the 'et'!"

[url]http://phys.org/news/2016-01-self-heating-lithium-ion-battery-winter-woes.html[/url]

I love reading articles like this because of the thought process my brain goes through with the information.

The problem:Cold batteries charge slowly.

The solution: Don't allow them to be cold when the time comes to use them.

An obvious solution when it's suggested or implemented, but I'm sure a lot of people are feeling rather "herpderpish" after reading it.

Another good one is the first propeller driven wind car. People in the sailing industry were claiming it was bull crap until a proof of concept car(concept works on water and land) was built and tested on some sand flats. Last I heard, they were considering putting propellers on cruise ships for the sake of reduced mileage.

[url]http://www.wired.com/2010/06/downwind-faster-than-the-wind/[/url]

[QUOTE=kladner;423288]Number 9, number 9, number 9.........[/QUOTE]Take this brother, may it serve you well.

Salty, ocean-based capacitors may deliver energy boost
 

Using a capacitor to [URL="http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/salty-ocean-based-capacitors-may-deliver-energy-boost"]extract energy from the mixing of fresh and salt water.[/URL][INDENT]Every year, the Dutch physics community [URL="http://http://www.fom.nl/live/agenda/physicsatFOM/information.pag"]gets together[/URL] to celebrate the year in physics. These are some highlights from the meeting. Since it is a meeting, it is not possible to link to published work (a talk could cover multiple papers or just parts of papers). Where possible, we've linked to the research group that presented the work.
[/INDENT][QUOTE]I remember, maybe 12 years ago, attending a talk by an environmental activist who discussed clean and sustainable energy and the difficulties in obtaining it. She was not your average activist—she had, as I recall, qualifications in chemical engineering.

One thing she mentioned in passing (and I may not have remembered this accurately) was that when fresh water flows into salt water, the process of salination releases a relatively large amount of energy, but that no one knew how to harvest it effectively.

That may eventually change if the work of Mathijs Janssen, from [URL="http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/%7Eroij0101/"]Utrecht University[/URL], pays off.

A capacitor says to a bartender: hey, stop charging me! [:grin:][/QUOTE]

[url]http://phys.org/news/2016-01-de-icing-concrete-roadway-safety-corporate.html[/url]

[quote]A 200-square-foot slab of seemingly ordinary concrete sits just outside the Peter Kiewit Institute as snowflakes begin parachuting toward Omaha on a frigid afternoon in late December.

The snow accumulates on the grass surrounding the slab and initially clings to the concrete, too. But as the minutes pass and the snow begins melting from only its surface, the slab reveals its secret: Like razors, stoves and guitars before it, this concrete has gone electric.
Its designer, UNL professor of civil engineering Chris Tuan, has added a pinch of steel shavings and a dash of carbon particles to a recipe that has literally been set in concrete for centuries. Though the newest ingredients constitute just 20 percent of Tuan's otherwise standard concrete mixture, they conduct enough electricity to melt ice and snow in the worst winter storms while remaining safe to the touch.

Tuan's research team is demonstrating the concrete's de-icing performance to the Federal Aviation Administration during a testing phase that runs through March 2016. If the FAA is satisfied with the results, Tuan said the administration will consider scaling up the tests by integrating the technology into the tarmac of a major U.S. airport.
[/quote]

Hints of Calculus in ancient Babylonian astronomy. Pretty neat-

Norm

[URL="http://gizmodo.com/this-babylonian-astronomy-text-changes-history-1755458324"]http://gizmodo.com/this-babylonian-astronomy-text-changes-history-1755458324[/URL]

[QUOTE=Dubslow;424095][url]http://phys.org/news/2016-01-de-icing-concrete-roadway-safety-corporate.html[/url]
[i]
Its designer, UNL professor of civil engineering Chris Tuan, has added a pinch of steel shavings and a dash of carbon particles to a recipe that has literally been set in concrete for centuries. Though the newest ingredients constitute just 20 percent of Tuan's otherwise standard concrete mixture, they conduct enough electricity to melt ice and snow in the worst winter storms while remaining safe to the touch.[/i][/QUOTE]

"Just" 20% very expensive ingredients? That is way more than "a pinch". Why not just run some current through the rebar already in all large-scale concrete pourings? You need just enough heat to conduct to the surface to keep it from dropping below freezing. If you want to concentrate the heat near the surface, just pass it through the shallowest layer of rebar. While existing non-conducting-oriented rebar tech may not be suitable for such current-loops, it would seem a fairly straightforward matter to adapt new designs to optimize for both strength and the proper conductive requirements.

[url=www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/health/how-skin-cancer-develops-melanoma-zebra-fish.html]A Single Cell Shines New Light on How Cancers Develop[/url] - NYT
[quote]It was just a tiny speck, a single cell that researchers had marked with a fluorescent green dye. But it was the very first cell of what would grow to be a melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. Never before had researchers captured a cancer so early.

The cell was not a cancer yet. But its state was surprising: It was a cell that had reverted to an embryonic form, when it could have developed into any cell type. As it began to divide, cancer genes took over and the single primitive cell barreled forward into a massive tumor.

Those were the findings of Dr. Leonard Zon of Boston Children’s Hospital, Dr. Charles K. Kaufman, and their colleagues, in a study published Thursday in the journal Science that offers new insight into how cancers may develop. The researchers stumbled on that first cell of a melanoma when they set out to solve a puzzle that has baffled cancer investigators: Why do many cells that have cancer genes never turn cancerous?[/quote]
Cancer research seems to go through successive phases akin to other cultural fashions - pre-college/undergrad I seem to recall the big thing being the purported cancer-causing oncogenes ... in grad school (90s) big thing was tumor suppressor genes and apoptosis (programmed cell death) ... the role of the crestin gene described in the above piece makes it sound like a long-out-of-fashion oncogene, albeit a context-dependent one: active in early life and normally programmed tissue growth/differentiation = good, reactivated in old damaged cells which mistakenly 'revert to infancy' = bad.

[URL="http://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/underwater-home-for-microsoft-data-center-is-pretty-cool/"]Underwater home for Microsoft data center is pretty cool, which is the point[/URL]
[QUOTE]Microsoft has tested a prototype of a self-contained data center that can operate hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean, eliminating one of the technology industry’s most expensive problems: the air conditioning bill.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]The research group has started designing an underwater system that will be three times as large. It will be built in collaboration with a yet-to-be-chosen developer of an ocean-based alternative-energy system.

The Microsoft engineers said they expected a new trial to begin next year, possibly near Florida or in Northern Europe, where there are extensive ocean energy projects under way.

The first prototype, affectionately named “Leona Philpot” — a character in Microsoft’s “Halo” video game series — has been returned, partly covered with barnacles, to the Redmond campus.

It is a large white steel tube, covered with heat exchangers, with its ends sealed by metal plates and large bolts. Inside is a single data center computing rack that was bathed in pressurized nitrogen to efficiently remove heat from computing chips while the system was tested on the ocean floor.

The idea for the underwater system came from a research paper written in 2014 by several Microsoft data-center employees, including one with experience on a Navy submarine.[/QUOTE]

[URL]http://www.techtimes.com/articles/130909/20160205/pandemic-decimating-bee-populations-worldwide-is-man-made-and-driven-by-european-honeybees.htm[/URL]

[QUOTE]The situation is casting doubts on global bee populations in the future. The global bee pandemic carries major biodiversity and biosecurity impacts, which can affect human health and worldwide economies.[/QUOTE][SIZE=1][COLOR=White]We don't think "decimating" is the right word.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[url=arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/there-was-a-massive-population-crash-in-europe-over-14500-years-ago/]There was a massive population crash in Europe over 14,500 years ago[/url] | Ars Technica

One small tech-term clarifier the article fails to make w.r.to the jargon-dense quoted snip:
[i]
"Although this model supports population continuity from pre- to post-LGM, the genetic bottleneck is consistent with the apparent loss of hg M in the post-LGM."
[/i]
'hg M' = haplogroup M, not meters of Mercury barometric pressure. :P

I find the thought of small pockets of our modern-human ancestors (well, at least for the pockets that survived) hunkering down in ice-walled 'climate refugia' fascinating. Will humans millennia from now be similarly speaking of refugia, not from cold but from heat?

I've been gone for much of the past five weeks so these have accumulated. I'm sorry if any of these have been posted by me or someone else:

[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151229070713.htm"]Social, telepresence robots revealed by scientists[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151223130234.htm"]Mathematical model for animal stripes[/URL]

[URL="https://aeon.co/essays/why-do-scientists-dismiss-the-possibility-of-cold-fusion"]The Cold Fusion Horizon[/URL]

[URL="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/04/periodic-tables-seventh-row-finally-filled-as-four-new-elements-are-added"]Periodic table's seventh row finally filled as four new elements are added[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wired.com/2016/02/twitter-nerd-fight-reveals-a-long-bizarre-scientific-feud/"]Twitter Nerd-Fight Reveals a Long, Bizarre Scientific Feud[/URL]

[URL="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600721/better-brain-imaging-could-show-computers-a-smarter-way-to-learn/#/set/id/600722/"]Better Brain Imaging Could Show Computers a Smarter Way to Learn[/URL]

[URL="http://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/the-relationship-between-life-purpose-and-risk-of-death/mental-healthcare"]Study shows connection between life purpose and risk of death[/URL]

[URL="http://www.livescience.com/53535-computer-reads-thoughts-instantaneously.html"]Mind-Reading Computer Instantly Decodes People's Thoughts[/URL]

[URL="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160203-saturn-ring-optical-illusion-opacity-space-science/#/"]Saturn’s Ring Puffs Itself Up With Optical Illusion[/URL]

[URL="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/for-the-first-time-scientists-win-approval-to-edit-human-embryo-genomes/"]For the First Time, Scientists Win Approval to Edit Human Embryo Genomes[/URL]

[URL="http://blogs.plos.org/neuro/2016/01/25/beyond-the-neuron-emerging-roles-of-glial-cells-in-neuroscience/"]Beyond the neuron: Emerging roles of glial cells in neuroscience[/URL]

[URL="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/27/scientists-reveal-multifractal-structure-of-finnegans-wake-james-joyce?CMP=share_btn_tw"]Scientists find evidence of mathematical structures in classic books[/URL]

[URL="http://phys.org/news/2016-01-bigger-brains-smarter-carnivores.html"]Do bigger brains make smarter carnivores?[/URL]

[URL="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/546301/will-machines-eliminate-us/"]Will Machines Eliminate Us?[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wired.com/2016/01/microsoft-neural-net-shows-deep-learning-can-get-way-deeper/"]Microsoft Neural Net Shows Deep Learning Can Get Way Deeper[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160120201224.htm"]Memory capacity of brain is 10 times more than previously thought[/URL]

[URL="http://www.nature.com/news/why-boredom-is-anything-but-boring-1.19140"]Why boredom is anything but boring[/URL]

[URL="http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/why-spider-man-cant-exist-geckos-are-size-limit-for-sticking-to-walls"]Why Spider-Man can’t exist: Geckos are ‘size limit’ for sticking to walls[/URL]

[URL="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/2165379e-b4b2-11e5-8358-9a82b43f6b2f.html#slide0"]The great British curry crisis[/URL]

[URL="http://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/using-brain-chemistry-to-raise-pain-threshold/education"]Pain and the brain: Examining differences in coping mechanisms[/URL]

[URL="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/evolution-of-eyes-text"]Inside the Eye: Nature’s Most Exquisite Creation[/URL]

[URL="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/why-creativity-is-a-numbers-game/"]Why Creativity Is a Numbers Game[/URL]

[URL="http://news.mit.edu/2016/shared-behavior-microbes-electrons-0105"]Study reveals shared behavior of microbes and electrons[/URL]

[URL="http://phys.org/news/2016-01-d-threatens-patent.html"]How 3-D printing threatens our patent system[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wfs.org/blogs/len-rosen/gizmos-gadgets-one-step-closer-star-treks-holodeck"]Gizmos & Gadgets: One Step Closer to Star Trek's Holodeck[/URL]

[URL="http://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/despite-studys-conclusion-random-acts-of-joy-are-good-for-you/education"]Despite study’s conclusion, random acts of joy are good for you[/URL]

[URL="https://upvoted.com/2016/01/05/how-a-college-intern-created-microsoft-solitaire-possibly-the-most-played-computer-game-ever/"]How a College Intern Created Microsoft Solitaire, Possibly the Most Played Computer Game Ever[/URL]

[URL="http://phys.org/news/2016-01-scientists-blue-green-clays-bacteria.html"]Scientists discover how blue and green clays kill bacteria[/URL]

[QUOTE=rogue;425777]
[URL="https://aeon.co/essays/why-do-scientists-dismiss-the-possibility-of-cold-fusion"]The Cold Fusion Horizon[/URL]
[/QUOTE]

Huh.

[quote]So, as a matter of sociology, it is easy to see why Rossi gets little serious attention; why an interview with Darden associates him with scientific chicanery; and why, I hope, some of you are having doubts about me for writing on the subject in a way that indicates that I am prepared to consider it seriously. (If so, hold that attitude. I want to explain why I take it to reflect a pathology in our present version of the scientific method. My task will be easier if you are still suffering from the symptoms.)[/quote]

Thanks, lots of good stuff there.

Re. cold fusion, the article fails to mention late Nobelist Julian Schwinger's work in the possible particle-physics mechanisms which could produce cold fusion. Wikipedia discusses, and a quick web search will turn up additional links aplenty. Long story short, Schwinger felt so ill-treated by the physics community over this that he resigned from the APS in protest, noting that "the pressure for conformity is enormous."

Re. the exquisite eye, they must mean the octopus eye, since mammalian eyes are well-known to 'have got off on the wrong foot' in their long evolutionary elaboration, causing their retinas to be flipped inside out, necessitating an ugly hack to allow the nerve bundle leading to the brain to get out in the form of the well-known defect known as the blind spot. The octopodean lineage, OTOH, did things properly, similarly high-quality visual acuity but no blind spot. (IOW, a little humility might be apropos on our part here.)

[QUOTE]
For the first time, scientists have observed ripples in the fabric of spacetime called gravitational waves, arriving at the earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe. This confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window onto the cosmos.
[/QUOTE]Press release: [URL]https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20160211[/URL]

[QUOTE=Nick;425968]Press release: [URL]https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20160211[/URL][/QUOTE]

I've been awaiting this news for a while. Thanks for the link.

Although I do find it somewhat amusing that when you search Google News for "Gravity" sorted by date some viral rock band's new video is more prevalent than this major scientific breakthrough.

Welcome to the new dark ages....

[QUOTE=Nick;425968]Press release: [URL]https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20160211[/URL][/QUOTE]
[quote]
[URL]http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102[/URL]
The source lies at a luminosity distance of 410 (+160/−180) Mpc corresponding to a redshift z=0.09 (+0.03/−0.04). In the source frame, the initial black hole masses are 36 (+5/−4) M[sub]⊙[/sub] and 29 (±4) M[sub]⊙[/sub] , and the final black hole mass is 62 (±4) M[sub]⊙[/sub] with 3.0 (±0.5) M[sub]⊙[/sub] c[sup]2[/sup] radiated in gravitational waves.[/quote]It's the energy release that I find impressive. Three solar masses out of 65, or about 5% efficiency.

[Added in edit:] That energy release occurred in a tenth of a second ...

[QUOTE=xilman;425987]It's the energy release that I find impressive. Three solar masses out of 65, or about 5% efficiency.

[Added in edit:] That energy release occurred in a [U]tenth of a second[/U] ...[/QUOTE]
:shock: That is hard to encompass. Three solar masses converted to energy. Wow.

[QUOTE=xilman;425987][Added in edit:] That energy release occurred in a tenth of a second ...[/QUOTE]

Let's be thankful that energy was released as gravity waves, rather than photons. :wink:

[QUOTE=chalsall;425998]Let's be thankful that energy was released as gravity waves, rather than photons. :wink:[/QUOTE]You should also be thankful that it occurred 400Mpc away. Even gravitational waves can loosen your fillings if you're close enough to that power density.

[QUOTE=xilman;426000]You should also be thankful that it occurred 400Mpc away. Even gravitational waves can loosen your fillings if you're close enough to that power density.[/QUOTE]

You know, now that you mention it, my left front filling is feeling a little loose. Interestingly, its a composite filling.

I just thought it predicted future rainfall, just like the pain in my right knee....

Very cool 'cowabunga!' news re. gravitational waves.

[QUOTE=chalsall;425998]Let's be thankful that energy was released as gravity waves, rather than photons. :wink:[/QUOTE]

Are there any plausible/favored mechanisms for g-waves to interconvert into other forms of energy, either spontaneously or via interaction with other forms of matter/energy? Are they dissipative? All sorts of interesting questions arise.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;426005]All sorts of interesting questions arise.[/QUOTE]

It has been postulated that large energy events near us (read: a few light years away) could cause us harm.