This is what it would really look like to travel at near-lightspeed. Dinosaurs Went Extinct Almost Immediately After Mexican Asteroid Strike. Dinosaurs are found in fossils of sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock is rock formed under tremendous water pressure. Most fossils, all over the world, are found in sedimentary rock, which strongly indicates a world-wide flood. Please read my Internet article, MAKING SENSE OF DINOSAURS AND THE BIBLE (this article was published in the Opinion column of the Mercury newspaper of Pottstown, Pennsylvania).
Please read my popular Internet articles: Visit my latest and newest sites: THE SCIENCE SUPPORTING CREATION and WAR AMONG EVOLUTIONISTS (2nd Edition) Sincerely, Babu G. (B.A. Author of the popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS *I have given successful lectures (with question and answer period afterwards) defending creation and refuting macro-evolution before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges and universities. To be recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis "Who's Who In The East" for my writings on religion and science. Psychology: Why You Want to Squeeze Cute Things. Image courtesy of Alekcey / shutterstock “You are so cute I could just eat you up!” We’ve all experienced that urge to squeeze something that is really, really cute.
Think tiny bunnies, baby ducks, a pudgy baby’s cheeks. In the Philippines they even have a word for it: gigil n. the urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute. To make up for this lack in the English language, two psychology grad students at Yale came up with their own name for the urge: cute aggression.
The researchers then set about turning this impulse into measurable science, the results of which they presented last Friday at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s annual meeting in New Orleans. The researchers began by showing 109 online participants images of animals considered either cute, funny or neutral. But expressing aggression or a loss of control is very different than acting on it. Thus Steinbeck’s Lennie Small might not be alone in his love of soft bunnies. The Role of Anecdotes in Science-Based Medicine. While attending a lecture by a naturopath at my institution I had the opportunity to ask the following question: given the extreme scientific implausibility of homeopathy, and the overall negative clinical evidence, why do you continue to prescribe homeopathic remedies?
The answer, as much as my question, exposed a core difference between scientific and sectarian health care providers. She said, “Because I have seen it work in my practice.” There it is. She and many other practitioners of dubious modalities are compelled by anecdotal experience while I am not. An anecdote is a story – in the context of medicine it often relates to an individual’s experience with their disease or symptoms and their efforts to treat it. People generally find anecdotes highly compelling, while scientists are deeply suspicious of anecdotes. We are fond of saying that the plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data. Humans are social storytelling animals – we instinctively learn by the experience of others.
Why Science Fails to Persuade : Collide-a-Scape. One of the big reasons why evidence-based arguments so often fail to persuade is that people turn to their own trusted sources for information. For example, I know that Vandana Shiva is peddling a load of horseshit about Indian farmers committing suicide en masse supposedly because of Monsanto and GMOs. (There’s a part of me that thinks she even knows this.) But many in media and environmental advocacy circles like her and trust her, so they don’t question her agenda-driven distortion of the actual facts. This drives me insane, but that’s a different story. Another illustration of our biased information-gleaning process is on vivid display at the blog of Tom Chivers, a journalist with the Telegraph, a British newspaper. Just so we’re clear: Homeopathy is rubbish and also dangerous. Now, there’s a comment in the Chivers post that shows why that consensus scientific opinion is dismissed by people who believe in homeopathy (and other unproven alternative medicines).
Chivers responded: How People Smell Themselves | Wired Science. By Sarah C.P. Williams, ScienceNOW You might not be able to pick your fingerprint out of an inky lineup, but your brain knows what you smell like. For the first time, scientists have shown that people recognize their own scent based on their particular combination of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins, molecules similar to those used by animals to choose their mates. The discovery suggests that humans can also exploit the molecules to differentiate between people.
“This is definitely new and exciting,” says Frank Zufall, a neurobiologist at Saarland University’s School of Medicine in Homburg, Germany, who was not involved in the work. MHC peptides are found on the surface of almost all cells in the human body, helping inform the immune system that the cells are ours. The researchers wanted to know whether the preferences were truly rooted in the brain’s response to the proteins. This story provided by ScienceNOW, the daily online news service of the journal Science. Brown-Eyed Men May Look More Trustworthy | Wired Science. Brown-eyed people may have more trustworthy faces than blue-eyed people, suggests a new study that comes with caveats but also raises fascinating questions about recent human evolution. It wasn’t eye color itself that proved more or less trustworthy in the study. Rather, it was particular facial features, such as chin shape and mouth position, that happened to cluster with eye color.
The findings, based on the reactions of Czechoslovakian college students shown photographs of their peers, shouldn’t be extrapolated to explain one’s own interpersonal relationships. That said: Even within the confines of the study, why do certain features seem trustworthier than others? And why was it brown-eyed people who had them? In earlier research, Kleisner and colleagues had noticed an apparent link between face structure and eye color in the Czech population. In the new study, they wanted to see how people perceived those features. Testing that possibility may prove impossible. Time to halt our massive waste of food – here's how - environment - 10 January 2013.
As much as half of our food goes to waste even as nearly a billion people remain underfed in poorer countries. What measures and technologies could help us get on top of the problem? How much perfectly edible food do you chuck away? If about half ends up in the bin, it would echo the results of a study published today. It estimates that of the 4 billion metric tons of food we produce each year, between 1.2 and 2 billion tons never gets eaten. That's not an edifying statistic, given that according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 870 million people remain underfed in poorer countries.
The reasons food is wasted differ between rich, poor and intermediate countries, but waste is most profligate and avoidable in rich countries, says the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London, in a report entitled Global Food: Waste not, want not. Typically, around half of food in richer countries is binned. No ugly veg please Energy input Wasting food also has implications for land use. Миф:строительство_железных_дорог [Мифы истории СССР] Краткое содержание мифа В СССР железных дорог построено меньше чем в РИ. Пример использования «В Царской России в период с 1880 по 1917 гг., т.е. за 37 лет, было построено 58 251 км. За 38 лет советской власти, т.е. к концу 1956 г., было построено всего лишь 36 250 км. дорог»1)2).
Действительность Протяженность железных дорог В 1890 году общая протяженность железных дорог в России составляла 24041 верст (Россия 1913. раздел - транспорт, 1. Из «Доклада Совета съездов представителей промышленности и торговли по вопросам коренного улучшения работы железнодорожного и водного транспорта, шоссейных путей в связи с возросшими требованиями народного хозяйства России. 9 мая 1913 г.» «В 1904 г. общая сеть достигла 55 614 верст, увеличившись за пятилетие на 9 052 версты, из коих в Европейской России -7 144 версты и в Азиатской - 1 908 верст. Итого сеть русских железных дорог за 30 лет увеличилась на 41 691 версту, из коих в Европейской России на 31 562 версты и в Азиатской - 10 129 верст. When is a baby too premature to save? - health - 04 December 2012. It was never easy, but trying to decide whether to save extremely premature babies just got harder. A study called EPICure compared the fates of babies born 22 to 26 weeks into pregnancy in the UK in 1995 with similar babies born in 2006.
In this 11-year period, the babies surviving their first week rose from 40 to 53 per cent. But an accompanying study comparing the fate of survivors at age 3 found that the proportion developing severe disabilities was unchanged, at just under 1 in 5. "We've increased survival, but it's confined to the first week of life," says Kate Costeloe of Queen Mary, University of London, author of the first study. "Yet the pattern of death and health problems is strikingly similar between the two periods.
" The absolute numbers of premature babies born over the 11 year period increased by 44 per cent, from 666 in 1995 to 959 in 2006. Lifelong disability Journal references: BMJ, Costeloe et al, DOI: 10.1136/bmj.e7976; Marlow et al, DOI: 10.1136/bmj.e7961. New Study Examines "Hookup Culture" In Awkward, Clinical Way. Sunday Science: будущее хранения данных – на кассетах? Хотя будущее хранения данных вашего лэптопа несомненно в монолитных носителях, гораздо сложнее предсказать то, на чем будут хранится гигантские куски данных в серверных фермах и прочих подобных структурах. По последним соображениям, возможно состоится перерождение старых, добрых кассет. New Scientist сообщает, что новая волна ультра-емких кассетных носителей может вытеснить жесткие диски в области хранения данных на серверах – тут можно будет хранить все – от профилей Facebook до HD-фильмов.
Новые кассеты были разработаны Fuji Film в Японии и IBM в Цюрихе. Первый прототип получился 4x4x1 дюйм, и может хранить до 35 терабайт данных. Плотность данных достигнута путем использования магнитной пленки покрытой частицами феррита бария. Однако, настоящая причина создания этих кассет вовсе не в желании хранить ваши апдейты статусов. Исследователи Fuji/IBM планируют еще более уменьшить внутренности новых кассет, дабы вместить до 100 терабайт в каждый картридж. Сайт дня: Juick - альтернативный твиттер для настоящих гиков. Сегодня сайтом дня объявляется один из самых неоднозначных проектов Рунета - сервис гиковских микроблогов Juick.
Самое интересное этом сервисе то, что сообщество рунетчиков никак не может определиться с тем, как его спозиционировать. Существует несколько распространенных мнений о том, какую нишу Juick пытается занять или уже занял. Главная страница сайта Juick Достаточно многие воспринимают Juick, как перспективную альтернативу Твиттеру.
Действительно, из всех отечественных сервисов микроблоггинга Juick - самый функциональный. Что еще важнее, Juick заметно функциональнее оригинального Твиттера, разработчики которого больше думают об укреплении надежности на больших нагрузках, а не о расширении функциональности. Лента сообщений в Juick Многие считают Juick модной игрушкой для настоящих гиков, и либо пользуются им из идейных соображений, либо наоборот, игнорируют его из принципа. Наконец, многие рассматривают Juick, как своеобразную альтернативу Живому Журналу. Тестовый микроблог на Juick. Сайт дня: Scribd - хостинг документов для тех, кто все еще предпочитает книги.
Сегодня сайтом дня объявляется Scribd. Этот передовой, вебдванольный, облачный и так далее проект нацелен, как это ни странно, на наиболее консервативную часть пользователей сети. На тех, для кого интернет - это не "новая вселенная", а всего лишь осовремененный аналог книжного шкафа. Главная страница сайта Scribd По сути сервис Scribd представляет собой хостинг документов, очень похожий на Google Docs, SlideShare или наш DocMe, но это сходство, видимое со стороны программистов и сисадминов сервиса. Со стороны пользователей это совершенно другой сервис. Он значительно менее футуристичный и значительно более социальный. Если рассмотреть интерфейс SlideShare и DocMe, то легко увидеть, что эти сервисы продвигаются как замена для папки на сервере, в которую набросаны файлы документов. Scribd - это совсем другое дело. Главная страница Scribd после логина Сервис Scribd - это социальная сеть для тех, кто так и не принял реальность интернета, но вынужден им пользоваться.
Знаете еще хорошие сайты? Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker! Listen to Your Intuition, Because Your Body Can Predict Future Events Without Conscious Clues. Pre-cognition might really exist, at least in some limited fashion, according to a new study of studies. Humans can anticipate near-future events even without any evidence presaging the event--and apparently without realizing it. One researcher even hints that quantum behavior might be involved. It's not necessarily extra-sensory perception, but "presentiment" can be real, and it may be based on physiological cues that biology still can't explain. It's something we've all experienced to some degree--like when you just know the driver in the lane next to you is coming over, or when you can feel that your boss is coming down the hall and you'd better look busy.
Predicting the near future is actually very common, notes Julia Mossbridge, lead author of the study and research associate in the Visual Perception, Cognition and Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University. If we see dark clouds and smell the sharp musk of rain, we can deduce that a storm is probably coming. What should we fear more: snakes or sedans?
Catherine de Lange, contributor The world around us has evolved more quickly than our instincts, argues biologist Glenn Croston in The Real Story of Risk WHEN I see a spider in my home I freeze with fear, despite knowing rationally that a house spider in the UK poses little threat. Yet at the same time I am perfectly happy to put my life in the hands of strangers by accepting a ride in a car or bus, travel to the other side of the world on my own, and drink more than the recommended limit of alcohol on a regular basis. My approach to risk may seem unbalanced, but I am not alone. In The Real Story of Risk, biologist Glenn Croston provides a plausible explanation. This disparity can explain all manner of common misjudgements, Croston says. For more likely dangers in modern life, such as the threat of a heart attack, people are often relatively nonplussed.
Tractor beam built from rings of laser light - physics-math - 19 October 2012. Stand aside, Wesley Crusher: there's a new tractor beam on deck that pulls objects using nothing more than laser light. The device has already grabbed NASA's attention as it could one day prove useful on space missions. It is well known that light can push on objects – this is the basis for using solar sails to propel a spacecraft. But getting light to pull on something is a bit trickier. Previous laser-based tractor beams could act like tweezers to move particles, picking up the sample and putting it down a short distance away. In 2011, researchers in China calculated that a type of laser called a Bessel beam, which puts out light in concentric rings, could be designed to make a particle inside the beam emit photons on the side facing away from the beam source.
Micrometre moves Ruffner and Grier used this set-up to move microscopic silica spheres suspended in water over distances of around 30 micrometres. "NASA contacted us," says Ruffner. More From New Scientist More from the web (YouTube) Ключевые снимки в истории фотографии. Атомное испытание "Единорог" Американская САУ Т-162. Belorys_kh - Западные зрители о кино и мультфильмах СССР.