Clipmarks | adamc's Pops

Telling A 15 Billion Year Story In 3 1/2 Minutes

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:54:09 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.ponderabout.com

in the video below, astronomer Carl Sagan, traces events

from the time of the Big Bang to the formation of Life

and he manages to do so, with his brand of poetry,

in only 3 1/2 minutes

[Video]

the above is an excerpt from Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,

first broadcast by in 1980, the 13-episode Cosmos was

American public television's most watched series

it remained so for a decade, and today is regarded

as one of the all time geat science documentaries

Tags: cosmology, carl sagan, big bang, history

Human Brain Shifts Into Higher Gear During Exercise

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:37:57 GMT

clipped by: SenorCoconut

Clip Source: www.elements4health.com

According to a study by researchers from Denmark and The Netherlands published in the October 2008 print issue of The FASEB Journal, the brain, just like muscles, works harder during strenuous exercise and is fueled by lactate, rather than glucose. Not only does this finding help explain why the brain is able to work properly when the body's demands for fuel and oxygen are highest, but it goes a step further to show that the brain actually shifts into a higher gear in terms of activity. This opens doors to entirely new areas of brain research related to understanding lactate's specific neurological effects.

To reach their conclusion, the researchers looked at research that compared the blood running to and from the heads of volunteers undergoing strenuous exercise. They found that the blood on its way to the brain contained considerably more lactate than blood flowing from the brain.

Tags: brain, lactate, glucose, neurological effects

Brain Implants for the World's First Cyborg

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:49:00 GMT

clipped by: destiny911

Clip Source: www.mindpowernews.com

Brain Implants for the World's First Cyborg

In the year 1998, Professor Kevin Warwick and his team at the department of Cybernetics, University of Reading had underwent an operation to surgically implant a silicon chip transponder in his forearm that allowed a computer to monitor him as he moved through halls and offices of the Department of Cybernetics using a unique identifying signal emitted by the implanted chip and also allowed him to operate doors, lights, heaters and other computers without lifting a finger.

The second phase of the experiment Project Cyborg 2.0 got underway in March 2002 with an aim of studying how a new implant could send signals back and forth between Warwick's nervous system and a computer.

His team is presently busy with the rat brain project, a biological robot controlled by a blob of rat brain created by the scientists. The project is at an interesting turn as it moves on to study memories vis-à-vis brain.

Facebook Profiles Can Be Used To Detect Narcissism

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:38:30 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks: I don't use Facebook. I am waaaay too cool and fabulous to wanna mingle with all those lowly self-absorbed people.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Facebook profiles can be used to detect narcissism

"We found that people who are narcissistic use Facebook in a self-promoting way that can be identified by others,"

The researchers found that the number of Facebook friends and wallposts that individuals have on their profile pages correlates with narcissism. Buffardi said this is consistent with how narcissists behave in the real-world, with numerous yet shallow relationships. Narcissists are also more likely to choose glamorous, self-promoting pictures for their main profile photos, she said, while others are more likely to use snapshots.

The researchers found that the observers used three characteristics – quantity of social interaction, attractiveness of the individual and the degree of self promotion in the main photo – to form an impression of the individual's personality.

Narcissism

"Narcissists might initially be seen as charming, but they end up using people for their own advantage,"

Gov. Palin’s Worldview

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:53:37 GMT

clipped by: schreibe

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Gov. Palin’s Worldview

If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible.

It was bad enough that Ms. Palin’s performance in the first televised interviews she has done since she joined the Republican ticket was so visibly scripted and lacking in awareness.

What made it so much worse is the strategy for which the Republicans have made Ms. Palin the frontwoman: win the White House not on ideas, but by denigrating experience, judgment and qualifications.

The idea that Americans want leaders who have none of those things — who are so blindly certain of what Ms. Palin calls “the mission” that they won’t even pause for reflection — shows a contempt for voters and raises frightening questions about how Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin plan to run this country.

Tags: palin, 2008election, politics, mccain

Do Our Political Beliefs Have a Biological Basis?

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 10:04:30 GMT

clipped by: haraya
clipper's remarks:

It's a golden rule of democracy that people are free thinkers. There's just one problem: we aren't wired that way—not, at least, according to a new study that probes past the rational mind in search of a biological basis for our political beliefs.

The results seem to suggest that our ideas about the world are shaped by deep, involuntary reactions to the things we see.

Clip Source: www.newsweek.com

A small but intriguing study finds that liberals and conservatives react differently when shown threatening images.

For comparison, the subjects were also shown three nonthreatening pictures

Alford and his colleagues then correlated this with their political survey results.

the study found that greater sensitivity to the images was linked to more fervent support for a conservative agenda—including opposition to immigration, gun control, gay marriage, abortion rights and pacifism, and support for military spending, warrantless searches, the War, school prayer and the truth of the Bible.

liberals

were less sensitive to the threatening images, and more likely to support open immigration policies, pacifism and gun control. But according to the research, that's hardly desirable, since it suggests that liberals may display mammal-on-a-hot-rock languor in the face of legitimate threats.

Tags: study, politics, liberal, conservative, perception, images, ideas

What Happens if You Fall Into a Black Hole?

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:18:17 GMT

clipped by: Deepti
clipper's remarks: If you fell into a large enough black hole, your last moments would be a little bit like being on the inside of a distorted, one-way mirror. No one outside would be able to see you, but you'd have a view of them. Meanwhile, the gravitational pull would bend the light weirdly and distort your last moments of vision

Clip Source: www.slate.com

If you were caught by the pull of a black hole, you would be sent into free fall toward its center. The pulling force would increase as you moved toward the center, creating what's called a "tidal force" on your body. That is to say, the gravity acting on your head would be much stronger than the gravity acting on your toes (assuming you were falling head-first). That would make your head accelerate faster than your toes; the difference would stretch your body until it snapped apart, first at its weakest point and then disintegrating rapidly from there as the tidal force became stronger than the chemical bonds holding your body together. You'd be reduced to a bunch of disconnected atoms. Those atoms would be stretched into a line and continue in a processional march

If you fell into a truly gigantic black hole, the rate of change—and resulting tidal force—might not be enough to rip your body apart until after you'd crossed the event horizon

Tags: black hole, space, science

Kundalini, The Mother of the Universe

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 19:32:01 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: An interesting book from Sacred-Texts.com. Especially those who are into yoga and Kundalini discipline would love to browse it.

Clip Source: www.sacred-texts.com

Kundalini, The Mother of the Universe

by Rishi Singh Gherwal

Contents Start Reading Page Index Text [Zipped]

This little self-published work could be most charitably described as an anthology of material on Kundalini Yoga. Very little of this book was actually written by Gherwal; the majority of the material here consists of long quotes from other authors, notably Arthur Avalon.

Tags: hinduism, kundalini, goddess, yoga, culture, india

Why Steampunk Is Popular

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:30:46 GMT

clipped by: missangelyss

Clip Source: www.darkfantasy.org

1. It’s Geekery The Genders Can Share

On the most basic, most appealing social level, steampunk is a way to masculinize romance.

2. An Aesthetic Response To The Science Fiction In The Culture

clean, happy technology with rounded edges. Which is great in that it’s completely user-friendly — but terrible in that “user-friendly” means “predictable”

3. Like Being Goth Without Scaring Your Parents

People think of goths as weirdoes who take vampires too seriously, and therefore they can’t help being worried on some level that a crazy goth might, you know, want to make them bleed. Whereas steampunks are — what? Weirdoes who take pocket-watches too seriously? What are they gonna do, vehemently tell you what time it is?

4. Bridging The Subgenre Gap

Steampunk is helping to bring us back to the days when the subgenre categories didn’t matter so much

5. The Future: UR Doin It Wrong

Steampunk basically lets us go back, at least in our imagination, and try again

"87 Million year-old praying mantis found"

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:53:57 GMT

clipped by: cakebelly

Clip Source: mysterytopia.com

87 Million year-old praying mantis found

Is the 87-million-year-old praying mantis recently found encased in amber in Japan a “missing link” between mantises from the Cretaceous period and modern-day insects?

It is a rare find indeed and its true significance is still to be deciphered.

Discovered in January of this year by Kazuhisa Sasaki, director of the Kuji Amber Museum, the fossil mantis measures 0.5 inch (1.4 centimeters) from its antennae to the tip of its abdomen.

It was found buried more than six feet below the surface of an amber mine in a part of Japan that is famous for producing large amounts of amber, the northeastern Iwate Prefecture.

“I found it in a deposit that had lots of other insects—ancient flies, bees, and cockroaches—but this was the only praying mantis” said Sasaki.

The fossil mantis is partially well preserved, although its wings and abdomen are badly crushed.

The key to oil independence is a new electrical grid

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:17:49 GMT

clipped by: egoldstein
clipper's remarks: It seems that with alternative sources of energy, such as wind and solar, the United States has the potential means to substantially reduce our dependence on oil - especially once plug-in cars are on the market.

But until we substantially upgrade our nation's electrical grid with modern technology that will enable the energy created by these sources to be transmitted intelligently around the county, their impact will be limited.

It's going to take a greater commitment from Congress to jump start this. Making it happen will provide a huge boost to our economy, environment and political leverage with the Middle East, Russia, Venezuela and more.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.

The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.

“We need an interstate transmission superhighway system,” said Suedeen G. Kelly, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“The windiest sites have not been built, because there is no way to move that electricity from there to the load centers,” he said.

Tags: alternative energy, grid, electricity, wind, solar

Top 9 comments made by NBC sports commentators during the Olympics

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:00:05 GMT

clipped by: hitchhiker08
clipper's remarks: Howl-arious!

Clip Source: www.snopes.com

1. Weightlifting commentator: "This is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning during her warm up and it was amazing."

2. Dressage commentator: "This is really a lovely horse and I speak from personal experience since I once mounted her mother."

3. Paul Hamm, Gymnast: "I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father."

4. Boxing Analyst: "Sure there have been injuries,and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious."

5. Softball announcer: "If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again."

6. Basketball analyst: "He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn't like it. In fact you can see it all over their faces."

7. At the rowing medal ceremony: "Ah, isn't that nice, the wife of the IOC president is hugging the cox of the British crew."

8. Soccer commentator: "Julian Dicks is everywhere. It's like they've got eleven Dicks on the field."

Tags: nbc, commentators, humor, olympics, sports, comedy

Paris Hilton video response to McCain ad

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:44:23 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: blogs.abcnews.com

Paris Hilton has issued a response (kinda) to presidential hopeful John McCain's television commerial which lumps her together with Barack Obama and Britney Spears in the sometimes reviled celebrity category.

She continues, "But then that wrinkly white-haired guy used me in his campaign ad, which I guess means that I'm running for president."

And so, since Hilton has interpreted the comparison to Sen. Obama, D-Ill., as meaning that she too is qualified to be leader of the free world, Hilton, jokingly, lays out her campaign platform.

The video has some more tough words for the "wrinkly white-haired" Arizona Senator: "He's the oldest celebrity it the world, like super old. Old enough to remember when dancing was a sin and beer was served in a bucket.," a narrator says, with a picture of Larry King and then Yoda to drive home the age point.

The video is posted on the user-driven video site backed by Will Ferrel and Adam McKay, FunnyOrDie.com. Watch it HERE.

Tags: mccain, paris hilton, video, celebrity

Adult Stem Cells Activated In Mammalian Brain

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 07:27:50 GMT

clipped by: etcrisis

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Adult stem cells originate in a different part of the brain than is commonly believed, and with proper stimulation they can produce new brain cells to replace those lost to disease or injury, a study by UC Irvine scientists has shown.

Evidence strongly shows that the true stem cells in the mammalian brain are the ependymal cells that line the ventricles in the brain and spinal cord, rather than cells in the subventricular zone as biologists previously believed. Brain ventricles are hollow chambers filled with fluid that supports brain tissue, and a layer of ependymal cells lines these ventricles.

Knowing the cell source is crucial when developing stem cell-based therapies. Additionally, knowing that these normally dormant cells can be coaxed into dividing lays the groundwork for future therapies in which a patient’s own stem cells produce new brain cells to treat neurological disorders and injuries such as Parkinson’s disease, stroke or traumatic brain injury.

sometimes you win when you lose

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:34:28 GMT

clipped by: isabel

Clip Source: www.shof.msrcsites.co.uk

Tags: relationsips, humor, funny, love, loss