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Thermal Images Reveal Details About Jupiter's Great Red Spot

Thermal Images Reveal Details About Jupiter's Great Red Spot

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

New Thermal images of Jupiter's Great Red Spot show swirls of warmer air and cooler regions never seen before, enabling scientists to make the first detailed interior weather map of the giant storm system linking its temperature, winds, pressure and composition with its color.

“This is the first time we can say that there’s an intimate link between environmental conditions — temperature, winds, pressure and composition — and the actual color of the Great Red Spot,” says Leigh Fletcher, lead author of the study in Icarus that documents the research results.
What To Do About The 'Livestock Revolution'?

What To Do About The 'Livestock Revolution'?

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

Global meat production has tripled in the past three decades and could double its present level by 2050, according to a new report on the livestock industry by an international team of scientists and policy experts led by Standford University.

If not addressed, the impact of this 'livestock revolution' is likely to have significant consequences for human health, the environment and the global economy.
Worlds in Collision - Run Your Own Solar System

Worlds in Collision - Run Your Own Solar System

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

In 1950 Immanuel Velikovsky published his bestselling Worlds in Collision, where he proposed that Venus was once a satellite of Jupiter that went AWOL and caused catastrophes on Earth as it flew past. Nobody believes this now, and few believed it then either, but you can see how it would work using a solar system simulation designed by PheT.
Study Calls For Local CO2 Regulations

Study Calls For Local CO2 Regulations

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

CO2 emissions not only have a global impact but a local one as well. As a result of so-called carbon dioxide 'domes,' the greenhouse gas is harming city dwellers' health much more than rural residents', says a new study in Environmental Science and Technology.

The results, the author says, highlight a serious oversight in current cap-and-trade proposals, which make no distinction based on a pollutant's point of origin and provide scientific support for efforts to cut emissions locally.
Smoking May Cause Memory Impairment In Women

Smoking May Cause Memory Impairment In Women

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

A history of alcohol abuse is unlikely to cause long-term memory impairment in men and women, but smoking just might in women, a new study has found.

The findings are based on assessments of 115 men and 169 women with an average age of 43. Overall, 45 percent of men and 37 percent of women met the criteria for lifetime alcohol abuse, and 13 percent and nearly 4 percent, respectively, had a lifetime history of alcohol dependence. One quarter of women and 18 percent of men had a history of tobacco dependence. The study appears in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs
Young Britons More Likely To Take Up Smoking Thanks To Movies

Young Britons More Likely To Take Up Smoking Thanks To Movies

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

Children in England see much more smoking in movies compared to their counterparts in the US and are more likely to pick up the habit as a result, finds research published in Tobacco Control.

The UK film classification system, which rates more films as suitable for young people than its US counterpart, is to blame, say the authors.

The research team assessed the number of on-screen smoking/tobacco occurrences in 572 top grossing films in the UK, which included 546 screened in the US plus 26 high earning films released only in the UK.
Tackling Consequences, Not Causes: Why Obesity Drugs Fail

Tackling Consequences, Not Causes: Why Obesity Drugs Fail

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

In a new article in Nature Reviews Endocrinology, scientists from the University of Liverpool argue that anti-obesity drugs fail to provide lasting health benefits because they tackle the biological consequences of obesity, not the important psychological causes of overconsumption.

Anti-obesity drug developers focus primarily on weight loss as their end goal, and do not take into consideration the motivational and behavioral factors that most commonly cause obesity. Obesity typically results from eating too much food combined with too sedentary a lifestyle.

However, obese people may also have a complicated psychological relationship with food that makes it difficult for them to control their appetite sufficiently to manage their weight.
Paleontologists Reconstruct Four-Million-Year-Old Shark Attack

Paleontologists Reconstruct Four-Million-Year-Old Shark Attack

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

Palaeontologists have discovered evidence of how an extinct shark attacked its prey, reconstructing a killing that took place 4 million years ago.

Such fossil evidence of behavior is incredibly rare, but by careful, forensic-style analysis of bite marks on an otherwise well-preserved dolphin skeleton, the research team say they have reconstructed the events that led to the death of the dolphin, and likely determined the identity of the killer: a 4 m shark called Cosmopolitodus hastalis.

The evidence, published in Palaeontology, comes from the fossilized skeleton of a 2.8 m long dolphin (Astadelphis gastaldii) discovered in the Piedmont region of northern Italy.
Easy Credit Caused The Recession And Eased Its Impact

Easy Credit Caused The Recession And Eased Its Impact

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

Questionable lending helped sink the U.S. economy, but also provided a lifeline that kept countless firms afloat and averted an even deeper recession, according to research by University of Illinois finance professor Murillo Campello.

The research was cited by President Obama in a report on the state of the economy, so you know it must be correct.

The survey of corporate executives found that many small and mid-sized firms survived the economic storm by tapping easy, low-cost lines of credit locked in ahead of the downturn, during an era of loose lending that also included sub-prime home mortgages. "These lines of credit were so liquid and so accessible that it made this recession far less acute than it would have been otherwise," he said.
Obesity Reduces Risk Of Cardiac Death?

Obesity Reduces Risk Of Cardiac Death?

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

Being skinny confers no advantage when it comes to the risk of dying suddenly from cardiac causes, a study presented today at the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session has found.

According to the authors,  non-obese heart failure patients – including overweight, normal and underweight patients – had a 76 percent increase in risk of sudden cardiac death compared to obese heart failure patients. Normal and underweight patients showed a startling 99 percent increase in risk for sudden cardiac death compared to obese patients.
What Would Cast Doubt On Evolution? Spontaneous Generation

What Would Cast Doubt On Evolution? Spontaneous Generation

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)


Advocates of Intelligent Design (ID) creationism like to play Stump the Scientist by asking evolutionary biologists, "what would disprove evolution?" Several answers have been given1, but I want to add another: "spontaneous generation," meaning the creation of organisms without parents. The question of how to disprove evolution draws its power from the idea of falsifiability, which was formalized by the philosopher Karl Popper as the test to separate science from non-science2.
Jatropha a myth or reality

Jatropha a myth or reality

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

"First of all, FACT agrees that many unsubstantiated claims have been made on jatropha, such as high yields on marginal soils, low water and nutrient requirements, and high resistance to pests and diseases. These claims have already been falsified some years ago

2 but it seems difficult to convince all practitioners and policy makers of the facts. Despite the slowly increasing body of knowledge on jatropha cultivation methods, the agronomy of the plant is still largely unknown, and the risks of disappointing yields are substantial.
How Obese Yellow Mice are Changing the Nature/Nurture Debate

How Obese Yellow Mice are Changing the Nature/Nurture Debate

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)


Even those who pay little attention to the vicissitudes of scientific opinion are probably aware of the ongoing discussion about which contributes more to an individual's behavior: genetic inheritance (nature), or personal experience (nurture). The debate started long before we had any understanding of the mechanisms of genetics, but by the turn of the century it had quieted down to a courteous agreement between behaviorists and determinists that recognized the importance of both factors in shaping personality. This agreement is typically respected in polite society. In fact, it has become something of a sign of ignorance to publicly proclaim one element to be solely important to the neglect of the other.
A Day On The Farm

A Day On The Farm

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

There are far too many theories about the best way to teach kids. 

Dr. Seuss had the right idea: make it fun.  It's good to have a child actually beg you to read something out loud.

Never mind the Saggerbotham theory of linguistic competence or the Higginsmythe phoneme-clustering prolexial algorithm.  These are kids, for crying out loud!  Let them have fun!

When learning is so much fun, why would any kid want you to stop just so you can teach them  useful words like onomatopoeia?

With those thoughts in mind, here is another of my verses for children. I hope that it may help to instil a love of words in many children.  And if any of you adults enjoy it - I'm cool with that.

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

Let the examination begin!
Interface: Opening the Mind to an Open Brain

Interface: Opening the Mind to an Open Brain

Mar 16 2010 | comment(s)

Ever since the gap between neural and silicon circuits was bridged through a common electrical language, neural interface technologies have pushed us towards medical advances that border on the biblical: the deaf hear, the blind see, and the motionless move.  Cochlear implants have been an unprecedented success in biomedical engineering (1) and may only be surpassed by the visual implants currently in development (2).  The first tetraplegics with implants allowing them to move robotic limbs have been veteran cyborgs for half a decade (3), and many amputees now have prosthetics that they can use to move and feel (4).  Even simple direct stimulation technologies
YouTube and Digital Copyright Insanity

YouTube and Digital Copyright Insanity

Mar 15 2010 | comment(s)

Warner Music Group tries to protect property it doesn't even own:

In the first installment of a planned video blog of their American tour, A23’s Tom Shear recorded a nine-and-one-half minute video describing the band’s plan to connect with its fans through social media during the tour. Mr. Shear invites fans to follow the band on Twitter, friend him on Facebook and follow the band via a video diary he plans to update during the tour on its YouTube channel, A23CompassTour2010. The final five minutes of the video is a montage of the band’s just-completed European tour set to the song Impertinence from their new album Compass.
Free Energy And The Purpose Of Life

Free Energy And The Purpose Of Life

Mar 15 2010 | comment(s)

Sean Carroll at Cosmic Variance on Entropy and the Meaning of Life:

We know that entropy increases as the universe evolves. But why, on the road from the simple and low-entropy early universe to the simple and high-entropy late universe, do we pass through our present era of marvelous complexity and organization, culminating in the intricate chemical reactions we know as life?...
Tracing the Environment’s Fingerprints on Daphnia Genes

Tracing the Environment’s Fingerprints on Daphnia Genes

Mar 15 2010 | comment(s)

Many diseases and chronic conditions such as cancer, diabetes, asthma and birth defects can be prevented by limiting environmental stressors. Research is under way at Indiana University in genomics to reduce such common health threats by mapping the environmental effects on the function of genes within Daphnia, also known as the water flea.