Official "Science News" Thread

[Spherical Cow]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

There are only paraphrases, with no direct quote. Perhaps they just read the NASA release rather than the journal article.

You're right- Guilty as charged. I saw both talking about 120,000 vectors used in the analysis, and thought they had both used quotes. Temporarily blinded by my frustration with the science reporter, I guess.

Norm

[cheesehead]

Please forgive my unnecessary pickiness there. I've been switching my attention back and forth from this forum to an anti-AGWer's book where I'm teasing out the author's many scientific errors, and I sometimes carry over an attitude of criticality that's not appropriate here.

I've just compared the LAT article to a NASA news release at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca...i20120625.html As far as I can tell, every item in the LAT article could have been either paraphrased from the NASA release or generated from general knowledge about Saturn. That doesn't prove that the LAT author didn't read the Icarus article, but it does seem possible for someone with general knowledge about Saturn (but not enough to recognize the rings' shadow) to have written the LAT article without seeing the Icarus article.

(Re: shadow -- OTOH there are those experiments in which students told to watch a video of a store robbery in order to answer questions about robbers' details afterward fail to recall that a non-robber guy in a gorilla suit strolled across the scene mid-video.)

[Spherical Cow]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

(Re: shadow -- OTOH there are those experiments in which students told to watch a video of a store robbery in order to answer questions about robbers' details afterward fail to recall that a non-robber guy in a gorilla suit strolled across the scene mid-video.)

Ah, yes- I've seen versions of that experiment as well, though the one I saw was simply a group of people bouncing a basketball back and forth between one another. The viewers were asked to count the number of passes, I think. A guy in a gorilla suit walks right through the middle of the group, and an amazing number of viewers of the video (30%+ I think?) don't even notice the guy in the suit. Fascinating. I wish I could have seen a version of it before hearing about the experiment, to see if I noticed him. Once you know what to expect, of course, he's pretty obvious. Really amazing how the mind works. Or doesn't, sometimes.

Norm

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by Spherical Cow

Or doesn't, sometimes.

But that's the trick. 99% of the time, the extra focus spent on the one thing produces more "good" for the average human than noticing other things. Only with our advanced ability to focus could we accomplish such great things (such as, e.g., the vast mathematical knowledge we have collectively accumulated).

[Xyzzy]

There were people with basketballs?

[science_man_88]

Scientists develop spray-on battery

Scientists in the United States have developed a paint that can store and deliver electrical power just like a battery.

One limitation of the technology is in the use of difficult-to-handle liquid electrolytes and the need for a dry and oxygen-free environment when making the new device.

[xilman]

Privately funded space telescope for NEO asteroid search:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18638807

Looks good. I can't afford to bankroll the project myself but wouldn't mind contributing something to it.


Paul

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by xilman

Privately funded space telescope for NEO asteroid search:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18638807

Looks good. I can't afford to bankroll the project myself but wouldn't mind contributing something to it.

I saw that and thought that they are looking in the right direction in more than one way.

1. Looking on the opposite side of the sun from earth.
2. Placing it in about the orbit of Venus (allowing it to look outward into the orbits smaller than earth's.)
3. Looking at a full spectrum of financing (like museums and other similar institutions do.)
4. Looking to do this with Ball (yes they are related to the folks that make the canning jars) and Space X.

I would not mind throwing them a fiver or three.

[science_man_88]

APNewsBreak: Proof of 'God particle' found a bad title supposedly but still a title.

Scientists working at the world's biggest atom smasher plan to announce Wednesday that they have gathered enough evidence to show that the long-sought "God particle" answering fundamental questions about the universe almost certainly does exist.

Instead, experts familiar with the research at CERN's vast complex on the Swiss-French border say that the massive data they have obtained will essentially show the footprint of the key particle known as the Higgs boson — all but proving it exists — but doesn't allow them to say it has actually been glimpsed.

[only_human]

Originally Posted by science_man_88

APNewsBreak: Proof of 'God particle' found a bad title supposedly but still a title.

It is amusing that Fermilab wants to get a little priority on information release:
Tevatron scientists announce their final results on the Higgs particle

After more than 10 years of gathering and analyzing data produced by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Tevatron collider, scientists from the CDF and DZero collaborations have found their strongest indication to date for the long-sought Higgs particle. Squeezing the last bit of information out of 500 trillion collisions produced by the Tevatron for each experiment since March 2001, the final analysis of the data does not settle the question of whether the Higgs particle exists, but gets closer to an answer. The Tevatron scientists unveiled their latest results on July 2, two days before the highly anticipated announcement of the latest Higgs-search results from the Large Hadron Collider in Europe.

(my bold both times)

[Dubslow]

http://www.examiner.com/article/vide...y-space-center

First Orion capsule delivered to KSC; will fly unmanned test in 2014 to 3600 mi altitude.