The last few years have seen a real spike in end-of-the-world conspiracy theories. Why? More asteroids, more flares, more earthquakes? No, just more Internet to talk about them, which gives bored news media something to talk about and bored science sites more news media to debunk.
At least one end-of-the-world scenario for 2012 has been eliminated already - like the Christmas shopping season, people are pushing debunking the apocalypse farther and farther back and science is already eliminating 2012 apocalypses before 2011 is even over. Sheesh. When will we learn to just enjoy the anticipation?
If you've ever thought you were being abducted by an alien or, if you are 400 years old, seduced by a succubus, and couldn't move, you are not alone. A new article in Sleep Medicine Reviews says 7.6% of the population has had the same experience and it's called sleep paralysis.
The psychologists define sleep paralysis as "a discrete period of time during which voluntary muscle movement is inhibited, yet ocular and respiratory movements are intact" and it often involves hallucinations.
Some folks in Britain want to spend 10 years and millions of dollars to build a computer that goes really, really slow - and I think it's a great idea.
I partly think it's a great idea because it is not Americans spending millions of dollars, the same way I thought the LHC was a terrific idea...for Europe. People who say you should spend a lot of taxpayer money for 'leadership' in science don't understand that argument when it is applied to military firepower - I don't understand it either way. In a global world, paying for something does not buy expertise, attaining expertise does. Silicon Valley was not paid for by taxes, it was paid for by profits, after all.
If you're worried about getting the flu, chances are that you got an influenza vaccine; these are created on an annual basis and use a method from the 1950s; it is egg-based technology, literally produced in chicken eggs. Some vaccines, like polio, are now created using laboratory-grown cell lines that are capable of hosting a growing virus. The first is inefficient, the second is expensive.(1)
The future of vaccines looks a little different. The race is on to create a universal flu vaccine, one that does not have to be recreated each year, and to also bring the technology cost down to where it is more financially constructive to get people a vaccine than have them in the hospital.(2)
Darwin took decades to publish while Newton practically wrote his Principia so as not to have to bother answering questions from other physicists. Throughout science history the attitudes and methods of scientists have varied as dramatically as the personalities.
With the rise of government-controlled science over the last five decades, the need to publish in order to get grants has spiked dramatically - and that has meant a more closed-vest approach. Official publication is where the money is at.
If you've studied the martial arts, or know anything at all about Asian culture, you have heard of the ch'i. It's spelled lots of different ways, which happens when you turn Eastern sounds into Western letters, but essentially it means a life force.(1)
As a young guy, open to the world, it's easy to be drawn into discussions and thoughts about lots of ideas and a life force essential to all humans might as well be in the mix. Some proponents even believe that all matter derives from ch'i, which at least has a science parallel.
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