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Mansagar Lake controversy:Jal Mahal of Jaipur .

Mansagar Lake controversy:Jal Mahal of Jaipur .

May 22 2012 | comment(s)

I have seen Mansagar Lake drying for several years. I have seen it stinking for several years. It was also used as place for immersion of idols after the festival season.  I have seen encroachments taking place on its banks.

Academic Inbreeding Alert

Academic Inbreeding Alert

May 22 2012 | comment(s)

“The practice of having Ph.D. graduates employed by the university that trained them, commonly called ‘academic inbreeding’ has long been suspected to be damaging to scholarly practices and achievement ” says a 2010 report in the journal Management Science.
Prozac In Your Chicken? Thanks, China

Prozac In Your Chicken? Thanks, China

May 22 2012 | comment(s)

Sometimes you set out to test for antibiotics but get a bonus; in this case, diphenhydramine, arsenic, and fluoxetine.

Yikes.
SETI's Jill Tarter Stepping Down

SETI's Jill Tarter Stepping Down

May 22 2012 | comment(s)

"Contact", Carl Sagan's 1985 novel about man's contact with extraterrestrial life and where it takes us, was, like all good stories, modeled around real characters.

The book was okay but the movie "Contact" had Jodie Foster, who I would contend had the most convincing portrayal of a scientist in film ever, and that made it special.  Where did she get her inspiration?  The same place Carl Sagan did; from Jill Tarter, the director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute.
Health Halo: Why Organic Food Believers Act Holier Than Thou?

Health Halo: Why Organic Food Believers Act Holier Than Thou?

May 22 2012 | comment(s)

Psychologists contend there is a 'health halo' adopted toward foods thought to be 'healthy', whether or not they actually are (granola, low fat yogurt, etc). There is also a health halo around foods that are organic. Some people even think organic foods are nutritionally superior and are even lower in fat and lower in calorie than foods without that organic label - which only required paying a fee and filling out a form.

As with young hipsters who like a band until they become popular, organic food eaters also seem to have adopted a 'moral halo' about their belief system - they think they are better than other people for buying organic pineapples. 
A Primer On

A Primer On "Tribal Science": An Easy Read On Why We Believe As We Do

May 22 2012 | comment(s)

Mike McRae's Tribal Science: Brains, Beliefs, and Bad Ideas is short, sweet, often humorous and to the point. It's also pithy and full of quote-worthy sentences:
"Since most of the face-like patterns Mary sees every day are indeed faces, her brain's gamble usually pays off. In addition, making the mistake of thinking there is the face of Jesus on her iron isn't costing her much (except a new iron. Nobody likes to do housework with the face of God)."
VoiceSee: Hands-Free And Even Eyes-Free Web Navigation

VoiceSee: Hands-Free And Even Eyes-Free Web Navigation

May 22 2012 | comment(s)

YiZRi LLC has unveiled VoiceSee, the world's first hands-free, eyes-free web navigation platform that uses mobile apps to read aloud recipes, digital newspapers and Wikipedia entries for the Android smartphone.

VoiceSee's flagship beta application, Culinary Pal, is a cooking web navigation mobile app that will follow your voice commands to search for recipes and choose the one you want. Sadie, the voice of VoiceSee, will then read aloud the ingredients list followed by preparation and cooking or baking instructions. She will pause at your command so you can finish each task before listening to the next one.

Entanglement and Gravity

Entanglement and Gravity

May 22 2012 | comment(s)

All as about "quantum gravity" as about "the interpretations of quantum mechanics" shows only our misunderstanding of what quantum mechanics means and wants to tell us.
Its "complementarity" is especially misleading without being wrong: It hides that wave-particle duality is also wave-particle invariance in the same degree. Our ordinary everyday intuition distinctly separating waves from particles is what misleads us. In fact they are the same in principle and this is what means the formalism of quantum mechanics based on complex Hilbert space.  
Einstein Field Equation Derivation in about a Dozen Steps

Einstein Field Equation Derivation in about a Dozen Steps

May 22 2012 | comment(s)

In this blog I will derive the Einstein field equations starting from the Hilbert action.  Since there are only two terms in the Hilbert action, one of which is left alone, there is not that much to do.  Well, there is always way more to do - how well is this step really understood?  Where does that factor come from?  What kinds of variations could one do?  The core of this blog is an extensive translation of the wikipedia page on the Einstein-Hilbert action written in my own personal style, doing minor variations so the steps made more sense to me.  Go there if my style confuses you for a step or two.
Laugh While You Can, Monkey Brains

Laugh While You Can, Monkey Brains

May 22 2012 | comment(s)

The anterior insular cortex is a small region of the brain, but it plays a big role in human self-awareness and in neuropsychiatric disorders. A unique cell type, the von Economo neuron (VEN), is located there.  For a long time, the VEN was assumed to be unique to humans, great apes, whales and elephants.

But scientists have recently discovered these brain cells in monkeys. Bring on the self-awareness and empathy?  Not just yet.
Nature, Nurture, Epigenetics And Vinclozolin

Nature, Nurture, Epigenetics And Vinclozolin

May 21 2012 | comment(s)

Researchers writing in PNAS state they have seen an increased reaction to stress in animals whose ancestors were exposed to an environmental compound, vinclozolin, a popular fruit and vegetable fungicide, even generations earlier.

The findings put a new twist on the notions of nature and nurture and may have implications for how certain behavioral tendencies might be inherited.  They exposed gestating female rats to vinclozolin and then put the rats' third generation of offspring through a variety of behavioral tests and found the descendant rats were more anxious, more sensitive to stress, and had greater activity in stress-related regions of the brain than descendants of unexposed rats.
96% Of Restaurant Entrees More Delicious Than USDA Recommends

96% Of Restaurant Entrees More Delicious Than USDA Recommends

May 21 2012 | comment(s)

I'll tell you a secret a chef told me. That secret is...butter.

There is a reason restaurants that seek to charge the same for 'healthy' fare end up being big flops; people feel cheated eating bean sprouts they can make at their house.  No one cares about how much butter is in a dish when they go to a restaurant because it is a night out, a special occasion.  Calories are basically unimportant and taste remains supreme.  We want to eat something prepared by someone who only cares what we think about its flavor.

Obviously the human body was not designed to eat at a restaurant every evening.  If you do that, and you don't exercise, you are going to get fat. 
You Can't Be Anti-Business And Claim To Be Pro-Green

You Can't Be Anti-Business And Claim To Be Pro-Green

May 21 2012 | comment(s)

California faces an identity crisis.  The financial mismanagement is so well known that late-night talk show hosts make jokes about getting loans...from Greece.  Three years ago, third world countries like Romania were safer bonds than California but now Greece is better too?  That's kind of sad. The tired old 'we will cut important services for show until you vote for tax increases' strategy seems to have petered out. But California wants to continue to buy friendship from the 'green' contingent even as the money runs out.
5 Science Books All Future Presidents Should Read

5 Science Books All Future Presidents Should Read

May 21 2012 | comment(s)

With four members of Congress possessing science degrees, it is no wonder our science policies looks a lot like what lawyers would create.

But Science 2.0 is about lighting candles for people, not cursing their darkness, and toward that end we tirelessly scour the Internet for new ways to provide proper context for complex science issues.  Basically, getting a handle on science for people who aren't going to get Ph.D.s.
Are You For Real Quantum Mechanics?

Are You For Real Quantum Mechanics?

May 21 2012 | comment(s)

I like to explain stuff so that people like you and me think “aha!”, and not, “this guy knows a lot; I better agree though I have no clue what he is talking about”. In this manner, let me again briefly introduce one of those deeply complex and hugely controversial topics that supposedly require big sophisticated words, and then, like I hope you slowly come to expect from me, present the solution in a way that is obvious and that we all could have thought about a long time ago (if the conclusions were not so damn uncomfortable that people simply refuse even if it is presented on a silver platter).

 

Biomarkers Map Path To New Blood Test For Bowel Cancer

Biomarkers Map Path To New Blood Test For Bowel Cancer

May 20 2012 | comment(s)

A team of Australian scientists has identified new genes that show identifiable changes in the blood of people with bowel cancer.

The discovery has the potential to underpin a new cost-effective blood test that would signal the early stages of bowel cancer. This test could potentially save thousands of lives by supplementing existing screening programs and encouraging those at risk to have a colonoscopy.

The research presented today is the result of over five years of scientific collaboration between Australian biotechnology company Clinical Genomics, CSIRO and the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer at Flinders University in Adelaide, lead by senior investigator Professor Graeme Young.

Queen Sacrifice

Queen Sacrifice

May 20 2012 | comment(s)

Well, not really a "true" queen sacrifice, but it is still a nice little combination the one I played against a strong 1st category player today at the "Baracchi Memorial" in Venice, a one-day rapid chess tournament which is held every May in Venice in memory of a young and promising member of our chess club, who died in a car accident.

The position after black's 15th move (15. ...Be6) is the one shown below. I am white.

T.Dorigo - L.Pasqualetto, Memorial Baracchi 20/5/2012


THE THREE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE 3.0

THE THREE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE 3.0

May 19 2012 | comment(s)

3) A scientific "paper" could be any file in the www
2) The quotations should be always links: Not only to passages or texts, but also to images, audios, videos, blogs, sites, etc. - should be admitted as quotations
1) The reviewers are all Internet readers: The rating of a publication are its "reads", "downloads", "likes" "ratings", "kudos", etc.
All human beings have the right to be scientists!
Cap And Trade For Water?

Cap And Trade For Water?

May 18 2012 | comment(s)

A cap and trade system for carbon dioxide has been a terrific flop; even proponents are leery that it is just another layer of bureaucracy and the only economic benefits have been of the economic voodoo kind, similar to a federal stimulus package that went primarily to state and municipal union employees were called 'jobs saved' in a brilliant bit of marketing.

Why would anyone want to export that fiasco to another environmental issue?  It's academic.  Sometimes academic is obviously a good thing; basic research, for example.  And sometimes 'academic' connotes 'out of touch with reality', like people in the humanities who try and argue that communism really works, it's just that no one has really tried it.
Because It's Oil, Canadian Progressives Say Strong Economy Is A Disease

Because It's Oil, Canadian Progressives Say Strong Economy Is A Disease

May 18 2012 | comment(s)

In a fit of Keynesian pique sure to make wackier economists like Paul Krugman proud, Tom Mulcair of the New Democratic Party of Canada has claimed that the robust economy in Canada, during a worldwide recession, is a disease.

Mulcair claims because the economic gains are boosting the value of the Canadian dollar, it is  hurting Canada's manufacturing sector — a phenomenon dubbed the "Dutch disease."  Yes, if poor people can buy more stuff but the boom is coming from energy, it must be killed.