Astrobiology: The Living Universe - Main Page Astrobiology: The Living Universe is the web's premiere educational resource for astrobiology, featuring in-depth information and interviews on exobiology, planetary biology, the origins of life and human spaceflight. Our site doesn't end with that however - every single page within this website is also available in an enhanced PDF printable format and we have a network of forums and interactive applets as well as a number of Flash animations. Find out more about the Living Universe >> 30/1/01: We're finally back, and we're working flat-out to update every single page within this website, and not just that but also to ensure that no page is more than one month out of date. 16 of the updated articles are now online, and soon you'll be able to know that you're reading the most comprehensive and up-to-date source of information on Astrobiology on the entire Internet.
The Rise and Fall of Placebo Medicine I am just getting back from The Amazing Meeting (TAM9 from Outer Space) – it was awesome but I had no time to blog while there. One of the events I participated in at TAM was a panel discussion on placebo medicine. We decided to focus on placebos for our science-based medicine panel because it increasingly looks like this will be the front lines for the next phase of the battle against pseudoscience in medicine. I began the panel discussion by declaring victory, of a sorts. Over the last two decades the public and the scientific community have be told by CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) proponents that we were missing out on many potentially very useful and effective medical treatments simply because they are from other cultures or do not fit into the current scientific paradigm. “Give us the resources to research these diamonds in the rough,” they argued, “and we will give you new tools to promote health.” I agree that negative studies of existing treatments are valuable.
Hypercomplex Fractals Here is a 4th order inverse Juliabulb set with 600 million spheres. The triplex raised to the 4th power has 16 unique valid roots. Garth Thornton was the first person to point out that, in general, the triplex raised to the nth power has n2 unique valid roots. I posted a formula for all integer powers here.
Parasitic Beetle Mimics Ants By “Speaking” Three Different “Languages” Ant colonies act like fortresses, protecting the bounty within from marauding invaders. Some animals have evolved blunt tools such as large claws to tear into the nests, but others have evolved far more subtle ways that allow them to wander into the colony uncontested. Called “myrmecophily” – literally “ant-love” – many species of insects and plants have evolved associations to live alongside ants, most of which are sympatric (where both species benefit), but some of which are parasitic (where only one benefits at the expense of the other). One such parasitic association is with what are called ant nest beetles (Paussus). “The use of highly sophisticated communication systems is the key attribute that enables ants to act as a superorganism, thereby facilitating their dominance of terrestrial ecosystems,” explain the authors in a new paper on the discovery that the beetles are able to copy the ants' noises, published in PLOS ONE. Main image: Tim Keppens/Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Answering Cancer Quackery: The Sophisticated Approach to True Believers Answering Cancer Quackery: The Sophisticated Approach to True Believers You can lead a true believer to facts, but can you make him think? I got an e-mail with a link to a video featuring “Dr.” Every cancer can be cured in 2-16 weeks.The second you are alkaline, the cancer already stops. My correspondent recognized that this video was dangerous charlatanism that could lead to harm for vulnerable patients. He asked, “How do I best represent what’s happening to someone who is either a) emotionally invested in this and/or b) casually approving of it? Here’s how I answered him You can’t change someone else’s mind; they have to change their own mind. If alkalinization works so well to eliminate cancer, why do you suppose he bothers to recommend a lot of other ways to cure cancer, with vitamin C, oxygen, a vegan diet, etc? Do you believe that “very often, table salt is one-third glass, one-third sand, and one-third salt”? Don’t expect to “win.” Further thoughts How do we know what we know? Notes
Watch These Famous Landmarks Change Over Time Using "Mined" Tourists' Photos Been on holiday lately? Researchers from Google and the University of Washington have created this fascinating video below of famous landmarks changing and disappearing over time, using a whopping 86 million photos uploaded by tourists and travelers onto image-sharing sites. The tourists’ photos were publicly available on Flickr and Picasa, so researchers collated images and assembled them into a mini time-lapse video of each landmark. To counteract filters and lighting effects, the images were color-balanced and warped to show scenes from the same angle. The video of several time-lapses shows how famous landscapes, buildings and cityscapes change around the world over several years. Gif composed from video uploaded by YouTube user Ricardo Martin Brualla The snow-capped tops of Mount St. Gif composed from video uploaded by YouTube user Ricardo Martin Brualla [H/T Telegraph]
Ten Awesome Science Courses You Can Take Online For FREE Science and the Internet are two individual entities that, when combined, become the 21st century’s most powerful educational tool. If you suddenly feel the urge to know why there’s a supermassive black hole at the center of every galaxy, or if you’re just wondering why you can’t tickle yourself, you can find out in under a minute using just your smartphone. If you’re looking for more than just a brief overview, why not take a look at these online courses by edX? 1 – Human Anatomy Explore the human body via six healthcare professional perspectives. Ever wondered what happens to the human body during a stroke? 2 – From Goddard to Apollo: The History of Rockets, Part 1 Andrey Armyagov/Shutterstock We all know the astronauts who have walked on the moon, but what about the fathers of modern rocketry? 3 – Greatest Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe A composite image of the center of the Milky Way. 4 – Introduction to Computer Science AlphaGo is now the reigning Go champion. Photo Gallery
Pantheon - Team Pantheon is a project from the Macro Connections group at The MIT Media Lab. We are a team of designers, engineers, and scientists working collaboratively to quantify, analyze, measure and visualize global culture. César A. Hidalgo Principal Investigator Concept Data Design Summer 2012 - present Amy Zhao Yu Graduate Student Data Development Content Fall 2012 - present Kevin Zeng Hu Graduate Student Development Design Data Summer 2013 - present Ali Almossawi Mozilla Corporation Shahar Ronen Graduate Alumnus Data Summer 2012 - Summer 2013 Deepak Jagdish Graduate Student Design Video 2013 - present Andrew Mao Graduate Student at Harvard Defne Gurel Undergraduate Tiffany Lu Undergraduate Books worth reading, recommended by Bill Gates, Susan Cain and more Creativity Creative Confidence, by Tom Kelley and David Kelley Crown Business, 2013 Recommended by: Tim Brown (TED Talk: Designers — think big!) “‘Creative confidence’ is the creative mindset that goes along with design thinking’s creative skill set.”See more of Tim Brown’s favorite books. Creating Minds, by Howard Gardner Basic Books, 2011 Recommended by: Roselinde Torres (TED Talk: What it takes to be a great leader) “Gardner’s book was first published more than twenty years ago, but its insights into the creative process — told through the stories of seven remarkable individuals from different fields — remain just as relevant today. While they shared some traits, they all followed different paths to success.”See more of Roselinde Torres’ favorite books. Design Happiness Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Your Money or Your Life, by Vicki Robin et al. Waking Up, Alive, by Richard A. History Language On the Shoulders of Giants, by Robert K. Philosophy Math and stats Medicine Mind and brain
Einstein Vs Quantum Mechanics ... And Why He’d Be A Convert Today Albert Einstein may be most famous for his mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc2, but his work also laid down the foundation for modern quantum mechanics. His analysis of the “spookiness” of quantum mechanics opened up a whole range of applications including quantum teleportation and quantum cryptography, but he wasn’t completely convinced by the theory of quantum mechanics – and that story is as fascinating as the theory he attempted to nail down. Quantum mechanics is downright bizarre. It implies that a particle, such as an electron, can pass through two holes at the same time. More famously, German physicist Erwin Schrödinger’s equations proved that a cat could end up in a peculiar sort of quantum state, being neither dead nor alive. None of this impressed Einstein. At the time, most quantum physicists adopted the “shut up and calculate” philosophy: get on with the job, and don’t worry about philosophical issues – just get the predictions. Gaining momentum (and position) Then Eureka!
"Good" Children - At What Price? The Secret Cost of Shame By Robin Grille and Beth Macgregor / naturalchild.org A five-month-old baby is lying in his mother's arms. He is close to sleep, then wakes and begins to cry. An 18-month-old child is taken to a restaurant with her father and uncle. At an adult's birthday party, a six-year-old is awake long past his bedtime. What did these children learn from these experiences? What is Shame? Shame is designed to cause children to curtail behavior through negative thoughts and feelings about themselves. What Does Shaming Look and Sound Like? Shaming makes the child wrong for feeling, wanting or needing something. The put-down: "You naughty boy!" Moralizing: "Good little boys don't act that way", "You've been a bad little girl". The age-based expectation: "Grow up!" The gender-based expectation: "Toughen-up!" The competency-based expectation: "You're hopeless!". The comparison: "Why can't you be more like so-and-so?" How Common is Shaming? Shaming is very common, and is considered by many to be acceptable.