science

Big Bang was more of a hum “Analysis of radiation left over from the dawn of creation, estimated to be some 14 billion years ago, found the sound generated from shifting matter made a noise like ‘a large jet plane flying 100ft above your house in the middle of the night’… The professor had to scale the frequencies billions of times to make them audible – the frequency of sound waves at that time being too low to be heard.” “ 1. Do jet planes sound different at night? 2. Do jet planes that have their frequency shrunk billions of times sound like jet planes? 3. Do jet planes that are flying in a vacuum or a medium other than air, sound like jet planes?

“‘There are two figures you need to know. One is what our estimate of how many civilisations there are in the universe that are sending out signals into space [about 10,000] and the second is how long will it take to search through enough stars in the universe to statistically have a chance of picking up those signals.’ Put these numbers together, she claims, and we will encounter aliens by 2025.” I’ll put it in my diary. EducationGuardian.co.uk | Research | Aliens are out there, say scientists

In 2001 the polar hole in the Ozone layer stopped growing And in 2002 it actually reduced in size. Normally rational people (heh! – I’ve waited a year for this) concluded that this was: “catastrophic news for environmental doomsayers”. The trouble is that the Ozone hole is now getting bigger again and this year is at record levels. Opinions can be swayed by emotional criteria – I want to debunk all conspiracy theories because I don’t like people whose judgements are based upon paranoia. There may be a certain irritating puritanism about some environmental issues – but to debunk any message because of the character of the messenger is dangerous. Judgements are sound when they are based upon evidence – and there is overwhelming evidence that we are damaging our environment on a macro level.

New Scientist has some very nice Hubble pics of Mars. We’ve seen pictures of Mars in similar detail before, however. In fact we’ve had photos of Mars from three feet away because NASA landed cameras on the surface. Not that long ago, I seem to remember it being a shock for scientists to discover ice on Mars. Call me old-fashioned, but wouldn’t the things which look just like large polar ice caps (which are in fact large polar ice caps and not cotton wool or marsh mallow) have been clearly visible from a telescope a century ago? Clearly I am missing something.

In a paradoxical situation that is similar to some of the more bizarre quantum effects, ‘Leap seconds’ are needed because atomic clocks are more accurate than the motion of the earth, against which time needs to be calibrated. “The problem arises because the Earth cannot keep time as accurately as modern atomic clocks, which count the steady shaking of atoms. These atomic clocks replaced the motion of the Earth as the world’s official timekeeper in 1967. The pull of the moon is gradually slowing our planet down, so every now and then our clocks are halted for a second to let it catch up.” “GPS time is now running 13 seconds ahead of coordinated universal time – which includes all added leap seconds and to which most clocks on Earth are set – but is some 19 seconds behind international atomic time, which is based on atomic clocks and ignores…

Scientists decoding the human genome have discovered that just 78 genes separate men from women. But what are they? The BBC asks brits to guess: “When faced with flat-pack furniture, men never read the manual. Yet they spend hours reading manuals for cars or bikes they will never own. Linda, UK Women could never invent weapons that kill, only ones that make you feel really bad and guilty until you surrender Dan, UK …” Thanks Ceri BBC NEWS | UK | What are the 78 differences between women and men?

“A recent study by Dr. Daphne Bavelier… just published in the journal Nature, adds enhanced attention skills, the ability to follow multiple objects, and split-second tracking skills to the list of benefits experienced by video game aficionados.” … er OK, so having autistic children that can catch flies is a good thing? Enter the (Algebra) Matrix

This month’s Skeptic column in Scientific American elegantly debunks Bible Code claptrap. One of the things that Shermer points out in the article is that a ‘prediction’ is a statement that something will happen in the future. To look at something written in the past and say that it could possibly be restated to fit something that has already happened is not a prediction. The Bible Code did not ‘predict’ anything, but with a suitably contrived descramber it can ‘postdict’ almost anything, true or false, sense or nonsense. Following the success of Bible Code I comes Bible Code II, such is the power of the parasitic meme. This is bullshit that people want to believe, but no matter how hard they try to, it will always provably be bullshit. Via Boing Boing: Scientific American: Codified Claptrap — The Bible Code is numerological nonsense masquerading as science

“Whereas Dr Wildman’s team find that chimps and humans are 99.4% similar, other researchers last year put the similarity at around 95%; the figure you get depends on precisely which genetic differences you look at.” DNA mechanisms for reproduction are not a blueprint but a recipe. This BBC article does not mention that the 95% figure for chimp vs. human comparison takes into account how the recipe is followed and therefore may make more sense. i.e. it does not merely look at the ingredients of the recipe, the DNA sequences, which have usually indicated more than 98% concordance. BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Chimps genetically close to humans via Kottke

“Contrary to popular myth, Walt Disney did not choose to be frozen, though Dick Clair, a writer for “The Carol Burnett Show,” did.” MEME 5.01

In case anyone misinterprets the previous post defending Matt Ridley’s attack on those (such as Bill Joy) who see absolute dangers in innovation such as nanotechnology and concludes somehow that I am against environmentalist causes. 1. It is scientists who are arguing, backed up by solid evidence that we need to cut back pollution. 2. It is politicians, particularly those with religious beliefs that fly in the face of scientific evidence, that refuse to believe evidence for issues such as global warming. 3. Although industry is the product of a technological society and is the cause for most pollution: a. there is a difference between science and the abuse of its innovation; b. contrary to popular opinion, non-industrial societies can be environmentally damaging; c. some scientific innovations would seem to be a very plausible way to reduce the environmentally damaging effect of industrialized society (for example, information technology increases opportunities…

Matt Ridley very sensibly rebuffs the Bill Joy like hysteria in the latest doom mongering book, ‘The Final Century’: “Consider what would have happened, for instance, if we had somehow waved a magic wand and prevented the invention of agriculture. Evidence suggests that increasingly efficient hunter-gatherers would have continued their extinction of prey species – they had already devastated the fauna of Australia, the Americas and many islands – stopping only when the last tree in the last rain forest was felled. Rees admits in passing that “the most dramatic engines of current economic growth – miniaturisation and information technology – are environmentally benign”, but then fails to follow this thought.” Telegraph | Arts | Prophet or pessimist?