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Trees? Australopithecus Sediba Had A Caveman Diet You Want No Part Of

Trees? Australopithecus Sediba Had A Caveman Diet You Want No Part Of

Jun 27 2012 | comment(s)

 Australopithecus sediba, a short, gangly hominid that lived in South Africa 2 million years ago, had a diet unlike virtually all other known human ancestors - trees and bushes.

A new study indicates that A. sediba ate harder foods than other early hominids like  Paranthropus boisei, dubbed "Nutcracker Man" because of its massive jaws and teeth, which  focused more on grasses and sedges.
Conservatives Have Greater Morals Than Liberals, Says Liberal Atheist Psychologist

Conservatives Have Greater Morals Than Liberals, Says Liberal Atheist Psychologist

Jun 27 2012 | comment(s)

Progressives and liberals delight in any sort of pseudoscience that implicates the right wing, especially if it can claim their political opposition has a brain defect or some sort of 'control' fetish.

They don't like it at all when anything psychological makes them look less moral.  And they really don't like Jonathan Haidt - because he is a liberal, atheist social psychologist and therefore should only go after conservatives.  He confesses he once thought of conservatism as a “Frankenstein monster,”, an ugly mishmash of Christian fundamentalism, racism and authoritarianism.
Janken Robot Wins At Rock, Paper, Scissors Every Single Time

Janken Robot Wins At Rock, Paper, Scissors Every Single Time

Jun 27 2012 | comment(s)

Is it possible to lose at Rochambeau, the millenia-old game of Rock, Paper, Sissors, every single time?

It shouldn't be but a new Janken robot (Janken is the Japanese name for Rock, Paper, Scissors - why is the West stuck with a French name for an ancient Egyptian game?  It's a mystery of linguistics) can win against humans without fail.  

Is it psychic?  Are humans that predictable?  No, it basically cheats - if by cheating I mean being much faster than I can ever be.
Turing Test 2012: A Bot With Personality Comes Really Close

Turing Test 2012: A Bot With Personality Comes Really Close

Jun 27 2012 | comment(s)

On June 23rd, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, a contest at Bletchley Park, where Turing was key in cracking the Nazi Enigma code during World War II, saw Eugene Goostman win the biggest Turing test ever staged.

Except Eugene is not a person, it is a chatbot with the 'personality' of a 13-year-old boy in the Ukraine.

The Turing test is what Turing considered a threshold for believability, an evaluation of machine intelligence; a machine that fooled humans into thinking it was human 30 per cent of the time will have beaten the test. 

Basic Education For Particle Hunters: Significance And Rate Error

Basic Education For Particle Hunters: Significance And Rate Error

Jun 27 2012 | comment(s)

I am endlessly amazed by observing, time and again, that even experienced colleagues fall in the simplest statistical traps. Mind you, I do not claim to be any better - sorry, let me rephrase: to have been any better in the early days of my career as an experimentalist. But then, I started to appreciate that to really understand physics results I needed to at least get familiar with a small set of notions in basic Statistics.
Seeing Is Believing? You Still Won't Believe This Gravitational Arc

Seeing Is Believing? You Still Won't Believe This Gravitational Arc

Jun 27 2012 | comment(s)

Astronomers have found a puzzling arc of light behind an extremely massive cluster of galaxies residing 10 billion light-years away. The galactic grouping was observed when the universe was roughly a quarter of its current age of 13.7 billion years and the giant arc is the stretched shape of a more distant galaxy whose light is distorted by the monster cluster's powerful gravity, the effect called gravitational lensing.

The puzzle is, the arc shouldn't exist.
GMOs May Save Us From Climate Change

GMOs May Save Us From Climate Change

Jun 27 2012 | comment(s)

While the world actually grows enough food to feed all its inhabitants, it isn't equally distributed. Nearly 500 million people in the developing world remain undernourished and, if projections hold true, that number could to 20% within a decade due to the impacts of climate change on global food production, according to a detailed analysis by The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn&Child Health (PMNCH), the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN System Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN), 1,000 Days, World Vision International and partners.
Shimi: Like Microsoft Bob, Except For Music

Shimi: Like Microsoft Bob, Except For Music

Jun 27 2012 | comment(s)

Is the world ready for a robot DJ?

Sometimes you have to be bold.  People laughed at Microsoft when they introduced Microsoft Bob too; people didn't know they needed a graphical image of their office showing a fax machine to send a fax - until it was available.  
Gauge Theory, Maxwell's equations, and the Maxwellian

Gauge Theory, Maxwell's equations, and the Maxwellian

Jun 27 2012 | comment(s)

There is an important difference related to the mathematical formulation of Self-Field Theory (SFT) and that is the complete absence of gauge. We know from the various quantum theories that gauge plays a crucial role. To understand this difference we must first look at the basics of gauge theory. And to look at the basics of gauge theory we must first define some terms we have already used in discussing SFT. First let’s define Maxwell’s equations.

VELCADE Receives Positive EU Regulatory Recommendation For Subcutaneous Administration

VELCADE Receives Positive EU Regulatory Recommendation For Subcutaneous Administration

Jun 27 2012 | comment(s)

Janssen-Cilag International NV (Janssen) announced today that the Committee for Medical Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has granted a positive opinion recommending approval of subcutaneous (under the skin) administration of VELCADE(R) (bortezomib). VELCADE(R) is indicated for the treatment of multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer. Subcutaneous bortezomib has fewer side effects and offers greater convenience for patients, with similar efficacy compared to intravenous bortezomib. VELCADE(R) plays a central role in effectively managing multiple myeloma across different patient types and lines of therapy.[1,2] 

Does NASA Have A Sinister Plan For Thailand?

Does NASA Have A Sinister Plan For Thailand?

Jun 27 2012 | comment(s)

Poor NASA. Even since a Democrat took over as president the world is convinced Americans are imperialists bent on flexing their muscles in areas like...disaster relief.

Disaster relief and humanitarian assistance are just two of the 'sinister' things critics in Thailand contend NASA may secretly be involved in under the guise of monitoring the atmosphere as part of the "Southeast Asia Composition, Cloud, Climate Coupling Regional Study". The project will use satellites, aircraft and ground missions to study how air circulation during the monsoon affected the climate and air quality in South and Southeast Asia.
All Calories Are Not Equal - Proteins Are Better For Keeping Weight Off

All Calories Are Not Equal - Proteins Are Better For Keeping Weight Off

Jun 27 2012 | comment(s)

A small-scale study found diets that reduce the surge in blood sugar after a meal - low-glycemic index or very-low carbohydrate - are better than a low-fat diet for those trying to achieve lasting weight loss. The study also found that the low-glycemic index diet had similar metabolic benefits to the very low-carb diet without negative effects of stress and inflammation as seen by participants consuming the very low-carb diet.
Poisoned Cows? The Genetically Modified Grass Scare That Wasn’t

Poisoned Cows? The Genetically Modified Grass Scare That Wasn’t

Jun 26 2012 | comment(s)

What, a herd of cattle were poisoned by cyanide in Texas??  The culprit had to be a genetically-modified form of Bermuda grass!  Stupid scientists are out to kill us all with their right-wing, corporation-y greed.

Only if you get your science from CBS.  Or Sierra Club.  Or gullible commenters here on Science 2.0.
Canadian Military: The Thin Green Line

Canadian Military: The Thin Green Line

Jun 26 2012 | comment(s)

The Canadian military has it tough these days.  The legends of World Was II are only 50,000 strong and in a government that basically does not think very much of them.

Oddly, they are being tasked with saving the environment in Canada.

Canadian Forces Base Suffield, Alberta., is in a quiet tug-of-war with the oil and gas industry. Last year by the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board to approve 47 non-routine natural gas well applications by energy giant Cenovus.

So along with what is traditionally been considered the core mission of any military - preparation for combat - they are being forced to juggle government mandates, environmental issue and monitor industrial concerns.
Jahanabad Buddha Ruined By Taliban Gets A Makeover

Jahanabad Buddha Ruined By Taliban Gets A Makeover

Jun 26 2012 | comment(s)

Fundamentalist extremists don't like anything that looks like it didn't come from their religious texts. And they tend to blow stuff up that they don't like.

Five years ago, the Taliban blew the face off a towering, 1,500-year-old rock carving of Buddha, called Jahanabad Buddha, which was etched high on a huge rock face in the 6th or 7th century in northwest Pakistan.  Hard-line Muslims have a history of targeting Buddhist, Hindu and other religious sites they consider heretical to Islam. Six months before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Taliban outraged the world by dynamiting a pair of 1,500-year-old Buddhist statues in central Afghanistan.  
Fundamentals of Mathematics -

Fundamentals of Mathematics -"An Idea" Far from reality.

Jun 26 2012 | comment(s)

 Mathematics is a fundamental code of Universe.It definitely connects the nature. But the present system of mathematics may be modified.The reason is---- Man created a language called mathematics which must be in synchronization with physical world(we can say physics). He made a system to represent physical things like two chairs or two dogs etc. to resolve the complication of logical thinking.
New Loo Changes Poo Into Power

New Loo Changes Poo Into Power

Jun 26 2012 | comment(s)

A new toilet system can turn human waste into electricity and fertilizers and even reduce the amount of water needed for flushing by up to 90 percent

The inventors in Singapore call it the No-Mix Vacuum Toilet and it has two chambers that separate the liquid and solid wastes. Using vacuum suction technology, like you find in airplane lavatories, flushing liquids requires only 0.2 liters of water while flushing solids require just one liter. The existing conventional commonly used in Singapore need 4 to 6 liters of water per flush so a single public toilet, that may be flushed 100 times a day, could save about 160,000 liters of water in a year – enough to fill a small pool.
Autism Diagnostic Scales: Sometimes A Number Is Just A Number

Autism Diagnostic Scales: Sometimes A Number Is Just A Number

Jun 26 2012 | comment(s)

While browsing facebook, I ran across a friend's posting of a link to a diagnostic test for autism and Asperger's that I hadn't run across before,The Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale-Revised (RAADS-R). According to the abstract,

The Quote of the Week

The Quote of the Week

Jun 26 2012 | comment(s)

"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more
precise measurement"
Lord Kelvin, 1900