Technology
oracknows | May 8, 2007In rapid succession after the last pontificating and bloviating article claiming that there will never be a cure for cancer because it would be too financially disastrous to the medical economy, I've been made aware of another pontificating and bloviating article decrying the state of cancer research today, entitled Curing Cancer: Running on Vapor, Remedy: More Brainpower, Less Hype, by George L. Gabor Miklos, Ph.D. and Phillip J. Baird, M.D., Ph.D. On first glance, it looks like a bold proposal for a necessary change of direction in our cancer research effort. Sadly, it doesn't deliver on…
jrosenhouse | May 3, 2007The New York Times has posted a transcript of the big Republican candidates deabte. So, as promised, let's have a look at some other items of interest.
Here's Governor Huckabee trying desperately to avoid saying he believes global warming is a real problem:
MR. VANDEHEI: Governor Huckabee, this question comes from Curtis Waldman (sp) from Boca Raton, Florida. Thousands of reputable scientists have concluded with almost certainty that human activity is responsible for the warming of the Earth. Do you believe global warming exists?
GOV. HUCKABEE: The most important thing about global warming…
developingintelligence | May 3, 2007In his famous essay, Thomas Nagel suggested that science's reductionist methods can never provide a complete understanding of the "subjective qualities" of consciousness. To illustrate this problem, he wrote that there was "no reason to suppose that" we would ever be able to comprehend what it's like to be a bat - because we can't truly understand the subjective experience of, for example, echolocation.
Ironically, scientific advances in "sensory substitution" technology have demonstrated that it's possible to simulate (or stimulate) one modality (sight, hearing, touch) with sensory data…
pharyngula | May 3, 2007The Dallas Observer has published a profile of Roy Abraham Varghese, a wealthy computer and business consultant who funnels money into 'spirituality' nonsense, that is not only so stupid that it pained me to read it, but but was also poorly and confusingly written — the reporter is utterly credulous and gushes over Varghese like the most pathetic fanboy, but then every once in a while tosses in a paragraph that takes a critical stance, but reads as if he has just cribbed an argument "for balance" and stuck it in, like a lump of hard thought floating in a sea of New Agey, fuzzy religious…
megrand | April 30, 2007"Objects of Beauty"
Why do we often consider "ugliness" (and decay) to be beautiful? Is it romantic, profound, avant-garde, elitist, morally problematic?
-Aric Chen
The image accompanied The British Metrological Record for September, Bermuda, by Lieut. Colonel Alexander, Royal Engineer
I see beauty in its simplicity and clarity, but especially in its use of very entirely different visual attributes to help distinguish and bring character to the different categories of information displayed; *much* more engaging than color-coding.
-Bradford Paley
This map was created by compiling the GPS…
pharyngula | April 29, 2007
Yesterday, I was reading a good article in the October 2004 issue of Wired: "The crusade against evolution", by Evan Ratliff. It gives far more column space to the voices of the Discovery Institute than they deserve, but the article consistently comes to the right conclusions, that the Discovery Institute is "using scientific rhetoric to bypass scientific scrutiny." Along the way, the author catches Stephen Meyer red-handed in misrepresenting Carl Woese (by the clever journalistic strategem of calling Carl Woese), and shows how the DI's favorite slogans ("Teach the controversy" and "academic…
oracknows | April 28, 2007Students cheat on exams. There's just no getting around it. No matter how secure teachers think they've made their examination processes, there will always be a subset of students who try to find a way around any security procedures and give themselves an advantage, either by hook or by crook. These days, technology is making it even harder to prevent such cheating:
Devices including iPods and Zunes can be hidden under clothing, with just an earbud and a wire snaking behind an ear and into a shirt collar to give them away, school officials say.
"It doesn't take long to get out of the loop…
ksharpe | April 26, 2007How do copyright and fair use laws, framed before the internet was a twinkle in the eye, apply in the world of blogging? The answer, as a case that unfolded on ScienceBlogs this week demonstrates, may be "not so clearly."
Ergo, we've asked a few experts and stakeholders to weigh in on the issue of copyright and open access. How ought fair use to be interpreted today—as the blogosphere grows, changes, and searches for a mutually satisfying way to coexist with the traditional publishing world? We'll be adding commentary to this post periodically all week. Stay tuned.
Johannes (Jan) Velterop,…
clock | April 25, 2007High Melatonin Content Can Help Delay Aging, Mouse Study Suggests:
A study carried out by researchers from the University of Granada's Institute of Biotechnology shows that consuming melatonin neutralizes oxidative damage and delays the neurodegenerative process of aging. In this study researchers used normal and genetically-modified mice which were subjected to accelerated cell aging. Researchers believe their results can also be applied to humans.
Hibernating Bears Conserve More Muscle Strength Than Humans On Bed Rest Do:
A new study in the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology…
oracknows | April 20, 2007
Pity poor Nikola Tesla.
A sure sign of the most potent woo is when the woo-meister responsible claims to base it on the work of a great scientists, particularly a great scientist who's been dead well over 60 years.
Like Nikola Tesla.
The deader the scientist is and the longer he or she's been dead, the more sure the woo-meister can be that only the few actual scientists who pay attention to woo and bother to refute will have the necessary background knowledge to refute it. Moreover, the longer ago the scientist lived, the less chance of any pesky relatives caring enough to tell the woo-…
oracknows | April 18, 2007A small pod of narwhals, Monodon MonocerosFor centuries, humans have speculated on narwhals' bizarre horns, believing them to be everything from supernatural appendages to spear fishing weapons to tools for poking around on the ocean floor. In 2005 a team from Harvard and the National Institute of Standards and Technology put a horn under an electron microscope and discovered that it was actually covered in nerve endings, more than 10 million total, tunneling from the center of the horn to the outer surface. As it seems, the horn is a highly advanced, completely unique sense organ, probably…
zooillogix | April 18, 2007A small pod of narwhals, Monodon MonocerosFor centuries, humans have speculated on narwhals' bizarre horns, believing them to be everything from supernatural appendages to spear fishing weapons to tools for poking around on the ocean floor. In 2005 a team from Harvard and the National Institute of Standards and Technology put a horn under an electron microscope and discovered that it was actually covered in nerve endings, more than 10 million total, tunneling from the center of the horn to the outer surface. As it seems, the horn is a highly advanced, completely unique sense organ, probably…
oracknows | April 18, 2007I remain confused.
Yes, I know that people who don't like me very much or at least don't like the message that I lay down here day in, day out, week in, week out probably aren't surprised at this startling admission, but I don't mean it in a general fashion (although no doubt those aforementioned people will take it that way). No, in 10 days or so since I first weighed in about it, I remain confused at the vociferously hostile reaction that Chris Mooney's and Matthew Nisbet's recent article in Science, Framing Science, and their follow up article published on Sunday in the Washington Post.…
grrlscientist | April 16, 2007tags: Birds in the News, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
This ear-scratching egret was perfectly posed on a balcony in Cedar Key, Florida, framed against the background shadows. Love the feather.
Image:Martin Richard.
Birds in Science
It was once thought impossible to obtain actual soft tissue, such as proteins, from fossils, but the impossible has happened and now, two research teams who published reports in this week's Science describe their findings: the closest relative to the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex is .. a chicken. "It has always been assumed that preservation of [dinosaur…
grrlscientist | April 13, 2007tags: researchblogging.org, Tyrannosaurus rex, dinosaurs, birds, fossils
Repeated analysis of proteins from a fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex reveal new evidence of a link between dinosaurs and birds: Of the seven reconstructed protein sequences, three were closely related to chickens.
Image: NYTimes
It was once thought impossible to obtain actual soft tissue, such as proteins, from fossils, but the impossible has happened and now, two research teams who published reports in this week's Science describe their findings: the closest relative to the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex is .. a chicken.…
catdynamics | April 12, 2007I confidently predict when the next galactic supernova will take place...
Late 2008 or early 2009.
Supernovae occur on average once or twice per century in the Milky Way.
But we have not seen one for over 300 years now.
Not counting SN1987a - that was in the Large Magellanic Clouds.
It is quite possible that there were supernovae within the Milky Way that we missed in the 18th and 19th centuries, most likely on the far side of the Milky Way, obscured by the galactic center. It is tempting to think there might have been some in the galactic center, but I think we would have seen the…
hrynyshyn | April 12, 2007There's an essay in the latest issue of Science & Spirit on the history and value of doubt called "Redeeming Saint Thomas." It carries my byline and I'm quite proud of it. Science & Spirit is a curious and evolving publication that explores "things that matter."
If that's not reason enough to buy a copy, the cover package of this issue is a series of pieces on stem cells research by veteran science writer Rick Weiss and Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, among others. Which makes it quite timely, considering what's going on in the halls of Congress at the moment. Other writers…
grrlscientist | April 11, 2007There was a program on TV a few nights ago called "Rethinking the Dinosaurs". This special program documented how Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Natural History dismantled its entire collection of dinosaur bones and is reassembling them based on advances in our scientific knowledge. Previously, our ideas about dinosaurs were reflected by what one saw in old films -- huge, lumbering beasts, dragging their tails on the ground. However, in recent years, scientists have decided that dinosaurs were probably much more energetic and agile, and that most fossils were displayed incorrectly.
"…
voltagegate | April 11, 2007Nine times seven, thought Shuman with deep satisfaction, is sixty-three, and I don't need a computer to tell me so. The computer is in my own head.
And it was amazing the feeling of power that gave him.
-from "The Feeling of Power" by Isaac Asimov
Before spring break, I received a packet in the mail from one of my readers--a member of the faculty. Inside I found a photocopy of "Superiority", a science fiction short by Arthur C. Clark, a memo from the FSU bookstore to the faculty addressing textbook ordering protocols and a note from the professor, believe it or not, that tied it all together…
evolvingthoughts | April 7, 2007
Rarely has science been as much a public issue as in the past 30 years. Sure, people have queried the wisdom of this or that science or technology in the past, like the use of nuclear power or for weapons. But apart from anti-vaccination movements since the late nineteenth century, very little public attack was made on the science itself, and, when it was, it was rarely taken seriously. Sometime in the past few years, things changed. Why?
This is merely my impression, but I think that science began to be treated as equivalent to personal opinion some time in the 1970s, with the New Left…