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Latest Articles: Science/Tech
Oceanic Dead Zones Off West Coast are the 'New Normal'
Post Date: 2008-02-17 14:56:48 by robin
12 Comments
Millions of dead crabs are washing up onto Oregon and Washington state beaches from the offshore "dead zone". Ever since it was first noticed by crab fishermen who hauled up hundreds of dead and dying crabs in 2002, the "dead zone" that popped up in the waters along the northwestern coastal shelf just off the coast of Oregon has claimed unknown millions of lives. This oxygen-depleted region has transformed formerly rich seafloor communities teeming with life into vast graveyards filled with the bodies of crabs, echinoderms, molluscs, sea worms and other creatures. This carnage was easily visible to a team of research scientists from Oregon State University, who ...
Fish devastated by sex-changing chemicals in municipal wastewater
Post Date: 2008-02-17 10:48:11 by angle
4 Comments
While most people understand the dangers of flushing toxic chemicals into the ecosystem through municipal sewer systems, one potentially devastating threat to wild fish populations comes from an unlikely source: estrogen. After an exhaustive seven-year research effort, Canadian biologists found that miniscule amounts of estrogen present in municipal wastewater discharges can decimate wild fish populations living downstream. The research, led by Dr. Karen Kidd, an NSERC-funded biology professor at the University of New Brunswick (Saint John) and the Canadian Rivers Institute, confirms that synthetic estrogen used in birth control pills can wreak havoc on the sex lives of fish. Small ...
Taps for HD DVD as Wal-Mart Backs Blu-ray
Post Date: 2008-02-16 17:36:06 by Dakmar
2 Comments
SAN FRANCISCO — HD DVD, the beloved format of Toshiba and three Hollywood studios, died Friday after a brief illness. The cause of death was determined to be the decision by Wal-Mart to stock only high-definition DVDs and players using the Blu-ray format. The format war confounded and frustrated consumers in Tokyo, above, and elsewhere. There are no funeral plans, but retailers and industry analysts are already writing the obituary for HD DVD. The announcement by Wal-Mart Stores, the nation’s largest retailer of DVDs, that it would stop selling the discs and machines in June when supplies are depleted comes after decisions this week by Best Buy, the largest electronics ...
Arctic Melt Yields Hints of Bigger U.S. Seabed Claim
Post Date: 2008-02-16 14:07:05 by robin
2 Comments
February 12, 2008, 9:20 am Arctic Melt Yields Hints of Bigger U.S. Seabed Claim By Andrew C. Revkin The warming of the Arctic has created all kinds of strange twists, as The Times has been reporting for years now. Video On the one hand, the dramatic shortening of the deep-frozen season on the North Slope of Alaska — when the tundra is firm enough to drive on — has made it harder for oil companies to send out their seismic survey teams to seek new petroleum deposits. (Some environmentalists have noted that this is a rare instance when global warming seems to have worried oil companies.) On the other, however, the big recent summer retreats of the floating sea ice on the ...
Where have all the sunspots gone?
Post Date: 2008-02-16 12:03:29 by farmfriend
18 Comments
Where have all the sunspots gone? I’m writing this after doing an exhaustive search to see what sort of solar activity has occurred lately, and I find there is little to report. With the exception of the briefly increased solar wind from a coronal hole, there is almost no significant solar activity. The sun has gone quiet. Really quiet. It is normal for our sun to have quiet periods between solar cycles, but we’ve seen months and months of next to nothing, and the start of Solar cycle 24 seems to have materialized (as first reported here) then abruptly disappeared. The reverse polarity sunspot that signaled the start of cycle 24 on January 4th, dissolved within two days after ...
Sick Truth About Shrinks !
Post Date: 2008-02-16 03:46:47 by noone222
3 Comments
I remember a recently admitted patient, nose-to-nose with his psychiatrist, screaming at her "you don't know what I'm going through - how the fuck do you know what it's like little missy?". The psychiatrist finished the discussion, saying she'd come back to him later, and after a brief pause to collect herself, moved on to the next patient in the ward round. It is still an incredibly vivid memory for me, partly because everyone else in the room knew that the psychiatrist had been a patient herself, as she had a lifetime's worth of experience dealing with her own mental health issues. Study after study has shown that psychiatrists have higher rates of mental ...
Bill would require California's science curriculum to cover climate change
Post Date: 2008-02-15 19:58:34 by farmfriend
4 Comments
Bill would require California's science curriculum to cover climate change SOME THINK SCIENCE ISN'T DEFINITIVE ENOUGH TO TEACH By Paul Rogers Mercury News Article Launched: 02/15/2008 01:42:53 AM PST Reading, writing and . . . global warming? A Silicon Valley lawmaker is gaining momentum with a bill that would require "climate change" to be among the science topics that all California public school students are taught. The measure, by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, also would mandate that future science textbooks approved for California public schools include climate change. "You can't have a science curriculum that is relevant and current if it ...
Dr. Katherine Albrecht (RFID Expert) visits the Infamous Baja Beach Club (Where Club Patrons were Chipped)
Post Date: 2008-02-14 12:15:30 by Artisan
3 Comments
Dr. Katherine Albrecht (RFID Expert) visits the Infamous Baja Beach Club (Where Club Patrons were Chipped) Dr. Katherine Albrecht, co-author of the best-selling book 'SPYCHIPS How Major Corporations Plan to Track your Every Move with RFID' and director of CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) has a daily radio show on WE THE PEOPLE RADIO NETWORK. She holds a Doctorate in Education from Harvard University with a research focus in consumer education, privacy and psychology. WTPRN just re-ran a program from October 22, 2007 in which Dr. Albrecht talks about attending a 'RECALLING RFID' Conference in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.During ...
New meat-eating dinos identified
Post Date: 2008-02-14 05:17:42 by robin
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New meat-eating dinos identified Eocarcharia dinops had teeth shaped like blades Enlarge Image Two previously unknown types of meat-eating dinosaur have been identified from fossils unearthed in the Sahara desert in Niger. The new carnivore fossils have been described by a researcher from the University of Bristol working with palaeontologists from the US. One of the dinosaurs probably scavenged its prey like a hyena, the other probably hunted live animals. Details appear in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. The fossilised remains of two 110-million-year-old carnivorous dinosaurs were found along the western edge of the Tenere Desert in Niger ...
Cell Phone Gun
Post Date: 2008-02-13 22:25:45 by Horse
9 Comments
Poster Comment:Can anyone at 4um explain how this is done? I am not in the market for a cell phone gun. You would have to be almost on top of the target to hit anything.
Rat genes shed light on ancient human migrations
Post Date: 2008-02-13 18:01:37 by Tauzero
3 Comments
Rat genes shed light on ancient human migrations 15:16 01 February 2008 NewScientist.com news service Emma Young One of humanity’s greatest scourges – the black rat – may help health experts track the spread of disease. New work probing Rattus rattus’s origins and historical movements should help health officials track its ongoing dispersal – and might also explain anomalies in its spread of diseases such as typhus and plague. Ken Aplin at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems in Canberra, Australia, and colleagues have analysed the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of 170 black rats from 76 regions in 32 countries. They also surveyed other Rattus species to probe the ...
Microbial 'cheaters' help scientists ID 'social' genes
Post Date: 2008-02-13 16:26:42 by Tauzero
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Microbial 'cheaters' help scientists ID 'social' genes Genome-wide search for social genes turns up more than 100 cheaters HOUSTON, Feb. 13, 2008 -- The first genome-wide search for genes governing social behavior has found that even the simplest social creatures -- the amoebae Dictyostelium discoideum -- have more than 100 genes that help regulate their cooperative behavior. The study by scientists at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) was published online this week by the journal Nature. It marks one of the first large-scale attempts to combine evolutionary biology with genomics in a systematic search for genes tied to social behavior. "This pool ...
Call to scrap 'anti-teen' device (UK)
Post Date: 2008-02-12 01:46:21 by robin
3 Comments
Call to scrap 'anti-teen' device The device sends out a high-pitched, irritating noise A high-pitched device used to disperse teenagers is being challenged by campaigners, who say it is not a fair way to treat young people. There are estimated to be 3,500 of the devices, known as the mosquito, in use across the country. Their sound causes discomfort to young ears - but their frequency is above the normal hearing range of people over 25. The Children's Commissioner for England says they should be scrapped as they infringe the rights of young people. Negative views The devices have proved popular with councils and police who use them to disperse ...
UAE starts work on world's first zero-carbon city
Post Date: 2008-02-11 06:58:00 by Ada
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The oil-rich United Arab Emirates was set to start work on Sunday on construction of the world's first zero carbon emissions city, a spokesman for the project said. "Construction on Masdar City begins today," the spokesman told AFP, adding that the 6.5-square-kilometre (2.5-square-mile) development will cost 22 billion dollars and is set for completion in 2015. Masdar City will house 50,000 people and will be run entirely on renewable energy including solar power, exploiting the desert state's near constant supply of sunshine. The city, which is named after the Arabic word for "source", will be built in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi. Residents will use ...
Wind farms: millionaire playgrounds for Green fat cats
Post Date: 2008-02-09 21:58:46 by farmfriend
1 Comments
Wind farms: millionaire playgrounds for Green fat cats ENERGY policy in Great Britain has been a shambles for years. Cowardly governments have turned a blind eye to repeated warnings over prices and supply. Disaster has been avoided thanks only to lucky escapes rather than good stewardship. A case study in the stupidity of the British government’s attitude to energy – aided and abetted by the European Union – is its continuing obsession with wind farms, a so-called sustainable source of energy which is costly, inefficient, unreliable – and ultimately unsustainable. The official line from London and Brussels has always been that wind turbines produce energy more cleanly ...
Robot glider harvests ocean heat
Post Date: 2008-02-08 22:52:47 by robin
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Robot glider harvests ocean heat By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News Enlarge Image A sea-going robotic glider that harvests heat energy from the ocean has been tested by US scientists. The yellow, torpedo-shaped machine has been combing the depths of seas around the Caribbean since December 2007. The team which developed the autonomous vehicle say it has covered "thousands of kilometres" during the tests. The team believe the glider - which needs no batteries - could undertake oceanographic surveys for up to six months at a time. "We are tapping a virtually unlimited energy source ...
Is Big Physics peddling science pornography?
Post Date: 2008-02-08 22:38:37 by robin
4 Comments
There’s a new round of nonsense about theoretical physics making its way through the media, especially the British tabloids. The original source is a preprint from a few months ago by Aref’eva and Volovich entitled Time Machine at the LHC (it refers to another earlier one by other authors If LHC is a Mini-Time-Machines Factory, Can We Notice?). These papers discuss the possibility that the LHC will produce not just black holes, but also wormholes that would be “Mini-Time-Machines” (MTMs). New Scientist now has a cover story based on this which begins: As you may have heard, this will be the year. The Large Hadron Collider - the most powerful atom-smasher ever built - ...
Is OO a deliberate fraud?
Post Date: 2008-02-08 14:48:17 by Tauzero
23 Comments
Is OO a deliberate fraud? Ruth, Jim, and all, This is in indirect response to Ruth Ivimey-Cook "Re: CPA 2006 - Call for Papers", in which she laments a dismal lack of response. I think it's the death throes of science being choked out by fake science, and I think I've identified the culprit. I'm posting this to both occam and OO-based supporters, to be fair, and allow serious answers to my points. Merrill R. Chapman in his tech history ("In Search of Stupidity", Apress / Springer-Verlag, New York, 2003) quotes, as 1992-1993 era OO definition at Borland, the following excerpt from "What is Object-Oriented Software" by Terry Montlick ...
Political Views May Be Genetically Influenced, Twin Study Shows
Post Date: 2008-02-07 19:22:12 by Tauzero
2 Comments
Political Views May Be Genetically Influenced, Twin Study Shows ScienceDaily (Feb. 6, 2008) — Research by Rice University professor of political science John Alford indicates that what is on one's mind about politics may be influenced by how people are wired genetically. Alford, who has researched this topic for a number of years, and his team analyzed data from political opinions of more than 12,000 twins in the United States and supplemented it with findings from twins in Australia. Alford found that identical twins were more likely to agree on political issues than were fraternal twins. On the issue of property taxes, for example, an astounding four-fifths of identical twins ...
Blue eyes result of ancient genetic 'mutation'
Post Date: 2008-02-06 06:18:53 by Ada
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Frank Sinatra, Stephen Hawking, Marie Curie and Stephen Fry all owe their blue eyes to a genetic mutation that likely occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, researchers say. Blue eye colour originated near the Black Sea Scientists believe they have tracked down the cause of the eye colour of all blue-eyed humans on the planet today. “Originally, we all had brown eyes”, said Prof Hans Eiberg from the University of Copenhagen, who led the team. Blue eye colour most likely originated from the near east area or northwest part of the Black Sea region, where the great agriculture migration to the northern part of Europe took place in the Neolithic periods about six–10,000 ...
Three-parent embryo formed in lab
Post Date: 2008-02-05 19:44:44 by robin
1 Comments
Three-parent embryo formed in lab The scientists have created the embryo in the lab Scientists believe they have made a potential breakthrough in the treatment of serious disease by creating a human embryo with three separate parents. The Newcastle University team believe the technique could help to eradicate a whole class of hereditary diseases, including some forms of epilepsy. The embryos have been created using DNA from a man and two women in lab tests. It could ensure women with genetic defects do not pass the diseases on to their children. It is human beings they are experimenting with Josephine QuintavalleComment on ...
Judge: Navy not exempt from sonar ruling
Post Date: 2008-02-05 00:20:24 by kiki
10 Comments
LOS ANGELES - The Navy must follow environmental laws placing strict limits on sonar training that may harm whales, despite President Bush's decision to exempt it, a federal judge ruled Monday. The Navy is not "exempted from compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act" and a court injunction creating a 12 nautical-mile no-sonar zone off Southern California, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper wrote in a 36-page decision. "We disagree with the judge's decision," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. "We believe the orders are legal and appropriate." The president signed a waiver Jan. 15 exempting the Navy and its anti-submarine ...
Global meltdown: scientists isolate areas most at risk of climate change
Post Date: 2008-02-04 22:17:16 by robin
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Global meltdown: scientists isolate areas most at risk of climate change· Experts assess point at which it is too late to act · Disastrous repercussions of warming are spelled out Ian Sample, science correspondent The Guardian, Tuesday February 5 2008 Ice boulders left behind after a flood caused by the overflowing of a lake in Greenland. Photograph: Uriel Sinai/Getty images Scientists have long agreed that climate change could have a profound impact on the planet; from melting ice sheets and withering rainforests, to flash floods and droughts.Now a team of climate experts has ranked the most fragile and vulnerable regions on the planet, and warned they are in ...
Frontiers of Thought Control? Memeering
Post Date: 2008-02-04 13:53:05 by gengis gandhi
1 Comments
Frontiers of Thought Control? Memeering By George Ure http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm You need some background to understand this rather longish report today, so here goes. Since before 9/11, which was described here in mid July 2001 in advance as a "tipping point" in computer modelspace, after which our lives would be forever changed, I've been pleased to bring the occasional insight into the future that has been based on a radical field of study called "predictive linguistics." In this arcane field of study made up almost exclusively of academic institutions, national level organizations, and perhaps a few savvy governments, it's held that big events ...
All Blue Eyed People Related to Brad Pitt [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2008-02-03 21:55:51 by robin
55 Comments
NEW GENETICS DISCOVERYAll Blue Eyed People Related to Brad PittBy Andrew Curry in Berlin According to a new paper by a Danish researcher, blue eyes come as the result of a single mutation that occurred 10,000 years ago. Which means that all people with blue peepers have a common ancestor. What do Frank Sinatra, Cameron Diaz, Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow have in common? According to a new study, they all share the same ancestor. The paper, published Thursday by Danish geneticist Hans Eiberg in the journal Human Genetics, links all baby blues to a single mutation that occurred 10,000 years ago. PHOTO GALLERY: BABY'S GOT BLUE EYES Click on a picture to launch the image ...
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