My good internet friend sent me a link to this story and, like all news stories on the internet, I briefly scanned it, barely digested what it was about, and started making jokes about it in my head.
The story seems to be about a study that has found there’s a correlation between taking multivitamins, feeling a sense of invulnerability, and doing risky and/or stupid things. Continue reading
So, a scientific study was published saying we had neutrinos that were moving faster than the speed of light. That’s crazy right? I mean, seriously, all we’re trying to say is that Einstein was full of crap. If someone is going to try and change the way we think about fundamental physics, it’s got to be reviewed by the best in the field. Why else would journalists report on it?
Continue reading
Richard Muller, a noted physics professor at UC Berkeley and prominent global warming skeptic, found that temperatures are indeed rising around the world.
The northern hairy-nosed wombat is one of the most endangered creatures in the world, ranked as critically endangered. In the 1980s, the estimated number of surviving wombats was as low as 35 before a breeding and protection program gradually increased the population. Still, wombats are slow breeders (each fertile female will have no more than 1 baby wombat, known as a joey, every 2-3 years) and by 2003, there was still only estimated to be 113 wombats, including 30 fertile females. All these wombats were in a single location: Epping Forest National Park in northern Queensland, Australia. This concentration made the wombat vulnerable to being made extinct in a single stroke if a natural disaster hit the park, and one only needs to remember the gigantic floods which covered Queensland in January this year for a reminder of how easily that could occur.
“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.” – Mark Twain
“Blushing is the color of virtue.” Diogenes Laertius
According to Edward Gross,PhD, a University of Washington professor who has studied embarrassment for decades, embarrassment has four key elements:
– There must be a failure for which you feel responsible.
– Usually it happens suddenly, or in a way that doesn’t give you enough time to adjust.
– It must be in public or take place in a manner in which the public is aware of the situation
– One must value the opinion of others who witnessed the ‘goof’ Continue reading
Answer: If some CERN researchers are correct, it is no longer a law of the universe that the speed of light cannot be beaten. It’s just a guideline. But there’s a long way to go before we lock that result in. Continue reading
For once, a news story about gamers contributing to something other than society’s downfall…
Ben Heine – It is Cold – 2010 Continue reading
Here’s a hypothetical from fantasyland: the government of {your country} suddenly has a billion US dollars or local equivalent to spend, and it can only spend it on ONE giant program. Pretend it’s a bequest from a rich billionaire who just died. You can pretend the dead billionaire is Rupert Murdoch if you want to feel especially happy about it. Continue reading
If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you know how frustrating it is to hear the simplistic ‘eat less, exercise more’ advice. Your personal experience flies in the face of this seemingly straightforward equation. Certainly in a vacuum, eating less and exercising more works. However, our bodies are an open, interactive systems, and rarely cooperate with simple math. Continue reading