Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by doone on June 2, 2012 at 11:31am

Christian Science to the Rescue

Fake Science: All Aboard the Troll Boat

Jun. 1, 2012

Permalink Reply by doone on June 2, 2012 at 4:52pm

From Starts with a Bang

ekend Diversion: Best Worst Math Joke Ever?

Posted by Ethan on June 2, 2012

(3)

“If a ‘religion’ is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one.” -John Barrow

Image credit: Codex Vindobonensis 2554 (French, ca. 1250), in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.

Image is from the front cover of the most important medieval picture bible to survive. But the caption is all my fault. Anyone can fool some of the people some of the time, but to enrage all of the people all of the time, that takes talent. Don’t worry, I’ve got no future in comedy; I’ll stick to the astrophysics.

Also, for those of you who want something fun to puzzle over, try this fun math fact.

10² + 11² + 12² = 13² + 14². Is there an explanation?  Or is it just a coincidence?

Have a good weekend!

Permalink Reply by Michel on June 2, 2012 at 5:08pm

102+112+122 = 336 ≠  132 + 142 = 274

Permalink Reply by Davy on June 2, 2012 at 5:17pm

1{0}2 +1{1}2 + 1{2}3 = 1{3}2 + 1{4}2 Though the sums are not equal they are equal because they are both parts of a series where the 10's column is counted up that is why  from what I see!

Permalink Reply by doone on June 2, 2012 at 6:52pm

Plate tectonics theory can be applied to about 3 billion years of the Earth’s history. However, the Earth is older, up to 4.567 billion years old. We can now demonstrate that there has been a significant shift in the Earth’s dynamics. Thus, the Earth, under the first third of its history, developed under conditions other than what can be explained using the plate tectonics model,” explains Tomas Næraa. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Copenhagen)

Plate tectonics cannot explain dynamics of Earth and crust formation more than three billion years ago

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120601120606.htm

June 2, 2012

"Using radiometric dating, one can observe that Earth's oldest continents were created in geodynamic environments which were markedly different than current environments characterised by plate tectonics. Therefore, plate tectonics as we know it today is not a good model for understanding the processes at play during the earliest episodes of Earths's history, those beyond 3 billion years ago. There was another crust dynamic and crust formation that occurred under other processes," explains Tomas Næraa, who has been a PhD student at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland -- GEUS.

Plate tectonics is a theory of continental drift and sea floor spreading. A wide range of phenomena from volcanism, earthquakes and undersea earthquakes (and pursuant tsunamis) to variations in climate and species development on Earth can be explained by the plate tectonics model, globally recognized during the 1960's. Tomas Næraa can now demonstrate that the half-century old model no longer suffices.

"Plate tectonics theory can be applied to about 3 billion years of the Earth's history. However, the Earth is older, up to 4.567 billion years old. We can now demonstrate that there has been a significant shift in the Earth's dynamics. Thus, the Earth, under the first third of its history, developed under conditions other than what can be explained using the plate tectonics model," explains Tomas Næraa. Tomas is currently employed as a project researcher at GEUS.

Central research topic for 30 years

Since 2006, the 40-year-old Tomas Næraa has conducted studies of rocks sourced in the 3.85 billion year-old bedrock of the Nuuk region in West Greenland. Using isotopes of the element hafnium (Hf), he has managed to shed light upon a research topic that has puzzled geologists around the world for 30 years. Næraa's instructor, Professor Minik Rosing of the Natural History Museum of Denmark considers Næraa's dissertation a seminal work:

"We have come to understand the context of the Earth's and continent's origins in an entirely new way. Climate and nutrient cycles which nourish all terrestrial organisms are driven by plate tectonics. So, if the Earth's crust formation was controlled and initiated by other factors, we need to find out what controlled climate and the environments in which life began and evolved 4 billion years ago. This fundamental understanding can be of great significance for the understanding of future climate change," says Minik Rosing, who adds that: "An enormous job waits ahead, and Næraas' dissertation is an epochal step."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Copenhagen.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

1. T. Næraa, A. Scherstén, M. T. Rosing, A. I. S. Kemp, J. E. Hoffmann, T. F. Kokfelt, M. J. Whitehouse. Hafnium isotope evidence for a transition in the dynamics of continental growth 3.2 Gyr ago. Nature, 2012; 485 (7400): 627 DOI:10.1038/nature11140

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

 

 

Permalink Reply by doone on June 2, 2012 at 10:24pm

Ron Paul Totally Looks Like Homo Neanderthalensis Head Cast (Discov...

Jun. 2, 2012

Ron Paul Totally Looks Like Homo Neanderthalensis Head Cast (Discovery Channel)

Permalink Reply by doone on June 3, 2012 at 5:17pm

RELIGION, WEALTH, AND GLOBAL FERTILITY RATES

by Gwen Sharp, May 24, 2012, at 10:10 am

In this talk, statistician Hans Rosling looks at whether, globally, religion impacts national fertility rates. His conclusion? Nah, not really. He also points out that while fertility rates are certainly correlated with national income levels, it’s no longer true that a nation must be wealthy before experiencing significant reductions in fertility rates. While all of the nations with fertility rates of 6 or more children per woman are, indeed, quite poor, many similarly poor countries have fertility levels similar to that in much wealthier nations — an average of about 2 children per woman.

Permalink Reply by doone on June 4, 2012 at 10:42am

A toy from the 60's

For the Burgeoning Mad Scientist

Jun. 4, 2012

Permalink Reply by doone on June 5, 2012 at 10:34am

From Starts with a Bang

The Cosmic Story of Carbon-14

Posted by Ethan on June 4, 2012

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Cosmic Rays

“Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties.” -James Jeans

Here on Earth, every living thing is based around four fundamental, elemental building blocks of life: hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and, perhaps most importantly, carbon.

Image Credit: Robert Johnson / University of Pennsylvania.

From diamonds to nanotubes to DNA, carbon is indispensable for constructing practically all ofthe most intricate structures we know of. Most of the carbon in our world comes from long-dead stars, in the form of Carbon-12: carbon atoms containing six neutrons in their nucleus. About 1.1% of all carbon is Carbon-13, with one extra neutron. But there is another form of carbon that, while not at all abundant, is definitely worth talking about.

Image credit: Press & Silver.

Carbon-14, or carbon atoms with eight neutrons in their nuclei, is unstable, and is so rare that only one-in-a-trillion carbon atoms are carbon-14. With a half-life of just over 5,000 years, any Carbon-14 atoms that were created in stars, billions of years ago, have long since decayed awayinto nitrogen atoms.

Image credit: Steve Gagnon at Jefferson Lab.

But there are small, but not quite negligible amounts of carbon-14 present in all the organic life that we know, including in our own bodies. The way it gets here is, literally, cosmic.

Image credit: Simon Swordy (U. Chicago), NASA.

From across the galaxy and across the Universe, from stars (including our Sun), pulsars, black holes and more, space is flooded with high-energy particles known as cosmic rays. Most frequently, cosmic rays are protons, but a handful are heavier ions and a few are even humble electrons. But once they interact with the atmosphere, look out!

Image credit: University of New Hampshire.

They produce showers of subatomic particles of many different types, including — for our purposes — the all important neutron. The reason neutrons are so important is because our atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, which you may remember as the thing that carbon-14 decays into.

Well, if carbon-14 can decay into nitrogen-14 and other stuff, then we can create carbon-14 by combining nitrogen-14 with the proper stuff. In this case, that happens to be a neutron, which allows us to do this:

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons, users NikNaks, Spacexplosion, and Sgbeer.

Once you create carbon-14, it behaves just like any other atom of carbon, readily forming CO₂ (a.k.a., carbon dioxide) and mixing throughout the atmosphere and oceans, easily making its way into living organisms into a well-understood equilibrium. As far as we can tell, the levels of carbon-14 throughout the world have remained roughly constant throughout the past few millenia, so that when an organism dies and the carbon-14 decays, we can measure how long ago it became deceased by measuring the ratio of carbon-14 to its normal carbon-12.

The only major fluctuation we know of occurred when we began detonating nuclear weapons in the open air, back in the mid-20th Century. If you ever wondered why nuclear tests are now performed underground, this is why.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons, user Hokanomono.

So you can imagine it came as a shock when, just yesterday, nature released a paper showing a big, short-lived spike in carbon-14 levels way back in the 8^th Century! By looking at the tree rings of ancient Japanese Cedars, you can see a rise in the concentration of carbon-14 that starts in the 770s, peaks in the 780s and then falls off.

Image credit: Fusa Miyake, Kentaro Nagaya, Kimiaki Masuda & Toshio Nakamura, 2012.

What does this correspond to, in terms of creating this carbon-14? Well, there were no nearby supernovae that happened at that time, so that’s out. There’s no evidence of an unusually large solar flare or any other bizarre solar activity, so that can’t be the culprit, either. What thisappears to correspond to, at least at this preliminary stage, is an increase in cosmic rays during the year 774-775.

Image credit: Fusa Miyake, Kentaro Nagaya, Kimiaki Masuda & Toshio Nakamura, 2012.

Now, since we’ve been watching the skies, we’ve never seen an increase in levels like this, but it’s only recently that our sophistication in measuring the carbon-14 levels in old tree rings like this has allowed us to test this.

The follow-up? Looks like we’re going to have to unearth more old trees that can be radiocarbon-dated back to these years, and see whether they have elevated levels of carbon-14 in them. If not, then it’s conceivable that these trees are just flukes, or that there was a mistake done in the analysis. But that doesn’t seem likely; there is data from North American and European trees that this is consistent with! If this is confirmed, then there was very likely an extremely large increase in cosmic radiation over a very short period of time, the likes of which we’ve never seen or recorded, until now.

What could’ve caused an influx of cosmic rays like this? While there are many possibilities, I wouldn’t count out a relatively nearby, flaring black hole!

Image credit: NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Universe may never cease to surprise us, but we may never cease, as long as we exist, to figure out exactly why it does the things that it does. How remarkable is this!

Thanks to Sarah Kavassilis for suggesting this story; it’s a great one!

Permalink Reply by doone on June 5, 2012 at 11:52pm

CLIMATE SCIENCE

How Climate Change Is Growing Forests in the Arctic

By BRYAN WALSH | @bryanrwalsh | June 4, 2012 | 37

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B.C. FORBES

Growing shrubs in the Arctic of western Siberia

If there’s a single lesson for early 21st century life on the planet Earth, it’s this: everything connects. That’s true whether we’re looking at the global economic system, where sickness is now spreading from the Euro zone to China to a wobbly U.S., or the global environment, as we can see in a new study showing the Arctic rapidly responding to climate change by sprouting sudden trees in the tundra.

Researchers in Britain and Finland studied an area of 38,600 sq. mi (100,000 sq. km) in what’s known as the northwestern Eurasian tundra, which stretches from western Siberia to Finland. Surveys of vegetation in the region using both satellite data and local observations from reindeer herders showed that in 8 to 15% of the territory willow and alder shrubs had grown into trees over 6.5 ft. (2 m) tall over the past 30 to 40 years. That’s a period of time when temperatures in the Arctic have increased significantly, even faster than other parts of the planet.

(MORE: Carbon Concentrations Levels in Arctic Reach Above 400 ppm, Fueling...)

As Andrew Revkin of Dot Earth puts it, warming has led to “pop-up forests” in regions of the planet that usually see little more than summer shrubs. That’s a sign of just how the fast the Arctic in particular can respond to global environmental change. And as the Arctic greens, it could speed warming even more as the darker foilage absorbs sunlight that would have been reflected back into space by the white tundra. While short shrubs can be covered completely in snowfall—thus reflecting back sunlight—tall trees are usually above the white.

The advance of forest into the Arctic could increase Arctic warming by as much as 1 to 2 C by the end of the 21st century.  In a statement Dr. Marc Macias-Fauria at Oxford University—and the lead author on the paper—noted how unusual the advance of Arctic forest was:

It’s a big surprise that these plants are reacting in this way. Previously people had thought that the tundra might be colonized by trees from the boreal forest to the south as the Arctic climate warms, a process that would take centuries. But what we’ve found is that the shrubs that are already there are transforming intro trees in just a few decades.

The planet is changing and the Arctic is a bellwhether of that change. And what happens there will affect us.

Bryan Walsh is a senior editor at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @bryanrwalsh. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

Read more: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2012/06/04/how-climate-change-is-g...

Permalink Reply by doone on June 6, 2012 at 6:54pm

From Starts with a Bang, Why we Science

But that’s the beginning. In our own, individual ways, even though each one of us takes a unique path, we all embark upon the same journey.

Image credit: iStockphoto/Jennifer Surrena-MacDonald.

It’s the journey to understand the world around us. Individually, our passions may differ as to what aspects of the world we find most interesting. We all have our own preferences for what we want to learn most, what skills we want to develop, and what we want to accomplish.

But understanding what this world is, how it works, how we got here, and how we make sense of it all? That is something for all of us.

Image credit: Gary S. Gaulin.

So, how do we figure it out? We look at what we already know (or what we think we know), we look at whatever thing it is that we’d like to know, and we come up with ways to test it. Sometimes that means getting your hands dirty and doing a number of different experiments, sometimes it means gathering a whole bunch of data and observations from previous or natural tests, sometimes it means creating incredibly complex models and simulations, and it often means questioning and challenging your initial assumptions.

Permalink Reply by doone on June 6, 2012 at 10:03pm

Russian, Greek, and Latin Characters

Jun. 6, 2012

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