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Dean 
Special Collaborator 
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
 Posted: August 15 2014 at 13:03 |
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I'd like to keep the few friends I have
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What?
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: February 10 2010 Location: Barcelona Spain Status: Offline Points: 5154 |
Posted: August 18 2014 at 10:21 |
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Advances in bringing the dead back to life: Alright the title is somewhat misleading, it's not really that, but these American scientists seem to have developed a method to induce patients in high risk of imminent death (first target is gunshot victims) into a sort of suspended animation, bringing the vital activity to near zero so the injury can be treated more at ease, and then the patient can still be "brought back to life".
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The Doctor
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: June 23 2005 Location: The Tardis Status: Offline Points: 8543 |
Posted: August 29 2014 at 16:28 |
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So somehow I wound up in an argument with a moron today in the Yahoo comments section (Hey, it was a slow day at work). There was an article about two planetary bodies colliding. The article states that the planets are 1140 light years away and that the collision took place 2 years ago. I, along with many others, pointed out the blatant problem with that article's statement. Now, I could see that maybe a few people might not understand that issue and may need further explanation. Hey, I know science isn't everyone's thing. But there were a couple of people who outright attacked me, calling me an idiot and saying such great things as "Viewing something through a telescope has nothing to do with light traveling. You need to get informed."
 Say what? If you don't know something or understand something that's one thing, but that there are people out there that are so convinced that the wrong information they have is right (and we're not talking politics or philosophy or other things open to interpretation, but a fundamental physical law of the universe) is scary. Now I'm going to go takes some aspirin and wash it down with a bottle of tequila. |
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I can understand your anger at me, but what did the horse I rode in on ever do to you?
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010 Location: Barcelona Spain Status: Offline Points: 5154 |
Posted: August 29 2014 at 17:06 |
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Probably coming from journalist who know nothing about science, I'd guess they meant that the initial observation was observed 2 years ago.
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The Doctor
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: June 23 2005 Location: The Tardis Status: Offline Points: 8543 |
Posted: August 29 2014 at 17:13 |
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I think what they meant was that what we are observing is approximately two years after the collision took place. Or something along those lines. I knew what they meant. Was actually making fun of his mistake, but to be attacked because someone believes strongly that it did actually occur 2 years ago is what scares me.
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I can understand your anger at me, but what did the horse I rode in on ever do to you?
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: August 29 2014 at 20:35 |
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The yahoos on Yahoo could try reading the article to the end instead of just reading the headline. "The researchers detected a huge disk of dusty debris around a sunlike star called NGC-2547 ID8, which lies about 1,140 light-years from Earth in the constellation Vela. The cloud was likely spawned when two planetary building blocks slammed into each other just two years ago or so, scientists said."  that's science reporting for you, what the scientists actually said was:"They watched the star from May 2012 to August 2013, with a hiatus from mid-August 2012 to January 2013, when the object was too close to the sun to be observed... The collision probably occurred during or slightly before the 2012-13 observing gap, Meng said. " So as we all have correctly worked out, the collision occurred 1,142 years ago, they actually failed to observe it 2 years ago
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What?
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The Doctor
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: June 23 2005 Location: The Tardis Status: Offline Points: 8543 |
Posted: August 29 2014 at 22:55 |
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hey, I'm one of those yahoo yahoos and sometimes I do like just browsing the title to see if it's something I want to troll or not. then I just go in guns blazing without even knowing exactly what the article's about. I like to live dangerously like that.
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I can understand your anger at me, but what did the horse I rode in on ever do to you?
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King of Loss
Prog Reviewer
Joined: April 21 2005 Location: Boston, MA Status: Offline Points: 16892 |
Posted: August 30 2014 at 20:23 |
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010 Location: Barcelona Spain Status: Offline Points: 5154 |
Posted: August 31 2014 at 04:27 |
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Well, he is indeed a bit splitting hairs, this is what Neo-Darwinism is about, he just claims that a bit more emphasis should be stressed regarding the mutation side of the mechanism and a bit less on the environmental pressure side, which is probably true. Surely there have been many situations throughout life's history where environmental pressure did not play a significant role in determining which traits survived in the gene pool, environments where there was plenty of food, relatively few predators, and where different genetic traits did not make any significant difference in the chances of survival and reproduction of the individuals possessing them, and specific traits developed and were sustained more by chance than because they represented any significant survival advantage. Even a mutation a bit inferior in terms of fitness than its predecessor may survive if it does not suffer much environmental pressure and may continue mutating and eventually reach some point where it finds its own niche, different from its predecessor's. But one thing is sure, a condition is that the mutation must work at least enough as to survive the level of environmental pressure present, however big or small this is. A mutation which does not work will surely go extinct. At any rate, while I'm of course a strong believer of Neo-Darwinism, sometimes I have the feeling that because it is such a powerful theory, scientists may tend to neglect continuing investigating the mechanisms of evolution. It appears that everything we see in living forms can be given a Neo-Darwinian explanation, so they are content with having it as the only explanation for any phenomena, but this does not necessarily mean that no other mechanisms may have played a role. The are things in life which are not so straightforward and should deserve further study, chiefly the increase in self-organised complexity. Taken at face value, it seems that if it is all about spending as little energy as possible while managing to survive and reproduce without becoming extinct, there is no advantage in being a giraffe rather than a bacteria. Developing and maintaining alive a superior animal body takes a huge lot of energy, only to produce a few offspring in a relatively short lifetime. The mystery of evolution is not the mutation + natural selection mechanism but how come that individual atoms conspire to assemble themselves into a self-organised bunch of 7*10 elevated to 27 capable of transforming its surroundings for its individual convenience.
Edited by Gerinski - August 31 2014 at 04:41 |
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010 Location: Barcelona Spain Status: Offline Points: 5154 |
Posted: August 31 2014 at 16:51 |
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Continuing with the subject of self-organized complexity, here a couple of interesting charts showing the scale where such complexity arises in terms of the relationship mass-size of the relevant structure (from the book New Theories Of Everything by Mathematician-Physicist John D. Barrow).
The author seems to put the upper limit at the level of trees but one might argue that the complete Earth's biosphere is the biggest such self-organized complex entity we know of. It is intriguing to wonder if complexity will ever be able to extend to bigger structures.  |
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010 Location: Barcelona Spain Status: Offline Points: 5154 |
Posted: September 25 2014 at 08:25 |
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A physicist has published a paper claiming that her mathematical analysis combining both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics calculations, concludes that black holes do not exist, a collapsing star en-route to forming a black hole will start to radiate mass at an increasing rate and just before forming a black hole it will explode or evaporate. The black hole will never actually form.
That is intriguing, black holes have for long been believed to be real objects and many indirect observations support their existence, so I suspect that this is just a mathematical artifact, but even if it's not correct, it might provide some clues as to where GR or Quantum Mechanics are flawed. |
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010 Location: Barcelona Spain Status: Offline Points: 5154 |
Posted: December 08 2014 at 04:53 |
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A cool idea which could do a lot for poor and remote areas of our planet: A simple and cheap light source powered by gravity:
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Equality 7-2521
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: August 11 2005 Location: Philly Status: Offline Points: 15784 |
Posted: February 26 2015 at 10:05 |
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What you say is fine, but we've seen situations where the selection process can run rampant and feed into itself to create enormously strong selection pressure. This is particularly evident with sexual selection on oceanic islands. I really think the dichotomy accomplishes nothing and the issue of which is more important seems unproductive to an outsider like me who may be incredibly misled. I don't agree with your incompleteness statement. I think the concept of genes using more complex organisms to pool resources for reproduction and all of our mathematical models of evolution being risk adverse explains emergent complexity sufficiently well. I would have some things to say about the abiogenesis junk too, but maybe I'll save that for another time. |
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"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Toaster Mantis
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 12 2008 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 5898 |
Posted: February 27 2015 at 02:46 |
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Interesting article up on a newly started transhumanist webzine, concerning how much attempts to predict the future end up influencing it... even when the predictions are strictly descriptive, or even meant as cautionary warnings, rather than recommendations.
The relevant quote:
The woman who wrote the article also used to run the Extreme Futurist Festival and is now working on INSTED, an alternative to TED talks giving a voice to people whose perspective is too outside the mainstream to get inside the door there. I've gotta say that her basic thesis there is more than a bit disturbing, if even cautionary predictions end up becoming self-fulfilling prophecies because they shape our entire ideas and behaviour patterns of how the future will go. I'm reminded of Bohr's Horseshoe, a humourous anecdote commonly circulated in scientific circles that quickly gets rather unnerving if you think enough about it. |
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"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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Equality 7-2521
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 11 2005 Location: Philly Status: Offline Points: 15784 |
Posted: February 27 2015 at 11:38 |
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Meh. Just seems like an absurd thing to say or worry about to me.
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"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Toaster Mantis
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 12 2008 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 5898 |
Posted: February 28 2015 at 03:21 |
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Well, it's kind of her job... and predicting the future is something that's of great use (if not necessity!) to business, politics, media et cetera.
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"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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Equality 7-2521
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 11 2005 Location: Philly Status: Offline Points: 15784 |
Posted: February 28 2015 at 06:47 |
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It's her job to worry about whether predictions have a significant causal effect on the future?
I mean I'm agreeing with her, but there's just so many issues with the basic premise that it seems strange to even write a piece to shoot the idea down. |
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"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Toaster Mantis
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 12 2008 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 5898 |
Posted: February 28 2015 at 12:29 |
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There's the entire issue of which of the social problems predicted are most likely to happen, and whether some of the developments might have unintended consequences further down the line. Of course, it is also interesting to pick apart the internal logical mechanisms of how predictions are made as a heuristic for future predictions.
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"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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Equality 7-2521
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 11 2005 Location: Philly Status: Offline Points: 15784 |
Posted: March 05 2015 at 21:14 |
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 Just finished this and highly recommend it to anyone who would be perusing this thread. Weinberg is a great writer aside from being an objectively great physicist. In the book he begins in Ancient Greece and examines how science as a method became what it is by looking at how peoples conceptions of how to properly explain the world has changed over the centuries. |
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"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: March 06 2015 at 03:18 |
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^ I read a review of that in The Independent last month and decided it was a book I should read, then promptly forgot to buy it. I shall endeavour to pick up a copy at the weekend, thanks for the memory-jog Pat.
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The Science Thread
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The Doctor wrote: