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Did Vikings Bring Native Americans Back To Europe?

Did Vikings Bring Native Americans Back To Europe?

Nov 17 2010 | comment(s)

It's common belief that Vikings visited Newfoundland, therefore reaching the New World from Europe before Christopher Columbus, but a new genetic analysis claims not only did Vikings visit North America, they brought natives back to Europe with them.  And had babies.

The report in the latest edition of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology says researchers sequenced the complete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genome of 11 people with haplogroup C1, a lineage that was involved in the settlement of North America over 12,000 years ago, from four different families.   No problem, they moved there recently, right?
Climate aid too heavy on C02 cuts, say English critics

Climate aid too heavy on C02 cuts, say English critics

Nov 17 2010 | comment(s)

The Copenhagen Accord reached at a U.N. summit in December 2009, though non-binding, agreed that money to give a quick push to efforts to slow climate change from 2010-12 would have a "balanced allocation between adaptation and mitigation."

But that's not the case - instead, political efforts mean the $30 billion pledged is geared too strongly toward mitigation and only 11 percent of the money will go to adaptation strategies like new farming practices, according to the report by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
Antimatter Trapped And Stored For The First Time

Antimatter Trapped And Stored For The First Time

Nov 17 2010 | comment(s)

Atoms of antimatter have been trapped and stored for the first time by the ALPHA collaboration, an international team of scientists working at CERN. 

ALPHA stored atoms of antihydrogen, consisting of a single negatively charged antiproton orbited by a single positively charged anti-electron (positron). While the number of trapped anti-atoms is far too small to fuel an matter-antimatter reactor (sorry, "Star Trek" fans), this advance brings precision tests of the fundamental symmetries of nature a little closer. Measurements of anti-atoms may reveal how the physics of antimatter differs from that of the ordinary matter that dominates the world we know today. 
Lacey Act - Sometimes Government Gets It Right

Lacey Act - Sometimes Government Gets It Right

Nov 17 2010 | comment(s)

The federal government rarely succeeds in its attempts to legislate what I would call positive things - this is because the government has no power beyond restricting money and every effort to exceed that is met with resistance by constitutional scholars and states.

A progressive culture like the US wants more government whereas a liberal culture like the US wants freedom, and I would argue the best way to implement both goals is that, rather than attempting positive change (and failing - see American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and Affordable Health Care for America Act) , government stick to punitive actions.
Berkeley study shows Doomsday messages about global warming backfire

Berkeley study shows Doomsday messages about global warming backfire

Nov 17 2010 | comment(s)

Most in science knew this - exaggeration tends to whittle away at the trust level of the public - and a UC Berkeley study set out to determine which worked better, data or dire, in changing hearts and minds about global warming.

The result; they found if scientists and advocates communicate their findings regarding climate change in less apocalyptic ways, and present solutions to global warming, even skeptics can get past their skepticism.

Nov 17 2010 | comment(s)

A Solution To The AGW Controversy

A Solution To The AGW Controversy

Nov 17 2010 | comment(s)

I was at a film festival when it just hit me... 

When I was a younger version, making movies was one of my fantasies. It seemed like it would be a fascinating lifestyle to tell interesting stories in creative ways. I still love movies (thus the festival) but a new reality has long since set in: earning a living in the film business is not about good stories told in creative ways, but about producing a commercially viable product.

Early on in a film maker’s career, they are faced with a difficult dilemma: do they opt for artistic expression, or financial security?

Take Us To The Gates Of Chaos!

Take Us To The Gates Of Chaos!

Nov 17 2010 | comment(s)

A team of researchers has created an alternative to conventional logic gates, demonstrated them in silicon, and dubbed them "chaogates." 

They used 'chaotic' patterns to encode and manipulate inputs to produce a desired output, in that they selected desired patterns from the infinite variety offered by a chaotic system. A subset of these patterns was then used to map the system inputs (initial conditions) to their desired outputs.

It turns out that this process provides a method to exploit the richness inherent in nonlinear dynamics to design computing devices with the capacity to reconfigure into a range of logic gates. The resulting morphing gates are 'chaogates'.
How far are we from personalized medicine?

How far are we from personalized medicine?

Nov 17 2010 | comment(s)

Cancer treatment has reached a stage where we have begun to realize that same hat can not fit everybody's head. Genetic mismatches at the nucleic-acid level, known as point mutations vary from person to person, calling for the need of 'personalized-medicine' concept.Personalized medicine
Geeks, Tweaks And Innovation

Geeks, Tweaks And Innovation

Nov 16 2010 | comment(s)

There's a neat piece on tweaking versus invention, written by two law professors (Kal Raustiala of UCLA and Chris Sprigman at UVA) over as a Freakonomics guest blog.  Their bit on Geeks, Tweeks and Innovation talks about how Tweaking is good, but the law is against it.

Pioneering = making something totally new.
Tweaking = making something better.
A Linguistic Paradox

A Linguistic Paradox

Nov 16 2010 | comment(s)

A Linguistic Paradox

In science and law, we try to use words in a very precise fashion.  Accordingly, we define our terms as precisely as possible.  This gives rise to a paradox: each new definition of a word is added to the list of its existing definitions.  Our efforts to reduce the ambiguity of a word serve only to increase its ambiguity.
Progressive War - Democrat consultants say Huffington Post idea stolen from them

Progressive War - Democrat consultants say Huffington Post idea stolen from them

Nov 16 2010 | comment(s)

Progressive blogging site Huffington Post, valued at $100 million when it last raised venture capital in 2008, is getting sued by two consultants who say it was their idea and they went to Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer with a plan and had a handshake agreement to work together, according to a lawsuit to be filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

But Peter Daou and James Boyce were then boxed out, they contend, and Huffington tells a different tale about the origins of the site.   
The biggest crash on Earth - India slides under Tibet (but how?)

The biggest crash on Earth - India slides under Tibet (but how?)

Nov 16 2010 | comment(s)

During the collision of India with the Eurasian continent, the Indian plate was pushed about 500 kilometers under Tibet, reaching a depth of 250 kilometers. The result of the world's largest collision was the world's highest mountain range but that isn't the end of the story. 

Cut to 2004 and a tsunami that made world headlines ...
If The Data Is Properly Framed, U.S. Scientists Are More Likely To Engage In Fraud

If The Data Is Properly Framed, U.S. Scientists Are More Likely To Engage In Fraud

Nov 16 2010 | comment(s)

US scientists are significantly more likely to publish fake research than scientists from elsewhere, according to a bold statement published in a BMJ press release.    The press release is about a paper called 'Retractions in the scientific literature:  do authors deliberately commit research fraud?' in the Journal of Medical Ethics.   How did he arrive at that conclusion?   Language and apparently poor understanding of statistics.
Chicago Museum Sleepover: Over Soon

Chicago Museum Sleepover: Over Soon

Nov 16 2010 | comment(s)

Kate's Month at the Museum ends November 18, 2010. As the winner of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry's contest, she has been "eating, sleeping, and sciencing for 30 days" there.

This morning, I browsed across this Associated Press news article about her experiences. I had been wondering how this stunt was progressing since I blogged about the contest here last summer. Well, here is a word:
Livescience Discovers Chinese Brain-Imaging Device May Have Been Poached From The US

Livescience Discovers Chinese Brain-Imaging Device May Have Been Poached From The US

Nov 16 2010 | comment(s)

A Chinese team's brain imaging device has come under question from developers of a U.S. device who say it's a near duplicate of theirs, LiveScience has learned. An article on the Chinese device was published in Science.

According to the report online in Science Nov. 4th, the Chinese imaging device used a diamond knife to shave ribbons off a centimeter-size mouse brain and imaged the slices during the process, which allowed the Chinese team to create a 3-D map of the brain that revealed details as small as the axons and dendrites — the circuitry that transmits signals between brain cells — as a step in the race to map the connections in the brain.
Oxytocin - Beyond The 'Cuddle Hormone' And Into Marketing

Oxytocin - Beyond The 'Cuddle Hormone' And Into Marketing

Nov 16 2010 | comment(s)

Oxytocin, dubbed the "cuddle hormone" because of its importance in bonding ,  is best known for its role in childbirth and breastfeeding, and animal studies have shown that it may also be important in monogamous social relationships. Recently, economic research in humans implicated oxytocin in trust and empathy.

Additional animal research shows that oxytocin may relieve stress and anxiety in social settings and may be more rewarding than cocaine to new mothers.
An Invisibility Cloak For Time Also?

An Invisibility Cloak For Time Also?

Nov 16 2010 | comment(s)

It's been the decade of metamaterials, with breakthroughs toward an invisibility cloak occurring every few months.   With conventional materials, light typically travels along a straight line, but with metamaterials, scientists can exploit additional flexibility to create blind spots by deflecting certain parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.  Basically, an image can be altered or made to look like it has disappeared. 
Cavitation Damage - Getting Bubbles Out Of Jet Fuel Pumps

Cavitation Damage - Getting Bubbles Out Of Jet Fuel Pumps

Nov 16 2010 | comment(s)

Under certain conditions vapor bubbles can form in fluids moving swiftly over a surface and those bubbles soon collapse with such great force that they can even poke holes in steel and damage objects such as ship propellers and fuel pumps.   
The top words of 2010 and the decade are...

The top words of 2010 and the decade are...

Nov 16 2010 | comment(s)

A year ago, you probably did not know what a vuvuzela was but, if you read this site during the World Cup, you know it now.

Turns out so do a lot of other people.  The Global Language Monitor, which analyzes trends in word usage (read: English) says Vuvuzela was among the top new terms of the year, along with Tea Party and others, while last year Twitter and H1N1 were big winners.