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Hyperspace Helicopters: A December Season Puzzle

Hyperspace Helicopters: A December Season Puzzle

Dec 02 2011 | comment(s)

Space is three dimensional: Length, Depth and Height, or X, Y, and Z, that makes three. Since any modest agnostic holds a Multiverse extremely likely though, and moreover also our own universe likely has hidden extra dimensions, nerds keep wondering what life in four dimensional space looks like.

Sorry Doomsday Fans, Even The Mayans Don't Predict A 2012 End Of The World

Sorry Doomsday Fans, Even The Mayans Don't Predict A 2012 End Of The World

Dec 02 2011 | comment(s)

The end is not near, at least according to the interpretation of the hieroglyphs by Sven Gronemeyer of La Trobe University in Australia, who says his decoding of a Mayan tablet with a reference to a 2012 date denotes a transition to a new era and not a possible end of the world as others have read it.
Statue of King Tut's Grandfather Found

Statue of King Tut's Grandfather Found

Dec 02 2011 | comment(s)

A large statue of king Amenhotep III, who ruled from 1390-1352 B.C. and was the grandfather of the famed boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun, has been unearthed by Egyptian archaeologists.

The 44 foot tall statue is made of colored quartzite and is composed of several large pieces that,  once put together, will depict the king as standing.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities says the latest find was made at the king's funerary temple in the southern city of Luxor.

Statue of Egyptian king Amenhotep III found - The State
Evolutionary Psychology and A Completely New Layer of Misinterpreted Data.

Evolutionary Psychology and A Completely New Layer of Misinterpreted Data.

Dec 02 2011 | comment(s)

A new article from the Association for Psychological Science (APS) begins with the premise that our ancestors avoided outsiders because they might carry disease.  Therefore, it apparently seems reasonable to conclude that by washing our hands and getting vaccinated, we reduce such primal pressures and join the Age of Aquarius (or some such conclusion).
"Our distant ancestors had to avoid outsiders who might have carried disease."
Squid Who Make Their Own Light

Squid Who Make Their Own Light

Dec 02 2011 | comment(s)

Alternative alliterative title: Long-tailed Light-up Loliginids!

I've mentioned the two flavors of squid before: the open-ocean oegopsids and the nearshore myopsids. Most myopsids are in the family Loliginidae, which contains all your familiar calamari squid, market squid, and so on. Loliginids are traditional, uncomplicated, straightforward squid. They always look like squid--unlike oegopsids, which sometimes look like jellyfish or manta rays or piglets.
How The NY Times Got Swindled By Diederik Stapel (And Science 2.0 Did Not)

How The NY Times Got Swindled By Diederik Stapel (And Science 2.0 Did Not)

Dec 01 2011 | comment(s)

I've often said I think it would be a fair trade to swap a three-day waiting period on purchasing handguns if we required a three-day waiting period for science articles in the New York Times along with it.
The Future of Memetics

The Future of Memetics

Dec 01 2011 | comment(s)

Science and politics are incomplete systems. We live in a linear timestream. Social Experiments as well as self-referential climate science are not science yet. This was affirmed to me personally by a top climatologist studying global warming and oceanography despite his firm conviction that political action must be taken.
Arbitraging Pork - Predicting When The McRib Will Appear

Arbitraging Pork - Predicting When The McRib Will Appear

Dec 01 2011 | comment(s)

You may have seen recent McDonald's commercials for its "McRib" sandwich - that means it is back again, just like it has risen from the dead for the last 30 years.  What is a McRib sandwich?  No one knows; it is Chicken McNuggets, except made of pork.   Young people love the things for the same reason some people loved Sigue Sigue Sputnik when I was young; people like things if they become so bad they are good.

The McRib, like bad music, does not appear on any predictable schedule - it isn't like a Shamrock Shake, coinciding with a holiday about persistent alcoholism.   So why does it keep appearing?
Brains Benefit From Meditation - Here's How

Brains Benefit From Meditation - Here's How

Dec 01 2011 | comment(s)

People who meditate seem to be able 'switch off' areas of the brain associated with daydreaming as well as psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, according to a new brain imaging study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Meditation's ability to help people stay focused on the moment has been associated with increased happiness levels, said Judson A. Brewer, assistant professor of psychiatry and lead author of the study. To find out more, the team conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging scans on both experienced and novice meditators as they practiced three different meditation techniques.
Balance bracelets, Homeopathy And More - Dr. Placebo Is Thriving

Balance bracelets, Homeopathy And More - Dr. Placebo Is Thriving

Dec 01 2011 | comment(s)

It’s important that we learn to think critically about one of the most powerful forces in medical research, the placebo effect.

It’s also important to realize that even when placebos (placebo is Latin for “I will please”) have a positive impact, the effects can be short-term and end up masking more serious symptoms, preventing people from seeking reliable and effective treatments.

In an unusual study from New Zealand, university students who were told they were drinking vodka and tonic, but were really sipping a tonic-only placebo, not only acted drunk but also demonstrated worse eyewitness accounts and were more easily swayed by misleading information.
Is scientific image fraud a growing problem?

Is scientific image fraud a growing problem?

Dec 01 2011 | comment(s)

Scientists in the United States have come up with a tool for automatically analyzing digital photographs, making it possible to gauge the extent to which images have been altered or retouched. Advances in image-manipulation software have made it trivial to radically alter the appearance of models and celebrities in photos, notes Hany Farid, a computer scientist who studies digital forensics and image analysis at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Modern Warfare Three has Russians invading New York. My how times have changed.

Modern Warfare Three has Russians invading New York. My how times have changed.

Dec 01 2011 | comment(s)

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 is my 24 year old Nephew's favorite game.  In it Russians invade Manhattan.  When I was a kid, suffice it to say, the Russians were not to be played with...except in games featuring nuclear war.  People not that much younger than me are totally disconnected from that reality.  At the beginning of Call of Duty's story mode New York City has been invaded by Russian forces.   As my father and I watched him we could not help but comment at how unrealistic that was.  Far less provocation than that would have lead to us nuking Russia, not a fire fight.
Human Violence From 124,000 B.C.?

Human Violence From 124,000 B.C.?

Nov 30 2011 | comment(s)

An East Asian human fossil from Maba, China and dated to the late Middle Pleistocene age has provided evidence of interhuman aggression and human induced trauma occurred 126,000 years ago.

A report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that a 14 mm ridged, healed lesion with bone depressed inward to the brain resulted from localized blunt force trauma. Was it an accident or interhuman aggression?

The Maba cranium was discovered with the remains of other mammals in June 1958, in a cave at Lion Rock in Guangdong province, China. The Maba cranium and associated animal bones were unearthed at a depth of one meter by farmers removing cave sediments for fertilizer. 
Why Are Squid Attracted To Light, Anyway?

Why Are Squid Attracted To Light, Anyway?

Nov 30 2011 | comment(s)

Extra-glowy squid lures are the new hotness, according to the UK's Western Morning News:
Virtually all squid jigs [fishing lures] have luminescent sections, but now available in the South West are jigs made by Japanese companies like Yo-Zuri, where intense luminescence covers the entire upper half of the jig. It may be bad news for squid . . .
Why exactly would it be bad news for the squid? Well, lights are used around the world to summon squid to their death, from glow-in-the-dark jigs to high-wattage surface lights.
The Math Of Prostate Cancer

The Math Of Prostate Cancer

Nov 29 2011 | comment(s)

A mathematical model could guide treatment decisions for advanced prostate cancer, in part by helping doctors predict how individual patients will respond to therapy based on the biology of their tumors.

These decisions would apply to treatment of cancer that has already spread beyond the prostate gland or that has recurred after initial treatments, such as surgery or radiation. Patients with this more advanced prostate cancer receive a therapy called androgen ablation, which inhibits production of testosterone – the culprit that allows a tumor to keep growing.
CO2 From Peat May Be Underestimated

CO2 From Peat May Be Underestimated

Nov 29 2011 | comment(s)

The climate change effect of CO2 released from peat may be far greater than assumed.

Drought causes peat to release far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than has previously been realized, according to new research.
Modest Agnostics Expect A Multiverse And Hold Many Worlds True

Modest Agnostics Expect A Multiverse And Hold Many Worlds True

Nov 29 2011 | comment(s)

Most people, including physicists, do not like Many World and Multiverse concepts, especially if they come with Extra Dimensions. But these concepts were always self-evident to me, even before knowing physics (UPDATE: Here two more recent versions, not mentioning "agnostics", of the self evident arguments). Many Worlds and the Multiverse are obvious because nothing else can make sense (read: be formally meaningful).

Lucky #7 Snarky Puzzle Answers

Lucky #7 Snarky Puzzle Answers

Nov 29 2011 | comment(s)

Oct 25, Gravity is a Mystery (in words, no equations)
Snarky puzzle: 
Is there a handedness to getting older? Is there a handedness to communication? If there is a handedness to either, how would that effect the arrow of spacetime?

The Back Story:
Clocks tick on. The universal march of time has no handedness. Put me in an isolation chamber and I will get older at the same rate as having Thanksgiving with the family. [clarification: as noted in the comments, there is no such thing as a complete isolation chamber, it is one of those unreachable ideals.]
New Robot: Squid Or Starfish?

New Robot: Squid Or Starfish?

Nov 29 2011 | comment(s)

New robot alert! New robot alert! It's an adorable cross between Gumby and a starfish. Go watch the video right now.

Now, none of the authors of the paper are marine biologists, so I can't expect them to know that this description:
Durban Conference : Green house gas mitigation : Checking of deforestation: Planting fuels.

Durban Conference : Green house gas mitigation : Checking of deforestation: Planting fuels.

Nov 28 2011 | comment(s)

Green house gas mitigation has become a business and unfortunately different interests clash in this manner. Asking for funds ? Global fund ? Some more offices ? Some more five star conferences with executives traveling first class. Spending lavish money on conferences in 7 star hotels in poor countries. Calling top level CEO , NGO, heads of states and coming to no conclusions has become order of the day.  Such conferences produce no results and increase global polarization of interests only as the real issues are side tracked. Participation from real workers is ignored and its more "official " thing far away from ground realities.