Chinahand Posted June 20, 2011 Author Share Posted June 20, 2011 Viruses are pretty amazing things - they are everywhere from your nose, to the oceans, to Lake Vostock under the Antarctic. Especially amazing are Endogenous Retro-viruses - these are viruses which get embedded into your DNA - if you get one, then your children have a 50% chance of getting it too. Eventually random mutations may disable it, but its now broken DNA is still there in your DNA to get copied into later generations as junk - nowadays human DNA is more broken viruses than DNA which codes for making things useful for your body. Carl Zimmer does a really good talk all about viruses and just how awesome they are - watch it here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted June 22, 2011 Author Share Posted June 22, 2011 I've been a bit haunted by this image. It was created by David McCandless of Information Is Beautiful. It shows the huge amount of time people spend just blobbing out infront of the telly. I fully admit that when I get back from work and the kids have been put to bed etc the temptation to just goggle in front of the Box is almost over powering. The missus often says I should use a part of that time more productivly. Just imagine if even a small portion of the time we spend doing very little was put to a more productive use - how much more could be achieved. Good old Aldous Huxley's Brave New World comes to mind - the pleasures of consumer life restrict our potential. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauld Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 Interesting, what about looking at it from a physiological point. We tax our brains for more hours than is already good for us, i think we exchange sleep for tv time now china, I mean from when daylight hours dictated the way humans lived their lives, wasnt much to keep us awake once it was dark, earlier starts admittedly. I love the big number stats. WIKI against tv is a very good one thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauld Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 (edited) Another thing that i cant get my head around about dna, how much memory it holds, and passes from one generation to another, or how much it may evolve to hold and pass on. What i suppose the word "instinct" encompasses, how much "instinct" are we and other animals born with, and how much is subconsciously learned behavior, because "if" dna can hold memory, how much memory is it capable of holding and passing on, either now or as it evolves. Edited June 24, 2011 by pauld Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted July 30, 2011 Author Share Posted July 30, 2011 With the US playing chicken with defaulting on its debts thought this was a good visualization of the size of the problem - its a lot of money! Link Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauld Posted July 30, 2011 Share Posted July 30, 2011 (edited) Could it not be looked at this way china, US debt is 20% of the world gross national product, if they default they have basically stolen 20% of the worlds labour for a year to make theIr Fat arsed lives easier. Edited July 30, 2011 by pauld Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted August 9, 2011 Author Share Posted August 9, 2011 Can you name these scientists? I knew 8 out of the 10. Its a quiz from the New York Times highlighting the lack of recognition science recieves - we are far more interested in the latest starlet and her new boyfriend than people who's discoveries increase our understanding of the world! Sexism is always interesting and I had much great difficulty recognizing the women scientists than the male ones. I'm not sure if there is a justifiable reason for that, or if it is down to sexism in the media etc highlighting the work of male scientists more. It gives me something to look into, as their work is far less well known to me - I expect it'll be interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted September 9, 2011 Author Share Posted September 9, 2011 (edited) BBC LINK Edited September 9, 2011 by Chinahand Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted September 23, 2011 Author Share Posted September 23, 2011 Geostationary satellites are pretty awesome things. This one took a picture every day at about 6:00* am London time every day for a year. Here are the results: And hence we have seasons! Happy equinox everyone! * Its quite a task trying to work out if they took the photo every sidereal day - I don't think so, the satellite orbits in a sidereal day so is geostationary. I presume they'd correct for the equation of time so the shadow is always at the same point on the equator when the picture is taken which is why it says about 6:00 am. Correcting for the equation of time is one fascinating part of time. A day aint 24 hours long - well apart from on 4 days a year - but on average it is. It still does my head in! More info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted October 18, 2011 Author Share Posted October 18, 2011 Levitation - actually if your wanting to be pedantic it's quantum locking, but what the heck its floating/hanging in mid air! Landspeeders coming soon! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted November 6, 2011 Author Share Posted November 6, 2011 It is always a big risk to judge a book from its cover! Can you work out which of these photos is of a rough sleeper and which is of a professor at a prestigious University? In some ways the sheer bloody-mindedness to study a tiny tiny aspect of the universe (say brain development in zebra fish embryos, or One Loop Corrections to the Rho Parameter in Higgsless Models) does have some similarity with the bloody-mindedness of people being willing to ignore society and sleep rough and eat out of bins! Think you can spot the difference between made up physics papers and genuine ones? Click here to find out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alias Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 It is always a big risk to judge a book from its cover! Can you work out which of these photos is of a rough sleeper and which is of a professor at a prestigious University? In some ways the sheer bloody-mindedness to study a tiny tiny aspect of the universe (say brain development in zebra fish embryos, or One Loop Corrections to the Rho Parameter in Higgsless Models) does have some similarity with the bloody-mindedness of people being willing to ignore society and sleep rough and eat out of bins! Think you can spot the difference between made up physics papers and genuine ones? Click here to find out. 8/10 on the hobo quiz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VinnieK Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 (edited) I don't know about bloody mindedness. Most scientists focus on one small idea simply out of necessity: the age of individuals coming out with bold, broad theories is largely over, for the time being at least. There are limits on what one person can do or say, and science today is far more technical, and far less intellectual than perhaps previously was the case, being a much more collaborative, labour intensive, and, dare I say it, boring endeavour. Take the search for the Higgs boson, one of the biggest recent scientific stories. A nifty idea, yes, but all the fun, imaginative and clever theorizing was done back in the 60's. What's happening at CERN is basically a very grand take on tedious hypothesis testing involving smashing crap together and seeing what happens. All that effort and time spent trying to validate someone else's idea, only to watch them being lauded as a visionary for ever more whilst your fame rapidly diminishes to that of the average lab monkey keener. Anyway, a lot of people get into science filled with enthusiasm only to then realise that their field is so cluttered and that so much is already known that they're basically going to be spending their lives studying things like 'the Saville ramified p-correspondance of bleb factors in a three point pseudo-Eric/Ernie system'. No sane individual wants that as their lot in life, but by then it's far too late: they're already overeducated and underskilled to the point of being unemployable. By then, the system has them. So, to get back on track, what you see as the similarities between professors and hobos isn't bloody mindedness*, it's a shared abandonment of hope tinged with bitterness at the realization of just how futile one's life is . Walk down a department hallway late in the evening, all you'll hear is quiet sobbing and cries from the more thoughtful members of staff consisting of 'why couldn't I be something useful and interesting, like a hatstand or someone who designs fliers for underground dubstep nights'. *Also, I'm not entirely sure people sleep rough out of sheer bloody mindedness... Edited November 7, 2011 by VinnieK 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted November 15, 2011 Author Share Posted November 15, 2011 video is all over the intertubes at the moment - not really surprising it's pretty awesome whether you like Auroras, the lights of cities on the earth, the glow of the top of the atmosphere or just the international space station adjusting its solar panels! I found a list of where the ISS is flying over in the various segments and thought it'd be worth posting: 1. Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night 2. Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at Night 3. Aurora Australis from Madagascar to southwest of Australia 4. Aurora Australis south of Australia 5. Northwest coast of United States to Central South America at Night 6. Aurora Australis from the Southern to the Northern Pacific Ocean 7. Halfway around the World 8. Night Pass over Central Africa and the Middle East 9. Evening Pass over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East 10. Pass over Canada and Central United States at Night 11. Pass over Southern California to Hudson Bay 12. Islands in the Philippine Sea at Night 13. Pass over Eastern Asia to Philippine Sea and Guam 14. Views of the Mideast at Night 15. Night Pass over Mediterranean Sea 16. Aurora Borealis and the United States at Night 17. Aurora Australis over Indian Ocean 18. Eastern Europe to Southeastern Asia at Night Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted November 27, 2011 Author Share Posted November 27, 2011 is a bit of a heavy video, but an important one. Mental illness is a major issue, which is made so much worse by society's attitudes to it. The guy making this speech is one brave person. Kudos to him for being so open about such a personal issue subject to so much prejudice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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