Archive for the ‘science’ Category
Ötzi the iceman had a full stomach
The 5300 year old ice man found in the mountains between Austria and Italy has had his stomach contents reexamined. Previously scientists had mistaken his colon for his stomach and thought it empty. Now they say he ate a large meal of Ibex meat 30-60 minutes before he was killed by an arrow in his [...]
Neutrinos faster than light result repeated
BBC report here
In: observations, science
Why not space?
This by Tom Murphy is a must read. Read it right to the end, though, or you’ll miss his point. tl;dr? He’s saying: getting humans into space is not a way to save Earth from its resources and overpopulation crisis. It will take technology and resources well beyond what we can marshall at the moment [...]
In: environment, science
The connection between health, fat, and exercise
Why is it so easy to get fat and yet being fat predisposes one to heart disease, cancer, and adult onset diabetes? It seems like a maladaption to the presence of plenty of food. First of all, it’s not nearly so bad if you exercise. For each condition, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, being sedentary [...]
SETI, Life and the Rate of Change of Entropy
Here’s a reasonable working definition of life – a process which produces localised entropy decrease. Intelligent life doubly so. Think about it like this: light from the sun hits the moon and turns to heat. No life involved. Light from the sun hits Venus and creates an enormous amount of turbulence in the atmosphere, also [...]
In: philosophy, science, theory
A Cosmologigram
I firmly believe in the present. There literally is no past and no future, just the changing now. Sure, it contains evidence of things that have been, other circuits of the Earth around the Sun. We can be pretty certain at some point, some other now, there are even more such circuits engraved and erased [...]
In: philosophy, science, theory
All the things I wrote in 2008 and 2009.
Introduction With a rare exception or two I haven’t written here for several years. Various things have intervened – moving to a new country, starting a new business, and preceding all that some formal study. What I’d like to do is go through here and edit things, weed out the crap, format it nicely, and [...]
In: environment, philosophy, science, society, theory
Round up ready nation
A documentary about the dangers of GMO foods and the way the biotech industry has covered this up. Here is the trailer, and you can find more about the film at Roundup Ready Nation.
In: environment, observations, science
Science threatens the Emperor
The latest in a line of Bush administration censorship of science. US Geological Survey scientists must now submit work for screening before it can be published. The famously oppressive Qing dynasty in China used secret police to crack down on any science which could possibly be construed to show that the Qing emperors were less [...]
In: observations, science, world
Oil water and permanence
Australia is facing terrible water shortages on a continuing basis, due to climate change. We’re running out of fossil fuel, so we probably won’t be able to continue to make fertilisers in the same way, or to make heavy use of transport and refrigeration to ship food around the country out of season. This is [...]
In: environment, science
Edges are fun
There’s a DJ who played at some of our parties who had an album called Edges R Fun. I asked him why he’d called it that, and his reponse was to ask me what I thought. Which launched me into this (oversimplified) explanation: Edges are very interesting, because all life happens at an edge. If [...]
Reply to the global warming sceptics
Greenhouse sceptics argue that the proponents of a human cause of global warming have not made a convincing case. They say we need to understand things better and rule out natural causes before we make costly changes to legislation. This attitude is based on bad science, and the consequences are serious. No one disputes the [...]
In praise of pluralism
In a dry glacial valley, 1000m above sea level and 40 miles from the coast of Antarctica, a friend of mine was shown the mummified remains of a seal. The scientist from Davis base who had taken him there asked how old he thought it might be. I don’t know, there’s no moisture or much [...]
In: philosophy, science, society
