science
The Guardian reports on the case of a man who took 40,000 ecstasy tablets in 16 years, giving doctors a unique insight into the long term affects. Given that: 1. this man is still alive. 2. he was clearly an idiot to start with. 3. he’s a habitual user of several other narcotics. 4. taking that many aspirin would be very dangerous. Surprisingly, ecstasy would seem to be relatively safe. Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | The strange case of the man who took 40,000 ecstasy pills in nine years
Information Theory Primer With an Appendix on Logarithms Postscript version: ftp://ftp.ncifcrf.gov/pub/delila/primer.ps web versions: http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/toms/paper/primer/
“Now, however, systems are being discovered and studied which are neither obviously living nor obviously dead, and it is necessary to define these words or else give up using them and coin others.” The role of viruses in the continuous evolution of life is further evidence of the fact that there is no finite line between what is alive and not. Years from now people will be putting stickers in Kansas schoolbooks saying that viruses are just a theory. Unintelligent Design – Discover Magazine – science news articles online technology magazine articles Unintelligent Design
Of 1000 children aged between 13 and 16, not a single one could name a living scientist. Some answers offered up included Madonna and Chemical Ali. Guardian Unlimited | Life | Only dead scientists are known to teens
Ancient rivers and sedimentary rocks on Mars. A gravity warmed sea beneath Europa’s crust. Microbe like structures in a Martian meteorite. Planets around distant stars. And now: Cassini Finds Hydrocarbons on Titan The last few years have dramatically changed the notion that life on Earth is unique. With a sample of one, there is way way to be sure, but each new discovery points in the same direction. I would hazard a guess that the universe is indeed teeming with life, as a natural, emergent phenomenon. That seems like a wonderful, awe inspiring thought, and yet we are still arguing as to how life evolved on our own planet. Arguing about evolution itself. There are those who would have the universe be billions of times smaller, thousands of times younger, and with no diversity. Is that more wonderful, more spiritual?
On a day when the government is preaching the values of listening to the people are they listening to the people who know, when it comes to the environment? There is an additional kind of democracy, the democracy of ideas, the principal by which superstition or ideology or agenda is avoided by considering evidence. Current evidence points overwhelmingly to the notion that Global warming looks real, but the evidence is being ignored, like so many ‘just a theory’ stickers peppered out by brainwashed zealots. Bryan Lawrence quotes Science magazine on climate change: There were 982 peer reviewed papers indexed by ISI with keywords climate change in the last ten years, till 2003. 75% dealt with the immediate threat of climate change. Of these, NONE refuted the idea that climate change is real. [NB, I was under the impression that the term ‘climate change’, like ‘death tax’ instead of ‘estate tax’…
Why does Nature magazine which is not one of the world’s highest traffic websites have a pagerank of 10? With 45,000 inbound links, perhaps the scientific community with its peer review process and history of open collaboration is more adept at mutual linking than webloggers?
Placing bets on ideas is illegal in the US but not in the UK. Based on this model, Betfair is one of the few Internet startups that is doing very well in the UK but won’t be coming to the US any time soon. To gauge the likelihood of whether there was life on Mars, look to the people that are trading futures on it. MSNBC – Life on Mars? Don’t bet against it “Ladbrokes said it has closed the book on evidence emerging that Mars had ever harbored living organisms.” ‘Following the latest news from NASA, we think it is now likely that evidence of past life on Mars will be found in the coming years,’ The odds: 16-1 at close, down from 1000-1 when betting started.
Oliver Morton on tomorrow’s 2pm EST ‘significant announcement’ by NASA. The announcement will no doubt concern water on mars, ice or open water. Open water could leave signs that apparently have greater significance: “It’s very hard to see how Mars could have been warm enough for open water without the benefit of significant amounts of methane in its atmosphere. Planetary atmosphere experts have told me that the only way they can imagine getting an adequate amount of methane into the atmosphere is by having methane-producing bacteria pump it out.”
New Zealand Herald – Latest News: “While five probes – including two robot rovers – explore Mars, a Sydney scientist’s pet dingo-kelpie cross may have found the evidence so many have been seeking.”