The Lounge

I just read Toastywomble's blog http://blogs.scienceforums.net/toastywombel/2009/12/12/confronting-ignorance-kindly/ and read the whole thread that he referenced to about the information overload.. er factual overload. MY GOD THAT WAS THE FUNNIEST THREAD I HAVE EVER SEEN. at first it looked like the guy was legitimately asking for a unified theory of evolution.. in 1 sentence. However, as i read it became more apparent that he would not read any link or reference to such a theory. the thread eventually devolved into name calling. and about the end i realized just how trollish his OP was, and how his OP was designed to falsify every link to evolution, and how his OP …

what does sicar mean? sicar=half tuition scholarship is it true?

Does anyone know of any?

Yea, it's true; he's the coolest guy ever.

http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm Check out this website I found while cruising the interwebs. The ignorance of some astounds me so much that I am not sure if this is a joke.

i saw this video on how to make rust: i was just wondering what happens to the sodium in this reaction?

So, 2007-2008 has been a reasonably fruitful period in the category of awesome PC and console games, so I thought I'd make a thread about it. Played any recent games? Waiting for any? I think the two best games last year were BioShock and Mass Effect, truly great gameplay, graphics and plot in both cases. Crysis wasn't bad either. Mass Effect was recently ported to PC and I finished it a while back and it was better than I expected (and had many of the elements that made Star Control 2 so enjoyable, for example well-written characters, exciting exploration and hot sex with blue aliens), but the optional part of the game was missing a bit of diversity that would've bro…

So I was wondering why the image that is displayed on the right side of the post is not updated for previous posts you have made. I notice its the same for the quotes as well.

Which of the major physics theories do you think are the most rock-solid? That have no chance whatsoever of being overturned? I think it is electromagnetism. There's no paradoxes that I'm aware of with electromagnetism. Nothing extremely unintuitive, though a few people have problems with the perpendicular nature of electricity and magnetism. No conflicts that I know of with other theories. It doesn't break down anywhere. At most, people have suggested making the equations symmetrical by adding in magnetic monopoles. The version that includes magnetic monopoles and the effect they would have seems to be unquestionable (the claim that magnetic monopoles don't exist wou…

I searched to see if this question has already been asked, so delete if necessary. Just interested what people aspired to when they were younger, and if possible why i.e did you want to be a vet, policeman, fireman when you grew up (hopelessly stereotypical examples, I know.) Also, is anyone actually fulfilling what they aspired to as a child. Is there anyone who wanted to be a professional scientist when they grew up, whichever field that may be. Up until my early teens, I really wanted to break into the movie special effects world, specifically creating monsters, robotics and gore, that type of thing. I had a hobby of coming up with designs, and modelling cr…

http://www.lockerz.com The thing actually seems legit, but I was wondering if anyone has redeemed anything with them yet? The gist of the website is; you make an account, you answer one question a day (I assume it's for marketing research and they sell your answers, which is how they are able to keep this site going), and you get points from it. You can then redeem the points on their website to get real stuff, but they only restock on items every once in awhile. I currently have only enough points for a video game, but almost enough for a nintendo wii (which is what I must get!). So, yeah I was just wondering if anyone here has got stuff from them yet. …

The local middle school here had an explosion this morning. 8 injured with 0 dead. Article highlights: and

EDIT image deleted; copyright. spins one way, then if you look to the side and squint a bit she spins the other! Apparently its got something to do with right/left hemisphere stuff, but can anyone explain? (image not working so link http://visualfunhouse.com/animations/spinning-silhouette-optical-illusion.htmlhttp://visualfunhouse.com/animations/spinning-silhouette-optical-illusion.html

Apparently many people in America are able to see a Moonbow right now: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=moon+halo

I'm looking for a laptop computer, and I think I found a good one, but I would appreciate your opinions on it or other options. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115675 This is really pushing my budget, but I'm hoping for a holiday deal sometime soon. Some of the things I'll be doing are game programming, surfing the web for educational material, and some gaming. Since gaming will be the most difficult of these tasks for it to perform, I decided to use a laptop's ability to play games as the decision maker.

flowers such as snowdrops contain galantamine in their bulbs, could anyone suggest a way of extracting and isolating it?

I have to submit a manifestio for the cultural fest organised by our college as beeing the cultural deparment head. I wished to do something unusual apart from the regular stuff which we have beeing doing from past many years. Can you all sugesst me some events which i can add. Its a Engineering college's cultural festival. The events that i have already put in the manifestio are: 1. Main Activities · Debating society · Painting club · Photography club · Dance club · Music club Ø Vocal music Ø Instrumental music · Creative writing club · Drama club · Quizzes. 2. Anonymous activitie…

A bit superficial for this crowd but I thought I'd pass it along just for the general interest of it. It's mostly stuff along the lines of "what do CERN scientists eat" and so forth, but hey you never know where motivation can come from. http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029552,49304408,00.htm?tag=mncol;txt My favorite bits:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death " Fan death... is this a joke or a serious article?

im told magnesium burns more vigorously in water because it takes the oxygen. according to wikipedia flame temperature of magnesium is around 1300 degrees celcius. does anyone know the temperature when it is burned with water?

When I was in elementary school I thought up the greatest invention of all time, an infinite rebreather. Now that I know a bit more about physics I am realizing that with today's technological restraints, it is nigh impossible. But it was and still is fantastic all the same. Simply, it separated water into hydrogen and oxygen, I assumed that the oxygen would bind to itself forming O2, secondly I knew that hydrogen was used in fusion. So my thought was that if i could make a small reactor, i could use that to power the invention, what would be required is an infitessimally small fusion reactor and an electrolysis apparatus etc. Both of which would be "hard" to come by.…

Am I correct to say that matter only contains -- instead of is -- energy? If so....the reason for this poll is get an idea of how many people actually once thought the reverse, incorrectly -- with energy as some real (but insubstantial) thing in air or space, visible only in the form of lightning or detectable as photons?

Brer Fox & the Tar Baby - A Sticky Object Lesson THE MALICIOUS ABUSE OF INNOCENCE Pt I ----------------------------------------------- “Conformist group aggression: the most common, the most dangerous, and the most difficult to prevent.” – Eric Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (“He’s about to expose the KGB, the FBI, the CIA, and himself!” “How do you tell anyone about a thing like this?” “That’s easy. You just tell ‘em the truth”. “Oh. I see. You’re gonna write fiction”. - Dialogue between Glenda Jackson & Walter Mathheau excerpted from the movie: Hop Scotch.) This monologue regards a formerly close friend of Truly Yours, who …

Just wanted to wish everyone a great day of celebrations tomorrow. I wish you safety and well-being. For those of you not in the US, Happy Thanksgiving to you as well (Whatever you call your holiday equivalent to American Thanksgiving, and whenever it may be.) Cheers!!

Ok in my recent test I lost many marks by not trusting my first instinct. I just argue with my first instinct and believe that the new thing is the first instinct. From next exam onwards questions I don't know(multiple choice) I'm going to trust my first instinct. Does this happen to you guys as well?