Science News

If anyone is interested in the ISS, an unscheduled spacewalk is likely on Monday, 21st December: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2015/12/18/unscheduled-spacewalk-possible-on-monday/

This is a nice review article / tutorial describing work to investigate magnetic monopole like behavior in crystals at very low temperatures. http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/the-hunt-for-the-magnetic-monopole

. Here is a link to a spectacular . - Mount Etna Picture of Lightning , Fire , smoke , in an Eruption - TheGuardian . Thur 3 Dec '15 Co. Exeter Geology U3A. Includes Photos , Video . Comments .. Utterly Spectacular ! Link :- http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/03/sicily-mount-etna-voragine-crater-erupts-lightning My love of observations and thinking about things are having dire consequences to my life at the moment ! There is a ' moral ' in this story somewhere ? I think ! I am not 100 % sure , That I had got the direction that I was going with that idea, right ! Cannot win them all , I suppose ! Mike

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34963515

So does anyone remember the much mocked claims made by the hippies and whackos and anti-science victims of Dunning-Kruger, to the effect that one of the serious problems with the major GMOs currently marketed was their all but inevitable breeding of resistance to the relatively benign herbicides and pesticides they exploited (Bt and glyphosate), with various consequences all generally unfortunate (especially: the loss of the better chemicals to responsible use)? Among the expected consequences - expected by the Luddites etc - was to be an expansion of the GMs involved to include increasingly less benign chemicals (and of course an increasingly complex mixture of adjuvant…

UCLA researchers create new method that targets tumors with the same effectiveness but a significant reduction in both side effects and cost. Pancreatic cancer: Pancreatic cancer, a devastating disease with a five-year survival rate of 5 percent, is difficult to detect early and symptoms do not usually appear until the disease is advanced. As a result, many people are not diagnosed until their tumors are beyond the effective limits of surgery, leaving chemotherapy as the only viable treatment option. The chemotherapy drug most often used for pancreas cancer is gemcitabine, but its impact is often limited. Research: Recent research has found that combining gemcitabine wi…

See also: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/82847-processed-meat-bad-for-health/ http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/82630-nutrition-beans-reduce-cholestorol/ More evidence that a vegan/vegetarian diet is more healthful.

I don't know about you guys but this just blew my mind so hard it made me twitch in the most bizarre of ways. http://www.iflscience.com/brain/first-brain-brain-interface-could-revolutinize-neuroscience Check out this post and share what you think of this, dawn of a new era in neuroscience?

Kepler my have found a mega structure around another star! http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets/has-kepler-discovered-an-alien-megastructure-151014.htm

XENON1T could make history or spell the end for 'supersymmetric' dark matter. http://www.nature.com/news/largest-ever-dark-matter-experiment-poised-to-test-popular-theory-1.18772

The following article shows an economic application of centimeter resolution real time navigation using quasi zenith satellite positioning. This article is the result even with an initial limited number of available satellites. With the next generation of micro-satellites universities could collaborate to build a similar European system to provide safe automated driving, night-time agricultural activity and centimeter precision soil management to provide a major improvement to a wide range of different industrial activities. In short a clear economic advantage for Europe and a wealth of post graduate opportunity. Utilisation of the Japanese Quasi-Zenith Satellite Syst…

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/26/artificial-intelligence-machine-gets-testy-with-its-programmers/ For some reason, a part of this conversation seems like it would come from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.

It's scary to think about but we all know it is going to happen one day... Here is the article: but since I know advertising my site is against the rules here, I will tell you a bit about it so we can discuss the science, which is the real purpose of this site.

Recently one of our paper entitled "Life and Consciousness - The Vedāntic View" has been published in the Journal Communicative & Integrative Biology. An interesting discussion on this paper can be found at: advertising link removed by moderator Life and Consciousness - The Vedāntic View DOI: advertising link removed by moderator Journal: Communicative & Integrative Biology Publication date - 09 Oct 2015 Author: Bhakti Niskama Shanta - advertising link removed by moderator Summary (Bhakti Niskama Shanta (2015) Life and consciousness – The Vedāntic view, Communicative & Integrative Biology, 8:5, e1085138; DOI: advertising link removed by moderator This …

Link They claim to have experimentally shown the lower bound for the speed of the 'spooky action at a distance' .. to be at least... 1.38x104 C

Hurricane Patricia is heading towards Mexico with wind speeds over 200 mph and a central pressure of 880 mb. This is one of the most powerful hurricanes recorded. Does anyone know how low a pressure can possibly go and why? Data for Hurricane Patricia Hurricane Wilma had the lowest pressure in the Atlantic at 882 mb and Typhoon Tip in the Pacific at 870 mb. Hurricane Patricia is doing her best to break all the records and is now predicted to hit at cat5 status!!! Here is the visible shot.

Is there something wrong with the Dawn spacecraft? I was expecting huge numbers of detailed pictures now, especially of the light spots but so far not much is being said.

The fight against parasitic disease. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2015 was divided, one half jointly to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura "for thier discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites" and the other half to Youyou Tu "for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria". http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2015/press.pdf Here's another picture of Youyou Tu ( at the front of the queue for personal pronouns?) - she is apparently in the United States at present and DOESNT know she has won the Nobel Prize. If you see You tell her! Si tu vois T…

Tomas Lindahl Francis Crick Institute and Clare Hall Laboratory, Hertfordshire, UK Paul Modrich Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA and Aziz Sancar University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2015/advanced-chemistryprize2015.pdf Hey Moon - A good day for NC!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/science/huge-trove-of-albert-einstein-documents-becomes-available-online.html?_r=0

Takaaki Kajita Super-Kamiokande Collaboration University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan and Arthur B. McDonald Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Collaboration Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada “for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass” http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2015/advanced-physicsprize2015.pdf

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/28/nasa-scientists-find-evidence-flowing-water-mars Not checked for hype, inconsistencies, and over-inflated journalism yet - only checked to make sure it isn't April Fools Day (it isnt) http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-announce-mars-mystery-solved

Looks a cool toy, I expect we will all soon be scanning our food. https://www.minds.com/blog/view/491749598549778432/world%E2%80%99s-first-pocket-spectrometer-lets-you-measure-the-molecular-makeup-of-nearly-anything

The Really Big One New Yorker article, and very well written. Apparently that Cascadia subduction zone has the potential for a huge earthquake, and is past its average time between quakes. We didn't know about it until recently, because the last quake happened in 1700, before the area had a written history (and most of the people with an oral history died in the quake and its aftermath) The quake will cause a tsunami Re-thinking my idea of moving back to Oregon when I retire. Also of interest: I did not know that geologists had determined the maximum strength a San Andreas quake can have is about an 8.2, and that was what many also thought the m…

There is a debate as to whether the human race should attempt to make contact with alien species by sending a message: a flare to light up our presence. So, should we attempt to make contact with alien species given what we have experienced when more technologically advanced peoples meet those less advanced? If so, what message should we send up?