ScienceBlog.com

science.TV is a video-sharing website for people interested in science.

The aim is to create a platform for individuals and groups to communicate with each other, via pre-recorded and live video. It’s interesting for scientists and programme-makers, because it cuts out the broadcaster and helps creators and audiences find each other and does away with the need for dumbing-down for mass appeal.

Attila Csordas at Partial Immortalization has given us some interesting crit. There’s quite a bit that I want to say in response and I’ll hopefully be doing a blogterview with Attila soon.

Science is at a peculiar juncture. Despite all that has been written it has yet to be comprehensively defined both in contrast to earlier world-views and in terms adequate to include and discriminate its historical variations. And the distinction among what are called science, technology, and philosophy remains unsettled, if not neglected.

This article is an attempt to define science in contrast to technology and pre-scientific world-views, to identify science as a form of philosophy, and to make a case for the importance of a larger perspective and a more professional temperance in scientific society.

Several phenological studies seem to suggest a correlation of overfishing and climate linked temperature shifts may have resulted in a change in migration patterns of several cold water over the past decade. Considering that 71% of the earth’s surface is covered with water (Arnett, 2006) researchers have increased their attention to the earth’s oceans and its’ residents for clues.

Introduction Aircrafts are the revolution of the transportation these years, oilots can reach the skyes pulling a stick and with the power of a tornado the engines leaves the aircraft in to the skyes, but that is nothing, today automatic pilots lead the airways with out any effort, the pilot is only is a supervisor [...]

According to Kjellström, 1969, (see reference in the list
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_adaptation#References)
a connection between GA and information theory is the average speed of stepwise random walks inside a high dimensional simplex region. It turns out that the speed is asymptotically proportional to (see also the point 7 in blog “Gaussian adaptation as a model of evolution”)
– P log(P),
where P is the probability that a random step will lead to a new feasible position inside the simplex. Maximum speed is obtained when P = 1/e = 0.37.

A plausible interpretation of this is that 1/P is proportional to the time/work needed to find a step leading to a feasible position, while –log(P) is the self-information obtained when such a step may be taken. Thus, – P log(P) may be seen as a measure of efficiency; information divided by the work/time needed to get the information. In addition GA maximizes the average information of a Gaussian distribution

One of the most basic, essentially undisputed scientific facts about language — and the one that tends to get the most interest from laypeople — is that while learning a foreign language as an adult is very difficult, children learn their native languages with as much ease and proficiency as they learn to walk. This has led researchers such as Steven Pinker to call language learning an “instinct.” In fact, this “instinct” is more than remarkable — it’s miraculous. On careful reflection it seems impossible to learn even just a single word in any language, much less an entire vocabulary (and thus figuring out how we nonetheless all learned a language is a major area of research).

The number of airline mishaps attributed to pilot error significantly declined between 1983 and 2002, according to an analysis conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. While the overall rate of airline mishaps remained stable during that time, the proportion of mishaps involving pilot error decreased 40 percent. The rate of mishaps related to a pilot’s poor decision-making declined 71 percent. The researchers attribute the decline to better training and improvements in technology that aid pilot decision-making. The findings are published in the January 2007 edition of Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine.

Over the course of the 20th Century, doctors waged war against infectious bacterial illness with the best new weapon they had: antibiotics. But the emergence of dangerous, multi-drug resistant strains of tuberculosis and other killer infections means that in the 21st century antibiotics are losing ground against bacterial disease.

Scientists long have focused on how climate and vegetation allowed human ancestors to evolve in Africa. Now, University of Utah geologists are calling renewed attention to the idea that ground movements formed mountains and valleys, creating environments that favored the emergence of humanity.

An international team of astronomers, led by Professor Svetlana Berdyugina of ETH Zurich’s Institute of Astronomy, has for the first time ever been able to detect and monitor the visible light that is scattered in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. Employing techniques similar to how Polaroid sunglasses filter away reflected sunlight to reduce glare, the team of scientists were able to extract polarized light to enhance the faint reflected starlight ‘glare’ from an exoplanet. As a result, the scientists could infer the size of its swollen atmosphere. They also directly traced the orbit of the planet, a feat of visualization not possible using indirect methods.

Cosmecueticals, beauty aids that reportedly work like prescription drugs, are providing new ways to treat aging skin. A study recently published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology explores a variety of new ingredients in cosmeceuticals that provide a visibly noticeable improvement in maturing skin.

New research on farm women has shown that contact with some commonly used pesticides in farm work may increase their risk of allergic asthma.

“Farm women are an understudied occupational group,” said Jane Hoppin, Sc.D., of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and lead author of the study. “More than half the women in our study applied pesticides, but there is very little known about the risks.”

Not all individuals who have epilepsy respond to traditional treatments and these individuals are said to have medically refractory epilepsy. Strict use of a ketogenic diet high in fats and extremely low in carbohydrates is sometimes used for treatment of refractory epilepsy, and is effective about half of the time. However, the mechanisms whereby ketogenic diets suppress epileptic symptoms have long been a mystery. New data generated by Kelvin Yamada and colleagues at the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, has revealed that intranasal delivery of leptin, a hormone important in feeding and energy metabolism, delayed the onset of convulsions in a rodent model of seizures.

University of California, San Diego researchers have proven in animal studies that fibrosis in the liver can be not only stopped, but reversed. Their discovery, to be published in PLoS Online on December 26, opens the door to treating and curing conditions that lead to excessive tissue scarring such as viral hepatitis, fatty liver disease, cirrhosis, pulmonary fibrosis, scleroderma and burns.

The loss of deep-sea species poses a severe threat to the future of the oceans, suggests a new report publishing early online on December 27th and in the January 8th issue of Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press. In a global-scale study, the researchers found some of the first evidence that the health of the deep sea, as measured by the rate of critical ecosystem processes, increases exponentially with the diversity of species living there.

University of Minnesota Center for Drug Design and Minneapolis VA Medical Center researchers have discovered a new fast-acting antidote to cyanide poisoning. The antidote has potential to save lives of those who are exposed to the chemical – namely firefighters, industrial workers, and victims of terrorist attacks.

Flag waving is a metaphor for stirring up the public towards adopting a more nationalistic, generally hard-line stance. Indeed, “rally ‘round the flag” is a venerable expression of this phenomenon. It comes as some surprise, then, that studies conducted by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have shown that exposing people to a subliminal image of the national flag had just the opposite fact — moderating their political attitudes.

Employers have admitted to using search engines to when conducting reference and background checks for prospective employees. In light of 9/11, many companies feel that their mutual interest in “potential liability” may be associated with preventing poor hiring practices. However, companies should proceed with caution when making business decisions that result in the utilization of search engines. Particularly, as it relates to a new employee. There appears to be little or no information on policies, legislation or laws that guide companies on the appropriate use of the internet, what types of information yielded by an internet search should be utilized when hiring a prospective employee and the possible risks associated with the practice. This may preclude one to suspect why the practice has become popular among companies. This article will explore if this practice is legal and should it also be considered as a best practice during the process of internet recruitment.

Science Debate 2008 is a nonpartisan effort to promote a public discussion of science and technology policy in the coming U.S. Presidential election.

Supported by numerous university presidents, Nobel Laureates, and other scientific leaders, the effort appears to have reached viability with the announcement of its co-chairs, two congressmen from different political parties.

In the aerospace industry we encounter both gravitational ‘forces’ and acceleration forces continuously. This entry questions possible differences between the two.