Clipmarks | pokkets's 'science' clips

Complex decision? Don't sleep on it

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:09:34 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Since its publication two years ago by a Dutch research team in the journal Science, the earlier finding had been used to encourage decision-makers to make "snap" decisions (for example, in the best-selling book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell) or to leave complex choices to the powers of unconscious thought ("Sleep on it", Dijksterhuis et al., Science, 2006).

But in the new study, to be published in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, scientists ran four experiments in which participants were presented with complex decisions and asked to choose the best option immediately ("blink"), after a period of conscious deliberation ("think"), or after a period of distraction ("sleep on it"), which is claimed to encourage "unconscious thought processes".

In all experiments, there was some evidence that conscious deliberation can lead to better choices and little evidence for superiority of choices made "unconsciously".

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Neither snap judgements nor sleeping on a problem are any better than conscious thinking for making complex decisions, according to new research.

The finding debunks a controversial 2006 research result asserting that unconscious thought is superior for complex decisions, such as buying a house or car.

If anything, the new study suggests that conscious thought leads to better choices.

"Claims that we can make superior 'snap' decisions by trusting intuition or through the 'power' of unconscious thought have received a great deal of attention in the media," says University of New South Wales psychologist, Dr Ben Newell, lead author of the new study.

"At best, these sorts of headlines are misleading," says Dr Newell. "At worst, they're outright dangerous. In stark contrast to claims made by the Dutch research team and in the media, we found very little evidence of the superiority of unconscious thought for complex decisions.

Tags: behavior, decision making, rationality, intuition

New Clues to Prion Infectivity

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 05:41:10 GMT

clipped by: y_qadash
clipper's remarks: The ramifications are primarily this:
This is evidence of why CJD has received misdiagnoses so frequently. Cases of Alzheimer's and other degenerative diseases are likely to be later identified as as Mad
Cow or CJD.
Where'd I learn this?
Check out my Blog and find out
www.OkieLogic.com

Clip Source: www.hhmi.org

Detailed structural studies have revealed new insights into why the same prion protein can have different properties and be either weakly or strongly infectious.

Tags: science, pandemic, news, medical, god, disease, bugs, atheist

Invisibility cloak within sight

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 04:45:26 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: News of the latest research

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Maggie Fox

Scientists have created two new types of materials that can bend light the wrong way, creating the first step toward an invisibility cloaking device.

the vanishing act takes place on a nanoscale, measured in billionths of a metre

experiments, led by Professor Xiang Zhang at the University of California at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, are reported simultaneously today in the British journal Nature and the US-based journal Science.

Both are so-called metamaterials, artificially engineered structures that have properties not seen in nature, such as negative refractive index

When you see a fish in the water, the fish will appear to be in front of the position it really is. Or if you put a stick in the water, the stick seems to bend away from you

The negative refraction achieved by the teams at Berkeley would be different

Instead of the fish appearing to be slightly ahead of where it is in the water, it would actually appear to be above the water's surface

The hottest water on Earth

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:42:03 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: "Black smokers deep in the Atlantic are spouting 'supercritical' water at over 407 °C – something never before been seen in nature."

Clip Source: environment.newscientist.com

Even Jules Verne did not foresee this one. Deep down at the very bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, geochemist Andrea Koschinsky has found something truly extraordinary: "It's water," she says, "but not as we know it."

At over 3 kilometres beneath the surface, sitting atop what could be a huge bubble of magma, it's the hottest water ever found on Earth. The fluid is in a "supercritical" state that has never before been seen in nature.

Tags: science, geology, water, black smokers

Top 10 Scientists Killed or Injured by Their Experiments

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:53:24 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: More details at source

Clip Source: listverse.com

Man owes a great debt to the scientists on this list; all of them died or were injured in their pursuit of knowledge. The advances they have all made to science are extraordinary and many of them paved the way for some of man’s greatest discoveries and inventions.

Karl Scheele

Died from tasting his discoveries

Scheele was a brilliant pharmaceutical chemist who discovered many chemical elements - the most notable of which were oxygen

Jean-Francois De Rozier

First victim of an air crash

Sir David Brewster

Nearly blinded

Elizabeth Ascheim

Killed by X-Rays

Alexander Bogdanov

Killed himself with blood

Robert Bunsen

Blinded himself in one eye

Sir Humphrey Davy

A catalog of disasters

Michael Faraday

Suffered chronic poisoning

Marie Curie

Died of radiation exposure

In 1898, Curie and her husband, Pierre, discovered radium.

Galileo Galilei

Blinded himself

Bonus

Louis Slotin

Killed himself with an accidental fission reaction

Tags: science

Seven blunders of the world

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:26:21 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.doctorhugo.org

"Seven Blunders of the World"

1. Wealth without work

2.

Pleasure without conscience

3. Knowledge without character

4. Commerce without morality

5. Science without humanity

6. Worship without sacrifice

7. Politics without principle

—Mahatma Gandhi

|| Museums of the Mind ||

Tags: proverb, philosophy, gandhi, thought, mind, humanity, world

The future of science...is art

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:30:20 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "But before any of this can happen, our two existing cultures must modify their habits. First of all, the humanities must sincerely engage with the sciences. Henry James defined the writer as someone on whom nothing is lost; artists must heed his call, and not ignore science's inspiring descriptions of reality.

At the same time, the sciences must recognize that their truths are not the only truths. No single area of knowledge has a monopoly on knowledge. As Karl Popper, an eminent defender of science wrote, "It is imperative that we give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it is beyond our reach." The struggle for scientific truth is long and hard and never ending. If we want to get an answer to our deepest questions—the questions of who we are and what everything is—we will need to draw from both science

Clip Source: www.bryanchristiedesign.com

Clip Source: www.seedmagazine.com

the early 1920s, Niels Bohr was struggling to reimagine the structure of matter. Previous generations of physicists had thought the inner space of an atom looked like a miniature solar system with the atomic nucleus as the sun and the whirring electrons as planets in orbit. This was the classical model.

But Bohr had spent time analyzing the radiation emitted by electrons, and he realized that science needed a new metaphor. The behavior of electrons seemed to defy every conventional explanation. As Bohr said, "When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry." Ordinary words couldn't capture the data.

Clip Source: www.seedmagazine.com

the epic questions that modern science must answer cannot be solved by science alone.

What does this novel or experiment or poem teach us about ourselves? How does it help us understand who we are, or what the universe is made of?

we will discover that poems and paintings can help advance our experiments and theories. Art can make science better.

Cheaper fuel cell on the way

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 02:15:44 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: At the moment around $3500 to $4000 worth of platinum is required for a hydrogen fuel cell big enough for the average passenger car.
Platinum is around double the price of Gold. Platinum in a similar way as it is used in rocket fuel cells, is the catalyst that makes the oxygen and hydrogen burn efficiently enough to power an engine.
The new cathodes are expected to be 10% of the cost, for the same current and also immune from being affected by carbon monoxide, so are more stable than platinum nanoparticles,
Now would be a good time to sell Platinum futures.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Anna Salleh

A much cheaper fuel cell could be on its way thanks a new cathode built by Australian researchers.

The new cathode made of conducting polymer would replace a costly platinum cathode

A team at the Australian Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science at Monash University in Melbourne report their findings in today's issue of the journal Science.

Fuel cells convert hydrogen and oxygen to electricity and water and are thus a key area of research for powering greener cars.

The traditional fuel cell has a cathode which contains expensive platinum nanoparticles, says materials engineer Professor Maria Forsythe, who contributed to the development

She says the amount of platinum required for a passenger car is worth around $3500 to $4000, and this makes up the major cost of a fuel cell.

the nanoparticles can lose their effectiveness either by clumping together or by becoming "poisoned" by carbon monoxide

Conducting polymers are special plastics that conduct electricity.

Five Ways Reality Went Sci-Fi So Far This Century

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:18:34 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: io9.com

We love a good science fiction story, but sometimes reality is just as strange. While we may have seen 2001 come and go without an actual space odyssey, the last eight years have been full of events that - had they not actually happened - could easily pass for science fiction. Here are five real life events that still seem like they've come straight from the set-up of a big budget summer blockbuster.

Estonian Cyberwar: It may not have been the biggest cyber attack ever, but it's probably the strangest. Last year, Russian hackers got so ticked off when the tiny nation of Estonia digs up the remains of Soviet war heroes that they shut down Estonian newspapers, banks, and practically the entire government by using denial of service attacks on a huge scale.

CERN: You need only look at pictures from inside the Large Hadron Collider to realize the incredible, science fictional scale of the apparatus.

Space Tourism:

SARS, bird flu, and the other near-pandemics:

9/11:

Tags: reality, sci-fi

Mars Pictures From European Spacecraft Are Incredible (PHOTOS)

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:06:02 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Wow!

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

The European spacecraft in orbit around Mars has sent back these incredible, high-resolution images of the planet's surface. The photos remind us that Mars' past was filled with fast-flowing streams, rivers and oceans.

Tags: space, science, mars, technology, pictures, wow

Outer-space sex

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:51:11 GMT

clipped by: dakotayii
clipper's remarks: For all these reasons, Logan said spontaneous sex in space could be "a little underwhelming."

"It's a pretty messy environment, when you think about it," he said. "And for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. However ... I can well imagine how compelling, inspiring, and quite frankly stimulating choreographed sex in zero-G might be in the hands of a skilled and talented cinematographer with appropriate lighting and music."

When the crowd tittered, Logan added, "I'm not kidding: Sex in zero-G is going to have to be more or less choreographed. Otherwise it's just going to be a wild flail."

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Alan Boyle

Science editor

• Profile

• E-mail

LAS VEGAS - Having sex in the weightlessness of outer space is the stuff of urban legends and romantic fantasy — but experts say that there would be definite downsides as well.

"The fantasy might be vastly superior to the reality,"

"Sex in space is not just a good idea, it's survival," said Vanna Bonta,

However, off-Earth romantics will have to cope with some practical challenges:

Sex in space would likely be "hotter and wetter" than on Earth, Bonta said, because in zero-G there is no natural convection to carry away body heat. Also, scientists have found that people tend to perspire more in microgravity. The moisture associated with sexual congress could pool as floating droplets.

it was challenging even to kiss

You actually have to struggle to connect and stay connected

males might notice a "slight decrease" in penis size due to the lower blood pressure

Save the acrobatics for post-play vs. foreplay,"

Tags: science

Nano-zinc yields clearer fingerprints

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:16:13 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

A powder made up of zinc oxide nanoparticles can give crime fighters a clearer image of fingerprints, even on wet surfaces, say Australian researchers.

Dr Andrew McDonagh and colleagues, of the Centre for Forensic Science at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), report their findings in the Journal of Material Science.

McDonagh says traditional powder reveals fingerprints by sticking to the oily residues left on the surface - but this doesn't always work

on wet surfaces such as sinks or bath tubs, especially when part of the print has been washed away

Working with the Australian Federal Police, McDonagh and team tested a new fingerprint powder based on zinc oxide nanoparticles on surfaces such as glass, polyethylene and aluminium.

When illuminated with ultraviolet light the nanoparticles fluoresce without the addition of any fluorescent dyes.

Compared to conventional powders the researchers found the zinc oxide nanoparticle powder gave a much clearer picture of the fingerprints

Study blows whistle on ref's fitness.

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:39:24 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: The referee must keep up with the fastest player, for the whole match. The players take turns to score points, and spread the load between the team. The referee not only has to keep up, but never take their eye off the ball. Not only that, if a team loses, they can get the blame.
If you can't play become a referee? More like the other way around.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Dani Cooper

Referees give the sports people they preside over a run for their money quite literally, an Australian sports science expert says.

But when age catches up with them, some will "cheat" to help them keep control over the game, Dr Anthony Leicht, of the Institute of Sport and Exercise Science at James Cook University

Leicht says his study of elite basketball referees, published in a recent Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, shows they are working just as hard as the players.

"In basketball it is a small enclosed court and the general feeling was that referees stand around a lot," Leicht says.

For the study, Leicht monitored heart rates of seven elite-level basketball referees during a pre-Olympics tournament in the lead-up to the 2004 Athens Games.

He found the referees worked at an average heart rate of 150 beats per minute (plus or minus 18bpm) for each quarter of the match.

The referees on average ran between five and seven kilometres per game.

How to fold Proteins

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:51:44 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Proteins are complex molecules, and understanding the way they can fold using distributed computing, in the unused cpu load of home computers, can spread the load and research in more detail , both the way proteins fold, and the effects of incorrect folding. A prime example of such an instance in in the proteins known as prions, which with a wrong fold can be one of the contributing factors in Alzheimer's disease. The foldingathome network is the biggest computer in the world, with calculations done by the petaflop

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Clip Source: folding.stanford.edu

Our goal: to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases

What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease?
Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery.

Clip Source: folding.stanford.edu

Folding@home Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Index

Clip Source: fahwiki.net

How does FAH work?

"To install or not to install..."

Convincing (a large institution) to run the FAH client

FAH & Cancer research

FAH, the GDP, and Tax Deductible Contributions.

Results of all this

The Future of Folding@Home

How an invisibility cloak works

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:10:57 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: science.howstuffworks.com

Inside this Article

Science Videos

More Science Videos »

Optical-camouflage technology developed at the University of Tokyo

The garment is made of a special material that we'll examine more closely in a moment

Next, an observer (Person B) stands before Person A at a specific location. At that location, instead of seeing Person A wearing a hooded raincoat, Person B sees right through the cloak, making Person A appear to be invisible.

The photograph on the right below shows you what Person B would see. If Person B were viewing from a slightly different location, he would simply see Person A wearing a silver garment (left photograph below

Still, despite its limitations, this is a cool piece of technology. Not only that, but it's also a technology that's been around for a while.