039;s Beware of the Blog: A Brief History of Disembodied Dog Heads Did Soviet scientists actually keep a disembodied dog head alive back in the 1940s? Did those crazed Stalinist Frankensteins then follow up that stunt by surgically creating a two headed dog in 1954? (That is, if "two-headed" is accurate - it's more like two heads, six legs and one-and-a-half torsi.) Sorry, I just wanted to use the word "torsi." And forget the Soviets - what about the monkey brain that a Cleveland surgeon transplanted from one primate to another? I wish I had definitive answers for you - I don't. This all started a few weeks back, while browsing through the Prelinger archives. But that didn't stop me from wanting to find out if this was a hoax or not. First, download and watch the movie, since the puzzle starts there. So what about this Bryukhonenko character - did he even exist? Bryukhonenko wasn't alone in his fascination with bringing dead things back to life. In 1961, Negovsky defined his peculiar scientific specialty as "Reanimatology." Think again.
Political demographics Actually, it's not a secret at all. Political scientists have been pretty clear about it for most of two decades, and politicians have always understood it intuitively. The vast majority of voters don't have the time, resources, or even for the most part the interest to make a substantial study of public policy issues. Rather than making choices based on logical arguments about how a particular policy will affect them, people use heuristics -- which roughly translates as rules of thumb, or simplified decision rules. Group refers to the individualistic-collectivistic continuum: the extent to which people understand themselves as embedded in family and community, and value solidarity and group interest; vs. valuing individual self-interest and self-regulation. Note that these dimensions refer to psychological proclivities, not coherent ideological positions.
Strange Science: The Rocky Road to Modern Paleontology and Biology New Scientist Technology - Device warns you if you're boring or irritating A DEVICE that can pick up on people's emotions is being developed to help people with autism relate to those around them. It will alert its autistic user if the person they are talking to starts showing signs of getting bored or annoyed. One of the problems facing people with autism is an inability to pick up on social cues. Failure to notice that they are boring or confusing their listeners can be particularly damaging, says Rana El Kaliouby of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The "emotional social intelligence prosthetic" device, which El Kaliouby is constructing along with MIT colleagues Rosalind Picard and Alea Teeters, consists of a camera small enough to be pinned to the side of a pair of glasses, connected to a hand-held computer running image recognition software plus software that can read ...
in praise of sardines: Whipping chocolate through Molecular Gastronomy My brother and I are complete opposites. I'm the artist, he's the math geek. I don't own a TV, he has one in every room - even the bathroom. The family mythology says that my brother, who dashed from house to house pushing door bells while I was in a stroller, has known since he was 4 years old that he wanted to be a computer engineer. Given my lack of interest in science, it may come as a surprise that I snapped up Hervé This' book Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor the second it was translated into English. The most famous innovators of the Molecular Gastronomy movement reside not in the Professor's France, but across the border in Spain in the kitchens of El Bulli, Arzak, El Celler de Can Roca, and elsewhere. I enjoyed the premise and promise of the Professor's book more than the reality. I ought to disclose one other bit of information. If you make a "physicochemical system" that mimics the properties of cream, you can whip chocolate like you do cream.
The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 1977: Scientific Aspects of Nuclear Explosion Phenomena 2.106 The events which follow the very large and extremely rapid energy release in a nuclear explosion are mainly the consequences of the interaction of the kinetic energy of the fission fragments and the thermal radiations with the medium surrounding the explosion. The exact nature of these interactions, and hence the directly observable and indirect effects they produce, that is to say, the nuclear explosion phenomena, are dependent on such properties of the medium as its temperature, pressure, density, and composition. It is the variations in these factors in the environment of the nuclear detonation that account for the different types of response associated with air, high-altitude, surface, and subsurface bursts, as described earlier in this chapter. 2.107 Immediately after the explosion time, the temperature of the weapon material is several tens of million degrees and the pressures are estimated to be many million atmospheres. Figure 2.118. 2.121. Figure 2.121. Figure 2.123.
SUFIZM & THE HUMAN BEING Dear Readers! Religion has reached people ( humanity ) with the purposes mentioned below ; The first one is the studies, practices which have to be done to be get prepared for the afterlife, like salaat, fasting, alms giving, hajj (pilgrimage) giving away the things you own without expecting anything in return etc. The second one is to start ‘’going within towards your essence’’ in connection with faith and belief. These should be desired as the purposes of our life. If, you cannot blend in one dimension the countless scientific details with the subjects that are deeply connected and cannot be separated, then you cannot feel attaining the whole, so I suggest you to forget it. Let alone the afterlife, it will be difficult for you even in this world. You will see that the random observations are useless and not sufficient. The reason is that you do not have detailed data for this subject. Look ! Currently, we are being influenced by the sun sign ' Aquarius' .
Magazine - - science news articles online technology magazine articles Discover Magazine Lab Notes Research from the Berkeley College of Engineering A Marketplace for Peer-to-Peer Charity After Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, Berkeley Engineering graduate students Ephrat Bitton and Anand Kulkarni watched with the rest of the world as logistical snafus, bureaucratic red tape and communication breakdowns prevented charitable aid from quickly reaching the storm’s victims. There was a disconnect between those who had something to offer and those who needed it. Since then, the two students have spent their free time developing a Web application to help ensure that such a disconnect would never happen again. Their system automatically pairs donors with those in need, creating a "marketplace of charity" while putting a human face on the process of giving. COOL ALUMNI: Eric Allman The Man Who Made E-mail Go Eric Allman (B.S.’77 EECS, M.S.’80 CS) was a student at Berkeley when he developed sendmail, the invisible program that moves your e-mail to someone else’s inbox when you hit “send.” New Spin-Off
Red rain in Kerala Samples of a red rain that fell across the state of Kerala in India in July-August 2001 have been found to contain microscopic red cells (Louis and Kumar, 2006) of unknown origin. The early fall was associated with the 'thunder' and flash of a large meteor. They report that the cells appear to be very unusual in lacking a nucleus and DNA. High resolution electron microscopy has revealed internal structures as well as evidence of a replication cycle not commonly found in either bacteria or yeasts. The first (above) shows three cells around 3 micrometres in diameter, with thick cell walls and a variety of nanostructures within a membrane, but with no identifiable nucleus. The second picture shows a cell with shrunken membrane containing 'daughters' - two have well-defined cell walls while the third structure may be a further daughter in the process of development. Further work in progress has yeilded positive for DNA using DAPI staining in the cells and daughters. References
Martial Artists' Moves Revealed in "Fight Science" Lab August 14, 2006 They can crush a stack of concrete slabs with a bare fist, walk with catlike balance on a bamboo pole, and generate deadly kicks and punches at lightning-fast speeds. Real-life martial artists have long defied what many people would think is humanly possible, and their seemingly superpowered abilities have inspired generations of movies and television shows. But where do the true skills end and the special effects begin? For the upcoming television special, Fight Science, researchers used high-tech equipment to put real martial artists to the test. (National Geographic News is a division of the National Geographic Society, which is part owner of the National Geographic Channel.) The action took place inside a specially designed film studio that is part laboratory and part dojo, a school for training in the various arts of self-defense. Here world champion martial artists from diverse disciplines were pitted against a customized crash-test dummy outfitted with impact sensors.
What have you been told about Colored Snow? What have you been told about Colored Snow? Posted by Failed Success on 03/16/06 at 09:28 AM One of the fundamental messages instilled in us since birth is Do Not Eat Colored Snow. But what if it tastes like watermelon? In the alpine regions of Colorado it is not uncommon to find pink snow falling in the mountains. The pink hue is caused by an algae called chlamydomonas nivalis. It is pretty unbelievable that snow would fall from the sky colored pink, and even more unbelievable that it would be safe to eat and taste like watermelon. There are actually more than 350 kinds of algae that survive in very cold temperatures. Chlamydomonas nivalis tends to flourish when the weather warms up a little after the darkest, coldest part of winter. Another pink snow incident recently appeared when certain parts of Russias Maritime territory were coated with pink snow. To quote Mos News: Before it arrived in Maritime, the cyclone passed Mongolia, where sand storms had been raging in the desert.