Clipmarks | pokkets's Pops

It's a dirty business

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:25:39 GMT

clipped by: katknit

Branson says airlines should pay tax on emissions

"If you run a dirty business — an airline business, a shipping business, ... coal business, you should pay for the privilege because you are doing damage," Branson said.

Tags: environment, business

Kill that screen saver

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:25:07 GMT

clipped by: katknit
clipper's remarks: find out why

Clip Source: green.yahoo.com

You don't still use a screen saver, do you?

Well, flat-screen LCD monitors don't burn in, so if you still have flying toasters or an endlessly looping slide show of your adorable niece and nephew, you're behind the times. When you're not sitting in front of your monitor it should be off off off.

Tags: technology

Einstein or Monroe

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:30:10 GMT

clipped by: katknit
clipper's remarks: Check out this picture - crazy!

Clip Source: www.zamoraa.com

Einstein or Monroe?

When you look at this picture in a
closer look you see its Albert Einstein.
But if you stand 15 feet away,

And now, The Michelangelo Code

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:05:01 GMT

clipped by: katknit
clipper's remarks: Really?

Clip Source: www.theweirdpost.com

Michelangelo ‘hid secret code in Sistine Chapel’

Michelangelo hid a secret code in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel made up of mystical Jewish symbols and insults aimed at the pope, according to a new book.

Gene Editing Could Make Anyone Immune to AIDS

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:31:20 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: blog.wired.com

Some people have a mutation that makes them amazingly resistant to HIV -- and now, scientists may have found a way to give that immunity to anyone.

Viruses enter cells and take them over, but to get inside, they need a handhold. HIV pulls itself in by grabbing onto a protein called CCR5, which decorates the surface of T-cells, which are one of the two major types of white blood cells and play an important role in helping the body fight infections. Back in the 1990's, researchers took interest in a handful of promiscuous gay men who were able to engage in sexual relations with their HIV-positive partners with impunity. Most of them had a mutation that kept their cells from producing normal CCR5 protein.

Armed with that knowledge, scientists have developed several tactics to block the production of CCR5 or perturb its shape so that the HIV virus can't grab onto it during the first step of its hijacking attempt

Tags: dna, hiv, immunity, viruses

“What is Life?” Evolution of Robots is Causing Scientists to Question

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:04:36 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: “Robots are not human, but humans aren’t the only things that have emotions,” she said. “The question for robots is not, Will they ever have human emotions? Dogs don’t have human emotions, either, but we all agree they have genuine emotions. The question is, what are the emotions that are genuine for the robot?”

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

There is ongoing debate about what constitutes life. Synthetic bacteria for example, are created by man and yet also alive. Some go so far as to say that robot “emotions” may already have occurred—that current robots have not only displayed emotions, but in some ways have experienced them.

“We’re all machines,” says Rodney Brooks author of “Flesh and Machines,” and former director of M.I.T.’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, “Robots are made of different sorts of components than we are — we are made of biomaterials; they are silicon and steel — but in principle, even human emotions are mechanistic.” A robot’s level of a feeling like sadness could be set as a number in computer code, he said. But isn’t a human’s level of sadness basically a number, too, just a number of the amounts of various neurochemicals circulating in the brain? Why should a robot’s numbers be any less authentic than a human’s?

Tags: robotics, intelligence, life

Beliefs

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:21:49 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: xkcd.com

10 Futuristic materials

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:40:16 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: lifeboat.com

1. Aerogel

Aerogel protecting crayons from a blowtorch.

Aerogel holds 15 entries in the Guinness Book of Records, more than any other material. Sometimes called "frozen smoke", aerogel is made by the supercritical drying of liquid gels of alumina, chromia, tin oxide, or carbon. It's 99.8% empty space, which makes it look semi-transparent

2. Carbon nanotubes

long chains of carbon held together by the strongest bond in all chemistry, the sacred sp₂ bond, even stronger than the sp3 bonds that hold together diamond

3. Metamaterials

any material that gains its properties from structure rather than composition

used to create microwave invisibility cloaks, 2D invisibility cloaks, and materials with other unusual optical properties

4. Bulk diamond

5. Bulk fullerenes

Diamonds may be strong, but aggregated diamond nanorods (what I call amorphous fullerene) are stronger

6. Amorphous metal

7. Superalloys

8. Metal foam

9. Transparent alumina

three times stronger than steel and transparent

10. E-textiles

Tags: science, materials

Extraterrestrial Life Confirmed

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:32:57 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: I always knew I was different.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

If you want to see the offspring of extraterrestrial interference in Earth evolution, you don't have to break into the X-files or start watching late night crazy-person public access. You could be looking at one in the mirror.

Early in Earth's history the surface suffered a heavy hail of meteorites. This is usually bad news for any lifeforms in the vicinity (if you don't believe me, just ask a velociraptor), but since even DNA was only a gleam in the ocean's eye at the time the space-rocks weren't a setback - in fact, they may have delivered vital ingredients to the rich pre-life soup on the surface.

A collaboration between various US and European institutes has proven the presence of vital nucleobases in the Murchison meteorite, an extraterrestrial rock fragment which impacted Earth in 1969.

These bases are unquestionably alien - for one, the rock-chemicals are equally left and right "handed"

the odds of life off-planet seem better than ever.

Will Exploration Threaten Antarctic's 15-Million Year Old Lake?

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:46:22 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Lake Vostok is an international treasure. We have to convince not just the scientific community but the entire world that we can do this without contaminating the lake

Because of the long isolation, it's believed that Lake Vostok could contain new lifeforms, and unique geochemical processes

The overlying ice provides a continuous paleo-climatic record of 400,000 years, although the lake water itself may have been isolated for as long as 15 million years

NASA has expressed interest in exploring the lake to search for microbes that might be similar to ones on other planets. How the bacteria get energy to survive is an important unanswered question. The lake could be an analog to Jupiter's moon Europa or subsurface where conditions are similar

The original Russian Vostok station sits over the south end of the lake at the precise geomagnetic South Pole, surrounded by decades' worth of discarded machinery, waste and rubbish.

No other natural lake environment on Earth has this much oxygen

Immortal Invaders Infect World's Oceans

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:09:29 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: Suddenly, immortality doesn't seem so attractive.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

The Hydrozoan, a small predatory sea creature like a jellyfish but without all their well known exciting higher functions, can achieve the dream of millions and become a child again. When adverse environmental conditions threaten death it can collapse into a rugged blob of cells to survive. When it re-emerges, it does so as a child - literally building itself up all over again. Since this isn't just a shell to hide in, but a complete structural restart, it seems possible that it could keep this up forever.

Since one of these adverse environmental conditions is "getting sucked into the ballast tanks of a freighter", the hardy hitchhiker has spread all over the globe. It possesses stingers and eats things, which are definitely qualities you don't want in something that's unkillable and spreading worldwide, but if you're larger than a shrimp you're still safe.

The rather damp phoenix-stylings of the hydrozoan have obviously made them a hot topic in genetics

Extraterrestrial Climate Change - A Message for Earth?

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:44:25 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: But will we heed the warnings!

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

“It seems that both and Venus started out much more like Earth," says David Grinspoon, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and one of the Venus Express interdisciplinary scientists. "They both hold priceless climate information for Earth."

The atmosphere of Venus is much thicker than Earth’s. Nevertheless, current climate models can reproduce its present temperature structure well. Now planetary scientists want to turn the clock back to understand why and how Venus changed from its former Earth-like conditions into the inferno of today.

Climate scientists believe that the planet experienced a runaway greenhouse effect as the Sun gradually heated up. Astronomers believe that the young Sun was dimmer than the present-day Sun by 30 percent. Over the last 4 thousand million years, it has gradually brightened. During this increase, Venus’s surface water evaporated and entered the atmosphere.

As Earth warms in response to man-made pollution, it risks the same fate

The Deepest Swimming Pool In The World

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:58:41 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: It's in Belgium near Brussels.

Clip Source: braingoodbye.com

Scientist identify brain 'core' that could reveal secrets of thought

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:02:21 GMT

clipped by: einbar

Clip Source: spectrum.ieee.org

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

A "core" region of the brain has been identified by an international team which has produced the first complete high-resolution map of the human cerebral cortex, the wrinkly surface of the brain where awareness, thought and other features of high level thinking reside.

The team traced the connections between millions of brain cells and identified a highly connected single network core, or hub, that may be key to the workings of both hemispheres of the brain.

major step in understanding the most complicated and mysterious organ in the universe

The team hopes to use the information to build biologically realistic models in a computer which in turn will "help us understand processes that are difficult to observe, such as disease states and recovery processes to injuries

As for consciousness, that quest will have to wait until neuroscientists can agree on a precise definition of what they are talking about.

Sci-Fi films in one sentence

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:24:10 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

2001: A Space Odyssey
A slab of onyx and a singing computer get two astronauts in hot water.

Alien
A feisty cat survives tense times onboard a spaceship.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Frail aliens visit Earth in search of clothing, music, friends and possibly gym equipment.

Starship Troopers
Valiant insects try to repel totalitarian invaders.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
A nerd from another planet goes bike riding and trick-or-treating.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Kirk, Spock and McCoy blend right in while visiting late 20th-century San Francisco.

Iron Man
An arms manufacturer finds himself neck-deep but gets a leg up and heads home.

The Matrix
A man discovers his true destiny.

Star Wars
An adolescent discovers his true destiny.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
A boy discovers his true destiny.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
A hobbit discovers his true destiny.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
A sad sack seeks a way to turn back time so he can live in the Dark Ages.

Tags: science fiction, films, humour, expelled, creationism