The Lounge

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8561286.stm Wha are peoples views on spending such a vast amount of money on a new train system. From my personal stand point, I kinda think its a waste of money. I can see that it might make long distance travelling a lot faster but is it not just going to increase train tickets higher than they already are! The only really problem I have with trains is the massive overcrowding on them which could easily be solved by adding a few extra carriages to trains! I mean really, three carriages leaving London at 5pm on a Friday just asks for trouble!!

The following is meant strictly for fun with the hopes of some lively conversation sprouting from it. Here is my make-believe dilemma: While going about your day at home you open the coat closet to grab your coat. When you do you are met with a glowing portal where you coats once were. Being the curious type you test to ensure that it is safe to pass through and step through the portal. You are met by a man who introduces himself as an "Agent of Change". He explains that throughout history Agents of Change have brought various people through the portal to give them a choice that may change the course humanity, depending on the decision. On the table are thre…

Hello does anybody on here know how to add photos in my post? Any expertise gratefully received

Dear Friends kind regards I have been reading on how Energy makes up all matter (both living and non living) and how one type of Energy can convert from one type to another. From the Scientific viewpoint, Energy is the beginning point and primary reason for everything. I recently looked at the following website and was impressed with its content. 1. Link removed by unimpressed Moderator. I was impressed with this website and the articles that explained how Energy worked. Do you know of a book that has a comprehensive overview on Energy and all of its movements as depicted in the above website. If you could get back to me with your suggestions I'd be so grateful. …

I have a couple of questions. First one. How far along are we in the development of a "silicon brain", and how long do you think it will be before we are capable of bonding a computer to a human brain in a way that it acts as a part of the brain? Second one. If we do bond a person's brain to a computer of similar capabilities, and then during a decade or two of living like this, his/her biological brain slowly dies off, until it's just the artificial brain. Will she/he be the same conscious being, or will it be a different consciousness that took over as the previous one failed?

I just wanted to share this game with the community as it is both fun and somewhat informative... here is the low down: 1) It's an ASCII game that looks like the old Moria and NetHack... if you can accept that, and you like fairly opaque but incredibly deep games read on! 2) The game takes place in a randomly generated world that can be mind bogglingly large... up to millions of tiles by millions of tiles. The map is truly topographical, with realistic environments, and geology... numerous flora and fauna species, and geologic strata (microline deposits, cinnabar, lignite, etc. etc.). All rivers oceans and lakes are generated organically based on geology(streams…

Today some idiots drove past be as I was walking down the street and threw a half empty cup of McDonald's milkshake at me. Made a mess. Only a few days a go a girl not even in her teens grabbed my bum. I have only recently moved back into the area, but I remember other incidents like being spat at and other things thrown at me from cars. I can list other things that have happened to other family members of similar nature. Sometimes the assailants are known, but not always. Does this happen to you also? Or is this an anomaly for my home town of Newport South Wales? Which by the way is a real sh*t tip. (I blame the numerous council estates that are full o…

Have you ever dreamed something then days, months, even years have had it come true? i know i have, but maybe its not really coming true. Rather its my mind associating a particular event that was SIMILAR to the dream and making me believe it was what i originally dreamed. I am asking this because i had a really cool but f-ed up dream. I dreamed that i engaged in a medical experiment where they removed organs that were no longer vital, cut off my head* and stuck it where my stomach was. they added a cybernetic head, and an exoskeleton of sorts. and after being "cyberized" i guess, i performed a coup for the us government and said over national TV/radio. "I will …

someone once said to me (who is highly religious) that Darwin was a fake who come up with the idea of evolution to promote the theory of eugenics. i looked this up and found out darwin come up with his theory long before eugenics was about, but i also found out that an English scientist called Francis Galton, who was Darwin's cousin, come up with the theory of eugenics. im a very firm beliver in the theory of evolution, but this struck me as being a little odd.... anyone like to share their veiws on this?

Recently, just a few moments ago we`ve had to suffer 2 big aftershocks, after we have suffered more than 200 aftershocks, after the big one from past 27 of February. The first one was 7.2 Richter, and the second one 6.9 Richter, 15 minutes later. All the rest of those 5 in magnitud earth movements really have come as part of normal life issue, but every once and then we have had one above 6, which really are causing lots of histeria among my countrymen, including myself. Where are we really going to end ?. It is frightening.

As per this thread and the following quote it got me thinking: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=49668 If we were to colonise another planet would it unify us as a race or would it unify us against the colonists? Consider that space colonisation is expensive and that we could initially afford to fund such a venture and send enough humans to Mars as to create a self sustaining environment. Now consider that because we're satisfied with the self sustaining environment the colonists have created for themselves on Mars we decide that we no longer wish to fund these expensive trips to provide supplies and aids to "the new world", our colonist…

This is the official poll. Vote for you favorite classic science post from the monthly blog carnival on Giant's Shoulders from the following list: Remember. the winner gets 20 bucks, so this is serious business. From The Renaissance Mathematicus, we have a very interesting post, A loser who was really a winner. It's a tale of Christoph Clavius, educational reformer who played a pivotal, if oft forgotten role, for the 17th century mathematics revival and astronomy. As an extra treat blogger Thony Christie is presenting a more detailed lecture version this post at the Remeis Observatory in Bamberg at 7:00 pm on 24th June (for those of you in the area... I wis…

I hope it isn't a strange topic. You know that european story of stone soup, a beggar took a stone and tricked an old lady into cooking up a pot of delicious soup with cabbage, carrots and stuff. Another version of the story, the beggar is replaced with three soldiers who return from war, who took a huge pot, cooked stone and water and tricked the villagers into adding ingredients. now, its is just a story, but the Moral of the story is odd to me. btw, I'm chinese, so there could be a slight difference in personal views. I feel the moral of the story is don't be gullible. but the moral of these story mentioned by some authors seem to praise the action of the trickers…

I guess this shouldn't be too surprising -- we see this here in Florida every time there's a hurricane warning that doesn't pan out into an actual strike (the next time there's always a larger number of folks who don't heed evacuation warnings), and I'm sure examples abound all around the planet. I guess what they're saying in this Telegraph article is that there's been some criticism (from who I'm not clear) about the tsunami alarm that was issued following the Chilean earthquake. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/chile/7342088/Chile-earthquake-scientists-defend-tsunami-false-alarm.html Well duh. I know it's an inconvenience to evacu…

Even when they need to. Fascinating op/ed piece in Washington Monthly about the failures of the modern regional accreditation system in the US and the sad story of Southeastern University, a small school in Washington, D.C. The accreditation issue has come up in the national spotlight recently following the Obama administration's Education department's demands for regional accreditation bodies to toughen up their standards. The only reservation I have about this piece is that it doesn't mention the simple fact that Federal student loans are also available to a whole body of schools with a far LOWER standard of practice -- national accreditors. These bodies repres…

Hi, Several days ago I started a new thread on six different science forums (including this one) entitled: “(the furthest we can see - the smallest we can see)/2=radius of Earth!” It made a claim based on half a dozen ‘inaccurate’ values for the most part (one or two values which would have been obviously wrong happened to be correct). The responses of each forum were very interesting. The forums involved were: http://www.physicsforums.com/ http://www.thescienceforum.com/index.php http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/index.php http://www.sciforums.com/ http://www.sciencechatforum.com/ http://www.sciencefile.org/ Without naming forums (though this is ea…

Promising clean energy, boom or bust? Major announcements tomorrow... How it works bloom energy website

Hey everyone, I am looking for a host that charges monthly. I don't want to pay in advance and get stuck with a provider. Stumbled on chime host however I can't seem to find many websites reviewing them. I see ipage on hosting review sites but they force yearly payment for the low price. so who do you recommend?

Is it a bad idea to send your paper to every journal on the planet, hoping one of them will accept it? If so, why? Also, my teachers seem strangely reluctant to discuss the subject of getting published, and yet my school actively encourages PhD students to get published. There seems to be a disconnect here and maybe a social dynamic here that I'm not being "let in" on. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated. I submitted my first paper ever to a journal this week, and I'm finding the whole process a bit mystifying. I'm not even sure what happens if by some miracle the journal says "yes", or how likely that really is.

The title pretty much sums it up. Also, I wasn't sure where to post this, so apologies if it's not in the section it's supposed to be.

This story has supposedly has been on the news in the past couple of weeks: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/university_diaries/amy_bishop I wasn't aware until this week on Tuesday, I think. Or maybe it was last week Tuesday. Either way, interesting story. So far, I've read the general beliefs from people that she is crazy, etc.. etc.. I rarely believe anyone is crazy. I've studied into psychology, and few people are actually so schizophrenic that they kill people in a completely delusional state: and they live a schizophrenic live almost everyday. Those people need medication and to be brought off the streets asap. I've also been friends with some schizop…

is it true that if you swallow a 5p coin it will dissolve in your stomach?

I've been playing both awhile now.. Any of you guys or gals play around with those? If not, why kind of instrument do you play?

Hi everyone. I'm usually a lurker on this forum but I decided to make a thread to ask for some help. I'm a senior biology/chemistry student at a state university in Pennsylvania. I am geared generally toward human physiology/medical science. I will be graduating next fall, and I need to make the stressful decision of choosing a graduate school. Here is my problem in a nutshell: I don't know what I want to do. I am confident that I would be successful in a medical program. I get good grades and I am fairly sure that I would be successful as a doctor of some sort. I am being pressured (not strongly, but some) by my professors to enroll in a medical program. …

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