Science News of the Day

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Doug
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Re: Science News of the Day

Post by Doug »

See here.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- It has been 115 years since an earthquake stronger than a magnitude 6 occurred along the New Madrid fault line, but scientists said we could see a major event within the next 50 years.

Earthquake expert Brady Cox said the New Madrid seismic zone poses a real threat to Arkansas.

"Scientists have predicted anywhere in the range of 25 to 40 percent possibility of having an earthquake larger than six," Cox said.
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Re: Science News of the Day

Post by Betsy »

Two thoughts:

1) I've been hearing ever since going to Ramay Junior High that Arkansas will likely get an earthquake in the relatively near future, which of course terrified me back then....but after 30 years or so, it's kind of like the boy who cried wolf.

2) That said, it may be likely to happen in the near future, due to the smattering of earthquakes occurring lately. Bible believers often repeat a quote about how when the end of the earth is near, there will be many earthquakes (the idea of which also used to terrify me). But, wouldn't it make sense that many earthquakes occur at or near the same time? If they're caused by tectonic plates moving (and they are), those movements are not isolated and would logically cause a series of earthquakes.
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Re: Science News of the Day

Post by kwlyon »

Betsy wrote:Two thoughts:

1) I've been hearing ever since going to Ramay Junior High that Arkansas will likely get an earthquake in the relatively near future, which of course terrified me back then....but after 30 years or so, it's kind of like the boy who cried wolf.

2) That said, it may be likely to happen in the near future, due to the smattering of earthquakes occurring lately. Bible believers often repeat a quote about how when the end of the earth is near, there will be many earthquakes (the idea of which also used to terrify me). But, wouldn't it make sense that many earthquakes occur at or near the same time? If they're caused by tectonic plates moving (and they are), those movements are not isolated and would logically cause a series of earthquakes.
Yes. You are absolutely right on in this assertion. But they really happen every time an angel farts....Dammit....I just have to be a smartass!
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Re: Science News of the Day

Post by Dardedar »

Betsy wrote: Bible believers often repeat a quote about how when the end of the earth is near, there will be many earthquakes (the idea of which also used to terrify me).
DAR
Yes they do. It's one of the favorite "signs" used by end timers (like Jehovah's Witnesses). Like most of the "signs" it's rather useless since war, famine, pestilence, lawlessness and earthquakes are pretty constant favorites of this planet and it's human inhabitants (Jesus picked very mundane perennial signs didn't he?). It is useful to remind these folks that all of these things were FAR worse in the past (their were more earthquakes in the 1800's than there were in the 1900's). I have a book that goes through and shows this in great detail.

Here it is.

D.
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Re: Science News of the Day

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George Will still lying about Climate Change:

George Will's torrent of global warming misinformation continues with distortion of glacier data

In a Washington Post column, serial global warming misinformer George Will said that the "menace of global warming" is "elusive" and claimed that an acknowledged error about Himalayan glaciers in a report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) constituted "another dollop of evidence of the seepage of dubious science into policy debate." In fact, scientists routinely present strong evidence of long-term global warming and its consequences, including evidence of "[w]idespread mass loss from glaciers."

One commenter notes:

Scientists often point out their own or others mistakes.

This actually is an example of how science is supposed to work: The statement about certain glaciers being gone by 2035 was not based on peer-reviewed research and so should not have been in the 2007 IPCC report. When that was shown, the IPCC retracted the statement.

That's what good scientists do: Show them something they said is wrong, they take it back. Even when, as here, the underlying assertion (those glaciers are retreating, just not that fast) remains on solid ground.

But once again we see these [deniers] will... "use the very self-correction that is part of science as a weapon against it. And they will do it, and do it with neither pause nor shame, because they are not engaged in science. They are engaged in PR. Some in service to corporations, some in obeisance to corporate ideology, some because it's just easier to close their eyes than to see, some because any mention of the UN sends black helicopters flying in their skulls. But whatever the reason, what they are doing is, again and quite clearly, not science."
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Re: Science News of the Day

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Kevin Trudeau held in criminal contempt, facing jail time

Federal judge in Chicago acts after being flooded with emails prompted by the author-infomercial king

Chicago Sun Times

Excerpt:

"Trudeau was found in criminal contempt of court Thursday and nearly had handcuffs slapped on him after he asked his supporters to email the federal judge overseeing a pending civil case brought against him by the Federal Trade Commission.

U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman said he was flooded with hundreds of “harassing, threatening and interfering” emails, locking up the judge’s email system and shutting down his Blackberry for part of the day.

“This is direct contempt — that’s how I view it,” Gettleman said. “He interfered with the direct process of the court.”

Gettleman hauled Trudeau into court a day after he posted a message on his Web site with his appeal. Gettleman ordered Trudeau to turn over his passport, pay $50,000 bond and warned he could face future prison time."
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Re: Science News of the Day

Post by Savonarola »

Darrel wrote:Kevin Trudeau...
is a world leader in scumbaggery. This schmuck deserves much worse than he will get. Criminal contempt of court doesn't even register in comparison to the level of hackery he makes habitual.
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Post by Doug »

Savonarola wrote:
Darrel wrote:Kevin Trudeau...
is a world leader in scumbaggery. This schmuck deserves much worse than he will get. Criminal contempt of court doesn't even register in comparison to the level of hackery he makes habitual.
DOUG
Well said. I bet some people have died because of the lies and misinformation this hack has been peddling.
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Re: Science News of the Day

Post by Dardedar »

Really cool interactive temperature chart tool:

"The slider at the bottom starts at 30 years — the standard period for climate stats. Choose between data series with the button at the top. Blue lines show negative trends, red ones positive trends, calculated for each successive 30 year period. In the GISTEMP series you can see some falling trends in the 1880s and 90s, and again from the 1940s to 70s. The rest of the time, temperatures are rising. No sign of cooling in the 21st century."

http://hot-topic.co.nz/keep-out-of-the-kitchen/
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Re: Science News of the Day

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"2000-2009 was warmest decade on record. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), The U.K. Met Office, and the World Meteorological Organisation have all stated that 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on record for the globe." Media Matters
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Re: Science News of the Day

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Regarding scientists conspiring to invent global warming... for the money:
One other minor misconception I've seen repeated in the comments section; several people have implied that scientists can only get grant money for trying to prove AGW and not for trying to disprove it, but this isn't really possible given the method behind research. For any given study, a hypothesis is posed, data is measured, and the data is compared to the hypothesis. If the two are disagreeable, the researcher reports that the hypothesis is false; if the hypothesis is validated by the data, this too is reported.

You can't construct an experiment to "invalidate" AGW that wouldn't also validate it if observations don't match the hypothesis that AGW is false. Prior to conducting an experiment, you can't know what the results will be, so grant money can't realistically be awarded in a prejudicial manner towards studies that either support or contradict AGW theory, since any study on AGW theory has the capacity to do either.
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Re: Science News of the Day

Post by Dardedar »

More homeopaths getting their asses handed to them in the comment section of this STUPID Huff Po article.

"Homeopathic Medicine: Europe's #1 Alternative for Doctors"
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Re: Science News of the Day

Post by Doug »

Not recent news, but I saw a reference to it today. It's from 2007:

Image
According to quantum mechanics, light can be either a graceful rippling wave or a hail of bulletlike particles, depending on how you look at it. Now, an experiment shows that an observer can make the choice retroactively, after light has entered a measuring apparatus. The result shows that reality is truly in the eye of the beholder.

A single dollop of light, or photon, must be described by a flowing quantum wave that gives the probability of finding it at any particular place and time. At the same time, the photon acts a bit like an indivisible bullet: When observed with a particle detector, it produces a distinct signal, like a pebble pinging off a car door. And things get weirder. The quantum wave can split in two and recombine, like ripples flowing around a stump in a pond, to create striking "interference" effects that determine which way the recombined wave flows. On the other hand, it's simply impossible to split a photon at a fork in the road. If there is no way to eventually put the pieces back together, the photon acts like a particle and goes one way or the other.

Even weirder still, the choice to allow the waves to recombine or not can be made even after the photon passes the fork where it should have split--or not. Famed physicist John Archibald Wheeler realized that nearly 30 years ago and dreamed up an experiment to prove the point. Now Jean-François Roch of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan in France and colleagues have performed the experiment. The researchers shot photons one by one at a half-silvered mirror, or "beam splitter," to cleave the quantum wave describing each photon. After traveling different distances, the two halves sloshed back together at a second beam splitter 50 meters away, which could recombine them. The experimenters could randomly switch this second beam splitter on and off electronically well after the photon had passed the first one.

If the second splitter was on, interference between the two pieces directed the recombined wave of probability toward one or the other of two detectors, depending on the difference in the path lengths. If the second beam splitter was turned off so the waves couldn't recombine, then the photon took one path or the other with 50-50 probability, and equal numbers of photons reached detectors. The results, reported this week in Science, prove that the photon does not decide whether to behave like a particle or a wave when it hits the first beam splitter, Roch says. Rather, the experimenter decides only later, when he decides whether to put in the second beam splitter. In a sense, at that moment, he chooses his reality.

See here.

The bad news: some M.D., Robert Lanza, is trying to use this experiment as proof of life after death. No kidding.
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Re: Science News of the Day

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This is an excellent experiment however I am shocked if it has not been done before. Still I do not know if I like their interpretation of the results. Photons are not particles...well, better to say that "particle" is a poorly defined entity. If by "particle" you simply mean an entity that is semi-localized in space and carries momentum/energy then okay...but wave packets fit this criteria as well. I think we just like to think in terms of "particles" because it pays homage to our diluted belief that we are in a universe of solid finite objects. We evolved in an Aristotelian world and thus our brains are wired to think in terms of discrete chunks of stuff. I have become confident, however, that if we want to truly understand this universe we have woken up in, we must lay to rest the comfortable notion that it is made up of tiny Ping-Pong balls.

How does all of this relate to the before-mentioned experiment? Let me see if I can convey my thoughts with some level of clarity. First of all, I am asserting that it is questionable to conclude from this experiment that one is "choosing one's reality" at the time an observation is made. The universe is what it is. We are not free to choose the nature that suits us. Light is not acting as a particle when we choose it to be a particle or a wave when we choose it to be a wave. It is always acting as a wave. The issue with this interpretation is that it asserts that the photon has "passed" the beam splitter at the time the decision to recombine them or not is made. This is simply false.

Consider a universe that consist of a single electron (or photon it really does not matter for this example). This electron is bounded only by the boundary of the universe and let us assume for simplicity that the universe extends indefinitely in all directions as this will have the effect of creating a continuum of possible states. If we are not observing this electron it exist as a wave-function that extends to the edges of the universe. Quite literally this electron exist simultaneously at all points in the universe though it's probability of being observed, should be choose to look for it, may not be uniform at all points in space at any given time. Say this electron is moving through space. If we are talking about a wave equation that extends across all of the universe, what is moving? What is moving is what we call the "Group Packet". Lets say we measure the momentum of our electron to some finite precision. Heisenberg, being the bastard that he is, will only allow us to know the position to a finite degree of precision. Thus the electron's wave-function may take on a gaussian distribution in space time (as well as in momentum space). This distribution extends out indefinitely. This means that there is a NON-ZERO probability of observing this electron at any point in space. However, as the wave-function drops off rapidly it is by far most likely to be found near the gaussian peak. If the electron is "moving" then it is the peak or "group packet" that is doing the moving. It is said that the expectation value of the position is changing in time.

What this means for our experiment is that, just like the electron, our photon does not exist at any particular place at any particular time until it is observed. It is simply the expectation value of its position, or its most probable location, that is changing as time passes. If our photon is sufficiently unlikely to be found outside our apparatus (which is easy to arrange) then we can treat our apparatus as the "universe" in which the photon exist. The allowed states that the photon can assume depends on the boundary conditions of the universe it exist in--the apparatus. Changing the boundary conditions most certainly has an effect on the state of the photon. You see it's not that you are "choosing your reality" when you make the decision to recombine or not, but rather you are "changing the system". It is a subtle point but I think a meaningful one. What is happening here is paramount to compressing the walls of a particle in a box. You are changing boundary conditions and thus changing the allowed eigenstates.

Kevin

P.S.

Looks like it may not have been done before...hmm. I mean this is a non-trivial experiment however I am certain we have the equipment to do it in at least one of our department labs.
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Re: Science News of the Day

Post by Doug »

kwlyon wrote:Looks like it may not have been done before...hmm. I mean this is a non-trivial experiment however I am certain we have the equipment to do it in at least one of our department labs.
DOUG
Could that equipment fit in the back of a truck so you could do it at a FF meeting?
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Re: Science News of the Day

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Here is the deal, the experimental setup would just be a pain in the rump however it is actually quite simple in principal. Single photon sources are, however, a rather new thing and of course carry with them all of the uncertainty that their name suggest. I would also assume they are relatively expensive. I am quite certain we have one but I am also CERTAIN that for the reasons mentioned above the faculty/grad students to whom it belongs would never "lend it out" in it's entirety though they may let you have a quanta or two if you ask nicely. If you would like to SEE what a single photon source looks like, that could likely be arranged. I don't think you will be that impressed. If memory serves it is not an impressive looking device, but rather could easily be mistaken for a small laser. However graduate students LUV to show off their work so you would likely need only ask. Their description of what they are doing with this non-impressive looking device would undoubtably be worth the time. I will try to find out who's lab this was.

Kevin
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Re: Science News of the Day

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Brain Workouts Don't Work

...a team of British researchers has found that healthy adults who undertake computer-based "brain training" do not improve their mental fitness in any significant way.

The study, published online on Tuesday by the journal Nature, tracked 11,430 participants through a six-week online study. The participants were divided into three groups: the first group undertook basic reasoning, planning and problem-solving activities (like choosing the "odd one out" of a group of four objects); the second completed more complex exercises of memory, attention, math and visual-spatial processing that were designed to mimic popular brain-training computer games and programs; and the control group was asked to use the Internet to research answers to trivia questions.
(See different workouts for your brain.)

All participants were given a battery of unrelated, benchmark cognitive-assessment tests before and after the six-week study. These tests, designed to measure overall mental fitness, were adapted from reasoning and memory tests that are commonly used to gauge brain function in patients with brain injury or dementia. All three study groups showed marginal — and identical — improvement on these benchmark exams.

Read more: See here.
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Re: Science News of the Day

Post by L.Wood »

.

Don’t talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking

Mainly because they could be too much like us.
"He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

from Times Online.

.
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Re: Science News of the Day

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DOUG writes:
As if you didn't have enough reasons to think that FAUX NEWS is not a credible source, they have reported online-- without any skepticism-- that a Hindu man has lived for seven decades without food or water. Scientists are now studying this man for possible tips we can give our troops and astronauts...

See here.

Image
No food or water for 70 years. Right...

Indian doctors are studying an 83-year-old holy man who claims to have spent the last seven decades without food and water.

Military doctors hope the experiments on Prahlad Jani can help soldiers develop their survival strategies.

The long-haired and bearded yogi is under 24-hour observation by a team of 30 specialists during three weeks of tests at a hospital in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad.

Two cameras have been set up in his room, while a mobile camera films him when he goes outside, guaranteeing round-the-clock observation.

His body will be scanned and his brain and heart activity measured with electrodes.

"The observation from this study may throw light on human survival without food and water," said Dr. G. Ilavazahagan, who is directing the research. "This may help in working out strategies for survival during natural calamities, extreme stressful conditions and extra-terrestrial explorations like future missions to the Moon and Mars by the human race."
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Re: Science News of the Day

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Tethered Wind Turbine

Image

"There is enough energy in high altitude winds to power civilization 100 times over; and sooner or later, we're going to learn to tap into the power of winds and use it to run civilization." Says Ken Caldeira, Professor of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science. (Discovery Channel, Project Earth, Infinite Winds episode)

Magenn Power's high altitude wind turbine called MARS is a Wind Power Anywhere™ solution with distinct advantages over existing Conventional Wind Turbines and Diesel Generating Systems including: global deployment, lower costs, better operational performance, and greater environmental advantages.

MARS is a lighter-than-air tethered wind turbine that rotates about a horizontal axis in response to wind, generating electrical energy. This electrical energy is transferred down the 1000-foot tether for immediate use, or to a set of batteries for later use, or to the power grid. Helium sustains MARS and allows it to ascend to a higher altitude than traditional wind turbines. MARS captures the energy available in the 600 to 1000-foot low level and nocturnal jet streams that exist almost everywhere. MARS rotation also generates the "Magnus effect" which provides additional lift, keeps the MARS stabilized, and positions it within a very controlled and restricted location to adhere to FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) & Transport Canada guidelines.

Image

See also:
here.
"We could have done something important Max. We could have fought child abuse or Republicans!" --Oona Hart (played by Victoria Foyt), in the 1995 movie "Last Summer in the Hamptons."
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