Prime Stream
thescian | September 25, 2006The God Delusion is the new book by Richard Dawkins. Readers of Dawkins would already know Dawkins position on religion. Beebs has an interview with Dawkins in it's Newsnight programme. You can watch the video online. Quite interesting. Prospect Magazine has a review which is worth a read if you want to see the kind of reactions that Dawkins evokes in some people.
thescian | September 25, 2006Over at balancinglife, Sunil has a post on a bee which runs the official air-taxi service a certain beetle larvae. The elaborate mechanism by which the beetle larvae finds a place to feed is astounding. You can also listen to one of the authors of the paper talk about this at the recent Quirks & Quarks Podcast.
thescian | September 22, 2006An excellent article on the recent Fields Medal winner (the Nobel Prize for math) Terence Tao in Seed.
thescian | September 20, 2006Listen up. Do not reheat and eat that rice you saved in the refrigerator last year. It may harbor spores of Bacillus cereus bacteria (shown below) that is still clinging to life. The bacteria produces toxins that can unplug your bottom (it's called the state of diarreal exuberance).
A collegue of my sister's shared this info. You can find more at the Ask Sam site, part of the UK government's Food Standards Agency. There's even videos of Virtual Sam, the nutritionist. Her messages are short. I mean real short. The first time I watched the videos, I heard a 'Hi' , a blur and then a 'Bye'. So…
thescian | September 19, 2006I finally got around to watching the video of Noam Chomsky and Robert Trivers discussing deceit and deception. Wonderful to watch how two very sharp minds go about thinking through things. Here's the part that grabbed my attention. Robert Trivers at one point in the conversation:
"..you have the following kinds of verbal things that people do, apparently quite unconsciously. If you're a member of my group and you do something good, I make a general statement: "Noam Chomsky is an excellent person." Now if you do something bad, I give a particular statement, "Noam Chomsky stepped on my toe."…
thescian | September 18, 2006Thanks to gaddeswarup who linked to Current Science, an academic science publication in India, I went over to read the current issue. Featured in it under "Astrology and science" is a letter from R V Karanth (of the Geological Society of India), who was commenting about an earlier article on astrology. I quote,
It is true that astrology is unscientific, at least for those who do not believe in it. I being a `non-believer' vehemently used to argue against the belief in astrology and wearing stones for astrological purÂposes. Nevertheless, of late, I have a feeling that believing in…
thescian | September 18, 2006Sunil writes about Crabs in Japan that are revered because they've been selected for samurai qualities. Well, not really for all the sword wielding and harakiri skills, rather just the looks. But hey, as long as it floats the crab's boat who are we to complain. (I know, terrible pun with that crab's boat thing. I can't help it.)
thescian | September 17, 2006Ladies and gentlemen! The Flounder!
If you look closely, the flounder fish has a rather remarkable head. There's something amiss with the placement of its right eye and the way its mouth opens. Its as if it was a normal fish like, say the discus fish, that lived a normal life and one day some crazy demented person came along and said, "So you are a normal fish, eh? Let's see. I'll drop you on the sea floor and make you move about on your sides flat on the floor. That eye you are now dragging in the mud, let me twist your head around to bring it to the same side as the eye facing the sky. Of…
thescian | September 15, 2006
Beebs on Claudia Mitchell, the second person to be fitted with the bionic arm. Cool video there. What is a bionic arm? From the RIC page:
The "Bionic Arm," or myoelectric arm, is driven using electrical signals from the muscles of the chest, now activated by the user's own thought-generated nerve impulses. These impulses are sensed, via surface electrodes, from the pectoral muscle and carried through to the mechanical arm, causing the arm to move.
Very impressive. We can now replace hearts, eyes, ears and limbs. The list keeps growing. I personally would like to see the day when we can…
thescian | September 15, 2006From the Royal Society Press Release.
The complete archive of the Royal Society journals, including some of the most significant scientific papers ever published since 1665, is to be made freely available electronically for the first time today (14th September 2006) for a two month period.
The archive contains seminal research papers including accounts of Michael Faraday's groundbreaking series of electrical experiments, Isaac Newton's invention of the reflecting telescope, and the first research paper published by Stephen Hawking.
archives link
thescian | September 14, 2006Nature is a lazy bum that it will always choose the path of least action. If we roll a ball on the floor, for instance, the ball will move in a path that requires the least action (energy multiplied by time) to get from the start to the end point. While we all accept Newtonian laws as intuitive we tend to look at Quantum Mechanics as weird and non-intuitive. Well, we are wrong. Why Quantum Mechanics Is Not So Weird after All sez Paul Qunicey. [via]
Now, once you've conquered the idea that Nature is lazy, you can move on to String Theory and its competitors that aim to show that Nature is…
thescian | September 13, 2006My reading list for the next few weeks.
The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin
I am reading this book at the moment. Smolin treats a subject that goes to the core of what constitutes scientific progress and how scientists go about their business. In the first few chapters, Smolin recounts the history of physics interspersed with his own personal story. He also discusses the most important problems that physical theories need to address. This is the first book that I have picked up on the recent 'Theories of Everything…
thescian | September 12, 2006Razib at Gene Expression talks about a recent episode where women were to be banned from praying in a Mecca Shrine.
a conversation that my aunt once had with my uncle, she joked offhand asking why men should always pray before women. My uncle, a religious man, explained that if women prayed before men in the hall then when they bent over and prostrated themselves they would expose themselves to men. That would be improper. My aunt responded, "Ah, but it's fine if we see your backsides all the time?" My uncle was taken aback that he didn't respond. On another occassion my mother explained to…
thescian | September 11, 2006Recently Anand posted at the Kitchen about our superstitious brain. There's more proof for that now. A recent study reported in the New Scientist has the scoop. Our perception of moral standing improves after a shower.
Those who were given an opportunity to wash their hands after recalling incidents of immoral behaviour showed signs of a clearer conscious than those who had not washed.
"After we feel morally threatened, we have this deep psychological urge to cleanse ourselves," says Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto, Canada, who led the study.
During my student days in Vivekananda…
thescian | September 6, 2006You would think it is easy to explain.
Some evolutionary psychologists suggest that music originated as a way for males to impress and attract females. Others see its roots in the relationship between mother and child. In a third hypothesis, music was a social adhesive, helping to forge common identity in early human communities.
That's nice. Can the evlutionary psychologists prove it?
``They're completely bogus explanations, because they assume what they set out to prove: that hearing plinking sounds brings the group together, or that music relieves tension," he [Steven Pinker] says. ``But…
thescian | September 5, 2006
The vortices created by the wings of an aircraft. Stunning! Even more stunning is this image. [via APOD] You can recreate a bit of this using a bag of flour and a table fan. (Don't tell you spouse/parent/child that I suggested it. And clean up after.)
thescian | September 4, 2006How would you feel after crashing a beautiful spacecraft on the moon? Excited and very happy, if it is in the name of science.
"We're very happy and very excited, the team is rejoicing," said SMART-1 project scientist Bernard Foing, speaking from the mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany.
SMART-1 had been orbiting and studying the Moon since late 2005 and would have crashed onto the Moon anyway. So near the end of the mission controllers tweaked its orbit so it would crash on the nearside of the Moon where the impact would be visible to ground-based telescopes.
Early indications are…
thescian | September 4, 2006More here. It was a freak accident. He was a passionate man who did much to bring public focus onto wildlife issues. I enjoyed many of his shows greatly. Sad day.
thescian | August 31, 2006The Science Fiction Contest was announced a few months ago to give an opportunity for those who want to make their mama proud. Time, you may not have realized, passes. We now have thirty more days before the contest closes its door to work out the winners. That's four more weeks. 2592000 seconds (thanks google) and counting down fast. What are you waiting for? Ideas? May I interest you in some tasty bits?
All the stories entered into the contest will be featured online at thescian.com/scifi for your reading pleasure after the winning announcements are made.