The Lounge

Nice obit at the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/science-obituaries/8069558/Benoit-Mandelbrot.html "Benoit Mandelbrot, who died on October 14 aged 85, was largely responsible for developing the discipline of fractal geometry – the study of rough or fragmented geometric shapes or processes that have similar properties at all levels of magnification or across all times. "Before Mandelbrot, mathematicians believed that most of the patterns of nature were far too complex, irregular, fragmented and amorphous to be described mathematically. Euclidian geometry was concerned with abstract perfection almost non-existent in the real world. Mandelb…

First I'd like to say I am not into this only or money. I like science and it would make sense to make money doing what you like obviously. Anyways I wanted to be a planetary geologist and do a lot of work that relates to studying the climate and geology of other moons/planets. I was advised I would either have to major in geology, chem or physics. I was just wondering how in demand those jobs are for someone with a major in physics. If I majored in physics, exactly how well would that work out for me in this economy? Would I have a hard time getting a job or work? I'm no Carl Sagan, I am not great at teaching.. or even math at this point. I was told to do what I lo…

Hey dudes, haven't been on here in a while, had no internet for about 6 months, fuck it's been boring. I used to come on here as ItzAlex901 (if I remember correctly), just thought I'd get familiar with everyone again.. P/S I'm not trying to 'dupe', I can't get any of the details for my old account as I've forgotten the password and can't access the email account either.. What's everyone been upto? Oh, and damn this place looks different, anyone else agree? - Alex.

Why do children learn languages faster than adults? What's the biological difference to account for these phenomena observed in young children but not adults? For example, are there any specific types of brain cells that are present during the critical learning period for learning languages in young children that gradually disappear as one approaches teenagehood. Unfortunately, I've missed the critical learning period for learning languages most efficiently. During that time I was only given the opportunity to learn one language and partially learn another. Now I feel retarded because many of my friends speak 3-4 languages however this was mainly because they were exp…

Hello guys. I am actually new here. I would like to invite you all to check out my blogsite. ! Moderator Note Stanly: Please review rule 2.7

Hi, i was thinking, that if we change the state of something simply by consciously interacting with it via the observer effect and so forth in quantum physics. Doesn't that mean that everything we know is not correct in actuality because it has all come from observation and measurement which is conducted through consciousness.. And wouldn't this also mean that stuff like mathematics etc is not actually the correct or true description of reality, only how 'we' describe what 'we' perceive. And so couldn't this be applied a theory that ultimate reality is impossible to describe in terms of scientific methods like maths, simply because its literally out of the reach of co…

Why is there no psychology subforum at SFN? I mean there are for biology, chemistry and physics. What's wrong with psychology?

Hello, This is my first post to the forums and I hope I'm posting in the right place. Actually I'm not a Microbiologist. I'm an architecture student and I'm currently working about a " Microbiology Research Center " project. I would be really grateful if a microbiologist could help me out with some data about the Microbiology Laboratories. Since I don't really know alot about the microbiology Laboratories. What I need to know is the types of Microbiology laboratories, the area of the lab nearly, the best zoning locations of laboratories and the devices and equipments you use in each lab. To be more specific, I'm working on a medical microbiology research center. …

Recently an Earth-like planet was discovered in the habitable zone of a star 120 trillion miles away in the constellation Libra. Let's get there. What do we need? Off the top of my head: 1)Ship capable of carrying animals/plants/cargo 1a)capable of ~1g constant acceleration for the whole trip(possible Destiny-esque refuel) 1b)modular design for use as domiciles in the colony 1c)equipped with a tether for using the ship as an elevator upon reaching New Earth 2)Reusable hazmat suits 3)animal stock 4)crop stock

Ok, so obviously i like science but everybody else doesn't.. I was bored and on FB. but i thought this was freaking hilarious, but apparently no one else got it. Tell me what you think. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Someone else< I know I wanted it to rain, but I would also like a mystical umbrella that floats over my head to keep me dry. Getting out of the car after I post this. Come on mystical umbrella!! >someone else<Well, no umbrella, but the rain did slow down enough that I didn't get soaked through on my walk. Optimism makes the world go round >me&…

Steve Irwin need to step aside. This guy is good. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11424547 http://www.kmbc.com/r-video/25183352/detail.html

i was just wondering. If this is a science forum, that would mean almost everyones views or interests are very scientific based. Consequently, this could mean that everyone here would side with darwin's theory of evolution, over creationism. am i correct ?

I don't mean to be a sh1t stirrer... But I have always felt that transparent processing is a good thing. I found this in another thread, that was closed: Uhm...I didn't know that Scruffy or Azurephoenix had mod privileges...or Insane_alien for that matter... I really don't care, but I think that it is nice to have it all out in the open, ya know?

Thought I would share this with you all. A couple of days ago I had a dream. A single wasp came at me and landed on me. It was so vivid that I woke instantly, jumping up and brushing myself off. When I finally convinced myself that it was just a dream and there was not a wasp hiding in my bed somewhere, I went back to sleep. I should note that I am generally not scared of wasps. And the last time I was stung by any sort of bee was over 20 years ago as a youngster. Anyway, the day I woke up from that dream, I was stung 4 times by wasps. I was in the woods hunting for mushrooms and I must have disturbed their nest. Freaking things chased me all the way bac…

i was baned from the chat 2 months ago is it possible for me to be unbanned?

Straightforward question, perhaps complicated answers. $100 billion is, I think, many times more than a person could reasonably spend on themselves without going out of their way to specifically waste money (though it is a net worth within an order of magnitude of a few dozen people in the world), so I guess for most people it will be a three part question: how much money do you want for yourself? How would you spend it on yourself? What would you do with the excess?

During the frameworks of my master thesis, I am currentlyworking on the image characteristics. The project, supported by the NorwegianColor research laboratory, leads me to carry out an online study aboutcharacteristics of images. In order to have a maximum of data, I need you to takepart in the experiment which last only a couple of minutes. To contribute to it, follow the link below : http://h0201.myetrayz.net:8000/IC/ Thank you very much for your attention.

Okay, this may seem like a stupid question, but how do I quote somebody in a post reply? I realise that I can put them in a quote box, but how do I specify who it was who said it if I am quoting multiple people. I'm sure it's very simple but I've been messing around for ages and can't get it to work! Help me please, I'm new to forums.

The BBC are asking people to complete a survey on their science coverage - radio, TV and online apparently Only open until the 27th Sept if anyone is interested Story here: http://www.soci.org/News/SCI-BBC-survey with link to survey at the end.

Hello everyone, I just watched this video of UK rocket launch!? It is said to be launched soon, but is this possible? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEJGI3NjJso

I wanted to say welcome to all the new members we've gotten in the last few weeks. There have been quite a few but we haven't heard much from you. Most of you have introduced yourself, and I'd like to make sure all is clear about responding to existing threads and starting new ones of your own. How's it going? Are you finding interesting things to discuss? Do you prefer amphibians to reptiles? Talk to me.

This morning, we had 630 km of traffic jams in our little country which measures less than 400 km north-south and 200 km east-west. (source in Dutch) (Google maps of the Netherlands to see the road network) The reason? Rain. Just normal rain - not even a torrential downpour or a monsoon. Roads were not closed, and nothing flooded. The problem was just people who would normally take a bicycle, or walk to a bus stop or train station now all took the car. In addition, people generally drive a little more careful in bad weather. A normal morning rush hour will have about 150-200 km of traffic jams. How bad is traffic where you live?

Greetings, Having just graduated from college, I have had this summer off before I start grad school. I decided to create a video game inspired by concepts from my research in metabolic engineering. The game's target demographic is rather small, so I'd like to share it with you here on science forums where people might be enthusiastic about these kinds of things. The game is called BioHack. It's a bioengineering simulation/puzzle game where you have to design regulators to enhance metabolic pathways. It uses an enzyme kinetics simulator, so it's based on real science and would be an excellent want to gain an intuitive feel for biochemical kinetics, whic…

One World One Nation. What do you think? discus all the intricacies of such an idea. The economics, politics, world population mortality rate, education and ignorance. I want to hear all your thoughts about every single facet of the concept.

Unschoolers maintain that a child's learning should be curiosity-driven rather than dictated by teachers and textbooks, and that forcing kids to adhere to curricula quashes their natural inclination to explore and ask questions. Unschooling is an acknowledgment that schools and education are in many ways contradictory, that there's an implicit tension between them. Education is about the production of more democracy, production of peace, production of happiness whereas schooling is often the production of global economic competitiveness... The Unschooling Movement Grows In Popularity