So of course the Phil Plait Lecture is smack dab in the middle of the hockey game. If Phil is going to give updates of the game it wouldn't make this decision so hard as to which to see.
New findings show that the streams of information provided by social networking sites are too fast for the brain's "moral compass" to process and could harm young people's emotional development.
Before the brain can fully digest the anguish and suffering of a story, it is being bombarded by the next news bulletin or the latest Twitter update, according to a University of Southern California study.
"If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people's psychological states and that would have implications for your morality," said researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang.
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Hey does anyone have a review of Phil Plaits visit to Calgary last week? Curious to see who went from CP and what they thought.
OMG....you have a TIME MACHINE!!!
That's some seriously big-time important Science news. Can I possibly interest you in a brief visit to Game six of the 2004 Stanley Cup finals? I just need to do a couple little things...won't take but a minute.
John Priscu, of Montana State University, said that because the ecosystem has been isolated for so long in extreme conditions, it could help explain how life might exist on other planets, and serve as a model for how life can exist under ice.
The researchers believe the pool of water was trapped about 1.5 million years ago when the glacier moved over a lake. It doesn't freeze because it is four times saltier than the ocean.
The pool is so deep under the ice and so far back from the edge that the researchers couldn't drill down to it, but they were able to collect some of the outflow for testing.
"When I started running the chemical analysis on it, there was no oxygen," Mikucki said. "That was when this got really interesting, it was a real 'eureka' moment."
So, did anyone else ditch the Flames game and go to Phil Plait's lecture last night, or was I the only one?
The theater was full. Good crowd and pretty enthusastic.
Phil had a slide powerpoint that he does when he does these sorts of talks. He basically focused on two main points.
The first thing he focused on was the standing an egg on end and how it was false that you could only do this on the equinox. Led into a talk about why the earth has seasons and actually the origins of the myth can be traced back to 1947 or 48 when a journalist went to China and found people doing this on spring as a tradition of rebirth and somehow it got transfered in the states that you can only do this on the first day of spring. Funny thing is that the Chinese don't even celebrate spring on the same day as we do in North America.
Phil also made a point to say that the way we have our season set up is completely wrong. Summer starts on our calendars when the days are at the longest point in the year. This means that every day after the first day of summer, the days are getting shorter. All the seasons should actually start 6 weeks earlier than they do at the cross-quarter days. So in actuality, when we celebrate the first day of spring here, it's actually the middle of spring. When we celebrate the first day of summer, it's actually the middle day of summer. So actually, the first day of summer is the beginning of May.
Phil went on to talk at length about the movie Armageddon and how basically this is the worst movie for science ever made. He said the only thing in this movie that is accurate is that Meteors exist. Everything else about the movie is pure garbage.
He did say though that a similar movie released the same year, Deep Impact, was one of the best scientifically done movies. The only real mistake they made was that when they blew up the 5 mile comet, it's pieces wouldn't have disintegrated in the atmosphere, the 5 miles of mass still has the same amount of energy whether it is in one chuck or a million chunks, so everyone would have died still.
But he said the tidal wave from the 1 mile chunk that engulfs New York is extremely accurate.
It was a great lecture. Spoke for about an hour and a half and then took questions.
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Phil also made a point to say that the way we have our season set up is completely wrong. Summer starts on our calendars when the days are at the longest point in the year. This means that every day after the first day of summer, the days are getting shorter. All the seasons should actually start 6 weeks earlier than they do at the cross-quarter days. So in actuality, when we celebrate the first day of spring here, it's actually the middle of spring. When we celebrate the first day of summer, it's actually the middle day of summer. So actually, the first day of summer is the beginning of May.
I understand what he is saying, but in a Northern city like Calgary, July and August are the hot months. It does not feel like summer in May.
I went to the lecture last night too. It was pretty good. I thought he talked about the whole egg thing a little too much though. Otherwise it was really cool, I'm glad I went. I'm not that sad I missed a Flames loss either.
Phil also passed around an iron meteorite which was sweet. It'll probably be the only time I get to touch something that isn't from our planet. I also got him to sign my copies of his books. He is a really nice guy and a great speaker.
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People asked him what he thought about private companies involved in space flight, and he is all for it. Talked about SpaceX a bit.
Someone asked him about 2012, (not sure why, maybe to get a rise out of him since i'm pretty sure everyone in the building would know his response to that.)
Was aske for advice about getting a graduates degree in Astronomy and Phils response was to be able to code and know math since that was all he did when he was working as a contractor for NASA.
Scientists have produced the most compelling evidence to date that genetics play a key role in autism. They highlighted tiny genetic changes that appear to have a strong impact on the likelihood of developing autism and related conditions.
The changes influence genes which help form and maintain connections between brain cells.
The Nature study highlighted one common genetic variant which, if corrected would cut cases of autism by 15%.
Previously, other genetic variants have been linked to autism, but they are all relatively rare.
So if they split the NHL season into two halves with a winner declared each half and the Flames went out in the first round twice a year we would all croak from the story overload?
Scientists have produced the most compelling evidence to date that genetics play a key role in autism. They highlighted tiny genetic changes that appear to have a strong impact on the likelihood of developing autism and related conditions.
The changes influence genes which help form and maintain connections between brain cells.
The Nature study highlighted one common genetic variant which, if corrected would cut cases of autism by 15%.
Previously, other genetic variants have been linked to autism, but they are all relatively rare.
