The Lounge

I realised today that I spend about 6 hours a week on a train doing nothing, so I was just wondering if anyone listened to any good podcasts that I could download and listen to on my travels. I think it would be best if everyone could categorise them into what subject they are normally on (biology, physics, pop science etc.) as well as how detailed or advanced you would rate them and of course how good they are and why they like them.

How do I have a question about physics and want to know if there are any elements thatdo not go thru gas solid liquid. And this is just a question because I am going to talk about light and protonsin the sense of water. so 1 water at rest is liquid light at rest is a gas-ish 2 if at speed of light and observing light, due to speed of both equal- doeslight faze to liquid as speed increases does it solidify<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;">

A somewhat well-to-do, well-educated and supposedly very ethical person offered an unemployed friend of mine some work, but my friend receives unemployment benefits, so this person — without my friend saying he didn't want to lose his benefits — offered my friend "to arrange a financial gift" ($10K+) in lieu of wages, so he wouldn't need to report it (but, obviously, the personal/social/ethical obligation to do the work would still exist). My friend didn't know if it was legal or not and felt unable to question this person about, so he asked me, but I don't know either. I thought the whole thing stank, especially the word "arrange". Any thoughts or facts?

Do you have any opinion on this? I think impact factor is a something unfair because article is judge on the number of citation but not on it's quality.

A profound video about human genetics.... everyone should watch this video...

I'm 16 about 5"10 and I weigh 8.5 stone (last time I checked I think I'm more thank that now). I had 3 bottles of bulmers cider and 4 rum shots and I was totally out of it. Does this make me a lightweight or is that normal??

I'm not sure how many gamers we have here at SFN, but Battlefield 3 is open for Beta!!! Battlefield 3 Beta I'm downloading it right now. I'll let you all know how awesome it is : )

I don't mean just bad, I mean so bad that it almost approaches genius from the other side. The obvious candidate is the classic "Plan 9 from Outer Space". However I just got through watching "Horror of the Blood Monsters" and this makes Ed Wood look like Cecil B De Milne. With rediculous fake vampire fangs at the start which don't seem to have anything to do with the rest of the movie, cardboard sets, poor scripting and a futuristic sex scene that I'm still trying to work out why it's in the movie at all, this is a complete clusterf*ck. The piece of fishing line from the nose of the spaceship was just a bonus. A great WTF? moment when the spacemen realise tha…

Hey, OK, Im new and maybe not posting in the right section, but anyways I took a quick usability study a month ago and received a $20 Visa gift card in the mail for it. Being a student/scientist, I thought maybe some of you might want to take it as well and get the GC in the mail. Forgive me if Im wrong. Shoot me an email if I was right (==EMAIL REMOVED==), so I can send you an invite. YOU DO NEED a .edu email address to qualify. Thank you for completing the survey. Once your submission is reviewed and approved, your $20 Visa gift card will be shipped out to the address provided. You should receive it within 4 weeks. Feel free to tell your friends and colleagu…

Have not seen him posting for a long time...

I've got 2 tv's. a panasonic viera & teac. i want to connect my ps3 to both tv's and have the same screen on both tv's. so i can play it through 2 tv's at once. however, i've connected both tv's to the playstation with the splitter and can't seem to get the screen on either of them. only one at time. if that. So i was wondering if anyone has any ideas why it wouldn't be working. ? note - its the second splitter i've got, cause i thought something was wrong with the first, but i've realised its not the splitter. is there something you've got to change in the settings etc...

In case you never heard of it, the IgNobel award is given to actual scientific research taht first makes people laugh and then makes them think. It's done in an amusing fashion, but the research itself is quite real, and so are the amusing awards. If it's not too late, you guys should watch the IgNobel live, it's on September 29th at 7:30PM EST. If it is late for you, watch it recorded after the fact. Regardless, you should watch! It's brilliant. http://www.improbabl...g/2011/webcast/ I can't wait to see who this year's winners are. ~mooey

After a rain wet night cyclops took a walk in the morning........ His neck S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-D of its own accord,like a telescope being pulled out,segment by segment,in short smooth stages,up and up in symmetrically coordinated tiny jerks of the neck.He felt he was wearing a collar[meant for spondylitis] and wondered whether all of us should wear a collar all the time.His neck stretched to the full,crown top coming cruising down,eyes swinging between the corners left and right, the swing of the head controlled and steady as not to disturb the centrified poise. He felt he has attained the ideal position of head on neck[thanks to rains] that he searched for long ago in one o…

Cyclops dozed a little after waking up from sleep at dawn.He didn't want to sink back into oblivion nor did he want to wake up into full activity.Both seemed a waste.How to stay in the middle,keeping both ends together.The clue must be in the physical body right at that moment.his eyelids were not totally closed.He can see through slits in the lower part of his eyes.Scattered lights,trees,buildings were reaching his eyes without his having to look out for details or focus.Those images free floated,eddied as though in a body of water.What could come of it if he maintained his head and eyes just that way and got up and went to work with slit eyes and eddying images.Will h…

It was a rainy night.Cyclops woke up in his eye.The sheets in his bed billowed,swirled all around him with him snuggling warm and happy in center.He fully woke up to discover he was totally refreshed.

What sources/criteria do scientists here use to determine whether some methodology/idea is 'the norm' ie belongs in the Science categories and not Speculations. I understand perfectly why SFN filters like this, to make clear distinctions for learners like myself, and it slightly bemuses me why people get irate when their hypothesis gets transferred to Speculations. Is it just an arbitrary decision between the experts here or do you have a 'bible' or institution that you can consult?

Reported today in the Herald Sun is a groundbreaking report entitled "What Men Really Want From Women". Somehow I don't think that this is news to the male 50% of the population. This has to be right up there with the survey that found "sad people are more likely to be depressed than happy people".

I was wondering if anyone knows wether PS3's are region code restricted or free (all region codes)... and if restricted, can you and how do you change it... is a system update required etc

Hey, I just started out on this forum and to find more connections, I thought I'd post a topic on gaming. Anyone here play ps3 or PC games? What's your favorite game and why? What game can you not wait for release? I'd have to say I cannot wait for Battlefield 3. Also anyone who played portal care to explain to me what the saying "The cake is a lie" and "the cake is not a lie!" is all about? I youtubed it but didn't get a clear answer. I did see the secret room though. Did it play a significance on the storyline?

The world has changed many ways since the dawn of time, I was curious as to what else is left and whats the next era? Scientific era? space era or what.

While this thread was inspired by recent events in climate science, this isn't about climate. As part of his response to Drs Spencer & Braswell, Dr Dessler made and placed a video on youtube. By covering the salient points in a 4 minute video I view this as a "Video Abstract" and frankly think it's a fantastic idea. Hype and overhype is bad in climate science, (and maybe in others as well?) and this would serve to reduce it. A clear 5 minute presentation covering the main points and claims made in a paper, any paper, would prevent any sort of misinformation as to what is or is not claimed. It also prevents media from taking the researcher out of co…

Let me first put this into context. As I mentioned in my introductory post some days ago, but which you may not have read, I am a postdoctoral researcher in the field of microbiology, and have since child been a science nerd at heart and proud of it. But as many of you probably know, being a nerd isn't always easy in a world primarily marketing pop-culture in all its fancy glory, with very little focus on the needs of people spending more time pondering the function of the automatic doorway than on what way to comb their hair. About one and a half years ago, me and my friend was sitting at this students bar after having attended one of those 'once a week'…

This is a video of an object hitting the ground in what can be described as an "unusual" manner. I'm not sure of what it is, but it's an old video 20 + years at least. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cfhs5nDuMw&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL I've tried to figure out what could do this but so far no real explanation has come to mind, some sort of tracer round from a very large gun is about as close as I have come, anyone want to give it a shot?

Well, actually more than just a ''hi'' Does this place use latex systems?

Hi. Who decided the words know knuckle knock knit knob knight ... must be written starting with a K ? (sorry, but no, English is not my first nor second language)