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BS: Random Traces From All Over
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Art Thieme Date: 02 Jan 09 - 11:28 PM I'm gonna save this entire thread to CDs. Grand reading here! Thanks all !!!!! Art |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 05 Jan 09 - 01:48 PM NEW YORK (AP) — A Long Island teenager has earned all 121 merit badges offered by the Boy Scouts of America. It's an accomplishment the local arm of the organization calls "an almost unheard-of feat." Oceanside resident Shawn Goldsmith earned his final badge — for bugling — in time for his 18th birthday in November. He far surpassed the 21 badges required to achieve the elite rank of Eagle Scout. He says he took about five years to earn his first 62 badges and then nearly doubled that number in a matter of months. He did it with the encouragement of his grandmother, who died shortly before he reached his goal. The Binghamton University freshman was awarded his final badges on Dec. 19. He says he hopes to become a businessman and politician. (USA Today) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Donuel Date: 06 Jan 09 - 09:44 AM Regarding the 12,000+ year old impact not mentioned by the Washington Post, some scientists think that much of the impact hit in the now Chicago area. What is curious is that worldwide there is evidence of 12,000 year old impact exctictions even in Asia and the middle east. The civilization that predated the ancient Egyptians was lost with only a few remnants of legends of the Yeptepi people remained when Pharoic times began. Also DNA tracing the X chromosme of mothers indicate that a cinch point exists 12,500 years ago when the human species had an incredibly small gene pool. So small in fact that human extinction may have been overcome by sheer luck. Perhaps the theory that man was respondisble for the extinction of Mammoths, Sabre toothed tigers and a myriad of other creatures was bogus. By Occams Razor alone the impact theory seems best. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 07 Jan 09 - 07:45 PM Shares of Indian IT outsourcing giant Satyam Computer Services (NYSE: SAY) got pummeled this morning, after Chairman B. Ramalinga Raju admitted that the company's books are cooked. It's not pretty. Satyam's balance sheet cash is inflated by the rupees equivalent of more than $1 billion, as the result of several years of inflated profits. "It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten," Raju confesses in a note to the company's board, presumably unaware of the chairman's number-crunching trickery. Fearing that the gaps would become public under a buyout -- and the stock had risen yesterday on newspaper reports that it was an acquisition target -- Raju came clean. (Motley Fool) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 08 Jan 09 - 02:36 PM The Polish city of Malbork has found a mass grave with the remains of some 1,800 people, thought to be former German residents of the town. They apparently died as the Red Army marched through Poland -- and some of them appear to have been executed. The first skeletons were unearthed by construction workers last October. A pit dug for the foundation of a new hotel in the Polish city of Malbork revealed the remains of dozens of corpses, all heaped together in what was apparently a World War II-era mass grave. But plenty of questions remained, and investigators began taking a closer look. The remains were found not far from the famous Malbork Castle. This week, Piotr Szwedowski, a Malbork city official, revealed what they found. "Since then, we have exhumed around 1,800 corpses," he told the news agency AFP. "We are pretty sure that they were former residents of Malbork." City officials are also pretty sure that they were victims of a massacre. Szwedowski said that one in 10 of the corpses had been shot in the head. All of them, furthermore, had been buried naked, "without shoes, without clothes, without personal items," he said. "The metal detectors used during the excavations found no metal, not even a false tooth."... (Der Spiegel) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 08 Jan 09 - 06:02 PM New Scientist discusses the possibility of bringing back into existence ten extinct species, including the mammoth and the saber-tooth. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Donuel Date: 17 Jan 09 - 10:04 PM UNBELIEVABLE SUPER SOIL super dirt This new invention has been rediscovered from 2 to 3 millenium ago. ++++++++++++++++++++ goodbye silcon chips here comes Carbon buckypaper http://globaldialoguecenter.blogs.com/jbgoodnews/2008/12/1-buckypaper-super-strong-and-super-light.html Hey we can use it for buildings and then use photoelectric paint to produce electricity. http://globaldialoguecenter.blogs.com/jbgoodnews/2008/12/2-nanopaperas-strong-as-iron-and-made-out-of-wood.html |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Donuel Date: 17 Jan 09 - 10:08 PM I've invented the women's urinal. Once social stigma is gradually overcome...no more longer lines for women. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 17 Jan 09 - 11:17 PM Climbing a Steep Hill Easier How important is it to have a friend next to you when you climb a steep hill? Based on research done by Simon Schnall at the University of Plymouth, UK, it makes the climb easier. The longer you have known your friend and the better the friendship, the less steep seemed the climb. Schnall found that just thinking about your friend made the hill seem up to 20 per cent gentler. Too often we underestimate the power of friends. Google words: "Simon Schnall steep hills" http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826604.600-friends-turn-mental-mountains-into-molehills.html |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 18 Jan 09 - 01:10 AM HILADELPHIA — In a cave overlooking southeastern Armenia's Arpa River, just across the border from Iran, scientists have uncovered what may be the oldest preserved human brain from an ancient society. The cave also offers surprising new insights into the origins of modern civilizations, such as evidence of a winemaking enterprise and an array of culturally diverse pottery. Excavations in and just outside of Areni-1 cave during 2007 and 2008 yielded an extensive array of Copper Age artifacts dating to between 6,200 and 5,900 years ago, reported Gregory Areshian of the University of California, Los Angeles, January 11 at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America. In eastern Europe and the Near East, an area that encompasses much of southwest Asia, the Copper Age ran from approximately 6,500 to 5,500 years ago. The finds show that major cultural developments occurred during the Copper Age in areas outside southern Iraq, which is traditionally regarded as the cradle of civilization, Areshian noted. The new cave discoveries move cultural activity in what's now Armenia back by about 800 years. "This is exciting work," comments Rana Özbal of Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey. A basin two meters long installed inside the Armenian cave and surrounded by large jars and the scattered remains of grape husks and seeds apparently belonged to a large-scale winemaking operation. Researchers also found a trio of Copper Age human skulls, each buried in a separate niche inside the three-chambered, 600-square–meter cave. The skulls belonged to 12- to 14-year-old girls, according to anatomical analyses conducted independently by three biological anthropologists. Fractures identified on two skulls indicate that the girls were killed by blows from a club of some sort, probably in a ritual ceremony, Areshian suggested. Remarkably, one skull contained a shriveled but well-preserved brain. "This is the oldest known human brain from the Old World," Areshian said. The Old World comprises Europe, Asia, Africa and surrounding islands.(New Scientist) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 19 Jan 09 - 06:56 PM "Teilhard refers to "Centeredness" as a characteristic of the universe on all levels. Each corpuscle of matter has a centre "within", its principle of organisation. The more complex the being, the greater degree of centreity. Teilhard teaches that Centreity is the true, absolute measure of being in the beings that surround us, and the only basis for a truely natural classification of the elements of the universe. The axis of evolution stretches from the lowest degree of centreity to the highest, and entities having the same degree of centreity constitute "isopheres", forming universal units of the same type of being. So pre-living entities are ordered on Earth in the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, and the atmosphere. Organic beings make up the biosphere, and thinking entities (which in Teilhard's system solely means man) the noosphere. When ranked in their natural order, the whole family of isopheres will define at the heart of the system a focus-point of universal synthesis, the Centre of centres, Omega [Activation of Energy, pp.10-13, 102; Beatrice Bruteau, Evolution towards Divinity, p.138]" "Teilhard de Chardin's Evolutionary Philosphy" http://www.kheper.net/topics/Teilhard/Teilhard-evolution.htm |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 19 Jan 09 - 08:46 PM James D. "Blue Jeans" Williams Governor James D. Williams was elected to office during the first centennial of American Independence (1876). The 100 years from the signing of the Declaration of Independence had been a century of progress for the state of Indiana. Governor Williams will long be remembered in history as the "farmer governor of Indiana." He became the 17th Hoosier governor and was the first farmer by occupation to make it to that office. In his early youth his parents moved from Ohio to Knox County, Indiana, where he resided until he went to the state capital to assume the duties as governor. Williams' early education was a one-room schoolhouse and to this he added a good general knowledge of current events. When he was 20 years old his father died making Jim the sole support for his family. He soon established a good reputation within his community and was known for his honesty, hard work and a lot of common sense. Williams became the wealthiest man in his Knox County community through his excellence farming techniques. Williams' first taste of public service was as a justice of the peace. Four years later, in 1843, he was elected to the General Assembly where he served until 1874, when he was elected to Congress. In his campaigns for governor he wore his usual homespun clothing, or blue jeans. His opponents called him "Blue Jeans" and made fun of him, regarding him as an ignorant hick. This was a huge mistake on his opponent's part, knowing that Indiana is a highly agricultural state and Williams' appeal to the Hoosier farmer. When the campaign ended, the election returns showed that the old farmer from Knox County had beaten his opponent, General Benjamin Harrison, by over 5,000 votes![5] Williams' administration is marked by some very important events. Several amendments to the state constitution were proposed at this time and pushed forward to final adoption in 1881. The most important events included the holding of elections on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November (instead of the former October elections), limiting of debts by local communities and elimination of the restrictions against Black voters. Governor Williams died November 20, 1880, and lieutenant governor Isaac Gray served out the remaining 7 weeks of his term. ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 20 Jan 09 - 09:38 AM "Since the 1970s, relationship experts have popularized the notion of “empty nest syndrome,â€쳌 a time of depression and loss of purpose that plagues parents, especially mothers, when their children leave home. Dozens of Web sites and books have been created to help parents weather the transition. Simon & Schuster has even introduced a “Chicken Soup for the Soulâ€쳌 dedicated to empty nesters. But a growing body of research suggests that the phenomenon has been misunderstood. While most parents clearly miss children who have left home for college, jobs or marriage, they also enjoy the greater freedom and relaxed responsibility. And despite the common worry that long-married couples will find themselves with nothing in common, the new research, published in November in the journal Psychological Science, shows that marital satisfaction actually improves when the children finally take their exits. “It’s not like their lives were miserable,â€쳌 said Sara Melissa Gorchoff, a specialist in adult relationships at the University of California, Berkeley. “Parents were happy with their kids. It’s just that their marriages got better when they left home.â€쳌...NYT |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 21 Jan 09 - 09:36 PM Measuring Quantum Information Without Destroying It January 15th, 2009 By Miranda Marquit in Physics / Physics (PhysOrg.com) -- One of the Holy Grails - so to speak - of science involves building quantum computers that can perform, with accuracy, the computations too advanced and too large for classical computers. While we remain years from this goal, breakthroughs are made regularly that make the reality of quantum computing a little more tangible. One such advancement is a recent demonstration of a quantum non-demolition sum gate, at the University of Tokyo. The gate demonstrated in Tokyo is for use in quantum optics, but it is analogous to the C-not gate used for qubits. One of the prominent features of this gate, Peter van Loock, a scientist associated with the Max Planck Institute For The Science of Light and with the University Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany, tells PhysOrg.com, is that it is meant for infinite dimensions described by continuous quantum variables. "In quantum optics, there are nice techniques in the lab that can be done with continuous variables," he says. "This gate can be seen as part of a universal set to transform a multi-mode, infinite-dimensional, optical state by an arbitrary unitary transformation, as required for universal processing and computation." Work on the quantum non-demolition (QND) sum gate, and interpretation of the results, was done by Jun-ichi Yoshikawa, Yoshichika Miwa, Alexander Huch, Ulrik L. Anderson and Akira Furusawa, as well as van Loock. Their findings can be found in Physical Review Letters: "Demonstration of a Quantum Nondemolition Sum Gate." "There are two main significances of this QND gate," van Loock explains. "The first is that it is an entangling gate that does not require you to prepare the states. Second, this gate has the properties of quantum non-demolition." Most of the time, when one wants to entangle quantum optical modes, van Loock says, it is necessary to prepare their states beforehand. "These cannot be classical, or near-classical, states when you entangle them, for instance, using a simple beam splitter. However, with this particular gate, you do not have to prepare the states in order to get an entangled output. You can use coherent states as input and get entanglement. This gate would entangle even two fairly classical states directly coming out of a laser source." The other item of significance has to do with the curious non-demolition quality of the gate. Normally, when quantum states are measured, the act of observing them destroys the state. The point of QND, then, is to measure a quantum observable without disturbing it. "The necessary back action of the measurement process must then be confined onto the conjugate quantum observable," van Loock points out. "Qualities of quantum non-demolition include information gain, signal preservation and quantum state preparation. This sum gate reveals QND features, even with regard to two non-commuting observables. Either of these could be measured after the gate in a QND fashion, with the two output modes of the gate palying the roles of signal and probe." (PhysOrg) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Donuel Date: 22 Jan 09 - 12:37 PM QND sounds like a key component for a transporter. This all seems confounding. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 22 Jan 09 - 08:20 PM New Scientist argues, based on DNA that Charles Darwin's "Tree of Life" concept of relationships between life forms was fundamentally flawed. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 25 Jan 09 - 12:24 AM QUANTUM INFORMATION TELEPORTED BETWEEN DISTANT ATOMS New technique can move fragile quantum data between atoms without destroying it By Patrick Barry Web edition : Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 A qubit walks into a bar, unsure of whether to order drink A or drink B. If the bartender asks the qubit what it wants, the qubit will collapse and be destroyed. But now researchers can instantly teleport the original, intact qubit to another "bar" far away. In the Jan. 23 Science, a team is reporting what is the first successful transfer of a qubit — an undecided bit of quantum information — between two widely separated, charged atoms. Because the quantum information instantly hops from one atom to the other without ever crossing the space between the two, scientists call the transfer "teleportation." Being able to teleport such information between atoms could aid the development of ultrafast quantum computers and extremely secure quantum communication, the researchers point out. "The catch with quantum information is that you can't read it without destroying it," says study coauthor Steven Olmschenk, a physicist at the University of Maryland in College Park. "Somehow you have to send it from one point to another without ever having read it." To read the quantum information contained in an atom or a photon, scientists must measure some property of that particle. But in the quantum world, the act of measuring a particle alters it. Until it's measured, an atom or photon can remain in an ambiguous state of all possible values simultaneously. Whenever a particle is measured, though, this range of possibilities "collapses" into a single, distinct value. The original, uncommitted state is lost, and it's this ability to hold multiple values at once that gives qubits such potential for high-performance computing. Scientists have previously teleported unmolested qubits between photons of light, and between photons and clouds of atoms. But researchers have long sought to teleport qubits between distant atoms. Light's high speed of travel makes photons good transporters of information, but for storing quantum information, atoms are a much better choice because they're easier to hold on to. "This is a big deal," comments Myungshik Kim, a quantum physicist at Queen's University Belfast in the United Kingdom. "To store information as it is in quantum form, you have to have a teleportation scheme available between two stationary qubits. Then you can store them and manipulate them later on." (Science NEws) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 26 Jan 09 - 09:05 PM "While it may come as no surprise that genes may help explain why some people have many friends and others have few, the researchers said, their findings go just a little farther than that. "Some of the things we find are frankly bizarre," said Nicholas Christakis of Harvard University in Massachusetts, who helped conduct the study. "We find that how interconnected your friends are depends on your genes. Some people have four friends who know each other and some people have four friends who don't know each other. Whether Dick and Harry know each other depends on Tom's genes," Christakis said in a telephone interview. Christakis and colleague James Fowler of the University of California San Diego are best known for their studies that show obesity, smoking and happiness spread in networks. For this study, they and Christopher Dawes of UCSD used national data that compared more than 1,000 identical and fraternal twins. Because twins share an environment, these studies are good for showing the impact that genes have on various things, because identical twins share all their genes while fraternal twine share just half. "We found there appears to be a genetic tendency to introduce your friends to each other," Christakis said. There could be good, evolutionary reasons for this. People in the middle of a social network could be privy to useful gossip, such as the location of food or good investment choices. ... "It may be that natural selection is acting on not just things like whether or not we can resist the common cold, but also who it is that we are going to come into contact with," Fowler said in a statement." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 26 Jan 09 - 09:07 PM BAY CITY, Mich. -- Officials in central Michigan say a 93-year-old man who owned more than $1,000 in unpaid electric bills froze to death inside his home -- where the municipal power company had restricted his use of electricity. Neighbors and friends of Marvin Schur want answers as to how this could happen. "Now that we do know it was hypothermia, there's a whole bunch of feelings that I've got going through me," said Jim Herndon, a neighbor of Schur's. "There's anger, for the city and the electrical company." Bay City officials said changes are on the way in an attempt to not let another instance like this happen again. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Donuel Date: 27 Jan 09 - 07:39 AM A woman gave birth to a litter of 8 humans this week. All are in stable condition despite being delivered 6 weeks early. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 29 Jan 09 - 02:31 PM -A newly married couple in western Germany thought they were on the way to a romantic honeymoon hotel. Instead, their navigation system led them into the depths of a dark forest, where they got stuck. It took the cops hours to find them. The ideal vision of a honeymoon tends to involve white sandy beaches, palm trees and sunny skies -- not a latter day version of "Hansel and Gretel." But a German couple who tied the knot on Tuesday evening spent their first hours of wedlock stuck in the mud deep in a dark western German forest shivering through the late evening in their tiny Nissan Micra. After a wedding in the town of Hamm, just east of Dortmund, the couple set off for a hotel in a rustic village called Willingen. They switched on their car's navigation system and proceeded to follow instructions. Unfortunately, the navigation system seemed to have no better idea of where to go than the couple had. The newlyweds found themselves driving along a bumpy, unpaved forest road toward a tall mountain. Even when a barricade blocked further progress, the navigation system led them forward. But when they tried to drive around the roadblock, their car got stuck. Not wanting to spend the night in a pitch-black forest on the side of an 840-meter (2,755-foot) mountain, the couple called the police. By now it was about 8 p.m. The police needed another two hours to find them, since the couple was unable to say exactly where they were. Finally, though, the cops were able to get the car back onto a main road and lead the couple to their honeymoon hotel -- where they checked in just before midnight. (Der Spiegel) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Donuel Date: 29 Jan 09 - 05:31 PM A volcano 200 miles from Fairbanks Alaska is expected to erupt within a few short days. (or so says FOX news) 2,000 people who were exposed to beryllium are being notified.\(thats all I got) The samonella tainted peanut butter from Georgia was known to be poison when it was shipped. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 29 Jan 09 - 06:39 PM Donuel: Cite your sources!! It makes them much more interesting. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Donuel Date: 29 Jan 09 - 07:59 PM Thats all my memory preserved today from cable news scrolls. This morning a man with a badge posted our home for County auction come March 6th. I've been kinda distracted. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 29 Jan 09 - 08:44 PM Donuel: Why? A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Donuel Date: 29 Jan 09 - 10:50 PM presumably the county failed to credit one tax payment that took two attempts for our bank to process and pay to the State. We assume at this point that one computer did not talk to another computer since Agnes in receiving took a long lunch that day ;) We will know more in days to come. The language of a forclosing auction action is so arcane... "The State prays to redeem said property". if and when the clerical error is corrected we will still have to fight to have all their lawyer, title searchers, clerks and court fees waived, let alone the publications in all the newspapers for the next 3 weeks. We had no problems for 20 years but from the time we bought this house from 2 IRS employees 4 years ago, we have had 6 allegations of not "Filing taxes going back 10 years and now this. My lawyer affirms that IRS tipsters do get half of anything collected by way of fines. The easiest to Phish for money is to write the IRS that Joe Shmoe 'failed to file taxes in 1999' since a 10 year old form can easily go missing. The penalty of a failure to file (despite proving all taxes were paid) could be as much as $1,000 if you can not prove you filed - note the IRS has no requirement to prove anything. A devious person reading this could go into their own cottage business "informers R Us" Just come up with a name, an address and a year. Some are bound to pay a fine for a missing reciept. ITs enough to make me ponder if there is a deliberate malevolent hand respondsible for these groundless allegations. Something akin to 'God's warriors' that the guy across the street said has ways to punish God's enemies. For the time being I choose to believe that the current lack of social finesse and correct accounting is merely a sign of our government's desperate and negligent times. They say you can't sue city hall. Now is the time for all good men to go search for their receipts. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Riginslinger Date: 30 Jan 09 - 10:04 PM "the guy across the street said has ways to punish God's enemies." ...god's only enemy is reality... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 01 Feb 09 - 05:55 PM On will o'the wisps, jack o'lanterns, corpse-candles or what you may: William Fulke (1563), A Goodly Gallerye: William Fulke's Book of Meteors. pp.10-13. Of lights that goe before men, and follow them abroad in the fields, by the night season. There is also a kind of light, yt is seene in the night season, and seemeth to goe before men, or to follow them, leading them out of their way onto waters, and other dangerous places. It is also very often seene in the night, of them that saile in the Sea and sometime will cleave to ye mast of the shippe, or other high partes, sometime glide round about the shippe, and either rest in one part till it goe out, or else bee quenched in the water. This impression seene on the land, is called in Latine, Ignis fatuus, foolish fire, that hurteth not, but onely feareth fooles. That which is seene on the Sea, if it bee but one, is named Helena, if it bee two, it is called Castor and Pollux. The foolish fire, is an Exhalation kindled by meanes of violent moving, when by cold of the night, in the lowest region of the ayre, it is beaten downe, and then commonly, if it be light, seeketh to ascend upward, and is sent downe agayne; so it banceth up and downe: Els if it move not up and downe, it is a great lumpe of glewish or oyly matter, that by moving of the heat in it selfe, is enflamed of it selfe, as moyst hay will be kindled of it selfe. In hote and fennie Countries, these lightes are often seene, and where as is aboundance of such unctuous and fat matter, as about Churchyards, where through the corruption of the bodies there buried, the earth is full of such substance: wherefore in Churchyards, or places of common buriall, oftentimes are such lights seene, which ignorant and superstitious fooles have thought to bee soules tormented the fire of Purgatorie. Indeed the devill hath used these lightes (although they be naturally caused) as strong delusions, to captive the mindes of men, with feare of the Popes Purgatorie, whereby hee did open injury to the bloud of Christ, which onely purgeth us from all our sins, and delivereth us from all torments, both temporal and eternall according to the saying of the wiseman, The soules of the righteous are in the bands of God, and nor torment toucheth them. But to returne to the lights, in which, there are yet two things to bee considered. First, why they lead men out of their way. And secondly, why they seeme to follow men and goe before them. The cause why they lead men out of the way, is, that men, while they take heed to such lights, and are also sore afraid, they forget their way, and then being once but a little out of their way, they wander they wot not wither, to waters, pittes, and other very dangerous places. Which, when at length they hap the way home, will tell a great tale, how they have beene led about by a spirit in the likenesse of fire. Now the cause why they seeme to goe before men, or to follow them, some men have said to bee the moving of the aire, by the going of the man, which aire moved, should drive them forward, if they were before, and draw them after, if they were behind. But this is no reason at all, that the fire, which is oftentimes three or foure miles distant from the man that walketh, should bee mooved to and fro by that aire which is moved through his walking, but rather the moving of the aire and the mans eyes, causeth the fire to seeme as though it moved: as the Moone to children seemeth, if they are before it, to run after them: if shee bee before them, to run before them, that they cannot overtake her, though shee seeme to be verie neere them. Wherefore these lights rather seeme to move, than that they be moved indeed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Donuel Date: 02 Feb 09 - 01:31 PM Fox fire, animal bio luminesence, St. Elmo's fire, earthquake lights, sprites and globes of light all seem to have different sources. Some have yet to be explained and so being, are my favourite mysteries. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 03 Feb 09 - 11:10 AM They say that you're going blind, that your vision is rapidly deteriorating, but don't worry: They are just a coat rack and hat. (Onion horoscopes) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 05 Feb 09 - 11:56 AM Scientists say they have discovered fossil remains of a colossal prehistoric snake that once roamed the superheated Paleocene jungles of South America. The one-tonne Titanoboa cerrejonensis would have been more than 40 feet long and ten feet around at its thickest. Investigating brainboxes say the mighty snake's huge size was made possible by the significantly higher temperatures on Earth 60m years ago. The size of cold-blooded creatures such as snakes is limited by the warmth of their environment. "The size is pretty amazing," said David Polly of Indiana University. "We went a step further and asked, how warm would the Earth have to be to support a body of this size?" Collaboration with Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Toronto paleontologist Jason Head produced an answer: 30°C to 34°C. This is noticeably hotter than present-day temperatures in Colombia, where the mega-snake fossils were found in a coal mine. Modern Colombian rainforest temperatures average out at 27°C, too cold for the monster snakes to survive. "Tropical ecosystems of South America were surprisingly different 60m years ago," said Jonathan Bloch of Florida Uni, who found the fossils along with Jaramillo. "It was a rainforest, like today, but it was even hotter and the cold-blooded reptiles were substantially larger. The result was, among other things, the largest snakes the world has ever seen." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 05 Feb 09 - 07:05 PM PLANT POWER PLANTS Charles Darwin's 200th birthday arrives on February 12, 2009, and while his theory of evolution has stood the test of two centuries, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are now are working to circumvent evolution, at least a bit, by introducing some non-accidental changes into the tiniest of all plants. The scientists want to genetically modify microalgae so as to minimize the number of chlorophyll molecules the algae need to harvest light without compromising the photosynthesis process in the cells. The goal is to use the microalgae for making bio-fuel. Instead of making more sugar molecules for themselves, they could be producing hydrogen or hydrocarbons for us, and in the process mitigate the threat of climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The Berkeley researchers have identified the genetic instructions in the algae genome responsible for deploying about 600 chlorophyll molecules in the cellâ•˙s light-gathering antennae. They figure that the algae can get along with only about 130 molecules. Why go to this trouble? Researcher Tasios Melis argues that a larger chlorophyll antenna helps the organism compete for sunlight absorption and survive in the wild, where sunlight is often limited but is detrimental to the engineering-driven effort of using algae to convert sunlight into biofuel. The scientists want to divert the normal function of photosynthesis from generating biomass to making products such as lipids, hydrocarbons, and hydrogen.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 08 Feb 09 - 12:00 PM In 1859 Charles Wheatstone was appointed by the Board of Trade to report on the subject of the Atlantic cables, and in 1864 he was one of the experts who advised the Atlantic Telegraph Company on the construction of the successful lines of 1865 and 1866. In 1870 the electric telegraph lines of the United Kingdom, worked by different companies, were transferred to the Post Office, and placed under Government control. Wheatstone further invented the automatic transmitter, in which the signals of the message are first punched out on a strip of paper, which is then passed through the sending-key, and controls the signal currents. By substituting a mechanism for the hand in sending the message, he was able to telegraph about 100 words a minute, or five times the ordinary rate. In the Postal Telegraph service this apparatus is employed for sending Press telegrams, and it has recently been so much improved, that messages are now sent from London to Bristol at a speed of 600 words a minute, and even of 400 words a minute between London and Aberdeen. On the night of 8 April 1886, when Mr. Gladstone introduced his Bill for Home Rule in Ireland, no fewer than 1,500,000 words were dispatched from the central station at St. Martin's-le-Grand by 100 Wheatstone transmitters. The plan of sending messages by a running strip of paper which actuates the key was originally patented by Bain in 1846; but Wheatstone, aided by Mr. Augustus Stroh, an accomplished mechanician, and an able experimenter, was the first to bring the idea into successful operation. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 08 Feb 09 - 11:39 PM A huge protest against global warming was attended by hundreds of angry and concerned individuals. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 11 Feb 09 - 12:30 PM The lookouts for little green men can go home. It wasn't an unidentified flying object with octopus tentacles that caused a wind turbine blade in England to fall off last month, and damaged another blade. Rather, the problem was "material fatigue" in the turbine that caused bolts to come loose. "To be honest I'm not surprised. But there was part of me that did hope it was a U.F.O. as it was a lovely story," said Dale Vince, the founder of Ecotricity, the wind project operator, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. A statement on Ecotricity's Web site further explains: This interim report has concluded that bolts securing the blade to the hub of the turbine failed due to "material fatigue." The bolts used to attached the blade to the hub of the turbine exhibited classic signs of fatigue failure. Of course, "material fatigue" may be more worrisome than some of the alternative theories, like a cow-sized ice chunk or a robot stealth bomber. Enercon, the manufacturer of the turbines, is carrying out further studies to determine what caused the failure, according to Ecotricity. The results may be ready in a few weeks. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 18 Feb 09 - 07:16 PM Sun-powered device converts CO2 into fuel 11:17 18 February 2009 by Jon Evans For similar stories, visit the Energy and Fuels and Climate Change Topic Guides Powered only by natural sunlight, an array of nanotubes is able to convert a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapour into natural gas at unprecedented rates. Such devices offer a new way to take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into fuel or other chemicals to cut the effect of fossil fuel emissions on global climate, says Craig Grimes, from Pennsylvania State University, whose team came up with the device. Although other research groups have developed methods for converting carbon dioxide into organic compounds like methane, often using titanium-dioxide nanoparticles as catalysts, they have needed ultraviolet light to power the reactions. The researchers' breakthrough has been to develop a method that works with the wider range of visible frequencies within sunlight. Enhanced activity The team found it could enhance the catalytic abilities of titanium dioxide by forming it into nanotubes each around 135 nanometres wide and 40 microns long to increase surface area. Coating the nanotubes with catalytic copper and platinum particles also boosted their activity. The researchers housed a 2-centimetre-square section of material bristling with the tubes inside a metal chamber with a quartz window. They then pumped in a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapour and placed it in sunlight for three hours. The energy provided by the sunlight transformed the carbon dioxide and water vapour into methane and related organic compounds, such as ethane and propane, at rates as high as 160 microlitres an hour per gram of nanotubes. This is 20 times higher than published results achieved using any previous method, but still too low to be immediately practical. If the reaction is halted early the device produces a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen known as syngas, which can be converted into diesel. (New Scientist) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 20 Feb 09 - 09:58 AM '...To create a machine that could pass the Turing test has become the holy grail for the generations since 1950 of those committed to the pursuit of what they call, modestly enough, artificial intelligence. But how to go about it? From the beginning, there were two contrasting approaches, which we may characterize, crudely, as reductionist and holistic. Looking back over the period with the benefit of hindsight, one of the pioneers and prophets of the holistic approach offered this fairy-tale account: "Once upon a time two daughter sciences were born to the new science of cybernetics. One sister was natural, with features inherited from the study of the brain, from the way nature does things. The other was artificial, related from the beginning to the use of computers. Each of the sister sciences tried to build models of intelligence, but from very different materials. The natural sister built models (called neural networks) out of mathematically purified neurones. The artificial sister built her models out of computer programs. Seymour Papert's fairy tale, of course, ends with the holists triumphant, not a view that is very widely shared in the 'Al community' at present. As will become clear, my own view is that Papert's fairy-tale metaphor is as flawed as his memory/ intelligence metaphors. Neither fairy-tale sister is Cinderella - nor even Prince Charming; both modeling approaches are flawed if their intention is to provide structural metaphors for the way real brains work and real memories are stored. But it is worth looking a little more closely at the pretensions of both protagonists.... (Excerpt from "Metaphors of Memory" by STeven ROse.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Kampervan Date: 21 Feb 09 - 10:45 AM And following on from Amos's mention of Charles Wheatstone, not only was he a wizz with the electricals, but he also invented the concertina and the stereoscope. I wish that I could invent something, but I can't even think of something that needs to be invented, let alone inventing it. Doesn't seem fair that some poeple are so talented and others...... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 21 Feb 09 - 09:35 PM The War of Jenkins' Ear was a conflict between Great Britain and Spain that lasted from 1739 to 1742. Its unusual name relates to Robert Jenkins, captain of a British merchant ship, who exhibited his severed ear in Parliament following the boarding of his vessel by Spanish coast guards in 1731. This affair and a number of similar incidents sparked a war against the Spanish Empire, ostensibly to encourage the Spanish not to renege on the lucrative asiento contract (permission to sell slaves in Spanish America).[5]. After 1742 the war merged into the larger War of the Austrian Succession. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 25 Feb 09 - 02:42 PM Our brains—or worse, children's brains—could be rewired from the fast pace of modern social networking sites, TV shows, and video games, says Oxford University neuroscientist Susan Greenfield. The researcher said this week that kids seem to have more trouble understanding each other (in real life, that is) and focusing in school, and that it could be due to the proliferation of short, bite-sized clips of information in the online world that is causing their brains to physically change. Greenfield said that sites like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, and Twitter may be forcing kids' brains back into an infant-like state, as infants need constant stimulation to remind them that they exist. She added that she worries that "real" conversation will eventually give way to these little snippets of text dialogue, indicating that our normal language might eventually turn into pokes, wall shout-outs, and 140-character snark fests. (Ars Technica) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Donuel Date: 25 Feb 09 - 03:01 PM If the aforementioned quantum gate, that allows a quantum action to occur despite observation, does in fact exist... Then what of free will? Is free will a mega scale illusion? The finger on the button of the quantum gate can now control free will? The uncertainty principle can now be bypassed? all I have are questions very few days are there answers. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 25 Feb 09 - 03:20 PM (PhysOrg.com) -- Folding paper into shapes such as a crane or a butterfly is challenging enough for most people. Now imagine trying to fold something that's about a hundred times thinner than a human hair and then putting it to use as an electronic device. A team of researchers led by George Barbastathis, associate professor of mechanical engineering, is developing the basic principles of "nano-origami," a new technique that allows engineers to fold nanoscale materials into simple 3-D structures. The tiny folded materials could be used as motors and capacitors, potentially leading to better computer memory storage, faster microprocessors and new nanophotonic devices. Traditional micro- and nano-fabrication techniques such as X-ray lithography and nano-imprinting work beautifully for two-dimensional structures, and are commonly used to build microprocessors and other micro-electrical-mechanical (MEMS) devices. However, they cannot create 3-D structures. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Donuel Date: 25 Feb 09 - 03:41 PM computer components can now be made without silicon and are etched into a chip via an etch a sketch technique by controling the charge of the atomic microscope needle. Besides being able to sketch transitors and resitors it is totally re writable. npr - science fridays. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 26 Feb 09 - 03:01 PM Footprints uncovered in Kenya show that as early as 1.5 million years ago an ancestral species, almost certainly Homo erectus, had already evolved the feet and walking gait of modern humans. An international team of scientists, in a report Friday in the journal Science, said the well-defined prints in an eroding bluff east of Lake Turkana "provided the oldest evidence of an essentially modern humanlike foot anatomy" and added to the picture of Homo erectus as the prehumans who took long evolutionary strides — figuratively and, now it seems, also literally. Where the individuals who made the tracks were going, or why, is beyond knowing by the cleverest scientist. The variability of the separation between some steps, researchers said, suggests that they were picking their way over an uneven surface, muddy enough to leave a mark as an unintended message from an extinct species for the contemplation of its descendants. Until now, no footprint trails had ever been associated with early members of our long-legged genus Homo. Preserved ancient footprints of any kind, sometimes called "fossilized behavior," are rare indeed. The only earlier prints of a protohuman species were found in 1978 at Laetoli, in Tanzania. Dated at 3.7 million years, they were made by Australopithecus afarensis, the diminutive species to which the famous Lucy skeleton belonged. The prints showed that the species already walked upright, but its short legs and long arms and its feet were in many ways apelike. (NYT) It's only been 1.5 million years, but let me remind you we didn't wear no shoon back then, the lyre had not been invented, and the only fast food was animals too quick to catch. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Donuel Date: 26 Feb 09 - 04:06 PM Based on drawings made at the site of the actual fossils, Creation Science has proven once and for all that man walked side by side with his domesticated Brontosaurus. So there There are also more Creation Science Museums in America than there are so called gay homo erectus footprints. I'll get me hat as I wipe up my muddy footprints. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 26 Feb 09 - 04:24 PM How would you know, from the foot prints, if Home erectus was gay or not, Donuel? Swishy strides? A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 27 Feb 09 - 01:16 PM In his ontology Xenocrates built upon Plato's foundations: that is to say, with Plato he postulated ideas or numbers to be the causes of nature's organic products, and derived these ideas or numbers from unity (which is active) and plurality (which is passive). But he put upon this fundamental dogma a new interpretation. According to Plato, existence is mind pluralized: mind as a unity, i.e. universal mind, apprehends its own plurality as eternal, immutable, intelligible ideas; and mind as a plurality, i.e. particular mind, perceives its own plurality as transitory, mutable, sensible things. The idea, inasmuch as it is a law of universal mind, which in particular minds produces aggregates of sensations called things, is a "determinant" (iripas ixov), and as such is styled "quantity" and perhaps "number" but the ideal numbers are distinct from arithmetical numbers. Xenocrates, however, failing, as it would seem, to grasp the idealism which was the metaphysical foundation of Plato's theory of natural kinds, took for his principles arithmetical unity and plurality, and accordingly identified ideal numbers with arithmetical numbers. In thus reverting to the crudities of certain Pythagoreans, he laid himself open to the criticisms of Aristotle, who, in his Metaphysics, recognizing amongst contemporary Platonists three principal groups - (1) those who, like Plato, distinguished mathematical and ideal numbers; (2) those who, like Xenocrates, identified them; and (3) those who, like Speusippus, postulated mathematical numbers only - has much to say against the Xenocratean interpretation of the theory, and in particular points out that, if the ideas are numbers made up of arithmetical units, they not only cease to be principles, but also become subject to arithmetical operations. Xenocrates's theory of inorganic nature was substantially identical with the theory of the elements which is propounded in the Timaeus, 53 C seq. Nevertheless, holding that every dimension has a principle of its own, he rejected the derivation of the elemental solids - pyramid, octahedron, icosahedron and cube - from triangular surfaces, and in so far approximated to atomism. Moreover, to the tetrad of simple elements - viz. fire, air, water, earth - he added the ether. His cosmology, which is drawn almost entirely from the Timaeus, and, as he intimated, is not to be regarded as a cosmogony, should be studied in connexion with his psychology. Soul is a self-moving number, derived from the two fundamental principles, unity (Iv) and plurality (Iv&s aopcvros), whence it obtains its powers of rest and motion. It is incorporeal, and may exist apart from body. The irrational soul, as well as the rational soul, is immortal. The universe, the heavenly bodies, man, animals, and presumably plants, are each of them endowed with a soul, which is more or less perfect according to the position which it occupies in the descending scale of creation. With this Platonic philosopheme Xenocrates combines the current theology, identifying the universe and the heavenly bodies with the greater gods, and reserving a place between them and mortals for the lesser divinities. (The 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 02 Mar 09 - 10:48 PM Here's an very interesting video on the nature of money as exponential debt in easy to understand format. Recommended. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 05 Mar 09 - 04:05 PM "It's a long way from Kazakhstan to Kentucky, but the equestrian journey to the Derby may have started among a pastoral people on the Kazakh steppes who appear to have been the first to domesticate, bridle and perhaps ride horses - around 3500 B.C., a millennium earlier than previously thought. Archaeologists say the discovery may revise thinking about the development of some pre-agricultural Eurasian societies and put an earlier date to their dispersal into Europe and elsewhere. These migrations are believed to have been associated with horse domestication and the spread of Indo-European languages. At the very least, on the first Saturday in May the winning thoroughbred should be toasted not with a julep but a taste of koumiss, the fermented mare's milk favored by equestrians in Central Asia. It's an acquired taste, so keep bourbon on hand just in case. Evidence for the earlier date for equine domestication was set to be described Friday in the journal Science by an international team of archaeologists. The report's lead author is Alan Outram of the University of Exeter in England. The archaeologists wrote of uncovering ample horse bones and artifacts from which they derived "three independent lines of evidence demonstrating domestication" of horses by the semisedentary Botai culture, which occupied sites in northern Kazakhstan for six centuries, beginning at about 3600 B.C. The shape and size of the skeletons from four sites were analyzed and compared with bones of wild horses in the region from the same time, with domestic horses from the Bronze Age, centuries later, and with Mongolian domestic horses. The researchers said the Botai animals were "appreciably more slender" than robust wild horses and resembled domestic horses more closely. Outram said in an interview that it was not clear from the research if the breeding of the tamed Botai horses had by then led to the origin of a genetically distinct new species. But their physical attributes were strikingly different, he added, and this made the animals more useful to the people as meat, milk sources and beasts of burden and locomotion. The second pieces of evidence were the marks on the horses' teeth and damage to skeletal tissue in the mouths. The researchers said this represented the wear of mouthpieces - or bits - inserted for harnessing with a bridle or similar restraint to control working animals. Other archaeologists, digging at other sites, have detected similar traces of what they said was bit wear, but this has been disputed as evidence of domestication. Outram said that some of the damage to the Botai teeth and jaw bones could only have been caused by bit wear." (International Herald Tribune) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: GUEST,couldntresist Date: 06 Mar 09 - 11:44 AM 700 |
