Ongoing important Science news thread

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Hesla

^ As if anyone would believe a man saying "I am on the pill"

Not to say men are more responsible than women, but in this case I would tend to believe a man more than a woman.

You hear of cases of women trying to trick their husbands (or even boyfriends, and casual partners) into getting them pregnant. Saying they are taking the pill when they are not (and other tricks). Sometimes this is a financial move, sometimes a emotional one, but you do hear about it. I don't think I've ever heard of a guy doing this. I'm sure it's happened, but it's gotta be far less than the opposite.

Also, women often tend to be the ones in a relationship pushing for a pregnancy more than a man. Again not an 'always' situation, but more often than not a woman talks a man into a kid more than a man talks a woman into a kid.

So in this case, yes, I would believe it. Or at least I'd be far less worried about verifying a man's claim about taking the pill, than a woman's.

Lastly, just to not ruffle any feathers, I am not saying men are more responsible when it comes to making sure a pregnancy doesn't happen. Of course a lot of guys (asshats) bail when there is a mistake. But if there is a easy painless way (that doesn't involve mummifying your dick) to make sure it DOESN'T happen to begin with, I would feel safer that way.

Besides the ones that are already the type to bail anyway, and that's becoming less and less because of change in societal values for one, and the law for two, guys probably want to reduce the chances of pregnancy more than females.

Maybe that's just the way I see it cause I'm responsible. And have heard stories the other way.

[ricosuave]

Machine Can 3-D Scan Your Insides In A Single Heartbeat

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3023731/t...ngle-heartbeat

[Nehkara]

They have discovered a way to allow NASA's Kepler spacecraft to continue its work looking for exoplanets!

Kepler was "disabled" on May 11th, 2013 when the second of four reaction wheels failed. The reaction wheels are needed to keep Kepler stabilized and pointed in the needed direction. The spacecraft needs three of the four working at any given time to continue its primary mission.

Since then, NASA has been trying to figure out what to do with the space telescope, since it still works otherwise.

Kepler has discovered 199 confirmed planets, 3568 unconfirmed "planet candidates", and 2165 eclipsing binary stars. It began operation in May of 2009.

Here is the amazing and awesome mission proposal:

[Vulcan]

The animated life of A R Wallace who also developed the theory of evolution.

http://bcove.me/q9oegnip

http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/a...ed987-69199437

[troutman]

NOVA - Alien Planets Revealed

Are we alone—and if not, what might the inhabitants of far-flung worlds look like? Aired January 8, 2014 on PBS

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/a...-revealed.html

It’s a golden age for planet hunters: NASA's Kepler mission has identified more than 3,500 potential planets orbiting stars beyond our Sun. Some of them, like a planet called Kepler-22b, might even be able to harbor life. How did we come upon this distant planet? Combining startling animation with input from expert astrophysicists and astrobiologists, “Alien Planets Revealed” takes viewers on a journey along with the Kepler telescope. How does the telescope look for planets? How many of these planets are like our Earth? Will any of these planets be suitable for life as we know it? Bringing the creative power of veteran animators together with the latest discoveries in planet-hunting, “Alien Planets Revealed” shows the successes of the Kepler mission, taking us to planets beyond our solar system and providing a glimpse of creatures we might one day encounter.

[Nehkara]

Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket is launching their Cygnus spacecraft today on a cargo resupply mission to the ISS, with launch planned at 11:07 AM Mountain time.

You can watch it here starting at 10:45 AM:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

or here:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-tv-wallops

[troutman]

The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science
How our brains fool us on climate, creationism, and the vaccine-autism link.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...-mooney?page=1

The theory of motivated reasoning builds on a key insight of modern neuroscience (PDF): Reasoning is actually suffused with emotion (or what researchers often call "affect"). Not only are the two inseparable, but our positive or negative feelings about people, things, and ideas arise much more rapidly than our conscious thoughts, in a matter of milliseconds—fast enough to detect with an EEG device, but long before we're aware of it. That shouldn't be surprising: Evolution required us to react very quickly to stimuli in our environment. It's a "basic human survival skill," explains political scientist Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan. We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.

In other words, when we think we're reasoning, we may instead be rationalizing. Or to use an analogy offered by University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt: We may think we're being scientists, but we're actually being lawyers (PDF). Our "reasoning" is a means to a predetermined end—winning our "case"—and is shot through with biases. They include "confirmation bias," in which we give greater heed to evidence and arguments that bolster our beliefs, and "disconfirmation bias," in which we expend disproportionate energy trying to debunk or refute views and arguments that we find uncongenial.

In fact, head-on attempts to persuade can sometimes trigger a backfire effect, where people not only fail to change their minds when confronted with the facts—they may hold their wrong views more tenaciously than ever.

People gravitate toward information that confirms what they believe, and they select sources that deliver it. Same as it ever was, right? Maybe, but the problem is arguably growing more acute, given the way we now consume information—through the Facebook links of friends, or tweets that lack nuance or context, or "narrowcast" and often highly ideological media that have relatively small, like-minded audiences. Those basic human survival skills of ours, says Michigan's Arthur Lupia, are "not well-adapted to our information age."

It all raises the question: Do left and right differ in any meaningful way when it comes to biases in processing information, or are we all equally susceptible?

There are some clear differences. Science denial today is considerably more prominent on the political right—once you survey climate and related environmental issues, anti-evolutionism, attacks on reproductive health science by the Christian right, and stem-cell and biomedical matters. More tellingly, anti-vaccine positions are virtually nonexistent among Democratic officeholders today—whereas anti-climate-science views are becoming monolithic among Republican elected officials.

[troutman]

Announcing the Society for Science-Based Medicine

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/...ased-medicine/

The issues related to science-based medicine need a larger voice and more prominent position since there no areas of pseudo-science that result in as much daily morbidity, mortality and expense as the use of pseudo-medicine.

No one routinely declares bankruptcy over issues related UFOs or dies because of Bigfoot or has chronic disability from ghost hunting. Pseudo-medicine routinely kills, damages, and financially exhausts patients and their families.

Complementary and alternative pseudo-medicine is a minor issue for main stream medical organizations who lack the interest and expertise to oppose them. Most in the medical world shrug their shoulders when it comes to pseudo-medicine. As the Bravewell Collaborative demonstrates, when busy people shrug their shoulders, medical nonsense insinuates itself into otherwise-excellent medical schools and hospitals.

[Knut]

Originally Posted by troutman

Announcing the Society for Science-Based Medicine

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/...ased-medicine/

The issues related to science-based medicine need a larger voice and more prominent position since there no areas of pseudo-science that result in as much daily morbidity, mortality and expense as the use of pseudo-medicine.

No one routinely declares bankruptcy over issues related UFOs or dies because of Bigfoot or has chronic disability from ghost hunting. Pseudo-medicine routinely kills, damages, and financially exhausts patients and their families.

Complementary and alternative pseudo-medicine is a minor issue for main stream medical organizations who lack the interest and expertise to oppose them. Most in the medical world shrug their shoulders when it comes to pseudo-medicine. As the Bravewell Collaborative demonstrates, when busy people shrug their shoulders, medical nonsense insinuates itself into otherwise-excellent medical schools and hospitals.

Joined. I see it in the health professions all the time.

[Vulcan]

Is thorium energy legit?



http://mashable.com/2013/11/07/thori...er-everything/

[photon]

Thorium nuclear reactors are real, same kind of thing as a Uranium reactor. A few countries have projects actually happening to test Thorium (India, and maybe China I think).

No idea why you'd want to put a fission reactor in a car though, probably be safer and more efficient to generate electricity and then use batteries or some other form of energy storage (hydrogen). A battery probably weighs less than a nuclear reactor, though that's just a guess

[Vulcan]

Yeah, in the link it says it's developing it for electrical energy and not for cars but says it's pretty safe.

Stevens understands that people may be wary of Thorium because it is radioactive — but any such worry would be unfounded.
"The radiation that we develop off of one of these things can be shielded by a single sheet off of aluminum foil," Stevens said." "You will get more radiation from one of those dental X-rays than this."

so it could be used for cars in the future. In the video link it talks about a 500lb reactor for a car but yeah cars aren't on the agenda right now.

[Nehkara]

www.nasa.gov/nasatv

NASA is about to launch a Tracking Data and Relay Satellite.

7:05 PM Mountain scheduled launch.

EDIT: They have held the launch. I'll update if they decide not to launch.

[troutman]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/t...ar-system.html

Warning: For those wanna-be astronauts and space travelers out there, this interactive model of the solar system could prove to be highly addictive. With one click, you can visit Saturn, Venus, or the other planets and then spin and explore them in three dimensions. The interface uses NASA calculations to precisely position all celestial bodies. Click the play button at the bottom of the screen to watch the positions of the planets and moon change as time passes. If you're impatient, you can click ahead to see how the stars align in the year 2100.

[Daradon]

Not too important or science'y' but pretty sure the crowd here will like it.

The gold medals they'll be giving out on Feb 15th in Sochi will have fragments of that big meteor that hit Russia last year on Feb 15th.

http://chemistry.about.com/b/2014/02...old-medals.htm

[underGRADFlame]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Not too important or science'y' but pretty sure the crowd here will like it.

The gold medals they'll be giving out on Feb 15th in Sochi will have fragments of that big meteor that hit Russia last year on Feb 15th.

http://chemistry.about.com/b/2014/02...old-medals.htm

Annnnnd this is how the attack of the body snatchers starts!

[octothorp]

A quick look and it seems like Canada has a decent chance of winning one of the meteorite medals, with men's skeleton and two short-track medals awarded on that day.

[Regulator75]

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/an...206-323ko.html

A previously unidentified species of giant jellyfish is invading southern Tasmania this summer, baffling scientists after one of the animals washed up on the beach.

The Lim family were collecting shells on a beach in Howden, south of Hobart, last month when they stumbled across a monster 1.5-metre jellyfish on the shore. So unusual was the gigantic blob that the family took a photograph, and forwarded it to the CSIRO.

"In Tasmania, we don't do jellyfish. This was something else. We've just never seen anything like it," said Josie Lim of their find.

Little did the Lim family know that, over at the CSIRO, Dr Lisa-ann Gershwin, who has been working with jellyfish for 20 years, had been hearing stories of this elusive animal in waters off Tasmania for more than a decade.

Hopefully this is a real discovery and not another washed up sex toy.

[The Fonz]

Looks like a mud puddle.

[surferguy]

Looks like the sidewalk outside of cowboys