The Lounge

Hey guys, I am a former scientist that wants to help out new grad students and post-docs find the perfect advisor for their needs. Personally, I had a great Ph.D. advisor but then I had an awful post-doc advisor. In fact it pushed me out of science and into a new career. I found out too late that primary investigator prestige shouldn't be your only criteria when looking for an advisor. I should have also considered personality match, mentoring style, expectations, etc. I've created a website where current and former students/post-docs can rate their mentors and prospective students/post-docs can read reviews. It's a brand new site and I'm trying to build …

Surfing on a river using dynamite? Is this real or fake? I was hoping someone here could give me the actual math. http://video.tinypic.com/player.php?v=2nip17r

http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum// Just curious.

Hello. Does anyone know where I could find a professional measure of aggression that shows a situation and asks the taker to pick the response he would do, and his response is measured on a scale such as 1-5? Something like: A man steps on your toe, do you A: Do nothing B: Tell him off C: Hit him that type of thing. I've been searching for so long all I could find was aggression scales like http://www.prenhall.com/divisions/hss/app/social/addchap6.html

I request a favour from all the people who are pregnant or have been pregnant in the past, to do a survey which is meant for a biology assignment on the eating habits of pregnant ladies. Just post your replies on the forum, thankyou:D Questions 1: do you snack more or do you eat bigger meals (or both)? 2: do you get food “urges”? 3: if so, what do you yearn to eat the most? 4: has your intake of foods like bread, cereal, rice and pasta gone up? 5: has your intake of vegetables and fruit gone up? 6: has your intake of dairy products gone up? 7: has your intake of foods like meat, poultry, nuts, eggs, fish and beans gone up? 8: has your intake of foods …

You know, it seems to me that many modern sci-fi books, and sci-fi TV shows and movies and videogames, feature a lot of silly science. Most of what I read in the books are either very inaccurate or not possible scientifically. Other times, I find that some books, especially in the Dune series, find some excuse to put some sort of medieval hocus-pocus magic crap in it. Another thing that really bothers me, especially in modern science fiction, is that they tend to use a lot of big words to explain how their stuff works, without actually explaining it in a way that makes any sense. (e.g. reversing the polarity). Also, I tend to see a lot of societies ruled by ki…

What is a good history forum on the net that is free?

Yes, you heard me correctly guys, the end is near. Since we cannot stop the inevitable, sides must be chosen and lives will be lost. When the end comes, which forces of the apocalypse will you side with? The choices are: -Anti-Christ -Tech-Comm -The Matrix -Brotherhood of Nod -Predators -Pan-Asian Coalition -Borg -Big Brother and the forces of Ingsoc -Zion Resistance -Skynet

For all of you who love getting into debates and I know lots of you do. I found a site that works hand in hand with this one. I found that topics like Farsight's Time explained and such sparked some debates and I saw some great debaters. I don't mean to sound like a spammer or to detract value from this awesome source for knowledge I just thought if you wanted to get into a heated debate without having to wait days for a reply you guys could check out http://www.duelcup.com It is a new site and relatively small so you guys with superior linguistic skills please don't take advantage. (but that is half the fun) If this is spam or misconduct please delete as seen f…

I realize I'm a bit late...but I saw an old posting here about strange smell cravings. I was hoping someone could answer my question in that regard. For about the last 6 months I have physically craved the smell of the little white toilet bowl fresheners. The ones that smell a little like moth balls. I go to them anytime I'm in the store to smell them, I have 3 in my toilet at home. I'm considering putting one in my purse for when I need a quick fix! Can anyone tell me what chemical(s) are used to make these things, if it's harmful to sniff them, and why someone may be predisposed to the smell? I am certainly not a science knowledgable person, and anything anyone…

Does any bidy know any good science search engine?

I guess I'm in a weird mood this morning. Just wondering if morality is conducive to our evolution as a species. If it took this immoral, brutal process of survival of the fittest to evolve to the point we are now - 5 million years and counting, to have bigger brains, higher thought - then why would we question that same process and, in effect, reject it? Isn't morality a defiance of this system? And are we not arrogant and foolish to assume we can ignore this and create societies that embrace 'survival of everyone' and still think we will evolve positively? So, why do we insist on incorporating morality into our survival, effectively ending the very system t…

Objectification of life The human world is filled with meaning, thus the theorist of the human sciences is concerned with causality and meaning, whereas the theorist of the physical world deals almost completely with causality. The human world needs understanding and interpretation, whereas the physical world requires knowledge and explanation. Herein lays the reason why human relationships cannot be intellectually embraced in the same manner as is physical relationships. Dilthey proclaims that the depths of human meaning and understanding are particularly accessible for interpretation in the works of art and literature. He called this work of interpreting t…

why does symbol recognition suck so badly on computers? It seems that everything I write on a tablet like device is misunderstood just because I don't draw the symbols in the same order as other people do.

How were these footprints actually preserved?? Why weren't they washed away by rain and whatnot shortly after they were made? I just wondered.

The European Commission have just announced an agreement whereby English will become the official language of the EU rather than German, which was also considered as a possibility. As part of the negotiations the New Labour Government has conceded that some English spelling has room for improvement and they have accepted a 5 year plan to phase in the new ''Euro-English'' as it will be known. In year 1 ''S'' will replace the soft ''C''. Sertainly, this will make the Sivil Sevants jump for joy. The hard ''C'' will also be dropped in favour of the ''K''. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm i…

I am a social person because I am yours “I am a social person because I am no longer mine: because I am yours.”--Freud One of life’s more urgent problems is learning to set the boundaries of the ego. Such control represents true maturity of character and personality; Sounds simple enough. Anxiety is the universal response of the organism to danger. For the child, anxiety becomes second nature when there is the slightest hint of separation from or abandonment by the mother. Freud’s whole psychoanalytic theory of neurosis is basically a study of how children control anxiety. Human reaction to the environment is delayed and controlled by the ego. Unl…

I want to talk about learning My experience leads me to conclude that there is a world of difference in picking up a fragment of knowledge here and there versus seeking knowledge for an answer to a question of significance. There is a world of difference between taking a stroll in the woods on occasion versus climbing a mountain because you wish to understand what climbing a mountain is about or perhaps you want to understand what it means to accomplish a feat of significance only because you want it and not because there is ‘money in it’. I think that every adult needs to experience the act of intellectual understanding; an act that Carl Sagan describes as “Unde…

Meaning: The Great Truth about Human Nature The great truth of human nature is that wo/man strives for meaning. S/he imposes on raw experience symbolic categories of thought, and does so with conceptual structures of thought. “All human problems are, in the last resort, problems of the soul.”—Otto Rank In the nineteenth century, after two hundred years of opposition paradigms, science faced the dilemma: if we make wo/man to be totally an object of science, to be as this object merely a conglomeration of atoms and wheels then where is there a place for freedom? How can such a collection of mere atoms be happy, and fashion the Good Life? The best thinkers of…

Ok, I get it, "meat is murder." But vegans generally have a strict policy against all animal products too, right? What is the ethical problem with eating, say, organic eggs from free-range chickens? Or similarly with dairy products? I mean, chickens produce eggs, and cows produce milk, no matter what conditions they're under. Also, I was wondering, what's the general consensus on honey? Are the bees being "tortured?" For that matter, what's the policy on eating insects? I'm asking because I figure IMM will have answers (both for herself and for the "vegan community," inasmuch as such a thing exists), but I'm interested in anyone's input.

I'll be using this thread to post stories about driving around in my 2001 Mustang GT MT. Story 1: Road Rage I was driving up to Sarasota, I'm in the left lane stuck behind traffic doing 10 under the speed limit. A stretch in the right lane opens up, so I shift into it. No sooner than I get fully in the lane and pull past the first car, someone cuts me off to the point where I have to really slam on the brakes hard. My mother is in the car with me, and immediately starts warning me about saying anything to this cretinous jackass. So I shift back into the left lane and go around him, and as I'm passing, I stay true to my word and don't say anything, just giving him the…

I received this picture in an email thats been going around so I don't know if anyone has already seen it but I'd like to show it anyway. "Sometimes the sky itself is the best show in town. On January 26, people from Perth, Australia gathered on a local beach to watch a sky light up with delights near and far. Nearby, fireworks exploded as part of Australia Day celebrations. On the far right, lightning from a thunderstorm flashed in the distance. Near the image center, though, seen through clouds, was the most unusual sight of all: Comet McNaught. The photogenic comet was so bright that it even remained visible though the din of Earthly flashes. Comet McNaught co…

Who watches Heroes? It's amazing! I'm from UK but got the episodes on the shady and they're incredible! There's a Heroes Wiki on the NBC site, but it's not possible to create an account and you need to log in to do anything. So, I thought, people could post their questions, theories etc. here. REMEMBER: any major plot spoilers MUST be put in "hide" brackets - don't spoil it for the majority of the UK - it doesn't start until Feb 19th! I have a quick theory on characters - The little girl who Matt Parkman saves in his first episode - she must have a super power as her father had his brain removed by Sylar so she would carry a mutated gene. Plus, her character hasn…

Could anyone tell me what is `tissue', `organism', organic, organ?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/12/dolphins.sealions.ap/index.html By far the best part: "Sea lions can carry in their mouths special cuffs attached to long ropes. If the animal finds a rogue swimmer, it can clamp the cuff around the person's leg. The individual can then be reeled in for questioning."