Wicked cool, and where our space money should be going, not more money into the rat-hole of the manned spaced program.
I do wish that the music and the narrator were different though.
Category: Science
Neat: Touchable Holography
H/T CNET
Buzz Aldrin Punches Jerk Who Deserved It
At about 2:45 into the video, he lays one on a lunar landing denier.
Cool
Continental drift animation.
It Looks Like the Classics are Coming Back
First, we have the return of a variant of Spanish Influenza (Swine Flu), and now we have reports of a spike in volcanic activity at Anak Krakatau, which in Indonesian, means “son of Krakatoa,” the small volcanic island that is the the volcano that emerged from the explosion of Krakatoa.
It’s kind of creepy when you think about it, stock market crash, Spanish Influenza, and now this.
What catastrophe is due to revisit us again? The Black Death? The 100 Years War? The Partridge Family?
Federal Reserve Determines Interest Rate Appropriate to Economic Situation
Using the “Taylor-rule approach”, basically yet another one of those equations for the economy that the “quants” came up with, and they get a number: negative five percent.
This is why central bankers have no clue what to do.
Of course, if Greenspan had not created the bubble, both in real estate, and in other investments, by pushing interest rates so low and ignoring market abuses, there would still be some marging, but there is no margin, so we are screwed.
Evolution Disproved!
I just hurt myself laughing:
In a severe blow to the credibility of evolutionary science, biologist Richard Dawkins admitted today that Darwin’s theory of evolution could offer no rational explanation for the continued existence of creationists. The process of natural selection sees genes which provide an advantage in the battle for survival being preserved across generations, but scientists can find no useful purpose for the gene which leads people to believe that the earth was created in only six days about 10,000 years ago.
Solipsism as proof of Genesis.
An Interesting Development in Autism Spectrum Conditions
It appears that there is a genetic link between nicotine addiction and autism, in the neurexin-1 gene, which creates an excess of neurexin-1 beta protein, which aids in nerve cells linking up with nicotine like substances to neuro receptors, in people addicted to nicotine.
It turns out that the levels of the protein, and the gene, are deficient in some people on the Autism spectrum.
It raises some interesting questions, though at this point I would be very cautious, and I think that a first step would be to compare smoking and non smoking populations of people on the spectrum.
The fact that quack physician Jeff Bradford has apparently already started putting nicotine patches on his patients should not be viewed as significant by anyone except, perhaps, for malpractice lawyers.
Giving small children nicotine is an invitation to injury or death, because a nicotine overdose can kill someone very quickly.
The World of Red Dwarf is One Step Closer
Because Indian scientists are working out how to put curry in space.
I volunteer as a test subject.
Nutjob Liberal Praises Obama for Killing Embryos
This would, of course, be Nancy Reagan:
“I’m very grateful that President Obama has lifted the restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research,” the former first lady said in a statement. “These new rule will now make it possible for scientists to move forward.”
“Countless people, suffering from many different diseases, stand to benefit from the answers stem cell research can provide,” said Reagan, who has long been at odds with other conservative Republicans over the stem cell issue.
“We owe it to ourselves and to our children to do everything in our power to find cures for these diseases — and soon.”
H/T Extremepreneur, who also supplied the title.
Elections Have Consequences, Part III
Obama is reversing Bush’s politically motivated and unscientific restrictions on stem cell research, and allowing researchers to use more recent families of embryonic stem cells in federally funded research.
Relativity Diagrammed
DNA Indicates that 20 % of Iberian Population of Jewish Estraction
Interesting, but not really surprising:
Spain and Portugal have a history of fervent Catholicism, but almost a third of the population now turns out to have a non-Christian genetic heritage. About 20 percent of the current population of the Iberian Peninsula has Sephardic Jewish ancestry, and 11 percent bear Moorish DNA signatures, a team of geneticists reports.
Wow!
OK, So Electric Eels Embedded in Your Fat is Creepy, but..
OK, so the electric eel squicks me out, but stem cell and DNA technologies to cure male pattern baldness,* I find that cool and hopeful.
*That is a really old pic on the right hand side of the blog.
OK, This just Squicks Me Out
US scientists believe it could be possible to use artificial electric eel cells grafted into the human body to generate power for cybernetic implant devices. The pseudo-electrocytes would harvest the necessary energy from body fats and sugars.
Shudder
Weapons-Grade Electrically Powered Lasers Seem Near
The dividing line is 100 KW, and it looks like we will be seeing this in the next year or so.
Basically, they are focusing together multiple “strings of solid state lasers in order to boost the power of the beam.
This is far more useful, and much less expensive, than the chemical lasers that have been tested by the military previously, which typically involve the use of exotic, expensive, and highly toxic chemicals to achieve the necessary results.
Northrop-Grumman is claiming that they achieved 30 KW for 5 minutes continuously recently.
One other technology that might benefit from this is advanced capacitor technology, as to get the desired 100 KW, you are looking at putting in at least 500 KW (about 670 hp), and when one considers the power required for cooling and other issues, you could see the total power requirements during firing be in the 1000 KW range, which is a big generator, but storing the energy in capacitors would eliminate much of that problem.
I would expect the the first military application to be something like a laser to intercept things like mortar rounds and Katyusha rockets.
Head of Unscom Bio Weapons Said, Ivins Couldn’t Have Done It
Richard Spertzel, head of the biological-weapons section of Unscom from 1994-99, nd a member of the Iraq Survey Group, wrote an Op/Ed in the Wall Street Journal that I highly recommend.
Basically, he says that Bruce Ivins, and everyone at the lab, worked on the bacteria in growth media, and did not have the equipment to make the weaponized form, which is powdered and given coatings to create a static charge to further spread the powder:
From what we know so far, Bruce Ivins, although potentially a brilliant scientist, was not that man. The multiple disciplines and technologies required to make the anthrax in this case do not exist at Army’s Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Inhalation studies are conducted at the institute, but they are done using liquid preparations, not powdered products.
(emphasis mine)
Animal Rights Terrorism in California
They allegedly firebombed two homes of researchers.
Hopefully, the FBI will be a bit competent, and a bit more credible, than they were in the Anthrax mailings.
The Next Thing to Kill You: Granite Countertops
Well, it looks like someone has finally noticed that granite actually contains small quantities of Uranium which decay into Radon gas.
Ummm…I’ve know that for years, but I went to school in New England, where granite is a major source of Radon.
Had a discussion with Harry Stubbs, pen name Hal Clement, where he said that his being in a trench about a mile from a nuclear blast in the 1950s exposed him to less radiation than hanging in his basement..He ran the numbers for us, actually.
The amount of radiation is small, but it might effect resale value, so if you are getting the counters installed, you might want to have a technician measure the radiation level before installation.